Hi, I new to these forums and I stumbled upon this timeline, and I must say it sounds really cool! I hope to see more of it =D
I have a question, I was just thinking about the fact that, if it is 1961, how will the United States be observing the centennial of the War of Secession, that is to say they do? How about the former Confederacy?
1961 is our social equivalent of 1881, that is its toward the end of the Reconstruction era. There may be a 1961 version of President Garfield, of course the equivalent of Republican in this timeline is Democrat, interestingly enough, there is a Republican - that is to say Democrat who may fit this bill Richard M. Nixon, a Democrat from California. Now what do you suppose the TL-191/1961 version of Richard M. Nixon is likley to be? The President immediately preceding him is likely to be a General, perhaps General Irving Morrel, the famed Union Barrel commander. So we have a Morrel Administration followed by the Nixon Administration. I feel the Socialist Party is going to have problems for a time, because it was due to its naivetivity that Jake Featherston got the jump on the United States, and its going to be a while before the American public trusts another Socialist just as in the situation immediately following the Civil War in our timeline. The equivalent of the "Wild West" would be in Canada, where you have settlers from both north and south settling old scores on the frontier. Canada would be a rough and tumble place with gunfights breaking out all the time, probably the occasional terrorist bomb going off as well. A lot of Canadians on the other hand would flee south, trying to get away from lawlessness on the frontier and all the bombs going off between ex-southerners, pro-Union people and Canadians still desiring independence. Unlike the more familiar post World War II America, this one would still be isolationist, it would tend to be preoccupied with settling the conflicts within its own territory.
There would be no Cold War, both the Germans and the Americans realize the destructive potential of their new nuclear arsenals, but there is also very little incentive to build up their supply of nuclear weapons. I have a feeling that the TL-191 version of Dr. Werner von Braun will be very disappointed with this world's version of Germany. There are no communist countries anywhere, communism is still a glint in the radical's eye. Most of the revolutionary movements of the 20th century have been thoroughly suppressed, they are at most insurgents fighting an uphill battle, and the economy is growing quite nicely in the 1960s. Probably President Nixon even throws in a tax cut to boost growth a bit more. Nixon however is still Nixon, and is probably his own worst enemy. Perhaps something like the Watergate scandal will break in 1966 or perhaps 1967, this may propell Socialists into Congress in 1966 or 1968 or perhaps Nixon will be assasinated in 1963, and the World will never know about Watergate and its like. Nixon will then be seen as a tragic figure and maybe have an airport named after him. I think Nixon won't be assasinated though, instead he will be impeached, and he'll probably resign, leaving his Nelson Rockerfeller as the next President to finish his term in 1968 after pardoning the disgraced President Nixon. The next President may be Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey serves from 1969 to 1972, inflation ticks up a bit during his Administration. The organization called OPEC or something like it becomes powerful during this time, there is no Israel in this timeline, but the OPEC cartel members may still become greedy. The price of crude oil goes up, but there is no oil shock. I believe there may be some competition between Germany, the United States, and Japan for oil resources. American oil companies will probably still be operating in Arabia, slowly but surely Islamic Radical movements will build up their store of resentment against each of these powers and each of these powers may in turn try to fan this resentment in the direction of their compeditors
I think the space race would never happen in the TL-191 world, missile development would be slower without ideological competition driving it. The Capitalist World, despite the American Socialist movement would be quite secure here. Still there would be people in Germany who would wish to unseat its emperor, there would be people who look to America and wonder why they can't elect their own government instead of having to live under a king. Probably in the late 1970s after a bought of Inflation, the Kaisar may be overthrown or forced to become a more Constitutional monarch with cerimonial powers. I think the world may see men walk on the Moon in 1999, this will be a more gradual development. Moonships will probably be constructed in orbit from a number of smaller rocket launches, I think cruise missiles and ramjets may provide a larger role in this.