WI: President Henry Wallace

The scenario isn't that unbelievable. FDR dies in say, 1943 rather then 1945 and one of the most prominent members of the 20th century progressive-left in America becomes president. Certainly the party would have renominated him in '44 as the argument for not changing presidents in the middle of the countries biggest war was quite powerful. Moreover I think the coattails of being a war time president would also have pulled him in easily in the general electino of '44. Doubtlessly the effects would be deeply felt and chances are America would be a very different country today. However, specifically, two questions of the utmost importance to any scenario immediately arise.

Would Wallace have dropped the bomb?
Truman did and Truman always would have, most politicians of the time could be said the same of. Wallace, however, is not the same. He was a deeply moral man, very concerned by the loss of life in the war. The idea of him dropping the bomb on Japan seems very stretched to say the least. So then, if he doesn't drop it, what happens? Does the alleged punch-out, drag-out really occur, or does America still push forward relatively easily? Or, alternatively, do we find the mainland too difficult and thus resolve to leave imperial Japan with in tact if they agree to a few conditions? The international significance here is obvious.

An egalitarian America?
How much of his domestic agenda could Wallace have gotten through against a growing Conservative Coalition and moreover a relatively moderate core who didn't agree with much of his relative-radicalism. Two specifics differences here spring to mind. First, there would have been no Taft-Hartley Act, plain and simple. A President Wallace would never have signed any bill limiting the power of trade unions. As such, the CIO would never have collapsed and folded into the AFL and a more powerful, more radical labor movement would have come to prominence in the United States, an alternative which bears many effects of its own. On the civil rights front, would Wallace have been successful? He was notable in '48 when he ran as a progressive for involving a number of African-Americans in his campaign. As president could have shifted the debate 20 years earlier?


I look forward to your feedback and these two and any other issues.
 
Truman did veto Taft-Hartley. The Republicans had the votes to override the veto.

Not sure about the bomb. I'm inclined to think Wallace would have used it, but I'll defer to anyone with more knowledge of the man. He might have tried a "demonstration" shot before using it on a city, though.

Edit to Add: He would definitely have placed much more emphasis on finding a disarmament deal with the Soviet Union in 1946. There's even a (very) slim chance he might succeed. There's a better chance he would have convinced the western Europeans they can't rely on the US to protect them, which would have all sorts of unfortunate butterflies.
 
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I think Wallace, like Truman, would have been party to the intelligence which said that there was a pretty decent chance that Japan would just surrender. I agree on the whole demonstration thing.

But would Wallace move right while President? He did in the '50s IOTL obviously.
 
Wallace fully intended to make Atomic technology fully open to the public after the war, on the basis that "since any nation could concievably build them, why hide them?" I dread the consequences of such a mindset come a decade or so later.


 
Wallace fully intended to make Atomic technology fully open to the public after the war, on the basis that "since any nation could concievably build them, why hide them?" I dread the consequences of such a mindset come a decade or so later.

I doubt it would make much difference. The US IOTL released the Smyth report, which gave away the most important secrets, namely which enrichment techniques we'd used and the possibility of making plutonium in a graphite pile. The only additional secrets would be engineering details, and other countries can figure those out for themselves. It might speed up proliferation a little, but the fundamental limiting factors on proliferation have always been money and politics, not knowledge.
 
Wallace fully intended to make Atomic technology fully open to the public after the war, on the basis that "since any nation could conceivably build them, why hide them?" I dread the consequences of such a mindset come a decade or so later.



It'd be terrible when there's a labor dispute and the business and union are threatening to destroy each other with nuclear weapons.
 
I doubt it would make much difference. The US IOTL released the Smyth report, which gave away the most important secrets, namely which enrichment techniques we'd used and the possibility of making plutonium in a graphite pile. The only additional secrets would be engineering details, and other countries can figure those out for themselves. It might speed up proliferation a little, but the fundamental limiting factors on proliferation have always been money and politics, not knowledge.
In Modern Times yes, but at the time a lot of the work had to be done from scratch given how closely we guarded this information; the British and Canadians, who had jointly worked with us on the Manhattan Project, were barred from accessing any of the results, and thus had to start from scratch.

What Wallace was considering doing was essentially publishing the Manhattan Project for anyone in the academic world to access.
 
In Modern Times yes, but at the time a lot of the work had to be done from scratch given how closely we guarded this information; the British and Canadians, who had jointly worked with us on the Manhattan Project, were barred from accessing any of the results, and thus had to start from scratch.

What Wallace was considering doing was essentially publishing the Manhattan Project for anyone in the academic world to access.

I'm aware of that. I don't think it would make much difference. Maybe the UK would get a bomb a year or so earlier; who cares? The important question is, will anyone else get bombs that didn't get them IOTL? As far as I can tell, proliferation decisions have historically been made based on politics and economics, two factors that would not be measurably changed even by publishing complete bomb schematics. So I don't think it would make a significant difference.
 
As someone who prefers both Taft and Wallace to Truman, I don't like referring to them as dystopian.
Wallace himself didn't say if he would have dropped the bomb. He was briefed on it, and he was relieved that it worked.
 

Phyrx

Banned
Yes, we know it exists. :rolleyes:

I should start making sure to mention For All Time whenever Bob Taft comes up too. Or ask about either of them becoming President in any thread about Charles Manson or Jim Jones.
Well, it sounds like Lincoln hasn't heard of it. And it's a masterpiece, so, you know. Oh, man... if I were a teacher, For All Time would be required reading. Just saying.
 

JRScott

Banned
Wallace would of used the bomb, out of necessity. While he would have perhaps agonized over its use more, clearly the casualty estimates are lower for using the bomb than for invasion.

As for other changes in what may have happened, I'd have to study the man a bit more but I'm convinced he still would have used the bomb. It is possible he'd delay use of the bomb and even attempt an invasion but after the heavy costs of Operation Olympic it would probably have convinced him he had no choice.
 
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