WI: Kennedy assassinated just before the Missile Crisis?

This is a scenario I've been playing with in my head for part of a timeline project, and I wanted to make a thread on it because I'm not exactly sure how I feel on the results.

What if President Kennedy were assassinated shortly before missiles were discovered in Cuba? It seems like a hell of a fix for all parties involved since you have an unknown element in Johnson where neither the Soviets or the public know what he will do (the unknown element will especially complicate it for the Soviets who will be even more in the dark and fearful than in the OTL), Johnson is still green in the presidency when this unprecedented matter comes up that he has to deal with, the Soviets have created this complex situation just on the heels of that other complex situation, and so on.
 
I read one AH book where LBJ orders an invasion of Cuba after the missiles aren't taken away.
 
Caro paints a picture of LBJ being way too hawkish in the Excomm meetings, disturbingly so.

Though in fairness to him almost everybody but the Kennedy boys were keen on either taking out the missile sites, or the SAM sites after the U-2 was shot down, even Saint Fullbright was when the congressional leaders were brought in for a briefing by POTUS.

An Alt LBJ who'd been in office since Jan '61 is much more likely to be open to caution, particularly if he's met Khruschev.

An Alt LBJ who's in office in late '62 with all the 'the reds killed Jack!' CTs floating around?
 
I think a lot would depend upon the circumstances of JFK's death. If you simply move November 63 up to let's say August 62 the anti communist hysteria would have pushed LBJ to take a tough position. That being said LBJ at heart wanted to be a domestic President and he defered, to his and the country's detriment, to the advice of the JFK team on Vietnam. My guess is that LBJ would have started with the blockade, just like Kennedy.
 
It's important to note the role that Khrushchev played in solving the crisis. It was he who eventually made the phone call to Washington that lead to the situation being resolved, not the other way around. I really don't think the potential of nuclear war or, for that matter, any war evolving from the Cuban Missile Crisis was ever possible. The stakes were simply too high.

That said the effect it may have had on the later LBJ presidency are certainly worth considering. Having avoided the seeming crisis and having run a similar campaign in '64 its quite likely he would still have won. However would the personal experience of the crisis have effected his handling of Vietnam? And on a domestic front, would the political capital generated here have strengthened his chances of a Great Society?
 
Do you remember what the name of that book was?

The Passage of Power. But seriously, if you have any interest in Lyndon Johnson at all, you should read all four volumes of Caro's work, starting with The Path to Power.
 
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