Greenville
Banned
What if media reports are true that Vice-President Johnson has had a heart attack in Dallas, Texas after President Kennedy died only an hour earlier?
So, if Johnson died after Kennedy, by my understanding, he would be President for a short time despite not taking the oath. Same thing for McCormick and Hayden. Based on what I've seen, the next person in line become President automatically but can't do anything without taking the oath.I've seen at least one thread that said that both John McCormack and Carl Hayden, the President Pro Tempore, were so old and/or unwilling to serve as president that they would have stepped down as soon as they inherited the office, leaving Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State that JFK hated, next in line for the presidency.
1) Lyndon Johnson Assassinated: McCormack, Hayden and Dean Rusk
Lyndon Johnson could easily have been assassinated along with President Kennedy. Johnson could have been in the car with Kennedy rather than Governor John Connally, and the space of time in which Oswald murdered Kennedy was more than enough for him to also assassinated Johnson in such a situation. Johnson could also have been within the line of fire in such a way that the shots to Kennedy could have passed into him fatally. There is also the matter, somewhat well known, that a secret service agent nearly shot him shortly thereafter, having mistaken him for a trespasser.
In such a case, the presidency would then fall to Speaker of the House John McCormack. If unimpeded by other events, McCormack would serve in the capacity of president until at least 1964. However, McCormack was also in his early seventies. A man of such advanced years is going to have difficulty overseeing the presidency in a nuclear age. He will also be forced to oversee the uniting of the nation following the tragedy in Dallas. And he will be overseeing the events that are unfolding in the foreign and domestic world in 1963-1964, which are anything but simple. It is possible that the stress could be enough to kill him. It is also possible that he could choose to side step the presidency, if at all possible. I am uncertain of the legal potential for that, but I also assume they are as well. I do not believe that it was considered that someone in the line of succession might attempt to refuse it, but it may be a legal consideration.
In either case, the additional POD would be the presidency falling to President Pro Tempore Carl Hayden. There is little to say here, as Carl Hayden would absolutely refuse to be president.
"I'd call Congress together, have the House elect a new speaker, and then I'd resign and let him become president."
If McCormack had the precedent of denying the position of the presidency without being required to resign his elected position, Hayden would certainly follow suite. There is little more to be said on the matter. Whereas there may have been a short McCormack administration, there would never have been a Hayden administration for any period of time.
The presidency would then fall to Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Kennedy had little respect for Dean Rusk, and essentially viewed him as the equivalent of a human potato. Kennedy was also planning to remove Rusk from the cabinet, place McNamara as Secretary of State, and place Robert Kennedy in the position of Secretary of Defense. However, that was tentative, and there are many possibilities for cabinet changes. Kennedy was likely to make them regardless, and Dean Rusk was very likely to be removed.
As he recalled in his autobiography, As I Saw It, Rusk did not have a good relationship with President Kennedy. The president was often irritated by Rusk's reticence in advisory sessions and felt that the State Department was "like a bowl of jelly" and that it "never comes up with any new ideas". Special Counsel to the President Ted Sorensen believed that Kennedy, being well versed and practiced in foreign affairs, acted as his own Secretary of State. Sorensen also said that the president often expressed impatience with Rusk and felt him under-prepared for emergency meetings and crises.[13] Rusk repeatedly offered his resignation, but it was never accepted. Rumors of Rusk's dismissal leading up to the 1964 election abounded prior to President Kennedy's trip to Dallas in 1963. Shortly after Kennedy was assassinated, Rusk offered his resignation to the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson. However, Johnson refused Rusk's resignation and retained him as the Secretary of State throughout his administration.
Rusk would be an interesting president. Unlike McCormack or Hayden, he is physically suited to the office of the presidency. However, he was also a man Kennedy would never have wanted to have succeeded him. I am not well versed in Dean Rusk. However, Jacqueline Kennedy's view of him was a sort of kind ambivalence a mother would give to an unaccomplished child. He was perfectly decent, was intelligent and compassionate, but did not do well at making decisions based on what they understood and defined well. This is a rather interesting potential presidency.
So, since that is decided. Who will be the Democratic nominee?, George Wallace is sort of out of the question......
If he does however, Nelson Rockefeller wins the White House?
If Goldwater remains out of the race, it makes for an interesting Republican primary regardless. Nelson Rockefeller is the knee-jerk assumption. The problem was, his rather public divorce and subsequent marriage to his mistress was extremely offensive to Republican voters and Americans in general, and doomed his chances of winning the nomination in 1964. In the OTL, moderate Republicans ran from Rockefeller. However, Rockefeller refused to concede, dividing the moderates further as they sought anyone else, and failed to stop the Goldwater momentum. Here, this would still be an issue and one that could lead to party division. The Republican nomination in this scenario would not necessarily be the bloody, hateful one of actual history (unless the Conservatives revolt despite the lack of Goldwater), but it would most likely be the moderates and liberals desperately seeking a candidate who was not Nelson Rockefeller. In actual history, this was William Scranton. However, there were other candidate possibilities.
November 1963 was set to be a year of tremendous change for the US Government. On Monday, November 25th, a House vote was scheduled, with the aim of electing a new Speaker of the House after the resignation of former Speaker John McCormack (aged 71) due to health reasons. The Senate too was set to vote on a new appointee, after President Kennedy had relieved Secretary of Treasury Douglas Dillon, a Republican, the week before following huge behind the scenes pressure from the Democratic Party.
Late Thursday night on the 21st, President Kennedy had another heated telephone conversation with Secretary of State Dean Rusk, which ended with the President exclaiming “You know what, Dean? I think I’m going to accept that resignation of yours after all”. Kennedy signed the resignation letter the following morning whilst on Air Force One en route to Dallas airport of Love Field.
Following Kennedy’s assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald, Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as President that same day aboard Air Force One just before it departed Love Field, with Jacqueline Kennedy by his side, with the photo of the event later becoming famous.
14 hours later, Gerald Blaine – a Secret Service agent detailed with looking after the new president's two-storey house in Washington heard someone walking towards the house and loudly cocked his submachine gun, in the hope that it would act as a deterrent.
He firmly pushed the stock into his shoulder, ready to fire. He'd expected the footsteps to retreat with the loud sound of the gun activating, but they kept coming closer. Blaine's heart pounded, his finger firmly on the trigger. “Let me see your face, you bastard!” Blaine shouted, as the footsteps neared. The next instant, Blaine finally got a look at the would-be assassin – it was the new President of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who had just rounded the corner. Blaine, having the gun pointed directly at the man's chest freaked out for a moment and inadvertently pulled the trigger, instantly killing Johnson in the blackness of the night.
Half an hour later, President pro tempore Carl T. Hayden, aged 86, was woken up in the middle of the night by heavily armed and extremely agitated Secret Service agents who informed him that the new President had also been shot and that there might be a coup underway, with him as the next potential target. Upon hearing the news, Hayden panicked and suffered a stroke, from which he died several minutes later.
And so began the Presidency of Robert McNamara…
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(OTL, Agent Blaine DID NOT pull the trigger)