Friday, March 01, 2013

Henry Wallace Revisited

Oliver Stone with a collaborator have made a program/book revisiting American history: the untold story.  One of their themes is praising Henry Wallace, former USDA secretary, former VP, for his position in 1948 challenging the Cold War.  In their view, the aggressive stance of the US vis a vis  the Soviet Union under Truman triggered it; a more conciliatory attitude would have avoided it.

Brad DeLong links to a reconsideration by Wallace in 1952 of his 1948 views, in which he totally recants his views.  It's worth mentioning, because some on the left took a lot longer to become skeptical of the Soviets. It took Khrushchev's speech criticizing Stalin, then the violent putdown of the Hungarian rebellion in 1956 (a rebellion which led to soccer-style place kickers in the NFL in the form of Pete and Charlie Gogolak), to convince many.

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