WI: Majority of Kennedy Cabinet killed in a plane crash on the day of the assassination

At the same time JFK was in Dallas, most of his Cabinet was on a plane flight to Tokyo. What if that plane had suffered a mechanical failure shortly after the assassination and crashed, killing everyone on board? This would have left the newly sworn in President Johnson without a Secretary of State, Treasury, Labor, Agriculture, Interior, or Commerce.
 
At the same time JFK was in Dallas, most of his Cabinet was on a plane flight to Tokyo. What if that plane had suffered a mechanical failure shortly after the assassination and crashed, killing everyone on board? This would have left the newly sworn in President Johnson without a Secretary of State, Treasury, Labor, Agriculture, Interior, or Commerce.
For one thing, all the conspiracy theories surrounding Kennedy’s death would have about 10x as much credibility than they do in our reality. The assassination itself can be waved away as a lone-wolf tragedy IOTL, but if it had happened on the exact same day as a plane crash that wiped out all of Kennedy’s cabinet, I’d be surprised if anyone—the US government included—wouldn’t have immediately interpreted the events as some kind of orchestrated attack on the US’s line of succession.
 
For one thing, all the conspiracy theories surrounding Kennedy’s death would have about 10x as much credibility than they do in our reality. The assassination itself can be waved away as a lone-wolf tragedy IOTL, but if it had happened on the exact same day as a plane crash that wiped out all of Kennedy’s cabinet, I’d be surprised if anyone—the US government included—wouldn’t have immediately interpreted the events as some kind of orchestrated attack on the US’s line of succession.

Under this hypothetical, this is what the presidential line of succession would have looked like:

Speaker of the House: John McCormack
President Pro Tempore: Carl Hayden
Secretary of State: Deceased
Secretary of the Treasury: Deceased
Secretary of Defense: Robert McNamara
Attorney General: Robert Kennedy
Postmaster General: John Gronouski
Secretary of the Interior: Deceased
Secretary of Agriculture: Deceased
Secretary of Commerce: Deceased
Secretary of Labor: Deceased

Presumably, the surviving Cabinet members along with the Speaker of the House and President Pro Tempore would have been immediately taken into protective custody if that plane had crashed. In reality, it turned around and returned to the Honolulu Airport from which it had just left after the passengers were notified about the events in Dallas.
 
Moscow gets INCREDIBLY nervous. Because while they presumably didn’t do it, everyone’s gonna think they did.

Many in Moscow would think there's a chance they did it. They would be zealously digging through their alphabet soup agencies to see if someone had gone rogue and done the unthinkable.
 

Marc

Donor
Like most advanced societies, the United States had (and has) a very deep bench in terms of highly capable and trained people for executive positions in and out of government. So, this scenario doesn't seem to be profound, as far we can see.
Interesting note, even if for some reason Johnson was also killed at that time, John W. McCormack would have been a quite competent interim President, with a number of similar accomplishments, if on a more modest scale than LBJ - although very unlikely he would have sought election in '64.
 
It would be assumed to be a decapitation strike at the American Government and if someone panics the button could be pushed. Nato will be extremely nervous that this is the prelude to a Soviet attack. At the same time the Soviets will be extremely nervous that the US will lash out at them. In these circumstances a false alarm on either side is much more likely to lead to a strike being launched.
 
Who gets SecState?

I assume National Security Advisor was not on board.

I'm trying to recall if the NSA position was as important as today. Ike had created the position a few years earlier to dodge some of the politics surrounding the Sec State. He originally wanted a group of technicians to give him a unvarnished analysis. How far Kennedy had developed that I can't say.
 
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