Like it says on the tin. Would the Alliance for Progress still have happened? Would he have tried to get close to China like he did IOTL? What about the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, would the latter still happen?
Nixon's foreign policy if he's elected in 1960, especially to Latin America?
- Thread starter Vinization
- Start date
Geon
Donor
Getting close to China? Not in my opinion. For some reason, China softened its isolationist stance in the 70's by the time Nixon was President to allow the door to be opened.
Bay of Pigs? More likely the invasion takes place but with much more support. Read a division of U.S. Marines coming ashore with the rest of the Cuban force. Also, expect air support from the mainland. You'll have a full-fledged invasion of Cuba to nip this particular problem in the bud.
Cuba will have its democracy restored hence no Cuban Missile Crisis?
However expect the Soviets to test the U.S. both in Berlin and Turkey. Except Nixon will push back - hard!
Bay of Pigs? More likely the invasion takes place but with much more support. Read a division of U.S. Marines coming ashore with the rest of the Cuban force. Also, expect air support from the mainland. You'll have a full-fledged invasion of Cuba to nip this particular problem in the bud.
Cuba will have its democracy restored hence no Cuban Missile Crisis?
However expect the Soviets to test the U.S. both in Berlin and Turkey. Except Nixon will push back - hard!
Nixon had an odd view of south America... Just about the only country he had any time for was Brazil for sentimental reasons... That said Cuba is going to be less of an issue. Allot of what spawned the Cuban missile crisis was Kennedy's inability to read the Soviets and his weak appearance. Besides Nixon is going to go all in on returning the Caribbean as an American lake no outsiders allowed.
As others in this forum have stated (including myself), it is unlikely for the Cuban missile crisis to occur as that mess happened under specific circumstances (particularly Khruschev's opinion of Kennedy) that wouldn't be here under Nixon. In addition, Cuba itself might get occupied by American forces should anything stronger than OTL'S bay of pigs occur (though said occupation would probably be a bloody one as Castro himself was rather popular in Cuba at the time).
As Geon mentioned, China likely isn't going to open up earlier as they are still allied with the USSR to an extent and Kissinger, who played a pivotal role in Nixon's trip to China, isn't gonna be a part of this administration.
Assuming that Cuba isn't a total nightmare, I think Nixon has a pretty solid shot at reelection, leaving 1968 to the Democrats. The only question by then is which democrat could take the nomination.
As Geon mentioned, China likely isn't going to open up earlier as they are still allied with the USSR to an extent and Kissinger, who played a pivotal role in Nixon's trip to China, isn't gonna be a part of this administration.
Assuming that Cuba isn't a total nightmare, I think Nixon has a pretty solid shot at reelection, leaving 1968 to the Democrats. The only question by then is which democrat could take the nomination.
I wonder how he would interact with João Goulart. Probably the same way unfortunately, since by that point assisting the overthrow of progressive governments was a bipartisan policy.
Venditg
Banned
Maybe Brazil doesn't get couped 4 years later, which would be a good thing considering a few moments later in history Brazil was used as a kind of a base in Operation Condor
I wouldn't be so sure. Eisenhower did overthrow Árbenz in Guatemala, and IIRC Goulart was friends with JFK at least until the Cuban Missile Crisis and Leonel Brizola's nationalization of an American company in Rio Grande do Sul.
Venditg
Banned
I don't see the same escalation happening in Vietnam if need some get selected in 1960.
For derailing Condor Chile is a lot more important then Brazil... That said a Nixon presidency earlier might see more election meddling during that critical election... Perhaps enough to counter the Soviets attempts. The dynamics of south America are going to be different though. Cuba isn't going to be able to hold on and they were a major driver for leftist revolution in south America. Their doctrine of distracting the US with a hundred bushfires not existing might have some surprising results.
Venditg
Banned
Probably is my antipathy for JFK (not that like Nixon has more points with me bear in mind that)but I think that conditions and circumstances wouldn't be recreated under Nixon, he didn't have a brother who was also pushing for a coup, it makes my blood boil every time when I think about it. Also Eisenhower would be wary of the military industrial complex, would Nixon follow him in that regard?
I'm actually thinking of a timeline where Eisenhower gets elected in 1960 then in 1964 followed by Nixon for two terms, because the Democrats didn't leave the White House until 1960.
I think Nixon would be less worried about the "military-industrial" (and we can throw in Congressional because included or not it was part of the 'mix' that had Eisenhower worried) complex because of the backgrounds. As an Army General Eisenhower was used to military procurement being a certain mix of government and then civilian work with less 'lobbying' for a weapons system and more direction from the government FOR a weapons system. The Navy did things a bit different and let's face it the Air Force ended up going even further with much more private direction of a specific system even within the Air Force specifications.
In general I see Nixon being less worried about lobbying and procurement issues and more worried about a logical follow on to both Truman and Eisenhower's over-dependence on all out nuclear war as a 'counter' to any aggression towards the US. While I see more direct support of the invasion of Cuba, (a pet-project for him and Ike) I highly suspect it's going to cause major problems in Europe where about the only option to oppose any Soviet move, (say blockading Berlin again) is going to be threatening all out nuclear war since at the time that WAS the only fallback plan for the US.
In essence I don't see how Khrushchev will be able to back-down in Europe since there will be little to nothing they can do at this point to support Cuba and likewise with the US the obvious 'aggressor' in Cuba it's not likely there will be major support for Allied action in Europe with limited US participation. Winning in Cuba but losing in Berlin will probably not go over well in the US even if the 'alternative' was nuclear war. So in essence Nixon may have to look harder at both Asia and South America for ways to recoup the prestige lost in Europe so both might see more rather than less US intervention.
Randy
In this case they'd be using Berlin as a counter to US efforts in Cuba so I'd see another 'blockade' even extending to trying to block air traffic and not budging. The USSR can afford to be 'humanitarian' and provide supplies to the inhabitants but make it clear to the West that total military withdrawal is now a requirement.
How that would play out I'm not sure but in context Khrushchev has to do "something" to counter Nixon's move in Cuba and there's really not a lot of options open to him. I'd like to think that having Nixon elected there might be a 'bit' of back-and-forth before the actual Cuban operation kicks off but Ike and Nixon had already staked a lot on the planning and execution, (even though it was horribly, horribly flawed on almost every level even in a 'best' case) and I'm not sure Nixon COULD call it off if he wanted to.
And if that goes through then Khrushchev is 'stuck' with a need to counter and he's not likely to get a better 'excuse' to solve the Berlin issue and that's what's going to be pushed. I think that with the US being the obvious 'aggressor' in Cuba with all the international PR issues that's going to entail there might be a chance that no one in Europe will be willing to support keeping Belin given the only 'real' US option here is a full up nuclear war with the USSR over it. On the flip side this is going to show Nixon and most of the US that the Eisenhower/Truman doctrine of nuclear blackmail has enough serious limitations that 'something' will need to be done to get the US military response options to a less extreme and more sustainable set of options. (Essentially what happened under JFK OTL)
Does that make sense?
Randy
Venditg
Banned
I'm thinking about now that Nixon met Castro before the Revolution. Could not things go better with Cuba because of this?
Unlikely as it seems that while Nixon, (and Ike, heck most of America at the moment) were initially charmed by Castro the relationship soured quickly and Nixon reportedly downright despised him. (Apparently Castro wasn't impressed by anyone from the US though he had some hope for JFK before the BoP fiasco) And once Castro declared Cuba explicitly Communist, (which he'd assured Nixon and Ike he wouldn't do) the fact that put a "Communist" foothold 90 miles off Florida pretty much meant that the US was going to have to go after it sooner or later.
Nixon as I understand it took Castro's turn kind of personally as it tarnished his 'anti-Communist' credibility. Nixon and Khrushchev seemed to have an 'understanding' of each other and expected they could not only deal with each other but reach understandings as equals. I've a "slim" hope that Nixon could be convinced that invading Cuba was a bad idea all around and might reject the idea once secure in office but again, he was pretty close with the planning so doing so opens him up to charges of being soft-on-Communism.
He's aware that there isn't a lot that the USSR could do to support Cuba even if they wanted to, (and it was far from clear they wanted to extend the 'conflict' that far away and that close to America if they didn't have to) and so the idea of racking up some serious anti-Communist points by taking out what should be a relatively 'easy' (it won't be but in general the US didn't believe it would be) target so close to home has some major force behind it. It would also send a very clear and obvious message to any possible "Communist" groups in South America that the US would be quite willing to 'intervene' again if they "had" to so beware...
But as I noted the issue here is Khrushchev HAS to respond or his position becomes untenable politically and the loss of face for the USSR unacceptable. Now as Geon mentioned there are pretty much two places for the USSR to push back, that being Berlin (the most visible and obvious) and Turkey. And in return any push in either will require Nixon to push back, hard, and he likely actually can't given what's going on in Cuba.
Now an outlying scenario is instead of a full-up invasion Nixon goes for a 'soft-revolution' assuming the Cuban exiles can in fact formant and support a home-grown counter-revolution and then goes only as far as the 'original' plan that was pushed onto JFK OTL. (The reason this is low-probability is because it's rather obvious that everyone from Ike on down knew this was BS and that it could only be an excuse for a US invasion as the Cuban exile's had neither the support in Cuba nor the support in the US to actually accomplish anything) In that at least the 'rebels' could easily retreat into the hills and fight a guerilla war for a little while before being wiped out but the 'international' consequences are lighter. (Note however the Cuban Missile Crisis will still essentially happen since it was based on putting America in the same sort of 'close-danger' the USSR faced from NATO nuclear forces so it would still make sense for the USSR to at least leak a high-level 'possible' plan for such a deployment and wait for Nixon to offer 'talks' about the problem)
In essence I have a lot of issues seeing any way Nixon won't be highly tempted to 'knock-off' Cuba since the chance and circumstances are "currently" right for it. The general political (hopefully ONLY political) fallout from that is something he'll be dealing with for his entire Presidency no matter how long or short that is TTL.
Randy
The US probably goes into vietnam on schedule, thanks to being overconfident about cuba with similar to otl results, but with the democrat who wins in 64/68 getting the "credit"/blame for whatever goes on.
Venditg
Banned
We could avoid tensions with a successful conspiracy of the pure coup while Eisenhower is in office and Castro most likely would get elected when democracy gets restored, preceding Chavez (that is, if the guy doesn't butterfly away) nearly half a century before. I want to try this in my timeline. I can imagine Guevara would be livid.
There's a good chance the US actually doesn't get directly involved in Vietnam since Kennedy et-al were still 'compensating' for TBoP fiasco. The general consensus was that the US didn't want to get 'directly' involved in an ground actions in Asia... (There is actually some 'truth' the tossed-off "rule" Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia from "The Princess Bride" but only some
) While the US wanted to oppose Communist expansion around the world, Cuba was a special case being so near the US and in what the US considered "Munroe Doctrine" territory. Beyond that the focus was always directly on Europe and the military had resisted putting to much effort into Vietnam initially because that took support away from Europe. It had been more of a toss-up if Kennedy would commit to Laos or Vietnam but he needed to be seen directly opposing Communist expansion which Nixon, (again) already had a comfortable reputation for.Randy