The president appeared to distrust his military advisors -- particularly after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion -- and appeared to be taking their advice less and less into consideration.
As Kennedy later told Benjamin Bradlee, then the Washington bureau chief for Newsweek, "The first advice I'm going to give my successor is to watch the generals and to avoid feeling that just because they were military men their opinions on military matters were worth a damn. His brother and Attorney General Robert Kennedy worked hard to keep them out of the press. Kennedy: An Alternate History," journalist and political analyst Jeff Greenfield argues that JFK may have had to confront these allegations if he had lived.
At the time of the assassination, Johnson was facing two serious allegations: one from a Senate committee that he had taken kickbacks and another from Life magazine that he had earned his fortune in a less than civil manner as a public servant.
These investigations ended when Johnson was sworn in to replace Kennedy: "No one wanted to inject more trauma into an already shocked and shaken nation," Greenfield wrote. Because of this, George Wallace was elected president in Wallace was the pro-segregation governor of Alabama who pronounced, "I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.
In King's fiction world, Wallace raised the conflict in Vietnam to nuclear proportions that triggered a domino effect with wars around the world, creating an atomic dystopia. There's an answer for that, too. Edward Miller, the author of a book on the U. Not dragging the U. That means no hippies, no beatniks, no draft dodgers, no tie-dye clothing, and no Woodstock in this alternate world. The s without an active anti-war movement would be a much different place.
Greenfield imagines a monstrous second inaugural gala, featuring performances from the Beach Boys, Roy Orbison, and The Beatles. Greenfield gets weirdly specific about what happens at the party, including this hypothetical JFK quote: "Not since the British burned the White House in has a foreign invader conquered our land as swiftly and thoroughly as have John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Partly out of distrust for his military advisors, Kennedy saw deescalation with Cuba as the only solution to their issues.
To assuage U. The public wasn't quite as convinced, as the Cuban connection remain a key plank of many assassination conspiracy theories and the U. Kennedy's assassination was great for Johnson's political career, as it saved him from a coming scandal. Without Kennedy's death, Johnson's scandal is fair game and he is forced to resign and trek back home to Texas, so Greenfield imagines. Even without the scandal, Kennedy might have chosen to back his younger brother for the White House in , continuing the family dynasty.
He already expressed doubts about keeping Johnson on the ticket in The consensus among Kennedy speculators is no. Greenfield disagrees, and doesn't even think the Kennedy would have passed Civil Rights. Given the unpopularity of his speculative Vietnam withdrawal, Kennedy wouldn't have risked losing Southern Democrats by passing civil rights, according to Greenfield.
He also would have struggled to do so without Johnson, "a Southerner who could speak to Southerners in their own language, and a legislator in chief par excellence," writes Brands. Johnson helped sell civil rights; Kennedy couldn't have done it by himself.
Almost as prevalent as theories about his assassination are theories about what would have happened to three major historical events if JFK had been alive in Since then, many theories have sprung up about the assassination, who was involved, and why Kennedy was killed. The three main topics of debate have been the outcome of the presidential election; the escalation of the Vietnam War; and the finality of the historic Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. All three of those items were in process when Kennedy died when he visited Texas as part of the run-up to the presidential campaign.
Kennedy was committed to running again in and based on the theories among historians, he had a good chance of winning. His popularity rating was at 58 percent right before the assassination, just after he served 1, days in office. Bush, and Barack Obama, five presidents who won re-election bids. The presumptive presidential nominee for the Republicans in late was Senator Barry Goldwater.
Kennedy and Goldwater had reportedly agreed to debate, while Johnson had no interest in debating Goldwater.
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