How would history be different if President Kennedy had survived Dallas?
I imagine JFK would have had a bloody awful headache for a long while. Or do you mean if the shooter missed entirely?
Not much different considering a large portion of his brains were scattered in the street.
What if j.f.k had lived?
he would be really old now.
His Wikipedia page would be way different.
I MEAN A 2ND TERM WOULD J.F.K SENT TROOPS TO VEITNAM WOUL WE OF HAD NIXON. FORD CARTER REAGAN AS PRESIDENT?:smack:
Didn’t Oliver Stone have all that figured out?
No need to scream at us.
If Goldwater is the GOP candidate in 1964 then Kennedy gets re-elected. He makes an even bigger mess out of Vietnam, gets nothing like Great Society done, and does little or nothing to advance civil rights. LBJ may run in 1968, probably beating any Republican, but then he dies soon after and we get President Humphrey. Humphrey’s mob ties are exposed and he is impeached and his Secretary of State becomes president. This guy immediately pulls our remaining troops out of Vietnam, legalizes weed, and arranges for baseball teams from both leagues to open franchises in Cuba which ends the embargo. He tells the Shah to get lost and holds free elections in Iran, when Khomeni makes his way there the CIA executes him and makes it look like the Soviets did it. He is re-elected in 1972, but soon afterward the Soviet Union economy fails from trying to keep up with the US and Brezhnev pushes the button obliterating all human life on earth. After that things are less exciting.
I think things would have been worse.
Kennedy probably would have escalated the war in Vietnam just as Johnson did. People can speculate that Kennedy would have withdrawn American troops from Vietnam but the reality is he increased troop levels while he was alive.
And I think Kennedy wouldn’t have accomplished as much as Johnson did on Civil Rights. Kennedy supported Civil Rights in a general sense but he wasn’t willing to pay the political cost it needed.
OK, snark aside.
LBJ was working with the same advisers that Kennedy had, so yes, there would have been a troop buildup in Vietnam. Then, like LBJ, JFK would have had to decide to escalate, try to negotiate, or cut his losses and get out. If he escalates, things get even worse. If he tries to negotiate, he gets about the same result as LBJ. If he cuts his losses and withdraws, we would get to see how the domino theory would have played out.
Meanwhile, back at home, there’s no martyr to rally the Civil Rights movement. The 1964 Civil Rights Act remains stalled in Congress until a watered down version finally gets passed in 1965. Robert Kennedy stays on as Attorney General and doesn’t run for the Senate. Not having the same passion to keep his brother’s programs alive, he then doesn’t run for President in 1968.
LBJ does run for President in 1968, and maybe even gets the nomination. With only a mild Civil Rights law to protest and a Texan running, George Wallace never forms his third party. The American voter decides that eight years of a Democrat administration is long enough. Richard Nixon ends up winning by a larger margin (no Wallace to split the vote) and everything winds up back where it was.
I don’t know about history but he would be a lot less popular now.
Good question. Also, what if we treated men the way we treat women?
National Lampoon had a special issue on JFK’s Fifth Inaugural.
The short version is: the U.S. went to war, not in South Vietnam…but in South Ireland. (And “Fighting Priest Daniel Berrigan” was behind them all the way!)
(Jacqueline Kenney died in Dallas, instead, and her martyrdom was part of why the constitution was amended to allow Jack to run for subsequent terms.)
Good stuff…
So, we’re saying the head shot didn’t happen and he survived the first shot that hit him? He’d have been gold, like Reagan. He certainly would have defeated Goldwater in 64. Kennedy was concerned about seeming to be “soft on communism” and was a fan of the US Army Special Forces, so had he survived he certainly would have kept sending advisers to Viet Nam. As to a Kennedy Tonkin Gulf resolution, I don’t know.
Politically, he might have taken a hit over the Apollo 1 fire but since he wouldn’t be running for re-election in 68, it wouldn’t have concerned him all that much. It’s possible that after the 66 mid-terms, both LBJ and RFK would have been positioning themselves for a Presidential run in 68. LBJ, certainly. I don’t know if Nixon would have run in 68, I’m leaning towards he wouldn’t have, but that could be wistful thinking on my part.
Come to think of it, it wouldn’t be called the Kennedy Space Center, at least not for the same reason. The Mission Control in Houston might still be named after LBJ; he created it in 1958 as a Senator.
If JFK had not been assassinated…
The economy was on an upswing between 1963 and 1965, so I believe that JFK would have been re-elected. Rumors of rampant infidelity and undisclosed health problems would dog him on the campaign trail, but he’d otherwise win handily.
I agree with others that he would have increased our involvement in Vietnam. But, as the tide turned on public opinion, he’d be pressured to end “Mr. Kennedy’s War”. Not wanting it to be tarnish his entire presidency, he’d work out a peace treaty, and US withdrawal, by '68. As the President who “stood up to the communists in Cuba”, he could plausibly justify any fallout over a communist Vietnam.
On the other hand, I don’t think JFK would rest until Castro fell in Cuba. Short of an all out invasion, I expect he’d continue to meddle in Cuban politics throughout the 1960’s, and I would expect a regime change on the island to eventually result. If Castro maintained power, I bet it would be the biggest regret of JFK’s tenure.
Then there is the space race. I actually think that this would become a political liability in JFK’s second term, what with the costs associated. He may be pressured to back off his support, and it may delay the moon landing by many years. It would be cool, though, for Kennedy to have lived to see a man land on the moon and return safely to earth.
I disagree with some others regarding civil rights. I think, after winning re-election, he’d be more vocally in support of civil rights. While he would not have a martyred name to invoke (until '68, with MLK), there would be plenty of marches and protests that he could point to as impetus for change. I expect that he and Dr. King would have cooperated well during the course of 8 years (what with their common interests in womanizing). Then again, LBJ deserves a special commendation for the political risks he took in support of civil rights, and it’s no guarantee that Kennedy would have been so principled.
By 1968, with no ongoing Vietnam quagmire to drive the youth into rebellion, Nixon would have less traction running as the voice of the silent minority, and it’s possible that he would not win. Perhaps we get Bobby (although the country may be tired of Kennedys by then), or LBJ without the problematic foreign affairs.
There is another possibility, though…Kennedy had severe health problems, and despite his youth, he very well might have died in office had he been tasked with serving 8 years. Maybe this is before drawing down in Vietnam, or passing civil rights, and maybe we end up with LBJ all the same, and things end up progressing as we know them now.
In Stephen King’s book ****, where Kennedy’s death was averted by a plucky time traveler, it paints his subsequent presidential career as
rather a failure, with him failing to push successfully for civil rights, leading to Wallace’s election in 1968. Wallace then went nuclear in Vietnam. The universe began to unravel too, due to the time-traveling and interference, so it can’t all be blamed on Kennedy.
You forgot about the death of domestic pets and the rise of apes while humanity devolves into mute savages.
“You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”
Stranger
Hey! Spoilers!