Fear and Loathing in Five Decades (1971-2021)

[Lord Byron]

That's good to know...

Waiting for more...

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

March 1973

March brought with it the promise of spring, yet there was little reason for hope in America. The disputed presidential election remained unresolved as Agnew's tenure as Acting President continued, and the economy and the voting public were suffering as a result. There was hope that the Supreme Court would rule in the United States vs. Albert, Ford, and McFall in a manner that would resolve the constitutional stalemate, but this was not to be.

In their ruling, the Supreme Court rejected Bork's argument in favor of canceling further contingency elections. Instead, the court held the House of Representative's right to regulate the election in accordance with their own rules. In the majority opinion (Justice Bickel was the sole dissenter), the court's verdict included a call for the House and Senate to resolve future crises by passing a constitutional amendment and encouraged the House to limit their presidential ballots to once a week. Speaker Albert obliged, and the House began holding a weekly vote each Wednesday for the following five months. Each vote remained inconclusive as the crisis continued.

In Washington, the Senate voted to form an investigative panel, the Senate Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (colloquially known as the Senate Watergate Committee, though it was also charged with investigating McKeithen's own campaign activities as well). Chaired by Senator Sam Ervin (D-NC), the committee began immediately compiling information ahead of the widely anticipated hearings. The ranking member of the committee, Senator Howard Baker (R-TN), named lawyer Fred Thompson to serve as the Republican minority's counsel, while Samuel Dash is charged to represent the Democratic majority on the committee. The Senate Committee consisted of Senators Sam Ervin (D-NC|Chairman), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Joseph Montoya (D-WI), and Philip Hart (D-MI) as well as Howard Baker (R-TN|Ranking Member), Edward Gurney (R-FL), and Lowell Weicker (R-CT).

Fred Thompson with Howard Baker and Sam Ervin.
[1]

Meanwhile, National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger returned from his European tour. His reception in the Kremlin during his visit to the Soviet Union was icy (General Secretary Breznhev did not even meet with him), but his return to Washington was colder. In his absence, Haig had supplanted him and largely isolated him from key developments. Returning to Washington, Kissinger found himself completely in the dark about Agnew's desire to take the war in Vietnam across the Demilitarized Zone. Worse yet, his access to the acting President was curtailed by Rumsfeld, who demanded he instead send all briefings in writing to his Deputy Dick Cheney.

This arrangement was short-lived. On March 6th, 1973, Kissinger was canned by the acting President. This infuriated Richard Nixon, who watched these events in increasing disbelief from his temporary residence at the Mayflower Hotel. Haig then ascended to the position of National Security Adviser, with Bill Casey being named his Deputy. Kissinger was exiled to academia, though his ties within the Republican establishment ensured that he could silently exercise his curtailed influence.

A veteran of World War II who saw action at the Battle of the Bulge, it was from of this experience from which Agnew drew his inspiration, choosing General Henry "Gunfighter" Emerson to lead the planned offensive against North Vietnam. Known for his aggressive style and famed six shooter revolver, the General was a figure reminiscent of Patton, which made an impression on Agnew. Under President Nixon, the United States had cultivated a relationship with China designed to create a (literal) wedge between North Vietnam and the Soviet Union. But for the diplomatically deaf Agnew, the only good red was one that was dead. With Henry Kissinger now removed from the scene, there was little stopping Agnew from acting on his foreign policy impulses. This was demonstrated when he hosted the Foreign Minister of Taiwan at the White House, a direct signal to Peking that the acting President would continue to maintain ties with the Republic of China, which Agnew pointedly remarked was "the historic government of free China." These remarks were angrily rebuked in the People's Republic.

Agnew was an equally poor economist. Despite his appointment of Milton Friedman to chair the Council of Economic Advisers, the nation was teetering on a recession as the uncertainty took its toll on the market. The costly realities of Operation Bold Eagle, the planned invasion of North Vietnam, resulted in the Pentagon finding itself in a financial squeeze. Agnew, determined to launch the operation despite the Department of Defense's concerns, insisted that concerns about inflation were unfounded. Friedman warned the acting President about the economic consequences, but these pleas fell on the deaf ears of Rumsfeld and Cheney. The climate of uncertainty created by the ongoing constitutional crisis was not fueled by Agnew alone however.

The USS Douglas Fox.
[2]

In the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin, the USS Douglas Fox (a Allen Sumner class destroyer) was trailing two Bulgarian merchant ships when it was torpedoed by an unknown submarine in the vicinity. The torpedo punctured the hull and caused an explosion onboard within the ship's ammunition bunker, causing 150 fatalities among the crew of 320. In the wake of the attack, acting President Agnew warned that American support for South Vietnam would remain unwavering, and the State Department formally protested the incident to the governments of Bulgaria, China, North Vietnam, and the Soviet Union as a result.

The incident was followed by three critical foreign policy related events: first was acting President Agnew's announcement that the United States would revoke an invitation of Soviet leader Leonid Breznhev to visit the White House. This invitation, extended by President Nixon in 1972, was a grave slight to the leadership in the Kremlin. It was followed by the decision of the Pentagon to rescind the moratorium issued on the draft, though no new call-ups resulted. Lastly was the revelation in the New York Times that the Pentagon was planning to launch a massive operation against North Vietnam. Infuriated by the leaking of the planning of Operation Bold Eagle, Agnew effectively neutered the White House press corps, and daily press briefings dwindled into weekly (and increasingly hostile) events.

Back in Agnew's native Maryland, the investigatory efforts of US Attorney George Beall begins to grow in scope. Honing in on engineering firm Matz, Child, and Associates, Beall's investigation turns towards Lester Matz and Jerome Wolff. Both friends of the acting President, the probe increasingly grows in scope as Beall begins to realize that corruption in Baltimore could tie the acting President himself to the scandal. But this investigation remains far from the mind of Agnew, who does not view the investigation as a matter to be concerned with.
[1] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Daniel Smith)
[2] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)

[President of the great nation of 🏳️‍⚧️]

On March 6th, 1973, Kissinger was canned by the acting President.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Holy f#ck, this is great.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Holy f#ck, this is great.

Thanks, but I can’t take credit for 95% of events so far. I’m just regurgitating Drew’s work to give context to events that won’t happen until 1974-1975ish.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

April 1973

A purge of many Nixon favored officials began and continued throughout April as Agnew's tenure as acting President entered its third month. It began on April 6th, when former White House counsel John Dean begins cooperating with the Senate Watergate Committee. This resulted in his successor, Robert Bork, going on the warpath. Within days, aides Robert Finch (a longtime Nixon ally from California) and Daniel Patrick Moynihan are removed from their roles in the White House. Other Nixon allies still left within the White House find themselves increasingly marginalized within the administration. Another casualty of this purge is Elliot Richardson, who Nixon had lined up to succeed Melvin Laird as Secretary of Defense. Like Haig, Richardson's impending nomination was scuttled by Rumsfeld and Cheney, who encouraged Agnew to keep Deputy Secretary Bill Clements as acting Secretary until another appointee could be named.

Former White House Counsel John Dean.
[1]

Agnew also withdrew L. Patrick Gray's nomination to serve as Director of the FBI, instead announcing his intention to pick Colonel Tom Smith, director of the Maryland State Police to serve in the position. Though Agnew remained largely ignorant (and also unconcerned) by the Beall investigation, his decision to bring allies from his days in Maryland's state government into the administration was widely seen by opponents in Washington as an attempt to stay in the position of acting President for the long haul. Confirmation hearings for Smith would be largely uneventful, with few Senators finding fault in him other than his long-standing relationship with the acting President. Voting 58-42 to confirm him as FBI Director, Smith's confirmation hearings did not address the still largely unknown probe that was growing back in Baltimore.

Operation Bold Eagle's exposure in the press was followed on April 1st with massive deployments to South Vietnam. Though the White House continued to deny that the call-ups were for an offensive operation against North Vietnam, citing the USS Douglas Fox's sinking as the cause for reinforcement instead. The Agnew administration was delighted just a day later when Soviet and Chinese airplanes engaged one another over a disputed stretch of territory along the Sino-Soviet border. This incident was the latest sign of tension between the two predominant communist powers, and the administration was keen on exploiting this divide. Like Nixon before him (who continued to watch in horror from the Mayflower Hotel as he attempted to coordinate his efforts to reclaim the Presidency in the contingency election), Agnew saw this divide as being critical to containing and ultimately concluding the Cold War.

The Beall investigation began to gain ground as they closed in on Matz, Child, and Associates. With 62 employees taking an offer of immunity in exchange for closed door testimony before a grand jury, many figures in Maryland's state government, including Agnew himself, were implicated in a wide-ranging bribery and kickback scheme. This is not known by the public, but whispers quietly proliferate themselves around Baltimore that a scandal might be brewing.

But events in the far east again stole the attention of the press and their headlines after a Chinese air force jet shot down a Soviet plane traveling over the South China Sea. The Soviet plane, which carried a delegation of Soviet dignitaries led by Communist Party functionary Mikhail Gorbachev from North Vietnam back to Russia, was shot down by the People's Republic after they allegedly had confused it for an American spy plane. In response to the shoot-down, the Soviet military moved into Mongolia, which was aligned with Moscow. Tensions threatened to boil over once again as the regime in Peking weighed what to do next.

Chinese forces in Mongolia, 1973.
[2]

The response of China would prove to be disastrous; on the morning of April 12th, the People's Liberation Army invaded Mongolia and attacked Soviet and Mongolian forces across the border. The Chinese also launched several smaller incursions into Siberia in order to bog down and distract the Soviet army from launching an immediate counter-offensive into China. With the PLA marching towards the Mongolian capital, the pro-Soviet puppet regime of Yumjaagiin Tsendenbal was forced to flee Ulan Bator for the safety of the USSR. While the Chinese ground force outnumbered the Mongolians and their Soviet allies, the Soviet air force was able to effectively wipe out much of the PLA's air force bases near the border within days of the initial attack. Yet despite their inability to dominate the skies, the PLA's sheer size was enough to keep pushing forward into the Mongolian countryside.

The war exposed the vulnerability of China's leadership; though the attack on Mongolia was planned, organized, and ordered by Mao Zedong's increasingly influential nephew Mao Yuanxin (a key figure in the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution) and Jiang Qiang, Mao's wife, it was Premier Zhou Enlai who found himself being blamed for the Chinese military's inability to swiftly finish the attack. There was some speculation in Peking that the war was launched by radical Maoists in order to create a permanent division within the Communist Party of China which could be exploited in their favor.

The Sino-Soviet war would devolve quickly into a stalemate, with fighting taking place for several months on a low intensity scale across the Mongolian highlands. Concerns of a nuclear exchange between the two warring communist powers passed, with both nations fearful of the other's response. Though the lack of a nuclear attack by either power was a relief to the rest of the world, the war was still a dangerous and fragile situation with threatened global peace. In both the USSR and China, those few brave enough to speak out against the war were quickly dealt with. One such casualty of this period was Deng Xiaoping, a politburo member who was purged from his positions for "defeatist" and "counter-revolutionary" ideals. He quickly disappeared into China's vast network of reeducation camps, never to be heard of in the People's Republic again.

Watching from Washington, Agnew was practically giddy about the conflict. Though not oblivious to the conflict's potential expansion into a nuclear war, Agnew was confident that the war could be fully exploited by the west. The war indeed had a massive impact on Soviet support for North Vietnam, as their shipping networks could (and were) easily penetrated by People's Liberation Navy vessels and submarines. This created an optimal climate for Operation Bold Eagle to be launched. The President also used the opportunity to appoint more loyalists to key national security posts; CIA Director Richard Helms resigned in mid-April after repeated clashes with Rumsfeld and Cheney, with Deputy Director Daniel O. Graham being nominated and later confirmed by a vote of 77-23 to replace him. Meanwhile, Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze was officially nominated to lead the Pentagon. Secretary of State William P. Rodgers was effectively sidelined as well, with Haig acting as both a sort of de-facto Secretary of State and Defense during this period.

With war in the far east and a constitutional crisis at home, the acting President saw another opportunity to solidify his political position. Sending his personal lawyer Judah Best to meet privately with George Beall in an attempt to ward off the investigation, Agnew's efforts only seemed to further spark the US Attorney's suspicions that the acting President was at least aware, if not involved, in the bribery schemes that took place in Baltimore County. Yet it was the Watergate scandal that was the biggest fish.

After an FBI employee testified before the Senate Watergate Committee that former acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray destroyed files related to Howard Hunt, the scandal ballooned once again. Days later, testimony linked John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman to the scandal, which pulled Nixon closer to the heart of the scandal. Lastly, it was revealed that Attorney General Richard Kleindienst did not fully report his knowledge of the break-in or G. Gordon Libby's attempts to intimidate him into silence, which resulted in his resignation within a matter of hours. Claiming ignorance of the Watergate matter, Agnew used the opportunity to instead nominate J. Clifford Wallace, a conservative federal judge, to the position of Attorney General.

Judge John Clifford Wallace - Agnew's appointee for Attorney General.
[3]

[1] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)
[2] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Danwei)
[3] Taken from LDS website, but technically public domain as it is an official portrait.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

May 1973

As the Sino-Soviet War continued, it's consequences spilled across the Yalu River into North Korea. Having wavered between both the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union for years, the regime of Kim Il Sung was forced to pick a side at last. Kim chose neutrality, and as a result, made enemies in both Moscow and Peking. Sensing that both sides would surely make moves against him in Pyongyang, Kim moved proactively to unify the ruling Workers Party around his neutrality and instead condemned the conflict as "a catastrophic blow to the unity of the international socialist movement." As the regime continued to refine the ideology of Juche, Kim purged Premier Kim Il (no relation) for his support for the USSR, replacing him with Pak Song-ol, the former Foreign Minister. Politburo member Kim Tong-gyu was also purged, ostensibly for being pro-China. It was during this time that Kim Ill Sung's son Kim Jong Il emerged as a force within North Korea in his own right.

Kim Il Sung - a fairweather friend of Mao and Brezhnev.
[1]

Back in Washington, the resignation of Attorney General Richard Kleindienst was followed by the rise of Deputy Attorney General Joseph Sneed Jr., who in his capacity as acting Attorney General refused to follow through on Agnew's order to stop the Beall probe back in Baltimore. As a result, he too was fired. Solicitor General Erwin Griswold also refused to fire Beall, and was fired hours later. Finally, Ralph Erickson, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal counsel, fired Beall. Dubbed "the Friday night massacre," the reaction in Washington was of unmatched fury. It took only seventy-two hours for acting Attorney General Erickson to announce the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the circumstances of the Baltimore probe, with Erickson announcing J. Lee Rankin (a Republican who had served as Chief Counsel of the Warren Commission and as Solicitor General) as his choice to head the investigation.

As more American soldiers arrived in South Vietnam in preparation for Operation Bold Eagle, the Democratic majority in Congress attempted to stop it. Voting in the House by a margin of 261-174 and the Senate 61-39, the Congress passed a resolution defunding the war. Acting President Agnew vetoed the bill, and neither chamber could muster enough votes to override the veto. Despite the fierce opposition of the Democratic Party (including Governor McKeithen, who was still contesting the Presidency in the weekly contingency ballots in the House), the acting President saw his polling go up as Americans rallied around him in the wake of the USS Douglas Fox sinking. Promising a swift and decisive end to the war in Vietnam, Agnew's growing popularity became a source for alarm for both Governor McKeithen and (technically "former") President Nixon.

Televised hearings for the Senate Watergate Committee meanwhile generated a great degree of outrage against the two 1972 presidential candidates, both of whom were implicated in many of the "dirty tricks" which marred the last campaign. With J. Lee Rankin leading the investigation into the Baltimore probe, calls for a second Special Prosecutor for the Watergate scandal grew. Acting Attorney General Erickson agreed to name Archibald Cox, the Solicitor General to the late President Kennedy, as Special Prosecutor. Acting President Agnew was delighted by this event, as it drew heat off his own involvement in the Baltimore bribery scandal.

On May 31st, 1973, President Nixon - who had returned to New York to resume his law practice when it became obvious that the contingency elections would remain unresolved - was shot three times outside his firm's office by Leonard Peltier, a radical member of the American Indian Movement who was present at Wounded Knee earlier in the year. Secret Service agents returned fire, injuring and disarming Peltier, who was taken into custody. Rushed to a nearby hospital, Nixon's condition was critical, though successful surgery results in three bullets being removed from his chest. The former President would recover relatively quickly considering the severity of the situation, but his injuries and subsequent health concerns caused by the assassination attempt would no doubt leave him less capable of managing his still desired return to power. In a display of unity, Governor McKeithen would travel to New York to personally visit the wounded Nixon in the hospital in the aftermath of the shooting. Peltier would later be tried and convicted for his actions, and was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Leonard Peltier's mugshot.
[2]

[1] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)
[2] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)

[Lord Byron]

November saw the confirmation of

You're missing the rest of this, Godspeed RBG...

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

November saw the confirmation of

You're missing the rest of this, Godspeed RBG...

I’ll correct that soon, thanks!

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

June 1973.

Secretary of State William Rodgers resigned on June 1st, citing a desire to return to private life. This gave the acting President a chance to reshape the State Department, and Agnew jumped on the opportunity. Seeing as National Security Adviser Al Haig had effectively played the role as both Secretary of Defense and State simultaneously, Agnew looked for a placeholder who could both follow the anti-communist foreign policy orthodoxy of the Republican Party's foreign policy while managing the bureaucracy of the State Department. He found this person in UN Ambassador George H.W. Bush. Announcing his selection of Bush at the beginning of summer, the Senate was by and large receptive of Bush's nomination. The confirmation process played out quickly over the course of June, and by the end of the month, Bush was confirmed as Secretary of State by a vote of 60-40. To replace Bush at the United Nations, Ambassador to South Korea Phillip Habib is nominated and confirmed by a 72-28 margin.

Ambassador George Bush at the UN, circa 1971.
[1]

The assassination attempt on Richard Nixon results in expanded Secret Service protection for the families of acting President Agnew, former President Nixon, and former Governor McKeithen. It could not come at a better time; on June 2nd, members of the Black Liberation Army attempt to kidnap the daughter of the acting President. Led by Asata Shakur, four gunmen attempted to force their way into Pamela Agnew-DeHaven's apartment in Towson, Maryland, but are surprised to find agents of the Secret Service present. After a brief firefight that leaves Shakur injured, the assailants retreat. Agnew's 29-year-old daughter is shaken but otherwise uninjured, and joins her parents in the White House for the remaining duration of the Agnew administration.

The attacks on Agnew-DeHaven and former President Nixon generate more support for the acting President, which he exploits on the airwaves. A series of advertisements starring John Wayne air on all three major networks, in which he hails the acting President as a strong and decisive leader who could defend America from communists abroad and terrorists at home. But other events would soon transpire which would only further embolden Agnew and endear him to the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

First was the testimony of John Dean before the Senate Watergate Committee, in which the former White House Counsel fingered President Nixon himself as the central figure in the orchestration of the Watergate cover up. Though Dean offered his notes taken during a number of meetings with the (then) President as evidence, the hearing did little to prove Nixon's culpability. Dean did however have more success in advancing the narrative that Nixon was shifty and crooked, and was not to be trusted, though Nixon supporters argued that the press was biased against him. Agnew, while slowly distancing himself by both time and tenure from Nixon, would continue to use this argument himself when faced with hostile reporters.

John Dean testifies before the Senate.
[2]

Secondly was the Southeast Riots in Los Angeles, California. The riots began after police used heavy-handed tactics to disperse a Black Panther march organized by radical professor Angela Davis, who had recently been acquitted on terrorism charges for her involvement in the Marin County Courthouse hostage taking, which took place in 1970. Clashes between rioters and the police would last three weeks, with large sections of Watts and Compton going up in flames as a result. Governor Reagan mobilized the National Guard, and deployed them to the streets, where they frequently found themselves under sniper fire in their efforts to restore law and order. Blaming the Black Liberation Army for the violence, which Reagan described as a terrorist group, the deployment of the National Guard initially turned more disaffected black youth towards the Black Panthers before the riots finally died down. The images of Los Angeles burning would air nightly on the news broadcasts, resulting in Governor Reagan's public image as a law and order conservative being set in stone.

Rioting in Los Angeles, California.
[3]

[1] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain).
[2] Taken from YouTube Video (C-SPAN)
[3] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)

[Lord Byron]

Hope this isn't as dark as the original TL (read the 1980s part of Fear, Loathing, and Gumbo) gets, and I wonder what's going to be different from the original...

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Hope this isn't as dark as the original TL (read the 1980s part of Fear, Loathing, and Gumbo) gets, and I wonder what's going to be different from the original...

I thought the original timeline was fantastic but got a little carried away with assassinations. Agnew's daughter, Princess Anne, the Queen, and so on all were assassinated at various points. These events, while interesting, get a bid repetitive, so I've butterflied them away.

I have read Rumsfeldia. Rumsfeld will have an interesting career, but he won't be President in 1980, and there won't be an objectivist inspired fascist regime in America by 1988.

[Lumine]

Really keen to see in which direction you take the Agnew administration, but brilliant work thus far condensing the original narrative whilst adding new content. I take it the Nixon shooting is one of those points of departure? It's been a while since I last read Fear, Loathing and Gumbo, but I can't recall that event.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Really keen to see in which direction you take the Agnew administration, but brilliant work thus far condensing the original narrative whilst adding new content. I take it the Nixon shooting is one of those points of departure? It's been a while since I last read Fear, Loathing and Gumbo, but I can't recall that event.

Actually, the Nixon shooting is part of the original timeline, but I scaled it down. Originally, a group of ten armed AIM activists ambushed his convoy in New York. I boiled it down to Peltier shooting Nixon without all the drama. But the kidnapping of Pamela Agnew was something that just felt a bit gratuitous.

The purpose of covering the 1972 election and the Agnew presidency is to explore a constitutional crisis which I simply couldn't reinvent myself. The timeline will be my own work entirely after 1976, though some PODs from the original timeline will still shape certain global events (Middle East in particular) in a manner similar to Drew's work.

I'm grateful that he allowed me to do this, because I couldn't come up with anything near as interesting as he did!

EDIT: Also, I removed the 1973 North Korean coup. I couldn't find any information what so ever about Hyung Ju, the Marshall who in the original timeline replaced Kim. Keeping the Kim dynasty is too tempting in any event.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

July 1973

The bombing halt benefited North Vietnam.
[1]

With the opening phase of Operation Bold Eagle nearing its launch, acting President Agnew shocked Washington and the world when he abruptly announced a sixty-day bombing halt over North Vietnam. Though Agnew officially explained the bombing halt as an opportunity to meditate on the possibility of resuming negotiations with the United States, in reality, the air force was simply logistically overloaded. The sixty-day bombing halt would give the United States time to handle operational strain and replenish supplies. During this bombing moratorium, North Vietnam would capitalize on the lack of aerial bombardment by redeploying troops to the jungles, where the tropical canopy protected them from further attack. With the assistance of East German and Yugoslav engineers, an extensive network of tunnels and bunkers are built across Hanoi in anticipation of further bombing runs.

July 4th is marked by protests across the country, with some of the largest demonstrations taking place in Los Angeles (still smoldering from recent rioting) and Washington, though these events are by and large are peaceful. Weeks later, however, more rioting breaks out, this time in Chicago. After a drug bust in Chicago's notorious Cabrini-Green housing project went horribly wrong, resulting in two unarmed black teens being shot, tens of thousands of black Chicagoans went to the streets to protest. Egged on by Black Panther militants, this march turned into a riot that lasted three days. In response to the unrest in Chicago, Agnew announced that he would seek to halt federal funding for various programs in the city.

The Senate Watergate Committee hearings meanwhile continue to play out in Washington, with a massive bombshell being dropped when Alexander Butterfield, a former Nixon aide, confirmed that the former President had employed the use of an elaborate secret taping system to record most of his conversations and phone calls. The existence of the Nixon tapes was a game changer, resulting in many congressional Democrats arguing that the former President (still recovering from an assassination attempt) should concede the continuing contingency elections in the House to his rival, Governor McKeithen. Facing growing pressure and increasingly wary of Agnew's ideological experiments, Nixon agreed to secretly meet with the former Louisiana Governor towards the end of the month.

Alexander Butterfield, a former aide to Nixon.
[2]

As this crisis played out, Agnew was able to see to it that his nominee for Attorney General was confirmed by the Senate 58-42 despite tense confirmation hearings. The reliably conservative J. Clifford Wallace was sworn in as Attorney General that night in a ceremony in the White House's East Room. The revelation of the Nixon tapes, as big of a controversy as it was, would not hold a candle to what was to come next. Facing indictment for tax fraud and bribery, Jerome Wolff, a key figure in the Baltimore corruption probe, admits to Special Prosecutor J. Lee Rankin that he personally funneled and delivered money to Spiro Agnew between 1966 and 1969, the last such payoff taken during the then Vice President's first month in office. Agnew angrily denied the allegations, and protested that Wolff's claims were the invention of politically minded journalists out to destroy his career. The Washington Post meanwhile released a bombshell expose which detailed Agnew's alleged corruption and the investigatory efforts by George Beall and J. Lee Rankin which brought the scandal to light.

On July 29th, the secretive Nixon and McKeithen summit quietly unfolded within the former President's Penthouse on Fifth Avenue. Facing legal woes related to Watergate and still recovering from an assassination attempt, Nixon agreed to concede the election to McKeithen. This was announced the following morning at a press conference in New York City, where the former President vowed to remove his name from consideration, citing national unity and personal health concerns. Hailed as a statesman by many Democrats and Republicans alike, Nixon officially transmitted his request in writing in a letter to Speaker Albert, who immediately began preparing for a final contingency vote to once and for all resolve the disputed 1972 presidential election. Agnew watched these developments helplessly from the White House as Governor McKeithen - the man who would soon be President-elect of the United States - flew back to Boston for one final lecture at Harvard.

He would not make it.

On the morning of July 31st, Delta Airlines Flight 173 crashed into a seawall while attempting to land at Boston-Logan international airport, killing all 91 people onboard. The concession of Richard Nixon and the death of Governor McKeithen immediately sparks another constitutional crisis as a confused and bewildered American public reacted in horror. The crash results in conspiracy theories proliferating like wildfire, contributing to a growing national zeitgeist of confusion and cynicism. Within hours of the accident, lawyers representing Richard Nixon, George Wallace, and Spiro Agnew hastily filed legal motions in accordance with the political desires of the candidates.

The wreckage of Flight 173, which killed McKeithen.
[3]

[1] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)
[2] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)
[3] Taken from CelebrateBoston.

[President of the great nation of 🏳️‍⚧️]

sh**t, does that make Agnew permanent president? (Well, of the 1973-77 term)

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

August 1973

On the morning of August 1st, Robert Bork was in federal court. Seeking an injunction on further contingency elections in the House, Bork argued that Nixon's concession and McKeithen's untimely demise resulted in (officially Vice President) Agnew ascending to the Presidency. With the Supreme Court in recess for the summer, the case is heard before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals; the court rules that contingency elections in the House of Representatives should end contingency elections until the case could be heard. Nixon's lawyers hurriedly filed an objection, claiming the former President had renounced his concession in the aftermath of McKeithen's death. George Wallace also filed an objection, stating "I'm still alive and I haven't conceded jack-sh*t."

That evening, within the walls of the White House, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bork were briefed by the Attorney General. Warning that Agnew would be indicted by a Baltimore grand jury within a matter of days, Attorney General J. Clifford Wallace concluded that the case was open and shut. Rumsfeld, Cheney, and most critically Bork agreed, but decided to keep the matter between them. Cheney was tasked by Rumsfeld to begin looking for a nominee to take on the Vice Presidency, realizing that Agnew's official ascendancy to the Presidency would be short-lived. By seeking to appoint a Vice President who could take over from Agnew when his luck would run out, the troika of conservative ideologues would remain in place and power within the executive mansion.  

Archibald Cox, the Special Prosecutor for Watergate, filed a subpoena on August 2nd, demanding that former President Richard Nixon hand over the White House tapes. Nixon's lawyers, already busy with the crisis over the disputed Presidency, filed another objection within the DC District Court. The court would rule in favor of Cox, ordering Nixon to hand over the tapes to a "special master" who would hold onto the tapes until the matter was fully heard out in court, though the court also rules that the tapes cannot be listened to, transcribed, or otherwise accessed until a later point in time.

The Million-Person March was held on August 4th in Washington, led by Reverend Jesse Jackson and actress Jane Fonda. With hundreds of thousands gathering on the National Mall to protest the Agnew administration and the war in Vietnam, the event began with Jackson delivering an impassioned speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and ended with the radical Reverend leading demonstrators to the White House. Attempting to personally deliver a petition signed by thousands of leading politicians, academics, and veterans to Agnew, the National Guard was called into Washington in order to disperse the crowds. A riot would ensue, with President Agnew quietly slipping away to Camp David at the behest of the Secret Service.

Anti-war protests in Washington in 1973.
[1]

Three days later on August 7th, Agnew was formally indicted by a grand jury in Baltimore for bribery, fraud, and tax evasion. Defending himself at a tense press briefing, Agnew denounced the charges as being politically motivated and insisted that he was now constitutionally President, pointedly correcting reporters who repeatedly referred to him as the "acting" President. The following morning, perhaps in an effort to distract the media, Agnew ordered bombing of North Vietnam to resume just 34 days into the 60 day bombing halt.

That same evening, the Democratic Party National Committee met and in accordance with their bylaws officially nominated Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN), their 1972 Vice Presidential nominee, as their standard-bearer ahead of the next contingency vote. Filing with the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in the hope that Bayh could replace the late McKeithen during the contingency election ballot, citing the death of McKeithen and Nixon's concession. Though the case proceeds on flimsy ground, the longshot plan highlighted the desperate nature of Washington to resolve the Presidency's disputed status one way or another.

Senator Birch Bayh unsuccessfully sought to have his name on the ballot.
[2]

Robert Bork returned to court in response to this lawsuit, mirroring the Democratic National Committee by seeking to have Agnew placed on the ballot as a result of Nixon's concession. The Republican National Committee, chaired by Senator Robert Dole (R-KS), denied this request earlier, and Agnew sought to legally compel the RNC in order to achieve this goal. But Dole, a Nixon lawyer, came prepared with his own lawyers to challenge Agnew's ambition.

The next morning, Operation Bold Eagle finally commenced. Under the command of recently promoted Lt. General "Gunfighter" Emerson, American forces launched a mop up operation in South Vietnam to root out Viet Cong and NVA forces before pushing northward across the ironically named demilitarized zone which separated the two Vietnamese states. Operation Bold Eagle was accompanied by aerial and naval bombardment of the North, which resulted in an unintentional exchange between Chinese and American destroyers in two separate incidents, though neither resulted in casualties on either side.

By August 10th, Agnew's situation was precarious enough to warrant him taking drastic action. Issuing pardons for John Childs, Lester Matz, Jerome Wolff, and most controversially, himself, Agnew's actions precluded him and his cohorts from criminal prosecution. The decision sparks outrage, but has serious consequences for diplomatic matters in Washington as well. With the United States increasingly becoming a pariah due to the President's foreign policy and scandals, the European Community saw opportunity to assert themselves as part of a tri-polar world. A secret summit in Germany saw Chancellor Willy Brandt, Prime Minister Edward Heath, and French President Georges Pompidou agree to greater cooperation as a bloc on the world stage. They exercised their newfound influence by deploying the "trio group" - a gaggle of British, French, and West German diplomats - to attempt to negotiate a peace agreement between the USSR and China before the conflict could expand into a nuclear war.

British Prime Minister Edward Heath - leader of the "Trio Group."
[3]

The Agnew scandal was compounded by Watergate, a story which seemed to worsen with each passing day. The FBI launched a surprise raid on former President Nixon's residence in San Clemente, California. Seizing boxes of tapes and thousands of documents from Nixon's "West Coast White House," the FBI delivered these files to the Special Master appointed by the court in the District of Columbia. That same day, former Nixon aide John Ehrlichman began cooperating with the investigation as his own legal woes mounted. The former President considered Ehrlichman's actions to be a betrayal which could never be forgiven, and the two men would never speak to one another again as a result.

As the Agnew and Nixon scandals continued to dominate American headlines, the conflict in Mongolia grew bloodier when the Soviet and Mongolian armies were able to retake the capital of Ulan Bator from the Chinese. The battle left the city in smoldering ruins and caused hundreds of thousands of people to flee the street to street fighting, taking refuge in the countryside where they nearly starved to death in hastily organized refugee camps under the protection of the Soviet army.  Despite 50,000 deaths related to the fighting, the Soviets were able to drive the Chinese back across the border in a humiliating blow to the regime of Mao Zedong.

The war in Vietnam also continued, with American forces hurling themselves across the demilitarized zone, taking the war into North Vietnamese territory for the first time since the outbreak of the conflict. An American force consisting of 22,000 soldiers acompanied by a further group of 14,000 South Vietnamese soldiers occupied the city of Dong Hoi after intense fighting that left over 400 Americans dead and a thousand more injured. Tchepone, a key junction along the Ho Chi Minh Trail within Laos, was similarly attacked. The incursion into Laos, technically a neutral country, is defended by Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze, who argued that the presence of North Vietnamese troops in the country made the region an "enemy occupied territory" that was being "liberated" by the United States. The attack completes the goal of disrupting enemy supply lines into South Vietnam, but also illegal under the Church-Cooper Amendment of 1970, which prohibited the expansion of the war into Cambodia and Laos. Yet the actions, regardless of their legality, were wildly successful - Lt. General Emerson and his chief Lieutenant Norman Schwarzkopf became stars back home in America, and several other junior officers, including Colin Powell and Oliver North, would be promoted for their leadership abilities.

The Soviet Union, though bogged down by the war in the far east, still had an active presence in the Middle East. A slow, steady trickle of anti-aircraft guns and SCUD missiles were secretly transported to Egypt, Iraq, and Syria in anticipation of an Arab surprise attack against Israel, set to take place on Ramadan in October. This planned attack was discovered by France, who attempted to warn Israel to little avail. American and British intelligence agencies were dismissive of the warning, as was Israel, who did not trust the French due to DeGaulle's actions during the 1967 war. At a dinner in New York City honoring former British Foreign Secretary Rab Butler, Secretary of State Bush quietly requested former National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger travel to Moscow in violation of the Logan Act, a request that Kissinger obliged by.

Back in Washington, the DC District Court ruled against the DNC's request to have Birch Bayh placed on the ballot during the contingency election, and also ruled that Nixon's concession could be retracted. Bork appealed on behalf of President Agnew, and the court continued to issue a stay on further contingency ballots in the House of Representatives until the matter could be resolved. As a result, only McKeithen (who was dead), Nixon, and Wallace would be allowed to contest the Presidency. A three judge panel consisting of Chief Justice Warren Burger, Justice William Brown III, and Byron White declined to hear the case, upholding the DC court's ruling as a result.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino.
[4]

At a tense meeting on Capital Hill, the Democratic leadership met to devise a plan going forward. At the behest of Congressman Peter Rodino (D-NJ), the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, a young lawyer named Gary Hart - who managed McGovern's presidential campaign - stepped forward with a solution that Rodino found agreeable. The plan was simple - vote to elect McKeithen in the upcoming House election, which would result in Agnew at last ascending to the Presidency in a official capacity. Noting that Agnew's pardon was legally considered an admission of guilt, the solution was simple: impeach him. The plot would result in Carl Albert, Speaker of the House, rising to the Presidency.

But there was one remaining problem: Albert didn't want the job.
[1] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Leena Krohn)
[2] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)
[3] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)
[4] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain).
I had forgotten much of these events until I reread the timeline. Holy crap. Drew is the greatest author in AH.com's history.

[YPestis25]

Really enjoying this, Sanchez.

International developments, especially the "Trio Group," are very intriguing.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

September 1973

Vietnamese pilots walk past planes donated by the Soviet Union.
[1]

On September 1st, a strange event in Indochina generated headlines. A North Korean MiG fighter jet was shot down over South Vietnam, with the pilot being taken into custody. The pilot was a Soviet national, a sign that the USSR is more directly involved in the war than previously thought. Though Moscow denies this, claiming that the pilot was merely a volunteer, the Agnew administration uses the shoot down to continue to propagate their claims of foreign involvement in the conflict.

Labor Day saw more protests, with 150,000 anti-Agnew demonstrators marching on Washington demanding an end to the war and the resignation of the acting President. Within the walls of the White House, the Secretary of State was summoned for a rare meeting with the acting President, though Rumsfeld and Cheney hovered behind him throughout. In a stunning tirade, Agnew attacked the United Nations, raised the possibility of dropping a nuclear bomb on the Ho Chi Minh trail, and frequently criticized the Secretary for his lack of "stones" in dealing with communist regimes across the globe. The meeting shook Bush to the core, returning to his office at the State Department to tell Jim Baker, his principal aide, that he received "a lecture from the world's most dangerous idiot."

As these events played out, the economy continued to decline. To fund the war in Vietnam, Agnew had ordered his Treasury Secretary George Schultz to find funding through borrowing. Taking loans from banks and money markets at exuberant interest rates, the national debt expanded as the money supply tightened. Rising interest rates exasperated the situation, causing inflation which eroded the savings of millions of Americans. These events would put America on track for the Second Great Depression, and the growing economic concerns weakened the dollar in the face of competing foreign currencies. The price of gold spiked as many investors turned towards precious metals. The GDP remained anemic but somewhat stable, largely because of large investment in defense firms and aviation. Otherwise, most other sectors of the economy continued to slowly languish. Consumer spending collapsed as these events played out, and the slowdown of the economy was watched from Washington with great dread.

Treasury Secretary George P. Schultz
[2]

The final House contingency election was conducted on September 5th, when the House voted to elect the dead John McKeithen to the Presidency. This resolved the 1972 presidential election at last, giving the late Louisiana Governor the honor of being elected to the Presidency from beyond the grave. The final vote saw 28 state delegations selecting the deceased Democrat, with New England Republicans casting their ballots in his favor while Georgia and Mississippi's delegations switched to Governor Wallace. Speaker Albert personally delivered the certificate of election to Senator James Eastland (D-MS), the President Pro-Tempore of the Senate.

The two Congressional leaders then traveled to the White House, where a beaming Agnew accepted the certificates of election as the White House staff hastily worked to prepare for his inauguration. The portrait of George Washington which had long hung in the Oval Office was noticeably gone, replaced instead by a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt, a man Agnew admired and saw himself as a latter day analogue to. Handing the certificate over to Secretary of State Bush, who affixed the official seal to the document, it was now official - Spiro Agnew was the 38th President of the United States. Hours later, before the Justices of the Supreme Court, the Congressional leadership, and the cabinet, the President was sworn in to office in the White House's East Room. After a brief and uninspiring seven minute speech, Agnew returned to the Oval Office, confident that his troubles were now behind him.

The immediate task was to find a suitable Vice President. Though Rumsfeld and Cheney argued that an inoffensive (and pliable) figure, preferably a Governor (though not Reagan nor Rockefeller) be selected, Agnew had his heart set on appointing Congressman John Ashbrook (R-OH) to the position. That night, a private meeting between House Majority Leader John McFall (D-CA) and House Minority Leader Gerald Ford (R-MI) took place at the latter's private residence. The two men agreed that Agnew had to be stopped, and decided to embrace Gary Hart's scheme on impeaching Agnew. As Speaker Albert had made it clear that he had no desire to embrace the Presidency, the two men debated for hours as to who should be elected Speaker should events come to that point. It was not until 2:00 AM that morning that the two came to an agreement on a possible compromise candidate, and they remained unsure if he'd accept the offer.

The following morning saw Agnew officially nominate Ashbrook without notifying either Speaker Albert nor Minority Leader Gerald Ford. Yet the nomination was a dead horse - even Rumsfeld and Cheney knew that Ashbrook hadn't a snowballs chance in hell of being confirmed to the position, and the Senate's Democratic majority reacted in fury. While this played out in Washington, the Federal Reserve released a report showing inflation to be 9%, while interest rates climbed to 12.5%. This was the highest inflation and interest rates had been since 1947, and the stock market reacted as the Dow Jones plunged.

The next day, Congressman Peter Rodino (D-NJ) introduced articles of impeachment to the House of Representatives. Republican lawmakers who had backed Nixon and Agnew heckled Rodino during the speech, with one member crying on the floor of the House as he screamed "may God damn each and every one of you bastards." Agnew was unconcerned, ignorantly believing that his pardon precluded him from impeachment. At a heated press conference, an exchange between NBC's Tom Brokaw and the President resulted in White House press secretary Pat Buchanan banning Brokaw from the grounds of the executive mansion.

September 11th saw an American sponsored military coup remove Salvadore Allende from power in Chile; the violent coup installed General Augusto Pinochet as leader of a military junta, and Allende himself was killed after a tank fired a shell into the presidential palace in Santiago. The Soviet Union and Cuba condemned the coup, but they could do nothing to stop it. The death of Allende and the rise of Pinochet ensured that the regime in Santiago would hold onto power for years to come.

The 1973 Chile coup saw the Presidential Palace in Santiago bombed.
[3]

In Vietnam, an NVA attack on both Dong Hoi and Tchepone in Laos resulted in American forces repelling the communist onslaught, with both sides sustaining high casualties in the fierce fighting that commenced. Using their air power to their advantage, the American and South Vietnamese armies were responsible for much of the American casualties after repeated friendly fire incidents over the fluid battlefield. In one instance, over 219 American soldiers from the Indiana National Guard were killed after repeated attacks on their position by mistaken American pilots. This caused an outrage in the Hoosier state, and embarrassed the Agnew administration at the same time.

September 12th saw the House Judiciary Committee commence impeachment hearings, with former US Attorney George Beall testifying for three days as he outlined the initial investigation into Agnew. Former Special Prosecutor J. Lee Rankin also testified, confirming much of Beall's allegations. These widely watched hearings demonstrated to the White House that the pardons issued by Agnew hadn't buried the matter, no matter what the President said. Soon after, John Childs, Lester Matz, and Jerome Wolff - the three men pardoned by Agnew - resurfaced when they agreed to appear before the Committee. Wolff turns heads when he turns over detailed personal notes which outlined many of his crimes, and the biggest bombshell is his revelation that he delivered personally to Agnew a second envelope filled with cash as late as 1971. The use of forensic accountants is also successful, with the experts called by the Committee quickly tracking the bribe money back to Agnew's personal bank accounts. Some of the money given to Agnew was donated to the campaigns of both Governor Reagan and Rockefeller ahead of the 1968 Republican Convention.

Meanwhile, the Secretary of State quietly traveled to Boston to meet privately with former Ambassador James Gavin. The youngest general of World War II, Gavin had later served as Ambassador to France and was the CEO and President of the Arthur D. Little Group, a major international consulting business that had dramatically expanded under his leadership. A critic of the Johnson administration's Vietnam strategy, Gavin had also worked as an adviser to President Kennedy during the establishment of the Peace Corps. Gavin, an acceptable choice to the Democrats and Republicans alike, was initially hesitant to accept the officer and warned that the perception of a former General taking office via the impeachment process would be viewed as the American alternative to a military coup. Bush argued that Carl Albert was willing to resign as Speaker of the House, and that the House's election of Gavin as Speaker would give the General a mandate that would be seen as legitimate. Still skeptical, Gavin requested (and received) time to think over the request, and to talk the matter over with his wife and family.

Retired General James Gavin.
[4]

[1] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)
[2] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)
[3] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)
[4] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)

[Lord Byron]

This is an interesting TL--at least the world won't be as dystopic as the original TL...

[NewYorkExpress]

Hmm...I would've suggested Albert stands down as Speaker, and a coalition of Moderate Democrats/Republicans elects Ford Speaker, allowing him to ascend to the Presidency, but as I'm not familiar with the original TL, I'll reserve judgment.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Hmm...I would've suggested Albert stands down as Speaker, and a coalition of Moderate Democrats/Republicans elects Ford Speaker, allowing him to ascend to the Presidency, but as I'm not familiar with the original TL, I'll reserve judgment.

I feel Gavin is an infinitely more interesting character for this scenario than Gerald Ford.

[NewYorkExpress]

Hmm...I would've suggested Albert stands down as Speaker, and a coalition of Moderate Democrats/Republicans elects Ford Speaker, allowing him to ascend to the Presidency, but as I'm not familiar with the original TL, I'll reserve judgment.

I feel Gavin is an infinitely more interesting character for this scenario than Gerald Ford.

Having looked Gavin up, I see your point.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

October 1973.

As impeachment efforts against Agnew intensify, Robert Bork is called to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. His arguments that the President's pardon of himself should not be counted as an admission of guilt hinged on the fact that Agnew was not an ordinary defendant. This claim that the President was immune to being prosecuted fell on deaf ears, with some Democratic members (most notably Elizabeth Holtzman of New York) of the committee openly laughing at Bork's arguments to his face. Heated exchanges with Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) and Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) dominated the nightly news broadcasts, which described Agnew's presidency as "an administration under siege."

The Trio Group's representatives meanwhile manage to negotiate a ceasefire between China and the Soviet Union, with both nations agreeing to withdrawal from Mongolia. The war effectively accomplishes nothing, with the peace agreement being widely viewed in the west as a humiliating defeat for China. As had happened with the "Hundred Flowers" campaign earlier under Mao's rule, there is speculation in the west by China-watchers that the war had been intentionally launched to undermine opponents of Mao within the ruling Communist Party, particularly against Premier Zhou Enlai and his followers like Deng Xiaoping.

On October 4th, the House Judiciary Committee voted on Articles of Impeachment, passing seven motions against the President.

• Accepting bribes while in public office.
• Corruption in awarding public contracts.
• Evading taxes by not reporting payments.
• Bringing the Presidency and Vice Presidency into repute.
• Using unlawfully gained money to support political candidates.
• Obstruction of Justice by pardoning criminal associates.
• Abuse of power by pardoning himself.

Senator Roman Hruska (R-NE).
[1]

That same day, the Senate Judiciary Committee was also in session, voting 13-3 against Congressman John Ashbrooks nomination to the Vice Presidency. In order to appease the President and maintain party unity within the Senate, Roman Hruska (R-NE) refers the nomination to the Senate for a full vote. While it is guaranteed that Ashbrook won't be confirmed, Hruska in reality is buying time until General Gavin can be officially elected Speaker of the House before the impeachment trial of President Agnew. Ashbrook's nomination was met with widespread dismay by almost every sector of American political life, spare the John Birch Society. The New York City Republican Party's headquarters in Manhattan was firebombed overnight by a group calling itself "Student Liberation Anti-War Vanguard," with anti-Agnew and anti-Ashbrook graffiti being found near the scene.

As this played out in Washington, events in the Middle East began to catch the eye of Secretary of State Bush. Tipped off by French intelligence officials, American satellites caught significant troop movements in Syria and Egypt, a sign that the rumored Arab attack on Israel was both a real and pressing danger to the Jewish state. Bush warns the Israeli Ambassador against taking preemptive action against the Arabs, but does commit himself to the Israeli cause should an Arab attack take place. At an emergency cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Golda Meir informs the cabinet of the impending Arab invasion, stating bluntly that "we should have listened to that fancy boy in Washington." Just hours later, the Egyptian army launched an attack against the Sinai, pushing the Israelis back as they crossed the Suez Canal in a daring amphibious assault. At the same time, Syrian forces pushed into the Golan Heights, though the Israeli Defense Force has an easier fight against the smaller and less well-trained Syrian military.

The President responded by ordering the Sixth Fleet into the Mediterranean Sea as a display of force, but was otherwise at a loss (and also uninterested) in how to respond, at one point suggesting during a meeting with top national security brass that he would not particularly care if the Arabs overran the Jewish state, much to the horror of Secretaries Bush and Nitze. This was compounded by Rumsfeld, who took to the Israelis defense by suggesting they be allowed to use their (alleged) nuclear capabilities against the Arabs. Agnew shot down Bush's suggestion that he be allowed to travel to Moscow in an attempt to dissuade the Soviets from further involvement, instead arguing that the Turkish government be pressured to close the Bosporus.

The Israeli government was initially taken by surprise by the relatively weak American response, and Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered Israeli jets to be prepared to drop an atomic bomb if necessary. But the Israel Defense Force was able to quickly stabilize the front lines in the Sinai, stopping the Egyptian advance and inflicting high casualties on their invading opponents. With much of their armored vehicles, tanks, and artillery wiped out by repeated Israeli airstrikes, the Egyptians appealed to Moscow for more aide. But with their supplies exhausted by the war with China and their support for North Vietnam, the Kremlin simply was unable to deliver. The Agnew administration took advantage of this by agreeing to resupply and equip Israel with military equipment, much to the chagrin of the Arab world.

Golda Meir - Israel's "Iron Lady."
[2]

On October 10th, the House of Representatives voted on the articles of impeachment passed by the Judiciary Committee. While the House defeated by a vote of 219-216 motions related to obstruction of justice and abuse of power caused by Agnew's pardons, the other counts were overwhelmingly passed and sent to the Senate for trial. This marked the second time that a President had been impeached by the House of Representatives, a dubious distinction that would surely hang over Agnew's legacy regardless of the Senate trial's outcome. In a televised Oval Office address, Agnew defended himself and insisted that he would not "run, nor retreat, nor resign, nor hide."

Less than twelve hours after Agnew's speech, the Senate voted 65-35 against Ashbrook's appointment to the Vice Presidency. This was an expected blow to the President, who vowed to name another nominee for the position in the coming days. Though Agnew insisted that his top aides work on finding a replacement for Ashbrook, Rumsfeld and Cheney had no luck in finding a willing candidate wanting to take on the position. The vacant position of Vice President would remain unfilled for the time being as a result of the Senate's rejection of Ashbrook.

Another vote was held that day in the House after Speaker Albert announced his resignation, with the House voting 391-44 to elect James Gavin as Speaker. The new Speaker was met with polling that showed nearly 70% of Americans approving of him, and in his first remarks as Speaker, Gavin insisted that he would work to unite the country moving forward. Carl Albert was elected Deputy Speaker, and would continue to run the day-to-day affairs of the House while Gavin awaited on stand-by. Another election is held, this time by the Republican National Committee, when Senator Bob Dole (R-KS) resigned as Chairman. In his place, Senator Paul Fannin (R-AZ) is elected Chair of the Committee which governed the GOP.

Senator Paul Fannin (R-AZ), the new RNC Chairman.
[3]

Kissinger was dispatched to Moscow for the secretive mission that Bush had requested of him the previous month, with the former National Security Adviser traveling to the Kremlin to meet with the Soviet leader personally. The Brezhnev - Kissinger meeting was kept under wraps by the Soviet Union due to the longstanding relationship between the two men, though it was hard to keep the mission a secret. Agnew, when informed of the discussions between the two men, was irrate and demanded that Attorney General J. Clifford Wallace prosecute him in violation of the Logan Act, though the top figures of the Justice Department were wary of getting involved any further.

The Senate’s impeachment trial of Spiro Agnew opened with Chief Justice Warren Burger presiding. The four managers appointed by the House – Congressmen John Conyers (D-MI), Don Edwards (D-CA), Peter Rodino (D-NJ), and Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) argued in favor of removing the President over the course of the first three days. They were assisted by Staff Lawyer Gary Hart, who employed two fellow McGovern ’72 alumni, Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham, as underlings. These proceedings would take up nine days.

The impeachment process was disrupted by the news that OPEC would place a complete and total oil embargo against the United States in response to American support for Israel. The stock market plummets as a result, and within days, gasoline and fuel shortages are felt by Americans nationwide. This leads to long lines, fuel rationing, and numerous instances of violence at gas stations across the country. Anti-Arab sentiment and support for Israel spikes as a result of the embargo.

In late October, the Arabs reversed their fortunes and once again managed to gain the upper hand as the oil embargo began to impact Israel's ability to combat the invading force. While American aid had yet to arrive, the Syrians were replenished by a 30,000 man Iraqi expeditionary force which was under the command of Vice President Saddam Hussein himself. The successful Egyptian counteroffensive in the Sinai revives the Arabs hopes of prolonging the war, with Israeli soldiers withdrawing eastward towards the official Israeli borders. Representatives of the Trio Group, having made progress in ending the Sino-Soviet War, now turn their attention towards mediating the war in the Middle East.

Once the Israelis were able to establish a firm defensive line to prevent the Egyptian army from invading Israel proper, the IDF turned their focus on Syria. Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered the IDF to push aggressively through the Golan Heights towards the nearby Syrian capital city of Damascus. With the arrival of American aid coming at long last, the Israelis used their technological advantage to the maximum extent, decimating Syrian and Iraqi armored units along the way. The road to Damascus was cleared, and the IDF advanced on the Syrian capital to the horror of the Arabs.

Eygptian troops cross the Suez.
[4]

[1] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)
[2] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)
[3] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)
[4] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain)

[NewYorkExpress]

It's kind of sad that Israel using nukes against any enemies probably wouldn't be the worst atrocity to happen in a Middle East war.