JFK Lives Through The 1970s

But more to the point of this thread, what if JFK isn't wearing the back brace and only takes the first bullet in his back and through his trachea, and then falls into the car? How incapacitated is he? Would he have to resign and be seriously disabled for the rest of his life? If someone had a the same wound with today's technology would the rest of their life look much different?

As long as he can communicate in some fashion the methods of "forcing" a president to resign can get tricky, especially in 1963 before the 25th amendment was designed. There was no way to force him to resign and he hasn't committed a high crime or misdemeanor so you can't impeach him, and trying to tie a disability to an impeachable offence isn't very PC even in 1963 and the people would be disgusted. You can end up having a Roosevelt or Wilson situation going on with Jackie and the cabinet in charge. Wilson's VP Tom Marshall was the only one who came closest to having set a precedent for removal of a President for disability and it was murky that what Congress' joint session was preparing to do was Constitutional. If Johnson used his Congressional influence to follow in Marshall's footsteps and Congress went through with it this time... you could have the issue go to the Supreme Court.
 
As long as he can communicate in some fashion the methods of "forcing" a president to resign can get tricky, especially in 1963 before the 25th amendment was designed. There was no way to force him to resign and he hasn't committed a high crime or misdemeanor so you can't impeach him, and trying to tie a disability to an impeachable offence isn't very PC even in 1963 and the people would be disgusted. You can end up having a Roosevelt or Wilson situation going on with Jackie and the cabinet in charge. Wilson's VP Tom Marshall was the only one who came closest to having set a precedent for removal of a President for disability and it was murky that what Congress' joint session was preparing to do was Constitutional. If Johnson used his Congressional influence to follow in Marshall's footsteps and Congress went through with it this time... you could have the issue go to the Supreme Court.

This.

More likely if JFK is incapacitated seriously that he's not able to handle the day to day stresses of the Presidency then I see a likely combined FDR/Wilson scenario where JFK presents a strong image to the public like Roosevelt but behind the scenes leaves most of the day to day stuff to trusted confidants like Wilson, in this case being people like RFK, McNamara, Bundy, Ken O'Donnell and Dave Powers etc
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
This thread went totally off the rails.

Hardly; any discussion about Kennedy is going to ultimately come down to: When will the Sex Addiction come to light (man boasted having sex three times a day, adultery or nothing, it's still going to hit him hard, especially as a Catholic who sold his image using his family. All it will take is for one of the papers who were covering him up to disagree for it all to come out, and when it does, adultery laws or not, it's going to destroy him. Civil Rights Act? Somehow I don't think many Democrats are going to respect his private life if they can get the one up, and all it will take is one journalist who follows up on the rumors of the Presidents Sex life), and how will his health hold up? This is important as we are being asked about 'what will his post-presidency look like'?

Therefore, we are not going off topic by discussing these, as these will shape what he does. Ostracized from society? Okay, so he'll have sympathy for oppressed minorities. Reclusive? Most certainly, when you take into consideration his poor health, being ostracized for cheating on his wife hundreds of times, the death of his beloved but oppressive father in 1969, the possibility that Robert or Ted could die as well during this period, and the deterioration of his health thanks to the extreme stress that the second term (and any injuries he sustains in Dallas) will put on him, then he'll be reclusive. He'll try to escape the limelight because it's killing him. He was a writer before his Presidency, so he'll likely return to that and write about the modern world. He'll be against the Conservative Tide, and bemoan how the Counter-Culture was unfocused and died, and how the Democrats move away from Liberalism to centralism. We must consider health and sex because those two things are important to this discussion. If you want a good answer, we have to explore these things and take them into account.
 
Last edited:

GeographyDude

Gone Fishin'
Maybe Jack does longish magazine pieces like in The Atlantic and explores such topics as loss of industrial jobs, environmental issues, etc. This has more back-and-forth and is more 'political' than books.

Let's say he's gracious toward President Nixon and does not criticize him in public.

And what does Jack Kennedy think of the sexual revolution? Well, the way to place your bets is that he thinks it's too public and in your face, but he may end up surprising us.
 
Another thing that would be interesting to explore is to see if JFK could have played a role in trying to end the conflict between the Irish Republican Army and the British government in the 1970s.
 
Hardly; any discussion about Kennedy is going to ultimately come down to: When will the Sex Addiction come to light (man boasted having sex three times a day, adultery or nothing, it's still going to hit him hard, especially as a Catholic who sold his image using his family. All it will take is for one of the papers who were covering him up to disagree for it all to come out, and when it does, adultery laws or not, it's going to destroy him. Civil Rights Act? Somehow I don't think many Democrats are going to respect his private life if they can get the one up, and all it will take is one journalist who follows up on the rumors of the Presidents Sex life), and how will his health hold up? This is important as we are being asked about 'what will his post-presidency look like'?

Therefore, we are not going off topic by discussing these, as these will shape what he does. Ostracized from society? Okay, so he'll have sympathy for oppressed minorities. Reclusive? Most certainly, when you take into consideration his poor health, being ostracized for cheating on his wife hundreds of times, the death of his beloved but oppressive father in 1969, the possibility that Robert or Ted could die as well during this period, and the deterioration of his health thanks to the extreme stress that the second term (and any injuries he sustains in Dallas) will put on him, then he'll be reclusive. He'll try to escape the limelight because it's killing him. He was a writer before his Presidency, so he'll likely return to that and write about the modern world. He'll be against the Conservative Tide, and bemoan how the Counter-Culture was unfocused and died, and how the Democrats move away from Liberalism to centralism. We must consider health and sex because those two things are important to this discussion. If you want a good answer, we have to explore these things and take them into account.

It would be a non issue as no one would touch it without the social changes of the late 70s to mid 80s which made the issue touchable by the media.

A politicians sex life or civil rights leader like MLK's sex life was off limits to the public discourse. Today such a society were even our generals sex life is considered fair game was entirely different in the 70s.
 
His views would be whatever are most convenient for the careers of Bobby and Teddy.

As for the sex stuff, Gerald Ford got a blowjob from the same East German spy Kennedy liked so much. No one cared until Gary Hart opened that can of worms in the late '80s. And there's rumblings that even Bush I had a little thing on the side.
 
His views would be whatever are most convenient for the careers of Bobby and Teddy.

As for the sex stuff, Gerald Ford got a blowjob from the same East German spy Kennedy liked so much. No one cared until Gary Hart opened that can of worms in the late '80s. And there's rumblings that even Bush I had a little thing on the side.

Yep, Jennifer Fitzgerald was allegedly his other woman. Some have said that Nancy Reagan used to gossip about it to other Washington wives.
 
One would think that if President Kennedy had lived to see his many extramarital affairs exposed by the press, that Robert would also be looked into heavily by them and be found just as guilty or at least smeared in the process. Any attempt for a run in 1968 or afterwards is destroyed. There might not even be Kennedy relatives in Congress or the Senate for much after.
 
All this talk of JFK's affairs basically destroying him is ridiculous. Those of you who think that are looking at this in a post Gary Hart world. You have to look at it in the pre-Gart Hart world. The legitimate press still would have hid JFK's affair well into his post-presidency. They didn't really become wide public knowledge until the late 1970s in OTL. I mean look at Teddy and Chappaquiddick. Despite driving his car off a bridge late at night with a young woman who was not his wife in the car, which resulted in her death. He still got re-elected in 1970 and 1976 and for every presidential election year between 1968 to 1992 was a leading contender for the Democratic nomination. So despite Chappaquiddick, Teddy was still a leading political figure in the 1970s and 80s. I doubt the revelations of JFK's affairs in the 1970s would have affected his public image much. Many of those in the still male dominated press were doing the same thing JFK did. I doubt they would have treated JFK any different that they would have wanted to be treated. Even in the early 1970s members of the main stream press exposing JFK's cheating like that would have a major breach of "guy code." Kennedy was friends with many of the publishers and editors of the major newspapers. I can't see them exposing him like that. Especially if he is as sick and handicapped as he would have been because of his Addison's disease.

No JFK's major problems during his post presidency would not have been the possible revelation of his extramarital affairs. It would have been his handling of Vietnam and civil rights during his second term. There is much debate and nobody really knows for sure how he would handled Vietnam if he had had a second term. Some people think he would escalated like LBJ in did OTL and some believe he would have pulled out after the 1964 election. Nobody can say they know for certain. But Vietnam and his handling of that and civil rights would have determined how his post-presidency would have went. His affairs would have been mostly regulated to the supermarket tabloids for most of the 1970s.

Also Jackie would have never divorced him. Especially not while Caroline and John Jr. (or any other child they could have had after 11/22/63) were still minors. Jackie would have been like her mother-in-law Rose. She would have stayed with him and continued to look the other way. That's just what women in her situation and of her status during that time did.
 
Top