==Prisoner of war==
In the fall of 1944, as a 27-year-old [[United States Army]] captain in [[World War II]], Speck was among more than 1,600 prisoners captured and taken aboard the [[Japan|Japanese]] ese passenger ship ''Oryoku Maru.'' At that time, he had been a POW for about three years. The men as a whole suffered from dysentery and other tropical diseases as well as hunger from the meager rations provided by their captors. The thirst and hunger caused many to undergo fits of insanity. Some even bit the fingers of other prisoners for a taste of blood to satisfy thirst. The men were forced to swim from the ''Oryoku Maru'' to the POW camp at Olongapo Naval Base, where they endured the last months of the war.[3]
==Election of 1950==
==Campaign 1952==
In 1952, Speck faced Francis Cherry of Jonesboro, who had unseated McMath in the Democratic primary. Cherry was an active campaigner for the Democratic presidential nominee, [[Adlai Stevenson]] of [[Illinois]]. Cherry described Stevenson as "the ablest and cleanest candidate for whom I have had the privilege to vote in my lifetime."[8]
''The Arkansas Gazette'' endorsed Stevenson and warned that a Republican victory could cost the southern states congressional committee chairmanships. The newspaper also claimed that Eisenhower was not politically independent but "irrevocably chained to the Republican Party and to its powerful leaders, most of whom follow the line laid down by [[Robert A. Taft]],"[8] an influential U.S. Senator from [[Ohio]] and the son of U.S. President [[William Howard Taft]].
Speck's name was omitted in most party literature, which stressed the Eisenhower/[[Richard Nixon]] ticket. Speck launched his campaign in Paragould but made only sporadic, unpublicized appearances. After Eisenhower defeated Taft at the 1952 [[Republican National Convention]], Speck was quoted as having said that he would be the "real governor" if Eisenhower were elected because he could then as titular head of the Arkansas party made patronage recommendations. Such party stalwarts as state chairman [[Osro Cobb]] and national committeeman [[Wallace Townsend]] criticized Speck for his comment, which reflected lingering Eisenhower-Taft divisions within the state party.[9]
An early Eisenhower supporter, Speck was nominated for governor at the state convention in [[Little Rock]] when a more prominent Republican declined to step forward. ''The Arkansas Gazette'' remarked that the "slam-bang presidential campaign in the state still failed to raise the gubernatorial contest from its usual lethargic tempo in Democratic Arkansas."[9] Two other Republicans ran with Speck, Lee Reynolds of Conway and George W. Johnson of Geenwood, who sought the positions of lieutenant governor and attorney general, respectively. Speck received 49,292 votes (12.6 percent), compared to Cherry's 342,292 (87.4 percent). He ran nearly a thousand votes behind his 1950 showing against McMath.[10]
Few Arkansas Democratic leaders openly supported Eisenhower, but Mrs. John Hackett, a member of the Democratic State Central Committee from Little Rock, endorsed the Republican presidential ticket. Republicans relied heavily on the "Democrats-For-Eisenhower" committee in view of the small GOP organization. Chairman Osro Cobb predicted that Eisenhower might come "within a few thousand votes" of victory in Arkansas.[11] An Arkansas Republican advertisement claimed that an Eisenhower victory would mean the end of the [[Korean War]], the "restoration of honesty" in [[Washington, D.C.]], and the recovery of "international respect." The GOP urged voters to "put loyalty to country first and vote Republican."[11]