Corner. President truman continues his swing around the circuit. The chief executive get a president. He writes to the home of his own his old friend cactus aand its a war record warm welcome on route to. He visits the alamo. The historic shrine of texas independence. In austin, a big crowd to greet the president as he continues his campaign for the lone star states 23 electoral votes. On his tour, the president spoke and visited with sam rayburn, former soup e. Deweys Campaign Manager and the confidence they had early on. Take a look. Champagne flows freely. Victory is in the air. The first returns had truman in the lead, but republicans are not worried. And then he brings good news secured we now know that governor do we will carry new york state by 50,000. Dewey represented that. Opposed to that were the conservatives, but westerners, many of them isolationists who rallied around bob rttaft. He had precipitated the split. That never really healed. When republicans took congress,s campaign in 1948 and the criticism he has of the truman administration. On january 20, we will enter in a new era. There will begin in washington the biggest on raveling, on spiraling operation and our do we vs. Truman hypothetical . The popular notion is that thomas e. Dewey drowned in a sea of complacency. He was taken by surprise by what happened in the suite that night. The fact is, he knew. He was the first candidates to have a fulltime polling unit as part of his campaign. He listened to the pollsters. He had an appreciation of their art. He was well aware of the fact his lead was slipping. There were people who came to him in the last 10 days of the campaign and he acknowledged that the lead was slipping. To one of them, he said never talk when very shortly in his campaign, he does to thomas e. Dewey what he did to the Republican Congress. The fact of the matter was, a democratic president riding the crest of prosperity in the fall of 1948 could point a finger at the Republican Congress and in the fact suggest people. Truman was not bashful about doing it. If. Dewey had to say about communists in 1948. Some jeer at the problem calling it a red herring. Some people get panicky about it. I do not belong to either of those groups. We must neither ignore or outlaw them. If we ignore them, we give them the of unity that they want. If we all love them, we give them the marty down that they want even more. We well in the government we get to last january we will keep the american well, of course, were well into the cold war. Dewey is again supportive of the marshal plan. He supports nato. I mean, he supports he supports the overall truman truman, for example, had reorganized the war department, the department, created the Central Intelligence agency. To some degree had put americas economy on a cold war footing. Dewey is supportive of all that, in fact, if anything he believes we need to spend more money on our defenses. He also, its interesting, he thinks that we have neglected conservative forces, for example Charles De Gaulle in france who is out of power but who is seen as a bulwark against communism in france. Dewey thinks that a creative american diplomacy could put people like that to good use. So how does he differ from the other prominent republicans in the party at the time . Who are they . Bob taft, mr. Republican from ohio, its fair to say was the champion of the isolationist wing of the Republican Party. That is to say the wing profoundly suspicious of International Organizations like the u. N. , suspicious of later on the korean war. Suspicious of projecting American Military power around the world as opposed to building up american defenses here at home. Former president Herbert Hoover would certainly have been in that camp as well. Dewey one of the things was to watch him become a committed internationalist and a champion of bipartisan foreign policy. Given that, what is the impact of that attitude on all of his president ial bids . Well, obviously he didnt win in the presidency. In 1944 there was a significant conflict between dewey and fdr even though they disagreed with the United Nations and specifically would the United Nations have an that it could employ without first securing the position of Member States like United States. And roosevelt said yes he supported that. Dewey was not supportive of that and dewey said later on roosevelt won the election and history has proven i was right. You talk about the divide in the Republican Party over international issues. Do they come back together in time for the 48 campaign . Do the taft and dewey wings come together . It was pained over. But in fact it was very shrewd on trumans part to see that as the achilles heel that republican unit was unit in name only and to try to almost eliminate dewey and to suggest that if you vote for this man, what youre going to get is bob taft and the midwest conservative Republican Party. And to be frank, dewey did very little. He and taft despised each other. Their rivalry was one of the great intellectual and personal contests in American History. Its on the scale of jefferson and hamilton. Its about something. Its not just about personal ambition, its about a different view of the world, a different view of government at home, a different view of what the Republican Party stands for, a different view of what abraham lincolns legacy is. And a different view of the future. Tonight we are coming to you live from the Roosevelt Hotel here in new york city to talk about thomas e. Dewey, our eighth contender in our 14week series looking at those folks who American History who ran, lost, but changed political history. We want to get to your phone calls here. First is brian in springfield, illinois. Brian, go ahead. Caller hello, good evening, thank you so much for the series. Mr. Smith, we still miss you very much here in springfield. Oh, thats very kind of you, thanks. Caller not a problem. I had a question about 1952. I remember reading about an illinois senator Everett Dirkson, a taft supporter and the convention here in chicago. He went up to nominate taft and kind of wagged his finger at dewey who was in the crowd saying Something Like you led us twice down the path to defeat, dont do this to us again. And, of course, taft lost that nomination fight to eisenhower. My question is, what role did dewey play in getting eisenhower to run, convincing his people to pick nixon, and what role did he play in eisenhowers Fall Campaign . Thats a huge subject. Let me handle it as quick as i can. He was instrumental in getting eisenhower into the race and ill tell you a story. When eisenhower at this point was over in paris, commander of nato, and he really didnt want to leave. He didnt want to come home, he didnt want to sully himself by campaigning actively for the nomination. And at one point dewey was a shrewd no copy exists, he writes the letter, she mailed it, it went to general eisenhower in paris and in it dewey says to eisenhower if you dont come home and actively seek this nomination my fear is that the delegates will nominate Douglas Macarthur. Well, that was the ultimate hot button to push with Dwight Eisenhower and shortly after that letter was received he heard the call of duty and he came home. You were absolutely right. You talk about the split between taft and dewey. It was never more apparent, more dramatic than that night when Everett Dirkson wagged his finger at dewey and said you took us down the road of defeat twice. Dewey had the revenge because the next night he was able to announce 87 of 92 new york delegates for eisenhower. And finally yes, he was more responsible than anyone else for Richard Nixon being on the ticket. He spotted him as a talent in 1948. He brought him to new york to speak at the annual dinner of the Republican Party which was a tryout. When nixon finished, he sat down, dewey took the cigarette holder out of his mouth, he said make me a promise, dont get fat, dont get lazy and someday you can be president. Well go back to those moments later on in the show and well talk more about thomas e. Deweys legacy and his unsuccessful run for the white house but lets hear from michelle from kansas city, missouri. Caller did the dewey campaign exploit trumans ties to the pendergast organization in kansas city . Because some of the things that pendergast did back then helped truman get in the position where hes at. Thank you. Thats a very good question. No, they did not. That was part of deweys approach, particularly in 48, which was very consciously to stay away from personal attacks, to keep this thing on a very high plain, some would say vapid, contentfree but certainly bearing little resemblance to modern attack campaigns. Lets go back to the primary. Weve sort of worked our way back, Fall Campaign, the general election, lets go to the primary. Set the stage for us. Who else is running . Well, of course, bob taft is running and has a very substantial following, not just in the midwest but throughout the country. Harold stassen who before he became something of a comical figure who ran every four years to various levels of disdain was, in fact, a very formidable candidate. Then you had Arthur Vandenberg from massachusetts who reminded people of senator foghorn. He was the quintessential pot bellied and rather pompous but hed become a statesman. Arthur vandenberg had undergone this conversion from isolationist internationalist that tom dewey was to emulate and so you had a it was a pretty distinguished field. And it was by no means a sure thing. One who wanted to run but never announced his candidacy was Douglas Macarthur who was in the jungles of asia but his name was on the ballot. And one other candidate who went to wisconsin and saw his campaign end there was the 1940 nominee of the party, wendell wilkie. Lets talk about the impact of the oregon primary and the debate you touched on earlier. Why is it important . Its on youtube, im sure its easy to get. Anyone who is watching what passes for debates at the moment among the republican candidates or, quite frankly, who has watched the fall debates in recent years between the opposing parties, i would just urge you, go and listen to the dewey stassen debate. It is as close in a modern context to Lincoln Douglass as anything could. Be its not a collection of soundbites. Lincoln douglass. Lincoln douglass. Its an hour for these two men to talk about thoughtful view points on a very polarizing issue in america and to do in the a way that raised the public standard of discourse as opposed to lowering it. We have a little bit of that debate. Lets listen in then well talk about it. Theres no such thing as a constitutional right to destroy all constitutional rights. Theres no such thing as a freedom to destroy freedom. The right of man to liberty is inherent in the nature of man. To win it and to maintain it requires courage and sacrifice and it also requires intelligence and realism and determination in the establishment of the laws and the systems of justice to serve mankind. I submit that the communist organization in america and in the freedomloving countries of the world should be outlawed. To destroy freedom. The right of man to liberty is inherent in the nature of man. To win it, and to maintain it requires courage and sacrifice and it also requires intelligence and realism and determination in the establishment of the laws and the systems of justice to serve mankind. I submit that the communist organization in america and in the freedom loving countries of the world should be outlawed. Heres an issue of the height principle in practical application. People of this country are asked to outlaw communism. That means this, shall we in america, in order to defeat a totalitarian system which we detest, voluntarily adopt the method of that system . I want the people of the United States to know exactly where i stand on this proposal, because it goes to the very heart of the qualification of any candidate for office and to the inner nature of the kind of a country we want to live in. I am unalterably, wholeheartedly, unswervingly against any scheme to write laws outlawing people because of their religious, political, social or economic ideas. Im against it because its a violation of the constitution of the United States and of the bill of rights, and clearly so. Im against it because its immoral and nothing but totalitarianism itself. Im against it because i know, from a great many Years Experience in the enforcement of the law, that the proposal wouldnt work, and, instead, it would rapidly advance the cause of communism in the united st he had fallen behind. He had gone in as the preemptive favorite having been the nominee in 1944 and then stassen did quite well in the early primaries so it all came down to this extraordinarily dramatic confrontation over this one issue. Now thats dewey at his best and there are a lot of people i think after the fact that thought if he had only talked like that with that degree of specificity and conviction and credibility until november of 1948 that maybe the result of the election would have been different. How many people are listening to this debate at the time . 60 million. 60 million people. On the radio . I estimated tune into the dewey stassen radio debate. Just phenomenal. And the role of radio at that time . Well, you know, radio was the chief medium by which the news was disseminated and this is another aspect of tom dewey. We had come to new york in the 20s not necessarily wanting to be a lawyer, he wanted to be an opera singer, which surprises people and you heard his voice, its a very cultured voice. A very trained voice. Some people thought it lacked spontaneity but its also true that it was the one republican voice that on the radio was able to hold the magical Franklin Roosevelt to something of a draw. What if people could have seen that debate . Would it have had a different outcome . Thats a great question. Dewey liked television. Dewey thought television was it was like the courtroom. It was as a young man he became famous as the man who broke up the rackets in new york, who became the gang buster who inspired all of these hollywood movies and radio shows like mr. District attorney and if you stop to think about it a Television Studio is not terribly dissimilar from a courtroom. The strengths that he had in the courtroom, the ability to make his case, to connect whether it was with the jury or with viewers, there are some Early Television kinescopes in his third race for governor, for example, where he is very effective in front of the camera and i think he probably wished in retrospect that he could have run the 48 campaign in front of a television camera. Lets go to the Gop Convention in philadelphia in 1948. How does he get the nomination . Where there ballots . How did it work . There were several ballots. In fact, dewey is the last republican candidate who required more than one ballot to be nominated. Even though he had turned the tide, if you will, in oregon, there was still determined opposition led by, above all, senator taft and to a lesser degree at that point Harold Stassen who, by the way, had made a name for himself as the socalled boy governor in minnesota in his early 30s, a real prodigy. Of course dewey was a real prodigy. So any way it took i believe three ballots and then, of course, you had to pick a Vice President and he wanted earl warren who was the very popular governor of california and warren would not agree. Four years later he would, to his regret, but instead to unify the party dewey picked the governor of ohio, tafts friend, fellow conservative, a man named john bricker and one of the slogans was war will end quicker with dewey and bricker. Lets get to a phone call. Marvin in los angeles. Go ahead. Caller hello. Thomas e. Dewey was a reasonably young man in 1953 and he was very influential in general eisenhower running. Was dewey offered a job by eisenhower after all his vp, governor warren of california, was offered the job of chief justice. Thats a great question i believe he was informally approached, shall we put it, about the supreme court. When you stop to think about it, really nothing else made sense except perhaps secretary of state and there he had the next best thing, maybe better, his longtime political ally and his kissinger John Foster Dulles. One of the things about dewey that is often overlooked is the extent to which he brought into the american political process a whole generation of very talented people. I mean, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon are the most obvious but theres a whole host of people who would remain some of them here in new york but others, kim haggerty was the White House Press secretary, to this day is regarded as the best press secretary in white house history. He earned the job in new york under tom dewey. Herbert brownell, the attorney general under eisenhower was deweys Campaign Manager and the list is a very long one. Osmond in richmond, virginia, youre next. Caller this is a very interesting subject. Hello . Yeah, youre on the air, go ahead. Caller thank you, go ahead, this is a very interesting subject. Im sorry, can you hear me . We can. Caller this is a very interesting subject. This was the fir