By a Fluke of the Gods: Cox Defeats Harding

[PBrunsel]

President Douglas MacArthur (1941-1949)

Event Date: 1-20-1941
Event Description: Douglas MacArthur takes office as the President of the United States. “The greatest patriots are those that keep their country first,” President MacArthur declares in his Inaugural Address. Such famous (or infamous in internationalists opinions) “America first” men like Charles Lindbergh (appointed Secretary of the Air Force), J. Edgar Hoover (the new Attorney General), Henry Ford (the new Commerce Secretary), and Morgan Larson (the new Secretary of State), will comprise his cabinet. All these men, except ironically J. Edgar Hoover, are Herbert Hoover progressives, but also isolationists.

Event Date: 2-03-1941
Event Description: The Dresden Conference begins. This conference reorganizes the occupied territories in Nazi Europe. Germany takes all of Austria, Alsace-Lorraine in France, the Sudentland in Czechoslovakia, and other German speaking regions of Central Europe. “The Third Reich has united Germany,” Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels triumphantly tells the German people. In France, pro-German former Prime Minster Pierre Laval is selected to lead the nation. The wear against the Soviet Union continues, but Fuehrer Adolph Hitler shows no fear of losing to the Russians. After all, he has all the oil he needs and only one front to fight.

Event Date: 3-04-1941
Event Description: Secretary of State Larson and German Foreign Minster Hermann Goring sign the “Copenhagen Understanding”. This “understanding” declares that the United States and Nazi Germany will never go to war, and the U.S. will stay neutral in the conflict between Germany and the USSR. President MacArthur applauds this agreement as, “A great measure of peace between our two prosperous, powerful nations.” Ronald Reagan tells the nation that night, “President MacArthur and his crew have sold the freedom of Europe and Asia for the cheap linen of ‘safety’.” Reagan paraphrases Benjamin Franklin by warning that nation that, “Will give up freedom for safety will have none, and deserves neither.”

Event Date: 4-10-1941
Event Description: Senate Majority Leader Arthur Vandenberg meets with Senator Harry Truman and asks him to do something that will truly make history: introduce a full Civil Rights Act for the year 1941. “We knew we could get a Northern man to do the job,” Vandenberg tells Harry, “But it would mean a great deal more if a man from a border state like Missouri introduces this bill.” Truman tells Vandenberg that he will have to talk to his wife and daughter, Bess and Margaret Truman, before agreeing to introduce the act. “Of course Harry,” Vandenberg responds with his usual good natured cheer, “Just get back to me in a few days.”

Event Date: 4-12-1941
Event Description: Despite fears over what his mother might think, Senator Harry Truman agrees to introduce the Civil Rights Act. This act will outlaw discrimination by race in all public facilities and government offices. Former President Herbert Hoover, who had supported such an act in the 1920s, applauds Senator Truman for being a, “Man of great bravery.”

Event Date: 4-22-1941
Event Description: Despite Senate Minority Leader Alben Barkley attempting a filibuster, the solidly controlled Republican Senate passes the Civil Rights Act. Senator Truman, up for reelection in conservative Missouri, seems to understand that his actions will make him unpopular, but as he is fond of saying, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

Event Date: 4-23-1941
Event Description: The House of Representatives passes the Civil Rights Act of 1941 by a wide margin. President MacArthur signs the act in a Rose Garden ceremony. Flanking the president are track star Jesse Owens, former President Herbert Hoover, Senator Harry Truman, and singer Marian Robertson. NBC’s “Voice of the Nation” Ronald Reagan, though a conservative Democrat, applauds the act as, “One that will ensure the American Dream to all who want to attain it.”

Event Date: 5-01-1941
Event Description: The Nazi Army begins the Battle of Stalingrad. Without aide from the United States (or any other nation for that fact), as well as the Nazis new oil reserves from their Middle Eastern territories, the Soviet Union appears to be stuck in a losing fight.

Event Date: 5-12-1941
Event Description: The Nazi Army’s First Panzer Division, under Fieldmarschal Erwin Rommell, takes Stalingrad. The march to Moscow continues as Josef Stalin begins forced conscription of all Soviet men and boy between the ages of 16 and 45. “He’s drafting old men and boys not yet out of school,” BBC’s Edward Murrow tells the continent, “Truly; war shows how desperate some men can become.”

Event Date: 6-04-1941
Event Description: President Douglas MacArthur signs the Pilipino Independence Act, introduced by Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican of Wisconsin). With no enemy in the Far East, for Japan is a Constitutional Monarchy and China is, technically, a republic, the United States has no reason to hold onto the islands. The Commander of the Filipino Army, Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower, resigns his post and returns home to serve as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Event Date: 7-04-1941
Event Description: The defunct Abraham Lincoln Brigade is reborn, as about 400 pro-Soviet Americans and Brits head off to the USSR to fight the Nazi invader. British opera singer Paul Robeson sends them off by performing the Soviet National Anthem. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, former Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace, State Department official Alger Hiss, and former Ambassador Eleanor Roosevelt found the Abraham Lincoln Society. This new society promises to battle against fascism in any way it can. 

Event Date: 7-10-1941
Event Description: Attorney General J., Edgar Hoover is told by Senator Joseph McCarthy of a “Red threat” in the United States. “It is called ‘The Abraham Lincoln Society’”, Senator McCarthy tells Attorney General Hoover, “And it’s run by internationalist like Wallace and Roosevelt’s wife.” Hoover, looking for a way to crack down on Communists, both foreign and domestic, begins a secret reconnaissance on the Abraham Lincoln Society. Hoover selects George Lincoln Rockwell, a recent entrant into the FBI, to be “the mole” in the Abraham Lincoln Society.   

Event Date: 10-22-1941
Event Description: The German Army surrounds Moscow. After several months of fighting against hit and run attacks by untrained Soviet conscripts, Fieldmarschal Rommell has made it to the very, “Gates of hell.” The attack on Moscow will prove to be a costly attack.

Event Date: 10-24-1941
Event Description: After two days of endless fighting, the Nazi Flag flies over the Kremlin. Soviet Premier Josef Stalin and his staff flee to Tara, in Siberia. The Abraham Lincoln Brigade is decimated, but the Abraham Lincoln Society will continue as an “underground railroad” for Soviet Communist Party members as well as a financier for anti-Nazi resistance groups throughout Europe. The people of the Soviet Union, starved by the war, welcome Fieldmarschal Rommell and his troops.

Event Date: 10-31-1941
Event Description: George Rockwell attends his first meeting at the Abraham Lincoln Society. Chairman Henry Wallace, Vice-Chairman Alger Hiss, and Treasurer Eleanor Roosevelt welcome the new member, unaware that he is a spy for Attorney General J., Edgar Hoover. The meeting focuses on funneling funds to the European resistance to the Nazis.

Event Date: 11-22-1941
Event Description: Thanksgiving at the Kennedy home in Hyanisport, Massachusetts, is a happy one. Governor Joseph P. Kennedy, Senior, is overjoyed that his oldest son, Joe, is not just a war hero, but also an Assistant Professor at Harvard University in the Political Science Department. John Kennedy, now 24, has become an accomplished writer, his book “Churchill: A Profile in Foolishness”, becomes a best seller. Governor Kennedy seems to have all he wants…but the Oval Office. That night, the elder Kennedy discusses a run for president in 1944, and meets approval from his family.

Event Date: 12-22-1941
Event Description: Premier Josef Stalin is assassinated in Tara, the provisional Soviet capitol, by Foreign Minister Molotov. With the USSR collapsing, Molotov wants to keep the USSR as much in tact as possible. He will send ensigns to Fieldmarschal Rommell’s headquarters in Moscow to formally surrender.

Event Date: 12-24-1941
Event Description: The Soviet Union surrenders to the Third Reich. The Treaty of Kiev (held in Ukraine as a slight to the Russians) abolishes the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Ukraine and other republics are freed, and Russia itself is cut off from important oil reserves in Siberia. Premier Molotov resigns as he sings the Soviet anthem in defiance, “Our banner will live in the memory of nations, and all generations will honor its name.”

Event Date: 12-31-1941
Event Description: Former Russian President Alexander Kerensky returns in triumph to Moscow. With the Soviet Union now dissolved, Kerensky was called back from exile in Paris to once again take the reins of government. Although Fuhrer Adolph Hitler thinks that Kerensky is too left-winged, Fieldmarschal Rommell allows Kerensky to take office. The Russian Federation is established as the Hammer and Sickle are lowered from above

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-05-1942
Event Description: Attorney General J. Edgar Hoover meets with George Lincoln Rockwell, the FBI “mole”. Rockwell tells Hoover that the Abraham Lincoln Society is harboring former Soviet refugees and funneling money to anti-Nazi resisters throughout Europe. Attorney General Hoover now feels that he has the evidence needed to convict the members of the Abraham Lincoln Society of espionage.

Event Date: 2-14-1942
Event Description: “The Hoover Raids” occur. Attorney General J. Edgar Hoover orders the FBI (under Chief Allan Dulles) to raid the homes of Henry Wallace, Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and Eleanor Roosevelt. All these people were higher-ups in the Abraham Lincoln Society. Dulles’ agents find two Soviet refugees in the home of former Soviet Ambassador Eleanor Roosevelt. Former Senator Franklin Roosevelt tells the authorities that he never knew about these refugees, since he and his wife have now lived apart since 1941. It is found that Whittaker Chambers, a senior member of the society and Alger Hiss have been working together to switch funds from a charity to aiding the French Resistance against the Vichy government. Secretary Wallace’s home is searched as well, but not much is found.

Event Date: 2-15-1942
Event Description: Eleanor Roosevelt, Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, and Henry Wallace are arrested by the FBI for espionage. Ronald Reagan calls the charges, “The most ridiculous ones ever waged. J. Edgar Hoover is trying to divide our nation through making up enemies.” Reagan’s words do not stop the mass hysteria over “domestic Red spies.” William Randolph Hearst’s news media goes into full panic mode over the arrests. President Douglas MacArthur calls for the outlaw of the United States Communist Party. “We can not allow traitors in this nation,” the President tells reporters, “Any person who is a Communist has allegiances not to Old Glory, but to a foreign government.”

Event Date: 2-17-1942
Event Description: Senator Joseph McCarthy takes advantage of the recent hysteria over domestic Communists to introduce the Loyalty Act. This act outlaws the Communist Party of the United States, as well as requires all government officials, current and former, to take an oath of loyalty to the United States. The Republican Party is split by this act. While some progressives Republicans support the act, a great deal of Republicans (led by Senator Hiram Johnson of California) believes that the act is anti-Freedom of Speech. Midwestern and Eastern Republicans (who support the act) are taking on Western Republicans. The Democrats, primarily conservative Southerners, support the act.

Event Date: 2-20-1942
Event Description: Senator John Thomas (Republican of Idaho), usually a nominal conservative, takes the floor in the Senate, opposing the Loyalty Act. “This act is one that does away with the First Amendment,” Senator Thomas tells his colleagues, “Once we do away with this amendment, than we are no different from the Communists or the Nazis, for that matter.” The Senator is both cheered and booed from the galleries. Despite impassioned speeches against the act, Senate Majority Leader Vandenberg shepherds the Loyalty Act through the Senate. The House of Representatives will pass the act as well.

Event Date: 2-21-1942
Event Description: President Douglas MacArthur sings the Loyalty Act. With Senator Joseph McCarthy and Attorney General J. Edgar Hoover standing behind him, the Communist Party of the United States is outlawed. With membership in this party now illegal, Attorney General Hoover and FBI Chief Dulles begin to arrest as many domestic Communists as possible.

Event Date: 2-25-1942
Event Description: The FBI arrests Julius Rosenberg at his home in New York City. His wife Ethel is not arrested, but is put under indefinite house arrest. The Rosenberg’s were members of the Abraham Lincoln Society and the Communist Party USA. Also today, Henry Wallace and General Secretary Earl Browder of the Communist Party USA are imprisoned for “espionage”. The ACLU vows to defend all charged.

Event Date: 3-03-1942
Event Description: The Los Angeles based trial for Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers concludes with both being found guilty of treason. NBC’s Ronald Reagan, who has divided feelings on this case, refused to intervene over the radio on behalf of the defendants. The prosecuting attorney, a Japanese-American War veteran, Richard Nixon is cheered as a hero by the nation’s newspapers.

Event Date: 3-15-1942
Event Description: Senator Eugene Millikin (Republican of Colorado) introduces the Interstate Highway Act of 1942. Once again, Lieutenant Colonel Dwight Eisenhower will testify before the Senate that the nation’s roads are a mess, and must be redone. Senator Harry Truman, the man who brought paved roads to Missouri, vows to fight for the act. Alone amongst Midwestern Republicans who voted against the Loyalty Act, Senator Millikin thanks Harry for the vote, but asks him to stay quiet about support for the bill. Millikin fears that some Republicans will use this bill to get back at the Missouri Senator for opposing an act that they supported.

Event Date: 3-18-1942
Event Description: Senate Minority Leader Alben Barkley fails to stop the Republican dominated Senate from passing the Interstate Highway Act. House Minority Leader John McCormack supports the act, passing it through a more hostile House of Representatives. President MacArthur sings the act, and appoints his old aide, Lieutenant Colonel Dwight Eisenhower to head up the building effort.

Event Date: 5-01-1942
Event Description: On May Day, President MacArthur recognizes the Russian Federation and other republics of the former USSR.

Event Date: 11-04-1942
Event Description: With the economy improving, civil rights passed, and the people united against internal communism, a political oddity occurs: the incumbent party gains seats in Congress. The Republican Party picks up seven seats in the Senate, and six in the House of Representatives. The Democratic Party is now limited to the South and the East Coast. “The Democratic Party is a national party no more,” the Chicago Sun Times declares. Also, this election marks an election where Japanese-American War veterans are elected to Congress for the first time. Gerald Ford wins in Michigan and Richard Nixon in California are two such Congressmen.
         

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 11-05-1942
Event Description: Governor Joseph P. Kennedy, who chose not to seek a fifth term as Governor of Massachusetts yesterday, announces his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President in 1944. “President MacArthur is bankrupting our nation with his economic schemes,” Governor Kennedy declares in his announcement address, “His policies are a mirror of Herbert Hoover’s New Deal, a new steal from the American taxpayer.” Kennedy, however, agrees with the President’s polices on fighting internal Communism and foreign affairs.

Event Date: 1-04-1943
Event Description: In California, Earl Warren is inaugurated as the 30th Governor of California. Warren is a progressive Republican, much like Herbert Hoover. The power of Hoover over his party is still great, even though men like Senator McCarthy and Attorney General J. Edgar Hoover are trying to pry the GOP into the wings of the far-right.

Event Date: 1-19-1943
Event Description: Henry Wallace is sentenced to 20-years in prison for espionage and harboring foreign nationals illegally. Wallace, the former chair of the Abraham Lincoln Society, tells the court in his final statement of the case, “I will accept this sentence as a political prisoner accepts his chains in Nazi Germany. This world is truly not worth living in when men like Adolph Hitler and J. Edgar Hoover are allowed to decide what speech and actions are ‘loyal’ and which are ‘treasonous.’ I pray that one day this nation will awake to reality, and until then we must stay in the darkness, taking the world into the abyss with us.” Attorney General Hoover tells the warden at Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary to put Wallace on suicide watch. The line, “This world is truly not worth living in,” alarmed Hoover a great deal.

Event Date: 1-22-1943
Event Description: Drake University law student and 1939 Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick announces that he will stand as a candidate for Des Moines City Council for the city’s 1943 municipal elections. A progressive Republican like fellow Iowan, President Herbert Hoover, Kinnick has been touted as a possible Presidential candidate in the 1950s or 1960s.

Event Date: 3-31-1943
Event Description: Oklahoma! opens on Broadway, the first integrated musical ever. The legacy of the Civil Rights Act of 1941 is finally showering themselves to the nation.

Event Date: 4-25-1943
Event Description: The Kiev Trials begin. These trials, conducted under the watchful eyes of Nazi officials, try former Soviet leaders for, “crimes against decency.” Those officials involved in the Ukrainian Famine of the 1930s are punished as are those who governed Soviet cities who harbored the Red Army during the short Second Great War. Great deals of Soviet officers and soldiers are convicted of mass murdering Polish at Wehrmacht. NBC’s Ronald Reagan calls the trials, “Justice for those who deserve it. We can only hope that one day those Nazis who oversaw the trials will meet a similar fate.”

Event Date: 8-03-1943
Event Description: John F. Kennedy begins working for the New York Times as a member of their editorial board. Kennedy, an aspiring journalist, focuses his first editorial on supporting Senator Joe McCarthy’s battle against domestic Communists; McCarthy is, after all, an old family friend.

Event Date: 11-07-1943
Event Description: In nationwide off-year elections, several future political stars are elected to their first offices. In Iowa, Nile Kinnick is elected to the Des Moines City Council. Kinnick is a Republican. In Massachusetts, Joe Kennedy is elected to the Massachusetts State House. Kennedy is expected to run for his father’s old seat in Congress in 1944, but the State House will suit him for now. 

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-03-1943
Event Description: In China, the decade of peace between Chiang Kai-Sheik’s Nationalists and Mao Tse-Tung’s Communists comes to an end. The city of Jinan, which has been a hotbed of strife between eh opposing sides since the 1930s, is rocked by an explosion in the town’s marketplace. President Kai-Sheik blames the explosion on the Communists, while Mao Tse-Ting decries, “Nationalists and fascist thugs” in the explosion. The Chinese Civil War is reborn, and Adolf Hitler sees an opportunity to expand his reach into the Far East.

Event Date: 1-05-1943
Event Description: Colonel Liu Chih, a Nationalist Chinese military leader and diplomat, and German Foreign Minister Hermann Goering meet at Chongqing to sign the “Alliance of Friendship.” Nazi Germany and Nationalist China will be allies in the Chinese Civil War. In the United States, still fresh from the Communist conspiracies which Attorney General Hoover had brought to light, heartily applauds this decision. “The Voice of the Nation” Ronald Reagan, no fan of the Nazis, even comments that the alliance, “Is a good temporary one. It will allow the communists to be defeated, and thus allow the experiment of democracy in China to continue.” Vice-President Styles Bridges is blunter, “I hope that every one of those Yellow Reds is killed. The only good communist I know are the dead ones.”

Event Date: 2-27-1943
Event Description: Nationalist forces rout the Communists at the Battle of Zhangiakou, located in Northern China. With aide from Nazi Germany and the support of Japan, the Nationalist forces chase the Communists behind the border of Mongolia.

Event Date: 3-30-1943
Event Description: Malcolm Little, an 18-year old New York City laborer, begins to attend night classes at a local Harlem high school. After being told by a junior high teacher in 1937 that being a lawyer was, “No job for a n,” Little had dropped out of school. However, inspired by President MacArthur’s civil rights reforms, Little has decided to reenter education. He hopes to become a lawyer, and perhaps one day, a judge.

Event Date: 4-15-1943
Event Description: Attorney General J. Edgar Hoover and Vice-President Styles Bridges address a meeting of Republican war veterans in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “The battle against internal communism is not over,” Hoover tells the group, “Through investigations led by Vice-President Bridges, Director Dulles, and myself; we have discovered over 120 former Soviet agents and sympathizers throughout the State Department.” Vice-President Bridges hammers home the address by declaring that, “Alger Hiss was only the tip of the iceberg.”

Event Date: 4-20-1943
Event Description: Former Ambassador and Second Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt is convicted of harboring foreign nationals and espionage by a court in New York City. The last of the founding officers of the now illegal Abraham Lincoln Society now heads off to federal prison. “I would like to say that domestic Communist sympathizers are now laid on the ash heap of history,” Ronald Reagan tells his listeners that night, “But Attorney General Hoover will make sure the issue stays in the papers. He thrives on charges of treason.”

Event Date: 5-01-1943
Event Description: May Day is not a bright one for the few remaining Communists worldwide. The USSR is gone, Chinese Communists are forced behind the Mongolian border, international Communism is extremely unpopular, fascist states now dominate Europe, and the United States begins another chapter of J. Edgar Hoover’s crusade against domestic Communists. By President Decree, all government workers are forced to testify before the Hoover Commission, a special presidential commission determined on, “Rooting out all traces of foreign allegiance in our government.”

Event Date: 6-2-1943
Event Description:  Councilman Nile Kinnick, winner of the 1939 Heisman Trophy as a running back for the University of Iowa, graduates from Drake Law School. Graduating valedictorian, he declares in his speech, “When the members of any nation have come to regard their country as nothing more than the plot of ground on which they reside, and their government as a mere organization for providing police or contracting treaties; when they have ceased to entertain any warmer feelings for one another than those which interest or personal friendship or a mere general philanthropy may produce, the moral dissolution of that nation is at hand." Now a Des Moines City Councilman, many in the Hawkeye State believe that Kinnick will go on to become a national figure in politics.

Event Date: 12-26-1943
Event Description: The Communist forces in China are decimated at their last stand at Tianjin. Mao Tse-Tung commits suicide as his forces are slaughtered by the Nationalists Army, backed by Nazi guns. The Chinese Civil War ends.  
 

Event Date: 3-20-1944
Event Description:  “Kowloon,” a film about two British citizens fleeing the Middle East as the Nazi Army takes control of the territory, wins the Academy Award for Best Picture. Although regarded by some film fans as an all-time classic due to the doomed love story between Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, and a script containing some of the best-remembered lines in film history, its portrayal of German soldiers as rapists, monsters, and barbarians infuriates German Propaganda Minster Joseph Goebbels. He demands an apology for the tone of the film, but none will come. “Wow!” Ronald Reagan tells the nation in amazement that night, “President MacArthur didn’t bow to the Nazis on this one. I guess Bogart finally bought someone else a beer, either that or hell just froze over.”

Event Date: 4-24-1944
Event Description: Ronald Reagan and John Wayne, two conservative Democratic entertainers, begin the “Draft George Marshall for President in 1944 Committee.” Marshall, the former Army Chief of Staff, does not turn down the rumors he will run for president in 1944, but he does not campaign for the nomination. The Democratic Convention in Chicago this July will probably be a free-for-all, as no strong candidate has emerged.

Event Date: 5-26-1944
Event Description: Henry Wallace, serving his time in Terre Haute Penitentiary, announces that he will seek the Presidency, with controversial Congressman Vito Marcantonio as his running-mate. “We seek the Oval Office as a ticket of political prisoners and those considered ‘traitors’,” Wallace tells reporters, “Because we want to show the people of this nation that we are innocent of the crimes against us, and should not be prisoners in the first place.” The Wallace-Marcantonio Ticket is considered a joke by the Washington Establishment, but angry left-wingers will find a refuge in this ticket.  

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 7-19-1944
Event Description: The Democratic Convention opens in Chicago, Illinois. The popular President Douglas MacArthur is seen as unstoppable, and with the fear over domestic Communism and the economy roaring there seems to be few big name Democrats who want to take on the President. Former Massachusetts Governor Joseph P. Kennedy, General George Marshall of Pennsylvania, Former Indiana Governor Paul McNutt, Senator Claude Pepper of Florida, and former Senator James Byrnes of South Carolina are the frontrunners for the Presidential nomination.

Event Date: 7-21-1944
Event Description: After a full day of balloting, Governor McNutt is nominated on the 32nd Ballot, with Senator Pepper as his running-mate. Once again, Joseph Kennedy is denied the presidential nomination. He storms out of the convention, but that is all. He knows that his son, Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy, Junior, is seeking a seat in the House of Representatives, and he will not jeopardize his son’s political future. “Joe’s going to be the first Catholic President of the United States,” Kennedy tells his wife Rose, “If I can’t be, then I’ll make damn sure he can.”

Event Date: 7-22-1944
Event Description: “What a ticket!” Attorney general Hoover bellows at a Republican Women’s Meeting in Wheeling, West Virginia, “The Democrats have nominated a utopian liberal like McNutt and Senator Claude “Red” Pepper. It’s as if the ghost of Stalin was sending them a message on who to nominate.” Hoover’s red bating will become the Republican’s main strategy in the 1944 Campaign.

Event Date: 8-11-1944
Event Description: The Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, triumphantly nominates President Douglas MacArthur and Vice-President Styles Bridges for reelection. The keynote speaker of the night is Senator Joseph McCarthy. “It is our duty as Americans and Republicans,” McCarthy tells the convention, “That we continue to find those who have sold our country down the river. I will not rest until we have routed out all the Communist and traitors and bring them to justice!”

Event Date: 8-21-1944
Event Description: Governor McNutt tells a group of Jewish voters at a Long Island campaign rally that the MacArthur Administration is targeting the wrong threat. “While Hoover, Bridges, and MacArthur attack the nonexistent Communist threat,” McNutt orates to his listeners, “the Nazi Swastika has killed over 20 million of you fellow Jewish brothers and sisters. As President, I would make sure that such calamites are not overlooked, and that those responsible are brought to justice.” despite being propped up by Ronald Reagan that night, the Republican campaign is able to spin this speech into a, “Vote for McNutt and Vote for War” talking point. McNutt’s speech, however, will not be forgotten.

Event Date: 9-01-1944
Event Description: Malcolm Little enters the University of Michigan, majoring in Pre-Law and Political Science. He hopes to later go to Harvard University to study law.

Event Date: 11-7-1944
Event Description: President Douglas MacArthur and the entire Republican Party win a massive landslide in the elections held today.

Douglas MacArthur/Styles Bridges (R): 456 EV; 57.8% of the PV
Paul McNutt/Claude Pepper (D): 75 EV; 39.3% of the PV
Henry Wallace/Vito Marcantonio (I): 0 EV; 2.6% of the PV
Others (Prohibition, Labor, etc.): 0 EV; 0.3% of the PV

The Republican Party gains three more seats in the Senate, and six more in the House of Representatives. However, a new Congressman will be Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Junior, elected to his father’s old seat in Congress. A future leader of the Democratic Party is elected in one of the worst defeats for the party in history. Perhaps a better day is coming?   

[PBrunsel]

Rockefeller Republican,

The greatness sadness of this timeline is not that President MacArthur is the the Oval Office (though some may feel that is upsetting), the real upsetting part is yet to come.

1) Malcolm Little in politics? I hadn't thought of that. Maybe I will get him elected to Congress or Governor from Michigan or New York. He's not going to be president, I can assure you of that. If anything, I think he'd make a fine Supreme Court Justice.

2) Jack and Bobby will play a role in Joe's political career. In this timeline, Joe Kennedy is a newly elected Congressman (with an eye on the White House), John Kennedy is a writer for the New York Times Editorial board, and Bobby is still at Harvard University, working on becoming a lawyer.

As a disclaimer, there will be some men elected president who you may not like, or perhaps despise. I elect these men president to keep the story in terseting, and to set up for further plot.

[PBrunsel]

I'm relieved, and a bit surprised, to learn that MacArthur has been President for four whole years and the country is still intact.

Well gorkay,

President MacArthur really can't do a great deal in this timeline besides pass bills coming from a Republican dominated Congress. He really is a rubber stamp for Senate Majority Leader Arthur Vandenberg. By being elected on an isolationist platform and appointing an isolationist Secretary of State, MacArthur has taken away his power over foreign affairs, The greatest harm he could do would be to continue supporting the Communist hunts of Attorney General J. Edgar Hoover.

[PBrunsel]

A short update. A larger one will come this weekend, I hope.


The Second Term of President Douglas MacArthur (1945-1949)

Event Date: 1-20-1945
Event Description: President Douglas MacArthur is inaugurated for his second term as President of the United States. “Dig-in Doug”, as the press corp. calls the passive President, looks forward to what he feels will be another four-years of relative peace and prosperity. In a few days, President MacArthur will facer major setbacks to this goal.

Event Date: 1-24-1945
Event Description: The Nazi German Reich fires off the first long range A4-rocket. German Fuehrer Adolf Hitler declares that his “Aryan race” is destined to use rockets to, “Spread the thousand year Reich throughout the heavens and to the stars.” In the United States, fear over the rocket is not over the fear of military attack, but far more over the threat of the USA becoming a second-rate power in the realm of education. Senator Harry Truman of Missouri (narrowly reelected last year after a hard fought campaign) tells the Senate that night that, “The Nazi Swastika flies over us tonight, mocking our democracy.” When Senator Joseph McCarthy tells Truman that his attacks on an American friend are, “Near traitorous”, Truman responds, “If I’m a traitor the United States is in one hell of a shape.”

Event Date: 1-25-1945
Event Description: Newly inaugurated Secretary of War Charles Lindbergh meets with former Army Chief-of-Staff George Marshall. The purpose of this meeting revolves around a theory that President Cordell Hull kept quite secret: Atomic Power. After seeing the power of Nazi rockets, the MacArthur Administration is now serious about matching the Nazis in firepower. Secretary Lindbergh, who loathes war and wants to be a peaceful Secretary of War, asks Marshall to head up a reinvigorated version of Hull’s old Manhattan Project. General Marshall will eventually accept the offer.

Event Date: 1-31-1945
Event Description: Prime Minister Benito Mussolini is deposed by Italian war hero Rodolfo Graziani in a Berlin-backed coup. Adolf Hitler had lost his need for Mussolini, and with the Italian economy tanking since 1943, “Il Duce” was considered to be a failing leader since the Italian victory in the Second Great War.   

Event Date: 1-27-1945
Event Description: Oskar Schindler, a Czech-born Polish businessman who has used his factories to protect Jews from the horrors of Nazi concentration camps, is arrested by SS Guards. He is charged with, “Subversive activity towards the Third Reich.” He will be executed, but his wife, Emile, is still alive.

Event Date: 2-06-1945
Event Description: American President Douglas MacArthur, Russian President Alexander Kerensky, Canadian Prime Minster William King, Japanese Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki, British Prime Minister Clement Atlee, and Chinese President Chiang Kai-Sheik meet in Ontario, Canada. This meeting of world democracies is looked on with suspicion by those nations in the grip of the Third Reich. The greatest achievement of this world forum comes when President MacArthur announces that soon the United States will have a weapon of great power, and all the nations agree that such protection is needed. No one can tell when the Nazis will decide to goosestep into war again.

Event Date: 2-19-1945
Event Description: The Senate passes the Truman Education Act. Senator Harry Truman, greatly frightened by the Nazi educational system, revamps the American educational system by increasing focus on science, math, and…history. “What’s the point of having the weapons to face tyranny if we don’t have the knowledge of freedom to realize why we want to face them?” The act will pass the House of Representatives, with near unanimous support.

Event Date: 2-24-1945Event Description: The nation of Egypt was one territory that Nazi Germany or Mussolini’s Italy was not awarded in the Treaty of Liverpool in 1940. However, the Third Reich is now given a chance to remedy this oversight. Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmad Mahir Pasha is assassinated by Muslim fanatics while addressing the Egyptian Parliament. Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels begin their plan to take the government of Egypt as their own.

Event Date: 2-25-1945
Event Description: Italian Prime Minister Rodolfo Graziani announces that Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmad Mahir Pasha was killed not by Muslim fanatics, but by Communists who conspired against the fascist friendly Mahir Pasha. After producing some “evidence” of his charge, Prime Minister Graziani gives complete allowance of Nazi Armies to use Italy as an avenue to invade Egypt, which is now ruler less. NBC”s Ronald Reagan calls this episode in world diplomacy, “Something right out of Iago’s playbook.”

Event Date: 3-01-1945
Event Description: Fieldmarschal Erwin Rommell enters Thebes, Egypt, along with his Panzer Division. The Nazi Army has sworn to the world that Rommell’s presence is not a conquering one, but a peacekeeping one. Attorney General J. Edgar Hoover applauds the actions of Nazi Germany. “Finally,” he tells his friend Senator McCarthy, “Someone else wants some order in this world.” Adolf Hitler and his council want far more than simple “order” in Egypt; they have a “final solution” for the Muslims, a program to be headed by the mastermind of the well hidden Jewish holocaust: the 41-year old Reinhard Heydrich.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 3-03-1945
Event Description: The Nazi German occupiers install former Egyptian Prime Minster Mustafa Al Nahhas Pasha as the new leader of Egypt. Al Nahhas Pasha was removed years before for being pro-Nazi, and now he has the chance to aide Hitler in his “final solution” for all Jews. Little does he know that Muslims are also to be a target for Hitler.

Event Date: 4-12-1945
Event Description: Former Senator and Vice-President Franklin Roosevelt suffers a minor stroke at his home in Hyde Park, New York. He will recover from the stroke, but will be unable to speak at the Jefferson Day dinner. Several prospective 1948 Democratic Presidential candidates were expected to attend. Governor Herbert Lehman of New York, a good friend of Roosevelt, is given the keynote speaking role that night. Governor Lehman could be a strong candidate for the Democrats in 1948, but he is Jewish, and thus out of the running.

Event Date: 4-30-1945
Event Description: German Fuehrer Adolf Hitler marries his longtime mistress Eva Braun in a ceremony held at the new SS headquarters in Berlin. Hitler’s best man is Albert Speer, the architect of the “New Berlin” to be finished by November of 1946. The selection of Speer will lead to a splintering on Hitler’s “inner circle”, but the Fuehrer was growing tired of some of them anyway. Attending foreign dignitaries include Vice-President Styles Bridges and Generalissimo Francisco Franco.

Event Date: 5-10-1945
Event Description: Ronald Reagan, “The Voice of the Nation”, begins a series of investigative radio reports on the Communist hunts of Attorney General Hoover. He leaves Senator Joe McCarthy out of the report, because Reagan sees McCarthy as, “Just another politician looking for an issue to run on. He’s harmless.” Reagan sees Attorney General J. Edgar Hoover, the man responsible for upholding the Constitution of the United States, as the real threat to the nation. “These reports,” Reagan tells his audience, “Will make you not just ill from the injustices caused, but ill because such acts are happening in America, the land of the free.” For the next six nights, Reagan will point out the unconstitutional actions of Attorney General Hoover and FBI Director Alan Dulles while conducting their domestic Communist hunts. Hoover and Dulles (along with their aides in the Justice Department) have violated search and seizure laws, coached witnesses, put false witnesses in court, obtained evidence by breaking into homes without the proper warrants, and forced written admissions of guilt from several arrested Communists.

Event Date: 5-16-1945
Event Description: “When it all comes down to it,” Ronald Reagan tells his millions of listeners, “Can we really trust our own Justice Department? Can we trust those who would force confessions, pay witnesses, and forge testimonies to fuel a national panic over an imagined enemy? The answer, for the millions and millions of honest Americans listening tonight, is a firm and powerful, ‘No.’ Hoover and Dulles have abandoned trust for chaos, and it is time President MacArthur abandons them for honest men.” At the White House, President MacArthur is listening. “We will see,” the President says as he smirks, “Won’t we Ronny?”

Event Date: 5-17-1945Event Description: FBI Agent George Lincoln Rockwell asks Attorney General J. Edgar Hoover for a position in the Justice Department. “I served you well as your ‘mole’ in the Communist societies,” Rockwell reminds Hoover, “So I deserve a job with this administration.” “Don’t tell me what you deserve,” Attorney General Hoover tells Rockwell, “You did what you had to do, and I thank you for it. However, your useful purpose to me is over.” With that, Hoover ends the meeting. An angry Rockwell vows revenge for this "injustice".

Event Date: 5-18-1945
Event Description: President MacArthur holds a Rose Garden ceremony, honoring Attorney General Hoover and FBI Director Alan Dulles. “Attorney General Hoover and Director Dulles are American heroes,” the President proudly proclaims, “The words of a radio personality will never diminish the great work for freedom that these men have so nobly done.” President MacArthur then pins the Presidential Medal of Freedom on the chests of Hoover and Dulles as a band plays, “God Bless America.” President MacArthur has thrown the ball into Reagan’s court, but Dutch won’t falter.

Event Date:  5-20-1945
Event Description: Ronald Reagan meets with Representative Joseph P. Kennedy, Junior, at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. Reagan tells Kennedy that he wants him to introduce an article of impeachment against Attorney general J. Edgar Hoover for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” “Why are you asking me?” Kennedy asks Reagan, “Why not get Old Man Rayburn (meaning House Minority Leader Sam Rayburn of Texas) or some other veteran of the House?” “I want a new man to introduce this,” Reagan tells him, “To symbolize that if old men won’t enforce the laws, then the task has been handed to a new generation of Americans.” Kennedy’s father, former Governor Joseph Kennedy, Senior, tells his son to take the job. “This could be your ticket to national stardom,” the elder Joe tells his son, “Then, maybe, the White House soon?”   


Event Date: 6-06-1945
Event Description: With Congress anxious to go on a summer break, Representative Joseph Kennedy prolongs their stay by introducing an article of impeachment against Attorney General Hoover for violating Constitutional laws, and thus committing, “high crimes and misdemeanors” against the United States government. Immediately, the House of Representatives explodes in argument! “What a show!” CBS radio commentator Walter Winchell declares, “An impeachment, the finest circus of all American politics!”

Event Date: 6-09-1945
Event Description: “The laws of this nation must not be overridden by any man!” House Minority Leader Sam Rayburn declares, “The actions of J. Edger Hoover are despicable, and must not go unpunished.” This statement mirrors that of the many Democratic speeches given this day. Speaker of the House Joseph Martin decries Representative Kennedy’s, “Showboating.” Representative Richard Nixon (Republican of California) calls Kennedy, “A would-be President trying to gain fame by destroying an honest man.” For the Republicans, the impeachment seems to be more of a character assassination of Representative Kennedy than a trial. By the end of the day, Attorney general Hoover’s job seems to be in doubt. Enough Republicans may have been convinced of his lawless actions to vote to have him convicted.

Event Date: 6-17-1945
Event Description: Three FBI agents are apprehended while trying to enter Ronald Reagan’s office at NBC studios. Once of the FBI burglars, George Lincoln Rockwell, is traced back to being an FBI mole in the Abraham Lincoln Society. Rockwell, who has been upset ever since Hoover refused to give him a job, spills his guts to New York City police interrogators. That night, the New York Post (a Democratic newspaper) reports that Hoover had ordered three FBI agents to break into Reagan’s office to find something to, “Discredit him, and screw our other political enemies.” The House of Representatives is now more than likely going to vote to impeach Attorney General Hoover.

Event Date: 6-18-1945
Event Description: President MacArthur calls Attorney General Hoover to the Oval Office. He holds up the New York Post article, “Is this true?” “Mr. President, “Hoover says nonchalantly, “You know that sometimes we have to bend the law to protect our liberties.” “But isn’t breaking into a radio commentators home a little extreme?” President MacArthur asks. “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” Hoover tells the President, “And I thought a warrior like you would know that.” With this, Hoover angrily leaves the Oval Office. MacArthur had intended to fire him, but now can’t find the backbone to do it.

Event Date: 6-23-1945
Event Description: The House of Representatives votes to impeach Attorney General J. Edgar Hoover for, “High crimes and misdemeanors.” The Senate is expected to convict Hoover in a few days. Senator Harry Truman, a progressive Republican and favorite of President MacArthur, declares that he will vote to convict the Attorney General. “I wouldn’t trust Ed Hoover any farther than I could throw him,” Truman declares, “He can lie his way out of almost anything; that is not the man we need upholding the Constitution.”

Event Date: 6-24-1945
Event Description: Attorney General J. Edgar Hoover resigns as Attorney General of the United States. After having an article of impeachment passed against him, Hoover knew he could not escape being removed from office.

Event Date: 7-01-1945
Event Description: President Douglas MacArthur nominated Governor Earl Warren of California for Attorney General. Governor Warren will be easily confirmed, and compared to the perennially sinister J. Edgar Hoover, Warren looks like St. Peter.

Event Date: 7-03-1945
Event Description: FBI Director Alan Dulles is fired by President MacArthur. The law breaking saga of Hoover and Dulles is now over, but the nation’s trust in its government is shattered. “We as a nation must forgive the President for the men he has surrounded himself with,” Ronald Reagan tells the nation that night, “He has seen the error of his ways, and for this he is to be commended.” The Hoover-Dulles Affair will haunt Washington, D.C., for years to come.       

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 11-08-1945
Event Description: The New Berlin is unveiled to the word. Designed by Albert Speer, the massive project was completed a year early. The new city includes the massive “Hall of the People” and several “victory arches.” The most prominent is one nearly duplicating the Arc de Triumph, rubbing France’s defeat in its face. President MacArthur does not attend the ceremonies, but Vice-President Bridges does. “Our two nations can work together for peace,” Bridges tells Fuehrer Adolf Hitler, “If we don’t seek peace, than we will go into the darkness.” Vice-President Bridges, seen by many as a useful stooge for Nazi Propaganda, is applauded for his words to Hitler.

Event Description: 1-25-1946
Event Description: Under President Herbert Hoover’s Second new Deal, a minimum wage of $2.15 was established. Senator Dennis Chavez (Republican of New Mexico) introduces the Minimum Wage Increase Act. This act would increase the minimum wage by $1.25 every 10-year, with the money adjusted for inflation. Chavez, a former Democrat, has introduced something that even the most progressive Republicans will oppose. “It is not that we do not support a raise in the minimum wage,” Senator Wayne Morse (Republican of Oregon) tells his colleagues, “It is the decade raise that we object to. Perhaps if it is lowered we will agree.” This is not to be. A coalition of Democrats and conservative Republicans will not just defeat Chavez’s bill, but also several smaller increases.

Event Description: 2-01-1946
Event Description: In response to the failure of the Congress to pass any minimum wage bill, the AFL-CIO calls for a general strike until the minimum wage is raised. “Let them strike,” Senator Joseph McCarthy bellows, “We can get rid of their right to strike quite easily.”         

Event Date: 2-15-1946
Event Description: Former Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes his first public appearance since 1940. Speaking before a crowd of students and professors at the University of Toronto, Churchill tells the students that, “In your lifetime you shall see a final battle between the forces of freedom and fascism. A curtain of hate has fallen over Europe, from the British Isles to the Aegean Sea. My own generation lacks the power to fight it, but yours must not.” His speech is well received, and in attendance at the event is NBC’s Ronald Reagan. “Britain needs this man, now more than ever,” Reagan tells his radio audience that night.

Event Date: 2-24-1946
Event Description: In Argentina, the Nazi backed Colonel Juan Peron is elected President. The Third Reich has been infiltrating governments through coups, elections, and “peace keeping” missions throughout Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, but never in the Americas.

Event Date: 3-02-1946
Event Description: In the election for President of Vietnam, Nationalist candidate (and Nazi backed) General Ngo Dinh Diem defeats Social Democratic candidate Ho Chi Mihn in an election dominated by fraud, voter suppression, and violence. Diem was successfully able to tie Mihn to the discredited philosophy of Marxism. Mihn declares that the election is a fraud, and plans his own inauguration. However, the socialist will not live that long. SS assassins, working under the orders of both Hitler and Diem, kill Mihn before the week is out.   

Event Date: 3-03-1946
Event Description: Senator Robert Taft (Republican of Ohio) and Representative Fred Hartley (Republican of New Jersey) introduce the Taft-Hartley Act to end the general strike led by the AFL-CIO since early February. All Union strikes will be illegal if, “They interfere with common safety or health.” The act is bitterly argued, but will pass in both houses and be signed into law by President MacArthur. This act divides the GOP into two groups: pro-union and anti-union. 

Event Date: 10-10-1946
Event Description: It has been more than seven months since the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, making striking proactively illegal, but the massive strike led by the AFL-CIO continues. To conclude it, President MacArthur does not urge a minimum wage increase; he instead declares that all strikers will be drafted into the army if they are still walking the picket line on November 1st, 1946. The President’s firm response is applauded by conservatives, but as a member of a progressive party, MacArthur has tied his own political noose for the 1946 Midterms.

Event Date: 11-08-1946
Event Description: The GOP base stays home, leading to the Republicans losing massively in both houses of Congress. The Republicans maintain a narrow lead in both houses, but they are only by a sliver. President MacArthur has lost his working majorities in Congress, and will say that, “Peace is hell.”     

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-15-1947
Event Description: The House and Senate elect its leaders. In the Senate, Majority Leader Arthur Vandenberg is replaced by Senator William Knowland (Republican of California). Knowland, a veteran of the Japanese-American War, is not a traditional California progressive, like Herbert Hoover, Hiram Johnson, and Earl Warren. In fact, Knowland was able to defeat Senator Vandenberg only after he was endorsed by Senator Joseph McCarthy, the controversial communist hunter. To appease progressive Republicans, Senator Harry Truman is made Assistant Majority Leader and Majority Whip.

Event Date: 1-29-1947
Event Description: Former Senator Franklin Roosevelt, recovered from his stroke, begins a secret project. With help from BBC’s Edward Murrow, he begins regular broadcast of “Radio Free America” in Nazi Germany, Vichy France, and Italy. These broadcasts are outside of Europe’s own frequencies, so the Nazis can not stop the message of freedom that Roosevelt is sending to the resistance in Europe.

Event Date: 2-05-1947
Event Description: Senator Harry Truman introduces an act to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act. “I have been a businessman and I hate strikes as much as any businessman,” Truman tells his Senate colleagues, “However, I know when an act is unconstitutional, and I am damned sure the American people know too.” With help from Senate Minority Leader Alban Barkley, Truman’s bill will pass. The House of Representatives will also pass this act, against the wishes of Speaker Joseph Martin. President MacArthur, fearing another nationwide strike if he vetoes the act, signs it into law. The Taft-Hartley Act is no more.

Event Date: 2-16-1947
Event Description: Inspired by the equality of the United States and their great baseball teams, Cuban attorney Fidel Castro immigrates to Florida along with his mother and his brother, Raul. The 21- year old attorney hopes to try out for a professional team in 1948. Meanwhile, he is regarded as the finest sandlot player in Panama City, Florida.

Event Date: 3-01-1947
Event Description: At his wedding, Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun takes time out of his festivities to go outside. His breath of fresh air is not just to distance himself from a very drunk Hermann Goering, but also to meet with Albert Speer, who was his best man. “We are close to a satellite,” von Braun tells the Nazi architect, “I would say that a satellite of ours will orbit the Earth by 1950.” “This is excellent,” Speer tells the scientist, “However, we are receiving news that the Americans are working on a project of their own…and atomic bomb.”

Event Date: 3-03-1947
Event Description: “SPY IN ATOMIC PLAN!” blares the front page of the New York Times. The report reveals that the Maine-born William Colepaugh, who had been an aide to the scientists in the Tennessee-based Manhattan Project, has been selling atomic secrets to the master German spy, Erich Gimpel. George Marshall, who had been heading up the project, calls such speculations, “Ridiculous, hysterical hoopla used fro selling newspapers.” In Berlin, however, this dismissal by Marshall is not a reality. The Nazis have a great deal of information on the atomic bomb, but not enough to complete the weapon. With the spies found out, the Germans now fear they will never have the bomb before the United States. President MacArthur, who now must admit that the Manhattan Project exists, simply tells the scientists to continue working. It is expected that by 1949, there will be a working atomic bomb.

Event Date: 3-05-1947
Event Description: Ronald Reagan rages against the Nazi espionage in the Manhattan Project. “These servants of a salve master like Hitler claim to be our ‘friends’!” a very angry Dutch booms, “Yet they spy on us, try to take our secrets, and then do not even do anything to reaffirm their supposed ‘friendship’? When will President MacArthur, Secretary of State Larson, Vice-President Bridges, Senator Knowland, Speaker Martin, and the rest of that crew finally come to their senses and end all ties to the Empire of Evil, the Third Reich.” This statement, “The Empire of Evil”, is one that really divides Reagan’s large audience. Some feel this rhetoric is nearly a declaration of war, while others applaud the candor of the statement.

Event Date: 3-15-1947
Event Description: Secretary of State Morgan Larson and German Foreign Minster Hermann Goering meet in Reykjavik, Iceland, to discuss the espionage in Tennessee. “Why would you do such a thing?” is the first thing Morgan asks Goering after they shake hands. “Maybe this is the reason?” Goering sarcastically asks as he turns on a radio. Iceland is outside Europe’s frequencies, so as clear as a bell, the baritone voiced Franklin Delano Roosevelt can be heard preaching freedom to the masses of Europe. “Is this the way your government treats a trusted ally?” Goering yells, “We signed a friendship agreement in this very city!” Morgan explains he didn’t know, that Radio Free America is not sanctioned by the United States Government, but Goering refuses to listen. He knows that the Germans have had spies in the Manhattan Project since it was begun again in 1945, but Radio Free America is a good alibi. Secretary of State Morgan promises to end the radio station, but demands an apology from the Nazi. Goering refuses, and the meeting ends.

Event Date: 3-22-1947
Event Description: Franklin Roosevelt is arrested for espionage. His Radio Free America, preaching resistance to the people of Europe, has been a short lived experiment in the promotion of liberty worldwide. Senator Roosevelt will be found not guilty by a jury sick of an administration that seemingly bows to every whim the Nazis have. Edward R. Murrow will continue Radio Free Britain.

Event Date: 5-15-1947
Event Description: Secretary of State Morgan Larson resigns. The former New Jersey governor has decided that the job is not as easy as it once was. American-German relations are deteriorating quickly, and Larson wanted nothing to do with this high stress position. President MacArthur nominated former Vice-President Charles Dawes for the post, and he will be confirmed easily.

Event Date: 11-24-1947
Event Description: The Congress passes the Central Intelligence Agency Act. The new CIA will perform the first domestic spying in history. President MacArthur vows to veto the bill, but reconsiders when it passes both houses with overwhelming support. The scare over Nazi spies in the Manhattan Project has led to the USA entering the spying game.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 2-18-1948
Event Description: The New Hampshire Primary takes place. Although primaries used to be worthless, the sheer number of candidates in the 1948 presidential race has made them a necessity. The Republican Primary is an easy win for native son, Vice-President Styles Bridges. President MacArthur’s loyal veep defeats Ohio Governor John W. Bricker, New York Senator Thomas Dewey, Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen, and Attorney General Earl Warren in the Granite State primary. Warren comes in second, though he is quite far behind Bridges. In the Democratic Primary, Arizona Senator Ernest McFarland wins an upset victory over his boss, Senate Majority Leader Alban Barkley, Georgia Senator Richard Russell, New York Governor Hugh Lehman, Connecticut Governor Robert Hurley, and bombastic Louisiana Senator Huey Long.

Event Date: 3-05-1948
Event Description: Earl Warren wins the Oregon Primary, defeating his main rival Styles Bridges. The Vice-President had tried to sue the internal Communism issue to his advantage, but Senator Wayne Morse’s endorsement of Warren sealed the deal.

Event Date: 3-12-1948
Event Description: Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and North Dakota vote for Vice-President Bridges, ending the candidacy of Governor Stassen. Attorney General Warren is able to win New York and California; making up for the losses, but the momentum is now with Bridges.

Event Date: 4-06-1948
Event Description: In a pitched battle, Vice-President Bridges ekes out a 51-49% victory in the Illinois Primary over Attorney General Warren. This primary win seems to have sealed the nomination for Bridges, but Warren will fight on. 

Event Date: 4-10-1948
Event Description: The United States air force begins making routine spying missions over German cities. President MacArthur likes none of it, but realizes that this is the only way that the United States can remain on equal footing with the Nazis.

Event Date: 5-03-1948
Event Description: Although the Nazis tried to influence the elections, American aide to anti-Nazi parties in China has led to the Third Reich losing local legislative lections in the Republic of China. The USA has finally begun fighting the Third Reich’s attempts to control world governments.

Event Date: 6-17-1948
Event Description: Senator Ernest McFarland is nominated for President of the United States at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia. McFarland had used his upset win in New Hampshire to power his victory in the primaries. The convention selects former Indiana Governor Henry Schricker as McFarland’s running-mate. The Democratic Platform promises a foreign policy which is tough on Nazi expansionism and a budget that is balanced. It once again attacks the Interstate Highway Act as, “Unneeded, unconstitutional, and a complete waste of money.”

Event Date: 7-05-1948
Event Description: After a hard fought primary battle with Attorney General Earl Warren, Vice-President Styles Bridges is nominated by the Republican Convention in Cleveland as their candidate for President of the United States. To appease disappointed progressives, Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon is named as Bridge’s running-mate. An awkward handshake between Warren and Bridges does not seem to sew up the bad blood of the primary.

Event Date: 11-02-1948
Event Description: Senator McFarland defeats Vice-President Bridges in a very low key presidential contest.

 

Ernest McFarland/Henry Schricker (D): 288 EV; 51.6% of the PV
Styles Bridges/Wayne Morse (R): 243 EV; 47.9% of the PV
Others (Socialist, Prohibition, etc.): 0 EV; 0.5% of the PV

[PBrunsel]

President Ernest McFarland (1949-1953)

Event Date: 1-20-1949
Event Description: Ernest McFarland is sworn in as President of the United States. President Douglas MacArthur, after presiding over eight years of general peace and prosperity, makes a final address to the nation. “I now enter the twilight of my career,” The former President tells the nation, “But I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of my generation: ‘Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.’”

Event Date: 1-21-1949
Event Description: Franklin Delano Roosevelt is rejected for Secretary of State by the Senate. His ties to “Radio Free America” led many Senators to fear he would lead the nation to a war with Nazi Germany. Roosevelt returns to Hyde Park, where he will live the rest of his life in virtual isolation. “History will absolve me,” he tells his son James. President McFarland’s second nominee, New York Congressman Averill Harriman, is easily confirmed.   

Event Date: 1-31-1949
Event Description: President McFarland meets with Senate Majority Leader William Knowland and Speaker of the House Joseph Martin. Despite his Oval Office win, President McFarland realizes that the Republicans still control both houses of Congress, albeit narrowly. President McFarland assures the two men that he will not cut funding for Interstate Highways and will support continued civil rights legislation, however, he will oppose further spending. Senator Knowland assures the President that the budget will have the same spending as the MacArthur Administration. President McFarland simply tells him, “I guess we’ll see about that, Bill.” Knowland, who hates being called “Bill”, ends the meeting.

Event Date: 2-14-1949
Event Description: NBC Radio star Ronald Reagan marries actress Nancy Davis. The two had met while staring in a radio drama in December 1948.

Event Date: 4-01-1949
Event Description: TIME Magazine releases its ranking of the presidents. Only one, Ulysses Grant, is listed as a “failure”. Great presidents include Washington, Lincoln. Jefferson, Roosevelt, and, surprisingly, Hoover. Near great presidents include Polk, Cleveland, John Adams, and Hull. Douglas MacArthur and Ernest McFarland are not ranked, because one has been out of office to short and one in just the same.

Event Date: 5-10-1949
Event Description: The United States detonates the first atomic bomb in the deserts of New Mexico. The Nazis now are not alone in having “super weapons.”

Event Date: 10-24-1949
Event Description: President McFarland submits his version of the Federal Budget for 1950-1951. It does not include any increases in Social Security spending or public works. Senate Majority Leader William Knowland and Speaker of the House Joseph Martin declare that they will fight the President’s budget. “The President is dealing with forces he can’t fight,” Knowland tells the press, “That power is the needs of the American people.”

Event Date: 11-03-1949
Event Description: House Majority Leader Charles Halleck (Republican of Indiana) introduces the House’s own budget. It nearly triples the funding for Social Security, public works, schools, and other New Deal measures. President McFarland declares that the budget is, “Wrought with pork barrel waste and screaming for a tax hike.” He will never approve of this budget. It seems as if a “standoff” will occur between the Oval Office and Capitol Hill.

Event Date: 12-31-1949
Event Description: One day before the new budget is to take effect, but there is no new budget! Senator Knowland, who has decided to use the budget drama to become amore national figure, and President McFarland have been unable to work out a deal on spending. Despite countless meetings between representatives, the White House and the Congress are at complete odds. As New Years Eve nears midnight, the nation starts to shut down.

Event Date: 1-02-1950
Event Description: The mail is not delivered, electric companies in the TVA shut down, government offices close nationwide, and, in some districts, schools shut down. Despite children enjoying the lack of school, most of the nation is very angry over the lack of mail. President McFarland and Senator Knowland are now in a battle to win the American people’s favor in the budget battle. “The Voice of the Nation” Ronald Reagan stands with President McFarland. “Senator Knowland is the biggest baby in government,” Reagan tells his radio audience, “He can’t accept reality: big government is bad government.” Knowland uses his ties to the nation’s newspapers to appeal to the masses.

Event Date: 1-10-1950
Event Description: The Gallup Poll reveals that a majority of Americans favor Senator Knowland’s budget plan. “56% of those polled believe that Halleck’s budget is the best deal for them,” Gallup reports. With this news, President McFarland and Ronald Regan launch a massive counterstrike, outlining the, “Big taxing and spending,” in the budget. “Democrats think everyday is July 4th,” Reagan declares that night, “While Republicans think everyday is April 15th.” “Tax-and-spend Republicans” becomes a favorite saying of the Democrats. Despite this counterstrike, a majority of Americans seem to stand with Knowland. They have been given these commodities since Hoover in 1925, why not now?

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-25-1950
Event Description: With an approval rating of 35% and the nation breathing down his back, President McFarland approves of House Majority Leader Halleck’s budget. Finally, the government can reopen. President McFarland’s power is greatly weakened by this episode.

Event Date: 3-19-1950
Event Description: Former Senator and Vice-President Franklin Roosevelt dies of a massive stroke at his home in Hyde Park, New York. The 68-year old Roosevelt is survived by his three sons, with James Roosevelt a candidate for Congress in California, and his former wife, imprisoned Ambassador Eleanor Roosevelt. The legacy of Franklin Roosevelt is one that is almost exclusively in New York State, but one thing that he will be remembered nationally for is his 1940 presidential campaign where he warned the nation of the evils of Nazism.

Event Date: 4-17-1950
Event Description: Emile Schindler, the widow of Oskar Schindler, speaks before the British Parliament. She describes the atrocities of the Nazi regime against Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals throughout their empire. “The evils of this regime need to be fought,” she tells the Parliament, “The regime of Hitler is inhuman. My husband fought it as hard as he could, but even the dreams of one man are not enough to defeat so evil a power. We need the world’s decent people to fight the Nazi regime.” The world response is explosive! As the Nazis declare that such talk is insane, many nations begin to pass resolutions condemning the Nazis and calling for the end of the Nazi regime. “How could this have slipped?” Fuehrer Adolf Hitler booms in his office, “I want every body cremated and ever last mongrel killed!” General Erwin Rommell tells Hitler that such an order is impossible. “My men are soldiers,” Rommell tells Hitler, “Not butchers.” Hitler demands Rommell does his bidding, but “The Desert Fox” refuses. He resigns his commission, and storms out of the Reichstag.

Event Date: 4-20-1950
Event Description: On the 61st birthday of the Fuehrer, a mass demonstration of German workers, clergy, students, and professionals march on the Great Hall of the People in Berlin. They march in opposition to the government’s “Final Solution” for Jews and other minorities. The SS responds to this march by firing at the protesters and arresting all those not killed. The news of this massacre further enrages the world.

Event Date: 4-22-1950
Event Description: In the United States Senate, Senator Carl Hayden (Democrat of Arizona) introduces a resolution for an embargo against Nazi Germany. It passes nearly unanimously, with Republicans bucking their old isolationist ideals. “I hate foreign affairs quite a lot,” Senator Taft tells the press, “But the Nazis have gone too far in not just killing protesters, but covering up genocide.” With even the passionate isolationist Taft on its side, an embargo is established against Nazi Germany.

Event Date: 4-25-1950
Event Description: Nazi Germany launches the first satellite, Morgenstern. This great achievement is one that threatens the United States against the Nazis. Immediately, funds are put aside by Congress to finance an American satellite. President McFarland tells the nation that the satellite “Is a simple parlor trick by the Nazi regime. It does not symbolize any superiority over us.” Senator Knowland calls these remarks, “Ignorant. They are the words of a President who refuses to grapple with reality.”

Event Date: 5-01-1950
Event Date: Nazi Germany begins to experience major production problems. With no wars to be fought and labor no longer indispensable, the German economy begins to slow down. Fuehrer Hitler declares that there is 100% employment and, “The nation’s economy has never been stronger.” This is a bald-faced lie. By June 1950, unemployment will be at 15% in Germany, with working class Germans, loyal Nazis, feeling the blunt of the recession.

Event Date: 6-20-1950
Event Description: Nazi Germany is now facing embargoes from over 35-nations. The United States, usually isolationist, has led the world in a trade war against the Nazis. German factories begin to slow down, or close down altogether. As Hitler raves about “Bolshevik plots” against production, Albert Speer and Erwin Rommell meet in secret. “We have to do something about this economic embargo,” Speer tells Rommell, “If we don’t then our nation is doomed to a return to the 1920s.” Rommell assures Speer that the nation will recover, “Once Hitler and his crew are removed from power.” The two agree to take the Third Reich’s most powerful leaders down on July 6th, 1950. The Day of   Auflehnung.

Event Date: 7-06-1950
Event Description: Nazi Germany shuts down. The factories close, the death camps are still, and the Reichstag is quiet. The nation’s workers take to the streets, but this time with clubs and knives. Shouting, “Remember April 20!” the disgruntled workers battle the SS. In the Reichstag, former General Erwin Rommell makes good use of his decorative pistols by personally disposing of Nazi Foreign Minster Hermann Goering and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goerbels. Albert Speer takes care of Reinhard Heydrich, but refuses to murder Adolf Hitler or his wife Eva. Hitler, seeing his fascist utopia crumble before his eyes, commits suicide with one of his famed silver pistols. Spear hides Eva Hitler, pregnant with what will be a son, until she can take a ship to Argentina.

Event Date: 7-07-1950
Event Description: Erwin Rommell takes power as Chancellor of the Fourth Reich of Germany. “The era of Nazism is over,” Rommell tells the people of Germany that night over radio, “The forced labor, the murders, the silencing, the terror, is now a thing of the past.” Albert Speer, a loyal Nazi-turned-turncoat, becomes Majority Leader of the German Reichstag. A parliamentary democracy will be established, with multi-party elections. For the first time since 1933, Germany is free from one-party rule.

Event Date: 7-10-1950
Event Description: Eva Hitler arrives in Buenos Ares, Argentina, and is welcomed by President Juan Peron and his wife Evita. Eva will change her name back to Eva Braun, and shall bear a son. In the United States, Ronald Reagan leads the nation in celebrating the fall of Nazism. “The 1,000 year Reich has fallen in far less than that time,” Reagan tells the nation, “It is time that all fascism is confined to the ash heap of history.” The nations of Spain and Italy are the only literal fascist governments, but several nations (such as Egypt, France, Vietnam, China, and Argentina) are still under control of Nazi backed governments.

Event Date: 8-06-1950
Event Description: Charles de Gaulle leads a coup against the Vichy Government of France. Since the fall of the Third Reich, the Vichy Government has struggled to stay on its feet. General de Gaulle, a hero of the French Resistance, receives support from unemployed laborers and, surprisingly, students.

Event Date: 8-08-1950
Event Description: With Europe in disarray over the fall of the Nazi German regime, Wall Street lays an egg. Massive amount of selling leads to a vicious bear market. A recession is on the horizon, but not too serious of one. A continuing housing crisis is the real threat to most average Americans.

Event Date: 10-12-1950
Event Description: The German Reichstag elections occur, and Albert Speer’s Conservative Party is victorious over the Labor and Social Democracy parties.

Event Date: 11-05-1950
Event Description: The Midterm Elections are a wash. The Republican Party keeps in control of both houses of Congress, with the Democrats losing two seats in the Senate and three in the House of Representatives. Representative Richard Nixon is elected to the Senate from California, despite his opponent, Representative Helan Douglas, attacking him for opposing the trade embargo against Nazi Germany. In Massachusetts, Representative Joseph Kennedy, Junior, is elected Governor of the state his father once governed. "He's on his way," the elder Joe tells John Kenendy, elected that night to his brother's seat in Congress.

Event Date: 12-24-1950
Event Description: President Ernest McFarland announces he will not seek reelection in 1952. President McFarland appears to be quite wooden to most voters. “I lack flash,” President McFarland says, “I’m President, not Ronald Reagan.”

[PBrunsel]

I have the end of the McFarland Adminstration and the 1952 Election pretty much ready, but have been too busy to post it. I hope to do so tonight or tommorrow.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-09-1951
Event Description: Eva Braun gives birth to a son: Rudolf Freidrich Braun. This child is the son of the late and infamous Adolf Hitler, Fuehrer of the Third Reich.

Event Date: 1-15-1951
Event Description: The Nuremberg Trials open. German civilian courts try former Nazi officials for, “Crimes against humanity.” Karl and Ilse Koch, the commandants of Buchenwald Concentration Camp, are the first to be tried. Both receive life sentences. Dr. Joseph Mengele, “The Doctor of Death”, is sentenced to a life sentence of hard labor. Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, is sentenced to life in prison as well. He argues he was, “Only following orders.” Over the next several months, mass graves will be found throughout Europe. The Holocaust has devastated the population of European Jews. There are fewer than 6 million Jews alive in Continental Europe.

Event Date:  2-04-1951
Event Description: Senator Thomas Dewey (Republican of New York) begins a massive probe of waste in the military spending. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, headed by Curtis LeMay, tell Dewey not to bother. “All military spending is crucial,” General LeMay tells the press, “To cut even a dollar would threaten our nation’s security.” However, Senate Majority Leader Knowland sees the merits of a Dewey Commission on Military Spending. “We have been spending a great deal on the military since the 1930s,” Senator Knowland tells the press, “It’s high time someone look into the misspending of our multimillion dollar army.” Under the public façade, Knowland has quite another idea. Senator Dewey, who briefly sought the White House in 1948, is looking more and more likely as the progressive Republican choice for president in 1952. By interrogating the military, Knowland hopes that he can attack Dewey as “weak” on national security when the Senate Majority Leader seeks the Oval Office in 1952.

Event Date: 3-01-1951
Event Description: “The Dewey Commission” opens. NBC’s Ronald Reagan will become a leading opponent of, “Senator Dewey’s meddling in our nation’s security.” Despite opposition from one of the most popular radio personalities in America, Senator Dewey will conduct studies and interrogations into the U.S. Military until the summer.  

Event Date: 4-05-1951
Event Description: Former Vice-President, Secretary of State and 1936 Republican Presidential nominee Charles G. Dawes, sick from tuberculosis, appears on the stage of Independence Hall in Washington, D.C., to play piano for one song at a concert honoring famed lyricist Carl Sigman. “It’s all in the Game”, a jaunty “rock-and-roll” type song about sandlot baseball, will hit #1 in the pop music charts. Dawes will win several music awards for his tune, but never go to any of the ceremonies. In just two weeks, he will die of ailment at his home in Galena, Illinois.

Event Date: 6-07-1951
Event Description: Former President Douglas MacArthur testifies before the Dewey Commission. Putting big hole in the arguments of General LeMay and Ronald Reagan, the former Allied Commander during the Japanese-American War tells Senator Dewey (with his close Senate friend Harry Truman by his side) that there is indeed a great deal of misuse of funds in the military. For three hours he numbers off on different defense contracts which are useless, but still receiving money, and other such discrepancies. “In conclusion, money could be spent elsewhere,” President MacArthur says, “However, we should still maintain a powerful military, capable of awesome force.”

Event Date: 6-08-1951
Event Description: Lieutenant Colonel Dwight Eisenhower testifies before the Dewey Commission. Long an opponent of high military spending, Ike rages against, “The military industrial complex which holds a stranglehold on our nation’s budget.” Eisenhower attacks President McFarland, Senate Minority Leader Alban Barkley, and Ronald Reagan, the, “Voice of the reactionaries.” After illustrating the waste in the military budget (like MacArthur the day before), Ike also illustrates how additional money could be given to education, infrastructure, and, to the chagrin of many isolationist Republicans, to foreign aide for peace. Lieutenant Colonel Eisenhower ends his four hour testimony with this statement: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.” To this, Ronald Reagan replies, “Eisenhower is dabbling in sentimental hogwash.”

Event Date: 7-15-1951
Event Description: With flood waters drowning his state, Governor Edward Arn calls in former President Herbert Hoover to head up relief in not just his state, but the entire afflicted area from Louisiana to Nebraska. Hoover, who is known for his skills at securing relief for refugees, will head up the effort from May 1951 until April 1952. Under the leadership of President Hoover, thousands of displaced Americans are given shelter, food, and clothing during their months as flood refugees. Governor Arn, accredited with the historical knowledge to call in “The Great Humanitarian”, becomes nationally known due to photo opportunities with President Hoover.

Event Date: 7-19-1951
Event Description: President Ernest McFarland recognizes the German Fourth Reich in a Rose Garden Ceremony. Chancellor Erwin Rommell attends the ceremony, enthusiastically shaking hands with all. “Today is a great honor,” the former Nazi General declares, “Today is the day our nation reenters the civilized world.” Despite western skepticism over Prime Minister Albert Speer and his recent conversion to a democracy loving statesman, there is no doubt that the world is safer and a better place since the fall of the Third Reich.

Event Date: 8-01-1951
Event Description: Senator Thomas Dewey makes his official report on waste in military spending. “Of the over $400 million spent on armaments in this nation,” Dewey concludes, “It only makes sense that the pork be trimmed, and the money saved given to the future generations.” Senator Dewey, nearly overnight, has become a national figure and the progressive choice for President of the United States in 1952. It looks as if Senate Majority Leader Knowland’s plan has blown up in his face.

Event Date: 10-16-1951
Event Description: The race for President of the United States is in full swing. In Abilene, Kansas, progressive Republican Senator Thomas Dewey rides down Main Street with local hero, Dwight Eisenhower, and Kansas Governor Edward Arn. Recent events have made all three of these men national figures. To combat this publicity, Senate Majority Leader William Knowland begins to question the, “Anti-military statements of Dewey and Eisenhower.” This will become a favorite statement of Knowland in the upcoming campaign.

Event Date: 10-22-1951
Event Description: Talk begins about a “Draft Reagan” movement in the Democratic Party. After the perennially wooden President McFarland, some Democrats see the handsome, articulate and likable 38-year old Reagan as a perfect candidate. Senate Minority Leader Alban Barkley tells the press he likes the idea of a radio man in the Oval Office. “At least then people would actually want to listen to what the President says,” the wry Barkley says. However, Reagan will have nothing to do with the draft movement. “Imagine a guy like me as president!” Reagan declares, “Heck, just the thought makes my hair turn gray!”

Event Date: 3-11-1952
Event Description: The New Hampshire Primary is held for both parties, with record turnouts for the primary. On the Republican side, Senator Thomas Dewey of New York bests Senate Majority Leader William Knowland and former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen. Senator Knowland had tried to tie Dewey’s probe into military misspending to weakening the USA’s strength abroad, but with no real threats since the fall of Nazism, the attacks don’t stick. On the Democratic side, Representative Averell Harriman of New York defeats Senate Minority Leader Alban Barkley, Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, and Secretary of the Navy Charles Edison of New Jersey. The victory of the two New Yorkers is one that represents the two major factions of both parties: Dewey is a progressive while Harriman has had a conservative voting record.

Event Date: 3-18-1952
Event Description: The Minnesota Primary is held, with surprising results. Senator Dewey defeats Stassen in his own home state, forcing the progressive Republican Stassen to drop out of the race. He will later, begrudgingly, endorse Senator Dewey. Senator Knowland is forced to third place, but he didn’t even focus on Minnesota. On the Democratic side, progressive Democratic Senator Hubert Humphrey (whom has been courted by Republicans to switch sides) is able to lead Senator Kefauver to an upset victory over Representative Harriman. The more liberal Kefauver can credit his victory not to his own industries, but to the support of the most popular politician in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

Event Date: 4-01-1952
Event Description: In military family heavy Nebraska, Senator Knowland is able to win an easy victory over Senator Dewey, whom Knowland referred to as, “The slash the army Senator.” The Democratic side produces a victor in Senator Barkley, whose campaign appealed to the agricultural community. The Democrats still do not have a clear front-runner, or even a horserace between two candidates. Held also today is the Wisconsin Primary, where Dewey and Kefauver win.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 4-10-1952
Event Description: Following a defeat in Illinois to Representative Harriman, Senator Kefauver attempts to appeal to the nation’s businessmen by promising that he will be, “A president who supports continental trade.” This opinion has been a Democratic keystone since the days of Grover Cleveland, but Representative Harriman sees an attack possibility in upcoming Pennsylvania.

Event Date: 4-22-1952
Event Description: After trading blows throughout the month, Senator Dewey wins the crucial Pennsylvania Primary. He is helped by the appearance of former President Hoover at a rally near Independence Hall. “The future of the party is Senator Dewey,” Hoover declared to the crowd of cheering supporters, “Let us not refuse our own future; let us embrace it for victory.” Senator Dewey defeats Knowland by a 62-38% margin, with his biggest pluralities coming from Pittsburg and Philadelphia. On the Democratic side, Representative Harriman narrowly defeats Senator Kefauver. Kefauver accused Harriman by playing to; “The fears of society,” by telling industrial workers in the state that Kefauver’s plan to open a form of free trade with the nations of the Americas would land them in the poor house. “This campaign appeals to the fears of society,” Senator Humphrey, who campaigned for Kefauver, “You can’t vote your fears; you have to vote your hopes.”

Event Date: 5-06-1952
Event Description: Senator Dewey wins in Ohio, despite Governor John W. Bricker endorsing Senator Knowland. With this victory, Dewey has established himself as the clear frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination. Representative Harriman once again fear mongers amongst the industrial workers to win the Ohio Primary, but he only narrowly defeats Senator Kefauver. By now, Senators Russell and Barkley have long since dropped out of the race. Despite his loss in Ohio, Kefauver takes Florida with the support of Senator George Smathers, a very conservative Democrat.

Event Date: 6-13-1952
Event Description: Senator Thomas E. Dewey of New York clinches the Republican nomination for President by winning the California Primary, over native Californian Senator William Knowland. Knowland’s campaign was seen as too conservative for the Republican Party. However, South Dakota votes for Knowland. On the Democratic side, Senator Kefauver narrowly wins the California Primary, with Harriman taking South Dakota. Neither Kefauver nor Harriman has a majority of delegates; the primaries will be expanded to the convention.

Event Date: 7-17-1952
Event Description: The Republican Convention in Chicago, Illinois, nominates Senator Thomas Dewey of New York for President. The convention selects another nationally known Republican, Kansas Governor Edward Arn, for Vice-President. The two men are nationally known, “One for cleaning up government, and the other for mopping up a flood.”

Event Date: 7-21-1952
Event Description: In the same building where the Republicans quietly chose the ticket of Dewey-Arn, the Democratic Convention opens. The frontrunners, Representative Averell Harriman and Senator Estes Kefauver, are unable to claim the nomination due to a lack of delegates. Governor Adlai Stevenson welcomes the delegates with a rousing speech, but refuses any draft into the presidential nomination. “You can not make a national candidate out of me,” he tells the press, “I wasn’t born into poverty, I didn’t work my way through school, I am just a boring candidate.” The first day of balloting leaves no favorite.

Event Date: 7-22-1952
Event Description: Senator J. William Fulbright addresses the convention, calling for a compromise choice. “I wonder who that will be?” sarcastically comments Ronald Reagan, covering the convention for NBC. When Reagan appears later in the afternoons on the convention floor, adoring delegates begin to chant, “Reagan and Victory,” but the well liked Reagan refuses to be a candidate. After 27 ballots, there is still no frontrunner, but Senator Fulbright has become a favorite amongst many delegates who are less than thrilled over Kefauver and Harriman.

Event Date: 7-23-1952
Event Description: By 1:00 a.m., the Democrats are still voting in the overheated convention building. By now, Senators Barkley and Russell have given their delegates to Representative Harriman, but Senator Kefauver still has a lead. Around 7:00 a.m., Senator Humphrey meets with Senator Fulbright, who is balloting very well for a candidate who never entered a single primary. In what is called, “The Breakfast Truce,” Humphrey is able to convince Fulbright to drop out of the race, and endorse Senator Kefauver.

Event Date: 7-24-1952
Event Description: The Democratic Convention finally nominated Senator Estes Kefauver for President. To reward him for his support, Kefauver selects Senator Fulbright as his running-mate. “Senator Kefauver and I will win this election,” Fulbright cries in an energetic acceptance address, “And we’ll make Dewey and his Republicans like it.”

Event Date: 8-01-1952
Event Description: The Gallup Poll shows that Senator Dewey leads Senator Kefauver by 52-40%, but the charismatic Dewey refuses to sit the election out. He and Kefauver will travel over 200,000 miles during the 1952 race, making more than 120-speeches combined. “Behold the leviathan,” NBC’s Ronald Reagan joyfully tells his listeners, “The presidential campaign!”

Event Date: 10-03-1952
Event Description: The first TV commercials in presidential election history begin to air. The charismatic and handsome Senator Dewey uses them to his advantage. His commercials focus around the theme of, “Are you better off now than four years ago?” Pointing to rising inflation and a growing mortgage crisis, Dewey’s ads seem to be more effective than Kefauver’s message of, “You’ve never had it so good.”

Event Date: 11-04-1952
Event Description: Senator Thomas Dewey of New York is elected President of the United States, defeating Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. The underwhelming presidency of Ernest McFarland as well as the souring world economy led to the dynamic Dewey’s landslide victory.

Thomas Dewey/Edward Arn (R): 380 EV; 57.3% of the PV
Estes Kefauver/J. William Fulbright (D): 151 EV; 41.1% of the PV
Others (Prohibition, Socialist Labor, etc.): 0 EV; 1.6% of the PV

The Congress also experiences the Republican landslide. The Senate and House solidify themselves around the GOP, with the Democrats mainly confined to the South and the Mountain West. Although Senator Dewey won Massachusetts by 15-points, both Governor and Representative Kennedy are easily reelected. Governor Joseph Kennedy, Jr., though only 37-years old, is seen as the frontrunner for the 1956 Democratic nomination. In Iowa, Republican Nile Kinnick is elected Governor of Iowa. Like Kennedy, he is seen as a future candidate for president by his respective party   

[PBrunsel]

Rockefeller Republican,

Kinnick's religion will become an issue, as Kennedy's will. It is sad that one's personal religion must be an issue in presidential elections, but it is a truth.

[PBrunsel]

To the 6 people who read this timeline,

I'm sorry I have not updated it. I have agreat deal of the Dewey Administration written, but due to most of my family working with finals for school (as am I), I can't get it all the way finished. I hope to have the entire Dewey presidency up by the end of the week.

Sorry for the lack of activity in the timeline.

PBrunsel

[PBrunsel]

The Presidency of Thomas Dewey

Event Date: 1-20-1953
Event Description: Thomas Edmund Dewey is sworn in as President of the United States. “I promise to this nation,” he declares in his Inaugural Address, “That I will never soil the trust you have placed upon me.” He swears an administration that honors efficiency and progressive reform. In what is almost an opposite of the conservative McFarland Administration, former Attorney General Earl Warren is returned to his old job. Lieutenant Colonel Dwight Eisenhower is made Secretary of Defense, vowing to make the military, “Efficient and as unneeded as possible.” President Dewey appoints brothers to his cabinet: Herbert Hoover, Jr., as Secretary of State and Allan Hoover as Secretary of Commerce. “He’s brought the 1920s back to the White House!” proclaims Ronald Reagan, “God save us!”

Event Date: 1-25-1953
Event Description: Arthur Miller’s The Crucible opens on Broadway. Although on the surface a play about the Salem Witch Trials, Miller’s lesson of the dangers of paranoia over mere speculation is a critique of President MacArthur, J. Edgar Hoover, and Senator Joseph McCarthy and their internal communism purge in the mid-1940s. The play will be a hit, and inspire ACLU Attorney Thurgood Marshall to represent imprisoned diplomat Eleanor Roosevelt in court. 

Event Date: 2-25-1953
Event Description: The United States launches its first satellite, Independence, into orbit. The satellite is named after the hometown of Senator Harry Truman, the man who introduced the space program to the United States Senate. The Germans now have a neighbor in outer space.

Event Date: 3-01-1953
Event Description: Former President Herbert Hoover and his son, Secretary of Commerce Allan Hoover, are appointed by President Dewey to reorganize the Executive Branch. “This administration is determined to end waste in government,” President Dewey addresses the nation over the new medium of television, “To accomplish this goal, we bring in the man who inspired the word ‘Hooverize’, the very meaning of making things efficient.” President Dewey today begins the massive, “Untangling, unraveling of government,” he promised during the 1952 Election. The Democrats, though on the average the conservative party, are divided over the Dewey reforms. “We will not support a cut of our nation’s military once again!” Senator John Stennis (Democrat of Mississippi) tells his colleagues.

Event Date: 3-15-1953
Event Description: After playing in the minor leagues since 1948, Fidel Castro is traded to the New York Yankees to play the position of pitcher.

Event Date: 3-18-1953
Event Date: President Alexander Kerensky of Russia is reelected to his office. The President is the head of the People’s Party. He defeats Labor Party nominee Konstantin Chernenko, the Mayor of Moscow. The young and dynamic Chernenko is expected to make a comeback once the greatly admired Kerensky retires.

Event Date: 4-05-1953
Event Description: President Dewey unveils his “New Day” plan for America. “This ‘New Day’ will include workers, students, teachers, and veterans,” Dewey tells the nation in a television address, “The ‘New Day’ will be a bright one for all Americans, not just the select few.” President Dewey outlines a plan for unemployment, workman’s compensation, a living wage, tort reform, student aide for college, increased funding for the arts, and a list of other social reforms. The Democrats vow to fight every one of his plans. “If the Moneyman of Albany thinks he can bankrupt the nation’s taxpayers for his silly pet projects,” Ronald Reagan tells his audience, “Than his mustache must be cutting off the blood to his brain.”

Event Date: 4-12-1953
Event Description: Senator Everett Dirksen (Republican of Illinois) introduces the Dirksen College Loan Act. The first federal student loans are established, and they will be required to be adjusted for inflation. The hope of this bill is to encourage America’s poorest citizens, primarily minorities in the Northeast and Southwest, to become educated and professionals. This act will not apply to those students who have full ride scholarships of course, like Malcolm Little. After graduating first in his class from the University of Michigan, he has a full ride scholarship to Harvard Law School.

Event Date: 4-15-1953
Event Date: Senator Dirksens’ college loan plan passes the Senate, despite attempted derailing by Senate Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson (Democrat of Texas). “This unconstitutional act will make our state universities tools for federal government propaganda!” the Texan bellowed. His calls are not heard, and the bill will pass both houses of Congress, and be signed into law by President Dewey. The New Day has begun.

Event Date: 5-21-1953
Event Description: Ronald Reagan addresses Bob Jones University in South Carolina, giving a speech ripping President Dewey. “The New Day is as bad as the New Deal before it,” Reagan tells the mainly Democratic crowd, “It robs from the affluent to give to the idle. President Dewey wants our nation to aid the lazy from cradle to grave, and this is where ruin lies. Greece, Rome, and the other republics of the ancient era fell because they overextended their government into the daily lives of citizens. When this happens, liberty is lost. Ladies and gentlemen, we must defend liberty! Those who would sell it out for the ‘security’ of the welfare state are dangerous, and should be thrown from office, not occupying the highest.” Reagan’s speech goes over well, but many in his radio audience feel he has overextended his dislike of government spending. “To call the President of the United States ‘unpatriotic’ and ‘dangerous’,” CBS radio announcer Walter Winchell says, “Simply because he believes in human dignity is appalling.” Reagan still dominated the air waves, and his opposition to President Dewey will continue to be strong.

Event Date: 6-18-1953
Event Date:  Senator Hubert Humphrey (Democrat of Minnesota) introduces the Humphrey Wage Act. Under this bill, the minimum wage would be adjusted for inflation every year, to insure it is a, “Living wage.” Senate Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson declares, “An all out war on needles poverty legislation.” Humphrey’s bill will pass a Senate sub-committee, but be stalled in the chamber.

Event Date: 6-30-1953
Event Description: The filibuster of the Humphrey wage Act is voted to end. The Democrats simply were too divided over the issue. Senator Humphrey, feeling betrayed by his party, switches to the GOP. “The party didn’t leave me,” President Humphrey jokes as he changes his party registration, “I left the party!” Senator Humphrey is welcomed to the GOP ranks by President Dewey himself at a White House dinner. “We’ve been waiting Hubert,” the President tells him. Ronald Reagan, becoming increasingly anti-Dewey everyday, says that night, “The Democrats say farewell to the Hapless Warrior.”

Event Date: 7-26-1953
Event Description: As Fidel Castro primps to begin pitching for the Yankees next year, Che Guevara and his rebels are slaughtered by President Fugenico Batista’s troops at Moncada Barracks. Guevara had hoped to use Cuba as a starting point to lead a Communist revolution throughout Latin America. In New York, Fidel Castro, a former Cuban, calls Guevara, “A fool.” Castro is exceedingly pro-American, so much he makes some of his fellow Yankees laugh.

Event Date: 9-01-1953
Event Description: The Hoover Commission releases its findings. “The government is too big, plain and simple,” former President Herbert Hoover tells the nation, “The executive branch needs to be reorganized from the top down.” Secretary of Commerce Allan Hoover announces that the U.S. government could save over $200 million by, “Eliminating half of government employees.” This statement puts much of Washington, D.C., in a tizzy. Many government employees complaint that this is a threat of layoffs. “It isn’t,” Secretary Hoover tells representatives of government workers “All you need to do is make some efficient changes you’re your jobs will be safe.” Later that evening, the representatives will call this notion, “Ridiculous.” ”Nothing makes a government employee more upset,” Allan Hoover tells his father, “Than telling them they may have to be efficient.”

Event Date: 9-03-1953
Event Description: The United States Congress adopts the Hoover Act, which grants every government spending change the Hoover Commission recommends. This act received support from most Congressmen, with Senator Harry Truman introducing the act. “Hoover made me a Republican,” Truman tells the press, “It’s only right I do my part to repay him.”

Event Date: 9-17-1953
Event Description: The Christian epic “The Robe” opens in theatres to overwhelming audiences. The Reverend Billy Graham had endorsed the film on Ronald Reagan’s “Voice of the Nation.” Another film, “War of the Worlds” based off of H.G. Wells’ classic novel, flops. Without the fear of atomic war, very few people fear any type of earthly destruction.

Event Date: 12-25-1953
Event Description: Ronald Reagan makes his television debut narrating a NBC production of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” British actor Alistair Sim stars as Ebenezer Scrooge, as he had in the 1951 adaptation of the story. Jimmy Stewart plays the role of Bob Cratchit. The Reagan, Sim and Stewart trio is hailed as brilliant, and the production will be played by NBC every Christmas.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-30-1954
Event Description: In a recall election, Argentinean President Juan Peron is thrown from office. In the following months, the new President Eduardo Lonardi will discover that Peron’s government was harboring former Nazi officials, including Adolf Eichman, an architect of the Holocaust. However, Eve Braun and her child Rudolph are not found, as they are both living in a convent. Braun hopes her son will enter the clergy.

Event Date: 2-03-1954
Event Description: Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey informs President Dewey of a grave problem: there is to be a budget deficit. The New Day has caused an increase in spending, not seen since the days of the Hoover Administration. “Never!” Dewey snaps, “This has to be dealt with.” The only options, Humphrey explains, are cutting the New Day or raising taxes. “We will not cut the New Day,” President Dewey tells Secretary Humphrey. He will have to raise taxes, and he knows it’ll mean hell.

Event Date: 3-12-1954
Event Date: A spending bill is passed by the House of Representatives, but only after a great deal of debate. Speaker of the House Joe Martin introduces a tax increase into the bill. The tax focuses on “sin items” like cigarettes, alcohol and playing cards, but even Speaker Martin admits the tax is a bit much. “The White House wants these to keep the budget balanced,” Speaker Martin explains to the House, “I don’t want these fees, but as the leader of the party in this body, I must do it.” House Minority Leader Sam Rayburn (Democrat of Texas) calls the fee increase, “Taxin’ Tom’s tobacco tussle.” The vote for the spending bill, which includes such New Day policies as increasing funds for public education and healthcare for the working poor, barely passes the House. The Senate will be even bitterer in confirming the tax hike. The elegant Hubert Humphrey is able to get enough GOP hardliners to support the act by telling them it is only a temporary fee hike. Ronald Reagan has a field day, calling the Dewey Administration, “One that taxes our patience…literally.”

Event Date: 3-18-1954
Event Description: Ronald Reagan interviews Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican of Wisconsin). McCarthy expresses his disappointment in President Dewey’s sin taxes and his suspension of anti-Communist hearings. “We might as well have some radical like Hubert Humphrey in the Oval Office,” McCarthy tells Reagan. After attacking the Dewey Administration for, “Ruining our fiscal house with silly spending,” Senator McCarthy surprises even Reagan by declaring, “In response to the President’s tax hikes and general misusage of funds, I hereby declare my candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 1956.” President Dewey now faces a primary opponent. At the Governor’s Mansion in Boston, Governor Joseph Kennedy, Junior, tells his wife Evelyn, “Remind dad to invite old Joe over for Easter. He deserves a reward for this.”

Event Date: 4-04-1954
Event Description: In Los Angeles, three LA policemen see a Latino man walking away from a jewelry store through a back alley. Having received reports of a Latino looking man who has broken into three other jewelry shops this week, they chase the man down. The man attacks the police, but the three beat him into submission. After bringing him in for questioning, it is revealed he is not the thief. An LA Times reporter, Mark Chandler (the son of the editor) reports on the police beating. By nightfall, the city is in flames. The second Zoot Suit riot has begun.

Event Date: 4-05-1954
Event Description: Los Angles Mayor Norris Poulson, a Dewey supporting Republican, calls on the president to mobilize the National Guard in Los Angles. Latino rioters have taken much of the Southside of the city. President Dewey, at a meeting with President Kerensky in Portland, Maine, fails to respond. The day is lost to the rioters. “As Los Angles burns,” Ronald Reagan tells the nation, “Mr. Dewey plays a deadly game of roulette with the Socialist president of Russia.”

Event Date: 4-07-1954
Event Description: Governor Goodwin Knight visits President Dewey at the White House. Knight, another pro-Dewey Republican, tells Dewey to send the National Guard. President Dewey is reluctant. “Where is the state guard?” asks the President. “Their putting out wildfires!” Governor Knight cries, “We need your boy’s to put out our city fires! We need the guard to defend families in LA!” Thomas Dewey is not one to give into feelings or passions. Despite the cots of such an action, he sends the National Guard to Los Angeles. In several hours, the rioters are quieted. President Dewey is not helped by the incident. To much of the country he appears uncaring, a human efficiency machine who though more of saving money than lives. He will pay for his mistake in the coming months.

Event Date: 5-17-1954
Event Description: Event Description: Linda Brown walks to Sumner Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas, where she is in the sixth grade. She is black, and the school is racially integrated. There is nothing unusual about this. The work of President Hoover, MacArthur and Dewey has made such integration common in the United States. The landmark today is that Fidel Castro pitches for his first time for the New York Yankees, pitching a game that is considered far superior to most first time major league pitchers. “We should keep our eye on that fellow from Cuba,” baseball legend Joe DiMaggio tells the New York Post.

Event Date: 7-04-1954
Event Description: President Dewey, former President MacArthur, Secretary of Defense Dwight Eisenhower, Generals Omar Bradley and George Patton as well as over 2 million Japanese-American War veterans meet at a White House dinner honoring the brave men and women who served the United States in the last war it has fought. “You battled for liberty and justice,” President Dewey tells them, “That is why we today must battle for human dignity.”

Event Date: 10-09-1954
Event Description: The Democrats unveil their strategy to retake Congress. “Had enough?” is their simply campaign slogan. This slogan sums up the feelings a great deal of Americans are having towards the progressive Dewey Administration. “We are sick of the taxes, spending and endless activism,” Senate Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson tells a crowd of angry voters in Flint, Michigan, “It is time we get some safe and sane Democrats into office to stop this President’s spending spree!” It seems like many voters agree.   

Event Date: 11-06-1954
Event Description: The midterm elections are a nightmare for President Dewey. The Democratic Party takes the Senate and almost wins the House of Representatives. Voters upset over the President’s tax increase and slow response to the Zoot Suit riots in Los Angles, agreed with the Democratic slogan, “Had enough?” President Dewey’s New Day is now in peril of meeting dusk. Governor Kenendy is reelected by a landlside over Christian Herter, Dewey's Under Secretary of State. Kenendy hopes to expand his victory over the Dewey Administration in 1956.   

[PBrunsel]

Reluctant Republican.

The "six people" comment was just a joke.

I appreciate you find my timeline interesting. I just wish I had more time to work on it.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-03-1955
Event Description: The Congress meets to elect its new leaders. In the Senate, Lyndon Johnson, at age 47, becomes the youngest Senate Majority Leader in history. Senator William Knowland is defeated for the position of Senate Minority Leader. Senator Harry Truman, a close ally of President Dewey, is elected Senate Minority Leader. In the House of Representatives, Speaker Joe Martin barely holds off a conservative challenge from Representative Charles Halleck (Republican of Indiana), who is also the Majority Leader. The GOP is a divided one, which is not a good state to help salvage the Dewey New Day program.

Event Date: 1-19-1955
Event Description: Congressman Charles Percy (Republican of Illinois) introduces the Percy Legal Reform Act. Under this act, every American will be given an attorney, no matter how poor they are. House Minority Leader Sam Rayburn declares this act “Will use taxpayer dollars to buy flashy defense attorneys for guilty criminals.” In the Justice Department, Attorney General Earl Warren begins “arm twisting” in the Senate to insure the passage of this act.

Event Date: 1-21-1955
Event Description: The Percy Legal Reform Act passes the House of Representatives by a large margin. Many Democrats supported the act after being promised new courthouses for their districts by Attorney General Warren. A new courthouse represents modernizing counties, always something a Congressman strives to do. However, this will not work in the Senate, where Majority Leader Johnson has sworn to oppose the bill, “At all costs of Senate time and protocol.”

Event Date: 1-23-1955
Event Description: Justice Department official W. Mark Felt meets with Senator Earl Long (Democrat of Louisiana), the Chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee. Long, appointed to his brother Huey’s seat after Huey died of heart attack in 1946, is considered a pretty lowlife politician to serve as the chair of anything ethical. Felt tells Long that he knows he has had his own mental health files destroyed. “You’re as crazy as any Louisiana politician,” Felt tells Senator Long, “However; you violated a lot of laws having all evidence of your mental instability destroyed.” Long, who has suffered his entire life from manic depression, tells Felt that this is the truth. Felt explains to Long that if he sways some Southern Democratic votes, his illegal actions will not be brought to light. Senator Long agrees to the blackmail.

Event Date: 1-25-1955
Event Description: The Senate votes on the Percy Legal Reform Act. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, using his powerful persuasion skills, is nearly able to kill the act. However, Senator Long “persuades” enough Southern Democrats to support the act. His persuasion is mainly in the form of using his role as Chairman of the Ethics Committee to investigate several Senator’s campaigns in 1954. The act passes narrowly. Senator Long is enraged by the blackmail he has been forced to subject himself to. He vows revenge against the Justice Department and Attorney General Warren.

Event Date: 2-15-1955
Event Description: Zhou Enlai, the leader of the Chinese Worker’s Party, defeats incumbent President Chiang Kai-Sheik, the Nationalist Party leader, in an upset in the Chinese presidential election. Enlai benefited from corruption in the Kai-Sheik Government, especially amongst the military leaders. Enlai promises a government for the working class. In the United States, Senator Joseph McCarthy calls on President Dewey to order Enlai to be assassinated. “We have to nip this closet communism in the bud!” McCarthy bellows on the Senate floor, “If the president has any guts he’ll get rid of this Red Chinaman before his ‘worker’s paradise’ is established.” Ronald Reagan applauds McCarthy that night. “Senator McCarthy has once again proven that he has the foresight to defend freedom,” Reagan tells the nation.

Event Date: 3-10-1955
Event Description: President Dewey’s New Day faces a major setback as Senate Majority leader Johnson successfully kills the Morse Immigration Act. Introduced by Senator Wayne Morse (Republican of Oregon and the 1948 GOP Vice-Presidential nominee) this act would have all but eliminated the 1920s immigration quotas. Republicans, generally isolationists, were divided on this issue. Senate Minority Leader Harry Truman opposed the act from the beginning. “I support immigration,” Truman told the Senate, “However; I support safe and sane immigration. This act opens our Southern border completely and erases all the quotas that were established for our own safety.” Also, a great deal of Truman’s constituents in Missouri opposed the act with vehement anger. With both party leaders opposed to the Morse’s bill, it dies very easily. “We’ve stopped open border amnesty,” Senator Johnson crows, “Maybe now Tom we’ll understand who’s running this government. It’s the folks, not his egghead intellectual advisors.”

Event Date: 3-21-1955
Event Description: Governor Joseph Kennedy of Massachusetts, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president in 1956, addresses a large group of conservative Catholics on St. Patrick’s Day at Boston City Hall. He rages against the, “Permissive spirit of the 1950s.” With rock-and-roll just beginning to emerge as the favored music amongst teenagers, Kennedy calls for an end, “To this trash they call music,” and a return to, “The moral values that shaped our nation in its founding days.” In Lynchburg, Virginia, Senator A. Willis Robertson (Democrat of Virginia) applauds as he tells his son Marion, known as Pat to his friends, “That’s the man we need in the White House!” The conservative Senator Robertson, a devout Baptist, plans to meet with the Catholic Kennedy. With his help, Governor Kennedy may be able to appeal to the South to win the Democratic nomination.

Event Date: 4-04-1955
Event Description: With China establishing nearly socialist policies for the working class (including cradle-to-grave aide from the government) Vietnam throws out its once time Nazi backed President Ngo Dinh Diem for Social Democrat Lê Duẩn, a disciple of assonated Social Democrat Ho Chi Minh. President Duẩn promises an end to Diem’s corporate ways and the establishment of a worker’s state, like in China. In the United States, Senator McCarthy calls the establishment of left wing governments in Asia, “The Domino Effect.” “As soon as one becomes Socialist,” he explains on CBS’s Issues and Answers, “Surrounding nations follow. Before we know it Japan, Korea, Siam, Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines will all turn socialist. Then from there, Hawaii, California, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin and finally the entire nation! President Dewey needs to stop these left-winged ‘people’s heroes’ before it is too late! We can either fight them in their homes, or we will have to fight them in our streets.” President Dewey tells his wife Frances that night, in language the two never use, “Pardon my language but that’s a bunch of bullsh**t.”

Event Date: 4-19-1955
Event Description: The United States detonates the first hydrogen bomb. Secretary of Defense Dwight Eisenhower is impressed by the force of the weapon, but also by the cheap price tag is making one. He sees a future of how the military can save money, and also stop war.    

Event Date: 5-13-1955
Event Description: Secretary of Defense Dwight Eisenhower announces his plan to build up the U.S. atomic arsenal. “Nuclear weapons are cheap and the fear of their usage stops wars,” Secretary Eisenhower tells the press, “By building them up, we are tearing down the waste of gross pentagon spending.” President Dewey announces that the plan makes sense. “With Senators Johnson and McCarthy calling for me to do something about the rise of ‘socialism’ in Asia,” Dewey explains in a press conference, “This plan of building up to build down will work.” The media generally opposed to any type of nuclear weapons, attacks Dewey and Eisenhower as, “Warmongers.” Governor Kennedy declares that the two want to, “Put our military men out of work.” Eisenhower’s plan will face some major hurdles. Attorney General Warren volunteers to help the plan pass.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 5-20-1955
Event Description: Senator Earl Long meets with former Attorney General J. Edgar Hoover at a hotel restaurant in New Orleans, Louisiana. Long explains to Hoover that Attorney General Warren’s Justice Department has blackmailed him into supporting several New Day policies. “This is too great!” Hoover tells Long, “I can get back at Dewey, a bastard I hate, and Warren, the bastard I really hate.” Long and Hoover agree to go public about the Dewey-Warren blackmail on the day before Secretary Eisenhower’s atomic weapons plan is voted on.

Event Date: 5-27-1955
Event Description: W. Mark Felt meets with Senator Long once again in his Senate office. “Our ‘deal’ is still in place,” Felt reminds Senator Long, “The Justice Department needs your support for Ike’s plan. Do you understand that Earl?” The brother of “The Kingfish” tells Felt to, “Go to hell,” and leaves the room. Felt immediately gets on the line with Attorney General Warren and tells him about what happened at the meeting. “He’s going public,” Warren tells Felt, “Release the records immediately. We need to discredit Long.” Felt “leaks” the information of Senator Long’s mental problems to the Washington Post, a Dewey friendly paper. In the note explaining what this information is, Felt remembers to write, “President Dewey knows nothing about this.”

Event Date: 5-28-1955
Event Description: Washington explodes in controversy. “Senator Long’s History of Mental Problems” screams the headlines of the Washington Post. Long hunkers down in his office, calling J. Edgar Hoover every five minutes asking what is to be done. Hoover decides to release the blackmail story that night. “Then,” Hoover explains to Long, “It will look like the White House made up all this stuff to just discredit you. It will all appear like its fake. That simple, Long, nothing more.” That night, Long goes public with Hoover standing next to him. “I was blackmailed by Justice Department official Mark Felt,” Long tells the press, “My good friend John Edgar Hoover has told me that during his time at the FBI; this was quite common for Felt. This agent feels he can take the law into his own hands, and he did the same thing when it came to dealing with votes for the President’s plans.” For the next two hours, Long and Hoover droll away at the blackmail Felt had oversaw. At the White House, President Dewey meets with Attorney General Warren. After first telling Warren that he doesn’t believe that he’d do such a thing, Dewey lets Warren tell him what really happened. “It’s all true, Tom,” Warren explained, “I just wanted the New Day to succeed so much, I refused to let those reactionaries in the Senate ruin it. So I stretched the law a bit, no one was hurt. Long was probably going to go to prison anyway on embezzlement of public funds like every other Louisiana politician; I just got him shipped away to a mental institute instead of a jail cell.” This justification does not suit President Dewey, who immediately fires Attorney General Earl Warren, Assistant Attorney General Robert A. Taft III, and W. Mark Felt’s entire staff. “The Saturday Night Massacre” is played up by Ronald Reagan to the fullest. “Corruption, spying, blackmail and gross abuse of our nation’s laws,” Reagan tells the nation that night, “That along with taxing and spending is the Dewey legacy. Mr. President, if you have any sense of decency and any sense of honor, you’ll resign immediately.” The day has been an awful one for the entire nation.

Event Date: 5-29-1955
Event Description: President Dewey nominates Herbert Brownell for the position of Attorney General. An old friend from his days as a Senator from New York, Dewey hopes that Brownell’s integrity will help rebuild his image as an honest and efficient public servant. Brownell will be easily confirmed. “I want to make thus crystal clear,” Dewey tells the nation that night in a television address, “I never knew that former Attorney General Warren was blackmailing Senators for votes. Had I known, I would have never allowed it.” In Boston, Governor Kennedy responds to President Dewey’s address, “If the president can’t control his own administration, maybe its time we have a president who can.” “I wonder who that could be?” Dewey sarcastically asks his wife that night.

Event Date: 6-06-1955
Event Description: Secretary Dwight Eisenhower’s plan for the military goes down to defeat. Despite Senate Minority Leader Harry Truman finding some Democrats who would vote for it, in the end enough Republicans opposed this plan for a nuclear military for it to fail. “As Republicans and Americans,” Senator Margaret Chase Smith (Republican of Maine) tells her colleagues, “We can not support an act which would encourage other nations to build their atomic arsenals, and then lead the world into an atomic war.” The recent Warren Blackmail Scandal also played a role in defeating the plan. The President is wounded, and very few feel he can make a comeback.

Event Date: 7-15-1955
Event Description: Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Chicagoan visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, walks out of Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market, where he and his cousins had bought candy and soda. Carolyn Bryant, the attractive wife of the store's owner Roy Bryant, is behind the counter. Till turns around and whistles at her. Upset, she storms out of the room. “This is the type of delinquency Kennedy keeps warning the nation about!” she cries to her husband Roy. Till and his cousins giggle, and leave the store and return home. Till’s grandpa will give him, as Till says “the worst wuppin’ of my life,” but he’ll recover and return to Chicago in August. Polices of past administrations have made the South safe even for ill-mannered boys.

Event Date: 8-04-1955
Event Description: Governor Joseph Kennedy, Junior, announces his candidacy for President of the United States. “The polices of the current administration our bankrupting both our treasury and our moral values,” Kennedy tells his audience in the Massachusetts State Capitol. Promising a fiscally conservative and moral administration Kennedy concludes his statement by declaring, “I am a Catholic, but I am also an American. I will only take orders from the people who elected me president. I look forward to an election where policy is discussed, and not religious beliefs.” With this line, Kennedy hopes to have diffused attack on his religion.

Event Date: 9-24-1955
Event Description: Secretary of Defense Dwight David Eisenhower suffers a massive heart attack while at his home in Abilene, Kansas. The stresses of the fight for his failed atomic weapons plan as well as weeks answering questions from a scandal crazed press has been too much for the 64-year old former Lieutenant Colonel. He survives the heart attack, but will resign from the post of secretary of Defense due to his heart condition. President Dewey wants him to reconsider, but Ike is adamant. He wants to retire from public service. Dewey will nominate General Omar Bradley for the post, and he will be easily confirmed.

Event Date: 12-01-1955
Event Description: Montgomery, Alabama, bus drivers decide to unionize. In response to this, Sheriff William “Bull” Connor declares that the mostly African-American union is illegal. Connor justifies this by claiming that if they would strike, it would endanger, “The public safety”, because people could not get to their jobs. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Junior, decides to fight this ruling. Sheriff Connor and Dr. King will face off as the Montgomery Bus Strike begins. Under the Taft-Hartley Act, striking is illegal. Dr. King, Montgomery NAACP Secretary-Treasurer Rosa Parks, Ralph Abernathy and other leaders will be thrown into jail for striking.

Event Date: 1-20-1956
Event Description: With one more year until the end of his administration, President Thomas Dewey begins to revamp the stagnant New Day. Today, he declares that Taft-Hartley should be overturned. Representative Milton Glenn (Republican of New Jersey) and Senator Alexander Wiley (Republican of Wisconsin) sponsor the Glenn-Wiley Act, repealing Taft-Hartley and making striking and unions legal once more. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson vows to fight the act, as does House Minority Leader Sam Rayburn. President Dewey declares that he will “Welcome the opposition. It’s up to those two Texans if they want to oppose the right working men to strike.”

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-29-1956
Event Description: The Glenn-Wiley Act passes in the House of Representatives. With an election approaching, many Southern Democrats did not want to offend their African-American constituencies by voting against the Montgomery bus drivers. “I’m no fan of unions,” Representative Kenneth Roberts (Democrat of Alabama) tells Minority Leader Rayburn “But I can’t pretend that those strikers aren’t voters.”

Event Date: 2-05-1956
Event Description: Senator Roman Hruska (Republican of Nebraska) and Vice-President Edward Arn begin to work with Midwestern Democrats to help pass the Glenn-Wiley Act. Deals are made with Democratic Senators Mike Mansfield (Montana), Joseph O’Mahoney (Wyoming) and Robert Kerr (Oklahoma), ensuring these votes in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, however, has lined up several Eastern Republicans against the act.

Event Date: 2-07-1956
Event Description: The Glenn-Wiley Act fails in the Senate. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who is opposing President Dewey for the GOP presidential nomination, was able to rally enough Republicans to oppose the measure. President Dewey accepts his defeat with grace. “Obviously we now know who supports the rights of working men and those who don’t,” President Dewey tells the press. “Once again,” Ronald Reagan says that night, “Mr. Dewey is marginalizing an issue. Dewey’s love of unions simply shows his affinity for the ‘worker’s states’ in China and Vietnam, which he has refused to do a thing about.”

Event Date: 2-10-1956
Event Description: Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, calls for an end of the Montgomery Bus Strike. The strike has affected the city enough to convince the mayor to allow the union to exist. King is changed by the experience. He vows he will fight for those in poverty and working for a living. His work will one day become enormous.  

Event Date: 3-15-1956
Event Description: The New Hampshire Primary is held. Despite being endorsed by the arch-conservative Nashua Union Leader, Senator Joseph McCarthy is defeated by President Dewey by a 66-34% margin. McCarthy vows to fight on. On the Democratic side, Governor Joseph Kennedy of Massachusetts defeats Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, Senator and 1952 Democratic nominee Estes Kefauver, South Carolina Governor George Timmerman, and Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson. Kennedy’s win helps establish him as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.

Event Date: 3-16-1956
Event Description: With Governor Stevenson’s agricultural campaign appealing to the people of Minnesota, Governor Kennedy’s campaign manager, his brother Representative John Kennedy, advises him to debate the Governor. Kennedy will debate Stevenson, Kefauver and Johnson in St. Paul, Minnesota. The debate goes well for the handsome and charismatic Kennedy. However, Governor Stevenson appears well rounded in policy, but flat in personality.    

Event Date: 3-18-1956
Event Description: The Minnesota Primary is held, with President Dewey once again trouncing Senator McCarthy, in his own backyard. On the Democratic side, Governor Stevenson is narrowly defeated by Governor Kennedy. Following this defeat, Stevenson ends his long shot campaign for the White House. “That’s the problem with this era of television,” Stevenson comments while conceding the election, “If you look poorly on the TV, you can’t run for office. Its like selling soap flakes.” Stevenson endorses Kefauver for President.

Event Date: 4-01-1956
Event Description: The Wisconsin and Nebraska Primaries are held. President Dewey easily wins Nebraska after being endorsed by Senator Hruska, but narrowly loses Wisconsin to McCarthy. Despite this “defeat”, President Dewey has a comfortable lead in delegates. He will undoubtedly be the Republican nominee for president in 1956. On the Democratic side, Kennedy wins Wisconsin, but loses Nebraska to Senator Johnson. Kennedy, having performed well in heavily protestant Wisconsin, is the man to beat.

Event Date: 4-05-1956
Event Description: Senator Willis Robertson endorses Governor Joseph Kennedy for president on the eve of the Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas primaries. “Governor Kennedy has stood up for fundamental Christian values and conservative principles,” Robertson tells the nation at a press conference in Lynchburg, “I am proud to stand beside him as a friend.”