WI: Roosevelt doesn't run in 1944

Best way for this to happen is FDR dying somehow, which means for at least for a few months (vomits), President Wallace. I think a Byrnes/Lucas ticket would satisfy most Democrats.
 
FDR dying of a heart attack any time in his third term was imminent, congestive heart failure exacerbated by exhaustion, stress, smoking, polio, age, diet, etc.. Thomas Fleming in "The New Dealer's War" found he was lucid and functional often only an hour or two a day by 1943 with noticeably diminishing memory, mental acuity, ability to focus on what he was reading or hearing, etc... Jimmy Byrnes, titularly the Postmaster General, is pretty well the acting President but has no standing to step in with FDR's death (but a concealed disability, he's in the role of Colonel House with Wilson after Wilson's stroke or for us classicists, what Frank Langella's character was doing in the comedy "Dave.") Henry Wallace gets a bad rap. He was a Republican before joining FDR's cabinet, his father had been Secretary of Ag during the Republican administrations in the 1920's and his grandfather a close ally of Theodore Roosevelt. He appeared liberal in the old style of being genuinely interested in most people, from working on Latin American and rural U.S. economic development, curing rickets in the South, and making influential speeches and articles for the common man that are more Four Freedoms than the competing ideologies. He was already pushing creation of the United Nations and had done a lot of the diplomatic work in Latin America, while also having toured Russia (duped there with Potemkin Villages to an unknown extent, fooling a top farming expert about Russian farm collectives' effectiveness would be very difficult. No President before (other than John Quincy Adams who'd been ambassador there) or since had as much knowledge of Russia as Wallace which seems like it'd be kinda handy in the postwar world as well as the race for Berlin.

He'd also been sitting in on the Manhattan Project top team, chasing all of the natural resources inputs for the war effort, etc. so actually better prepared than Truman or Byrnes (political hack) to step in.

Given some time as President (VP from 1940-, Sec. of Ag 1932-1940, Sec of Commerce after VP-that's a pretty distinguished record few have had) I think Wallace would have had a good shot at the 1944 election.

Wendell Wilkie was over. Nothing much to run on left other than China policy and his 2 time campaign manager Albert Lasker from Lord & Thomas Advertising in Chicago had retired in 1942 from most things...and Lasker was a major factor in the credibility of Wilkie's campaigns.

General George Marshall wouldn't run and was still busy running the war as the only Allied leader in the same job from 1939-1945. Eisenhower might well have picked up a cabinet job after the war as his older brother Milton had been Wallace's right hand man at USDA for 8 years and was considered the smarter, more accomplished of the 5 Eisenhower brothers (my aunt's descended from one of them.)

Dewey in 44, maybe and much stronger against Wallace than FDR, but maybe someone else runs on the Republican side (maybe that's MacArthur, pickings for national figures are slim as the minority party for 12 years now in '44.)

Wallace had a very clean private life, J. Edgar Hoover would have lacked leverage there just as he would have with Tom Dewey, and I think either man would have been no-nonsense towards the quite nonsensical Hoover and Wild Bill Donovan, which'd be thousands of butterflies in itself.
 
Hard to Say

Unlike 1940, when FDR played coy about whether he would seek a 3rd term and encouraged both James Farley--FDR's former campaign manager, Postmaster General, and National & NY Democratic Party leader--and Secretary of State Cordell Hull to run before pulling the carpet out from underneath them at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that July, FDR was clearly running for re-election in 1944. Only his death or a sudden debilitating health issue would have kept FDR from winning the Democratic nomination in July of 1944, six weeks after the D-Day invasion of France.

FDR's death before the 1944 convention would have likely meant that now-President Henry Wallace would be the Democratic nominee, probably with a southerner or border-stater as his runnng mate (Jimmy Byrnes of S.C.; Gov. J. Melville Brougton of N.C.; Sen. John Bankhead of AL; Sen. Harry Truman of MO; or Sen. Alben Barkley of KY). With World War II entering its critical stages with the invasion of occuppied Europe and the island-hopping campign nearing Japan, it is difficult to see a sitting President being ousted by his own party. Wallace would have surely used the offer of the vice-presidency to stave off potential rivals, and his selection of Byrnes or Barkley or Truman would have been reassuring to southerners and party-regulars. Given that WWII was still raging, it is difficult to see a general or admiral being nominated at that time (unlike in 1948 or 1952).

FDR's incapacitation (probably from a heart attack or stroke) and resulting difficult decision not to run again in the spring or early summer of 1944 would likely have created something of a free-for-all at the convention and possibly a compromise candidate. Southerners and many party-regulars opposed the eccentric liberal VP Henry Wallace, whom they denied renomination as vice-president. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, a former Congressman and Senator from TN, was 72 years-old and in poor health himself; liberals and labor opposed Jimmy Byrnes of SC as too conservative and the northern big-city Democratic machines opposed him as a Catholic-turned-Episcopalian; most other southerners would also be unacceptable to liberals and labor as too conservative and segregationist.

Senate Majority Leader Alban Barkley of KY or Senator Harry Truman of MO could well have emerged as the compromise Democratic presidential nominee in 1944. Northerners such as Sen. Scott Lucas of IL and James F. Farley of New York were also possibilities, although Farley's Catholic religion and failure to ever hold a statewide elective office would have posed problems for him. Barkley and Lucas would have had to risk their U.S. Senate seats, as both were up for re-election in 1944. A clear expression of a preference by FDR himself, assuming he was lucid enough to make his views known, could have made the difference.
 
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Truman was not well known and had no White House aspirations in 1944.

He was well known, and like Lucas and Barkeley, appealed to multiple parts of the party.

But honestly, FDR needs to die for this to happen, so Wallace gets it.
Hmmm...while I prefer Wallace, would Dewey get the US into NATO? Would Dewey fire Hoover? (Dewey actually tried fighting the Mob...)

Yes, and no. Dewey and Hoover were friends, and Dewey was going to make Hoover Attorney General, then Supreme Court Justice.
 
Seriously though, I think that TL seriously overestimated just how crappy such a scenario would turn out, I doubt that Wallace would make such radical moves while in office.

Some of the New Deal and Civil Rights stuff is plausible, as is worsening relations with the British (although not to the same ridiculous extent), inviting the Soviets to take part in the Manhattan Project is pure fantasy, a military coup is more likely.
 
He was well known, and like Lucas and Barkeley, appealed to multiple parts of the party.

But honestly, FDR needs to die for this to happen, so Wallace gets it.


Yes, and no. Dewey and Hoover were friends, and Dewey was going to make Hoover Attorney General, then Supreme Court Justice.

As I've stated in my own TL, I have a feeling that the Dewey-Hoover relationship would break down very soon after the two begin to work together. Most likely Dewey drags his heels on putting Hoover in the Court, and Hoover leaves the administration in a huff after a few years. In any case, Hoover as AG is going to be a replay of Palmer come war's end.
And as to NATO, yes, Dewey would have joined. In OTL he wanted to create a pacific organization modeled on NATO, and an extension of the Marshall plan to that region as well. Although not an avowed internationalist, he had moved out of the isolationist camp by this point.
 
Apart from Wallace's mysticism, he doesn't have anything blackmailable. (Hoover would likely not use that...though commentators would and did...)
There's a story of how he was in Denver (or somewhere out west), and going to a lunch with a friend, when a prostitute came up to them, and was attempting to get them to use her services. Wallace's reply was simple, "Maria Magdalena, adios." His friend was a bit more forceful...
Had his mysticism been brought up by commentators, Democrats would likely have brought up Willkie's extramarital relationship.
 
Jimmy Byrnes, titularly the Postmaster General...
Byrnes was never Postmaster General. During the War, he was head of the Economic Stabilization Office, and the Office of War Mobilization. He had great influence and broad authority (he was dubbed the "Assistant President") but he didn't control access to FDR, unlike House.

Henry Wallace gets a bad rap.
He was too liberal for most of the Democrats. And there is no evidence that he wasn't fooled by Soviet Potemkinizing during his visits, or that he had any real understanding of the Soviet system.

Wendell Wilkie was over.
Wendell Willkie is dead. Well, he died in October 1944.
 
Not Wallace

Apart from Wallace's mysticism, he doesn't have anything blackmailable.

There's one big black mark against Wallace that was not revealed to the public for many years.

Wallace's sister was married to the Swiss ambassador to the United States.

Wallace told his brother-in-law a lot of things he shouldn't. The Ambassador was pro-American, but he reported everything to his government. The Germans had an agent in the mailroom of the Swiss foreign ministry, and had cracked the Swiss diplomatic cipher. So everything Wallace spilled to his brother-in-law went to the Germans.

Fortunately, this intelligence ended up being ignored due to infighting among the Nazi intelligence bosses.

This was definitely known to the US after the war; it may have been discovered during the war, and IIRC it was.
 
Korea? Why?

Dewey goes down as the President who won the war, orchestrated the peace, but got sucked into Korea.

Why do you assume there would be a Korean War?

Dewey would manage the end of the war differently, and might not give the USSR an occupation zone in Korea.

Or he might have a different China policy that averts Mao's triumph. Or Dewey might go down as the President who got the US sucked into China and get thrown out in 1948.

Almost certainly there could be major differences in post-war Europe events, such as the Berlin Crisis, which could deter Kim from invading the South. (Not directly, but he wouldn't do it if Stalin told him not to.)
 
As I've stated in my own TL, I have a feeling that the Dewey-Hoover relationship would break down very soon after the two begin to work together. Most likely Dewey drags his heels on putting Hoover in the Court, and Hoover leaves the administration in a huff after a few years. In any case, Hoover as AG is going to be a replay of Palmer come war's end.
And as to NATO, yes, Dewey would have joined. In OTL he wanted to create a pacific organization modeled on NATO, and an extension of the Marshall plan to that region as well. Although not an avowed internationalist, he had moved out of the isolationist camp by this point.
I'm not sure. Hoover is still very powerful, and Dewey didn't like Moses either, but lived with his power. Dewey and Hoover were friends at first, though I could see them becoming "friends" by his term's end.

He was too liberal for most of the Democrats.
Not true. Wallace was too liberal for some influential interest groups, but he was more popular within the actual Party than was realized even at the time. His supporters nearly pulled an upset on Truman to keep the nomination in 1944. And Roosevelt won't run in '44 for one reason: He's dead, and the Democrats aren't going to kick out a wartime President.
 
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