The Pittsburgh Press (November 6, 1944)
Moscow paper blasts groups backing Dewey
Roosevelt to win, Izvestia says
Moscow, USSR (UP) –
The newspaper Izvestia said today that the election of President Roosevelt was certain on the basis of polls by experts and at the same time it attacked the “groups” behind Governor Thomas E. Dewey, asserting the course of the campaign had shown they were not supported by the broad masses of the American people.
Izvestia reported rumors alleged to be circulating in U.S. newspaper circles that Republicans might be planning to announce a faked attempt on Mr. Dewey’s life and attribute it to Communists in a last-minute effort to win the election.
Izvestia said the Reichstag fire in 1933, which the Nazis blamed on the Communists, was a similar fake staged by Adolf Hitler as a pretext to seize absolute power in Germany.
At Albany, New York, Governor Dewey declined to comment on the article in Izvestia.
‘Tried to keep aloof’
Izvestia said:
The campaign is going on in the midst of war while the best. American sons are fighting against Fascism in union with all freedom-loving peoples for peace and international cooperation.
Dewey tried to keep aloof from defeatist and isolationist ideas and the most compromised Fascist leaders such as Hamilton Fish and Gerald Smith.
But the Fascist sympathies and German ties of those who constitute the Republican staff and those who finance Dewey are well known.
Dewey was not careful enough not to reveal the names of those who in case of his victory would lead the Senate and House of Representatives.
Vandenberg, Taft hit
He named the well-known isolationists Vandenberg and Taft, one of the most reactionary leaders of the Republican Party.
Senators Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-MI) and Robert A. Taft (R-OH).
The Republicans failed with their political program with which they named their candidate for the Presidency [The Republican platform]. They tried to maneuver. First, they tried to attract people’s attention to domestic politics, saying foreign policy must be left outside the election campaign. But to exclude foreign policy from the campaign at the present time is less possible than ever.
At a time when the greatest army in the history of the United States has been formed, at a time when the entire industry of the country is working for war, questions of war and peace and international cooperation took the important place in the campaign.
‘General terms’
Dewey tried to say in general terms that he was for victory but he had to answer such unpleasant questions as why he and his supporters in Congress tried in every way to block development of U.S. military strength.
Dulles could not give him real help in this difficult position. Dulles himself had to look for explanations of his close connections with German banks.
John Foster Dulles, Mr. Dewey’s adviser on foreign affairs.
The Hearst-McCormick-Patterson-Gannett press campaigned for Dewey. Sometimes it was candidly defeatist. Sometimes it was a Hitlerite campaign.