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After John F. Kennedy's death derailed a planned presidential visit to Jakarta and relations worsened with the Johnson administration, Sukarno strengthened alliances with communist countries and employed anti-American rhetoric in 1964."
https://www.theatlantic.com/interna...indonesia-documents-and-the-us-agenda/543534/Maybe Kennedy would have found some way to have better relations with Indonesia and Sukarno before his overthrow beginning in the September 1965 coup attempt and the subsequent communist purge in Indonesia.
I don't know. People forget that in the 1960s Britain was involved with its own Vietnam-esque conflict against the Indonesians. I don't see that going away even if Kennedy lives. I think we'd likely still see a coup of some sort of attempt to get rid of Sukarno. I don't see Kennedy favoring closer relations with Indonesia at the expense of the America's relationship with Britain. We'd learned our lesson from Suez. The coup might not be as bloody, (I don't see Kennedy supporting the same CIA-sanctioned genocide that Johnson did) but it will still happen.
If the coup doesn't happen, then the Malaysian Confrontation might go full-hilt, with a Royal Navy carrier group deployed to the region and more RAF assets to force the Indonesians into submission (all of this likely bankrolled by the US).
But that would mean such questions would have to be asked:
1. Will Khrushchev not be ousted by Brezhnev? What are the odds that he remains in place beyond October 1964?
2. What will Kennedy prioritise in election year 1964: Civil rights or international relations? A question worth asking. For example, Nixon made his landmark visits to Moscow and Beijing in an election year 1972. But the civil rights battle was taking place and climaxing in June 1964.
1. Khrushchev was going to be toppled. The Missile Crisis was the death-knell of his premiership, not Kennedy's assassination. Soviet hardliners said that he'd "shit his pants" by caving to "American aggression." He was out.
2. Kennedy was a foreign policy president (like Nixon and H.W. Bush.) He was not overly interested in domestic affairs. I think his campaign would primarily be ran on the fact that he'd kept the peace and held the line against the Russians. He'd also be helped by the fact that his opponent would be Goldwater, whose advocacy of using tactical nukes in Vietnam would play very badly against the President who just presided over (narrowly) averting an atomic holocaust. That said the election of 1964 would be much cleaner than OTL. No Daisy ads for sure. Kennedy and Goldwater were actually friends IOTL. They'd probably leave the negative ads to their surrogates and focus on their platforms and accomplishments.
I think ITTL if Law and Order is less of an issue, Nixon probably doesn’t stage a comeback. My assumption is the 68 nominee is either Romney or Rockefeller, and I tend to think Romney would be more popular with conservatives here than IOTL, and definitely more so than a Rockefeller minus his strength on law and order that he had IOTL. Maybe Romney picks John Tower as his VP against a Humphrey/Harris ticket?
I'm going to disagree with you on this. Law and order being an issue in the 1968 election was kind of inevitable.
If
@interpoltomo is correct in her assertion that CRA and VRA will fail (I personally disagree but I respect her opinion), then we'd be seeing mass unrest amongst black Americans across the country. There are two scenarios in my mind that happen if CRA and VRA fail to go through. Scenario one is that we see a mass exodus of blacks from to the South to Northern and Western cities so that they can have political and economic opportunities (this will lead to backlash amongst urban white ethnics who will likely flee to the suburbs in droves. Racial relations in the North will take a big hit). The South will be "lily white" but it will also be deprived of millions of workers and will take a big hit economically and in terms of its political power (population = electoral college/congressional seats). Scenario two is that we see something like a Northern Ireland situation in the American South. Radical white and black factions blowing each other up indiscriminately with the U.S. Army being sent in to maintain order. Both are very shitty situations.
Even if both the CRA and VRA pass, the Watts and Newark riots still happened IOTL after both were passed. The racial violence of the late Sixties was sparked by the Civil Rights movement failing to bring about the change expected by American blacks. When this didn't come about, disillusionment grew and the riots occurred. We might avoid the MLK Jr. riots of 1968 but there will still be race riots and there will still be an appeal to be made to whites afraid of "ghetto rebellions." As well, with a smaller War on Poverty (i.e. Medicare will still go through but no new government programs to combat poverty) then you will also see more poverty in black communities and more feelings of neglect and anger.
In addition to this, the counterculture, while different ITTL, will still be happening and there will be some backlash from people worried about the teens getting addicted to "sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll," regardless of the form the counterculture takes. Whilst Kennedy's surviving at Dallas will lead to a calmer Sixties, that doesn't necessarily mean the Sixties will be calm.
As for your thoughts on the Republican nominee, I think that it would still be Nixon if for no other reason than he was the only Republican who could unite both wings of the party. Both Romney and Rockefeller were solidly in the dying Rockefeller wing of the party. Reagan, on the other hand, was in the Goldwater wing that would've been recently discredited after their namesake got electorally bitchsmacked by Kennedy in 1964. Nixon was a moderate Republican who could appeal to both the Goldwater and Rockefeller wings of the party without really alienating anyone. He was also just a better political operator than Romney and Rockefeller (Reagan was more charismatic than Nixon but nowhere near as intelligent (and I'm not saying Reagan was dumb, I'm just saying Nixon was literally a genius)). I think Nixon's campaign would be ran on ending the Vietnam War on America's terms (more like Ike in Korea then Nixon's OTL Peace with Honour) and on law and order.