An Experiment in Politics

[Aayan]

“Protest rallies . . . ought to be multiplied by the hundreds across America . . . The people want the facts, and they want a justification, which they have not been getting, because all they have been getting is propaganda.”
-Wayne Morse

“Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.”
-Abraham Flexner

“Do you think things are gonna get better before they get worse?”
“No way. Things are just gonna get worse and keep on getting worse.”
-Blaise Bailey III

“I am offering an experiment in politics, a program of principle above politics.”
-Wayne Morse

An Experiment In Politics, Chapter 1: Beginnings

The founding of the Peace & Freedom Party was a moment in American history deeply rooted in the ideals of “the 1960s”. A group of angered Civil Rights activists, anti-war peaceniks, and the occasional libertarian came together in 1967 in opposition to the Democratic Party’s supposed “selling out” of its more left-wing principles. The party grew and created a large enough movement to get on the ballot in California. However, members of the party’s leadership began to want an actual fully left-wing political party that could nationally compete in the election of 1968. Lyndon B. Johnson stood with only token opposition in the Democratic primaries, and was expected to cruise to renomination even though many of his policies and actions in Vietnam were becoming unpopular among the Democratic Party’s younger base. A “Dump Johnson” attempt had faltered, with the leaders of the movement giving up after their set of preferred candidates refused the position. It became very clear that the only real hope in actually “dumping” Johnson came from not within the Democrats, but with a third party. With this, and a growing struggle to register in many states outside of California, caused a push for a strong candidate that could get on the ballot in all 50 states + DC, or at least put up a fight in the states they were on the ballot. With this, several potential candidates were thrown around. Representatives Allard K. Lowenstien and Don Edwards, Feminist Lawyer Bella Azbug, Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, and Senator Wayne Morse were all thrown around as potential choices. The group’s first choice was in fact Dr. King, but he politely declined a run for president. Then there was Senator Wayne Morse. One of the two men to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution (the other was 81 year old Alaskan senator Ernest Grueneg, who wasn’t searched after due to obvious health concerns), he had been an outspoken opponent of the war in Vietnam for years. Not only that, but he had a history of switching political parties, as he had abandoned the Republicans in 1952 out of protest of the selection of Richard Nixon on the Republican ticket. All this brought hope to the Peace and Freedom Party after being able to secure a meeting with Senator Morse in February of 1968.

Leaders of the Peace and Freedom Party must not have looked out of place as they entered the drizzly college town of Eugene, Oregon. The University of Oregon had long had a strong anti-war movement, with Opposition to the war arising as early as 1964. While the older population of the town sneered upon the growing anti-war movement, it was growing in strength, especially as Johnson had gone back on promises of peace several times. The ongoing and unsuccessful Tet Offensive didn’t help the sneering and aging pro-war movement either. Even if those people had something to say about the Peace and Freedom Party coming to Eugene, they held their tongue, as Black Panthers Eldridge Cleaver and Bobby Seale had also traveled to Eugene and were joined by several armed allies. The meeting with Morse in Eugene had gone much better than originally intended. Morse had long stood against the war, and had even begun to grow unpopular within congress for his intensity and fights on certain issues. The Peace and Freedom Party emphasized their early successes in registering voters in support of them, their similarities to Morse on policy, and outgrowth to other states. While Morse didn’t automatically accept, he left the Peace and Freedom leadership quite pleased with their potential as they began to push for large-scale registration outside of California. In the following days, Morse grew even closer to accepting the Peace and Freedom nomination, as George Wallace jumped in the race as a member of his own California-based party, the American Independent Party, and the hated Nixon crushed all polls as the anti-war Republican candidate, George Romney, faltered. Morse also looked at his own senate race back home in Oregon, and questioned if running third party against two clearly pro-war candidates could actually help him win re-election. The only issue Morse grew to have was whether or not his committee position could be lost due to him splitting from the Democrats. Morse decided that standing as a viable candidate opposed to the Vietnam War would mean more, and in late February, announced his candidacy for the Peace and Freedom nomination for President and for Senate (although he would still be running in the Oregon Democratic Primary for Senate). His announcement made him the de facto nominee of the Peace and Freedom Party and instantly grew the Party’s national legitimacy.

As you would expect, the Texan in the White House was furious at Morse’s defection to the Peace and Freedom Party. While Johnson had some leverage over a Republican candidate like Nixon or Rockefeller, the entries of Morse and Wallace into the race caused Johnson to sweat. Wallace could easily split the Democratic vote in midwestern states like Wisconsin or Michigan and Morse could break the left wing vote in the northeast and west, easily throwing a Republican the election. With this, Johnson yet again sent out FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to investigate Morse and many of his allies and break down any sort of movement based around the Peace and Freedom Party. However, issues arose when it came to breaking down the Peace and Freedom Party’s support. Morse had made much of his presidential campaign about an anti-war movement and less about some of the more radical policies some of the party’s downballot candidates were promoting. While the Johnson campaign could bring up those radical policies in an attempt to break down the Peace and Freedom Party’s support, it was clear that opposition to the Vietnam War was growing. A February 13th Poll showed 50% of the United States opposing the war, and with powerful and incredibly popular news anchor Walter Cronkite questioning the war on CBS News, anti-war politics were growing away from just the radical left wing. Meanwhile, Peace and Freedom downballot candidates began actively attracting attention, especially as famed author Gore Vidal, who had run for house in 1960 and nearly won, declared his campaign for the Democratic controlled 28th District of New York. The March 1968 Peace and Freedom Convention was a massive gathering of radicals as Morse was easily nominated over a few write-in votes for Dick Gregory or Huey Newton. Morse was endorsed at the convention by Dick Gregory, Gore Vidal, Paul Goodman, Benjamin Spock, Reies Lopez Tijerina, the Black Panther Party at-large, Owen Dudley Edwards, Corky Gonzales, Rueben Salazar, and several other well-known people and groups. Morse, after much conversation with the party leadership, decided upon Benjamin Spock as his Vice-Presidential choice. While a ticket of two white men caused several members of the Black Panther Party or Chicano Movement to give less than 100% support, most came around to Morse’s candidacy.

As for the other presidential tickets, the Republican Party, after sifting through potential opposition, easily nominated former Vice President and 1960 nominee Richard Nixon. Despite an attempt from liberals and conservatives alike at the convention, he was nominated on the first ballot against New York governor Nelson Rockefeller and California governor Ronald Reagan. Nixon’s nomination brought with it his selection of governor John Volpe of Massachusetts, who was chosen due to his acceptability with both wings of the party, and his Italian heritage gave Nixon the hope of winning over some Northern ethnic enclaves away from Wallace’s growing campaign. While Volpe wasn’t particularly popular among Southern Republicans, his lack of response to the Boston school board's refusal to actively desegregate Boston schools made Southern Republicans at least okay with his nomination as Vice President. As for the Democrats, President Johnson easily won renomination over Wayne Morse write-ins, Paul C. Fisher, and Lester Maddox’s stalking horse campaign for George Wallace. Johnson chose Hubert Humphrey yet again as his running mate, and the Democrats looked to the general with a heavily divided political party. George Wallace’s presidential campaign was a chaotic yet powerful attack on “the establishment” and desegregation throughout the nation. Wallace whipped his crowds into a complete frenzy and was doing exceptionally well in the polls. His only issue was selecting a running mate. Curtis LeMay and Ezra Taft Benson were both considered and actively interested in the position, but LeMay saw a Nixon victory in the electoral college as a complete certainty and declined the offer while Benson nearly accepted before being forced out of the position due to his place as an apostle in the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Ex-governor Happy Chandler of Kentucky was on the ticket for a few days but several more conservative donors and supporters forced him off the ticket for his more liberal positions and past. After exhausting most options, Wallace decided on ex-Louisiana governor Jimmie Davis, who had stood as a populist advocate for white Lousianaians as governor, and fit the Wallace campaign’s political themes.

As the campaign wore on, more and more people predicted a Nixon victory. Despite Johnson’s attacks on Nixon’s record, Johnson was just too unpopular. The murders of Martin Luther King and Bobby Hutton had ignited urban areas into fiery conflict and caused rises in the Black Power movement, causing a boost in the Black Panther Party’s power and growing support for Morse, causing a split off of black support from Johnson. If anything, Nixon feared Wallace more than Johnson for his sheer power in the South that could throw the election to the house if Johnson held down a few northern states + his home state of Texas that he was leading quite easily. Not only that, but Nixon was more than willing to support the Peace and Freedom Party in heavily Democratic regions if it split the vote away from Democrats. However, Johnson began crawling back as Nixon focused on Wallace enough to push through a strong Northern Campaign. As Nixon attacked Wallace, northern enclaves began moving not to Nixon, but to the old New Deal Coalition. Meanwhile, Wallace remained as strong as ever in the South with his coalition of populist white southerners and still held a good 19% of the vote in most polls. As if that wasn’t enough, in October of 1968, President Johnson announced a halt of bombing campaigns in Vietnam, causing a massive boost in his popularity. While most supporters of the Peace and Freedom Party were already too radical to leave, or thought that Johnson’s move was only a half-measure, a majority of the American populace began to feel that Johnson was the most likely to end the war in Vietnam and began a push to support him. Still, Nixon had run a strong campaign, and with vote splitting across the former New Deal Coalition, many thought that Nixon would pull ahead with a minor majority in the electoral college.

Those people were wrong.

Richard Nixon/Mark Hatfield (Republican) 263 EVs - 31,113,244 PVs (40.7%)
Lyndon B. Johnson/Hubert Humphrey (Democratic) 179 EVs - 27,443,869 PVs (35.9%)
George Wallace/Ezra Taft Benson (American Independent) 91 EVs - 12,384,142 PVs (16.2%)
Wayne Morse/Benjamin Spock (Peace & Freedom) 6 EVs - 4,892,500 PVs (6.4%)

Turnout: 63.6% (+2.7% from OTL, +1.7% from 1964): 76,445,318 Total

Despite it all, the long and contentious 1968 presidential campaign would continue on. Intense unpopularity, splits in his own party, and a poor attack based campaign still couldn’t keep Johnson from fighting on. He had lost the race by around 5% of the vote and slightly less than 4 million pure voters, but the machine gears in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Maryland kept Johnson afloat, and now he took his fight to the House. As for the Morse campaign, they had waged one of the strongest left-wing third party campaigns in history, elected a party member (Gore Vidal) to the House of Representatives, got Morse re-elected to the Senate with a strong plurality against two anti-war candidates, and showed America that there was legitimate room for their movement in the United States. While some had hoped for more (the Peace and Freedom Party was polling close in Washington D.C.), they had done a lot for their movement and would move on as an actually organized party with a strong future.

 

[Aayan]

Howdy everyone! As you can probably tell this is in fact my first timeline, and after looking at your wonderful website through the bushes of not having an account, I’ve created an account and decided to write a TL of my own. While definitely not stalking this website, some of my favorite TLs were Fear, Loathing, and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail ‘72, McGoverning, and the Ruins of an American Party System. That brings me to this TL, in my opinion the Peace & Freedom Party was a massive wasted opportunity in American politics. It was started in 1967 and immediately had success registering voters in California, getting over 100,000 voters to join within months of its creation. However, the Peace & Freedom Party met the same fate that many left wing groups do, it fell into disarray and had splits between Libertarian and Marxist factions and then nominated the 28-year-old Eldridge Cleaver, causing them to lose ballot access, and Cleaver’s opponent at the convention, Dick Gregory got more support as a national write-in candidate. This TL asks the question: what if the Peace and Freedom Party had found a relevant candidate and did not fall victim to some of the major splits that hurt it and lead to its collapse. Of course, this TL will not entirely focus on the P&F, and I’ll be focusing on changes in the world at-large

 

[frustrated progressive]

This looks very promising, it would be interesting if the generalized discontent on both sides of the political spectrum was formalized into permanent political institutions.

 

[Rosa Luxemburg]

Looking forward to this. It has a strong start so far

 

[AnActualFan]

No matter who wins, this term is probably a poisoned chalice for them.

 

[Aayan]

“Can't you see it's all flown out of my hands
And our clothes are all too often ripped
And our teeth are all too often gnashed
(Arrowheads, arrowheads, arrowheads, arrowheads)
And it lasts as long as it possibly can”
-Bloodhail, Have A Nice Life


Chapter 2: Waking Up On The Floor Of Someone Else’s House With A Hangover

The American populace woke up on November 6, 1968, in an exhausted stupor. The election for president of the United States was still going on in the background of many American's lives, and yet the general consensus was that Richard Nixon, the old bastard, would win it. In Illinois, Florida, and Wisconsin, there were still absentee, out-of-state, and military votes being counted, and Nixon only needed two of the three (or just Illinois by itself) to be called for him. Still, in the following days, the votes kept being counted to no conclusion. On November 12, 1968, Wisconsin was called for Nixon. On November 13, 1968, Illinois was called for Johnson (no doubt the work of the Daley machine, smug Republicans said into their prematurely poured champagne glasses). Sure, Johnson had won Illinois, but Florida, Florida, he was barely competing in. In Florida, he finished a steady third, even as new ballots came in. Yes, Florida would be a Republican state, and Nixon would get his time in the White House well deserved after 16 years of angling for it. The grand Nixonian coalition of Cubans, Middle-Class “Silent Majority” Southerners, and whoever the hell else would check “Nixon” on the ballot would carry him to victory in Florida. Unfortunately for Nixon, the state of Florida instead decided to vote for George Wallace by a margin of only a little over a thousand voters, one of the closest results in American history. This was despite the broadly-held perception that Wallace voters largely came from low-population rural Panhandle counties. While this was partially true, Wallace won every single county in the panhandle[1], but he managed to run up around 20% of the vote in Florida’s three most populous counties and win two of the top five.[2] No matter how you analyze it, Florida was called for George Wallace on November 21, 1968.

The result of the electoral college being split was felt around the world. In Birmingham, George Wallace led a great celebration, telling his supporters that he would use the division to get those damn politicians up in Washington to listen to the common man! Wayne Morse, already elated from his re-election to the senate, and considering cutting a deal with the Democrats for his caucus membership, simply smiled at the fact that his peace movement had gotten far enough to halt an easy election path for Nixon. However, short of Nixon picking up an unpledged elector somehow and attempting to negotiate with Morse for Morse’s electors, Morse’s input was no longer needed, so he simply sent out a message to the nation that he would push for a sense of peace in Vietnam no matter who was president. Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon however, saw the election much differently. Johnson was on the edge of defeat and was fully exhausted. The man who once wielded so much power as president or as Senate Majority Leader was nearly broken. He had expected a quick and painful loss to Nixon and to sit on the sidelines as his Great Society was torn into shreds. Despite that, the electoral college splitting gave Johnson a small amount of hope, despite the Democratic Party’s losses in 1968, they held a Senate Majority, and Hubert Humphrey was expected to be selected quite easily even if some Southern Democrats disliked him. Humphrey would be Acting President, and could potentially get Abe Fortas on as Chief Justice or at least block whatever reactionary policy a conservative congress wanted to push through. Perhaps the Democratic-majority house would destroy whatever chance there was of an actual president being elected in 1969, and the American people would be so exhausted of fighting and bickering in congress that they’d simply make Humphrey president. As for Nixon, his eight years of climbing back into power, even when it seemed so unlikely, had been stopped… by a technicality! He knew he should’ve won in 1960, everyone did, the race was clearly rigged for Kennedy. Yet here he was, eight years later. He was still powerful damnit! He was still powerful and he would still be president. The history books would remember and praise the name of Richard Millhouse Nixon and 1968 would be another blip in the “pre-Presidency” section. Just like 1960 and just like 1962. For the time being, however, he filed for recounts in Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Alaska. In response, the Democrats filed for recounts in Wisconsin, Maine, Washington, California, New Mexico, Delaware, New Jersey, and Michigan, while Wallace and Morse looked for recounts in Kentucky and Washington D.C. respectively.

As for the American public, the idea of a split electoral college had been brought up before, as the Morse and Wallace candidacies had struck fear into enough newsmen that plenty of articles were written about the opportunity. In the days following the November 21st result, it was clear very few people had actually read those articles. As most saw it, Nixon won the most popular and electoral votes, so why shouldn’t he be president? Polling came out showing increased support for a Nixon presidency, a major victory for Nixon, as the possibility of an American public pushing back against congressional balloting and simply phoning a few congressmen to change their votes excited Nixon and the Republicans. A politician who was truly great at controlling the energy of his base would do fantastic in a situation like this. Unfortunately for Nixon, he wasn’t that politician. However, there was one who happened to be on the congressional ballot. After the initial celebrations, reality had quickly set in for the Wallace campaign. In Wallace’s home state of Alabama, he would have to win over all 5 Democratic representatives (or four + the archconservative Jack Edwards of Alabama’s 1st congressional district) in the state in order to gain Alabama’s votes in the House Contingent Election. Still, Wallace could rely on three votes in Alabama (George W. Andrews, Bill Nichols, and Walter Flowers) and with Alabama’s three Republicans all looking to vote for Nixon, Alabama would simply have a split delegation, which was just fine for Wallace as it wasn’t a vote for either Nixon or Johnson. Outside of Alabama, however, Wallace saw little improvement. The only other figures who would consider voting Wallace were representative John Rarick of Louisiana, which had only one non-Democrat in its delegation, and Walter Baring of Nevada, which was actually quite good news for Wallace, as Nevada had an at-large congressional delegation, and Baring’s vote would throw the full delegation to him. In the end, it was really up to the congressional races. Speaking of which, what exactly had happened in the congressional races?

First, the House:
Democrats: 248 -22 = 226 seats
Republicans: 187 +20 =207 seats
Peace & Freedom: 0 +1 = 1 seat
Independent: 0 +1 = 1 seat

Republicans, empowered by the unpopularity of Lyndon B. Johnson, were able to take much of the House back from the Democrats, who now only held an 8-seat majority only four years after holding a two-thirds majority.

House Leadership (Start of 91st Congress):

Speaker of the House: John McCormack (D-MA)
Majority Leader: Carl Albert (D-OK)
Majority Whip: Dan Rostenkowski (D-IL)


Minority Leader: Gerald Ford (R-MI)
Minority Whip: Leslie C. Arends (R-IL)

Peace and Freedom Floor Leader: Gore Vidal (P&F-NY)

Key Races:

Third-Party Victories:

New York-28:
Gore Vidal announced a campaign for the seat of the retiring representative Joseph Resnick of New York’s Poughkeepsie-based 28th congressional district under the Peace and Freedom Party banner. In this, he also challenged expected Democratic nominee John S. Dyson in the Democratic and Liberal primaries, expecting to lose the Democratic one but put up enough of a fight to gain attention for the general election while pushing for a victory in the Liberal primary. Much to Vidal’s surprise, he garnered almost 39% of the vote in the Democratic primary and won the Liberal primary 52-48, giving his campaign a large boost as he entered a three-way race. Meanwhile, he was helped even more by the Conservative Party of New York putting up a strong candidate in G. Gordon Liddy, who had challenged Republican nominee Hamilton Fish in an intense Republican primary and hadn’t dropped out as a Conservative. Vidal’s strong campaign, aided by Dyson being more moderate economically and angering some on the left-wing of the Democratic party, began to take a lead in the days before election day, and would not relinquish it.
Results:
Gore Vidal (P&F/L/VFP): 37.8%
Hamilton Fish IV (R): 31.1%
John S. Dyson (D): 25.9%
G. Gordon Liddy (C/C): 5.2%

Massachusetts-03:
Chandler Stevens ran as an Independent anti-war Democrat in the largely Middlesex-based congressional district, and as many Peace & Freedom activists and candidates looked to campaign in neighboring Boston or Cambridge, they began to push for and support Stevens’ independent candidacy. A strong attack on incumbent Philip Philbin, who had been in office since 1944, as out of touch and part of the “establishment” helped Stevens with more conservative voters questioning his candidacy. A key endorsement from Philbin primary challenger Joseph G. Bradley and a push from Massachusetts Republicans in the hopes of defeating a split electorate caused enough vote-splitting to give Stevens a narrow nod over Philbin.

Results:
Chandler Stevens (I): 39.2%
Philip Philbin (D): 35.5%
Laurence Curtis (R): 24.1%

Louisiana-02:

David Treen, an ex-State’s Rights activist ran an incredible longshot campaign against powerful Democrat Hale Boggs. Treen had long represented the sort of Democrat who would switch parties due to the national Democratic Party’s increasing liberalism. Treen was also aided by the growth of the George Wallace campaign in Louisiana, as Wallace actively endorsed Treen in the hopes of knocking off a powerful Democrat and adding another conservative to the House of Representatives. Richard Nixon would also campaign for Treen in the final days of the campaign, and conservatives were rewarded when Treen pulled off a bare-boned 1.6% victory, unseating Boggs and becoming the only Republican in Louisiana’s delegation.



Results:
David Treen (R): 50.7%
Hale Boggs (D): 49.1%

As for the United States Senate, the Democrats retained their control, although a variety of factors, largely Johnson’s unpopularity, a large number of left-wing third-party candidacies, and Nixon’s strong campaigning lead to a massive surge in Republican power in the United States Senate. Even Southern Senators, who had held office for decades due to a near-oligarchic control over Southern politics, feared the retribution of Southern white voters, who had begun to abandon the Democratic Party as Northern Democrats abandoned policies that suppressed Southern blacks (and poor whites too!). However, Nixon saw much of the South, minus some Atlantic seaboard states such as South Carolina, as “lost causes”, and didn’t campaign down South in some states with potential strong Republican candidates as a result.

United States Senate Elections:

Alabama: James Allen (D-i) def. Perry O. Cooper Sr. (R) & Robert Schwenn (ND)
Democratic Hold


Alaska: Mike Gravel (D) def. Elmer E. Rasmuson (R) & Ernest Gruening (P&F-i)
Democratic Hold
The Alaska senate election was more defined by the split in the Democratic Party that occurred than most other portions of the general election. Mike Gravel, the former Speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives, defeated 81-year-old incumbent Ernest Gruening, who had opposed the Vietnam War and voted against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, did not take the loss sitting down, and decided to run on the Peace & Freedom line (which had cross-endorsed Gruening due to his anti-war status before the primary was even held). Gruening was immensely popular in Alaska, but his age hindered his campaigning, and Gravel, who would later be a key Democratic ally of the Peace & Freedom Party, infamously used controversial advertisements in heavily-white portions of Alaska pointing out the Peace & Freedom Party’s support among the Black Panthers. Gruening attacked Gravel as a “flip-flopper” on the war in Vietnam, and both men ran intensely dirty campaigns, causing hope in the Nixon camps that Anchorage mayor Elemer E. Rasmuson would take the cake. Instead, Gravel won narrowly by only 1,000 votes while Gruening polled nearly 25% of the vote and helped Wayne Morse on the top of the ballot, who had one of his better performances in Alaska.

Arizona: Barry Goldwater (R) def. Roy Elson (D)
Republican Gain

Arkansas: Charles Bernard (R) def. J. William Fulbright (D-i)
Republican Gain
In 1968, Arkansas looked like one of the few Southern states that could potentially go the route of flipping to the Republican Party. J. William Fulbright was a strong opponent of the Vietnam War and a supporter of trade with Communist nations. Fulbright also chaired the powerful Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and had strong opposition from conservatives. Not only that, but Arkansas had elected Republican governor Winthrop Rockefeller in 1966, and Fulbright’s conservative opponent in the Democratic primary, Jim Johnson, would go on to endorse Bernard, as would Johnson’s wife, Virginia, who ran for governor that year. The Johnsons would end up leading the Arkansas wing of the American Independent Party and also supported Wallace. Bernard’s campaign focused less on racial issues in the hopes of uniting both conservatives who wanted the peacenik Fulbright out, and liberals who saw Fulbright as one of the more conservative Democrats in the senate and also helped Winthrop Rockefeller win in a landslide in 1966. Bernard focused on an image of Fulbright and Morse[3] from 1966 and used it to attack Fulbright as “too leftist for Arkansas”. A strong Rockefeller campaign and enough splitting from Wallace voters between Bernard and Fulbright caused Bernard to win by a surprisingly large 52-47 margin as Republicans pushed another powerful Southern incumbent out of office.

California: Max Rafferty (R) def. Alan Cranston (D) & Paul Jacobs (P&F)
Republican Hold
Thomas Kuchel had been a longtime liberal Republican senator in California who was generally popular among his constituents. However, the growing conservatism of the California Republican Party, exacerbated by Ronald Reagan’s blowout 30-point defeat of liberal San Francisco mayor George Cristopher. However, when Max Rafferty, an archconservative who opposed busing, sex education, and reading Eldridge Cleaver as California superintendent ran against Kuchel, most people wrote him off as too loony to defeat Kuchel. Still, Rafferty won with strong support from Orange County voters opposed to busing and the rising tide of the “New Left”. In the general, however, he faced a stronger challenge from Alan Cranston, who dominated the Democratic primary and was seen as a strong liberal. Cranston’s image as a left-wing Democrat didn’t stop the Peace & Freedom Party though, as Paul Jacobs, an anti-war activist ran a strong campaign based on the radical anti-war politics of areas like Berkley and with support from Black Panther voter drives in Oakland. Jacobs’ campaign took from Cranston’s both in the vote total and as Cranston attempted to attack Jacobs from the right, hurting Cranston among more left-wing Democrats. The divisions in the Democratic Party and a strong campaign assisted by Governor Ronald Reagan caused Rafferty to defeat Cranston.

Colorado: Peter Dominick (R-i) def. Stephen L.R. McNichols (D)
Republican Hold

Connecticut: Edwin May Jr. (R) def. Abraham Ribcoff (D-i)
Republican Gain
Abraham Ribcoff, much like Fulbright, had been an opponent of the Vietnam War, attempting, along with Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, to put in an anti-Vietnam plank into the 1968 Democratic platform. While this attempt failed, it garnered national attention for Ribcoff, and his support among anti-war students grew. However, Ribcoff’s anger at Johnson for blocking his anti-war plank caused him to officially abstain from supporting a presidential candidate, causing an angry collection of moderate Democrats to form the “Democrats for May” coalition, which hurt Ribcoff’s status with voters as the election moved into November. Still, many of those Democrats, fearful of Nixonian control of the Senate, moved back to Ribcoff as the campaign moved forward. However, the Johnson fiasco and Ribcoff’s own brash status, along with a wave year for Connecticut Republicans, with the CTGOP picking up a seat in the House, Nixon winning the state in the presidential election, and finally Ribcoff’s narrow loss that helped push a new era of Connecticut Republicanism into the senate.

Florida: Ed Gurney (R) def. LeRoy Collins (D)
Republican Gain

Georgia: Herman Talmadge (D-i) def. E. Earl Patton (R)
Democratic Hold

Hawaii: Daniel Inouye (D-i) def. Wayne C. Thiessen (R) & Oliver Lee (P&F)
Democratic Hold

Idaho: Frank Church (D-i) def. George Hansen (R)
Democratic Hold

Illinois: Everett Dirksen (R-i) def. William G. Clark (D)
Republican Hold

Indiana: William Ruckelshaus (R) def. Birch Bayh (D)
Republican Gain
Birch Bayh, seen at the time as a future leader in the Democratic Party suffered from the age-old problem of living in a state generally unfriendly to Bayh’s politics and party. Instead, William Ruckelshaus, a moderate Republican and Nixon ally managed to defeat Bayh as Republicans swept Indiana’s gubernatorial election, gave Nixon the state, and won a majority of representatives in Indiana’s House delegation. However, four years later Bayh would return to Indiana politics by running for and winning the position of Governor.

Iowa[4]: David Stanley (R) def. Harold Hughes (D)
Republican Hold

Kansas: Bob Dole (R) def. William I. Robinson (D)
Republican Hold

Kentucky: Katherine Peden (D) def. Marlow Cook (R)
Democratic Gain
The only Democratic gain of the 1968 cycle came from Kentucky, a state that voted for Nixon narrowly but gave George Wallace a large chunk of the vote as well. Most people expected this to go to the Republicans, but Cook’s status as a Rockefeller Republican and Peden’s support from ex-Wallace official Happy Chandler caused many Wallace-Peden votes, and Peden was able to beat back Cook.

Louisiana: Russell Long (D-i) def. None
Democratic Hold

Maryland: Charles Mathais (R) def. Daniel Brewster (D-i) & George P. Mahoney (AIP)
Republican Gain

Missouri: Thomas B. Curtis (R) def. Thomas Eagleton (D-i) & Charles H. Byford (AIP)
Republican Gain
1968 was a massive year for the Missouri Republican Party. Not only did Nixon win the state with a near-majority, but they managed to flip three house seats and partisan control to the Republicans in Missouri’s House delegation, which would be crucial for the House Contingent Election. While most polls showed a “Red Wave” coming for the Missouri Democrats, incumbent Senator Thomas Eagleton largely ignored these polls. He continued to campaign actively but expected his strong support among union voters who turned out en masse for Wallace to keep him around while Johnson was washed out of the state. That was until Charles H. Byford, a former candidate for Missouri’s 8th congressional district, jumped in the race and ran a heavily populist campaign in the vein of Wallace’s, picking up some of Eagleton’s old base in the process as Wallace picked up 15% in the state. Eagleton suffered a narrow loss to Curtis and for years afterward would blame Byford’s last-minute “minor league” campaign for his loss.

Nevada: Alan Bible (D-i) def. Ed Fike (R)
Democratic Hold

New Hampshire: Norris Cotton (R-i) def. John W. King (D)
Republican Hold

New York: Jacob K. Javits (R/L-i) def. Paul O’Dwyer (D) & James Buckley (C)
Republican Hold

North Carolina: Sam Ervin (D) def. Robert Somers (R)
Democratic Hold

North Dakota: Milton Young (R-i) def. Herschel Lashkowitz (D)
Republican Hold

Ohio: William B. Saxbe (R-i) def. John J. Gilligan (D)
Republican Hold

Oklahoma: Henry Bellmon (R) def. Mike Moroney (D-i)
Republican Gain

Oregon: Wayne Morse (P&F-i) def. Bob Packwood (R) & Robert Duncan (D)
Peace & Freedom Gain
Wayne Morse, upon jumping into the 1968 election, left the caucus and decided to run on the Peace & Freedom line. While Morse did attempt to retain the Democratic nomination, he failed to do much after abandoning the party and challenging Johnson. Instead, hawkish congressman Robert Duncan took the Democratic nomination and looked strong enough to take the senate seat from Morse. However, Morse, while simultaneously running a presidential campaign, ran a strong senate campaign attacking both Duncan and his Republican opponent, Bob Packwood, as “two hawks of different feathers”, and sought to win much of the anti-war vote while Packwood and Duncan ran pro-war campaigns. This similarity on the issue of the Vietnam war caused some negotiations between the Oregon Democrats and Republicans to potentially unite the tickets, but the two refused to give up what could be an easy gain for the Vietnam war. Vote splitting saved Morse who was able to just hold on by his fingertips with a 2% victory over Packwood

Pennsylvania: Richard Schweiker (R) def. Joseph Clark (D-i)
Republican Gain

South Carolina: Ernest Hollings (D-i) def. Marshall Parker (R)
Democratic Hold

South Dakota: George McGovern (D-i) def. Archie M. Gubbrud (R)
Democratic Hold

Utah: Wallace F. Bennett (R-i) def. Milton Weilenmann (D)
Republican Hold

Vermont: George Aiken (R-i) def. None
Republican Hold

Washington: Warren G. Magnuson (D-i) def. Jack Metcalf (R)
Democratic Hold

Wisconsin: Gaylord Nelson (D-i) def. Jerris Leonard (R)
Democratic Hold

Democrats: 63 -8 = 55 seats
Republicans: 37 +7 = 44 seats
Peace & Freedom: 0 +1 = 1 seat

Senate Leadership (Start of 91st Congress):
President of Senate: To Be Determined
President Pro Tempore: Richard Russell (D-GA)

Majority Leader: Mike Mansfield (D-MT)
Majority Whip: Ted Kennedy (D-MA)
Caucus Secretary: Robert Byrd (D-WV)

Minority Leader: Everett Dirksen (R-IL)
Minority Whip: Carl Curtis (R-NE)

Peace and Freedom Floor Leader: Wayne Morse (P&F-OR)


[1] He nearly accomplished this OTL, but Humphrey won Alachua county. ITTL, Johnson’s campaign is much weaker in Florida due to his comparative unpopularity and some minor vote-splitting, so Alachua goes to Wallace.

[2] Florida’s results fare much differently ITTL due to Johnson’s presence on the ticket. The Democratic ticket only manages a win in Dade county with Peace and Freedom vote-splitting and a stronger Nixon/Wallace campaign in Monroe. Meanwhile, Johnson’s unpopularity in the Panhandle for his much more notable signing of the CRA/VRA than Humphrey’s previous support for Civil Rights, causes Wallace to run up 70%+ of the vote in Jackson and Santa Rosa (both were 60%+ for Goldwater) while Holmes county goes in the 90%+ range. Add that with a weaker Southern Nixon campaign helping Wallace in Central Florida (where he also did quite well in OTL- one of Central Florida’s congressional districts was at the 30% range for Nixon)

[3] This is the picture if you were wondering https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/..._Senate_Foreign_Relations_Committee,_1966.jpg

[4] This election was decided by like 3 votes OTL and I’m not gonna write the exact same thing I did for Indiana minus some of the personal mentions of Bayh here

 

[Aayan]

I hate to bump this the day before Posting Day, but in researching potential political symbols for our newly founded political parties ITTL (the newspapers decide on a snake [copperhead to be exact] for the AIP over their preferred eagle, while the P&F got to keep their dove after cartoonists couldn’t find something just racist enough to replace it), I found this cartoon from the Poor People’s Campaign.

ITTL, with this image being one found in a Chicago newspaper, I’m sure more than a few folks associated with Fred Hampton (R.I.P. as always), and the Young Patriots in Chicago would see it as a badge of honor around their campaign with the Poor People’s Campaign dying out in a similar fashion OTL. Perhaps it could become a common image found in P&F offices....

 

[Aayan]

“The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy”
-Donald Trump

Chapter 3: Electors Electing

Before the 1969 House Contingent Election could even occur, there was still hope it could be avoided somehow. First of all, before the election, Wallace had quietly planned that if a Contingent Election were to happen, he could be the one to avert it by making a deal with Nixon or Johnson. Historians, however, see Wallace’s position on the matter as one that was very quickly hit with a hard dose of reality. What.. did Wallace really want? Sure, Wallace had expressed anti-busing views, but that wouldn’t be nearly enough to get from a president, and it wouldn’t satisfy his nagging base of support. Wallace was economically quite similar to Johnson when it came to the Great Society, but that wouldn’t be a real compromise since that was already what Johnson planned to continue. If Wallace traded the governor’s mansion that was waiting for him for a cabinet position or even… a supreme court seat, he would look just like Henry Clay in 1824, and his anti-establishment popularity would be killed instantly. No one wanted to vote for some Attorney General, and even Bobby Kennedy couldn’t really translate that position to votes until Jack was killed. No, Wallace didn’t want a political concession or a government position. He wanted to burn the fucking place to the ground. Wallace may have been seen by the “Northern Liberals” he so hated as just another angry southern party-switching redneck, just like Thurmond before him, but Wallace was educated enough to know where the path of a grand compromise with either Nixon or Johnson would go. In 1824, Andrew Jackson had made his political bones because Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams had made their deal and Jackson came out fresh as a daisy. If Wallace made that deal, his support would collapse. The people who voted for Wallace didn’t want Johnson or Nixon, that's why they voted for him. Hell, even if Wallace made a bargain, would his electors even vote the way he wanted them to? So Wallace called up Nixon and he called up Johnson. Wallace had no intention to make a deal, just that they’d come down to Birmingham and kiss the ring a little. Wallace offered them the presidency for some insanely reactionary policy even he didn’t believe in. Repeal the Civil Rights Act why don’t you? Both Nixon and Johnson huffed out of Wallace’s house, and Wallace was sure that a newspaper in Birmingham picked up the story of both men walking out on him. It just so happened that Wallace waved around that paper when campaigning for an American Independent in a special election. Still, even without Wallace’s help, there were calls and pleas on the news for electors to switch their votes, mostly to Nixon, who only needed 7 electors to shift the election his way. This goal, however, mostly failed. However, in Pennsylvania, a single elector pledged to Johnson ended up flipping to Nixon, while a single elector in Washington D.C. flipped to Wayne Morse, in support of Morse’s support for D.C. Statehood. All this did was boost the totals of two candidates who didn’t necessarily need it, and hurt Johnson in the record books. It did little to change the outcome, and the result itself largely stayed the same.

Updated Electoral Vote Totals:

Richard Nixon/John Volpe (Republican) 264 EVs
Lyndon B. Johnson/Hubert Humphrey (Democratic) 180 EVs
George Wallace/Jimmie Davis (American Independent) 91 EVs
Wayne Morse/Benjamin Spock (Peace & Freedom) 7 EVs

The first portion of the Contingency Election was the election of the Vice President of the United States. Despite some major losses in the senate, Hubert Humphrey was expected to be elected quite easily, and he was. Democrats held an overall majority, and while some Southern Democrats preferred Nixon or Wallace to Johnson, Nixon and Wallace weren’t on the ballot. The more moderate Volpe also appeared to have some detractors, but Humphrey was simply too liberal for them. Wayne Morse, on the other hand, simply voted “present” as the vote went around. Other than Morse’s obvious absteintation, the election was purely party line, and Humphrey prevailed, 55-44. That was the easy part though, as the House Contingency Election quickly turned into hell. As expected, the delegations of the House of Representatives were extremely split, with 19 delegations voting for Nixon, 17 voting for Johnson, 13 splitting between the candidates, and 1 voting for Wallace. Wallace managed to win the single-member delegation of Nevada, where representative Walter S. Baring supported Wallace over Johnson, who he despised. After three ballots, Independent representative Chandler H. Stevens of Massachusetts, who’s abstaining vote had kept Massachusetts from giving any one candidate a majority, was pressured into voting for Johnson, who offered to help Stevens get the Democratic nomination in his district in exchange for his vote. Still, that only made the vote 19-18-12-1, and issues continued to emerge. After 17 days of balloting, still no candidate was chosen, as ballots simply turned up the same over and over again, and Hubert Humphrey, the man who had been elected Vice President, would be given the duties of Acting President of the United States. Humphrey’s election caused yet another great controversy over who exactly would serve in Humphrey’s cabinet, and if Humphrey could fill the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Humphrey declined to do the latter, fearing massive resistance from the congress. Humphrey even questioned if he could have a full inauguration, which he ended up having, although it was mostly composed of calls for unity, and lacked many of the more “showy” parts of Kennedy’s inauguration eight years prior and Johnson’s four years prior. Still, most Americans began to recognize Humphrey as the president of the United States, and not even just hard-core Democrats. It was clear that Americans had had enough of the multi-ballot contest, which had shattered the previous record of 37 ballots within a week of voting. Democratic representative Emilio Daddario[1] created a resolution to recognize Humphrey as president, but it failed, as several Democrats jumped ship over the constitutionality of the issue. Humphrey remained, Acting President.

Humphrey entered office, and immediately struggled with the constitutionality of his new job. He questioned if he could even appoint a cabinet, but was given the Senate’s permission. Humphrey’s cabinet only slightly deviated from Johnson’s, and he refused to nominate any incumbent representative to the so-called “Acting Cabinet”. Humphrey also considered nominating an “Acting Vice-President”, but that was shut down in the hopes of a president somehow getting elected in the next few months. On January 26, after several weeks of balloting that only continued to entrench the house, representative Robert “Fats” Everett, died, causing Tennessee to flip back to being split, which returned the house to the pre-Stevens 19-17-13-1 vote in the House. In the days following Everett’s death, party loyalty began to wane, albeit slightly. In Oregon, moderate representative Al Ullman (D-OR), who’s rural-based district broke hard for Nixon, flipped his vote Republican with the promise of several programs that would help Oregon’s national parks. This was a win for Nixon on paper, but it only flipped the election to a 20-17-12-1 “lead” for Nixon. However, Page Belcher (R-OK), would similarly be coaxed over to supporting Johnson due to promises of increased agricultural subsidies that would help the voters in his district. The house race now stood at 20-18-11-1. Yes, the gridlock was dying out, but the election headed into February with no resolution yet. Daddario’s resolution yet again gained popularity, and in a shock, passed the house by only two votes, but it was filibustered into oblivion by Republicans and even some Southern Democrats who didn’t want to see Humphrey take power or replace Earl Warren on the court. The Daddario Resolution, as it came to be known, was only one of several compromises. One idea, proposed by John B. Anderson (R-IL) would give Nixon the presidency, but weaken the presidency to the point that the Democratic congress would get to choose several cabinet seats. This idea was shot down very quickly, as Democrats feared it could come back to bite them and Republicans wanted full control of the executive branch. Another compromise was to hold a special election, like for a senate or house seat, in 1970, and have Humphrey stay in office until then. This idea gained some slight traction, but failed due to questions being raised over the constitutionality of such an action. As balloting continued, tempers frayed, and some congressmen even brought resolutions to impeach other members of congress[2] in split states or Acting President Humphrey for some trumped-up charge or another that died in the Judiciary Committee. Jorge Luis Cordova, a member of the Progressive National Party of Puerto Rico, declared that Puerto Rico, and several other territories and D.C., should get their own representatives to help decide the presidency. While this was supported by some, most famously Senator Hiram Fong (R-HI) and Representatives Gore Vidal (P&F-NY) and Adam Clayton Powell (D-NY), it was cut down easily, and one conservative Republican representative declared that such an action “would only give Democrats more votes” (This was despite the fact that Cordova was a Republican). As ballots eclipsed 500, complete exhaustion and apathy set in, and several representatives didn’t even bother showing up to votes if they represented a state with a wide enough partisan majority.

State of the House Delegation Vote, 3/12/1969:

Despite all the challenges, the government still had to, well, govern. Acting President Humphrey had the intense challenge of representing a country that was continuously exhausted by the gridlock in congress, and Humphrey, who had wanted the position for years, still felt the same as those who woke up to the news that the government still couldn’t elect a president. Humphrey’s popularity actually rose in those days, as he was seen as a unity figure by many, despite not actually doing much as president. Humphrey oversaw well-publicized meetings with both USC Running Back O.J. Simpson and Baltimore Colts Quarterback Johnny Unitas as both their teams, the winners of the NCAA National Championship and newly-minted “Super Bowl”, respectively, visited the White House in a traditional ceremony that only helped his popularity. In congress, John Rarick (D-LA) declared that the ceremony was “an attempted coup to get an unelected president publicity”, which was generally laughed off, although some conservatives stood with Rarick, who had become quite outspoken after losing his seniority in the Democratic Caucus. Humphrey attempted to work out peace with North Vietnam during this time period, but general confusion over his position as Acting President lowered his legitimacy among some within the North Vietnamese government. The Acting President also had to deal with “Tet 1969”, a conflict in the Vietnam war where the PAVN and Viet Cong attempted to attack Saigon and Da Nang. It is believed that these attacks were meant to test Humphrey, who was going through consistent domestic crises. Still, this tactic failed, as the attacks were actually failures for the Communists, and led to hundreds of PAVN/VC soldiers dead. On the domestic front Humphrey had to constantly fight congress over his ability to appoint judges, and not just the big one, as in the replacement for Chief Justice Earl Warren, but several smaller judicial appointments that opened up. Congress’s stubbornness to appoint any justices to even trivial courts, caused support for a so-called “nuclear option”, where a simple majority would be plenty to appoint justices to rise in congress. Still, reform was clearly not on congress’s mind, and Humphrey had to fight to even get the smallest of bills that didn’t involve feeding puppies or anything else that would garner a near-unanimous vote through. Meanwhile, the House was too clogged up with presidential ballots anyway, that any action without that near-unanimous support would take even longer than normal. This gridlock that angered so many Americans and congressmen would finally end on March 13, 1969, although not in the way many hoped.

[1] A real name, I promise
[2] A congressman whose name rhymes with “Hon Jashbrook” may be guilty of this action.

 

[AnActualFan]

update

Whoever wins is going to face lots of questions and will probably get destroyed in the midterms.

 

[Aayan]

“Deaths have benefits. They can fertilize the ground”
-Mao Zedong

March 13, 1969 was a day that, as Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, would live in infamy. However, even Roosevelt wouldn’t have known what to do in the context of such a day. Here’s the facts, at 2:12 PM in Beijing, the government of the People’s Republic of China fired a 3.3 megaton nuclear weapon on the city of Vladivostok, killing around 300,000 people and severely injuring or poisoning countless others. The attack would garner a response from the Soviet Union within minutes of receiving news that a nuclear strike had hit their very own nation. At 2:47 PM Beijing time, the Soviets themselves fired two 4-megaton nuclear weapons onto the Chinese cities of Quigihar and Jiamusi. News of the strike on the Soviet Union is brought to Acting President Hubert Humphrey, at around 3 AM in Washington D.C., and Humphrey sends out an emergency broadcast around the nation, which really only informs some on the West Coast and in Hawaii of the attacks. By the next morning, however, the news of the three nuclear strikes spreads throughout the world, and the Dow Jones ended up dropping to 723.14 points. To the surprise of the world, the Chinese government doesn’t respond with a nuclear attack, and instead sends more troops to attack the Soviet Union on the border of the two nations. However, many of these troops mutiny in fear of a Soviet nuclear strike on them, and either escape or attempt to join the Soviets. Many of these same deserters are killed by the Chinese Army, and are dismissed as traitors. By 9:00 AM, only 7 hours after the attack on Vladivostok and after it was clear that the United States wasn’t in harm's way, Acting President Humphrey calls together the House to either upgrade his position as Acting President to President, or to compromise and elect someone else President of the United States, due to the crisis in China. Three hours later, the House decides on a compromise, that would make Former Vice President Richard Nixon President of the United States, while Former President Lyndon B. Johnson would be given the position of Secretary of State. In this hasty fashion, both the House of Representatives and Senate approve a cabinet that would fill out most of the “key positions” with members of both major parties. Absent from the cabinet is any member of the Peace & Freedom Party, and more notably, anyone who George Wallace, who was staying in Tennessee to campaign with William J. Davis, “approved” of. In response to this, Wallace told his allies in Congress, Walter Baring, John Rarick, George W. Andrews, Walter Flowers, and Bill Nichols to split from the Democrats and officially become “American Independents”. All five men had been stripped from their seniority in an attempt to break any attempt at a large-scale Southern “revolt” for Wallace, and generally resented the mainstream Democrats anyway. By the end of the day, the United States finally had their president and the American Independent Party had five shiny new congressmen.

“To my fellow Americans, members of the press, and members of the global community,

As of today, we face a new challenge that requires all Americans, and in fact all of our allies to act quickly yet precisely. Hours ago, we heard that the People’s Republic of China launched a nuclear weapon at the Soviet Union, killing thousands. The Soviet Union has responded with a nuclear attack of their own, and since then, a full scale border conflict has emerged between the two nations.

“In this hour of fear and loathing, Acting President Humphrey called together the 91st Congress, deadlocked in a fight between myself and President Johnson over the position of the presidency. This conflict was resolved with a large-scale compromise over cabinet positions, and just minutes ago I was sworn in by outgoing Chief Justice Earl Warren. Both houses of congress have approved an emergency procedure to fill most of the key cabinet positions with swift approval. Joining me in this cabinet will be President Johnson, who will now be serving as Secretary of State. Many other members of the Johnson-Humphrey cabinets will be joining as well.

This is a moment of uncertainty to many in the United States and worldwide, and it is crucial that we uphold national unity in this time of need. We don’t know where this future may lead, but we will move towards it together.

To the citizens of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, I say this: As a nation we have had our disagreements with your nation’s governments, but I speak for all Americans when I say that we are praying for your safety in this time of crisis.

I am thankful for this peaceful transfer of power and the congress’s swift movement in this time of crisis. May God bless us all”

Nixon’s “inauguration” speech, delivered to the press on May 14, 1969

Nixon’s inaugural speech was well received by much of the United States, who were looking for a unity figure during the crisis, although some radicals on the left and right opposed some of the language used in the speech. Meanwhile, the next few days in China and the Soviet Union were filled with uncertainty and chaos. In China, the Soviet government had long supported groups like the Uyghur Muslims who disliked PRC rule and were more than willing to accept their weapons and money. With the previous border conflict that begat the nuclear strikes turning into a full-scale war, the Soviet Union sent troops into Xinjiang to assist their allies, causing riots and attacks on PRC forces all over the province. A similar issue happened in Tibet, although the Soviet Union didn’t border Tibet and instead watched as small-scale riots were suppressed by an increasingly violent and malicious police force. Outside of China and the Soviet Union, many Communist nations had to take a stance on the conflict, and the issue was that very little of these nations wanted to back China. The PRC had done almost nothing when compared to the support the Soviets gave nations, and other than Albania, which considered anything less than Stalinism to be traitorous to the whole notion of Communism. Mongolia and North Korea had very little to say in the matter, as they bordered China, and were either buffers between the PRC and Soviet Union (Mongolia) or were detested by the PRC for some random ideological reason that only makes sense if you spend all your time reading articles about Marxism online and on Hip Hop Instagram or if you’re a member of a Communist government (North Korea). Mongolia would end up being attacked by the PRC in an intense bombing campaign that lead some in Inner Mongolia with family ties to “Outer” Mongolia to resent and even attempt to rise up against the PRC government. North Korea, for its part, was largely untouched by the PRC, who feared that an attack on North Korea could lead to an invasion by South Korea and if the PRC was to somehow win, they’d have a sworn enemy on their border. Meanwhile, North Vietnam, which was still in the middle of a large-scale conflict with the United States, called for a moment of ceasefire due to the attacks on a nation they bordered. The South and US agreed, which many took to mean the first steps towards a Vietnamese peace. As for capitalist aligned-nations in East Asia, the Republic of China momentarily considered militarization, but decided against it for fear of a nuclear strike from the mainland. South Korea and Japan decided to watch out for any potential strikes on them as the war continued, but it ended surprisingly quickly due to the final straw being snapped in China: Lin Biao’s coup of Mao Zedong.

To this day, the Sino-Soviet War and its effects are intensely debated by historians, defenders of both nations, and occasional althistorians. Many wonder how the PRC’s regime, as batshit crazy as it was, actively nuked another nation over a minor conflict and then called for peace within several weeks of fighting. Well first of all, the obvious motive was the conflict that broke out on the border of China and the Soviets on the Second of March, 1969. After only eleven days of “fighting”, the Chinese government launched an attack on the Soviets. The Chinese attack on the Soviet Union was a strange mixture of misguided confidence, crazed leadership, and an attempt at a propaganda victory. Mao and the rest of the PRC leadership expected that the Soviets would be too intimidated by a nuclear attack to do much else in response. As for why the Chinese didn’t hit back after the Soviets nuked two of their cities, the PRC’s nuclear arsenal was heavily limited to less than 10 weapons, and while that is extremely destructive, the Chinese government had the bare sense to note that you shouldn’t use all of your most powerful weapons when you’re about to war with one of the biggest military powers on the planet. The Chinese only truly began the attack because they felt that despite their controversial status as a nation many Western nations would simply back them against the oft-despised Soviet Union. While those same Western nations had softened their stance on the PRC, they would much rather stay out of a conflict with two nuclear powers who generally didn’t like them at all. The only real completely non-Communist nations that got involved was India, who quietly sent weapons to Tibetian rebels, and even that was extremely limited. In the end, members of the Chinese military leadership felt the walls closing in, and couped Mao in order to restore some semblance of peace in the PRC.

The Sino-Soviet Peace talks would be one of the more difficult portions of the newly-born Nixon administration. The United States had attempted to meet with the leaders of both countries in order to stop any kind of all-out nuclear conflict from potentially hurting an American ally or starting actual WWIII. However, this was made more difficult by the attempted “National Unity” cabinet. Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as he avoided conflicts in Germany and Korea, was still a power hungry motherfucker, and his position as Secretary of State in a Nixon administration certainly didn’t help matters. The two often conflicted in the lead up to and during the Peace Talks, and it may have actively hurt them moving forward. It also didn’t help that the United States was going through Peace Talks of its own with the North Vietnamese, who after Nixon’s promise that they’d get a fairer deal under his administration, were quite confused when Lyndon B. Johnson and Ellsworth Bunker returned to the talks.

Of course, the Sino-Soviet talks were complicated enough on their own without the United States’ own controversies. First of all, the Soviets were still obviously furious that the Chinese had literally used nuclear warfare on them, and the bombing campaigns against the Mongolians didn’t exactly help either. While Lin attempted to place this on Mao’s corpse that was rotting in Henry Hill’s backyard, it didn’t particularly help that Lin Biao himself had served as Minister of National Defense as the nuclear attack occurred. For the Chinese on the other hand, there was a legitimate want for peace, but with the Soviet Union and Mongolia calling for heavy reparations, they were more than a little reluctant. The conflict had also opened up old regional wounds in China, and the Chinese government feared more rebellion from the Uyghurs and Tibetians. On the other hand the Soviets wanted a rump Uyghur state to act as yet another border nation between the warring nations. After several months of negotiation, the Soviets and Chinese agreed to a plan that involved paying the Soviet and Mongolian governments approximately $7.5 Billion USD (to be adjusted for inflation of course) over the next 10 years, which was more than a tenth of China’s 1968 GDP. The sum, along with the recovery from the effects of nuclear warfare would cause severe economic issues for the PRC in the coming years. In addition, the Chinese government would have to severely scale down their nuclear arsenal over the next few years. In return for the financial reparations, a non-aggression pact was signed by the Chinese, Mongolian, and Soviet governments, and an agreement was made that the Soviets would not support any independence movements in the PRC. Not only that, but the two nations agreed to work to rebuild the area around the Songhua River, which was severely hurt by the conflict. In the end, the Sino-Soviet War of 1969 would kill close to 2 million people, with around 1.2 million dying from the nuclear strikes on both sides, and 800,000 dying from earlier conflicts, traditional warfare following the strikes, and bombing campaigns in the short war. The greater effects of the outside world would be significantly felt. A positive was that the world took nuclear warfare more seriously, and international denuclearization movements began being received quite seriously. However, the climate effects of the nuclear attacks would lead to a drop in global temperature and precipitation, which would cause massive issues for agriculture around the world. Finally, the economic scare caused by the conflict would cause a drop in the stock market the world wouldn’t fully recover from for years.