Alternate End to WWII

Everyone knows how things worked IOTL - FDR picked Truman as his running mate for his fourth term, and we dropped atomic bombs on Heroshima and Nagasaki.

What if FDR had retained Wallace and for unrelated reasons, the Bomb is deployed to Japan without prior testing in New Mexico? No one really understands the magnitude of the burst and resulting fallout. In fact, the conventional war continues for a few weeks longer than IOTL, when President Wallace decides he wants a ringside seat on a US Navy carrier to "watch the show" when we use this new weapon that could "end the war".

Needless to say, the bombs go off and Japan ends up surrendering pretty much as IOTL. Wallace sees his "show", then returns to Washington, but radiation poisioning kicks in during the return trip. After a brief hospitalization, Wallace dies, bringing his VP, Harry Truman, into office to face what we knew as the Cold War.

In this timeline, however, America's response to Wallace's death is to become extremely "no Nuke" (against atomic weapons) and partially retreats to its pre-war isolationism, leaving the rest of the world generally unchecked against Cold War Soviet expansionism.

Comments?
 
Greece goes communist.

Theres not much chance Britain will follow suit but without the Marshall Plan Germany, France and Italy certainly could.

The few more weeks of war will lead to a Korea under Kim.

The US finally takes the finger out when the USSR has a nuclear test.

But this scenarios very implausible.
 
Alternate endings... I want to bring up a point on this subject. Everybody keeps talking about what the Reich could have done in 1946. What if it lasted until 1946. My point is, it wouldn't. If the Reich was still fighting by August of '45, it would have gotten nuked. They were the original target for The Bomb.
 
Alternate endings... I want to bring up a point on this subject. Everybody keeps talking about what the Reich could have done in 1946. What if it lasted until 1946. My point is, it wouldn't. If the Reich was still fighting by August of '45, it would have gotten nuked. They were the original target for The Bomb.

You'll find most members acknowledge this aside from noobs.
 
Here's a thought-- what if Italy survived (fascist Italy that is) until 1946? Would we waste a nuke on them?
 
Here's a thought-- what if Italy survived (fascist Italy that is) until 1946? Would we waste a nuke on them?

I don't think we'd drop one on Rome - I also agree that Greece would fall - espionage would be EVERYWHERE in the US.

The UK might bring Churchill back a bit earlier.
 
Not if it was a Super-Italy! That would be a major revision of history, with butterflies carrying butterfly nets. The Italian Army did rather poorly in the war.
 
Let's try this - the US government is slow to the gate on the Cold War and has to play catch-up (if at all). No Korean War (as we know it) and probably no parallel to the Berlin Airlift.

A decidedly non-interventionist US government has no interest in atomic bombs or strategic bombers, although they're busy following Senator McCarthy's lead in chasing down all of those communists in the State Department (and ITTL, there is actually a significant amount of Soviet infiltration).

I see a whole market sector out there - what if some entreprenureal type - ala Robert Heinlein short stories of the 1950s - opens up shop as "US Atomics" or something - to build nuclear power plants, nuclear powered cargo and passenger ships and eventually - space ships?

After all - there's no US monopoly ITTL.
 
If, in this case, most of Western Europe falls to communism there is little that can keep the US from being forced once again our of isolationism.

In fact the world we would have is a US forced to acquire a huge nuclear arsenal out of neccesity. The US of post WWII needs a massive standing Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corp in this case with a brief period of post war isolationism they are going to be ringed on all sides by enemies which means in the end the USA is going to have a much much larger .

Imagine if you will now an America standing alone against a Soviet dominated world. You would have an American controlled Centeral and South America with its own version of a NATO type alliance against an Asia, Africa, and Europe dominated by the Soviets.

America would be dragged kicking and screaming onto the world stage again as it would be forced to look to its own defense and stop the fall of the Americas to Communism. Now with no American aid to rebuild Europe you are going to see an extreamly slow recovery as the Soviets struggle to rebuild most Europe and their own nation as well, this added strain could actually hasten the collapse of the Soviet Union. Also it would leave a Europe decades behind the US once the Soviets fall (which they will), in the end you might actually end up with a more unstable and chaotic distopic earth.

Also consider the stravation and shortages that the abandoned populations in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Western Europe would face under Communist regiems. Amercan post war food aid barely allowed the Dutch to avoid large scale starvation in their country.

Now imagine the number of Dutch who would die without the desperatly needed American aid. Also think about the mass starvation and dieases outbreaks in Western Germany without American aid. Also consider the desperate straights Japan will be in without American aid.

The scale of human suffering would eclipse what happened OTL.

Though on a positive note more scientests would flee to the US, so the US might end up with an even larger scientific edge it had over the Soviets OTL due to the French, Italian, Dutch, Belgian, German, maybe even English, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, and Norwgian scientests that would flee to the US to avoid the Communists. Heck maybe a few Spaniards, Swiss, and Portuguese should be included in that number since I doubt the Soviets would let any non-Communist state survive on a Soviet dominated European continent.

Heck ITTL you could get a Papacy that flees Communist opression and comes to the Americas, imagine that headline some time in the early 90's"Pope insert name here, first Pope to reside in the Vatican since the late 40's".
 
I wonder how the Reds react to Italians taking naps in the middle of the day.. I wonder if that was why they lost so many battles.
 
Howard looked at the telephone ringing on his desk in Culver City, California. A few months earlier, before his obsessive compulsive behavior had simply “gone away,” there’s no telling how he would have reacted. Instead, he leaned over and picked up the receiver. “This is Howard,” he said.

“Mr Hughes,” said the voice on the other end of the line, “This is President Truman. I want you to come to Washington so we can talk about what Hughes Aircraft can do to help us whip those commies.”

“Absolutely, Mr. President, but I want to bring a few of my smart fellers with me to this meeting. You already know Ed Teller, and I’ve just hired Simon Ramo and Dean Wooldridge to join the team. By the way, Hughes Aircraft is called "U.S. Atomic" now.”
 
Howard looked at the telephone ringing on his desk in Culver City, California. A few months earlier, before his obsessive compulsive behavior had simply “gone away,” there’s no telling how he would have reacted. Instead, he leaned over and picked up the receiver. “This is Howard,” he said.

“Mr Hughes,” said the voice on the other end of the line, “This is President Truman. I want you to come to Washington so we can talk about what Hughes Aircraft can do to help us whip those commies.”

“Absolutely, Mr. President, but I want to bring a few of my smart fellers with me to this meeting. You already know Ed Teller, and I’ve just hired Simon Ramo and Dean Wooldridge to join the team. By the way, Hughes Aircraft is called "U.S. Atomic" now.”
 
Needless to say, the bombs go off and Japan ends up surrendering pretty much as IOTL. Wallace sees his "show", then returns to Washington, but radiation poisioning kicks in during the return trip. After a brief hospitalization, Wallace dies, bringing his VP, Harry Truman, into office to face what we knew as the Cold War.
If Wallace had been the VP in 1945, and then President on the death of FDR--
The designated successor would have been the Secretary of State -Cordell Hull.
Wallace would not have a VP.

Now a Cordell Hull Presidency would be interesting.:cool:
 
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