List of fictional United States presidencies of historical figures (V–Z)

Henry A. Wallace

• In the alternate history short story "News from the Front" by Harry Turtledove, Henry Wallace was serving as vice president under President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the time of the United States' entry into World War II on December 11, 1941, as he was in real life. From then onwards, Roosevelt faced harsh criticism from and strict scrutiny by the American press. The press attacked the Roosevelt administration for not being prepared for the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, as well as bringing on the attack by ignorantly imposing an oil embargo on the Empire of Japan. As the war progressed, the press began to constantly second-guess the Roosevelt administration and to ponder the value of the war. Furthermore, the press revealed important American military secrets, questioning the morality of spying on the Axis powers, decrying the poor state of American technology and giving away planned attacks days before there were to take place, leading to their failures. More importantly, the Battle of Midway (June 4–7, 1942) proved to be a complete disaster. During the first half of 1942, protests against the war began to appear throughout the country and a group of celebrities took it upon themselves to sail to Japan and Nazi Germany to offer peace. The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill faced similar problems in his own country. Matters came to a head when Vice President Wallace broke with the administration and publicly attacked Roosevelt's honesty and competence. Calls for impeachment grew louder throughout the United States and, finally, Congress began the impeachment process in June 1942. Although the story ends while Roosevelt is still president, it is heavily implied that he will be impeached and removed from office and that Wallace will succeed him as the 33rd President.
• The GURPS Infinite Worlds game include the timeline known as Lenin-1 in which Roosevelt maintained Wallace as his vice president when he was reelected in 1944; consequently Henry Wallace became president on April 12, 1945, upon Roosevelt's death. His passive stance (and that of his successors) against the Soviet Union resulted in the steady expansion of Communism across the globe. By 1989, the isolated and malaise-stricken United States is essentially the sole remaining capitalist country on the planet. Also resulting from Wallace becoming president in 1945 is the "Hell World" known as Lenin-2 where nuclear war and unconstrained industry have combined to crash the biosphere.
• Wallace also played an unfortunate role in the history of another unpleasant
  Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933. He was followed by Garner, Lindbergh and then Henry Wallace, who all proved unable to handle the Great Depression – finally leading to the far-right William Dudley Pelley being elected president in 1944
  , assuming dictatorial powers, and inviting the Nazis to conquer the US to help him against the pro-democracy resistance – ending with a totally Nazi-dominated world.
• Wallace becomes president after World War II in the 2000 AD strip Hope:... for the Future by Guy Adams, set in a film noir world where magic is real.

Earl Warren

• In the
  satellite that destroyed a dozen of the Fleet's starships. President Warren concealed his role in the affair for several years but the information was ultimately leaked to the Race in 1965 by Sam Yeager through Shiplord Straha, despite Warren's best efforts to silence Yeager through draconian extralegal measures. Fleetlord Atvar threatened war with the United States. Having seen how quickly and easily the Race had defeated Germany in the short-lived Race-German of 1965, President Warren knew he must avoid a war at all costs. Atvar offered two other options: abandon all space exploration for the indefinite future or allow the Race to destroy an American city. Warren knew he that must choose one of the two lest his country be destroyed and he would not give up the space program, a sign of his country's might and technological prowess. Consequently, he surprised and disappointed Atvar by allowing him to destroy Indianapolis, Indiana. Warren then committed suicide in the Gray House, the presidential residence in Little Rock, Arkansas, and was succeeded by his vice president, Harold Stassen
  .

George Washington

• In a
  parallel universe featured in the short story "He Walked Around the Horses" by H. Beam Piper, General George Washington was killed in the Battle of Doylestown during the short-lived rebellion of the colonies in British North America in the 1770s. He died in the arms of Baron von Steuben. A seemingly insane individual who claimed to be a British diplomat named Benjamin Bathurst
  maintained that the American rebels were successful in their attempts to achieve independence and that Washington survived.
• In the short story "The Father of His Country" by
  ambassador to France from 1778 to 1785, he was elected by the 1st United States Congress on April 6, 1789, in part due to reservations voiced by prominent members of Congress such as John Hancock and Charles Thomson regarding Washington. They were concerned that it would set a bad precedent for the first President to be a general. Furthermore, Franklin's supporters stressed that he was well liked and respected by foreign heads of state friendly to the United States, had been prominent in matters of diplomacy and government at home and abroad and had already proven that he had the best interests of the nation at heart. Franklin was inaugurated as the first President of the United States in Federal Hall in New York City on April 30, 1789. Franklin's vice president was John Adams who had supported Washington in Congress, as had his second cousin Samuel Adams
  . During his tenure in office, President Franklin attempted to create a more democratic society and managed to live longer than he did in real life, serving until at least 1792.
• In the
  King George III in the 1760s and were able to put in place an eleventh hour agreement with avoided revolution. Washington and the King were immortalized in a painting entitled The Two Georges by Thomas Gainsborough, which came to symbolize the friendship between the United Kingdom and the North American Union. In his later career as the Governor-general of the North American Union, Washington implemented a policy which halted the westward expansion of European settlement for some decades and gave a chance to certain Native American tribes such as the Iroquois and the Cherokee to modernize and keep much of their lands. For those reasons, he is greatly revered by Native Americans into the late-twentieth century. The Iroquois believed that he was the only white person to be admitted to their religion's version of Paradise. Conversely, he is considered a traitor by the Sons of Liberty, a nativist, separatist terrorist organization. He is also the namesake of the Province of Washington (analogous with Saskatchewan
  ) and an NAU car marque.
• In the short story "Arnoldstown" by
  1789. He was the most revered of all the Founding Fathers in later generations. The story's name is derived from the US capital in this timeline being Arnoldstown, D.C. with his name also being commemorated in the state of Arnoldia on the Pacific Northwest
  and numerous other place-names.
• In
  Second Great War, with the Confederacy dissolved and annexed by the United States, statues of Washington are left standing whilst those of key Confederate figures such as Albert Sidney Johnston
  are removed by US occupation forces.
• In
  Constitutional Convention was just convening, Benjamin Franklin suffered a stroke and died, too. The convention broke up in consternation, and the Constitution of the United States was never adopted and a Federal Government never created. The loose structure of the Continental Congress eventually disintegrated, with the Thirteen Colonies going each its own way as full-fledged nation states – except that the Yankees of New England
  did create their own more narrow confederation. In this situation, Yankee settlers – backed by the rest of New England – held on to much of the Wyoming Valley, their conflict with Pennsylvania further escalating. Eventually, two mutually hostile nation states emerged, possessing fully equipped regular armies – hereditary enemies which habitually and repeatedly go to war with each other. Posterity remembered George Washington as a talented general who won what was remembered as The War Against the British. However, that war itself was remembered only as a temporary and ephemeral alliance, whose participants later often went to war with each other. Washington having been a Virginian, most people in North America thought of him as a foreigner and people in Virginia's neighbors thought of him as having been from an enemy country.
• People in that history, speculating about "what might have been", fantasized that, had he survived, Washington might have made himself King of America and appointed Franklin as his prime minister, the two of them then launching a massive westward expansion of their Empire.
• In the
  libertarian state known as the North American Confederacy
  in 1893. Despite this, Gallatin insisted that historians would still count George Washington as the first president.
• In the novel Tunnel Through the Deeps by Harry Harrison, in which the United States lost the American Revolution, Washington was executed for treason. America remained under control of the British Empire well into the 20th century. Washington's descendant, a gifted engineer still living in the ancestral Mount Vernon, undertakes the stupendous project of a tunnel under the Atlantic which would bind America closer than ever to Britain.
• In the alternate history series The Tales of Alvin Maker by Orson Scott Card, George Washington is mentioned as "Lord Potomac", who served under the English crown during the alternate version of the American Revolution. However, he surrendered his army and was beheaded for treason.
• In the story "Paine's Paine" by Margaret Klein, conspirators led by the turncoat
  Electoral College, recalled into Emergency Session, elected Alexander Hamilton as president. Hamilton swiftly proceeded to annul Paine's reforms and was re-elected president in 1793. Thomas Paine remained one of the most controversial figures in American history, some venerating him as a great hero and martyr while others regarded him as the most black of villains. At every crisis point in American history over the next centuries, from the Civil War to the Vietnam War and the Gulf War
  , Paine's name and heritage were inevitably evoked yet again.
• In the story "Under the Dark Cloud" by Abigail Stanton Wade, a fierce hurricane broke out during the
  Anointed" – a usage which was soon taken up by others. With Washington winning several more notable victories against the British, a growing number of people started to seriously regard him as "God's Chosen", entrusted with "a Divine Mission". Washington cultivated this phenomenon for political purposes – but in the following years he seemed to start believing in it himself. The Washington cult of personality reached its peak when he brought the war to a successful conclusion in January 1779 – forcing the British to recognize American independence. The Constitutional Convention, held at 1782 in New York, was dominated by Washington and his supporters. The Constitution adopted provided for a President elected for life (and there was little doubt who it would be), a Senate whose members would likewise sit for life, and a House of Representatives elected by limited franchise. The "Washington Constitution" alienated many Democrats who withdrew in protest when the Convention failed to include a Bill of Rights. Gouverneur Morris, originally a friend and staunch supporter of George Washington, was repelled by what he perceived as Washington's increasing authoritarianism, arrogance and intolerance towards anyone who opposed him. Morris sought to promote a compromise between Washington and his opponents – but in vain. Soon after Washington assumed the Life Presidency, an armed rebellion broke out – which at Washington's order was put down with considerable brutality. Washington's opponents were driven underground – but after half a year, three of them managed to assassinate Washington. Thereupon, the United States was plunged into a full-scale civil war. This was exacerbated by the British reneging on the agreement, launching a large-scale invasion of the US and attempting to put in place a puppet President. Forces loyal to Thomas Jefferson
  succeeded in repulsing the British invasion and breaking up the last of the die-hard Washingtonians – but Jefferson was himself killed in the last battle. In the aftermath, Gouverneur Morris came to the fore in the efforts to achieve reconciliation – specifically, in convening a new Constitutional Convention. The Washington Constitution was scrapped. The new Constitution, much of it drafted by Morris, provided for a President elected for a single six-year term and ineligible for re-election, an elected Senate except for five Life Senators, and a Bill of Rights comprising thirteen articles. The new Constitution gained wide support and Gouverneur Morris was elected President by a large majority. He considered the furthering of reconciliation as his main task, and got nicknamed "The Great Healer". After his death, Congress bestowed upon him the title "Father of His Country" and resolved to count him as having been First President of the United States – the Washington Years being dismissed as "an interregnum".
• In the novel Washington's Dirigible (part of the Timeline Wars series by John Barnes), a colossal war is raging across countless alternate history timelines, between a progressive timeline originating from a surviving Periclean Athens and an extremely oppressive slave society resulting from a Carthaginian victory over Rome. The Athenians send an agent to the 18th century who creates a new timeline by getting Benjamin Franklin appointed as the tutor of the young King George III, resulting in making him a Liberal King, sympathetic to the aspirations of the North American colonists; also, many technologies and devices are introduced into the 18th century, such as railways, dirigibles, radio and electricity (as well as flush toilets). However, the Carthaginian "Closers" intervene, kidnapping the King and replace him by an authoritarian impostor. George Washington becomes aware of the situation and takes a major part in the struggle to save the rightful King George III and restore him to the throne, eventually setting the world back on the route to a progressive and forward-looking British Empire. Finding out that the Carthaginian "Closers" had plotted to make everybody in the world into slaves, regardless of skin color, makes Washington into an opponent of slavery and he emancipates his own Black slaves and hires them as free servants. Seeing things going well in his own world and no need to create the United States, Washington becomes a full time agent of the Athenians, undertaking dangerous missions at various alternate history timelines. Instead of becoming "Father of His Country", George Washington becomes the "father" of various countries in various histories which he helped free from the oppression of the "Closers".
• Anton Tatarenko's dystopian book "Vive Le Roi! Vive Le Roi!"
  Royal Absolutism nearly a century before in actual history. By the late 18th century, the position of France as the dominant world power was impregnable – as was the position of the Absolute Monarch inside France. George Washington led a heroic but foredoomed last stand of British colonists in North America against the mighty tide of French troops pouring across the Atlantic – a decade after Britain itself succumbed to French conquest. Captured, Washington was taken in chains to the Bastille in Paris, where he was summarily garroted along with Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others who had incurred Royal displeasure. Defiant to the end, Washington contemptuously rejected a priest's efforts to convert him to the Catholic Church. When facing the executioner, Washington with literally his last breath cried out "Long Live King George!" – not knowing that George III had already been secretly put to death in the basement of the Tower of London
  . He was buried in an unmarked grave in the slums of Paris. The terribly efficient Contrôleur royal des écrits et des livres (Royal Controller of Writings and Books) forbade all mention of Washington's name. In France, England and North America all records of Washington were systematically searched out and destroyed. Washington was only re-discovered when the French Monarchy finally fell in the late 20th century. The team of dedicated historians who researched the vast archives of the Chancellerie secrète (Secret Chancellery) in Paris and published the monumental 170-volume "Annales des siècles de tyrannie" (Annals of Centuries of Tyranny) came upon a detailed – though highly hostile – account of Washington's career, and a transcript of his words when questioned by the Inspecteurs royaux (Royal Inspectors). An attempt to locate Washington's grave and give him a fitting funeral proved futile, but his name was duly added to those inscribed on the tall Colonne des Martyrs (Martyrs' Column) erected in the center of Paris.
• The "Book of The Reincarnated Hero" by Rev. Thomas Crawford, a major Scripture of The Church of Cosmic Renewal,
  nuclear war
  . Members of The Church of Cosmic Renewal are enjoined to regard any stranger they meet, however humble, as if he might be the reincarnated Washington, whom their Church regards as a Divine figure second only to Jesus Christ.
• In the SCP Foundation entry SCP-2776 – Mr. President,^[3] Virginia Colonel George Washington died of dysentery in July 1755, following the Battle of the Monongahela. Washington's body was smuggled overseas into France where a scientist by the name of Dr. Jean Durand repurposed the corpse into an android with the original Washington's memories prior to his illness, and was equipped with nuclear weaponry and laser armaments in the event the Thirteen Colonies needed to be defended against overwhelming odds. Durand's assistant, Martha Custis, became the oblivious android Washington's wife to serve as its mechanic. The android lived Washington's life as known in history until its "death" in 1799, remaining deactivated until it was rediscovered in 2007 by the SCP Foundation and catalogued as SCP-2776. In 2009, SCP-2776 violently broke containment upon overhearing news about a recent buyout of an American telecom company by a British media company; perceiving this as the British Empire's conquest of the United States, SCP-2776 attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean in order to destroy London. After killing nearly two hundred SCP Foundation staff, SCP-2776 was critically damaged, incapacitated, and transferred to a new facility.
• As recounted in Mary Crawley's novelette "Washington's surrender at Yorktown", in 1757 George Washington, officer of the
  King George III for his good and diligent work. Having been during his years in India cut off from developments in America, returning to Britain he became increasingly disturbed by news of the growing ferment in the North American colonies – very different from how he remembered the situation there during his youth. In 1774 Washington went across the Atlantic on an unofficial mediating mission. He met with prominent Virginians and other colonial leaders, but had no mandate from the British government to offer any substantial concessions, and his mediation failed. In 1775 Washington accepted, after some hesitation, a command in the British forces charged with putting down the North American Revolt. His attitude to fellow colonials that he had to fight was considered stern but fair. He had some notable successes, for example capturing New York City for the British Crown. But in 1781, the forces under Washington were besieged at Yorktown by the colonists' rebel army and its French allies. Eventually, Washington had no choice but surrendering to the colonists' commander, Benedict Arnold. In the aftermath, Washington spent several quiet years in the Kent estate, with Frances and their three children. Their firstborn, Daniel, who embarked on a military career of his own, was never told the true circumstances of his birth; fortunately, his facial features resembled those of the males in Frances' family. At the outbreak of war with France in 1793, General Washington was recalled to active service at his firm request. In April 1794 he commanded a British force which landed in Bretagne, to support the Chouans – Monarchist rebels opposing the Revolutionary government in Paris. However, the unexpected approach of a far superior French force necessitated a quick withdrawal. Washington was on the shore, overseeing an orderly embarkation and making sure no British troops be left behind, when he was hit by the bullet of a French sniper. He was severely wounded and died soon after being taken on board a transport ship. Benedict Arnold
  , then on his second term as President of the United States, wrote to the grieving Frances: "Your husband, madam, was a fine man and a fine officer: competent, conscientious, courageous and honorable, a credit to his service. George Washington's unswerving loyalty to his King, as set against my own firm commitment to the cause of the Thirteen Colonies, made it inevitable that we had to fight each other, but nothing in the world could have made us hate each other. During all the years that we commanded opposing forces and tried our hardest to defeat each other, there was no rancor. We both did our duty as we saw it".

Daniel Webster

• In George Field's story "Daniel Webster's Road to the Devil", Daniel Webster avoids the accident which in actual history caused his death, and is elected president in
  Dominion of "British North America
  ".

Adam Weishaupt

• Adam Weishaupt is the first President in The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, after murdering and taking the identity of George Washington.
• Also The Secret Benefactor by Barbara Norden posits that Adam Weishaupt killed
  Franklin Roosevelt was doing a good job and there was no need to interfere with him, and therefore Weishaupt turned his talents in the opposite direction – killing Adolf Hitler and taking his place and as Hitler making a series of deliberate very bad decisions which greatly damaged Nazi Germany's war effort. In between, Weishaupt intentionally published a series of writings depicting himself and the Illuminati as evil schemers, in order to distract attention from what he was really doing. The book is written as a first-person narrative set down in 1997 by Weishaupt – extremely long-lived, but not an immortal – as he lay dying of old age at a secret Illuminati hideout in the Himalayas. Having found a worthy successor, who proved herself by acting behind the scenes to ensure a peaceful end to the Cold War and personally overseeing the breaking down of the Berlin Wall
  , Weishaupt charges her – or her own successors – with publishing his book "when the world is ready for it", but cautioning "This account is incomplete. The secret of some of the things I had to do had best die with me".

Kanye West

• In the song "Black Friday" by Kendrick Lamar, Lamar envisions a future where West becomes president. Under West's presidency, Kendrick would be allowed to receive oral sex in the Oval Office and play West's debut album The College Dropout inside of the White House.

Burton K. Wheeler

• In the
  alternate history novel The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, Burton Wheeler succeeded Charles Lindbergh as the 33rd President in 1942. Wheeler was Lindbergh's running mate in the 1940 election
  , elected as Vice President on an Isolationist ticket. Following Lindbergh's disappearance, he serves as President for eight days, a period marked by martial law and anti-Semitic rioting. Wheeler is eventually impeached but ultimately pardoned by Franklin Roosevelt (elected in an emergency presidential election concurrent with the 1942 midterm elections).
• In
  George Marshall
  , and other U.S. Government officials are executed by garrote in a meat packing plant outside of Washington, D.C., after being found guilty of war crimes. Wheeler does leave behind a secret installation where work of producing an atomic bomb continues, in the hope that it would eventually help in liberating the country.
• In the short story "Fighting Bob" by
  Progressive Party candidate, defeating the Republican incumbent Calvin Coolidge and their Democratic opponent John W. Davis
  . He entered office as the 31st President on March 4, 1925. However, President La Follette's term in office proved to be short-lived as he died on June 18, 1925 (as he did in real life). Wheeler succeeded him as the 32nd President.