Kenneth S. Wherry

U.S. Senator

In 1942, Wherry was elected to the U.S. Senate, unseating incumbent George W. Norris. He was reelected in 1948 and served until his death. He served as Republican whip from 1944 to 1949 and minority leader from 1949 to 1951. He was also one of the few postwar politicos to see the plight of the defeated Germans. "The American people should know once and for all that as a result of this government’s official policy they are being made...accomplices in the crime of mass starvation...Germany is the only nation subjected to a deliberate starvation policy..."

In 1945, Wherry was among the seven senators who opposed full U.S. entry into the United Nations.^[5]

Wherry also backed, with Senator Homer Capehart of Indiana, legislation for building military family housing in the post-World War II era, when there were critical shortages of such housing.

Wherry was the unsuccessful leader in the fight to block the Marshall Plan in Congress in early 1948. Congress, under the control of conservative Republicans, agreed to the program itself and the funding for multiple reasons. The 20-member conservative isolationist wing of the party was led by Wherry. He was outmaneuvered by the internationalist wing, led by Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg. Wherry and his men argued that it would be "a wasteful "operation rat-hole"; that it made no sense to oppose communism by supporting the socialist governments in Western Europe; and that American goods would reach Russia and increase its war potential. Vandenberg admitted there was no certainty that the plan would succeed, but said it would halt economic chaos, sustain Western civilization, and stop further Soviet expansion. Senator Robert A. Taft, The most prominent conservative, hedged on the issue. He said it was without economic justification; however it was "absolutely necessary" in "the world battle against communism." In the end only 17 senators voted against it on 13 March 1948^[6]

Wherry was openly opposed to homosexuals, telling Max Lerner in a 1950 interview that "You can't hardly separate homosexuals from subversives" and "But look Lerner, we're both Americans, aren't we? I say, let's get these fellows [closeted gay men in government positions] out of the government."^[7] He also publicized the fear that Adolf Hitler had given Joseph Stalin a list of closeted homosexuals which he believed Stalin would use to blackmail them into becoming Soviet spies.^[8]

Wherry died in Washington in 1951 at age 59, while serving as Republican Floor Leader. Recovering from abdominal surgery a few weeks earlier, he felt ill and was admitted to George Washington University Hospital and died of pneumonia several hours later.^[1]

Incidentally, the fifteenth Senate term for Nebraska's Class 2 seat, which lasted from January 3, 1949 to January 3, 1955, was unusual in that it saw six Senators serve; Wherry was the first of these.