This is accurate. I remember seeing an interview with Milton Friedman where they asked him who was the most intelligent president he had worked with, and he said Nixon was absolutely brilliant behind closed doors, but then immediately once he got out into public he would totally abandon what he had previously said and become a completely different person. Its honestly hard to say what Nixon truly believed in terms of domestic policy.
AHC: Make Richard Nixon Considered a Good President
- Thread starter Amadeus
- Start date
Having him win the 1960 election might help...depending on how things are played. Worst case scenario something like the Cuban Missile Crisis happens and Nixon causes WW3(though it's not like Kennedy wasn't at risk falling into that). Best case scenario is that he's reminiscent of OTL Kennedy, minus being shot
Nixon's Vietnam policy was actually working, he made an ally of the PRC against red Russia, he created some vitally-needed government agencies, and he made useful allies of those who didn't support civil rights without completely abetting them. All that's really needed is to avoid Watergate.
Maybe for 1960-1963. LBJ was amazing for the country... if only it wasn't for Vietnam...
No. NASA had fundamentally flawed ideas about what the Space Shuttle could be, and the design was heavily compromised from the start. It could have been done better in various ways, but this had rather little to do with either Congressional politics (besides Congress forcing significant budget cuts, which was overdetermined) or military support. Actually, a detailed study shows that NASA mostly bullied, bribed, or twisted the arm of the Air Force into supporting their preferred orbiter design, and the military had little input into any aspect of the Space Shuttle. Fundamentally, the failure of the Space Shuttle rests on NASA's shoulders, not anyone else's.
The "no Watergate" path is well walked, so instead let's say he wins the 1960 election, gets assassinated like Kennedy did, and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Gets blamed for Entering Vietnam and being corrupt instead of Nixon.
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Lodge would ironically occupy LBJ's place in history: as a liberal from Massachusetts, I could see him pushing civil rights through Congress only to get bogged down in Vietnam. Though he wouldn't have had other Johnson accomplishments like Medicare or Head Start, so he may be seen as more of a mediocrity.
34. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961)
35. Richard M. Nixon (1961-1963)
36. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (1963-1969)
1968 would definitely be a Democratic year, with the GOP being blamed for Vietnam and the riots in the streets. Who wins? Humphrey? Might JFK make a comeback in middle age, ironically taking Nixon's place in history as the 1960 loser to went on to win in 1968?
He's sort of a mixed bag for me. I'm not a fan of his highly flawed Great Society Program, the massive expansion of governmental power he initiated, and the Vietnam war which he dragged the country into further worsening the problem of the Military industrial complex's influence which Eisenhower warned of almost 20 years earlier. He did pass Civil Rights legislation though which he deserves credit for although he did that more for the wrong reasons.
I think in the long-run this sort of was a double edged sword for the US as they started becoming more of geopolitical rival for the US in the 90's and 2000's. I think that the Soviets were already running out of steam by the later 60's and early 70's anyway.
I've read similar things about Nixon as well.
I doubt Nixon would be assassinated in the same manner as Kennedy. Nixon was a very cautious man. Nixon would never have ridden in a motorcade with the top off. Nixon was way more paranoid and more averse to risk as opposed to say Kennedy. Nixon also likely would have had a different foreign policy and domestic policy as well, and being a Republican he probably would have been more popular in Texas.
Texas in 1963 had voted for the Republican candidate a total of three times in its history, and was not even close to a Republican bastion. Besides, Nixon was less charismatic than JFK and would likely have done the same things that made JFK unpopular in Texas in the first place - namely, championed civil rights.
Garrison
Donor
This was NASA's original goal:
One can only wish they had 'bullied' the USAF and Congress into accepting it...
If Nixon had found a way to really connect with the voters, he would have won in 1960. He should have gone to the people and said, "my opponent is a decent man who served his nation in WWII. But he is a millionaire playboy who went to Harvard, I am the son of a grocer who went to Whittier. When the Depression hit, Senator Kennedy was sitting pretty on his family's estate while I had to give up my scholarship to Harvard so I could tend to the family store. It's true, as Senator Kennedy points out, that America is in a recession. But between the two of us on this stage, I am the one person who understands what it is like to suffer during a depression. To those who are unemployed, I feel your pain, and that is why when I am elected President I will introduce a tax cut to stimulate the economy and work with the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. President Eisenhower presided over the highest level of peacetime unemployment in our nation's history, vote for me and America will return that prosperity in the 1960s."
Which was completely unrealistic and impractical, and not just because of tight budgets (which I acknowledged in my post). NASA was basically full of itself at the time, not without reason, and wasn't ready to carefully study what it actually needed and what really made sense to build.
bguy
Donor
The 5th Avenue Compact that Nixon concluded with Rockefeller in 1960 committed Nixon to supporting federal health insurance for the elderly (albeit with an option for beneficiaries to purchase private insurance), so Lodge will almost certainly push for (and given the political realities of the 60s succeed in getting enacted) some sort of Medicare equivalent program if Nixon didn't already get it passed.
Better yet, what if the POD involves Rockefeller accepting Nixon's offer to be his running mate? This butterflies the gaffes made by Lodge, and probably helps the ticket in New Jersey as Rockefeller was popular in the Northeast. If the Nixon/Rockefeller ticket narrowly wins and Nixon is assassinated, then you have President Rockefeller pushing for civil rights and Republican version of federal health insurance. Interestingly, Rockefeller condemned the Vietnam War as, "a war that no one wants, that no one really understands, and that everyone prays can be ended." Would Rockefeller send ground troops into Vietnam in 1965? Would he even need to if Nixon handles Vietnam more competently than Kennedy and Johnson? Of course we know what a President Lodge would do, as he ordered the coup that overthrew Diem when he was JFK's Ambassador to South Vietnam.
marathag
Banned
unlikely. They would be in Canada until the Next President.
Maybe longer, if RR follows as Prez
Really unlikely
But a slim chance for the IB to be continued, if a smaller Shuttle (like super-sized HL-20) was placed ontop of it.
Here's an idea (and it's just off the top of my head, would need some thinking through) -
OTL, Nixon was very tight with the anti-communist crusaders of the late 40s and 50s. In particular, CIA Director Allen Dulles played a big role in his early successes. So, go back to '46 or so, and have him succeed without aligning himself with the the sordid spy cabal...
OTL, Nixon was very tight with the anti-communist crusaders of the late 40s and 50s. In particular, CIA Director Allen Dulles played a big role in his early successes. So, go back to '46 or so, and have him succeed without aligning himself with the the sordid spy cabal...
I think HHH or RFK would need to win in '68 in order for Apollo to continue, followed by a more moderate Republican in '72 or '76.
Well, ATL Nixon would do worse in the South but better in the North so he's probably still elected in '68. He is remembered as a champion of civil rights and a peacemaker abroad. Upon his death in 1994 he is widely mourned as a heroic underdog who overcame a poor background to be one of America's most important Presidents.