Evening star., 1944-10-14
Text Distortion
Laid 10 Dewey
AT White House
Anonymous Analysis
Of Speech Released;
Berle Joins Attack
BY J. A. FOX.

BY ]. A. FOX.
A thinly veiled implication
that Gov. Thomas E. Dewey had
distorted speeches and other
statements stemming from ad-
ministration sources in pressing
his campaign came today from
the White House which made
available an analysis of excerpts
from the Republican candidates
Oklahoma City address which
were compared with the source
material on which they were
based.
At the same time, it was dis
closed that Assistant Secretary OF
State Adolf A. Berle, jr., had writ
ten President Roosevelt declaring
Gov. Dewey had made a "surpris-
ingly dishonest effort to claim that
your administration is secretly try
ing to set up Communist system"
in quoting from a Berle statement
in an address at Charleston, w. Va,
last Saturday.
1t was the second time that Mr.,
Berle had accused the New York
Governor of isolating a single SEN
tence from a Berle memorandum to
the Temporary National Economic
Committee in which he was quoted
as saying that over a period of
years, the Government will gradu-
ally come to own most of the pro-
duction plants of the United States
Analysis Author Not Revealed.
There was nothing to indicate who
prepared the analysis of Gov.
Dewey's Oklahoma City speech in
which he hit back at Mr.. Roosevelt's
charges-made before the Team
sters' Union here-that the Repub-
licans were resorting to fraud and
falsehood in their campaign.
The fact, however, that it came
from the White House tied it to the
administration. The further fact
that it was released simultaneously
with the Berle letter left the imph-
cation clear that Gov. Dewey was
being charged also with distorting
other administration documents.
In the Oklahoma City speech,
Gov. Dewey quoted from President
Roosevelt; his running mate, SEN
ator Truman of Missouri; Gen.
George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff,
and Gen. Henry H. Arnold, chief
Of the Army Air Forces.
Presidents Statements Cited.
Gov. Dewey used these quotes to
refute one assertion of the Presi-
dent that the Republicans had re-
sorted to fraud and falsehood in
their campaign.
The analysis took this excerpt
from the Dewey speech:
I'm 1887 he tthe President) said,
and I quote: How happy we are
that the circumstances of the mo-
ment permit us to put our money
into bridges and boulevards
rather than into huge standing
armies and vast implements of
war;"
Then the analysis adds several
paragraphs from Roosevelt speech
OF 1887 underscoring this sentence
which followed that quoted by Gov.
Dewey: Il am compelled and-you
are compelled, nevertheless, to look
ahead" 1t also quotes the Presi-
dent in the same speech: Let no
one imagine that America will
escape, that this Western
Hemisphere will not be attacked"
Barkley Quotation.
1t shows Gov. Dewey using this
sentence from Senate Majority
Leader Barkley's fourth-term NOM
mating speech: When the treach-
cry of Pearl Harbor came we were
not ready" Then it underlined this
opening sentence of Senator Bark
ley's next paragraph: mo democ-
racy is ever ready for war at the
drop of a hat"
Gov. Dewey had charged that in
1940-a year after the war started
in Europe-Gen. Marshall had said
that the Army was only ''25 per
cent ready"
The analysis cited three Marshall
on the point. 1t said
and underscored the statement
that on May l, 1940,. Gen. Marshall
told a Senate appropriations sub
committee that I'VE could put in
the field at the present time, as a
mobile force, about $4,000 men of
the regular establishment. They
are seasoned soldiers, Immediately
ready to operate, organized into
two partially completed Army corps
or into one Army complete corps
with its special troops all on basis
of peace strength, to be promptly
reinforced by $4,000 men from the
enlisted reserve"
Another Marshall Quotation.
Again, Gen. Marshall was quoted
as telling the Truman Committee a
little later that he had not intended
to be critical in speech in which
he said that the Army was not over
Is per cent prepared while the Navy
was at all times modified at rs per
cent. He said that that was Just
for the purpose of illustrating the
difference of the national policy"
and he added "it was the national
policy that the principal build-up
would be behind the oceans and be-
hind the Navy, that our great task
was the development of successful
mobilization. What we wanted were
a few divisions that were prepared
to go anywhere If the administration
and the Congress might decide that
we should take action quickly. We
had not been permitted to do that"
Gov. Dewey quoted Gen. Arnold
as saying December Z, l941, found
the Army Air Forces equipped with
plans but not planes"
The analysis setting out the con-
text from which this came added: