Alex Ross of "The New Yorker" writes, "with the exception of Al Gore, Wallace remains the most famous almost-president in American history". Journalist Jeff Greenfield writes that the 1944 Democratic National Convention was one of the most important political events of the twentieth century, since the leading contenders for the nomination might have governed in vastly different ways. In "The Untold History of the United States", Oliver Stone argues that, had Wallace become president in 1945, "there might have been no atomic bombings, no nuclear arms race, and no Cold War". By contrast, Ron Capshaw of the conservative "National Review" argues that a President Wallace would have practiced a policy of appeasement that would have allowed the spread of Communism into countries like Iran, Greece, and Italy.