THIRD PARTIES: Iowa Hybrid

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"Dear Guru." But the public also began to hear of an odd-duck Wallace who, in an awkward, headlong way, took up tennis and boomerang-throwing, who Indian-wrestled with an aide in his office between conferences. Before coming to Washington he had left his grandfather's Calvinistic Church, had had a look in at Catholicism and had finally joined the Episcopal Church. As an acolyte in cassock and surplice he regularly served at Mass. But now he had turned to Far Eastern mysticism. He became fascinated with a fork-bearded Russian theosophist named Nicholas Roerich, and later, when he became Secretary of Commerce, sent Roerich to Outer Mongolia to do research in grasses. Roerich was the "Guru" (Spiritual Leader) to whom the now famous "Dear Guru" letters, full of mystical fiddle-faddle, were written. Wallace has never either admitted or denied authorship of the letters.

Wallace became one of F.D.R.'s favorites and, in 1940, his Vice President. The real New Deal was already over. F.D.R., preparing for war, was turning to the right. He saw in Wallace a man who could help him keep the far left loyal to the Democratic Party. He sent him on missions to Central America and China and made his name known the world over.

F.D.R.'s rejection of Wallace as a running mate in 1944 became a blow from which Wallace never recovered. An embittered and disappointed man, he found some small solace in demanding and getting the Commerce job of his old enemy, Jesse Jones. In April 1945, he saw Truman step into the position which he, Wallace, might have had. A year and a half later, confused, defiant and disillusioned, he rushed headlong out of the Democratic pasture and straight into the Communists' outstretched hands.

The Trap. For a long time they had been planning to trap someone of Wallace's stature, but they were not sure just who the quarry would be. They began in Sidney Hillman's C.I.O.-P.A.C., whose simple objective was to make labor's influence felt in the Democratic Party. But the secret aim of pro-Communist operators like Hillman's counsel, John Abt, was to weld radical labor groups, disaffected Democrats and odds & ends of disgruntled Americans into a third party. Obviously, they would need a candidate. Collaborating with the proCommunists were such New Dealers as Beanie Baldwin, a onetime Wallace aide in the Agriculture Department. The Abts and Baldwins formed a cabal of sympathetic minds with a common goal.

After Hillman's death they began to move. In September 1946, they staged the Madison Square Garden rally at which Wallace, pleading for peace, denounced U.S. foreign policy.

For Wallace it was a step from which there was no turning back. In effect he had read himself out of the Democratic Party, leaving Truman no choice but to fire him. The proCommunists did not realize at first what had happened, because Wallace in his speech also lightly rapped Russia; they booed him for that. But by all the evidence, Moscow, more prescient, sensed the prize within its grasp and ordered the U.S. Communists to seize him. Quickly the peace front corrected its faulty line and hailed its new-found hero.