DBWI: world without Presidents Wallace/LeMay

It is nearing the 40th anniversary of the '72 French Revolution and the subsequent nuking of Lyon and Hanoi by President LeMay. It is often thought that avoiding Wallace's assassination a year earlier would have prevented nuclear war and that Chicago, St. Petersburg, Taipei and Shanghai would not have been destroyed, sparking off the Second American Civil War after a military coup attempt, but I think the unrest and anxiety in America's cities thanks to Wallace's reactionarism (not to mention the snowballing mutinies in 'Nam) may have meant the good ol' USA as the bulwark of capitalist democracy was doomed. We'd have to back further to stop that I think. Maybe if Nixon didn't have that huge scandal? Maybe if Humphrey kept the unions firmly in the Democratic Party? LeMay and the rollback of civil rights really were some of the dumbest political choices imaginable, and I don't think they can be handwaved lightly.
 
If you want to get Wallace out of the picture, you need to go back to 1964 and get Scranton out of the picture. If he doesn't defeat Kennedy, the liberal wing of the Republicans isn't ascendant and the conservatives won't feel pushed out - maybe a conservative like Reagan will win the nomination in 1968, and the right-wing vote won't all leak away to Wallace.

If you just want to avert nuclear war, maybe preventing the French Revolution (or keeping it on its countercultural course rather than allowing the Communist Party to establish control) could save the world. A stronger conservative backlash in 1968 (maybe de Gaulle refuses to resign?) would stunt the growth of the far left and prevent the right-wing radicalization and paranoia in the upper echelons of the military. Therefore, no coup attempt by Massu, and the summer strikes of '72 might be ended peacefully.
 
OCC: Your scenario is a bit far-fetched. IMO, the best DBWIs are those that simply state things like, DBWI: Congress had not toned down the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution?

Then in the OP would be a brief bit of background, like: in August 1964, in Response to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Congress considered a joint resolution which, in its early drafts, authorized the president "to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom". What if the words "including the use of force" had not been removed from the final resolution?

You might consider a simple DBWI: How would American and world history have unfolded had Wallace not been elected POTUS in 1968?

With a few brief sentences stating how Wallace-LeMay siphoned off enough from Nixon and McGovern to win and then how Wallace died. Leave out the extraneous details - leave them to those responding to your OP.
 
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