THIRD PARTIES: Nobody Here But Us Chicks

In his early 20s, Henry Agard Wallace was an Iowa Republican, a member of his grandfather's Calvinistic church, and mostly occupied in experimenting with hybrid corn.

He left his grandfather's church and the Republicans. In politics, he went left; in religion, he became an Episcopalian, then for a space floundered around in Asiatic mysticism with a Russian theosophist dubbed "Guru."

In 1940, he became Vice President of the U.S.

In 1944, the presidency seemed to be in his grasp. The C.I.O. was noisily for him; Franklin Roosevelt said he wanted him as running mate again. But, for political expediency, Roosevelt sacrificed him. Humiliated, Henry Wallace hung around though he had been cast off: he licked his wounded spirit in the job of Secretary of Commerce. In 1945, he saw Harry Truman step into the White House job which he might have had.

At a critical moment in U.S. foreign affairs, he denounced the Administration's foreign policy and Harry Truman asked him to resign. He flounced out of both the Cabinet and the Democratic Party, stumbled away angrily and into the embrace of the pink and bosomy Progressive Citizens of America.

He watched while it turned into the Progressive Party, a hybrid organization of Reds, malcontents and fuzzies which was soon dominated by the Reds. Most of Wallace's liberal following deserted him, but he accommodated himself to his new friends. He babbled, "The Communists are the closest thing to the early Christian martyrs," talked of leading Gideon's army, was hailed by the Communists as a candidate for President, spouted their lines. Just about everything Russian was good. Just about everything American needed fixing.

Badly defeated in November 1948, he retired broodingly to his South Salem, N.Y. farm. Occasionally, he was heard from, raising his voice against rearmament and the Atlantic pact. Then there were signs that he was edging away from his captors. Last month he was suddenly heard from, denouncing Russia's part in North Korea. "I am on the side of my country," he said. Then he sat around wistfully, waiting for his followers to rally to him.

They didn't. The Progressive Party put it to a vote. Did Leader Wallace reflect the convictions of a majority of the party's bosses? No, the majority decided, he certainly did not.

Last week Henry Wallace turned another corner of his many-cornered life. He quit the Progressives. He wrote: "I can more effectively serve the cause of peace by resigning." He went even further. On the radio he said: "Since the Korean affair, I have reversed my position with regard to the atomic bomb. That is, I think events have justified it."

This week, deserted by even the Reds, pitied by a few, Henry Wallace was back on his South Salem farm, experimenting with hybrid chicks and strawberries.