Nixon beats JFK in 1960

What if Nixon beat JFK in the 1960 election? Would Nixon's administration have been different or would he still be scandalous?
 
Nixon does okay...

Nixon won narrowly (like JFK in OTL), carrying Illinois, Missouri and two or three other close swing states--but not LBJ's Texas. Democratic Party pros and the conventional wisdom blame the loss on JFK's youth and religion. Nonetheless, in 1961, President Nixon faces a Democratic Congress with a potential 1964 opponent in Senate Majority Leader LBJ.

Like Ike, Nixon has a modest legislative agenda and needs conservative Southern Democrat votes in Congress. For political reasons as part of his legislative chess match with LBJ, Nixon offers Civil Rights legislation which he then does not push very hard. Overall, Nixon--who is more interested in foreign policy anyway--gets little accomplished in terms of a legislative agenda. (JFK didn't either in OTL).

In the area of foreign policy, Nixon proves to be a more effective president. After the Bay of Pigs in OTL, Khrushchev judged JFK to be a lightweight and bought into the caricature of Kennedy as the playboy son of a multimillionaire capitalist speculator, who bought the presidency for him. As a consequence, Soviet foreign policy became much more aggressive in OTL.

After CIA-trained Cuban exile forces prove unable to beat Castro even with U.S. air cover, Nixon goes into Cuba with U.S. forces and knocks Castro out of power. The Soviets loudly protest, but (like the U.S. during the Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956) do nothing. Nixon's approval rating soars. There is, of course, no Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Soviets and East Germans still erect the Berlin Wall--as they had no other acceptable options--but do so is a much less confrontational manner than OTL by secretly informing Nixon about their plans in advance. Nixon vehemently denounces the new Berlin Wall, but does nothing to prevent it or knock it down. Nixon's approval rating nonetheless soars after he visits West Berlin.

As Ike had contemplated doing in 1960, Nixon sends U.S. ground forces into Laos to divide the country in half and cut off communist supply lines and infiltration routes south into Cambodia and South Vietnam. With Lodge as VP relegated by Nixon to attending state funerals and making goodwill tours, and not running his own foreign policy as U.S. Ambassador in Siagon, President Diem holds on and defeats the Buddhist challenge in 1963 to his regime in South Vietnam. The result is a much better U.S. strategic and political situation in Southeast Asia than that faced by LBJ in OTL during the mid-1960s. Nixon's intervention in Laos, following so closely on the heels of the invasion of Cuba, is controversial, but proves far less bloody and costly to the U.S. than LBJ's later intervention in South Vietnam in OTL.

Surrounded by Eisenhower Administration veterans, and not emotionally scarred by the electoral defeats in 1960 and 1962 in OTL, President Nixon has no scandals in 1961-65 that even remotely compare to Watergate. He may be less charismatic than JFK, and the Nixon White House's image less glamorous, but Nixon does okay as president.

In 1964, the Nixon-Lodge ticket is easily renominated by the Republican Party. Nixon faces either LBJ--whose standing among Democrats was only improved by running for VP in 1960--or a northern liberal such as Hubert Humphrey trumpeting the issue of Civil Rights. Given a decent economy and no major scandals, Nixon is favored to win re-election
 
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