| July 29 |  |
Editor says, what if Donald Rumsfeld had been successful in his bid for the vice presidency in 1975-1976? Please note that considerable amounts of content have been repurposed from Andrew Cockburn's excellent book "Rumsfeld, His Rise, Fall & Catastrophic Legacy" (2007).
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In 1976, on this day the 41st Vice President of the United States Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (pictured) suffered a fatal heart attack in his 13 West 54th Street Manhattan townhouse.1
Ruthless DecisionsRockefeller health had entered a sharp decline since the Halloween massacre, a political coup de grace executed by his chief adversary, Donald Henry Rumsfeld. Described by no less a fiend than President Nixon as "a ruthless little bastard", "Rummy" and Rockefeller "simply loathed each other". Relations were not helped by Rockefeller's habit of poking his head around Rumsfeld's office door and saying "Don, you know you will never be president".
"Rummy" was of course executing dastardly self-promotional plans from inside the White House" to ensure he did enter the Oval Office - as the boss. Realising that he needed the Vice Presidency as a platform, "Rummy" had played a long-game since accepting a cabinet posting by Richard Nixon in 1970. And by 31st October 1975, these plans ripened when President Gerald Ford, renowned for unswerving loyalty, unexpectedly dropped Rockefeller from the 1976 Vice Presidential Ticket. George W. Bush, who - alongside Barry Goldwater - was seriously considered for VP by Ford when he assumed the Presidency in 1974, was dispatched to the political no-mans land of Langley to run the CIA. To put the seal on this political emasculation, Bush was required to pledge that he would not politicize the CIA by running for office in 1976.
Of course the 1976 campaign presented a number of challenges for "Rummy" that would require some deft footwork. Political observers have speculated that Rockefeller2 would have threatened to withdraw New York's 154 delegate bloc of votes had he been alive at the time of the Convention. Since he was not, the real threat was the former Governor of California Ronald Reagan who was emerging as a creditable alternative candidate from the right wing. Accordingly, "Rummy" insisted upon his appointment as Secretary of Defence, replacing James Schlesinger who was also fired in the "Halloween massacre". 
Once in office, "Rummy" pursued the hawkish agenda that was being urged by Reagan's supporters, effectively to reverse detente by undermining the Salt II negotiations and also accelerating military spending3. As a precursor, "Rummy" had played a key supporter of the decision to dispatch US Marines to relieve the SS Mayaguez. The ship was seized by the Khymer Rouge just a month after the fall of Saigon and in order to restore American prestige, military intervention was advocated by then Chief of Staff Rumsfeld.
The majority of political observers believe that Ford's re-election in 1976 was mainly due to his ruthless decision to double cross Richard Nixon, by going back on his promise to pardon the disgraced President4. Fortunately, the new Ford-Rumsfeld administration (pictured here with incoming Chief of Staff Dick Cheney) would inherit a $123 billion defense budget and a re-invigorated military. Thanks to Rumsfeld, in 1979, America would be ready to confront the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan with full force.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Andrew Cockburn, 2007 - "Rumsfeld, His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy"Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Beasts Source: Wikipedia Labels: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, America. Editor says, intrigued and horrified by the possibility of a Rumsfeld's Presidency, we discovered the necessary point of divergece by exploring a scenario in Andrew Cockburn's excellent book.
Please note that 1) we have brought forward Rockefellers heart attack by three years.
2) p. 51 Rockfeller insisted that Rumsfeld could not even attend the convention, and therefore we decided to bring forward his fatal heart attack by three years to remove this blocker to a Rumsfeld Presidency.
3) Cockburn suggests that Rumsfelds strategy was to undermine Ford, whereas we reverse this and suggest it was self-promotional.
4) This is our point of divergence to enable a Ford Victory in 1976.
~ Funny you should mention the idea of a Ford win in '76, because there's a great short story titled "Demarche To Iran" based on a somewhat similar premise.
~ No Comment
~ I think myself that Nixon going on trial would have been explosive, particularly if Nixon had been able to prove that he had done _nothing_ that hadn't been done by the sainted JFK and his successor. The howling and screaming from the donkey party would have been worth going a long way to see.
~ Ford was in a no-win as regards Nixon. A Nixon trial keeps Watergate front and center in the public agenda. Pardoning Nixon tags Ford as a de facto accomplice. As is Ford almost won. If he doesn't make the maladroit comment about Poland and Hungary not being under Soviet control [not what he meant and not exactly what he said but in the era before Fox and Talk radio MSM could twist the narrative]. The fun ATL is Ford winning by moving 53K or so votes in OH and HA while carter wins the popular vote. Almost happened.
~ Well, that's it, isn't it . . . if Nixon "had been able to prove that he had done nothing that hadn't been done by the sainted JFK and his successor," he wouldn't have resigned in the first place.
Nixon, in fact, as part of the octopus of conspiracy which came to be known as Watergate, had actually had subordinates forging diplomatic cables to implicate JFK in the murder of Diem in Soouth Vietnam. Surely if Kennedy had really been up to stuff like that, Nixon would have been able to use real evidence rather than try for convincing forgeries.
As for "his successor," LBJ's reputation was already so far down the drain by the time Nixon left office one would have had to hire a professional plumbing crew to retrieve it. Arguing that he had done nothing Johnson hadn't done wouldn't have helped Nixon--it would merely have confirmed the disgust (on the left as well as the right) felt for LBJ (though the left, while despising the man, approved of most of his domestic programs).
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
