Nixon in 1960
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  Nixon in 1960
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TrumanJohnson
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« on: January 05, 2019, 09:02:00 PM »

What if Nixon had meeked out a narrow victory in 1960 (albeit losing the popular vote)?
What would a Nixon administration look like 8 years early? How does 1964 look? What happens in Cuba? Vietnam?
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brucejoel99
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« Reply #1 on: January 06, 2019, 11:35:42 AM »

I think we'd see a successful Bay of Pigs (which would've obviously led to there having been no Cuban Missile Crisis), or something similar to it (perhaps just a straight up invasion w/ the U.S. Army, which would've likely been successful as the American public would've been very supportive of taking out Castro). Nixon was well aware of Eisenhower-initiated American plans to depose Castro, & he would've also lacked the indecisiveness that JFK had in his early days in office. W/ Castro out, either Batista is reinstalled or somebody less brutal than him is installed; either way, the new Cuban leader would've been a supporter of U.S. interests.

Vietnam is an interesting issue. Part of me strongly feels that Nixon wouldn't really escalate Vietnam like JFK & LBJ did as, while he was an ardent anti-Communist, he was also an expert in international affairs. I think he'd basically maintain Eisenhower's policy, sticking to advisers while focusing on other areas he'd consider more important.

I think we'd still see the passage of a Civil Rights Bill. Nixon was a firm believer in civil rights (before he appealed to racists via the Southern Strategy out of pure political gamesmanship), & even campaigned on it. He had originally received the endorsement of MLK Sr. before RFK reached out to MLK Jr. & other civil rights leaders. Nixon, then having a base that didn't include the south, would've had fewer qualms of pursuing civil rights legislation earlier & maybe even more aggressively (perhaps to secure the African-American vote), though it could possibly have taken longer then it did in real life to secure the legislation's passage as, without having JFK martyred, it could've been harder to push it through Congress.

There'd likely be no Berlin Crisis, or at least a very different one from the one we saw. Khrushchev had previous interaction w/ Nixon, & wouldn't have been as bold in trying to push Nixon's limits.
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UWS
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« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2019, 01:34:57 PM »

I think we'd see a successful Bay of Pigs (which would've obviously led to there having been no Cuban Missile Crisis), or something similar to it (perhaps just a straight up invasion w/ the U.S. Army, which would've likely been successful as the American public would've been very supportive of taking out Castro). Nixon was well aware of Eisenhower-initiated American plans to depose Castro, & he would've also lacked the indecisiveness that JFK had in his early days in office. W/ Castro out, either Batista is reinstalled or somebody less brutal than him is installed; either way, the new Cuban leader would've been a supporter of U.S. interests.

Vietnam is an interesting issue. Part of me strongly feels that Nixon wouldn't really escalate Vietnam like JFK & LBJ did as, while he was an ardent anti-Communist, he was also an expert in international affairs. I think he'd basically maintain Eisenhower's policy, sticking to advisers while focusing on other areas he'd consider more important.

I think we'd still see the passage of a Civil Rights Bill. Nixon was a firm believer in civil rights (before he appealed to racists via the Southern Strategy out of pure political gamesmanship), & even campaigned on it. He had originally received the endorsement of MLK Sr. before RFK reached out to MLK Jr. & other civil rights leaders. Nixon, then having a base that didn't include the south, would've had fewer qualms of pursuing civil rights legislation earlier & maybe even more aggressively (perhaps to secure the African-American vote), though it could possibly have taken longer then it did in real life to secure the legislation's passage as, without having JFK martyred, it could've been harder to push it through Congress.

There'd likely be no Berlin Crisis, or at least a very different one from the one we saw. Khrushchev had previous interaction w/ Nixon, & wouldn't have been as bold in trying to push Nixon's limits.

So Nixon obviously wins re-election in 1964.
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brucejoel99
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« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2019, 06:47:36 PM »

I think we'd see a successful Bay of Pigs (which would've obviously led to there having been no Cuban Missile Crisis), or something similar to it (perhaps just a straight up invasion w/ the U.S. Army, which would've likely been successful as the American public would've been very supportive of taking out Castro). Nixon was well aware of Eisenhower-initiated American plans to depose Castro, & he would've also lacked the indecisiveness that JFK had in his early days in office. W/ Castro out, either Batista is reinstalled or somebody less brutal than him is installed; either way, the new Cuban leader would've been a supporter of U.S. interests.

Vietnam is an interesting issue. Part of me strongly feels that Nixon wouldn't really escalate Vietnam like JFK & LBJ did as, while he was an ardent anti-Communist, he was also an expert in international affairs. I think he'd basically maintain Eisenhower's policy, sticking to advisers while focusing on other areas he'd consider more important.

I think we'd still see the passage of a Civil Rights Bill. Nixon was a firm believer in civil rights (before he appealed to racists via the Southern Strategy out of pure political gamesmanship), & even campaigned on it. He had originally received the endorsement of MLK Sr. before RFK reached out to MLK Jr. & other civil rights leaders. Nixon, then having a base that didn't include the south, would've had fewer qualms of pursuing civil rights legislation earlier & maybe even more aggressively (perhaps to secure the African-American vote), though it could possibly have taken longer then it did in real life to secure the legislation's passage as, without having JFK martyred, it could've been harder to push it through Congress.

There'd likely be no Berlin Crisis, or at least a very different one from the one we saw. Khrushchev had previous interaction w/ Nixon, & wouldn't have been as bold in trying to push Nixon's limits.

So Nixon obviously wins re-election in 1964.

Probably, yeah.
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UWS
Junior Chimp
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« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2019, 06:50:25 PM »

I think we'd see a successful Bay of Pigs (which would've obviously led to there having been no Cuban Missile Crisis), or something similar to it (perhaps just a straight up invasion w/ the U.S. Army, which would've likely been successful as the American public would've been very supportive of taking out Castro). Nixon was well aware of Eisenhower-initiated American plans to depose Castro, & he would've also lacked the indecisiveness that JFK had in his early days in office. W/ Castro out, either Batista is reinstalled or somebody less brutal than him is installed; either way, the new Cuban leader would've been a supporter of U.S. interests.

Vietnam is an interesting issue. Part of me strongly feels that Nixon wouldn't really escalate Vietnam like JFK & LBJ did as, while he was an ardent anti-Communist, he was also an expert in international affairs. I think he'd basically maintain Eisenhower's policy, sticking to advisers while focusing on other areas he'd consider more important.

I think we'd still see the passage of a Civil Rights Bill. Nixon was a firm believer in civil rights (before he appealed to racists via the Southern Strategy out of pure political gamesmanship), & even campaigned on it. He had originally received the endorsement of MLK Sr. before RFK reached out to MLK Jr. & other civil rights leaders. Nixon, then having a base that didn't include the south, would've had fewer qualms of pursuing civil rights legislation earlier & maybe even more aggressively (perhaps to secure the African-American vote), though it could possibly have taken longer then it did in real life to secure the legislation's passage as, without having JFK martyred, it could've been harder to push it through Congress.

There'd likely be no Berlin Crisis, or at least a very different one from the one we saw. Khrushchev had previous interaction w/ Nixon, & wouldn't have been as bold in trying to push Nixon's limits.

So Nixon obviously wins re-election in 1964.

Probably, yeah.

Against which Democrat according to you?
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brucejoel99
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« Reply #5 on: January 07, 2019, 06:56:27 PM »

I think we'd see a successful Bay of Pigs (which would've obviously led to there having been no Cuban Missile Crisis), or something similar to it (perhaps just a straight up invasion w/ the U.S. Army, which would've likely been successful as the American public would've been very supportive of taking out Castro). Nixon was well aware of Eisenhower-initiated American plans to depose Castro, & he would've also lacked the indecisiveness that JFK had in his early days in office. W/ Castro out, either Batista is reinstalled or somebody less brutal than him is installed; either way, the new Cuban leader would've been a supporter of U.S. interests.

Vietnam is an interesting issue. Part of me strongly feels that Nixon wouldn't really escalate Vietnam like JFK & LBJ did as, while he was an ardent anti-Communist, he was also an expert in international affairs. I think he'd basically maintain Eisenhower's policy, sticking to advisers while focusing on other areas he'd consider more important.

I think we'd still see the passage of a Civil Rights Bill. Nixon was a firm believer in civil rights (before he appealed to racists via the Southern Strategy out of pure political gamesmanship), & even campaigned on it. He had originally received the endorsement of MLK Sr. before RFK reached out to MLK Jr. & other civil rights leaders. Nixon, then having a base that didn't include the south, would've had fewer qualms of pursuing civil rights legislation earlier & maybe even more aggressively (perhaps to secure the African-American vote), though it could possibly have taken longer then it did in real life to secure the legislation's passage as, without having JFK martyred, it could've been harder to push it through Congress.

There'd likely be no Berlin Crisis, or at least a very different one from the one we saw. Khrushchev had previous interaction w/ Nixon, & wouldn't have been as bold in trying to push Nixon's limits.

So Nixon obviously wins re-election in 1964.

Probably, yeah.

Against which Democrat according to you?

Idk, it'd depend on the path the party chooses to take after JFK's 1960 loss. Possibly JFK again (a-la Stevenson in the '50s) or LBJ, but really, who knows? Regardless, w/ the record above, he'd still probably beat anybody, though.
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MATTROSE94
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« Reply #6 on: January 07, 2019, 07:00:51 PM »

I would say that the easiest way for Richard Nixon to have won in 1960 would be if John F. Kennedy selected Florida Senator George Smathers as his running mate instead of Lyndon Johnson. Considering that George Smathers was generally an opponent of civil rights legislation (with the exception of his reluctant votes for the 1957 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act), I think that Richard Nixon would have ended up doing about 5% better with the African-American vote (which would have narrowly swung New Jersey, Missouri, and Illinois into the Republican column). Also without Lyndon Joshnon on the Democratic ticket, Texas, New Mexico, and Nevada would have been narrowly won by Nixon as well, although Florida would have easily flipped to Kennedy due to the presence of Smathers on the Democratic ticket and several Southern states such as Georgia would have gone to Kennedy by an even larger margin than IRL.
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dw93
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« Reply #7 on: January 09, 2019, 10:40:31 PM »

A Democrat wins in '68 and likely '72. That means the GOP is likely to get stuck with the chalice that is the late '70's.
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UWS
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« Reply #8 on: January 09, 2019, 11:06:20 PM »

A Democrat wins in '68 and likely '72. That means the GOP is likely to get stuck with the chalice that is the late '70's.

So the GOP wins in 1980 due to the Iran hostage crisis, the Second Oil Crisis and to the rising inflation at that time.
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dw93
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« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2019, 12:04:55 AM »

A Democrat wins in '68 and likely '72. That means the GOP is likely to get stuck with the chalice that is the late '70's.

So the GOP wins in 1980 due to the Iran hostage crisis, the Second Oil Crisis and to the rising inflation at that time.

If the Democrats win in 68 and 72, and the GOP wins in 76, if things go at all similarly to our 1977-81, the Democrats would likely win in 1980, that's what I meant by my original statement.
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MATTROSE94
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« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2019, 04:07:47 PM »
« Edited: April 02, 2020, 05:49:19 PM by MATTROSE94 »

A Democrat wins in '68 and likely '72. That means the GOP is likely to get stuck with the chalice that is the late '70's.
Not necessarily. It is possible that the Vice President of John F. Kennedy, who was elected in 1968 and easily re-elected in 1972 in this scenario, would win the Presidency in 1976. It is also possible that a Nixon victory in 1960 would either delay the Iranian Revolution (until perhaps 1983 or so), or prevent it from occurring entirely (I know that Nixon was a strong supporter of the Shah, so he may have encouraged the Iranian government to execute Ayatollah Khomeini and other opposition leaders during the 1963 Iranian protests), thus butterflying away the 1979 oil crisis and the Iranian hostage crisis.
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Agonized-Statism
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« Reply #11 on: March 09, 2021, 12:07:54 AM »
« Edited: March 09, 2021, 12:14:24 AM by Arachno-Statism »


President Richard Nixon (R-CA) / Vice President Henry Lodge (R-MA) ✓
Senator Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) / Governor Terry Sanford (D-NC)
Governor Ross Barnett (I-MS) / Congressman Robert Sikes (I-FL)

Here's 1964. The Nixon administration sees more incremental progress toward civil rights, and the New Deal Coalition splits over it. Rather than becoming Republicans, the Southern segregationists run third party again. Liberals migrate to the GOP throughout the 1960s, enough for George Wallace to secure the nomination in 1968. Wallace's populism was uniquely accommodating to both single-issue segregationists and northern labor, demonstrated by his win in Michigan in the 1972 primaries, so he probably fills the Democrats' 1970s power vacuum.

Long term, it's a little less clear, but some things we can be sure of are the collapse of the New Deal Coalition, deregulation and financialization, and a rightward cultural shift once things like AIDS pop up. So we do still get a Reagan Revolution of some kind, but it wouldn't necessarily be Reagan and it might not even come from the Republicans. I could see Henry Jackson ushering it in.

Even more interesting is whether or not the US is able to exploit the Sino-Soviet split as it did under Nixon in 1972. I would assume so, but if not, the USSR might survive and seek rapprochement with China in the 1980s.
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Alben Barkley
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« Reply #12 on: March 09, 2021, 12:34:25 AM »

I am not at all convinced the Bay of Pigs would have been successful in this timeline. JFK deferred to the generals who were using an Eisenhower administration plan; I doubt Nixon would do any different AND for the better. What is the reasoning behind this assumption?

Now it’s possible Khrushchev is more scared of Nixon and thus less emboldened to put missiles in Cuba, so no crisis. But if there is one, I shudder to think how it might have gone down. JFK’s calm hand and cool head (neither of which Nixon possessed) along with the skepticism of the military brass he now had after the Bay of Pigs (not sure Nixon would have reacted the same) helped avoid disaster.
 
And even assuming Nixon avoids the worst, I wouldn’t assume he would cakewalk to victory in 1964. He’d be in a very similar position to Bush in 1992: Competent but uncharismatic and uninspiring, less popular VP to a two term Republican icon tries to run for a fourth term in a row for his party. Not sure he could pull it off. If 1960 was still really close, JFK may even beat him in a rematch.
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Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers
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« Reply #13 on: March 11, 2021, 06:59:11 AM »

Then, Robert Kennedy would of been Prez, no Lee Harvey Oswald, no Russian interference, Kennedy would have coasted off of znixon involvement in Nam

By 1970, of Kennedy won on 1968 no Assassinations, because China not Russia was gained dominance.  Nixon probably list Castro from Ciba
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UWS
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« Reply #14 on: October 26, 2021, 08:52:15 PM »

Then, Robert Kennedy would of been Prez, no Lee Harvey Oswald, no Russian interference, Kennedy would have coasted off of znixon involvement in Nam

By 1970, of Kennedy won on 1968 no Assassinations, because China not Russia was gained dominance.  Nixon probably list Castro from Ciba

Nixon would very likely have succeeded the Bay if Pigs invasion, indeed. As Eisenhower's Vice-President, he knew of the original plan and was close to the military and CIA people who had prepared it. He likely would have allowed U.S. air support.
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #15 on: November 01, 2021, 02:21:10 PM »

The 1960 election was a low key major event in political history, not because of the outcome, but because of what happened later.  If Nixon gets civil rights done and tacks to the center on economics, the working class GOP coalition comes together far earlier and 1980-2008 is unrecognizable. 
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johnpressman
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« Reply #16 on: November 15, 2021, 01:53:49 AM »

Nixon COULD have won in 1960 by making a few different choices:

1. No TV debates.
2. No "Compact of 5Th Avenue" with Rockefeller
3. No 50 state campaign pledge
4. Pick Everett Dirksen for VP.

As for President Nixon in office in 1961, he would never have authorized the Bay of Pigs invasion.  The Soviets would probably not have built the Berlin Wall, or installed missiles in Cuba. Nixon also would not have agreed to the coup against Diem in Vietnam, leaving the US an out if Diem couldn't hold it together.
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KYRockefeller
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« Reply #17 on: November 15, 2021, 06:14:08 PM »

Like the 2000 election, a switch of winners in 1960 probably makes significant alterations to our timeline for the rest of the 20th century (just like the 2000 election makes substantial revisions to the 21st).

I think the idea of Nixon having the Bay of Pigs succeed is that he would have used more military force to support it, especially the U.S. air force.
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