Which OTL Vice-President Would Have Made The Worst President?

I think Wallace gets a bad rap, his heart was in the right place even if many of his schemes were unworkable.
 
I think Wallace gets a bad rap, his heart was in the right place even if many of his schemes were unworkable.

Well, the Jacobin's hearts were in the right place too, at least before the Terror. Intentions don't get you anywhere. Anyways, he probably would have been a better Ag Secretary than a President. Actually, he might have made quite a good Ag Secretary.
 
Well, the Jacobin's hearts were in the right place too, at least before the Terror. Intentions don't get you anywhere. Anyways, he probably would have been a better Ag Secretary than a President. Actually, he might have made quite a good Ag Secretary.

He had modern views but was sort of trapped in the past so became paranoid about it. At least that's my theory. :p
 
From my Rating the Alternate Presidents

Spiro T Agnew

Rating: Failure

Party: Republican

Time in Office: April 11, 1972 - October 10, 1973.

Two scandals dominate the legacy of President Spiro T Agnew. After the hearings of the House Judiciary Committee established the credibility of reports that as Baltimore County Executive and Governor of Maryland, Agnew had accepted kick backs and neglected to pay taxes on the bribes, Agnew was forced to resign or face certain impeachment and removal. After he left office, the White House tapes that Agnew had unsuccessfully tried to conceal, showed that he had ordered the CIA to help cover up the Watergate Break burglary. Association with Agnew doomed the political fortunes of his successor Nelson Rockefeller, whose pardon of Agnew proved unpopular.
Agnew's two felonies overshadow the foreign policies triumphs of his administration: The SALT I treaty, that Agnew signed in Moscow in june 1972 and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. Agnew gets very little credit for either accomplishment. Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon are seen as the primary architects of the Treaty and Kissinger negotiated the cease fire in Vietnam that allowed the American forces to withdraw. Even Kissinger no longer wins praise for the false end of the Vietnam war. The cease fire did not last long and the renewed war led to the defeat of American ally South Vietnam.
There was also another notable ineffective initiative of the Agnew administration, the so called Berger Commission. This blue ribbon panel. chaired by Chief Justice Warren Berger, that investigated the assassination of President Richard Nixon found determined critics of its findings that assassin Arthur Bremer acted alone. Just as in the case of the murder of John Kennedy lack of evidence did not stop conspiracy theorists. Certain cynics have trouble with the concept that angry pathetic losers like Bremer and Lee Harvey Oswald can change history without help.
 
Wallace would have a better chance of averting a Cold War then Truman did because he wouldn't have made such blunders as canceling Lend Lease to Russia after VE Day or refusing the Soviet request for a loan to help rebuild the their country.

#1. These weren't blunders. Why in the world would we continue to send Lend Lease to a country that was openly hostile to us?
#2. It was the Soviets who turned down inclusion in the Marshall Plan. Guess they didn't want the US to be able to have a financial say in their expansionism. Hmmm.


Wallace was never a Soviet apologist or advocated appeasement towards the Soviets.

That's flat out not true, as has already been shown in this thread.

He criticized the Soviet Union on several occasions, and only thought that serious negotiations and give and take would be the only way to prevent a third world war.

And clearly, he was wrong, wasn't he?

Such negotiations under a Wallace Presidency, would have been no different from the negotiations that took place between Nixon and Brezhnev and Reagan and Gorbachev.

Brezhnev and Gorbachev were not Joseph Stalin - they actually wanted to avoid conflict, unlike Stalin, who just flat out didn't care.
 
Well, the Jacobin's hearts were in the right place too, at least before the Terror. Intentions don't get you anywhere. Anyways, he probably would have been a better Ag Secretary than a President. Actually, he might have made quite a good Ag Secretary.


Truman was the one who started a terror with the loyalty oaths that helped to lead to McCarthyism.
 
#1. These weren't blunders. Why in the world would we continue to send Lend Lease to a country that was openly hostile to us?




That's flat out not true, as has already been shown in this thread.

At the time the Soviet Union had already agreed to enter the war against Japan and had suffered the most damage fighting with the U.S. against Nazi Germany. He provided a link to the transcript of Wallaces Madison Square Garden speech in which he criticized Trumans get tough foreign policy. He criticizes the Soviet Union several times.
 
Yikes! That's gonna be a Very Tough first week in office for Rockefeller
(at least it's not Carl Albert or Jim Eastland taking the wheel...).

Carl (if SOME one could keep the booze away from him) would do ok, if he was drunk as a sunk (like Nixon was in OTL) Kissinger would run the US's response to the Yom Kippur War, Eastland..... :eek: wonder who he hates more, Jews or the Arabs, likely be forced to to save Israel and we all dead because Eastland over steps and nuclear war breaks out :eek:
 
Albert, in addition to being an alcoholic, was also corrupt: that's why he was forced from office and replaced by Tip O'Neill in '74 IOTL.
 
Still, keeping him away from alcohol is ASB. When someone has a deep craving they will find it somehow. Besides, all he has to do is order one of his military aides to bring him a bottle: they cannot refuse. Or he could be as resourceful about alcohol as Jack Kennedy was about sex, going down to the kitchen pantry with a flashlight at 3 AM... :p
 
At the time the Soviet Union had already agreed to enter the war against Japan and had suffered the most damage fighting with the U.S. against Nazi Germany.

So it's up to us to rebuild them, for free? I think not. We did offer to include the Soviets in the Marshall Program, and they turned us down. Any guesses as to why?

He provided a link to the transcript of Wallaces Madison Square Garden speech in which he criticized Trumans get tough foreign policy. He criticizes the Soviet Union several times.

Yes, I understand he criticized the Soviet Union. However, a POTUS who was openly friendly with Stalinst Russia, who was so naive as to buy the NKVD's Potemkin Village deception in 1943, and who was openly critical of a foreign policy designed to hold the Soviet's accountable for their actions certainly qualifies him as one of the worst potential Vice POTUSs-turned-POTUS in American history, at least in my view.

This could rapidly turn into a political discussion, though - on some level, those on the political left are going to feel differently about Wallace than those on the political right, even if both sides stipulate the facts. This probably isn't the place for such a discussion. I'll just point out that a more accommodating foreign policy vis a vis the Soviet Union would certainly have resulted in a far stronger Soviet Union in the long run, and likely more hardliners in power following Stalin. Is that something we would have wanted to see?
 
Still, keeping him away from alcohol is ASB. When someone has a deep craving they will find it somehow. Besides, all he has to do is order one of his military aides to bring him a bottle: they cannot refuse. Or he could be as resourceful about alcohol as Jack Kennedy was about sex, going down to the kitchen pantry with a flashlight at 3 AM... :p

oh well, then it's Kissinger runs things till Albert picks a VP and steps down, so what Republic would he pick.... and would he pull a Blagojevich and sell the Presidency?
 
IOTL Nixon had a shortlist of four: Rocky, Reagan, GHWB and Ford. Albert won't be smart enough to start a GOP mini-civil war by picking Rocky, but Ford is the most easily confirmable because everyone likes him on both sides of the aisle. I've always wondered about a President Reagan in '74 or dare I say a POTUS Poppy Bush in '74. :p
 
Albert, in addition to being an alcoholic, was also corrupt: that's why he was forced from office and replaced by Tip O'Neill in '74 IOTL.

When was there a corruption scandal involving Albert? iIRC Albert retired voluntarily in 1976 after thirty years in congress. O Neil took over in 1977.
k
 
Albert, in addition to being an alcoholic, was also corrupt: that's why he was forced from office and replaced by Tip O'Neill in '74 IOTL.

Yikes! That's gonna be a Very Tough first week in office for Rockefeller
(at least it's not Carl Albert or Jim Eastland taking the wheel...).
I think he gets public support,although he wouldn"t enjoy the same degree of public support that Ford did
 
I hope Rockefeller has a speecwriter who could think of the your long national nightmare is over line. Of course the nightmare would not have been over.The Watergate investigation had a long way to go
 
IOTL Nixon had a shortlist of four: Rocky, Reagan, GHWB and Ford. Albert won't be smart enough to start a GOP mini-civil war by picking Rocky, but Ford is the most easily confirmable because everyone likes him on both sides of the aisle. I've always wondered about a President Reagan in '74 or dare I say a POTUS Poppy Bush in '74. :p

with Nixon dead (and smeared) and Agnew doing jailable things, and Albert drunkenly stepping down after a few weeks, there'd be a need from uniting leadership, if Albert cared (big if) maybe picking Warren E. Burger?
 
Top