AHC: President Robert McNamara

Your challenge, would you choose to accept it, is to make Robert McNamara President of the United States of America. Double bonus if President Kennedy was not assassinated in TTL. Triple bonus if McNamara serves two full terms.
 
Nixon and Agnew die in an accident in 1970. President McCormack decides not to run for a second term. Robert McNamara runs for and wins the Republic nomination and defeats George Wallace in a landslide in the general election.
 
He wasn't a politician though. He was working for Ford when Kennedy asked him to help out wasn't he?

I guess potentially if Kennedy / Johnson had had a much sourer relationship he may have been asked to be veep, but this would have lost him the election.

Basically you'd need him to go into politics proper following his positions with Kennedy and Johnson and not have such an association with Vietnam (somehow). Perhaps he runs for senate following Kennedy's assassination. A possibility as I don't think Johnson liked him very much.

He'd probably be quite a competent president, but he's never going to get there without some major changes.

Also, to the comment about personality, he seems quite pleasant in that documentary he was in (where the annoying interviewer keeps shouting things at him).
 
He wasn't a politician though. He was working for Ford when Kennedy asked him to help out wasn't he?



Also, to the comment about personality, he seems quite pleasant in that documentary he was in (where the annoying interviewer keeps shouting things at him).

I actually saw that documentury yesterday. He was Head of Ford for 5 weeks before Kennedy talked him into beeing the secretary of defence. Also McNamara actually wanted to reduce the troops before JFK got killed
 
I actually saw that documentury yesterday. He was Head of Ford for 5 weeks before Kennedy talked him into beeing the secretary of defence. Also McNamara actually wanted to reduce the troops before JFK got killed

So he has a "peacenik of an unpopular war" title when he runs for republican nomination in '68 or '72 if he gets out when Johnson takes over? Possible, but he's unlikely to be able to beat Nixon...
 
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