Iowa almost had a second president

While Iowa has only produced one president, Iowa would have had a second if not for a fateful decision made by Democratic Party officials 80 years ago — Orient, Iowa’s own Henry Wallace, vice president to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In summer 1944, FDR was running for an unprecedented 4th term. But unknown to voters, he was very sick. His blood pressure was a constant 230/120, he had bouts of bronchitis, debilitating headaches, and a lack of energy to the point where he would doze off while signing legislation, leaving just a scrawl instead of a signature.

Just before the 1944 convention, Cardiologist Dr. Howard Breunn diagnosed FDR with congestive heart failure, which was hidden. Southern Democrats were balking at Henry Wallace continuing as vice president, giving Party Chairman Bob Hannigan a reason to search for a new VP. They found that candidate in Missouri Sen. Harry S. Truman.

The campaign went on without incident. Roosevelt did little in campaigning — with World War II still being fought on two fronts. No one was aware how fast the president’s health was failing. Any doubts were defused by a near-Hollywood production of a New York City trip for FDR that included an open motorcade through driving cold rain. What the public didn’t know was that in each borough the motorcade pulled into a covered area and the Secret Service did a complete wardrobe change, including heat packs.

Roosevelt and Truman easily won the November election with 432 electoral votes to Thomas Dewey’s 99. The final few months of Henry Wallace’s vice presidency were uneventful, but FDR’s health continued to deteriorate, now with extreme weight loss. Wallace would watch the inauguration from the White House. Instead of being Vice President, he was now Secretary of Agriculture, a big demotion.

During his first of only two meetings with FDR, Truman saw firsthand the president’s decline, given how tired he looked and how his hand shook nonstop. FDR died on April 12, 1945, just 82 days after Wallace’s term as VP was over. Just 3 weeks later, Truman oversaw the surrender of Germany. He then gave the order to drop the two atomic bombs on Japan which forced its surrender, ending World War II.

Historians rarely agree on much, but they universally agree that a Henry Wallace presidency would have been vastly different from Truman’s. Wallace wasn’t a believer in nuclear weapons. It’s unlikely he would have authorized their use, which potentially would have meant a much longer war in the Pacific.

Wallace was also for a much softer response to communism, which most likely would have meant avoiding U.S. involvement in the Korean War. Nor would he have adopted the Truman Doctrine stating that the U.S. would come to the defense of governments under siege by communists, later used as a pretext for the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and all the turmoil that followed.

Wallace was certainly much more to the left of Truman on civil rights. With that said, Truman still took the bold step of desegregating the armed forces during an election year. After being fired by Truman, Wallace challenged Truman for president in 1948, with a platform that included full desegregation.

Though it appeared that Wallace’s run combined with Strom Thurmond’s candidacy would derail Truman’s re-election, Truman pulled off a miracle and won re-election.

Wallace passed away from ALS in 1965 and is buried in Des Moines. Iowa came quite close to having another president, one that would have shaped history to this day.

Tom Babbage first became a presidential history enthusiast as a third-grader at Indian Creek Elementary in the Linn-Mar school district. He now resides in Casa Grande, AZ.