Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
- Start date
For all of Kat's many accomplishments her biggest legacy is going to be the transformation of the City of Berlin and with no OTL Four Powers occupation of Berlin the City is going so much different that it is going to be unrecognizable to what it is IOTL today.
By now Urban Planners from around the world have taken notice of the Templehof project and are proposing such projects for their own cities and their are two things that I hope are butterflied away, one no Robert Moses and two the Interstate Highway System does not cut thru cities and there are beltways instead and that will mean that neighborhoods are not split apart by the Interstates.I
I think that pretty soon the Idlewild airport is going to be renamed after a former Governor of New York who later became President named Roosevelt, which one? just wait.
By now Urban Planners from around the world have taken notice of the Templehof project and are proposing such projects for their own cities and their are two things that I hope are butterflied away, one no Robert Moses and two the Interstate Highway System does not cut thru cities and there are beltways instead and that will mean that neighborhoods are not split apart by the Interstates.I
I think that pretty soon the Idlewild airport is going to be renamed after a former Governor of New York who later became President named Roosevelt, which one? just wait.
Part 82, Chapter 1244
Chapter One Thousand Two Hundred Forty-Four
6th September 1957
Lào Cai Provence, Vietnam
There was a joke about villages in the back country of Bavaria or Bohemia where the Mayor, Town Council, Magistrate and Chief Constable all have the same surname. Oberfähnrich Fischer, secretly known as Prince Friedrich of Prussia, saw that play out at every village along the Red River that General Kopp stopped at as they worked to keep the locals on side.
The German Pioneer Corps, in partnership with the Government and Riverine Navy of Vietnam were working on improving the year-round navigation on the Red River. It was a small part in the effort that the Vietnamese had started to modernize the country, improving the health and education of its people in the process.
So far, that meant Freddy drank tea until he felt like his kidneys were about to burst and he got to listen as the General talked to the locals at length over every single concern that they had over the project, no matter how minor. General Kopp had told Freddy that it often wasn’t about the often staggeringly long list of grievances that the villagers had. Instead it was about how the construction projects had often disrupted life in villages and the people who lived there just wanted someone in an official capacity to listen to them.
This was just one project of many, General Kopp had spent most of the last decade in Vietnam and had gotten to know it extremely well. At the same the same time, the General had made sure that Freddy understood the exact limits of their outsider status here. “We will always be Tây to them” He had said, “It is incumbent upon us that term doesn’t become any more of a pejorative when used in conjunction with Pioneer Corps.” Freddy could understand that. Still, he had found himself with an inordinate amount of power even as an Oberfähnrich in Vietnam and had realized that there would be a serious problem if anyone came who let that get to their head. Here, everyone knew that the Germans who had ventured around the world were the most skilled in their respective trades anywhere. Freddy had also heard how the rocket launches in Cam Ranh were viewed with awe by the people who lived throughout Vietnam.
As one of the handful of people in South-East Asia who knew the truth about who Freddy was, General Kopp had also made it clear to Freddy what his job in Vietnam was. He was to do what he was told, keep his mouth shut and ears open. If malaria or the weather didn’t kill him then he would learn a great deal in this country and that would ultimately be for the good of the whole of the German Empire. So, Freddy got to accompany the General, playing the role of the good subordinate as they took a motor launch up and down the river. He was however starting to wonder if it ever stopped raining.
Buenos Aires, Argentina
There were few things that Moses found less tasteful than the likes of Lee Johnson. Small minded, willfully ignorant and constantly overcompensating by responding with anger and attitude any time he felt like he was being challenged, even when he wasn’t. In short, Lee was the sort of Black man who bigots back in the United States loved to point to when they were trying to justify their hateful attitude towards all Blacks. According to a knowledgeable source that Moses had, Lee had been thrown off a cargo ship and had lacked the means to go elsewhere.
The trouble was that the small American Negro expat community in Buenos Aires was composed largely of those who had the wherewithal to leave the United States. That meant that they were professionals, educated and here in Argentina they enjoyed a mostly a middle-class lifestyle. All those were things that set Lee off because he thought that they felt they were better than him and as much as Moses hated to even think it, the man was little more than a parasite. The issue was that the community was turning to Moses to solve the problem. He had tried to tell the two men who had approached him, one of whom was a Baptist Minister, that Lee was a self-correcting problem. It had turned out that they had thought of that before Moses had and did not want themselves or anybody they knew to be around when that happened.
The trouble for Moses was that for all the talk on his radio show about how he was Moses leading the people to the promised land of musical enlightenment, he knew full well that the Argentinian Government could care less about him because in their minds he was a radio DJ who played music that was popular with University students and was just a disembodied voice on the radio. That might change in a hurry if he started to be seen as an actual leader. He had extremely good reasons to avoid that sort of official attention. Still, he felt he had to do something.
It was something that he pondered for a few days until Moses realized that he had to handle this situation differently. He was extremely well paid for his radio show. The result was that it became a simple matter of paying someone to knock Lee over the head and drag him onto a boat that would take him across the River Plate to Uruguay. Later he heard about how Lee had threatened the crew of boat that he had friends and would get even with whoever had done this to him. Lee claimed knew Martin King himself. Moses didn’t laugh at that, but Lee would never know the profound irony of what he had said.
6th September 1957
Lào Cai Provence, Vietnam
There was a joke about villages in the back country of Bavaria or Bohemia where the Mayor, Town Council, Magistrate and Chief Constable all have the same surname. Oberfähnrich Fischer, secretly known as Prince Friedrich of Prussia, saw that play out at every village along the Red River that General Kopp stopped at as they worked to keep the locals on side.
The German Pioneer Corps, in partnership with the Government and Riverine Navy of Vietnam were working on improving the year-round navigation on the Red River. It was a small part in the effort that the Vietnamese had started to modernize the country, improving the health and education of its people in the process.
So far, that meant Freddy drank tea until he felt like his kidneys were about to burst and he got to listen as the General talked to the locals at length over every single concern that they had over the project, no matter how minor. General Kopp had told Freddy that it often wasn’t about the often staggeringly long list of grievances that the villagers had. Instead it was about how the construction projects had often disrupted life in villages and the people who lived there just wanted someone in an official capacity to listen to them.
This was just one project of many, General Kopp had spent most of the last decade in Vietnam and had gotten to know it extremely well. At the same the same time, the General had made sure that Freddy understood the exact limits of their outsider status here. “We will always be Tây to them” He had said, “It is incumbent upon us that term doesn’t become any more of a pejorative when used in conjunction with Pioneer Corps.” Freddy could understand that. Still, he had found himself with an inordinate amount of power even as an Oberfähnrich in Vietnam and had realized that there would be a serious problem if anyone came who let that get to their head. Here, everyone knew that the Germans who had ventured around the world were the most skilled in their respective trades anywhere. Freddy had also heard how the rocket launches in Cam Ranh were viewed with awe by the people who lived throughout Vietnam.
As one of the handful of people in South-East Asia who knew the truth about who Freddy was, General Kopp had also made it clear to Freddy what his job in Vietnam was. He was to do what he was told, keep his mouth shut and ears open. If malaria or the weather didn’t kill him then he would learn a great deal in this country and that would ultimately be for the good of the whole of the German Empire. So, Freddy got to accompany the General, playing the role of the good subordinate as they took a motor launch up and down the river. He was however starting to wonder if it ever stopped raining.
Buenos Aires, Argentina
There were few things that Moses found less tasteful than the likes of Lee Johnson. Small minded, willfully ignorant and constantly overcompensating by responding with anger and attitude any time he felt like he was being challenged, even when he wasn’t. In short, Lee was the sort of Black man who bigots back in the United States loved to point to when they were trying to justify their hateful attitude towards all Blacks. According to a knowledgeable source that Moses had, Lee had been thrown off a cargo ship and had lacked the means to go elsewhere.
The trouble was that the small American Negro expat community in Buenos Aires was composed largely of those who had the wherewithal to leave the United States. That meant that they were professionals, educated and here in Argentina they enjoyed a mostly a middle-class lifestyle. All those were things that set Lee off because he thought that they felt they were better than him and as much as Moses hated to even think it, the man was little more than a parasite. The issue was that the community was turning to Moses to solve the problem. He had tried to tell the two men who had approached him, one of whom was a Baptist Minister, that Lee was a self-correcting problem. It had turned out that they had thought of that before Moses had and did not want themselves or anybody they knew to be around when that happened.
The trouble for Moses was that for all the talk on his radio show about how he was Moses leading the people to the promised land of musical enlightenment, he knew full well that the Argentinian Government could care less about him because in their minds he was a radio DJ who played music that was popular with University students and was just a disembodied voice on the radio. That might change in a hurry if he started to be seen as an actual leader. He had extremely good reasons to avoid that sort of official attention. Still, he felt he had to do something.
It was something that he pondered for a few days until Moses realized that he had to handle this situation differently. He was extremely well paid for his radio show. The result was that it became a simple matter of paying someone to knock Lee over the head and drag him onto a boat that would take him across the River Plate to Uruguay. Later he heard about how Lee had threatened the crew of boat that he had friends and would get even with whoever had done this to him. Lee claimed knew Martin King himself. Moses didn’t laugh at that, but Lee would never know the profound irony of what he had said.
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What could be interesting is that if the Japanese are also involved with the project.
While there has been no details about the Peace Agreement to end the Pacific War, I could see Japan instead of being forced to make reparations, they are making "Voluntary Contributions" as a way to compensate Vietnam.
With Oberfahnrich Fischer knowledge of the Japanese language he may prove to be more valuable then his superiors thought he would be.
Lee Johnson, I don't know the significance of that name, so should I wait to find out on the next update or is someone going to provide spoilers?
While there has been no details about the Peace Agreement to end the Pacific War, I could see Japan instead of being forced to make reparations, they are making "Voluntary Contributions" as a way to compensate Vietnam.
With Oberfahnrich Fischer knowledge of the Japanese language he may prove to be more valuable then his superiors thought he would be.
Lee Johnson, I don't know the significance of that name, so should I wait to find out on the next update or is someone going to provide spoilers?
A while back @Peabody-Martini mentioned that "Moses Newton" had gained some international(?) publicity with pictures. I really hope no Good ol' Boy (AKA asshole sheet head) notices and thinks ,"Yaknow, that looks kinda like the nigger that blowed up the Governor and all them other people."
With Lyndon Johnson not becoming President this time around there must be something for him in the near future as he is just too much a force of nature to be sidelined.
IOTL Sen. Price Daniels won the Texas Gubernatorial election in 1956 and appointed his own successor to fill his seat which was ultimately won by Ralph Yarborough IOTL,
IOTL Sen. Price Daniels won the Texas Gubernatorial election in 1956 and appointed his own successor to fill his seat which was ultimately won by Ralph Yarborough IOTL,
Those kind of people don't really read the kind of news 'Moses Newton' might appear in, and it's unlikely that he had more than a few filler articles anyway.
The problem would be if a CIA analyist from Open Source Intelligence (aka the guys who are tasked with following the news) reads one of those articles, as I'd assume MLK is still considered a terrorist.
IIRC the FBI has basically ruled out Martin Luther King as the terrorist that the Law Enforcement officials in the South has portrayed him to be, I don't remember if he has been connected to the one bombing that he did that which was Gov. Talmedge in retaliation for the Atlanta Massacre.
King was smuggled out of America by the Abwehr front company Imperial Shipping and the only other person who knows that in America is Richard Nixon.
Argentina is not going to cooperate with any American Law Enforcement agencies after what the Dewey Administration did in supporting the failed coup and President Harriman is not going to press them.
King was smuggled out of America by the Abwehr front company Imperial Shipping and the only other person who knows that in America is Richard Nixon.
Argentina is not going to cooperate with any American Law Enforcement agencies after what the Dewey Administration did in supporting the failed coup and President Harriman is not going to press them.
Although there is also the odds of the American CIA doing the stupid and pulling a less subtle version of the OTL retrieval/kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann from Buenos Aires, Argentina during the mid Sixties.......
The Argentinians would be outraged, the CIA wouldn't have the foresight that bringing King back to the US had all the wisdom of throwing a fuse-burning TNT stick into a house filled with Nitroglycerin, suddenly reigniting the barely quelled tensions in the United States back to the point of the remaining Black people pulling out the weapons hidden away and bought years ago as the KKK and other supremacist groups restarted their attacks......
And the worse it would be that the Civil Rights group linked to Nixon would push and achieve that his case were to be seen in a federal Court and not in a state court..... And Kennedy would one of the associate defenders besides the Civil Rights lawyers....
The Trial being potentially pure political dynamite as outside of his first bombing without deaths, King wasn't even present to all the other bombs and incidents that he was blamed for, each case being proven as a sham without Forensics or shoddy proofs
...... And as such, the statutory rules would consider that his responsibility for the single act of his, would have expired.... 1 day after he was returned to the US......
Could imagine the sheer Riot?
True..... The main issue is that If they were to judge King, the case will unavoidably pull into a Federal Court The Atlanta Massacre, and THAT it will be a massive Hornets Nest.....
If they don't, the American South would burn like Rome and for the four corners......
Still, i suspect that the CIA will try and bungle the retrieval, but potentially harming or Killing Argentinians or King's wife...
Thatiif happens would be a clusterfuck, as the Argentinians would not only give Asylum to King after hearing his situation, but would be judging the captured Americans by criminal charges that at this point in Argentina only have Death by Firing Squad as sentence , something that the Argentinians would not hesitate to do alongside with kicking out the American Ambassador......
Well, tbh, an attempt that becomes public (successful or not) to retrieve MLK by the US secret services would be a godsend for the other Powers. It would throw gas on the fire of racial prejudice in the US, it would lower even more the US's standing with the South American countries (Argentina in particular), and none would lose an important asset.
Probable reply: "Nah, It probly ain't him. All them niggers look alike, anyway."