By a Fluke of the Gods: Cox Defeats Harding

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 4-06-1956
Event Description: Governor Kennedy wins Virginia and North Carolina by wide margins over southerners Johnson, Kefauver and Timmerman. Governor Timmerman withdraws from the race and decides to seek the office as a “favorite son” from South Carolina. Johnson won Arkansas with Kefauver taking his home state of Tennessee. President Dewey beat Senator McCarthy in every state except North Carolina, which narrowly voted for the anti-Communist agitator.

Event Date: 4-22-1956
Event Description: Governor Kennedy wraps up the race for the Democratic nomination with a win in the Pennsylvania Primary. Senator Johnson had tried Catholic baiting in the Pittsburg region, but the method only backfired on him. Kennedy and Dewey will now face each other in the general election. The race, between two wealthy easterners, will be a bitter one.  

Event Date: 5-09-1956
Event Description: Governor Kennedy speaks before a crowd of farmers in Sioux City, Iowa. “The President has abandoned you, America’s backbone, the farmer through this time of drought,” Kennedy tells the over-all wearing crowd of conservative farmers, “While he fights to give unions the right to strike against progress and criminals attorneys, he won’t even lift a finger to aide the people who feed this nation.” President Dewey had tried to give farm aide before, but it was stopped by Democrats in Congress.

Event Date: 6-11-1956
Event Description: The first negative ads of the 1956 election hit the airwaves. President Dewey attacks Kennedy for supporting an act outlawing unions ran by African-Americans. Governor Kennedy attacks Dewey for his tax increases, support of government welfare and allowing socialist states to exist in Asia. “The 1956 election will go down in history as one of the dirtiest races in history,” CBS’s Walter Winchell says that night, “And oh God am I ready for it!’

Event Date: 6-25-1956
Event Description: Vice-President Edward Arn calls Governor Kennedy, “A man who seeks to divide our nation along a faulty moral ruler,” at a Dewey Rally in Wheeling, West Virginia. Governor Kennedy has based a great deal of his campaign on moral values, and Arn blasts against it. “Kennedy wants to make you think it is a sin not to support him,” Arn jokes, “Well, the real sin would be throwing out a President who has done so much to help the regular folks in this country!”

Event Date: 7-04-1956
Event Description: Egyptian President Mustafa Al Nahhas Pasha declares that the Suez Canal is Egyptian, not international. This infuriates Britain, France and Germany, all of whom now find it harder to get their ships through it.

Event Date: 7-11-1956
Event Description: Secretary of State Herbert Hoover, Junior, and Lester Pearson, the Canadian Foreign Minister, begin to secretly funnel aide to British businessmen in Egypt. This aide, mostly money, is to be used to overthrow Egyptian President Pasha. The businessmen will incite rebellion, and then the Suez Revolution will begin. The Nazi installed pasha, having overseen a collapse of the Egyptian economy, will face nearly unanimous opposition to his decision on the Suez Canal.

Event Date: 7-23-1956
Event Description: President Dewey calls on Mustafa Al Nahhas Pasha to resign from office in a radio address heard worldwide. “Your rule is over,” he tells the Egyptian leader, “Your people are rebelling against you, you have no where to turn to. Resign now, and save yourself from the wrath of your own citizens.” Pasha listens, and resigns. The Nazi installed Egyptian leader is no more. The American-British Suez Revolution, lasting all of 12-days, is a success.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 7-30-1956
Event Description: The new Egyptian Government declares that the Suez Canal is no longer nationalized. Also, the British controlled Egyptian Government begins an agreement of friendship with Israel, a former British and Nazi controlled territory. Through the rein on Nazi-government in Egypt, nearly 50% of the Muslim population in the nation was exterminated by the evil regime. The primarily Christian nation of Egypt accepts the treaty of friendship and alliance with Israel, a Jewish nation filled with those Jews who survived the nearly 20-year holocaust. “Crisis has been averted in the Middle East,” President Dewey tells the nation that night, “I can see a future filled with civility and human goodness in that once troubled land.” President Dewey narrowly leads Governor Kennedy in the latest Gallup Poll by a 48-43% margin.

Event Date: 8-06-1956
Event Description: The Democratic National Convention nominates Governor Joseph P. Kennedy, Junior, for President of the United States. Despite Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson attempting a last second “Stop Kennedy” movement, Kennedy is easily nominated on the final ballot. Joe’s brother John, his campaign manager, advises him to make Senator Johnson his running-mate. Senator Johnson tells Kennedy, whom he can not stand, that he would serve him better as President as Senate Majority Leader. Johnson advises Kennedy to select Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri. A senator since 1947, Senator Symington has military credentials as a Japanese-American War veteran, Chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee and as a friend as former President Douglas MacArthur. Governor Kennedy, a war hero himself, is impressed by these credentials. The Democratic Ticket for 1956 will be Governor Joseph P. Kennedy for President and Senator Stuart Symington for Vice-President. Governor Kennedy’s acceptance speech rips President Dewey as, “The biggest tax and spender since his hero Herb Hoover. Dewey wants us to pay and pay so criminals can have lawyers and go off to college.” This attack is not as brutal as the one launched by radio star Ronald Reagan. “President Dewey says he is the commander in chief of armed service,” Reagan laughs, “With all of his and Ike’s spending cuts, what will they be armed with? Spitballs?!” Reagan also starts the chant of “There he goes again” as he names off the “flip-flops” Dewey had done while being president, including his promise to never tarnish to office with scandal.   

Event Date: 8-19-1956
Event Description: Senator Stuart Symington attacks President Dewey as, “A secretive and sinister man.” Citing the Dewey-Warren Blackmailing Scandal of 1955 as well as the mysterious way ten Egyptian Government was overthrown in July. “This is the most secretive administration in history,” Symington says at a Kennedy-Symington rally in Detroit, Michigan, “This type of behavior is beneath the presidency. On Election Day, it is the responsibility of the American people to tell President Dewey that his government of shadows is not something we will tolerate in this country!” 

Event Date: 8-20-1956
Event Description: Vice-President Arn, at a dinner for Republican Women in Omaha, Nebraska, attacks Kennedy and Symington of making up scandals. “President Dewey has been cleared of all charges in the Blackmailing Scandal,” Arn proclaims, “The President is an honest, fair and hard working public servant. He fired those responsible for the scandal and made sure that justice was served. He is fit to sit in the president’s chair far more than merchants of scandal like Kennedy and Symington.” This attack leads Ronald Reagan, who is propping Kennedy for president more than any other media figure, to call Arn, “The Kansas Kook.”

Event Date: 9-12-1956
Event Description: President Dewey and Vice-President Arn are renominated by the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The New Day is celebrated by Senator Hubert Humphrey as, “The best hope for an America.” Former President Herbert Hoover applauds Dewey’s balanced budgets as, “Blessed are the young, for they are the ones who will inherit the national debt. President Dewey understands why we need balanced budgets. We need not curse the future generations with debt.” President Dewey declares that Governor Kennedy “Wants to divide us, while we as Republicans seek bipartisan unity.” His presidency has had mixed results. The 1956 Election is a toss-up.

Event Date: 9-18-1956Event Description: The Dewey Campaign unleashes a vicious attack on Governor Kennedy. “The world is in the balance,” the announcer says, “While President Dewey seeks peace, Governor Kennedy has a history of wanting war.” As the announcer names off the several incidences where Kennedy has called for military actions (especially against China in 1955), clips of soldiers marching off to fight in Japan is shown .The message is clear: Republicans are for peace, while Democrats want war. The ad is so controversial; it will only be aired once.

Event Date: 10-09-1956
Event Description: With the election approaching, Governor Kennedy meets with his wife Evelyn. She advises him to challenge President Dewey to a televised debate. With most Americans who vote owning a television set, she feels that Kennedy will be able to use his charm and good looks to close the 4-point gap he has behind President Dewey. At the White House, First Lady Frances Dewey tells her husband not to accept the challenge. However, the President, a former prosecutor, feels that he can easily defeat Kennedy in a debate. The President accepts, and the televised debate is scheduled to be held at the University of Michigan in Detroit. This will be an historic event.

Event Date: 10-17-1956
Event Description: President Thomas Dewey and Governor Joseph Kennedy debate on national television. The debate is a nasty one, with both candidates attacking each others integrity. “Why do you keep trying to tie me to that blackmail thing?” President Dewey snaps at Governor Kennedy when he brings up the issue, “You know I had nothing to do with that. Why don’t you look in the camera and tell everyone why you are trying to distort the truth?’ Kennedy responds to this by changing the subject, “Why don’t you tell the people why you raise taxes all the time? That’s actually the most important issue we can talk about today. Your Republican Party has always stood against the taxpayer.” “While your Democratic Party has always stood in once place, never embracing any progress!” Dewey snaps back. “Well it’s easy to support ‘progress’ when the middle class is the one taking the bill,” Kennedy laughs.  The debate is a vicious one, but in the end Kennedy is declared the winner. His snappy retorts to President Dewey come off as witty and as far less bitter than Dewey’s finger pointing and jeering. This debate has introduced America to the Kennedy style, while mustached Dewey once again looked like, as Alice Roosevelt-Longworth once said, “The little man on the top of the wedding cake.”

Event Date: 11-06-1956
Event Description: Governor Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Junior, is elected President of the United States over incumbent President Thomas Edmund Dewey. At Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, former Governor Joseph Kennedy, Senior, hugs his son as he cries, “I knew it! I knew you’d be President!” The election is won on a razor sharp vote count, with Dewey nearly winning the toss-up states of Illinois, New Jersey, and Florida. Kennedy won all three, but with some dubious help from crime land figures in all three states.

 

Joseph Kennedy/Stuart Symington (D): 269 EV; 49.9% of the PV
Thomas Dewey/Edward Arn (R): 262 EV; 49.8% of the PV
Others (Prohibition, Union, etc.): 0 EV; 0.3% of the PV

The Congress changes relatively little. The Democrats gain in the Senate and pick up two-seats in the House of Representatives. The House is in GOP hands by one seat, wi8th the Senate firmly in Democratic control.

The legacy of President Thomas Edmund Dewey is one that is argued to this day. Despite being an efficient and hard working executive who passed numerous social reforms, he failed to win a second term. The reason for this is a simple one. He was unable to convince the middle class that his reforms benefited them. Dewey lacked the charm of a Kennedy to show the people that he was “One of them”. Despite all of his progressive reforms, he lost out in the end. President Dewey was one of America’s most efficient, but least-loved chief executives.

[PBrunsel]

The Presidency of Joseph P. Kennedy, Junior

Event Date: 1-21-1957
Event Description: Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Junior, is worn in as President of the United States. A devout Catholic, President Kennedy refused to be sworn in on Sunday, January 20th. This religious observance delights Ronald Reagan, a born again Christian, “Our new president shows a great reverence for God. He understands that nay nation not under God will be gone under.” President Kennedy declares in his inaugural address, “The era of big government is over. We must now look to our own initiative to better ourselves. So my fellow Americans, ask not what the country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” The new conservative administration differs from the Dewey Administration in a great many ways. Secretary of State James Byrnes (a former Senator from South Carolina and chief ally of President Cordell Hull) represents the power of Southern Conservatives in the new Kennedy Administration. Secretary of the Treasury Robert McNamara (a Ford Automobile corporate official who was a close friend of Kennedy’s father) is representative of the business friendly nature of the new government. Finally, Representative John F. Kennedy, the president’s brother and 1956 campaign manager, is named White House Chief of Staff. JFK (as he is known by the press) is a well known micromanager who has a personality that is both likeable and forceful. This combination of traits makes Jack Kennedy a perfect choice for Chief of Staff.

Event Date: 1-22-1957
Event Description: President Kennedy meets with Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson and House Minority Leader Sam Rayburn. The two Texans advise Kennedy to hold off on dismantling the entire New Day. “To be honest Joe,” Johnson tells Kennedy, “Some of Dewey’s programs are too popular to get rid of. To throw out the school loans or something like that could be political suicide. “First, it’s ‘Mr. President’ Lyndon,” Kennedy reminds the man with the Texas sized ego, “Secondly, we have to cut some programs to keep the balanced budget when we repeal Dewey’s tax hikes.” Senator Johnson advises him to repeal the Percy Legal Reform Act and oppose additional public works in the budget. President Kennedy accepts these suggestions, but vows he will bring night to the New Day.

Event Date: 1-23-1957
Event Description: Truck driver Willie Edwards safely drives his cargo of Coca-Cola soft drinks from Mobile, Alabama, to Little Rock, Arkansas. The Ku Klux Klan, now a local “club” for middle class white families, has no saw over the South and no need for violence.

Event Date: 1-30-1957
Event Description: President Kennedy addresses the nation for the first time over television. “My fellow Americans,” President Kennedy begins, “At this very hour, governments far off our shores are plotting the demise of our capitalist society.” He outlines the worker’s states in China and Vietnam (as well as the blooming socialist states in Cambodia and Laos). “These states constitute an ‘Axis of Evil’ in the modern world,” Kennedy tells the American people, “They seek to spread Marxism and Leninism throughout the world, the way the old empire of Communism, the failed Soviet Union, did.” Kennedy unveils the Kennedy Doctrine. Under his foreign policy plan, the United States will build up the military and aide, “Those who seek freedom in the lands of oppressive socialism.” The Democratic Party applauds President Kennedy’s plan. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson tells the press Kennedy’s plan insures that we “Fight the socialists over there, and not over here.” However, Senate Minority Leader Harry Truman is skeptical. “I find it hard to believe,” Truman scoffs on CBS’s Issues and Answers, “That over spending on the military will affect the people of China at all. If anything, it’ll lead them to build their own weapons. That’ll lead to an arms race, and lady and gentlemen, the last thing this world needs is an arms race between the wealthiest nation and the biggest nation.” Later on, Senator Theodore Bilbo (Democrat of Mississippi) calls Truman, “A goddamned red traitor.” “If I’m a traitor,” Truman responds, “Then this country is in a heluva of shape.”  

Event Date: 2-03-1957
Event Description: Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican of Wisconsin) meets with President Joseph Kennedy at the White House. “McCarthy,” President Kennedy says to him, “You’ve been friends with our family for years, and we have one more thing to ask of you.” Kennedy tells McCarthy he wants him, a Republican, to introduce the White House’s plans for military expansion in the Senate. Representative Carl Vinson (Democrat of Georgia) has agreed to be the primary sponsor of the bill. “You were a favorite of the MacArthur crew,” the President explains, “Your perfect for the job.” “I’ll do it,” McCarthy coughs. He’s feeling ill.

Event Date: 2-18-1957
Event Description: The Protection of Freedom Act is introduced by Representative Vinson. This act (given patriotic language by Chief of Staff John Kennedy) ends the Hoover-Dewey military cuts and increases funding for the CIA and FBI. President Kennedy doesn’t trust the socialist governments in Asia, and feels that only a strong military can counter their influence. In the Senate, Joseph McCarthy has already sworn himself to the plan. NBC’s Ronald Reagan has already begun boosting the program as, “Peace through strength.”

Event Date: 3-01-1957
Event Description: Leftist Thankin Nu’s Burmese People’s Party wins a landslide in the Burmese elections. Along with China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, Burma now joins in Asia’s left-wing worker’s states. President Zhou Enlai of China, frightened by the Kennedy Doctrine’s belligerence, is beginning to think about an alliance of the Asian worker’s nations.

Event Date: 3-05-1957
Event Description: Former President Thomas Dewey attacks President Kennedy for targeting, “legitimate democracies”. “These nations [China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma] are not the new Soviet Union,” he tells a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, “These nations are governed by legitimately elected leaders, and constitute no threat to the United States.” Dewey outlines that the real threat is “out of control military spending” and “an arms race across the world.” Ronald Reagan derides Dewey as, “A well-meaning has been.”

Event Date: 3-09-1957
Event Description: The House of Representatives approves of The Protection of Freedom Act. Despite Speaker of the House Joseph Martin opposing the act, House Majority Leader Charles Halleck was able to get enough Midwestern Republicans to support the act. Halleck has become increasingly more open to a larger military since the socialist governments of Asia have begun to think about a unified alliance. The Senate, under firm control by the Democrats, is expected to easily pass the Kennedy Doctrine.

Event Date: 3-10-1957
Event Description: The military spending halts of President Dewey and the Hoover Commission are reversed today as the Senate passes the Kennedy Doctrine into law. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson and Senator Joseph McCarthy, a somewhat turncoat Republican, had little trouble passing the plan through a compliant senate. The United States’ has entered the era of the modern military budget. Former President Herbert Hoover calls this day, “A black day for all peace loving Americans.”

Event Date: 5-01-1957
Event Description: The Canton Pact is established on the socialist holiday of May Day. This pact is an agreement between the socialist sates of Asia to ensure, “Mutual protection from enemy elements.” President Zhou Enlai of China arranges the pact to be named after a one-time Western friendly city in China. The leftist nations of Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma and Laos join the Canton Pact. This pact (with the exception of the populous nation of China) is generally not one of strong nations, but is shows a solidarity of the socialist nations of Asia. A “cold war” of sorts may be beginning between the United States and China.

Event Date: 5-02-1957
Event Description: Senator Joseph McCarthy dies while at home in Appleton, Wisconsin The 48-year old Senator had recently been instrumental in passing the Kennedy Doctrine in the Senate.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 5-03-1957
Event Description: China detonates its first atomic bomb in the Gobi Desert. President Kennedy meets with his closest advisors to discuss the ramifications. Secretary of State James Byrnes and Secretary of Defense William Westmoreland advise a coup against the socialist Enlai government. Former President Chiang Kai-Sheik has been plotting with members of the Chinese military since he was voted out of office to overthrow Enlai. With the aide of the U.S., the greatest socialist threat to the United States could be overthrown. However, Chief of Staff John Kennedy advises the president that such a plan could risk the presidency. “I will not allow my brother to play advocate to a dictator,” Jack tells the cabinet. President Kennedy agrees with his brother, for now.

Event Date: 5-10-1957
Event Description: Malcolm Little graduates Magna Cum Lada from Harvard Law School. Known for his passionate speaking style which helped Harvard defeat its rival Yale three times for the national mock trial championship, Little is asked by law firms in Omaha, New York City, Boston, Detroit and Los Angles to come and work for them. The new prosecutor accepts a position at a Detroit based law firm. He feels as a prosecutor in a town that is becoming engrossed in juvenile delinquency, he can make a difference in brining law to a troubled area.     

Event Date: 7-15-1957
Event Description: Former President James Middleton Cox dies of a stroke at the age of 87. His final moments were at his home in Kettering, Ohio, ironically named Trail’s End. His funeral will be attended by Presidents Herbert Hoover, Douglas MacArthur, Ernest McFarland, Thomas Dewey and incumbent Joseph Kennedy. This funeral, unlike that of President Cordell Hull (a very private man who’s own death was barely covered by the newspapers), is attended by many foreign dignitaries and average citizens. President Cox, considered the last progressive Democrat, lived a quite life after leaving office in 1925. His media empire of newspapers was able to fiancé the James Middleton Cox Presidential Library in Kettering, Ohio. The president will be buried there beside his wife.   

Event Date: 7-31-1957
Event Description: President Joseph Kennedy announces that the United States, “Has tossed its hat into the arena of space.” Ever since the fall of the Third Reich in Germany, the space program there has been lagging, however, the United States has been continuing research since the late 1940s. President Kennedy unveils a massive space program for the U.S., including landing a man on the moon by the mid 1960s. In Berlin, Chancellor Albert Speer sends orders to renew the German space agency. With rockets already used for warfare, the Germans are sure they can land a man on the moon before the Americans. The space race is on.

Event Date: 8-01-1957
Event Description: President Kennedy introduces his budget for the 1958-1959 Fiscal Year. Like President McFarland in 1949, his budget is a very conservative one. Despite huge spending increases for the military, the space program and intelligence agencies (all tenants of the Kennedy Doctrine), New Day programs are cut dramatically. New lawyer Malcolm Little rages against the decision to cut the Student Loan program. “I know that Kennedy got to go through Harvard on his daddy’s dime,” Little tells his fellow lawyers at his law firm, “But not everybody is so lucky to have a governor as their dad.” Little declares that he will no longer be a registered “Independent.” He switches his allegiance to the Republican Party and hopes to seek a seat in congress as soon as he has established himself as a lawyer.

Event Date: 8-03-1957
Event Description: Speaker of the House Joe Martin tells President Kennedy in a White House meeting that most of the budget will be fine with the House of Representatives. Senator Harry Truman, the minority leader also at the meeting, explodes. “Joe, what to happened to your spine?” Truman yells, “Joe, your cuts will have to be made elsewhere!” However, if the Republican-controlled House of Representatives pass the budget the Senate, under the thumb of Senator Lyndon Johnson, will easily pass the Kennedy budget.

Event Date: 8-21-1957
Event Description: New York Yankees pitcher Fidel Castro pitches a perfect game against the Boston Red Socks, the Yankee’s sworn rival. The Cuban born athlete, when asked by reporters what he thinks of his performance, responds, “I thank God, my mother and most of all the United States of America.” The extremely patriotic response leads Ronald Reagan to call Castro, “A hero for the entire world.”

Event Date: 9-04-1957
Event Description: Governor Orville Faubus (Democrat of Arkansas) sits in his office today as registration for the new school year goes on in the capitol at Little Rock. The governor will make a speech at the registration later today for new students. One of the students, Jefferson Thomas, is especially impressed by the more progressive Southern Democratic Governor Faubus. He tells his parents that night he’d like to be governor one day, “Just like Mr. Faubus. He’s a great man.” The Thomas Family, a poor family who has been helped by the governor’s unemployment aide policies, has a lot of respect for Faubus. 

Event Date: 10-02-1957
Event Description: With the greatest aviation hero of the Japanese-American War sitting in the White House, several movies based on that war come out this year. Today, The Last at Taierzhuang premiers. Commemorating the Second Battle of Taierzhuang, the film stars Cary Grant as Commander Patrick Sears, a hero of the battle, with Claude Rains as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harold Goodwin as naval aviator Joseph P. Kennedy, and Karl Malden as the foul mouthed commander, Colonel George Patton. The film is a hit, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. At the White House, President Kennedy and his family are given a private viewing of the film. “Excellent!” Kennedy exclaims, “But the kid playing me is far too handsome to play that role!”

Event Date: 10-22-1957
Event Description: Colonel Hank Kramer, who has been working as a “mole” for the CIA in Peking, meets with Secretary of Defense Westmoreland. He informs him that former Chinese President Chiang Kai-Sheik is planning a revolt against the government of China. Secretary Westmoreland informs Kramer that his rebellion will have to wait until the president is “convinced” of the importance of overthrowing the left-winged Enlai Government. The opportunity may be approaching.

Event Date: 11-03-1957
Event Descrioption: The Germans send the first animal into space. A dog named Otto enjoys the privilege of being first canine to experience zero gravity. As if to slight the Americans (who will in a few weeks put the first ape, one named Bonzo, into space), Chancellor Speer gives the dog to President Kennedy as a gift. The American-German space race is hotter than ever.

Event Date: 12-09-1957
Event Description: The House of Representatives approves of the Kennedy budget by the bare minimum of votes necessary. The Senate will also pass the act, over the loud objections of Senator Truman. The New Day has been gutted to make way for military spending hikes as well as an end to former President Dewey’s taxes on cigarettes and alcohol. President Kennedy hopes to cut taxes even more in 1958, and with the Congress very complaint towards his will in 1957, he sees no reason why it won’t be in 1958. 

Event Date: 12-19-1957
Event Description: Former President Herbert Hoover attends the opening of Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man. The story revolves around a small Iowan town, and to Hoover, it just seemed to great a play to miss.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-09-1958
Event Description: On his seventh birthday, Rudolf Freidrich Braun, the son of Adolf and Eva Hitler, enters St. Augustine School in Argentina. Being of great intelligence, the young Rudolf has learned enough Spanish in a monastery to finally enter school. However, no one is aware that the boy is the son of Adolf Hitler. In an event relating to school, Detroit attorney Malcolm Little wins a much publicized trial, defending the right of three undocumented Lebanese immigrant children to attend Henry Ford Intermediate Middle School. “No human being is illegal,” Little argues in his closing statement. The young attorney’s victory seems to assure that all American children, legally in the country or not, will be able to attend public schools. However, Senator Strom Thurmond (Democrat of South Carolina) views this ruling as one inviting open border anarchy, and begins writing a bill concerning the rights of illegal immigrants.

Event Date: 1-18-1958
Event Description: Senator Thurmond introduces the Immigration Reform Act of 1958. Under this act, all undocumented citizens in the United States would be unable to receive any government benefits, including Social Security, public welfare benefits, driver’s licenses, and even library cards. “This is bigotry, plain and simple!” the ever blunt Senate Minority Leader Harry Truman comments, “You can paint it as ‘the only way to make immigration fair’ or whatever you like, but bigotry is bigotry, no matter what color it is!” The passion of Senator Truman is matched by such public figures as Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, attorney Malcolm Little, and former President Thomas Dewey. However, several leading Republicans, such as California’s Senators William Knowland and Richard Nixon, have signed onto the bill. The fact that a large number of California voters support immigration reform may have something to do with that…but just maybe, of course.

Event Date: 1-21-1958Event Description: With President Kennedy throwing his support behind the Immigration Reform Act, it passes in the Senate. The debate grew heated; however, so much that Ronald Reagan worried “That Truman and Thurmond would throw down and come to blows!” Truman openly accused Thurmond of, “Openly using immigrants as tools in a game to win votes for the midterms.” Thurmond declares that he wants order on the border and that Truman’s attacks are “completely insane. Perhaps his Missouri manure manners need to return to the Show Me State.” “If you can’t stand the heat, Senator Thurmond,” Truman responds, “You better stay out of the kitchen. Maybe you should return to a place where you don’t get a contrary opinion, probably South Carolina.”

Event Date: 1-22-1958
Event Description: The Immigration Reform Act is stalled in the House of Representatives. Speaker Martin, appalled by the New Day cuts he was forced to accept for the budget, arranges enough Republicans and Democrats to oppose the bill. “We will not falter when it comes to the rights of Americans, no matter where they may come from,” Speaker Martin tells the press. President Kennedy decides its time to take matters into his own hands. He meets with the Democrats who have sided against the bill, led by Representative Byron Rogers (Democrat of Colorado), in the Oval Office. “You know this is an election year,” he reminds them all, “If you want me to swing by your districts, you better vote for this act.” Chief of Staff John Kennedy calls over 50 congressmen that night, promising them of future favors and reminding them of the power of the presidency.

Event Date: 1-23-1958
Event Description: The Immigration Reform Act of 1958 passes in the House of Representatives. Despite mass protests outside of Congress by Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, and the NAACP, enough Democrats keep in the party line to pass the act. President Kennedy signs the act as protesters picket the White House. “This is a sad day for America,” Dr. King tells a crowd of NAACP members; “I can only hope this mistake is one day reversed.” President Kennedy declares that this act will “Make our nation’s taxpayers fell safer. We now know that our hard earned dollars are going to legal American citizens and those who entered our country legally.”

Event Date: 2-01-1958
Event Description: The government of Syria is overthrown by British venture capitalists. President Shukri al-Quwatli of Syria was viewed as too anti-Israel by the pro-Israel government in Egypt. The new Syrian Government will not be friendly towards Israel, but it also will not be belligerent towards the Jewish state. President Kennedy applauds the new government as, “One which will help cement a lasting peace in one of our world’s most important regions.”

Event Date: 3-27-1958
Event Description: President Alexander Kerensky announces his resignation from office. The 77-year old Kerensky is suffering from heart trouble and an infection caused by a gash in his knee inflicted while he was ice skating on Christmas Day. The Russian Federation will have to be lead by a new man, Vice-President Leonid Brezhnev. A war hero during the Second Great War, Brezhnev declares in his acceptance address from the Kremlin, “The memory of Alexander Kerensky will live on in my administration. I will remember the lessons of his leadership.” Mayor of Moscow Nikita Khrushchev is not impressed. He will undoubtedly be the nominee of the Social Democratic Party to oppose Brezhnev in nest year’s election.

Event Date: 5-03-1958
Event Description: President Kennedy sings the most massive tax cut in American history. Senator Frank Lausche (Democrat of Ohio) and Representative Carter Glass, Junior (Democrat of Virginia) introduced the Lausche-Glass Tax Act. Those making more than $25,000 a year will be given large tax refunds and have a major cut in the Income Tax percentage. Though the wealthy will benefit the most, for they pay the most taxes, the middle class will benefit as well. President Kennedy has an approval rating of more than 60% in the latest Gallup Poll.

Event Date: 6-07-1958
Event Description: The Democratic Primary for Governor of Arkansas is held. Incumbent Governor Orval Faubus loses to Representative William J. Trimble. The progressive reforms of Governor Faubus were seen as too “liberal” for the conservative state. In Alabama, Judge George Wallace (a somewhat progressive running on the issue of immigration) narrowly defeats State Attorney General John Patterson in the Democratic Primary. Both Wallace and Trimble will be elected in November, but Governor Wallace will begin forming a “New South” coalition of more liberal Southern Democrats.

Event Date: 8-10-1958
Event Description: Ronald Reagan, a life long Democrat, endorses Senator William Knowland for Governor of California. His opponent, Attorney General Edmund “Pat” Brown, is seen as too liberal by Reagan, who calls Brown, “Moonbeam Brown”. Brown has opposed the Immigration Reform Act, whereas Knowland supported the measure. The Reagan endorsement is seen as a big boost for the Knowland campaign.

Event Date: 11-08-1958
Event Description: The Democratic Party makes gains in the Congressional elections, an oddity for politics where the incumbent party gains seats. The Democrats gain three seats in the Senate and twelve in the House of Representatives, taking the House of Representatives for the first tike since 1951.In California, William Knowland is elected Governor, defeating Pat Brown. He begins to once again eye the White House.  President Kennedy has been given a clear mandate for his conservative polices.         

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-01-1959
Event Description: Fulgencio Batista sits in his Presidential Palace in Havana, Cuba and lights a cigar to celebrate the New Year. He is corrupt and comfortable, but with Che Guevara and his rebels (or rabble as Ronald Reagan has called them) dead and buried, he has no threat against him. The mafia is bankrolling his Havana casinos, and American tourists are pouring the money into his island.

Event Date: 1-02-1959
Event Description: NBC announces that it will begin a nightly news program. The lead anchorman will be famed radio caster Ronald Reagan. “The Voice of the Nation” will host his show during the day and be anchorman for one hour every night. “I promise a news broadcast free of bias,” Reagan tells the press as he accepts the honor of being the first NBC Nightly News anchor. History will show Reagan will run a professional and unbiased news program.

Event Date: 1-03-1959
Event Description: Alaska is admitted to the Union as the 49th state. President Kennedy is instrumental in filling the governorship, two senate seats and at-large congress seat with pro-drilling and pro-business Democrats. 

Event Date: 2-06-1959
Event Description: The United States rocketry program produces the first Titan-grade ballistic missile. This powerful rocket-based weapon is a slap in the face to the Germans, who have cornered the rocket industry since the 1940s. Chancellor Albert Speer responds to the news by scoffing at, “The American’s new toy.” In reality, Speer is scared witless by the rocket, and begins to pressure the German Reichstag to give more funding to the German rocket program.

Event Date: 2-22-1959Event Description: Germany launches the first weather satellite, Sturmauge. Chancellor Albert Speer declares this a major victory in the space race. “Our nation will serve as the lighthouse of the world,” Speer announces in a television address, “We will find the storms and warn the people of Earth.” President Kennedy is greatly surprised by the advanced weather satellite. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Director William Pickering, Kennedy’s own selection, assures the president that the United States’ own weather satellite, Vanguard II, will be just as advanced. It will be launched in two days, raining on the German’s parade.

Event Date: 3-04-1959
Event Description: President Joseph Kennedy speaks at a meeting of Evangelical Christians in Colorado Springs, Colorado. With Senator Absalom W. Robertson (Democrat of Virginia) and his son Pat standing beside him, President Kennedy extols the virtues of morality and attacks the, “Dangerous works of rock-and-roll and beatnik literature. This type of ‘art’ is causing a wave of juvenile delinquency, and must be curved to save our nation’s young people from a path to ruin.” The speech goes over well in Colorado Springs, but the Beatniks of San Francisco and New York, as well as the rock-and-rollers in Nashville feel that President Kennedy has morphed their art into something it is not.

Event Date: 3-18-1959
Event Description:  Beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg announces that the “community of beats” will meet together from May 5th to May 10th, 1960, in Bethel, New York, to read poetry, listen to folk songs, and, “spread the word of peace, understanding, social justice, and free love.” Called “Woodstock” by several beats, Ginsberg felt such a meeting is necessary for Americans to see the error of President Kennedy’s speech in Colorado. Senator Robertson calls this “Woodstock”, “A meeting of our nation’s laziest, craziest and smelliest citizens. The very idea of all those ‘beatniks’ meeting in once place should disgust all good parents. I only fear that Bethel, New York, will experience a decline in property values because the stench of all those unwashed hooligans will certainly have an effect.”

Event Date: 4-02-1959
Event Description: Nikita Khrushchev, the Mayor of Moscow and the nominee of the Social Democrat Party, is elected President of the Russian Federation. President Leonid Brezhnev, the nominee of the National Party, is defeated for reelection, due manly to an economic downturn which has been haunting Russia since the early 1950s. Khrushchev promises a more worker friendly government, scaring the heck out of President Kennedy and his administration. With China and Russia under socialist governments, more than 1/4th of the world’s land area is under leftist rule.

Event Date: 4-12-1959
Event Description: Vice-President Stuart Symington becomes the first American Vice-President to enter the Kremlin. Meeting with newly inaugurated President Nikita Khrushchev, Symington assures the Russian leader that the United States has no interest in interfering with Russian or Chinese government affairs. Khrushchev tells Symington that the Russian Federation and the Chinese Republic do not get along well at all. “Why don’t you try to get involved with Chinese affairs then?” Symington asks Nikita. “Are you mad?”  Khrushchev yells, “That could start a brutal war. The Chinese are so numerous that they would bury us!” The meeting goes well after that, with Khrushchev singing a trade agreement with the United States. Also, President Kennedy is signed on to visit the Kremlin before 1961.

Event Description: 5-01-1959
Event Description: Arriving on Mat Day, Vice-President Symington meets with President Zhou Enlai in Peking, China. A veteran of the Japanese-American War, Symington is given a hero’s welcome into the ancient city. Symington gives Enlai the same assurance he gave Khrushchev on April 12th, the United States will not intervene in Chinese governmental affairs. However, Enlai realizes that there are already American spies throughout the capitol city, his own government agencies have assured him of that fact. He tries to get Symington to swear that there will be no attempts to influence the upcoming Chinese President Election, but Symington can not promise that. “You need to talk to Kennedy,” he tells President Enlai. The Chinese leader tells Symington he has nothing to say to the leader of the free world.

Event Description: 5-03-1959
Event Description: Despite attempts by American agents to influence the election through voter fraud, President Zhou Enlai is reelected President of China. He and his Chinese Worker’s Party win 63% of the vote against former President Chiang Kai-Sheik and the National Party opposition. Kai-Sheik takes only 32% of the vote with scattered third parties winning the remaining votes. It appears that the people of China want the government of Enlai, even if most of the west does not.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 6-06-1959
Event Description: Emit Till graduates from high school in Chicago. He is now off to the University of Indiana to study business management. He hopes to one day be a business owner.

Event Date: 7-01-1959
Event Description: A failed car jacking in Queens, New York City, leads to a near riot as angry Latino youths of that area of New York City begin to break windows, vandalize loot stores and commit arson and muggings. The police are able to subdue the mob in a few hours, but more than $16 million in property damage has been wrought. Mayor Robert F. Wagner (Democrat) declares that the Congress needs to pass a tough new law against juvenile delinquency. “Our nation’s lawgivers must protect the law-abiding people of America,” Mayor Wagner lectures in a televised press conference. President Kennedy immediately gets to work on a juvenile crime law.    

Event Date: 7-04-1959
Event Description: President Kennedy addresses the nation on the issue of gang violence. “Our nation is experiencing a rise in juvenile crime that has not been seen in our proud 183 year history,” President Kennedy tells the nation in an Independence Day address, “To stop this fall into an abyss of crime, tough new laws must be made.” The president outlines a policy that includes minimum prison time increases, beefed up numbers of national patrolmen and a zero tolerance policy towards theft. “These laws may seem harsh or Draconian,” Kennedy ends his speech with, “But as your president, I have committed myself to protecting my nation from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I will be the protector of my nation’s citizens, and I hope the Congress feels the same way. Good night and God bless America.”

Event Date: 8-01-1959
Event Description: With Congress back from a brief summer break, Senator Barry Goldwater (Democrat of Arizona) introduces the Respect for the Law Act. Everything President Kennedy demanded in his July 4th address is included in this bill. Senate Minority Leader Harry Truman tells the Senate that, “Throwing a kid in jail won’t correct that kid completely. When he is let out of jail, the child of a Mexican immigrant in Kansas City will return to a neighborhood filled with poverty and hopelessness, leading the kid back to crime.” Truman calls for more federal aide to heavily Latino neighborhoods, but Senate Majority Leader Johnson ignores this petition. The Democratic Congress will easily pass this new crime act, and overtime the rise in juvenile crime will fall. “President Kennedy,” Ronald Reagan declares the night the crime bill is signed, “Is not just a great president, he is a great human being.”    

Event Date: 8-21-1959
Event Description: Hawaii is admitted as the 50th state. President Kennedy can not influence Hawaii as well as he did Alaska. State Senate President Hiram Fong, a progressive Republican, is elected one of the two new senators. Fong vows to fight for civil rights and expanded opportunities for minorities.  

Event Date: 9-13-1959
Event Description: Senator Prescott Bush (Republican of Connecticut) is approached in his office by several Republican businessmen, and most importantly former President Thomas Dewey. “Senator Bush,” President Dewey tells him, “We don’t like Knowland over in California. He doesn’t share the Republican values of social equality and moderation, like you do.” President Dewey asks Senator Bush to run for president in 1960. The Senator discusses a possible run for president with his wife Dorothy and his sons Prescott, Junior, and George Bush. George, a navy veteran who is going to run for Congress in Connecticut in 1960, tells his father to go for it. “You might not beat Joe Kennedy,” George tells his dad, “But you’d give him way more of a fight than Knowland.” Bush calls Dewey up the next day and tells him that he’s in the race.

Event Date: 10-02-1959
Event Description: The Twilight Zone premiers on CBS. Rod Serling, a dark writer, comic and television producer, declares this show, “Will take the problems of today, and morph them into things strange and absurd. Perhaps by seeing the most extreme and grotesque will lead those in the real world to perhaps see our real problems as things easier to handle.” President Kennedy, not a big television watcher by any means, will make watching The Twilight Zone a weekly priority.

Event Date: 10-31-1959
Event Description: An assassination attempt on Cuban President Fulgencio Batista is thwarted by the president’s massive secret service protection. The assassin, a former American marine and Communist sympathizer Lee Harvey Oswald, is captured and executed within three hours. The iron-fisted rein of President Batista continues on the isle of Cuba.

Event Date: 10-25-1959
Event Description: On Christmas Day, the United States spacecraft Liberty 9 takes pictures of the far-side of the Moon, beating the Germans who have tried to send their own ship Luna to the Moon, but failed. “This Christmas gift is one of the finest God could have given us,” President Kennedy tells the nation in an address from his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, “America is leading the exploration of space because of our ingenuity and work ethic.”

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-03-1960
Event Description: Governor William Knowland (Republican of California) declares his candidacy for President of the United States. “I am running for president to save the Republican Party and the nation from oblivion,” Governor Knowland declares, “The oblivion of debt, desolation and depression. President Kennedy is leading us into this fate through his massive spending on the military, while President Dewey led our nation into this fate through his massive social spending. I want to be the president who balances the budget without cutting the needs of our military and most needy.” Herb Block, the famed political cartoonist, draws a cartoon the next day, honoring the hit musical Camelot, showing Governor Knowland dressed as a knight trying to balance the budget and still keep spending for the military up. The Governor sings, “The impossible dream.”

Event Date: 2-01-1960
Event Description: Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, begins his travel through the American Southwest. He wants to see the sort of living conditions that the migrant immigrant workers experience. What he will find is squalor and inequality. The crusade against poverty has begun for Dr. King.

Event Date: 3-10-1960
Event Description: The New Hampshire Primary is held. While President Kennedy faces no serious opposition, the Republican Primary is a close one. Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who barely survived reelection in 1958, narrowly defeats Senator Prescott Bush, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and Governor William Knowland. Lodge and Bush finish first and second with 31 and 30% of the vote, with the rest getting the remainder of the votes. Senator Bush, who was hoping on victory in this important primary, hopes that this defeat won’t doom his candidacy.

Event Date: 4-07-1960
Event Description: Prescott Bush and William Knowland battle to a photo finish in the Wisconsin Primary, but Bush is the winner in a narrow victory. Also today, President Kennedy’s wife Evelyn gives birth to a son, Patrick Phillip Kennedy. The 1960 Campaign with an infant may well be a way for President Kennedy to appeal even more to family values voters. Bush, who is a model family man, benefits from this image far more than any of the other Republican hopefuls.

Event Date: 4-14-1960
Event Description: Nelson Rockefeller wins the Illinois Primary, barely finishing ahead of Governor Knowland. Prescott Bush finishes a disappointing third, while Henry Lodge finishes a distant fourth. This victory for Rockefeller can be credited with a last second endorsement from Senator Everett Dirksen, known as the “Wizard of Ooz” for his soothing oratory. The GOP Primary is still up in the air.

Event Date: 4-21-1960
Event Description: Governor Rockefeller uses a somewhat home state advantage to win the New Jersey Primary. Senator Bush finishes second once again, and is still strong in the primary. Governor Knowland pins his hopes for the nomination on a big win in the Texas Primary on May 5th, 1960.

Event Date: 4-28-1960
Event Description: Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts wins an easy victory in his home state primary, but still takes only 67% of the vote. He finishes a distant fourth in the Pennsylvania Primary, which Senator Prescott Bush was able to narrowly win over Governor Rockefeller. Senator Hugh Scott (Republican of Pennsylvania) had endorsed Bush the week before the primary, helping him in his get out the vote on primary day. Lodge’s last place finish in a moderate Eastern state seems to doom his campaign. He vows to stay in the race until the Ohio and Indiana Primaries on May 5th, 1960.

Event Date: 5-03-1960
Event Description: Governor Knowland wins big in the Texas Primary. His anti-illegal immigration and pro-oil companies’ campaign caught on with the conservative voters in the Lone Star State. Senator Prescott Bush hits it off with the bakers in Texas and finishes a distant second. Texas, a reliable Democratic state, is not important to most Republicans besides Knowland.

Event Date: 5-04-1960
Event Description: Popular Ohio State Auditor James Rhodes endorses Senator Prescott Bush for President. With the Ohio Primary only a day away, this endorsement will help him greatly. Bush’s pro-business and pro-civil rights campaign is catching fire in the Buckeye State.   

Event Date: 5-05-1960
Event Description: Senator Bush wins the Ohio Primary by a wide margin, with Governor Rockefeller taking second and Governor Knowland coming in third. In Indiana, Knowland wins with Bush taking second. Senator Henry Lodge finishes fourth in both states, and drops out of the race. “It seems as if the best way I can serve my country is to remain in the Senate,” Lodge tells his supporters that night as he drops out of the race, “I am perfectly happy with that as well.” He shouldn’t get too comfortable, however. With no candidate leading in the delegate count, he may be drafted into the nomination at the Republican Convention.

Also today, Woodstock begins. Beatniks meet from the all over the world to spread a message of peace and free love. President Kennedy calls them, “Hoodlums.” The meeting goers on for five days, with drugs being used but no real trouble. 

Event Date: 5-12-1960
Event Description: The race for the GOP Presidential nomination remains a toss-up as Governor Knowland wins the Nebraska Primary, as he did in 1952, and the West Virginia Primary. Knowland has momentum, but lacks in money and organization, which Bush and Rockefeller have no shortage in.

Event Date: 5-13-1960
Event Description: In a candidate debate before the Oregon Primary, Governor Knowland makes a gaffe he will not be able to live down. When asked how he would deal with China if it tried to invade a territory, Tibet, with its newly expanded military. “As president I would not allow a socialist power to attack any nation,” Knowland responds, “I would declare a police action and stop China immediately.” “Even if that means an atomic war?” the moderator asks, somewhat surprised by the response. “If that’s what it takes to stop them,” is the Governor’s firm response. “Bill, you support an atomic war?” Senator Bush says, somewhat smirking at the gaffe. “Well…um…maybe..,” is all Knowland can spurt out. The gaffe is spinned by the media and by Rockefeller and Bush very skillfully. Governor Knowland will not recover.

Event Date: 5-14-1960
Event Description: Governor Rockefeller wins the Oregon Primary by a slim margin over Senator Bush. Rockefeller takes 38% to Bush’s 34% and Knowland’s 18%. Senator Wayne Morse, a favorite son candidate, takes 10%. His gaffe in yesterday’s debate took Knowland from a possible candidate to a hopeless also-ran.

Event Date: 5-19-1960
Event Description: Governor Rockefeller wins the Maryland by a big margin over Senator Bush. Rockefeller seems to have established himself as the front-runner for the nomination; however, he does not have enough delegates to clinch the nomination. Bush could still be the nominee or Knowland for that matter, if the GOP convention is one with no favorite going into.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 5-20-1960
Event Description: Governor Knowland declares that if he doesn’t finish at least second in Florida on May 26th, he will drop out of the race. He begins to pour his remaining funds into the Sunshine State, but with the momentum going against him, this seems like a last stand for the California governor.

Event Date: 5-26-1960
Event Description: Senator Bush takes the Florida Primary in an upset. Governor Knowland had spent the last of his money on the race, but still could only finish second. “We fought hard but in the end could not overtake the establishment in the Republican Party,” Knowland tells his supporters that night, “However; I know that we can make a difference there and reclaim this party for the taxpayer! It’s onto California and South Dakota, my friends

Event Date: 6-02-1960
Event Description: Governor Knowland wins California and South Dakota by big margins. The GOP Convention in July will be one width no candidate already selected.

Event Date: 7-12-1960
Event Description: The Republican Convention opens in Chicago, Illinois. “Republicans are going to compete for the singular honor of being creamed in the general election by President Kennedy,” Ronald Reagan jokes as the convention opens. Reagan is speaking sense, as the most recent Gallup Poll has President Kennedy at a 61% approval rating and leading all three Republicans by more than 10-points. Former President Herbert Hoover, old ailing after a fall in the bathtub a few days before, tells the convention, “Folks, unless God has some crazy plan, this’ll be it for me.” In his speech, President Hoover calls for a quick selection of a candidate. “It is imperative we get Kennedy and his crew out of the White House,” Hoover tells the convention, “We have to save the New Deal, the New Day and our nation!” Former President Thomas Dewey is doing major politicking for Senator Prescott Bush. Dewey feels Governor Rockefeller, a protégé of his, is making a huge mistake trying to take on the popular President Kennedy. “Rocky”, when told this by Dewey, laughs and tells him, “Tom, I don’t fear Joey Kennedy any more than I’d fear a tomcat.” “In that case Rockefeller,” Dewey warns him, “Kennedy is a tomcat with saber-tooth tiger teeth.” The first day of balloting has no clear front-runner. Bush and Rockefeller trade places as the first place leader, with Governor Knowland finishing consistently third.

Event Date: 7-13-1960
Event Description: Former Secretary of Defense Dwight Eisenhower takes the floor at the GOP Convention. “Our party stands for those in the world who seek peace,” Ike tells the cheering convention, “We must take the White House in 1960, and the peace of the world depends upon it.” Eisenhower views the Kennedy Administration as belligerent and claims they are, “Hungering for a fight with China and the rest of Southeast Asia.” The likable Ike, complete with a voice that sounds like Clark Gable behind a microphone, is seen as a possible compromise choice for president, and many Midwestern delegates begin to chant, “We like Ike!” However, after coming in third and fourth on the 17th and 18th ballots, Eisenhower disavows any interest in the nomination. “I refuse to seek any office from dog catcher to Grand High Supreme Lord of the Universe!” the rye Ike tells convention chairman Senator Everett Dirksen. There is still no front-runner for the nomination.

Event Date: 7-14-1960
Event Description: Senator Richard Nixon meets with Governor William Knowland, his old senate colleague, in his hotel room. “Bill,” Nixon tells Knowland, “You can’t win this nomination. It’s best that you call a spade and spade and just admit that you’re beat. It will help the party and the nation.” With his colleague Senator Nixon telling him that there is no chance for him to be the nominee, Knowland releases his delegates. The Knowland delegates, generally conservative, attach themselves to the pro-business Senator Bush. By the 29th ballot, Senator Bush has the nomination. “The great ballot battle is over,” Ronald Reagan reports, “The GOP Convention has shown what a great theatre democracy can be.” Senator Bush’s choice for Vice-President is, ironically, left to the convention. After three ballots, Senator Roman Hruska (Republican of Nebraska) is selected as the Vice-Presidential nominee. The progressive entrepreneur Senator Prescott Bush and the industrious conservative Senator Hruska enter the campaign with a great deal of work to do, trailing Kennedy-Symington by a margin of 57-39% in the latest Gallup Polls.

Event Date: 7-25-1960
Event Description: The Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, California, renominates President Joseph P. Kennedy, Junior, and Vice-President Stuart Symington by acclamation. “The economy is booming, the nation’s military is strong and the Republicans only offer a return to tax-and-spend,” Vice-President Symington proclaims, “This nation must reelect President Kennedy to keep this nation safe and prosperous.”

Event Date: 8-06-1960
Event Date: Aviator Francis Gary Powers becomes the first man to enter space. The Germans have been beaten into space again, much to the chagrin of Chancellor Speer. These defeats in the Space Race, as the rush to the stars between the U.S. and Germany is now called by the press, are leading to Speer’s Conservative Party to lose much popularity in Germany. Willy Brandt, the leader of the German Labor Party, looks forward to the September Reichstag elections. In the U.S., however, popular President Kennedy is given another boost in the polls.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 8-11-1960
Event Description: Senator Prescott Bush calls for a “War on Illness” in a campaign speech in Los Angeles, California. “I’m rich, and so is President Kennedy,” Bush tells the crowd, “We can afford health care, but how about you?” He outlines a plan, while not universal healthcare like in Great Britain or France, covers nearly all middle class and working poor people in America. President Kennedy calls this plan, “Socialism right out of the playbook of Lenin.” This plan will require major tax increases, and that scares off many in the middle class who may have otherwise supported Bush’s health care plan.

Event Date: 9-01-1960
Event Description: Author Harper Lee, actually Nelle Harper Lee, publishes To Kill a Mockingbird. This book describes the vicious way mentally retarded people are treated in most of the United States. In the book, Arthur “Boo” Radley is a mentally retarded man accused of raping a young girl. Attorney Atticus Finch is able to not just clear the name of Mr. Radley, but find the real rapist and show the town of Mayfield, Alabama, that Boo is not a monster, but a person who was trying to defend the girl, Mayella Ewell, from her abusive father Robert Edward Lee Ewell. The book is a bestseller and will be made into a feature film in 1961.

Event Date: 9-08-1960
Event Description: Senator Roman Hruska addresses a rally of farmer’s in Wichita, Kansas. With former Vice-President Edward Arn standing at his side, Hruska calls President Kennedy a liar. “He promised you farm relief, but none has come to you,” Hruska reminds them; “He didn’t help you, why should you help him?” A few days later, Vice-President Symington will visit Wichita…during a rainstorm. “President Kennedy didn’t give you direct aide,” Symington tells a crowd, “But he could get you rain!” 

Event Date: 9-22-1960
Event Description: Willy Brandt’s Labor Party wins a massive victory in the Reichstag Elections in Germany. Though not socialist, Brandt’s party is more left-winged than Chancellor Speer’s Conservatives by a long shot. President Kennedy begins to fear an alliance between Russia and Germany, but with the two nations never liking each other, the odds of this seem very remote.

Event Date: 10-21-1960
Event Description: President Kennedy and Senator Bush meet at NBC studios in New York City in the only televised debate of the 1960 Presidential Election. The debate moderator, NBC Nightly News anchor Ronald Reagan, is a Kennedy supporter, but very fair and balanced. He asks tough questions to both candidates, and regains the respect of many who began to doubt his seriousness as a newsman during his anti-Dewey rants in the 1950s. President Kennedy consistently points out the economic growth of his presidency. “You have built prosperity by throwing the needy into poverty,” Bush accuses President Kennedy, “I love making money and low taxes, but I also have a heart for those who are the neediest, Mr. President.” “Rich men like you and I can afford to have ‘big hearts’,” President Kennedy reminds Bush, “However, the middle class may not be so lucky to have big pockets as well as hearts.” The line wins the night, with even Bush chuckling at the little joke.

Event Date: 11-08-1960
Event Description: The presidential election is a referendum on the economic prosperity of President Kennedy, and so the election is a landslide for the president. Despite Senator Bush and his running-mate Senator Hruska running an aggressive campaign focusing on reforming the budget to ensure the continuation of Dewey’s New Day policies, times are too good for Americans to vote out the president who gave them prosperity.

Joseph Kennedy/Stuart Symington (D): 441 EV; 59/9% of the PV
Prescott Bush/Roman Hruska (R): 96 EV; 39.8% of the PV
Others (Prohibition, Socialist Labor, etc.): 0 EV; 0.3% of the PV

The Democrats cement their numbers in the House and the Senate. It looms like clear sailing for Kennedy’s second term.                   

[PBrunsel]

Brezhnev was Khrushchev's protégé.

Well, a slight change in history could change that. After all, Brezhnev had tied himself to President Kerensky while Khrushchev opposed the Kerensky Government. With no Communism in Russia, the affects can be felt.

Also, Khrushchev was far too good a charecter to leave out another minute.

[PBrunsel]

Please try to know the difference between aid and aide.

I will try to remember that. Merry Christmas to you.

[PBrunsel]

The Second Term of President Joseph P. Kennedy, Junior

Event Date: 1-10-1961
Event Description: The new Congress convenes. Amongst new members if Congressman George Herbert Walker Bush of Connecticut. Despite his father’s landslide defeat in the presidential election, the younger Bush was narrowly elected to Congress. In the House of Representatives, House Minority Leader Sam Rayburn (Democrat of Texas) becomes Speaker of the House as House Minority Whip Carl Albert (Democrat of Oklahoma) becomes the House Majority Leader. Former Speaker of the House Joseph Martin decides not to seek the position of House Minority Leader. Congressman Gerald Ford (Republican of Michigan) is elected to the position. A strong supporter of President Dewey’s New Day, newly elected House Minority Leader Ford declares that the social policies of the Republican Party “Will not falter and will not fail.” In the Senate, Senate Minority Leader Harry Truman (Republican of Missouri) declares that he will not seek the position again. Truman, now serving his third term in the Senate, announces he will retire in 1962. “Politics has been good to me,” Truman tells his Senate colleagues as they elect Senator Everett Dirksen (Republican of Illinois) as the new Senate Minority Leader, “But it is time for others to try their hands at the game of public service.”

Event Date: 1-20-1961
Event Description: President Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Junior, is sworn into a second term as President of the United States. “Our generation will be the one to travel to the stars,” Kennedy declares in his inaugural address, “We must also be the generation which preserves freedom and capitalism for future generations.” Vice-President Stuart Symington, their heir apparent for the 1964 Democratic Presidential nomination, is also sworn into office today, but spends much of the day with the Truman Family. The Vice-President and the Senator have been close since Symington’s election to the Senate.

Event Date: 1-30-1961
Event Description: President Kennedy outlines his plans for his second term in his fifth State of the Union Address. “My fellow Americans,” President Kennedy opens, “We stand at the gateway to a new frontier.” He explains a strengthening of the Kennedy Doctrine to protect, “Our world’s democracies from the onslaught of world socialism.” He promises further tax cuts, increases in military spending and a man on the moon by 1969. The Republicans select Representative George Bush to respond to the State of the Union address. “The president is drawing out voodoo economics,” Bush tells the nation, “His economic theories, the ‘trickle down of wealth’, are a million to one shot in the dark.” These types of clichés confuse some listeners while others feel they are humorous. Representative Bush’s dry sense of humor will be both a help and a hindrance during his tenure as a public servant.

Event Date: 2-12-1961
Event Description: Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, declares that the findings of his “Poverty Tour” in the Southeast are, “Horrifying and heart breaking.” Speaking before a crowd in Los Angeles, California, he describes his journey through the Southeast of the United States, and a great deal of what he says affects the City of Angels. King, his wife Coretta and the Reverends Ralph Abernathy and Jesse Jackson traveled for several months through New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California, collecting evidence of the necessity of government aide to the migrant Mexican workers of these states. “I saw children who would go days without eating a real meal,” King reveals to the world, “I saw parents who worked, even when they were so tired with fever they could barely stand. They fear to miss a day of work to care for themselves will lead to their employers sending them away.” Dr. King points out that there are many people to be blamed for this “gross injustice”. He attacks the Mexican government which encourages illegal entry into the country, despite the United States’ tough immigration laws. He also scolds businesses that hire illegal immigrants. “These business owners are the modern day slave traders,” he declares, “They pay less than the minimum wage, far less, and send their workers to live in slums in which pigs would feel uncomfortable.” President Kennedy is not attacked, but appealed to. “Mr. President,” Dr. King pleads, “We need a law which protects such migrant workers from exploitation. In the name of God, show them pity.”

Event Date: 2-13-1961
Event Description: President Kennedy tells Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson that he wants him to introduce an act outlawing the exploitation of migrant workers in the United States. “Why would I do that?” Johnson says to the President, “Do you want me to insult the men who give me money every campaign?” Johnson was reelected by only a 53-47% margin last year over Representative John Tower (Republican of Texas). “Lyndon,” President Kennedy says sternly, “You will do this.” “Tell me one reason I should,” Landslide Lyndon retorts. “Lyndon,” the President says a little more gently, “This act isn’t for 1961, this act is for 2001. We’ll both be dead and gone by 2001. When you die, Lyndon, do you want a big marble statue that says, ‘Lyndon Johnson-he built’ or a little stone lying in dirt that says ‘Lyndon Johnson-he pandered’?” Senator Johnson gets the point. An act that would prosecute all those who employ migrant workers and do not give them the rights of other workers in the United States is introduced in both houses and Congress, and pass with ease by March of 1961.

Event Date: 3-29-1961
Event Description: With Texas voting yes, the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, giving the District of Columbia three Electoral Votes in Presidential elections, as many as it would have if it were a state. Though President Kennedy had fought against this act, a coalition of Democrats and Republicans from the Eastern coast and Midwest were able to pass the amendment back in July 1960.

Event Date: 4-01-1961
Event Description:  Der Raumfahrer Hans Schlegel, Senior, becomes the first human being to orbit the Earth. Chancellor Willy Brandt applauds Schlegel as, “The hero of the space age.” In the United States, President Kennedy can barely believe that the USA has been beaten into space by Germany, whom Kennedy had claimed to be defeated in the Space Race.

Event Date: 4-11-1961
Event Description: Eva Braun and her son Rudolph Braun, 11-years old, flee Argentina. Despite no one knowing who they are, the increasingly anti-foreigner feelings in the nation force them to flee. The two will arrive in Mexico in a few days, where they will begin living in a convent. Braun will become a nun and her son shall begin his studies for the priesthood. Braun has always said she wanted her son to be a priest, so that he could, “Do good, more good than this family has ever done.” 

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 4-12-1961
Event Description: "Godspeed, John Glenn!" So says Mission Control at Cape Canaveral, Florida, as the Marine Colonel John Glenn, an Ohio native, becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, on the Mercury VI mission, inside the Friendship 7 capsule. President Kennedy has taken some steam out of the German’s propaganda engine since they beat the Americans in the race to orbit a man around Earth.

Event Date: 4-25-1961
Event Description: Russian President Nikita Khrushchev meets in Peking with President Zhou Enlai. The two socialists discuss the threat of President Kennedy’s doctrine and the constant fear of American meddling in their national affairs. Khrushchev, who’s native Russia has not yet developed an atomic bomb, asks for Chinese atomic weapons. Fearing the wrath of President Kennedy, Enlai refuses. However, the two nations sign a non-aggression pact, which scares President Kennedy. “This is dangerously close to an alliance,” he tells his brother John, the Chief of Staff, “I can’t allow those two red nations to have a military alliance against the West.” Chief of Staff Kennedy tells his brother not to get too frightened. “These guys know we could wipe them off the map in a second,” JFK tells his brother. Then, he excuses himself. He says he is going on a trip to California to shore up support for the Democrats there for 1962 midterms. In reality, he’s going to the Golden State to meet up with his lover, actress Marilyn Monroe.

Event Date: 5-01-1961
Event Description: Senator Richard Nixon (Republican of California) is visited by a 23-year old Washington Post journalist, Patrick J. Buchanan. “What do you want?” is Senator Nixon’s harsh greeting. “Much,” is Buchanan’s answer. He reveals photos of White House Chief of Staff John Fitzgerald Kennedy meeting with famed Hollywood starlet at her private residence. “Where did you get these?” Nixon asks Buchanan. “I have my ways,” Buchanan retorts, “Now do you want them?” “What would you get out of them?” Nixon asks. “You in the White House, of course,” is Buchanan’s response. Buchanan has admired Nixon since he was the prosecutor in the Alger Hiss treason case in 1945.

Event Date: 5-08-1961
Event Description: While attending a dinner for astronaut John Glenn, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson and President Joseph Kennedy are called into another room in the White House by Press Secretary Pierre “Pete” Salinger. “What is it Pete?” asks President Kennedy. “We were just getting to dessert!” booms Senator Johnson. “Its bad news, Mr. President,” Salinger spurts out. The Washington Post is going to publish photos as well as an expose written by Pat Buchanan, about an affair between Chief of Staff John Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. “What can we do?” President Kennedy asks Salinger, “I knew my brother liked the ladies, but I didn’t think he’d be so dumb as to sleep around with someone that famous!” President Kennedy becomes so out of control with anger and confusion his wife Evelyn has to be called in. “What are we going to do?” he mutters to himself over and over again. Press Secretary Salinger says he’ll take most of the abuse, but Joe needs to talk to Jack as soon as possible.

Event Date: 5-09-1961
Event Description: President Kennedy and his brothers Robert and Edward meet with their brother Jack at the Oval Office. Bobby is irate. “How could you have been so stupid!” he yells, “How? Just answer!” “Give him a chance to answer, Bobby,” President Kennedy mediates. “I’m sorry Joe,” is all the Chief of Staff can say, “You know me. I just can’t say no.” This is a poor excuse for President Kennedy, whose personal judgment is being questioned. “The papers are saying I choose my aides recklessly,” President Kennedy tells John, “What can be done about that, Jack?” John tells his brother that he’ll resign from his position, and leave politics. “That has to be the only way,” Jack tells his brother, “I wish it were different, but what is done is done.”

Event Date: 5-10-1961
Event Description: Chief of Staff John Fitzgerald Kennedy, age 44, announces his resignation from the position of White House Chief of Staff. He has served his brother, President Joseph Kennedy, well. “I am deeply sorry to all those who my actions have hurt,” Kennedy says as he blinks back tears, “Above all, I ask forgiveness from my brother and my wife, who both put trust in me to do what was right. I let you down.” The selfless speech goes over well with the public, but Senator Richard Nixon is not buying it. “Sentimental hogwash,” he grunts as he turns off his television after the speech, “I’ll run the Kennedy’s out of town on a rail.” 

Event Date: 5-12-1961
Event Description: With news of the Kennedy Sex Scandal engulfing the papers, Senator Richard Nixon declares that there should be a formal inquiry into the Kennedy-Monroe Affair. “The American taxpayers deserve to know if their hard earned dollars have gone to supporting the former Chief of Staff’s ‘activities’,” Senator Nixon declares in a speech from the Capitol steps. Senate Majority Leader Johnson calls Nixon, “A show horse.” He further says, “The country needs to move on from the scandals of the past. Senator Nixon wants to divide us, rather than unite us.” Nixon has been foiled…for now.

Event Date: 6-19-1961
Event Description: The Douglas MacArthur Presidential Library opens in Milton, Wisconsin. President Kennedy, who has admired President MacArthur since he was a young naval airman during the Japanese-American War, attends along with all living former Presidents. Also in attendance are many of the Chinese troops which fought under MacArthur during the Japanese-American War. Chinese President Zhou Enlai sends a message to the aging former President congratulating him on his life of, “unending service to your native land.” With this note, China and the U.S. are closer than they have been in several years.

Event Date: 8-09-1961
Event Description: The new Kennedy Budget easily passes both houses of Congress. A massive 15% across the board tax cut is passed, stimulating the economy for another fiscal year. However, even though New Day spending is cut, the military’s funding is at new highs. House Minority Leader Gerald Ford was able to save college loan programs and medical cards for the working poor. “We were able to prove that both parties can work together,” Speaker Sam Rayburn tells the press while shaking hands with Ford.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 10-31-1961
Event Description: President Chou Enlai declares that the Taiwan Strait, in international waters, now belongs to China. All ships will now have to pay fees to use the strait.  In response to this, President Joseph Kennedy of the United States, President Nikita Khrushchev of Russia, Prime Minster Anthony Eden of the United Kingdom and President Charles DeGaule of France respond by condemning the action and calling on President Enlai to reconsider. Seeing a chance to retake power, former President Chiang Kai-Sheik and his supporters on the island of Formosa (Taiwan) declare that the island is independent of the Chinese Government. President Enlai calls on the Canton Pact to return Formosa to Chinese jurisdiction. The Taiwan Crisis has begun.

Event Date: 11-01-1961
Event Description: Secretary of State James Byrnes meets with several other foreign ministers in Tokyo, Japan, to discuss the crisis. “I say that we finally retake China from those socialist bastards once and for all!” Byrnes cries as he hits his fist on the table. “Now Mr. Byrnes,” British Foreign Minister Alec Douglas-Home tells the gung-ho Secretary of State, “We are here to find a diplomatic response, not blow half the world up.” “When it comes to Reds,” Byrnes mumbles, “I wouldn’t mind taking out have the world to get ‘em.” Cooler heads prevail by the end of the day. A multi0nation embargo of Chinese goods is established as well as a withdrawal of diplomats from mainland China. “China is used to isolation,” Byrnes tells President Kennedy in a conversation over the phone, “More drastic measures are needed or China will win out in the end.” President Kennedy agrees.

Event Date: 11-02-1961
Event Description: Former President Chiang Kai-Sheik meets with Robert Francis Kennedy, the younger brother of President Kennedy, in Taiwan. Kennedy promises aide to Kai-Sheik if President Enlai does not stand down. With Kai-Sheik gladly agreeing to the arrangement, President Kennedy sends Enlai an ultimatum, “De-nationalize the Taiwan Straits, or face a coup against you.” In reality, President Kennedy feels Enlai will stand down before he is forced to bankroll a rebellion.

Event Date: 11-05-1961
Event Description: After three tense days of little dialogue between China and the west, the people of China speak. Due to the general shut down of factories and ports, the worker’s of China turn on the man who gave them their worker’s state. Chinese Foreign Secretary and Vice-President Deng Xiaoping becomes the new president, following a “resignation” of President Zhou Enlai. In reality, Enlai was forced into the decision by Chinese businessmen and higher ups in the Worker’s Party who feared their immediate future if the embargo continued. When Enlai refused to change his mind on the Taiwan Strait, those around him did. President Xiaoping declares the Taiwan Strait to be international once again. With this, former President Kai-Sheik’s independent Taiwan loses international recognition. For now, the former president is still a regular citizen of China.

Event Date: 12-24-1961
Event Description: Ronald Reagan interviews President Kennedy and his wife Evelyn at the White House. His questions revolve mainly around how the Kennedy’s celebrate Christmas and how Kennedy will deal with the new leader of China. “President Xiaoping has declared that his China will be more pro-western and more capitalistic,” President Kennedy tells Reagan, “I feel that we can once again work with the oldest nation on Earth.” When asking him about the 1964 Election and who he feels will win the office of the presidency, the President responds, “It’s far too early to tell now, but I would keep my eye out for that wealthy Governor Rockefeller in New York. He’s got the money, the talent and the personality to beat nearly any Democrat.” “Who do you think could beat him?” Reagan asks. “Well,” Kennedy pauses, “Either the Vice-President…or myself.”         

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-21-1962
Event Description: President Joseph Kennedy sings the first free trade agreement with any American nation. He and President Fulgencio Batista meet in Miami, Florida, to sign the Caribbean Free Trade Agreement. Cuba, though rich in sugar cane and cigars, has little to trade with the United States. However, President Kennedy (and his brother, FBI agent Robert F. Kennedy) views free trade with the mob dominated island as the bets way to clean up the underworld there. With free trade, the U.S. will be able to use custom officials freely in Cuba and investigate the mob better. The Kennedy brother’s war on organized crime has begun. 

Event Date: 2-14-1962 
Event Description: The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Part II, as the press calls it. The government, using laws that President Herbert Hoover enacted during Prohibition, arrest over 100 mob figures from New York City to Chicago and all the way to Honolulu. Among the mobsters arrested for the charge of smuggling drugs and human trafficking is Chicago’s Sam Giancana. “Sam the Cigar” Giancana, who had helped Kennedy win Illinois in 1956, swears revenge against, “That backstabbing bastard Kennedy.” Giancana’s lieutenant, Joseph Aiuppa, escapes arrest and begins to plot revenge against the president.

Event Date: 5-20-1962
Event Description: After several months of general tranquility in the world, Willy Brandt’s Germany announces that it is joining with Russia to send a man to the Moon by 1966. The Eastern European Space Agency (EESA) is established in a treaty in Warsaw, Poland. President Kennedy, frightened by two powerful nations joining forces in the space race, begins to pressure Congress for more funding for NASA. House Majority Leader Carl Albert, as fiscally conservative as any Oklahoman, tells Kennedy cuts will have to be made to military funding. The president will eventually relent, since no war is in the foreseeable future.

Event Date: 6-10-1962
Event Description: The 23rd Amendment to the Constitution is ratified by Missouri. This amendment gives the president the ability to appoint a Vice-President in the event the office is vacant.

Event Date: 6-20-1962
Event Description: “We must be the guards on the walls of democracy,” President Kennedy tells the 1962 graduation class of West Point Military Institute. Kennedy, frightened by the recent alliance between Germany and Russia for space exploration, is beginning to feel that the socialisms of the world will soon unite and try to tear down the wall of democracy.

Event Date: 6-30-1962
Event Description: In what is a devastating blow to the Kennedy Family, Jacqueline Bouvier-Kennedy and John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the former Chief of Staff, separate in after a brutal three months of divorce hearings. Jackie gets a huge sum of money and JFK’s two children John and Caroline. JFK, however, is not entirely too heartbroken. He has been dating recently divorced starlet Marilyn Monroe since June 1961, when his affair with her was discovered. The two plan to wed. “My political career is practically over,” John tells his disapproving brother Joe, “So I might as well marry the girl who did it in.”

Event Date: 7-04-1962
Event Description: The Toronto Pact is signed. The world’s capitalist powers (the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, France, Italy and Egypt) declare that they will, “Defend each other and support one another in times of trouble, invasion or other such peril.” Although not in a physical war, the Canton and Toronto Pacts seem engaged in a war of ideology. Senator John Foster Dulles (Republican of New York) declares that the World has entered a, “New type of war, not one of bullets, but one of philosophies. I feel a Cold War has begun between the capitalisms of the world and the socialist states.”

Event Date: 8-01-1962
Event Description: John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe wed in Los Angeles. Former Governor Joseph Kennedy, Senior, is the only one of the Kennedy Family to attend. President Joseph Kennedy, Junior, sends no wedding present or even a message of congratulations. He is embarrassed that his younger brother would marry the woman that destroyed his previous marriage. Marilyn Monroe, with no living relations and none of her former husbands wanting to do the honors, is “given away” by radio star Ronald Reagan. Reagan has been friends with Monroe since the early 1950s. However, “Dutch” Reagan is a loyal husband to his wife, actress Nancy Davis-Reagan.

Event Date: 8-05-1962
Event Description: Nelson Mandela, the leader of the African National Congress Party and a staunch opponent of the South African policy of segregation (apartheid), leads a mass rally against the policy in Cape Town, South Africa. This rally goes against President Charles Swart’s “gag” policy on the issue of apartheid. He has Mandela arrested, but American President Joseph Kennedy pressures Swart to release Mandela, or face a loss of foreign aide. Kennedy, who believes in integration, is applauded for his work for freedom in South Africa by the world community.

Event Date: 9-27-1962
Event Description: Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring is released. It outlines the harm to the environment that pesticides present. Senator Harry Truman, in his last few weeks in the Senate, reads the book, and is outraged by the inaction by the government. He introduces an act outlawing certain pesticides, notably those mentioned in Carson’s book. The bill never makes it out of committee. Senator Albert Gore (Democrat of Tennessee) is Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and refuses to let the bill come to debate on the Senate floor. “It is better for our nation’s agriculture businesses that such pesticides are used,” Gore explains to the committee, “They are effective, kill pests efficiently and are cheap. I know this is an inconvenient truth, but it is a truth none the less.” For now, environmental regulation will be something that is not discussed by Congress.

Event Date: 10-03-1962
Event Description: Secretary of the Treasury Robert McNamara tells President Kennedy that there is a huge deficit growing. “I realize that Bob,” Kennedy tells McNamara, “But that is what I want.” Kennedy, who majored in economics as well as political science, explains how a great deal of debt keeps interest rates steady. “Sounds like that ‘voodoo economics’ Bush was talking about a few years back,” McNamara tells Kennedy. The president tells him to trust him. The debt will continue to grow, but low taxes and high interest rates continue to spur the economy. The Democratic Party can expect to do marginally well in the upcoming midterm elections. The ultimate effects of the Kennedy Debt will not be felt for years to come.

Event Date: 10-17-1962
Event Description: The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum opens in West Branch, Iowa. The 88-year old President Hoover was able to make it to the opening ceremonies, but he has been ill since he caught a cold walking in a rain storm near his home at the Waldorf Hotel in New York City. President Kennedy, no fan of Hoover’s progressive ideals, instead honors the president by applauding his success story. “I came from money and political power,” Kennedy tells the crowd, “I had the presidency in view since the day I was born. I had the money to make it. President Hoover was born in poverty I could never even imagine in the squalor of a three room cabin. He worked his way to the White House, and by his own ingenuity.” President Hoover, usually not a man to show his emotions in public, bursts into tears as President Kennedy speaks these kind words about him.

Event Date: 11-06-1962
Event Description: The South African Parliamentary Elections are split between pro-apartheid and pro-integration parliamentarians. Ever since the fall of Nazism in the 1950s, the apartheid government has been struggling to hold onto power. Nelson Mandela, who was arrested, but released, in August for leading an anti-apartheid rally that nearly turned into a riot, is made Prime Minister of South Africa after a bitter vote in a nearly 50-50 parliament. President Charles R. Swart, who has been a staunch defender of apartheid, is not happy about this turn of events.

Event Date: 11-07-1962
Event Description: The midterm elections a re a wash. The Democrats retain control of both houses of Congress, while the Republicans pick up a few seats. In Missouri, Attorney General Thomas Eagleton, a moderate Democrat, is elected to the Senate in the one Senate pick-up the Democrats have that night. In Iowa, Governor Nile Kinnick is easily reelected to a seventh term. He is eyeing the GOP presidential nomination in 1964. Californian’s Richard Nixon and William Knowland are reelected as well. Both seem likely to enter the 1964 Presidential Election.   

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-01-1963
Event Description: Seeking to diminish the threat of a “world apocalypse” in this era of mistrust between East and West, British Foreign Minister Alec Douglas-Home introduces a treaty ending all nuclear testing on the ground. The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty will be ratified by all European atomic powers. The United States and China are both hesitant to sign on, but by March 1963 they both will have joined the treaty.

Event Date: 1-10-1963
Event Description: President Kennedy signs the Marcy Act. Representative William Marcy’s (Democrat of Alabama) law that ends the clause of the Percy Legal Reform Act that gives all accused persons the right to a lawyer. “It’s high time that taxpayers stop carrying the bill for criminals,” Kennedy declares as he signs the act. Former President Dewey declares that Kennedy has committed, “A travesty.”

Event Date: 1-12-1963
Event Description: Ever since the Dewey-Warren Blackmail Scandal in 1954, former Attorney General Earl Warren has been keeping quiet. Currently, he works as an ACLU attorney in Los Angeles. Today, however he is asked by his old boss, President Thomas Dewey, to sue the government to retain attorneys for all accused citizens. He accepts the case.     

Event Date: 3-18-1963
Event Description:  Former Attorney General Earl Warren begins to help his legacy and his name by winning the case of Ramirez v. U.S. Government. Aljandro Ramirez, an out of work taxi driver who killed his brother-in-law in December 1962, was stripped of an attorney soon after the Congress repealed that right. Warren argued that this violated several constitutional, laws, and thus the repeal of the law itself was unconstitutional. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agrees, and so will the Supreme Court in October 1963.

Event Date: 4-01-1963
Event Description: Former President Ngo Dinh Diem attempts a coup against the socialist government of President Lê Duẩn in Vietnam. The coup is successful thanks to the backing of the CIA. Diem is installed as the new “president” in Vietnam and Duẩn is killed by the military. One of the Canton Pact’s members is now gone. This victory, though a silent one, is one that President Kennedy feels is quite important in the Cold War.

Event Date: 4-22-1963
Event Description: Mayor James Daley of Chicago, Illinois, calls President Kennedy at the White House. “Mr. President,” Daley tells the president with unusual respect, “Your war on organized crime has devastated the party here in Cook County. We’ve got the reform guys trying to kill the regulars. Things look bad for 1964. You’ve got to visit.” Alarmed by this call, President Kennedy tells Daley that he will try and visit in early May. “You better,” Mayor Daley warns, “Unless you want Rocky to take Illinois next year.” President Kennedy tells his wife that they will travel to Chicago on May 6th, 1963. “I was hoping to take a much needed break that week,” Kennedy sighs, “But I am the head of my party. I better go.”

Event Date: 5-05-1963
Event Description: President Kennedy’s second son James, a 19-year old law student at Harvard University, is seriously injured in a car accident. He and three friends are hit on a Boston freeway by a drunk driver. James, though seriously wounded, is still alive, unlike his two companions who died on impact. President Kennedy clears his whole schedule to stay with his son until he comes out of a coma. Vice-President Stuart Symington is sent to Chicago to help stabilize the party for the next election.

Event Date: 5-06-1963
Event Description: Vice-President Stuart Symington and his wife Sylvia land at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. He is greeted by Mayor Daley and Senator Paul Douglas, both loyal Democrats. “I heard about what happened to the President’s kid,” Senator Douglas tells Symington, “I hope he pulls through.” “I know he will,” Symington tells the Senator, “The president told me he was improving as I left.” The press has not been told of the accident for fear it would make Americans fear their president was too upset over the accident to run the country. After all, he did cancel his entire week to care for his child. Only Symington, Daley, Douglas and certain physicians at Washington Memorial Hospital know about the accident. The grand parade down Main Street in Chicago tomorrow will go on as planned, with the crowds expecting President Kennedy.

Event Date: 5-07-1963
Event Description: Vice-President Stuart Symington is assassinated as he and his wife walk down Main Street in Chicago, Illinois. Mobster Joseph Aiuppa, Sam Giancana’s lieutenant in the Chicago crime world, arranged the hit for President Kennedy to avenge his boss’ arrest. However, he was caught by surprise when the president didn’t show on May 6th. He decided to “whack” Symington as revenge anyway. The assassin, Giancana henchman Vincent Alo, is arrested that night as he tries to flee the city. In Washington, President Kennedy’s son James wakes from his coma to see his dad sobbing. “What’s with the tears pop?” is the first thing James mumbles out. “Tears of joy and sadness,” is all the president can say.

Event Date: 5-08-1963
Event Description: The body of Vice-President Stuart Symington arrives in Washington, D.C., aboard Air Force One. President Kennedy and his family await the airplane and hug Sylvia Symington and her three children as they leave the plane. “He took the bullet for his president,” Sylvia tells President Kennedy, “I think he would have been proud of what he did for you.” “I am sure of it,” says Kennedy, who rarely, if ever, cries, but now can’t stop. The nation itself mourners the death of the folksy, yet stately, Vice-President Stuart Symington, with Ronald Reagan leading the chorus of mourners with his usual eloquence. “We can not know the plan of almighty God,” Reagan declares that night as he closes the NBC Nightly News, “In his wisdom he has chosen to take from us one of the brightest, kindest and most able public servants the United States ever had the please to call a public servant. Even though Stuart Symington leaves us for the great beyond, we will never forget the integrity and ingenuity he showed every office he served in, and try to keep his memory alive by serving our nation with as much integrity and ingenuity Vice-President Symington always gave us. May God be with his family, and may God bless America.”

Event Date: 5-09-1963
Event Description:  Reggie Jackson, a senior football and baseball star at Cheltenham High School outside Philadelphia, was unable to fall asleep all last night. The words of Ronald Reagan, “and try to keep his memory alive by serving our nation with as much integrity and ingenuity Vice-President Symington always gave us,” rang through his head all night. He decides that he, like Vice-President Symington, will serve his nation before himself. He begins to work with his guidance counselor to get him an appointment to West Point Military Academy. He feels that he can best serve his nation while in the military.

Today, the funeral of Vice-President Stuart Symington is held in Washington, D.C. The late Vice-President is given full honors by the U.S. Government. Eulogies are given by President Kennedy, former Senator Harry Truman and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn.

Event Date: 5-18-1963
Event Description: Following more than week of mourning and remembrance for Vice-President Symington, President Kennedy, still shaken by the loss of his faithful Veep, begins to contemplate who to appoint to the office of Vice-President. He has three men in mind for the office. The three men are all Senators, Barry Goldwater (Democrat of Arizona), Absalom Robertson (Democrat of Virginia) and Albert Gore (Democrat of Tennessee). He and his brother Bobby, after a night of discussion, agree on one of the men by the time the sun rises.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 5-19-1963
Event Description: “Today,” President Kennedy announces in a Rose Garden address, “I am proud to announce that the man I will nominate for the next Vice-President of the United States is someone who the late Vice-President Symington considered a friend and statesman, Senator Albert Arnold Gore of Tennessee.” After Gore gives a few remarks about how he “humbly accepts the nomination” he and the president go to a White House lunch. The Senate is expected to easily confirm Senator Gore.

Event Date: 5-21-1963
Event Description: As the Senate begins the confirmation hearings for Senator Gore, Rachael Carson and Harry Truman begin a battle against the nomination in the nation’s newspapers. “Senator Gore, despite the evidence in Silent Spring, refused to support a bill that would outlaw dangerous pesticides in nature,” Truman writes to the New York Post, “Gore is just as damn contrary as any Southern Democrat you could pull out an old hat.” Despite these attacks on Gore’s anti-environmental record, very few Democrats in the Senate care about this issue.

Event Date: 5-22-1963
Event Description: As Senator Albert Gore is confirmed for the Vice-Presidency, Emmett Till graduates from the University of Chicago with a major in business administration.

Event Date: 6-19-1963
Event Description: FBI Director Averell Harriman (appointed by President Kennedy in 1957) announces his resignation from office. President Kennedy nominates his brother Robert Kennedy, an FBI agent since 1959, for the position. This enrages many more senior agents. However, President Kennedy stands by his decision. “Robert Kennedy has risen in the ranks of the FBI remarkably quickly,” he tells the press, “He knows the FBI and he knows how to use it to make this nation and world a better place.” Privately, Kennedy tells his wife Evelyn, “Bobby is perfect for the job. He is ruthless and secretive. Hitler should have appointed him Gestapo chief.”

Event Date: 6-20-1963
Event Description: Robert Francis Kennedy is easily confirmed to be the new Director of the FBI. At age 38, RFK, as he is known by the press, is the youngest head of a government agency in the nation’s history. He is confident that he can make a competent FBI Director. Immediately, he begins to work on expanding government surveillance programs. 

Event Date: 7-12-1963
Event Description: With the urging of President Kennedy, the South African Liberation Act is passed by Congress. This act calls for apartheid, the segregation law in South Africa, to be overturned. Senator Everett Dirksen (Republican of Illinois) authored the act declaring, “No power is stronger than an idea whose time has come.” The US officially sets an embargo on South African goods and calls for Prime Minister Nelson Mandela to continue the fight against apartheid.

Event Date: 7-20-1963
Event Description: From China with Love premiers in American theatres. With Sean Connery as the debonair spy James Bond, the film shows the Chinese government as one dominated by intrigue and espionage. Chinese President Deng Xiaoping calls the film “ridiculous” but American love the film as much as previous Bond films.

Event Date: 8-28-1963
Event Description: Dr. Martin Luther King takes his anti-poverty message to Washington, D.C. He calls for a “War on Poverty” and booms to the crowd of over 250,000 onlookers, “I have a dream that one day this country, the land of plenty, will no longer have hungry children going to bed at night with their minds full of despair and their stomachs filled with nothing.” King’s “I Have a Dream” speech will be remembered as one of the greatest in history. However, President Kennedy is not moved by King’s eloquence. He feels that King is a troublemaker and would-be socialist agent for China. He orders his brother, FBI Director Robert Kennedy, to tap King’s phones to find, “Something seamy about the man. He can’t be a saint.” “I’ll take him down, Joe,” Bobby assures the President, “That I can assure you.”

Event Date: 10-21-1963
Event Description: Apartheid is outlawed in South Africa. The American lead international embargo against the nation forced President Charles Swart to resign, and thus Prime Minster Mandela became president and immediately used executive authority to end over 30-years of racist law in the African nation.

Event Date: 11-01-1963
Event Description: Governor William Knowland of California announces his candidacy for President of the United States. Having run in 1952 and 1960, some feel the game is getting a bit old. Cartoonist Herb Block draws a cartoon of Knowland speaking from a podium that reads “{Knowland for President” with ’52 and ’60 crossed out and ’64 added in. Below the cartoon he quotes Albert Einstein, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.”

Event Date: 12-31-1963
Event Description: Vice-President Albert Gore announces his candidacy for President of the United States. He has the backing of President Kennedy and most of the Democratic Party. However, he is not the only man to seek the office for the Democrats. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, a favorite of businessmen, has announced for the White House. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina is a candidate as well. The Democratic field is one of Senators in 1964. The Republicans do not have this characteristic. There leading candidates are Governors Nile Kinnick of Iowa, Nelson Rockefeller of New York and William Knowland of California. Senator Richard Nixon is the only senator in the race for the Republicans.

[PBrunsel]

I want to thank you Rocky for your kind words about my timeline. You always make them and I appreciate it greatly.

However, when will your own fine timeline continue?

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 1-29-1964
Event Description: The Iowa Caucus is held, with Governor Kinnick winning an easy victory. The Democrats didn’t bother having a caucus in Iowa. The caucus has not caught on as a way of selecting a candidate for president. Despite Governor Kinnick’s landslide win in Iowa, it has no effect on other primaries.

Event Date: 3-10-1964
Event Description: The New Hampshire Primary names front-runners for both parties. On the Democratic side, Vice-President Gore bests Senators Goldwater and Thurmond by a large margin. Goldwater swears to stay in the race until the very end. On the GOP side, Governor Rockefeller is narrowly beaten by Senator Nixon. Nixon’s campaign for low taxes appealed greatly to denizens of the Live Free or Die State. Governors Knowland and Kinnick finish third and fourth, but neither drop out of the race.

Event Date: 4-05-1964
Event Description:   Nixon, Rockefeller and Kinnick debate at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Governor Knowland is excluded from the debate due to low poll numbers. Rockefeller makes a case for a "detente" with the Chinese. "If we act belligerent we will be hated," Rockefeller advises, "If we are accepting we will be welcomed." Nixon states, "Any working with the Reds for 'peace' is regressive in our war with the evils of Eastern Socialism." Governor Kinnick, who leads in Wisconsin, calls himself, “The farmer’s candidate.” He supports more aid to farmers stricken by an ongoing drought as well as an increase of Midwestern grain being used for humanitarian aid. “President Hoover told the world that America must be the world’s breadbasket,” Kinnick reminds the Republican audience, “That is why we must remain the strongest agricultural power on Earth.”

The debate is overshadowed, however, by the death of former President Douglas MacArthur. He passes away at his home in Milton, Wisconsin, at the age of 84, making him one of the oldest presidents ever. He will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, with his old army buddies Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, James Doolittle and Joseph Kennedy serving as pallbearers. “As we lay General MacArthur to rest,” President Kennedy will say in his funeral eulogy, “Let us remember the words of that old barrack song, ‘Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.’”

Event Date: 4-07-1964
Event Description: Governor Kinnick wins the Wisconsin Primary by a wide margin. His appeal to the agricultural base lead to his comfortable win, with Senator Nixon and Governor Romney coming up second and third. Poor Governor Knowland polls a mere 1%. On the Democratic side, Senator Barry Goldwater upsets Vice-President Gore by winning the primary 43-31% with Senator Thurmond taking 26%. Goldwater’s strong support of the military helped him in a state with a large number of military families.

Event Date: 4-08-1964
Event Description: Following an upset to Senator Goldwater in the Wisconsin Primary, Vice-President Gore meets with Senator Thurmond in Dayton, Ohio, the site of a nearing primary. He tells Thurmond that their campaigns are splitting the conservative Southern voice. “Unless we want the Democratic Party to move its power out West,” Gore warns Thurmond, “We are going to have to stop one of our campaigns.” Thurmond refuses to drop out. ‘I’ll end my campaign when hell freezes over.” “You better bring a sweater when you die then,” is Gore’s shrill response. The Veep swears that Thurmond will end his campaign by the Ohio Primary on April 22nd, 1964.

Event Date: 4-12-1964
Event Description: President Kennedy signs the Energy Act of 1964. Introduced by Senator Ernest Gruening (Democrat of Alaska), the act opens up acres of Alaskan wilderness to future drilling. Despite outrage by environmental leaders, President Kennedy’s decision is widely applauded by members of both parties and a populace who have a need for cars. “Americans are motorists,” Kennedy explains as he signs the bill, “We need the fuel to keep our culture moving.”

Event Date: 4-13-1964
Event Description: With the Illinois Primary a day away, a whisper campaign is begun against Governor Kinnick by a very right-winged Christian activist named Fred Phelps. With a printing press in Topeka, Kansas, Phelps cranked out over 1 million pamphlets attacking Kinnick’s religion of Christian Science. “Governor Kinnick’s religion is strange and out of line with mainstream religion,” the pamphlet begins, “It is inspired by the devil, and those who follow it represent a subversive sect in the United States.” This campaign is continued by members of the Nixon campaign. While “Tricky Dick” does not encourage (or criticize) the hate campaign, Governor Rockefeller blasts it as, “A wicked and vicious smear against an able and kind man.” He and Governor Kinnick meet in Rockford, Illinois, that night and condemn the bigoted attacks. “I will add this,” Rockefeller says, “Senator Nixon should do the decent thing and condemn this campaign as well.” Nixon gives a brief response calling such tactics, “Despicable” but he does not fire those in his campaign staff who helped spread the hate filled pamphlets.     

Event Date: 4-14-1964
Event Description: Governor Nelson Rockefeller upsets Governor Kinnick in the Illinois Primary. Senator Nixon, who finishes third, is hurt by charges of bigotry after his lukewarm response to Phelps’s hate campaign against Kinnick. Governor Knowland, who fails to clear 2% of the vote, drops out of the race. “It’s clear the country does not want me in the White House,” he tells his supporters that night, “Who can blame them? This face isn’t meant for an era of television.” The public applauds his gracious bow out, and Knowland’s endorsement of Nixon will help the Senator in states heavy with military veterans, whom always came out in force for Knowland. On the Democratic side, Senator Goldwater outpaces Vice-President Gore once again. Barry takes 49% to Gore’s 36% and Thurmond’s 15%. Senator Thurmond and Vice-President Gore did well in Southern Illinois, while Goldwater easily took Northern and most of Central Illinois. Gore’s campaign is heading downhill. He needs an issue to win the election for him, but none seem in sight.

Event Date: 4-21-1964
Event Description: New Jersey votes in its primary, and Governor Rockefeller is the easy winner. Senator Nixon takes second place with Governor Kinnick in a long third place. Nixon, like Gore, needs an issue to take the lead. He gets his campaign manager, Pat Buchanan, to try to find some dirt on Rockefeller. Vice-President Gore stops his decline in the campaign by winning the primary in a landslide over Goldwater. Several campaign swings by President Kennedy helped the struggling Gore take the lead.

Event Date: 4-22-1964
Event Description: With the endorsement of Governor James A. Rhodes (Republican of Ohio) behind him, Senator Richard Nixon wins the Ohio Primary. The Buckeye State is connected to Nixon, as his father was born and raised there. Senator Goldwater bests Vice-President Gore in the Democratic Ohio Primary. 

Event Date: 4-25-1964
Event Description: Pat Buchanan runs into the Nixon Headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio. “Its JFK for the GOP!” he tells Senator Nixon, preparing to go to a rally. “What do you mean Pat?” Buchanan outlines that he has been told by “a reliable source” that Rockefeller, despite his divorce and remarriage earlier in 1964, may still be committing an affair with several members of his staff in Albany. Nixon tells Pat to leak the information. “Even if it isn’t true,” Nixon explains to Buchanan, “The bad press will keep him preoccupied from any other campaigning and that’ll be suicide for the elections on the 28th.”

Event Date: 4-26-1964
Event Description: “Rockefeller’s Marriage Woes” reads the New York Post. Despite the rumors of Rockefeller’s marital infidelity, even after his divorce and remarriage this year, being unfounded at best, the Governor’s polls in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania take a drastic hit. Governor William Scranton (Republican of Pennsylvania), a Rockefeller supporter, calls the report, “As sickening an article that has ever been released by a paper.” Ronald Reagan, though no Rockefeller fan, comes to the Governor’s aide by calling the report trash. “No self respecting fish would want to be wrapped in this tripe,” Reagan jokes with his audience. Senator Nixon has a field day with the news. “The Governor’s Kennedy values make him unable to lead the Republican Party. Not only do his high taxing ways disqualify him, so does his disrespect for marriage and morality in general.” This blistering attack is mouthed by Nixon several times today, and it affects the polls greatly. His and Buchanan’s plan to form a bogus issue has worked well.

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 4-28-1964
Event Description: The Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Primaries are held. Senator Nixon and Governor Rockefeller battle it out in both states, which is a loss for Rockefeller. He had expected to win both states by large margins. Nixon wins Pennsylvania, despite Scranton’s endorsement of Rocky. Rockefeller wins Massachusetts, but with only 52% of the vote. Vice-President Gore beats Goldwater and Thurmond in both states.       

Event Date: 5-01-1964
Event Date: President Kennedy travels to China. He and President Xiaoping are expected to sign a treaty limiting nuclear testing and reach a treaty of, “understanding on the responsibilities of the nuclear age.” Kennedy’s trip to China makes him the first incumbent U.S. President to visit the world’s most populous nation. Secretary of States James Byrnes opposed the mission, but President Kennedy overrode the man. Byrnes has since been replaced as Secretary of State by Dean Acheson. This trip makes Kennedy appear more like a peace maker, and boosts Vice-President Gore’s campaign. He now can appear like the man best suited to continue the Kennedy, “Legacy of peace.”

Event Date: 5-03-1964
Event Description: As Nixon and Gore in the Texas Primary, President Kennedy and Xiaoping sign the Mutual Peace Agreement. This pact declares that a nuclear war can not be won and must never be fought. Ronald Reagan calls the act, “A suicide pact” and that Kennedy is, “A useful idiot for Chinese propaganda.” However, Vice-President Gore and Governor Rockefeller applaud the agreement as one that will insure a world free from the fear of nuclear destruction.” “The Kennedy Administration, despite its many flaws,” Governor Rockefeller states at a rally in Indianapolis, Indiana, “Will be remembered as a peace making government because of this agreement.”

Event Date: 5-05-1964
Event Description: Governor Kinnick, who has been out of the headlines for a while, wins the Indiana Primary by a narrow margin over Senator Nixon. Nixon had tried to campaign on Kennedy and Rockefeller, “Selling out our security to the delusion of peace with Socialist powers,” declares that his campaign is still strong. Kinnick’s appeal to agricultural voters is still very strong. Governor Rockefeller, who has been wounded since the rumors of marital infidelity have been swirling in the press, declares that he will stay in the race until the Oregon Primary. The Democratic side of the primary is a big win for Vice-President Gore. Kennedy’s visit to China and the positive press about the journey has helped him appear as the best man to inherit a legacy of peaceful coexistence with China.

Event Date: 5-12-1964
Event Description: Senator Nixon wins big in Nebraska and West Virginia’s Primaries. Governor Kinnick had hoped for a win in Nebraska, being a farm state, but Nixon’s strong support from Omaha bankers helped him overtake rural voters. Kinnick, now running up a massive campaign debt, ends his quest for the White House. “We tried,” he tells his supporters that night, “The fight still continues. When I lost a football game back when I was in college, I would tell myself, ‘I tried, and trying will always pay off in the end.’ Make no mistakes, America, this football star will be back top play again!” Kinnick will throw his support behind Governor Rockefeller. Vice-President Gore is beaten by Goldwater in Nebraska, but wins West Virginia. Senator Thurmond had spent a great deal of money on wining West Virginia. His third place finish proves to him he can’t win and he drops out, but endorses Senator Goldwater, throwing a curveball into the Gore Campaign.

Event Date: 5-14-1964
Event Description: Vice-President Gore and Senator Goldwater are neck-and-neck in the polls in Oregon, to be held tomorrow. Much like against Kinnick, a whisper campaign is begun against Senator Goldwater. He is attacked as being a Jew, which is half true. NBC’s Ronald Reagan comes to the aid of Goldwater that night on the NBC Nightly News. “We have seen the 1964 Campaign unfold as one filled with bigotry and hate on both sides of the aisle,” Reagan tells his audience, “I fervently pray and hope that the smears and poison of this campaign can be ended and positive messages unveiled.” Reagan’s words make sense to most Americans, and Goldwater shoots ahead in Oregon.

Event Date: 5-15-1964
Event Description: The Oregon Primary proves to be an important contest. Governor Rockefeller, having ran on the New Day and practically moved to the state, defeats Senator Nixon by a narrow margin. His 51-49% win is not seen as a win, as the state was far more in touch with his liberal ideals. Nixon is the front-runner for the GOP nomination. Senator Goldwater defeats Vice-President Gore once again, this time by a 63-37% margin. Goldwater and Nixon have been able to use the growing power of the West to benefit their campaigns.

Event Date: 5-19-1964
Event Description: Calamity hits the Gore Campaign as Senator George Smathers (Democrat of Florida) endorses Senator Goldwater. “He’s just sunk us in the South,” Gore Campaign manager Moon Landrieu tells Gore while pulling out his hair, “We are done, Al, we are just done.” Senator Nixon is helped by an endorsement from Yankees pitcher Fidel Castro. In a rally in Panama City, Florida, Castro declares that Nixon “Has the best plan to save our working class in America. He is committed to low taxes and business growth. Senator Nixon speaks for the future!”

Event Date: 5-19-1964
Event Description: Senators Goldwater and Nixon take big wins in Florida. Vice-President Albert Gore, having lost a Southern state that he expected to carry easily, drops out of the race. He does not give a concession address, and simply tells the press, “I’m not licked.” Senator Nixon’s big win gives him the lead in delegates, but he’ll have to win Maryland in a week to really wound Governor Rockefeller. “A win in Rocky’s backyard will end his hopes for the nomination,” Pat Buchanan tells Nixon, “We can take it with just a little Red baiting.”

Event Date: 5-23-1964
Event Description: Senator Nixon attacks President Kennedy and Governor Rockefeller of, “Coddling the communist elements in China.” In a rally held at a Baltimore high school, Senator Nixon claims that Rockefeller is, “Squishy soft on China.” Governor Rockefeller is helped by Baltimore County Executive Spiro Agnew, a strong Rockefeller supporter.  “Nixon’s screwy,” he declares at a Rockefeller rally that night, “He is trying to scare people into voting for him. Dick Nixon is not a statesman, he is a chameleon. He is no more ant-Chinese than anyone else. However, he views this issue as one to hit the Governor on, so now he is anti-Chinese.” Nixon and Rockefeller are running in a statistical tie in Maryland. This primary will decide if Rocky is still a credible candidate.

Event Date: 5-26-1964
Event Description: Senator Nixon wins the Maryland Primary, ending the presidential campaign of Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Nixon’s anti-tax and anti-Eastern establishment campaign proved too much for Rockefeller, the man who seemed the heir of President Dewey’s New Day legacy. Senator Goldwater wins Maryland, as well. A last second campaign by Vice-President Gore failed to gain traction. Goldwater and Nixon, two men who detest each other, represent the power of the West in American politics. California and South Dakota will vote for the two Senators by a landslide in a week, cementing their claims for the nomination.

Event Date: 7-13-1964
Event Description: Senator Richard Nixon is nominated for President of the United States at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco, California. With his mother Hannah watching proudly from the stands, Senator Nixon tells the Republicans that the era of Kennedy, “Is done and over.” “Let me make this crystal clear,” he tells the convention, “We can achieve what President Dewey did in the 1950s. We can have low taxes, a balanced budget and continue progressive policies. The only way to do that, my fellow Americans, is to stop this reckless military and Pentagon binge that President Kennedy has been engaged in for eight years.” Nixon attacks Goldwater as the, “Number one choice of the Pentagon bid spenders,” and that the Arizona senator, “Will reverse our nation to the 1890s. His views on civil rights are right out of the book of Grover Cleveland.” Senator Nixon is paired with Senator Margaret Chase-Smith of Maine to appeal to Eastern Republicans who supported Rockefeller.

Event Date: 8-11-1964
Event Description: The Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, gives its presidential nomination to Senator Barry Morris Goldwater of Arizona. Goldwater, needing he needs to appeal to the South after his bitter race against Vice-President Gore, names Secretary of Defense William Westmoreland as his running-mate. A native son of South Carolina, Westmoreland is beloved in the South for his gruff, John Wayne like way of taking charge. His Defense Department has beefed up the military, and has given the South a great many jobs. Senator Goldwater blasts Senator Nixon as, “A liar who wears more masks than a kid on Halloween.” “Richard Nixon is no agent of reform,” he warns the country, “He offers only smoke and mirrors. He promises low taxes with a balanced budget, along with continual military spending. I don’t know how he’s going to do that, and neither does he!” The 1964 Election is off to a vicious start.     

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 8-20-1964
Event Description: Senator Nixon and Governor Rockefeller meet in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in an awkward showing of party unity after a bitter primary battle. Governor Rockefeller, still tarnished from charges of adultery in April, reserves his speech mostly to praise Nixon’s record on civil rights and opposition to Pentagon pork. “I know that the legacy of Tom Dewey will be upheld by a President Richard Nixon!” booms Rocky as he and Nixon raise interlocked hands on the stage. Not since before the 1962 midterms has the GOP been so united. Victory can be sensed by Nixon, and campaign manager Patrick Buchanan.

Event Date: 8-31-1964
Event Description: Despite the waste and corruption of President Khrushchev, the Russian Republic detonates its first atomic bomb in Siberia. The technology and resources came from China, causing a damper on Kennedy’s “peace with China” trip in April. Senator Nixon declares that Kennedy’s policy “Is a valid one that simply needs some teeth to it.” Senator Goldwater has an entirely different idea on how to deal with the Chinese.     

Event Date: 9-01-1964
Event Description: In a nationally televised speech, Senator Goldwater declares that China is still a threat to American security, as is Russia. “Russia and China have the atomic bomb,” Goldwater tells the country, “Our very existence as a capitalism is threatened by these two atomic Socialist powers.” Goldwater applauds President Kennedy’s increases of military spending as, “Peace through strength.” He also opens up a new front in the Cold War. “As freedom loving capitalist Americans,,” he tells Americans, “It is our moral duty to free the oppressed peoples of Socialist nations.” Ronald Reagan cheers Goldwater on his radio show as, “A true American hero. He realizes that to live under Socialism is a cruse worse than death. I know not of others, but I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.” Goldwater and Reagan’s belligerent speeches are not widely accepted by the nation’s voters. The country has not been at war since 1937 and really do not want a full scale land conflict against China. Senator Nixon, seen as a peaceful candidate, shoots up in the polls.

Event Date: 9-19-1964
Event Description: Reggie Jackson, a recent graduate of Cheltenham High, begins his time at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point. He plays freshman football and excels in history and Latin. In October, former secretary of defense Dwight Eisenhower, a huge football fan who played quarterback for West Point until a knee injury ended his career, will see Jackson’s skills with the pigskin and remark, “Anyone who can play football that well should be president.” After being told by his son John that that assertion didn’t name any sense, Ike responds, “Son, most of the reasons that guys run for president don’t make any sense.”

Event Date: 10-15-1964
Event Description: The Russian Parliament, the Duma, completes its investigation of a corruption scandal involving President Nikita Khrushchev. The vote for imp0eachment proves to be nearly unanimous. Nikita’s wastes of government funds for pet projects as well as the money his friends have pilfered from the treasury make him a very unpopular fellow. Asked by a reporter from the newspaper Izvestia for a comment, Khrushchev says, "If you feed the people with revolutionary slogans, they will be with you today, and they will be with you tomorrow, and they will be with you the day after tomorrow. But if revolutionary slogans are all you use to feed them, the next day, they will say, 'To hell with you.'" He is replaced by Vice-President Yuri Andropov, who is clean of any scandals. The end of the Khrushchev Administration has taken wind out of the sails of Senator Goldwater’s anti-Russian campaign.

Event Date: 10-17-1964
Event Description: Following a Gallup Poll showing him 9-points behind Nixon, Senator Goldwater challenges “Tricky Dick” to a televised debate. Knowing his appearance is not a good one for television, Senator Nixon, acting on advice from Pat Buchanan, turns down the challenge. “I will not lower myself to debate with a man like Goldwater,” is all Nixon tells the press. “I wonder why Richard the Chickenhearted won’t debate me.” Goldwater jokes with the press, “He can talk two ways better than any other fellow I know? Maybe he will just debate himself?”

Event Date: 10-24-1964
Event Description: Former President Herbert Clark Hoover dies in his sleep at the age of 90, a year short of tying John Adams for the longest lived president. He dies peacefully at his home in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City. The country, who has named Hoover a great president several times, begins a long period of mourning and remembrance for President Hoover. Even Ronald Reagan, whose first vote was for Cordell Hull in 1932 in opposition to the Hoover Administration, calls Hoover, “An American Horatio Alger.” President Hoover will be laid to rest at his presidential library in West Branch, Iowa, beside his wife’s grave. “He has worked very hard,” Pastor James Walker of West Branch eulogizes at the funeral, “He has endured.”   

Event Date: 11-03-1964
Event Description: Senator Richard Nixon is elected President of the United States, with Senator Margaret Chase-Smith as the first female vice-president. His progressive campaign matched with fiscal conservatism appealed to a people tired of Kennedy deficits and expansion of the nation’s military machine.

Richard Nixon/Margaret Chase-Smith (R): 358 EV; 55.3% of the PV
Barry Goldwater/William Westmoreland (D): 180 EV; 43.4% of the PV
Others (Socialist Workers, Prohibition, etc.): 0 EV; 1.3% of the PV

The Congressional elections are a big win for the Republicans. They take both houses. Democratic fatigue has set in, and the American people simply wanted a change in leadership. Senators Nixon and Smith start a new administration, full of hope for the future of both their party, and, more importantly, the nation. 

[PBrunsel]

The Presidency of Richard M. Nixon

Event Date: 1-10-1965
Event Description: With great jubilation, the Republican Party takes control of the 89th Congress. House Minority Leader Gerald Rudolph Ford (Republican of Michigan) fulfills his dream of becoming Speaker of the House, with Representative Wendell Wyatt (Republican of Oregon) being named the House Majority Leader. The Democrats, now in the minority, name Carl Albert as their Minority Leader. In the Senate, Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (Republican of Illinois) is given a promotion, as Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson (Democrat of Texas) is forced into a demotion. Ford and Dirksen, both moderate progressives, declare that, “The New Day has risen again.” 

Event Date: 1-20-1965
Event Description: Richard Milhous Nixon is sworn in as President of the United States. “My fellow Americans,” he states in his inaugural address, “We can have peace in our time with both ourselves and other nations.” Margaret Chase-Smith is inaugurated as the first female Vice-President of the United States, but her good friend, Senate Majority Leader Everett Dirksen, still tells her that she’s not going to make the national flower the rose. “Even though you’re the vice-president!” the wordy Dirksen tells her at the Inaugural Ball, “The marigold will still be better than the rose!” Everyone in the new Nixon Administration seems energized by the prospect of a new day for America. President Nixon’s cabinet is comprised of progressives from all parts of the country. Dewey’s Attorney General, William Rogers, is the new Secretary of State; General Omar Bradley is appointed Secretary of Defense; David M. Kennedy is made the first Mormon Secretary of the Treasury, and Patrick J. Buchanan, Nixon’s 26-year old campaign manager, is appointed White House Communications Director. Buchanan and Nixon will form an alliance so strong and hard to surpass that Senator Hubert Humphrey (Republican of Minnesota) will nickname it, “The Great Wall.”     

Event Date: 1-21-1965
Event Description: President Nixon meets with FBI Director Robert Kennedy. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Junior, is planning another “poverty march” throughout the Southwest, and Nixon doesn’t like it. “Don’t worry Mr. President,” Kennedy tells Nixon, “I’ve got just the stuff to take out King.” CIA agent Howard Hunt has been working for Kennedy secretly for six months. By bugging King’s hotel phones and spying on him from a black Buick, he has found out that King cheats on his wife and abuses alcohol. He also has begun a massive investigation into the political past of King’s close friends, and found out that the Reverend Ralph Abernathy was a card carrying member of the Socialist Party for ten years. When to release this information is the $10,000 question, but Kennedy assures Nixon, “I’ll take down King and turn his dream into a nightmare.”

Event Date: 1-24-1965
Event Description: Former British Prime Minster Winston Churchill dies in Toronto, Canada, home of his self-imposed exile from the British Isles. The “never surrender” Prime Minster of 1940 was once considered a war monger and, in the words of John Kennedy’s Profile in Foolishness, “A drunk who couldn’t take reality,” many now realize that Churchill was leading a crusade for democracy against Nazi tyranny. President Nixon, as is his duty, declares the nation in a state of mourning for, “The iron willed Prime Minster.” Nixon’s chief aide does not agree. “Churchill was a drunken fool,” Pat Buchanan mumbles to Nixon’s secretary Rosemary Woods, “He better be buried, if he’s cremated the body will burn forever.”

Event Date: 2-03-1965
Event Description: President Nixon signs the Environmental Protection Agency Establishment Act. The EPA is established to protect the nation’s environment from polluters. President Nixon appoints former Senator Harry Truman to be the first Chairman of the EPA. At first, Truman does not want the job, but Nixon is able to coerce him into the position by telling him over the phone, “Harry, if you want to split the Republican Party at the beginning of a new administration that’s your business.” “If that’s the case!” Truman declares, “Than I’ll have to accept. But why the hell didn’t you tell me at first?” Truman gets down to work to clean up the nation as Nixon smiles approvingly.

Event Date: 2-08-1965
Event Description: Ranger 8 returns pictures of the dark side of the Moon to the USA. President Nixon calls on Congress to increase funding for NASA. In Germany, Chancellor Speer calls the American photo ship, “A funny little exercise.” German rocket scientists are, secretly, completing a rocket that will take German astronauts to the Moon, perhaps by 1967.

Event Date: 2-10-1965
Event Description: Representative Robert J. Dole (Republican of Kansas) introduces the Defense Reform Act. Like many “reform” acts of the past, this one overturns a previous administration’s fiscal policy. Dole, an army veteran who was stationed in China after the Japanese-American War, pounces that President Kennedy’s military buildup, “Was, and still is, unfounded saber rattling.” Dole’s plan cuts 1/3rd of the military budget for the 1966-1967 fiscal year, with the money saved going to space exploration and Social Security (along with other social programs). President Nixon, who looks for a balanced budget for 1966, applauds the program for its fiscal restraint. Senate Majority Leader Dirksen declares that the act will pass the Senate, “If it takes all winter and we have to sleep on the floor.”

Event Date: 2-22-1965
Event Description: “Eight years of ‘peace through strength’ has been ended today,” Ronald Reagan tells his listeners as the House and Senate approve of Dole’s defense bill, “It is to be replaced with a nation, weak in military strength and in initiative as a welfare state takes over our lives.” President Nixon, however, has no intentions of funding a large welfare state. He wants to slash taxes and spending to balance the budget and continue the relative prosperity of the Kennedy years.

Event Date: 2-27-1965
Event Description: Dr. Martin King meets with Representative Henry B. Gonzalez (Republican of Texas). Gonzales represents a heavily Latino district in Texas, which is why he is the oddity of a Republican politician in the South. King asks Gonzales to introduce a broad new Labor Act to help poor workers (especially the automotive workers and farm hands of the Southeast). It includes such things as a Minimum Wage increase, increases in workman’s compensation, paid vacations for all workers, protection of jobs for striking workers and an end of all anti-Latino job discrimination. Representative Gonzales is more than happy to sign onto the project.

Event Date: 3-02-1965
Event Description: Representative Gonzales introduces the hard-line pro-worker Labor Act of 1965. The response in the House is, as Ronald Reagan says that night, “As if Gonzales set off a powder keg in the chamber.” House Minority Leader Albert calls the act, “Something straight off the desk of Chou Enlai.” Southern and Western Democrats declare that the act will be, as Representative John Schmitz (Democrat of California) declares, “Buried deeper than the old Soviet Union, which this bill aims for our country to be like.” The John Birch Society, a very conservative organization in which Schmitz is a member, announces a march on Washington against, “Republican socialism.” President Nixon does not desire for the act to be passed. “If this thing passes,” Nixon tells First Lady Pat Nixon, “I’ll be expected to sign it, and then I’ll be tied to that socialist in Texas.”

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 3-05-1965
Event Description: Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, announces that he will lead his own march of Washington for the Labor Act. “It is a moral imperative that this act passes!” King booms, “It is a Christian duty to care for the poorest in society, and I expect Congress to remember that in the coming weeks.” In the White House, President Nixon scowls and tells Buchanan, “That man has about as much right to talk about Christian morality as that asshole Frank Roosevelt did. We’ll stop his march right in its tracks.”

Event Date: 3-07-1965
Event Description: Bloody Sunday arrives for the King anti-poverty crusade. The Nixon friendly Washington Star, the paper Buchanan used to work for, blares “SCANDALOUS NEWS FOR DR. KING!” on its headline. FBI Director Robert Kennedy releases the finding of Agent Hunt, and the damage is immense for the Reverend King. “Dr. King, an ordained minister, seems to be ignore parts of the Ten Commandments,” the paper declares, “He has had affirms with several unsavory women, including prostitutes in several major cites, and has a serious problem with drinking, which has led him into violent tirades.” Dr. King can not deny the charges, but he counterattacks the paper for, “Printing leaks that have come from shady sources.” No one has yet traced the story to Kennedy, the FBI and Nixon, but it can’t stay a secret forever.

Event Date: 3-08-1965
Event description: Dr. King, Revenant Abernathy, Reverend Jackson, Representative Andrew Young (Republican of Georgia) and Latino rights leader Cesar Chavez meet in Montgomery, Alabama, to discuss what to do next. “I’m going to have to resign from leadership in the Southern Baptist Council,” King tells his friends, “That’s the only way to save face.” Reverend Abernathy, who is targeted by the Star today for his, ties to the Socialist Party, also agrees to resign from leadership. With both of its leaders now out of power, Representative Young agrees to become the new leader of the Southern Baptist Council. For now, the organization seems to be saved from complete collapse, but FBI Director Kennedy is not finished with the group.

Event Date: 3-12-1965
Event Description: Playing off the fears of the Abraham Lincoln Society in the 1930s, Director Kennedy urges FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy to “investigate” Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where Dr. Martin Luther King is pastor. Liddy is aided by two other men, FBI agents Bernard Barker and George Rockwell, as they break into the church and take photos of the financial records and tap the phones. Kennedy hopes to find a foreign government giving funds to the Southern Baptist Council, headquarter at King’s Church.

Event Date: 3-15-1965
Event Description: On the eve of the vote on the Gonzales Labor Act, it is released to the public that the Montgomery Police have found phone tapping equipment on the phones at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The police, both black and white, report that there was a 9/11 call on the night of March 12th, 1965, of burglars at the church, but when the police arrived no one was there and the building looked fine. “We can’t be sure of who did this,” Representative Young, the Chairman of the Southern Baptist Council, tells the press, “But I know that justice will be done. Make no mistake; no force of hate can stop the battle for human rights. We shall overcome any bigotry.” President Nixon meets with Pat Buchanan, and is visibly nervous. “Pat,” he stammers, “Can this be tied to me?” “Have no fear Mr. President,” Buchanan tells him, “This can all be blamed on the FBI. Kennedy can take the fall if this comes out, don’t be nervous about that. This is FBI, Mr. President, this is purely FBI.”   

Event Date: 3-16-1965
Event Description: Amid protests from the left and right outside of Congress, the House of Representatives pass the Gonzales Labor Act. “As Representative Young told the country yesterday,” House Majority Leader Wyatt tells the chamber, “The time for human rights has come, and nothing will stop it.” Senate Majority leader Dirksen does not support this act, he, like Nixon, fears that the bill is far to liberal in nature. However, he will not aggressively oppose the act that Senator Wayne Morse (Republican of Oregon) has now co-sponsored in the Senate.

Event Date: 3-21-1965
Event Description: Despite a 25-hour filibuster from Senator Strom Thurmond (Democrat of South Carolina), the Senate votes to stop the talking, but does not pass the Gonzales-Morse Labor Act. “It’s not that I oppose Latino and worker’s rights,” Senator James Caleb Boggs (Republican of Delaware) tells the press, “I simply believe that such an act is too expensive. A balanced budget is the administration’s goal, and that comes first.”

Event Date: 3-22-1965
Event Description: The Dominican Republic, an island 200-mile off the shore of the USA, is shaken as Socialists President Juan Bosch nationalizes all industry and farms in the country, including American and Cuban businesses. Presidents Nixon and Batista condemn the action, and secretly begin funneling supplies and financial aide to right-winged Colonel Francisco Caamaño, who has been an unsuccessful candidate for president of the Dominican Republic twice. Undersecretary of Defense Alexander Haig, an army veteran, undertakes the secret passage of weapons from Florida to Havana.   

Event Date: 4-01-1965
Event Description: Colonel Caamaño begins the Dominican Civil War, He and his followers take the state of Santa Cruz del Seibo, with the aide of Cuban soldiers and American weapons. 

Event Date: 4-28-1965
Event Description: President Nixon breaks the Republican tradition of non-intervention by sending U.S. marines to the Dominican Republic, “To protect American citizens on the troubled island.” In reality, these marines will help Colonel Caamaño take the government from President Bosch.

Event Date: 5-13-1965
Event Description: Despite protests from Western Democrats and Republicans, President Nixon signs the Monetary Replacement Act, ending the gold standard in the United States. “The gold standard is from an era of the horse and buggy,” Nixon explains as he signs the act, “We need a new currency law to bring USA into the Space Age, the era of the rocket.”

Event Date: 5-21-1965
Event Description: Senator Wayne Morse is given the honor of standing next to President Nixon as he signs the End of Conscription Act, which Morse has been fighting for since the 1950s. Signed at the University of California-Berkley, the student body turns out to cheer President Nixon and Senator Morse for this act. Ronald Reagan says Nixon is, “Robbing our nation of its manhood,” by his cuts in defense and the abolition of the draft. 

[PBrunsel]

Event Date: 6-11-1965
Event Description: The Ernest McFarland Presidential Museum opens in Yuma, Arizona. President McFarland is not fondly remembered by history, but the people who lived under his administration view him as a kindly and quiet chief executive, not a grand orator like Dewey and Kennedy, his successors. Presidents Nixon, Kennedy, and Dewey attend, as does former Vice-President Henry Schricker, McFarland’s equally quiet Vice-President.

Event Date: 6-25-1965
Event Description: The last of the two fascist states in the world falls. Italian dictator Guglielmo Nasi is peacefully deposed by the Speaker of the Roman Assembly Giovanni Gronchi, a left leaning member of the Christian Democracy movement. Only Generalissimo Francisco Franco in Spain remains a fascist leader, but he is loved by most of his people.

Event Date: 7-29-1965
Event Description: President Nixon signs Medicare and Medicaid into law. An idea that former Senator Truman had in the 1940s, comes true. President Nixon’s laws help the elderly and lowest income Americans afford medical treatment. Senate Minority leader Johnson called such programs, “Chinese, through and through.”

Event Date: 10-20-1965
Event Description: Due to aide from Cuba and America, Colonel Francisco Caamaño enters Santo Domingo and wins the Dominican Civil War for the right wing. President Nixon declares that, “Americans in the Caribbean are now safe, as is free enterprise.” He keeps it secret that he, Buchanan and Undersecretary of Defense Alexander Haig had helped aide the Colonel in his rebellion against Socialist regime.

Event Date: 12-01-1965
Event Description: President Nixon fails to balance the budget. Despite steep cuts in military funding, he does not cut enough spending or end the Kennedy Tax Cuts. “We will balance this budget by 1968,” Nixon tells Americans that night in a televised address, “On that, I will be crystal clear.”   

Event Date: 12-25-1965
Event Description: Cadet Reginald “Reggie” Jackson leads his class at West Point in a Christmas Day football game on the frozen ground in New York. He has emerged as a leader amongst his fellow cadets, with West Point Commandant John Eisenhower telling his parents that he will be, “Another MacArthur.” However, that night Jackson, as he reads the Luke version of the Christmas story at the evening Christmas mass, decides that his duty in life is to be a pastor for the Lord, not a solider for the American nation. He decides that he will study to become an army chaplain.