WI: Kennedy Child Kidnapped and Murdered

What if instead of a Presidential assassination during the 1960's as the American tragedy, one of the Kennedy children is kidnapped by extortionists who demand ransom money from the first family? At the end of the affair like the Lindberg child is found dead after the ransom is paid?
 
I was going to dismiss this as borderline ASB but a quick Google search left me shocked. A single SS agent guarding a President's child is unthinkable today.

http://www.nysun.com/national/i-could-stay-here-foreverbrjfk-murmured-on/88493/

Fifty years ago, in that tranquil fall of 1963, Liz Pozen was a young suburban mother living in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Her husband was a lawyer at the Department of the Interior, and she was a stay-at-home mom, typical of that time. The only unusual part of her life, some would call it extraordinary, was that when she took her six year old daughter, Agatha, to school, she drove her Country Squire station wagon through the southwest gate of the White House. The guards knew the car and would wave her through. Fifty years ago, that’s how security worked at the Executive Mansion.
Jacqueline Kennedy had organized a school upstairs in the family residence for her daughter, Caroline, and 12 other children. Sometimes when Agatha forgot her lunch, Liz would drive back, take it upstairs and more than once ran into the President as he was coming down.


The First Lady tried to find ways to make her children’s lives as normal as possible. So that fall, she and Liz agreed that it would be a great idea for Caroline to have a sleepover at Agatha’s house, just like two little girls anywhere else. It was difficult to find the right time, given the hectic calendar of the nation’s First Family, but the two mothers zeroed in on what they thought was the perfect weekend – when the President and First Lady would be away in Dallas.


Just after school let out on that Friday afternoon, November 22nd, Liz was driving up Connecticut Avenue with a lone secret service agent following in an unmarked car. The two girls were giggling in the back seat, eager with anticipation of the sleepover. Then the bulletin came over the classical station Liz was listening to, forever changing their lives and the course of the world.
A few observations:

1.The Secret Service undergoes a purge that makes Stalin's look mild. Heads will roll, and maybe not just metaphorically.

2. Assuming this happens on 11/22/63 (with LHO butterflied away) with the President and First Lady in Dallas the question is raised on how soon someone in DC realizes what happened and notifies someone in the President's party.

3. If the kidnapping isn't resolved within a few hours there might be serious discussion on the possibility that JFK is disabled (emotionally) and LBJ might need to temporarily take over as Acting President.


In case of the Removal of the President from office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
This would raise eyebrows to say the least and would lead to countless conspiracy theories of a LBJ masterminded coup.

4. Politically JFK's untouchable, the nation and politicians of all stripes will rally behind the first family.

5. Nobody is going to believe that the kidnapping was simply for money.

6. The USSR is going to do everything it can to seem sympathetic.

7. Whoever is dumb enough to kidnap one of JFK's children will be either dead or in a deep, dark cell by the end of the week. Nobody's going to help them for various reasons: Many criminals are going to find the kidnapping of a child morally reprehensible, Most people will know that besides the moral issues it's a bad idea to help the most wanted person on Earth. Same with the various nations of the world.

8. God help them if something goes wrong and one of the children ends up hurt. In that case being arrested and given Old Sparky is the best possible outcome for the kidnappers.
 
The perpetrators of this crime will be hunted down, and if captured alive, will be tried and most likely executed by the federal government. That search will DWARF the FBI's hunt for the killer of Martin Luther King (the most massive manhunt of its time) in 1968. In that time-frame, any kidnapping in which either the victims or his captors crosses state lines,=or in which the perps use any facility touching upon interstate commerce (like the mails, the telephone or the post office- puts this crime under federal jurisdiction, It is punishable by death. It is not even necessary that the victim be harmed or killed, merely held against his will. The horror of the crime will guarantee a death sentence. The federal appellate process is /relatively/ speedy in this period, so there could well be a date with Old Sparky before the national mood turns against the death penalty.
 
The perpetrators of this crime will be hunted down, and if captured alive, will be tried and most likely executed by the federal government. That search will DWARF the FBI's hunt for the killer of Martin Luther King (the most massive manhunt of its time) in 1968. In that time-frame, any kidnapping in which either the victims or his captors crosses state lines,=or in which the perps use any facility touching upon interstate commerce (like the mails, the telephone or the post office- puts this crime under federal jurisdiction, It is punishable by death. It is not even necessary that the victim be harmed or killed, merely held against his will. The horror of the crime will guarantee a death sentence. The federal appellate process is /relatively/ speedy in this period, so there could well be a date with Old Sparky before the national mood turns against the death penalty.

And in this case, it's relatively easy for the crime to cross state lines, as this is DC we're talking about.
 
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