Date of Award

5-14-1993

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Arts (DA)

Department

History

First Advisor

Richard E. Beringer

Abstract

Henry Agar Wallace (1888-1965), a native of Iowa, served as Franklin D. Roosevelt's Secretary of Agriculture from 1933 to 1941 and as Vice President of the United States from 1941 to 1945. FDR personally liked and trusted Wallace and made Wallace his liaison with the very small committee that set top policy for building of the first atomic bomb. Nevertheless, the Democratic National Convention of 1940 accepted him as the Vice Presidential nominee only reluctantly, at Roosevelt's insistence, and, in 1944, concerned about his own re-election chances, the President concluded that the Iowan would not again be his running mate.The Iowan put up a strong fight for re-nomination at the 1944 convention and, due to his high standing among liberals, nearly won. He campaigned vigorously for the party ticket and served as Secretary of Commerce from January, 1945 until September, 1946, when Truman (who had succeeded to the presidency upon Roosevelt's death in April, 1945), fired him in a dispute over postwar foreign policy.Wallace's ideas about foreign policy emphasized conciliation towards and cooperation with the Soviet Union and were at odds with the Truman administration's increasingly hard line with Moscow. Opposing the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, Wallace moved ever closer to running for president at the head of a third party and, in late December, 1947, formally announced that he would be a candidate.His policy positions drew increasing criticism from formerly friendly labor unions and leading liberals. Their primary complaint was that Wallace refused to reject the support of Communists and that objection intensified after the newly-founded Progressive Party nominated Wallace as its presidential candidate in July, 1948. Amidst the hysteria of the post-World War II Red Scare, the Wallace campaign convinced only 2.4 percent of the national electorate that the Iowan should be elected.Wallace expended a tremendous amount of time and energy campaigning for the presidency. His motivation to make that effort came from his psychological resolution of an internal conflict that developed as a consequence of his being dumped from the 1944 ticket by Franklin Roosevelt. FDR was larger than life to Wallace, a hero, yet he had betrayed him, and that caused Wallace to experience cognitive dissonance, a condition in which one knows things which are not psychologically consistent. Wallace's answer was to blame Truman for FDR's actions, to make Truman the betrayer who had wrongfully taken the presidency after Roosevelt's death.

Download

Share

COinS