He opposed sending American forces to French Indochina and was a sharp critic of Communist China under Mao Zedong.

Knowland represented the right wing of the party and considered some of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's policies too liberal.

He was the third child, with an older sister, Elinor (1895–1978), and a brother, Joseph Russell "Russ" Knowland Jr. (1901–1961).

A young Knowland made campaign speeches for the 1920 Republican ticket of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge at the age of 12.

From the gallery, he watched the California delegation which included his father, Earl Warren, Louis B. Mayer and Marshall Hale.

[6] He served as an aide-de-camp to Brigadier General Marcellus L. Stockton Jr., then attended the military government school to study civil affairs.

[6] Knowland received the following military awards: Hiram Johnson, the senior U.S. senator from California, died on August 6, 1945.

A firm believer in legislative authority under the US Constitution, Senate leader Knowland sometimes also was at odds with President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Eisenhower wrote that Knowland "means to be helpful and loyal, but he is cumbersome" and described the Senator's foreign policy views, particularly on Red China, as "simplistic.

"[8] In his diaries, the publicly avuncular Eisenhower felt free to confide more critical assessments of his political acquaintances.

'"[9] Fellow conservative Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater described Knowland as "a very determined man, and a very highly principled one, and as long as he and Eisenhower agreed on the legislation that Ike wanted, Bill would fight his head off for it.

[11] For his strong support for Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist government in China against Mao Zedong and the Communists,[5] Knowland sometimes was called the "Senator from Formosa" (now known as Taiwan).

A keen opponent of China's accession to the United Nations, Knowland tangled with Indian statesman V. K. Krishna Menon over the issue, leading the latter to acidly recommend psychiatric treatment to the former.

Eisenhower won the nomination and selected as his running mate Richard M. Nixon, who was serving as California's junior U.S. senator.

The constitutional provision for the Vice President to cast a tie-breaking vote gave Republicans a working majority to organize the Senate.

Knowland and Johnson shared a cordial and respectful political relationship, often working in tandem on policy and procedure, including co-authoring a resolution in 1957 in an unsuccessful attempt to limit the filibuster, the practice of allowing minority viewpoints to use everlasting debate to obstruct the passage of legislation.

Knowland had a long-running battle with Nixon, with whom he served in the Senate from 1951 to 1953, for influence in California Republican Party affairs.

Many felt Knowland would use the governorship to control the California Republican delegation in 1960 and to try to deny Nixon the presidential nomination but get it himself.

To pay off some of Knowland's campaign debts, his father had to sell his Oakland Tribune radio station, KLX, to Crowell Collier Broadcasting.

The 1964 Republican National Convention, again in San Francisco's Cow Palace, nominated Barry Goldwater for president.

In the 1966 California gubernatorial campaign, Reagan ran on a law-and-order message, while Knowland and his old California Republican rival Richard Nixon worked tirelessly behind the scenes, enabling Reagan to win two thirds of the primary vote over George Christopher, the moderate Republican former mayor of San Francisco.

The momentum from Reagan's successful primary win carried over to the general election, where he defeated incumbent Democratic Governor Pat Brown in a landslide.

However, he took steps to add a bipartisan bent to the news pages, including the appointment in 1969 of a political editor with Democratic Party leanings.

As editor and publisher, Knowland took an interest in local affairs along with the job and was less concerned with national and foreign policy.

During his tenure as newspaper executive, Oakland and the East Bay Area were changing, with the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, the Black Panthers, and "white flight" to the suburbs.

At the banquet at Goodman's Hall, Governor Ronald Reagan praised the Tribune and the Knowland family.

On February 23, 1974, Knowland died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, an apparent suicide, at his summer home near Guerneville, California.

His personal life was in a shambles; heavy gambling took all his money and he died owing over $900,000 (equivalent to $5,740,000 in 2024) to banks and impatient mobsters.

Also contained are the remains of Ruth Lamb Caldwell Narfi (1909–2003) and her first husband, Hubert A. Caldwell (1907–1972) and second husband, Gaetano "Tani" Narfi (1905–1996) At the Chapel of Memories in Oakland, California, two tiers down from his father, Joseph R. Knowland in the Serenity Section Tier 4 Number 6, a double book urn has only one side inscribed, "U.S.