SotV: Because Henry Marshall really was murdered and there really are questions of who was involved in his murder. It’s one of those stories not many people know about, so I decided to give it some attention. Who knows? Maybe Oliver Stone can make a movie about this, considering
“JFK” will never get made TTL.
strategymad3500: Yes. The United States is committed to defending Japan in the face of Chinese aggression. I have no plans for a Kennedy Presidency. With the exception of George H.W. Bush (whom I have a soft spot for) and possibly Bill Clinton (I think he would be a natural choice for the 1990s - especially if Republicans have been in control of the White House for quite a while), I don’t want to use historical Presidents in this AAR if I can avoid it. I want to put different people into office and see how they do. The last historical President I did was Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom I kept in office until I went with Wendell Willkie in 1940.
volksmarschall: Didn’t Richard Nixon also say “It isn’t the crime that gets you into trouble. It’s the cover-up.” or something to that effect?
I think it’s funny that Nixon created the EPA, the bane of conservatives. I get reminded on a weekly basis by right-wing e-mails that “The EPA is evil! Evil! Send us money so we can tell everyone how evil the EPA is! You’re sending us money, right?”
You’re right,
volksmarschall. Nixon got some good things done as President. The problem was that Nixon was his own worse enemy.
Tricky Dick in ’64!*
*Can’t do any worse than Goldwater.
strategymad3500: Defend Japan.
Kurt_Steiner: Richard Nixon OTL:
- Vice President of the United States: 1953-1961
- Defeated Candidate for President: 1960
- Defeated Candidate for Governor of California: 1962
- “Dead”: 1962-1968
Richard Nixon TTL:
- House of Representatives: 1947-1959
- Senate: 1959-
Quite a different political path for him.
Jape: I became aware of the Henry Marshall affair when reading Robert Dallek’s biography of JFK, so I got inspired to take it and trump it up as a writer.
I read an essay by a historian (I don’t have it on hand at the moment) which plausibly imagines American history without the Watergate Scandal. Among other things, he imagined Nixon engineering the selection of his “favorite Republican” John Connally as Ronald Reagan’s running mate in 1976.
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The Vice Presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson
Henry M. Jackson’s relationship with Lyndon B. Johnson was one that grew over time. Initially, their relationship had been one of political expediency. Running for President in 1960, Jackson felt he needed a Southern running mate who could at the same time be acceptable to the North. As the pick of Senate Democrats to be their Majority Leader, Johnson was a natural choice. The Texan had earned the support of such Northern Democrats as Hubert Humphrey, who had been the leader of the progressive wing of the Party since his third party presidential campaign in 1948. With this cross-sectional appeal in mind, Jackson named Johnson as his running mate in the spring of 1960. At the same time however, Scoop was fully aware that he was bringing into his presidential campaign a man who was difficult to deal with. Profane and egotistical, Johnson was a man for whom there was no middle ground: you either tolerated him or you despised him. At times he could be downright manipulative with people, being very nice to them simply to get his way. He was driven by a burning desire to get what he wanted and had no qualms about tearing you apart if you didn’t do what he wanted. Despite LBJ’s volcanic personality, Jackson put him on the ticket to provide regional balance and Johnson spent the fall campaign barnstorming the South. He urged voters and party leaders alike not to abandon the Democrats in favor of the third party Dixiecrats. Although some of Johnson’s aides wanted the Vice Presidential candidate to receive national exposure by touring the country that fall, the Presidential candidate firmly wanted him to focus squarely on the South instead – where he was locked in a tight race with Dixiecrat candidate Harry F. Byrd. The decision to only have LBJ campaign in the South paid off when just enough Southerners voted Democratic on Election Day to put HMJ in the White House.
In the two years since the election, the President and Vice President grew steadily closer. Their wives became particularly close friends, with First Lady Helen Jackson treating Second Lady Lady Bird Johnson like a beloved older sister. A big reason for HMJ and LBJ getting along so well was because they shared the same political philosophy. Having both entered politics during the New Deal Era, the two men held the view that robust activism on the part of the Federal Government was necessary in order to make life better for every American. Johnson naturally supported the aims of the Fair Deal, proudly casting the tiebreaking vote in 1961 which led to the Senate approval of Medicare. He also encouraged Jackson to boldly pursue civil rights (which he regarded as something long overdue), believing that achieving racial equality would allow the South to slay her demons and finally be able to move forward like the rest of the country. What Johnson admired the most about Jackson was his resoluteness in the face of mounting liberal opposition to his foreign policy. The President stood by his opposition to the United Nations, his refusal to negotiate with the Soviet Union if it meant trading away America’s military superiority, and his plan to achieve victory in South Vietnam. Like another Jackson a century earlier, Scoop stood solid like a stonewall as he came increasingly under assault from the Left who supported the United Nations, who were willing to make unilateral cuts in national defense in order to get the Soviets to agree to an arms control treaty, and who considered the Vietnam War a mistake the United States should avoid at all costs. The Vice President, who also supported the policy of vigilant containment, backed the President both publically and privately.
“The President has backbone,” LBJ once remarked,
“And a man who has backbone should have our backing.”
(Barbara Bush, Helen Jackson, and Lady Bird Johnson attending a luncheon for First and Second Ladies hosted by the Senate Wives Red Cross Group in 1985. Jackson and Johnson remained close friends until the latter’s death in 2007)
As Vice President, Johnson was loyal to Jackson. Despite having leaked information to the press on a regular basis when he was Senate Majority Leader, LBJ steadfastly refused to say anything publically that would undercut either Scoop or his policies. For his part, Jackson personally made sure his Vice President had a productive role in his Administration. Having been Vice President himself (1957-1961), the President was sensitive to the fact that the office of Vice President was historically one of neglect. Aside from casting the tiebreaking vote in the Senate and being the first in line in the order of Presidential succession, the Vice President barely did much of anything. John Nance Garner, who held the office from 1933 to 1941, hated the lack of power that came with his job so much that he dismissed the Vice Presidency as
“not being worth a bucket of warm piss.”
As President, Jackson vowed to change that. In addition to legally being a member of the National Security Council, Johnson was encouraged to attend cabinet meetings where he would be free to join the discussion. At Scoop’s direction, the CIA regularly provided the Vice President with intelligence briefings in order to bring him up-to-date on current affairs.
“If for some reason Lyndon has to become President,” Jackson explained to CIA Director John McCone,
“I don’t want him to come into the job unprepared to deal with the problems that will then be his to deal with.”
The President also sent the Vice President on several high profile trips abroad. A big reason for that was because Johnson had the unmatched ability to be able to read people and instinctively understand what made them tick. LBJ would not only meet with the leaders of the countries he was sent to, he would also go out of his way to meet average citizens. While diplomats and journalists sneered at the spectacle of the Vice President throwing himself into a crowd of people as unprofessional (at best), Jackson understood that Johnson was doing so in order to get a down-on-the-street assessment that an Ambassador would ordinarily never give. Upon his returns to the White House, Johnson would give Jackson his personal unvarnished opinion about the state of affairs in key places like Cuba and Hong Kong.
(In 1963, Vice President Johnson visited Korea to highlight the close Korean-American relationship. Here he is seen with schoolchildren in the city of Pyongyang)
Johnson had mixed views about being the 37th Vice President of the United States. On the one hand, he was an active and visible Vice President who had an important role to play in the Jackson Administration. On the other hand, he never felt completely satisfied during his tenure. LBJ possessed both driving energy and an unquenchable thirst for power, which made him restless and always eager to do more. He was so anxious to have more on his plate that in 1961 he proposed to Jackson that he put him in charge of several government agencies. As sympathetic as Scoop was to the historically limited nature of the Vice Presidency, even he drew the line at the idea of making Lyndon Johnson “co-President”. Jackson politely but firmly rejected the idea on the grounds that there could only be one Chief Executive...and that was of course him. Johnson didn’t take the rejection well. Having once been the most powerful man in the United States Senate who could literally decide on his own whether legislation lived or died, being told that he had to stay within the restricting confines of the Vice Presidency only exacerbated LBJ’s wild mood swings. He experienced several episodes of depression during the early 1960s, which made him feel lowly about himself and highly paranoid of others. Johnson aide George Reedy remembered his boss telling him in March 1963 that he was
“going to be shoved aside next year.”
In the midst of depression, the Vice President had convinced himself that Jackson was going to dump him from the ticket in 1964...despite the fact that Jackson had given no indication at all that he was even considering it. Whenever LBJ got depressed, he would make no effort to take care of himself. Harry McPherson, a Johnson associate whom Scoop had appointed to oversee the Army Corps of Engineers, once visited his friend for a swim and became shocked by what he saw:
“He looked absolutely gross. His belly was enormous and his face looked bad, flushed, maybe he had been drinking a good deal. But he looked like a man who was not trimmed down for anything.”
Only able to do so much, the Vice President looked for other ways to keep himself busy. One thing he did was expand his real estate holdings considerably. In addition to their 438-acre ranch in Texas, the Johnsons had inherited 3,800 acres in Alabama through Lady Bird’s family. With help from a business partner, LBJ purchased three additional ranches in Texas:
- A 1,800-acre ranch that contained some of the best deer hunting land in the state.
- An 800-acre ranch which featured a fieldstone house.
- A 4,800-acre ranch that Johnson spent $500,000 to acquire.
In the summer of 1963, the Vice President built a boathouse on his 4,800-acre ranch to house a brand new speedboat as well as a 90-foot cabin cruiser.
(In addition, Johnson owned a specially-modified car which could be driven straight into the water...unbeknownst to his unsuspecting guests)
The Vice President was able to acquire these ranches through his considerable wealth. Through business deals and investments in radio, television, real estate, and banking, Johnson had amassed a fortune worth $15 million. His television portfolio alone generated an annual income of $500,000. However, wealth proved to be a double-edged sword for Johnson since it invited scrutiny. Given his reputation as someone determined to get what he wanted no matter what, LBJ faced constant speculation that he had made his fortune through shady and corrupt means. Certainly Johnson wasn’t above resorting to cheating in order to get ahead in life. Locked in a tight Democratic primary race for Texas Senator in 1948, Lyndon Johnson had ballot boxes stuffed in order to win. Not only did the six-foot Texan not deny that he had engaged in voter fraud, he made jokes about having done so. He self-deprecatingly called himself “Landslide Lyndon” for cheating his way to a narrow victory and liked to tell the story about a little Mexican boy who was found crying one day. When asked why he was crying, the boy answered,
“Well, yesterday, my Papa, he been dead four years yesterday, he come back and voted for Lyndon Johnson. Didn’t come by to say hello to me.”
When the Billie Sol Estes scandal erupted in September 1962, it didn’t take long for rumors about the Vice President to start flying. After all, Johnson and Estes were both Texans and they had done joint business ventures in the past. LBJ was accused of using his influence to lobby the Department of Agriculture on Estes’s behalf and accepting gifts from Estes – allegedly including a private airplane that could fly the Vice President between D.C. and his main ranch (which came with an 6,300-foot landing strip). Jackson was disturbed by the allegations being leveled against his Vice President, especially after Congressional Republicans made noises that they were considering opening impeachment proceedings against Johnson. LBJ angrily told Scoop that these charges were baseless, to the point that the highly emotional Texan actually broke down into tears. Although he didn’t think Johnson had colluded with Estes to defraud the Federal Government, the President needed confirmation that the Vice President was innocent. He personally made a phone call to the one man who could provide that confirmation.
If knowledge is power, then J. Edgar Hoover was the most powerful man in America. As Director of the FBI, Hoover had used the power of his agency to build an extensive collection of files on everyone of importance. He knew everyone’s secrets...and wasn’t afraid to let people know that he knew. The reach of Hoover’s knowledge was such that he once called “I Love Lucy” star Desi Arnaz to congratulate him on wife Lucille Ball’s pregnancy...before his wife broke the news to him. Thus Hoover was the one to turn to when President Jackson needed to know whether Vice President Johnson was involved in the Estes scandal. After receiving his assignment, the FBI Director assigned agents to fully investigate the matter. A rigorous and thorough investigation turned up no hard evidence tying Johnson to Estes’ crimes. In light of the fact that the FBI had uncovered widespread fraud at the Department of Agriculture, the President believed that there really was nothing to substantiate the claims being leveled at his Vice President. Armed with the FBI’s findings (or lack thereof), the White House pushed back hard against the accusations. Scoop publically backed Johnson, telling reporters that
“we have looked thoroughly into what some people are claiming the Vice President has done and we have found nothing to prove any of it. These people need to stop making these false claims, which are distracting and harmful.”
Although Lyndon Johnson had been cleared of engaging in financial wrongdoings, his association with Billie Sol Estes would continue to haunt him...even into the afterlife. In October 1992, five years after he was released from prison, Estes made a stunning allegation about his one-time business associate. Appearing on the CNN talk show “Larry King Live”, Estes revealed to Larry King that he had evidence showing that Johnson had ordered the assassination of Henry H. Marshall to thwart his investigation. Marshall was a USDA official whose unsolved murder thirty years earlier had set into motion Jackson’s Teapot Dome. Not only that, Estes claimed that Johnson had also ordered several other murders. He even conspired and came very close to having Jackson assassinated
“so he could finally become President, which is what he wanted to be more than anything else.”
Estes’ sensational interview with Larry King, coming just days before the first Bill Clinton-Bob Dole Presidential debate in St. Louis, created a national stir. The Justice Department was initially curious about Estes’ so-called “evidence”, requesting that the Texan provide more information. When Estes responded that he would only hand over his murder evidence in exchange for a pardon, the Justice Department quickly lost interest. President George H.W. Bush didn’t want to pardon Estes after all, and this “evidence” wasn’t going to persuade him to change his mind. Estes’ claims were subsequently rejected by prominent historians and dismissed as baseless by Johnson aides and family members. Former First Lady Helen Jackson called the idea that LBJ wanted to kill her husband the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. “Saturday Night Live” even did a parody of it. During a Weekend Update sketch, Estes (played by Jon Lovitz) appeared and informed news anchor Kevin Nealon that he had additional evidence showing that Johnson had ordered the assassinations of:
- Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria (1863-1914)
- President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
- Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen (1341-1323 BC)
Despite the mainstream rejection, Estes’ allegations that Lyndon Johnson had people killed have been accepted as “fact” by some conspiracy theorists. They contend that the greedy and corrupt 37th Vice President, in his ruthless quest for power, had anyone who stood in his way or posed a threat to him murdered.
(Billie Sol Estes, prior to his death in 2013)
Johnson wasn’t happy – to put it rather mildly – with the way the media was treating him during the Estes scandal:
“The damn press always accused me of things I didn’t do. They never once found out about the things I did do.”
However, it wasn’t his only problem in early 1963. His management of America’s exploration of outer space was now being called into question. By legal statue, the Vice President had oversight of the US space program (in an effort to give the historically powerless office a leadership role). As Senate Majority Leader in 1957, LBJ had steered through his chamber legislation establishing NASA. In May of that year, the United States launched the first artificial satellite into Earth’s orbit. Being the first nation to do so gave the Americans a tremendous ego boost which fueled the start of Project Mercury in March 1958. Through a very stringent selection process, seven military test pilots were chosen to become America’s first generation of astronauts. These seven brave and well-experienced men were assigned the history-making mission of boldly going where no man had gone before: space. In August 1960, Alan Shepard became the most famous man in the world when his cramped Mercury capsule Freedom 7 carried him 116 miles above the surface of the Earth – making him the first man in space. Shepard returned to Earth an international hero; New York City threw him the largest ticket tape parade in her history. Over the next two years, five Mercury astronauts followed in Shepard’s footsteps:
- November 1960: Liberty Bell 7 (Gus Grissom – 118 miles into space)
- June 1961: Friendship 7 (John Glenn – three orbits around the Earth)
- September 1961: Delta 7 (Deke Slayton – three orbits around the Earth)
- February 1962: Sigma 7 (Wally Schirra – six orbits around the Earth)
- September 1962: Faith 7 (Gordon Cooper – twenty-two orbits around the Earth)
The last member of the group, Scott Carpenter, would appropriately enough man the last flight of Project Mercury (Aurora 7) in February 1963. By then, NASA had set her sights on a much higher target. In the wake of Glenn’s flight, President Jackson audaciously announced that the United States would put a man on the Moon by the end of 1969. For centuries, people had looked up at the shiny Moon in the nighttime sky and dreamed about what it would be like to walk on that cratered gray surface. Here was the President of the United States declaring that this age-old dream would finally become a reality within the decade. Given America’s amazing achievements in space exploration, Scoop was quite confident it wouldn’t be long before the Stars and Stripes was planted on the surface of Earth’s natural satellite.
(Gordon Cooper following the successful flight of Faith 7 in September 1962)
However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the space program. In early 1963, just as NASA was starting to make the transition from Project Mercury to Project Gemini, the government agency became embroiled in public controversy. The controversy swirled around the way LBJ was managing the awarding of NASA contracts. Being a Southerner, it was felt that Johnson was favoring his native region with contracts at the expense of the rest of the country. His announcement in January 1963 that NASA’s Mission Control Center would be moved from Florida’s Cape Canaveral to Houston, Texas as part of the Mercury-Gemini transition process set off the wave of protests by states outside the South. They attacked the Vice President for giving his home state preferential treatment instead of fairly allowing other states like Missouri and California to make pitches for why they should be the new home of Mission Control. The Golden State was particularly loud in complaining about not receiving her perceived fair share of the NASA contracts. California Governor William F. Knowland slammed the Vice President in the press for
“awarding these contracts badly. They are getting into the wrong hands.”
California Senator Richard Nixon, preparing to toss his hat into the 1964 ring, made the accusation that
“this Administration is injecting politics into the allocation of defense contracts!”
Senators from Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, sharing California’s opinion, went to the White House to tell the President personally that they objected to the loss of contracts their states were suffering. Jackson tried to reassure them that
“we are presently checking to see if the distribution of contracts is being as equitable as it can possibly be.”
Personally, Scoop thought the states were overreacting and were attacking LBJ unfairly. Of course, his view might have been colored by the fact that critics were also attacking him for likewise showing favoritism in the awarding of contracts to Boeing (a major business in his home state of Washington). Some even derided the President as being
“a whore for Boeing.”
Although it was his personal view that the furor over the NASA contracts was much ado about nothing, Scoop became convinced by the people around him that he had to get rid of the controversy. It was after all a distraction the Administration didn’t need at a time when the Vietnam War and civil rights were the main pressing issues. In March 1963, the President issued an executive order stripping the Vice President of his contract power. NASA was ordered to develop a new system of awarding contracts that would be more geographically diverse. This executive order would help, in the words of one observer,
“get the Congressmen off the President’s back.”
(Despite the controversy, Houston would get the Mission Control Center for the Gemini spaceflights)
Lyndon B. Johnson didn’t take the news well. The executive order removing his ability to hand out NASA contracts sent the Vice President into depression. This was the depression where he thought he was going to be kicked off the ticket next year. LBJ felt miserable, trapped in an office ill-fitting his enormous ambition and desire to be powerful. It was a feeling that John Adams, the first Vice President of the United States (1789-1797), knew all too well. Adams once called the Vice Presidency
“the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived.”
In May 1963, Jackson attempted to improve Johnson’s mood by telling reporters that the Texan would stay on the ticket in 1964.
“He is an invaluable member of this Administration,” he proclaimed. It didn’t really help all that much. LBJ wasn’t entirely certain he could stomach four more years of frustration that came with being Vice President.
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