I started this timeline last July on another web site. With the popularity of Kennedy alternate timelines, I thought the time was right for me to join the bandwagon. So, without further ado
Double Tragedy: The Deaths of JFK & LBJ
November 21, 1963: Walter Cronkite looked and felt like a man who'd just been handed a death sentence. All morning he'd been praying that the bulletin out of Dallas would be wrong, that in those last few seconds before he went on the air some intern would breathlessly rush up to him to deliver the word that it had all been a mistake, that Air Force One had in fact safely reached Texas and President Kennedy's visit to Dallas would proceed as scheduled.
But no such reprieve would be forthcoming, he realized now, and with a maximum effort at self-control he faced the camera to read the bulletin he knew would plunge an entire nation into grief: "We have received confirmation within the last few minutes that Air Force One, carrying President Kennedy and the First Family along with Vice-President and Mrs. Johnson, has crashed in the Gulf of Mexico... While the full details of the accident are still not yet known, it has already been verified that no one survived the impact."
"Son of a bitch." whispered a shocked Barry Goldwater to no one in particular as he watched Cronkite's newscast on a black-and-white TV in his office. The idea of a sitting President dying before his term of office had ended was disturbing enough, but for one to be killed in a plane crash was unthinkable.
A few doors down, Speaker of the House John McCormack wept not noticing or caring whether anybody heard him.
At the Kremlin, Nikita Khrushchev gaped at the images on his television screen and wondered if the world were coming to an end. Never in a million years would it have occurred to him even in his wildest imagination that the President of the United States could perish in such a horrific fashion. Whatever one might think of the Americans' political philosophy, the CPSU First Secretary thought, one certainly had to admire their engineering skill; it simply wasn't possible this could have happened by mere chance. Either Kennedy's plane had been sabotaged in some fashion or it had been fired on.
The First Term of President John McCormack
November 21, 1963: At 4PM, a Joint Session of Congress was convened in the House chamber where Chief Justice Earl Warren swore in John McCormack as the 36th President of the United States. McCormack was less than one month shy of his 72nd birthday and the oldest man ever to serve as president.
In his first speech as President, McCormack expressed his sorrow over the deaths of Kennedy and Johnson, and vowed to live up to the great duty he had been called to undertake.
“On the 20th day of January, in 1961, John F. Kennedy told his countrymen that our national work would not be finished "in the first thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But," he said, "let us begin."
Today, in this moment of new resolve, I would say to all my fellow Americans, let us continue. I profoundly hope that the tragedy and the torment of these terrible days will bind us together in new fellowship, making us one people in our hour of sorrow. So let us here highly resolve that John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson did not live--or die--in vain. And this coming Thanksgiving, as we gather together to ask the Lord's blessing, and give Him our thanks, let us unite in those familiar and cherished words:
America, America, God shed His grace on thee.
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.”
November 25, 1963: A day after the funeral for Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson in Texas, John and Jacqueline Kennedy are buried at Arlington National Cemetery. In a moment that becomes an emotional and iconic image of the 1960s, an orphaned three year old JFK, Jr. steps forward and renders a final salute as the flag-draped caskets holding his parents are carried out from St. Matthew's Cathedral. The photo, taken by UPI photographer Stan Stearns, would win the Pulitzer Prize. He and his sister Caroline will be raised by their uncle and aunt, Robert and Ethel Kennedy. Bobby eulogizes him with the words: "Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass through all the world."
Kennedy concludes his eulogy, paraphrasing his deceased brother Robert by quoting George Bernard Shaw: "As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him, some men see things as they are and say 'Why?' I dream things that never were and say, 'Why not?'"
November 28, 1963: In his first Cabinet meeting, President McCormack announces that he will not seek a term of his own in 1964 but will serve out the remainder of his term until January 1965. He asks the Cabinet that he inherited from the Kennedy administration to stay on.
After the meeting, RFK meets with President McCormack in the Oval Office to announce that he is resigning as Attorney General effective upon the confirmation of his successor. McCormack reluctantly accepts. By Christmas, the Senate confirms Nicholas Katzenbach as Attorney General while the Kennedy family will spend several months in seclusion at the family compound in Massachusetts.
July 2, 1964: Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a landmark piece of legislation that outlaws racial segregation in schools, public places and employment.
July 3, 1964: On the eve of Independence Day, President McCormack signs the Civil Rights Act into law at the Rose Garden and gives pens to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Senator Hubert Humphrey and Robert Kennedy in his first public appearance since leaving the Cabinet.
July 8, 1964: Both houses of Congress pass the 25th Amendment which is presented to the states for ratification. Section 2 of the amendment allows the President to nominate a Vice President if there is a vacancy in that office who will be confirmed by the House and Senate.
July 16, 1964: Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona is officially nominated by the Republicans at their National Convention at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Goldwater selects Congressman William Miller as his running mate. Privately, Goldwater noted that Miller “drives McCormack nuts.”
August 4, 1964: President McCormack is told by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that an incident took place in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam. Apparently, two U.S. ships were fired upon by North Vietnamese ships. "Get confirmation on that," McCormack tells him. "If it's true, it means the situation in Southeast Asia has just become a war. But let's be sure it's true first.
August 7, 1964: Secretary McNamara can now confirm it: There was no shooting on U.S. ships by North Vietnamese ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. "That was a close one," President McCormack tells him. "I didn't want to have to go to war and have Barry Goldwater criticize me for sending American boys to do what Asian boys should be doing for themselves."
August 24, 1964: The Democratic National Convention opens at the Atlantic City Convention Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Having clinched the majority of delegates, Senator Hubert Humphrey selects Governor Terry Sanford of North Carolina, a southern moderate, as his running mate.
August 27, 1964: Governor John Conally of Texas introduces a short film in honor of the late Vice President Lyndon Johnson. This is followed by Robert Kennedy’s introduction of a short film in honor of his brother’s memory. Kennedy receives 22 minutes of uninterrupted applause,causing him to nearly break into tears. Speaking about JFK’s vision for the country, Kennedy famously quotes from Romeo and Juliet:
[...] and when [he] shall die
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
November 3, 1964: The election is a landslide for the Democrats as Hubert Humphrey is elected President of the United States.

Hubert Humphrey/Terry Sanford (D) 61.3%, 486 EV
Barry Goldwater/William Miller (R) 38.0%, 52 EV
Humphrey’s coattails help Democrats increase their majorities in the House and Senate. In New York, Robert Kennedy defeats incumbent Senator Kenneth Keating despite moving to the state just before Labor Day. California Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown defeats Republican actor George Murphy for the Senate seat held by Clair Engle until his death earlier in the year.
In Massachusetts, Governor Endicott Peabody is reelected by just 1 percent over former Governor John Volpe. Lieutenant Governor Francis Bellotti wanted to challenge him in the primary, but President McCormack intervened to put a stop to it.