WI: Kennedy's "Seven Days in May"

One of President Kennedy's concerns was the rise of the John Birch Right Wing, and the ferocious Right Wing outlook of a lot of the Joint Chiefs and many men in the military. They were people who saw Communism everywhere, believed in a massive Communist conspiracy, and would gladly use the bomb. This was an era of men like Curtis LeMay and Edwin Walker. Kennedy read the book Seven Days in May and believed it was possible. There was a genuine fear that if these men had the chance, they would sideline the president and subvert the executive branch.

What if something like that had happened? Not necessarily a note for note rendition of the story, but a scenario where the president is sidelined and subverted by a Joint Chiefs, whose influence and hegemony has grown out of control. It doesn't take a coup. It takes giving too much leeway, and not being able to reel them back in. It could be a matter of hegemony, strong vs weak personalities, and the tug of war of influence and authority in the executive branch, which were real issues. It was a concern during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was among the reasons vice president Johnson wasn't given the authority he wanted -- Kennedy was worried he would run amok and turn it into a co-presidency or worse.
 
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Closest thing is US history that I am aware of is MacArthur was exceeding his Authority in the Korean War, and was easily fired despite being a nationally popular war hero.
 
Well it wouldn't happen to Kennedy, he's much too timid in everything but serving as national slut. LBJ, for all his virtues, gave the military almost whatever they wanted. Republicans are safe by default, so...maybe a two term Carter? The military was at a psychological low in the late 70s so they might feel the need to take some action and restore the old order.
 
The senior leaders emerging in the 1970s military were a very different sort than those of the 1950s & early 60s. A lot of complex reasons for that but the character had changed radically as a complete new generation took over. As a former enlisted Marine of that era (1974-76 & 1982-85) I can say my peers & I would have laughed out of the room any general who walked in & ordered such a thing. Some of us might have even shot him had he pushed it.
 
Looks like a Catch-22 then. Any time broader American culture has shifted enough to elect a peacenik, military culture has shifted enough to make a coup out of the question.
 
What you need is a different president to be dealing with, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Maybe in 1960, Senator Hubert Humphrey from Minnesota, is elected as President and being over thrown by the likes of General Douglas MacArthur and Director J. Edgar Hoover
 
I once developed following scenario for a similar thread:

I will put my ideas together. So. like I said before, Kennedy doesn´t die, get reelected, keeps the US out of Vietnam. 1968 is a democratic year, president becomes Bobby Kennedy or Humpfrey (basicly our "Lyman".). 1969 S.Vietnam collapse and its starts a discussion about what went wrong with the US foreign politic. The official answer of the goverment is, "we depend to much on right-wing puppet regimes". The Shah is seen as such a puppet and some wise guys in the state department have the idea to replace him with a "progressive" republican regime. There are some talks with persians officers and a coup is staged. Things go very wrong, the Shah and his family is slaughtered and the new maximo leader in Iran is a rather leftwing-nationalist, who nationalize the complete oil-industry, calls Israel a colonialist regime and makes a demonstrative visit in Moscow.
There is panic in Washington and the CIA organize a counter-coup, with support of the shia cleric (and a special Ayatollah). The coup is just half successful. It fails in Teheran, but a Islamic Government is established in Quom, which have control of South Iran (and most of the oil) and in the next month it looks like the government in Teheran will collapse. This is the moment the Soviets intervene. Official they just help the still legitimate Iranian government. At the beginning the Islamic forces are no match for the Soviets (Islamic guerilla will soon start to be a great problem for the Soviets, but this still lays in the future)
The USA send forces to Iran, but things doesn´t look good. Big US-fighters, more useful for carrying a nuke then for air fights, gets shot down by small soviet fighters, Mig 25 slaughters B 52 bombers, airmobile US-unit gets overrun by soviet tanks. The Generals (especially the General who commands the US air units in Iran, lets call him Scott) call for a nuclear demonstration, but the president says no. He decides in his mind, that nothing, even an american defeat is worth a nuclear war. Then short for Quom, the Soviets stops. There logistic situation is a nightmare, unrest in the occupied territories grows and they don´t want to push the Americans to far.
All this happened 1972, shortly before the presidential election. The president still gets reelected because:
a) He was very popular before the election
b) There is still a rally-around-the-flag situation
c) At the moment the public doesn´t know what a big clusterfuck the whole things was and still thinks heroic US-troops stopped the evil Russians
d) The pro-democratic media praise the president for preventing a nuclear war
But things goes downhill fast after the election. The Iran-war had let to an oilprice-shock , which throws the USA in a recession. The president makes an agreement with the Soviets, which accept de facto the Division of Iran. The Islamists (especially a certain Ayatollah) are furious and throw the US troops out. The president doesn´t care. He looked into a nuclear abyss and don´t want this to happen ever again. He is realistic enough to see, that complete nuclear disarming is impossible, but he signs a treaty with the Soviets (negations for such a treaty were running since the 1960th) which should lead to a massive reduction of US strategic (and tactical) nuclear weapons. The president push the treaty through the Senat, before his approval ratings go in free fall. He talks about a no-first-use-doctrin and it seems he will abound NATO-strategy. Some start to believe, that the president had a nervous breakdown during the Iran war and is starting to lose his mind. Some cabinet-members start to read the 25. Amendment really carefully. The background about the Iran-mess leaks out and bring also back some focus about what happened in Vietnam. The approval ratings of the president fall on a level which made Nixon 1974 IOTL look good.
The president ignores all his critics. He is on a mission to save the world from a nuclear holocaust. His only gesture to the Hawks is, that he makes Iran-war hero General “Scott” Chief of Staff, not knowing that “Scott” is deeply traumatized by what he saw as treason of the president at the soldiers fighting in Iran. Things starts to get interesting.
 
Could there be a nation-wide Crimson Tide situation, where a freak electrical storm knocks out contact with the President somewhere in Florida and the Joint Chiefs are forced to assume it's a Soviet first strike?
 
Seven Days of Smedley Butler

Away from books, but IIRC, the whole Seven Days in May schtick came from a report by General Smedley Butler that a group of businessmen unhappy with FDR were contemplating a putsch. It remains uncertain (IIRC) if he was hallucinating or if there was a lot of loose talk at the Cheyenne Social Club.:cool:

However, given all that, best time for a military coup would have been in the early Thirties. Post WW2, even with the JBS and Generals Walker and Lemay, it just couldn't have happened. (They could have tried, but the whole country would have thrown them out pronto.)
 
Away from books, but IIRC, the whole Seven Days in May schtick came from a report by General Smedley Butler that a group of businessmen unhappy with FDR were contemplating a putsch. It remains uncertain (IIRC) if he was hallucinating or if there was a lot of loose talk at the Cheyenne Social Club.:cool:

....

One of Connallys biographers repeated speculation that the USAF general in the book was modeled on Connally. Early in the Kennedy administration he had been a assistant Sec Nav and had swiftly become a rabid critic and obstructionist of Kennedys policy decisions.

Trivia note: Connallys signature is on a letter denying LH Oswalds petition to have his discharge from the USMC upgraded to Honorable.
 
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