Henry Wallace | Peace Couple

Democracy Now! aired a report on how “Academy Award-winning Oliver Stone has teamed up with historian Peter Kuznick to produce a 10-part Showtime series called “Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States.'” They have also produced a book of the same name.

The series centers on the effect that the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan had on the history of the US. In questioning whether it was necessary to drop the A-bomb, Stone and Kuznick explore the different path the United States almost took if the pacifist Henry Wallace had remained as Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s Vice President and had won 1944 Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. In the interview, Stone discusses the success of the progressive policies of Wallace as FDR’s Secretary of Agriculture prior to becoming his second Vice President:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO-Y8wNwbuA&t=8m13s] Continue reading Oliver Stone discusses Pacifist Presidential Candidate Henry Wallace on DN! →

The twelfth chapter of The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace contains former Vice President Henry Wallace’s 1946 essay Are We Only Paying Lip Service to Peace?. Wallace ran for President on the Progressive Party line in 1948 campaigning in support of integration, equal voting rights, single-payer universal healthcare, and peaceful relations with the Soviet Union.

Like Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners of the same year, Wallace is concerned that World War II allies — the US and USSR — were heading straight into a third world war. Possibly the first — and last — nuclear war. His views are fueled by US dollars being aimed at buying weapons rather than backing its words of peace. Continue reading Wallace’s Are We Only Paying Lip Service to Peace? →