Ramble On

[DSS]

I've been reading "For All Time" lately, and I've been fascinated with the writing style. So I decided to give it a try myself!

The POD for this timeline is October 24th, 1967. I don't know what Lyndon B. Johnson was doing on that day, but ITTL, I had him visiting a school in D.C., when he is tragically assassinated by a lone gunman. Hubert H. Humphrey then becomes President of the United States. This timeline is about the presidency of Hubert Humphrey, and the history that follows.

Again, you know my usual disclaimer: I'm not an advocate for dystopia in real life, I don't wish that LBJ had died - in fact, I have always thought of LBJ as one of the better Presidents we've had - and I wish for the best for all of humanity. This timeline is an exploration of what might have been, and as can happen when exploring alternate history, dystopic events can result.

Also, this timeline is named after a Led Zeppelin song, one that I've been listening to lately, and I thought might be an appropriate title for this timeline. The TL begins with the lyrics for the song. Again, the song lyrics are NOT mine, they are Led Zeppelin's.

And again, this style is written in the same style as "For All Time." All credit for the style goes to the author of that timeline.

Without further ado... Here's the timeline!

 

[DSS]

Ramble On Part One

Ramble On

A Timeline by Dead Sea Squirrels




Leaves are fallin' all around, time I was on my way

Thanks to you, I'm much obliged for such a pleasant stay
but now it's time for me to go, the autumn moon lights my way
for now I smell the rain, and with it, pain
and it's headed my way
Aw, sometimes I grow so tired
but I know I've got one thing I got to do

A-ramble on, and now's the time, the time is now
Sing my song, I'm goin' 'round the world, I gotta find my girl
On my way, I've been this way ten years to the day
Ramble on, gotta find the queen of all my dreams

Got no time to for spreadin' roots, the time has come to be gone
And though our health we drank a thousand times
it's time to ramble on

A-ramble on, and now's the time, the time is now
Sing my song, I'm goin' 'round the world
I've gotta find my girl
On my way, I've been this way ten years to the day
I gotta ramble on, I gotta find the queen of all my dreams
I tell you no lie

Mine's a tale that can't be told, my freedom I hold dear
How years ago in days of old when magic filled the air
'twas in the darkest depths of Mordor, mm-I met a girl so fair
but Gollum and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her
her, her, yeah, and ain't nothin' I can do, no

I guess I'll keep on ramblin', I'm gonna
Sing my song/Sh-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah, I've gotta find my baby
I'm gonna ramble on, sing my song
Gonna work my way all around the world
Baby, baby/Ramble on, yeah


- The OTL Lyrics of "Ramble On," by Led Zeppelin

​

Ramble On Part One


October 1967

- It was October 24th, 1967, and the President was on a very tight schedule. He was scheduled to speak at a local elementary school in the capital, then go and meet a few members of the Senate, then another group of Senators, and then meet back at the White House to work on the next civil rights bill...


Like usual, the President of the United States was a busy, busy man. And his life had been this way ever since November 22nd, 1963. The President cursed the name of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who ultimately was the one who put LBJ through all the misery of the office he held.


Sometimes, the President regretted running for a full term back in '64. Sure, the sarcasm of his nickname "Landslide Lyndon" had been taken away; he had truly been a landslide victor. But ever since he had assumed office for a full term, he had grown more and more unpopular with the people. He initiated the Great Society, and he was criticized. The conservative ideology looked dead, and yet it was revived. He passed a Civil Rights bill, and when some said it was too much, others said it wasn't enough. President Johnson simply couldn't do the right thing, and it looked pretty likely that the American people were going to hit the final nail into the President's political coffin.

"Mr. President?" Said one of his Secret Service agents, sitting next to him in the back seat of the POTUS's limo. "We're at the school."

"Oh, yes. Thank you," said the President. Looking outside, he saw a large crowd outside the school, many schoolchildren and many adults. He awaited the go-ahead before opening the car door, stepping out into the cold autumn air of Washington D.C. in October, and waving to the schoolchildren he was going to be visiting.

Five steps later, six shots rang into the air. It was the last thing President Lyndon Baines Johnson ever heard.

- The 37th President of the United States, Hubert Horatio Humphrey, was not happy with his new world, to say the least. President Humphrey had always felt bad for his predecessor, the man who had made Hubert the second-most powerful man in the world. Having to become President in the way LBJ did was the worst way to enter office, period.

But President Humphrey now knew how LBJ felt, just as LBJ now knew what John Kennedy felt on November 22nd, 1963. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. It was also an awkward situation for the new President. The people mourned the death of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the man who many had previously hated. They paid little attention to the man who had been raised the son of a poor shopkeeper in South Dakota, the man who had slowly worked his way up the political ladder, from becoming Mayor of Minneapolis in the mid-1940s, to delivering the first major speech in support of civil rights at the Democratic National Convention in 1948, to becoming a Senator from Minnesota for 15 years, and finally being elected the 38th Vice President of the United States on the Democratic ticket with President Johnson in November 1964. 43 million Americans had voted for Hubert Humphrey for Vice President, and yet very few knew about the man who had just become their new President.

And from Lyndon Baines Johnson, President Humphrey inherited a world of trouble. The nation had listened as blacks rioted in the streets, as a race conflict erupted in Detroit, as crime surged in every major in the United States. Psychedelic drugs, such as LSD, rocked the youth of the nation, and students at every school, every university in the nation were taking acid. And that same youth was leading the headlines every day with their protests of the War in Vietnam, which President Humphrey was not privately a fan of. But to turn against the war now... Humphrey would be in a much, much worse situation to side with the hippies, to say the least.

The 37th President had no idea what he was going to do. He wished he could have stayed Vice President. But he had been given lemons, and he had to make lemonade.

- The first act of President Hubert Humphrey is to declare October 24th a national day of tragedy. He makes a grandiose speech before the Congress in which he condemns the crime and the lawlessness so dominant in America today. The President made homage to President Johnson, "who had striven for freedom for all Americans in the time given to him by God above."

The second act of President Humphrey is unprecedented, though through no fault of his own. Earlier this same year, the United States Constitution had been amended for the 25th time, and eerily, this amendment allowed for the President to nominate an eligible candidate to the Vice Presidency, in the case that there is no Vice President. Well, the vice presidency is vacant, so it's up to the President to nominate the new Veep.

That man is Terry Sanford, the former Governor of North Carolina. It is only thirteen months before Election Day 1968, and on that day, Americans will have the choice between President Humphrey and whoever the Republicans nominate, be it George Romney, Richard Nixon, or even that cowboy actor-turned-Governor, Ronald Reagan. Although President Humphrey strongly considered Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, a highly capable man of whom Humphrey is well fond of, the President realizes that he will need a Southerner on the ticket in 1968. To have nominated Muskie to the vice presidency, and then drop him only nine months later, would have meant disaster. And that would have meant the virtual nail in the coffin for Hubert H. Humphrey.

- That is, if the President is even renominated by his party next year. There are those in the Democratic Party who wish to deny the President "renomination", and they had wanted to do so with LBJ before his tragic assassination. These differences are mainly over the War, for which the President was publicly supportive and many dissidents openly demonized.

The antiwar movement had been around for years, but they had never needed to find a national figure to run for the presidency before. There were a few whom the movement wished to run against President Humphrey in the primaries, but they were still considering their options.

And who else would lead the pack of potential primary challengers than a charismatic young Kennedy? The Junior Senator from New York, Robert Francis Kennedy, was encouraged by many members of the Democratic Party to run against President Humphrey, just as they had urged him to run against LBJ previously.

But Senator Kennedy is a skilled tactician, and he is ruthless when it comes to the prospect of winning the presidency. He will not throw away his excellent chances at the presidency unless he is certain that he can win. He isn't aiming for second place, or Vice President - In fact, definitely not Vice President. A Kennedy would rather be caught dead than in Number One Observatory Circle. No, Robert F. Kennedy is aiming for total victory, at the Democratic National Convention and in November 1968. And the Senator will not risk losing to the man Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy's political arch nemesis and personally the man he hated most, selected as his Vice President.

Senator Kennedy will not yet answer to the draft movement. He is undecided on whether or not he will run. He will talk it over with his wife, his brother Ted, and his political aids and colleagues (only the notes allied to the Senator, of course), and he will make a decision by the end of November 1967.

- The Republicans are also searching for a nominee. Thus far, as any Republican insider can tell, the two front runners would appear to be Michigan Governor George W. Romney and the former Vice President of the United States, Richard Milhous Nixon.

Nixon is Robert Kennedy's only equal when it comes to political ruthlessness. Nixon has run for President before - against a Kennedy, no less - and he has lost. He lost political office when he first ran, and he lost a second time when he ran for Governor of California two years later. But whatever Richard M. Nixon said at a press conference, the media will still have Dick Nixon to kick around, because he is giving the presidency another try. And he'll be damned if he loses the nomination to a previously-little-known Governor of Michigan, or to the never-ending spirit of Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, or to the man who almost stole Nixon's thunder the year before, California Governor Ronald Wilson Reagan (yes, the cowboy actor).

- The world changed on October 24th, 1967. It changed dramatically. The following are the results of the tragic events of that day in an alternate timeline...
​

 

[Bulletsfromthegrassyknoll]

Very interesting. I agree that Humphrey would need a southerner for at least the states in the outer South, and that RFK was looking for the Presidency and the Presidency only.

Oh, and subscribed .

 

[RogueBeaver]

For HHH, it would be either Sanford or Sanders, not the sellout (in Dixie eyes) Yarborough. More likely Sanders.

 

[Dunois]

Great start, I love For All Time so a spiritual sequel is awesome!

Will this man make an apparition?

 

[Bulletsfromthegrassyknoll]

For HHH, it would be either Sanford or Sanders, not the sellout (in Dixie eyes) Yarborough. More likely Sanders.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Yarborough was the only Southern Senator to vote for the Civil Rights Act?

 

[RogueBeaver]

Correct me if I'm wrong, Yarborough was the only Southern Senator to vote for the Civil Rights Act?

Among other supposed heresies. Plus with HHH on top, you need someone a little more moderate on the bottom.

 

[Bulletsfromthegrassyknoll]

Among other supposed heresies. Plus with HHH on top, you need someone a little more moderate on the bottom.

Yarborough was generally left of Johnson, as well. Yarborough was a screaming liberal from a state we now associate with oil and conservatism.

He might have picked Al Gore Sr., who voted against the Civil Rights Act, but voted for the Voting Rights Act. Or maybe Estes Kefauver, who I've always admired, if he was still around.

 

[DSS]

Very interesting. I agree that Humphrey would need a southerner for at least the states in the outer South, and that RFK was looking for the Presidency and the Presidency only.

Oh, and subscribed .

Thanks!

And yes, Humphrey definitely needed a Southerner on the ticket. In '68, the Dems needed a couple Southern states to win, such as Missouri and Texas. And speaking of the latter state, since LBJ is gone, Texas might well be put into play, although it could still very well go Democrat.

For HHH, it would be either Sanford or Sanders, not the sellout (in Dixie eyes) Yarborough. More likely Sanders.

If you don't mind my asking, what's the difference between Sanford and Sanders? I always thought they were like ideological clones

Great start, I love For All Time so a spiritual sequel is awesome!

Will this man make an apparition?

Sorry to ask, but who's he?

And yeah, as I said, this was definitely inspired by For All Time, and I'm hoping to give it that feel.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Yarborough was the only Southern Senator to vote for the Civil Rights Act?

Among other supposed heresies. Plus with HHH on top, you need someone a little more moderate on the bottom.

Indeed.

Yarborough was generally left of Johnson, as well. Yarborough was a screaming liberal from a state we now associate with oil and conservatism.

He might have picked Al Gore Sr., who voted against the Civil Rights Act, but voted for the Voting Rights Act. Or maybe Estes Kefauver, who I've always admired, if he was still around.

Nominating Ralph Yarborough would have defeated the whole purpose. The whole purpose of Humphrey selecting a Southerner is to have a chance at a Southern state, and with Yarborough seen as a traitor by most Southerners, Veep Yarborough only would have killed Humphrey's chances with both the Southern states, and with quite a bit of the moderate vote (which he needs).

Two problems with Kefauver: 1) He was a political has-been, and nominating a failed vice presidential nominee from eleven years ago wouldn't have gone over well, and, most importantly, 2) By the time of LBJ's assassination, Kefauver had been dead for four years. There won't be no resurrectin' of old Southerners in my timeline.

And while the idea of Vice President Gore in the '60s is so attractive - indeed, you have no idea how much I'm tempted - I can't get past what I understand of Gore Sr., which is that he was also considered to be a traitor to the South. I might be wrong there, but I think that's what I've heard.

However, prove me wrong, and I might just retcon Vice President Sanford.

As for the next update: Hopefully tonight.

 

[DSS]

Ramble On Part Two

October - December 1967


- Two days after the assassination of President Lyndon B. Johnson, a U.S. Navy pilot by the name of John Sidney McCain III is shot down during a bombing mission over North Vietnam. McCain is forced to eject from his A-4 Skyhawk into Truc Bach Lake, where he is pulled ashore by the North Vietnamese and taken as a Prisoner of War. This is an important event in the life of John McCain, if he lives to survive it. He will have to endure torture and endless imprisonment for years, and to John McCain and the prisoners of the POW camp at the "Hanoi Hilton," it seems that the war will never end...

- On November 7, only a few elections are held in the United States of America. Louisiana holds its gubernatorial election, in which centrist Governor J.J. McKeithen is re-elected by a landslide margin.

(Some in Louisiana speculate that Governor McKeithen might well end up being the new Huey Long: A politician who is hugely successful as the Governor of Louisiana with a bright future, possibly in national politics. In response to this speculation, Governor McKeithen jokes to a member of the press that: "If I were to run for President, there'd sure be a helluva lot of fear, loathin', and gumbo on the campaign trail.")

The other notable election is Cleveland's mayoral election, which is won by Democratic State Representative Carl Burton Stokes. Stokes has become the first African-American Mayor of a large American city. It's taken quite a bit of organization and preparing for Stokes: He first ran for Mayor in 1965, when he lost by a very narrow margin. He had been preparing ever since his failed bid for 1967, and he had succeeded. Needless to say, this is a big win for the civil-rights movement...

- As per OTL, the Beatles release their 11-song album Magical Mystery Tour on November 27th. The album is a big hit, despite the huge difference between the content of this album, and the content of, say, their 1964 album A Hard Day's Night. It's best to say that the change in... well, everything about the songs probably symbolizes the changes that culture has made over the past few years. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the first Beatles album that would take a different direction than their previous albums, and Magical Mystery Tour enforced the theory that the change was going to be permanent.

While the Beatles still appear unified in public, it is starting to show privately that the Fab Four are taking new directions. John Lennon is writing a new political song, Revolution, which he wants to release as a single; George Harrison is studying Hinduism and zen, and he is planning a visit to India and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi sometime early next year; Paul McCartney is still apolitical and areligious, although the sound of his songs are changing as well; and Ringo Starr continues writing very little.

- The President didn't plan on reorganizing his Cabinet, but he has been forced to. His Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, has suggested freezing troop levels; although he had previously been fully supportive of an effort to win the war, McNamara is now a follower of a theory which Richard Nixon would later call "Vietnamization": Slowly withdrawing American ground forces from South Vietnam, while training the SVA to fight the war themselves and still giving them air support and other supplies.

President Humphrey is reluctant. Ever since he took office, his positions on Vietnam have been wavering. The President isn't terribly popular, and he wants to fix that. If everything went his way, the Vietnam mess would disappear, and he would start focusing on domestic programs which both he believed in, and would gain him popularity.

While he privately wishes for a withdrawal, he realizes that going rogue would be seen as, well, going rogue by the public. If he even attempted to hand the war over to South Vietnam, he would be called a flip-flopper. The media would say that he was disrespecting what Lyndon B. Johnson had stood for. And the President can't have that. At this point in his presidency, Hubert Humphrey needs to do what will keep his support base with him. And so, the President politely declines McNamara's new war strategy. If the President can win Vietnam, then he will be unbeatable, and he can focus on what he wants to do.

The Defense Secretary is infuriated over Humphrey's stubbornness. And so, on November 29th, 1967, McNamara announces that he will be resigning from the Cabinet effective February 29th, 1968.

With that, President Humphrey needs to nominate a new Secretary of Defense. There are some who recommend an experienced lawyer named Clark Clifford, but Humphrey is against nominating a lawyer to be the Secretary of Defense. If the Attorney General resigns, he will consider Clifford for that.

No, the President wants someone who is dedicated to winning the war. Someone who has been influential in forming defense policies in the past. And the perfect man for the job, as President Humphrey sees things, is Paul Nitze. Nitze has held several positions in forming American defense policies ever since 1944, when he became Director of the Strategic Bombing Survey. Of course, Nitze is not popular with the antiwar movement, but Humphrey plans on winning the war and getting it out of the way, not abandoning it and then being crucified for it. The Senate vote to confirm Secretary-designate Nitze is wide in favor, and bipartisan: Republicans support Nitze as well.

- As more time goes by, President Humphrey looks more and more like Lyndon B. Johnson. That frustrates and even infuriates Senator Robert F. Kennedy, still undecided on a presidential bid.

Although the antiwar movement had held some hopes for Humphrey when he was sworn in, they have become more and more distrustful of him. His nomination of Paul Nitze to the office of Secretary of Defense resulted in the continuation of in-movement debate over who to run for President in 1968; Hubert Humphrey was not their candidate, not with his record and how he was leaning pro-war. And once again, they start begging Robert Kennedy to run.

That, and Kennedy is to Humphrey's right on domestic issues. There are moderates and even conservatives in the Democratic Party unhappy with the Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey administrations for their domestic programs. President Humphrey will certainly introduce liberal domestic legislation to Congress over the next year, and if he is reelected, over the next five years.

Kennedy can unite these many opponents to the administration, and perhaps he can win.

And so, Senator Kennedy decides to make a giant leap of faith. On December 4th, 1967, Robert F. Kennedy stands before the United States Senate, where his brother Jack had announced his candidacy for President in 1959, and announces his own candidacy. He famously states that, "I do not run for presidency to oppose any man; I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and because I have such strong feelings about what must be done, and I feel that I'm obliged to do all I can."

The antiwar movement had its candidate. President Humphrey saw why his predecessor despised Kennedy so much.

- On December 17th, 1967, eight days before Christmas, Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt goes for a swim at Cheviot Beach. Nothing notable happens - just a nice swim for the Prime Minister of Australia.

Prime Minister Holt is dedicated to aiding the Americans in Vietnam. A staunch anti-Communist who took office in February 1966, Holt was the first to say, "All the way with LBJ," a phrase which caught on and became Lyndon Johnson's campaign slogan in 1964. Ever since taking office, P.M. Holt has expanded Australia's involvement in the war, and he is willing to work with the new American administration on expanding it further. America's new President, that Humphrey fellow, has talked about victory before. Of course, he will consider a permanently-independent South Vietnam as a victory, and that's good enough for Harold Holt, who will start planning to bring about that outcome...

 

[RogueBeaver]

Very compelling thus far.



Surely he'll just default back to how he felt on the 1960 campaign trail when he ran against JFK in West Virginia, and the Kennedy campaign, led by Bobby, didn't shut up FDR Jr when he blurted out "[Humphrey's] a good Democrat, but I don't know where he was in WWII".

HHH liked Bobby much more than Bobby liked HHH. RFK saw HHH as a spineless tool of LBJ's, and the thing he despised the most, even more than physical cowardice, was moral cowardice- his cardinal sin. Humphrey being the chief 'Nam spokesman for the administration on Sunday talk shows didn't help either.

 

[Unknown]

How far do you plan on taking this TL?

Good start so far.

Man, the conspiracy theorists are going to be going crazy in this TL....

 

[Unknown]

There won't be no resurrectin' of old Southerners in my timeline.

I just want to say one word to you, just one word: animatronics. (1)

(1) Why, yes, that is a Graduate reference.

 

[DSS]

How far do you plan on taking this TL?

Good start so far.

Man, the conspiracy theorists are going to be going crazy in this TL....

I just want to say one word to you, just one wordho: animatronics. (1)

(1) Why, yes, that is a Graduate reference.

I plan on taking this to the present day, if I'm still writing this by then.

And yeah, there will be many crazy conspiracy theories. Actually, something I know realize is that there would be an official report on the assassination, so I will cover that in the next update

And yeah. In fact, if that ever did come about, we could literally ask Zombie LBJ, "Hey hey LBJ, how many brains did you eat today?"

 

[vultan]

(Some in Louisiana speculate that Governor McKeithen might well end up being the new Huey Long: A politician who is hugely successful as the Governor of Louisiana with a bright future, possibly in national politics. In response to this speculation, Governor McKeithen jokes to a member of the press that: "If I were to run for President, there'd sure be a helluva lot of fear, loathin', and gumbo on the campaign trail.")

Love the reference there.

Please, PLEASE finish this one...just, PLEEEASE!?!?!
Plan on making this as crazy as For All Time?

Maybe some ideas...
-HHH wins in 1968 in a squeaker, possibly having to go to the House.
-Reagan wins in landslide in 72, with broad support. His conservatism brings a comeback on the Southern Democrats who support him eight critical years earlier, who fight to the death on their opposition to civil rights. JFK's policies don't get enforced. Violence.
-HHH or Reagan aren't going to open China, so there's that.
-Sino-Soviet War?
-Total defeat for Israel?
-Rise of far-right in Europe. Could you get Germany to go revanchist and hard-right?

 

[vultan]

Just edited my post with ideas.
Oh, and maybe ITTL we get Libertarian President Jimi Hencrix.

 

[NickCT]

looks very good and very well-written!

 

[vultan]

Hey, don't leave us hanging here man!

 

[Dunois]

Sorry to ask, but who's he?

And yeah, as I said, this was definitely inspired by For All Time, and I'm hoping to give it that feel.

It's Andrei Chikatilo, he was a notorious serial killer called the butcher of Rostov OTL. In For All Time he somehow ended up general secretary of the Soviet Union after the wars with China and the Jerusalem Pact.

 

[DSS]

Love the reference there.

Please, PLEASE finish this one...just, PLEEEASE!?!?!
Plan on making this as crazy as For All Time?

Maybe some ideas...
-HHH wins in 1968 in a squeaker, possibly having to go to the House.
-Reagan wins in landslide in 72, with broad support. His conservatism brings a comeback on the Southern Democrats who support him eight critical years earlier, who fight to the death on their opposition to civil rights. JFK's policies don't get enforced. Violence.
-HHH or Reagan aren't going to open China, so there's that.
-Sino-Soviet War?
-Total defeat for Israel?
-Rise of far-right in Europe. Could you get Germany to go revanchist and hard-right?

Finishing it: As I said, I will try my very best.
The craziness: I'm not sure if I'll go down the road of something like President Charles Manson eek, but yes, anything I ever write is bound to be crazy.
1968/Humphrey/Reagan/etc.: No comment really. You will all have to see what happens with that election. I can promise you fireworks, that's for sure.
Sino-Soviet War: No comment.
European Politics: There will indeed be changes in European politics.

Just edited my post with ideas.
Oh, and maybe ITTL we get Libertarian President Jimi Hencrix.

I promise some stuff with Jimi Hendrix and other musicians as a subplot, but I think the idea of a Libertarian President Hendrix is very unpopular on the Board, so I'm going to stand away from that.

looks very good and very well-written!

Thanks!

Hey, don't leave us hanging here man!

I'm writing the next update.

It's Andrei Chikatilo, he was a notorious serial killer called the butcher of Rostov OTL. In For All Time he somehow ended up general secretary of the Soviet Union after the wars with China and the Jerusalem Pact.

Ah, and ugh. Again, while it is what makes FaT unique, I'm not going to be using serial killers and all, for a few reasons, one of them being that, regardless of its format and dystopian-ness, this timeline isn't For All Time. I'm using the format and writing style of it, and that's it. I'm definitely not trying to plagiarize it.

That aside, the thought of serial killers making it into the government is too much for me. It was interesting to see in FaT, but I'm just going to stand away from that. Of course, I will mention when something like Charles Manson's Helter Skelter happens, and stuff like that. But otherwise, Jim Jones, Charles Manson, etc. will be left alone for the most part.