Commerce Secretary Henry A. Wallace delivered a speech at Madison Square Garden contradicting the speech just delivered by Secretary of State Byrnes. The speech criticized the administration's foreign policy and ultimately made almost everyone mad.
Truman had reviewed a draft of the speech and when asked by a reporter if it representing the policy of his government, he said that it did, only to rapidly attempt to claw that back when he realized what the speech said.
The speech brought Wallace's career, which saw him rise to the position of a Vice President under Franklin Roosevelt, come to an end.
Wallace is an interesting character in that he's the most far left Vice President the nation ever had, and had Roosevelt died during his third term, it would have brought to power an administration that would have been on the extreme left. Indeed, Wallace was dumped in Roosevelt's last run as those close to FDR knew that he would not live through it.
Wallace had a bit of a track record of making embarrassing speeches. He'd made one regarding a prior Commerce Secretary in 1943.
Wallace was a curious figure. He was from the political far left and has been accused of being a Communist, which historians discount. He ran against Truman in the 1948 Presidential election on a revived Progressive Party ticket with Sen. Glen Taylor of Idaho. He became the editor of The New Republic in one of its down cycles. Interestingly, when TNR turned 100, one of the editor of the "back of the magazine" asserted that Wallace was a Communist.
He was an expert on chickens.
A headline that, thanks to vaccines, we don't see anymore.
Last edition:
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