Just to respond to this, it is going to be Eden. There's no way it'll be a Labour MP just looking at parliamentary arithmetic. IIRC Churchill was on record saying that if he were incapacitated, the King should send for Eden.
Tehran 1943 Succeeds... Who Takes Over
- Thread starter troosvelt_68
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Now the interesting bit about Wallace is what may happen if Alger Hiss (who I believe had some degree of association with Wallace) or Harry D. White or someone of that ilk manage to work their way into the higher levels of government and then get "outed." The Cold War may just kick off at a later date, with the Americans getting a bit McCarthyist. I tend to think there was going to be a degree of geopolitical confrontation whatever happened.
Point taken. I don't know that much about Eden, so I am curious to know what an Eden premiership would look like.
While a Wallace presidency would likely not start the Cold War, public opinion in the USA would likely shift against the USSR as it did IOTL, which would probably lead to Wallace, or whoever the Democrats put up as a candidate, losing re-election to a hawkish, anti-communist Republican like Stassen, Dewey, or maybe even MacArthur. In my opinion, with two global superpowers that were as ideologically opposed as the USA and USSR, some form of Cold War was inevitable.
I'd love to speculate more about his domestic policy if he got an earlier start and wasn't under Churchill's shadow for a decade, but foreign policy was his area. Anyway that would be a matter for 1950s, Eden was very popular but Labour winning in 1945 is still very likely. However, I think he would avoid Churchill's many campaign gaffes and make a somewhat better showing, and he may be in a position to get back into office in 1950.
My thoughts exactly, Wallace won't be in office forever and him exiting office could well be where TTLs Cold War is deemed to begin.
Indeed 1948 Wallace definitely isn't 1943 Wallace. Being thrust into the presidency butterflies his OTL 1944 trip to the Potemkin village in Magadan, where he was led to believe it was a volunteer work camp instead of penal work camp. ITTL 1944 Wallace is probably at least somewhat less pro-Soviet than OTL 1944 Wallace.
In 1943 the USSR was not a global superpower, nor was it ideologically opposed to the USA.
What caused the Cold War was:
1) Iran 1945-1946
2) alleged Soviet threat to Greece and Turkey 1946-1947
3) spy scandals of 1948
4) Berlin blockade 1948-1949
5) China 1949
6) Korea 1950
Eden won a 60 seat majority and blew it, he was gone after 18 months. War decisions would have accelerated that, Atlee would have been a far wiser choice.
I think by the Berlin blockade, the Cold War can be considered a fait accompli. And I would describe the Soviet threat to Turkey as real rather than alleged.
Eden had a botched operation in 1953 that may have had something to do with that as well as a pathalogical hatred of Nasser and if you ask me a bit of a complex from being in Churchill's shadow for over a decade. Suez overshadows what was up until that point a solid career largely in foreign affairs (including as Foreign Secretary 1940-1945), he'd be well capable of keeping Britain's war effort running.
By the late 40s it would be both of these things surely? Stalin wasn't the sole cause of US-USSR tensions and neither were Roosevelt and Truman.
Without Stalin I agree the crisis probably won't spark.
I'd say more than alleged, but I'd say any tension is certainly cooled down.
Pretty sure the spies alleged or otherwise would still be doing their thing.
Probably avoided.
Probably still happening right?
This one is pretty unlikely without Stalin I'd agree.
China and Korea considerably enhanced confrontational mentality.
The official Allied position (until 1947) was united China with both KMT and CPC in government.
I'm pretty certain that wasn't the CPC's view though, or the KMT's for that matter. And unless someone wants to commit ground troops it's their views that matter.
If you mean 'Operation Longjump' the Russians are likely too paranoid about security for a bunch of paratroopers to be able to somehow take out all three Allied leaders. Churchill notes in Volume 5 of his WW2 memoirs regarding protection of the legations that '...In fact a complete cordon was established, and the military and police forces used, especially by the Russians, were numbered by the thousands...' ('Advent of the Triple Meeting', Volume V)
That is to say that the legations where the leaders stay and the actual meetings take place are extremely heavily guarded.
That said, Churchill allows that he himself might have been assassinated on the way from the airfield to the British legation. He comments about his arrival that: '...As we approached the city the road was lined with Persian cavalrymen every fifty yards, for at least three miles. It was clearly shown to any evil people that somebody of consequence was coming, and which way. The men on horseback advertised the route, but could provide no protection at all. A police car driving a hundred yards in advance gave warning of our approach. The pace was slow. Presently large crowds stood in the spaces between the Persian cavalry, and as far as I could see there were few, if any, foot police. Towards the centre of Teheran these crowds were four or five deep. The people were friendly but non-committal. They pressed to within a few feet of the car. There was no defence at all against two or three determined men with pistols or a bomb. As we approached the turning which led to the Legation there was a traffic block, and we remained for three or four minutes stationary amid the crowded throng of gaping Persians. If it had been planned out beforehand to run the greatest risks and have neither the security of quiet surprise arrival nor an effective escort the problem could not have been solved more perfectly...' ('Teheran: The Opening', Volume V)
However, as Churchill also notes at the end of the chapter previous to 'Teheran: The Opening': '...So we sailed off into the air from Cairo at the crack of dawn on November 27 in perfect weather for the long-sought meeting-place, and arrived safely by different routes at different times...' ('Cairo', Volume V)
That is to say that all three national leaders are travelling separately, at different times.
Best case scenario for Hitler I could see in any paratroops attempt is that they take out Churchill on his way from the airfield to the legation - but Roosevelt and Stalin are travelling separately from Churchill, and Churchill's assassination results in redoubled security for the other two in transit (if they haven't already arrived.)
Assuming Churchill is blown to pieces on this way to the legation by a small group of Axis paratroops, see other comment by other posters already in this thread for likely succession (although I think I remember mention in a previous thread on this topic of the South African leader, Smuts, as a possible replacement, too). I have no idea who would immediately represent the UK at the discussions between Stalin and Roosevelt in Churchill's absence (which discussions would still presumably go ahead.)
If you have some other kind of assassination scenario in mind, perhaps you could detail it, please?
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Coulsdon Eagle
Monthly Donor
I agree - Attlee, or even Bevin, would IMHO be a better PM than Eden, but the numbers in the House of Commons militate against that. The last General Election had been held in 1935 & resulted in a parliamentary of 242 for the National Govt. (effectively the Conservatives). While by-elections whittled some of that away, remember that Chamberlain didn't lose the vote on the May 1940 Norway debate in the House of Commons, he "won" by 80 votes - it was the number of Tories who abstained or voted against what was effectively a vote of no confidence that saw him quit. There is no way the majority of MPs would back a Labour minister as PM.
RousseauX
Donor
Not really imo.
For instance even during/after the Berlin blockade the US didn't care enough about the CCP winning in China to prop up the corrupt KMT for instance the way they would South Korea/Vietnam later
What made the Cold War a fait accompli was the "loss of China" (Summer-Fall 1949), the Soviet atomic bomb (Aug 1949) and Korean War (June 1950) occurring within the space of around a year. The confrontation between Communism and the west wasn't just over some blockade in Germany where no one died anymore, it was now over gigantic Communist armies conquering the world.
Although it's certainly legitimate to consider Berlin the beginning of the cold war. "When did the cold war start" is one of those historical questions that will forever be argued about the same way we argue about "in what year did WWI become inevitable"
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I feel it is worth pointing out that Eden of the mid-50s is very different to the Eden of the early 40s. In 1953 he had a series of botched bile duct operations, leaving him in poor physical and physiological health. Though his OTL time in office was definitely a failure, I wouldn't write off any ATL pre-operation tenure as an automatic failure.