Dewey indicts Roosevelt on foreign policy
Secret negotiations called bar to peace
Albany, New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey, accusing President Roosevelt of handling foreign relations on a “basis of personal secret diplomacy,” promised today to submit foreign policy to popular support if he is elected President in November.
In a blistering indictment of President Roosevelt’s conduct of foreign affairs last night, Mr. Dewey charged that “secret” negotiations have been the custom, cited relations with Poland, Italy, France and Romania as “examples” and predicted that a continuation of the policy would prevent a lasting peace.
He argued:
Our objectives and our methods must be known to our people and approved by them so that they will be willing to support them and to sacrifice for them in all the years to come.
Wants no reservations
He proposed that the U.S. participate in organization of a world peace league as rapidly as possible, without waiting for the end of the war, and that it enter such a compact without any reservations which would nullify its power to halt future aggression, using force if necessary.
The Republican presidential candidate expounded his foreign policy views on a nationwide broadcast in New York before an invitational audience of 2,000 clubwomen, businessmen and civil and social leaders at the final session of the annual New York Herald-Tribune Forum.
Dewey associates believed that he had presented a severe challenge to Mr. Roosevelt, who is scheduled to speak on the subject in New York City Saturday night before the Foreign Policy Association.
Governor Dewey’s greatest response came when he declared that “this must be the last war,” and that “to this end the U.S. must take the lead in establishing a world organization to prevent future wars.”
‘Paying in blood’
The New York Governor described the present turbulent Italian situation as “the improvised, inefficient administration which personal New Deal government is giving them.”
He charged that “we are paying in blood for our failure to have ready an intelligent program for dealing with invaded Germany.”
Mr. Dewey said careful plans for Germany had been worked out by the War and State Departments it one time but protested that “that kind of planning goes for nothing when the President personally handles foreign policy.”