WI Dewey wins the 1948 presidential election?

Without Truman's second SoD Johnson and Truman himself opposing military spending on the Navy and Army as opposed to the Air Force does the USS United States, (sorry but they are going to have to change that name, we got away with once in 1797 because we as a nation did not have "class" names as a tradition but come on, in 1948 it would mean you had to come up with OTHER country names for the other five carriers to 'fit' the way naming works, it is almost as if the Navy was taunting the Administration into at most building "only one" carrier :) ) continue or get still get canceled?

USS America, USS Columbia, USS President, USS Congress, USS Union . . . there's ways around it. You could name them after the Six Frigates, but I don't think public opinion would stand for a USS Old Constitution [IX-21]. Perhaps USS New Ironsides.
 
USS America, USS Columbia, USS President, USS Congress, USS Union . . . there's ways around it. You could name them after the Six Frigates, but I don't think public opinion would stand for a USS Old Constitution [IX-21]. Perhaps USS New Ironsides.

There are ALWAYS ways around it, it's the government after all :)

Problem was it really WAS a 'dead-end' name and that was actually part of the whole "point" since in effect the argument was either there was some visible support for the Navy or it was the end. The Navy seemed to figure they didn't have a lot to lose with the gesture.

Randy
 
What kind of cabinet and appointments would we see with Dewey?

At least two of them would be identical to Ike's in OTL: John Foster Dulles for Secretary of State and Herbert Brownell (Dewey's campaign manager) for Attorney General.
 

bguy

Donor
At least two of them would be identical to Ike's in OTL: John Foster Dulles for Secretary of State and Herbert Brownell (Dewey's campaign manager) for Attorney General.

Agreed about Dulles, but I'm skeptical that Brownell would get the AG position. Even if Dewey is willing to double cross J. Edgar Hoover (a dangerous prospect, especially for an incoming President who did not even win the popular vote), a Dewey Cabinet that includes Dulles, Bell, and Strauss is already overflowing with New Yorkers. Giving a fourth Cabinet slot to a New Yorker would really be pushing it. And while Dewey could somewhat get around that by making Bell the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors rather than Secretary of the Treasury, Dewey might still find Brownell more useful as his Chief of Staff or White House Counsel rather than as Attorney General.
 
Agreed about Dulles, but I'm skeptical that Brownell would get the AG position. Even if Dewey is willing to double cross J. Edgar Hoover (a dangerous prospect, especially for an incoming President who did not even win the popular vote), a Dewey Cabinet that includes Dulles, Bell, and Strauss is already overflowing with New Yorkers. Giving a fourth Cabinet slot to a New Yorker would really be pushing it. And while Dewey could somewhat get around that by making Bell the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors rather than Secretary of the Treasury, Dewey might still find Brownell more useful as his Chief of Staff or White House Counsel rather than as Attorney General.

What Hoover really wanted was to be appointed to the Supreme Court, where he would finally be free from the threat of presidential removal. The Attorney Generalship would simply be a stepping stone to that. So either Dewey could appoint Brownell Attorney General immediately, while assuring Hoover he was still in line for the next Supreme Court vacancy, or else appoint Hoover Attorney General but only until Frank Murphy died a few months later, after which Brownell could be named Attorney General and Hoover nominated for the Court.
 

bguy

Donor
What Hoover really wanted was to be appointed to the Supreme Court, where he would finally be free from the threat of presidential removal. The Attorney Generalship would simply be a stepping stone to that. So either Dewey could appoint Brownell Attorney General immediately, while assuring Hoover he was still in line for the next Supreme Court vacancy, or else appoint Hoover Attorney General but only until Frank Murphy died a few months later, after which Brownell could be named Attorney General and Hoover nominated for the Court.

True, but I imagine Hoover expected Tolson to be appointed Attorney General in his place once he got bumped up to the Supreme Court. And even if Hoover can be molified, it still doesn't change the problem of having too many New Yorkers in the Cabinet or that Brownall is probably more useful to Dewey as his Chief of Staff than as Attorney General.
 
Any ideas for Secretary of Defense? As for Hoover, I would suspect he'd be planning on 'running' thing both with whomever was at the FBI in his place and whoever was appointed AG after he moved to the court. I don't wonder though if once there he could be pretty easily 'sidelined' though.

Randy
 

bguy

Donor
Any ideas for Secretary of Defense? As for Hoover, I would suspect he'd be planning on 'running' thing both with whomever was at the FBI in his place and whoever was appointed AG after he moved to the court. I don't wonder though if once there he could be pretty easily 'sidelined' though.

Given Dewey's own lack of military experience and the growing Soviet threat, I think he would want to get one of the big name World War 2 generals (preferably either Eisenhower or Marshall, MacArthur is probably just a little too controversial) for SECDEF to give his administration some solid military bona fides. Appointing one of the generals would require special dispensation from Congress since they've all been on active duty within the last seven years, but I can't see Congress refusing it for Eisenhower or Marshall. Otherwise, if Dewey decides to go with a non-General then I believe Styles Bridges was the leading Republican senator on the Senate Committee on Armed Services at the time, so he would be a reasonable choice. Bridges is much more conservative than Dewey and was a China Lobby man (which Dewey never really was), but Dewey probably does need to give at least a couple of the Cabinet positions to people from the Taft wing of the party in order to maintain party unity. Otherwise, while I think that Dulles would have been Secretary of State, during the 1948 campaign Dewey mentioned both Dulles and Arthur Vandenberg as men he thought would make first rate Secretaries of State. I think Dewey would ultimately rather have Vandenberg as the Republicans foreign policy leader in the Senate (especially since Vandenberg's health was starting to go around this time), but if for some reason Dewey does decide to appoint Vandenberg to State then that would likely mean Dulles gets Defense.
 
"What Dewey Will Do"--an analysis of the (assumed) new administration from the November 1948 Kiplinger's Magazine. https://books.google.com/books?id=3wUEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA10

No great surprises. John Foster Dulles will be the key man on foreign policy. More aid to China (when this was written, few Americans realized how soon Chiang Kai-shek would be routed). No tax cuts, and maybe even some increases--Dewey believed in a balanced budget, and felt that defense spending needed to be increased. Taft-Hartley will be kept with some mild pro-labor revisions. Union leaders will have to deal with the Department of Labor instead of getting special treatment at the White House. Dewey will advocate anti-lynching and anti-poll-tax legislation but the article gives the impression he will not press for them very hard, lest they lead the South to oppose the rest of his program. The Communist Party will not be outlawed, but Communists will be removed from government. No "theorists" or "professors" for the Supreme Court, but seasoned practicing lawyers and judges. And so on...
 
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