but it's interesting that that comment all these years later reflects what dewey himself believed, the strategy was that, in a peacetime environment, people grateful as they were to fdr -- remember what the british did to churchill -- would have been willing to turn a page and embark upon a different kind of domestic policy. >> let's go to bill in pauling, new york. bill. >> caller: yes, good evening. i'm residing in virginia now, but, as a youngster about 13 or 14 years old, i grew up about three miles from governor dewey's farm. i had an occasion on more than one time to caddie for the governor on quaker hill golf course. one particular time i remember, after the afternoon was getting late, and his golf partners, lowe thomas -- let's see.

there was a judge murphy from new york city and edward r. mur they wanted to play, continue playing at mr. murrow's park. they asked me to caddie but it was getting late in the day. i said, i'm about eight miles away and i need a ride when we're through. well, one gentleman spoke up and said, oh, don't worry, i'll take you. to make a long story longer, when they finished, that man got in his car and left and i was stranded there. well, governor dewey saw to it that i had a ride back to the village, and i'll never forget that. i was very grateful for him. that's my comment. >> all right. that was bill in pauling, new york. mike, staten island, new york. >> caller: yes. i'd like to ask mr. smith if mr. dewey had won the 1944 election, what would his policy as far as

ending the war have been? >> 1944, did you say? >> caller: yes. >> i think it's a fair question, but, i think if you look at the calendar and you see where the armies were in january of 1945, i think at that point the nazi defeat was only a question of time. the larger question, of course, for example, yalta, how dewey might have conducted diplomacy differently if it had been him meeting churchill and stalin. >> what about the atomic bomb? do you think dewey would have done that? >> it's hard for me to believe that any president, after we'd spent $2 billion to do this thing, knowing that if he didn't use the bomb and if the war were

prolonged, quite frankly, it would lead to impeachment. what was the point of -- i think this retrospective argument over truman and whether it was moral to use the bomb and so forth and so on, it's hard to believe any american president not taking advantage of the opportunity to end the war that the bomb represented. i can't imagine tom dewey would have -- >> yes, to add, on your earlier comment on yalta, dad was bitterly critical for years thereafter about giving away all those people in the eastern european countries into soviet slavery communism. he was consistent on that subject. >> i would give anything to see your dad sitting across the table from joseph stalin. someone who had prosecuted gangsters all his life. >> right. >> let's try to it get a couple

more phone calls in here as we wrap up tonight's "contenders" taking a look at thomas e. dewey. charles in lexington, virginia >> caller: first of all, thank you very much for this wonderful program, part of a wonderful series. i'm glad toward the end here we did get back to the question of foreign affairs. my question has to do with professor smith's reference earlier on to john foster dulles, his role as an adviser to governor dewey in foreign policy and their relationship and what that had to do with dulles becoming the secretary of state in eisenhower's cabinet. >> well, i think you're absolutely right. i mean, they all fit together. the relationship with dulles was a uniquely close one with, intellectually substantive. at one point your dad appointed dulles to united states senate seat, which he was unable to hold on to in the election.

but there's no doubt that john foster dulles became dwight eisenhower's secretary of state as an outgrowth of the long record of association creative foreign policy association that he had with tom dewey. >> i would agree with that. he was maybe the most senior of a group of dad's advisers who went to washington. you mentioned jim haggerty, tom stevens, who was appointment secretary, and there were quite a number of them. >> one thing we haven't mentioned is the through way. one of dewey's great innovations was the new york state thruway, which now bears his name, a road without a traffic light from new york city to buffalo, which probably did more for upstate new york economic development than anything since. but the man who built the thruway was named bert talami. he is the man who went on to build the interstate highway

system under dwight eisenhower. >> right. >> i want to throw out a couple names here as we finish. hubert humphrey and tom dewey's relationship with him. >> it's one of the many surprising aspects of a very surprising life. in 1964, tom dewey was at the white house, lbj wanted to get him to chair a national crime commission. in any event, he begged off of that, but he pointed out to lbj, he said, have you looked at the schedule of your convention in atlantic city? he was meeting with marvin watson who was the president's top aide, chief of staff it in effect. anyway, there was a day set aside as a tribute to president kennedy, and it was up front. and dewey pointed out that, you know, if this happens, jackie will be there, rose and bob and teddy and the whole family

and people will cry and there will be this emotional -- and before you know it, bobby kennedy will be your running mate whether you like it or not. the story is the president got on the phone and said, move kennedy day from day one to day four. hubert humphrey became the running mate instead, humphrey was in dewey's debt until the day he died. >> and they were social friends. both friends of dwayne andrews, and they spent parts of winters together. i even went to the races with the humphreys and the deweys once. >> well, we are all out of time, gentlemen. want to thank the both of you for being our guests tonight and talking to our viewers. talking about tom dewey, 1948 campaign. our "contenders" and our 14-week series. and we want to thank you for watching tonight and calling in. and the staff of the roosevelt hotel here who have been very helpful to our crew tonight. a big thanks to everyone.