AMIDST all the World War II anniversaries being celebrated this year, one of the most fateful is likely to be among the least noted: the 50th anniversary of the evening the Democrats chose their 1944 vice-presidential candidate. The events in Normandy starting on June 6 of that year, changed the course of world history, but so did the event in Chicago on July 21.
The incumbent was Henry Wallace, whom FDR had chosen as his running-mate in 1940, dumping his two-term Vice President, John Nance Garner. Mr. Roosevelt had tapped Garner in 1932 under pressure from William Randolph Hearst. By 1940, FDR felt that two terms for Garner had been sufficient payoff for the publisher. But as FDR quickly learned, he had made a terrible mistake.
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