Left Behind

Wendell Willkie “permitted a pool reporter to stand with him on the back platform of the train. Once, the Willkie Special pulled off, leaving a group of reporters, who started running down the tracks. Without his glasses, Willkie didn’t recognize them and, thinking they were Republican fans, stood on the platform and waved as the train moved out of town,” Willkie biographer Steve Neal recalled.

Source: Steve Neal, Dark Horse: A Biography of Wendell Willkie (New York, Doubleday, 1984), 150