By a Fluke of the Gods: Cox Defeats Harding

[Хahar 🤔]

Please try to know the difference between aid and aide.

[PBrunsel]

Please try to know the difference between aid and aide.

I will try to remember that. Merry Christmas to you.

[Хahar 🤔]

Please try to know the difference between aid and aide.

I will try to remember that. Merry Christmas to you.

And a happy New Year.

[PBrunsel]

The Second Term of President Joseph P. Kennedy, Junior

Event Date: 1-10-1961
Event Description: The new Congress convenes. Amongst new members if Congressman George Herbert Walker Bush of Connecticut. Despite his father’s landslide defeat in the presidential election, the younger Bush was narrowly elected to Congress. In the House of Representatives, House Minority Leader Sam Rayburn (Democrat of Texas) becomes Speaker of the House as House Minority Whip Carl Albert (Democrat of Oklahoma) becomes the House Majority Leader. Former Speaker of the House Joseph Martin decides not to seek the position of House Minority Leader. Congressman Gerald Ford (Republican of Michigan) is elected to the position. A strong supporter of President Dewey’s New Day, newly elected House Minority Leader Ford declares that the social policies of the Republican Party “Will not falter and will not fail.” In the Senate, Senate Minority Leader Harry Truman (Republican of Missouri) declares that he will not seek the position again. Truman, now serving his third term in the Senate, announces he will retire in 1962. “Politics has been good to me,” Truman tells his Senate colleagues as they elect Senator Everett Dirksen (Republican of Illinois) as the new Senate Minority Leader, “But it is time for others to try their hands at the game of public service.”

Event Date: 1-20-1961
Event Description: President Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Junior, is sworn into a second term as President of the United States. “Our generation will be the one to travel to the stars,” Kennedy declares in his inaugural address, “We must also be the generation which preserves freedom and capitalism for future generations.” Vice-President Stuart Symington, their heir apparent for the 1964 Democratic Presidential nomination, is also sworn into office today, but spends much of the day with the Truman Family. The Vice-President and the Senator have been close since Symington’s election to the Senate.

Event Date: 1-30-1961
Event Description: President Kennedy outlines his plans for his second term in his fifth State of the Union Address. “My fellow Americans,” President Kennedy opens, “We stand at the gateway to a new frontier.” He explains a strengthening of the Kennedy Doctrine to protect, “Our world’s democracies from the onslaught of world socialism.” He promises further tax cuts, increases in military spending and a man on the moon by 1969. The Republicans select Representative George Bush to respond to the State of the Union address. “The president is drawing out voodoo economics,” Bush tells the nation, “His economic theories, the ‘trickle down of wealth’, are a million to one shot in the dark.” These types of clichés confuse some listeners while others feel they are humorous. Representative Bush’s dry sense of humor will be both a help and a hindrance during his tenure as a public servant.

Event Date: 2-12-1961
Event Description: Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, declares that the findings of his “Poverty Tour” in the Southeast are, “Horrifying and heart breaking.” Speaking before a crowd in Los Angeles, California, he describes his journey through the Southeast of the United States, and a great deal of what he says affects the City of Angels. King, his wife Coretta and the Reverends Ralph Abernathy and Jesse Jackson traveled for several months through New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California, collecting evidence of the necessity of government aide to the migrant Mexican workers of these states. “I saw children who would go days without eating a real meal,” King reveals to the world, “I saw parents who worked, even when they were so tired with fever they could barely stand. They fear to miss a day of work to care for themselves will lead to their employers sending them away.” Dr. King points out that there are many people to be blamed for this “gross injustice”. He attacks the Mexican government which encourages illegal entry into the country, despite the United States’ tough immigration laws. He also scolds businesses that hire illegal immigrants. “These business owners are the modern day slave traders,” he declares, “They pay less than the minimum wage, far less, and send their workers to live in slums in which pigs would feel uncomfortable.” President Kennedy is not attacked, but appealed to. “Mr. President,” Dr. King pleads, “We need a law which protects such migrant workers from exploitation. In the name of God, show them pity.”

Event Date: 2-13-1961
Event Description: President Kennedy tells Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson that he wants him to introduce an act outlawing the exploitation of migrant workers in the United States. “Why would I do that?” Johnson says to the President, “Do you want me to insult the men who give me money every campaign?” Johnson was reelected by only a 53-47% margin last year over Representative John Tower (Republican of Texas). “Lyndon,” President Kennedy says sternly, “You will do this.” “Tell me one reason I should,” Landslide Lyndon retorts. “Lyndon,” the President says a little more gently, “This act isn’t for 1961, this act is for 2001. We’ll both be dead and gone by 2001. When you die, Lyndon, do you want a big marble statue that says, ‘Lyndon Johnson-he built’ or a little stone lying in dirt that says ‘Lyndon Johnson-he pandered’?” Senator Johnson gets the point. An act that would prosecute all those who employ migrant workers and do not give them the rights of other workers in the United States is introduced in both houses and Congress, and pass with ease by March of 1961.

Event Date: 3-29-1961
Event Description: With Texas voting yes, the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, giving the District of Columbia three Electoral Votes in Presidential elections, as many as it would have if it were a state. Though President Kennedy had fought against this act, a coalition of Democrats and Republicans from the Eastern coast and Midwest were able to pass the amendment back in July 1960.

Event Date: 4-01-1961
Event Description:  Der Raumfahrer Hans Schlegel, Senior, becomes the first human being to orbit the Earth. Chancellor Willy Brandt applauds Schlegel as, “The hero of the space age.” In the United States, President Kennedy can barely believe that the USA has been beaten into space by Germany, whom Kennedy had claimed to be defeated in the Space Race.

Event Date: 4-11-1961
Event Description: Eva Braun and her son Rudolph Braun, 11-years old, flee Argentina. Despite no one knowing who they are, the increasingly anti-foreigner feelings in the nation force them to flee. The two will arrive in Mexico in a few days, where they will begin living in a convent. Braun will become a nun and her son shall begin his studies for the priesthood. Braun has always said she wanted her son to be a priest, so that he could, “Do good, more good than this family has ever done.” 

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 4-12-1961
Event Description: "Godspeed, John Glenn!" So says Mission Control at Cape Canaveral, Florida, as the Marine Colonel John Glenn, an Ohio native, becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, on the Mercury VI mission, inside the Friendship 7 capsule. President Kennedy has taken some steam out of the German’s propaganda engine since they beat the Americans in the race to orbit a man around Earth.

Event Date: 4-25-1961
Event Description: Russian President Nikita Khrushchev meets in Peking with President Zhou Enlai. The two socialists discuss the threat of President Kennedy’s doctrine and the constant fear of American meddling in their national affairs. Khrushchev, who’s native Russia has not yet developed an atomic bomb, asks for Chinese atomic weapons. Fearing the wrath of President Kennedy, Enlai refuses. However, the two nations sign a non-aggression pact, which scares President Kennedy. “This is dangerously close to an alliance,” he tells his brother John, the Chief of Staff, “I can’t allow those two red nations to have a military alliance against the West.” Chief of Staff Kennedy tells his brother not to get too frightened. “These guys know we could wipe them off the map in a second,” JFK tells his brother. Then, he excuses himself. He says he is going on a trip to California to shore up support for the Democrats there for 1962 midterms. In reality, he’s going to the Golden State to meet up with his lover, actress Marilyn Monroe.

Event Date: 5-01-1961
Event Description: Senator Richard Nixon (Republican of California) is visited by a 23-year old Washington Post journalist, Patrick J. Buchanan. “What do you want?” is Senator Nixon’s harsh greeting. “Much,” is Buchanan’s answer. He reveals photos of White House Chief of Staff John Fitzgerald Kennedy meeting with famed Hollywood starlet at her private residence. “Where did you get these?” Nixon asks Buchanan. “I have my ways,” Buchanan retorts, “Now do you want them?” “What would you get out of them?” Nixon asks. “You in the White House, of course,” is Buchanan’s response. Buchanan has admired Nixon since he was the prosecutor in the Alger Hiss treason case in 1945.

Event Date: 5-08-1961
Event Description: While attending a dinner for astronaut John Glenn, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson and President Joseph Kennedy are called into another room in the White House by Press Secretary Pierre “Pete” Salinger. “What is it Pete?” asks President Kennedy. “We were just getting to dessert!” booms Senator Johnson. “Its bad news, Mr. President,” Salinger spurts out. The Washington Post is going to publish photos as well as an expose written by Pat Buchanan, about an affair between Chief of Staff John Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. “What can we do?” President Kennedy asks Salinger, “I knew my brother liked the ladies, but I didn’t think he’d be so dumb as to sleep around with someone that famous!” President Kennedy becomes so out of control with anger and confusion his wife Evelyn has to be called in. “What are we going to do?” he mutters to himself over and over again. Press Secretary Salinger says he’ll take most of the abuse, but Joe needs to talk to Jack as soon as possible.

Event Date: 5-09-1961
Event Description: President Kennedy and his brothers Robert and Edward meet with their brother Jack at the Oval Office. Bobby is irate. “How could you have been so stupid!” he yells, “How? Just answer!” “Give him a chance to answer, Bobby,” President Kennedy mediates. “I’m sorry Joe,” is all the Chief of Staff can say, “You know me. I just can’t say no.” This is a poor excuse for President Kennedy, whose personal judgment is being questioned. “The papers are saying I choose my aides recklessly,” President Kennedy tells John, “What can be done about that, Jack?” John tells his brother that he’ll resign from his position, and leave politics. “That has to be the only way,” Jack tells his brother, “I wish it were different, but what is done is done.”

Event Date: 5-10-1961
Event Description: Chief of Staff John Fitzgerald Kennedy, age 44, announces his resignation from the position of White House Chief of Staff. He has served his brother, President Joseph Kennedy, well. “I am deeply sorry to all those who my actions have hurt,” Kennedy says as he blinks back tears, “Above all, I ask forgiveness from my brother and my wife, who both put trust in me to do what was right. I let you down.” The selfless speech goes over well with the public, but Senator Richard Nixon is not buying it. “Sentimental hogwash,” he grunts as he turns off his television after the speech, “I’ll run the Kennedy’s out of town on a rail.” 

Event Date: 5-12-1961
Event Description: With news of the Kennedy Sex Scandal engulfing the papers, Senator Richard Nixon declares that there should be a formal inquiry into the Kennedy-Monroe Affair. “The American taxpayers deserve to know if their hard earned dollars have gone to supporting the former Chief of Staff’s ‘activities’,” Senator Nixon declares in a speech from the Capitol steps. Senate Majority Leader Johnson calls Nixon, “A show horse.” He further says, “The country needs to move on from the scandals of the past. Senator Nixon wants to divide us, rather than unite us.” Nixon has been foiled…for now.

Event Date: 6-19-1961
Event Description: The Douglas MacArthur Presidential Library opens in Milton, Wisconsin. President Kennedy, who has admired President MacArthur since he was a young naval airman during the Japanese-American War, attends along with all living former Presidents. Also in attendance are many of the Chinese troops which fought under MacArthur during the Japanese-American War. Chinese President Zhou Enlai sends a message to the aging former President congratulating him on his life of, “unending service to your native land.” With this note, China and the U.S. are closer than they have been in several years.

Event Date: 8-09-1961
Event Description: The new Kennedy Budget easily passes both houses of Congress. A massive 15% across the board tax cut is passed, stimulating the economy for another fiscal year. However, even though New Day spending is cut, the military’s funding is at new highs. House Minority Leader Gerald Ford was able to save college loan programs and medical cards for the working poor. “We were able to prove that both parties can work together,” Speaker Sam Rayburn tells the press while shaking hands with Ford.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 10-31-1961
Event Description: President Chou Enlai declares that the Taiwan Strait, in international waters, now belongs to China. All ships will now have to pay fees to use the strait.  In response to this, President Joseph Kennedy of the United States, President Nikita Khrushchev of Russia, Prime Minster Anthony Eden of the United Kingdom and President Charles DeGaule of France respond by condemning the action and calling on President Enlai to reconsider. Seeing a chance to retake power, former President Chiang Kai-Sheik and his supporters on the island of Formosa (Taiwan) declare that the island is independent of the Chinese Government. President Enlai calls on the Canton Pact to return Formosa to Chinese jurisdiction. The Taiwan Crisis has begun.

Event Date: 11-01-1961
Event Description: Secretary of State James Byrnes meets with several other foreign ministers in Tokyo, Japan, to discuss the crisis. “I say that we finally retake China from those socialist bastards once and for all!” Byrnes cries as he hits his fist on the table. “Now Mr. Byrnes,” British Foreign Minister Alec Douglas-Home tells the gung-ho Secretary of State, “We are here to find a diplomatic response, not blow half the world up.” “When it comes to Reds,” Byrnes mumbles, “I wouldn’t mind taking out have the world to get ‘em.” Cooler heads prevail by the end of the day. A multi0nation embargo of Chinese goods is established as well as a withdrawal of diplomats from mainland China. “China is used to isolation,” Byrnes tells President Kennedy in a conversation over the phone, “More drastic measures are needed or China will win out in the end.” President Kennedy agrees.

Event Date: 11-02-1961
Event Description: Former President Chiang Kai-Sheik meets with Robert Francis Kennedy, the younger brother of President Kennedy, in Taiwan. Kennedy promises aide to Kai-Sheik if President Enlai does not stand down. With Kai-Sheik gladly agreeing to the arrangement, President Kennedy sends Enlai an ultimatum, “De-nationalize the Taiwan Straits, or face a coup against you.” In reality, President Kennedy feels Enlai will stand down before he is forced to bankroll a rebellion.

Event Date: 11-05-1961
Event Description: After three tense days of little dialogue between China and the west, the people of China speak. Due to the general shut down of factories and ports, the worker’s of China turn on the man who gave them their worker’s state. Chinese Foreign Secretary and Vice-President Deng Xiaoping becomes the new president, following a “resignation” of President Zhou Enlai. In reality, Enlai was forced into the decision by Chinese businessmen and higher ups in the Worker’s Party who feared their immediate future if the embargo continued. When Enlai refused to change his mind on the Taiwan Strait, those around him did. President Xiaoping declares the Taiwan Strait to be international once again. With this, former President Kai-Sheik’s independent Taiwan loses international recognition. For now, the former president is still a regular citizen of China.

Event Date: 12-24-1961
Event Description: Ronald Reagan interviews President Kennedy and his wife Evelyn at the White House. His questions revolve mainly around how the Kennedy’s celebrate Christmas and how Kennedy will deal with the new leader of China. “President Xiaoping has declared that his China will be more pro-western and more capitalistic,” President Kennedy tells Reagan, “I feel that we can once again work with the oldest nation on Earth.” When asking him about the 1964 Election and who he feels will win the office of the presidency, the President responds, “It’s far too early to tell now, but I would keep my eye out for that wealthy Governor Rockefeller in New York. He’s got the money, the talent and the personality to beat nearly any Democrat.” “Who do you think could beat him?” Reagan asks. “Well,” Kennedy pauses, “Either the Vice-President…or myself.”         

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-21-1962
Event Description: President Joseph Kennedy sings the first free trade agreement with any American nation. He and President Fulgencio Batista meet in Miami, Florida, to sign the Caribbean Free Trade Agreement. Cuba, though rich in sugar cane and cigars, has little to trade with the United States. However, President Kennedy (and his brother, FBI agent Robert F. Kennedy) views free trade with the mob dominated island as the bets way to clean up the underworld there. With free trade, the U.S. will be able to use custom officials freely in Cuba and investigate the mob better. The Kennedy brother’s war on organized crime has begun. 

Event Date: 2-14-1962 
Event Description: The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Part II, as the press calls it. The government, using laws that President Herbert Hoover enacted during Prohibition, arrest over 100 mob figures from New York City to Chicago and all the way to Honolulu. Among the mobsters arrested for the charge of smuggling drugs and human trafficking is Chicago’s Sam Giancana. “Sam the Cigar” Giancana, who had helped Kennedy win Illinois in 1956, swears revenge against, “That backstabbing bastard Kennedy.” Giancana’s lieutenant, Joseph Aiuppa, escapes arrest and begins to plot revenge against the president.

Event Date: 5-20-1962
Event Description: After several months of general tranquility in the world, Willy Brandt’s Germany announces that it is joining with Russia to send a man to the Moon by 1966. The Eastern European Space Agency (EESA) is established in a treaty in Warsaw, Poland. President Kennedy, frightened by two powerful nations joining forces in the space race, begins to pressure Congress for more funding for NASA. House Majority Leader Carl Albert, as fiscally conservative as any Oklahoman, tells Kennedy cuts will have to be made to military funding. The president will eventually relent, since no war is in the foreseeable future.

Event Date: 6-10-1962
Event Description: The 23rd Amendment to the Constitution is ratified by Missouri. This amendment gives the president the ability to appoint a Vice-President in the event the office is vacant.

Event Date: 6-20-1962
Event Description: “We must be the guards on the walls of democracy,” President Kennedy tells the 1962 graduation class of West Point Military Institute. Kennedy, frightened by the recent alliance between Germany and Russia for space exploration, is beginning to feel that the socialisms of the world will soon unite and try to tear down the wall of democracy.

Event Date: 6-30-1962
Event Description: In what is a devastating blow to the Kennedy Family, Jacqueline Bouvier-Kennedy and John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the former Chief of Staff, separate in after a brutal three months of divorce hearings. Jackie gets a huge sum of money and JFK’s two children John and Caroline. JFK, however, is not entirely too heartbroken. He has been dating recently divorced starlet Marilyn Monroe since June 1961, when his affair with her was discovered. The two plan to wed. “My political career is practically over,” John tells his disapproving brother Joe, “So I might as well marry the girl who did it in.”

Event Date: 7-04-1962
Event Description: The Toronto Pact is signed. The world’s capitalist powers (the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, France, Italy and Egypt) declare that they will, “Defend each other and support one another in times of trouble, invasion or other such peril.” Although not in a physical war, the Canton and Toronto Pacts seem engaged in a war of ideology. Senator John Foster Dulles (Republican of New York) declares that the World has entered a, “New type of war, not one of bullets, but one of philosophies. I feel a Cold War has begun between the capitalisms of the world and the socialist states.”

Event Date: 8-01-1962
Event Description: John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe wed in Los Angeles. Former Governor Joseph Kennedy, Senior, is the only one of the Kennedy Family to attend. President Joseph Kennedy, Junior, sends no wedding present or even a message of congratulations. He is embarrassed that his younger brother would marry the woman that destroyed his previous marriage. Marilyn Monroe, with no living relations and none of her former husbands wanting to do the honors, is “given away” by radio star Ronald Reagan. Reagan has been friends with Monroe since the early 1950s. However, “Dutch” Reagan is a loyal husband to his wife, actress Nancy Davis-Reagan.

Event Date: 8-05-1962
Event Description: Nelson Mandela, the leader of the African National Congress Party and a staunch opponent of the South African policy of segregation (apartheid), leads a mass rally against the policy in Cape Town, South Africa. This rally goes against President Charles Swart’s “gag” policy on the issue of apartheid. He has Mandela arrested, but American President Joseph Kennedy pressures Swart to release Mandela, or face a loss of foreign aide. Kennedy, who believes in integration, is applauded for his work for freedom in South Africa by the world community.

Event Date: 9-27-1962
Event Description: Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring is released. It outlines the harm to the environment that pesticides present. Senator Harry Truman, in his last few weeks in the Senate, reads the book, and is outraged by the inaction by the government. He introduces an act outlawing certain pesticides, notably those mentioned in Carson’s book. The bill never makes it out of committee. Senator Albert Gore (Democrat of Tennessee) is Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and refuses to let the bill come to debate on the Senate floor. “It is better for our nation’s agriculture businesses that such pesticides are used,” Gore explains to the committee, “They are effective, kill pests efficiently and are cheap. I know this is an inconvenient truth, but it is a truth none the less.” For now, environmental regulation will be something that is not discussed by Congress.

Event Date: 10-03-1962
Event Description: Secretary of the Treasury Robert McNamara tells President Kennedy that there is a huge deficit growing. “I realize that Bob,” Kennedy tells McNamara, “But that is what I want.” Kennedy, who majored in economics as well as political science, explains how a great deal of debt keeps interest rates steady. “Sounds like that ‘voodoo economics’ Bush was talking about a few years back,” McNamara tells Kennedy. The president tells him to trust him. The debt will continue to grow, but low taxes and high interest rates continue to spur the economy. The Democratic Party can expect to do marginally well in the upcoming midterm elections. The ultimate effects of the Kennedy Debt will not be felt for years to come.

Event Date: 10-17-1962
Event Description: The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum opens in West Branch, Iowa. The 88-year old President Hoover was able to make it to the opening ceremonies, but he has been ill since he caught a cold walking in a rain storm near his home at the Waldorf Hotel in New York City. President Kennedy, no fan of Hoover’s progressive ideals, instead honors the president by applauding his success story. “I came from money and political power,” Kennedy tells the crowd, “I had the presidency in view since the day I was born. I had the money to make it. President Hoover was born in poverty I could never even imagine in the squalor of a three room cabin. He worked his way to the White House, and by his own ingenuity.” President Hoover, usually not a man to show his emotions in public, bursts into tears as President Kennedy speaks these kind words about him.

Event Date: 11-06-1962
Event Description: The South African Parliamentary Elections are split between pro-apartheid and pro-integration parliamentarians. Ever since the fall of Nazism in the 1950s, the apartheid government has been struggling to hold onto power. Nelson Mandela, who was arrested, but released, in August for leading an anti-apartheid rally that nearly turned into a riot, is made Prime Minister of South Africa after a bitter vote in a nearly 50-50 parliament. President Charles R. Swart, who has been a staunch defender of apartheid, is not happy about this turn of events.

Event Date: 11-07-1962
Event Description: The midterm elections a re a wash. The Democrats retain control of both houses of Congress, while the Republicans pick up a few seats. In Missouri, Attorney General Thomas Eagleton, a moderate Democrat, is elected to the Senate in the one Senate pick-up the Democrats have that night. In Iowa, Governor Nile Kinnick is easily reelected to a seventh term. He is eyeing the GOP presidential nomination in 1964. Californian’s Richard Nixon and William Knowland are reelected as well. Both seem likely to enter the 1964 Presidential Election.   

[Robespierre's Jaw]

As you know PBrunsel I really, really love this TL. I am looking forward to the 1964 Presidential Election. I wonder who will get the nomination on both sides. I hope that Rockefeller will on the GOP side and Vice President Symington on the Democratic side. Hopefully that envolves a Rockefeller victory. Apart from looking forward to the '64 Election I am looking forward to Sam Giancana's revenge on President Kennedy? Assassination anyone?

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-01-1963
Event Description: Seeking to diminish the threat of a “world apocalypse” in this era of mistrust between East and West, British Foreign Minister Alec Douglas-Home introduces a treaty ending all nuclear testing on the ground. The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty will be ratified by all European atomic powers. The United States and China are both hesitant to sign on, but by March 1963 they both will have joined the treaty.

Event Date: 1-10-1963
Event Description: President Kennedy signs the Marcy Act. Representative William Marcy’s (Democrat of Alabama) law that ends the clause of the Percy Legal Reform Act that gives all accused persons the right to a lawyer. “It’s high time that taxpayers stop carrying the bill for criminals,” Kennedy declares as he signs the act. Former President Dewey declares that Kennedy has committed, “A travesty.”

Event Date: 1-12-1963
Event Description: Ever since the Dewey-Warren Blackmail Scandal in 1954, former Attorney General Earl Warren has been keeping quiet. Currently, he works as an ACLU attorney in Los Angeles. Today, however he is asked by his old boss, President Thomas Dewey, to sue the government to retain attorneys for all accused citizens. He accepts the case.     

Event Date: 3-18-1963
Event Description:  Former Attorney General Earl Warren begins to help his legacy and his name by winning the case of Ramirez v. U.S. Government. Aljandro Ramirez, an out of work taxi driver who killed his brother-in-law in December 1962, was stripped of an attorney soon after the Congress repealed that right. Warren argued that this violated several constitutional, laws, and thus the repeal of the law itself was unconstitutional. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agrees, and so will the Supreme Court in October 1963.

Event Date: 4-01-1963
Event Description: Former President Ngo Dinh Diem attempts a coup against the socialist government of President Lê Duẩn in Vietnam. The coup is successful thanks to the backing of the CIA. Diem is installed as the new “president” in Vietnam and Duẩn is killed by the military. One of the Canton Pact’s members is now gone. This victory, though a silent one, is one that President Kennedy feels is quite important in the Cold War.

Event Date: 4-22-1963
Event Description: Mayor James Daley of Chicago, Illinois, calls President Kennedy at the White House. “Mr. President,” Daley tells the president with unusual respect, “Your war on organized crime has devastated the party here in Cook County. We’ve got the reform guys trying to kill the regulars. Things look bad for 1964. You’ve got to visit.” Alarmed by this call, President Kennedy tells Daley that he will try and visit in early May. “You better,” Mayor Daley warns, “Unless you want Rocky to take Illinois next year.” President Kennedy tells his wife that they will travel to Chicago on May 6th, 1963. “I was hoping to take a much needed break that week,” Kennedy sighs, “But I am the head of my party. I better go.”

Event Date: 5-05-1963
Event Description: President Kennedy’s second son James, a 19-year old law student at Harvard University, is seriously injured in a car accident. He and three friends are hit on a Boston freeway by a drunk driver. James, though seriously wounded, is still alive, unlike his two companions who died on impact. President Kennedy clears his whole schedule to stay with his son until he comes out of a coma. Vice-President Stuart Symington is sent to Chicago to help stabilize the party for the next election.

Event Date: 5-06-1963
Event Description: Vice-President Stuart Symington and his wife Sylvia land at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. He is greeted by Mayor Daley and Senator Paul Douglas, both loyal Democrats. “I heard about what happened to the President’s kid,” Senator Douglas tells Symington, “I hope he pulls through.” “I know he will,” Symington tells the Senator, “The president told me he was improving as I left.” The press has not been told of the accident for fear it would make Americans fear their president was too upset over the accident to run the country. After all, he did cancel his entire week to care for his child. Only Symington, Daley, Douglas and certain physicians at Washington Memorial Hospital know about the accident. The grand parade down Main Street in Chicago tomorrow will go on as planned, with the crowds expecting President Kennedy.

Event Date: 5-07-1963
Event Description: Vice-President Stuart Symington is assassinated as he and his wife walk down Main Street in Chicago, Illinois. Mobster Joseph Aiuppa, Sam Giancana’s lieutenant in the Chicago crime world, arranged the hit for President Kennedy to avenge his boss’ arrest. However, he was caught by surprise when the president didn’t show on May 6th. He decided to “whack” Symington as revenge anyway. The assassin, Giancana henchman Vincent Alo, is arrested that night as he tries to flee the city. In Washington, President Kennedy’s son James wakes from his coma to see his dad sobbing. “What’s with the tears pop?” is the first thing James mumbles out. “Tears of joy and sadness,” is all the president can say.

Event Date: 5-08-1963
Event Description: The body of Vice-President Stuart Symington arrives in Washington, D.C., aboard Air Force One. President Kennedy and his family await the airplane and hug Sylvia Symington and her three children as they leave the plane. “He took the bullet for his president,” Sylvia tells President Kennedy, “I think he would have been proud of what he did for you.” “I am sure of it,” says Kennedy, who rarely, if ever, cries, but now can’t stop. The nation itself mourners the death of the folksy, yet stately, Vice-President Stuart Symington, with Ronald Reagan leading the chorus of mourners with his usual eloquence. “We can not know the plan of almighty God,” Reagan declares that night as he closes the NBC Nightly News, “In his wisdom he has chosen to take from us one of the brightest, kindest and most able public servants the United States ever had the please to call a public servant. Even though Stuart Symington leaves us for the great beyond, we will never forget the integrity and ingenuity he showed every office he served in, and try to keep his memory alive by serving our nation with as much integrity and ingenuity Vice-President Symington always gave us. May God be with his family, and may God bless America.”

Event Date: 5-09-1963
Event Description:  Reggie Jackson, a senior football and baseball star at Cheltenham High School outside Philadelphia, was unable to fall asleep all last night. The words of Ronald Reagan, “and try to keep his memory alive by serving our nation with as much integrity and ingenuity Vice-President Symington always gave us,” rang through his head all night. He decides that he, like Vice-President Symington, will serve his nation before himself. He begins to work with his guidance counselor to get him an appointment to West Point Military Academy. He feels that he can best serve his nation while in the military.

Today, the funeral of Vice-President Stuart Symington is held in Washington, D.C. The late Vice-President is given full honors by the U.S. Government. Eulogies are given by President Kennedy, former Senator Harry Truman and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn.

Event Date: 5-18-1963
Event Description: Following more than week of mourning and remembrance for Vice-President Symington, President Kennedy, still shaken by the loss of his faithful Veep, begins to contemplate who to appoint to the office of Vice-President. He has three men in mind for the office. The three men are all Senators, Barry Goldwater (Democrat of Arizona), Absalom Robertson (Democrat of Virginia) and Albert Gore (Democrat of Tennessee). He and his brother Bobby, after a night of discussion, agree on one of the men by the time the sun rises.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 5-19-1963
Event Description: “Today,” President Kennedy announces in a Rose Garden address, “I am proud to announce that the man I will nominate for the next Vice-President of the United States is someone who the late Vice-President Symington considered a friend and statesman, Senator Albert Arnold Gore of Tennessee.” After Gore gives a few remarks about how he “humbly accepts the nomination” he and the president go to a White House lunch. The Senate is expected to easily confirm Senator Gore.

Event Date: 5-21-1963
Event Description: As the Senate begins the confirmation hearings for Senator Gore, Rachael Carson and Harry Truman begin a battle against the nomination in the nation’s newspapers. “Senator Gore, despite the evidence in Silent Spring, refused to support a bill that would outlaw dangerous pesticides in nature,” Truman writes to the New York Post, “Gore is just as damn contrary as any Southern Democrat you could pull out an old hat.” Despite these attacks on Gore’s anti-environmental record, very few Democrats in the Senate care about this issue.

Event Date: 5-22-1963
Event Description: As Senator Albert Gore is confirmed for the Vice-Presidency, Emmett Till graduates from the University of Chicago with a major in business administration.

Event Date: 6-19-1963
Event Description: FBI Director Averell Harriman (appointed by President Kennedy in 1957) announces his resignation from office. President Kennedy nominates his brother Robert Kennedy, an FBI agent since 1959, for the position. This enrages many more senior agents. However, President Kennedy stands by his decision. “Robert Kennedy has risen in the ranks of the FBI remarkably quickly,” he tells the press, “He knows the FBI and he knows how to use it to make this nation and world a better place.” Privately, Kennedy tells his wife Evelyn, “Bobby is perfect for the job. He is ruthless and secretive. Hitler should have appointed him Gestapo chief.”

Event Date: 6-20-1963
Event Description: Robert Francis Kennedy is easily confirmed to be the new Director of the FBI. At age 38, RFK, as he is known by the press, is the youngest head of a government agency in the nation’s history. He is confident that he can make a competent FBI Director. Immediately, he begins to work on expanding government surveillance programs. 

Event Date: 7-12-1963
Event Description: With the urging of President Kennedy, the South African Liberation Act is passed by Congress. This act calls for apartheid, the segregation law in South Africa, to be overturned. Senator Everett Dirksen (Republican of Illinois) authored the act declaring, “No power is stronger than an idea whose time has come.” The US officially sets an embargo on South African goods and calls for Prime Minister Nelson Mandela to continue the fight against apartheid.

Event Date: 7-20-1963
Event Description: From China with Love premiers in American theatres. With Sean Connery as the debonair spy James Bond, the film shows the Chinese government as one dominated by intrigue and espionage. Chinese President Deng Xiaoping calls the film “ridiculous” but American love the film as much as previous Bond films.

Event Date: 8-28-1963
Event Description: Dr. Martin Luther King takes his anti-poverty message to Washington, D.C. He calls for a “War on Poverty” and booms to the crowd of over 250,000 onlookers, “I have a dream that one day this country, the land of plenty, will no longer have hungry children going to bed at night with their minds full of despair and their stomachs filled with nothing.” King’s “I Have a Dream” speech will be remembered as one of the greatest in history. However, President Kennedy is not moved by King’s eloquence. He feels that King is a troublemaker and would-be socialist agent for China. He orders his brother, FBI Director Robert Kennedy, to tap King’s phones to find, “Something seamy about the man. He can’t be a saint.” “I’ll take him down, Joe,” Bobby assures the President, “That I can assure you.”

Event Date: 10-21-1963
Event Description: Apartheid is outlawed in South Africa. The American lead international embargo against the nation forced President Charles Swart to resign, and thus Prime Minster Mandela became president and immediately used executive authority to end over 30-years of racist law in the African nation.

Event Date: 11-01-1963
Event Description: Governor William Knowland of California announces his candidacy for President of the United States. Having run in 1952 and 1960, some feel the game is getting a bit old. Cartoonist Herb Block draws a cartoon of Knowland speaking from a podium that reads “{Knowland for President” with ’52 and ’60 crossed out and ’64 added in. Below the cartoon he quotes Albert Einstein, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.”

Event Date: 12-31-1963
Event Description: Vice-President Albert Gore announces his candidacy for President of the United States. He has the backing of President Kennedy and most of the Democratic Party. However, he is not the only man to seek the office for the Democrats. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, a favorite of businessmen, has announced for the White House. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina is a candidate as well. The Democratic field is one of Senators in 1964. The Republicans do not have this characteristic. There leading candidates are Governors Nile Kinnick of Iowa, Nelson Rockefeller of New York and William Knowland of California. Senator Richard Nixon is the only senator in the race for the Republicans.

[Robespierre's Jaw]

RIP Vice President Stuart W. Symington. Why couldn't it be President Kennedy? Continues to be very entertaining and enjoyable. I can't wait for the 1964 Presidential Election! As long as Governor Knowland isn't elected I shall be a very happy man.

[PBrunsel]

I want to thank you Rocky for your kind words about my timeline. You always make them and I appreciate it greatly.

However, when will your own fine timeline continue?

[Robespierre's Jaw]

However, when will your own fine timeline continue?

Probably tomorrow. A late Christmas present for all of those fans of the TL. What will happen in the Suez Crisis? Who will become President in 1960? Find out Soon! Sorry for the cross-advertising.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-29-1964
Event Description: The Iowa Caucus is held, with Governor Kinnick winning an easy victory. The Democrats didn’t bother having a caucus in Iowa. The caucus has not caught on as a way of selecting a candidate for president. Despite Governor Kinnick’s landslide win in Iowa, it has no effect on other primaries.

Event Date: 3-10-1964
Event Description: The New Hampshire Primary names front-runners for both parties. On the Democratic side, Vice-President Gore bests Senators Goldwater and Thurmond by a large margin. Goldwater swears to stay in the race until the very end. On the GOP side, Governor Rockefeller is narrowly beaten by Senator Nixon. Nixon’s campaign for low taxes appealed greatly to denizens of the Live Free or Die State. Governors Knowland and Kinnick finish third and fourth, but neither drop out of the race.

Event Date: 4-05-1964
Event Description:   Nixon, Rockefeller and Kinnick debate at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Governor Knowland is excluded from the debate due to low poll numbers. Rockefeller makes a case for a "detente" with the Chinese. "If we act belligerent we will be hated," Rockefeller advises, "If we are accepting we will be welcomed." Nixon states, "Any working with the Reds for 'peace' is regressive in our war with the evils of Eastern Socialism." Governor Kinnick, who leads in Wisconsin, calls himself, “The farmer’s candidate.” He supports more aid to farmers stricken by an ongoing drought as well as an increase of Midwestern grain being used for humanitarian aid. “President Hoover told the world that America must be the world’s breadbasket,” Kinnick reminds the Republican audience, “That is why we must remain the strongest agricultural power on Earth.”

The debate is overshadowed, however, by the death of former President Douglas MacArthur. He passes away at his home in Milton, Wisconsin, at the age of 84, making him one of the oldest presidents ever. He will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, with his old army buddies Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, James Doolittle and Joseph Kennedy serving as pallbearers. “As we lay General MacArthur to rest,” President Kennedy will say in his funeral eulogy, “Let us remember the words of that old barrack song, ‘Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.’”

Event Date: 4-07-1964
Event Description: Governor Kinnick wins the Wisconsin Primary by a wide margin. His appeal to the agricultural base lead to his comfortable win, with Senator Nixon and Governor Romney coming up second and third. Poor Governor Knowland polls a mere 1%. On the Democratic side, Senator Barry Goldwater upsets Vice-President Gore by winning the primary 43-31% with Senator Thurmond taking 26%. Goldwater’s strong support of the military helped him in a state with a large number of military families.

Event Date: 4-08-1964
Event Description: Following an upset to Senator Goldwater in the Wisconsin Primary, Vice-President Gore meets with Senator Thurmond in Dayton, Ohio, the site of a nearing primary. He tells Thurmond that their campaigns are splitting the conservative Southern voice. “Unless we want the Democratic Party to move its power out West,” Gore warns Thurmond, “We are going to have to stop one of our campaigns.” Thurmond refuses to drop out. ‘I’ll end my campaign when hell freezes over.” “You better bring a sweater when you die then,” is Gore’s shrill response. The Veep swears that Thurmond will end his campaign by the Ohio Primary on April 22nd, 1964.

Event Date: 4-12-1964
Event Description: President Kennedy signs the Energy Act of 1964. Introduced by Senator Ernest Gruening (Democrat of Alaska), the act opens up acres of Alaskan wilderness to future drilling. Despite outrage by environmental leaders, President Kennedy’s decision is widely applauded by members of both parties and a populace who have a need for cars. “Americans are motorists,” Kennedy explains as he signs the bill, “We need the fuel to keep our culture moving.”

Event Date: 4-13-1964
Event Description: With the Illinois Primary a day away, a whisper campaign is begun against Governor Kinnick by a very right-winged Christian activist named Fred Phelps. With a printing press in Topeka, Kansas, Phelps cranked out over 1 million pamphlets attacking Kinnick’s religion of Christian Science. “Governor Kinnick’s religion is strange and out of line with mainstream religion,” the pamphlet begins, “It is inspired by the devil, and those who follow it represent a subversive sect in the United States.” This campaign is continued by members of the Nixon campaign. While “Tricky Dick” does not encourage (or criticize) the hate campaign, Governor Rockefeller blasts it as, “A wicked and vicious smear against an able and kind man.” He and Governor Kinnick meet in Rockford, Illinois, that night and condemn the bigoted attacks. “I will add this,” Rockefeller says, “Senator Nixon should do the decent thing and condemn this campaign as well.” Nixon gives a brief response calling such tactics, “Despicable” but he does not fire those in his campaign staff who helped spread the hate filled pamphlets.     

Event Date: 4-14-1964
Event Description: Governor Nelson Rockefeller upsets Governor Kinnick in the Illinois Primary. Senator Nixon, who finishes third, is hurt by charges of bigotry after his lukewarm response to Phelps’s hate campaign against Kinnick. Governor Knowland, who fails to clear 2% of the vote, drops out of the race. “It’s clear the country does not want me in the White House,” he tells his supporters that night, “Who can blame them? This face isn’t meant for an era of television.” The public applauds his gracious bow out, and Knowland’s endorsement of Nixon will help the Senator in states heavy with military veterans, whom always came out in force for Knowland. On the Democratic side, Senator Goldwater outpaces Vice-President Gore once again. Barry takes 49% to Gore’s 36% and Thurmond’s 15%. Senator Thurmond and Vice-President Gore did well in Southern Illinois, while Goldwater easily took Northern and most of Central Illinois. Gore’s campaign is heading downhill. He needs an issue to win the election for him, but none seem in sight.

Event Date: 4-21-1964
Event Description: New Jersey votes in its primary, and Governor Rockefeller is the easy winner. Senator Nixon takes second place with Governor Kinnick in a long third place. Nixon, like Gore, needs an issue to take the lead. He gets his campaign manager, Pat Buchanan, to try to find some dirt on Rockefeller. Vice-President Gore stops his decline in the campaign by winning the primary in a landslide over Goldwater. Several campaign swings by President Kennedy helped the struggling Gore take the lead.

Event Date: 4-22-1964
Event Description: With the endorsement of Governor James A. Rhodes (Republican of Ohio) behind him, Senator Richard Nixon wins the Ohio Primary. The Buckeye State is connected to Nixon, as his father was born and raised there. Senator Goldwater bests Vice-President Gore in the Democratic Ohio Primary. 

Event Date: 4-25-1964
Event Description: Pat Buchanan runs into the Nixon Headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio. “Its JFK for the GOP!” he tells Senator Nixon, preparing to go to a rally. “What do you mean Pat?” Buchanan outlines that he has been told by “a reliable source” that Rockefeller, despite his divorce and remarriage earlier in 1964, may still be committing an affair with several members of his staff in Albany. Nixon tells Pat to leak the information. “Even if it isn’t true,” Nixon explains to Buchanan, “The bad press will keep him preoccupied from any other campaigning and that’ll be suicide for the elections on the 28th.”

Event Date: 4-26-1964
Event Description: “Rockefeller’s Marriage Woes” reads the New York Post. Despite the rumors of Rockefeller’s marital infidelity, even after his divorce and remarriage this year, being unfounded at best, the Governor’s polls in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania take a drastic hit. Governor William Scranton (Republican of Pennsylvania), a Rockefeller supporter, calls the report, “As sickening an article that has ever been released by a paper.” Ronald Reagan, though no Rockefeller fan, comes to the Governor’s aide by calling the report trash. “No self respecting fish would want to be wrapped in this tripe,” Reagan jokes with his audience. Senator Nixon has a field day with the news. “The Governor’s Kennedy values make him unable to lead the Republican Party. Not only do his high taxing ways disqualify him, so does his disrespect for marriage and morality in general.” This blistering attack is mouthed by Nixon several times today, and it affects the polls greatly. His and Buchanan’s plan to form a bogus issue has worked well.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 4-28-1964
Event Description: The Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Primaries are held. Senator Nixon and Governor Rockefeller battle it out in both states, which is a loss for Rockefeller. He had expected to win both states by large margins. Nixon wins Pennsylvania, despite Scranton’s endorsement of Rocky. Rockefeller wins Massachusetts, but with only 52% of the vote. Vice-President Gore beats Goldwater and Thurmond in both states.       

Event Date: 5-01-1964
Event Date: President Kennedy travels to China. He and President Xiaoping are expected to sign a treaty limiting nuclear testing and reach a treaty of, “understanding on the responsibilities of the nuclear age.” Kennedy’s trip to China makes him the first incumbent U.S. President to visit the world’s most populous nation. Secretary of States James Byrnes opposed the mission, but President Kennedy overrode the man. Byrnes has since been replaced as Secretary of State by Dean Acheson. This trip makes Kennedy appear more like a peace maker, and boosts Vice-President Gore’s campaign. He now can appear like the man best suited to continue the Kennedy, “Legacy of peace.”

Event Date: 5-03-1964
Event Description: As Nixon and Gore in the Texas Primary, President Kennedy and Xiaoping sign the Mutual Peace Agreement. This pact declares that a nuclear war can not be won and must never be fought. Ronald Reagan calls the act, “A suicide pact” and that Kennedy is, “A useful idiot for Chinese propaganda.” However, Vice-President Gore and Governor Rockefeller applaud the agreement as one that will insure a world free from the fear of nuclear destruction.” “The Kennedy Administration, despite its many flaws,” Governor Rockefeller states at a rally in Indianapolis, Indiana, “Will be remembered as a peace making government because of this agreement.”

Event Date: 5-05-1964
Event Description: Governor Kinnick, who has been out of the headlines for a while, wins the Indiana Primary by a narrow margin over Senator Nixon. Nixon had tried to campaign on Kennedy and Rockefeller, “Selling out our security to the delusion of peace with Socialist powers,” declares that his campaign is still strong. Kinnick’s appeal to agricultural voters is still very strong. Governor Rockefeller, who has been wounded since the rumors of marital infidelity have been swirling in the press, declares that he will stay in the race until the Oregon Primary. The Democratic side of the primary is a big win for Vice-President Gore. Kennedy’s visit to China and the positive press about the journey has helped him appear as the best man to inherit a legacy of peaceful coexistence with China.

Event Date: 5-12-1964
Event Description: Senator Nixon wins big in Nebraska and West Virginia’s Primaries. Governor Kinnick had hoped for a win in Nebraska, being a farm state, but Nixon’s strong support from Omaha bankers helped him overtake rural voters. Kinnick, now running up a massive campaign debt, ends his quest for the White House. “We tried,” he tells his supporters that night, “The fight still continues. When I lost a football game back when I was in college, I would tell myself, ‘I tried, and trying will always pay off in the end.’ Make no mistakes, America, this football star will be back top play again!” Kinnick will throw his support behind Governor Rockefeller. Vice-President Gore is beaten by Goldwater in Nebraska, but wins West Virginia. Senator Thurmond had spent a great deal of money on wining West Virginia. His third place finish proves to him he can’t win and he drops out, but endorses Senator Goldwater, throwing a curveball into the Gore Campaign.

Event Date: 5-14-1964
Event Description: Vice-President Gore and Senator Goldwater are neck-and-neck in the polls in Oregon, to be held tomorrow. Much like against Kinnick, a whisper campaign is begun against Senator Goldwater. He is attacked as being a Jew, which is half true. NBC’s Ronald Reagan comes to the aid of Goldwater that night on the NBC Nightly News. “We have seen the 1964 Campaign unfold as one filled with bigotry and hate on both sides of the aisle,” Reagan tells his audience, “I fervently pray and hope that the smears and poison of this campaign can be ended and positive messages unveiled.” Reagan’s words make sense to most Americans, and Goldwater shoots ahead in Oregon.

Event Date: 5-15-1964
Event Description: The Oregon Primary proves to be an important contest. Governor Rockefeller, having ran on the New Day and practically moved to the state, defeats Senator Nixon by a narrow margin. His 51-49% win is not seen as a win, as the state was far more in touch with his liberal ideals. Nixon is the front-runner for the GOP nomination. Senator Goldwater defeats Vice-President Gore once again, this time by a 63-37% margin. Goldwater and Nixon have been able to use the growing power of the West to benefit their campaigns.

Event Date: 5-19-1964
Event Description: Calamity hits the Gore Campaign as Senator George Smathers (Democrat of Florida) endorses Senator Goldwater. “He’s just sunk us in the South,” Gore Campaign manager Moon Landrieu tells Gore while pulling out his hair, “We are done, Al, we are just done.” Senator Nixon is helped by an endorsement from Yankees pitcher Fidel Castro. In a rally in Panama City, Florida, Castro declares that Nixon “Has the best plan to save our working class in America. He is committed to low taxes and business growth. Senator Nixon speaks for the future!”

Event Date: 5-19-1964
Event Description: Senators Goldwater and Nixon take big wins in Florida. Vice-President Albert Gore, having lost a Southern state that he expected to carry easily, drops out of the race. He does not give a concession address, and simply tells the press, “I’m not licked.” Senator Nixon’s big win gives him the lead in delegates, but he’ll have to win Maryland in a week to really wound Governor Rockefeller. “A win in Rocky’s backyard will end his hopes for the nomination,” Pat Buchanan tells Nixon, “We can take it with just a little Red baiting.”

Event Date: 5-23-1964
Event Description: Senator Nixon attacks President Kennedy and Governor Rockefeller of, “Coddling the communist elements in China.” In a rally held at a Baltimore high school, Senator Nixon claims that Rockefeller is, “Squishy soft on China.” Governor Rockefeller is helped by Baltimore County Executive Spiro Agnew, a strong Rockefeller supporter.  “Nixon’s screwy,” he declares at a Rockefeller rally that night, “He is trying to scare people into voting for him. Dick Nixon is not a statesman, he is a chameleon. He is no more ant-Chinese than anyone else. However, he views this issue as one to hit the Governor on, so now he is anti-Chinese.” Nixon and Rockefeller are running in a statistical tie in Maryland. This primary will decide if Rocky is still a credible candidate.

Event Date: 5-26-1964
Event Description: Senator Nixon wins the Maryland Primary, ending the presidential campaign of Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Nixon’s anti-tax and anti-Eastern establishment campaign proved too much for Rockefeller, the man who seemed the heir of President Dewey’s New Day legacy. Senator Goldwater wins Maryland, as well. A last second campaign by Vice-President Gore failed to gain traction. Goldwater and Nixon, two men who detest each other, represent the power of the West in American politics. California and South Dakota will vote for the two Senators by a landslide in a week, cementing their claims for the nomination.

Event Date: 7-13-1964
Event Description: Senator Richard Nixon is nominated for President of the United States at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco, California. With his mother Hannah watching proudly from the stands, Senator Nixon tells the Republicans that the era of Kennedy, “Is done and over.” “Let me make this crystal clear,” he tells the convention, “We can achieve what President Dewey did in the 1950s. We can have low taxes, a balanced budget and continue progressive policies. The only way to do that, my fellow Americans, is to stop this reckless military and Pentagon binge that President Kennedy has been engaged in for eight years.” Nixon attacks Goldwater as the, “Number one choice of the Pentagon bid spenders,” and that the Arizona senator, “Will reverse our nation to the 1890s. His views on civil rights are right out of the book of Grover Cleveland.” Senator Nixon is paired with Senator Margaret Chase-Smith of Maine to appeal to Eastern Republicans who supported Rockefeller.

Event Date: 8-11-1964
Event Description: The Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, gives its presidential nomination to Senator Barry Morris Goldwater of Arizona. Goldwater, needing he needs to appeal to the South after his bitter race against Vice-President Gore, names Secretary of Defense William Westmoreland as his running-mate. A native son of South Carolina, Westmoreland is beloved in the South for his gruff, John Wayne like way of taking charge. His Defense Department has beefed up the military, and has given the South a great many jobs. Senator Goldwater blasts Senator Nixon as, “A liar who wears more masks than a kid on Halloween.” “Richard Nixon is no agent of reform,” he warns the country, “He offers only smoke and mirrors. He promises low taxes with a balanced budget, along with continual military spending. I don’t know how he’s going to do that, and neither does he!” The 1964 Election is off to a vicious start.     

[Robespierre's Jaw]

Very interesting tickets. If only the Democrats nominated Goldwater in RL. That would be scary but yet hilarious at the same time. I'm rooting for Nixon/Smith in 1964. I really hope that the Goldwater/Westmoreland ticket crashes and burns. Continue the excellent work .

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 8-20-1964
Event Description: Senator Nixon and Governor Rockefeller meet in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in an awkward showing of party unity after a bitter primary battle. Governor Rockefeller, still tarnished from charges of adultery in April, reserves his speech mostly to praise Nixon’s record on civil rights and opposition to Pentagon pork. “I know that the legacy of Tom Dewey will be upheld by a President Richard Nixon!” booms Rocky as he and Nixon raise interlocked hands on the stage. Not since before the 1962 midterms has the GOP been so united. Victory can be sensed by Nixon, and campaign manager Patrick Buchanan.

Event Date: 8-31-1964
Event Description: Despite the waste and corruption of President Khrushchev, the Russian Republic detonates its first atomic bomb in Siberia. The technology and resources came from China, causing a damper on Kennedy’s “peace with China” trip in April. Senator Nixon declares that Kennedy’s policy “Is a valid one that simply needs some teeth to it.” Senator Goldwater has an entirely different idea on how to deal with the Chinese.     

Event Date: 9-01-1964
Event Description: In a nationally televised speech, Senator Goldwater declares that China is still a threat to American security, as is Russia. “Russia and China have the atomic bomb,” Goldwater tells the country, “Our very existence as a capitalism is threatened by these two atomic Socialist powers.” Goldwater applauds President Kennedy’s increases of military spending as, “Peace through strength.” He also opens up a new front in the Cold War. “As freedom loving capitalist Americans,,” he tells Americans, “It is our moral duty to free the oppressed peoples of Socialist nations.” Ronald Reagan cheers Goldwater on his radio show as, “A true American hero. He realizes that to live under Socialism is a cruse worse than death. I know not of others, but I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.” Goldwater and Reagan’s belligerent speeches are not widely accepted by the nation’s voters. The country has not been at war since 1937 and really do not want a full scale land conflict against China. Senator Nixon, seen as a peaceful candidate, shoots up in the polls.

Event Date: 9-19-1964
Event Description: Reggie Jackson, a recent graduate of Cheltenham High, begins his time at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point. He plays freshman football and excels in history and Latin. In October, former secretary of defense Dwight Eisenhower, a huge football fan who played quarterback for West Point until a knee injury ended his career, will see Jackson’s skills with the pigskin and remark, “Anyone who can play football that well should be president.” After being told by his son John that that assertion didn’t name any sense, Ike responds, “Son, most of the reasons that guys run for president don’t make any sense.”

Event Date: 10-15-1964
Event Description: The Russian Parliament, the Duma, completes its investigation of a corruption scandal involving President Nikita Khrushchev. The vote for imp0eachment proves to be nearly unanimous. Nikita’s wastes of government funds for pet projects as well as the money his friends have pilfered from the treasury make him a very unpopular fellow. Asked by a reporter from the newspaper Izvestia for a comment, Khrushchev says, "If you feed the people with revolutionary slogans, they will be with you today, and they will be with you tomorrow, and they will be with you the day after tomorrow. But if revolutionary slogans are all you use to feed them, the next day, they will say, 'To hell with you.'" He is replaced by Vice-President Yuri Andropov, who is clean of any scandals. The end of the Khrushchev Administration has taken wind out of the sails of Senator Goldwater’s anti-Russian campaign.

Event Date: 10-17-1964
Event Description: Following a Gallup Poll showing him 9-points behind Nixon, Senator Goldwater challenges “Tricky Dick” to a televised debate. Knowing his appearance is not a good one for television, Senator Nixon, acting on advice from Pat Buchanan, turns down the challenge. “I will not lower myself to debate with a man like Goldwater,” is all Nixon tells the press. “I wonder why Richard the Chickenhearted won’t debate me.” Goldwater jokes with the press, “He can talk two ways better than any other fellow I know? Maybe he will just debate himself?”

Event Date: 10-24-1964
Event Description: Former President Herbert Clark Hoover dies in his sleep at the age of 90, a year short of tying John Adams for the longest lived president. He dies peacefully at his home in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City. The country, who has named Hoover a great president several times, begins a long period of mourning and remembrance for President Hoover. Even Ronald Reagan, whose first vote was for Cordell Hull in 1932 in opposition to the Hoover Administration, calls Hoover, “An American Horatio Alger.” President Hoover will be laid to rest at his presidential library in West Branch, Iowa, beside his wife’s grave. “He has worked very hard,” Pastor James Walker of West Branch eulogizes at the funeral, “He has endured.”   

Event Date: 11-03-1964
Event Description: Senator Richard Nixon is elected President of the United States, with Senator Margaret Chase-Smith as the first female vice-president. His progressive campaign matched with fiscal conservatism appealed to a people tired of Kennedy deficits and expansion of the nation’s military machine.

Richard Nixon/Margaret Chase-Smith (R): 358 EV; 55.3% of the PV
Barry Goldwater/William Westmoreland (D): 180 EV; 43.4% of the PV
Others (Socialist Workers, Prohibition, etc.): 0 EV; 1.3% of the PV

The Congressional elections are a big win for the Republicans. They take both houses. Democratic fatigue has set in, and the American people simply wanted a change in leadership. Senators Nixon and Smith start a new administration, full of hope for the future of both their party, and, more importantly, the nation. 

[Robespierre's Jaw]

I'm looking forward to the Nixon Presidency. Very nicely done PBrunsel .

[PBrunsel]

The Presidency of Richard M. Nixon

Event Date: 1-10-1965
Event Description: With great jubilation, the Republican Party takes control of the 89th Congress. House Minority Leader Gerald Rudolph Ford (Republican of Michigan) fulfills his dream of becoming Speaker of the House, with Representative Wendell Wyatt (Republican of Oregon) being named the House Majority Leader. The Democrats, now in the minority, name Carl Albert as their Minority Leader. In the Senate, Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (Republican of Illinois) is given a promotion, as Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson (Democrat of Texas) is forced into a demotion. Ford and Dirksen, both moderate progressives, declare that, “The New Day has risen again.” 

Event Date: 1-20-1965
Event Description: Richard Milhous Nixon is sworn in as President of the United States. “My fellow Americans,” he states in his inaugural address, “We can have peace in our time with both ourselves and other nations.” Margaret Chase-Smith is inaugurated as the first female Vice-President of the United States, but her good friend, Senate Majority Leader Everett Dirksen, still tells her that she’s not going to make the national flower the rose. “Even though you’re the vice-president!” the wordy Dirksen tells her at the Inaugural Ball, “The marigold will still be better than the rose!” Everyone in the new Nixon Administration seems energized by the prospect of a new day for America. President Nixon’s cabinet is comprised of progressives from all parts of the country. Dewey’s Attorney General, William Rogers, is the new Secretary of State; General Omar Bradley is appointed Secretary of Defense; David M. Kennedy is made the first Mormon Secretary of the Treasury, and Patrick J. Buchanan, Nixon’s 26-year old campaign manager, is appointed White House Communications Director. Buchanan and Nixon will form an alliance so strong and hard to surpass that Senator Hubert Humphrey (Republican of Minnesota) will nickname it, “The Great Wall.”     

Event Date: 1-21-1965
Event Description: President Nixon meets with FBI Director Robert Kennedy. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Junior, is planning another “poverty march” throughout the Southwest, and Nixon doesn’t like it. “Don’t worry Mr. President,” Kennedy tells Nixon, “I’ve got just the stuff to take out King.” CIA agent Howard Hunt has been working for Kennedy secretly for six months. By bugging King’s hotel phones and spying on him from a black Buick, he has found out that King cheats on his wife and abuses alcohol. He also has begun a massive investigation into the political past of King’s close friends, and found out that the Reverend Ralph Abernathy was a card carrying member of the Socialist Party for ten years. When to release this information is the $10,000 question, but Kennedy assures Nixon, “I’ll take down King and turn his dream into a nightmare.”

Event Date: 1-24-1965
Event Description: Former British Prime Minster Winston Churchill dies in Toronto, Canada, home of his self-imposed exile from the British Isles. The “never surrender” Prime Minster of 1940 was once considered a war monger and, in the words of John Kennedy’s Profile in Foolishness, “A drunk who couldn’t take reality,” many now realize that Churchill was leading a crusade for democracy against Nazi tyranny. President Nixon, as is his duty, declares the nation in a state of mourning for, “The iron willed Prime Minster.” Nixon’s chief aide does not agree. “Churchill was a drunken fool,” Pat Buchanan mumbles to Nixon’s secretary Rosemary Woods, “He better be buried, if he’s cremated the body will burn forever.”

Event Date: 2-03-1965
Event Description: President Nixon signs the Environmental Protection Agency Establishment Act. The EPA is established to protect the nation’s environment from polluters. President Nixon appoints former Senator Harry Truman to be the first Chairman of the EPA. At first, Truman does not want the job, but Nixon is able to coerce him into the position by telling him over the phone, “Harry, if you want to split the Republican Party at the beginning of a new administration that’s your business.” “If that’s the case!” Truman declares, “Than I’ll have to accept. But why the hell didn’t you tell me at first?” Truman gets down to work to clean up the nation as Nixon smiles approvingly.

Event Date: 2-08-1965
Event Description: Ranger 8 returns pictures of the dark side of the Moon to the USA. President Nixon calls on Congress to increase funding for NASA. In Germany, Chancellor Speer calls the American photo ship, “A funny little exercise.” German rocket scientists are, secretly, completing a rocket that will take German astronauts to the Moon, perhaps by 1967.

Event Date: 2-10-1965
Event Description: Representative Robert J. Dole (Republican of Kansas) introduces the Defense Reform Act. Like many “reform” acts of the past, this one overturns a previous administration’s fiscal policy. Dole, an army veteran who was stationed in China after the Japanese-American War, pounces that President Kennedy’s military buildup, “Was, and still is, unfounded saber rattling.” Dole’s plan cuts 1/3rd of the military budget for the 1966-1967 fiscal year, with the money saved going to space exploration and Social Security (along with other social programs). President Nixon, who looks for a balanced budget for 1966, applauds the program for its fiscal restraint. Senate Majority Leader Dirksen declares that the act will pass the Senate, “If it takes all winter and we have to sleep on the floor.”

Event Date: 2-22-1965
Event Description: “Eight years of ‘peace through strength’ has been ended today,” Ronald Reagan tells his listeners as the House and Senate approve of Dole’s defense bill, “It is to be replaced with a nation, weak in military strength and in initiative as a welfare state takes over our lives.” President Nixon, however, has no intentions of funding a large welfare state. He wants to slash taxes and spending to balance the budget and continue the relative prosperity of the Kennedy years.

Event Date: 2-27-1965
Event Description: Dr. Martin King meets with Representative Henry B. Gonzalez (Republican of Texas). Gonzales represents a heavily Latino district in Texas, which is why he is the oddity of a Republican politician in the South. King asks Gonzales to introduce a broad new Labor Act to help poor workers (especially the automotive workers and farm hands of the Southeast). It includes such things as a Minimum Wage increase, increases in workman’s compensation, paid vacations for all workers, protection of jobs for striking workers and an end of all anti-Latino job discrimination. Representative Gonzales is more than happy to sign onto the project.

Event Date: 3-02-1965
Event Description: Representative Gonzales introduces the hard-line pro-worker Labor Act of 1965. The response in the House is, as Ronald Reagan says that night, “As if Gonzales set off a powder keg in the chamber.” House Minority Leader Albert calls the act, “Something straight off the desk of Chou Enlai.” Southern and Western Democrats declare that the act will be, as Representative John Schmitz (Democrat of California) declares, “Buried deeper than the old Soviet Union, which this bill aims for our country to be like.” The John Birch Society, a very conservative organization in which Schmitz is a member, announces a march on Washington against, “Republican socialism.” President Nixon does not desire for the act to be passed. “If this thing passes,” Nixon tells First Lady Pat Nixon, “I’ll be expected to sign it, and then I’ll be tied to that socialist in Texas.”

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 3-05-1965
Event Description: Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, announces that he will lead his own march of Washington for the Labor Act. “It is a moral imperative that this act passes!” King booms, “It is a Christian duty to care for the poorest in society, and I expect Congress to remember that in the coming weeks.” In the White House, President Nixon scowls and tells Buchanan, “That man has about as much right to talk about Christian morality as that asshole Frank Roosevelt did. We’ll stop his march right in its tracks.”

Event Date: 3-07-1965
Event Description: Bloody Sunday arrives for the King anti-poverty crusade. The Nixon friendly Washington Star, the paper Buchanan used to work for, blares “SCANDALOUS NEWS FOR DR. KING!” on its headline. FBI Director Robert Kennedy releases the finding of Agent Hunt, and the damage is immense for the Reverend King. “Dr. King, an ordained minister, seems to be ignore parts of the Ten Commandments,” the paper declares, “He has had affirms with several unsavory women, including prostitutes in several major cites, and has a serious problem with drinking, which has led him into violent tirades.” Dr. King can not deny the charges, but he counterattacks the paper for, “Printing leaks that have come from shady sources.” No one has yet traced the story to Kennedy, the FBI and Nixon, but it can’t stay a secret forever.

Event Date: 3-08-1965
Event description: Dr. King, Revenant Abernathy, Reverend Jackson, Representative Andrew Young (Republican of Georgia) and Latino rights leader Cesar Chavez meet in Montgomery, Alabama, to discuss what to do next. “I’m going to have to resign from leadership in the Southern Baptist Council,” King tells his friends, “That’s the only way to save face.” Reverend Abernathy, who is targeted by the Star today for his, ties to the Socialist Party, also agrees to resign from leadership. With both of its leaders now out of power, Representative Young agrees to become the new leader of the Southern Baptist Council. For now, the organization seems to be saved from complete collapse, but FBI Director Kennedy is not finished with the group.

Event Date: 3-12-1965
Event Description: Playing off the fears of the Abraham Lincoln Society in the 1930s, Director Kennedy urges FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy to “investigate” Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where Dr. Martin Luther King is pastor. Liddy is aided by two other men, FBI agents Bernard Barker and George Rockwell, as they break into the church and take photos of the financial records and tap the phones. Kennedy hopes to find a foreign government giving funds to the Southern Baptist Council, headquarter at King’s Church.

Event Date: 3-15-1965
Event Description: On the eve of the vote on the Gonzales Labor Act, it is released to the public that the Montgomery Police have found phone tapping equipment on the phones at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The police, both black and white, report that there was a 9/11 call on the night of March 12th, 1965, of burglars at the church, but when the police arrived no one was there and the building looked fine. “We can’t be sure of who did this,” Representative Young, the Chairman of the Southern Baptist Council, tells the press, “But I know that justice will be done. Make no mistake; no force of hate can stop the battle for human rights. We shall overcome any bigotry.” President Nixon meets with Pat Buchanan, and is visibly nervous. “Pat,” he stammers, “Can this be tied to me?” “Have no fear Mr. President,” Buchanan tells him, “This can all be blamed on the FBI. Kennedy can take the fall if this comes out, don’t be nervous about that. This is FBI, Mr. President, this is purely FBI.”   

Event Date: 3-16-1965
Event Description: Amid protests from the left and right outside of Congress, the House of Representatives pass the Gonzales Labor Act. “As Representative Young told the country yesterday,” House Majority Leader Wyatt tells the chamber, “The time for human rights has come, and nothing will stop it.” Senate Majority leader Dirksen does not support this act, he, like Nixon, fears that the bill is far to liberal in nature. However, he will not aggressively oppose the act that Senator Wayne Morse (Republican of Oregon) has now co-sponsored in the Senate.

Event Date: 3-21-1965
Event Description: Despite a 25-hour filibuster from Senator Strom Thurmond (Democrat of South Carolina), the Senate votes to stop the talking, but does not pass the Gonzales-Morse Labor Act. “It’s not that I oppose Latino and worker’s rights,” Senator James Caleb Boggs (Republican of Delaware) tells the press, “I simply believe that such an act is too expensive. A balanced budget is the administration’s goal, and that comes first.”

Event Date: 3-22-1965
Event Description: The Dominican Republic, an island 200-mile off the shore of the USA, is shaken as Socialists President Juan Bosch nationalizes all industry and farms in the country, including American and Cuban businesses. Presidents Nixon and Batista condemn the action, and secretly begin funneling supplies and financial aide to right-winged Colonel Francisco Caamaño, who has been an unsuccessful candidate for president of the Dominican Republic twice. Undersecretary of Defense Alexander Haig, an army veteran, undertakes the secret passage of weapons from Florida to Havana.   

Event Date: 4-01-1965
Event Description: Colonel Caamaño begins the Dominican Civil War, He and his followers take the state of Santa Cruz del Seibo, with the aide of Cuban soldiers and American weapons. 

Event Date: 4-28-1965
Event Description: President Nixon breaks the Republican tradition of non-intervention by sending U.S. marines to the Dominican Republic, “To protect American citizens on the troubled island.” In reality, these marines will help Colonel Caamaño take the government from President Bosch.

Event Date: 5-13-1965
Event Description: Despite protests from Western Democrats and Republicans, President Nixon signs the Monetary Replacement Act, ending the gold standard in the United States. “The gold standard is from an era of the horse and buggy,” Nixon explains as he signs the act, “We need a new currency law to bring USA into the Space Age, the era of the rocket.”

Event Date: 5-21-1965
Event Description: Senator Wayne Morse is given the honor of standing next to President Nixon as he signs the End of Conscription Act, which Morse has been fighting for since the 1950s. Signed at the University of California-Berkley, the student body turns out to cheer President Nixon and Senator Morse for this act. Ronald Reagan says Nixon is, “Robbing our nation of its manhood,” by his cuts in defense and the abolition of the draft. 

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 6-11-1965
Event Description: The Ernest McFarland Presidential Museum opens in Yuma, Arizona. President McFarland is not fondly remembered by history, but the people who lived under his administration view him as a kindly and quiet chief executive, not a grand orator like Dewey and Kennedy, his successors. Presidents Nixon, Kennedy, and Dewey attend, as does former Vice-President Henry Schricker, McFarland’s equally quiet Vice-President.

Event Date: 6-25-1965
Event Description: The last of the two fascist states in the world falls. Italian dictator Guglielmo Nasi is peacefully deposed by the Speaker of the Roman Assembly Giovanni Gronchi, a left leaning member of the Christian Democracy movement. Only Generalissimo Francisco Franco in Spain remains a fascist leader, but he is loved by most of his people.

Event Date: 7-29-1965
Event Description: President Nixon signs Medicare and Medicaid into law. An idea that former Senator Truman had in the 1940s, comes true. President Nixon’s laws help the elderly and lowest income Americans afford medical treatment. Senate Minority leader Johnson called such programs, “Chinese, through and through.”

Event Date: 10-20-1965
Event Description: Due to aide from Cuba and America, Colonel Francisco Caamaño enters Santo Domingo and wins the Dominican Civil War for the right wing. President Nixon declares that, “Americans in the Caribbean are now safe, as is free enterprise.” He keeps it secret that he, Buchanan and Undersecretary of Defense Alexander Haig had helped aide the Colonel in his rebellion against Socialist regime.

Event Date: 12-01-1965
Event Description: President Nixon fails to balance the budget. Despite steep cuts in military funding, he does not cut enough spending or end the Kennedy Tax Cuts. “We will balance this budget by 1968,” Nixon tells Americans that night in a televised address, “On that, I will be crystal clear.”   

Event Date: 12-25-1965
Event Description: Cadet Reginald “Reggie” Jackson leads his class at West Point in a Christmas Day football game on the frozen ground in New York. He has emerged as a leader amongst his fellow cadets, with West Point Commandant John Eisenhower telling his parents that he will be, “Another MacArthur.” However, that night Jackson, as he reads the Luke version of the Christmas story at the evening Christmas mass, decides that his duty in life is to be a pastor for the Lord, not a solider for the American nation. He decides that he will study to become an army chaplain.
       

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-01-1966
Event Description: In a coup, right-winged Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa ousts Socialist President David Dacko and takes over the Central African Republic. In Peking, President Deng Xiaoping begins to suspect that the American government is behind the coups in Vietnam, the Dominican Republican and now the Central African Republic. He begins focusing on aiding socialist governments against coups by, “Pentagon extremists.”     

Event Date: 1-31-1966
Event Description: Author Phillip K. Dick publishes “The Greatest Days of Our Lives.” The book starts with an obscure election: 1920. Senator Warren Harding defeats Cox, and becomes a president tied both to prosperity and scandal. After dying in office, quiet Vice-President Calvin Coolidge takes power and leads the nation through the “Roaring Twenties.” Herbert Hoover will become president as he did in real life, but the “hands-off” Coolidge Administration has left the nation on the track to a great depression. Hoover is defeated in 1932 by Franklin Roosevelt untainted by scandal. FDR never serves in the Senate, but does serve three terms as President, creating his own New Deal. The USA enters World War II; Churchill wins the Battle of Britain, and the war with Japan doesn’t happen until 1941, when they bomb Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. World War II claims the lives of Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, but also Joseph Kennedy, Junior, and Nile Kinnick. Roosevelt forms an alliance with a still existing Soviet Union, who then builds an “iron curtain” of Communist nations, thus starting the Cold War. Harry Truman is a Democrat and becomes President, defeating Thomas Dewey in an upset in 1948. After fighting a war in, of all places, Korea, World War II hero Dwight Eisenhower serves two terms as president, with Nixon as his veep. In 1960, JFK (who takes the place of his deceased brother) defeats Nixon for the presidency, but is shot in Dallas, Texas, trying to secure support from the South due to his support of a Civil Rights Act. Vice-President Lyndon Johnson takes office, and gets involved in a prolonged war in another odd Asian nation, Vietnam. The story ends with Robert Kennedy getting assassinated after winning the Californian Primary with support from Cesar Chavez and Ralph Abernathy. The book is applauded as brilliant dystopian literature.

Event Date: 2-06-1966
Event Description: Fidel Castro announces that 1966 will be his final year in professional baseball. “I thank this great country for the opportunity to play baseball for the big leagues,” Castro says at a press conference, “It means the world that this poor boy from Cuba could find success in the nation where color doesn’t matter, only one’s heart does.” Castro, usually the proverbial rock when it comes to emotions, breaks into tears when Ronald Reagan praises him as, “The greatest baseball players and Americans who ever lived.” The two, both baseball fanatics, are close friends, and will remain so through the years. When asked what he plans to do after he retires, Castro answers, “History will absolve me, of that I’m sure.”

Event Date: 2-28-1966
Event Description: President Nixon announces in a Rose Garden ceremony that the three astronauts who have been selected for the Apollo 2 mission to the Moon are Charles Bassett, Eliot See and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin. Bassett is selected to be the commander of the mission. “Mr. President,” Bassett says in a brief speech, “We will bring the promise of space, the new frontier, to this country. We thank you, and your predecessors for believing in the space program. We pray to God that our mission will be a success.” NASA officials are telling President Nixon that a Moon flight could be as early as August 1967.

Event Date: 3-09-1966
Event Description: 20,000 Buddhist monks take to the streets in Hanoi, Vietnam, to protest the dictatorial polices of President Ngo Dinh Diem. The “president” of Vietnam has declared marshal law, executed opposition party leaders and has met no resistance from the world community. Presidents Kennedy and Nixon support the dictator Diem because he is anti-Socialist. However, he seems to have gone too far today when he orders the military to fire on the crowd. 6,213 monks lie dead on the floor by the end of the day. The response in Vietnam will delight the Chinese government, while leading the Americans to the brink of war.

Event Date: 3-15-1966
Event Description: “Diem khát máu,” chants protesters across Vietnam. Meaning “Diem thirsts for blood”, these protesters are not left-winged Socialists, but regular citizens opposing a tyrannical rule. The Chinese government sends their own rabble rousing Socialist orators to egg on the crowd to start up a confrontation with Diem’s troops. In the city of Haiphong, an important port city for all of Eastern Asia, such a confrontation occurs, with protesters using rifles, rocks and fists to attack government soldiers. Trần Đức Lương, a 29-year old former Vietnamese solider, who is backed by the Chinese, begins “Cuộc cách mạng xã hội chủ Nghĩa”, “The Masses Socialist Revolution”. The tiny nation of Vietnam may well become a Cold War battle ground if President Nixon chooses to send troops to defend President Diem.

Event Date: 3-19-1966
Event Description:  President Nixon meets with Secretary of State Rogers and Secretary of Defense Bradley to discuss the Vietnam crisis. “Boys,” Nixon begins, “The last thing I want is a war in a midterm election year, but we also can’t have a socialist state in Vietnam. What should be done?” Neither advises invasion of Vietnam. “Mr. President, You can’t fight in Indochina,” Secretary Bradley explains, “We both fought in China; it’s a terrible place to have a war. Vietnam is even worse. You can’t win a land war in Asia.” “What can be done then?” Nixon asks, almost sounding desperate. “Easy,” explains Secretary Rogers, “Get Diem out of the way.” Nixon smiles as wide as the Grinch, “You don’t mean…” “Yes, Mr. President,” Secretary Rogers says in a low tone, “Assassination.”

Event Date: 3-21-1966
Event Description: President Nixon selects CIA agent Howard Hunt to “take out” President Diem. Hunt is well trained in covert operations; after all, he has recently taken down Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, and Ralph Abernathy. However, as Hunt is equipped by the CIA for the job, Nixon is told something by the State Department: The Chinese are sending atomic weapons to Vietnam. “How do you know this?” President Nixon demands of Secretary Rogers. “Photos taken by our SR-71 Blackbird, Mr. President,” Secretary Rogers reminds the President, “You ordered them to be built last year.” Nixon views the pictures, and it does appear as if there are bases in Northern Vietnam that China is using to harbor atomic weapons. North Vietnam is pro-Chinese, so they would allow such a thing to occur. “We have to wait on the Diem thing,” Nixon tells Hunt, “There is something that has just come up.” Nixon orders another flight over the areas in Vietnam to make sure that they are holding places for Chinese atomic weapons. SR-71 Blackbird airman Neil Armstrong is selected for the job. He’ll leave for Vietnam on the morning of April 1st, 1966.

Event Date: 4-01-1966
Event Description: Neil Armstrong takes off from Manila, the Philippines, in his mission to take closer and more precise shots of bomb holding centers in Northern Vietnam. The pictures are taken, but Armstrong meets anti-aircraft fire from Vietnam. Using Chinese supplied anti-aircraft missiles, the Revolutionary Army of Vietnam shoots down Armstrong’s Blackbird spy plane. Armstrong is alive and captured by Northern Vietnamese troops. He is imprisoned in a small village jail, and is threatened to be tortured if he doesn’t reveal who he works for. Armstrong refuses and a night of torture awaits him.

Event Date: 4-02-1966
Event Description: President Nixon awakes to news of Armstrong’s disappearance. “This nightmare,” he tells his close aid Pat Buchanan. “I’m afraid you’re awake, Mr. President, Buchanan tells the panicked president, “We think they have him alive.” Armstrong is indeed alive, but nearly dead after being beaten for several hours. He tells his captors that he is an American spy plane operator, but doesn’t say that President Nixon ordered his latest spying mission. Nixon also is quiet on the subject, and it isn’t until the afternoon that the Associated Press reports on a strange story coming out of Vietnam concerning a spy. President Deng Xiaoping is silent for the day, except for a brief statement condemning, “Pentagon and State Department militarists who seek to use military force and espionage to influence the governments of sovereign nations.” President Xiaoping does not believe President Nixon has anything to do with the spy plane crisis, but he realizes that the U.S. government is onto his plan to send atomic weapons to Vietnam. He orders the plan to be halted. President Nixon releases a single statement, “The White House is in no way connected to any spy program in Vietnam.”

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 4-03-1966
Event Description: The press floods the White House Press Room. White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler is unable to answer the question of, “What’s going on in Vietnam?” He sends the press to the State Department. “We stand by President Nixon’s statement,” State Department official Casper Weinberger tells the press. He sends them to the Department of Defense. “I have nothing to add that will give you any story worth printing in your papers,” Undersecretary of Defense Alexander Haig tells the press, “It’s not like I’m in charge around here.” Finally, the winded reporters arrive back at the White House, demanding to talk to President Nixon. Nixon, however, is off bowling in his private alley in the White House basement. “You’re going to have to wait for his game to end,” Press Secretary Ziegler tells them. President Nixon is bowling with Secretaries Rogers and Bradley and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. “Just stick by the story of ignorance,” Bradley advises Nixon, “You don’t want to do anything that may spark war with China.” Nixon agrees with Bradley, and hits a strike.

Event Date: 4-04-1966
Event Description: As the Chinese Legislature meets in Peking, President Deng Xiaoping makes a surprise visit. He tells the legislators that American spy plane pilot Neil Armstrong is alive, and has confessed to violating Vietnamese airspace. “The Pentagon is to be blamed for this act of espionage,” President Xiaoping says, “President Nixon was not mentioned by the American pilot. He claims to have worked solely under the instruction of the Pentagon and State Department. As President Nixon has shown a want of peace between our nations, I believe the pilot.” “Damn it!” President Nixon screams as he pounds his fist on his desk in the Oval Office, “How could Armstrong be alive? The Pentagon assured me that the plane would explode if attacked by a missile!” The president’s aides don’t know what to do, they have never seen Nixon so out of control. Senator Ralph Yarborough (Democrat of Texas) introduces a resolution calling on an investigation into the spy plane affair. “If President Nixon indeed ordered a spy plane to take pictures of areas in Vietnam,” Senator Yarborough tells his Senate colleagues, “He should be held accountable for creating an international incident.” President Nixon is firmly against the Senate, “Tiptoeing through the most secret and classified State Department documents.”

Event Date: 4-05-1966
Event Description: President Nixon addresses the country on the Blackbird Spay Plane Crisis. “My fellow Americans,” Nixon begins, “Today the peace of the world lies in the balance.” Nixon tells his “fellow citizens” that he, indeed, ordered for Sergeant Neil Armstrong to fly a trip over northern Vietnam to, “Inspect where the nation of China was sending unconventional missiles to, in our calculation, aide the socialists in the ongoing Vietnamese Civil War.” Nixon does not apologize for what was done, not to China or the American people. “I acted in what I felt was the best way to defend this country and its allies from those who wish to do us harm.” President Xiaoping responds by calling Nixon, “A capitalist warmonger.” He accuses Nixon, who he now feels is responsible for the recent coups against his Socialist allies in Central America and Africa, of, “Leading underhanded plans against legitimate and sovereign governments.” President Nixon calls such attacks, “Ludicrous.” Later that night, Nixon calls up nearly 50 Congressmen and Senators, pleading with them to oppose any investigation into the State Department.

Event Date: 4-06-1966
Event Description: The world community responds to the Blackbird Spy Plane Crisis. Australian, British and Canadian Prime Ministers Harold Holt, Harold Wilson and Lester Pearson back President Nixon and his story of self defense. “The Chinese have overstepped their boundaries,” Prime Minister Wilson tells the world, “When they tried to keep unconventional weapons, meaning atomic I would wager, to a nation in a civil war.” President Xiaoping declares that he and China has done nothing wrong, and calls on the Canton Pact to back him.

Event Date: 4-10-1966
Event Description: President Yuri Andropov of Russia backs President Nixon in the Blackbird Spy Plane Crisis. This fractures the Socialist world, exactly what Andropov wanted. “President Xiaoping has shown that he is willing a world confrontation than admit that he was wrong to send atomic weapons to Vietnam,” Andropov says. With the second largest Socialist Republic opposing him, President Xiaoping comes to his senses. He withdraws the atomic weapons from Vietnam and releases Sergeant Armstrong. The Blackbird Spy Plane Crisis has ended without a confrontation, but the relationship of China and Russia is strained beyond repair.

Event Date: 5-15-1966
Event Description: The Socialists take the city of Da Nang, the home of the only airport in Vietnam. It looks likely that the Socialists will win the Vietnamese Civil War unless the United States intervenes. President Nixon is reluctant to act in Vietnam since the Blackbird Spy Plane Crisis, but he also realizes that if he doesn’t aide the government of President Diem, a Socialist state will be established in Vietnam. He decides to continue to send aide to Diem, but aborts the assassination plot. “Diem is better off dead than alive,” Nixon says, “But this presidency is better of not being investigated.”

Event Date: 6-01-1966
Event Description: 16-year old Rudolph Hess becomes the youngest graduate of Catholic seminary in the history of North America. He is a very fast leaner, and can speak fluently in Latin, Greek, English, Spanish, Italian and his native German. His mother, Eva Braun, watches proudly as her son is ordained a priest, and begins work for the Lord.

Event Date: 7-04-1966
Event Description: President Nixon attends an Independence Day revival rally held by the Reverend Billy Graham in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Graham preaches about the importance of standing up for freedom of religion across the World. “We have the responsibility to protect the church in nations across the world!” Graham booms, “I know that this current administration is dedicated to this principle, and that President Nixon is a God-fearing man.” Nixon, overwhelmingly popular amongst Graham’s evangelicals, will say a few comments about the importance of religion in society and lead the over 250,000-person crowd in singing “God Bless America.”

Event Date: 7-12-1966
Event Description: President Nixon signs the Freedom of Information Act, opening up untold thousands of government documents for the public. However, Nixon refuses to allow his own State Department documents to be read, arguing that they are present, not past, documents.

Event Date: 8-18-1966
Event Description: The Socialist forces capture the strategic city of Long Tan. Despite American weapons, the corrupt army of President Diem fails once again to crush the Socialist rebels. Deim’s government is on the brink of collapse.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 9-10-1966Event Description: Malcolm Little, a 41-year old defense attorney in Detroit, Michigan, wins the Republican Primary for Congress in his congressional district. Detroit is a town of mixed politics, but Little’s heavily minority district will most assuredly give him victory in November.

Event Date: 10-09-1966
Event Description: Fidel Castro pitches a near perfect game, leading the New York Yankees to win the 1966 World Series over the Baltimore Orioles. As Castro leaves the field, he, his wife, his mother, brother Raul and Ronald Reagan walk to the center of the stadium and give Castro a microphone. “I feel like the luckiest man in the world,” is all that the pitcher can choke out. Castro will return to Florida, where he hopes to enter politics, a favorite past time of his, 

Event Date: 10-22-1966
Event Description: President Nixon signs a balanced budget for the 1967-1968 fiscal years. He, like President Dewey, has been forced to cut the military and discontinue some fee cuts that President Kennedy championed, but Nixon now has a balanced budget. Senate Minority Leader Johnson attacks Nixon as, “A tax and spender,” since he revived several fees and taxes on transportation and “sin” items. The Democrats hope to use the revival of these fees as an issue in the 1966 Midterm elections.

Event Date: 11-08-1966
Event Description: The Midterm Congressional Elections come in for the Democrats, but not large enough to change hands in either house. The Democrats win three seats in the Senate and twelve in the House of Representatives. In Massachusetts, state Attorney General Edward Brooke is elected the first African-American Senator from the Bay State. In Michigan, attorney Malcolm Little is elected to Congress. In California, San Francisco Mayor George Christopher is elected Governor over Speaker of the Californian House Jesse Unruh. The dominance of the California GOP is still intact. In a special election for the seat that President Nixon vacated, film star John Wayne is elected. “Duke” declares that’s he’s no politician, “But I couldn’t say no to 3 million people who wanted me in that Senate chair.”

Event Description: 12-23-1966
Event Description: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, narrated by Boris Karloff, is shown for the first time on CBS. It will become an annual Christmas tradition, and the best-loved film ever based on a Dr. Seuss book. Ronald Reagan jokes the next night that President Nixon has a heart that is also three sizes too small. President Nixon responds to this by scowling.

Event Date: 12-24-1966
Event Description: An attempt to end the Vietnamese Civil War in Manila, The Philippines, falls through. The two sides refuse to negotiate and form two different nations. “We want one Vietnam, not two!” is the only thing that the opposing sides can agree on. The American and Chinese presence in that war torn nation will continue into the year 1967.         

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-01-1967
Event Description: President Nixon awakes on New Year’s Day a happy man. The nation is in general prosperity and his party controls government. He is virtually assured reelection in 1968 if he can keep things going smooth for the next year. The most notable thing that occurs today is in Dallas, Texas, where nightclub owner Jack Ruby hands over a few small time mafia thugs to the federal authorities. Ruby will end up dead in two days; the cause of death will be a bullet hole through the head. The mafia problem still exists in America’s major cities.

Event Date: 1-22-1967
Event Description: The U.S.S. Pueblo, an American destroyer, is captured by Vietnamese ships. The Vietnamese claim that the Pueblo came within 40 miles of Vietnamese land. The U.S. does not dispute this, but maintains that it was outside the 12-mile limit recognized by international law. President Nixon is told by National security Advisor Henry Kissinger that Vietnam was acting with the sanction of the People's Republic of China, Nixon’s socialist enemy. President Nixon goes on television and demands that the Pueblo be released within 48 hours, or, "The United States of America will take action. This action could be anything from a simple attempt to liberate the vessel to the kind of attack that will eliminate both the Republic of Vietnam and the People's Republic of China as active nations. The Chinese know that we have these capabilities. They also know that any attempt to attack American allies in the Pacific region will constitute an act of war, and that America will retaliate with any and all available options." Nixon, and old poker player, is bluffing, but he knows that the stakes of this bet is the world.

Event Date: 1-23-1967
Event Description: President Xiaoping responds to President Nixon’s speech by calling the president, “A warmonger. His ship was trying to aide the corrupt Diem Government, and will be treated as an enemy vessel.” President Nixon tells Secretary of Defense Bradley to ready the American nuclear arsenal. “We won’t use it, Bradley,” Nixon tells the secretary, “It’s just another bluff.” Nixon’s second bluff fails to frighten the Chinese or the Vietnamese socialists as they still refuse to return the U.S.S. Pueblo. Nixon begins to ready the U.S.S. Maddox for a rescue.

Event Date: 1-25-1967
Event Description:  President Nixon sends the aircraft the U.S.S. Maddox to liberate the U.S.S. Pueblo from the Vietnamese. The Chinese made boats are no match for the attack of AF-108s launched from the deck of the Maddox and within two hours, the Pueblo and all other U.S. ships are out of Vietnamese waters. Over 100 Vietnamese personnel are killed. There are no American casualties. President Nixon again delivers a televised Oval Office address, stating that if the socialist forces in Vietnam want this incident to be over, it will be, but if he wants further combat, America will oblige. “War is the remedy you have chosen,” Nixon tells them as he quotes William T. Sherman, “We are prepared to give you as much as you want.” The socialists refuse to do anything to further tensions. The Chinese also do not appear to be taking any action, cowed into submission by the threat of nuclear annihilation and the massive force of the American military. However, Nixon’s budgets cuts for the military are weakening it. Nixon now sees that the world is not as peaceful as he thought. He will have to increase funding for the military for 1969-1970.

Event Date: 2-14-1967
Event Description: John and Marilyn Kennedy have their first child together: Francis Gene Kennedy. The Kennedy Family refuses to acknowledge the child. Former President Joseph Kennedy privately tells his wife Evelyn that the couple is, “Despicable.” To add to the star-crossed love story of Kennedy and Monroe, their child is born on Valentine’s Day.

Event Date: 2-20-1967
Event Description: President Nixon meets with Dr. Jonas Salk, the man who cured polio in 1955, in a secret meeting at Camp Hoover, Maryland. To save on the money of building a military, President Nixon asks Salk to make a “super virus” to help the USA corner the market in germ warfare. “I refuse, Mr. President!” Salk shouts when given the offer, “I will not use science to destroy the world!” “Dr. Salk,” President Nixon says in his most calming voice, “We in the government are willing to pay handsomely for the virus. We know you can do it, you are probably the only man in the world who can make such a weapon.” “I don’t care,” Dr. Salk responds, “Such a virus would mean doom for any nation which we unleashed it upon.” “That’s the reason it must be made doctor,” President Nixon explains, “Such a virus is the best deterrent to war ever. Nations will be too frightened to battle when they know that their populations could be wiped out by a virus that we control.” Dr. Salk further refuses, until Nixon tells him, “It would certainly be a shame if we had to cut research for other doctors who are trying to find cues for diseases.” This type of blackmail is something President Nixon excels at, and Dr. Salk is forced to give into it.

Event Date: 3-03-1967
Event Description: BBC-TV airs The Anderson Platoon, a 90-minute documentary about a Royal Army infantry detachment training for service in Hong Kong, a British colony in mainland China. President Xiaoping blasts the Anderson documentary as "slander" because of the anti-Chinese sentiments expressed by many of the soldiers interviewed for the film. Ronald Reagan, on the other hand recommends the film as a, “Small glimpse into the backwards lives of those forced to live under socialism in China.”
   
Event Date: 3-15-1967
Event Description: President Xiaoping reminds the world to fear the Ides of March by moving Chinese troops across the border into northern Vietnam. This is the first time actual Chinese soldiers have come to the aide of the socialists in Vietnam. President Andropov of Russia surprises the world by condemning the Chinese action. “The civil war in Vietnam is for the people of that nation to decide,” says Andropov waving his finger on Pravda, “Xiaoping has overstepped his boundaries in trying to enforce his own will on the people of that independent nation.” The good relations between Russia and China are at an all time low, with time not proving to be a friend in improving them.

Event Date: 3-20-1967
Event Description: President Nixon signs a directive transferring more than 12,000 soldiers from Japan to the Philippines. This comes out of a growing concern in the Defense Department that China may try to launch a massive invasion of Southeast Asia in the event of war with the West. Nixon appoints Lieutenant Colonel Dwight Eisenhower, now an ailing old man, to return to the Philippines and train these troops in the ways of warfare in China. Ike wants to refuse, but his sense of duty sends him back to the Philippines.

Event Date: 3-24-1967
Event Description: Secretary of Defense Omar Bradley resigns from office. “The situation in China and Southeast Asia,” he says in his resignation address, “Demands a younger man. I’m just a shade younger than 80 years old.” The 74-year old Bradley tells President Nixon to nominate West Point Commandant John Eisenhower for the job. “He’s as good an organizer as his father,” Bradley tells the president, “And he’s much funnier.” Nixon will nominate Eisenhower for the position, and the Republican controlled Congress will easily confirm him.

Event Date: 4-28-1967
Event Description: The Battle of Dong Xoai commences in the Vietnamese Civil War. Chinese troops and Vietnamese rebels rout the Nationalist Army under Colonel Cao Van Vien, a political general and close friend of President Diem. While President Diem is still safe in his palace in Saigon, the north is now completely under socialist control. While fleeing from his headquarters, Colonel Vien leaves behind all his weapons records. A Chinese patrolman finds documentation outlining where President Diem is getting his weapons from.