The Wallace Affair

JohnJacques

Banned
Chapter I: Northern Shambhalla

“I have been thinking of you holding the casket- the sacred, most precious casket. And I have thought of the New Country going forth to meet the seven stars and under the sign of the three stars. And I have thought of the admonition 'Await the Stone.' We await the Stone and we welcome you again to this glorious land of destiny. We think of the people of Northern Shambhalla and the hastening feet of the successor of Buddha and the Lightning flashes and the breaking of the New Day."

August 1, 1940

Henry Agard Wallace. The new Vice President now that Cactus Jack had been booted off the ticket. A liberal and a weird one at that. A lot for the press to dig into. In fact, they'd already begun. Mencken could smell it in the air.

The Hearst man didn't even wait for Henry to ask for questions. He just yelled his question across the press room. "Mr. Wallace, do you repudiate the Guru letters?" The Hearst man grinned as Henry Wallace did much the opposite. Mencken pricked his ears up.

"I won't talk to a Hearst stooge." Funny, Mencken thought, Iowans are usually nicer.

"So you won't say if these letters are real?"

"You're a Hearst stooge."

Mencken could already see the mistakes. He was letting this hack get him worked up.

"You won't repudiate your occult fascination, Mr. Wallace?" Another Hearst man, of course.

"I won't talk to a Hearst stooge." Wallace just shook his head and looked down to his podium. He hadn't expected this. He wasn't much of a politician. More of a dreamer. Probably what got him in trouble. Everyone in the press room could spell blood. Everyone jumped in on him.

A chorus of "You won't say-!" Wallace looked up from his podium, suddenly alight with some passion.

"I won't say anything of the sort! What I will say is this: American fascism won't have jackboots, it will have the typewriter! It will come in the shape of men like you!" The room wasn't really silent for that, but the sheer power of the man on stage seemed to muffle everyone else. Finally, Mencken raised his head above the crowd. The Sage of Baltimore was standing and everyone noticed it.

"Am I a stooge or a fascist, Mr. Wallace?"

The power was gone, and Wallace loosened up. Still looked as if he was about to die.

"No, I wouldn't consider you anybody's stooge."

"Now, Mr. Wallace we've all written love letters to make us blush in more sober times......Do you repudiate the letters the stooges refer to, Mr. Wallace?" Mr. Wallace looked to show some anger for a moment. An imbecile hard even to fathom...... just say yes or no and make it a story in the margins....... Wallace grinned, for God knows what reason. "I will handle that in my own time."

---------------------------

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Edward J. Flynn and Stephen Early sat in the smoking room of the White House residence. There was only a lone light in the room as they waited silently for the guest. Then in came the Iowan, his heavy, dull footsteps letting them know his approach. Early and Flynn turned towards him as he walked in.

"Mr. Wallace." Roosevelt didn't move from his chair, didn't pause in his smoking, didn't move to look at his running mate. "Do you know why you're here?"

Henry Wallace shook his head and said no. That word hung in the air for a minute as Roosevelt twirled the smoke from his cigar before him.

Roosevelt spun in his chair with a cruel look on his normally gentle features. "You don't know! You don't know! Just shows you're too much of a damn fool to have even ended up here!" Wallace leaned back, shocked to see Roosevelt so.... perturbed, especially towards him.

"Ed, tell Mr. Wallace why he is here."

Flynn was the head of the Democratic National Committee, another New Yorker just like FDR. "Mr. Wallace, you are being asked to resign as the Democratic nominee for the vice-presidency of the United States."

"Why?" Wallace said, with an innocent, idiotic look on his face. Roosevelt tried to stand at that but quickly sat back down, red faced from anger and the effort. "Why, Mr. Wallace? Because you're a damned fool, thats why. D'you know who I just got off the telephone with?" Roosevelt didn't let him respond, his cigar almost falling from his mouth. "Of course you don't, you're too much of a damned fool!"

Early cut in over the president. "George Gallup. He says we lost five points against that barefoot lawyer. Says we'll lose even more when the man rants about it. Maybe lose more after that if the mustache gets hold of it too. All because of you."

Wallace took that in for a moment. They can't get rid of me, I have the liberals, I have the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, I have the students and the..... "You need me on the ticket and- Labor won't stand for Garner." Wallace said reflexively.

"Who ever said anything about Garner?" Roosevelt smiled. If John Nance Garner opened his mouth over this...... "Now keep your mouth shut, Wallace. You are going to resign tomorrow, as nominee and Secretary and you are going to hightail it out of Washington if you ever want a job in this country again."

"Who's replacing me, Mr. President?"

"It doesn't matter, Wallace. You're out."

"I have a right to-" Roosevelt leaned forward to interrupt. "You have no rights in my party or my administration, Mr. Wallace. You serve at my discretion. Now, get out and go."

Wallace stood up, tears nearly in his eyes. He wasn't a politician, that was for sure. How did Roosevelt not realize that earlier?

After he left the room, Flynn turned to the President. "So who's replacing him?" Roosevelt gave a smile.

"I don't know. Maybe John Nance Garner." Edward Flynn hoped that was a joke.

-----------

"Clyde..... you're the only man I can trust in these matters." J. Edgar Hoover tousled his hair and fidgeted behind his desk. "You know what we've had the boys doing, right?"

"Yeah, John." Clyde Tolson just stared at his boss's desk- his alter ego's desk. Hoover got up from his desk, pulling his chair out abruptly, and began to pace. "I know Tom Dewey. I like Tom Dewey."

"I know, John."

"He asked me to do this." Hoover let out a long sighing breath. "Its only a security policy. If Roosevelt pulls it dirty, I have enough for Dewey to get dirty too."

Hoover strolled over to his desk and sat down again. "I don't care if I'm caught. Roosevelt can't fire me. Or you, Clyde."

Or me. Clyde noticed that he was only an afterthought. Thats what he was to J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI. An afterthought.
 
How did my failed format post get more attention?

because those are fun/funny free for all's.

any way, if this is going into Republican TL.... well God needs to show up and tell the world that FDR is the devil. all so Tom Dewey run in 1944 not 1940, '40 was Wendell Willkie, who may of been the kind of Guy Hoover liked but not in public
 

JohnJacques

Banned
I'm making the election of 1940 dirtier. Thats the only effect you've got so far.

And I know Tom Dewey was running in '44. However, guess who tried for the VP spot under Willkie? And guess who I give it to?

"He says we lost five points against that barefoot lawyer. Says we'll lose even more when the man rants about it. Maybe lose more after that if the mustache gets hold of it too."

Note that Willkie was known as "the barefoot lawyer" by FDR and Dewey, before he became the "little man on the wedding cake";, was often simply called "the mustache."

Secondly, you know little about Willkie. He was a pretty progressive Republican (he had been a Democrat) and initial polling had him running just a bit below FDR. He had a lot of inertia coming out (FDR refused to debate him because he thought even if he won the debate, Willkie would get a bump) and he ran a very energetic campaign. Only after FDR decided he had to campaign against him and did so forcefully did Wendell Willkie get to the final result.

Not that I'm saying who'll win, mind you. But an Eagleton-esque affair right out of the gate is going to affect the election and is definitely going to affect FDR.

The Hoover bit, BTW, is something Dewey did when it was his ticket, in '44 and '48. Also, the "Guru letters" were held by the RNC chair in OTL 1940, but were not released because Willkie said not to. Tom Dewey, always energetic, goes behind his bosses back.
 
you think to much of Dewey i think, this is the man that lost in 1948 to Truman, with the Dems split 3 ways, and Truman one of the least popular people in the US, and Dewey lost.

Yes if they're any one to beat FDR it is Willkie but Willkie couldn't do it, he losed by 5,000,000 votes, couldn't take his home state or his OTL running mate, and in those day the VP was real small fry, few people cared, (Truman any one?) the fact FDR could put Wallace up in the first place is proof of that
 

JohnJacques

Banned
you think to much of Dewey i think, this is the man that lost in 1948 to Truman, with the Dems split 3 ways, and Truman one of the least popular people in the US, and Dewey lost.

Yes if they're any one to beat FDR it is Willkie but Willkie couldn't do it, he losed by 5,000,000 votes, couldn't take his home state or his OTL running mate, and in those day the VP was real small fry, few people cared, (Truman any one?) the fact FDR could put Wallace up in the first place is proof of that

Wallace was an attempt to soothe labor, which had come to despise Garner. Having a VP resign over letters of the occult in the 1940s is going to have an effect. The Roerich stuff is even further out there. And there will be effects. He's going to have a different- and far more important VP- for one. Besides which, FDR had just snubbed a pretty big politico (John Nance Garner) for the novice Wallace and had it blow up in his face. Willkie was running close in August IOTL, and if anything, its going to make it a closer race. BTW, Willkie did take his home state (Indiana).

Now then, as for Thomas Dewey, you're right. He did fail in 1948. (Truman's unpopularity is overstated though) But only on the recent advice of his new campaign advisers for that year. In 1944, when he didn't have a snowball's chance what with WW2, he did better than Willkie and ran a pretty big campaign. I think Dewey c. 1940 vs. Willkie's non-entity VP will again, have an effect. Especially because of some of the things Dewey did in his elections (like, use the FBI for oppo)

I love how you are criticizing a Willkie win when I haven't stated that is how it will go. I've made 1940 tougher for FDR. Its still tougher for Willkie.
 
Willike was/had lived in New York for 11 years at the time of the run, but you're right he did take his birth state of Indiana (i tend to think of were some lives as home)

any way, i'm a lover of FDR, so it's my job to crush the heresy of a Hoover/Landon/Willkie/Dewey win before it can start, any way you write nicely and i look forwerd to more, i love any thing with JE Hoover :D he was one weird Queen, though i doubt that at this point he had the balls to play hard ball with FDR.
 

JohnJacques

Banned
Willike was/had lived in New York for 11 years at the time of the run, but you're right he did take his birth state of Indiana (i tend to think of were some lives as home)

any way, i'm a lover of FDR, so it's my job to crush the heresy of a Hoover/Landon/Willkie/Dewey win before it can start, any way you write nicely and i look forwerd to more, i love any thing with JE Hoover :D he was one weird Queen, though i doubt that at this point he had the balls to play hard ball with FDR.

I'm a lover of FDR, truth be told. But anyways, Willkie campaigned as if Indiana was his home state (and he's registered there for the terms of TTL) and the Democrats campaigned as if it was his home state.

One Democratic pamphlet identified his town of Elwood, Indiana as a backwards, rural town, where signs said: "Negro, don't let the sun come down on you." And all over Indiana you could find pamphlets showing his father's ramshackle grave, just outside of Elwood.
 
ok point taken. any write more, if FDR gets to stamp flat that SOB J.E. Hoover for what ever he does it'll make me a happy man :)
 
I don't think that FDR would be so rude to Wallace. Wallace had been his Secretary of Agriculture for over seven years. FDR also shouldn't have been so upset about the Roerich letters since he allowed Wallace to lobby Congress to support the Roerich Pact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roerich_Pact

Also, the reason the Republicans didn't publicize the Roerich letter was the Democrats threatened to release information about an alleged extramarital affair by Wilkie. Wallace was also very popular in the farm states.
 

JohnJacques

Banned
I don't think that FDR would be so rude to Wallace. Wallace had been his Secretary of Agriculture for over seven years. FDR also shouldn't have been so upset about the Roerich letters since he allowed Wallace to lobby Congress to support the Roerich Pact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roerich_Pact

Also, the reason the Republicans didn't publicize the Roerich letter was the Democrats threatened to release information about an alleged extramarital affair by Wilkie. Wallace was also very popular in the farm states.

I tend to disagree. FDR put Wallace on the ticket before he knew the Republicans had the Roerich letter. Afterwards, he made a deal with Willkie's campaign about the Irita affair. Really, Willkie was wrong in holding back an attack like that (and the Republican treasurer, who had the letters, thought so) Thomas Dewey thinks so too, and as the VP chosen by the convention (the POD) goes behind Willkie's back.

I think that it would have been a big enough deal for FDR to have to boot him. There are not just the creepy, esoteric letters, no, there is the Roerich Pact (isolationist Republicans can have a field day with that), the coded letters about diplomacy, Roerich's government funded missions to Central Asia and Wallace's bad handling of the matter. (Mencken's comments above are essentially copied from his own coverage of the Guru letters in 1948) If there is a drop in a race that tight that early, then FDR has to get rid of him. And he had no problems getting rid of him on party leader advice in 1944.

Had more people been aware of Wallace's occult connections, it would have hurt him. Especially seeing as how he didn't disavow them to the press, or say they were a mistake.
 
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