Bicentennial Man: Ford '76 and Beyond
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
It’s probably not important enough to address in the story but I’m very curious to how Mississippi politics plays out in the 80s mainly because the POD of Ford winning makes things an interesting scenario with both parties in Mississippi.
With Republicans a bunch of Mississippi Republicans were furious with party leaders seemingly switching up to support Ford over Reagan in the 76 primaries and many of them thought Clarke Reed the head of the Mississippi Republican party cost Reagan the nomination. I can only imagine the divisions getting worse with Ford’s term being a disaster and a lot of in-fighting and finger pointing ensuing within the party. Really interesting article on this: https://www.columbian.com/news/2016...-into-ugliness-of-a-gop-contested-convention/
The Mississippi Democratic Party is in a strong but divisive spot. The moderate-liberal loyalist democrats will be much more powerful and influential in Mississippi politics as a whole. I could see Charles Evers running against Eastland in 1978 as an independent and doing much better than expected and leveraging that to getting more loyalist democrats in state and local offices+ Mississippi Democratic Party leadership positions.
With Republicans a bunch of Mississippi Republicans were furious with party leaders seemingly switching up to support Ford over Reagan in the 76 primaries and many of them thought Clarke Reed the head of the Mississippi Republican party cost Reagan the nomination. I can only imagine the divisions getting worse with Ford’s term being a disaster and a lot of in-fighting and finger pointing ensuing within the party. Really interesting article on this: https://www.columbian.com/news/2016...-into-ugliness-of-a-gop-contested-convention/
The Mississippi Democratic Party is in a strong but divisive spot. The moderate-liberal loyalist democrats will be much more powerful and influential in Mississippi politics as a whole. I could see Charles Evers running against Eastland in 1978 as an independent and doing much better than expected and leveraging that to getting more loyalist democrats in state and local offices+ Mississippi Democratic Party leadership positions.
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@KingSweden24 what do you think about the possibility of reopening Watergate? Not during 1980-1984 but during 1985-1988, when Carey should have solid majority in all branches of government.
Would be seen as a partisan move and not have nearly the legitimacy as the first watergate investigation
Interesting…
Unless it’s hugely important for the narrative I usually try to avoid state-level intraparty feuds but the point on Reed does suggest, along with Cochran falling short to Eastland in the end, that the MSGoP’s rise would be way delayed though as for the Magnolia State as a whole it’d be one of the strangest political cultures in America at this time (I mean it produced Cliff Finch it’s bound to be pretty strange)
I don’t really see what could be gained? Pursue ethics reform with teeth to avoid a repeat, sure. But the big fish has a full and unconditional pardon so what’s the point of really doing it, especially after over a decade later?
The thing is that those investigations need to get it right on the first try; the second shot will inevitably be tainted as partisan (so will the first, but not to an unsurmountabke degree). Plus, since Nixon himself is pardoned, it'd just be going after small fries that aren't nearly worth the political backlash.
Whiskey on the Rocks - Part II
Whiskey on the Rocks - Part II
Soviet-Swedish relations were a complicated matter stemming from a complicated history; Russia established itself in large part thanks to a defeat of the Swedish Empire at Narva and relations in the 19th century were largely defined by Russia having stripped Sweden of Finland, which had been part of the Swedish realm for centuries, in 1809 at the height of the Napoleonic Wars due to Stockholm's alliance with London. The national trauma of Finland's annexation by Russia as a semi-sovereign Grand Duchy, and that the consolation prize of Norway would for the next ninety years always have one foot out the door, was a major factor in poor, cold Sweden's choice to pursue a policy of strict armed neutrality from then on, even as the bear in the woods behind its backyard grew stronger and stronger.
It was no secret to the Khrushchev-era USSR that Sweden strongly preferred the United States, and KGB files revealed a relative awareness of negotiations between Stockholm and Washington over nuclear assistance. The massive Flygvapnet - literally, "The Flying Weapon" - was also very clearly not intended to defend against Danes hoping to grab Scania back, nor was the sizable Swedish fleet based out of Karlskrona on the Baltic coast intended to retake Swedish Pomerania. The defensive neutrality was intended to defend almost exclusively against a Soviet incursion, and for good reason - simple geography.
In the event of a war with NATO, Russia's first priority would be to secure access to the North Atlantic, and Sweden lay between Russia, Soviet-aligned Finland [1] and NATO-member Norway. From a purely strategic standpoint, this meant that Sweden's neutrality would have to be violated quickly and overwhelmingly as part of a Soviet press to the North Sea. This was why Soviet submarines were also in the Baltic at the ready, why mapping the Swedish coastline down to the distances between individual trees was the job of spies along the coast, and why the USSR was blase about the rumors of Sweden enjoying some kind of top-secret reciprocal defense arrangement with the United States. It didn't really matter if Sweden was cozier than met the eye with NATO, because if and when the balloon went up, they were a speed bump ahead of the Soviet war machine. Or so the thinking in Moscow went.
Relations between Stockholm and Moscow in the 1970s were not good. As much as the American governments of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford despised Olof Palme, what was often missed in his insistence that the two superpowers were morally equal was that it was just as much of a critique of Eastern communist imperialism as it was the Western capitalist kind. Certain right-wing analysts at the CIA may have regarded anyone to the left of Lyndon Johnson as a Soviet sympathizer waiting to happen but the reality was that Palme's Sweden was no friend to the Soviet Union and indeed part of what had sunk his government in 1976 was a major scandal over a secret intelligence agency known as the Informationbureau that was designed to spy on suspected Communist agents. The election of the center-right government of Thorbjorn Falldin in that year had only made relations worse, even if there was no chance for Sweden to join NATO even with the change over to a more pro-West administration.
The October Crisis of 1981 between Sweden and the Soviet Union was thus partially predictable due to the provocations of Soviet military activities in the Baltic and deteriorating relations, but also something of a surprise. Sweden was content as always to take a defensive but cordial posture towards their neighbors, as they had when said neighbor was still Tsarist Russia, and the rise of Yuri Andropov had, ironically, seen a USSR turning inwards in its economic reforms, anti-corruption campaigns, and efforts to first and foremost strengthen its hold over its Eastern European Communist periphery before engaging in adventurism abroad, such as Andropov's push to limit Soviet involvement in Afghanistan to military advisors and KGB assassins. The goodwill of the 1980 Olympics and Andropov's ambiguous foreign policy had left many, including most Western governments, feeling that detente was holding fast, even as events in Poland deeply concerned them (and the Politburo).
That was the context in which U-157 running aground mere kilometers from the secret passages into Karlskrona Naval Base occurred, a time of modest but slowly relaxing tensions that were little different from what had come before. The Swedish Navy immediately swarmed the submarine and negotiated its captain's surrender; as he was leaving the submarine, however, a Swedish inspector with a Geiger counter got a strong radiation reading that suggested nuclear warheads were onboard and shouted as such to his comrades. A Soviet sailor got spooked and opened fire, and in the crossfire his captain was killed; Swedish soldiers immediately stormed the submarine to secure the crew.
In Stockholm, Moscow, and across the West, telephone lines between intelligence chiefs, defense ministers and heads of government and state lit up...
[1] To an extent... they weren't WARPAC or Communist, after all. The term "Finlandization" exists for a reason!
Can you go into more depth as to what ship U-157 is? Wikipedia uses U-### for Nazi ships with K-### used for Soviet ships. U-157 was sunk during WWII (and thus wasn't a ship that was gotten after the Nazi surrender) and K-157 wasn't launched until 1994
I presume this is the same ship as OTL incident (S-363). Not sure why it was called U157....
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Should be U137, which I don’t believe was the Sov designation for S363 but rather the Swedish
Cooler heads prevailed IOTL on both sides when the Swedes realized (suspected, really - this has never been officially confirmed) there were nukes onboards. Here… yeah, no
The Soviets are going to send in an armada towards Swedish waters. Despite Sweden's neutral status, NATO is put on alert
What would the Soviets be threatening? The USSR doesn't share a border with Sweden and even if they were willing to go the mat for force Finland to allow land troops, transportation across the Finnish Swedish border would be a nightmare (the only real transportation route is basically along the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, the "hat" of the Baltic Sea). I think trying to invade by sea would be equally ugly for them. Honestly, of the neighbors of Sweden, the *Danes* might have the easiest time. (The Norwegians would have to come (mostly) over the mountains.
They will not invade Sweden, but do it as a show of force to intimidate the Swedes and demanding the release of the sailors.
I wonder if this will make the Soviet put more money on their surface fleet, since I'm pretty sure If I remember correctly, the Soviet Navy was the red-headed step-child of the armed forces. With Submarines being their capital ships. I know they had their reasons for it, but kind of hard to intimidate a nation in a show of force if your naval forces is majority of submarines.
Bombs delivered by sea and air, mostly - landing actual troops on Swedish soil would be a huge undertaking with high potential to be a debacle (this is where I differ from the previous TL to look upon this Subject, where Soviet paratroopers try to take Gotland, something I’d regard as highly unlikely especially with the shrewd Andropov in charge)
The Baltic Fleet was at least under-invested compared to the blue-water breakout fleets in Murmansk and Vladivostok, though it’s strategic role in a potential war wit NATO made it somewhat prestigious
Scoop Jackson will of course be badgering Carey and Congress for more defense spending