Truman asked Henry Wallace to resign, eight days after Wallace's controversial speech in New York, stating that "the Government of the United States must stand as a unit in its relations with the rest of the world".
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Showing posts with label Henry A. Wallace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henry A. Wallace. Show all posts
Sunday, September 20, 2026
Saturday, September 12, 2026
Thursday, September 12, 1946. Wallace takes a different route.
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:
Wednesday, September 11, 1946. Longest scoreless tie.
Monday, January 20, 2025
Saturday, January 20, 1945. FDR Reinaugurated.
His address.
The Almighty God has blessed our land in many ways. He has given our people stout hearts and strong arms with which to strike mighty blows for freedom and truth. He has given to our country a faith which has become the hope of all peoples in an anguished world.So we pray to Him now for the vision to see our way clearly to see the way that leads to a better life for ourselves and for all our fellow men—and to the achievement of His will to peace on earth.
Roosevelt would be the only US President to be elected to more than two terms, and after him jealous Republicans caused the Constitution to be amended to prevent that reoccurring, which we can now all be grateful for as it will theoretically prevent Donald Trump from trying for a their term, should old age or dementia not remove him from politics before the end of his claimed current term. While still hated by some conservatives, FDR is the last American President who might be regarded as "great", although that status can be debated. He certainly was one of the best Presidents in the nation's history, and his long administration fundamentally altered the country and shaped the post war United States up until, it would seem, today.
Outgoing Vice President Wallace administered the oath to his successor Harry S. Truman, which had been the long standing tradition. It was the last time it would be observed. Wallace was dumped as insiders, including FDR, knew that FDR was on death's door and that the incoming Vice President would become President. Wallace was feared by many because of his very far left views.
The Germans started evacuating East Prussia.
The evacuation of East Prussia would be a major human tragedy, although one that receives very little attention as the Germans brought it upon themselves. The mass migration into the Reich would end centuries of German presence in what is now once again part of Poland.
The Red Army took Prešov, Slovakia.
The Hungarian Provisional Government entered into an armistice with the Allies.
The Allies progressed in the Ardennes and the French 1st Army commenced an offensive in the Vosges region.
The Nationalist Chinese took Muse, Burma.
Last edition:
Friday, January 19, 1945. Martin Bormann and Hitler's mistress Eva Braun arrived at the Führerbunker.
Thursday, November 7, 2024
Tuesday, November 7, 1944. Roosevelt wins a fourth term.
Today In Wyoming's History: November 7: 1944 President Franklin D. Roosevelt won a fourth term in office, defeating Thomas E. Dewey.
Truman, of course, became his Vice President.
Truman was chosen over prior VP Henry Wallace as Democratic insiders were concerned about Wallace's far left leanings. People have wondered about how far Wallace went in that direction, but The New Republic, which ironically was featured here just yesterday, and for which Wallace was an editor after he was no longer VP, actually stated that he was a Communist in its 75th anniversary issue. He was certainly very far left.
He was also an expert on chickens.
Truman had been a small businessman before entering politics and was the last U.S. President to lack a college degree.
Roosevelt in many ways created much of the modern state which the current Republican Party, once again flirting with isolationism, threatens to tear down under Donald Trump, something that got started with Ronald Reagan.
US fighters strafed a Red Army column near Niš, mistaking it for a German column. Soviet aircraft responded. There were losses on both sides, but what exactly occured is confusing as it remains classified.
The US took Bloody Ridge on Leyte.
The USS Albacore struck a mine off of Hokkaido and was sunk.
SOE operative Hannah Szenes, age 23, was executed in Hungary, which was controlled by Hungarian fascists at the time.
Last edition:
Thursday, June 29, 2023
Tuesday, June 29, 1943. Wartime childcare, Coca Cola for GIs, Wallace blunder, Reprisal at Waksmund, Encylical
Congress passed a bill providing a whopping $20,000,000 for childcare for working mothers. According to Sarah Sundin, 3102 child care centers were established which served, if that is the proper word, 600,000 children.
Photo taken for the June 1943 issue of Colliers with a Father's Day theme. The lieutenant is shown wearing wings, so he is an air crewman.
You can almost hear Bernie Sanders starting to gush about it, retrospectively.
Vice President Henry Wallace made a speech attacking Secretary of Commerce Jesse H. Jones, damaging his credit with President Roosevelt.
I can't find what Wallace said, but Wallace was in the political far left and sometimes suspected of being a Communist. Indeed, The New Republic, which he later served in a senior position in, declared him to be one in an anniversary issue, which is remarkable. He doesn't seem to have really been, but he was so far to the left, it's remarkable that he'd ever been chosen for this position.
Roosevelt would dump him in his next campaign, which perhaps should provide a lesson for Joseph Biden.
Allied Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower requested "three million bottled Coca-Cola (filled) and complete equipment for bottling, washing, capping same quantity twice monthly".
More on that can be read about here:
June 29, 1943 – During WWII General Eisenhower Requisitions Ten Portable Coca-Cola Bottling Plants
The Germans conducted a severe reprisal massacre in Waksmund, Poland, aimed at punishing support for the Polish resistance.
Pope Pius XII released his encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi.
Tuesday, December 21, 2021
Harry Dexter White and Pearl Harbor. Soviet Plot?
Harry Dexter White with John Maynard Keynes.
- DATE: October 16, 1950
- TO: The Director
- FROM: Mr. Ladd
- SUBJECT: ESPIONAGE - R
- PURPOSE: To advise you of the positive identification of agent Jurist (the cover name of a Soviet agent operating in 1944 and named by [Venona project]) as Harry Dexter White, deceased. White was formerly the Administrative Assistant to former Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau.
- DETAILS: You have previously been advised of information obtained from [Venona project] regarding Jurist who was active during 1944. According to the previous information received from [Venona project] regarding Jurist, during April, 1944, he had reported on conversations between the then Secretary of State Hull and Vice President Wallace. He also reported on Wallace's proposed trip to China. On August 5, 1944, he reported to the Soviets that he was confident of President Roosevelt's victory in the coming elections unless there was a huge military failure. He also reported that Truman's nomination as Vice President was calculated to secure the vote of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. It was also reported that Jurist was willing for any self-sacrifice in behalf of the MGB but was afraid that his activities, if exposed, might lead to a political scandal and have an effect on the elections. It was also mentioned that he would be returning to Washington, D. C., on August 17, 1944. The new information from [Venona project] indicates that Jurist and Morgenthau were to make a trip to London and Normandy and leaving the United States on August 5, 1944.
- On the basis of the foregoing, the tentative identification of Harry Dexter White as Jurist appears to be conclusively established inasmuch as Morgenthau and White left the United States on a confidential trip to the Normandy beachhead on August 5, 1944, and they returned to the United States on August 17, 1944.
- You may recall that Harry Dexter White was named by Whittaker Chambers in his statements as having been a source of information for Chambers in his work in Soviet espionage until Chambers broke with the Soviets in 1938. Chambers produced a handwritten memorandum that White had given him and our Laboratory established this memorandum as being in White's handwriting. The Treasury Department advised that parts of the material were highly confidential, coming to the Treasury Department from the Department of State.
- In addition to the foregoing, Elizabeth T. Bentley in November, 1945, advised that she had learned through Nathan Gregory Silvermaster that White was supplying Silvermaster with information which was obtained by White in the course of his duties as Assistant to the Secretary of the of the Treasury.
- RECOMMENDATION:
- There is attached hereto a blind memorandum which has been prepared for the information and assistance of setting forth this identification. There is also attached a memorandum to the Field giving them the new information from [Venona project] which establishes conclusively the identity of White as Jurist.
- Attachment
I really like the Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World podcast. I want to note that upfront, as I think these next two episodes, while really entertaining and interesting. . . well, they sort of lay an egg.
At least sort of.
Not completely.
Countdown to Pearl Harbor? (FDR, Advance Knowledge)
Pearl Harbor Conspiracy? (FDR, Advance Knowledge, Soviet Spy)
Now, before a person assumes too much based on the title, Akin isn't suggesting, as some have, even occasionally some serious historians, that Roosevelt knew about Japanese designs on Pearl Harbor and let the attack happen. Indeed, the conclusion to the second one pretty much definitively smashes that concept in a very general way.
Rather, what this two part episode suggests, but never flatly states, is that Treasury employee Harry Dexter White used his position to bring about an American diplomatic stance that made the war with Japan inevitable, as that's what the Soviets wanted.
The evidence, however, just doesn't support that.
Well, at least not completely.
This isn't a new theory, by the way. It's been around since at least the 1990s.
White was a Soviet agent. That's perfectly clear. There are those who will dispute that even now, but we can set that aside. He might not have been a Communist, but he was a Soviet mole without a doubt.
Harry Dexter White was a brilliant economist who came to that profession somewhat late, entering university at age 30, by which time he had already served as an Army officer in World War One. He ultimately obtained a PhD in economics at age 38, and then taught at Harvard. Later, he came into the Treasury Department at a time at which, for PhD's in economics, you either taught or worked for the government. He was a very valued employee there.
The administration of Franklin Roosevelt was the most left leaning administration that the United States has ever seen, and the administration was full, at the office level, of many hard left thinkers. While the Wilson Administration had suppressed the then growing radical Socialists movements after World War One, FDR's administration was not interested in this and his coming into power in 1932 proved to be a respite for those with really radical views. By and large, the government didn't care that much whether lower functionaries were hard line leftists.
And the country had quite a few of them. Socialism, and other radical left wing philosophies, had been growing in the US since the mid 19th Century and by the 1910s it was coming into its own. It was very much in vogue in some circles in the 1920s, in spite of efforts of the government to suppress it, and it drew encouragement from the example of Soviet Russia, which was in actuality very poorly understood. Its base was in the working class, of course, but it was also heavily represented by Eastern European and Southern European immigrants, and oddly enough young academics.
White wasn't young, but he'd come to academia late. And, additionally, he was a first generation American of Jewish Lithuanian extraction, so he had a foot in both the academic community and the immigrant one. His Eastern European parents had only been in the US for twelve years at the time of his birth, and they were a working class family. As noted, he was undoubtedly a brilliant man.
While even to this day he has his defenders, its clear that he was recruited as a Soviet mole by Jacob Golos, who was successful in recruiting numerous other Americans to the same role. White became associated in that role with Whitaker Chambers, whom he reported to. And whatever it was he personally believed, it is clear that he was highly sympathetic to the USSR, so sympathetic that on rare occasions he was willing to voice that sympathy, as when he once engaged in a restaurant argument with a colleague to whom he maintained that Soviets had successfully worked out a system that would replace capitalism and Christianity. And he was willing to carrying his admiration of the USSR as far as espionage and theft. If he wasn't a Communist, he obviously had deep sympathies for the Communists.
When Chambers came out of the cold, he reported White among those who were Soviet agents, which he did as early as 1938. Chambers didn't think that White was a Communist and further thought that while he was a Soviet agent, he thought White thought he was manipulating the Soviets to his ends, rather than the other way around, a rather naive thing to believe, if he believed it, but one which may be very well correct.
Chambers' 1938 accusations were wholly dismissed by the Government. He'd repeat them in March 1945 at which time the State Department was reaching out to Chambers. Chambers at that point indicated that White had brought Communists into the government, but that White himself was timid.
In November 1945 the news on White was corroborated by defecting American Communist courier Elizabeth Benchley. The Truman Administration basically ignored this, however, and even at this late date White's career in the government continued on, although he was less influential than before, and his boss Morgenthau was replaced by Truman. Real problems for White didn't develop until 1948, however, when he was called before the House Committee on Un-American Affairs. Following his testimony, he had a heart attack. Shortly after going to a farm he had bought to recuperate, he had a second one and died due to an overdose of a drug he administered to treat it. His death came a mere two days after he testified and it might have been suicide. He was one of two figures caught up by the HCUA at the time who died from mysterious deaths during the investigations.His untimely death, and the fact that the Army closely guarded the Venona secretes, not really trusting anyone, meant that here was room for years to portray him as an innocent victim of a false accusation, rather than what he was, an exposed spy for the Soviet Union.
Okay, why does all of this matter?
Well, White's role as a Communist agent. . . again he might not have been a Communist himself, certainly are critical in regard to his wartime role in the Treasury Department. More than that, however, he was the principal architect of the Bretton Woods Agreement which governed the world's post-war economy up until the early 1970s. He was also the principal architect of the Morgenthau Plan, which saw the future of Germany as split into regions, deindustrialized, and made agrarian.
It can't be said that White's recommendations on the Morgenthau Plan and the Bretton Woods agreement were Communistic, so if he was himself heavily sympathetic to the Communists, it didn't fully show in that work, at least not in an openly obvious way. It's known that he was passing information to the Soviets, but based on his actual work, he didn't seem to be really openly aiding them much in his work product during the war.
Well, what about accusations that he did before the war?
I'm not really seeing it there in an effective way either, although he may have tried a bit.
This is based on the claim that the Soviets developed an Operation Snow which was to attempt to get the United States and Japan into a war against each other. The thought is that this would alleviate the Soviet fear of fighting a two front war, should Japan come in against the USSR. And, in spite of those who nay say that, the Japanese Army in fact wanted to do that, even though the wisdom of taking on the USSR at the same time that the Japanese were unable to defeat China was obviously pretty questionable.
Anyhow, Stalin did worry about this, to be sure. And the NKVD could have hatched a plot to try to get figures in the American government to aid them in some fashion here, but the evidence is pretty sketchy, even if such journals as Time and The Wall Street Journal have published articles acknowledging the effort and, in the case of Time, even crediting the Japanese attack on Pearl Habor to White.
Claims about Operation Snow come from one source, a figure formerly in the KGB, who claimed to be part of it. It's possible that he had the knowledge on it, but based on what we otherwise have come to learn about White's role as a mole, this claim is on a narrow strand. What that source claimed is that in 1941, prior to the commencement of Operation Barbarossa, the Soviets were working to reestablish their spy contacts with American agents. Those contacts had been disrupted by Stalin murdering everyone. Anyhow, the claim is that a new contact reached out to White and vaguely suggested that it would be in the best interest of the US and the USSR if Japan was aggressively isolated. White, this claim asserts, stated that his own thinking aligned with this. You have to do a lot of reading between the lines here from there.
White did issue a memo on his views on what to do regarding Japan prior to Operation Barbarossa. It came, however, in the context of the Roosevelt Administration becoming increasingly aggressive with Japan in any event. That memo was, moreover, oddly anti-British, a peculiar position to take in regard to a country that was, at the time the supposed meeting occurred, the only major power fighting the Germans. A person could rationalize that a Japanese attack on the US would mean that the Soviets would only have to fight the Germans, but what would the point of alienating the British be? While a person might claim that this would refocus American eyes from the Atlantic to the Pacific, there was never going to be a war in which the Soviets weren't going to be glad to have the British fighting the same enemy.
Indeed, it would be frankly more likely that, if the Soviets had a plot, the point was to distract the Japanese, rather than to actually provoke them into a war.
At any rate, White's first note was rejected and therefore not influential. A second one some months later, however, is more problematic.
Some weeks prior to Pearl Harbor the Japanese signaled that they'd be willing to evacuate China and northern Indochina under an agreement with the United States, if they were allowed to retain control of Manchuria. Roosevelt in fact leaned away from this, and that did result in a White memo to Morgenthau which in turn issued to Roosevelt under Morgenthau's signature. That resulted in an ultimatum to Japan to withdraw from China.
Having said that, there's also evidence that the Japanese offer wasn't understood in the context of what was being offered in regard to northern Indochina. Moreover, by that time the US had already taken a really hard line on Japan in China. A compromise regarding Manchuria in fact would have been problematic, even if Roosevelt was considering it.
And of course White was one man, with apparently mixed motives. His suggestion may have been influential, but he wasn't the one conveying it. Did he have such influence over Morgenthau by that point that Morgenthau would do what he wanted? Moreover, did they both have influence over Cordell Hull? That's pretty problematic.
And that one man aspect of it, at the end of the day, is the significant thing. White was a lieutenant of Morgenthau's, and Morgenthau wasn't a Communist and didn't know that White was. And neither of them set foreign policy, Cordell Hull had a bigger role in that, and the President the ultimate role.
So, did White "cause" Pearl Harbor. No.
Did he influence the road to war at all?
That's really hard to say.
White isn't an innocent figure in the Cold War story. He was highly influential on the Morgenthau Plan and he did have a major role in it. Somebody at the Treasury Department didn't like it, and it was leaked. Was it a Communist document? Well no. But it did propose, basically, to disestablish Germany as a state, and split into regions, something that was to the Soviet Union's advantage, but something that was also not outside of the desires of many others.
He did have a role in holding up wartime financing to the Nationalist Chinese, even at the time they were fighting our common enemy, the Japanese. That's more problematic to say the least. The only reason to have done that was likely due to his Communist sympathies. So he could indeed act with Moscow in mind.
And he definitely acted with Moscow in mind in supplying currency plates to the Soviet Union. That has been described as "outright larceny" and it definitely operated against American interest in all sorts of ways.
So in the end, the most we can probably say is that he was part of a group of Communist or Communist sympathizers, within the Treasury Department who pushed it in a certain direction, but there were lots also pushing.
Leaving us back where we started. The war with Japan was brought about as the US was drifting towards war anyway, and wanted to get Japan out of China. That goal was shared by a lot of people, and White's role in pushing in that direction, even if done at secret Soviet urging, was hardly the final factor.
Friday, November 14, 2014
The New Republic Turns 100 Years Old
The New Republic just issued its anniversary issue, which arrived in my mailbox yesterday. The magazines' first issue came out on November 7, 1914.
I've been a subscriber to the New Republic since May, 1986. The subscription was given to me as a birthday gift by a friend who thought the magazine reflected my politics, which it pretty much did at that time, my final year of being an undergraduate geology student at the University of Wyoming, interested in politics, and about to graduate into unemployment. Just as Jonathan Chait, who wrote about his personal history with the magazine in this issue, I used to read it cover to cover when it came, usually in a single sitting. It was a somewhat thinner magazine at that time, as it was a weekly, as it had been since November 1914. I was always amazed by the brilliant content of the magazine back then, and amazed that they were able to produce those results every week. I continued on to devour it that way throughout my resumed college career as a law student, and even thought about trying to submit some articles to it from time to time, in hopes they'd take notice of them. When the magazine endorsed Albert Gore the first time, when he was a free thinking, pro life, anti Gun Control, candidate for the Presidency, I followed that primary season eagerly.
Over time, I've become less enamored with the magazine, but that seems to be part of the history of the magazine itself. Founded by Herbert Croly, and Willard and Dorthy Straight (the financial backing), the 1914 magazine, which fits right into the time period this blog is focused on, was an unofficial organ of Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party, which seemed to also sort of reflect its views in the mid 1980s. Croly was a late blooming middle aged intellect at the time who was attracted to Progressive Politics and hence the really quite radical final effort of Theodore Roosevelt to regain the Presidency. The early magazine reflected his, and the Straights, Progressive Party views, even after the Progressive Party rapidly fell apart. That early history, when I learned of it, appealed to me, as I was a big fan of Theodore Roosevelt at the time. I'm less of one now (I've migrated more towards admiring the views of the founder he disliked, Thomas Jefferson), although I'm still a fan of him in many ways, and that's also true of The New Republic, except more so. That is, I'm much less of a fan of The New Republic today, but I still renew my subscription.
In fairness to myself, however, any student of the magazine knows that its particularly honest about the quirky history its had in terms of quality. The initial magazine yielded from being a Progressive organ to being a Liberal one in the 1930s. Probably reflective of the evolutionary nature of the time, it's interesting that a son of the Straights evolved out of the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party in to the Communist Party, where they became a spy for the Soviet Union. The magazine itself went bankrupt in 1924, at which time Croly ceased to be an editor, but he continued to contribute until his death in 1930. By that time, the magazine had become solidly left leaning, and was made up of an eclectic bunch of Progressives, Liberals, and hard left Liberals. That New Republic became very significant during the Great Depression, where it was virtually an intellectual organ of the more left wing New Dealers and influenced FDR's actions to a significant degree.
As the New Deal waned by the late 1930s, so did the magazines intellectual abilities. It tacked increasingly towards the left, and when Henry Wallace became the editor following his failure to secure a renewed spot on FDR's ticket, it became a hard left organ. One later editor of The New Republic has flat out stated that Wallace was a Communist, which is different, to say the least, from the more accepted view that he was a rather naive and unrealistic hard left Liberal. At any rate, Wallace nearly wrecked the magazine and the magazine seems to have been glad to see him go when he departed for his final Quixotic run for President.
After that, the magazine revived and it was in good shape, free thinking, not ideologically rigid and widely ranging when I first became a subscriber. It was neither liberal or conservative, in a true sense, but something else. By its own acknowledgment, it entered into a slump some time later and the final years of Martin Peretz' ownership did not seem to be good ones. Indeed, in the last years of that era the editor became so obsessed with Israeli politics that the flagship editorials or the comments in the back often seemed more appropriate for an Israeli weekly than an American one. If I recall correctly, there was at one time even an article on the mayoral race in Jerusalem, which is hard for an American reader to really care much about.
Since that time the magazine has sold, and it's now a monthly. It's thicker, and its resumed some of its eclectic nature. However, perhaps reflective of my own evolution in political thinking, or perhaps reflective of the fact that many who were once regarded as "Liberals", perhaps inaccurately, in the past no longer are, as they have no home in current Liberalism, or perhaps because the magazine seems so solidly Democratic Party Liberal, rather than Progressive Party Progressive, or whatever, I don't like it nearly as much as I once did, and I never read it cover to cover anymore. Indeed, I haven't for quite some time, probably since the mid to late 1990s. Some issues I'll hardly read a single article from, and in the last decade I've found at least a couple of the articles so offensive to certain views I hold, that I've thought about dropping my subscription. It sure doesn't interest me the way it once did.
But, achieving 100 years in a print magazine is quite an accomplishment. So, happy birthday New Republic.
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