WI: Nixon Assassinated?

[Chapman]

As has probably been discussed before, Arthur Bremer, the man who would later shoot and paralyze Alabama Governor George Wallace, had initially plotted to kill then-President Richard Nixon. On April 13, 1972, Bremer traveled to Ottawa, Wisconsin with a revolver tucked into his jacket pocket, intending to shoot and kill the President during a campaign event. However, put off by tight security and feeling he had no real opportunity, he returned home to Milwaukee.

But what if Bremer had found the golden opportunity he hoped for, and shot President Nixon, killing him? Vice President Spiro Agnew would evidently become President, but would he be made the head of the Republican ticket for the upcoming election? IOTL, Nixon apparently considered replacing him heading into the '72 cycle; would he have any shot at becoming the Presidential candidate? Assuming he did, two other questions come to mind: 1) Who would have been chosen as his running mate? and 2) How would he do in the general election? Would he win off of sympathy for the fallen President alone? And of course, the biggest question here might just be, how does this impact Watergate (assuming it still becomes public)?

 

[Don Corleone]

Agnew becomes the nominee. Not enough time for anyone else to start up a campaign. There's also the problem of looking like a vulture.

McGovern is the opponent so it's still a landslide.

Watergate might not even happen - the perps could assume it's unnecessary. If not, Agnew might throw them under the bus. The real issue will be the tax evasion that tripped him up in OTL...now he's the sitting President.

Running mate is the hardest question.

 

[Midwestern Shadows]

It's also possible that, assuming Agnew wants to continue the Vietnam War, he could paint Bremer as a sleeper Communist agent. If the US public buys this (as opposed to Bremer simply being a lunatic), the North Vietnamese would be staring down a much more resolute US.

 

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

More unstable US 70s than OTL, with the next respected president after the garbage fire of the Agnew, Ford, Rockfeller, Bush administration being let's make it... as the kids a decade ago would have said "for the lulz" Henry "Scoop" Jackson in 1980, complete with butterflying his OTL aneurysm -- tone it down to make it a month-long health crisis. A common thread on Mr. C. Barber's Alternatehistory.dis would be "What if POTUS Jackson died in 1983".

HHH's cancer was too advanced by 1972 to be butterflied out, so can't be him.

 

[jonnguy2016]

Here's an unlikely way this might end

 

[1940LaSalle]

Agnew was not well thought of by the GOP establishment. I suspect the party elders would have closed ranks and told Agnew that he was going to take a relatively progressive Republican like Edward Brooke of Massachusetts as his running mate: in other words, someone who could step up if anything happened with Agnew. I suspect further they would have told Agnew that Nixon's cabinet was going to remain intact, with Henry Kissinger calling the shots on foreign policy, and an astute VP like Brooke calling the shots on domestic policy: in short, Agnew, largely regarded as an oaf by the Nixon White House, would have been largely a figurehead. (Agnew didn't have the chops to try to counteract any moves like that: his power base, if you could call it that, in MD came from his election as governor as a direct result of a deep split in the Dems in 1966.)

So: when Agnew is indicted on tax evasion charges, his support erodes to a pinpoint almost overnight, as everyone across the spectrum of both parties demands his resignation (I could see Barry Goldwater among the first to do so)--and Edward Brooke becomes president.

 

[Chapman]

Agnew was not well thought of by the GOP establishment. I suspect the party elders would have closed ranks and told Agnew that he was going to take a relatively progressive Republican like Edward Brooke of Massachusetts as his running mate: in other words, someone who could step up if anything happened with Agnew. I suspect further they would have told Agnew that Nixon's cabinet was going to remain intact, with Henry Kissinger calling the shots on foreign policy, and an astute VP like Brooke calling the shots on domestic policy: in short, Agnew, largely regarded as an oaf by the Nixon White House, would have been largely a figurehead. (Agnew didn't have the chops to try to counteract any moves like that: his power base, if you could call it that, in MD came from his election as governor as a direct result of a deep split in the Dems in 1966.)

So: when Agnew is indicted on tax evasion charges, his support erodes to a pinpoint almost overnight, as everyone across the spectrum of both parties demands his resignation (I could see Barry Goldwater among the first to do so)--and Edward Brooke becomes president.

It's interesting that you pick Edward Brooke as his VP, I had considered writing a timeline where that's what happened. Do you think the American people would be ready for that?

 

[SargentHawk]

I think the film from the 70's titled 'The Man' with James Earl Jones may be a semi-accurate representation on how it would go over. At least from what i remember about the film

 

[1940LaSalle]

It's interesting that you pick Edward Brooke as his VP, I had considered writing a timeline where that's what happened. Do you think the American people would be ready for that?

Well, consider:

• Brooke as a Republican wasn't going to be a liberal of the McGovern stripe, so that would have made him reasonably acceptable.
• If anyone could be said to be intelligent, polished, well-spoken, and poised, that would be Brooke. I say that because I had the opportunity to meet him while he was still a senator, and was enormously impressed. He could appeal easily to a very broad spectrum of Americans, apart from the knuckle-dragging racists on one side and the extreme left on the other.
  
• I feel like I'm treading on somewhat thin politically correct ice here, so I'll proceed cautiously (moderators: please be gentle). Recent history (2008, 2012) suggests that the black community rallies around a black candidate: I believe there's substantial evidence from those two presidential elections to support that. The idea of a black man becoming VP would, I believe, rally the support of much of the black community at the time.
• Brooke's record in Massachusetts demonstrates his acumen and ability. He could swing the job: simple as that.
• Last, and cynically to some extent, I think this would present a golden opportunity for the GOP to co-opt the Dems as the party of civil rights and regain some measure of the aura as the party of Lincoln.

Long story short, I think the Senate would approve Brooke resoundingly (one of their own; one of the establishment...you get the idea). Then when Agnew turns out to be a low-rent tax cheat as he was, the reality will sink in that the US is about to have a black president. Watch then for every last GOP senator to rally around him (and in fact more than a few Dems) demanding that people give him a fair shake, and moving all sorts of mountains to remove as much as possible any covert/overt race-based obstacles. In the end, a Brooke presidency would probably be remembered today rather favorably at the minimum.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[Yes]

@jonnguy2016,

Thanks for plugging the TL of a dear friend.

@SergeantHawk,

Outstanding pop culture citation. I remember that one fondly.

@1940LaSalle,

You make the best case for Brooke I've heard. As a fan of making the unlikely-but-not-impossible into the entirely plausible, I like it. At the same time I'm not sure I buy it. Brooke -- and you're right we tend to underestimate his talents as a senator -- really was a Massachusetts liberal, one who rather like Frances Sargent was part of the GOP Because Lincoln, because they'd come up in a period when, despite the preturbations of the coming Sixth Party System, whose side your granddaddy was on in the Civil War (rather like Ireland...) was still the best predictor of party affiliation. He was not as liberal as the "AMNESTY ABORTION AND ACID!!! BOOGEDY BOOGEDY!!" image of McGovern built with hardly any effective rebuttal during the '72 cycle, but compared to McGovern's actual record as a senator they were not far off plumb from each other. Just Brooke, like most liberal Republicans, favored a smaller federal bureaucracy and a tighter fiscal ship. On policy priorities they were quite similar and while there was still a lively set of liberal Republicans in the Senate particularly (your Javitses, your Hatfields, your Cases, etc.) that's off from the party's mainstream. Also it really was demographically important for the GOP, at the presidential level, to keep the Whitelash (h/t Van Jones) on-side. They needed to flip the Solid South, because together with that and Sun Belt Republicanism and remaining strength in the Midwest (upper New England was good too but in Electoral College terms just pretty little baubles) that was enough to win even against a strong "national Democrat" (i.e. one firmly in favor of Civil Rights.) It is just possible that Brooke gets his chance, but there are still more white voters in the South than black ones which makes that the safer play. Especially when the top of your ticket was a man beloved of the party's right wing. Brooke could happen. But I would see as more likely Chuck Percy, Howard Baker, or in a slightly distant third (yes, really) Gerry Ford. Two Midwesterners and a Southerner each of whom offers regional balance, two of whom were very definitely moderates but not really liberal Republicans on economics or law and order. The third -- Ford -- was an old school small-c conservative who was moderate on most social issues. Each of them is a solid, good-looking man in a business suit who won't totally overawe Agnew with charisma and make voters think the ticket should be flipped (since they're stuck with him the Establishment have to be very careful playing Agnew's considerable ego.) I think, especially after your persuasive special pleading, I would put Brooke on the list, but he'd go fourth. First Percy, then Baker, then Ford, then Brooke.

@All,

(1) Timing is everything on Agnew and revelations of his criminality. Also he falls into a special category. Fear, Loathing, and Gumbo aside Agnew's were not federal crimes by and large. They were charges he would face in the State of Maryland, which means they weren't eligible for the federal pardoning power of the President. So he really is screwed -- his best hope actually is to play for time on the "can't indict a sitting President" argument and wait for impeachment to move ahead. Since the party have already put an acceptable body in place as VP, he should not like his chances. If it comes out in the campaign, which is entirely possible if Agnew faces a not-McGovern as the Democratic candidate, or if a healthy George Wallace makes a third party run and thinks he can throw it to the House if he kneecaps Agnew, then there could be men in trenchcoats looking for dirt all summer and fall and at some point they will find it. So that could get interesting in the Chinese sense.

(2) Also with a healthy Wallace there's no sure guarantee McGovern will take the Democratic nomination. Wallace will continue to do reasonably well with racially-anxious, economically populist blue collar Dems, and will siphon votes especially from Humphrey (at least the votes Humphrey got IOTL's 1972 primaries) and even from McGovern (blue-collar populists who thought either McGovern or Wallace was most likely to "shake things up.") So that could get really very interesting, especially a Wallace presence in the California primary. Wallace will be a distant third but he could get enough votes to push the winner's total under 40%, which weakens the "it's too late to do anything about California's winner-takes-all" argument at the convention. You could see a temporarily ruinous split as either Humphrey, desperate in the face of potential death, makes a deal with the devil and gets a Humphrey/Wallace or Humphrey/Wallace-Approved ticket, or McGovern pulls it out and Wallace storms out with his delegates. But either outcome could bounce back in the face of ... timely revelations about Agnew.

(3) While Watergate is indeed less likely, much less likely in and of itself, there's still plenty of ratfucking and corruption about to get revealed, and Agnew and Nixon's loyalists don't trust one another. If Agnew gets scared of what's under the various rocks and wants to distance himself by burning some of these guys, they could burn back. Or, Agnew could decide the Nixonian Empire is now his and try to use the Plumbers et al. to plug leaks about his own sordid little deals but get clumsy about it Because Agnew and get caught that way.

Basically there are tons of possibilities here, all of them juicy. It is also possible LBJ gives a deathbed instruction to release the "X File" (the records of Nixon's breach of the Logan Act trying to sabotage the '68 Paris talks) just to make sure Nixon's legacy gets screwed.