The Four Horsemen: the Nuclear Apocalypse of 1962
- Thread starter Onkel Willie
- Start date
grassyknollshooter
Banned
They would have never been put into service if they were not accurate. So these 100-150 mt would be enough to calm you down forever.
Fortunately for you he shit his pants and removed missiles from Europe. We broke you psychologically. We won time to build up our nuclear arsenal and now we are able to wipe you off the map completely.
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RamscoopRaider
Donor
Same story with the radiation, more of it gets blasted into places that it can't do any harm, and bigger bombs are (usually) cleaner in terms of producing less radioactivity per energy
Those hundreds of submarines did not sortie during the Cuban missile crisis so are not a factor. We have records that close to 90% of Soviet missile subs actually were detected and tracked at the time, the Foxtrots were harder than the missile boat
Some air defense could have, but the Soviets only had 40-50 ICBMs that were not accurate enough to reliably engage hard targets. The blinding effect of nuclear weapons on radar does not last that long, hence the US using nuclear Surface to Air Missiles in its defenses and nuclear rockets in its fighters, and it would require the USSR waste some of their limited supply of ICBMs at high altitudes over the arctic
The US had a lot more bombers that the Soviets, about 10 times as many, against a more spread out and weaker air defense, even if the B-47 and B-58 force is wiped in Europe, the B-52 force has 4 times as many bombers as the Soviets do available, and up to a third was on airborne alert at the time, plus whatever B-47 and B-58's are airborne and the B-52 forces in the US had early warning radar at the time, BMEWs was '61, and can elephant walk pretty quick. The Soviets have less than 50 ICBMs to hit 182 American ones, and cannot reliably get close enough to kill a hardened silo so would need more than one per silo and best case get less than a third the US ICBM force, and by doing this they are not hitting US cities. The US subs were much quieter than the Soviet ones at the time, the Polaris boats could get close enough to do it
But the US is getting a hell of a lot more than 2.5 times the strikes in
Ok first off the Soviets only had the one Tsar Bomba and it only went up to 50mt, they never had any more powerful then that.
Second off why yes they did in fact put rockets that badly inaccurate into service as they were desperate for anything that could hit the Continental US at the time.
Third off what the fuck is with that last bit?
grassyknollshooter
Banned
Ban
I meant 40-50 ICBMs (3+ mt each) give you roughly 120-150 mt. That is 40-50 largest conurbations in US completely obliterated. 2/3 of population is gone. Not bad at all.
R-16 was a wonderful missile that stayed in service until 80s. The only real example you can give is R-7. 6 of them were deployed to cause the psychological effect. And they did a great job! The so called Sputnik Shock scared the hell out of your establishment and prevent them from taking any actions against us until we rearmed. Again you don't need great accuracy to hit targets like NY or LA.
Im just glad we managed to intimidate such warmorgering fascists like you. The only thing I regret we didnt finish you off when we had chance. By the early 70s your economy was on the brink of collapse caused by overexpenses on Vietnam War, Space Race and Great Society. Unfortunately instead of driving you into bancrupcy we agreed for Detente. Brezhnev was an idiot. But thats alright we not gonna repeat this mistake again!
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nbcman
Donor
(1) If you concentrate your ICBMs on city strikes as part of a first strike, the US missile forces are still available for a counterstrike. Otherwise you'd be waiting on the limited Soviet bomber fleet to hopefully be able to break through the US defenses and attack the US silos, SAC airbases, and command & control bases - which means some of the US missiles and SAC bombers could strike targets in the SU. Also there would be some cities that would get multiple missiles since the CEP for early generation missiles for the US and the Soviets were too high to guarantee the actual target was destroyed. The choices that the Author had in the story is, in my opinion, a fairly accurate target list to what the Soviets would have had done in 1962 which would not have obliterated 2/3 of the US population.
(2) R-16 (CEP 2.7 km) was a less accurate weapon than the majority of the US ICBMs at the time of the Crisis, the Atlas D/E/F models and the Titan I both of which had a CEP of 1.4 km. According to the information online, the R-16s were phased out of service in the 1970s, not the 1980s. Do you have any evidence that the R-16s were operational for an additional decade?
Ummmmmm - look dude, I hate to jump on the pile, but that is flagrantly not true.
And before you accuse me of being a 'fascist', I'm not the least bit American, so I have literally no reason to support the US side of the story. From what I've heard, both sides came to an agreement because they were equally terrified, but didn't tell anyone because of bad PR.
Firstly, mate, if you want to make a point, you have to be calm about it. You don't change people's opinions by shouting at them.
Also, don't get me wrong, those expenses were extraordinarily large - but that was mainly because the US got completely smashed (economically) by the 1970s energy crisis.
Sto? Do I detect some anger issues? So Dude, Having lived through the time you where talking about I have a different perspective. I remember the duck and cover drills at school, which went away by the mid sixties. I was much more worried about getting sent to Vietnam, to many of my friends older brothers came home in boxes, than I was of the USSR. We didn't think that you were crazy enough to start that kind of a war and then hoped that you and China would destroy each other. Most of us didn't worry about it most of the time. Those of us who grew up with it thought of it as normal. Some groups such as the John Birch Society were stirring the pot, but most people just wanted to get along with life.
I don't agree at all with your opinion about Soviet foreign strategy but that's not the topic, also being tough but civil is possible, not leaving this point to bourgeoise.
About thread topic I always found interesting that anglophone speakers or forums tend to present a 1962 WWIII almost as a lost occasion: in their scenarios US are hit but nothing too serious because Soviet rockets were few, imprecise, destroyed before launching and their generals are stupid, Europe is hit more heavily but survived, China is less impacted but collapse someway and Soviet Union is carpet nuked, no tree from Pacific to Northern Sea and no man alive. Out of anglosphere alternative histories are more balanced: Soviet Union is hit more then US but the latter suffer great damages by his own and are forced in decades of political instability, difficult recostruction efforts and widely range of problems linked to radiation plague, particularly health issues and contamination of agricultural areas. Some form of Soviet political entity survives, with all their problems about starvation and instability too, while Europe is almost pushed on brink of total destruction by using of tactical nukes. China is untouched by direct attacks but is then impacted by war consequences.
As not anglophone, I tend to agree with second scenario: US had superiority in both missiles and nukes numbers, although at least large part of population and establishment were convinced of opposite (that was a really great Soviet trick, although seems that JFK knew that when he called the bluff, thanking to some defectors), but a nuclear war is not a conventional one, you can't use the "I shoot more bullets, I won" logic.
All sources agree that Soviets had at maximum 50 missiles and that they could hit United States. Plus missiles in Cuba of course, and bombers and submarines.
First, Numbers: You have few missiles and they are your only guarantee to survive in the Cold War so you're going to care them carefully, I suppose. It's logic, it's evident, it's mathematic. So I can't reasonably expect a large numbers of mechanical incidents in Soviet nuclear missiles.
Second, Precision: Soviet missiles were more imprecise of their American counterpart, yep, that's right. But Mahattan is large target and if you live at one kilometer from a nuke explosion you're not going to survive anyway. I think this thinking way is due conventional warfare mentality: precise missiles are good for surgical and tactical attacks, for example beheading enemy leadership or destroying their silos. But in a nuclear war all this is relative: the logic is raining nukes on adversary hoping to be quicker then him. Soviets knew the missiles were not so precise so they planned to leave tactical attacks (in Europe) to bombers and land troops and using their missiles in strategic attacks on US cities and major militar complexes.
Third, Destroying before launching: in all movies when an attack is launched against US the President is immediatly informed and taken in a secure locality. This happens also in this TL. But every time the idea that Soviets actually had a similar system is absent. Soviet Union had a radar system, had airbases, had satellites: they would know within few minutes an attack is going on and they would lauch their missiles.
Fourth, Cuba: Soviets had of course missiles and bombers Ilyushin in Cuba, this was the crisis' reason. Now, Curtis LeMay assured Kennedy that US were able to destroy 90% of Soviets missiles in Cuba in order to promote an invasion of Cubadirong the crisis. But LeMay also claimed Soviets had more then double of US nukes and then became infamously noted for his pro-nuclear weapons use cheerleading. So I frankly doubt of his opinion's fondness. I removed that US decided to not ratifying SALT II in 1980 after finding Moscow had a division or two in Cuba, since the Crisis, when the agreement included removing all Soviet militaries from the island. So if this division could go undetected for almost two decades it's clearly possible the same happens with Soviet bases: some missiles launching sites will be surely destroyed but others not or not in time and in this case the time to fly from Cuba to Washigton DC could be too short to take the President to the bunker...
Fifth, bombers: Soviets had a large numbers of bombers, of course knowing missiles were few they counted on them in case of war. A good chunk of them were going to bomb European and East Asian targets, but a large parte were reserved for a nuclear general assault on North America. Now, NORAD was wonderful and his radar system was one of the best of the world, but their defense were not so heavy: someone is going to pass while after major militar infrastructure were hit (and NORAD main bunkers were not completed at time) all the defense system will be, well,a little incapacitated to manage the attack. Some bombers will pass and will drop on their targets, likely the US heartland will have less attacks to deep defense but coastal cities and bases will be on this nuclear black list.
Sixth, submarines: Soviets had submarines with nuclear torpedos. Now US said that they detected ninty percent of them, I said LeMay said the same about missiles in Cuba and luckily we will never know how many he was wrong. We know with certainty only that they detected three submarines on the Soviet missiles fleet, but I remember as Arkhipov's submarine, after detected, almost nuked carrier US Randolph and its fleet. Every submarine avoiding detection or incurring in it but evading successfully or again being detected but not in time means a coastal city nuked, so not a great deal for US.
Seventh and last: all agree that US had missiles and nukes superiority and all agree that would means an humanitarian catastrophe for Soviets but killing almost all life within and turn half of Eurasia in a sort of radioactive Moon scenario? Life found always a way, even dinosaurs' meteor was not enough to cancel all life. Also USSR has large chunks of empty, not-inhabited space that could absorb at least in part the magnitude of explosion and a part of the fallout. You could contest that but in early 1960s US had almost 70% people living in urban areas while USSR was around 55%, so I can't understand why a nuclear attack on Soviet Union would kill almost all the population, although almost half lived in countryside far away from every valuable target, while US can easily absorb an attack and get back to normal life within in few years although two third of their population lived in cities presumably nuked. Also we're forgetting Kennedy had changed nuclear response rules: US passed from "Massive Retaliation for every type of attack" planned under Eisenhower to "Flexible Response" issued by JFK himself. So there is a serious possibility after Soviets run out missiles and bombers and they are forced to suspend the attack calling for a truce together with all others international and religious leaders US survived command centers agree, following orders and seeing no advantage to incinerate others millions of human beings each other. So I see as a real possibility some little town and secondary areas surviving in Soviet Union. Of course, the main problem for post-war Soviet Union will be food themselves, as they were not able to sustain their agricultural needs even before the war due climate and Lysenko, and ethnic contrasts leading toward splitting in many communities. But saying Soviet Union will become a dead land forever while US will get a punch but in a decade will be again in track as leading superpower sounds me very exaggerated.
Maybe after sometimes some LeMay minions and surrogates (I think there will be not more of him after the first nuke hit Omaha) will claim US "won" the war but if they will dare they will do that sitting on a mountain of radioactive ashes between a fight for food and an other and in a way that will give a total new meaning to the term "Pyrrhic victory"...
Well you jumped the shark with that last paragraph.
Trolling Straight Out of the Gate is one of the Eight Ways to Crashland.
Chapter IX: Return of the Kennedys, 1979-1984
Oh dear, that certainly got out of hand... Oh well, that won't stop me from publishing a new update.
EDIT: this chapter has been seriously edited to address comments surrounding Britain's political development.
The year 1979 started with a tragedy for the US government. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller – with whom Nixon had established not only a working relationship, but also a warm personal relationship over the past seven years – died of a heart attack on January 26th 1979, aged 70. Nixon grieved for someone who he’d come to consider a friend, but also remained practical, knowing he couldn’t leave the office of Vice President vacant for too long. He selected his Secretary of the Treasury, former Governor of Texas, former Secretary of the Navy, and Democrat turned Republican John Connally as his new Vice President. George H.W. Bush, Congressman from Texas since 1967 and elected as Senator from that state in 1976, replaced Connally as Secretary of the Treasury. These changes were important as 1980 was an election year and Nixon, knowing this, tried to provide his intended successor with the best possible chance of success. The last thing the Republicans could use were highly divided primaries.
Against Nixon’s wishes, the Republican primaries were hotly contested and several forerunners were seen as having a serious chance at getting the nomination. Despite Nixon’s endorsement, Vice President Connally received serious competition from Secretary of the Treasury and former Texas Senator George H.W. Bush, Attorney General and former Kansas Senator Bob Dole, and Secretary of State and former California Governor Ronald Reagan. During the Republican National Convention held in July 1980 in the Texas Stadium in Dallas, Connally won the nomination and chose Reagan, one of his strongest competitors, as his running mate. Similar to the previous election, Bush and Dole were offered continuation of their cabinet positions in the event of a Republican victory. To appeal to increased religious observance in the post-war world, as the people turned to God for moral support, Connally tried unsuccessfully to copy some of Reagan’s conservative Christian rhetoric.
The 1980 Democratic primaries were the opposite of what their opponents experienced (much to Nixon’s envy). Senator from New York Robert F. Kennedy, former Attorney General during the administration of his still highly popular brother JFK, threw his hat into the ring. In a show of unity all prominent Democrats endorsed him and gave him a wide berth, resulting in only token opposition in the primaries. For the first time in years John F. Kennedy appeared at a major event by attending the Democratic National Convention in August in Midway Stadium in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and delivering a well-received speech on the opening night: “[…] During those terrible days in the fall of 1962 I said the country would be back on its feet before the decade was out. All of us together did just that, but there are still scars and open wounds in this great nation. Now I ask you to support my brother and heal this country together so that, by the year 2000, we can honestly say America is even better than before the war and our grandchildren can have what our children could not.” Robert Kennedy won the nomination in a landslide. He chose Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale as his running mate.
People noticed Kennedy appeared feeble, though this obviously didn’t impair his oratory skills. He walked with a cane for brief stretches and was wheelchaired to his car by his wife Jacqueline. This wasn’t a complete surprise as John had already made a brief televised appearance in a talk show six months earlier to discuss his recently published memoires, during which he’d gotten on stage with a cane. His health had plagued him all his life. He had Addison’s disease and suffered from chronic and severe back pain. During his presidential years Kennedy suffered from high fevers, stomach, colon, and prostate issues, abscesses, high cholesterol and adrenal problems. He died of a heart attack in 1987, aged 70. This was long enough for him to witness his brother’s re-election.
The war had destroyed much, throwing parts of the country back decades, and economic growth had peaked in the double digits around 1970. By the late 70s, however, economic activity had nearly returned to pre-war levels as reconstruction no longer fuelled growth. America was ready to export again, but in 1979 Western markets still had not recovered to the point that average Europeans could think about buying an American car or a TV set. In the longer term, the economy would reorient to Latin American, African and Asian markets with products matching the purchasing power of the consumers there. In the short term, a recession gripped the country starting in late 1979. The Federal Reserve had advised Nixon to lower the interest rate to increase the money supply, which would prop up the demand for goods and services.
The Federal Reserve initially dismissed inflation as a secondary concern under the belief that this recession would be “sharp but short”, but to their amazement and grave concern the economy continued to stagnate while inflation rose sharply. The interest rate was raised radically and this disinflationary policy did what it intended to do as it curbed inflation seriously. The raised interest rates, however, drew widespread criticism as the construction, farming and industrial sectors were heavily affected. Nixon could not be persuaded to adopt a large quarter trillion dollar Keynesian stimulus package proposed by the Democrats in Congress. His chief economic advisor Paul Volcker advised against it, pointing out that during his entire time in office Nixon’s economic policy had concerned itself with bringing government debt back under control. During his last year in office, Nixon stuck to a policy to keep government finances sound through high interest rates and austerity measures, while hoping to stimulate the economy further by further decreasing corporate taxes and the income taxes for the highest tax brackets. During his State of the Union in January 1980 before a joint session of Congress, Nixon announced that “government finances are fully sound and national debt is completely under control.” About the high interest rate and austerity measures he said “I know these are tough times for many Americans, but we must stay the course. I believe this crisis will end soon, and America will emerge stronger from it. Our great people have endured worse before, and I believe they can endure this as well. We all need to wait just a little while longer and then the burden will be lifted, yielding great economic rewards. Good things come to those who wait. As we know from the good book, patience is a virtue. Now is the time to be virtuous.” His address did not fall on deaf ears in a country in which Christian faith was resurgent on both sides of the political spectrum ever since the war.
Robert Kennedy nonetheless ran a highly successful campaign that attacked the incumbent administration on its counterproductive approach to this recession, which disproportionally affected working and middle class families. Kennedy pointed out America’s creditors still trusted her creditworthiness, giving the government sufficient leeway to engage in debt spending to combat this crisis. The US would easily be able to get a serious extension of payments under these circumstances. Kennedy accused the Nixon Administration of being “obsessed with the debt” while they “should concern themselves with the hardship the American people are experiencing.” He regularly cited the Christian value of solidarity. Despite the fact that Nixon campaigned heavily for his intended successor, Connally lost. The Kennedy/Mondale ticket obtained 50.3% of the popular vote, carried 26 states and gained 284 electoral votes. The Connally/Reagan ticket won 48% of the popular vote, carried 24 states and secured 251 electoral votes. Not only that, but the Democrats regained the House of Representatives as well. Robert F. Kennedy was inaugurated on January 20th 1981.
President Robert Kennedy had the support of the House, but not the Senate. After negotiations with a few Republican senators, he managed to pass a smaller stimulus package of $175 billion with Republican support on the condition that he wouldn’t raise taxes for the rich and major corporations. This changed in the 1982 US Senate elections, when the Democrats gained enough seats for a fifty-fifty divide. This meant President Robert Kennedy could be sure of the support of both houses of Congress. If all of his Senators voted in his favour, then he had the Senate too as his VP would cast the decisive vote in the event of a tie in the Senate. A second gargantuan stimulus package of $750 billion was passed.
The first instalment of the stimulus package was used to subsidize businesses on the condition that they didn’t lay off any more employees, resulting in millions of people keeping their jobs where they otherwise wouldn’t have. The result was that many people didn’t experience a serious decrease in purchasing power, allowing for the demand for goods and services to remain stable at a doable level. A second tranche was meant for the medium term to help the economy transition to production aimed at the US’s new virtually captive markets, for lack of major economic competition from other powers, in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
A third formidable slice containing $150 billion was solely intended for the European Reconstruction Program. Robert Kennedy declared in Congress that “the previous administration has made a promise to come to the aid of our friends in Europe, who’ve languished in a post-war malaise for far too long. Years ago we were still rebuilding our own country, but now there’s no reason not to keep our promise anymore. So I have faith Congress will approve of this recovery program, so no-one can say America doesn’t do as it says and so I can tell the poor people of Europe: hold on, help is on the way.” For comparison the 1948 Marshal Plan had transferred $12 billion worth of aid to Europe which, adjusted for inflation, amounted to $48 billion in 1982. The proposed European Reconstruction Program, passed by a Democrat dominated Congress was triple that. The goods delivered consisted of food, medicine, construction equipment, construction materials, coal, oil, steel, cars, trucks, trains, ships, aircraft and entire disassembled factory buildings and power plants to be put together at their intended destination. This much more than anything ended the recession of the early 80s in the US and the country would benefit doubly: by the beginning of the last decade of the twentieth century, many Europeans were finally in a position to buy consumer goods.
Even then, Europe in 1992, three decades after the war, still didn’t compare to the pre-1962 situation, but at least Europe’s despair ended: a population that had become numb and apathetic, believing God didn’t exist at all or that he’d abandoned them, saw a ray of sunshine. This didn’t lead to a religious revival: after the Pope had been killed in 1962 by the attack on Rome, many Catholics believed God didn’t exist because he wouldn’t have allowed the destruction of the tomb of Saint Peter, one of Jesus’s apostles and the first Pope. The general despair also affected the Protestant churches, as their pastors and reverends couldn’t satisfactorily explain why God would punish Europe so extremely. In America and Europe the war paradoxically had opposite effects: while secularization was contained in the United States, the war had sped it up in Europe. American scholars in religious studies attribute this by the outpouring of misery being much greater across the Atlantic.
This immense suffering is also cited as the reason why democracy struggled. Italy had split into a neo-fascist monarchy in the south and a market socialist republic in the north. In Spain, the attempt by Juan Carlos to restore democracy after Franco’s death was killed in the cradle by a coup d’état of colonels seeking to continue the conservative, Catholic military dictatorship. In Germany, a government of national unity tried to rule and there hadn’t been an election since WW III, and there were accusations of authoritarianism the longer practices like labour conscription continued. Germany was characterized as a benevolent dictatorship. In France, the Fourth Republic had been replaced by the Fifth Republic in 1958, which devolved into dictatorship after 1962 as “emergency powers” to rule by decree were given to De Gaulle, who didn’t relinquish them but passed them on to his successor Pompidou. The Gaullist Union of Democrats for the Republic became the de facto ruling parting and would remain in power for decades. Nationalism and xenophobia seriously slowed down the progress of European cooperation and blame was mostly shifted to communism, though some blame how John F. Kennedy handled the war by refusing to launch a massive strike to prevent the Soviet launch. Nonetheless, American aid was welcomed of course.
In Britain, the first-past-the-post electoral system prevented any authoritarian party from muscling its way into power and democracy surprisingly survived, although the stringent post-war measures became more and more criticized in the late 70s, early 80s as dictatorial. The Liberal Party experienced a serious resurgence in the 1979 UK general election, mostly at the expense of Labour though the Conservatives lost seven constituencies too. In 1979, the Tories won 300 seats, Labour 209 seats and 68 went to the Liberals. The House of Commons had 635 seats, which meant 318 were needed for a majority and no party had achieved that, which meant that a coalition had to be formed. This was unusual in British politics. Labour and the Conservatives both had the option of siding with the Liberals, but instead entered a marriage of convenience to maintain the political status quo.
A significant minority within Labour was opposed to this, resulting in the 1981 split in which ten labour MPs formed the Social Democratic Party. The Social Democrats and Liberals would attract the vote of the those angry with all the post-war restrictions that were still in effect two decades after the fact. They’d split that vote: the Liberals had progressive social and cultural ideas, but in terms of economic policies they were almost as right-wing as the Tories. The SDP was to the left of Labour on the political spectrum. Besides that, nationalist, regionalist parties like the social-democratic Scottish Nationalist Party and the also social-democratic Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru emerged. These had slowly grown and would see a breakthrough in 1983, along with local and single issue parties.
Especially labour conscription caused outrage among Generation X, i.e. the post-war generation and youth leaders denounced it as “slavery”. By the 1983 UK general election the House of Commons had grown to 650 seats, which required 326 for a majority. The 1983 election was a watershed event for several reasons: firstly voter turnout in ’79 was only 69%, it rose to 85% in 1983 as the Liberals and the Social Democrats mobilized the festering resentment against the establishment, particularly among young voters. The Tories dropped from 300 to 220 seats and Labour from 209 to 149 while the Liberals number of seats increased by the whopping number of seventy to a total of 138 and the Social Democrats from ten to 72. The Scottish National Party won 32 seats and Plaid Cymru 14. Though the Tories remained the largest party due to the first-past-the-post system, but definitely not in the popular vote, it was clear a majority of the populace was anti-Tory. The Liberals and the SDP invited Labour to join a coalition. Despite being the largest party, the Conservatives ended up in the opposition.
This led to the abolition of the hated labour conscription in 1984 and the restoration of a number of other civil liberties. That did not solve the virtual civil war that loomed in Northern Ireland, which was only kept under control by a virtual military occupation. IRA attacks continued in Britain and violence in Northern Ireland itself between unionists and Irish nationalists continued unabated, even though unionist parties won a majority of the vote. The growth of regionalist parties in general put pressure on Westminster to address these grievances or face the prospect of a breakup of the UK, perhaps not now but at some point in the future. What helped is that Labour MPs from Scotland and Wales supported the SNP and Plaid Cymru in their demand for devolution. The end result is that in the early 90s, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each got their own devolved parliaments and governments. This made the UK a federal country.
Meanwhile, a final instalment of the 1982 US stimulus package was reserved to begin rebuilding the cities struck by Soviet nuclear weapons in the war. The Residence Act of 1982 adopted by Congress and signed into law by President Robert F. Kennedy provided for a national capital and permanent seat of government to be established at a location to be selected by Kennedy and his advisors. It was considered to rebuild Washington DC on its original location. The ruins of the original had almost completely been reclaimed by nature, with the partially collapsed dome of the Capitol Building being among the few structures sticking up above the vegetation. It was decided to leave this site, which many considered a massive war grave, undisturbed out of respect for the victims of the attack on Washington and rename it Old Washington DC National Park.
New Washington DC would be built on the Delmarva Peninsula, after Delaware, Maryland and Virginia had graciously donated the necessary land. It would be grander than the original to display America’s renewed self-confidence. New Washington didn’t copy the east-west grid with diagonal avenues of the old city. Instead, in the final winning plan the new city had wide avenues with four traffic lanes in both directions radiating out from the centre like spokes on a wheel. Smaller avenues with two traffic lanes in both directions were located in between. The avenues were intersected by a series of ring roads. The areas in between the “spokes” and the “rings” were roughly rectangular and these were subdivided further into rectangles with long and wide straight roads. At the heart of the city was the seat of government, which included a carbon copy of the White House based on surviving architectural plans and pre-war photographs. Exact replicas of monuments like the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial were also built and the WW III Memorial was added to that. It consisted of marble and granite steles with the names of the killed Washingtonians of 1962 inscribed into them with gold lettering, through which visitors could walk. A statue representing Columbia, the female national personification of the United States, was located in the centre. The new Capitol Building was most definitely not a mere replica of the original. The dome had twice the volume of the original and was gold painted on the outside and a copy of the “Apotheosis of Washington” fresco of the original was on the inside. The House and Senate wings were also twice as long as the originals and added to them were wings built crossways at each end, housing the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court. All three branches of government and the world’s largest library were united in one building. When seen from above, the building looks like two big T-shaped wings extending from the dome in the centre. The city was interspersed with very large parks and playgrounds to give the city a relaxing and family friendly appearance while the wide roads were meant to prevent congestion. Today half a million people call the city home, and 4 million people live in its entire metropolitan area.
After the planning stage, construction began in early 1984 and lasted eight years, after which the city would be inaugurated as the country’s permanent capital and seat of government in 1992. That was not the complete story though: all government departments had relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, after the war and plenty of its staff were reluctant to leave the city that had become their home. The result is that most departments retained part of their offices and staffs in St. Louis, ensuring its role as the second capital. The Secretaries and Undersecretaries with their senior staff mostly resided in New Washington and ran their departments by phone, though they were on-site once or twice a month. The middle and low level staff stayed in St. Louis. A second concern that led to this split were the two main threats to New Washington. Firstly, the Delmarva Peninsula was a flat, sandy area and the highest elevation was only 31 metres (102 feet) above sea level; seawalls were built to avert the threat posed by high water caused by storms. Secondly, the fear of a future nuclear war persisted, though the city was well protected: several air force bases were established with overlapping coverage and squadrons ready to take off at a moment’s notice, providing the city with jet fighters on stand-by 24/7. Besides that, several bases with anti-ballistic missiles protected the city. This monumental project was the crown to the reconstruction of America. The measures taken to protect it weren’t unwarranted as the US weren’t the only nuclear power anymore by the mid-80s.
Reconstruction began in several American cities, most prominently New York City. The state of New York hadn’t made the same consideration in rebuilding New York City as the federal government had with Washington: in other words, the city would be rebuilt on the exact same spot. In 1985, radiation levels had sunk to safe levels and it was decided to remove the wilderness that had covered much of the ruins and all the debris was cleared up as well, an effort that took two years. Like New Washington DC, it was a completely planned city from the sidewalks all the way up to the top of the skyscrapers and to the spaciously designed living areas with plenty of green and plenty of wide roads so rebuilt New York wouldn’t have such nightmarish traffic. The much more spread out nature of the “new” New York, like New Washington, had a safety aspect to it: a much more spread out city was less vulnerable to attack. Certain key buildings of course were restored as exact replicas: the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and the Statue of Liberty among others. They decided to build a World Trade Centre, a modern building that appeared from the outside to be made of glass and had on innovative twisted design. At 600 metres, it was the world’s tallest building upon completion in 1998. People moved in the moment the first housing was ready. New York City, being much bigger than DC, took much longer to complete though: the city was inaugurated in 2005.
The economic stimuli that were given in phases produced immediate effects, with the economy registering 2.5% growth in 1983 and 4% in 1984 as opposed to the near total stagnation of the 1979-1982 years. This success came at the right time for Robert Kennedy as the economy was always a hot item in Presidential elections, and 1984 was an election year. Besides that, the beginning of building a new capital to replace the temporary one, St. Louis, was seen as a restoration of national prestige.
The Kennedy/Mondale ticket won the nomination with token opposition and the Democratic National Convention repeated the successes of the past four years, and painted a picture of the next four years. Kennedy had a 70% approval rating. In the meantime, the Republicans had a sense of doom and gloom, believing they couldn’t win in ’84. What didn’t help was that their most popular figure, Ronald Reagan, declined to run because of health concerns, and after losing the election in 1968 and failing to win the nomination in 1976 and 1980 in the first place. He didn’t want to be the fall guy blamed for the Republican defeat in 1984 and didn’t feel anything for becoming the Republican version of William Jennings Bryan (a three time Democratic nominee and loser in the early twentieth century). A pair of paper candidates represented the Republicans: former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen and former US Special Envoy to Paraguay Ben Fernandez from California constituted the Republican ticket (Fernandez was the first Hispanic Vice Presidential nominee). The end result was a total landslide victory in favour of the Democrats: 57% of the popular vote, 48 states and 478 electoral votes as opposed to 42.4% of the popular vote, two states and 57 electoral votes for the Republicans. This result mirrored John F. Kennedy’s victory in 1964.
EDIT: this chapter has been seriously edited to address comments surrounding Britain's political development.
Chapter IX: Return of the Kennedys, 1979-1984.
The year 1979 started with a tragedy for the US government. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller – with whom Nixon had established not only a working relationship, but also a warm personal relationship over the past seven years – died of a heart attack on January 26th 1979, aged 70. Nixon grieved for someone who he’d come to consider a friend, but also remained practical, knowing he couldn’t leave the office of Vice President vacant for too long. He selected his Secretary of the Treasury, former Governor of Texas, former Secretary of the Navy, and Democrat turned Republican John Connally as his new Vice President. George H.W. Bush, Congressman from Texas since 1967 and elected as Senator from that state in 1976, replaced Connally as Secretary of the Treasury. These changes were important as 1980 was an election year and Nixon, knowing this, tried to provide his intended successor with the best possible chance of success. The last thing the Republicans could use were highly divided primaries.
Against Nixon’s wishes, the Republican primaries were hotly contested and several forerunners were seen as having a serious chance at getting the nomination. Despite Nixon’s endorsement, Vice President Connally received serious competition from Secretary of the Treasury and former Texas Senator George H.W. Bush, Attorney General and former Kansas Senator Bob Dole, and Secretary of State and former California Governor Ronald Reagan. During the Republican National Convention held in July 1980 in the Texas Stadium in Dallas, Connally won the nomination and chose Reagan, one of his strongest competitors, as his running mate. Similar to the previous election, Bush and Dole were offered continuation of their cabinet positions in the event of a Republican victory. To appeal to increased religious observance in the post-war world, as the people turned to God for moral support, Connally tried unsuccessfully to copy some of Reagan’s conservative Christian rhetoric.
The 1980 Democratic primaries were the opposite of what their opponents experienced (much to Nixon’s envy). Senator from New York Robert F. Kennedy, former Attorney General during the administration of his still highly popular brother JFK, threw his hat into the ring. In a show of unity all prominent Democrats endorsed him and gave him a wide berth, resulting in only token opposition in the primaries. For the first time in years John F. Kennedy appeared at a major event by attending the Democratic National Convention in August in Midway Stadium in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and delivering a well-received speech on the opening night: “[…] During those terrible days in the fall of 1962 I said the country would be back on its feet before the decade was out. All of us together did just that, but there are still scars and open wounds in this great nation. Now I ask you to support my brother and heal this country together so that, by the year 2000, we can honestly say America is even better than before the war and our grandchildren can have what our children could not.” Robert Kennedy won the nomination in a landslide. He chose Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale as his running mate.
People noticed Kennedy appeared feeble, though this obviously didn’t impair his oratory skills. He walked with a cane for brief stretches and was wheelchaired to his car by his wife Jacqueline. This wasn’t a complete surprise as John had already made a brief televised appearance in a talk show six months earlier to discuss his recently published memoires, during which he’d gotten on stage with a cane. His health had plagued him all his life. He had Addison’s disease and suffered from chronic and severe back pain. During his presidential years Kennedy suffered from high fevers, stomach, colon, and prostate issues, abscesses, high cholesterol and adrenal problems. He died of a heart attack in 1987, aged 70. This was long enough for him to witness his brother’s re-election.
The war had destroyed much, throwing parts of the country back decades, and economic growth had peaked in the double digits around 1970. By the late 70s, however, economic activity had nearly returned to pre-war levels as reconstruction no longer fuelled growth. America was ready to export again, but in 1979 Western markets still had not recovered to the point that average Europeans could think about buying an American car or a TV set. In the longer term, the economy would reorient to Latin American, African and Asian markets with products matching the purchasing power of the consumers there. In the short term, a recession gripped the country starting in late 1979. The Federal Reserve had advised Nixon to lower the interest rate to increase the money supply, which would prop up the demand for goods and services.
The Federal Reserve initially dismissed inflation as a secondary concern under the belief that this recession would be “sharp but short”, but to their amazement and grave concern the economy continued to stagnate while inflation rose sharply. The interest rate was raised radically and this disinflationary policy did what it intended to do as it curbed inflation seriously. The raised interest rates, however, drew widespread criticism as the construction, farming and industrial sectors were heavily affected. Nixon could not be persuaded to adopt a large quarter trillion dollar Keynesian stimulus package proposed by the Democrats in Congress. His chief economic advisor Paul Volcker advised against it, pointing out that during his entire time in office Nixon’s economic policy had concerned itself with bringing government debt back under control. During his last year in office, Nixon stuck to a policy to keep government finances sound through high interest rates and austerity measures, while hoping to stimulate the economy further by further decreasing corporate taxes and the income taxes for the highest tax brackets. During his State of the Union in January 1980 before a joint session of Congress, Nixon announced that “government finances are fully sound and national debt is completely under control.” About the high interest rate and austerity measures he said “I know these are tough times for many Americans, but we must stay the course. I believe this crisis will end soon, and America will emerge stronger from it. Our great people have endured worse before, and I believe they can endure this as well. We all need to wait just a little while longer and then the burden will be lifted, yielding great economic rewards. Good things come to those who wait. As we know from the good book, patience is a virtue. Now is the time to be virtuous.” His address did not fall on deaf ears in a country in which Christian faith was resurgent on both sides of the political spectrum ever since the war.
Robert Kennedy nonetheless ran a highly successful campaign that attacked the incumbent administration on its counterproductive approach to this recession, which disproportionally affected working and middle class families. Kennedy pointed out America’s creditors still trusted her creditworthiness, giving the government sufficient leeway to engage in debt spending to combat this crisis. The US would easily be able to get a serious extension of payments under these circumstances. Kennedy accused the Nixon Administration of being “obsessed with the debt” while they “should concern themselves with the hardship the American people are experiencing.” He regularly cited the Christian value of solidarity. Despite the fact that Nixon campaigned heavily for his intended successor, Connally lost. The Kennedy/Mondale ticket obtained 50.3% of the popular vote, carried 26 states and gained 284 electoral votes. The Connally/Reagan ticket won 48% of the popular vote, carried 24 states and secured 251 electoral votes. Not only that, but the Democrats regained the House of Representatives as well. Robert F. Kennedy was inaugurated on January 20th 1981.
President Robert Kennedy had the support of the House, but not the Senate. After negotiations with a few Republican senators, he managed to pass a smaller stimulus package of $175 billion with Republican support on the condition that he wouldn’t raise taxes for the rich and major corporations. This changed in the 1982 US Senate elections, when the Democrats gained enough seats for a fifty-fifty divide. This meant President Robert Kennedy could be sure of the support of both houses of Congress. If all of his Senators voted in his favour, then he had the Senate too as his VP would cast the decisive vote in the event of a tie in the Senate. A second gargantuan stimulus package of $750 billion was passed.
The first instalment of the stimulus package was used to subsidize businesses on the condition that they didn’t lay off any more employees, resulting in millions of people keeping their jobs where they otherwise wouldn’t have. The result was that many people didn’t experience a serious decrease in purchasing power, allowing for the demand for goods and services to remain stable at a doable level. A second tranche was meant for the medium term to help the economy transition to production aimed at the US’s new virtually captive markets, for lack of major economic competition from other powers, in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
A third formidable slice containing $150 billion was solely intended for the European Reconstruction Program. Robert Kennedy declared in Congress that “the previous administration has made a promise to come to the aid of our friends in Europe, who’ve languished in a post-war malaise for far too long. Years ago we were still rebuilding our own country, but now there’s no reason not to keep our promise anymore. So I have faith Congress will approve of this recovery program, so no-one can say America doesn’t do as it says and so I can tell the poor people of Europe: hold on, help is on the way.” For comparison the 1948 Marshal Plan had transferred $12 billion worth of aid to Europe which, adjusted for inflation, amounted to $48 billion in 1982. The proposed European Reconstruction Program, passed by a Democrat dominated Congress was triple that. The goods delivered consisted of food, medicine, construction equipment, construction materials, coal, oil, steel, cars, trucks, trains, ships, aircraft and entire disassembled factory buildings and power plants to be put together at their intended destination. This much more than anything ended the recession of the early 80s in the US and the country would benefit doubly: by the beginning of the last decade of the twentieth century, many Europeans were finally in a position to buy consumer goods.
Even then, Europe in 1992, three decades after the war, still didn’t compare to the pre-1962 situation, but at least Europe’s despair ended: a population that had become numb and apathetic, believing God didn’t exist at all or that he’d abandoned them, saw a ray of sunshine. This didn’t lead to a religious revival: after the Pope had been killed in 1962 by the attack on Rome, many Catholics believed God didn’t exist because he wouldn’t have allowed the destruction of the tomb of Saint Peter, one of Jesus’s apostles and the first Pope. The general despair also affected the Protestant churches, as their pastors and reverends couldn’t satisfactorily explain why God would punish Europe so extremely. In America and Europe the war paradoxically had opposite effects: while secularization was contained in the United States, the war had sped it up in Europe. American scholars in religious studies attribute this by the outpouring of misery being much greater across the Atlantic.
This immense suffering is also cited as the reason why democracy struggled. Italy had split into a neo-fascist monarchy in the south and a market socialist republic in the north. In Spain, the attempt by Juan Carlos to restore democracy after Franco’s death was killed in the cradle by a coup d’état of colonels seeking to continue the conservative, Catholic military dictatorship. In Germany, a government of national unity tried to rule and there hadn’t been an election since WW III, and there were accusations of authoritarianism the longer practices like labour conscription continued. Germany was characterized as a benevolent dictatorship. In France, the Fourth Republic had been replaced by the Fifth Republic in 1958, which devolved into dictatorship after 1962 as “emergency powers” to rule by decree were given to De Gaulle, who didn’t relinquish them but passed them on to his successor Pompidou. The Gaullist Union of Democrats for the Republic became the de facto ruling parting and would remain in power for decades. Nationalism and xenophobia seriously slowed down the progress of European cooperation and blame was mostly shifted to communism, though some blame how John F. Kennedy handled the war by refusing to launch a massive strike to prevent the Soviet launch. Nonetheless, American aid was welcomed of course.
In Britain, the first-past-the-post electoral system prevented any authoritarian party from muscling its way into power and democracy surprisingly survived, although the stringent post-war measures became more and more criticized in the late 70s, early 80s as dictatorial. The Liberal Party experienced a serious resurgence in the 1979 UK general election, mostly at the expense of Labour though the Conservatives lost seven constituencies too. In 1979, the Tories won 300 seats, Labour 209 seats and 68 went to the Liberals. The House of Commons had 635 seats, which meant 318 were needed for a majority and no party had achieved that, which meant that a coalition had to be formed. This was unusual in British politics. Labour and the Conservatives both had the option of siding with the Liberals, but instead entered a marriage of convenience to maintain the political status quo.
A significant minority within Labour was opposed to this, resulting in the 1981 split in which ten labour MPs formed the Social Democratic Party. The Social Democrats and Liberals would attract the vote of the those angry with all the post-war restrictions that were still in effect two decades after the fact. They’d split that vote: the Liberals had progressive social and cultural ideas, but in terms of economic policies they were almost as right-wing as the Tories. The SDP was to the left of Labour on the political spectrum. Besides that, nationalist, regionalist parties like the social-democratic Scottish Nationalist Party and the also social-democratic Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru emerged. These had slowly grown and would see a breakthrough in 1983, along with local and single issue parties.
Especially labour conscription caused outrage among Generation X, i.e. the post-war generation and youth leaders denounced it as “slavery”. By the 1983 UK general election the House of Commons had grown to 650 seats, which required 326 for a majority. The 1983 election was a watershed event for several reasons: firstly voter turnout in ’79 was only 69%, it rose to 85% in 1983 as the Liberals and the Social Democrats mobilized the festering resentment against the establishment, particularly among young voters. The Tories dropped from 300 to 220 seats and Labour from 209 to 149 while the Liberals number of seats increased by the whopping number of seventy to a total of 138 and the Social Democrats from ten to 72. The Scottish National Party won 32 seats and Plaid Cymru 14. Though the Tories remained the largest party due to the first-past-the-post system, but definitely not in the popular vote, it was clear a majority of the populace was anti-Tory. The Liberals and the SDP invited Labour to join a coalition. Despite being the largest party, the Conservatives ended up in the opposition.
This led to the abolition of the hated labour conscription in 1984 and the restoration of a number of other civil liberties. That did not solve the virtual civil war that loomed in Northern Ireland, which was only kept under control by a virtual military occupation. IRA attacks continued in Britain and violence in Northern Ireland itself between unionists and Irish nationalists continued unabated, even though unionist parties won a majority of the vote. The growth of regionalist parties in general put pressure on Westminster to address these grievances or face the prospect of a breakup of the UK, perhaps not now but at some point in the future. What helped is that Labour MPs from Scotland and Wales supported the SNP and Plaid Cymru in their demand for devolution. The end result is that in the early 90s, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each got their own devolved parliaments and governments. This made the UK a federal country.
Meanwhile, a final instalment of the 1982 US stimulus package was reserved to begin rebuilding the cities struck by Soviet nuclear weapons in the war. The Residence Act of 1982 adopted by Congress and signed into law by President Robert F. Kennedy provided for a national capital and permanent seat of government to be established at a location to be selected by Kennedy and his advisors. It was considered to rebuild Washington DC on its original location. The ruins of the original had almost completely been reclaimed by nature, with the partially collapsed dome of the Capitol Building being among the few structures sticking up above the vegetation. It was decided to leave this site, which many considered a massive war grave, undisturbed out of respect for the victims of the attack on Washington and rename it Old Washington DC National Park.
New Washington DC would be built on the Delmarva Peninsula, after Delaware, Maryland and Virginia had graciously donated the necessary land. It would be grander than the original to display America’s renewed self-confidence. New Washington didn’t copy the east-west grid with diagonal avenues of the old city. Instead, in the final winning plan the new city had wide avenues with four traffic lanes in both directions radiating out from the centre like spokes on a wheel. Smaller avenues with two traffic lanes in both directions were located in between. The avenues were intersected by a series of ring roads. The areas in between the “spokes” and the “rings” were roughly rectangular and these were subdivided further into rectangles with long and wide straight roads. At the heart of the city was the seat of government, which included a carbon copy of the White House based on surviving architectural plans and pre-war photographs. Exact replicas of monuments like the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial were also built and the WW III Memorial was added to that. It consisted of marble and granite steles with the names of the killed Washingtonians of 1962 inscribed into them with gold lettering, through which visitors could walk. A statue representing Columbia, the female national personification of the United States, was located in the centre. The new Capitol Building was most definitely not a mere replica of the original. The dome had twice the volume of the original and was gold painted on the outside and a copy of the “Apotheosis of Washington” fresco of the original was on the inside. The House and Senate wings were also twice as long as the originals and added to them were wings built crossways at each end, housing the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court. All three branches of government and the world’s largest library were united in one building. When seen from above, the building looks like two big T-shaped wings extending from the dome in the centre. The city was interspersed with very large parks and playgrounds to give the city a relaxing and family friendly appearance while the wide roads were meant to prevent congestion. Today half a million people call the city home, and 4 million people live in its entire metropolitan area.
After the planning stage, construction began in early 1984 and lasted eight years, after which the city would be inaugurated as the country’s permanent capital and seat of government in 1992. That was not the complete story though: all government departments had relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, after the war and plenty of its staff were reluctant to leave the city that had become their home. The result is that most departments retained part of their offices and staffs in St. Louis, ensuring its role as the second capital. The Secretaries and Undersecretaries with their senior staff mostly resided in New Washington and ran their departments by phone, though they were on-site once or twice a month. The middle and low level staff stayed in St. Louis. A second concern that led to this split were the two main threats to New Washington. Firstly, the Delmarva Peninsula was a flat, sandy area and the highest elevation was only 31 metres (102 feet) above sea level; seawalls were built to avert the threat posed by high water caused by storms. Secondly, the fear of a future nuclear war persisted, though the city was well protected: several air force bases were established with overlapping coverage and squadrons ready to take off at a moment’s notice, providing the city with jet fighters on stand-by 24/7. Besides that, several bases with anti-ballistic missiles protected the city. This monumental project was the crown to the reconstruction of America. The measures taken to protect it weren’t unwarranted as the US weren’t the only nuclear power anymore by the mid-80s.
Reconstruction began in several American cities, most prominently New York City. The state of New York hadn’t made the same consideration in rebuilding New York City as the federal government had with Washington: in other words, the city would be rebuilt on the exact same spot. In 1985, radiation levels had sunk to safe levels and it was decided to remove the wilderness that had covered much of the ruins and all the debris was cleared up as well, an effort that took two years. Like New Washington DC, it was a completely planned city from the sidewalks all the way up to the top of the skyscrapers and to the spaciously designed living areas with plenty of green and plenty of wide roads so rebuilt New York wouldn’t have such nightmarish traffic. The much more spread out nature of the “new” New York, like New Washington, had a safety aspect to it: a much more spread out city was less vulnerable to attack. Certain key buildings of course were restored as exact replicas: the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and the Statue of Liberty among others. They decided to build a World Trade Centre, a modern building that appeared from the outside to be made of glass and had on innovative twisted design. At 600 metres, it was the world’s tallest building upon completion in 1998. People moved in the moment the first housing was ready. New York City, being much bigger than DC, took much longer to complete though: the city was inaugurated in 2005.
The economic stimuli that were given in phases produced immediate effects, with the economy registering 2.5% growth in 1983 and 4% in 1984 as opposed to the near total stagnation of the 1979-1982 years. This success came at the right time for Robert Kennedy as the economy was always a hot item in Presidential elections, and 1984 was an election year. Besides that, the beginning of building a new capital to replace the temporary one, St. Louis, was seen as a restoration of national prestige.
The Kennedy/Mondale ticket won the nomination with token opposition and the Democratic National Convention repeated the successes of the past four years, and painted a picture of the next four years. Kennedy had a 70% approval rating. In the meantime, the Republicans had a sense of doom and gloom, believing they couldn’t win in ’84. What didn’t help was that their most popular figure, Ronald Reagan, declined to run because of health concerns, and after losing the election in 1968 and failing to win the nomination in 1976 and 1980 in the first place. He didn’t want to be the fall guy blamed for the Republican defeat in 1984 and didn’t feel anything for becoming the Republican version of William Jennings Bryan (a three time Democratic nominee and loser in the early twentieth century). A pair of paper candidates represented the Republicans: former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen and former US Special Envoy to Paraguay Ben Fernandez from California constituted the Republican ticket (Fernandez was the first Hispanic Vice Presidential nominee). The end result was a total landslide victory in favour of the Democrats: 57% of the popular vote, 48 states and 478 electoral votes as opposed to 42.4% of the popular vote, two states and 57 electoral votes for the Republicans. This result mirrored John F. Kennedy’s victory in 1964.
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Are there more green spaces and mass transit in American cities? Was there anything like the green revolution in india and the less developed world?
Ficboy
Banned
I think you should cover sports, pop culture and what future famous people are up to in TTL.
Anglocalvinist67
Banned
Great update.
But why would Reagan accept being deputy secretary of state? Seems like a steep downgrade from being Governor of California. How about just Secretary of State?
Also, if Bush and Connelly run on the same ticket they forfeit the electoral vote of Texas.
But why would Reagan accept being deputy secretary of state? Seems like a steep downgrade from being Governor of California. How about just Secretary of State?
Also, if Bush and Connelly run on the same ticket they forfeit the electoral vote of Texas.