'44 Vice Presidential pick haunts cause of peace 82 years on
May 8 marked 81 years since Victory in Europe Day. That victory kicked off the 46 year long Cold War against our great WWII ally Soviet Union (now Russia) underpinned by the NATO alliance.
Sadly, the 1991 end of the Soviet Union didn't spell the end to NATO and full economic and political integration with a now harmless Russia. Just the opposite. It spurred NATO expansion thru former Soviet satellites right up to Russia's borders to weaken Russia and isolate it from the European political economy. America decided to use its sole superpower supremacy to keep Russia subservient forever. What good is a trillion dollar military, the world’s largest, if you do not have a monstrous enemy to justify it?
But proposed NATO expansion in Ukraine beginning in 2008 was an existential threat too far for Russia who worked assiduously for 14 years to prevent it. When the Biden administration rejected Russia's pleas out of hand, Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Nearly five years on, Ukraine is near collapse. The US, bogged down in its lost war against Iran, has largely bowed out. Europe remains bellicose in Ukraine's defense but has neither the weapons nor money to mount any defense that will save Ukraine from defeat. In fact, European nations face economic ruin and domestic chaos themselves flushing hundreds of billions of Euros into a lost cause while constituents go without.
This Cold war, now hot war history might have been avoided except for arguably the worst vice presidential pick in American history.
Every American today knows about Harry Truman but few know his vice presidential predecessor Henry Wallace. Wallace, a great 20th century American visionary, was shoved out of the vice presidency in 1944, denying him the presidency upon the imminent death of FDR, and changing America and the world for the worse.
Henry Wallace has been largely written out of the American Story told to succeeding generations of Americans by the protectors of the American Super Power Myth.
Born in 1888 to an affluent Iowa Republican farm family, Wallace increased family wealth with his Hi-Bred Corn Company. But the Depression turned Wallace into a zealous champion of the common man, landing him the Secretary of Agriculture post in FDR's first term. Possibly the most effective New Dealer, Wallace championed the broken American farmer using curtailed production and price supports to ameliorate rampant rural poverty. His unbridled Bernie Sanders like democratic socialism of the 30's garnered him FDR's reverence and the 1940 third term vice presidency.
Wallace transformed the vice presidency for the good, long before Dick Cheney transformed it for evil. FDR made him what journalists tabbed the 'Assistant President' in his role mobilizing war production during WWII and championing FDR's vision for a truly peaceful post WWII world working in partnership with critical war ally Russia and seeking end of European colonialism in Asia and Africa.
In 1942 he gave his famous "Common Man" speech, declaring the 20th century must celebrate the common man, not just, as Time publisher Henry Luce pompously postured, the American Century. In 1943, he joined with the black community following the Detroit race riot, arguing "We cannot crush Nazi brutality abroad and condone race riots at home."
His near FDR like popularity made him a lock for VP again on the '44 Democratic ticket. But with FDR fading mentally and physically, party leaders saw opportunity to dump him for a successor who wouldn't rock the boat. Wallace's peace proclivities threatened their continuation of a war economy to combat their imaginary new Hitler in the form of Joseph Stalin.
They closed the late night convention session on the brink of re-nominating Wallace for a second term. That garnered time to make deals with the other candidates to move the pliant Harry Truman from last to first in the final VP tally.
Three months into term four FDR died, thrusting Truman into the presidency for which he was woefully unprepared on foreign affairs. This set the stage for the Cold War due to Truman's capitulation to the conservative Russophobes of his day such as James Byrnes and Jimmy Forestall who demanded a fresh enemy to keep the emerging Military-Industrial Complex in business. The chance for a truly peaceful post WWII world with the Soviet Union was irrevocably lost.
The hardliners won out over Wallace, but undaunted he launched a 3rd party progressive campaign in 1948 to unseat Truman. The McCarthyite red smears and personal attacks on his progressive philosophy doomed him to just 3% of the '48 vote, ending his career. Also ended was any opportunity for America to retreat from senseless Cold War that haunts us till today with the hot war destroying Ukraine and senseless Russophobia back in fashion.
At the Democratic Convention in 1944 Henry Wallace deserved better. America deserved better. The world deserved better.
Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL
