Give Peace A Chance: The Presidency of Eugene McCarthy

[The Lethargic Lett]

“Platforms are something you run from, not on.”

• President Jim Rhodes, on the Campaign of 1980

As April of 1980 came around, the primaries went into full swing.

On the Republican side, President Jim Rhodes continued his unopposed stroll to the nomination. All throughout his term in office, Rhodes had been holding frequent rallies. Initially dismissed as a ‘victory lap,’ the ‘Rhodes Rally’ had become a staple of his administration, and had laid the groundwork for his 1980 campaign. Rhodes never addressed any of the Democratic nominees, practically ignoring the other party, just as he had done in 1976, and just as he had done in every Ohio campaign before that. Rhodes, as he was wont to do, continued to obfuscate and dance around specific policy questions with the notable exception of guaranteed employment. Raising the banner of his landmark re-election issue, Jobs for America, Rhodes promised a job for every American willing to work. Where Rhodes returned to opacity was what guaranteed employment would actually entail. Rhodes promised “work with integrity with a livable family wage” but refused to elaborate on whether Jobs for America would also dismantle the welfare state built since FDR, or if it would supplement it. Rhodes let people assume what they wanted to hear. As for Senator Paul Laxalt of Nevada, he continued his campaign for the Republican Vice Presidential nomination, in a challenge to incumbent Vice President Mills Godwin. Despite easily winning the New Hampshire Vice Presidential primary, Laxalt struggled to get delegate support in every other state. Laxalt did, however, have the full support of the majority of the Southern delegations, as well as minority support in the West and New England. Despite the fact that Rhodes had never actually voiced support for his Vice President, the natural assumption was that he would eventually back Godwin, or perhaps just ignore Laxalt, as he was ignoring the Democrats. Rhodes breezed through the early April primaries in Kansas, Wisconsin, and Louisiana (Laxalt gained the endorsement of the Louisiana delegates), while the weight was finally begin to shift in the Democratic primaries.

Vice President Mills Godwin (centre) decided on a Rose Garden strategy to counter Senator Paul Laxalt's challenge. ​

Speaker of the House Mo Udall retained his frontrunner status, despite early challenges from former Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver. Udall and Shriver had similar platforms, and were more defined by their associations than by policy differences. Udall called for reforming the Medicare and Medicaid Advancement Act (the MMAA, alternatively known as ‘McCarthyCare’) and expanding it into a single-payer healthcare system. Udall also proposed universal basic income as an alternative to Rhodes’ Jobs for America, and suggested that, as an immediate solution to the advent of stagflation, that the price freeze be extended, before increasing wages to accomodate for rising inflation, and restoring the budgets of social spending programs that had been slashed by Rhodes. Shriver largely agreed with all of the policy suggestions of Udall, but associated Udall with McCarthy’s extremely unpopular second term. Claiming that Udall was beholden to radicals of the New Left, Shriver proposed his own brand of Kennedy/Johnson/Humphrey-esque reconciliation Old Leftism, while also denouncing the Dixiecrat elements and candidates of the Old Left, such as George Wallace. However, both Udall and Shriver were surprisingly weak amongst union voters. Udall, while personally pro-union, had supported anti-union legislation due to its support among his Arizona constituents; something the union bosses had never really forgiven him for. Shriver, who then seemed like the natural alternative for the union bosses as the next best Democrat, had the same vulnerability that McCarthy had had in the Midwest in 1968, with pockets of blue collar workers and union members voting for Wallace, after being disenchanted with the War on Poverty and the race riots of the time. Shriver, who proudly proclaimed himself to be the architect of the War on Poverty, became associated by some voters with the bad year of 1968.

Running on his ‘Guaranteed Employment Democrat’ platform, Senator Lloyd Bentsen pulled ahead for the first time in the primaries, winning the state of Kansas, although Udall would win the Wisconsin primary on the same day. What came as a surprise was the results of the Louisiana primary, where former Governor of Georgia and Vice Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter defeated the expected winner, Senator for Alabama George Wallace. Wallace, who had easily won Louisiana in the general election in 1968 and 1972 in his third party campaigns and in the Democratic primary 1976, was running a lacklustre campaign in 1980. As he began to fall into the category of perennial candidate, Wallace had lost the segregationism and populist lustre that had defined him in his earlier years. Despite being on Henry Jackson’s landslide defeat ticket in 1976, Carter had escaped with his reputation largely intact, considering his selection on the ticket had been a compromise to the South, rather than any close association with Jackson himself. Carter ran as a moderate New South Democrat, but not strictly speaking a GE Democrat. Carter, channeling the growing prominence of Jim Wallis’ People’s Christian Coalition, campaigned on an optimistic, outsider campaign, with special emphasis put on his Baptist faith.

Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas was most well known for running as a 'Guaranteed Employment Democrat' as an alternative to the other, typically pro-welfare and social security Democrats in the 1980 primaries.
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Despite Carter and Bentsen temporarily pulling ahead after sitting at third and fourth place respectively in the polls, Udall made his own comeback by winning the Pennsylvania primary and the Michigan caucuses. Despite tepid union support, Udall held his position as the first choice of most Democrats in the Midwest and Northeast after the 1976 Jackson catastrophe.

Former Vice President John Connally, distantly trailing in the polls, failed to even win his home state of Texas, with Bentsen taking the state instead. Although Udall would win Washington D.C, Carter would sweep the May 6 primaries in Indiana, North Carolina, and Tennessee. As May went on, the Democratic primaries began to split in their winners.

Bentsen would win Nebraska, Shriver would make a comeback in Maryland, and Udall in Oregon and Nevada. While Arkansas would go to its Favourite Son, Dale Bumpers, Bentsen would continue to take the West with Idaho, and Carter took a win in the Midwest in Indiana.

As Rhodes concluded the Republicans as the unsurprising winner, the Democrats ended on June 3 1980. Although Bentsen would win Montana, Shriver South Dakota, and Favourite Son Robert Byrd West Virginia, the lion’s share would go to Udall, in the states of California, New Mexico, Ohio, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

Unlike in 1976, the Democrats would be going to their convention with a clear winner.

There’d be nothing to stop Mo Udall.


“We are not in a state of ego.”

• President Jim Rhodes, on winning the 1980 Republican primaries

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

"I don’t give a damn about the stock market. But I do care about jobs.”

• Governor of Ohio and Rhodes protégé George Voinovich

For an election cycle that, at its start, seemed to be shaping up to be one of the closest in years, the Republican and Democratic Conventions of 1980 were the calmest they had been in years. With the fierce Ohio pride that the RNC had come to expect, Rhodes had insisted that the 1980 Republican Convention was held in Columbus, Ohio. Although the media made a minor scandal of it, Rhodes had spent enough in every state in the Union throughout his term that nobody really cared. Meanwhile, after holding their convention in Chicago for two elections in a row, the Democrats were holding their 1980 Convention for the second time in a row at Madison Square Garden, in New York City.

The Republican Convention was primarily orchestrated as a spectacle, followed by a re-coronation of Rhodes, with the platform taking a distant third. Celebrities like Bob Hope, and James Stewart were put front and centre along with formerly Democratic celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Charlton Heston. Even the political speeches leaned on the celebrity; former actors like Ronald Reagan and retired Senator George Murphy were given prominent time slots both to add to the starstuddedness of the event, as well as a way to appease conservatives who were still wary of Rhodes’ nebulous ideological leanings. Rhodes’ nominating speech was given by his former Lieutenant Governor, who had risen to the Ohio governorship after Rhodes became President, George Voinovich. As expected, Rhodes won unanimously on a roll call vote, while the Convention prepared for the platform and Vice Presidential nomination.

Governor of Ohio George Voinovich (centre) was serving as Rhodes' Lieutenant Governor when Rhodes became President. He gave the nominating speech for Rhodes at the 1980 Republican National Convention, in Columbus, Ohio.
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Besides a few key points, Rhodes left the vast majority of the policies to be worked out by the platform committee on their own, with oversight by Nixon on foreign policy issues. The only demands he had was a full endorsement of Jobs For America and guaranteed employment, and a retroactive endorsement of the use of state bonds, extended government loans, and subsidies to finance pork barrel projects and the energy sector. While the platform committee followed a standard moderate-conservative line on other economic issues, the real question was in the matter of social issues. Rhodes’ declaration of a War on Drugs was worked into the platform with significantly more of an emphasis on the ‘tough on crime’ aspect than the ‘regulating the pharmaceutical industry’ aspect, though both were mentioned. The Republican Party also remained divided on the topic of abortion; most of the party was content to not have a definitive stance, or to leave it to the states, while only a small minority of the furthest right, such as Senator Jesse Helms, supported a constitutional amendment banning it [1].

Seen here with Ronald Reagan during the 1976 North Carolina primary, Senator Jesse Helms was the most consistent thorn in the side of the Rhodes Administration from the right, and pushed a socially conservative agenda when it wasn't in vogue with the party.​

But, the real point of interest for the Republican Convention was the Vice Presidential selection. Going into the Convention, Paul Laxalt had fallen way short of being able to take the Vice Presidential nomination on his own, but had still managed to gain the endorsement of a little under a quarter of the delegates; no mean feat for an incumbent year. However, Laxalt had never intended to win outright, merely to cause enough of a ruckus to make Rhodes think that Godwin was more of a liability as Vice President than an asset.

And in that, he had succeeded.

Rhodes was quite possibly the most conflict-averse President in American history, and didn’t like the idea of aggravating the base by refusing Laxalt a mostly-symbolic position. Holding a meeting with his advisors, Voinovich, and some of his cabinet (namely Nixon, Dave Thomas, Claude Kirk Jr, and Alexander Haig), Rhodes discussed the possibility of ejecting Godwin for Laxalt on the ticket. Rhodes was still self-conscious of just how close the Republican Convention of 1976 had been, and despite his unanimous renomination, was still keen to appease the conservatives. Rhodes’ Chief of Staff, Tom Moyer, and his Senior Advisor, Earl Barnes, both preferred keeping Godwin on the ticket, citing policy differences and Rhodes position as the oldest President in American history. In the event of dying in office, Moyer and Barnes implied, it would be better to have Godwin in the Oval Office than Laxalt. However, the attending cabinet members and Voinovich thought it would be better to replace Godwin. Besides being unpopular with the base and not a prominent part of the Administration, Godwin was one of the older Vice Presidents in American history, at 66. By putting in Laxalt, eight years Godwin’s junior, it would give the Administration a face-lift going into a re-election campaign, while ejecting political dead weight at the same time.

Rhodes, highly confident in his own health, decided that he would switch to Laxalt. Meeting with Godwin, he explained the situation, asking him to voluntarily step down. Although ideally Rhodes would’ve liked Godwin to permanently retire from politics to give the impression that he wasn’t forced out of the Vice Presidency, he was willing to give Godwin a cabinet position in the event of re-election. Godwin, never close to the President or given much say in the Administration to begin with, conceded without a fuss. Before the Vice Presidential vote was to be held, Godwin gave an unscheduled speech, declaring his intention to retire from politics, declaring that the choice had been made by him and him alone without prompting by the President, but that both he and Rhodes both agreed that Paul Laxalt would make an excellent successor to the position.

Senator Paul Laxalt shares a laugh at the 1980 Republican Convention with his best friend, Ronald Reagan, after Rhodes confirmed in a private meeting that he would be the next Vice Presidential nominee.
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Having been given the okay, the majority of the delegates, who had stayed neutral or supported Godwin during the primary campaign, switched over to Laxalt. With a nominating speech by Reagan, a voice vote was held, with Laxalt quickly nominated without controversy. Although most doubted that Godwin had really voluntarily stepped down, it was clear that he was playing along, and since Laxalt was the more well-liked candidate to begin with, the switch went off without a hitch.

But, despite the switch, Rhodes had no more intention of giving Laxalt a prominent role in a second term than he had given Godwin in the first. Laxalt had publicly declared his support for Jobs For America, and that was good enough for him.

Leaving their first uncontested convention since 1960, with their first elected President since 1956, the Republican Party was confident of their chances, but not quite as much as Rhodes was confident of himself.


“Deficits are a yawner. We, as Republicans, have talked about deficits and balanced budgets since the days of Roosevelt, and the people simply haven’t listened, because they can’t relate to those huge numbers. What they can relate to is having a job.”

• Excerpt from Senator Paul Laxalt’s endorsement speech of Jobs For America

[1] ITTL, Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority was founded in 1973 in opposition to the passing of the Equal Rights Amendment and Roe v. Wade, rather than in 1979 as IOTL. TTL’s Moral Majority was discredited and quickly fizzled out. Without any organized umbrella group of the Christian Right, and with there having yet to be an overtly socially conservative Republican President, there is much less social conservative pressure on the GOP. Since, ITTL, neither party has yet to take a strong stance on abortion, it remains a non-partisan issue for the most part, with pro-life and pro-choice factions in both parties.

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“The media seems to think only abortion and gay marriage are religious issues. Poverty is a moral issue, it's a faith issue, it's a religious issue.”

• Chairman of the People’s Christian Coalition Jim Wallis, to the 1980 Democratic platform committee

Along with the Republican convention, the Democratic convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City was surprisingly calm. The recent death of Bobby Kennedy and the memorial film in his honour soothed tensions to an extent, in spite of the extra pressure on Udall to pick a good running mate after the surprise nomination of Paul Laxalt to the Republican Vice Presidential slot, and the factionalism that had gripped the party since 1972.

Going in to the convention, Udall had won enough of the primaries to win outright in the nominating process. In 1976, Udall had been stopped by a coalition of moderate Democrats who felt he was too closely associated with the McCarthy Administration, which was just concluding a highly unpopular second term. But, in 1980, without a unifying figure like Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson, and after the moderate wing had been temporarily discredited in Jackson’s landslide defeat, Udall had been able to keep his frontrunner status going for the four years since his narrow loss in ‘76 to secure the nomination without much difficulty. The greatest challenge had been from Jackson’s former running mate, the former Governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter. Besides continuing a moderate trend in policy, Carter ran as an outsider populist and evangelical, becoming the greatest beneficiary of growing evangelical sentiments in the South and amongst certain factions of the Democratic Party. However, Carter was unable to sweep the South due to the residual staying power of George Wallace, a smattering of favourite sons, and the Lloyd Bentsen candidacy. Bentsen had done best in the interior and the West in his campaign as a Guaranteed Employment Democrat, but was considered a one-trick pony by the electorate, and had little success elsewhere.

While Udall could carry the nomination with his own pool of delegates, the question did remain on the matter of who would withdraw and endorse him, with the hopes of joining Udall in the halls of power in the event of his election as President. Ultimately, there were only two takers: Sargent Shriver and Walter Fauntroy. Shriver had seemed poised to be Udall’s greatest challenger, but had quickly fallen behind, getting stuck as the second choice of liberal Democrats, a middle-tier choice for moderates, and near the bottom for conservatives. Shriver’s withdrawal and endorsement of Udall came at the chagrin of Henry Jackson and the Neoconservatives, who had supported Shriver during the primaries. Walter Fauntroy, for his part the favourite son for Washington D.C, and the chosen candidate of former President Eugene McCarthy, also withdrew as a show of solidarity. The odd man out in the Udall camp was Senator Dale Bumpers, the favourite son of Arkansas. Bumpers, a man who was about as liberal as a Senator could get in the South, had supported Udall in 1976 and McCarthy before him, but without the urgency of a contested convention, decided to abstain from the ballot instead, so as not to upset the people of Arkansas, who had voted for Carter in their state’s primary.

As expected, Udall won nomination on the first ballot, and began preparations for the platform and the vice presidential selection.

Despite a minority opinion from Bentsen supporters, the platform committee overwhelmingly decided to continue to support the welfare state as it was, rather than stripping it and replacing it with guaranteed employment. As an alternative to Jobs For America, a guaranteed minimum income plan was put forward instead, to be tested in certain communities before being implemented nationwide. Besides that, a proposal to revamp McCarthyCare into a full, single-payer healthcare system was put in place, and continued support for unions and civil rights were emphasized. However, as the platform continued to be assembled, tensions began to run high. Having refused to attend the 1976 convention, the presence of Eugene McCarthy was especially notable. In the intervening years since leaving office, McCarthy had declared himself a Christian Socialist, and had made several efforts to form a further left wing third party than the Democrats. Having failed, McCarthy had taken up common cause with Jim Wallis’ People’s Christian Coalition, the descendant organization of the defunct Evangelicals for McCarthy, to bring about change from within the Democratic Party. Working with the PCC, McCarthy stumped at the convention for the guaranteed minimum income proposal, as well as proposals for greater workplace democracy by enshrining the right to a union in a constitutional amendment, bringing the ‘Worker-Priest’ movement to the United States, tying wages to the growth rate of production (which would put the minimum wage well above even the living wage), re-orientating American foreign policy so that humanitarian aid would be its primary concern, and a ‘Consistent Life Policy’ to severely limit abortions and ban the death penalty. The PCC’s proposals to the platform committee created strange bedfellows amongst the various camps; although he rejected the economic proposals, Jimmy Carter worked with McCarthy to advocate for the social and foreign policy positions of the PCC, and while Udall was willing to entertain some of the economic proposals, he sided with prominent feminists, such as Senator Bella Abzug, against the PCC went it came to the more conservative positions on social issues.

Former President Eugene McCarthy at the 1980 Democratic Convention. By 1980, McCarthy was a staunch supporter of the People's Christian Coalition.
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Ultimately, most of the PCC’s proposals were taken “under consideration” but not added to the platform. However, they did influence the foreign policy plank to put much greater emphasis on humanitarian aid, and moved the party to the right on abortion, from being vaguely pro-choice, to not taking a position and leaving it to the states.

At the same time the platform had been sorted out, Udall selected a running mate. Going into the convention, Udall’s shortlist was mostly made up of fellow liberals who would be complimentary in some way, with Sargent Shriver being at the top of the list as a show of unity with Kennedy and Johnson-type Democrats. In a close second was Dale Bumpers, who would be another olive branch to the South similar to Jimmy Carter. In a distant third was Reubin Askew, the favourite son of Florida, who would be geographically complimentary to Udall, but was far too fiscally conservative for his taste. A more unorthodox choice was the junior Senator for Colorado, Gary Hart, who had gained some notoriety as the only Democratic gain in the Senate in the disastrous 1974 midterm elections.

However, the return of McCarthy with the PCC’s proposals in hand dramatically changed Udall’s considerations for his Vice Presidential nominee. Although McCarthy was in far less of a position to do damage to the ticket than he had been in his role as President in 1976, he had still managed to absolutely doom the Jackson/Carter ticket in what was already an uphill battle with his intentionally leaked “private” endorsement of the People’s Party. Considering 1980 was looking to be another uphill battle, with Rhodes having already been climbing back to polling similar to his pre-Oil Crisis numbers even before the usual post-convention bump. Udall decided to instead base his selection on a dark horse who could be equally acceptable (or at least inoffensive) to progressives, moderates, and the Christian left.

Eventually, Udall stumbled across the ideal candidate: A Senator who had been firmly opposed to the Vietnam War but was otherwise a moderate on foreign policy; someone who leaned left on the economy without being too far to be unpalatable to the moderates, and who also leaned progressive on ‘classic’ social issues such as civil rights and the Equal Rights Amendment, but who was opposed to abortion.

As expected, no one opposed the Vice Presidential selection, and the Democrats went forward, if not in unity, than with a common purpose for the election.

Yes, Tom Eagleton would be the perfect running mate.


“As a general proposition, campaigns do not linger on the vice presidential nominee. When they have, it’s always meant very bad news for the ticket…”

• Television journalist Jeff Greenfield on running mates
  

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

• Speaker of the House and Democratic nominee Mo Udall on Vice Presidential nominee Tom Eagleton

At the beginning of 1980, it seemed like things were shaping up to be a Democratic year. The Iranian Revolution and OAPEC’s oil embargo shifted the Middle East further out of the United States’ geopolitical sphere under the Republicans’ watch, and the ensuing Oil Crisis spiked domestic fuel prices and incited a market instability that finally killed the Bretton Woods System. In another large field, Democrats jockeyed to be the nominee to oppose President Jim Rhodes, with Speaker of the House Mo Udall leading the pack, and eventually winning the nomination. Unfortunately for the Democrats, however, the political scene had changed dramatically from the start of the year to the conclusions of both parties’ primaries by mid-August. Rhodes’ heavy energy subsidies and deregulation of the fossil fuel industry had been seemingly vindicated. The surplus petroleum purchased by the US government in the 1979 domestic oil glut had mitigated the worst of the Oil Crisis, and a Strategic Petroleum Reserve was formalized shortly thereafter [1]. Likewise, Rhodes had been able to handle the end of the Bretton Woods System by switching the US from a partial gold standard to a floating currency exchange, and had bandaged both crises by ramming through additional pork barrel legislation paid for by federal bonds.

Coming out of the Democratic Convention, the election would be difficult but not impossible for the Udall ticket.

Matters were made worse by the Eagleton dilemma.

Chosen as a seemingly ideal compromise candidate between the disparate Neoconservative, Liberal-New Left, and Evangelical Left factions of the Democratic Party, Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri had quickly and enthusiastically passed through the vetting and nominating process. What came as a revelation was that Eagleton had been diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder in the past, and had previously used electroshock therapy to improve his mental well-being. A media circus quickly developed around the subject, with Udall having to fend off questions of his judgement selecting a running mate who could hypothetically be a mentally unstable President. Udall decided that the best course of action was to stand fast and show commitment; under the consideration that a clear majority of voters polled stated that Eagleton’s past treatments wouldn’t affect their vote, Udall concluded it would be more damaging to replace him than not to [2]. Udall was also able to benefit from media coverage focused on Paul Laxalt, the new Republican Vice Presidential nominee. Laxalt was a historic first in that he had actively run for Vice President through what existed of the Vice Presidential primary system. He was also the first new Republican Vice Presidential nominee in an incumbent election year since 1872 (most recently on the Democratic side, McCarthy had replaced John Connally with Edmund Muskie in 1972).

Vice Presidential nominee Tom Eagleton, seen here campaigning with former Senator George McGovern, was kept on Mo Udall's Democratic ticket, despite revelations that he had been treated for clinical depression in the past.
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As for the campaign itself, it quickly developed into a referendum on guaranteed employment. Rhodes campaigned almost entirely on Jobs For America and his guaranteed employment proposals, and promised to stimulate the economy through continued public works projects and investments into the energy sector. As usual, Rhodes avoided specifics, but promised that he would be able to create a budget surplus in his second term by replacing the majority of social security spending and replacing it with the ostensibly much cheaper Jobs For America. Rhodes also called for small business grants to be issued in tandem with Jobs For America, to encourage the newly-employed to eventually start their own enterprises, and move from ‘public employment’ to ‘private employment.’ Taking his foreign policy cues word-for-word from Secretary of State Nixon’s memos and suggestions, Rhodes promised that the situation in the Middle East would soon be back in control through economic sanctions on the Islamic Socialist Republic of Iran, and through greater cooperation with regional US allies, such as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. At Nixon’s suggestion, Rhodes also touted the opening of relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and the new policy of triangular diplomacy.

Meanwhile Udall positioned himself as the protector of the working class and preserver of the post-Second World War economic consensus. Udall denounced Jobs For America as a half-baked scheme that would gut protections to America’s most vulnerable citizens without clearly laying out what the guaranteed jobs would entail, if their pay would be sufficient to support a family, and if the wages of Jobs For America would be able to keep up with the new phenomenon of stagflation. Accusing Rhodes of economic mismanagement and being the cause of stagflation, Udall promised to end stagflation by returning to the type of pre-Rhodes fiscal policy of the likes of that of McCarthy, Johnson, and Kennedy. Along with pointed attacks on Jobs For America, Udall also prominently displayed the detailed Democratic platform, and contrasted it with the Rhodesesquely vague platform of the Republicans, most noticeably campaigning on the implementation of single-payer healthcare. Ironically playing off of a fear of change while challenging an incumbent, Udall was making serious gains in the polls, and was further helped by what would come to be called the “Ohio Rant.”

While campaigning in his home state of Ohio in late September, Rhodes went off script in a speech that began as praise for Ohio, going into long detail on why Ohio’s tourist attractions were the best, and insulting Kentuckians with the implication that they were undesirables taking up room in south Ohio ski lodges. Rhodes also threw shade at the Teton mountain range of Wyoming and Idaho, and Yellowstone National Park in his address [3]. The Ohio Rant tanked Rhodes in the polls in Kentucky and caused a noticeable drop in the interior Western states, as well as a milder dip nationwide. The Rhodes campaign scrambled to recover from the gaffe, and did their best at damage control, with Rhodes delivering a formal apology that most considered insincere.

In an unscripted, off-the-cuff tangent in Toledo, Ohio, Jim Rhodes embarrassed himself with the infamous Ohio Rant. While well-received in Ohio, it hurt Rhodes nationwide, especially in Kentucky and Wyoming.
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Moving in to October, Rhodes attempted to move past the Ohio Rant and undermine the traditionally Democratic union vote. Rhodes declared himself the best President the unions have ever had, with his brand of liberal corporatism and federal cooperation with industry leaders leading to an all-time low in labour disputes. Udall countered that correlation did not mean causation, and that the reason labour disputes had dropped was because most unions were unwilling to contest contracts with the federal government openly backing the employers. Despite Udall’s critiques, Rhodes saw success in the polls when it came to winning over union members. The union leadership, with the exception of Walter Reuther, had never forgiven Udall for his anti-union voting in the past. Many union members, who had largely shifted into the Neoconservative camp of the Democratic Party, were drawn to Rhodes’ style of maverick, work-based politics.

October also saw a Vice Presidential debate between Paul Laxalt and Tom Eagleton. Rhodes continued to refuse to debate, but was willing to put Laxalt forward to take advantage of his new face. The debate was generally considered a mud-throwing contest, with Laxalt trying to tie Eagleton to the disastrous second term of the McCarthy Administration (Eagleton was first elected to the Senate as a McCarthy supporter in 1968), while Eagleton tried to tie Laxalt to the extreme radical conservatism of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. On the issues, both candidates towed their party lines: Laxalt supported Jobs For America and stood by Rhodes (de facto Nixon’s) foreign policy, while Eagleton stood by the existing welfare state and denounced Rhodes’ foreign policy as inept and inattentive. On social issues, both candidates were in agreement on conservative positions; Laxalt and Eagleton were both skeptics of busing desegregation, and they were both pro-life, despite the fact that both of the Presidential candidates were quietly in favour of busing and were pro-choice.

Despite the busy October, the Ohio Rant continued to haunt Rhodes, with Udall bringing it up as much as possible on the campaign trail in the West and the Midwest. Nixon, offering advice to Rhodes, insisted that he couldn’t follow his usual strategy of ignoring the other candidate and campaigning on a rose garden strategy. With less than a month to the election, Rhodes gave Nixon his blessing to use his team of White House Gardeners - so-called because they were digging up dirt for the rose garden - to smear Udall [4]. Lead by Nixon’s State Department opposition researcher, Pat Buchanan, the Gardeners leaked to the press that Udall had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Overnight, Udall’s slowly declining health became the centre of media attention, which compounded with the by-then nearly forgotten scandal of Eagleton’s depression.

Despite not having any public accidents on the campaign trail and being well in control of his faculties, Mo Udall's diagnosis with Parkinson's Disease became the main issue in the final days of the campaign, in an unwelcome October Surprise for the Democrats.
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Forced on to the defensive for the last week of October, Udall vainly tried to tie his Parkinson’s to his support for single-payer healthcare, but voters, perhaps irrationally or perhaps not, became scared of the possibility of a physically disabled President being incapacitated in a crisis, only to be replaced by one with clinical depression.

With the October Surprise of Parkinson’s slumping Udall in the polls, it seemed the Rhodes had finally seized the initiative by election night, in one of the most unique elections in American history.


“I was the only governor in the history of the state of Ohio that has visited every museum, every cultural center, every state fair and everything we have, attractions in the state of Ohio, including the Giant and the Monster. I’m the only governor that has visited every ski lodge and every ski, and snowmobiles. I visit every place in the state of Ohio where there’s action. What we have in the way of parks and recreation and lodges: when you go to any other state, or the surrounding states or the Tetons, or any of the national lodges or anything like that - they’re all tool sheds! We’re the only place that they have an indoor swimming pool outdoors. We have more activity in some of our lodges than they have in Yellowstone National Park. We have the finest lodges in America. We have more recreation per square mile than any other state. So what we get is an abundance of people. Our trouble is, in the southern part of the state, people from Kentucky coming into our lodges, they like to see how a good one look likes.”

• President Jim Rhodes’ infamous Ohio Rant

[1] IOTL, the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve was formed in 1975, after the first oil shock of 1973-1974, brought about by an OAPEC embargo against countries supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. ITTL, there was no Yom Kippur War, so the 1979 oil shock was the first of its kind, but stacked with the Iranian Revolution. Although the petroleum reserve was founded four years later, it wasn’t necessary sooner, and Rhodes’ policies have also worked to mitigate the crisis.

[2] IOTL, Tom Eagleton was the nominated running mate of George McGovern in the 1972 Presidential Election. Eagleton was asked by McGovern to step down, and was replaced on the ticket by Sargent Shriver.

[3] This is something that actually happened while Rhodes was Governor of Ohio in the 1980s. Naturally, there’s much more fallout to it on a national level. The whole quote at the end of the chapter is taken word for word, with the exception of putting his governorship in the past tense.

[4] This is play on Nixon’s infamous White House Plumbers, who got the name because their job was to stop information leaks.

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“Live from CBS headquarters in New York, we bring you the 1980 election coverage, with Walter Cronkite...”

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“Good evening. Today is Tuesday, November fourth, 1980. We’ll be bringing you live election coverage tonight with our team of correspondents, pollsters, and commentators. In tonight’s election, we’ll see if Jim Rhodes will win re-election, or if Mo Udall we be going to the White House. Our polling in key states indicate a Rhodes lead, but national popular vote polling indicates a much closer race.

For example, we already have some results coming in. Rhodes can already be declared the winner in Florida tonight, but the votes are still being counted in Indiana. Indiana is typically one of the first states to be called, but it is quite a bit closer than usual in that state this year. It is usually a solid Republican state, but certain comments made by President Rhodes on the campaign trail have pushed many states bordering the President’s home state of Ohio in to more of a swing candidate. We can also project that Jim Rhodes will be winning in Mississippi, as he did four years ago. So far, with only some of the eastern precincts reporting in, Rhodes has a lead in the popular vote. It has become increasingly clear that it is a modern myth that the South will go Democratic for every election. Since 1968, the South has gone either entirely for the Republican Party or the American Independent Party. It was more competitive between the Democrats and the Republicans in earlier elections, such as 1964 and 1960.

Speaking of, we have more results coming in from the South. We can confirm that Rhodes has won in Alabama and Virginia. These are states that Rhodes won last election, so there has yet to be any out-of-the-ordinary gains or losses for Rhodes. Likewise, we can project that Rhodes will win in Georgia. Unsurprisingly we can also call Ohio for Rhodes. Rhodes was elected Governor of Ohio more than any other man in that state’s history, so it comes as no surprise that he has won his home state.

With more results coming in, Rhodes has the lead in Indiana, while Udall is in the lead in the state of Kentucky. Both states, as of yet, do not have enough votes in to call. In opinion polling, the top through issues for Americans were inflation, unemployment, and the projection of American strength abroad. Rhodes has promised to resolve the first two of these issues with Jobs For America, a proposed federal guaranteed employment program. Udall claims that the Oil Crisis is the cause of governmental malpractice on the part of Rhodes, and instead promises to renew the welfare state. In many ways, this election is a referendum on Jobs For America.

We’ll be back soon with more election coverage.

As more election results come in from the Midwest, it seems that President Rhodes has quite the early lead. We have a string of results coming in now, mostly from the Midwest, which we will report to you. Rhodes is leading in the state of Connecticut on the East Coast. Jim Rhodes has also won in the state of New Jersey. Going westward, Rhodes is leading in Pennsylvania. Despite an early delay, Jim Rhodes is also the winner in Indiana. Rhodes currently has a lead in Illinois, but this may change, as the largely Republican southern part of the state has reported in, but we are still waiting on some results further north in the state, such as Chicago, which typically tends to vote for the Democratic nominee. Mo Udall, for his part, is leading in Michigan.

As was expected, Rhodes has won several states further west. The state of North Dakota has gone for Rhodes, as has South Dakota. Going further south from there, Rhodes has also taken Kansas. The President continues to sweep the states that he easily won last election, such as Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.

Despite these early results in favour of Rhodes and the Republican Party in the presidential race, results are significantly more mixed for the elections for Senate. There seems to be a strong sense of incumbency in this election, with no seats changing hands so far. In some gubernatorial results, we can project that Jay Rockefeller, the Democrat, has won re-election as Governor of West Virginia over the Republican challenger, Arch A. Moore Jr.

We have the first results coming in for Mo Udall. Udall has won the District of Columbia. For now, this leaves him with only three electoral votes at this time to Rhodes’ one hundred and eighty-two. In the popular vote, Rhodes’ margin in the popular vote has declined somewhat, with Udall gaining, but he retains a solid lead. On top of this, we have more results coming in for Rhodes. In the South, Rhodes has won in South Carolina. In the battleground region of New England, Rhodes has won in Vermont and New Hampshire. Vermont typically goes Republican, but New Hampshire has been known to go for the Democrats in certain years, most recently in 1968. At this rate, it is not impossible for Mo Udall to win the election, but it the path to victory is increasingly precarious. Udall has to win the rest of the Midwest that’s up for grabs, the West Coast, as well as a few swing states that don’t typically go for the Democrats. Indiana was considered one of those unusual swing states for the Democrats, but that has gone for Rhodes. Other possible states that could uniquely go for Udall are his home state of Arizona, Kentucky, and perhaps Wyoming and Idaho. Those states almost always go Republican. For example, the last time Kentucky went for the Democrats was 1952, but these are the states that felt particularly insulted by President Rhodes’ speech in Toledo, Ohio. A speech where he made disparaging remarks on Ohio’s neighbouring states, as well as some of the landmarks of the west. He has since apologized for his remarks.

We’re getting more results as other states come in, for both the presidential election, as well as for the gubernatorial races and for Congress, but for now, we will have a quick break.”

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“Oh, I think Jimmy Carter. He understood the importance of not going too far left, which the American people have become sick of with the likes of Gene McCarthy and Mo Udall. Carter really was their best choice. If the Democratic Party hadn’t shifted so far to the left, and if I was still a Democrat, I probably would have voted for Carter.”

• Ronald Reagan on Election Night 1980, on being asked who the toughest challenger for President Rhodes would have been out of the entire Democratic field.

"We’re back with more election coverage. Much has been made of the idea of reputation in this election season. In the first half of his term, Rhodes was considered to be something of an Eisenhower type figure. A kind of amiable Republican who is conservative but not in a radical sense. In the second half of his term, President Rhodes seemed to redefine himself through his unique style of legislative policy. Both detractors and supporters have described him as a ‘New Deal Republican,’ who has been particularly interested in employment plans and national economic renewal in the face of new crises, such as the Oil Crisis brought about by the Iranian Revolution and the embargo put in place on the United States by many Arab countries. President Rhodes promised to go even further, campaigning this election almost exclusively on a platform of guaranteed federal employment for all Americans willing to work, as well as doing more outreach to union members than any other Republican presidential candidate in memory. The amiable conservative is now being described by some as a radical centrist.

As for Speaker of the House Mo Udall, he is something of a known quantity in Washington. A well-known, well-respected figure, his voting record would seem to indicate that he is one of the most prominent liberals in the House of Representatives, but his reputation, especially in his home state of Arizona, is that of someone who is reasonably moderate. Despite having labor-moderate voting record, it is significantly further right than is typical for a liberal Democrat. On the other hand, while he has publicly voiced concerns over forced busing in his home state of Arizona, his voting record in Washington on desegregation and desegregated busing is one of the most liberal there is. Simply put, Udall has had trouble reconciling what people on both the political right and left think about him in to a single presidential campaign. This along with health concerns that arose late in to the campaign, have prompted some pollsters to predict a ‘ticket flight’ of Democrats who are willing to vote for this seemingly more centrist and engaged Rhodes, before presumably returning to voting for whoever the Democratic nominee may be four years from now.

Let’s look at some results. Rhodes has kept a lead in the popular vote all night. Udall closed the gap somewhat earlier on, but Rhodes is pulling ahead again. Despite this, Udall is doing well in the Upper South, or alternatively, the lower Midwest. Udall is leading in the typically Democratic states of West Virginia and Maryland, but is also leading in typically Republican Kentucky. However, Rhodes continues to sweep the South. We can now project that Rhodes has won in the state of North Carolina. An update: we can confirm that Speaker Udall has won West Virginia. This is his first state to be won tonight. However, we have more results in favor of President Rhodes. In the state of Wisconsin, they’ve gone for Rhodes. As well as in Nebraska. There, they’ve also gone for Rhodes. We project Rhodes the winner in Wyoming. Back on the East Coast, Rhodes has been declared the winner in Connecticut. But, some goods news for Udall, he has won his home state of Arizona.

We have big news coming up. Judging from votes coming in from key precincts, we can project that Rhodes has won in the key state of Pennsylvania. We can also project that Rhodes has won in Michigan. This is the second time that Pennsylvania and Michigan has voted for Rhodes, and this is yet another example set by Rhodes of winning states that haven’t voted Republican since the Eisenhower years.

With these states coming in, and looking at the figures, we can confirm the results for the presidency. CBS News projects that President James Allen Rhodes has won re-election to the presidency. Rhodes, at age seventy-one, remains the oldest President in American history. Despite this, he has had no health problems, unlike former President Eisenhower. Eisenhower, while younger than Rhodes when President, suffered from a near-fatal heart attack in his first term. Rhodes, despite missing a lung from an operation in his youth, is reportedly one of the most physically active Presidents. He is joined in office by the maverick Vice Presidential-elect, Paul Laxalt. Laxalt, age fifty-eight, is the first Vice Presidential nominee in American history to run a Vice Presidential campaign and in New Hampshire’s Vice Presidential primary at the same time as the presidential primaries.

We will continue to keep results as they come, in both the presidential race, as well as for Congress and the gubernatorial elections as the night goes on, but we project that Jim Rhodes has been re-elected President of the United States of America."

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“Of course Udall lost. It wasn’t his fault; it’s all part of the moral degradation of America. That’s why I supported Walter Fauntroy. He isn’t afraid to talk about the moral failings of America and how we can address them. America has become an immoral nation, especially in foreign policy, ever since I left office and they put Richard Nixon in charge of it.”

• Former President Eugene McCarthy on the Election of 1980

“We’re back with more election coverage. We have projected that President Jim Rhodes has been re-elected, but there is still a question of by exactly what margin, as well as the results to come in the Congressional election. Rhodes has actually increased his margin of victory in the typically Democratic Midwestern states, such as Pennsylvania, as well as the more swing Midwestern states, such as Michigan, by taking a sizable portion of the independent and union vote. In fact, Rhodes has won a higher percentage of the union vote than any Republican in modern American history, although Udall is still projected to win a majority of it. This may have to do with the fact of Udall’s anti-union voting record for a Democrat in the House of Representatives, as well as Rhodes’ outreach work to unions. Rhodes’ appeal among certain blue collar voters has been likened to that of the George Wallace campaign’s success with so-called white enclaves in the Midwest in his 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns as the candidate of the American Independent Party. Speaking of this, we have more results coming in, and we can project that Rhodes is the winner in Illinois. Another typically Democratic state that Rhodes won last election.

According to polling, the biggest issue according to voters inflation. Around half of polled voters believe that it is possible for the President to control inflation. It seems that voters are satisfied enough with President Rhodes’ handling of inflation. His latest round of price controls and wage hikes that were put in place remain popular in polling, but economists warn of a possible economic downturn once those controls are eventually removed. Some economists have also warned that while President Rhodes has effectively kept up with inflation, the new phenomenon and effects of ‘stagflation,’ that is, rising inflation without the rising economic growth that tends to come with it, have yet to really be felt by the average American.

The President is expected to give an address soon. Mo Udall has yet to give a concession speech, but it is clear at the Democratic camp in Udall’s home town of St. Johns, Arizona, that they have been defeated.

Like four years before, Rhodes has swept the interior West, but this time with the exception of Arizona. In his running mate’s home state of Nevada, Rhodes has won. In Montana and Idaho, Rhodes has also won. Likewise, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico are all in the Rhodes column. That being said, in one of the most consistently Democratic states of Minnesota, Udall has won. Also, uniquely, a solid Republican state has voted Democratic in this election year that is otherwise a Republican landslide on the presidential level. Mo Udall is projected as the winner in the state of Kentucky. Udall has also won in Rhode Island, despite humours comments by President Rhodes that the state of Rhode Island would be guaranteed for him due to name recognition. Udall is also the projected winner in Massachusetts.

Udall holds a lead in Maryland, but it’s a dead heat between Rhodes and Udall in the state of New York. The West Coast states have yet to come in, but judging by the margin of this landslide election, and Rhodes’ previous success with the West Coast states four years ago, it seems likely he’ll win there. We can also project that Jim Rhodes has won in Iowa.

At this moment, it is clear that Rhodes has won, but what is still a question is if Rhodes will do better or worse than his 1976 landslide. A few of the remaining states that are still contested, such as Washington, Hawaii, and New York, went for Henry Jackson last election. If Udall wins those states, he’ll have outperformed Jackson, as Udall has already won Arizona and Kentucky, states that Jackson lost last election. We have a new projection coming in, that Rhodes has won in California.

President Rhodes now has over four hundred votes in the electoral college. Although most states have reported in, not all of the results are in yet, and the Congressional results are much closer in outcome than the lopsided results in the presidential race. Most incumbents have held their seats in the Senate, while there has been more give in take in the House. It remains to be seen if the Democrats will keep their relatively narrow majority in the House. If the Republicans take control, then not only will Mo Udall be losing the presidency, but his position as Speaker of the House as well.

We have some more results coming in. We can project that Udall has won Maryland. However, on the West Coast, we can project Washington for Rhodes. Washington was one of the few states not to vote for Jim Rhodes in 1976, but it has gone for him this time. We can also project the last big one, that Jim Rhodes has won the state of New York. Again, one of the states that did not go for him in 1976. Rhodes has also won in Oregon. Looking at the electoral college, and how the popular vote is shaping up to be, this is one of the largest landslides in American history. We won’t have the precise results until tomorrow, but this is quite the mandate for President Rhodes, and his Jobs For America program."

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“Good evening. Last night, Jim Rhodes was re-elected President over the Democratic nominee, Speaker of the House Mo Udall. Vice President Mills Godwin will be stepping down, and Vice President-elect Paul Laxalt will be sworn in alongside the President at the inauguration on January 20th, 1981.

The states that put Rhodes over the top, fairly early into the evening, were the states of Pennsylvania and Michigan. Pennsylvania was also the state that put Rhodes over the top in 1976. As more results came in throughout the night, Rhodes swept the South and most of the West and Midwest. The last results to come in were from Hawaii and Alaska. Hawaii went for Udall, while Alaska went for Rhodes.

Rhodes’ margin in the popular vote came from independents, union members, who usually vote Democratic, and did somewhat better than typical for a Republican in the African American community. Rhodes also held popularity with usual Republican voting groups. In the popular vote, the results were the largest in favour of the Republicans in history, narrowly surpassing the 1920 Republican landslide of Warren G. Harding. It is the third largest popular vote landslide overall, behind Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt. Rhodes’ re-election is also tied for third for the largest win in the Electoral College. There, he is surpassed by Roosevelt’s 1936 re-election and Johnson’s 1964 election, and is tied with Roosevelt’s 1932 election.

We have the full presidential results here…”

Spoiler: 1980 Presidential Election Results

Voter Turnout: 52.1% (Down 4.2%)

Republican - Jim Rhodes/Paul Laxalt - EV 472 - 60.5%
Democratic - Mo Udall/Tom Eagleton - EV 66 - 39.2%

Spoiler: 1980 Presidential Election OTL Results

Voter Turnout: 52.6% (Down 0.9%)

Republican - Ronald Reagan/George Bush - EV 489 - 50.7%
Democratic - Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale - EV 49 - 41.0%
Independent - John Anderson/Patrick Lucey - EV 0 - 6.6%

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

The Rhodes Cabinet and Staff
​

President James A. Rhodes (OH, Moderate Republican, Realpolitik)
Re-elected in a landslide, Rhodes has moved away from the moderate conservatism of his governorship and first term into an agenda of guaranteed employment, with his self-styled Jobs For America program. Having stalled on his cuts to the Johnson and McCarthy-era social spending programs during his first term, it remains to be seen exactly how much of the Great(er) Society Rhodes will dismantle if he can implement Jobs For America.

Vice President Paul Laxalt (NV, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
In a spectacular upset, Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt rose to the Vice Presidency to replace Mills Godwin. A previous supporter of the presidential runs of Ronald Reagan, and Barry Goldwater before him, Laxalt is a fiscal conservative who believes in strong opposition to the Soviet Union. However, Laxalt has fully embraced guaranteed employment as part of becoming Vice President, more so than most other conservative Republicans.

Secretary of State Richard Nixon (CA, Moderate Republican, Realpolitik)
With Rhodes' complete disinterest in foreign policy, Nixon has slipped the leash of presidential oversight to take control of America's international affairs. Having rebuilt and rearmed the world's anti-Communist dictatorships after eight years of McCarthy's attempted democratization initiatives, American power projection has grown exponentially, but at the cost of thousands of cases of human rights abuses. Nixon's greatest success has been opening relations with the People's Republic of China, while his greatest challenge will be his planned invasion and toppling of Iran's Islamic Socialist government through his proxies in the Iraqi and Afghan governments.

Secretary of Treasury Claude R. Kirk Jr. (FL, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
Previously serving as Secretary of Commerce, Kirk has been moved up to the Treasury Department to replace the late Nelson Rockefeller. Kirk has been one of the greatest beneficiaries of Rhodes' largess towards his friends, and has been directly involved in trying to implement some of Rhodes' more outlandish projects, such as the Ohio-Ontario Great Lake Bridge.

Secretary of Defense Alexander Haig (PA, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
Haig has seen a meteoric rise since the election of Jim Rhodes, from relatively unknown general, to US Army Chief of Staff, to Secretary of Defense. Replacing Barry Goldwater, Haig is much more deferential to Nixon on foreign policy matters, and has also adopted most of Rhodes' domestic policies, namely guaranteed employment. Haig's appointment indicates a greater accumulation of power around Rhodes and Nixon loyalists in the White House.

Attorney General Bill Saxbe (OH, Moderate Republican, Dove-Leaning)
One of the least attention-grabbing figures of Rhodes' cabinet, Bill Saxbe has served quietly, efficiently, and loyally as Attorney General. Saxbe has been charged with clearing any possible legal challenges towards Jobs For America, as well as implementing Rhodes' War on Drugs. A staunch supporter of trust-busting, Saxbe has taken to the War with gusto to crack down on pharmaceutical giants, but has raised concerns on the disproportionate arrests and incarcerations the War has had on low-income and African American households on the street level.

Secretary of the Interior Don Samuelson (ID, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
A move further towards land development, former Governor of Idaho Don Samuelson succeeded the compromise pick of Clifford Hansen as the Secretary of the Interior. Samuelson was most well known as Governor of Idaho for losing re-election due to his support of widespread molybdenum mining in the state. With Rhodes' fossil fuel policies letting America get through the Oil Crisis relatively unscathed, Samuelson represents Rhodes' intention to ignore the environmentalism movement even more than he already has been.

Secretary of Agriculture William R. Poage (TX, Conservative Democrat, Hawk)
Poage continues to serve as the Secretary of Agriculture as Rhodes' reminder to the Democrats that he'll promote their conservatives if given the opportunity. Poage has worked with the the President and the Department of the Interior for Rhodes' internal resource development programs. While Poage has continued the Ever-Normal Granary agricultural policy in place since the 1930s, he has also pressed for the establishment of large acreage factory farms.

Secretary of Commerce Dave Thomas (OH, Conservative Independent, Realpolitik)
The founder of the Wendy's fast food burger chain was appointed by his friend Jim Rhodes to serve on the National Economic Council. After the death of Treasury Secretary Nelson Rockefeller, the former Commerce Secretary, Claude R. Kirk Jr, was moved in to Rockefeller's position. In turn, Thomas was moved up from the National Economic Council to the position of Secretary of Commerce. Although willing to work with the President, Thomas is becoming nervous of the slow decline of Wendy's in his absence as its business leader.

Secretary of Labor Jacob Javits (NY, Rockefeller Republican, Dove)
One of the last of the liberal Republicans still active in politics, Jacob Javits continues to serve as Secretary of Labor, despite his declining health. Javits' diagnosis with ALS has begun to limit his potential, but remains in place, for the most part, due to his support for Jobs For America, albeit from a more left wing point of view than is typical for a Republican.

Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Robert H. Michel (IL, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
Rhodes' chief hatchet man when it comes to government spending, Michel is considered the most unpopular member of Rhodes' cabinet, and that's just how Rhodes likes it. Acting as a lightning rod for much of the bad publicity that comes with cutting social security, Michel has been kept on as the man America loves to hate, and to distract from the fact that Rhodes was ultimately responsible for the cuts.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Charles H. Percy (IL, Rockefeller Republican, Dove-Leaning)
Although Charles H. Percy has served admirably as Secretary of Housing, his informal agreement with Rhodes to be involved in foreign policy decision-making has largely been forgotten. Although Rhodes still forces Nixon to listen to Percy's advice, Rhodes doesn't stick around long enough to see that any of Percy's suggestions are actually implemented.

Secretary of Transportation Ray Lee Hunt (TX, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
Working with Agriculture and the Interior to implement Rhodes' vision of industrial development and energy independence, Ray Lee Hunt, the heir to Hunt Oil, remains as Rhodes' most direct link to the fossil fuel industry. Where Rhodes and Hunt disagree is Rhodes' tolerance of government regulations and powerful unions in the transportation industry, most notably the Teamsters.

Secretary of Employment Hyman Minsky (MO, Moderate Independent, Realpolitik)
President Rhodes' chief economic adviser has been appointed to head the new cabinet position of Secretary of Employment. The original inspiration for Rhodes' ideas of guaranteed employment, Minsky has now been tasked with practically implementing the idea in anticipation of the passage of the Jobs For America Act. After the program is established, Minsky is expected to determine exactly what sort of work will be made available, and for what wages. Rhodes' longtime financial advisor Richard Krabach has been appointed as Deputy Secretary of Employment.

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​

Supreme Allied Commander Europe Bernard W. Rogers (KS, Moderate Independent, Hawk)
Bernard Rogers continues to serve as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe. While popular with American troops abroad, Rogers has had difficulty with readjusting America's European allies, who had grown comfortable with the loose hand the McCarthy Administration had taken with European defence.

Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations Mark Felt (DC, Conservative Independent, Hawk)
The Assistant Director and replacement of McCarthy appointee Hale Boggs, Mark Felt has fully taken advantage of Rhodes' rollback of investigations into the conduct of America's security agencies. While commended by some as an honest American patriot, Felt's critics claim that he's used Rhodes' rollbacks to cover up civil liberty violations.

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​

First Lady Helen Rhodes
Helen Rhodes was never comfortable in the spotlight. She rarely appeared on the campaign trails of Ohio with her husband, and remains entirely disinterested in politics despite being First Lady. Although an excellent host of events at the White House, Helen has remained at arms-length from the Washington social scene.

White House Chief of Staff Tom Moyer (OH, Moderate Republican, Realpolitik)
Moyer had barely served a year as Rhodes' Chief of Staff before the Ohio Governor was elected President, but has since come into his own in the position. Moyer's efforts to keep an organized office have largely been foiled by Rhodes' disregard for keeping a strict schedule, but he has otherwise worked effectively.

White House Senior Advisor Earl Barnes (OH, Moderate Republican, Realpolitik)
Barnes, having served on Rhodes staff for over a decade, remains the President's closest advisor, although often Rhodes simply bounces ideas off of him. Earl Barnes continues to work with Roy Martin, the head of Rhodes' patronage machine, who is working at a much higher level than Ohio state politics.

White House Deputy Advisor Robert Hughes (OH, Moderate Republican, Realpolitik)
The former Chairman of the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Hughes continues to serve as one of Rhodes' advisors.

White House Deputy Advisor Fred Neuenschwander (OH, Moderate Republican, Realpolitik)
Fred Neuenschwander, the former Ohio Development Director, informally operates as the handler for Rhodes' various eccentric projects, working most closely with Secretary of Treasury Claude R. Kirk Jr.

White House Press Secretary James Duerk (OH, Moderate Republican, Realpolitik)
Working for Rhodes since their Ohio days, Duerk continues to serve as Rhodes' Press Secretary.

White House Chief Speechwriter Rollin Jauchius (OH, Moderate Republican, Realpolitik)
The former journalist for the Columbus Evening Dispatch continues to serve as Rhodes' Chief Speechwriter, when Rhodes isn't going off script with such debacles as the Ohio Rant.

Director of the National Economic Council William Scranton (PA, Rockefeller Republican, Hawk)
The former Governor of Pennsylvania has continued on as Director of the National Economic Council from Rhodes' first term. Although Dave Thomas has been moved up to the Commerce Department, Scranton continues to work with Rhodes' Ohio business partners, Don Hilliker and Ralph Stolle.

National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger (NY, Rockefeller Republican, Realpolitik)
Working closely with Richard Nixon, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger effectively marginalized Barry Goldwater and Charles Percy from foreign policy decision-making. Remaining Nixon's close partner in foreign policy matters, he is now working with the much more co-operative Alexander Haig in the Defence Department.

Chairman of the Young Republican National Federation Bill Willis (OH, Moderate Republican, Realpolitik)
Rhodes' youth organizer from Ohio continues to serve as Chairman of the Young Republicans.

Director of the Environmental Conservation Agency James G. Watt (WY, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
Rhodes has refused to back down on the matter of the highly controversial James G. Watt, keeping him for four rocky years as the head of the ECA. Watt is almost universally despised by his own agency, having effectively gutted its effectiveness to make way for Rhodes environmentally catastrophic resource development programs.

United States Ambassador to the United Nations Walter J. Stoessel Jr. (KS, Moderate Independent, Realpolitik)
The former Ambassador to West Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union, as well as the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Stoessel has been appointed due to his role in opening relations with the People's Republic of China, and will continue to work with China as they take the UN seat of the Republic of China.

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“...and I swear to you that by the time this year is out, my administration will have passed the Jobs For America Act, and get America working again!”

• Excerpt from the second inaugural address of Jim Rhodes

With a second landslide victory even bigger than his first, Jim Rhodes rode high into his second inauguration. Optimistically promising the passage of the Jobs For America Act within the year, and implementation within two, Rhodes declared that Jobs For America would end stagflation, and allow him to do away with his frequent use of price controls. As it was, Rhodes had held stagflation at bay throughout the election season by making frequent use of price controls, post-Bretton Woods currency manipulation, and meeting with business and union leaders to encourage them to negotiate keeping wages up.

Although Rhodes had portrayed the election as a referendum on Jobs For America, the Republican Party saw much less success than their presidential candidate. Mo Udall had failed to win the presidency, but he was still returning to Washington as Speaker of the House, with an increased majority. In the Senate, Republicans barely held on to their already narrow majority. The Republicans had had a similar lack of luck with the Supreme Court; throughout Rhodes’ first term, there had not been a single vacancy on the court. After Chief Justice Earl Warren stepped down in 1968, he had been replaced by McCarthy ally William O. Douglas, and while Douglas had been forced to step down in 1975 after a stroke, he had been replaced by the moderate McCarthy appointee Justice Cyrus Vance. Shirley Hufstedler had been appointed to Vance’s seat, leaving the court with three moderates (Vance, Potter Stewart, and Byron White), five liberals (Hufstedler, Arthur Goldberg, William Brennan, J. Skelly Wright, and Thurgood Marshall), and one conservative (James P. Coleman). McCarthy’s extreme judicial activism of a total of eight Supreme Court appointments over his two terms had locked out any idea of a conservative court for decades. Fortunately for Rhodes, it seemed as if there would be no serious legal challenges to Jobs For America, and his Attorney General, Bill Saxbe, had smoothed over smaller concerns of the program’s legality.

Appointed by President McCarthy in 1975, Shirley Hufstedler was the first woman on the Supreme Court. ​

Meeting with the leadership of the 96th Congress along with the new Secretary of Employment, Hyman Minsky, Rhodes decided to prioritize the implementation of guaranteed employment over cutting social security or raising taxes to pay for the costs of the program and the new Department of Employment. Instead, Rhodes returned to his frequently used method of having the government issue federal bonds to itself, to be shifted to the debt and paid back at a later date. The Democrats were split on the matter; conservative Democrats liked the idea of replacing most of social security with guaranteed employment, Old Left Democrats supported guaranteed employment on the principle that it had been on Franklin Roosevelt’s proposed Second Bill of Rights (but were sceptical of a Republican proposing it), while the Udall-McCarthy New Left preferred a guaranteed minimum income plan to a guaranteed employment plan [1].

The Jobs For America Act was officially proposed by Senator Ted Stevens and Representative Bill Gradison, with their first proposal becoming informally known as the Stevens-Gradison Jobs Act. The Stevens-Gradison version was a mixed public-private model of guaranteed employment. Most of Rhodes’ public works projects had been subcontracted through private companies. The Stevens-Gradison proposal would expand the system along liberal corporatist lines by having cooperating companies subsidized in exchange for taking on additional employees for the public works projections. If the difference could not be made up, then the Department of Employment could alternatively employ them directly as federal employees, before being transferred to a subsidized corporation once a new position could be created on the private sector side. The alternative proposal, by Old Left Democrats was a system where the Department of Employment had complete control of the Jobs For America public works programs, and would directly employ workers rather than running it through private subsidiaries.

Senator for Alaska Ted Stevens (right) along with outgoing (in both senses of the word) Senator for Alaska Mike Gravel. Stevens was a staunch Rhodes Republican, and had his name attached to the Jobs For America Act.​

The third alternative, of course, was to not pass the Jobs For America Act at all. Working to slow down or stop Rhodes’ landmark proposal, Udall proposed alternative legislation in the form of the American Financial Assistance Act, or the Cranston-Udall Act. As opposed to guaranteed employment legislation, Udall’s alternative was the guaranteed minimum income plan of the Democrat’s New Left. Udall’s first proposal was an intentionally audacious plan of providing a monthly stipend to every adult citizen in the United States, not with the expectation of it gaining widespread support, but of being opposed and taking the conversation away from guaranteed employment. Overall, Udall’s proposal was a much harder sell, at a time when there had been a greater stigmatization of unemployment in anticipation of guaranteed employment. The general opinion of the public was that Jobs For America would enable hard work, while the Cranston-Udall Act would just be another government handout, and would reward those unwilling to work. Despite this, it served as a successful tactic to take the conversation away from Jobs For America, and Udall was further aided in distracting from the subject by taking up the unexpected cause of airport security.

Air travel, while still a luxury for most Americans, had become significantly less expensive in the late ‘70s. Rhodes’ agreement with the biggest carriers of the air travel industry and their unions had created a monopolistic cartel that kept the quality of air travel and lowered ticket prices at the cost of strangling most competition in their cribs. As air travel became more affordable, a ‘plane craze’ was beginning for middle class traveling. At the same time, air travel caught the attention of a mentally disturbed man named John Hinckley Jr.

Hinckley had developed an obsessive infatuation with the actress Jodie Foster, moving from his parent’s home in Evergreen, Colorado to New Haven, Connecticut, so that he could stalk Foster as she attended Yale University. Hinckley’s love was not reciprocated, to say the least, and he took a flight back to Colorado to work for the family business in the mid ‘70s. After earning some money, Hinckley returned by plane to New Haven various times to try and meet Foster, but unsuccessfully returned to Colorado with each attempt. It was in this way that Hinckley developed a fixation with flying, planning to hijack a luxury airline and take it to Yale to ‘impress’ Foster. Earning the money at the family business for his flight of fancy, Hinckley boarded a plane bound for New York from Denver, before hijacking it with a .22 caliber revolver. Demanding that the flight shoot past New York to Yale, Hinckley was convinced by the pilots to land to refuel in New York, before being apprehended without any casualties [2].

John Hinckley Jr. was arrested in 1981 for hijacking a luxury airliner in a bid to impress actress Jodie Foster, in what was dubbed by the media as the 'Flight of Fancy.'
​

The motivation for Hinckley’s crime set off a media sensation, and Udall took full advantage of it to make Congress’ number one priority airport security. Udall’s proposed Air Safety Act had near-universal approval, and served well as another - if brief - delaying tactic for Jobs For America.

Frustrated by the delays, Rhodes decided to take a break from politics to attend the opening of the Ohio State Fair. Rhodes had attended for every year without fail, and had continued the tradition going into his presidency. However, Rhodes had frequently groused that his duties as President had stopped him from staying for the full length of the festivities, and insisted in 1981 to at least stay until the second day, when his friend Bob Hope would perform in the evening. Opening the festival at 6:00AM on Friday, August 14, Rhodes attended various events at the festival throughout the day, including the performance of the Ohio band McGuffrey Lane. Rhodes, as planned, stayed for the second day, patrolling the fairgrounds, shaking hands, and playing at various of the carney games. Rhodes even got to stay for his well-publicized on-stage introduction of Bob Hope before he had to head back to Washington.

That was when the President was shot.


“I, Ed Edwards, was once on the FBI’s list of the ten most wanted criminals in America. Now, I am a respected citizen in my community…”

• Introduction of Ed Edwards on the panel game show To Tell The Truth, 1972

[1] IOTL, many New Left Democrats such as McCarthy opposed Nixon’s guaranteed minimum income proposal of the early 1970s, the Family Assistance Plan. Then Senator McCarthy, ragged after the 1968 campaign and planning his retirement from the Senate, opposed it on the grounds that its coverage wasn’t wide enough.

[2] Besides his OTL attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan, Hinckley also considered hijacking a plane or commiting suicide in front of Jodie Foster. With the new popularity and affordability of air travel ITTL, he went with ‘Plan B.’

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“Rhodes, despite missing a lung from an operation in his youth, is reportedly one of the most physically active Presidents.”

• Walter Cronkite, Election Night 1980

Jim Rhodes would have survived if he had two functional lungs.

While on stage at the 1981 Ohio State Fair with Bob Hope, Rhodes was shot in the chest by former FBI’s 10 Most Wanted criminal Edward Wayne Edwards. A prison escapee, Edwards had robbed gas stations before being re-captured. Eventually parolled, Edwards became a motivational speaker on being reformed by the prison system, publishing an autobiography and appearing on game shows such as What’s My Line and To Tell the Truth in the early 1970s. Edwards never wore masks or disguises during his criminal career, claiming that he wanted to be famous, and took advantage of Rhodes’ on-stage attendance at the state fair to get a clear shot.

After shooting the President from the crowd that had assembled for Bob Hope’s performance, Edwards was subdued by Secret Service, while Rhodes was taken back-stage by Special Agent in Charge Jerry Parr. Rhodes was only shot once, but it was in his left lung. An affliction during his youth had filled his right lung with pus, leading to it being partially removed and mostly non-functional. Unable to breathe, the President died before the Secret Service was able to bring him to a medical facility. Once in custody, Edwards also claimed to be the infamous Zodiac Killer.

Ed Edwards, the killer of President Rhodes, "wanted to be famous," and also (falsely) claimed to be the Zodiac Killer once in Secret Service custody.
​

The death of Rhodes came as a shock to the nation. Although America had seen the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the attempted assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and George Romney since the killing of John F. Kennedy, the timing of the Rhodes Assassination - months after his second inaugeration and on the verge of his great policy achievement - was what caught the public off guard. The Vice President was at home in Washington at Number One Observatory Circle when he heard the news. In an impromptu ceremony at Observatory Circle, Paul Dominique Laxalt was sworn in as the thirty-ninth President of the United States. Laxalt was sworn in by Supreme Court Justice J. Skelly Wright, the first and closest Justice the Secret Service could find. With a much smaller crowd than the Kennedy assassination word traveled slower, but by the end of Saturday August 15, 1981, most Americans had heard that the President has been assassinated.

Spirited away to the White House, Laxalt called in the cabinet and his top aides for an emergency meeting. Resolving to keep things as they were, Laxalt kept on Rhodes’ staff, with the exception of appointing his long-time aide Tom Loranger as White House Chief of Staff, appointing campaign manager Wayne Pearson as Senior Advisor to the President, and Ronald Reagan, Laxalt's good friend, as White House Press Secretary, in the hopes that his friendly paternalism would help calm the public.

Naturally, there was a nearly unanimous outpouring of support for the United States from around the world, including both US allies and from most of the Soviet Bloc. Deng Xiaoping, the late Zhou Enlai’s successor as Paramount Leader of China, commended Rhodes for finally opening up relations with the People’s Republic of China. The statement made by Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Mikhail Gorbachev on behalf of the ill Soviet Premier Andrei Kirilenko was less warm than the Chinese declaration as a result of Rhodes’ remilitarization of America’s European allies, but called for international solidarity and the hopes of renewed and productive talks between the world’s two superpowers.

Soviet Premier Andrei Kirilenko (third from the right) had gone almost entirely senile by 1981. With the third member of their Troika, Alexei Kosygin, having died the previous year, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Mikhail Gorbachev was the de facto ruler of the USSR at the time of the Rhodes Assassination.
​

The Soviet’s hopes of an easy-to-negotiate-with successor to Rhodes was short-lived, however. In his first joint session of Congress, Laxalt announced a redoubling of America’s commitment to its allies and international obligations, most notably calling for overhauling the United States’ anti-ballistic missile system, Sentinel II, and concluding the development of the neutron bomb to use as the next stage of nuclear deterrence. Domestically, Laxalt called for the passing of the Stevens-Gradison version of the Jobs For America Act, and promised an administration of fiscal responsibility and an America of future prosperity by balancing the budget by the next fiscal year. Criticism of Laxalt was muted with the Rhodes Assassination, but the new President had the support of the conservative wings of both parties.

In his first speech as President in a special joint session of Congress, Paul Laxalt prioritized national defense, Jobs For America, and fiscal responsibility.
​

However, despite all his talk, Laxalt was not nearly as adept at working with Congress as Lyndon Johnson had been after the Kennedy Assassination. Although Jobs For America escaped its Udall-induced gridlock, it was moving at a pace no faster than any other bill, with Laxalt content to leave its passage to Republican Senate leadership, such as Howard Baker, while leaving it to Republican leadership in the House, such as John Rhodes, to work out a deal with the House Democratic majority. While Congressional leadership appreciated a President who was willing to work with Congress rather than telling them what to do (as had been the case since Lyndon Johnson), Rhodes’ staunchest supporters began to question how committed Laxalt really was to Jobs For America. Some supporters in Congress of the Stevens-Gradison Act questioned if Laxalt’s eleventh hour conversion to supporting guaranteed employment was genuine, or if he would let Jobs For America die a quiet death once it was out of the spotlight.

Laxalt also had to deal with the matter of his own Vice President. Laxalt became the first President to have to make use of Section Two of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, on the matter of Vice Presidential vacancies. He considered the possibility of a complimentary candidate who had similar views and was from a neighbouring state, in the form of his friend Senator Orrin Hatch. Another option was Howard Baker, who would bring a good ideological and geographic balance, but would deprive the Senate Republicans of their leader while they were trying to pass Jobs For America. Rhodes die-hards wanted Secretary of Defense Alexander Haig to be nominated, as Rhodes had insinuated on multiple occasions that he wanted Haig to succeed him as President. Laxalt was cautious of nominating Haig, as he felt that by nominating the Defence Secretary, he would be setting up the Republican Party for a divide in 1984, and undermining his own image as Rhodes’ sole successor. Representative Jack Kemp was also considered to give a socially liberal balance to Laxalt’s social conservatism, but ultimately Laxalt concluded that Kemp, like Haig, was too much of a maverick at a time when stability was needed.

Laxalt needed a known quantity. Someone who was respected; someone who was a household name; someone the Democrats wouldn’t consider so much of a threat that they would need to block his nomination.

He needed someone like...


“I, Richard Nixon, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

• The third oath of office of Vice President Richard Nixon, 1981
  

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“I remember a man called Saul whose name was turned to Paul. The story of Saul is amazing. And I saw it with my own eyes in George Wallace. So I had to forgive Governor Wallace as well as so many of the things he stood for.”

• African American Reverend Kelvin Croom on George Wallace’s renunciation of racism, and their mutual membership in the People’s Christian Coalition

Hoping to make gains in the 1982 Midterms, President Laxalt tried to continue his momentum after the nomination of Richard Nixon as Vice President. Appointed to an unprecedented third term to the office, Nixon became the longest serving Vice President in American history on his first day, having previously served two full terms under Dwight Eisenhower’s from 1953 to 1961. However, Nixon had only accepted the office conditionally; National Security Advisor and close Nixon ally Henry Kissinger was appointed as the new Secretary of State, and while Nixon didn’t have the same unilateral control he had had previously as Rhodes’ Secretary of State, he still had significantly more influence in the realm of foreign policy than any other Vice President before him. Although Laxalt had wanted to reverse Rhodes’ 1981 decision to replace Barry Goldwater with Alexander Haig as Secretary of Defense, Laxalt didn’t want to be seen as upending Rhodes’ legacy so soon after his death.

Beyond Jobs For America, Laxalt also began implementing his own policy vision. A staunch fiscal conservative in the mold of his political inspiration Barry Goldwater, Laxalt intended to balance the budget for the first time since 1969, when Eugene McCarthy’s slashing cuts to Vietnam War spending created a budget surplus. In one of his few disagreements with the White House Press Secretary and Laxalt’s ‘First Friend,’ Ronald Reagan, Laxalt prioritized balancing the budget over lowering taxes, even if raising taxes was required. Indeed, Laxalt raised taxes as Governor of Nevada in order to balance the state’s budget. However, where Laxalt did agree with Reagan was the matter of deregulation. Laxalt preferred a free market system to Rhodes’ brand of liberal corporatism. Instead of coming to a direct agreement with large corporations and their unions, Laxalt would instead privatize and deregulate the economy, fostering competition and having the economy grow its way out of stagflation. In particular, the energy and transportation sectors would be deregulated. The 1983 fiscal year budget would be tied to the Jobs For America Act, and the concurrent cuts to welfare and social security would theoretically come close to balancing the budget. That way, if Jobs For America failed to pass through Congress, Laxalt could blame the Democrats for being the cause of yet another budget deficit. The rest of the deficit of the fiscal year will be made up by increasing taxes, or at least restoring some taxes to the same rates they had been at before Rhodes had cut them while running a deficit. The biggest exception to the budget cuts would be to the military and State Department. The Rhodes-era military budget expansion would continue, most prominently in the form of the Sentinel III ABM network, the mass deployment of the B-1 Bomber, and the development of the neutron bomb.

President Laxalt with the White House Press Secretary and 'First Friend,' Ronald Reagan.
​

As for foreign policy, Laxalt continued the Rhodes/Nixon agenda of supporting anti-Communists around the world, including rightist dictatorships, under the justification that a right wing authoritarian regime was better than Soviet totalitarianism. Likewise, Laxalt gave approval to Operation Cyrus, the codename for the imminent US-backed Iraqi and Afghan invasion of Iran. Launching a surprise attack in early 1983 with full US financial and logistical backing, Iraq’s opening salvo against Iran caught them off guard. Using the latest in American military aircraft, the Iraqi Air Force was able to successfully destroy most of the Iranian Air Force stationed in the west of the country [1]. With early air superiority, Saddam Hussein pushed hard into the oil-rich Iranian border province of Khuzestan, taking control of the majority of the strategically valuable city of Khorramshahr [2]. Hussein looked to occupy the entirety of Khuzestan in the hopes of establishing a military buffer zone in the short term, with the war goal of annexing the province, both for its oil, and to ruin the legitimacy of the nascent Islamic Socialist government in Tehran. However, while Iraq saw great early success on the western front, an eastern front failed to materialize. Mohammed Daoud Khan, the presidential dictator of Afghanistan, had successfully purged his military of communist sympathizers, and was unwilling to commit its untested new officer staff with an army much larger than that of Afghanistan’s relatively small one. Most battles along the Afghan-Iranian border were small skirmishes, with Khan instead focusing on his own eastern border. A Pashtun nationalist, Khan took advantage of the Pakistani Civil War to occupy the Pashtun majority territories of northwest Pakistan. With the Federalists of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto locked in combat with the Militarists of General Faiz Ali Chishti (who eventually became the formal leader of the attempted military coup Operation Fair Play after the death of General Zia-ul Haq), neither side had the resources to meaningfully prevent Afghan occupation of the northwest. The United States tacitly supported Khan’s occupation, in the hopes that he would commit more to the war with Iran.

The President of Afghanistan, American ally, and Pashtun nationalist Mohammad Daoud Khan, purged his military of communists before occupying northwest Pakistan in 1982. His 'authoritarian progressive' regime was similar to that of the deposed Shah of Iran.
​

Back in the United States, in preparation for the budget, Laxalt did an early removal of Rhodes’ price controls. Rhodes had used price controls more than once to stabilize the market after removing the gold standard and ending the Bretton Woods System, and opening prices back up to market valuation seemed like the next natural step if employment was to be guaranteed. But, this seemingly innocuous act caused an economic cascade effect shortly thereafter. Although Rhodes had temporarily managed to contain inflation through his price controls, giving time for the average American’s purchasing power to catch up through his corporatist agreements, Rhodes had never fully addressed rising interest rates, particularly the federal funds rate, the rate paid by financial institutions such as banks to maintain reserve requirements to stay in business. The Federal Reserve had also tightened the money supply in an attempt to fight inflation. It had been Rhodes’ hope that while the Federal Reserve would ultimately deal with the inflation of stagflation, Jobs For America would deal with the stagnation from unemployment of stagflation. Stacked with Rhodes’ lowering of taxes, inherited inflation rate from the Johnson and McCarthy Administration, and frequent use of federal bonds to balance the budget on paper while running a deficit in debt the government owed to itself, Rhodes had essentially cooked the books into prosperity. Like McCarthy, Rhodes had been unwilling to address tough financial decisions that could undermine their own policy priorities. The end results was a new, three-pronged financial crisis in the making.

The first prong was America’s financial institutions. Dissatisfied with the federal funds rate, banks began rapid investment to ‘move the money around’ and offset the amount that needed to be paid, by technically having it in other people’s and institution’s names. Rhodes’ federal bond creation to pay for his pork barrel projects became a favourite of the banks, with corporations investing in these T-bonds (Treasury bonds) as a safe investment outside of paying the federal funds rate by having the money already ‘locked in’ with a different federal account investment. At the same time, savings and loans associations offered loans to Americans at rates lower than the federal interest rate. By undercutting the federal rate, savings and loans associations drew in more customers, who received the money, which would eventually be paid back to the loaner rather than being paid by the loaner to the federal government under the federal funds rate.

The second prong was the average American consumer. Gas and fuel prices staying low had kept the average American relatively confidant in the economy in the face of stagflation, especially with price freezes enacted and guaranteed employment being promised by the government. The weakest link in American spending confidence was rising interest rates. But, instead of spooking Americans away from the market, it spooked them towards it, as the other, apparently favourable, market conditions seemed to promise a sound investment before interest rates got even higher. A bandwagon mentality emerged of making a large, safe investment before ‘missing out,’ and being forced to make a large, less safe investment with a higher interest rate down the road. Americans began to receive loans from the savings and loans associations of the first prong who were avoiding the federal funds rate. Operating under the assumption that with guaranteed employment their money would be worth less, Americans rushed to a safe investment in the form of housing, leading to more loans being granted by savings and loans associations to avoid the federal funds rate.

The third prong was the federal government and the last three Presidents. McCarthy’s spending and currency revaluing avoided unemployment at the cost of rapid inflation and spasms of market instability; Rhodes was forced to address the trade deficit left behind by McCarthy’s currency revaluing by shifting to a fiat currency, causing stagflation and making inflation on its own worse by lowering taxes and running the economy on unpaid federal bonds; Laxalt’s deregulation of the financial sector and removal of price controls set the stage for a market crash just as he passed a budget for the fiscal year that removed the vast majority of funding for social security and welfare programs before guaranteed employment was fully in place to takes its place.

And that’s exactly what happened.

Secretary of Treasury and Rhodes loyalist Claude R. Kirk Jr. was caught unprepared, like many others, for the 1982 Bonds, Interest, and Loans Crisis.​

The dirt cheap rates of the savings and loans associations caused a sudden drop in the stock market that crashed their value. Because those same corporations had financed the inherent value of the T-bonds Rhodes had used to fund the budget for the last five years, a partial government default ensued, with federal bonds issued from 1977 to 1981 losing almost all their inherent value by being tied to defaulting corporations, and bringing the value of older bonds down with them. Because of this, interest rates spiked, and other economic sectors couldn’t run through the escape hatch of investing in T-bonds, because the ‘guaranteed’ safety of T-bonds had been ruined by savings and loans. In turn, the government couldn’t spend its way out of the sudden market crash, as the value of the American dollar tanked with the partial default. As a result of all this, the world economy dropped with the American one, as currencies had been tied to the American dollar since the late 1970s.

It was the single greatest market crash since the Great Depression.


“People want economy and they’ll pay any price to get it.”

• Automotive Executive and President of Ford Lee Iacocca

[1] IOTL, Saddam Hussein was using older Soviet aircraft in the opening attack, and failed to do any significant damage to the Iranian Air Force.

[2] Khorramshahr was the site of an extended, bloody battle in the early stages of the Iran-Iraq War. With a greater military edge Iraq has taken most of the city relatively quickly, rather than the drawn out slog that distracted the Iraqi advance IOTL.

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“Zap! You’re frozen!”

• Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s catchphrase mocking price controls

With the Bonds, Interest, and Loans Crisis crashing the American economy in mid-1982, the repercussions were felt around the globe. The partial default of the American government and collapse of the American dollar led to a domino effect, with all the currencies tied to the free floating American dollar collapsing in turn.

The crash was most immediately felt outside of the US in Canada, America’s northern neighbour and their largest trading partner. Canada had an unusual amount of political instability in the 1970s, starting with the federal election of 1972. In the election, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had won a minority government, with the left wing New Democratic Party, led by David Lewis, holding the balance of power. Trudeau’s support from the left collapsed the very next year on the matter of price controls; Trudeau refused to implement price controls on the principle that it interfered with small business and employees to negotiate their own wages, but the policy was supported by both the NDP and the right wing Progressive Conservative Party, led by Robert Stanfield. With Eugene McCarthy’s unilateral style of governing and use of price controls following his re-election vindicating the practice to the Canadian left, Trudeau’s Liberal government collapsed in 1973, to be replaced by a Conservative government late that year. In an informal anti-centrist coalition, Prime Minister Stanfield worked with Lewis and the NDP to implement price controls [1]. Lewis, a strict party disciplinarian and staunchly anti-socialist social democrat, sustained the anti-centre coalition until he stepped down from his party’s leadership in 1978, due to health complications from leukemia and cancer, with Ed Broadbent leading the NDP in the 1978 federal election. 1978 saw a narrow Liberal majority, this time led by Trudeau’s successor, Donald Macdonald. The moderate Stanfield never shook his reputation as a bumbling if well-meaning buffoon, and had been unable to hold on after Lewis’ retirement ended his NDP parliamentary support. Stanfield’s successors as Conservative leader, Claude Wagner then Jack Horner, signified a rightward shift in the party. With the Canadian economy having crashed along with the American one and the next election scheduled for 1983, it remained unclear if Macdonald and the Liberals would keep their majority and try and stimulate the economy through a free trade deal with the United States, if they would be re-elected with a minority reliant on the protectionist NDP, if Horner and the Conservatives would pull back ahead on an austerity platform, or even if Broadbent and the NDP could take advantage of the ‘70s malaise towards Canada’s two main parties to form their first ever government.

Robert Stanfield served as Canada's Prime Minister for one term from 1973 to 1978, in the country's longest functioning minority government.
​

Similar political shockwaves were being felt in Europe, most notably in the United Kingdom, where the 1982 crash irrevocably destroyed Prime Minister Ted Heath’s chances of re-election. Heath had become politically chained to his efforts at power-sharing in Northern Ireland between Irish Nationalists and pro-British Unionists. Coming in to office in 1974, Heath supported power-sharing between pro-unification Irish nationalists and pro-British Unionists. This was a step back from the Harold Wilson government (1964-1974) which, in its later years, had supported a gradualist unification of Ireland. Although naturally preferring the Wilson plan, the Irish nationalists were willing to tolerate Heath’s Sunningdale Agreement, which split the governance of Northern Ireland into an Executive Council made up of both nationalists and Unionists. The Chief Executive of the Northern Irish Executive assembly and Ulster Unionist Brian Faulkner narrowly survived a challenge from his party by the anti-Sunningdale faction led by Harry West, by arguing the case that the Labour alternative was full unification. The Sunningdale Agreement succeeded in lowering tensions, but Unionists remained skeptical, and Heath still became the target of Irish Republican Army assassination attempts for introducing internment camps to Northern Ireland [2].

Back in Britain, Heath’s primary focus had been on dealing with inflation and British entry into the European Economic Community. Although Heath himself had always been in favour of the EEC, he had run as neutral on it before. Calling an election in 1978, Heath declared a need for a mandate on entering the EEC. Heath successfully split Labour down the middle with his election; Labour leader James Callaghan supported the EEC as well, but he was unable to rally the harder left Eurosceptics of his party. Winning a clear majority in 1978, Heath began EEC negotiations, but the talks were postponed the very next year by the economic uncertainty of Rhodes’ killing of Bretton Woods, and a general strike in protest of Heath’s anti-union legislative policies and pay caps to control inflation. Egged on by Labour’s new leader, the moderate, pro-EEC Denis Healey (who had narrowly defeated the socialist Eurosceptic wing led by Michael Foot in the Labour leadership convention), the British economy and Heath’s government had been barely limping along even before the 1982 crash. In the 1982 general election, Healey campaigned on an anti-corruption message of punishing the financial institutions that caused the crash, and promising economic stimulus, peace in Ireland, and a conclusive deal with the EEC. In an absolute rout of the Conservatives, Healey was elected Prime Minister in an obliterating Labour landslide.

Denis Healey - famous for his bushy eyebrows and witty insults - became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1982, in the Labour Party's largest majority since 1945. Healey was notably more moderate than past Labour leaders.
​

Across the English Channel, the French had seen a similar shift to the centre. Francois Mitterand’s election to the French presidency in 1974 had initially seemed to be the Holy Grail of politics: the unification of the left. In an alliance spanning from the French Communist Party to Mitterand’s social democratic Socialist Party to the social liberal Movement of Left Radicals, Mitterand had the entire French left behind him as he went in to office, with the exception of the ever-intransigent Trotskyists [3]. That being said, the situation in the French National Assembly was much more unstable. Right wing and Gaullist parties initially retained a majority, with remnants of the allies of the late Gaullist President Georges Pompidou still holding significant sway. Negotiating with the parliamentary right, Mitterand had gotten Pierre Messmer to step down as Prime Minister and leader of the Union of Democrats for the Republic, to be succeeded by the centre-left Jacques Chaban-Delmas. Chaban-Delmas’ premiership under Mitterand was short-lived, however, as Mitterand dissolved the National Assembly in 1975, leading to a majority for the Union of the Left. This brought new complications for Mitterand, as the Communists, the single largest party in the Assembly, demanded that their leader, Georges Marchais, be appointed as Prime Minister. Instead insisting that a member of his own party be Prime Minister, Mitterand compromised with the Communists by granting them ministry appointments, while the Socialist Alain Savory became Prime Minister. Working with his left majority, Mitterand made great strides in passing the Union of the Left’s Common Programme, but was unable to meaningfully hold together his coalition. As inflation continued to rise and the world economy continued to slowly deteriorate in the late 1970s, the Communists demanded major nationalization of the economy. Mitterand and the Socialists tried to work compromises, but began to more frequently side with the moderate Left Radicals. By 1980, the French voting public had grown tired of the seemingly daily infighting from the left, with the right and Gaullists regaining their majority.

The red rose of social democracy: elected in 1974, French President Francois Mitterand worked with a broad coalition of the left - from social liberals to Marxists - to implement the left wing Common Programme. Mitterand was challenged by the resurgent Gaullists in the 1981 French presidential election. ​

Despite appearances of their vulnerability, the Union of the Left was still a force to be reckoned with going into the 1981 French presidential election. Despite all their disagreements, the parties of the Union of the Left all preferred fighting each other while in power than another conservative government, and coalesced around Mitterand once more as their candidate. The frontrunners of the right were Valery Giscard D'Estaing, the independent conservative who narrowly lost to Mitterand in 1974, and Jacques Chaban-Delmas, who represented the resurgent Gaullist old guard after D’Estaing’s previous defeat and six years of left wing governance. However, the race was complicated by the entry of French comedian Michel Colucci, known by the stage name Coluche. Running a jokey, populist campaign, Coluche became the surprise star of the election, brutally mocking the infighting of the left, the alleged tax evasion of Chaban-Delmas, and the gift of blood diamonds D’Estaing had received from infamous African dictator Jean-Bedel Bokassa. Coluche got most of his support from the typically apolitical, leftists dissatisfied with the Union of the Left, and hardline Communists who felt that they had been sold out by the coalition with the ‘bourgeois left’ of the Socialists and Radicals. Mitterand’s attempts to get Coluche to drop out backfired when revealed to the public, with Coluche himself ribbing Mitterand mercilessly. At the same time, the Gaullists, who had been divided in their support for different candidates in 1974, united behind Chaban-Delmas. The younger, further right ‘Pompidolian Gaullists,’ led by Jacques Chirac, had supported D’Estaing in 1974, but, throughout the Mitterand years and going into the 1981 election, had drifted back to the more moderate traditional Gaullists who supported Chaban-Delmas. Although the traditional Gaullists were wary of the Pompidolians after their perceived betrayal in 1974, a united Gaullist movement was too powerful a tool to pass up when facing off against a political juggernaut like the Union of the Left.

French comedian Coluche, seen here in a campaigning sash, ran for President in a populist campaign that drained Mitterand's support from the left.
​

Ultimately, the Gaullists would prevail in the presidential elections. In the first round, Jacques Chaban-Delmas received a plurality of the vote. In a political shock, Coluche narrowly beat Mitterand for second place, in what many saw as the pollster’s failing to register the extent of the French people’s ennui towards the Union’s infighting. Despite Coluche’s upset victory in the first round, Chaban-Delmas easily won in the second round, beating Coluche’s parody populism with a ‘Return to Normalcy’ campaign, with overtones of de Gaulle and Pompidou nostalgia. However, with the 1982 crash, France’s new President saw his plans thrown into disarray, with the Union regaining its majority in the Assembly, and the Communists regaining their status as the largest party.

Although the left had fallen in France, and was rising in Canada and the United Kingdom, the greatest beneficiary of the 1982 crash was the Soviet Union. As, while Soviet Premier Andrei Kirilenko was approaching his nadir, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Mikhail Gorbachev drew ever closer to the zenith of his power...


“If there was a tax on stupidity the government would self-finance.”

• French comedian and presidential candidate Coluche

[1] IOTL, the NDP weren’t confident enough to vote against the Liberals until 1974. By that time, Trudeau had implemented several NDP policies and taken credit for them, severely undermining the NDP’s support and earning Trudeau a majority in 1974. ITTL, with McCarthy’s example, the NDP successfully collapse the Liberal government by pulling support a year earlier.

[2] IOTL, without a longer Wilson government to put the fear of British-backed reunification into the Unionists, Heath’s Sunningdale Agreement was toppled by a general strike after less than a year. Here, the Unionists are more willing to play along, as they see it as the best alternative.

[3] ITTL, Francois Mitterand narrowly won the 1974 French presidential election, after a stronger showing in the French south-east, inspired by the Italian example, absent IOTL, of Communists co-operating with more moderate parties.

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“There can be no justification to admit, in any way, the use of armed force to intervene in the internal affairs of a Warsaw Treaty Organization member country. The solving of domestic problems belongs exclusively to the Party and the people of each country and any kind of interference can only do harm to the cause of socialism, friendship, and collaboration among the socialist countries.”

• General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party Nicolae Ceausescu on the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968

By the time of the 1982 global market crash, it was the Soviet Union’s biggest open secret that General Secretary Andrei Kirilenko was incapable of actually governing. It was the Soviet Union’s second biggest open secret that the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Mikhail Gorbachev was the de facto ruler of the Soviet Union.

The structure of Soviet leadership had been in a state of flux ever since the death of Leonid Brezhnev in 1977. Initially, a conservative (in the Soviet sense of minimal reform) troika was formed compromising KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov, Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko, and Minister of Defence Dmitry Ustinov. However, due to pressure from Mikhail Suslov and hardliner conservative who favoured a broader collective leadership, Andropov was compelled to step aside as Premier, with the compromise candidate of Fyodor Kulakov chosen instead. The brief period of collective leadership lasted from 1977 to 1978, with three competing troikas forming the collective leadership: the Andropov-Gromyko-Ustinov conservatives, the Mikhail Suslov, Konstantin Chernenko, and Viktor Grishin hardliners, and the reformist faction of Premier Kulakov, Alexei Kosygin, and Kulakov protege Mikhail Gorbachev. The 1978 death of Kulakov led to another power struggle, with the moderate Andrei Kirilenko chosen as the new Premier. Tired of power-sharing, Kirilenko dismissed the collective leadership, and formed a single, governing troika with Kosygin and Gorbachev.

Kirilenko’s period of leadership brought some much-appreciated stability to the Soviet power structure, but at a time when the newly-elected Rhodes Administration in the United States was beginning an unprecedented military revamp after eight years of dovish (Eugene) McCarthyism. Accelerating nuclear arms production to match American development of the neutron bomb and Sentinel III ABM, Soviet military spending endeavoured to match that of the Americans. At the same time, Kosygin began to implement his latest attempt to reform the Soviet economy under a program titled “improving planning and reinforcing the effects of the economic mechanism on raising the effectiveness in production and improving the quality of work.” Rather than decentralize the Soviet economy, as Kosygin had vainly attempted in previous economic reforms, the 1979 plan increased centralization of the economy to attempt to improve distribution and squeeze out regional favouritism, as well as increase worker productivity to try and make up the difference in the lack of capitalist investments in sectors of the Soviet economy. With Kosygin’s death in 1980, he was succeeded as Chairman of the Council of Soviet Minister and de jure head of government by the Kirilenko supporter Nikolai Ryzhkov, superseding the Deputy Chairman, Nikolai Tikhonov [1].

Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Mikhail Gorbachev (left) and Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers Nikolai Ryzhkov (right). While officially Gorbachev was Head of State and Ryzhkov was Head of Government, Gorbachev de facto acted as both Head of State and Government on behalf of the Soviet Union's senile paramount leader, Andrei Kirilenko.
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Having gone almost entirely senile by 1982, to the extent that he couldn't write or remember most names, Kirilenko took on a more ceremonial role as Gorbachev operated the levers of power. With the continued tacit support of Kirilenko, Gorbachev was able to inherit Kirilenko’s powerful ‘organizational tail’ within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, comprised of bureaucrats and politicians appointed by Kirilenko as he climbed Soviet leadership by way of the Russian ‘industrial ladder.’ Using the organizational tail, Gorbachev was able to bypass regionalistic and administrative red tape by directly reminding bureaucrats of their political debt to Kirilenko. ‘Kirilenko,’ in this circumstance, meaning ‘Gorbachev.’

However, Gorbachev had greater difficulty on reforming the Soviet’s ‘socialist fraternal allies’ in the Warsaw Pact. Although the Soviet Union was largely untouched by the crash, the same couldn’t be said of the rest of the Pact. The socialist countries of Eastern and Central Europe had seen a mild opening-up of their economies to the West, most notably Poland, which, of the socialist countries, was hit hardest. Although the collapse of the American dollar vastly increased its accessibility to Poles for a brief time to buy Western luxury goods, the situation quickly deteriorated, with shortages running higher than ever shortly thereafter. Polish First Secretary Edward Gierek, who had first introduced the policy of economic reliance on trade with the West, was forced to step down [2]. Gierek was succeeded by the Gorbachev-backed government of Stanislaw Kania, who supported co-operation with Catholic opposition groups and independent labour unions, most notably the Solidarity movement, led by Lech Walesa. Legalized by the Polish government following the crash in an effort to offset disorder, Solidarity quickly began to take on the form of an official opposition party, although the government Polish United Worker’s Party was still clearly in control of the Sejm and other institutes of power. The Romanian regime of Nicolae Ceausescu took a similar hit to Poland; since the 1979 oil embargo put in place by most of OAPEC, the relatively moderate (by socialist standards) Ceausescu had attempted to become Europe’s biggest oil producer. However, with American policies of energy independence in the mid-to-late 1970s, and with most investments to Romania not paying off, Caeusescu’s oil aspirations were a failure even before the crash. With his foreign debts not nearly as bad as they could have been, and with the United States not in the position to collect, Ceausescu - always the most politically independent from the Soviet Union of the Warsaw Pact leaders - began to implement a transition to a Yugoslavian style of socialism based around worker’s self-management, at the same time that some austerity measures were put in place to pay back Romania’s foreign debts when the Americans inevitably came calling [3].

Meanwhile in Czechoslovakia, the government of Gustav Husak was forced to implement moderate reforms to try and calibrate for the market crash’s effects on their socialist neighbours. Having lived in the shadow of the Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia since having been appointed to power in 1968, Husak didn’t have anything close to the reformist mindset of his counterparts in Romania and Poland. Husak was joined by Hungary’s Janos Kadar as a moderate reformer within the Soviet bloc, while East Germany’s Erich Honecker and Bulgaria’s Todor Zhivkov were on the conservative side, resisting any Gorbachev-inspired reforms.

The maverick reformer and General Secretary of Romania Nicolae Ceausescu was considered an icon of non-Soviet Communism, along with the likes of Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito and China's Deng Xiaoping.
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And, while reform was being rejected in East Germany, the same could not be said of West Germany. Going into the 1980 West German federal election, the governing centre left coalition seemed increasingly fragile. Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s Social Democratic Party and Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s liberal Free Democratic Party disagreed on how best to handle the advent of stagflation in 1979. At the same time, Schmidt disagreed with the left wing of his own party on how best to handle the 1979 OAPEC oil embargo. Schmidt preferred a quicker transition to nuclear power, while the staunchly anti-nuclear left of the Social Democratic Party demanded a transition to green, renewable energy. With this atmosphere, Helmut Kohl seemed poised to become the first Chancellor of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union since 1969, but his own aspirations were sabotaged by party infighting on the right. Franz-Josef Strauss, leader of the Christian Social Union, a CDU affiliated party in Bavaria, challenged Kohl’s leadership. Strauss believed that Kohl had failed to defeat Schmidt in 1976, and that he would be a better candidate as a new face for the CDU/CSU. With a likely victory dead ahead, Kohl refused to step down as candidate for Chancellor, leading to a deadlock between the two [4]. In the power struggle, Strauss threatened to run CSU candidates in CDU ridings, while Kohl threatened to do the same. However, cooler heads eventually prevailed, with both Kohl and Strauss being well aware that splitting the vote between the CDU and CSU would lead to the complete destruction of the German centre-right. Eventually, Ernest Albrecht, the Minister President of Lower Saxony, was chosen as a compromise candidate. Ironically, Kohl’s and Strauss’ mass mobilization of their bases against each other led to an especially large turnout for Albrecht as the unified CDU/CSU candidate. Winning a majority of the vote but only a plurality of the seats, Albrecht struck a deal with Genscher and the liberal Democrats to have them break from the Social Democrats and form a CDU/CSU-FDP coalition. Agreeing to pursue nuclear energy and fight stagflation with austerity measures, Albrecht’s government was continuing implementation of both of those proposals when hit by the crash.

A word of advice: Liberal leader Hans-Dietrich Genscher seen talking to West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. In 1979, Genscher would abandon his coalition with Schmidt and the Social Democrats to side with Ernest Albrecht and the Christian Democratic Union. A proponent of realpolitik, Genscher supported reconciliatory diplomacy towards East Germany and the Soviet Bloc.
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Similar coalition building had been done in Italy that had redefined the political landscape. At a time of growing cooperation with socialists and communists in capitalist, democratic countries following the end of American involvement in the Vietnam War, Aldo Moro, of the centrist, big-tent Christian Democracy party was elected President of Italy. Elected to the office in 1971, Aldo was an ambitious coalition builder, who came to an agreement with the Socialist Party to create a centre-left government. The left-leaning Christian Democrat Mariano Rumor replaced by the right-leaning Giulio Andreotti as Prime Minister. But, Moro was not satisfied with the Socialists alone, and wanted the Italian Communist Party to enter into what he called the Historic Coalition. Hoping to create a united front of the left against the far left terrorist Red Brigades, Moro thought that by including the Communists in government, they could be defanged and isolated from Soviet influence. As for the Communists themselves, they were eventually inspired to compromise by fears of a repetition of events in Chile, where Salvador Allende’s democratically elected Marxist government was dissolved by a military junta after his death under mysterious circumstances in 1975. Ultimately, the Communist Party’s hesitance into entering a coalition with the Christian Democrats and the Socialists would be its downfall. Communist gains in the 1975 Italian regional elections at the expense of the Christian Democrats caused a caucus revolt, with Rumor being removed and Andreotti returning as Prime Minister. Despite Aldo’s continued efforts, the anti-Communist Andreotti ruined attempts to form the Historic Coalition with the Communists.

The centre-left President of Italy, Aldo Moro, tried to negotiate a grand coalition with the Socialists and the Communists to contain the far left terrorists known as the Red Brigades. Although he was never able to form a formal coalition with the Communists, they were allies of his government during his term.
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By 1978, the dream of an official Christian-Socialist-Communist coalition was over, but the Communists continued to unofficially support the centre-left faction of the Christian Democrats. That same year, President of the Senate and Aldo ally Amintore Fanfani was kidnapped by the Red Brigades. Negotiating with the Red Brigades, President Aldo eventually secured Fanfani’s release in exchange for pardoning several Red Brigades members [5]. With his popularity running thin, Aldo stepped down in 1978, and was succeeded as Italian President by the Socialist Sandro Pertini. Running an anti-Red Brigades, anti-Communist campaign, the Christian Democrats were able to retain control of the legislature, but only with the assistance of the new anti-Communist leader of the Socialists in the Chamber of Deputies, Bettino Craxi. Forming the first non-Catholic government of Italy since 1945, Pertini appointed Ugo La Malfa, the leader of the secular, social liberal Republican Party, as Prime Minister. However, it was not to last, as La Malfa died that same year, and was succeeded by Republican Bruno Visentini. Visentini’s government was not to last either, as he was outmaneuvered by Christian Democrat-Socialist alliance in the Chamber of Deputies following the crash to form a new, Catholic government headed by Craxi, with it becoming the first time that both the President and Prime Minister were Socialists.

With both the First and Second Worlds being heavily affected by the 1982 Market Crash, the effects of the crisis were just as severe on the Third World, and the position of the Non-Aligned Movement in global politics.


“There must be no sacrificial victims, human sacrifices must not be made… We will not try you in the squares, we will not let ourselves by tried."

• Italian President Aldo Moro on pardoning members of the Red Brigades in exchange for the life of Senate President Amintore Fanfani, 1978

[1] IOTL, Kosygin had been marginalized by the still-living Brezhnev and was succeeded by the conservative Tikhonov. ITTL, with Brezhnev’s earlier death and a more reform-minded leadership in place, another economic reformist has become Chairman.

[2] IOTL, Gierek lasted until 1980 before being forced out due to his conceding to the twenty-one demands of the Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee, which led to the creation of the Solidarity union movement. ITTL, with better economic conditions in the West in the late 1970s, Gierek’s economic reliance plan lasted a bit longer (until 1982) before its collapse.

[3] TTL’s Nicolae Ceausescu is significantly different than OTL’s. With the early death of Mao Zedong in 1971, Ceausescu never adopted Maoist and Juche style totalitarianism as his model of government. Instead, he maintained his earlier reputation as a maverick reformer, and has based his government around elements of Zhouism (OTL’s Deng Xiaoping Theory), Titoism, and extreme Romanian nationalism. Although still a massive egotist and most definitely a dictator, he isn’t nearly as totalitarian as his counterpart in our history.

[4] IOTL, Kohl stepped aside for Strauss, as Chancellor Schmidt was in a stronger position than ITTL. Kohl felt he wasn’t especially likely to win, and his gambit paid off: Struss embarrassed himself and lost, paving the way for Kohl’s comeback and election as Chancellor in 1982. ITTL, with Schmidt looking much more vulnerable, Kohl has refused to step aside.

[5] IOTL, Prime Minister Aldo was kidnapped and ultimately killed by the Red Brigades in 1978, after a series of indecisive and conflicting decisions on the part of the Italian government. ITTL, with President Aldo more closely guarded, the Red Brigades targeted Fanfani instead. The more decisive Aldo was able to negotiate his release.

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“Today it hurts us if a Cuban is hungry, if a Cuban has no doctor, if a Cuban child suffers or is uneducated, or if a family has no housing. It hurts us even though it’s not our brother, our son or our father. Why shouldn’t we feel hurt if we seen an Angolan child go hungry, suffer, be killed or massacred?”

• President of Cuba Fidel Castro on Cuban intervention in the Angolan Revolution

Besides dramatically changing the dynamic between the First and Second Worlds, the Third World was just as affected by the 1982 market crash. Along with the death of Yugoslavian President Josip Broz Tito in 1980, the 1982 crash gave the Non-Aligned Movement a chance to reinvent itself on the world stage. The First Secretary and presidential dictator of Cuba, Fidel Castro, had served as the Chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement since 1979, for the most part resting on his laurels with Cuba’s decisive intervention in the Angolan Civil War.

With the withdrawal of Portugal from their former colony of Angola in 1974, a governing coalition was formed of the socialist People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the nationalist National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), and the Maoist National Union for the Liberation of Angola (UNITA). The coalition quickly collapsed, with the Soviet and Cuban backed MPLA taking an early lead. Transitioning to a more capitalist, agrarian conservative, and nationalist bent, UNITA began to get support from the African nationalist dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, and the apartheid government of South Africa. However, President McCarthy blocked any American support to UNITA, and MPLA quickly routed their opponents. Although low-intensity skirmishes continued until 1982 with no sign of stopping - especially along the border with South African Namibia, where UNITA still had a power base - MPLA was effectively in control of Angola by 1976 [1]. In retribution for supporting UNITA, the new MPLA government in Angola backed Katangan seperatist rebels in Zaire in two conflicts known as Shaba I and Shaba II. Pushing northeast from Angola, with Angolan, Cuban and Soviet backing, the Katangan nationalist Congolese National Liberation Front cut off the Shaba province from the rest of Zaire. Without the resources from the Shaba mines, Mobutu began nationalizing Western financial assets. In an incredibly rare instance of getting involved in foreign affairs, President Rhodes overruled Nixon’s support for the Mobutu Regime, and demanded full compensation to American and European corporations in Zaire. Mobutu refused, and instead appealed to China’s Paramount Leader Zhou Enlai for aid, but fled the country for fear of a coup before Zhou responded. Mobutu was briefly succeeded as President by his secret police chief, Victor Nendaka Bika, but Bika, widely unpopular and loathed for his responsibility in Mobutu’s extrajudicial killings, stepped down in place of former Foreign Minister Jean Nguza Karl-i-Bond. Nguza disbanded the ruling party, the Popular Movement of the Revolution, and instead established the Federalist Party of the Congo. Much more amenable to Western business interests, Nguza promised free elections and a capitalist economy, and succeeded in Shaba III, where the Zairian military, with American and French backing, finally defeated the Katangan separatists [2]. Likewise, with American backing, the aparthied regime in South Africa escalated the South African Border War to retain control of Namibia and to continue skirmishes with Angola. Similar American backing of white rule continued in Rhodesia.

With his leopard-skin hat, colourful clothing, rampant corruption, and brutal repression, Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko was seen as the template of the stereotypical flamboyant African dictator.
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The Rhodesian Bush War had ended with the Internal Settlement, an attempt by white Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith to negotiate with the more ‘moderate’ African nationalists, such as Abel Muzorewa. Elections were held with Muzorewa becoming Prime Minister, but they were denounced by the United Nations as still being under the conditions of unacceptable white minority rule. Despite this, Ted Heath’s government in the United Kingdom, following the lead of Rhodes and Nixon in the United States, recognized the Rhodesia Zimbabwean government. The 1979 Zimbabwean election results were rejected by the militant African nationalists, led by Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) respectively. A second negotiated agreement led to new elections with ZANU and ZAPU’s inclusion in the February 1980 elections, which Mugabe and ZANU overwhelmingly won. Deciding the results of a militant socialist being elected as unacceptable, Nixon, the US State Department, and the CIA backed a two-part coup by the white Rhodesian Security Forces, known as Operation Quartz and Operation Hectic. Originally led by Air Marshal Frank Mussell, the leader of the Security Forces, Lieutenant General Peter Wells, eventually threw in with the coup. The Rhodesian Security Forces attacked designated rallying grounds for African guerillas as per Operation Quartz, and as per Operation Hectic, Prime Minister Mugabe was assassinated. The Security Forces called on P.K. van der Byl to form a new white minority Rhodesian Front government. With the death of Mugabe, ZANU and ZAPU reignited the Bush War, merged into the Zimbabwe African Union (ZAU), and declared Joshua Nkomo as President and Edgar Tekere (Mogube’s “2 Boy”) as Prime Minister [3].

Assassinated by the white Rhodesian Security Forces in 1980, Zimbabwean Prime Minister Robert Mugabe is fondly remembered to this day by Africans as a hero of anti-colonialism, and a champion of democracy, human dignity, equality, and free and fair elections.
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Similar American attempts to maintain or expand its influence in Africa had happened further north on the continent. Particularly in the Sahel Region of Africa, the agricultural aid provided by the McCarthy Administration and continued by Rhodes paid dividends, with the region divided between American, Libyan, and French influence.

In 1971, the pro-American military dictator of Sudan, Gaafar Nimeiry, was removed in a coup d’etat by the Sudanese Communist Party. Without American support, Nimeiry was unable to regain power, and was executed by the new regime of Major Hashem al Atta. Al Atta’s coup was by no means a certainty, as he was strongly opposed by the Libyan government. However, with the help of Ali Sabri, the President of Egypt and Soviet ally, Al Atta successfully seized power. Al Atta was able to briefly end internal conflict in Sudan through the Addis Ababa Agreement, but despite early military and diplomatic success, Al Atta doomed his own government by cutting US agricultural aid. Although the biggest party in Sudan, the Sudanese Communist Party was unpopular with the religious conservative majority in rural Sudan. Opposition to Al Atta took on an Islamist bent, and recieved heavy support from Gaddafi. This culminated in an Islamic revolution in 1976, with forced led by Sadiq al-Mahdi marching on Khartoum, seizing the capital in a bloody, three day, house-to-house battle. The Islamic Republic of Sudan was declared, led by the National Umma Party (NUP), with al-Mahdi as Prime Minister and Hassan al-Turabi as President. Allied with the Islamic Republic of Maghreb, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, Sharia Law was declared by the NUP. Less than two years after taking power, the Second Sudanese Civil War began in 1978, with the majority Christian population in south Sudan revolting against Sharia Law, with Egyptian and Israeli support [4].

Meanwhile, in 1974, Libya had unified with Tunisia to form the Arab Islamic Republic. The announcement came as a surprise to many, as it was assumed Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba was opposed to unification. Indeed, Bourguiba had at first expected a gradual process of confederation, but had been strong-armed into full unification by Chairman of the Libyan Revolutionary Command Council Muammar Gaddafi. Bourguiba was declared President, but Gaddafi effectively controlled the military and foreign policy in his position as Minister of Defence. Unification would expand to Algeria the next year, in 1975. Driven by anti-Egyptian, anti-Moroccon, and Pan-Arab sentiment, Algerian President Houari Bouemediene, came to an agreement with Bourguiba and Gaddafi to form the Islamic Republic of Maghreb, with Bouemediene as Minister of Economic Affairs and Integration. Although full unification didn’t expand any further, the United States of Northern Africa was declared as a loose confederacy with Maghreb, and Mauritania, Chad (sans the Aouzou Strip), Sudan, and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Maghreb’s greatest antagonist remained the Kingdom of Morocco; Maghreb inherited the Moroccon-Algerian, and only inflamed tensions in the late 1970s by siding with Mauritania to recognize the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as the legitimate government of Western Sahara instead of Morocco [5].

The territorial extent of the Islamic Republic of Maghreb (in green) upon its founding in 1975. Formed out of the short-lived Arab Islamic Republic, Maghreb consisted of Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia.
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The situation in Ethiopia was nearly the opposite of events in Sudan. There, Communist revolution had floundered against the popularity of Emperor Haile Selassie I, who had reigned since 1930. Famine in northeastern Ethiopia was addressed by American agricultural aid, while consumer prices - particularly oil - remained fairly low throughout the early 1970s. However, McCarthy cut arms sales to Ethiopia, leaving the Ethiopian Army to purchase from France and the United Kingdom. The situation in Ethiopia had declined by the late 1970s, with the Oil Crisis of 1979, and the following 1982 market crash. Although still largely popular with the Ethiopian people, Selassie’s status of political invulnerability had declined with his failure to effectively deal with Eritrean separatism and the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF). In 1982, the aging Selassie, going into his nineties, was put under house arrest in a military coup led by Atnafu Atabe. Portraying himself as a conservative nationalist looking to preserve the nation, Atabe was made temporary Head of State, chosen over disgraced General Aman Andom, who had been discredited for his ‘soft’ stance on the Eritreans in the late 1970s. Atabe’s nationalist regime solidified its conservative bent with the appointment of Haile Selassie’s son as Emperor Amha Selassie I, in a constitutional monarchy overseen by the Derg military junta. Amha Selassie was reluctant to ascend to the throne, but saw it as a fait accompli by the time that the Derg had declared the beginning of his reign, and the appointment of Atabe as Prime Minister. Having retained legitimacy by tying himself to the still-popular Selassie monarchy, Atabe began purging the country of leftists in a White Terror, most notably the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party, the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement, and Marxist-Leninist elements within the Derg led by Mengitsu Haile Mariam. Ethiopia effectively went into a state of civil war between the monarchist military junta, the leftist anti-government rebels, and Eritrean separatists. Things came to a head in mid-1982, with a Somali invasion of the Ethiopian region of Ogaden, known as the Ogaden War. Fighting in the borderlands between Ethiopia and the Marxist-Leninist regime in Somalia had slowly intensified during the end of Haile Selassie’s reign, but Siad Barre, the presidential dictator of Somalia, was hesitant to commit to a full-scale war. With Ethiopia in disarray and with full military backing from the Soviets, Cuba, and Angola among others, Somalia was able to take the city of Dire Dawa, cutting off Ethiopia’s supply lines, forcing an end to the war, and annexing Ogaden [6].

Somalia successfully annexed Ogaden from the Kingdom of Ethiopia in the 1982 Ogaden War.
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In Upper Volta, President Sangoule Lamizana had kept a firm grip on power with American agricultural aid. In the Central African Republic, presidential dictator Jean-Bedel Bokassa distanced himself from France after Mitterand’s election in 1974, and was subsequently assassinated by French forces whilst planning a self-coronation as Emperor of Central Africa. He was succeeded by David Dacko as a French puppet, before Dacko was forced to resign as President in favour of the popular Ange-Felix Patasse in 1979. The regime of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was toppled in 1976; President McCarthy put strict sanctions against Amin after his prosecution of Asians living in the country. When the Kenyan government stopped Soviet weapons bound for Uganda, Amin, in a fit of extreme egotism, attempted to annex most of western Kenya. Despite extensive Maghrebi support, Amin was easily toppled, and succeeded as President by Akena p’Ojok, of the Ugandan Patriotic Party. Milton Obote of the Ugandan People’s Congress was democratically elected President afterward [7].

Despite the chaos in Africa, most expected the next Secretary General of the United Nations would be from that continent. Felipe Herrera of Chile was South America’s first Secretary General, and many African countries wanted ‘one of theirs’ in the position. Salim Ahmed Salim, President of the General Assembly of Tanzania, was nominated with the full suppport of the Non-Aligned Movement, Africa, and China, but was vetoed by the United States for being too anti-Aparthied and pro-Palestinian, and was also vetoed by the Soviet Union for being the China-backed candidate. The Western candidate, Prince Sabruddin Aga Khan of Jordan, was blocked by soviet veto. After several rounds of deadlocks, alternative candidates were proposed, with China announcing it would veto any non-Third World candidate. Because of this, candidacies were restricted to Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Few outside of South America were interested in nominating another South American, while all the remaining African candidates were either too anti-Aparthied, too dictatorial or too much of both to make it past Soviet and American vetoes. An acceptable dark horse was ultimately chosen in the form of Rafael Montinola Salas of the Philippines, the Head of the United Nations Population Fund. As a citizen of a nation allied to the United States but an opponent of its pro-American government, Salas was acceptable to both the Americans and Soviets, while he was acceptable to China and the Third World due to being from the global south. Salas was ultimately elected as the first Far East Asian to serve as General Secretary of the United Nations.

Rafael Salas was chosen as the second Asian Secretary General of the United Nations, and the first Far East Asian one in 1981.
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Salas’ election was celebrated all across Asia, but even that continent hadn’t escaped the consequences of the 1982 crash…


“There is no state with a democracy except Maghreb on the whole planet.”

• Maghrebi Minister of Defence Muammar Gaddafi on the foundation of the Islamic Republic of Maghreb, 1975

[1] IOTL, extensive American support for UNITA dramatically extended the Angolan Civil War, with foreign soldiers not withdrawing until 1989, and the war not officially ending until 2002. With full support from Cuba and the Soviet Union and a total lack of American involvement, MPLA has quickly crushed FNLA and UNITA, mostly prevented the Angolan Civil War, and has implemented a totalitarian Marxist-Leninist state.

[2] IOTL, Mobutu defeated Shaba I and II with the help of the Safari Club, an alliance of various international intelligence agencies who supported his regime. ITTL, without funding and support from Mao in China due to his 1971 assassination, Mobutu was forced to nationalize American assets, and was cut off from Safari Club assistance. This, along with a quick resolution to the Angolan Civil War and Angola specifically focusing on him, led to the collapse of his government.

[3] IOTL, with a lack of support from any foreign government, the Rhodesian Security Force never went through with their planned coup. ITTL, they went through with it with US and South African backing.

[4] IOTL, the Nimeiry Junta lasted until 1985 with American support. ITTL, McCarthy provides agricultural aid but no military support. Left to his own devices, Nimeiry isn’t able to fend off the 1971 Communist coup.

[5] IOTL, Algeria blocked the unification of Libya and Tunisia. Algeria had previously shown interest in unificiation when it had a hostile relationship with Egypt, but tensions eased with the presidency of Anwar Sadat. ITTL, socialist Egypt, clearly in the Soviet camp, is seen as an adversarial power, and so Algeria was more inclined to support unification as a defence against them.

[6] Since the Yom Kippur War was butterflied away, the OAPEC embargo wasn’t put in place until 1979, rather than OTL’s 1973. Stacked with American agricultural aid, the Ethiopian famines that sunk Selassie IOTL were mitigated until it all came crashing down by TTL’s 1982. With the extra time, Aman Andom, who was declared temporary Head of State by the Derg, was discredited in the intervening years ITTL, leaving the path open for the right wing of the Derg to take an early lead. IOTL, the Soviets tried to hedge their bets by supporting both Marxist-Leninist regimes in Ethiopia and Somalia during the Ogaden War, but ultimately went all in for Ethiopia. ITTL, with the delayed Ogaden War, the Soviets were entirely for Somalia from the start, which gives the Somalis the extra push to take Dire Dawa and win the war.

[7] Speed round! IOTL, Lamizana was toppled in 1980 without American agricultural support. With French backing under Valery Giscard d’Estaing, Bokassa lasted until 1979 before being deposed. Without harsh economic sanctions, Adi Amin lasted until 1979, when he tried to take on Tanzania and was easily beaten.

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“There are no fundamental contradictions between a socialist system and a market economy.”

• China’s Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping on Zhouism

Paradoxically, the economies of Asia was both the most and least affected by the 1982 market crash. While the economies tied to the US dollar - particularly Japan - were hit the hardest, the People’s Republic of China actually benefited from the crash.

The situation in Japan throughout the 1970s was one of supreme economic confidence, and shaky political uneasiness. The Japense economic miracle seemed unstoppable, with Japan having grown to the second largest economy in the world. Trade liberalization and a production economy saw estimates continuing to exceed all but the very most optimistic projections in the early 1970s. Although the 1979 Oil Crisis brought discomfort to the Japanese market, the economy continued to grow, and most of the negative effects of increased fuel and productions costs were mitigated by buying oil from the United States’ strategic energy reserve during the OAPEC embargo [1]. On the political scene, the ‘one-and-a-half party system’ continued, with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) forming every government since 1955. Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, having served as Prime Minister since 1964, retired in 1972. Sato was succeeded as Prime Minister by Takeo Fukada. A notable hawk and conservative, Fukada was chosen in reaction to the McCarthy Presidency and America’s rapid military withdrawal from South-East Asia [2]. The Fukada Government continued without major incident until 1976, when the country was rocked by the Lockheed Bribery Scandal, where Lockheed, an American aerospace and military corporation, was uncovered as having bribed government officials around the world since the 1950s to win government contracts. The politician found most complicit of taking bribes in Japan was Fukada’s rival within the LDP, Kakuei Tanaka. Fukada tried to distance the LDP from Tanaka by attempting to break up his faction within the party by introducing primary elections. Fukada was partially successful; the LDP saw a drop in seats in the 1976 Japanese general election, but was just able to hold on to its majority in the Diet. Although it seemed Fukada had weathered the political storm of Lockheed, his government was sunk the next year by the Japan Airlines Flight 472 Hijacking. Hijacked by the militant communist Japanese Red Army (JRA), the terrorists demanded six million US dollars, and the release of some imprisoned JRA members. Fukada acquiesced to their demands, stating that, “the value of a human life outweighs the Earth.” While Fukada succeeded in his goal of the release of all the hostages without any deaths, his reputation as a hawk was ruined, and he was forced to step down from office in a party revolt. With Fukada’s faction discredited and Tanaka’s faction still tarnished by the Lockheed scandal, the LDP instead turned to the minor outsider figure of Takeo Miki. Miki proved to be popular with the electorate, but the reason he was chosen as Fukada’s successor was also his downfall: without an internal party faction to back him up, Miki was at the mercy of the surviving Fukada faction, which orchestrated a comeback of their man as Prime Minister in 1980.

Fukada had the misfortune of serving as Prime Minister during the 1982 crash. With the collapse of the US dollar, for a brief moment, it looked as if the Japanese Yen would become the world’s new central currency. However, the sudden overvaluing of the Yen mixed with a global downturn in the purchasing of imports brought the Japanese economy into rapid decline, ending, for the time being, the Japanese economic miracle. Fukada stepped down as Prime Minister in favour of Shintaro Abe, the Minister of International Trade, and a member of Fukada’s faction, in an effort to ward of the Tanaka faction from taking control of the party. Although Abe does his best to recover from the crash, a Tanaka takeover seems imminent.

Japanese Prime Minister Shintaro Abe talks with de facto Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on the disputed Kuril Islands. Abe was in a vulnerable position after being appointed Prime Minister following the 1982 Market Crash and the end of the Japanese Economic Miracle.
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Meanwhile in the People’s Republic of China, despite the crash, Deng Xiaoping’s rule continues unabated. Since the assassination of Mao and the rise of Zhou in 1971, China had seen significant economic reform. With the ideology of Zhouism, the political structure remained relatively unchanged, most of the agricultural sector had been de-collectivized, and China turned from a closed economy to a semi-open trade economy. With the retirement and death of Zhou Enlai in 1979, Deng had continued his mentor’s reforms into the 1980s. The question of currency convertibility became one of the most important questions answered by Zhou and Deng, in a significant policy shift from Mao’s day. During the Mao era, the Chinese renminbi was significantly overvalued and heavy exchange penalties were put in place to keep the Maoist command economy closed from the rest of the world. Instead of opening the renminbi to the rest of the world, a dual-track currency system was introduced, with the renminbi used domestically (and kept at its unrealistic overvaluation), and foreign exchange certificates backed by the Chinese government used for foreign trade. An accidental benefit of this was, when the 1982 crash came, the renminbi was completely insulated from the sudden, massive disequilibrium of global currencies. Although international sales decreased with the crash, the Chinese domestic economy got off scot free. Following the crash, Deng worked to make the renminbi more convertible, and, while still highly overvalued, became the go-to ‘strong’ currency of the 1980s [3].

The Taiwan-based Republic of China was less lucky. Kuomintang President Chaing Kai-shek, in exile since 1949, had outlived his nemesis Mao, but died himself in 1975. He was succeeded as President of the ‘official’ Republic of China by his son, Chaing Ching-kuo. Under the rule of the younger Chaing, Taiwan remained a one-party state under martial law. In an effort to improve Taiwanese infrastructure, in 1974, then-Premier Chaing Ching-kuo began the Ten Major Construction Projects, including ports, refineries, and a nuclear power plant. The Taiwanese economy struggled with the 1979 Oil Crisis, and politically floundered with the Rhodes Administration officially ending recognition of the Republic of China in favour of the People’s Republic. With the intensification of pro-democracy protests and the 1982 crash, Chaing accepted the inevitability of democratization, and began a program of political reform. Repression of the Tangwai (“outside the party”) movement ended, despite the protests of General Wang Sheng, Chaing’s presumptive heir as President. Chaing’s democratic reforms were also privately supported by Nguyen Van Thieu, the former President of South Vietnam, who had been living in exile in Taiwan (along with most of South Vietnam’s gold reserve) since 1971 [4].

Nguyen Van Theiu, former President of South Vietnam, remained in exile in the Republic of China on Taiwan since leaving the mainland in 1970. He supported Taiwanese democratization during the 1980s, but stayed away from politics for the most part.
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The People’s Republic of China’s strong position in the 1980s also worked to benefit South-East Asia. Although the Socialist Republic of Vietnam initially aligned with the Soviet Union after American withdrawal, joining COMECON and other Soviet-dominated international institutions. However, Zhou Enlai was a prominent advocate of the Viet Minh within China, and once he became Paramount Leader, began a diplomatic initiative to bring Vietnam back on side with China. Supporting Vietnam’s toppling of the Thai and US-backed Khmer Republic, both Vietnam and China approved of the Khmer Rouge government of Nuon Chea. Essentially a Vietnam puppet regime, Nuon Chea was forced to discard the more extreme aspirations of the late Pol Pot, and instead follows a fairly traditional (and Vietnam-loyal) Marxist-Leninist regime. By 1982, Vietnam was still mostly aligned with the Kirilenko-Gorbachev regime in the USSR, but was on amicable terms with China [5].

Officially, China also continued to support the Bhutto Government in the Pakistani Civil War, providing military and diplomatic aid. However, the geopolitical reason for China to support Pakistan - as a counterbalance to India - was no longer relevant with full Indian annexation of Kashmir. The Indira Gandhi Government in India had seen significant turmoil. Riding high off of a wave of popular support after the successful conclusion of the Bangladesh Liberation War and the annexation of Kashmir, Gandhi’s support began to mildly decline due to high inflation brought upon by wartime spending. With inflation being the only major economic issue of the early 1970s, Gandhi was able to deal with it effectively, keeping her support into a political crisis in 1975. After years of navigating the legal system, Ghandi was found guilty of minor charges of electoral malpractice, though found innocent of major charges. The court demanded that she be stripped of her parliamentary seat and banning her from public office for six years, effectively ending her premiership. Gandhi rejected the judgement and appealed to the Supreme Court of India. With pro and anti-Indira protests sweeping the nation, Gandhi, with the support of Indian President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, declared a state of emergency. While still officially being within her constitutional rights, Gandhi implemented a dictatorship: arresting protesters, postponing elections, censoring the media, ruling by decree, unilaterally implementing her economic policies of choice, and retroactively removing the campaign laws she had violated. With the economy sound, Gandhi declared an end to The Emergency in early 1976, releasing all political prisoners from the other parties, and calling elections rather than using the President to extend the period of unilateral rule [6]. Although Gandhi’s Indian National Congress held on to its strongholds such as Uttar Pradesh, the INC narrowly lost the election to the Janata Party, a broad alliance of parties opposed to The Emergency, ranging from Hindu nationalists to socialists. Gandhi herself lost her seat, but her son, Sanjay Gandhi, stayed in parliament. Indira and Sanjay were both put on trial, but this only served to garner widespread sympathy. Ultimately, the Janata Party collapsed from infighting, with Indira making a comeback to be re-elected Prime Minister in 1980. Having vindicated herself, if not The Emergency, Gandhi was put upon by more hard times with the 1982 crash. Having subverted democracy once before and gotten away with it, the broken apart components claim that Gandhi would rather declare a Second Emergency than risk giving up power in the next general election.

Sanjay and Indira Gandhi dominated Indian politics all throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s.​

As for cancelling elections, President Paul Laxalt did not have the same luxury in the United States, with the 1982 midterms just on the horizon.


“This is why we feel that democracy’s important: because democracy allows you to have small explosions and therefore avoid the bigger explosions.”

• Indian Prime Minister (and sometime dictator) Indira Gandhi on democracy

[1] IOTL, the 1973 Oil Crisis did some damage to the Japense economy, but it ultimately continued to grow going into the late 1970s and 1980s. Here, the absence of the 1973 Oil Crisis have given the Japanese an even bigger boost. The situation was made worse IOTL by the 1978-79 Second Oil Shock, but that too has been partially avoided by buying oil from Rhodes’ strategic energy reserve program in the United States.

[2] IOTL, Kakuei Tanaka, the bitter rival of Takeo Fukuda, was chosen as Prime Minister instead in 1972 to succeed Sato.

[3] This is the exact same currency convertibility policy pursued in China as IOTL, but the 1982 market crash has made the policy even more beneficial for Deng.

[4] Due to the 1982 crash, Taiwan is liberalizing a bit sooner than IOTL.

[5] IOTL, the Sino-Vietnamese War never happens, as the China-backed Khmer Rouge never came to power. ITTL, China and Zhou take a more diplomatic stance, and support Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia.

[6] The Emergency was Gandhi’s gamble to hold onto power by any means. With a sounder economy, Gandhi keeps it in place for a shorter amount of time, before the worst excesses (such as forced sterilization) began to be implemented.

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“The high-handed bureaucratic excesses of the IRS are a national disgrace… riding roughshod over the taxpayers and making a joke out of our rule of laws.”

• President Paul Laxalt on the Economic Stimulus Act of 1983

In the lead-up to the 1982 Midterm Elections, President Paul Laxalt was in a lose-lose situation. If Laxalt continued the Rhodes legacy, he would keep the Republicans in Congress loyal, but would be tying himself to the administration most responsible for the Crash of 1982. If Laxalt distanced himself from Rhodes, he would lose the chance to get sympathy votes over the assassinated President, and the Rhodes loyalists in Congress and the cabinet would likely revolt. Ultimately, Laxalt decided to go with the latter; the Johnson and McCarthy Administrations were blamed by Laxalt for being the root of the problem, but the Rhodes Administration was also (much more tactfully) critiqued for “partly contributing to the problems embedded into the American economy by the Democrats.” Over protests by the likes of Senate Majority Whip Ted Stevens and Secretary of Defence Alexander Haig, Laxalt shelved Jobs For America, and instead called for a new economic direction to spur a quick recovery before a recession, or even a depression, developed. Working with Secretary of Treasury Claude Kirk Jr, Laxalt developed a series of policy priorities: restrengthening the dollar, rebalancing the world’s currencies, stabilizing the banks, guaranteeing asset liquidity, and restoring investor confidence. Although Kirk Jr. was a Rhodes loyalist, he was an even bigger opportunist, and worked with Laxalt to pass his agenda.

Secretary of Defence Alexander Haig was a thorn in the side of the Laxalt Administration from the moment that Jobs For America was put on hold.​

Most of the money that had been made from the practical abolition of the welfare state that was going to go towards Jobs For America instead went towards Laxalt’s Currency and Market Stabilization Omnibus Act: Congress sold off America’s holdings in foreign currencies and bought up dollar assets en masse, interest rates were raised, the rest of the welfare state money went towards paying off the debt to bring the money out of circulation and lower inflation. While these were technically speaking all sound ways to strengthen a currency, their drawbacks turned out to be nearly as bad as their benefits: selling off foreign currencies and buying up the dollar brought short-term stability at the cost of further crashing the currencies of America’s biggest trading partners, high interest rates - which had been one of the main causes of the crash - brought stocks even lower on Wall Street and further damaged bank value, and while lowering inflation did strengthen the dollar, the cuts to social security were at a time when Americans needed support most. The Economic Stimulus Act was also passed, which provided tax incentives and broadened rebates, as well as temporarily closed the banks to prevent insolvency. The banks were bailed out as well, to prevent a total crash. The Omnibus Act and Stimulus Act only managed to pass through the Democrat-controlled House through a compromise to pass a bill sponsored by Speaker Udall known as the Emergency Relief and Employment Act, which acted as a stop-gap to reallocate some funds back to the welfare state, as well as provide guaranteed employment and universal basic income on a limited, rationed scale.

Udall and Congressional Democrats made mince meat out of Laxalt to the public. They claimed that Laxalt’s legislation didn’t go nearly far enough to resolve the crisis, and that his short-sighted plan to cut social security before Jobs For America was in place had reached its worst-case scenario. At the same time, Laxalt faced his feared Rhodesite revolt: Rhodes Republicans in the House and Senate constantly called for the passage of the Jobs For America Act, something Udall and the Democrats blocked by intentionally orchestrated narrow margins in the House to exacerbate tensions between the Republican factions. Rhodes Republicans had also sided with Democrats to pass Udall’s Keynesian deficit spending in the form of the Emergency Relief and Employment Act, albeit only after major revisions and downsizing to the bill’s budget after it was vetoed by Laxalt. Haig, as well as Secretary of Employment Hyman Minsky, Secretary of Labor Jacob Javits, and Secretary of Housing Charles Percy all resigned in protest to Laxalt’s seeming unwillingness to act on Jobs For America, although Rhodes loyalists Claude Kirk and Dave Thomas stayed on as Secretaries of Treasury and Commerce respectively.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Charles Percy - once a kingmaker in the Republican Party - resigned in protest with several other members of the Laxalt cabinet for failing to address the recession by passing the Jobs For America Act.
​

By the time the Midterms actually arrived, the GOP was in complete shambles. In the Senate, a few notable Rhodes loyalists, such as Pennsylvania’s John Heinz and Connecticut’s Lowell Weicker survived, but the Democrats won a clear majority. Democratic Senate leadership, namely Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, and Jerry Litton were easily re-elected. Some notable new Democrats defeated Republican incumbents, such as New Jersey’s Frank Lautenburg, Minnesota’s Mark Dayton, Arizona’s Raul Hector Castro, and, most notably, California’s new Senator Gore Vidal [1]. On the Republican side, Robert Griffin remained Minority Leader, and Ted Stevens remained Minority Whip, neither of whom were up for re-election that year. Although Griffin was more amenable to the President, Stevens remained an intransigent leading Rhodesite.

Democratic House leadership was also re-elected; Mo Udall remained the de facto leader of the Democratic Party as well as Speaker of the House, while Henry Jackson supporter Tom Foley remained House Majority Whip. Dan Rostenkowski, friend of the late Tip O’Neill and Chair of the Ways and Means Committee and Democratic Caucus, also held significant power, and was angling to succeed Udall as House leader in the near future. With the retirement of Republican House Minority Leader John Rhodes, a leadership race emerged between the conservative House Minority Whip Trent Lott, the Rhodes loyalist and Jobs For America sponsor Bill Gradison, and moderate Newt Gingrich. Gingrich, elected in 1974 during the Republican landslide brought on by the McLaughlin Scandal, had earned a reputation as a bipartisan figure in the House, having previously served as the southern regional director of the 1968 Rockefeller campaign. Mostly running in protest to Laxalt, Gingrich withdrew in favour of Gradison, coming to a compromise where Gingrich was appointed as the new Deputy Whip to Lott, while Gradison became Minority Leader. The most notable new member of the House for the Republicans was Barbara Vuconovich of Nevada, a former member of Laxalt’s Senate staff.

Representative Bill Gradison was chosen as the new Republican Minority Leader in 1983, with the help of the notably moderate Newt Gingrich.
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Going into early 1983, economic conditions worsened, with the crash turning into a severe economic recession. With Laxalt trying to avoid Keynesian deficit spending as much as possible, economic problems remained unaddressed. Although bailed out industries, such as the financial, automotive, and housing sectors began to recover, purchasing power remained incredibly low, and cost of living unaffordably high for working Americans. Negotiations with America’s trading partners to re-balance the currencies continued slowly but surely, but not fast enough to offer quick revaluations, leaving the Chinese renminbi as the world’s main ‘safe’ currency for the time being. Laxalt also began negotiations with the Liberal government of Canadian Prime Minister Donald Macdonald in a proposed free trade deal to encourage the movement of goods and help stimulate the economy but more ‘fiscally responsible’ means. Besides the Liberals, the Progressive Conservative Party, led by Jack Horner, also supported a free trade deal, but it was opposed by Canada’s third largest party, the left wing New Democratic Party, led by Ed Broadbent. On the American side, both Democrats and Republicans generally supported free trade. Lyndon Johnson had notably signed the Canada-United States Automotive Products Agreement, while McCarthy had signed the Latin American-United States Preferential Trade Agreement, where America prioritised purchasing the primary exports of Latin American countries (such as sugar), instead of buying them for possibly lower prices from other parts of the world.

Following the midterms, the Democratic-controlled Congress also passed a stimulus package significantly larger than anything passed by Laxalt and the mixed Congress before the Midterms. Titled the American Recovery Expansion Act (AREA), it, along with the Emergency Relief and Employment Act became known as Congressional or Democratic stimulus, while the Laxalt-backed Currency and Market Stabilization Omnibus Act and the Economic Stimulus Act became known as Presidential, or Republican stimulus. Although Congressional Democrats had to bypass a presidential veto to pass AREA, it was generally credited by economists with alleviating unemployment and slowing the economic decline, if not stopping it.

Canadian Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Party Donald Macdonald was a supporter of a free trade deal with the United States, but faced re-election in late 1983.
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By mid-1983, in a case of election creep, the first Democrats began announcing their candidacies for President. Reverend Jesse Jackson announced as the candidate of the burgeoning Christian Left, with left fringe economic positions and mainstream conservative social positions, with the exception of supporting the abolition of the death penalty. In a strange twist, Jackson was endorsed by both former President Eugene McCarthy, and Senator George Wallace. Wallace, who wasn’t running for President for the first time in twenty years, had declared himself a Born-Again Christian, and had shifted his allegiance to the People’s Christian Coalition. Denouncing his previous segregationism, Wallace begged the forgiveness of the African American community, although he insisted he had never been a racist. Jackson, having never held elected office before, was generally considered a flash in the pan by mainstream media, with more ‘serious’ candidates having yet to announce. Other early contenders were the generally unknown Senator Gary Hart of Colorado, who held the distinction of being the only Democrat elected to the Senate in 1974; Senator Bella Abzug of New York, the left wing feminist who was running a socially progressive campaign to contrast with the social conservatism of Jesse Jackson; and former Governor Reubin Askew of Florida, who was running as a more fiscally conservative Democrat.

The one thing that was for certain was that there would be more than just those Democrats looking to claim the White House in 1984.


“Politicians argue for abortion largely because they do not want to spend the necessary money to feed, clothe and educate more people… There are those who argue that a right guaranteed because it was not specifically enumerated by the Founding Fathers is of a higher order than the right to life. I do not share that view… That was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence of treatment of slaves on the plantation because the 'right' to own slaves was a non-enumerated right in the Constitution, and therefore outside of your right to be concerned.”

• 1984 Democratic candidate for President Jesse Jackson on abortion and Roe v. Wade, 1977

[1] IOTL, Jerry Brown never became Governor of California, and so he didn’t have the political capital to beat out Gore Vidal in the 1982 California Democratic primary. Especially with a reformist mood brought on by the crash, and Vidal having the endorsement and support of the likes of Udall and McCarthy.

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

The Laxalt Cabinet and Staff
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President Paul Laxalt (NV, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
Going into the 1984 election, President Laxalt feels he has done the best he could have with the hand he was dealt. Having passed conservative economic stimulus, Laxalt is at odds with the Democratic controlled Congress on exactly how to end what the media is calling the Great Recession. On top of that, Laxalt's discontinuation of pork barrel spending and guaranteed employment has caused a rift between the party's more traditional conservatives on one side, and the Rhodesite conservatives and moderates on the other. Laxalt hopes to unify the party at the Republican National Convention, win election in his own right, and define the 1980s as the decade of conservatism.

Vice President Richard Nixon (CA, Moderate Republican, Realpolitik)
Nominated by President Laxalt and voted into the office by Congress, Richard Nixon is the longest serving Vice President in American history. Representing continued stability in the Laxalt Administration, Nixon has kept his head down with the schism between Laxalt and the Rhodesites. Nixon still holds significant sway over foreign policy, but not nearly to the extent of his time as Secretary of State during the Rhodes Administration. Nixon is determined to stay in the presidential administration, and is entirely willing to play both sides to guarantee it.

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (MA, Moderate Republican, Realpolitik)
Part of the agreement between Laxalt and Nixon to move from the State Department to the Vice Presidency was that Nixon's ally, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, would become Secretary of State. Kissinger is seen as a proxy of Nixon's, and continues to support Nixon's foreign policy objectives, such as Iraq's invasion of Iran, and supporting anti-Soviet dictatorships around the world. For the time being, these are also the goals of President Laxalt.

Secretary of Treasury Claude R. Kirk Jr. (FL, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
Claude Kirk is the only prominent Rhodes loyalist who has remained in the Laxalt Administration. Kirk was instrumental in passing Laxalt's economic stimulus plans to address the Great Recession. Kirk is still a major proponent of Rhodes-style liberal corporatism, and is the only remaining voice from within the cabinet still actively calling for the Jobs For America Act.

Secretary of Defense Barry Goldwater (AZ, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
With Laxalt in the Oval Office, former Senator Barry Goldwater has been re-appointed as Secretary of Defense to replace Alexander Haig. Goldwater had served as Rhodes' Secretary of Defense in his first term, but was replaced by Haig going in to Rhodes' second term. Goldwater was chosen both for his close ties to President Laxalt, and because Congressional Republicans couldn't afford to lose one of their ranking members while already being in a weak position.

Attorney General Bill Saxbe (OH, Moderate Republican, Dove-Leaning)
Bill Saxbe was one of the Rhodes cabinet members who stayed on into the Laxalt Administration for the sake of unity and continuation following the Rhodes Assassination. Saxbe has been encouraged by Laxalt to continue enforcement of the War on Drugs, a program the Attorney General is increasingly concerned is going beyond its mission statement and legal responsibilities.

Secretary of the Interior Don Samuelson (ID, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
Samuelson is another member of Rhodes' cabinet who has stayed on with Laxalt. Samuelson follows Rhodes' (and Laxalt's) philosophy of resource extraction projects and an expanding industrial economy.

Secretary of Agriculture William R. Poage (TX, Conservative Democrat, Hawk)
William Poage intended to retire at some point in Rhodes' second term, but his plans were thrown into chaos following the Rhodes Assassination and resignation of several other cabinet members. The aging Agriculture Secretary is bound by his sense of duty to stay on the cabinet with many of its members resigning in protest of Laxalt's policies, and is half-heartedly going through the rest of the term.

Secretary of Commerce Dave Thomas (OH, Conservative Independent, Realpolitik)
Dave Thomas, like Poage, is antsy to leave the cabinet, but has stayed on out of a sense of responsibility. The Founder of Wendy's, Dave wants to get back to his burgers, and re-enter the private sector at the soonest possibility, especially with the Great Recession hurting all businesses.

Secretary of Labor Thomas Watson Jr. (CT, Moderate Independent, Realpolitik)
The retired President of the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), Thomas Watson revolutionized the computer industry, developing hardware and software, and reaping the rewards in early investments into the idea of office computers. Watson also divided the company into different divisions in a decentralizing move that allowed for much greater logistical flexibility and specialization of sales. Watson replaces Jacob Javits as Secretary of Labor, who resigned in protest along with fellow cabinet members Alexander Haig, Charles Percy, and Hyman Minsky.

Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Robert H. Michel (IL, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
Another Rhodes appointee who has stayed on, Michel is one of the few members of the cabinet who prefers the policies of the new President to the late one. Having been used as the hatchet man by the Rhodes Administration for years, Michel is thankful the pure hatred and vitriol he's gotten is now mostly directed towards the President.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Edward Brooke (MA, Rockefeller Republican, Hawk-Leaning)
The former Senator for Massachusetts as well as that state's first African American Senator, Edward Brooke co-wrote the Fair Housing Act along with Democratic Senator Walter Mondale. Later, he would call for stronger enforcement and provisions of the act. Brooke was also a supporter of many prominent Great Society programs, but was cautious of McCarthy's more stringent Crusade Against Poverty. Although convinced of guaranteed employment by the Rhodes Administration, Brooke has joined the Laxalt Administration to replace Jacob Javits, who resigned in protest of Jobs For America not being enacted.

Secretary of Transportation Ray Lee Hunt (TX, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
Ray Lee Hunt, the famous oil tycoon, has stayed on as Secretary of Transportation. With Laxalt now the President, Hunt is more in agreement with the Oval Office when it comes to opposing unions and unionization, and has been given a freer hand to help legislate 'right to work' laws. Hunt has particularly targeted the Teamsters.

Secretary of Employment Milton Friedman (IL, Libertarian Republican, Realpolitik)
The well-known Chicago School economist Milton Friedman is the second man to hold the title of Secretary of Employment. A laissez-faire capitalist and enemy of Keynesianism, Friedman is not a supporter of guaranteed employment. Rather, Friedman supports deregulating the economy and instituting a flat tax rate and negative income tax (among other policies) to promote economic growth and private sector employment. Friedman has described himself as a Classical Liberal, and a Republican for reasons of expediency rather than principle.

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Supreme Allied Commander Europe Bernard W. Rogers (KS, Moderate Independent, Hawk)
Bernard Rogers has been working for the past few years to whip the United States Army back into shape after low funding and lower morale in the 1970s. Rogers has returned America to previous stance of military readiness, and preparedness for confrontation with the Soviet Union in Europe.

Director of the Federal Bureau of Intelligence Mark Felt (DC, Conservative Independent, Hawk)
The successor to the legacy of J. Edgar Hoover, Mark Felt has fully cooperated with the hawkish foreign policy of Rhodes, Nixon, and Laxalt, though the purview of the FBI remains largely in domestic affairs. Felt has kept his head down compared to Hoover, and has attempted to improve the image of the FBI following the McCarthy Presidency, where the FBI was threatened with abolition before the McLaughlin Scandal. The FBI, and America's other secret services remain largely unaccountable organizations, but Felt has done a much better job of collaborating with Congress and the President in exchange for making sure things stay that way.

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First Lady Carol Laxalt
Despite becoming First Lady under tragic circumstances, Carol Laxalt has made the best of it. Carol frequently holds White House events, and is a much more public and well known figure than First Lady Helen Rhodes. Carol remains in close contact with the Rhodes family, although invitations over to the White House for family and friends dinners have been declined.

White House Chief of Staff Tom Loranger (NV, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
Tom Loranger was Paul Laxalt's Chief of Staff back when he was just the Senator for Nevada. Loranger continued in the same role as the Vice President's Chief of Staff, and now serves as White House Chief of Staff. Loranger has had the unenviable task to wrangle the transition from a White House staff that had been entirely transplanted from Ohio, to one that more reflected Nevada and Washington D.C.

White House Senior Advisor Wayne Pearson (NV, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
Wayne Pearson has served as Paul Laxalt's senior campaign advisor since Laxalt's incredibly narrow loss to Howard Cannon in Nevada's 1964 Senate election. Pearson continued to advise Laxalt during his successful runs for Governor of Nevada, Senator for Nevada, and his later upstart primary challenge for the Vice Presidency.

White House Press Secretary Ronald Reagan (CA, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
The former Governor of California and three-time presidential contender, Ronald Reagan has been a stalwart supporter of his good friend Paul Laxalt, before his becoming President and afterward. The irony is not lost on Reagan that he was a strong supporter of Laxalt's vice presidential campaign in 1980, only for Laxalt to become President from it later. Referred to as the "First Friend," Reagan was chosen as press secretary following the Rhodes Assassination in the hopes that his sunny disposition would allay fears. Although some have begun to question his mental faculties, Reagan fully intends to stick by Laxalt through thick and thin, a sentiment the President has returned.

White House Chief Speechwriter Pat Buchanan (VA, Conservative Republican, Isolationist)
The career of Pat Buchanan has been closely tied to that of Richard Nixon. Working as a speechwriter and opposition researcher for the Nixon campaign in 1968, Buchanan returned to writing editorials after Nixon lost, but returned to working for Nixon in 1977, when Nixon became Secretary of State. Buchanan was the leader of the 'White House Gardeners,' a group of smear merchants and opposition researchers organized by Nixon at the behest of President Rhodes during his 1980 re-election campaign. Now, with Nixon having moved to the Vice Presidency and with an aligning ideology with President Laxalt (except in the realm of foreign policy), Buchanan has been appointed as Chief Speechwriter.

Director of the Council of Economic Advisors Alan Greenspan (NY, Libertarian Republican, Hawk)
A long-time Wall Street investor and corporate executive, Alan Greenspan is a proponent of monetarist policies, Chicago School economics, and a laissez-faire, free market capitalist system. Like many members of the Rhodes and Laxalt Administrations, Greenspan has long-standing ties to Nixon, but is politically more aligned with Laxalt than the now-Vice President.

National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft (UT, Moderate Republican, Realpolitik)
An associate of Henry Kissinger and the previous Deputy National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft has moved up to the position of National Security Advisor while Kissinger has become Secretary of State. Often overshadowed by Nixon and Kissinger, Scowcroft is a less well-known, if effective, foreign policy specialist. Scowcroft is also more considerate of national sovereignty than Nixon and Kissinger, and is somewhat more akin to Democratic foreign policy specialist Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Director of the Environmental Conservation Agency James G. Watts (WY, Conservative Republican, Hawk)
One of the most controversial members of the Rhodes and Laxalt cabinets, James G. Watts has almost entirely eliminated the Agency that he has been running for the last seven years. The Environmental Conservation Agency no longer exists, for all intents in purposes, and acts more as a toothless environmental lobbying group than a government organization that enforces regulations.

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“As of now, no one is in control of the White House. That is why I’m declaring my candidacy for the Republican nomination for President this election.”

• Excerpt from the presidential campaign announcement of Former Secretary of Defence Alexander Haig, 1983

By the end of 1983, there had been a significant widening of the Democratic field, as well as a much smaller, but just as important widening of the Republican field. Alexander Haig officially announced he was running for President, in the first primary challenge against a sitting President since 1968, when Eugene McCarthy famously succeeded in toppling Lyndon Johnson. Haig centred his candidacy around being the true successor to the legacy of James Rhodes, rather than Paul Laxalt, who had only become President by the virtue (or rather the sin) of being Vice President at the time. Haig was loudly supported by Rhodes supporters on the grassroots level, but was more quietly supported by the Rhodesite faction of the Republican Party. Most didn’t publicly endorse him, out of respect for the office of the President, if not the man who inhabited it. Although the likes of House Minority Leader Bill Gradison, and Senate Minority Whip Ted Stevens, and obviously preferred Haig over Laxalt, they all used vague statements and double-talk in Haig’s favour rather than outworldly saying so. Some notable exceptions who openly supported Haig were former Vice President Mills Godwin, Governor of Ohio (and former Rhodes protege) George Voinivich, and the other cabinet members who resigned along with Haig: Charles Percy, Jacob Javits, and Hyman Minsky.

The situation almost changed with Richard Nixon.

Having made peace with the fact that he would never become President barring an unfortunate accident on the part of Laxalt, Nixon jealously held on to every bit of power he had. The State Department was still stocked with Nixon loyalists, and he himself refused to be sidelined in his role as Vice President. Remaining intensely active in the realm of foreign policy, Nixon attempted to smooth over tensions with America’s allies who had seen the value of their currencies jettisoned by the Laxalt Administration in order to prop up the American dollar, and continued to oversee American involvement in the Iran-Iraq War, where Saddam Hussein’s advance began to stall with a flood of Soviet aid into Iran. Yet, despite Nixon’s prominence, Laxalt still considered removed him from the ticket come 1984. Anticipating the coming primary battle with Haig, Laxalt entertained the idea of replacing Nixon with a Rhodesite candidate. Ted Stevens, Claude Kirk Jr, and George Voinivich were all considered before Laxalt took it up with Nixon. Pushing on their long-standing personal relationship and the fragility of international affairs, as well as reminding Laxalt of his Rhodesite credentials by way of his close working relationship with the late President, Nixon convinced Laxalt to keep him on the ticket as Vice President. Unbeknownst to Laxalt, Nixon had also prepared what his inner circle called the ‘nuclear option:’ the collected pre-emptive opposition research that Pat Buchanan had gathered on Laxalt during his vetting process for Vice President in 1980. In the event of being forced off the ticket, Nixon had been entirely prepared to use it.

"The Third Coming of Nixon." President Laxalt decided that the elder statesman and grizzled veteran of American politics would be kept on the Republican ticket as the Vice Presidential nominee for the 1984 election.
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Meanwhile, the first wave of Democrats to enter the race (Reverend Jesse Jackson, Senator Gary Hart, Senator Bella Abzug, and former Governor Reubin Askew) tried to keep the media’s attention as more joined the fray. Senator Alex Seith, the inheritor of the Henry Jackson legacy, was running as the leading Neoconservative of the Democratic Party; Senator Ernest Hollings, who had dropped out early in the 1980 primaries, was attempting a comeback; Senator Dale Bumpers, one of Eugene McCarthy’s staunchest supporters in the South, was finally making his own run for President; Senator Raul Castro had formed an exploratory committee, but seemed less interested than others in running for President; Senator Alan Cranston, another McCarthy supporter, called for the freezing of the development of nuclear weapons; John Glenn, a rare example of an Ohio Democrat after the reign of Rhodes, was running as a moderate above the fray of politics, and last but not least was Frank Church, one of McCarthy’s key allies, who was running a standard liberal campaign, but with particular emphasis on finally reigning in America’s secret service agencies.

During the Democratic Iowa Caucuses, ‘Uncommitted’ was the most chosen result on the ballot, followed by Frank Church. Church was the frontrunner in late 1983, and was the highest polling Democrat at the time, but he had to suddenly end his campaign in January of 1984 after being hospitalized due to a pancreatic tumour. Church instead endorsed fellow McCarthy ally Dale Bumpers. Bumpers, with the Church endorsement then went on to win the Maine caucuses. In a portent of things to come, Bumpers also won the New Hampshire and Vermont primaries. Striking a balance between the moderates and Neoconservatives on one side and the ‘incorrigible leftists’ on the other, Bumpers portrayed himself as a ‘reasonable liberal’ and a ‘pragmatic progressive.’ Moving west, Seith won the Wyoming primary, with Glenn in a very close second.

Hayseed: Senator Dale Bumpers of Arkansas (left) took an early lead in the Democratic primaries after the endorsement of dropped out frontrunner Frank Church.
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The March 14 primaries dramatically changed the Democrats’ pecking order: In what was expected to be a landslide for Bumpers, he was instead locked out of the South. Askew won his home state of Florida, while Jackson stunned pundits with upsets in Alabama and Georgia, winning with an unexpected coalition of white Christian conservatives, and generally more progressive black voters. Bumpers recouped his losses in the South by winning the rest of New England, while Askew dropped out after also being locked out of the South. Later into March, Bumpers would win in the Puerto Rico primary and the Minnesota caucuses, but Seith would come back with high value wins in Michigan and his home state of Illinois. By the end of March, Hart and Glenn would also drop out, leaving Alex Seith as the only remaining candidate of the party’s moderate and Neoconservative wings.

Back on the Republican side of things, Laxalt and Haig were locked in a death struggle for the soul of the party. Laxalt continued to define his campaign by his accomplishments during his short presidency, claiming that economic recovery was well on the way after his stimulus package. Laxalt also worked to portray Haig as a reckless loose cannon who was damaging the Republican Party at a time when unity was paramount. Haig worked a very Rhodes-esque campaign, sticking exclusively to bread and butter issues and guaranteed employment. Haig promised the passage of the Jobs For America Act within the first hundred days of his Administration, attacked Laxalt for raising taxes, and guaranteed the return of large public works projects (i.e. pork barrel spending). Although Laxalt was winning more than double the states than Haig, the Haig victories in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Illinois were high profile enough to keep the challenge against the President alive. Haig’s momentum kept going into April, winning Wisconsin, Pennsylvania (his home state), and Vermont, but with Laxalt winning Kansas and Louisiana. May was the make-or-break period for Laxalt. In the most competitive primary thus far, Laxalt won Texas by a razor-thin margin. Laxalt continued to pull ahead by winning Nebraska, Georgia, and Indiana. Haig kept his campaign alive by winning West Virginia, Maryland, and Michigan, but Laxalt won every single state of May’s Super Tuesday: Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Nevada, Oregon, and Tennessee.

President Paul Laxalt struggled to shake off Alexander Haig's primary challenge throughout early 1984.
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The Democrats were equally combative in April and May. With the vote split on the left, Seith won the New York primary (as well as in Kansas), causing Abzug to drop out. Receiving negligible polling, Cranston also dropped out, leaving it a three way race between Seith, Bumpers, and Jackson. Seith continued his campaign as the successor of the recently deceased Henry Jackson. Seith ran as an economic moderate and social moderate, with a hawkish foreign policy. Seith touted his support for both Democratic and Republican stimulus legislation, but declared that “the government should get off our back and on our side,” calling for business-friendly legislation and targeted economic growth through federal spending. Seith emphasized his bi-partisanship and ability to work across the aisle, and quietly dismissed busing desegregation, instead calling for schools to voluntarily desegregate. Although Seith was appealing to the white middle class and officially had the backing of the unions, he had trouble connecting with blue collar workers as the primaries went on and economic conditions worsened. Seith’s proposals came to be seen as ‘four years too late,’ being too moderate when the country was in a mood for big change. Bumpers also tried to position himself as a more moderate candidate, but was much more liberal than what he let on on the campaign trail. Bumpers proudly recalled how he was the county lawyer of the first county in the South to desegregate after Brown v. Board of Education, but dismissed questions from ‘concerned parents’ about his support for school busing desegregation with a vague folksy charm. Whenever questions were raised about his highly dovish voting record, he’d talk about his commitment to America’s allies abroad. When a fiscal conservative asked why he supported single-payer healthcare, or free tuition for trade colleges, or raising taxes on corporations, he’d spin a yarn about growing up in rural Arkansas during the Great Depression, and how the New Deal had helped raise his community out of poverty. On the other hand, Jackson made no qualms about his left wing positions. Jackson called for a Rainbow Coalition made of African Americans, Jewish Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, Native Americans, the youth, disabled veterans, small farmers, and gays and lesbians to work towards New Left, and Christian Left (or at least religious left) policies. Affirmative action programs, universal basic income, and expanded social programs were all called for as a means of self-help in minority communities, as well as electoral reform and a Consistent Life Amendment that would abolish the death penalty and ban abortions. Jackson also attempted to poach union support from Seith by calling for greater workplace democracy and legally recognizing trade unions as uniquely beneficial organizations for worker’s rights. On the international stage, Jackson called for co-operation with the Second and Third World to address the legacy of imperialism and colonialism, and pressed suggestions for unified non-aligned political systems in Europe and Africa. While Jackson had created a formidable organization, it was unwieldy and disorganized at times, with occasional conflicting interests. Jackson also didn’t help things with his occasional crude, off-the-cuff remarks, such as referring to New York City as “Hymie Town,” causing a severe split in the Rainbow Coalition between Jewish Americans and Jackson’s other supporters, from which Jackson never fully recovered.

Despite having no prior political experience, Reverend Jesse Jackson channeled the nascent Christian Left and economic insecurity following the Great Recession to propel himself to greater-than-expected political success.
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Bumpers won the rest of the April primaries, taking Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Jackson started off strong in May, winning the District of Columbia, Louisiana, Maryland, and North Carolina. Bumpers won Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, and Oregon, while Seith’s momentum began to slow, winning only Idaho and Nebraska. In Texas, although Bumpers won, Jackson had been leading in earlier caucusing, and many Hispanic members of the delegation were sympathetic towards him. Bumpers unsurprisingly won in his home state of Arkansas, but also took Nevada and Kentucky, which had been polling towards Seith earlier in the race.

June was a messy finale for both parties. As the primaries moved further west, Laxalt was finally able to create an insurmountable lead over Haig. Ultimately, Haig’s support was limited to the Midwest and New England (with the exceptions of North Dakota and Alaska), and Laxalt was able to take the entirety of the South and West. Working with Cesar Chavez, Jackson made an effort to canvass the southwest border states to get the Hispanic vote. However, with the decline of Chavez’s United Farm Workers, Jackson saw limited success, but did manage to win New Mexico. Bumpers won the rest of the day, taking California, Montana, New Jersey, West Virginia, and the two Dakotas. With the primaries concluded, and following other caucuses, Dale Bumpers, nearly unknown before the primaries, was the clear winner and presumptive nominee going into the Democratic Convention.

In the meantime, President Laxalt would have to glue his party back together going into his own convention.


“Many, to their sorrow, have had trouble taking Bumpers serious… Dandy Dale, the man with one speech, a shoeshine, and a smile.”

• Time Magazine on Senator Dale Bumpers, the presumptive Democratic nominee of 1984

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

“As it happens, you’re looking at the entire Franklin County Bar Association.”

• Excerpt from the acceptance speech of Senator Dale Bumpers, at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in Sacramento

Democrats flocked to Sacramento in July for the Democratic Convention, confident of their chances in the upcoming election. The general consensus of Democrats was that any of the candidates could beat President Laxalt, but Dale Bumpers was considered a particularly inoffensive candidate. Mostly because nobody knew who he was.

Dale Bumpers was long-established in Arkansas politics, but always tried to portray himself as a fresh face. Growing up in small-town Arkansas during the Great Depression, Bumpers was raised poor in a household that idolized Franklin Roosevelt. Dale’s father, William Bumpers, had always aspired to join the House of Representatives, but never had the financial means to mount a campaign. Dale’s mother was puritanically religious, and opposed to politics in all its forms.

Returning from the marine corps following the Second World War, Bumpers was one of the millions of veterans who benefitted from the G.I. Bill. In 1948, at the same time that Eugene McCarthy was planning his first run for the House of Representatives and helping Hubert Humphrey purge the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party of Communists and Socialists, Bumpers was in law school in Illinois. Moving back to Arkansas, Bumpers became the one and only member of his county’s bar association, at the same time he tried (and mostly failed) to run the family general store. Advising the school board, Bumpers called for the immediate and strict enforcement of the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, with Franklin County becoming the first to desegregate the school system in the South in a unanimous vote. Besides a failed run for the House of Representatives in 1962, Bumpers tried for the office of Governor of Arkansas, in an effort to bring a more reform-minded leadership to the South, and to block the Democrats from nominating infamous segregationist Orval Faubus in his latest run for Governor. Narrowly getting second place in the primaries, Bumpers easily beat Faubus in the run-off, and went on to defeat the unpopular incumbent Republican, Winthrop Rockefeller. Running an uneventful state administration, Bumpers used his control of the Arkansas delegation to keep the ‘Wonder State’ firmly in McCarthy’s column during the schismatic 1972 Democratic Convention; the only Southern state to do so. Jumping from the Governor’s House to a Senator’s office in 1974, Bumpers easily beat Charles T. Bernard. Bernard, a Republican, was appointed by Rockefeller to replace Senator J. William Fulbright, who had left the Senate in 1969 to become President McCarthy’s Secretary of State [1]. Despite consistently voting for liberal causes and being a strong supporter of President McCarthy to the final days of his presidency, Bumpers comfortably won re-election in 1980, with fifty-five percent of the vote [2]. Although only mildly interested in running for President in earlier years (he was a favourite son in 1972, 1976, and 1980), Bumpers seemed motivated by the Great Recession to finally commit to a campaign.

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Bumpers is a firm believer in the idea that the thing the South craves more than anything else is respect. He believes that the reason the people of Arkansas were willing to flip from an infamous segregationist, to a Republican, to a McCarthy Democrat as the Governor of the state was because each offered a unique dignity and notoriety that put Arkansas on the map, albeit for very different reasons. He believes that the average Southerner isn’t necessarily racist, but if the sources of respectability say that you’re more respectable if you’re above the Blacks, they’ll take it to heart. Likewise, if the source of respectability says that the path to respectability is through greater education, promoting prosperity, and equality for all, they would equally believe that. Bumpers’ critics to his left say that his understanding of the South’s attitudes on race are dangerously naive, and that his votes against labour reform indicated that he bends moderate if he gets pushback, while his critics to the right claim that he uses obfuscation and a moderate voting record around election seasons to cover up the fact that he’s another McCarthy; a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Regardless, there wasn’t much his critics could say at the convention, as Bumpers had won enough primaires to keep it from going to a second ballot. The convention itself had a jubilant mood, more in line with a coronation than the beginning of a campaign. Richard S. Arnold, Bumpers’ legislative assistant and campaign Chief of Staff, scurried across the convention floors to tie up loose ends, with his assistant Bill Clinton, nipping at his heels. With the surprising death of Frank Church, Arnold worked to secure the Iowa delegates, if only for symbolic reasons. Arnold also hoped to secure the endorsement of Reubin Askew and the Florida delegation, to provide a united front against Jesse Jackson, who had most of his support in the South.

Richard S. Arnold, a lawyer with aspirations for the bench, was Bumpers' legislative assistant and campaign Chief of Staff.
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In fact, while Bumpers and his supporters put on confident aires in public, there were concerns over the amount of control that religious left evangelicals could exert on the party’s platform. In 1980, Jimmy Carter had been the primary representative of the Sojourner Movement, and even then, the policies the Sojourner’s proposed were significantly to the left of what Carter had been comfortable with. Now, Jesse Jackson had removed any inhibitions the Sojourners had felt about moderating their position. Jesse Jackson met with Sojourner Movement Chairman Jim Wallis, Delegate Walter Fauntroy, and former President Eugene McCarthy to discuss what to put forward into the platform. McCarthy stood by particular Catholic inspirations of Christian Socialism, namely introducing the Worker-Priest Initiative to the United States and ending the means of “depriving the laborer” by introducing universal housing, universal healthcare, and permanently tying the minimum wage to a living wage, then tying that to inflation. While Jackson, and Fauntroy didn’t disagree with McCarthy, they felt more emphasis needed to be put on social justice and the Rainbow Coalition as a universal brotherhood of man. Jackson wanted to emphasize the importance of community self-hope, guaranteed civil rights, and local action for political change, preferably organized through his activist organization Operation PUSH. Wallis suggested that instead of proposing dozens of amendments and proposals to the party platform, they put the issue of a ‘Consistent Life Amendment’ front and centre to ban abortion. Previously, the proposed Consistent Life Amendment had included banning capital punishment, but the Supreme Court ruling of Gregg v. Georgia had narrowly upheld the unconstitutionality of the death penalty [3]. Instead, the new version of the Consistent Life Amendment banned abortions, and re-affirmed the ban on the death penalty. The evangelicals eventually came to a consensus where the Consistent Life Amendment would be their main priority to add to the platform, that Operation PUSH and the Rainbow Coalition would be publicly promoted but remain officially separate from the Democratic Party, and that they would ally with more traditional liberals to put some of McCarthy’s proposals into the platform.

"Battling" Bella Abzug, the Senator for New York, was narrowly re-elected in 1982 in a Democratic wave year. She continued to be a leading New Leftist in the Senate, and was a staunch opponent of the growing influence of religion in politics. Despite agreeing with the Sojourners on economic issues, they were bitterly opposed on most social policy.​

The Consistent Life Amendment received significant pushback from the party’s traditional liberals, as well as from Bumpers himself. Bumpers strongly believed in the separation of church and state, was equally uncomfortable with the idea of constitutional amendments, and encouraged the traditional liberals to fight the proposed amendment from being entered into the platform. The traditional liberals, previously known as McCarthy Liberals or McCarthy Democrats, had gotten an outdated name with Eugene’s move to the evangelical left. Instead, the likes of Mo Udall, Alan Cranston, and Bella Abzug were known as New Left Democrats, while Alex Seith, Tom Foley, and their mix of moderates and Neoconservatives came to be known more consistently as the Old Left Democrats. Evangelicals in the Democratic Party were usually called Sojourners, or the Christian Left. More particularly, South Sojourners were those like Jimmy Carter who were fairly moderate religious types, while North Sojourners were the unabashed religious leftists like Jesse Jackson and Walter Fauntroy. After significant back-and-forth, a compromise platform was introduced where the Democrats would continue to leave abortion to the states, while officially declaring support for the Supreme Court’s ruling in Gregg v. Georgia. Other matters that the New Left and Sojourners agreed on, such as universal healthcare, a dovish foreign policy, government housing, and an increased minimum wage, were also put into the platform.

Finally, Bumpers had to consider his options for the Vice Presidential nominee. Going in to the convention, the media had raised concerns that Bumpers was a bit of a political light-weight, and an ‘unserious’ candidate. Bumpers wanted to counteract that image by choosing someone experienced, well-known, and respected by the base. That eliminated Jackson himself, having no political experience. Bumpers was personally inclined to choose a political ‘first’ who was also a New Leftist. California Governor Tom Bradley (who would be the first African American Vice Presidential nominee) [4], New Mexico Governor Toney Anaya (the first Latin American), or Maryland Representative Barbara Mikulski (the first woman) were all considered. One option was Governor Bob Casey of Pennsylvania [5]. Casey was a social conservative and economic populist that frequently associated with the Sojourners. The fact that he came from a swing state was also promising, but there were concerns about his flip-flopping on the death penalty campaign trail, and Bumpers disliked his support for the Consistent Life Amendment. Another possibility was Walter Mondale, who had re-entered the Senate after working as a cabinet member and ambassador. Although Mondale had a reputation as a New Leftist due to his associations with McCarthy Administration, he was more moderate than many of the other vice presidential options, and could be appealing to those initial Frank Church voters who gave Bumpers his early lead.

Ultimately, Bumpers decided on Tom Bradley; he couldn’t resist the poetry of the lawyer of the first county to desegregate running with the first African American vice presidential nominee. Bradley was a solid candidate: his impressive keynote speech at the convention caught the people’s attention, he was on the more moderate end of the New Left, and he would help keep Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition in line as active supporters of the campaign.

Tom Bradley made history by being Los Angeles' first Black Mayor, California's first Black Governor, and the first Black Vice Presidential nominee of a major party.
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In July of 1984, Dale Bumpers and Tom Bradley made history. At the next month’s Republican National Convention, Paul Laxalt and Richard Nixon would make history for a very different reason.

“I may have been prejudiced against lawyer members of Congress, having run against one or two and having been threatened politically by a few others, and also because my own professional background was academic, principally in the liberal arts. Good lawyers, I asserted in campaigns, can be found in the yellow pages of the telephone books. Good historians, or political and social philosophers, or reverends, are not so easily found or classified.”

• Excerpt from the nominating speech for Jesse Jackson, delivered by former President Eugene McCarthy, at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in Sacramento

[1] IOTL, Fulbright remained in the Senate until he was beaten in a primary challenge by Bumpers. Something that Fulbright never really forgave him for.

[2] This is a bit lower than Bumpers’ margin of nearly sixty percent IOTL, due to his closer ties with an unpopular President.

[3] With the Supreme Court having a more left wing makeup, instead of Gregg v. Georgia ending the moratorium on the death penalty passed by Furman v. Georgia, the court narrowly rules to enforce the moratorium as a ban.

[4] ITTL, as was expected, Bradley was narrowly elected Governor of California in 1982.

[5] With the support of McCarthy, Casey was able to win the 1978 Democratic primary for Governor of Pennsylvania, and is currently serving his second term.