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The 1960 presidential election is likely the closest in all of American History, except for maybe (arguably) 1916. In it, Nixon won the election by a hair in the crucial states of Illinois and Texas. We all know what happened afterward, Nixon president for 8 years, an invasion of Cuba and ousting of Castro as soon as it fell to Communism, South Vietnam surviving due to ingenious collaboration with Diem and Nixon, as well as Nixon using his genius diplomacy to isolate North Vietnam diplomatically by going to China. Civil Rights Act passed in 1966, etc. Nixon was a fantastic president who did much to stop the spread of Communism and not deal with severe home front resistance, as well as being known as the "Civil Rights President". The 1960s were essentially just an extension of the 1950s in our timeline, with the exception of course of Civil Rights.
This leads naturally to a very interesting question: What if John F. Kennedy won the 1960 presidential election? The POD is Nixon deciding to do a very stupid "campaign in all 50 states" promise which he almost made IOTL, according to one of Nixon's advisors. This would lead to Nixon being exhausted from campaigning in many states he wouldn't be able to win and lead to him campaigning less in the crucial states of Illinois and Texas, losing them to JFK. Anyhow, JFK is elected, here's what I think would happen:

1. Kennedy almost certainly wouldn't use the US military to invade Cuba as Nixon did, I envision him supporting rebels, but this almost certainly wouldn't succeed. I could easily see Khrushchev seeing Kennedy as very weak and potentially arming Communist Cuba with nuclear missiles and creating a sort of diplomatic crisis.

2. Lee Harvey Oswald may assassinate Kennedy in 1963 rather than LBJ. This is difficult to predict of course, but I could certainly see it as a possibility that Oswald instead assassinates the President in this timeline in Dallas rather than Johnson.

3. The Supreme Court is entirely different, I can't even predict how certain major Supreme Court cases would go.

4. I think Vietnam would be handled much worse. This is especially true if the Kennedy administration decides to assassinate or get rid of Diem. Such a decision would prove to be disastrous, as the only way South Vietnam would be able to survive if Diem is gone would be full-scale military involvement in Vietnam (another Korea). This would be terrible for home, however. Anti-war sentiment would be extremely high and likely lead to a cultural shift, perhaps with an extremely popular counter-cultural movement being a thing. In any case, the 60's would likely be a tumultuous time period in which society becomes a whole lot more liberal, rather than the conservative 60's we got. I could see anti-war sentiment being so high that the US stops supporting South Vietnam entirely, leading to a fall of all of Indochina to communism.

5. Government spending would be much higher in this timeline, especially true if Kennedy is assassinated by Oswald, Johnson was an avid proponent of government spending to combat poverty. In any case, government spending and social assistance programs spending will be much, much higher, potentially leading to disastrous effects on the US economy and national debt.

6. I think Nixon would try for president again. He’s simply too good of a politician to not run again. However, the Nixon we get in, say, 1968, will be entirely different than the one we got IOTL. He will be a paranoid president due to feeling cheated out of losing the 1960 election, in addition he will be president during a very unstable and tumultuous time period in US history, assuming the 60's go much more radically liberal (which I consider extremely likely). The Nixon we could get in 1968 would be a Nixon who would be placed right in the middle of a massive war in Indochina and after government spending has been increased tremendously. This Nixon will be an entirely different president and have a very different legacy, IMO.

7. Lastly, I think that society today would be much more left-leaning. I of course can't predict specifics but with a "stormy 60's", so to speak, society would be much less conservative today. I can't predict specifics, but I'm open to ideas. How would society be less conservative today?
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