Thomas Edmund Dewey

Dewey, Thomas Edmund (1902–71), U.S. lawyer and politician. As Republican presidential candidate he was defeated in 1944 by Franklin D. Roosevelt and in 1948 by Harry S. Truman, although his election had been thought a foregone conclusion. In the 1930s, as U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York state and then as special prosecutor in New York City, Dewey gained a national reputation for successful campaigning against organized crime. He was governor of New York from 1943 to 1955. He declined the post of chief justice under Richard M. Nixon (1968).