henry wallace was roosevelt's vice president at the time. talk about a book.enry wallace was a genius, probably one of the smartest men to ever hold national elected office in the united states. he was a plant geneticist by training. dabbled in atron my and metaphysical and was extremely liberal and a little weird and the party bosses in '44 thought we need to replace him and so they did. all the candidates were either too liberal or too conservative so truman got picked. reporters joked it was another missouri compromise. [laughter] >> we all know what happened on april 12th, 1945, franklin roosevelt died and harry s. truman became president. he had been vice president just 82 days and had met with fdr just twice outside of cabinet meetings. in all that time. his presidency, of course, encompassed major events in the 20th century, the end of world war ii, the cold war, mccarthyism, the united nations. flash forward now eight years, almost, to 1953, january, 20th, and dwight d. eisenhower is inaugurated as president. and just as he was back in that summer of 1