A True October Surprise (A Wikibox TL)
- Thread starter lord caedus
- Start date
Well, the next papal conclave takes place in 1993, so Cardinal Wojtyla might still become pope. As for the Eastern Bloc and Poland, they will be covered once we move into the 1980s.
Part 12: Bush Presidency (1980-1984)
Bush's second term began on a bright note for the president. Republicans had managed to take control over the Senate for the first time in decades, albeit by a narrow margin and Bush hoped to have more control over Congress with this and the increased Republican caucus in the House. Bush would manage to pass a tax reduction bill through the Congress in 1982 but would almost completely undo the bill's effects following the United States' involvement in UNSFFI a year later.
The "Curse of Tippecanoe", a superstition that all presidents elected in twenty year periods since 1840 (and William Henry Harrison's death after only thirty days in office) was foiled in the most chilling assassination attempt to date. During a visit to Denver in September 1981, President Bush was greeting the crowd when a man opened fire, killing one Secret Service agent, Bush's adviser James Baker and wounding three others, including the president (who was hit in the left arm by a bullet that shattered his arm bone). Secret Service agents returned fire, killing the man, who was identified as Theodore Robert Bundy, a former campaign staffer for Daniel Evans' 1972 presidential campaign who had disappeared alongside another staffer at the tail end of the 1972 primaries.
During the FBI and Secret Service search of Bundy's rented apartment, the clothing and other artifacts of dozens of women were found, alongside human remains later identified as those of several missing women who had disappeared in the past eight or so years on the west coast. Bundy's journals that were recovered indicated that he had somehow been convinced Bush had ended his political career by ensuring Evans' defeat to secure his own bid to the White House four years later (despite the fact that Bush was not a candidate in the 1972 election) and the would-be assassin chillingly wrote of plans to capture the president "if able" and "exact [his] revenge", most likely with some of the many instruments that federal agents found human blood on and that were later confirmed to be murder weapons Bundy had kept. The journals later wrote Bundy had become convinced that capturing Bush was impossible and that he would instead "make a name for [himself]" by killing Bush.
Like the first half of Bush's term, the most drastic events were in foreign policy. The situation in Iran had, in the views of both Washington and Moscow, been going on for too long and greatly destabilizing both the Middle East as well as the international oil market. In a rare Cold War display of agreement, Bush and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev (or, more accurately, the Politburo acting on behalf of the increasingly ill Brezhnev) agreed to let a French motion in the UN Security Council pass to set up an international stabilization force for Iran. The announcement of the United Nations Stabilization Force For Iran (UNSFFI) was greeted with surprise across the globe and became a major foreign policy landmark in American-Soviet relations (albeit one that was reached with the secret condition of increasing grain exports to the Soviet Union as well as the administration backing down on criticizing the Warsaw Pact's human rights record).
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein refused to relinquish control over the Khuzestan province (or at least parts that the Iraqi military effectively controlled) and once UNSFFI forces entered Iran, the international coalition spearheaded by United States troops, quickly forced Iraq back behind the border. The "mission to bring democracy and stability to Iran" went a long way to ending the "Vietnam syndrome" that the American public had voiced since the 1970s.
Once Bush's UNSFFI partner Brezhnev died in 1982, relations with the Soviets soured and Soviet contributions to UNSFFI ended almost entirely. A cooling of relations in the Andropov years (1982-1984) was balanced out by the realization among the State Department officials and the CIA from contacts/agents gained as a result of contact with Soviet soldiers in UNSFFI that the Soviet state was in worse shape than had previously been thought and that led the White House to erroneously believe that the USSR was in its dying throes and leaned off pressuring the communist state, fearing a power vacuum would ensue (a la Iran) if the Soviet state collapsed.
As such, democracy activists from the Warsaw Pact nations and domestic red-baiters were infuriated with the administration's seeming indifference to the plight of those living behind the Iron Curtain and the president suffered at the polls. Following the 1982 midterms, the Republicans lost control of the Senate and the Democrats again set the domestic agenda, overriding Bush's veto to oversee the expansion of Medicare eligibility to all Americans (which the president decried as fiscally imprudent) and watering down the president's proposed anti-drug laws.
Unlike his immediate predecessor, Bush was able to make one appointment to the Supreme Court, after Potter Stewart announced his retirement in 1981. He selected Illinois Court of Appeals Justice John Paul Stevens to the court, and although the president promised several socially conservative southern Republican senators that he would appoint an anti-abortion conservative with his second pick, he was never able to do so.
The "Curse of Tippecanoe", a superstition that all presidents elected in twenty year periods since 1840 (and William Henry Harrison's death after only thirty days in office) was foiled in the most chilling assassination attempt to date. During a visit to Denver in September 1981, President Bush was greeting the crowd when a man opened fire, killing one Secret Service agent, Bush's adviser James Baker and wounding three others, including the president (who was hit in the left arm by a bullet that shattered his arm bone). Secret Service agents returned fire, killing the man, who was identified as Theodore Robert Bundy, a former campaign staffer for Daniel Evans' 1972 presidential campaign who had disappeared alongside another staffer at the tail end of the 1972 primaries.
During the FBI and Secret Service search of Bundy's rented apartment, the clothing and other artifacts of dozens of women were found, alongside human remains later identified as those of several missing women who had disappeared in the past eight or so years on the west coast. Bundy's journals that were recovered indicated that he had somehow been convinced Bush had ended his political career by ensuring Evans' defeat to secure his own bid to the White House four years later (despite the fact that Bush was not a candidate in the 1972 election) and the would-be assassin chillingly wrote of plans to capture the president "if able" and "exact [his] revenge", most likely with some of the many instruments that federal agents found human blood on and that were later confirmed to be murder weapons Bundy had kept. The journals later wrote Bundy had become convinced that capturing Bush was impossible and that he would instead "make a name for [himself]" by killing Bush.
Like the first half of Bush's term, the most drastic events were in foreign policy. The situation in Iran had, in the views of both Washington and Moscow, been going on for too long and greatly destabilizing both the Middle East as well as the international oil market. In a rare Cold War display of agreement, Bush and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev (or, more accurately, the Politburo acting on behalf of the increasingly ill Brezhnev) agreed to let a French motion in the UN Security Council pass to set up an international stabilization force for Iran. The announcement of the United Nations Stabilization Force For Iran (UNSFFI) was greeted with surprise across the globe and became a major foreign policy landmark in American-Soviet relations (albeit one that was reached with the secret condition of increasing grain exports to the Soviet Union as well as the administration backing down on criticizing the Warsaw Pact's human rights record).
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein refused to relinquish control over the Khuzestan province (or at least parts that the Iraqi military effectively controlled) and once UNSFFI forces entered Iran, the international coalition spearheaded by United States troops, quickly forced Iraq back behind the border. The "mission to bring democracy and stability to Iran" went a long way to ending the "Vietnam syndrome" that the American public had voiced since the 1970s.
Once Bush's UNSFFI partner Brezhnev died in 1982, relations with the Soviets soured and Soviet contributions to UNSFFI ended almost entirely. A cooling of relations in the Andropov years (1982-1984) was balanced out by the realization among the State Department officials and the CIA from contacts/agents gained as a result of contact with Soviet soldiers in UNSFFI that the Soviet state was in worse shape than had previously been thought and that led the White House to erroneously believe that the USSR was in its dying throes and leaned off pressuring the communist state, fearing a power vacuum would ensue (a la Iran) if the Soviet state collapsed.
As such, democracy activists from the Warsaw Pact nations and domestic red-baiters were infuriated with the administration's seeming indifference to the plight of those living behind the Iron Curtain and the president suffered at the polls. Following the 1982 midterms, the Republicans lost control of the Senate and the Democrats again set the domestic agenda, overriding Bush's veto to oversee the expansion of Medicare eligibility to all Americans (which the president decried as fiscally imprudent) and watering down the president's proposed anti-drug laws.
Unlike his immediate predecessor, Bush was able to make one appointment to the Supreme Court, after Potter Stewart announced his retirement in 1981. He selected Illinois Court of Appeals Justice John Paul Stevens to the court, and although the president promised several socially conservative southern Republican senators that he would appoint an anti-abortion conservative with his second pick, he was never able to do so.
Last edited:
Part 13: United States presidential election, 1984
The 1984 campaign was largely viewed as a referendum on the Bush administration. Vice President Dole, despite concerns about being too conservative for the general election, faced only minor challengers in the primaries, easily winning the Republican nomination. The vice president selected Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz, a moderate who was the heir to the Heinz family fortune, as his running mate.
On the Democratic side, the party had learned a harsh lesson from the 1980 campaign and worked to quickly consolidate support behind candidates it felt could unite the party instead of alienate key factions like McGovern's candidacy had. The candidates quickly narrowed to Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale, the political protege of the late President Humphrey and Ohio Senator John Glenn, the former Mercury Seven astronaut. Mondale and Glenn's dragged on until April, when Glenn was able to finally break ahead of Mondale in the delegate count. Mondale dropped out, believing that he would be given the vice-presidential nomination in the name of party unity, but Glenn, who disliked Mondale's calls to end the space program following the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon in 1969, gave the vice presidential nomination to Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen, a conservative southern Democrat instead. A furious Mondale refused to campaign for Glenn until persuaded by party leaders in October and by then it was too late to make much of a difference.
Foreign affairs dominated the election, and Dole was quick to tie himself into the Bush administration's successful involvement in Iran and the opening up of relations with China. Glenn attempted to draw parallels with Dole to both Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, claiming Dole was too extreme to be given the reins of power and that he was "a throwback to the days of Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge". Dole was able to throw back that Glenn would be "more of the same", claiming that Glenn would "follow the Democratic tradition of reckless adventurism abroad", implicitly blaming the Democrats for the post-World War II conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.
The death of Soviet leader Yuri Andropov and his replacement by hardliner Viktor Grishin in February brought the Cold War back into the forefront of voters' concerns. The Republican campaign seized on this, warning Americans "not to change horses in midstream". Grishin, for his part, used increasingly belligerent rhetoric to defend the USSR against what he perceived as "western capitalist attempts to weaken the Soviet Union and communist movement", effectively ending detente that had been on hiatus after Brezhnev's death two years earlier.
The division among Democrats following the primaries and Glenn's perceived snub of Mondale had offset doubts about Dole's conservative views. The finely-humming economy and return of fears about the Cold War in the wake of detente's end also were the reasons why a majority of Americans gave the Republicans their third consecutive victory, something that the party hadn't done since 1928.
On the Democratic side, the party had learned a harsh lesson from the 1980 campaign and worked to quickly consolidate support behind candidates it felt could unite the party instead of alienate key factions like McGovern's candidacy had. The candidates quickly narrowed to Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale, the political protege of the late President Humphrey and Ohio Senator John Glenn, the former Mercury Seven astronaut. Mondale and Glenn's dragged on until April, when Glenn was able to finally break ahead of Mondale in the delegate count. Mondale dropped out, believing that he would be given the vice-presidential nomination in the name of party unity, but Glenn, who disliked Mondale's calls to end the space program following the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon in 1969, gave the vice presidential nomination to Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen, a conservative southern Democrat instead. A furious Mondale refused to campaign for Glenn until persuaded by party leaders in October and by then it was too late to make much of a difference.
Foreign affairs dominated the election, and Dole was quick to tie himself into the Bush administration's successful involvement in Iran and the opening up of relations with China. Glenn attempted to draw parallels with Dole to both Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, claiming Dole was too extreme to be given the reins of power and that he was "a throwback to the days of Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge". Dole was able to throw back that Glenn would be "more of the same", claiming that Glenn would "follow the Democratic tradition of reckless adventurism abroad", implicitly blaming the Democrats for the post-World War II conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.
The death of Soviet leader Yuri Andropov and his replacement by hardliner Viktor Grishin in February brought the Cold War back into the forefront of voters' concerns. The Republican campaign seized on this, warning Americans "not to change horses in midstream". Grishin, for his part, used increasingly belligerent rhetoric to defend the USSR against what he perceived as "western capitalist attempts to weaken the Soviet Union and communist movement", effectively ending detente that had been on hiatus after Brezhnev's death two years earlier.
The division among Democrats following the primaries and Glenn's perceived snub of Mondale had offset doubts about Dole's conservative views. The finely-humming economy and return of fears about the Cold War in the wake of detente's end also were the reasons why a majority of Americans gave the Republicans their third consecutive victory, something that the party hadn't done since 1928.
Last edited:
Deleted member 9338
Enjoying the time line. Kind of surprised that Dole won Michagan. Was it close?
Thanks. It was close, but Dole peeled just enough union voters off of Glenn to win Michigan by a hair.
surprised dole lost Ohio
'88 will probably be closer than OTL, maybe even a democratic year?
also, will the Canadian and UK elections be making a comeback?
'88 will probably be closer than OTL, maybe even a democratic year?
also, will the Canadian and UK elections be making a comeback?
surprised dole lost Ohio
'88 will probably be closer than OTL, maybe even a democratic year?
also, will the Canadian and UK elections be making a comeback?
Glenn's from Ohio, which is the only reason he won it. If the Dems had put Mondale up with similar numbers, they wouldn't have won the Buckeye State.
No comment.
Yes, after the 1988 US presidential election, I will post updates for the UK in the 1980s and Canada in the 1980s.
"President Dole confused and alarmed voters today when he announced that 'either way your planet is doomed' and that 'Bob Dole doesn't need this' after being asked follow up questions by reporters."
- NBC News report, September 3, 1992.
Not canon, before anyone asks.
ahh, forgot that.
does that make it the first time a republican has won an election without carrying Ohio?
Part 14: Dole Presidency
President Dole began his term with the Democratic-controlled Congress wary of his planned domestic agenda, which included plans to slash spending nearly across the board (exempting defense programs and Medicare, of course). Congress forged a compromise with the new president that watered down the cuts but that would be almost the entirety of the term's changes to the domestic political scene. Dole quickly antagonized his Republican allies on the Hill with his micromanaging nature and congressional Democrats seized on this dissatisfaction, rendering Dole unable to push through what he thought were needed reforms of the welfare system, tax system and reorganization of the Defense Department....
On the international scene, the effects of several theaters of the Cold War were coming to a head concurrently. South Africa, which had become a pariah state as its Western anti-communist allies turned against it over the apartheid system, had begun to take the first steps towards ending the system in the final Bush years. During the Dole years, the process began slowly, but an attempted putsch by hardline apartheid supporters under General Magnus Malan caused the brief South African Civil War that saw the rapid collapse of apartheid after the Umkhonto we Sizwe (military wing of the African National Congress) began a wary alliance with the moderate forces to defeat Malan. Dole and Secretary of State Kissinger (a Bush holdover) successfully persuaded Malan against attempting to seize moderate-held military bases where some of South Africa's secret nuclear weapons were held, averting a nuclear disaster on top of a civil war with large racial overtones. Malan's assassination would see the collapse of the hardline apartheid activists, and apartheid would quickly die as well, with the strongest proponents of apartheid either dead or discredited and the first elections under universal suffrage would take place under international supervision (on the fierce protestations of Acting President P.W. Botha) after the war's end in 1988.
Pakistan, the bitter enemy of India, who had become an informal ally of the United States, had turned to the Soviet Union following the loss of East Pakistan (Bangladesh) in the Second Indo-Pakistani War. Following India's development of a nuclear weapon, the USSR covertly began to give Pakistan nuclear secrets (much like they had with China decades earlier). Learning from China, the Soviets had not given Pakistan all the knowledge to create an atomic weapon, but enough to put them on the right track. Unknown to the Soviets, the Pakistani nuclear program was severely effected by the political chaos that the country had undergone following the loss of Bangladesh and the occasional spillage of violence from its neighbors Iran and Afghanistan, which were undergoing civil conflicts in the early 1980s. As such, its scientists and technicians were generally woefully underfunded, under-equipped and under-trained.
On a June day in 1987, this came to ahead in the Kahuta Works Laboratory, the main research site for the program.
While the cause of the explosion remains unknown because of the elimination of both the facility and the city of Kahuta, the nuclear detonation caused the death of nearly 50,000 Pakistanis and shifting winds caused thousands more to develop illnesses and injuries as fallout spread to the east. Almost immediately, the world's militaries, fearing a nuclear attack as a prelude to all-out war, went on red alert, with all-out nuclear war being averted only by cool heads in Washington, Moscow, New Delhi and Beijing.
Once the world realized what had really happened, Kahuta became a rallying cry for nuclear disarmament worldwide. President Dole, almost overnight, faced loud public fears about nuclear weapons and nuclear energy with some congressmen and congresswomen demanding a removal of nuclear weapons from American soil to prevent an American Kahuta. Dole and the military establishment, by 1988, managed to calm American fears about the storage of nuclear weapons domestically but Kahuta saw a strong trend against nuclear power that would last decades.
Pakistan itself saw support for the government, led by President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, collapse overnight. Under international scrutiny now and abandoned by his Soviet allies (who were wary of international opinion), Zia fled one step of mutinous troops, with a new government agreeing to let the United Nations investigators in to Kahuta and beginning a difficult period of detente with India after rewriting the Pakistani constitution to forbid nuclear weapons....
In Eastern Europe, Soviet control was weakening after the Politburo, focusing more and more on domestic matters as the dire Soviet economic situation became increasingly undeniable, refused the pleas of its puppet leaders to quell democratic protests in the Warsaw Bloc states. By 1988, East Germany had begun open negotiations with its western counterpart and Czechoslovakia had stated its intention to hold open elections for a portion of the nation's formerly rubber-stamp parliament. Poland remained under martial law, but the increasing boldness of dissidents to both publicly speak out against Polish leaders and nationwide strikes protesting the supposedly "worker's state" being opposed to unions who were not under effective government control resulted in waves of crackdowns that caused more and more resentment against the military government in Warsaw.
On the international scene, the effects of several theaters of the Cold War were coming to a head concurrently. South Africa, which had become a pariah state as its Western anti-communist allies turned against it over the apartheid system, had begun to take the first steps towards ending the system in the final Bush years. During the Dole years, the process began slowly, but an attempted putsch by hardline apartheid supporters under General Magnus Malan caused the brief South African Civil War that saw the rapid collapse of apartheid after the Umkhonto we Sizwe (military wing of the African National Congress) began a wary alliance with the moderate forces to defeat Malan. Dole and Secretary of State Kissinger (a Bush holdover) successfully persuaded Malan against attempting to seize moderate-held military bases where some of South Africa's secret nuclear weapons were held, averting a nuclear disaster on top of a civil war with large racial overtones. Malan's assassination would see the collapse of the hardline apartheid activists, and apartheid would quickly die as well, with the strongest proponents of apartheid either dead or discredited and the first elections under universal suffrage would take place under international supervision (on the fierce protestations of Acting President P.W. Botha) after the war's end in 1988.
Pakistan, the bitter enemy of India, who had become an informal ally of the United States, had turned to the Soviet Union following the loss of East Pakistan (Bangladesh) in the Second Indo-Pakistani War. Following India's development of a nuclear weapon, the USSR covertly began to give Pakistan nuclear secrets (much like they had with China decades earlier). Learning from China, the Soviets had not given Pakistan all the knowledge to create an atomic weapon, but enough to put them on the right track. Unknown to the Soviets, the Pakistani nuclear program was severely effected by the political chaos that the country had undergone following the loss of Bangladesh and the occasional spillage of violence from its neighbors Iran and Afghanistan, which were undergoing civil conflicts in the early 1980s. As such, its scientists and technicians were generally woefully underfunded, under-equipped and under-trained.
On a June day in 1987, this came to ahead in the Kahuta Works Laboratory, the main research site for the program.
While the cause of the explosion remains unknown because of the elimination of both the facility and the city of Kahuta, the nuclear detonation caused the death of nearly 50,000 Pakistanis and shifting winds caused thousands more to develop illnesses and injuries as fallout spread to the east. Almost immediately, the world's militaries, fearing a nuclear attack as a prelude to all-out war, went on red alert, with all-out nuclear war being averted only by cool heads in Washington, Moscow, New Delhi and Beijing.
Once the world realized what had really happened, Kahuta became a rallying cry for nuclear disarmament worldwide. President Dole, almost overnight, faced loud public fears about nuclear weapons and nuclear energy with some congressmen and congresswomen demanding a removal of nuclear weapons from American soil to prevent an American Kahuta. Dole and the military establishment, by 1988, managed to calm American fears about the storage of nuclear weapons domestically but Kahuta saw a strong trend against nuclear power that would last decades.
Pakistan itself saw support for the government, led by President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, collapse overnight. Under international scrutiny now and abandoned by his Soviet allies (who were wary of international opinion), Zia fled one step of mutinous troops, with a new government agreeing to let the United Nations investigators in to Kahuta and beginning a difficult period of detente with India after rewriting the Pakistani constitution to forbid nuclear weapons....
In Eastern Europe, Soviet control was weakening after the Politburo, focusing more and more on domestic matters as the dire Soviet economic situation became increasingly undeniable, refused the pleas of its puppet leaders to quell democratic protests in the Warsaw Bloc states. By 1988, East Germany had begun open negotiations with its western counterpart and Czechoslovakia had stated its intention to hold open elections for a portion of the nation's formerly rubber-stamp parliament. Poland remained under martial law, but the increasing boldness of dissidents to both publicly speak out against Polish leaders and nationwide strikes protesting the supposedly "worker's state" being opposed to unions who were not under effective government control resulted in waves of crackdowns that caused more and more resentment against the military government in Warsaw.
Last edited:
The thing that detracts from wikibox TLs normally is that most fall into the trap of thinking that the only things that really matter in recent history are elections and such. You've done a lot more than that, and made a very interesting TL. Great Work especially with the last couple of updates.
I don't see Bob Dull winning in '88 with an obstinate Democratic Congress and an anti-nuclear sentiment growing. That said, 16 years of Democrats followef by 16 years of Republicans makes sense...
I don't see Bob Dull winning in '88 with an obstinate Democratic Congress and an anti-nuclear sentiment growing. That said, 16 years of Democrats followef by 16 years of Republicans makes sense...
Thanks.
For how to make the maps, I use GIMP. First, I find the largest PNG (2000px) version of the map I want to use, then copy that into GIMP. Then I edit the names of the candidates (using Prima Sans Bold 40 point font) to paste over the names of the OTL candidates. Then, to change the state's coloring, select the state with the "select" tool and fill it in with the color you want. Sometimes, the PNG file's borders aren't totally solid enough so you'll need to use the eraser tool and erase bleed over from either state on the border so the select tool will only select one state. Once done with that, start a new layer, place it underneath the map and fill it with the color of the wikibox background. Then merge the two and resize it, then place it over the map currently in the infobox.
Thank you very much. Ironically, the next three updates are going to be election ones.