A Rendevous with Destiny: The Election of Barry Goldwater

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

I would like to say this to Cathcon:

I'm sorry if I may have seemed a little rough earlier with the whole "due to your bitching" comment.  Don't worry you didn't rile me up or anything, that is just how I talk (seriously ask any of the vets here how vulgar I am on a daily basis).  Thanks for your input, it has proved invaluable in the process of writing this timeline.  William Buckley would be very valuable in a Goldwater presidency.  Thank you.

You only have to look at his signature...

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I would like to say this to Cathcon:

I'm sorry if I may have seemed a little rough earlier with the whole "due to your bitching" comment.  Don't worry you didn't rile me up or anything, that is just how I talk (seriously ask any of the vets here how vulgar I am on a daily basis).  Thanks for your input, it has proved invaluable in the process of writing this timeline.  William Buckley would be very valuable in a Goldwater presidency.  Thank you.

You're welcome. (I don't know what for...)

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

YES! William F Buckley is Secretary of Defense!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Now I finally know what Mechaman meant when he said "William F Buckley would be very valuable to a Goldwater Administration"

[Mechaman]

I'll just handle future Cabinet positions on a later date.........

Vietnam: The Final Chapter

During the election season Barry Goldwater promised the American people that his first priority as President would be to "get our boys home as soon as possible."  At the behest of his Secretary of Defense, William Buckley, Goldwater appeared before Congress to ask for a repeal of the draft and to greenlight "Operation Hanoi", one of the largest scale operations in military history.  He would face opposition from many who questioned how repealing the draft in the middle of military operations in Vietnam could help the US.  Goldwater would respond:

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Goldwater's push for the repeal of the draft would pay off with the GI Freedom of Choice Act passing with a narrow majority in both chambers.  In the next few months many thousands of men would be sent back home from Vietnam, allowed to continue their lives before being drafted.
With the repeal of the draft Goldwater would propose his grand scheme, "Operation Hanoi" on national tv.  With a force of about 400,000 men (all voluntary recruits) the US army would move from defensive positions in South Vietnam and make a forced march towards Hanoi.  In front of the troop advance massive aerial bombardments and armored vehicle divisions would strike.  In effect a modern version of the infamous blitzkreig.  Goldwater's plan raised a lot of skepticism, with skeptics wondering how with 200,000 fewer troops that Johnson planned on using how such a plan could be possible considering the guerrilla tactics of the Vietcong.  Other skeptics wondered how this plan would be possible without considerable loss of life to Vietnamese citizens due to the so-called "carpet bombing" that would take place.  Goldwater would address those skeptics, claiming that with experienced manpower a lot less resources would be used in ultimately ending the war with fewer Vietnamese civilian losses otherwise.  Despite initial strong resistance to his plan Congress would after a month and a half approve his "Operation Hanoi".

Operation Hanoi:


In July 1965, the first of the troop waves would arrive in South Vietnam to being the push up north.  The first goal of the new US forces would be to take control of the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail, the trail by which the North Vietnamese supplied the Viet Cong.  It would prove to be difficult, as American forces would have to go through Cambodia and Laos to secure the trail.  Cambodia would prove to be compliant, however some of the Laos military were a bit uncooperative.  After some coaxing the American forces would be allowed to enter the zone and take the trail.  Defense Secretary Buckley, when questioned as to why the US doesn't just simply bomb the trail would comment:

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The US ground forces would encounter stiff guerrilla resistance along the Infiltration Trail.  Buckley's strategy was that without the benefit of the Infiltration Trail other routes to South Vietnam would prove fruitless for Northern and Viet Cong forces.  The effects of this strategy would be felt in October 1965.........

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

An Update!!

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Bump? It seems like you're mostly concentrated on you're Westman Timeline.

[Mechaman]

Bumping this up so I remember to update it sometime this weekend (after I'm finished crying over the inevitably bad test grade I got in Advanced Federal Taxation because I couldn't study more than one day in advance).

[feeblepizza]

Yes! An update here is long overdue.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Be glad I forced him to update what-if TLs.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Be glad I forced him to update what-if TLs.

I recall having complained about it several times.

Anyway, glad that this thing has a chance to continue.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Be glad I forced him to update what-if TLs.

You didn't force me to do jack poop.
All you did was remind me that since I hit a brick wall in the Westman TL to start updating my other stuff.
That isn't "forcing" somebody, that's "influencing" somebody.

I'm telling the mod on u for profanity.

[Mechaman]

An Exclusive Television Interview with Defense Secretary William L. Buckley, Jr.
September 12th, 1965:


Kronkite: Good evening.  Tonight we have a very special exclusive interview with the Secretary of Defense of the Goldwater Administration William Buckley of New York.  Great to have you here Mr. Secretary.
Buckley: Great to be on TV Walter.
Kronkite: Now you are considered to be one of the leading conservative intellectuals in this country.  How much would you say that your previous discussions have lent towards the overall strategy in Vietnam?
Buckley: A lot actually.  The previous strategy of sending over "advisors" and then eventually drafting unmotivated troops to fight in the war was very foolhardy.  Numbers mean very little if the numbers are lazy numbers I say.  It's all about espirit de corp, the morale of the troops.  The men in armed forces that go over there should be men of high training and high motivation, their occupation should be that of men of war, not men of science, not men of philosophy, not men of art......unless the art, the philosophy, the science of which they participate in is that of the art of war.
Kronkite: How do you respond to critics, many of these your more liberal counterparts, that you are a warmonger, imperialist, or fascist?
Buckley: I say those people are very misguided and too quick to judge in light of the post World War II world.  Hitler was a great threat to the stability of the civilized world, something we and our European allies ignored into it was too late.  All because of this misguided notion of isolationism: that America is best served by keeping it's nose out of the business of the world even though this world itself is a collective organism of civilization: what happens in one place affects everywhere else.
Kronkite: But surely such thinking can lead to dangerous consequences, no?
Buckley: Well of course we shouldn't bomb every place under the sun, America isn't the World's Policeman.  But surely we should at least keep the pressure on threatening states like the Soviet Union, whose military power and technological advancement along with the dangers of the Communist Agenda pose a threat to free liberal democracies around the world.  This has been the thought process behind every presidential administration since Truman in regards to foreign affairs.  I am not suggesting any thing more than what has been done in the past, just more of a show of force to get the war over and done with as soon as possible instead of being caught in a boondoggle that could last for years.
Kronkite: But what of all these people who say why don't we just send the troops home and let the Vietnamese handle their own problems?
Buckley: A very naive and dare I say dumb idea?  The North and the Chinese have the Viet Cong's back, without our help the Southern government is as good as red.  This Red Scourge isn't something to be taken lightly, if we let up for one moment we will have flipped the scales in their favor.  I and the other members of this administration will not let that happen.  Say what you want about our economic, fiscal, or social agenda but this administration will not leave the White House in 1969 or 1973 with a Communist Northern Vietnamese state still in power and an emboldened Communist Threat from China, Russia, Cuba or any other Marxist Republic.
Kronkite: But doesn't this go against traditional conservative mantra of non-interventionism?
Buckley: Traditional conservatism did not have the threat of international communism.  The situation has changed greatly now to the point that if we don't prevent the dominos from falling where they may the results could be disaster.

The Buckley Interview, which showed a very blunt intellectual Buckley outright addressing the critics of the administrations war plans, would be very highly received amongst many Americans.  A new internationalist conservative movement would begin to take form..........

[Pingvin]

Can you post the entire cabinet?

[Mechaman]

Can you post the entire cabinet?

I'll do that sometime in the next two weeks.
I don't know what it is with this TL I just keep getting dead ended when it comes to coming up with ideas.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

If you won't update anytime soon, I'll do something to you.

[Mechaman]

Barry Goldwater and the Voting Rights Act of 1964:



One of President Goldwater's biggest challenges coming into office was how to deal with the recently passed Voting Rights Act of 1964.  The VRA 1964 was originally intended to have been brought up in 1965.  The defeat of President Lyndon Johnson, which many thought was highly unlikely in the middle of 1964, changed all of that.  With only two months left in office and a still strong pro-civil rights majority coalition of liberal non-southern Democrats and moderate liberal Republicans President Johnson and his allies in the US Congress pushed forward the Voting Rights Act two days after election night.  Over the next two weeks the Johnson alliance would work around the clock to ram the legislation through Congress to get it into law before January 3rd when the new Congress (with reduced liberal influence) would be sworn in.  Johnson saw a two part goal to getting the VRA 1964 passed before the New Year's Eve 1964:

1) Getting the Act passed before the new US Congress is sworn in would make for a much stronger Voting Rights Act as opposed to a watered down "in name only" version that would pass under the next Congress due to a stronger conservative presence.  Although a significant faction (the Southern Democrats) of LBJ's own party opposed the Civil Rights movement, he also had the support of a great deal of the Republican Party that was traditionally pro-civil rights.  Even some conservatives (like Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen) would be more willing to get most of the Republican Party behind LBJ's Voting Rights Act.
2) If the Act is signed by Johnson before Barry Goldwater is sworn in as President it'll drove the son of a bitch crazy.  Though Barry Goldwater is no racist he and other conservative Republicans would object to the perception of federal government "overreach" in regards to local and state election laws.  If the VRA is put off too long Goldwater and his allies, both conservative Republicans in his own party and Southern Democrats, would try to find ways to deafen federal intrusion into state voting laws.  In other words, the Voting Rights Act's main purpose of correcting perceived abuses of voting laws would be great weakened.  If the Act is signed into law under the Johnson Administration, however, it would likely give the federal government the power it needs to regulate the abuses inherent in some states.

Under the last two months of Johnson the VRA 1964 was passed, and along with the Vietnam boondoggle Johnson left a huge laundry list for Barry Goldwater to handle.

After consulting with some of his cabinet members Goldwater concluded that the VRA 1964, though it was a pain in his ass, would have to wait until America was finished with the War in Vietnam.  Although Barry Goldwater hinted at someday dealing with the VRA 1964 in his first year in office he rarely addressed the issue at all and instead focused on military issues like ending the draft and increasing troop levels in Vietnam.  Some say that the focus on Vietnam was due to the influence of Defense Secretary William L. Buckley, a former CIA member and well known "cold warrior conservative" who designed a war strategy which would "give the US it's biggest military victory since the end of World War II" by October or November 1966, just in time for the first Congressional midterms.

The Goldwater Administration, to the chagrin of it's many opponents, had learned how to play political hardball.  There were a few problems standing in the Administrations way......however:

1) So far American ground forces in Vietnam have had the luxury of only battling revolutionary Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces.  So far most of the outside support given the Viet Cong and the north Vietnamese has been through Soviet weaponry and Chinese combat "advisors".  There would be no telling just how the two communist powers of China and the Soviet Union would react to the all out American troop surge taking place.  Would China send in a massive army like it did in the Korean War to even the odds?  Would the Soviets, threatened by Goldwater's suggestion to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam, follow suit and use their own nuclear weapons against South Vietnam?  Or would Mutually Assured Destruction keep the two bigger communist powers at bay in the Vietnam conflict.

The other, though less frightening problem was this man:



Next up: A Pain in the Ass.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Awesome update

[Pingvin]

Awesome update

[feeblepizza]

Awesome update

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Sorry I wasn't able to respond to this as quickly as I'd like. Great update. I wonder how hints of American victory will play out for Goldwater in the 1966 mid-term elections. Maybe they'll have the opposite effect that they had on Johnson. Love this timeline.

[Mechaman]

Edward Kennedy.......asshole:



Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the younger brother of late President John F. Kennedy and disgraced from US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, would become a thorn in the side of the Goldwater Administration.  While the Goldwater Administration seemed bent on dealing away with the Vietnam Conflict, Senator Kennedy would regularly bring up other policies, like the debate over taxes, medical treatment for elderly Americans, and Civil Rights issue up before the Senate and would filibuster a number of bills concerning Vietnam (namely a few that dealt with troop increases) and go on rants about how the medical treatment of elders in the nation was in shambles.
During one such exchange Senator Kennedy would blast the Goldwater Administration's "blatant ignorance" of domestic issues in favor of foreign so that "a forced victory in Vietnam" would lead to a rise in approval to help the Republicans in the midterm elections in 1966.

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Privately, for the Senator's efforts to curb the White House agenda, President Goldwater would regularly refer to Edward Kennedy as "Senator Asshole".  The more that Kennedy brought up issues like healthcare, taxes, and spending, issues that Goldwater would address later, the more damaging it would be to the administration.  But Goldwater, though he felt that his stances on those issues was right, knew they would be unpopular.  Thus he would have to maximize "warfare publicity" of American military victories to build support for domestic initiatives at home.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Thanks for finally updating a bunch of your TL's. Hopefully this will continue in the summer.

[Romney/Pawlenty2012]

Long Live Barry Goldwater!

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Long Live Barry Goldwater!

He is almost as dead as this amazing timeline. Don't bump old stuff in the future .