Wendell Peterson

Wendell Peterson was a president of the New California Republic. Peterson served four terms, making him the second longest-serving president of the New California Republic. Wendell Peterson was elected for a fifth term but was ousted from his position when Aaron Kimball was voted as president by the NCR council.

Background
Wendell Peterson replaced Joanna Tibbett after she was voted out of office in 2253. In his first year in office, Peterson ordered three battalions of NCR troops into the Mojave Wasteland. Peterson went on to serve four terms as president of the New California Republic until he was voted out two months into his fifth term in 2273, where Aaron Kimball succeeded him.

In 2269, Peterson was responsible for starting the erosion of Tandi administration laws that limited the number of cattle and acreage per person and thus giving rise to brahmin barons and agricultural barons. The Kimball administration continued this trend and overturned the laws completely. Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Collector's Edition p.456: "Controversy over Economic Development The NCR's economy is based on two resources: its great Brahmin herds, and swaths of land that have been restored to arable condition. These provide the nation with meat, leather, and starchy vegetables. During President Tandi's presidency, regulations limited the number of cattle head and the acreage of fields that could be owned by a single person. Despite constant pressure from the Stockmen's Association and Republican Farmer's Committee, such regulations loosened only a little so long as Tandi was in office. Following her death, however, they eroded until President Kimball overturned them completely.

''As a result, the past 12 years have seen the rise of the Brahmin Barons and Agri-Barons: captains of industry who are, by post-apocalyptic standards, spectacularly wealthy. This has given birth to a number of cottage industries, from the rebirth of luxury goods production to "journalism" that reports on the latest purchases, commissions, and "life lessons" of the newly rich and famous.'' ''The past 12 years has also seen a change in attitudes towards collective welfare. Citizens of the NCR rarely face significant dangers on a daily basis, and survival is an assumption rather than an aspiration. Citizens are far more reluctant to share food and other resources, and the person who provides services free of charge, whether it's something as quotidian as sewing or as rarefied as surgical expertise, are now the exception rather than the rule.'' ''An added economic strain is the scarcity of salvageable goods. Sixty-five years of scavenging has done a good job of picking clean the wastes of what was once Southern California. Rare are those individuals who can make a living by scavenging and hunting what they need.'' ''A consequence of these economic and cultural transformations has been the rebirth of wage labor. Whereas one's labor was until recently seen as benefitting [sic] and belonging to a collective (whether a family or small town), it has now become a commodity. To earn their keep, many citizens must seek an employer and trade the sweat of their brow for Caps.'' ''Citizens of the NCR hold a variety of opinions about these developments. Many boast of their nation's economic strength; others decry what they feel has been lost. Many curse the selfishness of their fellow citizens, usually while pursuing aims that will benefit only themselves or their families. Here in the Vegas wastes, however, nearly all citizens will agree on one matter: opportunity has dried up back home, and to earn a fortune, one must come East."'' (Behind the Bright Lights & Big City)

President Peterson would also see the start of the NCR-Brotherhood War in the late 2250s/early 2260s. The war would lead to the collapse of NCR dollar after the Brotherhood of Steel would target the Republic's gold reserves.Joshua Sawyer: "''It happened during the BoS-NCR war. I believe Alice McLafferty mentions it, but I'm not positive. She doesn't detail the events in this much detail, but here they are: The attacks caused NCR citizens (and others who held NCR currency) to panic, resulting in a rush to reclaim the listed face value of currency from NCR's gold reserves. Inability to do this at several locations (especially near the periphery of NCR territory where reserves were normally low) caused a loss of faith in NCR's ability to back their currency. Though NCR eventually stopped the BoS attacks, they decided to protect against future problems by switching to fiat currency. While this meant that BoS could no longer attack a) reserves or b) the source of production (all NCR bills are made in the Boneyard), some people felt more uneasy about their money not having any "real" (backed) value. This loss of confidence increased with NCR inflation, an ever-looming spectre of fiat currency. Because the Hub links NCR with the Mojave Wasteland and beyond, the merchants there grew frustrated with NCR's handling of the currency crisis. They conspired to re-introduce the bottle cap as a water-backed currency that could "bridge the gap" between NCR and Legion territory. In the time leading up to the re-introduction, they did the footwork to position themselves properly. If some old-timer had a chest full of caps, they didn't care (in fact, they thought that was great, since the old-timers would enthusiastically embrace the return of the cap), but they did seek to control or destroy production facilities and truly large volumes of caps (e.g. Typhon's treasure) whenever possible."'' (Josh Sawyer on forums.somethingawful.com) President Kimball would continue the war when he assumed office, but active hostilities have ceased by 2281.

Appearances
Wendell Peterson is mentioned in Fallout: New Vegas and the Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide.