What if Henry A. Wallace won the VP nomination in 1944?

[Taverner]

I've thought about this....FDR would have died a few years later, with Wallace becoming Prez. This was the man who crafted the New Deal.

My thought? No cold war. The Soviet Union was in no position to keep fighting, they knew it, and we knew it. Peace. No Vietnam, No McCarthy Witch-Hunt, No J Edgar Hoover.

Also, the US becomes more socialist, with the Reds no longer being the enemy, populists can campaign on real issues.

And as a result, we become a healthier country.

Oh, and also, no Bush Sr. or Jr.....

[ronnykmarshall]

1. Did FDR leave the VP nomination up to the convention?

I always wondered why Truman became VP in the forth term.

[Taverner]

2. Back then the VP was elected seperately

Wallace was FDR's choice, as he had served with him previously...but through backroom deals that bastard Truman won instead.

[ronnykmarshall]

3. That's interesting ...

Wallace was VP for only the third term. Garner was for the 1st and 2nd. (I saw this on the internets) Garner lived to be 99 years old.

[LSK]

4. dupe

delete

[LSK]

5. backroom deals and some dirty tricks

I recall something about calling a fake fire alarm at the convention and preventing some delegates from getting in to vote. Also FDR was pretty sick by this time.

[DerekG]

6. America might have actually remained a republic

To the consternation of many here, I consider Harry Truman--the author of the national security state--the worst president of the past century (and so does Gore Vidal, apparently).

If the fates had been kind, a Wallace administration would have returned us to a peacetime economy.

Oh well, at least our empire is running out of steam.

[Taverner]

7. Yes I agree

Truman never turned off the Military Industrial Complex. And it just got bigger. And bigger.

Also, the Soviet Union would have had to adapt, or collapse. The whole reason they built up their military was because we were building ours, and putting bases all over Western Europe, with missiles pointed right at them. Russia was invaded once in that century...so naturally they were a little skittish.

Many argue that Stalin was fixing to take Western Europe. He was sick and dying, and Beria was too. Khruschev was only chosen because he triumphed in Stalingrad, and the USSR wanted a "tough guy" to stop that American Menace they perceived. Had Wallace won, and reached out to the USSR, no doubt Democracy would have happened sooner, and the two systems could have seen the other wasn't so bad.

[DerekG]

8. We squandered so many opportunities

In the immediate post-war era, we were the heroes of the world, our triumph over fascism inspiring myriad anti-colonialist movements.

And how exactly did the administration capitalize on this enormous goodwill?

--They brushed aside the many overtures by one Ho Chi Minh--who had a proclivity for quoting the Declaration of Indepedence--and delivered Vietnam into the hands of French imperialists.

--They exaggerated the threat of the "red menace," institutionalizing loyalty oaths (long before McCarthy was spewing his vitriol); and gave monsters like Dulles and Harriman all the resources to spy on the American citizenry.

--They employed this very counterinsurgency arm to thwart leftist movements in Greece and Italy (labor unions, you see, were bad for business).


One thing could be said for "Give 'em hell" Harry: he lived up to his title.

[liberalpragmatist]

9. People will disagree with me...

... I would love if the opposite were to occur, but Stalin was NOT someone who was interested in peaceful accomodation. I tend to believe that a Wallace presidency would have been dangerously naive. Wallace was an incredible man who was far ahead of his time in many ways, but even he acknowledged in later years that he'd been misled as to the nature of Soviet intentions. He had been utterly impressed by what turned out to be Potemkin villages and accorded Stalin far more trust than he deserved. Also, some of Wallace's closest aides such as Laurence Duggan, who many historians believe would have been Wallace's Secretary of State, were Soviet informers. Greece and Turkey might well have fallen to Communists, and it's likely that in the Red Hysteria of the type and the McCarthy-climate he might well have been impeached and/or defeated in the primary.

Wallace wasn't stupid, and some historians feel that Wallace, when he realized the truth about Soviet intentions, would have completely reversed course and actually carried out a tougher line against the Soviets. But by that point, I think he would have lost all credibility with Americans.

The book "What If? 2: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been" has a scenario about a President Henry Wallace. It's an alright essay - the best essays in that series are ones that actually offer a real alternate history. The President Henry Wallace chapter doesn't do that, it merely discusses Wallace and gives insights into what kind of president he would have been and how he would have dealt with the Soviets. It's still a good read though.

[PittPoliSci]

10. i don't think it would've really been that significantly different.

At least in the realm of foreign policy. Acheson and Co. were still running foreign policy, Wallace would never have had the clout to replace them. We still would've ended up with Eisenhower eventually and things probably would've played out the same way.

Domestic though, probably would've seen more New-Deal like programs and expansions.

[liberalpragmatist]

11. Possibly...

... but remember that Truman also had a pretty substantial "Fair Deal" that didn't work out because the Republicans controlled Congress.