So say the assassination attempt against JFK in 1960 succeeds. LBJ kept JFK's Cabinet IOTL, but since this is before the Cabinet is formed he has to make his own. Who does he pick? We all (should) know that it's HHH for VP (Health concerns would lead to an earlier 25th Amendment probably) and RFK will be right out.
JFK Assassinated in '60: LBJ's Cabinet?
- Thread starter Plumber
- Start date
Douglas Dillon had already accepted, so he stays. Luther Hodges does not enter because with a Southern President there is no need for a token Southerner at the Cabinet table. McNamara does not get recruited, maybe as a bipartisan gesture Tom Gates stays at the Pentagon. Justice I have no idea: LBJ will not be as big on young people as the Kennedy brothers were. The rest will probably stay.
Connally wasn't a DC animal, more likely he would go back home to run for Governor. The Jenkins-Reedy-Moyers troika will stay in their respective positions.
Is that plausible? After all, McNamera was only added because someone else JFK asked turned JFK down and recommended McNamera. Though I don't remember who that someone else was.
What then becomes of the campaign manager? A return to private life, or does he make his bid for the Senate sooner, vs. Javits in '62? The experience question would have been more difficult without his visible presence as AG.
Still, it provides some easy parallels to OTL... Javits was then a freshman Senator, Rocky Republican well to the left of RFK. Experience was an issue, but carpetbaggerism could be easily deflected. RFK would have met English by this time, who could conceivably have come to the same conclusion as OTL and talked him into it...
Still, it provides some easy parallels to OTL... Javits was then a freshman Senator, Rocky Republican well to the left of RFK. Experience was an issue, but carpetbaggerism could be easily deflected. RFK would have met English by this time, who could conceivably have come to the same conclusion as OTL and talked him into it...
The plan was always for Bobby to enter if Jack lost, so this happens here once he gets his affairs in order. Running against Javits is a possibility, or running for AG in NY and going up against Rocky in '66.
Carpetbaggerism wasn't handled well IOTL. He lived in NY until the age of 12 and lived in DC or Virginia his entire adult life, only returning to MA on the weekends (after 1964 they acquired 14B UN Plaza and a Long Island mansion for more permanent residency), so unlike his most famous successor it is a red herring. Experience: he'd have to fall back on his committee work, which exposed certain things that powerful interests would have preferred staying out of the public eye.
A problem is that he will be running against a Jew, and therefore the NYT's (among others) continual OTL attempts to smear him as his father's heir in anti-Semitism without a shred of evidence will continue unabated from OTL, though Javits will steer well clear of that kind of crap personally. 1962 is a Democratic year, though the Dems lost seats it was the closest they got to a 2002 analogue in recent memory. I say it leans Javits at the outset, but eventually a squeaker that could go either way.
Carpetbaggerism wasn't handled well IOTL. He lived in NY until the age of 12 and lived in DC or Virginia his entire adult life, only returning to MA on the weekends (after 1964 they acquired 14B UN Plaza and a Long Island mansion for more permanent residency), so unlike his most famous successor it is a red herring. Experience: he'd have to fall back on his committee work, which exposed certain things that powerful interests would have preferred staying out of the public eye.
A problem is that he will be running against a Jew, and therefore the NYT's (among others) continual OTL attempts to smear him as his father's heir in anti-Semitism without a shred of evidence will continue unabated from OTL, though Javits will steer well clear of that kind of crap personally. 1962 is a Democratic year, though the Dems lost seats it was the closest they got to a 2002 analogue in recent memory. I say it leans Javits at the outset, but eventually a squeaker that could go either way.
Paul V McNutt
Banned
Without the exposure he got as AG, I don't see RFL as a viable senate candidate. He may go back to MA and have a political career. Maybe the governor appoints him to his brother's senate seat. Oh yes on the orginwl subject of this thread, William Fullbright for state.
NY is just as plausible as MA, perhaps even more so.
Fulbright can't be appointed because he was extremely racist and it wouldn't go over well with the Asian and African countries for whom he would be the public face of USG, and by extension the Free World. The same reason as OTL.
Fulbright can't be appointed because he was extremely racist and it wouldn't go over well with the Asian and African countries for whom he would be the public face of USG, and by extension the Free World. The same reason as OTL.
Why is Kennedy killed sometime between early November 1960 and 20 January 1961? Is this the work of some anti-Catholic fanatic? Apart from perhaps nailing a couple of female stars/starlets, and being a rich guy in general, it's tough to recall that Kennedy had done anything that might have made him a target during this interlude of maybe 75 days.
Just for the sake of discussion, assume it is some sort of anti-Catholic total nut job (not sure how/where you'd find one in the US since there's no Orange Order to speak of* that might produce anyone that insanely fanatic, and the KKK by that time had essentially dropped its anti-Catholic line) since that seems to be the simplest assumption. Would that yield an oddly (for the US) pro-Vatican surge, wherein the Church actually sees a temporary halt--perhaps even a rise--in membership, even in the heart of the hard-core Bible Belt?
* Yes, the Orange Order does exist in the US, but you'll need a strong magnifying glass to find it. As best I can tell, there are no chapters in southern NJ, and the nearest is somewhere in northern DE. And you need to do some homework to find its existence at all.
Just for the sake of discussion, assume it is some sort of anti-Catholic total nut job (not sure how/where you'd find one in the US since there's no Orange Order to speak of* that might produce anyone that insanely fanatic, and the KKK by that time had essentially dropped its anti-Catholic line) since that seems to be the simplest assumption. Would that yield an oddly (for the US) pro-Vatican surge, wherein the Church actually sees a temporary halt--perhaps even a rise--in membership, even in the heart of the hard-core Bible Belt?
* Yes, the Orange Order does exist in the US, but you'll need a strong magnifying glass to find it. As best I can tell, there are no chapters in southern NJ, and the nearest is somewhere in northern DE. And you need to do some homework to find its existence at all.
