In the first two series Mike's position is constantly under threat from senior reporter Brooke Vandenberg, who has a better press profile, but by the last series he has been cemented as one of the network's most valuable stars and considerably more effort is made to pander to his whims.

With Eisenhower refusing to run, the contest for the Republican nomination was between New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen, Ohio Senator Robert Taft, California Governor Earl Warren, General Douglas MacArthur and Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan, the senior Republican in the Senate.

" Yet, Vandenberg and other senior Senate Republicans urged action on a few measures to solidify certain vital voting blocs.

The three leading candidates for the 1940 Republican nomination were all isolationists to varying degrees: Senators Robert Taft of Ohio and Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, and Thomas E. Dewey, the " gangbusting " District Attorney from New York.

Powerful forces in United States Congress pushing for non-interventionism and strong Neutrality Acts were the Republican Senators William Edgar Borah, Arthur H. Vandenberg, Gerald P. Nye and Robert M. La Follette, Jr., but support of non-interventionism was not limited to the Republican party.

The chief Republican spokesman Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg strongly supported Truman and overcame the doubts of isolationists such as Senator Robert A. Taft.

Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg ( March 22, 1884April 18, 1951 ) was a Republican Senator from the U. S. state of Michigan who participated in the creation of the United Nations.

On March 31, 1928, Governor Fred Green appointed 44-year-old Vandenberg, a Republican, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Senator Woodbridge Nathan Ferris, a Democrat, from pneumonia.

When the new Congress convened in 1935, there were only twenty-five Republican senators, and Vandenberg was one of the most effective opponents of the second New Deal.

But at the 1936 Republican National Convention, Vandenberg refused to permit the party to nominate him for Vice President, anticipating Roosevelt's victory that year.

In 1940 and 1948 Vandenberg was a " favorite son " candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

Republican Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and President Pro Tempore of the Senate, was a leading contender for the GOP presidential nomination before dropping out of the contest.

Arthur H. Vandenberg was the second ( 1947 – 49 ) as well as the longest serving Republican U. S. Senator from Michigan at 23 years.

File: Arthur H. Vandenberg. jpg | President pro tempore of the Senate Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan

The “ Vandenberg Amendment ” was added to the Senate bill through a procedural maneuver supported by Vice President John Nance Garner, who was presiding over the Senate in a judicial impeachment proceeding.

Senate portrait of Arthur H. Vandenberg

As part of the conservative coalition of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, Vandenberg helped defeat Roosevelt's plan to pack the Supreme Court.

Vandenberg became a member of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1929.

Although he continued to vote with the conservative coalition against Roosevelt's domestic proposals, Vandenberg gradually abandoned his isolationism to become an architect of a bipartisan foreign policy, which he defined as a consensus developed by consultation between the President, the State Department, and congressional leaders from both parties, especially those in the Senate.

" In 1947, at the start of the Cold War, Vandenberg became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

On September 14, 2004, a portrait of Vandenberg, along with one of Senator Robert F. Wagner, was unveiled in the Senate Reception room.

* Daryl J Hudson, " Vandenberg Reconsidered: Senate Resolution 239 and US Foreign Policy ," Diplomatic History, vol.

Daryl J Hudson, “ Vandenberg Reconsidered: Senate Resolution 239 and US Foreign Policy ,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 1 No. 1, Winter 1977

In friendly and candid talks with Secretary of State Marshall and Under Secretary Lovett, Vandenberg embraced the concept of a North Atlantic alliance and agreed to support it in the Senate only if substantive negotiations were delayed until after the elections and the UN Charter was more clearly affirmed and invoked in the prospective treaty.

On May 11, Vandenberg presented a resolution that he had drafted with Lovett to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which approved it.

On June 11 Vandenberg introduced and the Senate passed by a vote of 82 to 13 a resolution advising the President to seek US and free world security through support of mutual defense arrangements that operated within the UN Charter but outside the Security Council, where the Soviet veto would thwart collective defense arrangements.

Following the death of U. S. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, Moody was appointed on April 22, 1951, as a Democrat to the United States Senate.

Image: Arthur H Vandenberg. jpg | President pro tempore of the Senate Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan

The first armed version of the Atlas, the Atlas D, was declared operational in January 1959 at Vandenberg, although it had not yet flown.

It was also used to fit-check the never-used shuttle launch pad at Vandenberg AFB, California.

For each test a Minuteman missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California carrying a single mock re-entry vehicle targeted for Kwajalein lagoon more than away.

Prior to the closing of the Vandenberg facility, orbiters were transported from the OPF to the VAB on their undercarriages, only to be raised when the orbiter was being lifted for attachment to the SRB / ET stack.

In 1940, Vandenberg was also an isolationist ( he would change his foreign-policy stance during World War II ) and his lackadaisical, lethargic campaign never caught the voters ' attention.

During World War II Santa Barbara was home to Marine Corps Air Station Santa Barbara ; Naval Reserve Center Santa Barbara at the harbor ; was near to the Army's Camp Cook, present-day Vandenberg Air Force Base ; and contained a hospital for treating servicemen wounded in the Pacific Theatre.

General Vandenberg was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on January 24, 1899.

During World War II, Colonel Vandenberg was transferred to England and assisted in planning air operations for the invasion of North Africa.

Meanwhile, in January 1946, General Vandenberg was appointed chief of the intelligence division of the General Staff.

On 4 October 1958, Cooke AFB was renamed Vandenberg AFB in honor of the late General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, the Air Force's second Chief of Staff.

The transition from Army camp to missile base solidified on 15 December 1958 when Vandenberg AFB successfully launched its first missile, a PGM-17 Thor IRBM ( Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile ) The launch from Vandenberg inaugurated the intermediate-range ballistic missile portion of the Pacific Missile Range and was fired by a crew from the 1st Missile Division.

On 16 October 1958, the first Atlas ICBM launcher ( 576A-1 ) constructed at Vandenberg AFB, California, was accepted from the contractor by the 1st Missile Division.

This was the first silo accident at Vandenberg.

As a result, the Titan I ICBM launch complex ( 395-A1 / A2 / A3 ) at Vandenberg was turned over to the Strategic Air Command 395th Strategic Missile Squadron to perform test launches of the missile.

On 5 March 1965, the last test launch of a Titan I ICBM conducted by the Strategic Air Command at Vandenberg was successful.

Most of the testing of the missile was done at Cape Canaveral AFS, Florida by the 6555th Aerospace Test Group, and the first successful underground silo launch of a Titan II ICBM took place at Vandenberg by the 395th SMS in April 1963.

On 25 March 1966, the 200th SAC missile launched from Vandenberg AFB, California was a Titan II.

On 24 February 1966, the first attempted salvo ( simultaneous ) launch of two model " A " Minuteman I ICBMs from Vandenberg silos LF-04 ( 394A-3 ) and LF-06 ( 394-A5 ) was successful.