DBWI: Dwight Eisenhower survived his heart attack on September 22, 1952

General Dwight Eisenhower, hero of World War II and almost certain to be elected President, died of a heart attack on September 22, 1952.

His running mate, Senator Richard Nixon, was scheduled to give a nationally televised speech the next day to respond to accusations that he accepted $18,000 in illegal gifts. Instead, the speech was cancelled and the Republican party would nominate Nixon for President.

As a result, Adlai Stevenson defeated Nixon in a landslide. Nixon won only the states of Utah, Vermont and New Hampshire.

By 1956, the US economy was in a recession, Lazar Kaganovich ousted Khrushchev as leader of the USSR and conquered Manchuria, and China conquered Taiwan (Chiang Kai-Shek was brought back to Beijing and was publicly hung at Tienanmen Square). These factors resulted in Stevenson losing re-election to Thomas Dewey.

Had Eisenhower survived his heart attack and was elected President in 1952, would events in China and Russia turned out differently?

Would Richard Nixon remain on the ticket if he got to give his speech?

If Senator Joseph McCarthy was reelected, what role would he have played in an Eisenhower administration?

Discuss among yourselves.
 
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OOC: The USSR had already occupied the Kurile islands at the end of WW2. Also, if Red China and the USSR have managed to engage in a major war then Stevenson may have been able to use that to his advantage in some way.
 
Well, don't forget the whole "Hungary for China" swap that Stevenson managed to engineer. In retrospect, the Soviet-Chinese War that resulting in a Soviet annexation of China and a guerrilla war that lasted for three decades might have been the end of the story, although we could not possible know it at the time.

I mean, we have to thank our lucky stars that Kaganovich would attack China instead of maintaining his friendship with Mao. Japan had bogged down in China for most of a decade; the Soviet puppet regime was the beginning of the end.

We ask ourselves what Eisenhower might have done instead of Stevenson; the real question is what Malenkov, Beria or Khrushchev might have done instead of Kaganovich. The Soviet Union was in no position to oppose the United States by getting itself into partisan hell in China. Stevenson was simply smart enough to follow the Napeleonic maxim: "Never interrupt your opponent when they are making a mistake."

That Dewey would preside over the Central European miracle--a Soviet bargain to pull out of Eastern Europe in exchange for leaving the region neutral to both parties so that they could try to "Beat China" in their neverending war--I mean, that would ALL get butterflied away.

Compared to that war--and the result that the communist bloc would never be unified and that the Soviet Union would be stuck in a never ending partisan conflict trying to hold Manchuria (and larger incursions into China proper.)

I would simply wish that Eisenhower had this level of luck. The Soviets blew it, we knew it. I mean, if the Soviets had actually managed to consolidate their gains after WW2 and actually kept China as a friend instead of going to a long and pointless war against that Country, they might have meaningfully opposed the United States. Instead, the Soviets had a giant war on their backdoor against a population that knew how to fight a superior army very well.

Its this critical development--the Chinese/Soviet conflict--which probably proved decisive. All Eisenhower would need to do is simply let it happen.

(OOC: OP, did you intend to utterly screw the Soviets by having them attack Communist China? If you did, count on the Cold War not happening.)
 
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