 |  Todayinah Ed. says, in this scenario in which Chappaquiddick never happened, we explore an EMK Presidency 1977-1985. This is a variation of Eric Lipps timeline of the same name, but in this one JFK survives Dallas. If you're interested in viewing samples of my other work why not visit Todayinah site. |
| Ted Kennedy |
| February 26 |  |
Editor says, what if the Chappaquiddick Scandal had never happened? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the March 2013 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1977, just months short of his sixtieth birthday, former President Jack Kennedy succumbs to a rare endocrine disorder known as Addison's disease. An installment of our variation of Eric Lipp's No Chappaquiddick thread where JFK survives Dallas.
American TableauxHis state funeral in Washington, D.C. is attended by the elite from across the political spectrum: former Vice President and California Governor Dick Nixon, his successor in the White House, former President George Romney and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. to name but a few.
And his younger brother, the current President Edward M. Kennedy who delivered the eulogy. This focused of course on the successes, the Apollo Mission, the Cuban Missiles Crisis and the negotiated peace in Indochina. But unfortunately, these memorable words had the unintended effect of casting an unfavourable light upon his own weak record of foreign policy.
Also present was the man who would inherit the worst of it, the Iranian Hostage Crisis. That was former Texas Governor John Connally who had made a remarkable transition to Republican since that fateful day in Dallas when Jackie Kennedy was killed by a disgruntled former marine, Lee Harvey Oswald. Within two years, Connally was being talked of as the runaway candidate for fortieth President of the United States. And Teddy was considering a return to the Senate, this time in California where he had campaigned in the 1960 election despite the reservations of his father Joseph P. Kennedy.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: EMK 69Plus Source: Wikipedia Labels: John F. Kennedy, Addison's disease, American, Premature Death, Oval Office. Editor says, we imagine this his survival in Dallas prevented the worse excesses of the sixties and hence MLK is still alive also. Thanks to Eric Lipps, Eric Oppen and Scott Palter for their contributions to the development of this story.
~ To this day, people mourn Jackie Kennedy...
~ This sounds a bit like an old National Lampoon issue: The First 5000 (or 10,000? I'm not sure) Days---all about what would have happened had JFK lived. I remember that Jackie, not JFK, was the one killed in Dallas. But without her around, I do think that JFK's bionic libido and zipper problems would have come to light one way or another. And what happened to Robert?
~ Actually, this doesn't belong to my "No Chappaquiddick" thread, which assumes JFK's assassination happened but that EMK narrowly missed going off that bridge. In that thread, JFK was long dead by '77.
~ Perhaps Mary Pinchot Meyer lives too? And JFK has a couple of undisclosed meetings with a certain Dr. Leary.
February 27
Editor says, what if the Chappaquiddick Scandal had never happened? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the March 2013 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1917, fortieth President of the United States John Bowden Connally, Jr. was born on this day in Floresville, Texas. An installment of our variation of Eric Lipp's No Chappaquiddick thread where JFK survives Dallas.
Birth of POTUS John ConnallyUnder President Jack Kennedy, he served as Secretary of the Navy before his election as the 39th Governor of Texas. And he was a passenger in the car when Jackie Kennedy was killed by a disgruntled former marine, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Only seventeen days after the assassination, the FBI published a report in which Director J. Edgar Hoover concluded that the motive was a grudge dating back to 1962 when the former Secretary of the Navy turned down a reconsideration of Lee Harvey Oswald's dishonourable discharge from the US Marine Corps. The decision prevented him from applying for the service entitlement benefits he was seeking to raise his young family. In a remorseful letter to the Navy dated 30th January 1962 he regretted his lie about the real reason for leaving the service, a false declaration which had resulted in the discharge being changed from honourable to dishourable, standard procedure in the US Marine Corps.
After leaving the Governorship in 1969, he made a remarkable transition to the GOP, serving in President George Romney's single-term cabinet as United States Secretary of Treasury. Romney was defeated by Ted Kennedy in the general election of 1972, and within five years, Connally was being talked of as the runaway candidate for fortieth President of the United States.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: EMK 69Plus Source: Wikipedia Labels: John F. Kennedy, John Connally, Ted Kennedy, George Romney, Oval Office. ~ I take it Teddy's presidency didn't do well?
~ What if Connally had given Harvey a pass on the discharge change?
July 22
Editor says, what if the Chappaquiddick Scandal had never happened? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the March 2013 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1969, after four days of intense medical treatment for a barely reported vehicular incident on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Edward M. Kennedy made a low-key public appearance in a neckbrace. An installment of our variation of Eric Lipp's No Chappaquiddick thread where JFK survives Dallas.
Crashing out after the PartyThe circumstances of the accident itself was unremarkable. Following a reception for aides of his late brother Robert, he had driven an unnamed young campaign worker to the Edgartown ferry but had lost control of his Oldsmobile on Dike Road. The car rolled over into Poucha Pond but fortunately both the driver and the passenger managed to escape.
Still grieving for his elder brother, Kennedy had been distracted during the party. His thoughts had already begun to turn towards his own run for the Presidency. And a challenge to George Romney, who had only entered the White House just six months before.
Romney had benefited immensely from the strong backing of fellow Republican governor (and former Vice President) Richard Nixon [1]. But of course the main reason for his victory was the self-destruction of the Democrat Party during the campaign. He wouldn't be so lucky a second time, crashing to defeat in 1972 at the hands of a resurgent, unified Democrat Party led by Edward M. Kennedy. But behind the winning smile, Kennedy was in huge discomfort, having suffered a serious lower back injury at the Chappaquiddick incident which had aggravated a condition he developed after a plane crash in 1964. His mobility was seriously restricted, and the inevitable result was a lacklustre pursuit of overseas travel that would hamper his foreign policy goals.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
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Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: EMK 69Plus Source: Wikipedia Labels: Ted Kennedy, Ayatollah Khomeini, American, Iranian Hostage Crisis, Oval Office. Editor says, in reality a private funeral for Mary Jo Kopechne was held at St. Vincent's Roman Catholic Church in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, attended by Kennedy. [1] we assume Nixon beat Pat Brown in 1962 and chooses to run again in 1966, displaced Ronald Reagan.
~ I don't know if he'd have actually run. The stuff I've read about him makes it seem as though he was seriously conflicted, and, after Robert's death and his father's incapacity, for the first time ever he could do what _he_ wanted.
~ In this scenario, it seems Ted would have ended his political career earlier rather than fight those battles, constantly.
~ I dunno, I think that he might have seen himself as the Kennedy standard-bearer, the last one left to carry out his brothers' legacy. That being said, I think that he would have run in 1972 (and if he won, for re-election in 1976) and then queitly retired from public life when his terms were over. At thet point, he might have taken over the reins from his late father (RIP 1969) to guide the political careers of his and his brothers' children.
~ If he had won in 1972 and 1976 I don't believe he would have retired in 1981, he was too wedded to the power of Government to go quietly into the night. I think it is highly likely he would have gone back to the Senate and remained there until his demise just as he did OTL, though he would not nessecerily have been the Massachusettes Senator. Just as Hillary Clinton did he could have run in any state with a Democrat majority, though of course his heart was in Massachusettes.
~ John Kennedy did suffer terrible back pains, leading to a heavy use of corticosteroids. In fact, historian Doris Stearns Goodwin said that those drugs created the full-faced and flamboyantly handsome John Kennedy that we all remember. So following that example, Teddy would have endured the same suffering too.
~ The "same suffering" of "full-faced and flamboyantly handsome"ness. ;)
February 23
Editor says, what if the Chappaquiddick Scandal had never happened? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the March 2013 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1980, President Kennedy addressed the nation from the Oval Office in response to a statement from the Ayatollah Khomeini that Iran's parliament would decide the fate of the American embassy hostages. An installment of our variation of Eric Lipp's No Chappaquiddick thread where JFK survives Dallas.
Lame Duck trapped in Poucha PondBut the speech is unconvincing, the contrast between the comfortable White House setting and the miltant streets of Tehran too stark, leaving the American people with the over-riding impression that their President was a weak leader being bullied. And the truth was that despite a string of Liberal agenda successes, EMK's Presidency had been over-shadowed by foreign policy failures since he triumphantly defeated single-term incumbent George Romney in 1972. This is in part due to his unwillingness to travel. Because for the past ten years he has suffered acute lower back pain since driving his Oldsmobile into Poucha Pond on Chappaquiddick Island, aggravating an existing condition caused by a plane crash during 1964.
On the other hand, Michael Dukakis, his successor as Senator for Massachusetts, has begun to set his sights on the Presidency. But independent observers considered it unlikely that a candidate from the same state could win the General election, and indeed even less likely that American would vote for a third successive candidate from the North-east. And in fact the candidate receiving the most press is John Connally, the former Texas Governor who accompanied the President's brother in Dallas on that ill-fated day in 1963.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
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Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: EMK 69Plus Source: Wikipedia Labels: Ted Kennedy, Ayatollah Khomeini, American, Iranian Hostage Crisis, Oval Office. Editor says, thanks to Mike McIlvan, Eric Oppen, Eric Lipps, Scott Palter and Robbie Taylor for their contributory ideas - team effort!
~ The eventual election of John Connally, also served to prevent George H.W. Bush from gaining office later. Only his son George W. Bush got in, and that was for one term -- possibly from this scenario. Too many from place is indeed a problem for voters, initially.
~ After Robert Kennedy's death, Teddy was acting very self-destructively. Even without Chappaquiddick, and with the media generally on his side, sooner or later some awful scandal would have happened. Or he'd have just killed himself by driving drunk once too often.
~ Doesn't matter. Teddy wouldn't have handled the Ayatollahs any better than Carter did, and he would have been followed by a Republican.
~ As I remember, the public was outraged at the Ayatollah, not the President, because everyone knew that the hostages were at the Ayatollah's mercy. That's why they're called "hostages."
~ @Eric Oppen: You may be right...
~ And a Presidejt Ted Kennedy might have avoided the hostage crisis altogether by refusing the Shah's demand to be allowed into the U.S. for medical treatment, and offering instead to let him be treated in Mexico (where he then resided in exile) by American doctors. (The Shah rejected treatment by Mexican doctors because he regarded Mexicans as racially inferior.)
~ President Romney?
~ Connally, when fellow Texan George Bush told him that he had connections in Iran that would prevent the release of the hostages under Kennedy, had the honor to tell Bush he would never become president under such circumstances. Unfortunately for him, this was indeed the case, as the release of the hostages due to diplomatic and economic pressure from the Kennedy administration guaranteed the election his hand-picked successor.
March 12
Editor says, what if the Chappaquiddick Scandal had never happened? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the April 2013 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1947, on this day United States Senator
from Massachusetts Willard (Mitt) Romney was born in Detroit, Michigan. An installment of our variation of Eric Lipp's No Chappaquiddick thread where JFK survives Dallas.
Sen Romney MA-RHis passion for campaigning began in the late sixties when his father George served as Governor of Michigan. And supported by Californian Governor Nixon, Romney, Snr. calmly entered the White House in the turbulent year 1968.
But despite its initial sparkle, his father's single term of office was unremarkable and he was well beaten in 1972. The winning candidate Ted Kennedy left the Senate to occupy the White House, and his vacated seat would eventually be occupied by charismatic son Mitt. Despite Ted's desire to remain active in national politics, there would be no Romney, Jr. vs Kennedy rematch. because Ted had already made his mind up to return to California where he had campaigned in the 1960 election despite the strong reservations of his father Joseph P. Kennedy [1]. And when Mitt began to consider his own run for the White House and looked for his own source of support from California, Senator Kennedy would quickly emerge as one of his most vociferous opponents.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: EMK 69Plus Source: Wikipedia Labels: Mitt Romney, Ted Kennedy, American, Premature Death, Oval Office. Editor says, unlike Eric Lipps' original "No Chappaquiddick" idea, instead we further imagine that JFK's survival in Dallas prevented the worse excesses of the sixties and hence MLK is still alive also. Thanks to Eric Lipps, Eric Oppen and Scott Palter for their contributions to the development of this story.
~ But IMHO Kennedy helped bring about the sixties and its youth cult, as a youthful president...aided by the rise of the boomer generation.
~ Why would Kennedy endorse Romney? I can't remember that last time a Democrat endorsed a Republican candidate. My bad, changes made - thanks, Ed.
~ No comment
~ "Single of office"? I think you mean "single TERM of office". Fixed - thanks, Ed
~ Was he LDS in this TL? I always wondered how much that handicapped him.
September 20
Editor says, what if the Chappaquiddick Scandal had never happened? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the April 2013 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1994, the sleaze dredged up by a renewal of the Romney-Kennedy family feud gripped the United States Senate elections being held in California and Massachusetts. An installment of our variation of Eric Lipp's No Chappaquiddick thread where JFK survives Dallas.
Sen Romney MA-R, Part 2Opinion polls had shown the younger Romney on course for a famous victory in a campaign being personally managed by a former President, his ageing father George who had moved into his son's family home at the very beginning of the electoral cycle. And then fired ex-employees of Bain Capital had mysteriously begun to appear, smearing their former boss. The former President's golden boy, a stellar businessman with a sunshine smile was now being revealed as a ruthless money-lender, a "vulture capitalist" throwback to the gilded age.
Meanwhile on the other sea-board, fellow GOP Candidate Michael Huffington was facing near-certain defeat as former President Ted Kennedy looked set for a second occupation in the California seat he had won after leaving office in 1988 (he had returned to California where he had campaigned in the 1960 election despite the strong reservations of his father Joseph P. Kennedy [2]).
But at this critical junction, Senator Kennedy had become strangely engulfed in a fresh scandal, this one involving the "boiler-room girl" Mary Jo Kopechne. While there was never any shortage of extra-marital affair mud to sling at the Kennedys, it was generally excepted [1] that Kopechne had not been involved with Ted prior to the minor vehicular incident in Chappaquiddick. Most likely, she had been engaging with an affair with a staffer, and Ted really had driven her to the ferry as he had innocently claimed all along.
The picture that now emerged, although fifteen years later, was somewhat more sordid. It appeared that rather than Kopechne bravely rescued by Kennedy, the reverse was true and she had been coerced into a cover-up story that understated the perilous nature of their drunken crash into Poucha Pond. And worse still, they had engaged in an abusive affair as a result of his bullyish mind dominance. Her victim-falls-for-villain Patty Hearst story was even ridiculed as "Chappaquiddick Syndrome" in the media.
Although Ted had not divorced his first wife Joan until the 1985, it was well known that their unhappy Union was long since over, and for the sake of appearances they had agreed to remain officially married while he remained in the White House. It was now being suggested that Mary Jo was the real reason for the break-up, and also the underlying cause of Joan's long-suffering personal anguish.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: EMK 69Plus Source: Wikipedia Labels: Mitt Romney, Ted Kennedy, American, Premature Death, Oval Office. Editor says, unlike Eric Lipps' original "No Chappaquiddick" idea, instead we further imagine that JFK's survival in Dallas prevented the worse excesses of the sixties and hence MLK is still alive also. Thanks to John Braungart [1], Eric Lipps, Eric Oppen [2] and Scott Palter for their contributions to the development of this story.
~ I'll tell you a version that I heard from a friend of a friend who said she was present at the ill-fated event. She said that the girl he drove away with was another "boiler house gang" member whom had picked up at the "barbecue" and that she escaped with him, with neither one realizing that Mary Jo had fallen asleep in the back seat. I must say, though, that the whole idea of this "thank you barbecue" for the "boiler house gang" was very, well, fishy...since what it amounted to was a party for single girls and married men. And while we have all seen that angelic high school yearbook picture of Mary Jo, I saw one photo that showed her a few years later as a very hot blonde.
~ Had the media not been firmly in the Kennedy camp there were enough bimbo eruptions that could have come out. He was no worse than any other rich celebrity that way but the media climate plus feminiism was changing how such 'personal' matters were reported. He deserved to be the hook around which the change was hung instead of the far less swinging Gary Hart.
~ "Chappaquiddick syndrome"?
~ A "boiler room" is a fly-by-night telemarketing center. The term has criminal connotations. I've done some investigations regarding boiler-rooms. There was also a film about one, a few years back.
~ True, Stan...but at the time, it was used to describe any mass calling center. Otherwise, Teddy's supporters would hardly have used the phrase to describe the girls who worked there.
~ There should be something to say about Clinton and Monica...
~ But in that case, Tony, we would have to say a lot of things about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, and Franklin Roosevelt and Lucy Rutherford, and Dwight Eisenhower and Kaye Summersby, and John F. Kennedy and Angie Dickinson and Marilyn Monroe.
~ After his brothers' deaths, Teddy was increasingly self-destructive, and if he'd been frog-marched into running for POTUS and got in, there'd have been very serious trouble of some sort.
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© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
