New Deal Coalition Retained: A Sixth Party System Wikibox Timeline
I thought Kennedy would have better foreign policy than Johnson.
Also, Reagan had a bit of foot-in-mouth in 1966, making jokes about killing poor people. He wasnt nearly as bad as say, John Wayne, but there's a reason he had a bit of a perception as a Western Wallace as governor that never entirely went away. Looks like it hasn't popped up ITTL. Is the more left-wing GOP influencing him in that way?
Reagan joked what?
I knew he was gaff-prone (trees cause polution and all that) but jesus
Reagan joked what?
I knew he was gaff-prone (trees cause polution and all that) but jesus
Yeah, about poisoning the food (or was it water?) supply of poor people. His foot-in-mouth mostly went away, but the thing to note is mostly.
All will be explained come the update. It's going to be a far different situation on the ground than in OTL.I thought Kennedy would have better foreign policy than Johnson.
Also, Reagan had a bit of foot-in-mouth in 1966, making jokes about killing poor people. He wasnt nearly as bad as say, John Wayne, but there's a reason he had a bit of a perception as a Western Wallace as governor that never entirely went away. Looks like it hasn't popped up ITTL. Is the more left-wing GOP influencing him in that way?
Whoops. I'll edit it to the true name of LondonderryLoved the new update. One minor qualm - the Foyle constituency didn't exist until 1983 OTL.
All will be explained come the update. It's going to be a far different situation on the ground than in OTL.
Whoops. I'll edit it to the true name of Londonderry
Londonderry was a safe Unionist seat, still hasn't elected a Nationalist MP IRL.
That would mean that the Unionist vote would have to have been split virtually evenly and virtually all Nationalists turned out to vote, with a massive slump in the Unionist turnout. It's doable, but not very likely.
Flukes happen in elections - things will even out in the 1969 General Election
Chaos in Asia
When John F. Kennedy had taken office in 1965, the Vietnam War was seen to be winding down. With President Diem’s death in the Saigon Palace Bombing in 1961, the new Government of President Tho and General Thieu had rapidly calmed the simmering tension developing under the former President. Counterinsurgency strategies pioneered by General Edward Lansdale (Commander of Multinational Assistance Command-Vietnam, or MACV) and his British advisors – all veterans of the Malayan Emergency had stamped out much of the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) between 62 and 65. What had been a pace of nearly 459 separate attacks in 1961 had decreased to a mere 47 four years later.
With Ho Chi Minh increasingly sick and frail from age, de facto control of North Vietnam had passed to General Secretary Le Duan, an ardent Communist and increasingly becoming a Stalin-like figure within the party. The lack of success in the South by mid-1965 was worrying him, fears of a victorious RVN bringing down his standing never far from his mind. Convening a meeting of the Central Military Commission, General Vo Nguyen Giap proposed a new operational plan to him. With the NFL increasingly weak from Lansdale’s strategies, Giap proposed that the Army be sent to the South and assume responsibilities. It was the same as the old plan, but fast forwarded several years in advance. Despite his misgivings, Duan had little choice but to approve the venture.
It would take most of a year and a half to move the necessary men and material into position. Using a rudimentary chain of boat smugglings through the Cambodian port of Shianoukville and improvised trails and bike/animal tracks through the Laotian/Cambodian jungles to South Vietnam (nicknamed the Ho Chi Minh trail by American GIs), by the beginning of 1967 Giap had transferred over fifteen divisions (approximately 170,000 troops) to the South, a further fifty thousand in reserve in southern Laos and eastern Cambodia.
Attacks began to increase in number during the latter half of 1966 before spiking massively as the new year dawned. Beleaguered from a series of bloody battles centered in the mountainous Central Highlands – part of a diversionary campaign by Giap to draw US attention from the more populous Mekong Delta – President Kennedy was forced to order an additional 45,000 soldiers to Vietnam especially after with the threat of the election of Gough Whitlam of Australia expressed the intent to remove all 20,000 Australian soldiers from the war. He demanded assurances from Lansdale to get results and fight off the attacks. As the 1968 election loomed, a potential foreign policy crisis could destroy his chances.
What would dramatically shift the entire war from a sideshow to a key element in the national discourse occurred in the Central Highlands valley of the Ia Drang on a humid September day. Established by four battalions of the Royal Australian Regiment a year earlier as a forward firebase to interdict NVA forces attempting to move deeper into South Vietnam, the US 1st Marine Regiment was transferred in under Colonel Stanley Hughes. In an attempt to both destroy the encampment and lure more US forces out to the wilderness to be wiped out, NVA commanders launched a pitched assault on the base with infantry and armor on September 5th.
Even with air support Col. Hughes called in for reinforcements, claiming that he’d be overrun if none were given. Consulting with Secretary of Defense Clifford, Lansdale ordered the units of the 1st Cavalry Division under Major General Harold Moore to be airlifted in by helicopter around the base, alleviating the pressure on the Ia Drang complex.
White House audio transcript, September 11th, 1967
Meeting between the President, SecState McNamara, NSA George Kennen, and SecDef Clifford.
President Kennedy: What in the c#######ing f##k is going on in f#####g Vietnam?!!! [audible calming breaths]. Only a month ago you were telling me things were secure? How did the damn Commies get the jump on us?
Kennen: Aerial reconnaissance has pinpointed that the enemy is moving soldiers and equipment through neutral Laos and Cambodia.
Kennedy: [fist slamming] Son of a b###h! Can we blast the bastards off the face of the earth?
McNamara: That wouldn’t be advisable Mr. President. With our actions in dealing with the Czech issue, I wouldn’t recommend antagonizing the Soviet Union any further than we already have by violating the territorial integrity of a neutral nation. All we have is a treaty with South Vietnam guaranteeing fighting the communists within their borders as legal.
Kennedy: [sighs] F##k Congress, they’ll do anything to scalp me before the election. We’ll do this without them. Airstrikes, bomb the North to the negotiating table. Clark, what do we have?
Clifford: Combining Air Force assets out of Thailand and Navy assets in the South China Sea we can create a round the clock bombing campaign against the north. If need be we have B-52s out of Guam or Clark Airbase in the Philippines.
McNamara: That wouldn’t give us any points with the Chinese. If they intervene we’re all screwed, so we need to be careful with what we target.
Clifford: The enemy is the north, and airstrikes will put the pressure on them to capitulate. If need be we can put restrictions to placate the Chinese. The main problem, however, is on the ground.
Kennedy: How so?
Clifford: Lansdale is not the proper commander for this stage in the war, what with the NVA going to a conventional fighting strategy. He’s been there too long, we need a replacement. Some new blood and new soldiers to make up for the Australians if that s###t Whitlam wins.
Kennedy: You make a good point Clark. Who would be the best choice?
Kennen: How about Westmoreland?
(end transcript)
Meeting between the President, SecState McNamara, NSA George Kennen, and SecDef Clifford.
President Kennedy: What in the c#######ing f##k is going on in f#####g Vietnam?!!! [audible calming breaths]. Only a month ago you were telling me things were secure? How did the damn Commies get the jump on us?
Kennen: Aerial reconnaissance has pinpointed that the enemy is moving soldiers and equipment through neutral Laos and Cambodia.
Kennedy: [fist slamming] Son of a b###h! Can we blast the bastards off the face of the earth?
McNamara: That wouldn’t be advisable Mr. President. With our actions in dealing with the Czech issue, I wouldn’t recommend antagonizing the Soviet Union any further than we already have by violating the territorial integrity of a neutral nation. All we have is a treaty with South Vietnam guaranteeing fighting the communists within their borders as legal.
Kennedy: [sighs] F##k Congress, they’ll do anything to scalp me before the election. We’ll do this without them. Airstrikes, bomb the North to the negotiating table. Clark, what do we have?
Clifford: Combining Air Force assets out of Thailand and Navy assets in the South China Sea we can create a round the clock bombing campaign against the north. If need be we have B-52s out of Guam or Clark Airbase in the Philippines.
McNamara: That wouldn’t give us any points with the Chinese. If they intervene we’re all screwed, so we need to be careful with what we target.
Clifford: The enemy is the north, and airstrikes will put the pressure on them to capitulate. If need be we can put restrictions to placate the Chinese. The main problem, however, is on the ground.
Kennedy: How so?
Clifford: Lansdale is not the proper commander for this stage in the war, what with the NVA going to a conventional fighting strategy. He’s been there too long, we need a replacement. Some new blood and new soldiers to make up for the Australians if that s###t Whitlam wins.
Kennedy: You make a good point Clark. Who would be the best choice?
Kennen: How about Westmoreland?
(end transcript)
With the replacement of Lansdale by William Westmoreland by Kennedy, his commitment to winning the war and the decision to send an additional 100,000 troops – partly accounting for the newly elected Prime Minister Whitlam removing the Australian commitment – and approving airstrikes drew flak from both the doves as an unneeded escalation and by hawks as half measures. With the campus protests of 1966 looking like a marshmallow roast in comparison to the new wave of demonstrations, Vietnam was suddenly looking to be an albatross around Kennedy’s neck.
All of this was being watched closely by Beijing, greatly troubling the increasingly aging Mao.
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Another theater act of the Cold War in Asia played out in the Indian Subcontinent. Tension between the former British Crown dominions of India and Pakistan had been high since both received independence in the late 1940s. Already having fought a war over territorial concerns, the border remained heavily fortified as each nation turned to superpower backers – the United States for Pakistan and the Soviet Union for India.
In the enclave of East Pakistan – surrounded on three sides by India and cut off from the heart of the nation in the west – Bengali resistance fighters had been seeking independence for the Bengali people for nearly a decade, attempts put down harshly by Karachi. When one demonstration in downtown Dacca turned violent as Pakistani troops fired into the crowd, the Indian consulate was raided and burned to the ground by a large fire that gutted parts of the city.
Pakistan laid official blame on the Bengali resistance movement, while India countered that the fire was caused by Pakistani troops trying to quell the demonstrators. Both nations quickly mobilized their forces, the ruling socialist Indian National Congress government in New Delhi seeking to dramatically weaken their regional rival by coopting Bengali separatism toward a quick military campaign to annex East Pakistan. On July 31st, the guns boomed all across the eastern subcontinent as nearly half a million men advanced to crush the 140,000 Pakistanis within the enclave. Glasses were raised in New Delhi for a decisive campaign.
Unknown to them, the Pakistani General Staff had planned for this very occurrence. The prevailing mood in the higher echelons of the government was that the East would be lost come a war, so all attempts would be taken for offensives in the west to compensate the lost territory. Two weeks after the Indians began the war, the Pakistani Army launched a full scale offensive in Kashmir, advancing steadily despite massive Indian resistance.
Just as Dacca was about to be captured on August 15th, Indian forces in the west-central province of Gujarat awoke to a massive invasion force steamrolling across the border. Unlike the one in the north, this force was comprised of over a quarter million Iranian troops equipped with the latest in American weaponry. Sent to Sindh by a secret treaty clause agreed to by the Shah and Pakistani President Ayub Khan, the unprepared Indians were no match for the unexpected assault as the Pakistani/Iranian force scythed through Gujarat to capture Ahmedabad on September 22nd.
What followed at the Treaty of Kabul was internationally recognized as a stalemate, a net wash (though many historians would assert that Pakistan and Iran got the better end of the deal). India was allowed to annex East Pakistan, having conquered it fair and square. However, the Pakistanis were compensated with the addition of most of Gujarat and all of Jammu and Kashmir to their domain – Iran, widely regarded in Pakistan as the reason why they had triumphed in the western theater, received extensive economic and resource concessions in the newly acquired territories along with adjustments on their border in the Baluchistan region.
Both Pakistan and Imperial Iran would keep their alliance with the US a going concern, ignoring the concerns of socialist and Islamist movements within their borders. India on the other hand, despite its victory in conquering East Pakistan (now the Indian Province of East Bengal) would widely see the war as a failure of epic proportions. Thusly, new Prime Minister Indira Gandhi would seek a stronger alliance with the USSR, flying to Moscow to meet with General Secretary Semichastny in February 1969. Along with Yugoslavia, the Indian overture would mark the beginning of a change in the foreign policy of the USSR.
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Wow, Duan is more aggressive than I thought. Well, he forced Kennedy's hand. So, India and Pakistan effectively traded territory
Great update Too bad JFK couldn't handle Vietnam any better than LBJ could.
Too bad JFK couldn't handle Vietnam any better than LBJ could.I realized it halfway through writing it and changed most of it. Apparently there's a Gujrat and a Gujarat in the Indian subcontinent, lolYou spelled Gujarat wrong.
Okay, so this has been on my mind a lot (for personal reasons). I think you may have just precipitated a crisis. Why? Because, there are a fair number of Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir, especially concentrated in the Jammu part (where they make up 60% of the population). The number of Hindus in the Indian part was around 1.5 million in 1971. And, of course, it's no exaggeration to say that those Hindus would be scared of Pakistan; while many would remain, quite a few would leave. If we assume, say, half of them leave for India, that's 750,000 people leaving to Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Indian Punjab, etc.. And that's already made this into a mini-Partition scale migration. And don't even get me started on Gujarat. Sindh had a very large minority of Hindus, and the majority of them left for Gujarat, ironically. Gujarat, on the other hand, is extremely Hindu; there were about 24 million Hindus in the state in 1971; if we again assume half of them would leave for India, that's 12 million people moving. Likely less than that number would move to India, but it would still be in the millions. And that's a huge migration. I think you need to add how India and Pakistan deal with that.
To add to this, it's no exaggeration to say Indira Gandhi would be out for blood. On her father's side, she's descended from Kashmiri Pandits. And considering how she suspended Indian democracy for two years, all I have to say is yikes.
To add to this, it's no exaggeration to say Indira Gandhi would be out for blood. On her father's side, she's descended from Kashmiri Pandits. And considering how she suspended Indian democracy for two years, all I have to say is yikes.
I'm a little flattered my timeline causes people to really think
Anyway, I agree with you that Indira Gandhi would react very badly toward this, given her actions OTL and her strengthening ties with the Soviet Union. President Nixon had a great dislike for her in OTL, and I don't think TTL leaders would be more favorable either.
This would definitely be important to address in a later update. Perhaps I could write one explicitly dealing with humanitarian and refugee crises. Thanks for the idea.
I doubt it. He seems to be like LBJ, except without the highly successful civil rights pushes and a much smaller Great Society (Decent Society?).