How would the course of history have panned out if John F. Kennedy had been elected President in 1960? As we know, Kennedy narrowly lost that election to Richard Nixon, and continued to serve in the Senate until 1971, when he retired from the Senate. From there, he served as Defense Secretary in President Scoop Jackson's second term (1973-1977), and then died due to complications from Addison's disease in July of 1977. How would Kennedy have handled the events of the 1961-65 Presidential term? Would he have pushed for and signed a Civil Rights Act the way Nixon did in 1963 and 1964 (the law was signed by Nixon in the Spring of 1964)? How would a Democrat signing the Civil Rights Act impact the coalitions of the two major parties? Would John Kennedy as President be similar to his brother Ted Kennedy, who served from 1981-1989?
DBWI: John Kennedy elected in 1960
- Thread starter dw93
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I feel Kennedy would've gotten a lot done and that was due to his VP, Lyndon Johnson.
Getting Lyndon in there would've made civil rights go a lot smoother as Kennedy did support it as Johnson, as he proved as VP to Jackson.
Getting Lyndon in there would've made civil rights go a lot smoother as Kennedy did support it as Johnson, as he proved as VP to Jackson.
>Johnson as VP instead of being in the senate to bully senators into voting the right way
>Effective Civil rights legislation passing
Don't see it tbh. Maybe Ted Kennedy could have if he'd tried for POTUS. John or Bobby are too "law and order" for that imo.
>Effective Civil rights legislation passing
Don't see it tbh. Maybe Ted Kennedy could have if he'd tried for POTUS. John or Bobby are too "law and order" for that imo.
I would say Kennedy would have been tough on Communism, after all that's what got you elected at the time. However, he would not have the same relationship with Kruschev that Nixon did. Nixon know the Soviet Premier from his days as a Vice President and so there would be more tension. Nothing serious. I imagine Kennedy standing down and not cracking down on Cuba. Still Kennedy was very charismatic and likely would get reelected. However I'd think he'd fall apart on Civil Rights. Don't get me wrong he'd support it immensely, more than Nixon but still he'd back down. If his running mate Lyndon B.Johnson was in charge then sure, a Southern Democrat pushing that kind of law would make waves but I doubt Kennedy would. Now by 1969 it is reasonable to assume that a Republican would win and that is a bit harder to guess. Maybe Barry Goldwater. Either way I'm fairly certain it would be a Republican.
Johnson was a very effective behind the scene man and made things move.
But as a VP it would allow him to make a president get his goals through
I doubt he'd do much more than preside over the Senate and go to Funerals. The Kennedys hated LBJ and only picked him out of necessity and would thus make the Vice Presidency a living hell for him. It is a shame however that Johnson himself never became President, though he did give Nixon a run for his money in 1964. He'd have been another FDR.
I wonder if the southern democrats stay in the party or become Republicans sooner. If it wasn’t for Reagan reaching out to them in 76, the States Rights Party might have lived on though Republicans kind of took their platform. Nixon may have been an authoritarian but he at least put his foot down against guys like Wallace and Barnett even if it was only for the sake of law and order.
The wild card here is the anti Catholicism. The numbers were not large, but the hostility ran deep. Death threats against the candidate were unusually large in the 1960 election. There is the possibility the President, Robert, as Attorny General, or the youngest brother Ted who took over the Senate seat, would be shot by some antiCatholic nut job.
Would Lyndon Johnson have had the role Lodge had, in civil rights and defending Cuba? Perhaps Laos wouldn;t have required ground troops?
I can't imagine Kennedy having Nixon's foreign policy successes. Do you really think that someone who most of his peers thought of as a trust-fund kid would have the expertise or capability that Nixon did when it came to things like getting Khrushchev to pull missiles out of Cuba? Kennedy would have had to give Khrushchev far more concessions than Nixon ever did.
As long as nobody managed to get solid evidence: don't forget that Johnson was a consummate wheeler/dealer who skated to the brink multiple times. He had a well-deserved and well-established reputation for being shady on his best days (one couldn't have been that close to Billie Sol Estes and not be corrupt to a significant degree). Johnson was very fortunate that he worked closely with Nixon as he did with Eisenhower: if he got Nixon sore at him by reneging on a deal (let's say), you can bet Nixon would have had the Justice Department go after Johnson full throttle, and it's entirely likely he would have wound up in prison.
Lest you doubt, recall the biographies of Lyndon Johnson that came out in the late 1970s by such people as William Manchester and Edmund Morris: Johnson's misdeeds in Texas had come to light fully by then. Johnson in the White House would have been the Dems' answer to Warren Harding in terms of a corrupt administration, except this time the president himself would be involved up to his elbows.