Blue Skies in Camelot: An Alternate 60's and Beyond
- Thread starter President_Lincoln
- Start date
Smashing cultural update! Glad to see the '72 Olympic murders avoided, though a tragedy to see John "Duke" Wayne dead. Also interesting to see a reference to Conan O'Brien as host of The Tonight Show. Would his tenure be as short and controversial as OTL or will it be as long as he deserved?
Glad that the 72 Olympics crisis has been avoided. Will Ireland belongs to the Irish be as critically maligned as otl? Also, Billy needs to join the E-Street Band!
Thanks Ogrebear! Anything in particular you want to hear about?
Thank you, ImperialTheorist!
I'm not sure how far toward the present the TL will end getting, so I like to give little clues sprinkled throughout of what the future could look like. ITTL, Conan has a nice long run on The Tonight Show. Ireland Belongs to the Irish found some commercial success ITTL, but it is definitely controversial. Billy Clinton playing with the Boss? Yes please!
Here's hoping enough butterflies flap their wings so the Cowboys are rightfully called for offensive pass interference in the 1975 playoffs against the Vikings.
Mark1878
Donor
But true for winter OlympicsOops! Honest research mistake.
But they are small
And iphone emoji don't work here
so I'll have to stick to plan old text!
And I think I have just found my first memory - I remember the Tokyo theme tune and I was 4. :help:
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Like how you mentioned Roger Staubach, who is, IMO, the best Cowboys QB of all time. On a side note, he was one of those people who actually deserves the title of role model, since he went to the Naval Academy, served in Vietnam, and is religious and has been married to the same woman since 1965 (and, if you're an NFL player, that's saying something), and is also the father of five children, the grandfather of 15 grandchildren, and the great-grandfather of one (as of 2016); he also has been successful outside of the NFL with real estate...
Here's a comment he made where, well, he talks about one comparison between himself and Joe Namath (1):
(1) If I had to pick a QB between Namath and Staubach, I'd pick the latter, since, even if the team's behind, Roger will find a way to come back (or try; he never quit against the Steelers teams he lost to)...
Here's a comment he made where, well, he talks about one comparison between himself and Joe Namath (1):
(1) If I had to pick a QB between Namath and Staubach, I'd pick the latter, since, even if the team's behind, Roger will find a way to come back (or try; he never quit against the Steelers teams he lost to)...
Chapter 80
Chapter 80: Morning Has Broken - George H.W. Bush is Sworn In and a New Year Begins
Above: President Bush began his first full term in office on January 20th, 1973 with a 64% approval rating and he hoped, plenty of political capital. With a razor thin Republican majority in the House and what he called a “fighting minority” in the Senate, Bush wanted to get to work immediately on creating the “kinder, gentler nation” he had promised in his RNC acceptance speech.
A cloudy, windy, but warm Saturday morning greeted the 37th President of the United States and his entourage as they proceeded to the Capitol for the start of the inauguration ceremonies in their black Lincoln Continental. The festivities were, as ever highly anticipated, and though former President Harry S. Truman had passed away in December, former President John F. Kennedy would be among the many honored guests to attend. With a projected afternoon high of 43 degrees, President Bush felt confident in his ability to deliver his address without an overcoat, but gripped the First Lady’s hand tightly just the same. The President was nervous, though he’d never admit it if asked. He prayed that the assembled crowd on the national mall and the millions of Americans watching on television would like it as much as Babs and the kids had when he read it to them the night before. The speech was, much like the President himself, full of good humor, appeals to national unity and bipartisan solutions to the country’s challenges, and a quiet sort of strength he modeled after his former boss, President Romney. Watching the familiar sights of Pennsylvania Avenue pass by in the window of their car, Bush cleared his throat and whispered to his beloved wife, Barbara. “Lots riding on this today,” he gestured to the folder of papers on the seat next to them with his free hand. “Is Junior sticking around for the ball tonight?” The President, while clumsy on the dance floor, was a tremendous fan of embarrassing himself in front of his family with his awkward movements. He thought talking about something besides the speech would help settle his nerves. Babs confirmed that George and Hillary would in fact be attending the inaugural balls… all seven of them, alongside the First Couple. Bush grinned and let his mind wander to the fun he anticipated he would have later that night. Besides stage fright, there was plenty for him to get his mind off of.
Though he had not even been inaugurated for the new term yet, there was already contention and bickering waiting for him both within his own party and among the Democratic opposition. Though Bush had had an easy enough time deciding on Dick Cheney as his replacement for Lenny Hall as Chief of Staff, the new term brought the need for an entire cabinet reshuffling to fill out his administration and it seemed that everyone desired a say in who got picked. Vice President Reagan and his paleoconservative backers among the National Review crowd demanded that Secretary of Treasury Nelson Rockefeller, long the scion of the “Eastern Establishment” they so loathed, be removed from his position and replaced by, in Bill Buckley’s words “a real economist”. Bush was initially tempted to go to bat for Rockefeller. The long-time New York Governor had been absolutely critical in getting President Romney elected in ‘68, and still wielded tremendous clout with the liberal and moderate wings of the party, who were themselves increasingly disquieted in the wake of Romney’s (and now Bush’s) slow lurch to the right. The last thing Bush needed was a rebellion on his left now that he’d managed to put one down to his right. Further, the President wanted to make it clear to the Vice President that even though he would have a large part to play in shaping and selling administration policy, it was not his place to be so bold as to dictate policy or cabinet picks to the Commander in Chief. Reagan had a big personality and ambition that was larger still. Bush knew that his number two couldn’t wait for the chance to run for the big chair himself again in 1980. Thankfully for him, Rockefeller made the decision much easier by tendering his letter of resignation shortly before the end of December and asking for a new job in its place: U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Long an ardent anti-communist, Rockefeller felt that he had done enough to help set domestic policy. Now he wanted to leave an impact on the world stage, and felt that his eloquence and flair for the artistic could be put to good use in the General Assembly. Bush needed someone to fill this position anyway and was happy to accept the proposal. To replace Rockefeller at Treasury, the President reluctantly took Buckley and Reagan’s advice and offered the position to renowned Monetarist theorist Milton Friedman, who readily accepted and made his way to the capital to serve. Friedman was hailed by many as the answer to the shortcomings of Keynesian consensus and seemed to have solutions to the nation’s rising inflation woes, something Bush was also eager to put to rest.
Bush sought to shed any public image of himself as a “wimp”, a word he now despised down to his very core, and so took an active, central role in selecting who would serve in his White House. He carefully pored over candidates with Cheney, whom he began to treat as something like a surrogate son, and hand-picked those he thought could accomplish two key objectives: make the federal government as efficient and well-run as possible; and keep him well-informed about the goings on within and without the country. Loyal, intelligent, patient, and fiercely competitive by nature, Bush wanted his cabinet to subscribe to the same philosophy of honest public service he and President Romney had for their entire public lives. He also sought to combat the developing narrative from the election cycle that the GOP was “less encouraging of diversity” than the Democrats. In response to this particular claim, Bush hired two women for his cabinet (Carla Anderson Hills for HUD Secretary, and Charlotte Reid for Commerce); tapped former Romney HUD Secretary Hiram Fong, an Asian-American, to be his Secretary of Labor; and in perhaps one of the great legacies of his Presidency, nominated the first African-American to serve as Attorney General. Senator Edward Brooke III of Massachusetts had already made quite a national stir when he was elected to the Upper Chamber of Congress back in 1966. The first African-American to be popularly elected to the U.S. Senate, Brooke aligned himself firmly with the liberal wing of the party, and earned his legislative stripes by co-authoring The Civil Rights Act of 1968 to end housing discrimination in the United States. A close personal friend of former President John F. Kennedy and his brother, fellow Massachusetts Senator, Ted, Brooke had a penchant for bipartisanship and common sense. He was devastated by the death of President Romney, and Bush considered him his kind of Republican. Though Brooke had just been narrowly reelected to his Senate seat over Democratic challenger John J. Droney and had every indication of a desire to continue serving his fellow Bay-Staters in that manner, Bush nonetheless insisted on offering Brooke the nomination. In the wake of the highly damaging Hoover Affair, which had revealed decades of misdeeds by the FBI and Justice Department against the Civil Rights Movement and black communities in general, the President believed that replacing Hoover and Tolson with Frank M. Johnson as FBI Director had not gone far enough in “cleaning up that pile of muck”. He believed that Brooke: black, nationally respected, and with tons of experience in the law and with civil rights in particular, would be perfect to lead what Bush was calling “the second civil rights movement”, to enforce the laws of the first and monitor that discrimination truly was being brought to heel. The Massachusetts Senator was also moderately pro-choice, a position Bush knew would be important when the legal battles between states and the federal government over abortion inevitably erupted. A final nod from Bush to Cheney on the subject produced a calculated “short-list” which was subsequently leaked to the press while Cheney began the actual courtship of Brooke. At first, Brooke played things cool. He dodged invitations to a private oval office meeting with the President while he talked things over with his family and a close friend, former Massachusetts Governor John Volpe, who had served as Transportation Secretary under President Romney and was now on his way to Italy to serve as U.S. Ambassador there. Volpe assured Brooke of Bush’s good intentions and encouraged him to accept the position. Brooke’s seat would be filled by Governor Francis Sargent, Volpe’s successor and fellow liberal Republican, and it could be a gigantic step forward for the African-American community if he did. After several weeks of dancing delicately around a direct answer to the question, Brooke at last caved and agreed to see the President. In an oval office corral only two weeks before the inauguration, Brooke put an end to the media speculation and accepted the offer. Though not confirmed unanimously, as Bush would have liked, Brooke was nonetheless approved by a vote of 91 - 8 in the Senate. He would be replaced by Congressman Silvio O. Conte, a moderate-liberal Republican who had represented Massachusetts in the House since 1959.
Brooke’s appointment delighted moderate and liberal Republicans, as well as many Democrats, and was seen as a watershed moment in American politics. John Lewis, former Freedom Rider and Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s chief of staff openly wept as the final vote for Brooke’s confirmation was cast. As head of the Justice Department, Brooke would go on to tirelessly crusade for civil rights, equal protection under the law, and prosecute a number of high-profile cases against the wealthy and powerful in the name of the little guy. Perhaps the most famous of these would come in October of 1973, when the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil rights suit against the Trump Organization (with Fred Trump as chair and his son, Donald as President) for violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968, of which Brooke was a proud co-author. Court records later showed that four superintendents or rental agents confirmed that applications sent to the Trump organization’s central office for acceptance or rejection were coded by race, a highly illegal practice. A rental agent testified that Fred Trump had instructed him “not to rent to blacks” and to “decrease, if at all possible, the number of black tenants” by encouraging them to find housing elsewhere. After years of legal battles between Attorney General Brooke and the Trumps’ personal lawyer, former McCarthy Committee attorney Roy Cohn, a verdict was finally reached in the case between the Department of Justice and the Trump Organization. This was handed down on June 10, 1975, with Brooke and his expert legal team ultimately swaying public opinion to their side and enjoying the last laugh. The courts ruled against the Trump Organization, finding them guilty of several instances of violating The Civil Rights Act of 1968, and sentenced them to pay fines of several hundred thousand dollars to disgruntled would-be residents who had been turned away on the basis of race. Furthermore, the DOJ's housing division received praise from the Civil Rights Movement for the case being "one of the most far-reaching ever settled.” It personally and corporately prohibited the Trumps from "discriminating against any person in the ... sale or rental of a dwelling in the future," and "required Trump to immediately advertise vacancies in minority papers, promote minorities to professional jobs, and list vacancies on a preferential basis with the Open Housing Center of the Urban League.” Finally, it ordered the Trumps to "thoroughly acquaint themselves personally on a detailed basis with ... the Fair Housing Act of 1968.” The whole incident was an absolute media spectacle, and not only made a public hero out of Attorney General Brooke, but also represented the beginning of the split between Donald and Fred Trump, with the son blaming the father for the whole scandal and claiming in a Playboy interview that he had “nothing to do with it”. By 1979, Donald was able to orchestrate an internal coup and force his father out as Chairman of the Board of the Trump Organization. Donald would thereafter replace Fred, leaving a gaping, open wound between them which would last until his father’s passing in 1999, when they reconciled, albeit at the last possible moment. It was, in the end, a victory for the younger Trump, and for racial equality all in one swoop. Attorney General Brooke was simply glad to see the law enforced.
The Bush Administration (As of Jan. 20th, 1973)
President: George H.W. Bush
Vice President: Ronald Reagan
Secretary of State: Richard Nixon
Secretary of Treasury: Milton Friedman
Secretary of Defense: James R. Schlesinger
Attorney General: Edward W. Brooke III
Secretary of the Interior: Rogers Morton
Secretary of Agriculture: John R. Block
Secretary of Commerce: Charlotte Reid
Secretary of Labor: Hiram Fong
Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare: Caspar Weinberger
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Carla Anderson Hills
Secretary of Transportation: Frederick B. Dent
Chief of Staff: Richard Cheney
EPA Administrator: William Ruckelshaus
Director of the Office of Management and Budget: Roy Ash
U.S. Trade Representative: William Denman Eberle
U.S. Ambassador to the UN: Nelson A. Rockefeller
National Security Advisor: Henry Kissinger
Back on January 20th, 1973, the big moment had arrived. President Bush and the First Lady were escorted by the Secret Service to the grandstand alongside the western side of the Capitol Building, where awaiting their arrival were the former President and First Lady Kennedy, Speaker of the House Gerald R. Ford (R - MI), Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D - MT), Vice President Ronald Reagan, Senator Lyndon Johnson (D - TX), and other distinguished guests. Bush was a terrible mixture of elated and nervous as he made his way to the podium, shaking hands with President Kennedy and Senator Johnson along the way. At last he came to the forefront of the ceremony, the crowd roared, and Chief Justice Paul Freund asked the President to repeat after him in swearing the oath of office. In a calm, steady voice, Bush swore the oath, asked the Almighty for his providence, then allowed for a minute of applause before unveiling his speech and beginning, striving to ignore the wind tossing the sheets back and forth as he orated.
“Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. President, Vice President Reagan, Senator Mansfield, Speaker Ford, Senator Scott, Congressman O’Neill, and fellow citizens, neighbors, and friends: There is a man who could not be here today who has earned a lasting place in our hearts and in our history. He was taken before his time, but his presence is felt among us today, nevertheless. I regret that I cannot express my endless gratitude to our fallen friend, President Romney. All that I can say is that on behalf of our nation, I commend him for the wonderful work he accomplished for us all and know that he continues to watch over us from a better, more peaceful place.
I’ve just repeated the word for word oath taken by George Washington nearly 200 years ago, and the Bible on which I placed my hand is the same Bible on which he placed his. This is appropriate, as Washington is still the father of our country, and the republic he helped to build is approaching its much-celebrated bicentennial. I believe he would be gladdened by this day, as the government he and the other founding fathers constructed those centuries ago, stands still, stronger, and more free than ever.
We meet in the city that bears his name, democracy’s front porch. A good place to talk as neighbors and as friends. For this is a day when our nation is made whole, when our differences, for a moment, are suspended, and we come together to celebrate our common values. And my first act as President will be to pray. I ask you all to please bow your heads.
Heavenly Father, we bow our heads and thank You for Your love. Accept our thanks for the peace that yields this day and the shared faith that makes its continuance likely. Make us strong to do Your work, willing to heed and hear Your will, and write on our hearts these words: ‘Use power to help people.’ For we are given power not to advance our own purposes, nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power, and it is to serve people. Help us remember, Lord. Amen.
I come before you and begin my first full term as your President at a moment fraught with uncertainty, but also rich with promise. We live in a time of change, change which we hope will bring progress. At home, the hostilities and clashes of old are giving way to acceptance and a common brotherhood through our American creed: liberty and justice for all. And around the world, the guns of war are giving way to the difficult, but fruitful process of peace and understanding. Even as I speak to you this morning, members of this administration are in Paris, tirelessly negotiating an end to the war in Southeast Asia. We are, of course, relieved to hear that peace is on the way. But we must never forget the common cause of freedom that sometimes requires of us the most painful sacrifices. Our friends and allies call us to stand by them as they combat tyranny around the world. In the spirit of good neighborliness and true friendship, we cannot stand aside in their hour of need.
It pains me to think of another war for our country. Not yet two years ago, my own son, George Jr. returned from the jungles of Cambodia bearing scars both seen and unseen that are recovering, but will likely never fully heal. I have seen first hand the terror that war is, have seen it come clawing for my life and that of my son, I know its horror. Yet, when freedom calls for our aid, we must be ready to answer her. As we always have been, from the fields of Lexington and Concord, to the beaches of Iwo Jima and beyond.”
…
“Here in America, we know that freedom works. We know that it is right. We know how to secure a more just and prosperous life for man on Earth: through free markets, free speech, free elections, and the exercise of free will unhampered by the state or public intimidation. For the first time in this century, for the first time in perhaps all of history, man does not have to invent a system by which to live. We don't have to talk late into the night about which form of government is better. We don't have to wrest justice from the kings. We only have to summon it from within ourselves. We must act on what we know, and solve the challenges facing us together. I take as my guide the hope of a saint: In crucial things, unity; in important things, diversity; in all things, generosity.
Some see leadership as high drama and the sound of trumpets calling, and sometimes it is that. But I see history as a book with many pages, and each day we fill a page with acts of hopefulness and meaning. The new breeze blows, a page turns, the story unfolds. And so, today a chapter begins, a small and stately story of unity, diversity, and generosity - shared, and written, together.
Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.”
As the President welcomed the wave of applause sent his way by the crowd, he felt a presence behind him. A wizened Massachusetts accent beckoned: “A fine speech speech, Mr. President”. John F. Kennedy offered his hand once again to George H.W. Bush, who accepted and shook it with vigor. “Our hopes and faith are with you now.”
Bush grinned like a school boy. “You honor me, Mr. President.”
“Good luck.” Kennedy let go and took his wife’s hand as they prepared to depart the Capitol. “You’re going to need it.”
…
One week later, Secretary of State Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger completed the long, arduous process of bringing “peace” in Southeast Asia. It did not come easily. President Romney’s gaffe in Helsinki seemed ages ago in the American consciousness, but it had fixed itself firmly in the minds of the North Vietnamese and their Soviet backers. Even after his untimely passing, the communists’ uncertainty did not abate. This new President Bush simultaneously vowed to be a “patient diplomat” and “to always answer freedom’s call”, seemingly contradictory statements to Giap’s advisers, who warned him that should he be too quick to make peace, the Americans would pay him back with a surprise attack. Paranoia run rampant at the negotiations, and Nixon and Kissinger were hardly making the situation any better. The Secretary of State was partially happy to hear that the Republican ticket had been re-elected for four more years. He’d be given more time to architect the foreign policy agenda he wanted to build. He was less thrilled however, about the new Commander in Chief. For the previous four years, Nixon had been given virtually a blank check to spread his vision around the globe by President Romney, who though well-intentioned, was vastly out of his depth at times in complex geopolitics. With Kissinger at his side, Nixon worked subtly to undermine the Kennedy Doctrine of detente, more out of spite for the man who’d denied him the White House in 1960 than in the pursuit of any coherent diplomatic goals. President Bush’s election to a term in his own right threatened to undermine that plan, and Nixon’s unilateral control of his policy department. Unlike Romney, who was a domestic politician forced to look abroad, Bush was undoubtedly a diplomat first. The Texan adored the patient struggle to build a better world, and would want, no, demand more direct control of the nation’s foreign policy than his predecessor had. Add to this the fact that Nixon considered Bush an amateur, another spoiled, rich bastard from New England who never had to earn a damned thing in his life, and it was easy to see why the head of the State Department loathed the new President and turned increasingly to drowning his sorrows in bottles of scotch and gin. On the morning of January 27th, he forced himself out of bed and tried to remember why he’d accepted the position of Secretary of State in the first place.
Kissinger, for his part, managed to keep a cooler head than his Californian comrade. Less personally invested, more a supporter of realpolitik, the National Security Advisor was not angry when President Bush announced his support for the Jackson Resolution. Indeed, even though it ran counter to his own initial strategy, Kissinger saw the wisdom in the decision. By holding negotiations with North Vietnam while communist guerrillas were put down alongside the British in Rhodesia, the U.S. would be able to show strength without hurting the people they were trying to deal with directly. “This could be you.” The action seemed to say. “But we’ve decided to cut you a deal. Why not take it now, while you still can?” To Kissinger’s delight, the Resolution seemed poised to overcome resistance in both Houses of Congress, as Senator Johnson, Bush’s opponent in the election, had come out in support of it, bringing with him the southern and populist wings of the Democratic Party. In all likelihood, U.S. troops would begin to arrive in Rhodesia by as early as March. A show of strength, the iron fist in a velvet glove was exactly Kissinger’s style. British Prime Minister Randolph Churchill personally called on President Bush to thank him on the day of the final Senate vote, as Senator Eugene McCarthy delivered an impassioned speech outside the Capitol, decrying the new war as “a damned shame” and postulating that “if neither party is going to stand up to this kind of warmongering, I will!”
Senator Eugene McCarthy (D - MN)
The deal offered to Hanoi itself was simple, to the point. In exchange for the return of all remaining U.S. and South Vietnamese POWs, the U.S. and South Vietnam would issue an immediate order of ceasefire between them and the North, similar to the agreement which halted the War in Korea twenty years prior. Though neither state would recognize the other, each continuing to claim that they were the true nation of Vietnam, they agreed to host a new referendum on whether or not the two countries should be unified in January, 1983. Both President Khanh and Premier Giap gave the agreement their approval, and in front of the news cameras and the world, Kissinger and Nixon announced that they had secured “a noble, lasting peace” in Southeast Asia. Curiously absent, in the minds of the media, was discussion of the ultimate fate of Pol Pot and other leaders of the Khmer Rouge, who had perpetrated much of the violence against American soldiers in Cambodia. President of the Khmer Republic, Lon Nol, dismissed the matter as “unimportant”, though in reality Giap had insisted on keeping Pol Pot around at the behest of his Soviet supporters. In the years which followed, the Kampuchean communist would rebuild his network of saboteurs and insurgents, who would continue to wage war over the tiny nation of Cambodia. The war would be slow, secret, and measured in small victories, not the grand offensives that Pol Pot, but it would be a continued struggle nonetheless.
…
Meanwhile, change was coming once again to Latin America as well. During the last years of President Kennedy’s second term, there had been considerable effort at rapprochement between the United States and Cuba, the island-republic only 90 miles off the coast of Florida that had nearly led to World War III in 1962. Knowing that Castro’s popular movement had been as much about nationalism as it had communism, and correctly suspecting that Castro’s true interest was in providing the best foreign aid package possible for his people, rather than strict adherence to communist dogma, JFK attempted to open back channel, top secret negotiations to reopen relations between the two countries and end the trade embargo Kennedy himself had instituted in an act of political expediency. At the time, 1968, Castro desired rapprochement. His people were suffering as Soviet and Chinese aid became harder to come by under the thumb of new leaders Yuri Andropov and Lin Biao. The Soviets and Chinese alike were demanding that more and more of Castro’s country’s already scarce resources be put into encouraging communist revolution abroad, rather than nation-building and infrastructure at home, which Cuba desperately needed. He took the proposal to his top generals and advisers, however, and as Kennedy surely would have been should he have shared his plans with anyone, Castro was brutally shouted down. Raul, El Presidente’s own brother, agreed with Che Guevara, who felt that the Americans could not be trusted. Though Raul lacked Guevara’s fanatical devotion to Marxism, the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis scared him into his own unique brand of paranoia and distrust. Shortly afterward, the 1968 Presidential Election came in the U.S. and President Kennedy’s second term concluded before his plans for U.S. - Cuban relations could come to pass. Both JFK and Castro regretted this for the rest of their days, with Kennedy writing in his bestselling 1971 memoir, A Time for Greatness, “The greatest tragedy of the post-colonial world can likely be seen in Cuba. It is perhaps the world’s clearest proof of a claim I made in the Senate in 1957: that the great enemy of that tremendous force of freedom is called, for want of a more precise term, imperialism. All of the heartbreaking poverty, the sorrow that the Cuban people experience can be traced back to a truly barbaric treatment by the imperial Spanish. I only wish that President Castro and I had had more time to set things right between us. We could have achieved so much.”
As another administration came and went with the death of President Romney, and another Presidential election in the States as well in ‘72, Castro saw reason for hope of another chance at reconciliation in President George Bush. A young, ivy-league educated leader with a reputation as a shrewd, but fair diplomat, Bush seemed to once again be the sort of man that Castro could strike a deal with, as long as both sides were willing to play fairly with each other. The Cuban President knew however that any such proposals could not be sent through the State Department. Secretary Nixon was a hardliner against Cuba, as was NSA Kissinger, and any missives received by them would be immediately thought to be treacherous in nature and ignored. If he could reach the new President directly, perhaps through the same CIA back channels he had used to communicate with President Kennedy, then maybe rapprochement could be possible. Early “interest probes” were sent through mutually agreed upon means and President Bush considered the implications of such a decision. Though he too possessed a desire for peace and renewed relations with Cuba, he knew that doing so without making harsh demands in exchange would wound him politically, perhaps fatally. If Castro were willing to decentralize his regime, end one-party rule, and allow for free and open elections, Bush replied in a heavily classified private letter to the Cuban Dictator, then Bush would call for an end to the embargo and restore relations between the two countries. Castro responded that this would be a step that the Cuban people were not yet ready for. He feared the influence of the American CIA, and American money on the ethics and reliability of “open” elections. The American Intelligence Agency had tried, and failed to assassinate him hundreds of times in the preceding decade, and he was beginning to lose hope in his efforts toward friendship with the United States. Having reached an impasse over the need for more democratic rule however, President Bush assured him that “no agreement between us can be reached until you are ready to liberalize.” Disappointed, Castro turned his hopes for the time being toward strengthening the Non-Aligned Movement, which was desperately searching for a new symbolic leader after the death of President Nasser, of Egypt in 1970 due to a heart attack. Around the same time that Castro began to reexamine his options, President Bush was about to step into another major foreign policy decision early in his Presidency: What to do about Chile and its socialist President, Salvador Allende…
Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: Prime Minister Churchill Catches a Break
I hope you enjoyed this update and are having a great 2019 thus far. I'm about to embark on a major trip abroad with my girlfriend to celebrate the holiday and so will not be posting very frequently for a while. I should be back in a few weeks or so, though. Best wishes!
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Not a problem, Ogrebear.
And thank you kindly! Bush does intend to get to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and I will be covering his plans, as well as the situation in the Middle East very soon.
Great update! So it looks like we go into UK politics in the next update, perhaps catching up with Flying Scotsman over TTL's more successful North American tour seeing as the clue in the title might mean something... or that I've got it wrong! Keeping a close eye on what you have next!
or that I've got it wrong! Keeping a close eye on what you have next! Awesome. Nixon might resign at some point, given that Bush is trying to, as he sees it, undermine him.
Reagan would also want him out considering how the Rightwing kinda of hates his earlier stances which were Pro Detente.
adding on to this The right, particualy the YAF will hate Kissinger more intensely given how his pro Real politik world view is pretty much everything theyve been complaining about US foregin policy summed up in a nice ribbon (Not giving a damn about Human rights and not supporting Anti Communism when its not conveniet,as in Prauge.
Good update. Like how you touch on much of the world in your update.
Wonder how Cambodia will turn out; hope the "boat people" crisis is butterflied away...
Like Trump getting smacked down by Brooke; we haven't heard the last of Trump here...
Wonder what'll happen in Rhodesia and Chile...
Yeah, Nixon might resign soon...
BTW, "Morning Has Broken" was sung by Cat Stevens and released in 1972, so congrats again, @President_Lincoln, and waiting for more...
Wonder how Cambodia will turn out; hope the "boat people" crisis is butterflied away...
Like Trump getting smacked down by Brooke; we haven't heard the last of Trump here...
Wonder what'll happen in Rhodesia and Chile...
Yeah, Nixon might resign soon...
BTW, "Morning Has Broken" was sung by Cat Stevens and released in 1972, so congrats again, @President_Lincoln, and waiting for more...