WI: Wallace remains FDR's VP in '44

[Minpen]

In real life, Wallace, a staunch progressive who opposed the idea of a Cold War was the VP from 1941 until 1944, when an internal party coup replaced him with Truman. Personally, FDR liked Wallace better, and its very possible that at some point (either Truman failing to get FDR's support, or getting the support of FDR but not the convention) Truman's supporters could fail to put him as FDR's running mate.

What effect do you think this would have on post-war US-USSR relations, popular perception of the USSR, and the 1948 election?

 

[darklordoftech]

I think some of Wallace's views on the USSR in 1948 were as much a result of him being removed from the 1944 ticket as anything else.

 

[Historyman 14]

No one would like him.

I am serious. The Democratic Party and Democratic leadership heavily distrusted Wallace, seeing him as a 'apostate Republican' and a ' doe-eyed mystic'. (They boo the man in 1940, and some was even goign to on rebellion.) and the Republicans saw him as trusting the USSR too much.

The Department of Commerce did not like him over his goodwill tour of Latin America, and went to slave labor camps in Magadan and Kolyma, and believed that it was all volunteers, and put Siberia up next to New England!

 

[Fulton 44]

This is a key example of a relatively low visibility decision that may have had a major impact. I see FDR winning although by a smaller majority in 1944 with Wallace on the ticket. In 1945, Wallace tries to normalize things with the USSR and this is where we head into unchartered waters. Would Stalin have mellowed if lend lease had been continued and if he would participate in the Marshall Plan? Or would Stalin have simply rolled him and taken over Greece, grabbed land from Turkey and Iran? Would the Communist parties in France and/or Italy have been emboldened and taken over? Would the Republicans have won even bigger in 1946? Would the Dems have dumped him in 1948 and, if so, who would they have nominated? This is a very very powerful counterfactual which could have really produced a very different post war world.

 

[ennobee]

In real life, Wallace, a staunch progressive who opposed the idea of a Cold War was the VP from 1941 until 1944, when an internal party coup replaced him with Trumann...

... Of course, the ramifications being FDR still dies in 1945 and whoever is his VP at the time will become president at least until January 1948.

This being said, There is still a war with Japan going on when the VP takes office. I doubt that Wallace will do anything different then Truman. He will still give the go-ahead to drop the a-bombs and still stick mostly to FDR's script in dealing with postwar Europe. The Marshall plan will still go ahead and so will the United Nations.

After that. Even in being outspoken against the cold war, Stalin is still around and will impose Communist puppet regimes in all of the countries the Soviets liberated. So the situation in Europe, China and Korea will largely remain as OTL.

 

[Amadeus]

This has been done many, many times before so I'll try to keep my post as short as possible. Wallace started out as a typical liberal internationalist but this started to change in 1944 when Roosevelt got him out of the country by sending him on a foreign trip. During this trip the Soviets whitewashed their brutality and he came away with an inaccurate perception of the USSR. But even after that he was a vocal opponent of Communism and criticised both the Soviets and Western imperialists equally. It wasn't until Truman fired Wallace in 1946 that Wallace started to become outright pro Soviet. And after he lost in 1948 Wallace became an open anti Communist hawk, becoming a supporter of the Korean War and Richard Nixon. Had FDR decided to keep him on the ticket, Wallace wouldn't have made the fateful foreign trip and he would have remained in power as President from 1945-1949. So he'll make Truman's OTL decisions to contain Communism and create the Marshall Plan. However, Wallace was an extremely unskilled politician so he would lose to Dewey in 1948.

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

...Wallace ... was the VP from 1941 until 1944...

ITYM 1945, when his term ended. Or one could just say "during FDR's third term".

...when an internal party coup replaced him with Truman.

Said "coup" was executed by FDR, at the prompting of party VIPs who thought Wallace would be a drag on the ticket.

Personally, FDR liked Wallace better, and its very possible that at some point (either Truman failing to get FDR's support...

Truman didn't seek the nomination. He went to the convention expecting to make a nominating speech in support of Wallace. FDR phoned him to get his consent to be nominated.

... or getting the support of FDR but not the convention)...

It's ironic that in 1940, the convention balked at Wallace for VP, and FDR had to threaten to withdraw from nomination if he didn't get Wallace, while in 1944, Wallace was the initial favorite of the convention, and was dumped only by FDR's back-channel maneuvers.

Truman's supporters could fail to put him as FDR's running mate.

Truman had no supporters for his own sake; he was put forward as the best alternative to Wallace by those who were determined to remove Wallace. IOW, it wasn't that they wanted Truman in, it was that they wanted Wallace out, and picked Truman to replace him.

 

[DougM]

I have alwas thought that to those in power it was becoming obvious that FDR was in failing health and the traditional use of the VP slot to plug someone in that did little to nothing just to get them out of the way was going to be an issue.
If you anticipate the President stepping down then it is important to have a VP you would be happy with running the country. And in this case I alwas figured that was at least part of the reason Truman was put in as VP because many folks in power in the party did not like the idea of the current VP becoming President.

 

[Amadeus]

and the 1948 election?

Before 1948 we should talk about the midterms first. The Republicans did so well in 1946 in part because of Truman's crackdown on organized labor, which abandoned the Democrats and allowed the GOP to take the House by a landslide and narrowly assume control of the Senate. Wallace was staunchly pro-labor and labor was staunchly pro-Wallace, so labor would stay with the Democrats and possibly allow them to keep the Senate while still losing the House. With the Senate in Democratic hands, Wallace can't claim as Truman did that his hands are tied by a "do-nothing Congress" (which wasn't even a do-nothing Congress in OTL, in fact is was one of the most productive Congresses in US history). Truman's margin of victory in major swing states was very narrow and resulted partly from his ruthless attacks on the Congress. Had Dewey won CA, OH, and IL (which he certainly would against Wallace) then Dewey becomes President. But in addition to those three, Dewey would defeat Wallace in Iowa, Idaho, Wyoming, and Wisconsin. Given how hated Wallace was by the South, Dewey could also win Virginia. This gives him 307 electoral votes and thus the Presidency.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Truman had been a bit naieve towards the Soviet Union. He lost that after a few months of classified briefings & reports on reality. I suspect Wallace would have swiftly lost his naievty as well, in the same position as Truman.

 

[wcv215]

The thing is, FDR was a dead man walking by the end of his third term. Which means the Democrats know going in that whoever they select as VP is going to be president. They don't want a Wallace presidency, at all.

 

[Amadeus]

The thing is, FDR was a dead man walking by the end of his third term. Which means the Democrats know going in that whoever they select as VP is going to be president. They don't want a Wallace presidency, at all.

Instead of Wallace or Truman, the Democrats could have chosen liberal Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas - the longest serving member of the Court. According to FDR's Secretary Douglas was the President's first choice, but party bosses switched around his endorsement of "Bill Douglas or Harry Truman" to read "Harry Truman or Bill Douglas." Therefore Truman got the nod and became President. Without that switch, Douglas could end up being President. He was a staunch liberal like Wallace and civil libertarian, while also supporting an internationalist foreign policy. IMO he's the best person FDR could have chosen as a running mate that year.

 

[David T]

Before 1948 we should talk about the midterms first. The Republicans did so well in 1946 in part because of Truman's crackdown on organized labor, which abandoned the Democrats and allowed the GOP to take the House by a landslide and narrowly assume control of the Senate.

In 1946, organized labor was very unpopular in the US (even among some unionized workers!) because of the postwar strike wave. Although there certainly was some dissatisfaction with Truman among union leaders, the GOP landslide was due more to a belief that the Democrats were too soft on unions than that they were insufficiently supportive of them. The Republican slogan of 1946--"Had enough?"--referred very largely to the strike wave.

In spite of his tough response to the coal and railroad strikes, I do not think it would be fair to characterize Truman in 1946 as anti-union. He did after all veto the Case bill, a (milder) forerunner of Taft-Hartley. (It was before the 1946 election, so there were not yet quite enough votes in the House to override.)

FWIW, "A Gallup poll on June 1 showed that only 13 percent of those polled had a favorable opinion of [John L.] Lewis." http://cdmbuntu.lib.utah.edu/utils/getfile/collection/etd2/id/736/filename/792.pdf And by the way, Lewis could be as exasperating to Wallace (and FDR...) as he could be to Truman. As Secretary of Commerce at the time of the coal strike, Wallace advocated nationalization of the coal mines, not on "socialist" grounds but that as federal employees the miners would lose the right to strike! https://books.google.com/books?id=zZ6YqBm3O2wC&pg=PA285

 

[Amadeus]

As Secretary of Commerce at the time of the coal strike, Wallace advocated nationalization of the coal mines, not on "socialist" grounds but that as federal employees the miners would lose the right to strike!

If he tried such a thing he would be blocked by the Supreme Court similar to how Truman had been blocked from taking over steel in 1952. Further, he would be reviled by both sides of the political spectrum. The right would charge "socialism," labor would charge "fascism." He is most certainly out the White House door come January 20, 1949. (Which, in addition to reasons that I mentioned above, would have happened anyway given that Wallace was simply a poor politician. That's why he got kicked off the '44 ticket and was hated by Congress).