What If FDR Had Kept Wallace as VP in 1944? (war, influence, Great Britain)

[Electric Blue]

and then later had to become potus? I personally think it would have been an absolute disaster.

[ScoPro]

At the time, Wallace was a Soviet suckup, so he probably would've allowed the rooskies to have all of Germany and half of Japan.

A President Wallace would indeed have been a disaster as far as postwar politics go in Europe and the Far East.

However, the Civil Rights movement here at home would've arrived much earlier & stronger.

[markg91359]

Henry Wallace was an unusually strange man. He was a darling of the progressive wing of the democratic party. He was quite intellectual and did a great deal of writing for different publications. He was quite interested in botany and spent much of his spare time growing plants. He was one of the earliest people to see how useful soybeans might be. In many ways he was ahead of his time.

However, he was too far left on the political spectrum to be considered representative of anyone, but a few eastern intellectuals. He seemed quite oblivious to the dangers posed by the Soviet Union. However, to be fair in 1944, not that many did perceive the emergence of the Cold War after the defeat of Germany and Japan. He also had some rather bizarre beliefs. He imagined that he could communicate with the spirit of a dead Sioux Indian Chief. Later, in 1948, Henry ran for the presidency as a third party candidate on the Progressive Party ticket. Some of his statements about the Soviet Union were so naive that they reminded one of someone who had taken leave of their senses.

FDR and the people around him realized that Henry Wallace was going to cost them votes in the 44' election. It was perceived that the public was growing a little weary of FDR after three terms in office. So, the big wigs in the democratic party were eager to get rid of Wallace and find someone else who was more "ordinary".

Various names were bandied about. Some wanted Jimmy Byrnes, a U.S. Senator from South Carolina. However, Byrnes had a track record as a segregationist and opponent of civil rights, so he was rejected. On the other hand, Harry Truman had developed a good reputation as chairman of the "Truman Committee" which investigated defense contractors profiting from government contracts during the war. He was also from Missouri, a border state, and he didn't have a negative track record on civil rights issues. Once, FDR made the decision to get rid of Henry Wallace, it was virtually guaranteed that Truman would be his pick for V.P. However, Truman was quite happy in the Senate and essentially had to be forced to take the job of VP.

Wallace behaved well even though he was pushed out. He later served in Truman's cabinet as Secretary of Agriculture after he became President.

I tend to agree though that Wallace would have been a disaster as President. Getting rid of him was quite prescient on the part of FDR. When he made this decision, he had less than a year to live.

[CAVA1990]

Dewey would have been elected and there would have been no President Eisenhower. Assuming he'd have still been elected later, Kennedy would then have had to change a line in his inauguration speech if anyone can think what that was.

[Electric Blue]

I don't think he would have been able to do much on civil rights. It took a moderate liberal from a border state,Truman,to even get integration in the military. Agree that Dewey would have defeated Wallace.

[2nd trick op]

The key question here is whether Wallace would have had the resolve to use atomic weapons to crush the Japanese; if not, American casualties would have been much higher (a lot of us would never have been born), and the backlash at the 1948 elections much stronger.

Regardless, having an appeaser at the peace table post-1945 would have meant that most of Western Europe would have gone "soft Red"; the only exceptions would be Spain and Portugal (Fascist), Scandinavia (all "Finlandized"), Holland and Switzerland (with smaller roles in a less-capitalistic world), Great Britain and Ireland.

With the victorious Soviet Union more interested in looting than rebuilding, the European Common Market would never have emerged. The recovery in Europe would have taken much longer, had it materialized at all. The lessened demand for petroleum, and the likely availability of Soviet sources, would have forestalled the Middle East's economic boom, and the state of Israel would likely never have been established.

At best, the United States would only have been able to hold the Soviet Union to a "draw" in the global arena, though I believe we would have had a stronger partnership with a more-unified Canada.

The "Eastern Establishment" and its West Coast counterparts would have wielded somewhat less influence -- I suspect that local and regional businesses and products, particularly in the South, would have remained stronger, and longer. There would have been no space program, no environmental consciousness-raising, and no wave of Third World immigration.

Civil rights would have continued to advance, but at a more moderate pace; the military played more of a role here than is generally recognized, and both Marshall and Eisenhower were in agreement with the Democratic "establishment". The emancipation of women would have continued among similar, more-moderate paths. But whether the postwar Baby Boom would have shaken things up as rapidly in a compromised America is speculatory.

Over time, the Soviet colossus would still have collapsed under its own dead weight, but the process would have taken much longer with the Old Bolshevik gerontocracy, and its chosen successors, firmly in command.