Democratic National Committee He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1947 to 1949. In managing President Harry Truman's successful 1948 election campaign, McGrath alienated white Southerners but won over crucial black constituencies by integrating the Democratic national headquarters staff. Attorney General Truman appointed McGrath Attorney General of the United States on August 24, 1949. After McGrath had refused to co-operate in a corruption investigation initiated by his own department, Truman asked for and received McGrath's resignation on April 3, 1952. Alternative accounts have contradictorily suggested that after a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at Truman's "Little White House" in Key West, the Secretary of the Navy, along with other members, had threatened to resign if they, too, were forced to comply with Special Assistant Attorney General Newbold Morris's request for the personal records of all members who might have received gifts under the scope of the corruption investigation. Under pressure to follow through with the Justice Department corruption investigation, along with the threats of resignation, McGrath agreed that Morris's request was asking too much and that the best thing to do was to clean up the department from that point forward and leave the past alone. Truman had been backed into a corner, and the only way out was to ask for McGrath's resignation. That account was corroborated by a letter from Truman to McGrath, which hung in the hallway of McGrath's summer home in Narragansett, Rhode Island up to the time of his death in 1966. McGrath entered the private practice of law in Washington, D.C. and Providence. In 1960, he was an unsuccessful candidate to succeed the retiring U.S. Sen. Theodore Francis Green (Democrat of Rhode Island), losing the Democratic primary (also contested by former governor Dennis J. Roberts) to Claiborne Pell. McGrath died of a heart attack in Narragansett, Rhode Island on September 2, 1966, at the age of 62. His body was buried at the St. Francis Cemetery in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. There is a bust of Senator McGrath outside the House chamber in the Rhode Island State House. Notes References "J. Howard McGrath, Ex-Attorney General, Dies." New York Times. September 3, 1966. Levieros, Anthony. "Upsets Come Fast; Resignation of McGrath Follows Quickly His Ousting of Morris." New York Times. April 4, 1952. Marcus, Maeva. Truman and the Steel Seizure Case: The Limits of Presidential Power. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.