A Shot Too Early

OK, you might have heard about a recent book called "Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story." Complete and utter ASB BS. I highly doubt that a devout Catholic with 11 kids would do something near-incestuous. Often Kennedy family books are divided into what I call "hate-mailers/conspiracists" and "propagandists", but there's a lot in between that's excellent reading. It depends how much time you want to devote to this.

To get back to RFK and Jackie, he helped her find solace during 1964, and acted as head of the family for the rest of his OTL life, much as Ted would do four years later. Of course, your depressing music is ironic, because JFK was in the same situation upon learning of Kathleen's death in a plane crash in '48.

I have never heard of the book and I never meant to suggest the Jackie and Robert were having an affair. I've never thought the two were romantically involved. I always saw the two as friends and nothing more. In what I saw of Robert, he didn't seem like a man who would commit suicide.

I have been considering having conspiracy theories regarding the assassination (above) gaining more ground in this timeline due to the sheer unlikeliness of the shot. I am imagining some groups believing that the US government had been infiltrated by hostile forces.

I was also going to have the Browns vs. Cowboys football match erupt in violence.
 
Don't ask me about football- I'm a sports ignoramus. Conspiracy theorists will have a field day, but I don't pretend to understand them, since they make Birthers seem sane and reasonable. Even on the RFK assassination, with multiple witnesses, confined space and relatively straightforward ballistics, there are still theories. I had to debunk this the other day for my "RFK in '68" TL.
 
Don't ask me about football- I'm a sports ignoramus. Conspiracy theorists will have a field day, but I don't pretend to understand them, since they make Birthers seem sane and reasonable. Even on the RFK assassination, with multiple witnesses, confined space and relatively straightforward ballistics, there are still theories. I had to debunk this the other day for my "RFK in '68" TL.

I am not exactly familiar with sports myself. Football has never interested me. I was reading Wikipedia article on the "Reaction to the assassination of John F. Kennedy" and it included this:

Anger against Texas and Texans was reported from some individuals. Various Cleveland Browns fans, for example, carried signs at the next Sunday's home game against the Dallas Cowboys decrying the city of Dallas as having "killed the President".

Conspiracy theorists have never made much sense but for seem reason they attract interest and attention. Why hasn't anyone heard Occam's Razor? So many contradictions...
 
Many of JFK's aides did feel this way- and they hated LBJ even more than they did when JFK was alive. If you read about the Manchester controversy, you'll see what I mean. JFK and Ted had goodwill towards LBJ, and were usually fair. Not so for the rest, Jackie called him "Mr. Cornpone" and you know how Bobby felt. What they don't tell you is that RFK's heavily polarized (far exceeding Hillary) approval ratings dropped twenty points overnight.
 
The reason Oswald didn't shoot Kennedy from the front are easily two-fold. One, he didn't want to shoot Kennedy from the front because, if he did, the police escort could easily see him and shoot his @$$ from street level. Secondly, it's psychologically easier to kill someone without looking at their face. So Oswald will be a bit more frazzled than he was.
 
Your Majesty,

Doesn't the RFK assassination disprove that theory in regards to point #2? Keeping in mind we're dealing with a loony...
 
The reason Oswald didn't shoot Kennedy from the front are easily two-fold. One, he didn't want to shoot Kennedy from the front because, if he did, the police escort could easily see him and shoot his @$$ from street level. Secondly, it's psychologically easier to kill someone without looking at their face. So Oswald will be a bit more frazzled than he was.

Hmm...

If I remember correctly, the first shot was misidentified as a firecracker so that might allow him to make the first shot without much alarm. Some of the officers may be slightly alarmed though and search for the source. The second shot will surely draw attention.

Now, Oswald is dead. If he gets extremely lucky, he may be able to escape...
 
This will also mean a tightening of security for both Presidents and candidates. Despite JFK's death, they were still using convertibles in the 1968 campaign: not just RFK but Nixon as well. Think this times 100.


http://www.pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/1968-rfk-in-car-indy-65.jpg

I was going to include an increase in security. The idea seemed interesting and it would avert several assassination attempts in the OTL. My main fear is going to over the top. I do not want to get into a dystopian timeline just as much as I do not want a utopian timeline.
 
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It depends what you want: a RFK Presidency from 1965-73 will have to deal with Vietnam, CR and the economy. He could probably push both the CRA and VRA through because of the sympathy factor, but good luck on domestic legislation. Though he was arguably a much more effective Senator than JFK was in terms of bills and public advocacy, he hated the slow pace and preferred the mike over the pen, so to speak. Especially that he was ineligible for FRC when he'd run covert ops.
 
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Your Majesty,

Doesn't the RFK assassination disprove that theory in regards to point #2? Keeping in mind we're dealing with a loony...

Sirhan Sirhan wasn't Lee Oswald, and a dozen times loonier and more frantic.

Hmm...

If I remember correctly, the first shot was misidentified as a firecracker so that might allow him to make the first shot without much alarm. Some of the officers may be slightly alarmed though and search for the source. The second shot will surely draw attention.

Now, Oswald is dead. If he gets extremely lucky, he may be able to escape...
I'm not sure of the validity of that story, taking into account that three shots were fired, two hit, and the one that missed is not known for sure which of the three it was (whether before any of the shots hit, inbetween the shot that hit Kennedy and passed through Connally and the killing shot, or after the killing shot).
 
RFK's polarization numbers can best be explained by listening to a stump speech on YouTube. I'll try to summarize as best I can...

1) the Touching- how many candidates have let people hold them, pull them out of moving cars, take cufflinks or shoes? Keeping in mind this was a man who privately made Nixon look outgoing...

2) Podium-pounding- Lyndon Johnson also did that.

3) Volume/Voice: YouTube it. Only Maurice Duplessis was louder, and that's not necessarily a compliment.

4) Motorcades- quite aside from being security nightmares, it made a normally two-hour trip a day trip due to the crowds. I did mention riding on the trunk while going at 75 MPH...

5) Audiences: this did not go over well in Oregon, home of Nixonian suburbanites (where he lost 43-38)
 
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RFK's polarization numbers can best be explained by listening to a stump speech on YouTube. I'll try to summarize as best I can...

1) the Touching- how many candidates have let people hold them, pull them out of moving cars, take cufflinks or shoes? Keeping in mind this was a man who privately made Nixon look outgoing...

2) Podium-pounding- Lyndon Johnson also did that.

3) Volume/Voice: YouTube it. Only Maurice Duplessis was louder, and that's not necessarily a compliment.

4) Motorcades- quite aside from being security nightmares, it made a normally two-hour trip a day trip due to the crowds. I did mention riding on the trunk while going at 75 MPH...

5) Audiences: this did not go over well in Oregon, home of Nixonian suburbanites (where he lost 43-38)

Thank you again for the information. I truly appreciate it. You are very helpful. With each of your posts, I become more convinced that I will do this timeline.

On a separate note, I had been planning a subplot involving Sylvia Plath and the Beatles. I thought she had killed herself in 1964, but unfortunately she did so on the 11th of February. The PoD is too late. It is sad, really.
 
Ironically, RFK, Nixon and Maggie all had the same urban solution: public-private partnerships. Bobby set one up in Bedford-Stuyvesant in 1964, and it's still alive under a different name. This is part of what Clinton means when he calls RFK "the first New Democrat". Nixon called it "black capitalism" and Maggie called it Free Enterprise Zones, but all one and the same.
 
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