DBWI: The Assassination of President Nixon in the Republic of Texas, 3/5/1964

[glenn67]

The assassination of US President Richard Nixon 45 years ago today in Dallas during his state visit to the Republic of Texas is a day that will live in infamy. As his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza, Charles Whitman managed to get the shot off that killed Nixon and wounded Texas President John Connally.

Luckily, the Texas Rangers caught Whitman within an hour after the assassination. He was convicted and hung before the end of that year.

In the aftermath, Henry Cabot Lodge succeeded Nixon as President and managed to pass the Civil Right Act of 1964, the Social Security Act and the National Health Insurance Act. Senator John F. Kennedy explored a possible rematch against Nixon in 1964 but decided to drop out after the assassination. President Lodge would defeat Governor George Wallace of Alabama in a landslide that November. The unpopularity of the Vietnam War forced Lodge not to seek re-election in 1968, and it hurt the Republican party as a whole. It was no surprise when Kennedy was elected President over Vice President Melvin Laird and was able to end that war with honor when the Vietnam Peace Treaty was signed on December 24, 1969.

Back in Texas, Connally survived but his injuries made it impossible for him to run for re-election as President. Speaker of the House Lyndon Baines Johnson realized his lifelong dream when he was elected President in 1964 and served two 3 year terms before retiring in 1970. Ben Barnes became the youngest President of Texas at the age of 32 but the Sharpstown scandal became his undoing and he was defeated for reelection in 1973 by H. Ross Perot.

If anybody is old enough to remember the Nixon assassination, I am interesting in knowing where you were on that tragic day.

 

[Mark E.]

I am in the fourth grade in Oklahoma City. Near the OU campus in Norman, the local news reports the arrests of five vandals who spray painted drawings of guns on the doors of cars with Texas license plates.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

It really was a tragedy, not least of which because I believe Nixon would have kept us out of Vietnam and not have created the Bay of Pigs coup in Cuba and the civil war there as Lodge did.

 

[TheSevenLeggedFallyDowner]

My mom always told me the heart-breaking story about how her third grade teacher came to tell the class about the assassination. Regardless of your opinion of his policies (not quite conservative enough if you ask me), all must acknowledge that he was truly a great man.

 

[GeneralHouston]

The assassination of US President Richard Nixon 45 years ago today in Dallas during his state visit to the Republic of Texas is a day that will live in infamy. As his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza, Charles Whitman managed to get the shot off that killed Nixon and wounded Texas President John Connally.

Luckily, the Texas Rangers caught Whitman within an hour after the assassination. He was convicted and hung before the end of that year.

In the aftermath, Henry Cabot Lodge succeeded Nixon as President and managed to pass the Civil Right Act of 1964, the Social Security Act and the National Health Insurance Act. Senator John F. Kennedy explored a possible rematch against Nixon in 1964 but decided to drop out after the assassination. President Lodge would defeat Governor George Wallace of Alabama in a landslide that November. The unpopularity of the Vietnam War forced Lodge not to seek re-election in 1968, and it hurt the Republican party as a whole. It was no surprise when Kennedy was elected President over Vice President Melvin Laird and was able to end that war with honor when the Vietnam Peace Treaty was signed on December 24, 1969.

Back in Texas, Connally survived but his injuries made it impossible for him to run for re-election as President. Speaker of the House Lyndon Baines Johnson realized his lifelong dream when he was elected President in 1964 and served two 3 year terms before retiring in 1970. Ben Barnes became the youngest President of Texas at the age of 32 but the Sharpstown scandal became his undoing and he was defeated for reelection in 1973 by H. Ross Perot.

If anybody is old enough to remember the Nixon assassination, I am interesting in knowing where you were on that tragic day.

I believe you have made a mistake. Charles Whitman was a US Marine in 1964. He came to the University of Texas as a foreign-exchange student in 1966 and infamously opened fire from the Tower of the University of Texas Main Building on 1 August 1966, killing 16. Whitman could not possibly have been in Dallas that day, as he was serving in South Carolina, IIRC.

It was Lee Harvey Oswald, a mentally-disturbed Dallas man who thought that Connally was too soft on communism, who decided to attack the President's motorcade that fateful day. Oswald wasn't aiming for Nixon, if you remember, it just happened to be a result of the attempt on Connally's life.

God, I swear no Yankees read the Greenhill Report with all of these crazy theories. (OOC: Analogous to the Warren Commission; William Greenhill was at that time an Associate Justice of the Texas Supreme Court and later served as Chief Justice, and is also an alumnus of my fraternity chapter, which is why I picked him).

 

[GeneralHouston]

The assassination of US President Richard Nixon 45 years ago today in Dallas during his state visit to the Republic of Texas is a day that will live in infamy. As his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza, Charles Whitman managed to get the shot off that killed Nixon and wounded Texas President John Connally.

Luckily, the Texas Rangers caught Whitman within an hour after the assassination. He was convicted and hung before the end of that year.

In the aftermath, Henry Cabot Lodge succeeded Nixon as President and managed to pass the Civil Right Act of 1964, the Social Security Act and the National Health Insurance Act. Senator John F. Kennedy explored a possible rematch against Nixon in 1964 but decided to drop out after the assassination. President Lodge would defeat Governor George Wallace of Alabama in a landslide that November. The unpopularity of the Vietnam War forced Lodge not to seek re-election in 1968, and it hurt the Republican party as a whole. It was no surprise when Kennedy was elected President over Vice President Melvin Laird and was able to end that war with honor when the Vietnam Peace Treaty was signed on December 24, 1969.

Back in Texas, Connally survived but his injuries made it impossible for him to run for re-election as President. Speaker of the House Lyndon Baines Johnson realized his lifelong dream when he was elected President in 1964 and served two 3 year terms before retiring in 1970. Ben Barnes became the youngest President of Texas at the age of 32 but the Sharpstown scandal became his undoing and he was defeated for reelection in 1973 by H. Ross Perot.

If anybody is old enough to remember the Nixon assassination, I am interesting in knowing where you were on that tragic day.

OOC: God have mercy on the souls of this great state if this had actually happened.

 

[glenn67]

BUMP

Any other comments.

 

[President Sam Houston]

What sticks out in my mind is how cold relations between the ROT and the USA were for years following the assassination of Nixon. It didn't matter what the Greenhill Report said, the conspiracy theory whackos who were very influential in the Republican party throughout the remainder of the 60s and into the 70s, saw to it that all of the woes of America, including the death of every American soldier in Vietman was directly caused by a conspiracy involving H L Hunt, Howard Hughes, LBJ, and others in the shadows to get rid of Nixon right as he was on the cusp of bringing about peace in Southeast Asia and democracy back to Cuba.

It really wasn't until the election of Ronald Reagan as US president before relations between the two countries really improved. Frankly, I have never understood why any such a conspiracy would have ever existed. Texans never had anything against Nixon and really sought to gain from his policies regarding Southeast Asia and Cuba. Im just glad that war never broke out during that period of time.

 

[GeneralHouston]

The assassination of US President Richard Nixon 45 years ago today in Dallas during his state visit to the Republic of Texas is a day that will live in infamy. As his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza, Charles Whitman managed to get the shot off that killed Nixon and wounded Texas President John Connally.

Luckily, the Texas Rangers caught Whitman within an hour after the assassination. He was convicted and hung before the end of that year.

In the aftermath, Henry Cabot Lodge succeeded Nixon as President and managed to pass the Civil Right Act of 1964, the Social Security Act and the National Health Insurance Act. Senator John F. Kennedy explored a possible rematch against Nixon in 1964 but decided to drop out after the assassination. President Lodge would defeat Governor George Wallace of Alabama in a landslide that November. The unpopularity of the Vietnam War forced Lodge not to seek re-election in 1968, and it hurt the Republican party as a whole. It was no surprise when Kennedy was elected President over Vice President Melvin Laird and was able to end that war with honor when the Vietnam Peace Treaty was signed on December 24, 1969.

Back in Texas, Connally survived but his injuries made it impossible for him to run for re-election as President. Speaker of the House Lyndon Baines Johnson realized his lifelong dream when he was elected President in 1964 and served two 3 year terms before retiring in 1970. Ben Barnes became the youngest President of Texas at the age of 32 but the Sharpstown scandal became his undoing and he was defeated for reelection in 1973 by H. Ross Perot.

If anybody is old enough to remember the Nixon assassination, I am interesting in knowing where you were on that tragic day.

Assuming this is the same Republic of Texas as the 1845 Republic, elections wouldn't have been held in 1964 but in 1963. The Republic also didn't allow direct reelection of presidents, to avoid a dictatorship similar to Santa Ana's from developing, and I doubt this would have changed.

So here is my proposed revision of the presidency of the Republic, from 1948, which would allow development of Nixon as a VP from 1951-1960 before assuming the presidency. Though they aren't 100% similar, the Lamar Party is roughly analogous to the conservative wing of the Texas Democratic Party prior to the mid-1970s and to the Texas Republican Party afterwards. The Houston Party is roughly analogous to the liberal wing of the Texas Democratic Party prior to the mid-1970s and to the Texas Democratic Party afterwards. Connally is fairly out of place as a Houston Party president, but it would make it difficult for LBJ to assume the presidency if they weren't in the same party and this allows Connally to be a turncoat like in OTL.

1948-51: Allan Shivers, Lamar Party
1951-54: Ben Ramsey, Lamar Party (more liberal than Shivers, but not as liberal as a Houston Party member)
1954-57: Allan Shivers, Lamar Party
1957-60: Ralph Yarborough, Houston Party (With Ramsey comfortable in his job as Speaker of the House, Shivers dominance in the Lamar Party means they lack a suitable candidate to run, so Yarborough walks in despite Shivers' success.)
1960-63: Price Daniel, Lamar Party (Shivers has retired from politics at this point)
1963-66: John Connally, Houston Party (Vice President L.B. Johnson as Acting President, 1964-66)
1966-69: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Houston Party (elected in his own right)
1969-72: Ben Barnes, Houston Party (at the age of 31 may be the youngest person elected leader of a democratic country in history)
1972-75: H. Ross Perot, Lamar Party
1975-78: John Connally, Lamar Party (switched after the Houston Party grew too liberal for his tastes, particularly with LBJ's sweeping social reforms including establishing a Medicare program for the needy and enfranchising Texas' black population)
1978-81: Dolph Briscoe, Houston Party (defeated Perot in the election)
1981-1984: John Connally, Lamar Party (first President to be reelected since 1954 and first ever three-term president)
1984-1987: Phil Graham, Lamar Party
1987-1990: Bill Clements, Lamar Party
1990-1993: Phil Graham, Lamar Party
1993-1996: Ann Richards, Houston Party (upset victory over former President Clements; even many Lamar Party loyalists feel that 5 terms in a row and 7 of 8 is too much power for one party to have. Richards is the second female President in Texas History, and the first elected on her own regard rather than as a surrogate to allow her husband a second-consecutive term as did Miriam Ferguson)
1996-1999: Bob Bullock, Houston Party (out of respect for Bullock's tremendous reputation, the Lamar Party does not run a serious candidate for President, but Lamar candidate Rick Perry dominates election for Bullock's former Vice Presidential office)
1999-2002: Rick Perry, Lamar Party (crushes former President Richards; a sign of Texas growing conservatism, largely as a result of friendly relations with President Ronald Reagan)
2002-2005: Kay Bailey Hutchison, Lamar Party
2005-2008: Rick Perry, Lamar Party
2008-present: Kay Bailey Hutchison, Lamar Party

How does that look? I realize that it's very improbable that the same figures (minus Bush and Tower) would dominate Texas politics even with a POD 160 years ago, but I was going with Connally and assuming the personalities would remain similar. Anyone have any complaints/improvements?