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timelines:for_want_of_a_newsreel

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For Want of a Newsreel : Dewey Defeats Truman

Written by Jasen777, with some maps by TheLoneAmigo. It won the First Timeline Contest.

The POD for this timeline is that theaters back out of plans to show a newsreels featuring presidential candidates Dewey and Truman. This leads to Dewey winning the 1948 presidential election.

It can be read and discussed here.


Overview

Dewey largely followed Truman's foreign policy. He did act faster to arm South Korean troops, and so the Korean War went slightly better for the U.S. and allies (although the war dragged enough for it to be a factor in Dewey losing the '52 election).

A big event for this timeline was President Kefauver's stopping of the plans to oust Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. The breaks go Iran's way after this, and they development a stable secular constitutional monarchy and a fairly free society (like Turkey in many respects).

Butterflies from Iran caused a more powerful Pan-Arab movement, which was to be the major cause of instability in the Middle East. The Palestinian problem of OTL was largely diffused when Jordan got control of most of the West Bank.

The Iranian example, one more significant neutral country, was enough to push De Gaulle into a more aggressive attempt to form a third pole of power in the cold war. France's attempt to form this third pole with their CNAN partners delayed European integration a bit.

Concerning U.S. domestic politics, Dewey's support of the Civil Rights Act allowed it to pass earlier, but in a version that didn't include gender. This lead to the feminist push for the inclusion of gender to the act during the Vietnam War.

In some ways 2007 ITTL is a nicer place than OTL, especially for Iran, Algeria, and Israel. The specter of violent radical Islam is almost non-existent; the sole major terrorism attack has been against Kurdistan and as function of Arab nationalism rather than religion. Against this of course, is the threat of the hard-line communist Soviet Union, which although weakened substantially by the loss of the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and the Central Asian SSR's (not to mention it's European satellite states), still has more than enough nukes to produce a fear of MAD.


timelines/for_want_of_a_newsreel.1470450627.txt.gz · Last modified: 2019/03/29 15:18 (external edit)

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