What if JFK had lived?

snafuk35

Today is 48 years since the assassination of JFK.

Lee Harvey Oswald might not have killed JFK if the President had no been held upright by his back brace. Oswald fired three shots, the first missing (apparently due to a tree branch in the line of sight) before striking Kennedy with a second shot that struck the base of the back his neck and exit the base of his windpipe. Kennedy would probably have tumbled across the backseat of limo but the elaborate back brace that kept his spine rigidly in place prevented him from falling over. Oswald fired the last shot into the back of his skull which blew open the front right of his skull.

The neck wound was survivable and would not have led to paralysis because the bullet missed the spine. After a period of recuperation JFK would probably have resumed his Presidency much like Reagan did in 1981 after his own near miss when a bullet came close to his heart.

How would Kennedy have handled the growing communist threat in south east Asia? Would he have been forced to commit troops? He was more cautious than Johnson was but circumstance might have forced his hand. If Kennedy had gone to Vietnam, he could have ended it sooner or even won rather than blunder like Johnson? Would he have his health broken by stress like Johnson?

Would Kennedy be as bold as Johnson who used bullying to secure the passage of Civil Right legislation?

Would Kennedy be seen as a square by the long haired and bearded hippy babyboomer generation as the anger of the young exploded in the late 1960s?

Would the Kennedy Presidency have gone to two terms?

Would Kennedy have been destroyed by a sex exposé?

In an alternate universe would a grey haired and possibly disgraced Kennedy suffering from ill health who might possibly would have died in the 1970s and 80s as an invalid been remembered as fondly as the chestnut haired blue eyed tanned smiling icon he is remembered in our timeline struck down before his time?

Would there ever have been a Nixon style Watergate scandal? Would the Cold War have turned hot if someone else occupied the White House in a different political climate?

Would there be polarised left/right divide in American politics if Kennedy had lived?

Are we still living in the ripples from Kennedy's assassination or was his death all that significant and would things have been pretty much the same with different leaders?

Suryavarman

I would have liked to see the 1964 presidential campaign if Kennedy wasn't assassinated. Both Goldwater and Kennedy were good friends and that run off would have made for a far better campaign than Goldwater v Johnson.

matthew8

Something was definitely up with that assassination, I don't believe a word of the government line.

Kinski

The world would at least have been spared yet another bloody Stephen King novel.:pac:

snafuk35

matthew8 wrote: »

Something was definitely up with that assassination, I don't believe a word of the government line.

Oswald has been gone over with a tooth comb. The guy was a pathetic self-absorbed angry loner with no friends and a complete failure in every area of his life. His only skill was to shooting with a rifle. It has been proven that he took the gun to work, that he fired three shots in about 6 secs from the Book Depository, he fled the scene of the crime, collected a handgun, shot a cop and was arrested in a movie theatre.

It has also been proven that Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner, was another loon who killed Oswald to take the glory. The guy carried a gun habitually so when he turned up in the basement as Oswald was led to prison he took his chance and rubbed him out.

People want to believe in a conspiracy because it makes the death of a great man like Kennedy make more sense and its comforting that died for a reason. The truth is he didn't. He was killed by a pathetic idiot who was shot by another pathetic idiot.

Case closed.

jackiebaron

snafuk35 wrote: »

Oswald has been gone over with a tooth comb. The guy was a pathetic self-absorbed angry loner with no friends and a complete failure in every area of his life. His only skill was to shooting with a rifle. It has been proven that he took the gun to work, that he fired three shots in about 6 secs from the Book Depository, he fled the scene of the crime, collected a handgun, shot a cop and was arrested in a movie theatre.

It has also been proven that Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner, was another loon who killed Oswald to take the glory. The guy carried a gun habitually so when he turned up in the basement as Oswald was led to prison he took his chance and rubbed him out.

People want to believe in a conspiracy because it makes the death of a great man like Kennedy make more sense and its comforting that died for a reason. The truth is he didn't. He was killed by a pathetic idiot who was shot by another pathetic idiot.

Case closed.

And if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.

Arfan

Your bridge doesn't have a leg to stand on.

jackiebaron

Arfan wrote: »

Your bridge doesn't have a leg to stand on.

2 + 2 = 5, Winston.

Delancey

IF JFK had lived he would most certainly not be put on a pedestal as the ' Greatest US President ever ' , he would have struggled to win a second term and by the time of his death much of his legislative programme including the much-vaunted Civil Rights Bill was hopelessly bogged down in Congress with little prospect of passing.
History is a cruel judge in that Lyndon Johnson is forever viewed through the prism of Vietnam yet his domestic success in passing the laws that were to create his ' Great Society ' ( I include the Civil Rights Act in this ) is constantly overlooked.
In terms of hard legislative achievement Johnson totally eclipses Kennedy.

However , JFK was a relatively young man who died by an assassins hand which means he will always be viewed as the great lost leader...

Overheal

Even at that (The lost leader thing) that comes down to the Office of the President. Even the rightwing punditry when commenting on the recent events at the white house reminded their listeners that it was vile and absurd to remove even an unfavorable president from office by trying to kill him. Which is quite true. Many would disagree with POTUS Obama but that doesnt mean, for instance, that the Office holds any less reverence. It still has the same executive powers and the Secret Service, etc. will still protect the president whether they agree with him politically or not, and the same of the Joint Chiefs which will not just start disobeying orders from the CiC because they didn't vote him in.

There is a lot of truth that the Lost Leader thing is the more important thing. Just the idea that the POTUS was that vulnerable. It was a scary thing for the country to witness, it made them feel just as vulnerable. With the Cold War and everything going on too?

goose2005

snafuk35 wrote: »

Oswald has been gone over with a tooth comb. The guy was a pathetic self-absorbed angry loner with no friends and a complete failure in every area of his life. His only skill was to shooting with a rifle. It has been proven that he took the gun to work, that he fired three shots in about 6 secs from the Book Depository, he fled the scene of the crime, collected a handgun, shot a cop and was arrested in a movie theatre.

It has also been proven that Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner, was another loon who killed Oswald to take the glory. The guy carried a gun habitually so when he turned up in the basement as Oswald was led to prison he took his chance and rubbed him out.

People want to believe in a conspiracy because it makes the death of a great man like Kennedy make more sense and its comforting that died for a reason. The truth is he didn't. He was killed by a pathetic idiot who was shot by another pathetic idiot.

Case closed.

Not to forget that Oswald, a few months prior, had made a similar attempt to kill General Edwin Walker.

snafuk35

Kinski wrote: »

The world would at least have been spared yet another bloody Stephen King novel.:pac:

I actually had a look at that book. Fun! But not as much fun as Libra or American Tabloid or JFK

History does turn on a dime.

JFK died because the quack medicines he was treated with as a child actually weakened his spine. His sickly childhood and youth spurred him on to live life to the full before he was expected to die young. This recklessness got him into the Navy and on PT boats where he busted his back when PT-109 went down.
If he didn't have that magical war story he might not have been considered a representative of the greatest generation - the kids his age who fought WW2 or built the ships and tanks in the factors went on to be the moms and dads of the baby boomers who were beginning to enter their late teens and early twenties in the early sixties. He might not have been President and he might not have been sitting in the back seat of that limo in Dealey Plaza. The back brace kept him upright like a target on a range.

If America had not fought World War 2 - if appeasers like his father Joe Kennedy had been listened to - the Cold War might never have happened and a wash out like Oswald might not have been accepted into the Marines. Oswald would never have learned to shoot and there might have been no Italian WW2 surplus rifles on the American market.

Oswald would never have killed Kennedy and he would never have needed the cops to delay his prison transfer for about two or three minutes while they fetched a sweater without a hole in it. Ruby would have wired the money to stripper and never seen the crowd around the police station, never would have gone down the underground car lot ramp and never wound have been among the melee of pressmen to shoot Oswald as he was led out.

Kennedy might have been just another Senator in the 1960s who lived the playboy lifestyle and never did anything noteworthy.

irishh_bob

Kinski wrote: »

The world would at least have been spared yet another bloody Stephen King novel.:pac:

or a ryan tubridy effort :mad:

snafuk35

irishh_bob wrote: »

or a ryan tubridy effort :mad:

It's actually quite a decent book. Professor Diarmuid Ferriter wrote the introduction and he is one of the greatest living authorities on Irish history (The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000) so he wouldn't want to be associated with Tubridy's book if he thought it was no good.:D