AHC: Mo Udall wins in '76 and has successful two-term presidency.

A survey from around (?) May 1979 said that slightly more than half the American public were blaming the oil companies at least to some extent.

will look for link

Energy crisis still doubted by public, Fredericksburg, Virginia: THE FREE LANCE-STAR, Evans Witt (AP writer), Friday, May 4, 1979, page 5.

" . . . Fifty-four percent said the nation's energy shortages are a hoax. Only 37 percent say the shortages are real. Nine percent of the 1,600 adults interviewed nationwide by telephone were not sure. . . "


http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=TuNNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mYsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3366,571031&dq=energy-crisis&hl=en
 
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Mo Udall was a helluva guy. When he was serving in the US Army back in the Second World War, Udall, not a qualified attorney at the time, was assigned to represent a defendant facing a general court-martial on charges of desertion and murder. Udall lost the case, and his client was executed. Udall was so devastated by the outcome that he carried a newspaper clipping about the defendant's execution with him for the remainder of his life. Udall took his personal convictions VERY seriously in a way that we see too seldom these days.
 
Might be too good a guy, hate to say it, but he may have been.

I want someone who is BOTH idealistic AND pragmatic, effectively so. For example, when President Udall would take the oath of office on Jan. 20, 1977, we the United States were big supporters of the military regime in Chile under Pinochet. And it wasn't just former Presidents Nixon and Ford, it was also Congress. They were considered cold war "allies" and the hell with the rest.

Maybe just in passing, Mo could say to a New York Times or Washington Post editor, off the record of course, why don't you guys push us more on Chile? Are you really going to let us set the agenda on what you cover on foreign policy? And he would do this without investing too much time or effort in it, or counting on it too much. But, if he was then asked a series of questions at a press conference, then the U.S. State Dept. could honestly say to the regime in Chile, hey, we're getting some heat, you guys could really do us a favor by cleaning up your act.

In a somewhat similar way, if President Udall kept a rolodex of retired Senators and sent one to each of twenty different trouble spots in the world, just on the off chance they might be able to broker a peace treaty, well heck, if it only works in 3 to 5 cases, that's still a significant achievement.
 
A somewhat minor POD might be if Gene Sharp's The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973) becomes popular earlier.

His thesis is basically is, that on strategic considerations alone, nonviolence is a better way to free a country.
 
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