Sly and able

by Robertson, David

Few American political figures have had as long, as eventful, as varied, and as consequential a career as James F. "Jimmy" Byrnes of South Carolina. This quintessential self-made man and master politician was centrally involved in many of the epochal domestic and international developments of the first half of the "American Century." Byrnes is arguably among the most experienced and least known of the "wise men" who exercised great political power just below the office of president during World War II and the Cold War. He was certainly the most powerful and influential southern political figure of his era, and he came tantalizingly close to the ultimate political prize, the American presidency - only to be edged out, with Rooseveltian sleight of hand, by Harry S. Truman. A simple recital of Jimmy Byrnes' career captures its scope. Born in 1882, he was a fatherless boy raised in straitened circumstances by his seamstress mother. He clerked in a Charleston, South Carolina, law office, wh