Well apart from the times Moscow thinks Germany is not being pro Soviet enough and wants to apply pressure in a way it can deny its behind...
Patton in Korea/MacArthur in the White House
- Thread starter BiteNibbleChomp
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marathag
Banned
It was easy to get DM out of a successful Germany when they were the largest, and most profitable nation if all Europe in the '80s.
But in this 1955, nowhere close. Easy to pay weregeld when you have plenty of Gold in the Bank.
marathag
Banned
No, Moscow likes the idea of a neutral Germany they can trade freely with.
And Nato nowhere close. This is the dream buffer state, one that cost the Soviets no upkeep, unlike the rest of the Warsaw Pact, if there even is such a thing in this TL
I'm basing it on what happened with Finland which OTL was in a similar buffer state status for most of the Cold War. What Moscow thought of as neutral was most assuredly not the same as what the US thought at times. Moscow liked a buffer it could trade through but was paranoid that the West would subvert it. Hence the Finns had to spend a lot of time making sure things looked balanced( even to the point of having to ensure if it gave one contract to the West, it gave an equal value one to the East at the same time when tensions were high )
I could definitely see Knowland run as "MacArthur's succesor" in the 56 election. I imagine he would win riding on MacArthur's coattails against whoever the Democrats put up
marathag
Banned
That was a buffer to a neutral state, with the buffer have once been Russian Territory a generation before, and considered being the Soviet Union's backyard.
A Soviet takeover wouldn't have been a trigger for WWIII, so the Finns were very very careful not to annoy th Bear, and get
USSR going into Germany, would not be good for relations with the West, to put it mildly, so there was a deterrent.
I think Romneys views are often oversimplified to be quite honest. In the research I've done on him I've found where he talks extensively on the need for a strong community fabric (particularly church and charities) to reduce the need for government aid. In my opinion its more accurate to think of Romney as a center-right American version of a christian democrat than to think of him as a liberal. Also, if you look at Rockefellers demands in the 1960 "Treaty of 5th Avenue", most of his complaints were that the GOP platform wasn't being tough enough on communism and strong enough on the national defense. His economic demands were definitely to the left of the conservatives in the party, but not radically so. The divide between the liberal and conservative wings in the GOP didn't become that large until Goldwater and the southern conservative democrats moving into the party which created a divide on the all consuming civil rights issue. If ITTL Goldwater aligns with the MacArthur faction (which I think he would be very close to ideologically), then he never would take the conservative wing down the more combative path it went OTL (assuming he ever rises to national prominence at all). The northern conservatives in the GOP were all by and large in support of civil rights IOTL (Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen for example), so with the liberal and conservative wings united on issues of civil rights, anti-communism, and both factions being pro-business in the TTL post-Mac era, I have a hard time seeing the split over welfare issues becoming too severe. After all, IOTL before Goldwater, major conservatives like Taft were still in favor of things like public housing, so its not at all unrealistic to say that the liberal and conservative wings would be able to compromise in those areas.
bguy
Donor
Why do you think opposing civil rights was an important an issue to the conservative wing of the GOP? Yes, Goldwater opposed the 1964 Civil Rights bill but only on libertarian grounds due to him not believing the federal government had the authority to proscribe discrimination from private actors. He was fine with the other provisions in the bill and had long been in favor of voting rights legislation, so it's not as though he was in favor of segregation itself or opposed to all civil rights measures. (And of course Goldwater was an outlier within the party on the Civil Rights bill anyway as 82% of the GOP senators voted in favor of the bill including many conservative GOP senators.) Nor am I aware of any leading conservative voice in the GOP who called for repealing the Civil Rights Act or Voting Rights Act after they were enacted.
The GOP would of course subsequently come out heavily for "law and order" and against busing but supporting those measures was hardly limited just to the conservative wing of the party. (Nelson Rockefeller would enact the toughest drug laws in the entire country, and moderate Republican Senator Robert Griffin would lead the effort to try and strip the federal courts with jurisdiction over busing cases.)
Yes, but Taft notably came under heavy criticism from the right wing of the party for his support of public housing. John Bricker stated "I hear the Socialists have gotten to Bob Taft" and Kenneth Wherry "discerned a touch of socialism" in Taft due to his support of public housing. And of course Taft's education and housing bills died in the 80th Congress due to the conservative block in the House refusing to consider them. From Mr. Republican, A Political Biography of Robert A. Taft by James Patterson
Unfortunately for Taft, House Republicans refused to support the housing and education bills, Many of them, indeed, agreed with Herbert Nelson that Taft had turned socialist. It was ironic that the bills failed to entice Deweyites to his side and at the same time earned him nothing but suspicion from conservatives.
Suffice it to say there's a reason Taft wasn't able to get his housing bill enacted until the Democrats had retaken Congress. (And why he never got his education bill enacted.) The conservative block was going to virulently oppose expanded government social welfare measures even when those programs were supported by Mr. Republican himself.
And it's not like things were much different 20 years later. Nixon's Family Assistance Plan was largely killed by the efforts of Ronald Reagan which shows how the conservative wing of the party was willing to block a major legislature initiative from a Republican president when they thought it improperly expanded government. So the conservative wing clearly took opposing "big government" very seriously, and I don't see anything in this timeline that would really change that attitude.
Im not claiming what I think that you've interpreted me as claiming. The conservatives that were around in the GOP pre-Goldwater were pro-civil rights. However Goldwater's run in 1964 brought in southern conservatives who were anti-civil rights. My point is that TTL's post MacArthur era will likely see a more cohesive GOP imo with more agreement between the liberal and conservative wings. Because of this, I don't see anyone in the near future of TTL chasing any sort of "southern strategy" as I don't believe there will be a need for one. That means that the split between the OTL post-1964 conservative faction that had been brought in by Goldwater and the liberal faction won't happen because there won't be any influx of southern conservatives to create tension amongst the overall conservative wing on civil rights issues. I'm also not claiming Goldwater was anti-civil rights, just that his run in 1964 brought a sizable group into the party that were.
Taft may have come under criticism, but it doesn't appear that his earlier positions on public housing or education lost him the support of the conservatives in the party in 1952. Im not saying the GOP's conservatives will fully embrace a welfare state or anything along those lines. Im simply claiming that there is room to compromise there without either side walking out. Especially by the time of the late 1960s, when there were alternatives to the welfare state popping up that were more on the conservative side such as Milton Friedman's NIT plan.
Would Reagan even come to prominence in the GOP ITTL? Perhaps, but the way I see it he would have likely adopted the ideology I've outlined earlier that I see dominating the post-Mac era if he did. My point here is that both conservatism and liberalism inside the GOP will be different ITTL than they were IOTL, and that I see them functioning more cohesively together for at least the near future.
On a side note the future for the democrats here is really up in the air. If both the Democrat and the Republican candidates over the next few presidential elections are fully in support of civil rights, does that mean the south could be consistently carried by 3rd party southern democrats throughout the 60s? Or would the southern democrats fall in line in order to keep their positions of power in congress where they can more effectively influence the direction of things?
bguy
Donor
I guess I'm not following what you are saying. The Conservative Coalition (the congressional alliance between conservative Republicans and Southern Democrats) had effectively dominated Congress since 1937. Conservative Republicans aren't going to abandon that alliance which had proven so effective at blocking business regulations and social welfare legislation, and Southern Democrats were willing to cooperate with the conservative Republicans on economic matters despite their differences on civil rights. Thus you are still going to have a very strong conservative block allied on economic issues even without something akin to Goldwater's 1964 run, and I don't see anything in this timeline changing that. (Certainly if MacArthur is serious about trying to enact labor reform then that will cause conservative Republicans and southern Democrats to come together to block it.)
How is that different than OTL though? Other than in 1964 (where the party split seemed to be as much about Nelson Rockefeller throwing a temper tantrum as anything else), the conservative and liberal wings of the GOP largely tolerated each other for the next 40 years. George Romney was a credible candidate for the presidency in 1968 (with him ultimately failing due to his personal deficiencies as a campaigner rather than because of his ideology), Nixon himself largely governed as a centrist (with him mouthing conservative rhetoric but largely enacting liberal policies), and Reagan himself would pick the liberal Republican Richard Schweiker to be his veep in 1976 and the moderate George Bush in 1980 (showing he appreciated the need for party balance.) And of course moderate and even liberal Republicans would continue to be enormously influential in Congress all the way into the 21st century. (Remember George W. Bush himself endorsed the liberal Arlen Specter over a conservative challenger as late as 2004.)
Likewise moderate and liberal Republicans mostly supported Reagan in 1980. (Yes, there was John Anderson's insurgent candidacy, but that didn't amount too much and probably took just as many votes from Carter as it did from Reagan.) And they also basically supported Gingrich's Contract with America in 1994. Thus it doesn't really seem that there was ever a serious split between the moderate and conservative wings of the party after 1964.
As for Friedman's NIT plan, didn't Nixon incorporate elements of that into his Family Assistance Plan? It didn't stop Reagan from opposing the plan.
I still think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. One of the major differences there would be is that I'm saying there would be no TTL equivalent to the "southern strategy". I guess I just don't understand how you can say that doesn't radically alter the political landscape compared to OTL. That would mean a GOP that is likely still competitive for African American voters (thus focusing more on black issues), as well as focusing on other demographics groups (such as urban voters) which the GOP eventually just sort of gave up on. I also think you're confusing liberal republicans existing within the party and them holding any real influence whatsoever. Likewise, while the liberal Republican politicians themselves mostly stayed in the GOP, the liberal republican voters absolutely abandoned the party, and I don't think anyone would argue against that point. Additionally I don't think anyone would argue that by the 1980s the GOP wasn't dominated by the conservatives. Im also more than a little confused about how earlier you were arguing that the liberal and conservative wings would still be at each others throats over the size of government, and now you're arguing that there was no real split in the first place.
Well yes, but thats also kind of misleading. Friedman actually publicly opposed his own plan being implemented in the Nixon era because he meant it as a total replacement for the welfare state and the proposal that was made in congress was to use it as an addition to the existing welfare structure (paraphrasing Friedman's own words there). So yes, technically parts of it were in Nixon's plans, but considering Friedman himself opposed it, I don't think its fair or accurate to say that ideas like those by themselves were controversial among the conservatives.
Add the italians, they have also robbed us blind and killed wantonly and the usual other niceties.
Speaking for the rest of Europe, the formation of the 'neutral' united Germany and Mac favoritism towards Asia will mean that the rest of the NATO will feel not very safe of any american reassurance,
US help on the French nuclear program will help but i expect an earlier admission of the UK in the EEC and even a rebirth of the European Defense Community talk and nation like Italy, Jugoslavia and Swiss trying more seriously to get the bomb
bguy
Donor
I feel the significance of the Southern Strategy is massively overblown. African-Americans had been trending Democratic long before 1968 (or 1964). (Even Eisenhower in 1956, an immensely popular president running against a Democratic candidate who was lukewarm on civil rights, could only get about 1/3 of the African American vote in the south side of Chicago and Harlem), and the south had been starting to shift to the GOP since the 1950s. (Eisenhower had done very good in the south in both 1952 and 1956 and even Nixon won 4 southern states and came within a whisper of winning Texas in 1960.) 1964/65 was important not because the Republicans started courting the segregationist vote (again over 80% of GOP senators voted for the Civil Rights Act) but because with segregation gone, southerners had less reason to vote on the civil rights issue and thus were more likely to vote on other issues like economics or foreign policy (where they tended to side more with the Republicans.)
But again how competitive is the GOP going to be with African American voters. If both parties are supporting civil rights, then that issue is a wash, which means African-American voters are most likely going to vote with the party that favors their economic interests, and that's going to be the Democrats. (Which is why Eisenhower performed so poorly with African-American voters even when he was otherwise winning landslide elections.)
Hugh Scott was the GOP Senate Leader after Dirksen. Romney, Rockefeller, and Scranton were all Governors of important states. Schweiker was seen as important enough to be made Reagan's veep in 1976. There were plenty of influential liberal Republicans in the party.
Dominated is overstating things. Bush, Dole, and Baker were all very influential figures in the GOP at the time, and they weren't exactly adamant conservatives.
Well I guess it depends on what you mean by a split. The conservative block will absolutely oppose "big government" programs even from the GOP. (As demonstrated by their opposing Taft's housing and education bills or Nixon's welfare reform program.) But that doesn't mean they'll refuse to support a moderate (or even liberal) GOP candidate otherwise. The conservative block still came out and voted for Eisenhower in 1952, Nixon in 1960 and again in 1968, Ford in 1976, and Bush in 1988 after all. (As you yourself have alluded to there's enough common ground on other issues like national defense and pro-business policies which both wings of the party support.) Thus I don't think there's going to be a fatal breach between the two wings of the party. I just don't see the conservative block being willing to support an activist government either.
Fair enough. I would agree that the conservative block would probably be receptive to something like a true Negative Income Tax, but what is the likelihood the liberal Republicans would support something like that?
Relevant to the thread or not, I feel compelled to mention that Amazon has just delivered to me THE DECORATIONS, AWARDS and HONORS of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur: the U.S. Military's Most Decorated Serviceman. Kind of a long title for such a relatively short book (133 pages). Won't tell me much I did not already know, but when the book-buying impulse seizes me, well, you see the result.
Be easier to just download the list of every medal the Army ever made haha
... Mac won something like all but one of them that he possibly could have.- BNC
The Legion of Merit was the only major US military decoration MacArthur never received-and he was actually nominated for that one, but it was not approved, because someone pointed out he had recently been awarded with a Distinguished Service Medal for the third time, and that was a more senior award anyhow.Be easier to just download the list of every medal the Army ever made haha
- BNC
Wolf of Badenoch
Donor
WEB Griffin says several times in various of his books that the Legion of Merit is awarded to senior officers who manage to avoid contracting 'a social disease'.
Part V, Chapter 39
CHAPTER 39
At the beginning of the occupation of Japan, MacArthur had presented the new Prime Minister Shidehara with seven reforms that he believed would advance the cause of democracy and rebuild Japan into a prosperous, modern country. The first had been to give women the vote. The second was to encourage the formation and growth of a labour union movement. American women had been granted the right to vote in 1920. Organised labour’s rights had grown during his lifetime, but in 1948 the Taft-Hartley Act had curtailed union power significantly.
Labour unions, MacArthur believed, were a sign of a well-functioning economy. Capitalism was most successful in raising the peoples’ living standards when you allowed those people the greatest freedom to engage in creative enterprises. Unions were both a way for workers to protect themselves from exploitation and abuse, and a sign that those people were taking control of their own prosperity. Government’s purpose was not to impose restrictions on these liberties, merely to ensure neither industry’s owners nor its workers grew so powerful as to be able to take advantage of the other. Taft-Hartley had tipped the scale too far in the owners’ favour.
Most Republicans had voted for Taft-Hartley and then voted again to override Truman’s veto, and many of them believed it had not gone far enough to weaken unions. MacArthur had stood alone, defying his party as he took a pro-union platform to the campaign trail. When the votes were counted, it was labour’s votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York that had helped propel him to the nation’s highest office. He returned to the Republican Party with a mandate: the American people wanted labour reform.
He would need it. If the 1948 vote was anything to go by, he had perhaps half of the Democrats in Congress, and few if any Republicans, on his side in the labour battle.
MacArthur had hoped to put a labour bill to Congress during his first year in office: his mandate was strongest immediately after the election and would only decline with every day that passed. His Secretary of Labour, Courtney Whitney, had been put on the job, only for other events to take over the administration’s attention: first the Bricker Amendment, then MacArthur’s foreign trips, all the while cabinet members clashed with both each other and with Ned Almond. It soon became apparent that there would be no MacArthur labour law in 1953. The President was determined that there would not be such a delay in his second year.
Whitney’s first draft of the new Labour Unions Act 1954 arrived on his desk shortly after MacArthur announced he was nominating Orie Phillips to the Supreme Court. The proposal was heavily based off the Japanese Labour Standards Act of 1947, and envisioned a fairly broad repeal of many Taft-Hartley restrictions. It was bold in vision, but both the President and the cabinet members who saw it immediately knew that it was not practical. Richard Nixon didn’t need to read more than the first page before he declared “Sir, Congress won’t even waste their time with a vote on this.”
Whitney asked him why not, and Nixon replied with another question of his own: “Who would vote for it? In the Senate, we’ve got the twenty or so liberals that backed Truman. Who else?”
Whitney, who had no answer, turned to the President. MacArthur, as he so often did on domestic issues, turned to Nixon, the only one among them who had Congressional experience. “Who can we get?” MacArthur asked.
“No-one, the way this bill is written.” Nixon said. “Here’s how I see it: of the four factions in Congress, you’ll never get the South and you’ll never get the conservatives. Democratic liberals have called for repeal of Taft-Hartley since the day it was passed, so they’re on our side already. The last group is the Dewey wing. They won’t support a strong bill, but I believe they can be convinced to pass a weak one.” Then he sighed, already knowing it would be a hard sell. “If you need a name, the first one I’ll give you is Knowland.”
“A conservative.” MacArthur said. It wasn’t a question.
“He’s the party leader. If you get him, others will follow.” Nixon explained. “Unlike every other conservative in the Senate, he also took your side in the Bricker fight. Whatever his reason, and I think that reason is admiration, he can be convinced.”
MacArthur made a small performance out of lighting his pipe as he came up with a plan. Finally, he made his decision. “It’s about time I visited Roosevelt’s retreat.”
***
Although it had been called Shangri-La by Roosevelt, MacArthur would rename the Maryland retreat Camp Arthur after both his father and son. The fifteen-year-old Arthur took an instant liking to the place, believing it even more exciting than the White House and asking his father if they could visit again soon.
For the elder MacArthur, it provided much more than mere excitement: it was a place where he could gather the people who would be vital to passing a labour law. Whitney and Nixon were invited, as was Knowland. Joining them would also be Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, one of the few Republicans who had opposed Taft-Hartley. MacArthur left Nixon to facilitate the discussion, knowing his Attorney General had a better sense of what Congress would accept, asking only for “the best that can be passed.”
By the second day of the discussions, the four men thought they had something approaching a workable bill. MacArthur had been out enjoying some time with Jean and Arthur when he was called by Knowland, who was standing on the other end of the lawn.
“Sir, what are your plans for ‘56?” Knowland asked once MacArthur had walked over.
MacArthur had expected to be asked anything from his experience in Japan to whether he wanted the anti-communist provisions of Taft-Hartley left in. One thing he had not expected was what he was planning to do in the election that was a little under three years away. “I… haven’t made any.” he admitted. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, sir, I personally would like to support your efforts to improve our country.” Knowland said. “The difficulty I face in doing so is that my constituents will disagree with you on this matter, and so will most of the party. An unconditional ‘aye’ vote is a considerable risk for me and my career.”
“And you want my endorsement for the Presidency?” MacArthur asked. There wasn’t any point talking around the matter.
“If you wish to speak plainly, yes.” Knowland said. “And the bill we put to Congress cannot touch Section 14b. Those are my conditions.”
Section 14b gave the states the ability to pass right-to-work laws, a point MacArthur believed did nothing but harm labour unions. Unfortunately, Nixon had made clear that attempting to repeal it would be political poison. He had decided before leaving Washington that the hated provision would stay.
“I would prefer if you could keep this quiet for the time being, but I don’t expect to run for a second term.” As much as MacArthur enjoyed being President, he couldn’t imagine doing the job when he was eighty. Until he said so however, the threat of a second term gave him some leverage over undecided lawmakers, and he wanted to keep that threat on the table for as long as he could. “If I’m still around in ‘56, I’ll give you my endorsement.”
“Then I believe we have a deal.” Knowland said.
The bill that the Camp Arthur discussion, and then further discussion in the White House, eventually arrived at was far from the great restoration of labour’s rights that MacArthur had hoped for. It would not touch Section 14b, or the requirement that unions declare themselves to not be supporters of the Communist Party, or even the ability of employers to spread anti-union messages. What it did do was guarantee strikers the right to a jury trial, should they desire one, in the event of labour disputes, repealing one injustice of Taft-Hartley that unions had been vocal about since 1948.
MacArthur returned from Camp Arthur keen to drum up public support for his new proposal, making mention of the need to give union workers a fair trial in several press conferences. Behind the scenes, the key members of MacArthur’s administration were hard at work convincing Representatives and Senators to support the bill. Republicans, especially those newly elected in 1952, were reminded that this was a key part of the President’s platform and that his failure would hurt the party in the upcoming midterms. Liberal Democrats thanked MacArthur for his efforts to further the cause they had fought for in 1948, and attempted to bring their conservative counterparts on side, an effort that was expected to be in vain but did manage to bring in a few additional votes. The rest of the conservatives, and the Congressional committees that they chaired, were sufficiently convinced by the bill’s weakness that they refrained from opposing it too strongly.
Finally, in early June, House Speaker Martin and Majority Leader Knowland decided they had the votes that were needed. A week later, MacArthur signed the Labour Unions Act 1954 into law.
***
May 20, 1954
As soon as the operator mentioned who was on the other end of the line, Richard Nixon swore. Dealing with J Edgar Hoover was never fun. He might have been Hoover’s boss, but a lot of the time, it felt the other way around. Hoover knew where your skeletons were buried. He knew where your friends’ skeletons were buried too. There was hardly a soul in Washington he didn’t have a file on, and he made it very clear that if you crossed him, your file would be brought out, those secrets given to the press, and your career, maybe your life, would be ruined. Nixon wasn’t scared easily. Even he was intimidated by the FBI Director.
“Good morning, Mr Nixon.” Hoover’s voice came through the telephone.
“Good morning, Edgar.” Nixon replied, although his morning had just become that much less good. “What can I do for you?”
“It seems I have run into a problem.” Hoover said. “Several of my agents believe that there is cause to believe that subversive elements are seeking to threaten our national security. I have tasked them with employing the usual means in which such matters are dealt with, and so far our investigations have been fruitless. Yet the signals - and these are dangerous signals indeed - they remain.”
“Communists?” Nixon asked.
“They could be. Left-wing elements of some kind, that my people are sure of. Allowing them to continue to operate unchecked would have… unfortunate implications for the country.” Hoover said. “Which is why I find it necessary to request the use of, shall we say, unorthodox methods to investigate this matter further. The only way we can be sure they will not cause harm to our country is if the Bureau is given expanded authority, and the final discretion, to install microphone surveillances, so that characters of suspicion may be monitored.”
“Expanded authority?” Nixon asked, writing a note of Hoover’s request.
“That’s correct.” Hoover confirmed. “It is the only way to protect our nation.”
“Well, Edgar, I can take the matter to the boss.” Nixon said. “You make a strong case, and I believe he will accommodate these concerns, but as always the final decision does not lie with me.”
“Of course.” Hoover said. “Goodbye.”
Nixon had no intention of taking the matter to the boss. He already knew what MacArthur would say. He would say no. As far as the President was concerned, Hoover investigated far too many people for far too many things. MacArthur had needed less than ten days in office before he decided that he wanted to fire the FBI boss. The problem, that the President had explained and that his Attorney General was already well aware of, was all of Hoover’s files. Until a way to avoid them was devised, it would be too dangerous to fire him the way MacArthur might have fired a corps commander in Japan. So Nixon was told to keep Hoover happy, and preferably keep him from sticking his nose in any more lives than he already had, until someone - anyone - could think of a way to sack him without it blowing up in everybody’s faces.
Telling Hoover not to investigate something was like telling the sun not to rise. So he gave Hoover the bullshit about asking MacArthur, safe in the knowledge that Hoover wouldn’t come back later to follow it up. If Hoover did whatever it was he wanted to do anyway, Nixon could truthfully say that he had not explicitly approved it, and that neither had MacArthur. The arrangement suited everyone fine, and it left Nixon free to keep looking for… whatever it was that they needed to break Hoover’s hold on power.
Nixon glanced at the note he had just written, and suddenly he had an idea. Maybe this was what he was looking for all along. He decided he would discuss this with MacArthur after all.
- BNC
At the beginning of the occupation of Japan, MacArthur had presented the new Prime Minister Shidehara with seven reforms that he believed would advance the cause of democracy and rebuild Japan into a prosperous, modern country. The first had been to give women the vote. The second was to encourage the formation and growth of a labour union movement. American women had been granted the right to vote in 1920. Organised labour’s rights had grown during his lifetime, but in 1948 the Taft-Hartley Act had curtailed union power significantly.
Labour unions, MacArthur believed, were a sign of a well-functioning economy. Capitalism was most successful in raising the peoples’ living standards when you allowed those people the greatest freedom to engage in creative enterprises. Unions were both a way for workers to protect themselves from exploitation and abuse, and a sign that those people were taking control of their own prosperity. Government’s purpose was not to impose restrictions on these liberties, merely to ensure neither industry’s owners nor its workers grew so powerful as to be able to take advantage of the other. Taft-Hartley had tipped the scale too far in the owners’ favour.
Most Republicans had voted for Taft-Hartley and then voted again to override Truman’s veto, and many of them believed it had not gone far enough to weaken unions. MacArthur had stood alone, defying his party as he took a pro-union platform to the campaign trail. When the votes were counted, it was labour’s votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York that had helped propel him to the nation’s highest office. He returned to the Republican Party with a mandate: the American people wanted labour reform.
He would need it. If the 1948 vote was anything to go by, he had perhaps half of the Democrats in Congress, and few if any Republicans, on his side in the labour battle.
MacArthur had hoped to put a labour bill to Congress during his first year in office: his mandate was strongest immediately after the election and would only decline with every day that passed. His Secretary of Labour, Courtney Whitney, had been put on the job, only for other events to take over the administration’s attention: first the Bricker Amendment, then MacArthur’s foreign trips, all the while cabinet members clashed with both each other and with Ned Almond. It soon became apparent that there would be no MacArthur labour law in 1953. The President was determined that there would not be such a delay in his second year.
Whitney’s first draft of the new Labour Unions Act 1954 arrived on his desk shortly after MacArthur announced he was nominating Orie Phillips to the Supreme Court. The proposal was heavily based off the Japanese Labour Standards Act of 1947, and envisioned a fairly broad repeal of many Taft-Hartley restrictions. It was bold in vision, but both the President and the cabinet members who saw it immediately knew that it was not practical. Richard Nixon didn’t need to read more than the first page before he declared “Sir, Congress won’t even waste their time with a vote on this.”
Whitney asked him why not, and Nixon replied with another question of his own: “Who would vote for it? In the Senate, we’ve got the twenty or so liberals that backed Truman. Who else?”
Whitney, who had no answer, turned to the President. MacArthur, as he so often did on domestic issues, turned to Nixon, the only one among them who had Congressional experience. “Who can we get?” MacArthur asked.
“No-one, the way this bill is written.” Nixon said. “Here’s how I see it: of the four factions in Congress, you’ll never get the South and you’ll never get the conservatives. Democratic liberals have called for repeal of Taft-Hartley since the day it was passed, so they’re on our side already. The last group is the Dewey wing. They won’t support a strong bill, but I believe they can be convinced to pass a weak one.” Then he sighed, already knowing it would be a hard sell. “If you need a name, the first one I’ll give you is Knowland.”
“A conservative.” MacArthur said. It wasn’t a question.
“He’s the party leader. If you get him, others will follow.” Nixon explained. “Unlike every other conservative in the Senate, he also took your side in the Bricker fight. Whatever his reason, and I think that reason is admiration, he can be convinced.”
MacArthur made a small performance out of lighting his pipe as he came up with a plan. Finally, he made his decision. “It’s about time I visited Roosevelt’s retreat.”
***
Although it had been called Shangri-La by Roosevelt, MacArthur would rename the Maryland retreat Camp Arthur after both his father and son. The fifteen-year-old Arthur took an instant liking to the place, believing it even more exciting than the White House and asking his father if they could visit again soon.
For the elder MacArthur, it provided much more than mere excitement: it was a place where he could gather the people who would be vital to passing a labour law. Whitney and Nixon were invited, as was Knowland. Joining them would also be Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, one of the few Republicans who had opposed Taft-Hartley. MacArthur left Nixon to facilitate the discussion, knowing his Attorney General had a better sense of what Congress would accept, asking only for “the best that can be passed.”
By the second day of the discussions, the four men thought they had something approaching a workable bill. MacArthur had been out enjoying some time with Jean and Arthur when he was called by Knowland, who was standing on the other end of the lawn.
“Sir, what are your plans for ‘56?” Knowland asked once MacArthur had walked over.
MacArthur had expected to be asked anything from his experience in Japan to whether he wanted the anti-communist provisions of Taft-Hartley left in. One thing he had not expected was what he was planning to do in the election that was a little under three years away. “I… haven’t made any.” he admitted. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, sir, I personally would like to support your efforts to improve our country.” Knowland said. “The difficulty I face in doing so is that my constituents will disagree with you on this matter, and so will most of the party. An unconditional ‘aye’ vote is a considerable risk for me and my career.”
“And you want my endorsement for the Presidency?” MacArthur asked. There wasn’t any point talking around the matter.
“If you wish to speak plainly, yes.” Knowland said. “And the bill we put to Congress cannot touch Section 14b. Those are my conditions.”
Section 14b gave the states the ability to pass right-to-work laws, a point MacArthur believed did nothing but harm labour unions. Unfortunately, Nixon had made clear that attempting to repeal it would be political poison. He had decided before leaving Washington that the hated provision would stay.
“I would prefer if you could keep this quiet for the time being, but I don’t expect to run for a second term.” As much as MacArthur enjoyed being President, he couldn’t imagine doing the job when he was eighty. Until he said so however, the threat of a second term gave him some leverage over undecided lawmakers, and he wanted to keep that threat on the table for as long as he could. “If I’m still around in ‘56, I’ll give you my endorsement.”
“Then I believe we have a deal.” Knowland said.
The bill that the Camp Arthur discussion, and then further discussion in the White House, eventually arrived at was far from the great restoration of labour’s rights that MacArthur had hoped for. It would not touch Section 14b, or the requirement that unions declare themselves to not be supporters of the Communist Party, or even the ability of employers to spread anti-union messages. What it did do was guarantee strikers the right to a jury trial, should they desire one, in the event of labour disputes, repealing one injustice of Taft-Hartley that unions had been vocal about since 1948.
MacArthur returned from Camp Arthur keen to drum up public support for his new proposal, making mention of the need to give union workers a fair trial in several press conferences. Behind the scenes, the key members of MacArthur’s administration were hard at work convincing Representatives and Senators to support the bill. Republicans, especially those newly elected in 1952, were reminded that this was a key part of the President’s platform and that his failure would hurt the party in the upcoming midterms. Liberal Democrats thanked MacArthur for his efforts to further the cause they had fought for in 1948, and attempted to bring their conservative counterparts on side, an effort that was expected to be in vain but did manage to bring in a few additional votes. The rest of the conservatives, and the Congressional committees that they chaired, were sufficiently convinced by the bill’s weakness that they refrained from opposing it too strongly.
Finally, in early June, House Speaker Martin and Majority Leader Knowland decided they had the votes that were needed. A week later, MacArthur signed the Labour Unions Act 1954 into law.
***
May 20, 1954
As soon as the operator mentioned who was on the other end of the line, Richard Nixon swore. Dealing with J Edgar Hoover was never fun. He might have been Hoover’s boss, but a lot of the time, it felt the other way around. Hoover knew where your skeletons were buried. He knew where your friends’ skeletons were buried too. There was hardly a soul in Washington he didn’t have a file on, and he made it very clear that if you crossed him, your file would be brought out, those secrets given to the press, and your career, maybe your life, would be ruined. Nixon wasn’t scared easily. Even he was intimidated by the FBI Director.
“Good morning, Mr Nixon.” Hoover’s voice came through the telephone.
“Good morning, Edgar.” Nixon replied, although his morning had just become that much less good. “What can I do for you?”
“It seems I have run into a problem.” Hoover said. “Several of my agents believe that there is cause to believe that subversive elements are seeking to threaten our national security. I have tasked them with employing the usual means in which such matters are dealt with, and so far our investigations have been fruitless. Yet the signals - and these are dangerous signals indeed - they remain.”
“Communists?” Nixon asked.
“They could be. Left-wing elements of some kind, that my people are sure of. Allowing them to continue to operate unchecked would have… unfortunate implications for the country.” Hoover said. “Which is why I find it necessary to request the use of, shall we say, unorthodox methods to investigate this matter further. The only way we can be sure they will not cause harm to our country is if the Bureau is given expanded authority, and the final discretion, to install microphone surveillances, so that characters of suspicion may be monitored.”
“Expanded authority?” Nixon asked, writing a note of Hoover’s request.
“That’s correct.” Hoover confirmed. “It is the only way to protect our nation.”
“Well, Edgar, I can take the matter to the boss.” Nixon said. “You make a strong case, and I believe he will accommodate these concerns, but as always the final decision does not lie with me.”
“Of course.” Hoover said. “Goodbye.”
Nixon had no intention of taking the matter to the boss. He already knew what MacArthur would say. He would say no. As far as the President was concerned, Hoover investigated far too many people for far too many things. MacArthur had needed less than ten days in office before he decided that he wanted to fire the FBI boss. The problem, that the President had explained and that his Attorney General was already well aware of, was all of Hoover’s files. Until a way to avoid them was devised, it would be too dangerous to fire him the way MacArthur might have fired a corps commander in Japan. So Nixon was told to keep Hoover happy, and preferably keep him from sticking his nose in any more lives than he already had, until someone - anyone - could think of a way to sack him without it blowing up in everybody’s faces.
Telling Hoover not to investigate something was like telling the sun not to rise. So he gave Hoover the bullshit about asking MacArthur, safe in the knowledge that Hoover wouldn’t come back later to follow it up. If Hoover did whatever it was he wanted to do anyway, Nixon could truthfully say that he had not explicitly approved it, and that neither had MacArthur. The arrangement suited everyone fine, and it left Nixon free to keep looking for… whatever it was that they needed to break Hoover’s hold on power.
Nixon glanced at the note he had just written, and suddenly he had an idea. Maybe this was what he was looking for all along. He decided he would discuss this with MacArthur after all.
- BNC
Now, wouldn't be ironic that TTL Nixon would devise/benefited from the same thing /scheme that IOTL brought his demise...
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