defeated yet again. McKeldin ran for governor a third time in 1950, successfully defeating Lane in a rematch. As governor, McKeldin endeavored to improve the state highway system, namely by establishing the Baltimore Beltway (now I-695), the Capital Beltway (I-495), and the John Hanson Highway (US 50 between Washington, D.C. and the state capital at Annapolis). He was a staunch supporter of interstate cooperation, saying once: "I rode by train over several state borders. I carried no passports. No one asked me to identify myself. No one had the right to. This is America." He was also an advocate for civil rights for African Americans, as well as a supporter of Israel and was awarded the Sidney Hollander Award. In 1952 McKeldin was a major figure in the moderate Republicans of the East Coast who were instrumental in gaining the Republican nomination for president for former five-star General and World War II Commander in Europe and later briefly president of Columbia University in New York City - Dwight D. Eisenhower of Kansas. Speaking in the stentorian tones that were common for the time, McKeldin delivered the principal nominating speech for the former general at the July 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago. In 1954, he was re-elected against Democratic nominee former "Terrapins" football player and coach becoming University of Maryland at College Park President Harry C."Curley" Byrd by 54.46% to 45.54% who had attracted white segregationist support for his resistance to Black student enrollment at UMD. After his second term in Government House, McKeldin retired in 1959 from the governorship and returned to his law practice in Baltimore, succeeded by lower Eastern Shore Democrat J. Millard Tawes of Crisfield. Four years later in 1963, he returned to public service after again being elected to a second non-consecutive term once again as mayor of his beloved hometown of Baltimore, focusing on the urban renewal of the Baltimore Inner Harbor. In 1964, McKeldin decided to support Democratic candidate Lyndon B. Johnson over conservative Republican Barry M. Goldwater in the presidential election due to Goldwater's voting against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.He saw the city council vote to condemn 700 homes of the Rosemont neighborhood in 1966 to build the East West Expressway "Highway to nowhere" that he started as a project with Robert Moses in 1941. McKeldin served his second term as mayor until 1967. To date, McKeldin is the last