Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, and was succeeded by Truman. Truman quickly replaced most other senior Roosevelt appointees, but retained Wallace, who remained very popular with liberal Democrats. The discontent of liberal leaders strengthened Wallace's position in the Cabinet; Truman privately stated that the two most important members of his "political team" were Wallace and Eleanor Roosevelt. As secretary of commerce, Wallace advocated a "middle course" between the planned economy of the Soviet Union and the laissez-faire economics that had dominated the United States before the Great Depression. With his congressional allies, he led passage of the Employment Act of 1946. Conservatives blocked the inclusion of a measure providing for full employment, but the act established the Council of Economic Advisers and the Joint Economic Committee to study economic matters. Wallace's proposal to establish international control over nuclear weapons was not adopted, but he did help pass the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, which established the United States Atomic Energy Commission to oversee domestic development of nuclear power.