What if Puerto Rican nationalists succeeded in assassinating Truman in 1950?

5.) Maybe the US wins the Korean War by following MacArthur's advice in bombing PRC.
6.) If the Puerto Rican terrorists killed Truman let's say a year earlier, maybe Chiang wins the Civil War against Mao.
Up to this point reasonable but these last two seem pretty far fetched. Both imply Truman just personally flinched from two easy slam dunks whereas I think the assumption either alternate outcome was a long shot from a mid 1950 standing start even with a much more drastic POD somehow creating resolution for either attempt and follow through when the "easy" version of either fails to be enough as they each must.

What does "victory in Korea via bombing the PRC" even look like for instance? Are we talking nuking hell out of Beijing, Shanghai, etc to "break Red Chinese resolve?" A more conventional Dresden/Curtis LeMay against Japan to derange military production? Whittling down China via airborne genocide (technically possible to make big dent in their population with nukes I suppose, but there are still just lots of Chinese.

Victory through strategic bombing has always been a dubious notion quite aside from ethics of course. Using airpower aggressively to interdict troops and supplies moving into North Korea was I think attempted, but it was juggling nitroglycerin because that border is more a Soviet than PRC one. And so decimating China as a materiel and manpower supplier of the North is dubious unless one is prepared to take on Ivan as directly as Mao. At this juncture in intercontinental power projection the USA could pound Russia and the Soviets could threaten very little against CONUS--the problem was Western Europe and Japan were within Soviet striking range.

Either of these "bold" moves would probably run a serious risk of starting WWIII full on. The USA can win it, but at a major price.

The notion that the KMT stood a ghost of a chance in mid 1950 no matter what the USA did at that late date seems downright hilarious. Again to accomplish the collapse of Mao's PLA and restoring KMT control of all the RoC's claimed territory seems plainly to require the USA building up to WWII levels, invading at levels of tens of millions of troops and leveling everything before them with massive air strikes (air power is a great force multiplier and make no mistake but mostly used tactically).

If that is the USA had a military machine even capable of beginning to do that in mid-1950! Actually when the Korean crisis broke we were down to a tiny percentage of our recent WWII levels of mobilization--and this can hardly be blamed on Harry Truman even if that were relevant to this thread's POD; quite as much as Truman wanted cut backs to fund consolidation and extension of the New Deal, the Republicans wanted them on 1920s 'return to normalcy' principles and no matter who held the upper hand in Congress (mostly Republicans in Truman's terms, though at this moment, prior to the 1950 midterms, I believe Truman won it back on coattails of his unanticipated reelection, or rather first time election as President--but of course a "Democratic majority" included the Solid Dixiecrat-leaning conservative South too).

I'd have to study up on the exact timetable of Chiang Kai-Shek's final debacle on the mainland and retreat to Taiwan, but I'm pretty sure as New Year's Day dawned on 1950, it was pretty much a done deal unless just maybe perhaps the USA were to go all in, I mean WWII levels of all in, on saving the RoC, and even then given how flatfooted the US military was by that late date, about all we could really accomplish might be to carve out Chiang a small enclave encompassing Hong Kong, Macao, Canton and some radius around this zone--I suppose holding on to Hainan and carving out a southeast Chinese enclave, conceivably perhaps stretching it to Sichuan and covering the approaches to Tibet might have been feasible, depending on whether the grassroots in the south of China was less caught up in the Communist cause than the north was. And to do that requires us to go all in, no holds barred (except I assume, no nukes).

Actually nukes might be an option, on Chinese targets far from Soviet borders--maybe. But Mao was allied to Stalin and the risk was the Kremlin interpreting nuclear strikes on PLA targets as just one half step removed if that from hitting Red Army ones, and deciding the third war had come ready or not, and the Soviet bloc doing its worst in Europe.

So either of those chestnuts strike me as from the wish list of a bunch of unreconstructed reactionaries and unthinkable to anyone with a sane regard for balance of power and avoidance of general global war yet again just five years after finishing the last one.

How are we supposed to believe either Barkley or Rayburn have the stomach for such a gung ho dive into global war if they can possibly avoid it? Is it a matter of deciding instead that it is precisely lack of gumption and commitment to an intelligible plan for dealing with world affairs that enables MacArthur to simply bully Barkley into doing his unchecked bidding?

The facts OTL were that for all MacArthur's egotism and bone deep conviction he was the voice and mind and steely hand of the Real America (TM) reactionaries always cite against inconvenient political facts on the ground, his support versus more moderate alternatives even within strictly Republican circles was much smaller than the due he imagined was his. It didn't help him that he was overseas for most of the '30s and '40s and had little idea what Main Street USA had evolved into against his reactionary notions of what it should be while his back was turned. I think just about any US leader likely to actually take power would feel compelled to sit on him and ignore his over the top notions if he could, and shut him down the way Truman did if Mac would not be silenced.

So, reactionary pipe dreams, both of those. Starting to try to do either might be feasible, although I think suggesting anything concrete that could possibly be imagined to be of any substantial help to Chiang's collapsing position would be widely and firmly opposed. Bombing Communist controlled parts of China--maybe. Escalating to levels that would have some useful effect? That's playing with WWIII fire and everyone knew it. It was a question of "shouldn't we start WWIII already?" as a positive value, and I don't think that had firm support anywhere, not at a level to enable it to be enacted. Drifting into it by incremental escalation, maybe. Anyway even if an incremental bombing campaign aimed at interdicting Chinese aid to the North were to develop to a level that had a serious crimping effect, and the Soviets rather than going up to the brinksmanship line and risking crossing it were to prudently back off instead encouraging a freer hand, bombing alone will not bring victory in Korea; men must still land and fight for the territory.

Other suggestions about what would happen seem off base to me too. Certainly there would be other options for US leadership besides demonizing the Puerto Ricans indiscriminately. One major barrier to PR having statehood already is that the Puerto Ricans themselves are on the fence about it. Ironically in this age, letting PR go as an independent nation would be less disruptive than it would be today, when really large numbers of people of Puerto Rican heritage and retaining strong family ties there live on the mainland as fully voting citizens, many of whom have served in the military and otherwise reinforced the family bond of Puerto Ricans as bona fide citizens. The general rights and wrongs of PR independence are not the topic here of course--I think we can all take it as plain that bumping off the President would slam the door on that option in this generation.

But I believe that while Puerto Rican advocates of US statehood were not close to commanding universal assent to that in Puerto Rico in 1950, they were a considerable bloc, and verging on outright majority there. A very reasonable response to the assassination would be to present Puerto Rican statehood as the ultimate slapdown of the independence movement, and thus present the bond to the USA as positive and in the context of Cold War politics, exemplary.

Spanish would of course have to retain official language status in a State of Puerto Rico but that is no logical problem--there are these people known as translators you see, and it is not unknown for persons growing up speaking Spanish to pick up English as a second language. Say, all the Puerto Ricans who had fought in the armed services in WWII and as mentioned upthread, were currently deployed to places like East Asia. It is even not unheard of for English speakers to pick up a word or three of Spanish! As a US state, citizens would have rights to services in English too of course. But it would be no problem to provide an official translator or three to translate deliberations of the PR legislative houses into English. And the sorts of Puerto Ricans likely to have serious shots at being elected to the House of Representatives and Senate would in fact know considerable English and be able to operate in Congress, perhaps with the help of expert translators to smooth over possible misunderstandings and produce copies of all official and working documents in familiar Spanish if desired.

The USA parading its new other-language (and if they keep shooting their mouths off on this sensitive subject, largely other-'race' too) state before the world community fits quite well into the "leader of the Free World" narrative after all.

Now an honest plebiscite might provide embarrassing returns failing to approve the new order unambiguously. But that is a layered problem in "managed democracy." The CIA already inherited some track record of attempted intervention in elections around the world. It would of course be grossly illegal for the Central Intelligence Agency to be involved in doing anything like that on US soil, but maintaining appearances might not be that difficult. Meanwhile, the layered approach would include softening up the ground politically by a relentless campaign of police work and propaganda against the secessionists, versus all manner of support overt and covert for the statehood advocates. Between carrot and stick, in this McCarthyite age, I don't doubt that a moderately impressive democratic or anyway democratic looking mandate for Puerto Rican statehood purportedly as the choice of the Puerto Rican people would be forthcoming. It wouldn't even be all lie...quite a lot of Puerto Ricans did look to statehood as a decent outcome for them.

So one thing I think that would happen pretty quick, probably before the 1952 elections and even with a good shot at being fully done before the November 1950 elections, is full Puerto Rican statehood, nearly a decade before Alaska and a full decade before Hawaii--in fact conceivably the sheer momentum of PR statehood might open the flood gates to both those territories gaining immediate statehood too. Jump from a 48 to 51 star flag--not sure how to arrange 51 stars on a flag but I imagine there are examples already drawn up (51 is 3 times 17 so I suppose something can be done with alternating rows of 8 and 9 stars for instance, 6 such rows, 3 groups of 17, can do it). Adding three sets of Senators at once will keep the three Senate classes balanced with 34 states in each too, as Americans had been used to seeing evenly balanced with 48 states for a long generation now.

In terms of apportionment in Congress, PR, unlike new Alaska and Hawaii only meriting one Rep each (unless HI was admitted with two immediately, the 1960 census certainly raised that state to two if not already there and it has stayed there since) is about the size of Connecticut or Oklahoma and thus merits a similar Congressional apportionment--I don't know if the Congress might consider upping the House size just a bit, say simply admitting AK with 1, HI with 2 (or maybe lower population in 1950 might have made it just one then too) and PR with 5--OK and CT have 5 today, and somewhat to my surprise another AH exercise many months ago revealed PR's relative population was always such as to maintain that share of seats pretty closely--and then either add 8 or 10 seats for a permanent 443 or 445, or as OTL in 1960 let the states take potluck in the musical chairs reapportionment of 435 seats. I'd favor the former approach but no one then would be asking me of course.

I quite agree that with one thing and another, Eisenhower is a slam dunk for the Presidency come November 1952. Even if Barkley were a well man and ambitious, by 1952 the 20 year Democratic ascendency had worn out its welcome and the nation was more than ready for a changing of the guard--one which ironically would cement the Democratic ascendency in the House and Senate for the next 42 years! That seems unlikely to change either--PR statehood ironically might not cement it, there are quite a few conservative Puerto Ricans after all and while PR has its own party system, I don't doubt that with statehood settling the major issues that formally define the OTL modern ones, and under pressure of the general US party system, the islanders too would be merged into the Democratic-Republican duopoly.

Harry Truman would of course be reviled among remaining dissident Puerto Rican separatists, but PR separatism would be treated as dangerous subversion and handled very ruthlessly by US police authorities (just as other dissenting views were). Assuming overall that integration into US statehood goes fairly well, with Puerto Ricans sharing in general US prosperity patterns in the 1950s and '60s (the way say Southern states did, leaving room for quite a lot of crushing poverty of course, as Michael Harrington's The Other America testified at the end of the 1950s--and not just about Southern poverty, if anything the rural kind was a footnote compared to the massive poverty in the hearts of the US's most vibrant industrial-financial centers) I expect Truman to be something of a folk hero and martyr, if not to the poorest masses than to the aspiring middle classes of PR, for the fact is Truman was very much friendly to improving PR's status in the US system. It was his administration that came up with the "commonwealth" formula for instance--I believe this has been gainsaid by later administrations claiming PR is really just a territory like any other. But it would be most easy for a myth holding him the great champion of Puerto Rican equality as fully empowered citizens of a state to sprout up around his sacrificed image. It would be the kind of thing making for controversy in later generations.

I think this would be the main legacy of the POD then...No Truman to comment on things from the sidelines, but Eisenhower did not listen to him at all. Truman had in fact done quite a lot to rehabilitate Herbert Hoover, as noted above the only living former President, and invited him in to chair some committees on Federal administrative reorganization, the first to invite him in from the cold on the Democratic side, nor was Hoover much regarded by Republicans for whom he was, except for partisans of a diehard faction, an embarrassing political albatross around their necks. He got no thanks from either Hoover or Eisenhower for this later. I don't believe JFK ever drew much on him either, not sure about LBJ's relationship, but former Presidents of our later generations have in fact largely drawn together in a very special club..that really couldn't get started until Ford and Carter had their chances to get to know one another better in the 1980s. Johnson did not live long after leaving office and Truman, quite elderly, did not last much longer. So the fact that Ike froze out Truman pretty much postponed that dynamic a generation. So the fact that it cannot happen here is of little direct consequence.

Otherwise either Barkley fills out the term or Rayburn, thus butterflying the House somewhat, must step in, and yes the Presidential succession urgently needs to be reviewed and updated.

Note, Truman himself thought it was inappropriate for a VP succeeding to the Presidency to simply name their own successor, a point where I just don't understand his attitude at all--obviously they ought to have to have the Senate confirm the choice, but I think the whole point of the VP office is to try to ensure continuity and what better way than with someone the President has fullest confidence in for the job? US political practices rarely seriously prioritize that, but surely no one understood that better than Truman who had been so much underestimated and despised despite his best efforts to live up to FDR's legacy as he understood it. So his feelings in this matter strike me as bizarre and mysterious really.

The world probably cannot diverge too far from OTL, certainly not with the available Democratic successors--not to speak ill of Rayburn, but his career was not aiming at the Presidency and like Gerry Ford he probably would feel unfortunately removed from his proper milieu--I honestly don't know much about Barkley but as noted he was sick. Truman's administration followed tracks of what he regarded as propriety, insofar as Truman sought to make a special, idiosyncratic mark he was largely frustrated. His last two years he was pretty much hijacked by world events and so would be Barkley and possibly Rayburn, and the man on horseback coming in to "fix" it would be the same guy as OTL. I don't think PR statehood, nor still less early statehood for AK and HI, would make for major shifts. Butterflies are always imponderable but for that reason I don't make much of them.

So, mainly the fact of early PR statehood persisting to this day would be the major change to reckon with, and overall I think it comes out in the wash politically, economically and otherwise. Even the plot of West Side Story would not change notably; statehood would hardly cure grassroots bigotry.
 

Bulldoggus

Banned
not sure about LBJ's relationship,
Their only interaction that I know of was LBJ having a photo-op giving Harry and Bess the very first Medicare cards. It had gotten some press attention that Truman was, like Jimmy Carter today, very "poor" for a former President (he got out of that pinch by signing a book deal, but still), and it does somewhat seem like a lot of the animosity against him faded rather quickly after he left office, although full rehabilitation took a decade or two more.
 
Truman was always poor--not grinding poverty poor but he was never a rich man. I believe he believed in the New Deal passionately. And everyone underestimated him. I've got tons of sympathy and admiration for him. He grew up a culturally Southern man (other than Virginians, we've never had a heart of the South President, except for Jimmy Carter, but in the border state culture mix of Missouri, his people were Dixie people. His grandmother had the fainting vapors when he showed up in a US Army cadet uniform). Yet he took action time and again on behalf of racial justice, just because it ached his sense of justice to see decent people abused for no other reason than bigotry. He was keenly aware how politically risky this was for him and his party. But he integrated the armed forces anyway. When he defied all expectations and disappointed many hopes, not only among Republicans but among Democrats of all stripes--Dixiecrats, but also the most progressive New Deal types, all of whom felt he had no real place pretending to FDR's mantle--he did it by appealing to the common people, and he won popular and electoral votes in states that always went Republican--lots from farmers like himself, whom he spoke to running across the country on trains. He wrote in his diary how no sane man could possibly want to the President, what a terrible job it was, and he tenaciously held on to it because he desperately wanted to see the New Deal survive and expand, so good of LBJ to hand him that small testimony of victory anyway.

But my favorite story is the one where he was flying over the country and some young aide said to him, "Oh sir, it must be wonderful to look down on our great country and know how much prosperity you have brought them!" and he turned to the aide and said, "Sonny, I'm a farmer. Those people are farmers. They aren't prospering."

A true twentieth century common man stepping up to the challenge, was Harry Truman. I appreciate him.
 
It had gotten some press attention that Truman was, like Jimmy Carter today, very "poor" for a former President (he got out of that pinch by signing a book deal, but still)
Another factor was that Congress established a pension for former Presidents in 1957. Since there were two at the time and Hoover had gotten rich as a mining engineer long before he entered politics...
 

Kaze

Banned
Somehow Joseph McCarthy will make the nationalist look like a Communist spy (or paid by some communist that "confesses") and use it as a launching platform for a presidential run.
 
How Racist was Barkley

YMMV. I don't think he was much of one by the standards of his day. He seems to have been a young prig conservative democrat, (Prohibitionist and uptight), a middle age opportunist Kentucky corrupt pol. ; which way the wind blows political hack (Wilson got ahold of him and ruined him, here and that quality never leaves him.), and later on becomes more "liberal" (Roosevelt influences this more generous trend in him.). Post Roosevelt influence (1935); Berkley was a "friend of Russia', even more pro-farmer, pro-labor, than previously; a pro court packer and a staunch Roosevelt ally on almost all New Deal matters. I think there is strong evidence to suggest that he would gladly follow any civil rights reforms that spread civil liberties among the disenfranchised among American citizenry because it was a vote-getting strategy, but... and it is a serious 'but' , he was not a 'leader' in that he would risk political blowback the way Truman did. He did make bitter enemies of such powerful senators as Robert Byrd of Virginia, with his New Deal progressivism at that time; so that assures me that he was not that much of a 'conservative southern democrat'.

Berkley and Roosevelt went to the mat on a desperately needed funding measure in 1943. What lay behind it, was Berkley's disappointment at not being appointed to fill a vacancy on the US Supreme Court, which he assumed Roosevelt would grant him. Where he got that idea, knowing Roosevelt was an excellent judge of human character, is unknowable, since FDR was NOT such a damn fool to allow Berkley anywhere near such dangerous power, but it might have been third party innuendo. Anyway Berkley threw a monkey wrench into the war appropriation and played "Kentucky politics" with it and really gummed up US finances at a crucial time; all in the name of "protecting small businesses" who were not getting war production contracts. This is actual borderline treason. I will comment anon on what that means to me further.

I should note that Berkley earlier opposed Roosevelt on Henry Wallace, because Berkley gunned for the VP slot himself. He would angle for the VP slot again and gain it under Truman. Berkley was 'ambitious' and always had white house fever. It was lucky for the Republic that he never got there. In my opinion, he was too weak to ever be a good president and simply lacked the character and good judgment to handle the job.

My own judgement is irrelevant, so your mileage should vary on this conclusion, but I would historically regard the man as utterly unfit and dangerous to rely upon for (^^^) any position of trust and responsibility. Perfect VP, but terrible potential president.
 
Somehow Joseph McCarthy will make the nationalist look like a Communist spy (or paid by some communist that "confesses") and use it as a launching platform for a presidential run.
But with Ike in the race, I don't think McCarthy can do more than place as an also-ran, even within the Republican fold, and certainly would not be favored by party bosses interested in winning nationally. A lot of people responded to McCarthy's rabble rousing to be sure, but Ike was a much more solid bet for Republicans to double down on.

Meanwhile the demonization of the Puerto Rican "secessionists" (perhaps not favoring that term, given Democratic entwinement with the Dixiecrat bunch and broader Causer cultivated sentiment in the South--objectively that was Astroturf, having been largely constructed in the post-Reconstruction era, but the donkey work of antebellum hagiography and institutionalized sentiment was accomplished in past generations, still in living memory but with younger adult generations having grown up steeped in it) would be bipartisan and fairly non-controversial; in truth real Communists would not be particularly for PR independence, except perhaps expediently, but it hardly matters what those die hard remnants actually thought at this point! The tricky question is whether propping up pro-statehood Puerto Ricans can be carried off convincingly as the broad and "true" US patriotism of grassroots Puerto Ricans, but it is not strictly necessary for it to be highly convincing in PR itself, mainly that the residents of the 48 mainland states accept that account of things. And also that they not have a strong revulsion for letting in a Spanish speaking state of course--opposition would most likely be strongest in the Southwest, where Latinos were a much discriminated against minority. East and north of Texas, there would be relatively little animosity save perhaps in larger urban areas like New York City and that offset by the Puerto Ricans living there.

Labeling the assassins, and by extension all Puerto Rican independence factions, as Reds or Red dupes would be very easy, and pretty hard for McCarthy to claim as a distinctive brand. Democrats known then and in future as particularly "liberal" in the US sense of the term (vaguely and mildly progressive, in more modern terms) were quite eager to get on the Red-bashing bandwagon after all.
 
But with Ike in the race, I don't think McCarthy can do more than place as an also-ran, even within the Republican fold, and certainly would not be favored by party bosses interested in winning nationally. A lot of people responded to McCarthy's rabble rousing to be sure, but Ike was a much more solid bet for Republicans to double down on.

Meanwhile the demonization of the Puerto Rican "secessionists" (perhaps not favoring that term, given Democratic entwinement with the Dixiecrat bunch and broader Causer cultivated sentiment in the South--objectively that was Astroturf, having been largely constructed in the post-Reconstruction era, but the donkey work of antebellum hagiography and institutionalized sentiment was accomplished in past generations, still in living memory but with younger adult generations having grown up steeped in it) would be bipartisan and fairly non-controversial; in truth real Communists would not be particularly for PR independence, except perhaps expediently, but it hardly matters what those die hard remnants actually thought at this point! The tricky question is whether propping up pro-statehood Puerto Ricans can be carried off convincingly as the broad and "true" US patriotism of grassroots Puerto Ricans, but it is not strictly necessary for it to be highly convincing in PR itself, mainly that the residents of the 48 mainland states accept that account of things. And also that they not have a strong revulsion for letting in a Spanish speaking state of course--opposition would most likely be strongest in the Southwest, where Latinos were a much discriminated against minority. East and north of Texas, there would be relatively little animosity save perhaps in larger urban areas like New York City and that offset by the Puerto Ricans living there.

Labeling the assassins, and by extension all Puerto Rican independence factions, as Reds or Red dupes would be very easy, and pretty hard for McCarthy to claim as a distinctive brand. Democrats known then and in future as particularly "liberal" in the US sense of the term (vaguely and mildly progressive, in more modern terms) were quite eager to get on the Red-bashing bandwagon after all.

But why would Americans let in, as a state, the same kind of people who just killed their President? The same issues that prevent Puerto Rico from becoming a state today still existed back then - difference in culture, ethnicity, etc, the rest of US wouldn't see any clear benefit to admitting a poor state.
 
But why would Americans let in, as a state, the same kind of people who just killed their President? The same issues that prevent Puerto Rico from becoming a state today still existed back then - difference in culture, ethnicity, etc, the rest of US wouldn't see any clear benefit to admitting a poor state.

Well, let's systematically examine policy options in cold blood, shall we?

Puerto Rico was a US Territory whose residents had been granted blanket US citizenship by Congressional law in the 1910s.

I don't know what the legal consequences of attempting to rescind that by another such act in 1950 would be. Even bearing in mind the Supreme Court in this era made some pretty blunt political calls (infamously the Chief Justice flatly refused to countenance any appeals of the Rosenberg case for instance; less famous was a sweeping ruling granting the executive branch carte blanche to shut down information from being presented in courts on "national security" grounds without providing any sort of Security Court as an alternative; the FISA Court came later--this emerged from a case involving the B-50 bomber, in which wives of men lost in flights attempted to sue Department of Defense for negligence, and the Air Force sought (successfully) to assert national security concerns prevented testimony from being allowed, leaving the women no recourse) I would think some basic principles of justice would enable at least some Puerto Ricans to assert continued citizenship on special grounds. But I am no lawyer; the real barrier to rescinding PR residents' citizenship would be political--not that Puerto Ricans would enjoy a tremendous lobby in their own favor, but the implications of Congress being able to declare any category "uncitizens" would be pretty tremendous, and it could well be that even courts reluctant to impede the will of the people in this matter would still be compelled to rule US citizenship once granted irrevocable except for reasons persons would be individually liable for under the Constitution, and throw out any such legislation therefore.

So probably in whatever status PR winds up in, all Puerto Ricans remain US citizens no matter what, unless Congress grants them independence.

But, left wing populist anti-imperialist pinko-greenish moonbeam though I may be, even I would not suggest that giving Puerto Rico independence in the wake of a successful assassination of a President by Puerto Rican independence militants would have the ghost of a political chance. Doing so would appear to signal that anyone disgruntled with any aspect of US policy whatsoever has open season on whoever holds the office and can expect to gain their goals by sheer intimidation, and that simply would not fly among anyone at all patriotic, regardless of any divisions or dissents. OTL granting PR independence has always been an option; here it is removed from the table for some unspecified but long period, and one likely consensus point among both American publics and the inner circle of high level policy wonks would be probably to close that option off irrevocably. At any rate, independence will not be granted any time real soon, certainly not within a decade. (For the record, as a left wing populist anti-imperialist pinko-greenish Social Justice Warrior, my opinion is that Puerto Ricans would not be well served by independence anyway, certainly not on the dubious terms we have granted it to various Pacific former territories; perhaps in this early generation, it would be a cleaner break than it would be now, but now so many millions of persons with Puerto Rican ties live in the 50 states that it would be traumatic to sever them from those who happen to choose to remain in residence. Properly speaking I think this question belongs to Puerto Ricans and not random other US citizens, and I would defer to their judgement, but I think full statehood for PR ASAP and as retroactively as possible is simple justice. Unfortunately aside from the opinions and divisions of non-Puerto Rican USAians, the PR people themselves are deeply divided today and pretty much always since this post-WWII era on the question of remaining under the US flag or not, so I don't look to a solution that makes everyone happy no matter what happens). Quite aside from questions of legality and questions of political facts on the ground, the USA holding PR is a military-strategic asset, particularly for the US Navy, and turning it loose would be seen as a setback for US security in almost any circumstances (except perhaps PR turning into such a nightmare to hold against popular resistance that the costs of letting it go, probably under such circumstances to ally immediately with the USA's most formidable foes, are less than the costs of trying to hang on longer--and generally such costs have to be so ridiculously high even die hards either cannot deny the cost is too high, or are removed from influence over the decision by larger publics determined to get out. Whether PR is capable, in any era, of posing such a severe toothache for the USA as to force such a decision is not a question I really want to explore--let's just assume the leadership of the USA in the 1950s is smart enough for foresee and avoid such a severe juncture). So it is just not very expedient for the USA to turn PR loose, and so I think with the circumstances of the POD it would be consensus even between rivals for supreme executive and Congressional power that Puerto Rico must remain under US control, and making it irrevocable would be seen as a feature not a bug.

So dismissing the option of independence, the remaining choices before Congress and the new President and the nation as opinionated and voting publics would be:

1) Continue the territorial status quo of PR. This means its people, if they were to individually relocate to the 48 states, being citizens would gain the right to vote in their new state, and otherwise enjoy the same rights as citizens born in the states. Attempting to create some new legal distinction would be plain violations of clear Constitutional provisions and highly unlikely to survive the slightest judicial review. Meanwhile living in their birth home (or someone born in the states taking up permanent residence there) they have only whatever institutions as Congress and/or the Executive branch sees expedient to grant them--they have full protection of the basic civil rights principles of our Constitutional common law as any citizen has, but this does not include the right to any kind of representative government. It would fly in the face of US precedent to rescind autonomy once granted, but would be quite legally possible to do I would think. So it is a question of
a) continue status quo with minimal revision, pursuing a hard line of repression of independence activism within the constraints of basic citizen rights, but continuing to grant Puerto Ricans the autonomous institutions already granted, but perhaps with judicious expedient revisions here or there; or
b) "go ape" and crack down on the Puerto Rican people more sweepingly, rescinding some or all of their granted autonomous institutions, perhaps placing the islands under some appointed Governor or even martial law, by the Navy is what that would probably boil down to in practice.

2) OTL Harry Truman purported to have found some third way whereby PR would be associated with the USA as a "Commonwealth;" it is my understanding that while Truman and Puerto Ricans generally believed and accepted this as a new status superior to mere Territorial subjugation to Congress, later US administrations have denied Truman could create any such thing and in reality PR is in fact still a plain old Territory as above, with "Commonwealth" being pretty words describing a particular form of Congress choosing to grant revokable autonomy at its own pleasure. Again I am no legally trained mind and cannot really judge if this is a reasonably defensible position or not, versus Truman and Congress in his day having created a new thing that has legal standing some people have just tried to get away with violating. Well, Harry Truman is dead now ITTL and presumably the special deal he cooked up is off the table.

3) Grant PR statehood. Note that this would hardly mean the people of PR are suddenly shielded from Federal police investigation and prosecution of secessionists for whatever crimes apply--perhaps Constitutionally defined treason would not, but certainly other severe ones would. This is the McCarthy era and the FBI was given quite sweeping powers in the USA generally. PR forming a suitably recognized "republican" form of state government would not stop the G-men.

What it would do, however is:
a) bind PR to the USA irrevocably, per the precedent of Lincoln not accepting the secession of the Southern states. Independence goes from being a controversial and disliked in some circles political position to either treason or something close to it (Really gotta reread the Constitutional definition of Treason, which is pretty strict). Shut up about Puerto Rican independence, is what admission to the Union as a state says.
b) empower that faction of Puerto Ricans who did in fact favor statehood as the resolution to their status. If this was a minority, it was a very large one, I believe the plurality view among persons actively participating in PR Territorial autonomous politics. These people are actively against PR independence themselves, and are authentic native born Puerto Ricans. They can in fact be trusted to oppose PR independence at least as passionately and diligently as any Yanqui.
c) simplify a lot of ad hoc resolved rulings regarding taxes and government program benefits and all that by simply applying the same standards applied to other states across the board.
d) per point a, the US military (again, mostly the Navy here) can operate with the same authority it has in acquiring control of land and other resources it has in the other 48 states; any investment in ports and so forth is certain to remain US controlled as long as the USA as a whole lasts. No pettifogging treaties and agreements, beyond whatever is normal for military relations with state governments, come into play and never will.

What is the downside to option 3? Assuming that common law justice would not be suspended and the USA enter a plainly police state situation across the board, Puerto Ricans gain no new rights to enter the 48 states and become voting citizens there. They do gain 2 Senators, probably 5 Representatives, and thus 7 Electoral votes for the President, but that is hardly liable to be seen as tipping the balance politically in Congress nor transforming the situation for election of the President. In fact I think both major parties would have every reason to hope they might gain more than their opponent from these additions. (Assuming Congress continues to hold the House at 435 Representatives, some states will lose Representatives in the next Census reapportionment, either 1950 meaning change by 1952 or 1960 meaning effective by 1962, depending on how fast PR statehood moves. But there is nothing stopping Congress from minimizing that impact by raising the House size to 441--to keep an odd total, they would actually throw in an extra seat up for grabs per the workings of the Huntington-Hill form of proportional assignment long ago adopted as standard. Either way it is pretty much business as usual, some states gaining and some losing seats in every Census anyway) In terms of partisan control of the 7 or so seats, in this era either party could reasonably expect some support from some PR voters and both could hope to gain the greater share of it. Whereas the recent experience of Federal Congressional and Presidential elections was not generally to expect finely balanced control of either house of Congress or the Presidency--votes tended to lean to one party or the other quite distinctly and the expected balance of control of the House of Representatives would be a lot more than 5 seats, and the balance in the Senate more than 2. Introducing one new state would not be expected to be a political coup for either party then, and therefore it is not reasonable to expect either to be opposed in a solid bloc.

Either the statehood strategy gets consensus and a solid majority in both Houses, either on a bipartisan basis with both parties divided into pro-statehood majorities and dissenting anti-statehood minorities, or with one party strongly favoring it with little to no dissent and the other having enough aisle crossing support to give statehood the majority it needs. I don't recall without looking it up whether statehood for a territory even requires any input from the territory's own people, but I expect at least a small majority to vote in favor if so, and if an honest election shows little support beyond any Constitutional minimum required, that disquieting dissent will be ignored in the circumstances and the FBI simply has its work cut out for it. In these circumstances I would expect the President to be quite on board too.

Bing bang boom, Puerto Rico is a state, and the dynamic of cracking down on secessionists becomes carrot and stick, Good Cop Versus Bad Cop. The pressure will be on in PR, before statehood is accomplished, for people formerly known as Independence minded to roll over--to at least fall silent and probably be passed over in silence but be at risk of being among those scapegoated as dangerous subversives, or roll over completely and accept statehood as the done deal and make the most of it and by affirming they now fully support permanent US citizenship, gain carte blanche immunity for any prior positions to the contrary. If J Edgar Hoover is very politic, the Federales will be known in PR to be lenient and tolerant of anyone who pretends not to be either Red or Independicia. The general US public can be more than gratified if a relative few of the most hotheaded independence firebrands who will not recant are singled out as the culprits and identified with Communist subversion, thus feeding back into the more general and more crucial Red crackdown in CONUS.

It would of course be illegal and in deep violation of the American republican notions for the police to interfere in free democratic elections of course, and in fact PR can expect no more such interference in domestic democracy than US citizens historically suffered OTL. Which is to say, quite a lot really. COINTELPRO operated in the 48 and eventually 50 states OTL, so discredit and remove left wing challengers to the status quo, and similarly diehard Independencia activism in Puerto Rico can expect a rough and rocky road, Bill of Rights be damned. By the time some ATL version of the Church Committee exposes and temporarily discourages such Red Squad shenanigans (more like, forces the FBI to make some apologies and pledges to have changed their ways, even as they simply relabel and reshuffle such things to be more obscure and eventually renormalized again) Puerto Rico will have been a state for the better part of 30 years, and acceptance of its status both by the English-speaking vast majority of states and Puerto Ricans themselves will be pretty well rooted; in the post-Watergate thaw (assuming such a thing is likely to happen some time or other ATL) openly Independence parties might even organize and win votes and seats in PR legislatures or even Congress--just as in Alaska there have been openly declared Alaska Independence candidates permitted to run. As in CONUS, the major preoccupation will be to discredit and repress left wing "agitation," and PR independence might even acquire a cachet of support outside Puerto Rican circles. But it will not come close to prevailing, mooting issues of Constitutionality completely.

So to review
the same kind of people who just killed their President?
Holding all Puerto Ricans to be cut from one mold like that is of course simplistic and racist on the face of it. Obviously in this age, a lot of voters might be feared to be just that, and forthrightly so, but it would be a very ugly look on anyone with pretensions of major level national leadership to hold such a sweeping position. US-patriotic Puerto Ricans could be found ready to hand, at least provided there is no extensive application of 1b above, draconian indiscriminate criminalization of all Puerto Ricans on mere suspicion by language and ethnicity.

difference in culture, ethnicity,
A red herring today, I think, and while perhaps more salient then I think on this matter of PR statehood at least as generous hopes as pro-PR statehood people have today could be found among the "Anglo" people of the 48 states, at least those outside the Southwest without large numbers of Latino immigrants in general. The admission of a Spanish speaking state would be scary among bigots from Texas to California, of course. But these states hardly made up the bulk of US population, the growth of the "Sunbelt" (and the spread of Latino immigrants to become significant in the majority of states) would be phenomena of future generations. Puerto Rico is a big island and some small ones on the far end of the Greater Antilles; Puerto Ricans coming to the 48 states would be no more an issue and possibly less of one than OTL, and in the English speaking states Puerto Ricans would of course generally learn English and expect to see legal and political business conducted in English, while the practice of legislation and jurisprudence and executive power in Spanish way out in Puerto Rico would not need to bother anyone who stays put and doesn't visit. Surely English speakers would be in a strong position in PR to demand translation as a basic civil right, and it would be forthcoming, perhaps at some Federal expense footing part or most of the bill for hiring official translators. To quite a lot of Americans, Puerto Rican Catholicism would be suspect, but by 1950 another "Rum Romanism and Rebellion" speech would be worth the political life of any politician foolish enough to attack Catholics across the board like that, outside of some large but minority venues anyway. American Roman Catholics had already achieved the plurality of largest single Christian denomination in the USA generally, and that understates their great strength in some strongholds. Adding a Connecticut worth of more nominal Catholics would hardly be a major upset. The major issue is not going to really be religion, which few but the worst religious bigots would even bring up, nor language though I daresay that would be a major plausible deniability cover for many obstructionists...no, it would be simple racism. Puerto Ricans are perceived as "brown people" and as such a whole state of them would seem scary indeed to some.

But this is not the era to state that openly. In some ways, it would be much politically safer to say it today, than in 1950. I think the Cold War optics of it would be quite enough to quash such objections. Again, PR is pretty far away, and "white" people who just can't abide the vapors of a bunch of people of color getting up to pretending to equality and running their own state can just refuse to go visit. It will be scary and disturbing to see "colored" Members of Congress again, but in 1950 it is still in living memory the last time various states, Southern ones in fact, elected African American Representatives.

Certainly some prominent figures, in both major parties, will voice bitter dissent, and not a few will even play the "all these Puerto Ricans are disloyal subversives unworthy of our Anglo-Saxon heritage!" card, on both sides of the Mason Dixon line and out west too. But the dominant leadership of both parties will decide I think that giving loyalist Puerto Ricans a solid stake in the US game and something to lose will tip the balance in PR to pro-union patriotic law and order, and be of assistance in rooting out the real subversives, and look very good on the world stage as a plain demonstration of American broad-minded, post-racist leadership of world liberalism. And they will get adequate if often grudging compliance from the rank and file of elected officials and solid support in enough publics to sell it as national consensus. Jim Crow Dixiecrats and Western bigots worried about Mexicans and others getting ideas about bilingualism and practical equal rights will be persuaded, to the sufficient degree, that Hoover and other law enforcement are on the case and will not let the new Puerto Rican Congressional delegation get out of hand spreading racial and multicultural subversion.

If perchance the Democrats until Ike inevitably (unless preempted by some tenacious Republican Speaker elected in to that office in 1951 and taking over from Barkley after that before November 1952, and I think that is unlikely) takes office in early '53 fumble the ball, PR statehood as the solution, in part to bad blood in PR due to the Democratic administration's heavy handedness in panicked vengefulness, would be part of the Republican platform and in the '53-55 session the Republicans I believe held a trifecta of both Houses of Congress and the Presidency and would ram through PR statehood, with the likely support of a great many Democrats, including Southern ones respectful of Eisenhower's assurances subversion of their "way of life" would not get out of hand as a result. Eisenhower after all was mindful of the bad optics of American military forces being segregated in the conquest of Hitler's Reich, and selectively integrated key US forces. He made sure that American film crews documented the conditions of Hitler's concentration camps and that their footage would be publicized to quell all doubt that the Reich had gone far beyond the moral event horizon, and if he finds a Democratic lame duck administration is treating US citizens as occupied peoples, he is probably going to do something about it, if only for the optics of the USA claiming leadership of the Free World.

So in that case the Democrats would have handed the Republicans a club to beat them over the head with, and whether Barkley might have been stupid enough to do this, I think others running his party would be wise enough to foresee this and sit on him. They will not be preempted so badly by the GOP, and so I think PR statehood would come quite early and with a major bipartisan drive, neither party conceding the leadership in the matter to the other. Conservative backlash in both parties might later pour bitter vitriol all over it, but by then Puerto Rican Senators and Representatives will be in Congress to answer them back and demonstrate their US patriotism, and these whines will be judged for the bigotry they are. Which is to say later generations might include large numbers hailing these dissenters as far sighted heroes of their neo-bigotry.

The alternative is to hold PR in bondage as a territory under collective suspicion, and tie down hundreds of thousands of US fighting men much wanted for other fronts of the Cold War, and probably subvert and demoralize many of these in their ugly insurgency-suppression duties, and set before the world a stark example of US imperialism plainly demonstrating racism and flouting all our purported values in favor of naked greed and expedience, and petty vengefulness indiscriminately poured on the few guilty and many innocent alike.

Far far better to cut the Gordian knot with statehood, rigging elections as necessary to guarantee a suitably patriotic PR state government and Congressional delegation, but that would probably be quite judicious whereas whatever degree of manipulation necessary would still be far less drastic and costly than turning PR into one massive witchhunt regime starkly under the power of alien occupiers. Someday in the future the full story of the strings attached sock-puppeting the shaky first few sessions of Puerto Rican statehood might be a gross scandal, but probably quite failing to stand out among a great many others which would shock the public briefly then go down the memory hole again.

By which point PR will have been a state for a full generation and the USA without it would be as unthinkable as the USA without Alaska, Hawaii or California or Texas for that matter.
 
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