(Sorry I can't find the source) But I really remember reading somewhere that LBJ was so dissatisfied being VP, he was planning to primary Ralph Yarborough in 1964 to return to the Senate, before Kennedy got shot
LBJ: "Man this Vice President job sure is boring, I wish I had another one tbh."
Lee Harvey Oswald:
discord no longer supports image hosting. Darn.
John F. Kennedy
January 20th 1961 - January 20th, 1969
“I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.”
In the years since his time in office, and especially after his death, historians have called John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s time in America’s most highest office “The Camelot Era”. This wasn’t for no reason at all, no siree. The association of JFK’s White House with the mythical Arthurian realm and all that it had to offer began shortly after he narrowly cheated death once again on an ordinary day in Dallas in 1963. The story goes that while he was recovering, the president was asked by reporters at his bedside what he was anticipating to do most once he was out of the hospital, at which point he responded with that iconic JFK wit in that iconic New England accent of his “I am hoping to attend the closest showing of Camelot, and if that is not possible, Mrs. Kennedy’s bedroom.”
A humorous anecdote, although whether it actually happened or not is debated by scholars and historians alike up to the present day. Regardless of whether it was true or not, it certainly made an impact, with sales of tickets to the Broadway musical receiving a dramatic spike in the aftermath of the assassination attempt and alleged interview, culminating in the attendance of the president himself at a showing in Washington D.C. in 1964. “Camelot Fever” had come to America, and many people recognized their president as their very own King Arthur. Future historians though would note that John F. Kennedy was not only the Arthur of his court, but the Lancelot, and for very good reason.
After recovering from his wounds and leaving the hospital, Jack Kennedy came back to high approval ratings and a nation eager to see what their leader would do next. The first thing he did was to support a planned bill to strengthen gun control in the country, which, fair, it would’ve been weird if he hadn’t done so after all. All it would’ve took to plunge all of America into mourning was some pinko fuck with a rifle. Said pinko fuck ended up dying in a shootout at the Texas Theater though, but still, nobody was in the mood for more president-killing rifles waiting to land in the hands of the next lunatic with an agenda, most of all the president himself.
Aside from that though, most of Jack Kennedy’s time was spent preparing for the upcoming campaign trail. Even though he had the power of the sympathy vote and a successful first term behind him, Jack Kennedy wasn’t going to leave it up to chance, especially when his good friend and Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater was his opponent. He was eager to face off against his friendly rival, and Goldwater felt the same. Goldwater chose Walter Judd, a physician and former member of the House of Representatives known for his staunch support of Taiwan ever since his time as a medical missionary there in the 1930s, as his vice presidential candidate. Kennedy on the other hand ditched Lyndon Johnson after briefly considering retaining him. As his second term was intended to be more ambitious than the first, Kennedy decided that rather than collecting dust, Lyndon and Jumbo could be better put to use in the Senate fighting for all the bills and legislation he intended to pass.
The campaign for the American presidency in 1964 was an entertaining one, with there being a much more civilized air to it all. There was a refreshing lack of the negative attacks and dirty slander that was becoming more and more prevalent in the American political environment, in part because of the cordial relationship both candidates had with the other. Notably, Jack Kennedy personally vetoed a potential campaign advertisement involving a little girl plucking the petals off of a daisy getting abruptly vaporized by a nuclear explosion, calling it “beyond traumatizing” and angrily asking “What if John-John saw this?”
Holding a series of “Lincoln-Douglas style” debates around the country, both contenders for the Oval Office held their own admirably, although it was clear that as skilled as Goldwater was when he was at the podium, said skills were no match when faced with the charisma and charm that Jack Kennedy had honed to a fine point over the course of his entire life, both political and personal. By the time that it was all said and done, the history-making landslide on Election Day more than showed everyone who had ultimately won the Kennedy-Goldwater Debates.
Settling back down from the Election Day high, the Kennedy administration got back to work on ensuring that the New Frontier became a reality for all Americans. Work that would be rudely interrupted only ten days after Jack Kennedy’s second inauguration. An interruption caused by what was quickly becoming more than an annoying thorn in the backside of the administration.
An annoying little thorn in an annoying little country named South Vietnam.
From the Buddhist Crisis to President Ngo Dinh Diem and his family’s unwillingness to change their behavior to Diem’s own assassination, American attempts to gently nudge the country into some form of reasonable government had proven somewhat ineffective, to say the least. With the lethal removal of Diem from power courtesy of a CIA-backed coup, it was hoped by the White House that a more effective relationship could be had with the new military junta governing the anti-communist state.
These hopes were promptly disappointed when rogue general Nguyen Khanh seized power along with other disgruntled officers disillusioned by the junta’s sidelining of them. It was a bloodless thing, admirable in both its speed and efficiency. However, there was one person who managed to escape from the grasp of Khanh’s new authority, which would soon complicate things for just about everyone in not just South Vietnam, but America as well.
Nguyen Van Nhung was many things. A soldier. An assassin. An aide-de-camp. And now, most importantly of all, alive. It had been close, too damn close, but his gut had told him to get the hell out, and so he followed it. Followed it so damn hard he managed to actually survive. Because that’s what he was now. A survivor. And the thing about survivors nowadays, you see, is that they’re hated. They’re loose ends, waiting to be tied up before somebody pulled on them and the entire thing it was a part of became undone because of it.
If that traitorous uppity bastard Khanh had his way, Nhung probably would’ve been a footnote in the annals of Vietnamese history. All he would’ve been known for is shooting dead a nation’s-his nation’s- first president and his brother in the back of an APC. Better than nothing, but not good enough. Good Enough got men killed. So did Not Good Enough, but only one of them was the more admirable, more respectable choice you could make. Anything other than that was pitiful, scornful even.
That was what resulted in this mess happening, a bunch of fellow officers who felt that what they got was Not Good Enough and so decided to get what they wanted by force. Force. The only solution that’s been proven to work since forever. There weren’t any men who were Good Enough in the Viet Minh, and there sure as hell weren’t any men that were Good Enough in the ARVN. Opportunistic bastard backstabbers, they deserved more than just a measly little fucking demotion and reassignment to a tiny little village next to the Mekong Delta.
Yes, they deserved more than that, but he couldn’t give it to them. He couldn’t give it out to them like he did two brothers out of touch with reality with a pistol and a semi-automatic. No, that happy day was far off in the distance, demanding that effort be put in to get to it.
It was a damn good thing that he was a hard worker then.
He wasn’t always like this, cursing and spitting and fuming aloud by the side of a road, jeep still warm and the bullet holes in the back tattooed across what remained of the rear like a bitter parting kiss from a scorned lover. He was quiet. Polite. In control. It was their fault that he was this way now. Their damn fault for making him blow up.
He needed a smoke. Yes, that would do. They had broken his pipe, his favorite damn pipe, when they shot at him and bullet meant for him instead obliterated the bowl of the pipe into nothing but chunks and splinters of desecrated wood. He couldn’t wait any much longer though, he needed a smoke and he needed it goddamn now. A nice little cigarette, a boy and man’s best friend. Yes, he could already feel himself calming down now. It wasn’t a pipe, but it was an adequate alternative method of smoking tobacco. The hand in his pocket fumbled and probed and he could feel himself starting to burn even hotter as the seconds ticked by like minutes until he finally managed to feel and pull out with the relief of a desperate man a cardboard box of smokes that was miraculously unharmed. He never knew when the boss was in the mood for one but didn’t have a smoke onhand, and now Nhung thanked himself for his preparedness. He eagerly fished one out, sticking it into his mouth with a slight rush of giddiness at the upcoming relief.
Lighting up the cigarette and inhaling, Nguyen Van Nhung closed his eyes and imagined that right in front of him was the shivering, bruised and fearful face of a certain Nguyen Khanh. Yes, that would be his goal for today. Damn the politicians and the communists and the nation for now. They would always still be around to deal with at a later time. Politics, communists, and Vietnam were eternal.
But Ngueyn Khanh wouldn’t be.
Nguyen Van Nhung found himself smiling at that thought.
Then he blew the smoke out right in front of him, where it blew away into the warm January night.
The overthrow of Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council Duong Van Minh by the disgruntled general Nguyen Khanh had gone without a hitch, save for the absence of the corpse of Minh’s aide-de-camp and bodyguard, Nguyen Van Nhung. A soft-spoken yet sadistic person, Nhung had under the orders of his superior personally executed up to 50 people, including the former president Diem and his brother Nhu. He was not a man to be toyed with, and so it only made sense for Khanh to order his liquidation, lest he come for revenge against him.
Unfortunately for Khanh, Nhung would manage to escape from the troops coming to apprehend him, and disappeared from Saigon altogether. An unfortunate outcome, but Khanh had much better things to do at the moment, like sharing the spoils of power, or convincing the Americans that yes he was a leader worthy of their precious and very valuable foreign aid. The Kennedy administration were understandably a bit wary about this change in governments, and the look of a military coup didn’t really help the public image of South Vietnam, but hey, this Khanh fellow was the only guy available to do the job of keeping Vietnam as an anti-communist bulwark afloat, so he got his foreign aid.
Now that things in Vietnam had quieted down, Jack Kennedy got to work on the most pressing issues of the day. He had always intended to make his second term in office even more successful compared to his first one, and his recent brush with death only intensified that desire to be a successful president.
The Kennedy administration set a national record for the amount of legislation proposed by the president during its second term, and most historians agree that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was one of the most important ones among them. It was also a law that was bitterly fought over, with filibusters, proposed compromises, and other sorts of drama to turn Capitol Hill into the battlefield of a second American Civil War if not in looks than in spirit certainly. Blood (Strom Thurmond tried to outdo his previous filibuster record of 24 hours and 18 minutes but had to stop at the 20 hour mark when he choked on a throat lozenge and had to be dragged kicking and swinging to the hospital to get it removed.), sweat (One newspaper cartoon portrayed an exhausted congressman and his equally exhausted teenage son in high school football gear coming home in the dead of night at the same time while the wife is hosing them down on the front lawn, stating that she won’t be having them stink up the house.), and plenty of tears (Jack Kennedy and Barry Goldwater’s friendship was severely tested during this time, as the latter’s refusal to support the CRA more than tested the ambitious former’s patience.) were shed as the combatants struggled for what felt like the soul of America.
The struggle wasn’t only in the halls of Congress though. The Freedom Summer of 1964 was an intense one, as civil rights activists traveled to Mississippi to register as many African American voters as possible in the state. Resistance against their actions by the state government, local authorities, and civilian groups up to and including the Ku Klux Klan was fierce and ultimately deadly. The disappearance and eventual discovery of the bodies of three activists murdered by members of the KKK and local police and sheriff departments caused outrage. Outrage which helped bring attention to not only the civil rights movement but the Civil Rights Act which was still being fought over. Said publicity would prove to be beneficial to both of them by turning public opinion in their favors.
Eventually, after the tireless work of new Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson managed to wrangle together enough votes, and to the tears of joy wept by MLK to the begrudging respect of Malcolm X to the celebrations of liberals all across America, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, also known as just simply “The Kennedy Act”, was signed on the Fourth of July of that year. Cleverly using like an Irish boxer a one-two punch combination of a milestone law passing and a day of patriotism, Jack Kennedy declared in a speech on the front lawn of the White House that America was “moving in many different and individual steps as one towards a greater, brighter, and more equal future.” It was clear to all that the New Frontier hadn’t even begun. It had only just started that day. And as the presidential family watched the fireworks display go off in the night sky, their glare just a bit more brighter and hopeful than last year, it seemed that for a brief moment, America’s Camelot had found itself its storybook ending.
Of course, life isn’t always a fairy tale, and you don’t just simply put an end to racism or communism with a simple “The End” like the Brothers Grimm did to the villains in their books.
While the brighter half of America rejoiced and patted itself on the back for a job well done, the darker half instead seethed. George Wallace decried Jack Kennedy as a Northern tyrant, kicking the Neo-Confederate and Lost Cause rhetoric up a notch at the same time that Strom Thurmond howled not a Rebel yell but something akin to it in fury as he began doing an impressive impression of a human flamethrower, setting his audience alight with the fires of hate and rage.
Barry Goldwater merely sighed and shook his head disapprovingly.
But while future troubles were being sown in America, they were also being sown overseas in Vietnam, albeit much more violently. The generals Lam Van Phat and Duong Van Duc had been dismissed from their positions of Interior Ministry and IV Corps commander respectively, in part due to outcry from Buddhist activists accusing Khanh of accommodating too many Catholic pro-Diem officers in positions of leadership. Disgruntled by this, the pair launched a coup of their own with some unexpected assistance.
Nguyen Van Nhung hadn’t been idle while he was underground. He had been plotting his vengeance, and in order to achieve said vengeance, he needed to find some friends in higher places than him who would be willing to help out. Luckily for Nhung, he found some individuals who were alike with him in their interests. There was Pham Ngoc Thao, former overseer of the failed Strategic Hamlet Program under Diem, and Do Mau, one of the three deputy prime ministers that Khanh’s government had, who possessed a skilled political mind. Both had become disgruntled with the current state of affairs for one reason or another, and when an opportunity came, the unlikely trio took it.
Initially listless and almost aimless aside from orders to occupy important positions in Saigon, the triumvirate of Thao, Nhung, and Mau energized it, and with this newfound speed and aggression. Republic of Vietnam Air Force chief Nguyen Cao Ky was wounded and taken into custody after Tan Son Nhut Air Base was assaulted even after threats of a “massacre” if the rebels made any moves against it. Khanh was found to be nowhere in his office, as he had escaped and fled to the resort town of Da Lat. There, American officials encouraged him to return to Saigon and reassert himself as the leader of Vietnam. Initially reluctant, Khanh eventually agreed, and was soon on his way back to the capital city.
Then a rebel A-1 Skyraider shot his plane down.
Now without a leader, the loyalists soon collapsed, and the rebels began to make gains, albeit not without resistance due to popular fears of a return to Diem’s authoritarian pro-Catholic policies. The Americans, more than tired of the coups and unwilling to go through the trouble of finding a possible strongman to prop up, eventually gave in to reality and recognized the rebels as the legitimate government of South Vietnam. Standing triumphant, Thao, Nhung, and Mau sidelined the other generals, creating a ruling triumvirate which promised to be more vigilant, more patriotic, and more anti-communist than the previous governments.
Jack Kennedy, a devoted student of history, uneasily noted that practically every political triumvirate in history fell apart into infighting and civil war, and prayed that this one would be the exception.
That wasn’t the only thing Jack Kennedy was praying for though. He was praying that the rest of his agenda would pass through Congress. Things before hadn’t been smooth sailing by any means, but the resistance he was facing now from George Wallace’s boys and Barry’s friends on the daily was starting to get on his nerves. At first it was things like infrastructure, public housing, and other, more minor bills and such. But then it became fiercer, health insurance and social security and even the space program were duels where hot verbal lead were fired out in shots and volleys. Hell, even Dick Nixon seemed to have quit kicking about in New York City to begin criticizing the Kennedy administration or, God forbid, begin preparing for 1968.
But overall, even though some of his momentum had been sapped, Jack Kennedy was still popular among most Americans. He was still their King Arthur, the good sovereign dispensing justice and wealth to his people. Of course, there were naysayers, there would always be naysayers, but most white liberal Americans wanted to believe that the civil rights issue had been finally resolved. They didn’t want to hear about how the botched assassination attempt against Malcolm X had descended into a massacre. They didn’t want to understand what “jihad” meant when an angry X declared it over and over again against the Nation of Islam. They didn’t want to hear about “Bloody Sunday” and how the streets of Selma ran red with the blood of civil rights activists. They didn’t want to hear about any of that disturbing unrest happening after what was supposed to be the end of racism in America.
But hear it they did, and bit by bit, as the followers became uncertain, the first cracks in Camelot began to appear.
And then, like a recurring illness, Vietnam acted out again. The situation had for whatever reason deteriorated. The Viet Cong had either become an extremely professional force or the ARVN had decided to make lobotomies part of their officer’s training regiment. Roaming government militias and death squads sponsored by Nhung patrolled the jungles and city streets. Infighting had only gotten worse, and American officials present in the country reported back that American advisors weren’t enough. American troops would have to be present in order to restore some form of stability to South Vietnam.
This was a nightmare for Kennedy. He had, rather optimistically, hoped to withdraw American troops from Southeast Asia. He had defended such ambitions in several recent public speeches, and with the warming of relations with the Soviets and Khruschev he had even been bold enough to state that the Cold War could be ended to the mutual victory of not just the United States and the Soviet Union, but to humanity as a whole. To then backtrack on that position and send American boys to an unstable jungle country with communist guerillas behind every tree or blade of grass would be very harmful to his image and administration, to say the least.
But soon, as the news came pouring in that American advisors were getting sent back home in body bags, if there was even a body for the bag, and fighting on the outskirt of provincial capitals by Viet Cong guerillas was happening, both more frequently, there were more and more demands by Republicans, hawkish Democrats, and plain old anti-communists for the president to do something, or else the dominoes would start falling one by one before they even knew it. There were even some calling Jack Kennedy soft on communism, much to his anger.
Jack Kennedy was reluctant to send any American boys to die in a conflict, but pressure from the public, the Republicans, and even his own party, along with his own personal doctrine of containment, led to him making the decision to send troops to Vietnam.
It was a decision which many would mark as the beginning of the end for Camelot.
American ground troops first landed onto the shores of Vietnam in mid-1965. They were patriotic, enthusiastic even, about bringing the fight right to the communists. Whether or not they remembered what happened the last time John Fitzgerald Kennedy tried to bloody the nose of some communists in a jungle country back in 1961 is unknown. The man himself remembered though, which he tried to forget through some initial optimism and assurances from his generals that the might and pride of the American military would mop up what the South Vietnamese couldn’t.
And for a moment, things did seem to be getting better in Vietnam. At least, if you measured the progress of a war by if you killed more of the enemy’s guys than they did yours. In reality, American generals were dismayed to discover that their supposed allies were more focused on bringing the other down a peg, often through using their own men as goons with which to fight their workplace rivalries through to the bitter end. Sometimes, they could even be openly hostile towards the Americans, especially if they tried to get involved and straighten them out. CIA men in the country didn’t have it any easier, with the Vietnamese intelligence services being shadier than usual around their men, being very secretive with what info they had, and the info the CIA ended up receiving being outdated, mistranslated, or just flat out bad.
If President Kennedy had come to Vietnam expecting an easy war, he was instead severely disappointed. Seeing that the military and CIA were being fuckups as usual, Jack Kennedy instead turned his attention back to more peaceful items on his agenda. He had just signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which had been yet another vicious fight to get passed. Now with another big piece of legislation out of the way, he decided to try and counter his recent entry into a war with a prevention of one. More specifically, of nuclear war. It would be undoubtedly very popular, and would definitely help the Democrats in the midterms. And Khruschev was receptive to the idea, which was good to hear.
As Jack Kennedy flew over to Vienna to begin talks about setting a limit to the amount of nuclear weapons and what kinds of said weapons would be targeted in said treaty, things were slowly but surely going downhill in Vietnam. Why and how was anyone’s guess, although the military brass and troops on the ground had a couple of good ones. American patrols who relied on South Vietnamese intel tended to get lost and wiped out in ambushes by the Viet Cong. Corruption in South Vietnam and especially the ARVN was monumental, with one recorded instance of a battalion’s commanding officer selling the grenades of his men to the Viet Cong, who promptly used them against a patrol of Americans that very same day.
The most damning piece of evidence though was yet to be discovered. In August of 1966, troops of the Americal Division and their commanding officer Colin Powell discovered copies of classified South Vietnamese documents on the bodies of Viet Cong officers they had managed to capture. Shortly after turning in the papers as evidence, a South Vietnamese intelligence officer on the base was interrupted trying to destroy them with a lighter.
The officers, both Viet Cong and the rogue South Vietnamese intelligence official, were immediately dragged away for interrogation. At first the Americans suspected that it was a simple case of corruption par for the course in the ARVN, or a mole in the VC being caught in the act. But as more and more time passed, it became clear to the interrogators that they had stumbled onto something bigger than anybody could have ever imagined. As quickly and as secretly as possible the information they discovered was forwarded to the CIA, who began to follow the trail of papers, money, and blood like a bloodhound on the hunt.
All this sniffing and digging and investigating tipped off some people who very much desired to keep their secrets, well, secret. But try as they might, their efforts to stonewall the investigation or cover everything up only increased the suspicions of the damned stubborn Americans that something was up. It was only a matter of time until the truth was revealed. That is, unless something necessary, something extreme, was done…
The Halloween of 1966 in Saigon began as most eventful days did, in that they were very normal. There was a large number of US military personnel enjoying their leave in the city, eager to share the wonders of trick-or-treating with the children of the city, the candy being provided by military and civilian organizations in an attempt to foster better relations with the Vietnamese people. Overall, there were high expectations that this would be an enjoyable day of R & R for everyone in the city.
It was not to be.
It began with the movement of South Vietnamese soldiers. At first it was one jeep, then two, then three, and then it wasn’t just jeeps but trucks, armored cars, and even light tanks. To a populace who had been through several military coups by now, the Vietnamese civilians could recognize the signs, although they had no idea who was overthrowing who at the moment. The American soldiers on the other hand, while alarmed by the amount of men in uniform clogging the streets with their vehicles screaming for those on the road to get out of the way, were not as familiar with the sight of a coup in the first stages of being executed.
Then shots rang out, and in mere seconds all became a panicked hell as civilians rushed for cover, trampling those who were unfortunate enough to fall, and sending American boys scrambling not just for cover but for any weapons they could find. Before long the entire city became consumed in urban warfare more chaotic and confused than any before or after it. ARVN units began to fire on each other, their officers screaming into their radios trying to figure out what the hell was going on or getting shot in the back by their own subordinates.
If it was hell for the Vietnamese civilians, then it was arguably even worse for the Americans who simply hoped to pass out or eat some candy that night. Isolated G.I.s tried to evade or fight their way back to friendly lines as either individuals or groups. Makeshift platoons tried to make their way through a city eating itself alive, unsure on if their South Vietnamese allies were trustworthy or not. The sun eventually set on a city that felt as hot as one. Many Americans came back from the dark, illuminated by a dozen searchlights and fires in the distance. Many did not.
As Saigon bled, Jack Kennedy’s blood ran too. Not through wounds, like the former, but instead in his veins, made young again through the rage of one who forgets how old they really are in their anger. Vietnam had been an annoyance time and time again, and as the city boiled over, so too did he. “What the hell happened over there?!?”, raged a voice from Vienna on one end, to the shaken silence from Saigon on the other.
Nguyen Van Nhung would inform Jack Kennedy though, although not personally. Instead, in a press conference on November 3rd, the new leader of South Vietnam would shock the world with a revelation straight out of a spy thriller.
Pham Ngoc Thao was many things. He was a skilled organizer, bar the whole fiasco that was the Strategic Hamlet program. He was an active player in the game of politics. He was a Catholic, a Vietnamese nationalist, and in the words of one American journalist, “one of the most remarkable Vietnamese around”. Indeed, so strong was his personality that American officials took the time to promote his name back at home in the news, his being more attractive than the notorious sadist that was Nhung or the conspiratorial Do Mau, who was already contemplating retiring from politics altogether by this point.
He was also a communist sleeper agent and infiltrator.
Having been shielded from suspicion due to his Catholic background and family connections, Thao had first managed to sabotage the Strategic Hamlet program through advancing it at an unsustainable speed,, before slithering his way into an even greater position of power through collaborating with Nhung and Mau. As the chief of the ARVN’s intelligence wing, he became perhaps one of the most successful double agents in espionage history, inviting all manner of corruption and disloyalty into the military and state, along with increasing his own personal political power as well.
All that power didn’t help him in the end though. The attempted coup was already a rushed job, the last resort of last resorts due to how irrational, how desperate, and how antithetical it was to the standard method of operation up until that point. Nguyen Cao Ky was allowed to redeem himself by leading a squadron of planes to personally bomb Thao’s headquarters, and the man himself was found by Nhung’s death squads while cleaning up the opposition, alive but pinned underneath a damaged jeep. He was too injured to finish himself off, although he didn’t have to wait long until his discoverers and their boss did him a favor and did it themselves.
Depending on who you are, it was either fortunate or unfortunate that Thao had grown arrogant enough to store evidence of his treachery in the heart of the country he was secretly undermining, and that it had managed to survive the bombing with only minor damage and nothing more.
While Nhung jeered as he spat on his former triumvirate member’s ruined boots, the rest of the body hanging from a French-style Saigon streetlamp, across the Pacific Ocean a different nation was descending into chaos. Vietnam had already been proving itself more and more of a self-inflicted burden on the American people, so when the revelation that America itself had not only supported and praised a communist agent as one of the three main leaders of that damned country, but that through said support more than American boys had died from the moment their boy’s boots hit the ground to a bloody Halloween night at the hands of their so-called allies, the effects were immediate.
After the shock had worn off and was replaced with furious outrage, Americans began to eat each other alive. The Republicans, to nobody’s surprise, began to launch volley after volley of attacks against the administration. How could the president let this happen, they asked. This is what happens when you let a Democrat manage a foreign war, so they said. A sort of mini-Red Scare began as fears that there could be a communist infiltrator as high up in the ranks of government as Thao was caused paranoia and the numbers of John Birch Society members to increase noticeably. The Democrats began to tear itself apart into pro-war and anti-war factions, with members like Scoop Jackson for the former and George McGovern for the latter castigating each other on the Senate floor for either bloodthirstiness or cowardice, much to the glee of the elephants in the room.
Anti-war protests began to reach new heights as seemingly everyone, especially the youth, began to turn on their former idol. The most radical ones in particular began to wave Viet Cong flags, with Marxist students putting up portraits of Thao next to those of Che Guevara and Malcolm X in their bedrooms. Opposing them were pro-war counter-protests, but even though they were all for getting back at the Vietnamese communists and more, it didn’t mean they were for Kennedy. Far from it actually. They blamed the president for this mess, arguing that his mishandling of the situation in Vietnam led to America getting caught off-guard and as a result backstabbed by an enemy pretending to be an ally. In his most impressive political feat yet, Jack Kennedy had managed to unite Democrats and Republicans, warhawks and peaceniks, pro-war and anti-war protestors, capitalists and Marxists alike, on one thing: Hating Jack Kennedy.
Jack Kennedy was aware of this, how could he not see the group protestors outside of the White House that seemed to grow larger and larger in size as the days went by? It was stressful, seeing what felt like the whole nation turning on him. And stress was the last thing his body needed. Jack Kennedy was getting older, and he didn’t like it. His health, already a laundry list of afflictions, medications, conditions, and illnesses, began to worsen. The results of the 1966 midterms, where a wave of Republicans both old (Richard Nixon was more than happy to reclaim his old senatorial seat at the Democrats and therefore Jack Kennedy’s expense.) and new (Former major general and right-wing activist Edwin Walker became a Texan senator, much to the ire of the president, who had been a target of Walker’s political attacks in the past.) didn’t help matters either As if he was the Fisher King of Arthurian lore, the nation began to decline alongside Jack Kennedy’s health.
If 1966 was the year Camelot’s decline began to accelerate, then 1967 was the year that the walls finally came crashing down. It started first with Vietnam, as most things bad usually did by now. As disastrous as the Halloween coup attempt last year was for the morale of both the soldiers over there and the civilians back at home, America was in too deep to get out now. Even though Kennedy distrusted his military advisors now, they managed to convince him that the best option was to try and fight until a favorable position could be achieved in future negotiations. So more troops were sent to Vietnam, and so the protests continued, along with the outrage from the anti-war Democrats.
It didn’t matter that soon, thanks to American military and numerical superiority, the fighting began to stabilize in America’s favor. It didn’t matter that the kill to death ratios favored the marines in green more than the guerilla in black. No, none of that mattered when the chant of “Hey! Hey! JFK! How many kids did you kill today?” was the hip new thing to say among the hippies. None of the piles of dead Viet Cong and “Viet Cong”, slaughtered with a ferocity only those avenging their fallen comrades could possess, mattered when Walter Cronkite gave his opinion on national television in so many words that the war could not be won, with negotiation the only realistic outcome. None of the bombs dropped in the aerial onslaught that was Operation Rolling Thunder mattered when Nguyen van Nhung, new dictator of South Vietnam, purged Do Mau and any potential communists with a brutality that was enough to rouse condemnation from members of the UN. And none of the victories listed in his daily reports mattered when Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson screamed at him for “sacrificing American progress and American boys all for some goddamn war in some goddamned jungle!”, all but announcing his intention to run in 1968 as an antiwar Democrat.
No, None of it mattered at all now…
And yet there was still worse to come. There were two things which would’ve been the downfall of Jack Kennedy. Said things were his affairs and, more seriously, his personal health.Even though he and Jackie grew closer and developed a much stronger relationship after the events in Dallas, the president still couldn’t resist “getting to know” different ladies from time to time. His health though was a much more serious matter. A sickly boy, his youthful and athletic appearance as an adult belied a constant struggle with everything from Addison’s disease to high cholesterol. While his health was in fairly good shape at the start of his second term, the more his fortunes declined, the more he himself began to degrade. By September of 1967, the effects of prolonged stress and trying to manage both a country and a war had clearly taken their toll. Graying hairs, gray eye bags, and graying daily mood chipped away at a president who had been elected for precisely the opposite of these things.
On September 6th, Jack Kennedy abruptly collapsed during a daily meeting. The presidential physician was rushed to his side, where after being helped up and given some water, a checkup diagnosed him with an extreme case of fatigue and moderate weight loss. Initially satisfied with the diagnosis, the president collapsed again only three days later. Soon enough, he was forced into recovery, although he did not take it sitting down. Which was ironic, as he was confined to a wheelchair during said period of recovery.
Jack Kennedy, even while stuck in a wheelchair, still possessed a keen political mind, and he knew that if news broke out that the president was confined to a wheelchair, it would be a public relations disaster. So he decided that to the outside world, things were normal inside of the White House. Of course, that meant canceling most public appearances altogether, but it was a small price to pay for keeping the administration afloat. And so, for one week, and then two, because Kennedy’s health was refusing to cooperate, the White House was unusually tightlipped about where the president was. The American public knew he wasn’t dead, as he had been on several recent broadcasts from the White House to talk about this piece of legislation and that, which was to most people enough for them to carry on their day satisfied they still had a leader, even if he was an unpopular one.
Richard Nixon is not most people.
Having returned to the Senate, he had become one of Jack Kennedy’s most fiercest critics. It felt good to be able to speak most of his mind about how he felt about the man who he felt stole the 1960 presidential election from him. However, during his time in exile, he had become more… “tricky” than usual. And when “Tricky Dick” Nixon smelt something fishy going on within the White House, well, he didn’t need that much prodding to get back at “Saucy Jack” Kennedy.
Now, Jack Kennedy’s personal medical records were secret, stored under a false name. There had already been one burglary in their location they were kept in, but the false name tripped up the intruders, so they left empty-handed. Whether or not Richard Nixon was behind this attempted burglary is unknown. However, these medical records had been lost, a casualty of bureaucratic mismanagement. And with the president’s recent health complications, it only made sense to remake the entire thing from scratch, only updated with more recent information.
Now, Richard Nixon knew some folks, and those folks themselves knew some people who knew how to get shit done. And soon enough, Tricky Dick held in his hands the ultimate weapon against his old foe. But he wasn’t just satisfied with one political bomb, no. He wanted more. So he had his dig again, only deeper, and in doing so he uncovered not one but two more priceless weapons to use against Kennedy.
FDR was a cripple. It was true, and it was known. He rolled around in a wheelchair, although the man was shrewd enough to not appear in public using it, or bring any attention to his disabilities. Throughout it all though, he remained popular. He was admirable for being a cripple, because in a time of struggles, it showed that he struggled through life too.
Jack Kennedy was also a cripple, although it was temporary. The difference was though that nobody outside of the White House knew that Jack Kennedy was a cripple. Jack Kennedy was a coward, so he lied to the American public because he couldn’t bear to be seen as a cripple. Or so the logic went.
Mimi didn’t work at the White House anymore. She used to be an intern. Or so the gossip went. She couldn’t type a damn or really do anything at all. But Jack Kennedy seemed to be fond of her. It took time, but then Dick Nixon’s boys found one Mimi Alford. She was married by then, but there were enough dots that Tricky Dick’s boys could form a picture of what went on during her time in the White House.
On December 19th, the Washington Post published a double bombshell issue. The impact of it was immediate. Richard Nixon was the first to lead the charge, attacking “Lying Jack Kennedy” for “lying to everyone in America’s face.” Catholic groups across the nation made vocal their disapproval of the first Catholic president’s adultery. Mimi Alford and her husband were soon besieged by journalists eager to see her side of the story. And Jack Kennedy? Well, he was obviously furious at what had occurred, enough so that in a fit of rage he suffered a heart attack.
When Jack Kennedy woke back up several days later, it was to a situation straight out of his worst nightmares. Although his heart’s attempt on his life bought him some small measure of sympathy, the American people were still angry with him for Vietnam, the lying, and the philandering. Christmas that year was to say the least not a good one for the White House.
January 1st of 1968 to January 20th of 1969 are considered the closing chapters of America’s Camelot. However, bruised and beaten as he was by recent scandals, and facing rumors of a possible movement of impeachment, Jack Kennedy earned the admiration of future generations by fighting as hard as he could to get anything done. Faced with what seemed to be a legacy in ruins, he instead, much to the despair of his doctors, threw himself into his work with greater fervor than before. It was a vicious struggle to get anything passed, and what did manage to make it through was watered down at best, mere shells of their former selves at worst.
Vietnam still existed, and American troops were still over there. Intent on trying to salvage what remained of the situation there, Jack Kennedy began the process of withdrawing American troops from Vietnam. Furthermore, he reached out several times to negotiate with the North Vietnamese, ending the bombing runs to show that he was serious about bringing an end to the fighting. These talks would last for several months, but as hard as he fought, Jack Kennedy could not secure an end to the war in Vietnam.
Greatly weakened by these peace talks, Jack Kennedy was now stuck in a wheelchair again, although it was doubtful whether or not he would get out of it. And yet still he fought on, using as much of his energy to depending on the day fight off attacks from his opponents both Republican or Democratic, defend his family from the rumors and journalists that tried to invade their daily lives (This would horribly backfire during one press conference where Kennedy, struggling through a bad day of stomach pains and painkillers, answered a question regarding his affair with Mimi Alford by responding “I did not, at any given time, engage in intimate relations with that woman.”), or simply getting up in the morning. It was a lame duck period, but Jack Kennedy didn’t seem to think so.
Jack Kennedy’s final triumph came on January 3, 1969, when the words he spoke at Rice University Stadium seven years ago came true before his very eyes on the television screen. It was a bittersweet moment, but to a weary Kennedy, if Vietnam was his greatest failure, than the first Moon landing was his greatest accomplishment.
Jack Kennedy didn’t attend his successor’s inauguration ceremony. Nobody knows why, although historians have speculated that it was due to a mixture of shame and bitterness, along with the desire to avoid having to reveal himself in a wheelchair at such a public occasion. Instead, he watched it from the inside of the White House, where he then met said successor, passing along a few words of wisdom in a way. Then, he left the White House with his family. Not for the last time, as he would be invited back by future presidents up until his death in 1979, far surpassing expectations, but it was the last meaningful time, at least to some historians.
The tales of Camelot are ones of whimsy and excitement, victory and glory, idealism and honor. But what everyone seems to forget, or more specifically, wishes to forget, is that at the end of it all, Camelot is a tragedy. And none wished to forget it more than Jack Kennedy.
Author's Note:
Hello there everyone, my apologies for the length, formatting, and time it took to release the first chapter. I promised that I would get it out in January, and I did. I again apologize if the writing, formatting, and other such details are amateur or unrefined, this is after all my first ever TLIAW, and I swore that I would keep my word and release it in January reception be damned. I will edit it soon so it will not only be easier to read, but more unique and engaging. Things like chunky blocks of text, misspellings, and such will be fixed, and there will I promise be an election wikibox made by theothresh included soon. Thank you for your patience and understanding, and I hope to make you all proud in the coming future chapters. -Laserfish
I saved Kennedy's image, so here it is.
John F. Kennedy
January 20th 1961 - January 20th, 1969
“I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.”
In the years since his time in office, and especially after his death, historians have called John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s time in America’s most highest office “The Camelot Era”. This wasn’t for no reason at all, no siree. The association of JFK’s White House with the mythical Arthurian realm and all that it had to offer began shortly after he narrowly cheated death once again on an ordinary day in Dallas in 1963. The story goes that while he was recovering, the president was asked by reporters at his bedside what he was anticipating to do most once he was out of the hospital, at which point he responded with that iconic JFK wit in that iconic New England accent of his “I am hoping to attend the closest showing of Camelot, and if that is not possible, Mrs. Kennedy’s bedroom.”
A humorous anecdote, although whether it actually happened or not is debated by scholars and historians alike up to the present day. Regardless of whether it was true or not, it certainly made an impact, with sales of tickets to the Broadway musical receiving a dramatic spike in the aftermath of the assassination attempt and alleged interview, culminating in the attendance of the president himself at a showing in Washington D.C. in 1964. “Camelot Fever” had come to America, and many people recognized their president as their very own King Arthur. Future historians though would note that John F. Kennedy was not only the Arthur of his court, but the Lancelot, and for very good reason.
After recovering from his wounds and leaving the hospital, Jack Kennedy came back to high approval ratings and a nation eager to see what their leader would do next. The first thing he did was to support a planned bill to strengthen gun control in the country, which, fair, it would’ve been weird if he hadn’t done so after all. All it would’ve took to plunge all of America into mourning was some pinko fuck with a rifle. Said pinko fuck ended up dying in a shootout at the Texas Theater though, but still, nobody was in the mood for more president-killing rifles waiting to land in the hands of the next lunatic with an agenda, most of all the president himself.
Aside from that though, most of Jack Kennedy’s time was spent preparing for the upcoming campaign trail. Even though he had the power of the sympathy vote and a successful first term behind him, Jack Kennedy wasn’t going to leave it up to chance, especially when his good friend and Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater was his opponent. He was eager to face off against his friendly rival, and Goldwater felt the same. Goldwater chose Walter Judd, a physician and former member of the House of Representatives known for his staunch support of Taiwan ever since his time as a medical missionary there in the 1930s, as his vice presidential candidate. Kennedy on the other hand ditched Lyndon Johnson after briefly considering retaining him. As his second term was intended to be more ambitious than the first, Kennedy decided that rather than collecting dust, Lyndon and Jumbo could be better put to use in the Senate fighting for all the bills and legislation he intended to pass.
The campaign for the American presidency in 1964 was an entertaining one, with there being a much more civilized air to it all. There was a refreshing lack of the negative attacks and dirty slander that was becoming more and more prevalent in the American political environment, in part because of the cordial relationship both candidates had with the other. Notably, Jack Kennedy personally vetoed a potential campaign advertisement involving a little girl plucking the petals off of a daisy getting abruptly vaporized by a nuclear explosion, calling it “beyond traumatizing” and angrily asking “What if John-John saw this?”
Holding a series of “Lincoln-Douglas style” debates around the country, both contenders for the Oval Office held their own admirably, although it was clear that as skilled as Goldwater was when he was at the podium, said skills were no match when faced with the charisma and charm that Jack Kennedy had honed to a fine point over the course of his entire life, both political and personal. By the time that it was all said and done, the history-making landslide on Election Day more than showed everyone who had ultimately won the Kennedy-Goldwater Debates.
Settling back down from the Election Day high, the Kennedy administration got back to work on ensuring that the New Frontier became a reality for all Americans. Work that would be rudely interrupted only ten days after Jack Kennedy’s second inauguration. An interruption caused by what was quickly becoming more than an annoying thorn in the backside of the administration.
An annoying little thorn in an annoying little country named South Vietnam.
From the Buddhist Crisis to President Ngo Dinh Diem and his family’s unwillingness to change their behavior to Diem’s own assassination, American attempts to gently nudge the country into some form of reasonable government had proven somewhat ineffective, to say the least. With the lethal removal of Diem from power courtesy of a CIA-backed coup, it was hoped by the White House that a more effective relationship could be had with the new military junta governing the anti-communist state.
These hopes were promptly disappointed when rogue general Nguyen Khanh seized power along with other disgruntled officers disillusioned by the junta’s sidelining of them. It was a bloodless thing, admirable in both its speed and efficiency. However, there was one person who managed to escape from the grasp of Khanh’s new authority, which would soon complicate things for just about everyone in not just South Vietnam, but America as well.
Nguyen Van Nhung was many things. A soldier. An assassin. An aide-de-camp. And now, most importantly of all, alive. It had been close, too damn close, but his gut had told him to get the hell out, and so he followed it. Followed it so damn hard he managed to actually survive. Because that’s what he was now. A survivor. And the thing about survivors nowadays, you see, is that they’re hated. They’re loose ends, waiting to be tied up before somebody pulled on them and the entire thing it was a part of became undone because of it.
If that traitorous uppity bastard Khanh had his way, Nhung probably would’ve been a footnote in the annals of Vietnamese history. All he would’ve been known for is shooting dead a nation’s-his nation’s- first president and his brother in the back of an APC. Better than nothing, but not good enough. Good Enough got men killed. So did Not Good Enough, but only one of them was the more admirable, more respectable choice you could make. Anything other than that was pitiful, scornful even.
That was what resulted in this mess happening, a bunch of fellow officers who felt that what they got was Not Good Enough and so decided to get what they wanted by force. Force. The only solution that’s been proven to work since forever. There weren’t any men who were Good Enough in the Viet Minh, and there sure as hell weren’t any men that were Good Enough in the ARVN. Opportunistic bastard backstabbers, they deserved more than just a measly little fucking demotion and reassignment to a tiny little village next to the Mekong Delta.
Yes, they deserved more than that, but he couldn’t give it to them. He couldn’t give it out to them like he did two brothers out of touch with reality with a pistol and a semi-automatic. No, that happy day was far off in the distance, demanding that effort be put in to get to it.
It was a damn good thing that he was a hard worker then.
He wasn’t always like this, cursing and spitting and fuming aloud by the side of a road, jeep still warm and the bullet holes in the back tattooed across what remained of the rear like a bitter parting kiss from a scorned lover. He was quiet. Polite. In control. It was their fault that he was this way now. Their damn fault for making him blow up.
He needed a smoke. Yes, that would do. They had broken his pipe, his favorite damn pipe, when they shot at him and bullet meant for him instead obliterated the bowl of the pipe into nothing but chunks and splinters of desecrated wood. He couldn’t wait any much longer though, he needed a smoke and he needed it goddamn now. A nice little cigarette, a boy and man’s best friend. Yes, he could already feel himself calming down now. It wasn’t a pipe, but it was an adequate alternative method of smoking tobacco. The hand in his pocket fumbled and probed and he could feel himself starting to burn even hotter as the seconds ticked by like minutes until he finally managed to feel and pull out with the relief of a desperate man a cardboard box of smokes that was miraculously unharmed. He never knew when the boss was in the mood for one but didn’t have a smoke onhand, and now Nhung thanked himself for his preparedness. He eagerly fished one out, sticking it into his mouth with a slight rush of giddiness at the upcoming relief.
Lighting up the cigarette and inhaling, Nguyen Van Nhung closed his eyes and imagined that right in front of him was the shivering, bruised and fearful face of a certain Nguyen Khanh. Yes, that would be his goal for today. Damn the politicians and the communists and the nation for now. They would always still be around to deal with at a later time. Politics, communists, and Vietnam were eternal.
But Ngueyn Khanh wouldn’t be.
Nguyen Van Nhung found himself smiling at that thought.
Then he blew the smoke out right in front of him, where it blew away into the warm January night.
The overthrow of Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council Duong Van Minh by the disgruntled general Nguyen Khanh had gone without a hitch, save for the absence of the corpse of Minh’s aide-de-camp and bodyguard, Nguyen Van Nhung. A soft-spoken yet sadistic person, Nhung had under the orders of his superior personally executed up to 50 people, including the former president Diem and his brother Nhu. He was not a man to be toyed with, and so it only made sense for Khanh to order his liquidation, lest he come for revenge against him.
Unfortunately for Khanh, Nhung would manage to escape from the troops coming to apprehend him, and disappeared from Saigon altogether. An unfortunate outcome, but Khanh had much better things to do at the moment, like sharing the spoils of power, or convincing the Americans that yes he was a leader worthy of their precious and very valuable foreign aid. The Kennedy administration were understandably a bit wary about this change in governments, and the look of a military coup didn’t really help the public image of South Vietnam, but hey, this Khanh fellow was the only guy available to do the job of keeping Vietnam as an anti-communist bulwark afloat, so he got his foreign aid.
Now that things in Vietnam had quieted down, Jack Kennedy got to work on the most pressing issues of the day. He had always intended to make his second term in office even more successful compared to his first one, and his recent brush with death only intensified that desire to be a successful president.
The Kennedy administration set a national record for the amount of legislation proposed by the president during its second term, and most historians agree that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was one of the most important ones among them. It was also a law that was bitterly fought over, with filibusters, proposed compromises, and other sorts of drama to turn Capitol Hill into the battlefield of a second American Civil War if not in looks than in spirit certainly. Blood (Strom Thurmond tried to outdo his previous filibuster record of 24 hours and 18 minutes but had to stop at the 20 hour mark when he choked on a throat lozenge and had to be dragged kicking and swinging to the hospital to get it removed.), sweat (One newspaper cartoon portrayed an exhausted congressman and his equally exhausted teenage son in high school football gear coming home in the dead of night at the same time while the wife is hosing them down on the front lawn, stating that she won’t be having them stink up the house.), and plenty of tears (Jack Kennedy and Barry Goldwater’s friendship was severely tested during this time, as the latter’s refusal to support the CRA more than tested the ambitious former’s patience.) were shed as the combatants struggled for what felt like the soul of America.
The struggle wasn’t only in the halls of Congress though. The Freedom Summer of 1964 was an intense one, as civil rights activists traveled to Mississippi to register as many African American voters as possible in the state. Resistance against their actions by the state government, local authorities, and civilian groups up to and including the Ku Klux Klan was fierce and ultimately deadly. The disappearance and eventual discovery of the bodies of three activists murdered by members of the KKK and local police and sheriff departments caused outrage. Outrage which helped bring attention to not only the civil rights movement but the Civil Rights Act which was still being fought over. Said publicity would prove to be beneficial to both of them by turning public opinion in their favors.
Eventually, after the tireless work of new Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson managed to wrangle together enough votes, and to the tears of joy wept by MLK to the begrudging respect of Malcolm X to the celebrations of liberals all across America, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, also known as just simply “The Kennedy Act”, was signed on the Fourth of July of that year. Cleverly using like an Irish boxer a one-two punch combination of a milestone law passing and a day of patriotism, Jack Kennedy declared in a speech on the front lawn of the White House that America was “moving in many different and individual steps as one towards a greater, brighter, and more equal future.” It was clear to all that the New Frontier hadn’t even begun. It had only just started that day. And as the presidential family watched the fireworks display go off in the night sky, their glare just a bit more brighter and hopeful than last year, it seemed that for a brief moment, America’s Camelot had found itself its storybook ending.
Of course, life isn’t always a fairy tale, and you don’t just simply put an end to racism or communism with a simple “The End” like the Brothers Grimm did to the villains in their books.
While the brighter half of America rejoiced and patted itself on the back for a job well done, the darker half instead seethed. George Wallace decried Jack Kennedy as a Northern tyrant, kicking the Neo-Confederate and Lost Cause rhetoric up a notch at the same time that Strom Thurmond howled not a Rebel yell but something akin to it in fury as he began doing an impressive impression of a human flamethrower, setting his audience alight with the fires of hate and rage.
Barry Goldwater merely sighed and shook his head disapprovingly.
But while future troubles were being sown in America, they were also being sown overseas in Vietnam, albeit much more violently. The generals Lam Van Phat and Duong Van Duc had been dismissed from their positions of Interior Ministry and IV Corps commander respectively, in part due to outcry from Buddhist activists accusing Khanh of accommodating too many Catholic pro-Diem officers in positions of leadership. Disgruntled by this, the pair launched a coup of their own with some unexpected assistance.
Nguyen Van Nhung hadn’t been idle while he was underground. He had been plotting his vengeance, and in order to achieve said vengeance, he needed to find some friends in higher places than him who would be willing to help out. Luckily for Nhung, he found some individuals who were alike with him in their interests. There was Pham Ngoc Thao, former overseer of the failed Strategic Hamlet Program under Diem, and Do Mau, one of the three deputy prime ministers that Khanh’s government had, who possessed a skilled political mind. Both had become disgruntled with the current state of affairs for one reason or another, and when an opportunity came, the unlikely trio took it.
Initially listless and almost aimless aside from orders to occupy important positions in Saigon, the triumvirate of Thao, Nhung, and Mau energized it, and with this newfound speed and aggression. Republic of Vietnam Air Force chief Nguyen Cao Ky was wounded and taken into custody after Tan Son Nhut Air Base was assaulted even after threats of a “massacre” if the rebels made any moves against it. Khanh was found to be nowhere in his office, as he had escaped and fled to the resort town of Da Lat. There, American officials encouraged him to return to Saigon and reassert himself as the leader of Vietnam. Initially reluctant, Khanh eventually agreed, and was soon on his way back to the capital city.
Then a rebel A-1 Skyraider shot his plane down.
Now without a leader, the loyalists soon collapsed, and the rebels began to make gains, albeit not without resistance due to popular fears of a return to Diem’s authoritarian pro-Catholic policies. The Americans, more than tired of the coups and unwilling to go through the trouble of finding a possible strongman to prop up, eventually gave in to reality and recognized the rebels as the legitimate government of South Vietnam. Standing triumphant, Thao, Nhung, and Mau sidelined the other generals, creating a ruling triumvirate which promised to be more vigilant, more patriotic, and more anti-communist than the previous governments.
Jack Kennedy, a devoted student of history, uneasily noted that practically every political triumvirate in history fell apart into infighting and civil war, and prayed that this one would be the exception.
That wasn’t the only thing Jack Kennedy was praying for though. He was praying that the rest of his agenda would pass through Congress. Things before hadn’t been smooth sailing by any means, but the resistance he was facing now from George Wallace’s boys and Barry’s friends on the daily was starting to get on his nerves. At first it was things like infrastructure, public housing, and other, more minor bills and such. But then it became fiercer, health insurance and social security and even the space program were duels where hot verbal lead were fired out in shots and volleys. Hell, even Dick Nixon seemed to have quit kicking about in New York City to begin criticizing the Kennedy administration or, God forbid, begin preparing for 1968.
But overall, even though some of his momentum had been sapped, Jack Kennedy was still popular among most Americans. He was still their King Arthur, the good sovereign dispensing justice and wealth to his people. Of course, there were naysayers, there would always be naysayers, but most white liberal Americans wanted to believe that the civil rights issue had been finally resolved. They didn’t want to hear about how the botched assassination attempt against Malcolm X had descended into a massacre. They didn’t want to understand what “jihad” meant when an angry X declared it over and over again against the Nation of Islam. They didn’t want to hear about “Bloody Sunday” and how the streets of Selma ran red with the blood of civil rights activists. They didn’t want to hear about any of that disturbing unrest happening after what was supposed to be the end of racism in America.
But hear it they did, and bit by bit, as the followers became uncertain, the first cracks in Camelot began to appear.
And then, like a recurring illness, Vietnam acted out again. The situation had for whatever reason deteriorated. The Viet Cong had either become an extremely professional force or the ARVN had decided to make lobotomies part of their officer’s training regiment. Roaming government militias and death squads sponsored by Nhung patrolled the jungles and city streets. Infighting had only gotten worse, and American officials present in the country reported back that American advisors weren’t enough. American troops would have to be present in order to restore some form of stability to South Vietnam.
This was a nightmare for Kennedy. He had, rather optimistically, hoped to withdraw American troops from Southeast Asia. He had defended such ambitions in several recent public speeches, and with the warming of relations with the Soviets and Khruschev he had even been bold enough to state that the Cold War could be ended to the mutual victory of not just the United States and the Soviet Union, but to humanity as a whole. To then backtrack on that position and send American boys to an unstable jungle country with communist guerillas behind every tree or blade of grass would be very harmful to his image and administration, to say the least.
But soon, as the news came pouring in that American advisors were getting sent back home in body bags, if there was even a body for the bag, and fighting on the outskirt of provincial capitals by Viet Cong guerillas was happening, both more frequently, there were more and more demands by Republicans, hawkish Democrats, and plain old anti-communists for the president to do something, or else the dominoes would start falling one by one before they even knew it. There were even some calling Jack Kennedy soft on communism, much to his anger.
Jack Kennedy was reluctant to send any American boys to die in a conflict, but pressure from the public, the Republicans, and even his own party, along with his own personal doctrine of containment, led to him making the decision to send troops to Vietnam.
It was a decision which many would mark as the beginning of the end for Camelot.
American ground troops first landed onto the shores of Vietnam in mid-1965. They were patriotic, enthusiastic even, about bringing the fight right to the communists. Whether or not they remembered what happened the last time John Fitzgerald Kennedy tried to bloody the nose of some communists in a jungle country back in 1961 is unknown. The man himself remembered though, which he tried to forget through some initial optimism and assurances from his generals that the might and pride of the American military would mop up what the South Vietnamese couldn’t.
And for a moment, things did seem to be getting better in Vietnam. At least, if you measured the progress of a war by if you killed more of the enemy’s guys than they did yours. In reality, American generals were dismayed to discover that their supposed allies were more focused on bringing the other down a peg, often through using their own men as goons with which to fight their workplace rivalries through to the bitter end. Sometimes, they could even be openly hostile towards the Americans, especially if they tried to get involved and straighten them out. CIA men in the country didn’t have it any easier, with the Vietnamese intelligence services being shadier than usual around their men, being very secretive with what info they had, and the info the CIA ended up receiving being outdated, mistranslated, or just flat out bad.
If President Kennedy had come to Vietnam expecting an easy war, he was instead severely disappointed. Seeing that the military and CIA were being fuckups as usual, Jack Kennedy instead turned his attention back to more peaceful items on his agenda. He had just signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which had been yet another vicious fight to get passed. Now with another big piece of legislation out of the way, he decided to try and counter his recent entry into a war with a prevention of one. More specifically, of nuclear war. It would be undoubtedly very popular, and would definitely help the Democrats in the midterms. And Khruschev was receptive to the idea, which was good to hear.
As Jack Kennedy flew over to Vienna to begin talks about setting a limit to the amount of nuclear weapons and what kinds of said weapons would be targeted in said treaty, things were slowly but surely going downhill in Vietnam. Why and how was anyone’s guess, although the military brass and troops on the ground had a couple of good ones. American patrols who relied on South Vietnamese intel tended to get lost and wiped out in ambushes by the Viet Cong. Corruption in South Vietnam and especially the ARVN was monumental, with one recorded instance of a battalion’s commanding officer selling the grenades of his men to the Viet Cong, who promptly used them against a patrol of Americans that very same day.
The most damning piece of evidence though was yet to be discovered. In August of 1966, troops of the Americal Division and their commanding officer Colin Powell discovered copies of classified South Vietnamese documents on the bodies of Viet Cong officers they had managed to capture. Shortly after turning in the papers as evidence, a South Vietnamese intelligence officer on the base was interrupted trying to destroy them with a lighter.
The officers, both Viet Cong and the rogue South Vietnamese intelligence official, were immediately dragged away for interrogation. At first the Americans suspected that it was a simple case of corruption par for the course in the ARVN, or a mole in the VC being caught in the act. But as more and more time passed, it became clear to the interrogators that they had stumbled onto something bigger than anybody could have ever imagined. As quickly and as secretly as possible the information they discovered was forwarded to the CIA, who began to follow the trail of papers, money, and blood like a bloodhound on the hunt.
All this sniffing and digging and investigating tipped off some people who very much desired to keep their secrets, well, secret. But try as they might, their efforts to stonewall the investigation or cover everything up only increased the suspicions of the damned stubborn Americans that something was up. It was only a matter of time until the truth was revealed. That is, unless something necessary, something extreme, was done…
The Halloween of 1966 in Saigon began as most eventful days did, in that they were very normal. There was a large number of US military personnel enjoying their leave in the city, eager to share the wonders of trick-or-treating with the children of the city, the candy being provided by military and civilian organizations in an attempt to foster better relations with the Vietnamese people. Overall, there were high expectations that this would be an enjoyable day of R & R for everyone in the city.
It was not to be.
It began with the movement of South Vietnamese soldiers. At first it was one jeep, then two, then three, and then it wasn’t just jeeps but trucks, armored cars, and even light tanks. To a populace who had been through several military coups by now, the Vietnamese civilians could recognize the signs, although they had no idea who was overthrowing who at the moment. The American soldiers on the other hand, while alarmed by the amount of men in uniform clogging the streets with their vehicles screaming for those on the road to get out of the way, were not as familiar with the sight of a coup in the first stages of being executed.
Then shots rang out, and in mere seconds all became a panicked hell as civilians rushed for cover, trampling those who were unfortunate enough to fall, and sending American boys scrambling not just for cover but for any weapons they could find. Before long the entire city became consumed in urban warfare more chaotic and confused than any before or after it. ARVN units began to fire on each other, their officers screaming into their radios trying to figure out what the hell was going on or getting shot in the back by their own subordinates.
If it was hell for the Vietnamese civilians, then it was arguably even worse for the Americans who simply hoped to pass out or eat some candy that night. Isolated G.I.s tried to evade or fight their way back to friendly lines as either individuals or groups. Makeshift platoons tried to make their way through a city eating itself alive, unsure on if their South Vietnamese allies were trustworthy or not. The sun eventually set on a city that felt as hot as one. Many Americans came back from the dark, illuminated by a dozen searchlights and fires in the distance. Many did not.
As Saigon bled, Jack Kennedy’s blood ran too. Not through wounds, like the former, but instead in his veins, made young again through the rage of one who forgets how old they really are in their anger. Vietnam had been an annoyance time and time again, and as the city boiled over, so too did he. “What the hell happened over there?!?”, raged a voice from Vienna on one end, to the shaken silence from Saigon on the other.
Nguyen Van Nhung would inform Jack Kennedy though, although not personally. Instead, in a press conference on November 3rd, the new leader of South Vietnam would shock the world with a revelation straight out of a spy thriller.
Pham Ngoc Thao was many things. He was a skilled organizer, bar the whole fiasco that was the Strategic Hamlet program. He was an active player in the game of politics. He was a Catholic, a Vietnamese nationalist, and in the words of one American journalist, “one of the most remarkable Vietnamese around”. Indeed, so strong was his personality that American officials took the time to promote his name back at home in the news, his being more attractive than the notorious sadist that was Nhung or the conspiratorial Do Mau, who was already contemplating retiring from politics altogether by this point.
He was also a communist sleeper agent and infiltrator.
Having been shielded from suspicion due to his Catholic background and family connections, Thao had first managed to sabotage the Strategic Hamlet program through advancing it at an unsustainable speed,, before slithering his way into an even greater position of power through collaborating with Nhung and Mau. As the chief of the ARVN’s intelligence wing, he became perhaps one of the most successful double agents in espionage history, inviting all manner of corruption and disloyalty into the military and state, along with increasing his own personal political power as well.
All that power didn’t help him in the end though. The attempted coup was already a rushed job, the last resort of last resorts due to how irrational, how desperate, and how antithetical it was to the standard method of operation up until that point. Nguyen Cao Ky was allowed to redeem himself by leading a squadron of planes to personally bomb Thao’s headquarters, and the man himself was found by Nhung’s death squads while cleaning up the opposition, alive but pinned underneath a damaged jeep. He was too injured to finish himself off, although he didn’t have to wait long until his discoverers and their boss did him a favor and did it themselves.
Depending on who you are, it was either fortunate or unfortunate that Thao had grown arrogant enough to store evidence of his treachery in the heart of the country he was secretly undermining, and that it had managed to survive the bombing with only minor damage and nothing more.
While Nhung jeered as he spat on his former triumvirate member’s ruined boots, the rest of the body hanging from a French-style Saigon streetlamp, across the Pacific Ocean a different nation was descending into chaos. Vietnam had already been proving itself more and more of a self-inflicted burden on the American people, so when the revelation that America itself had not only supported and praised a communist agent as one of the three main leaders of that damned country, but that through said support more than American boys had died from the moment their boy’s boots hit the ground to a bloody Halloween night at the hands of their so-called allies, the effects were immediate.
After the shock had worn off and was replaced with furious outrage, Americans began to eat each other alive. The Republicans, to nobody’s surprise, began to launch volley after volley of attacks against the administration. How could the president let this happen, they asked. This is what happens when you let a Democrat manage a foreign war, so they said. A sort of mini-Red Scare began as fears that there could be a communist infiltrator as high up in the ranks of government as Thao was caused paranoia and the numbers of John Birch Society members to increase noticeably. The Democrats began to tear itself apart into pro-war and anti-war factions, with members like Scoop Jackson for the former and George McGovern for the latter castigating each other on the Senate floor for either bloodthirstiness or cowardice, much to the glee of the elephants in the room.
Anti-war protests began to reach new heights as seemingly everyone, especially the youth, began to turn on their former idol. The most radical ones in particular began to wave Viet Cong flags, with Marxist students putting up portraits of Thao next to those of Che Guevara and Malcolm X in their bedrooms. Opposing them were pro-war counter-protests, but even though they were all for getting back at the Vietnamese communists and more, it didn’t mean they were for Kennedy. Far from it actually. They blamed the president for this mess, arguing that his mishandling of the situation in Vietnam led to America getting caught off-guard and as a result backstabbed by an enemy pretending to be an ally. In his most impressive political feat yet, Jack Kennedy had managed to unite Democrats and Republicans, warhawks and peaceniks, pro-war and anti-war protestors, capitalists and Marxists alike, on one thing: Hating Jack Kennedy.
Jack Kennedy was aware of this, how could he not see the group protestors outside of the White House that seemed to grow larger and larger in size as the days went by? It was stressful, seeing what felt like the whole nation turning on him. And stress was the last thing his body needed. Jack Kennedy was getting older, and he didn’t like it. His health, already a laundry list of afflictions, medications, conditions, and illnesses, began to worsen. The results of the 1966 midterms, where a wave of Republicans both old (Richard Nixon was more than happy to reclaim his old senatorial seat at the Democrats and therefore Jack Kennedy’s expense.) and new (Former major general and right-wing activist Edwin Walker became a Texan senator, much to the ire of the president, who had been a target of Walker’s political attacks in the past.) didn’t help matters either As if he was the Fisher King of Arthurian lore, the nation began to decline alongside Jack Kennedy’s health.
If 1966 was the year Camelot’s decline began to accelerate, then 1967 was the year that the walls finally came crashing down. It started first with Vietnam, as most things bad usually did by now. As disastrous as the Halloween coup attempt last year was for the morale of both the soldiers over there and the civilians back at home, America was in too deep to get out now. Even though Kennedy distrusted his military advisors now, they managed to convince him that the best option was to try and fight until a favorable position could be achieved in future negotiations. So more troops were sent to Vietnam, and so the protests continued, along with the outrage from the anti-war Democrats.
It didn’t matter that soon, thanks to American military and numerical superiority, the fighting began to stabilize in America’s favor. It didn’t matter that the kill to death ratios favored the marines in green more than the guerilla in black. No, none of that mattered when the chant of “Hey! Hey! JFK! How many kids did you kill today?” was the hip new thing to say among the hippies. None of the piles of dead Viet Cong and “Viet Cong”, slaughtered with a ferocity only those avenging their fallen comrades could possess, mattered when Walter Cronkite gave his opinion on national television in so many words that the war could not be won, with negotiation the only realistic outcome. None of the bombs dropped in the aerial onslaught that was Operation Rolling Thunder mattered when Nguyen van Nhung, new dictator of South Vietnam, purged Do Mau and any potential communists with a brutality that was enough to rouse condemnation from members of the UN. And none of the victories listed in his daily reports mattered when Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson screamed at him for “sacrificing American progress and American boys all for some goddamn war in some goddamned jungle!”, all but announcing his intention to run in 1968 as an antiwar Democrat.
No, None of it mattered at all now…
And yet there was still worse to come. There were two things which would’ve been the downfall of Jack Kennedy. Said things were his affairs and, more seriously, his personal health.Even though he and Jackie grew closer and developed a much stronger relationship after the events in Dallas, the president still couldn’t resist “getting to know” different ladies from time to time. His health though was a much more serious matter. A sickly boy, his youthful and athletic appearance as an adult belied a constant struggle with everything from Addison’s disease to high cholesterol. While his health was in fairly good shape at the start of his second term, the more his fortunes declined, the more he himself began to degrade. By September of 1967, the effects of prolonged stress and trying to manage both a country and a war had clearly taken their toll. Graying hairs, gray eye bags, and graying daily mood chipped away at a president who had been elected for precisely the opposite of these things.
On September 6th, Jack Kennedy abruptly collapsed during a daily meeting. The presidential physician was rushed to his side, where after being helped up and given some water, a checkup diagnosed him with an extreme case of fatigue and moderate weight loss. Initially satisfied with the diagnosis, the president collapsed again only three days later. Soon enough, he was forced into recovery, although he did not take it sitting down. Which was ironic, as he was confined to a wheelchair during said period of recovery.
Jack Kennedy, even while stuck in a wheelchair, still possessed a keen political mind, and he knew that if news broke out that the president was confined to a wheelchair, it would be a public relations disaster. So he decided that to the outside world, things were normal inside of the White House. Of course, that meant canceling most public appearances altogether, but it was a small price to pay for keeping the administration afloat. And so, for one week, and then two, because Kennedy’s health was refusing to cooperate, the White House was unusually tightlipped about where the president was. The American public knew he wasn’t dead, as he had been on several recent broadcasts from the White House to talk about this piece of legislation and that, which was to most people enough for them to carry on their day satisfied they still had a leader, even if he was an unpopular one.
Richard Nixon is not most people.
Having returned to the Senate, he had become one of Jack Kennedy’s most fiercest critics. It felt good to be able to speak most of his mind about how he felt about the man who he felt stole the 1960 presidential election from him. However, during his time in exile, he had become more… “tricky” than usual. And when “Tricky Dick” Nixon smelt something fishy going on within the White House, well, he didn’t need that much prodding to get back at “Saucy Jack” Kennedy.
Now, Jack Kennedy’s personal medical records were secret, stored under a false name. There had already been one burglary in their location they were kept in, but the false name tripped up the intruders, so they left empty-handed. Whether or not Richard Nixon was behind this attempted burglary is unknown. However, these medical records had been lost, a casualty of bureaucratic mismanagement. And with the president’s recent health complications, it only made sense to remake the entire thing from scratch, only updated with more recent information.
Now, Richard Nixon knew some folks, and those folks themselves knew some people who knew how to get shit done. And soon enough, Tricky Dick held in his hands the ultimate weapon against his old foe. But he wasn’t just satisfied with one political bomb, no. He wanted more. So he had his dig again, only deeper, and in doing so he uncovered not one but two more priceless weapons to use against Kennedy.
FDR was a cripple. It was true, and it was known. He rolled around in a wheelchair, although the man was shrewd enough to not appear in public using it, or bring any attention to his disabilities. Throughout it all though, he remained popular. He was admirable for being a cripple, because in a time of struggles, it showed that he struggled through life too.
Jack Kennedy was also a cripple, although it was temporary. The difference was though that nobody outside of the White House knew that Jack Kennedy was a cripple. Jack Kennedy was a coward, so he lied to the American public because he couldn’t bear to be seen as a cripple. Or so the logic went.
Mimi didn’t work at the White House anymore. She used to be an intern. Or so the gossip went. She couldn’t type a damn or really do anything at all. But Jack Kennedy seemed to be fond of her. It took time, but then Dick Nixon’s boys found one Mimi Alford. She was married by then, but there were enough dots that Tricky Dick’s boys could form a picture of what went on during her time in the White House.
On December 19th, the Washington Post published a double bombshell issue. The impact of it was immediate. Richard Nixon was the first to lead the charge, attacking “Lying Jack Kennedy” for “lying to everyone in America’s face.” Catholic groups across the nation made vocal their disapproval of the first Catholic president’s adultery. Mimi Alford and her husband were soon besieged by journalists eager to see her side of the story. And Jack Kennedy? Well, he was obviously furious at what had occurred, enough so that in a fit of rage he suffered a heart attack.
When Jack Kennedy woke back up several days later, it was to a situation straight out of his worst nightmares. Although his heart’s attempt on his life bought him some small measure of sympathy, the American people were still angry with him for Vietnam, the lying, and the philandering. Christmas that year was to say the least not a good one for the White House.
January 1st of 1968 to January 20th of 1969 are considered the closing chapters of America’s Camelot. However, bruised and beaten as he was by recent scandals, and facing rumors of a possible movement of impeachment, Jack Kennedy earned the admiration of future generations by fighting as hard as he could to get anything done. Faced with what seemed to be a legacy in ruins, he instead, much to the despair of his doctors, threw himself into his work with greater fervor than before. It was a vicious struggle to get anything passed, and what did manage to make it through was watered down at best, mere shells of their former selves at worst.
Vietnam still existed, and American troops were still over there. Intent on trying to salvage what remained of the situation there, Jack Kennedy began the process of withdrawing American troops from Vietnam. Furthermore, he reached out several times to negotiate with the North Vietnamese, ending the bombing runs to show that he was serious about bringing an end to the fighting. These talks would last for several months, but as hard as he fought, Jack Kennedy could not secure an end to the war in Vietnam.
Greatly weakened by these peace talks, Jack Kennedy was now stuck in a wheelchair again, although it was doubtful whether or not he would get out of it. And yet still he fought on, using as much of his energy to depending on the day fight off attacks from his opponents both Republican or Democratic, defend his family from the rumors and journalists that tried to invade their daily lives (This would horribly backfire during one press conference where Kennedy, struggling through a bad day of stomach pains and painkillers, answered a question regarding his affair with Mimi Alford by responding “I did not, at any given time, engage in intimate relations with that woman.”), or simply getting up in the morning. It was a lame duck period, but Jack Kennedy didn’t seem to think so.
Jack Kennedy’s final triumph came on January 3, 1969, when the words he spoke at Rice University Stadium seven years ago came true before his very eyes on the television screen. It was a bittersweet moment, but to a weary Kennedy, if Vietnam was his greatest failure, than the first Moon landing was his greatest accomplishment.
Jack Kennedy didn’t attend his successor’s inauguration ceremony. Nobody knows why, although historians have speculated that it was due to a mixture of shame and bitterness, along with the desire to avoid having to reveal himself in a wheelchair at such a public occasion. Instead, he watched it from the inside of the White House, where he then met said successor, passing along a few words of wisdom in a way. Then, he left the White House with his family. Not for the last time, as he would be invited back by future presidents up until his death in 1979, far surpassing expectations, but it was the last meaningful time, at least to some historians.
The tales of Camelot are ones of whimsy and excitement, victory and glory, idealism and honor. But what everyone seems to forget, or more specifically, wishes to forget, is that at the end of it all, Camelot is a tragedy. And none wished to forget it more than Jack Kennedy.
Author's Note:
Hello there everyone, my apologies for the length, formatting, and time it took to release the first chapter. I promised that I would get it out in January, and I did. I again apologize if the writing, formatting, and other such details are amateur or unrefined, this is after all my first ever TLIAW, and I swore that I would keep my word and release it in January reception be damned. I will edit it soon so it will not only be easier to read, but more unique and engaging. Things like chunky blocks of text, misspellings, and such will be fixed, and there will I promise be an election wikibox made by theothresh included soon. Thank you for your patience and understanding, and I hope to make you all proud in the coming future chapters. -Laserfish
Thank you so much! This kind of feedback on works, where there's this deep analysis of the subject material, is something I devour hungrily, and to see something I've made be discussed just as passionately is truly exciting for me! And indeed, you probably should brace yourself for the coming chapters when they surprise you out of the blue!
Indeed! JFK was quite successful indeed at home, but his foreign policy, while still somewhat successful, is marred with the giant Vietnam-shaped black mark on its record. As for the Medicaid/Medicare thing, I am embarrassed to admit that I forgot about it while I was writing the chapter. Don't worry though, it'll most likely be covered in the next chapter. Indeed, the 60s have ended on quite the rises and drops for America's fortunes, although thankfully the first Moon landing kind of ensures that things don't end on an entirely sour note. The 70s I can't say how they'll turn out, but it's going to be a rough ride for sure!
Yeah, JFK was an optimist when it came to Vietnam, and here his worst fears regarding the conflict have come to pass. It would definitely have been a struggle for JFK to keep his health issues under the wraps if he lived to see a second term. His sexual escapades too! The man capital F Fucked and frankly it was a miracle some nosy journalist didn't manage to discover it and publish their findings during his years in office. Sadly JFK's legacy is more... mixed, to put it kindly, ITTL. Oh well, c'est la vie, oui?
Thanks you so much! It really is a shame that Discord had to shit their bed like so many other companies are doing nowadays. I use my personal Discord server to store lots of interesting or funny or important stuff, along with pictures for stuff I make or will make on this website. Speaking of pictures, aside from fixing misspellings or typos in the first chapter, we'll be changing the color scheme used for this TLIAW, along with adding in an election wikibox and a new banner image created by Theo! Not now though sadly, but we hope to get things out as quick as we can. It'll just take a while though. Living up to the W in TLIAW, we are.
Once again, thank you all for reading our TLIAW, and we hope to get back to you guys again soon with more stuff to enjoy! Take care, for now, and until next time!
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36. Ronald Wilson Reagan
36 - Ronald Wilson Reagan (Republican-CA)
January 20th, 1969 - January 20th, 1973
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Towards the fall of the Kennedy Administration, it became clear that the 35th President’s legacy had become tragically stained in the eyes of America. Depravity, gross incompetence, and sickness had brought down the clean and young idol of his generation. Kennedy did lead America to a New Frontier, though it would be a chaotic and untamed one. It is no surprise that the American people would turn to a man who evoked the spirit of those who tamed the old West.
In 1968, the Republican Party, still licking its wounds from Goldwater’s defeat, would be divided between former Vice President and 1960 nominee Richard Nixon, and the popular Governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller. The latter of whom grew to regret sitting out the 1964 election after seeing his party’s devastating loss. Since then, the media obsession with his tomfoolery and his marriage to Happy Rockefeller had begun to ebb, leading to a tight contest reminiscent of what could have been in 1960.
There was, of course, another suitor to the Presidency. Governor Ronald Reagan, a man who had only been elected just 2 years earlier in 1966, had no intention of stopping at just being Governor. Reagan, with his gift of communication and suave Hollywood look, became the new face of both conservatism and perhaps the future of the party. His wife Nancy understood this. She had seen her husband's potential and, like a modern Lady Macbeth, continued to push him forward.
Reagan was too new, though, and opted for a pseudo-campaign of sorts. Nelson Rockefeller would meet the Governor in 1967 in Los Angeles and practically beg him for his support, with him being on the ticket as Vice President. Reagan would play coy and show just enough interest to stay in consideration while keeping his real intentions to himself. Nixon, while not offering VP due to him and Reagan sharing the same state, would also make pitches trying to get the new Governor’s support. Reagan’s real goal would be to deadlock the convention and come out as the compromise candidate.
Reagan would pursue a neutral stance between Nixon and Rockefeller with a pseudo-campaign led by independent groups in the South and West. The largest was the favorite son campaign being run by allies in his own state, which would become a competitive race as Nixon’s campaign came into competition with them. Reagan would win a few caucuses, but most of the few primaries would be divided evenly between Nixon and Rockefeller, with Reagan's only win being California. In a move reminiscent of 1952, the Nixon campaign would, in the run-up to the convention, try to shake loose the delegates from their commitment to Reagan on the first ballot, which would fail as it had before and leave more bad blood between the two camps.
At the convention in Miami, Reagan along with the newly Republican Strom Thurmond would work to shift southern delegates around to deprive either candidate of a majority, which looked increasingly likely as the delegates' math played out. At some point, Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, a Nixon-supporting favorite son, had enough as Reagan’s team tried pressing him and his delegates more and more about the inevitable second round.
Baker would cause mayhem on the convention floor when he chastised Reagan for trying to deadlock the convention and nearly caused an uproar with conservative delegates in the process. As the floor descended increasingly into small fights between conservatives, moderates, and liberals, Baker would make his intentions clear that he and the Tennessee delegation would only back a candidate that had a pathway to win in the first round to prevent disunity. Several other uncommitted delegates would join him in this pact as the first round of voting approached.
While Nixon had a very slight lead, this meant that he had more to lose than Rockefeller had to gain. By the time the roll vote began, it was too late and Nixon, just as he had in 1960, would narrowly lose. Something he would in time come to terms with and often lightly joke about.
This meant that on the first ballot, Nelson Rockefeller would clinch the nomination with only a few more than the 667 delegates needed. While the chaos would continue with conservatives and diehard Nixon supporters threatening to walk out of the convention, Rocky had already decided his next step. Annoyed yet not undeterred by the results, Reagan would be surprised when he received a call from the nominee.
“The offer still stands, Governor.”
The preceding whiplash for people like Senator Percy stung, but a majority of the convention would grow to all agree on the Rockefeller/Reagan ticket.
For the Democrats, the story would be much different. Kennedy’s abandonment of Johnson and elevation of Stuart Symington to the Vice Presidency in 1964 would sow the seeds of what was to come in 1968. Johnson’s previous scandal that was used to boot him off the ticket in '64 had passed with him still standing. The Democratic primaries would be an oddity as Lyndon Johnson would run as an anti-war candidate, although more as a protest to Kennedy’s leadership than any true opposition to the war in Vietnam. Vice President Symington, whom Kennedy supported, had to stomach support for the administration's efforts even though in the administration he had been opposed to furthering US involvement in the war.
Of course, there were other candidates such as Senators Humphrey and McCarthy, but as the race continued, it was evident that it was a battle between Vice Presidents. Worrying for Symington and Kennedy, it seemed initially that Lyndon Johnson was winning the race. He had the support of those opposed to the war and even those who did (many party leaders knew his real stance on Vietnam). While Symington would speak eloquently about fighting for peace and democracy, Johnson would bring roars from crowds by speaking loudly about American boys dying overseas thousands of miles away from their mamas. Johnson also knew the power structures of the party from when he ran in 1960, and although Kennedy tried in his 8 years to assert control over these groups, in 1968 Kennedy’s approval was so low that Johnson could rip them out from under him. In Johnson’s mind, this wasn’t just about becoming President but also destroying Jack Kennedy’s legacy, one that was already dirtied and tarnished.
Ultimately, though, fate is a strange beast, and no campaign can truly account for it. On May 28th, while campaigning in Portland, Oregon, on primary day, former Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson was shot and killed by a mentally disturbed man named Patrick Murphy. This would effectively go on to help Symington secure the nomination for himself but spawn countless conspiracies that Kennedy was using the mob to take out Johnson.
At the Democratic Convention, Symington would work tirelessly on reuniting his party and building up a fighting spirit. Symington would even remark that even though he was down in the polls at the moment, the same was true in 1948, motioning to former President Harry Truman, a mentor of his.
“In 1948, President Truman was running against popular Governors from New York and California like we are now. Times were tough then; our party had been in power for a long time, and the media said it was over for us. Harry Truman never gave up though; he worked hard every day, he gave the Republicans hell, and you all know what happened! The pundits should know not to underestimate the fighting spirit of a Missouri Democrat! I say we win this one for Harry!”
This would elicit cheers from the audience, with shouts of “Give 'em Hell, Harry!” ringing through the halls of the International Amphitheater in Chicago. Symington, hoping to hold on to Catholics and northeastern Democrats, would select Governor Richard J. Hughes of New Jersey. Like 1948, there would be yet another third-party challenger representing southern reactionary Democrats opposed to Civil Rights, with Governor George Wallace running under his new American Independent Party. Wallace knew that although he didn't have any serious chance at becoming the next President, he could still deadlock the Electoral Convention and play kingmaker.
The race would stay in Rockefeller’s favor, with Symington struggling to keep up with the Governor. The Vice President would surge in the polls as it seemed a potential peace was in reach with President Kennedy’s diplomacy with the North Vietnamese. Still, in late October, the talks would fall apart, jeopardizing Symington.
On November 5th, Americans would go to the polls with the Rockefeller-Reagan ticket winning an impressive victory. The victory would be short-lived though, as only a week later, President-Elect Rockefeller would tragically die when his private plane crashed on his way to Albany on November 12th to tie up his governorship. Although much debate has been had over the cause of the crash, the consensus has been that the crash occurred due to possible icing causing problems with the plane's instruments.
Immediately, a constitutional crisis would break out as the death of the President-Elect was unprecedented in American history. An immediate emergency RNC meeting would be held in Washington D.C. later that week. While the most obvious case would be to have the Vice President-Elect simply assume the title of President-Elect following the normal line of Presidential Succession, it wasn’t a requirement and as the Electoral College had not yet met, the electors could still put forward a different candidate.
Those not pleased with the prospect of a sudden Reagan Presidency begged for Senator Richard Nixon to be named as the party’s new President-Elect, but Nixon, having already gone through several narrow losses in pursuit of the Presidency, did not wish to win this way, and also pointed out that it wouldn’t be possible due to the rule against candidates being from the same state in the Electoral College. The pandemonium would continue as Reagan’s detractors would openly threaten revolt against the man who was theoretically next in line for the presidency. Ultimately, the Party would vote to elevate Reagan to be the party’s official choice for President in the Electoral College, although at a cost. The issue would then move on to who would take Reagan’s place as the next Vice President. Reagan would immediately push for conservative Senator Norris Cotton of New Hampshire, but would ultimately have party leadership instead pick Ambassador to South Vietnam and former Vice Presidential nominee Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.
Reagan would view this pick with contempt as he had little connection to Lodge and viewed him as little more than the Eastern Establishment’s attempt to keep him in check. The chaos and unease would only grow more as the Electoral College drew near. When the time came, many Republican electors would choose to vote their conscience, voting for many alternatives with and without their backing. Some would even go on to just vote Rockefeller/Reagan as a mere protest. These votes were, of course, rejected by Congress later on. A majority of Republican electors would, of course, go on to vote for Reagan, giving him well above 270 electoral votes with Lodge getting just enough as well. Even some of George Wallace’s electors would swap their votes in the electoral college to Reagan/Wallace, making up for a few Republican defectors. The conservatives would finally have their man in the White House on January 20th, 1969, even though it came at a steep price.
On the steps of the Capitol, Reagan would open his speech, highlighting the extraordinary and tragic means to which he had become President,
“I must begin by acknowledging the man who I wish was here delivering this speech right now. Governor Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, our nation’s fallen hero. Although he came from a long line of success that’s only possible in America, his most valuable asset was his truly unique heart of gold. I pray for the whole Rockefeller family, but most of all for Happy Rockefeller, and their young children. Nelson Rockefeller would have been a truly great President, and America knew that. Knowing this, I will try to the best of my ability to live up to his promises.”
Reagan would then truly begin his speech, shifting from praise of Rockefeller to the vanguard of the new conservative revolution to come,
“I've seen America from the stadium press box as a sportscaster, as an actor, officer of my labor union, soldier, officeholder, and as both Democrat and Republican. I've lived in an America where those who often had too little to eat outnumbered those who had enough. There have been four wars in my lifetime, and I've seen our country face financial ruin in depression. I have also seen the great strength of this nation as it pulled itself up from that ruin to become the dominant force in the world.
To me, our country is a living, breathing presence, unimpressed by what others say is impossible, proud of its own success, generous, yes and nay, sometimes wrong, never mean and always impatient to provide a better life for its people in a framework of basic fairness and freedom.
We must put an end to the arrogance of a federal establishment which accepts no blame for our condition, cannot be relied upon to give us a fair estimate of our situation, and utterly refuses to live within its means. I will not accept the supposed wisdom which has it that the federal bureaucracy has become so powerful that it can no longer be changed or controlled by any administration. As President, I would use every power at my command to make the federal establishment respond to the will and the collective wishes of the people.
We must force the entire federal bureaucracy to live in the real world of reduced spending, streamlined functions, and accountability to the people it serves. We must review the functions of the federal government to determine which of those are the proper province of levels of government closer to the people.
The 10th article of the Bill of Rights is explicit in pointing out that the federal government should do only those things specifically called for in the Constitution. All others shall remain with the states or the people. We haven't been observing that 10th article of late. The federal government has taken on functions it was never intended to perform and which it does not perform well. There should be a planned, orderly transfer of such functions to states and communities and a transfer with them of the sources of taxation to pay for them…”
*****
Reagan would set out on the arduous task of forming a coherent cabinet. Since Rockefeller died so soon after the election, he didn't have a chance to establish a picture of what his intended cabinet would have looked like. Reagan had a pretty clean slate to form as he wished. Certain Rockefeller aides, such as Henry Kissinger, would be retained and appointed as National Security Advisor, while many would find themselves voluntarily or involuntarily without the job they expected to get.
Reagan would try to get Senator Nixon to accept a position as Secretary of State, but the latter decided to stay in the Senate. Ultimately, Reagan would nominate former Kennedy Defense Secretary Robert McNamara for the top job at the State Department. Governor Winthrop Rockefeller would find himself appointed as Secretary of Commerce out of respect for his late brother. The infamous Roy Cohn was originally floated for Attorney General but decided against it due to the potential for uproar in the Senate. Denison Kitchel, Goldwater’s 1964 Campaign manager, would instead receive the position. Cohn would be kept on as the President’s domestic affairs advisor, with him holding resentment for being passed over. General Electric Chairman Ralph Cordiner would be appointed to head the Treasury, and Senator John Tower would be appointed to head the Department of Defense. This cabinet would go on to outrage many in liberal Republican circles who felt that Reagan was betraying Rockefeller’s intentions.
Globally, Reagan would significantly alter the course of the Vietnam War by backing away from Kennedy’s peace overtures, claiming that the North Vietnamese had not proven themselves as serious negotiators. Reagan would quickly resume the bombing of the North and commit more American soldiers to protect the South. This would lead to another eruption of anti-war protests, as Reagan declared that the only peace that was on the table was one that guaranteed a free and secure South Vietnam. A particular comment about the conflict that caused controversy was when Reagan said during an interview,
“-well Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi need to do the math, can they recruit soldiers as fast as we can build bombs? They need to figure that out very soon because if they don’t we have the capability to reduce their country to a point where they will no longer be a threat.”
The international community was shocked and deeply worried about the implications of the President of the United States making these kinds of statements, to say the least. Numerous reports would come out about the U.S. Military deploying more brutal tactics hunting down Vietcong guerrillas. The People’s Republic of China began to openly worry about Reagan invading North Vietnam, with many contingencies prepared for another Yalu-style deployment of the PLA. The situation would escalate in late 1969 when Reagan would covertly bring nuclear bombs into the South aboard B-52 bombers.
Domestically, Reagan would pass a series of budget cuts, including some of Kennedy’s New Frontier welfare programs, shrinking the size of the United States government while increasing military spending. Reagan would attempt to balance the budget throughout his time in office, though he would be unsuccessful as he was unwilling to lower the Pentagon’s budget. He would shift the Justice system into a heavily conservative tilt that would last for decades strictly appointing originalist justices, and judges to the Supreme Court, and lower courts. Earl Warren would quickly retire in the beginning of Reagan’s term having decided to do so following Nelson Rockefeller’s passing. Reagan nominated Warren Burger as the new Chief Justice, and by the end of his term appointed 3 solidly conservative justices to the court beside him although there would be much controversy in getting the judges confirmed through the Senate.
Stateside opposition to the war would hit a peak in 1970 when members of the Weather Underground, a leftist militant group, broke into the offices of the FBI and stole classified documents that revealed the government's mass surveillance of war protestors through programs such as COINTELPRO. Further break-ins at various government offices, and even arson, would follow. This would be further inflamed when the National Guard would fire upon students at the University of New Mexico in May of that year. This came a week after Reagan made a hot mic remark stating that,
“Sooner or later these brats are gonna get bloodied if they keep acting out.”
The summer of 1970 would go on to be remembered as the Summer of Rage, as protests and counter-protests would spiral into riots and general lawlessness across America. Ultimately, in November, Reagan's poor approval ratings would allow Democrats to take back both houses of Congress with strong majorities, putting a check on Reagan.
The President would begin to grow paranoid each passing day as Congress began investigations into COINTELPRO and other civil rights abuses by the FBI. Some in Congress even openly spoke about impeaching Reagan. The new congress would immediately pass legislation putting limits on the President’s ability to conduct war with the War Powers Resolution. A large reason for the legislation was the fear that Reagan had been actively planning on expanding the war into a direct confrontation and judging by documents later released decades later, it's believed that they had been correct. The President, at the request of his advisors, would try to shift his focus away from Vietnam and confrontation, pushing him to focus on diplomacy elsewhere.
One focus for Reagan would be strengthening ties with Israel and other Middle Eastern allies. Reagan and McNamara would come to the aid of Pakistan in 1971 during their Civil War and war with India, sending a US Carrier group into the Bay of Bengal. This would prove to be yet another tense moment of the Cold War, with the Soviets backing India and the US backing Pakistan. Although the Pakistanis would lose East Pakistan, they would make slight territorial gains in the Kashmir region.
In late 1971 the Chinese government began to reach out to the US government through their mutual ally Pakistan hoping to potentially establish some ties, and ease tensions with the US government. This would catch the Reagan Administration by surprise and lead to bitter confrontation between those who believed that they should take China up on their offer, or not. Reagan being a staunch ally of Taiwan would go with the latter side, and it would lead to the resignation of National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger a proponent of furthering talks with China. Kissinger would comment on Reagan’s character later in life saying,
“He wasn't like Rockefeller, he was a boar of a man. He had two personalities the shiny movie star and the animal within him. I don’t know where it came from… I still question it to this day.”
Reagan would carry on his term fighting with Congress and often not making much progress. In 1972, he would easily win the nomination of his party, which through the years had grown to defend him as the embattled President became a symbol to many conservatives. The President would be down in the polls, though, and had problems trying to convince someone to take Lodge’s place on the ticket. Ultimately, Secretary of State McNamara would accept the spot to some fanfare. Many within the party began to separate themselves from the President, such as Senator Nixon, who was facing a tough re-election in California and would be rewarded for doing so in November.
Reagan ultimately could not hold up against his opponent and would go on to lose re-election, becoming a one-term President. Reagan’s anger would turn to silence on January 20th, 1973, as he departed Washington D.C. to return to his California ranch. Being largely confined to it not just out of anger at the world, but also due to the constant security risk that was posed against him by those that hated him. He would write a memoir of his time in office that would be released over a decade later and even become a best seller. He tried to tame the New Frontier by the way one would tame the old: brute force. He came to learn that this was no country for old-fashioned men.
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First of all, super pumped to see this pop up!
Secondly I am slightly embarrassed that my immediate reaction to seeing who Kennedy's replacement was to mentally boo and hiss like a pantomime baddy just strolled onto the stage. Not because it's a bad choice or anything, I was stoked to read it. But because I could see certain things going very poorly. As to whether or not I was right, well let's see.
First of all, the whole saga of getting to the actual election is bonkers and I love it. Howard Baker is an excellent choice for someone who, while not chaotic in nature, would not stand by and let himself be harassed into falling in line without the proper protocols being followed. LBJ getting shot and killed was not something I originally considered but it's certainly an old fly in the ointment! Curious as to who Patrick Murphy is, I couldn't find an exact match when searching for him but if it just so happens to be a original character I'm not going to be funny about it. Rocky getting his big break and then literally crashing back to earth is grim stuff. Although the fact that Cabot Lodge managed to get back into power instead of Nixon is very funny to me in a dark sort of way.
To his credit, a lot of Reagan's picks for his cabinet weren't the worst he could have made. Cohn is the big one, with his whispering in Reagan's ear starting the old warning sirens off. And sure enough, a familiar song and dance plays out. I do wonder if they were specifically the same judges who held the positions in OTL or if there were Nixon level of blunders made. I also have to say that the comments made towards the student protestors seem entirely in character for Ronnie to have made. Kind of fascinating that his main legacy appears to have been that the great Conservative revolution just sort of...fizzled out. I like it, by the by, it's a good twist on an old favourite.
Looking forward to seeing who beat him!
Secondly I am slightly embarrassed that my immediate reaction to seeing who Kennedy's replacement was to mentally boo and hiss like a pantomime baddy just strolled onto the stage. Not because it's a bad choice or anything, I was stoked to read it. But because I could see certain things going very poorly. As to whether or not I was right, well let's see.
First of all, the whole saga of getting to the actual election is bonkers and I love it. Howard Baker is an excellent choice for someone who, while not chaotic in nature, would not stand by and let himself be harassed into falling in line without the proper protocols being followed. LBJ getting shot and killed was not something I originally considered but it's certainly an old fly in the ointment! Curious as to who Patrick Murphy is, I couldn't find an exact match when searching for him but if it just so happens to be a original character I'm not going to be funny about it. Rocky getting his big break and then literally crashing back to earth is grim stuff. Although the fact that Cabot Lodge managed to get back into power instead of Nixon is very funny to me in a dark sort of way.
To his credit, a lot of Reagan's picks for his cabinet weren't the worst he could have made. Cohn is the big one, with his whispering in Reagan's ear starting the old warning sirens off. And sure enough, a familiar song and dance plays out. I do wonder if they were specifically the same judges who held the positions in OTL or if there were Nixon level of blunders made. I also have to say that the comments made towards the student protestors seem entirely in character for Ronnie to have made. Kind of fascinating that his main legacy appears to have been that the great Conservative revolution just sort of...fizzled out. I like it, by the by, it's a good twist on an old favourite.
Looking forward to seeing who beat him!
Patrick Murphy is just an original creation (a tongue in cheek reference to One who Flew Over the Coocoos Nest). Baker was originally written as Charles Percy but I realized he actually was a Rocky supporter. I could have gone more in depth on the judges. Rehnquist gets in, while Nixon's more liberal picks are replaced. The comments Reagan makes about student protestors are based on real ones he made before Kent State. The party does make the Conservative shift but the country was not nearly ready for someone like Reagan.
So in this timeline, it looks like Khrushchev does not get couped by Brezhnev in 64, and Malcolm X, MLK are still alive.
I presume then:
- no mass violence in 1968 since MLK and RFK lives, except for the anti-war protests
Only questions I had was:
- Nixon and Edwin Walker are elected to the senate in the 1966 midterms ITTL. However, California's senate seat was not open for election that year (it was only open in 1964 and 1968), and John Tower was already the Republican incumbent running for the 1966 Texas senate race.
- LBJ replaces Ralph Yarborough as senator for Texas in 1964? Yes, he was entertaining the idea of returning to the senate. But I remember that LBJ also thought that he would continue to command the Senate with powers as majority leader while being VP, until the Democratic caucus smacked down the idea and Mansfield continued to be in charge spearheading legislation as majority leader. I'm not sure how the Democrat caucus would be willing to entertain the idea of LBJ being majority leader again.
Furthermore, LBJ would be facing scrutiny for his involvement in the Bobby Baker scandal, a Senate investigation was already taking place just before Kennedy got shot. Hearings in the Senate were taking place on 11/22/63 and got interrupted the moment the news came in. Basically, LBJ would be sidelined and powerless as long as he wasn't president.
I presume then:
- no mass violence in 1968 since MLK and RFK lives, except for the anti-war protests
Only questions I had was:
- Nixon and Edwin Walker are elected to the senate in the 1966 midterms ITTL. However, California's senate seat was not open for election that year (it was only open in 1964 and 1968), and John Tower was already the Republican incumbent running for the 1966 Texas senate race.
- LBJ replaces Ralph Yarborough as senator for Texas in 1964? Yes, he was entertaining the idea of returning to the senate. But I remember that LBJ also thought that he would continue to command the Senate with powers as majority leader while being VP, until the Democratic caucus smacked down the idea and Mansfield continued to be in charge spearheading legislation as majority leader. I'm not sure how the Democrat caucus would be willing to entertain the idea of LBJ being majority leader again.
Furthermore, LBJ would be facing scrutiny for his involvement in the Bobby Baker scandal, a Senate investigation was already taking place just before Kennedy got shot. Hearings in the Senate were taking place on 11/22/63 and got interrupted the moment the news came in. Basically, LBJ would be sidelined and powerless as long as he wasn't president.
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