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Editor says, what if LBJ had won in 1960? muses Eric Lipps Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).
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In 1961, Texas Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson (pictured) was inaugurated as the thirty-fifth president of the United States of America.
All the way with LBJ in '60 by Eric LippsJohnson had faced what had potentially been a strong challenge in the primaries from popular young Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
However, many people, including former President Harry S. Truman, were nervous about the possibility of a Roman Catholic becoming president. At one point, Truman had taken the extraordinary step of telling Kennedy point-blank that he should not run because of his religion. Kennedy also had begun to develop something of a reputation as a womanizer.
His campaign was done in at last, however, when revelations regarding his physical health, something the candidate had carefully obscured behind a facade of youthful vigor, surfaced in the media. Kennedy, it was revealed, was taking high doses of painkillers for an old back injury and in addition was receiving steroid treatments for Addison's disease, a liver disorder. Several physicians suggested that the medications the Senator was on might have effects on his judgment.
Kennedy's chances had faded after that, and at the Democratic convention, he had not even been considered for the vice-presidential slot, which he had been offered by Stevenson in '56. Instead, the VP nomination had gone to Minnesota Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey, who had also made a strong run in the primaries.
This article is part of the Cuban Crisis thread.
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Eric Lipps
© Eric Lipps,2007-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Cuban Crisis Source: Vanity Fair Labels: Cuban Crisis, Nuclear War, America, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson. Editor says, The idea for the Cuban Crisis thread came from the following quote in Vanity Fair's feature article The Last Good Campaign - Robert F. Kennedy was concerned that, if he ran [in 1968], an increasingly unstable Lyndon Johnson might "wag the dog", provoking an international crisis or even starting a war to upstage the challenger's candidacy. In late 1967, as Kennedy was completing Thirteen Days, his account of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, he had told Adam Walinsky, "You know, we had 13 people in that room [the Cabinet Room in the White House], and if any one of 8 of them had been President, we would have had a nuclear war".
~ If LBJ had been president in 1961, we wouldn't have had a Cuban missile crisis, because Johnson would surely have gone ahead, as JFK did not, with an all-out invasion of Cuba to back up the exile force at the Bay of Pigs. Of course, that might have created a Caribbean quagmire to go with the Southeast Asian one into which Johnson, driven by Texas machismo, would surely have plunged with gusto just as he did in our history.
~ LBJ, for all his faults, would have been a far more effective POTUS than St. JFK. I agree, he'd have gone in all-out with the Cuban thing, and wouldn't likely have had to "prove himself" with Vietnam. Ironically, the man so many kids hated in the late 60s might have saved many of their lives had he been POTUS earlier.
~ Surely there would have been something going on in Vietnam. We'd had guys in there since '55.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
