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POD: After Kennedy is assassinated, no-one sees any need to change the rules for the Presidential succession, as 8 Presidents have died in office and been replaced by their VPs, and the country has managed perfectly well with no Vice-President.
As in OTL, Johnson serves out Kennedy's term with no Vice-President, then is re-elected with Humphrey. Nixon still wins the next election, and Agnew resigns as IOTL. Watergate happens as IOTL. Things then get interesting...

With no Vice-President, the next person in line is the Speaker of the House, Rep. Carl Albert of Oklahoma. Albert, however, could have become Acting President IOTL had Nixon been impeached before he picked Ford as VP- but he said that, as a Democrat, he had no right to the Presidency because the people had elected a Republican. Here, however, he cannot nominate a Republican Vice-President and then resign (which he said he would do). Next in line after him is the Democratic President pro tempore of the Senate, James Eastland- surely Albert wouldn't resign in favour of another Democrat, unless he could be sure that Eastland had the same scruples and would himself resign. Eastland himself was known for his strong opposition to the Civil Rights movement, and by 1974 is 70 years old and about to retire. Next in line after Eastland is Henry Kissinger (ineligible for the Presidency), and then Treasury Secretary William E. Simon.

Any of these three could have ended up as President- especially since Albert could still be implicated in the Tongsun Park bribery scandal, which forced him out of Congress before his Presidential term would have ended. What would an Albert, Eastland or Simon administration have been like?
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