Norman Mattoon Thomas

Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 - December 19, 1968), and some of us are old enough to remember him running for President, was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
Norman Thomas said this in a 1944 speech:

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." He went on to say: "I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform."
1959 - Nikita Khrushchev, ruthless dictator of the Soviet Union, states: "We can't expect the American people to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism until they awaken one day to find they have Communists"