Guest Post: Commander Horthy Calls for Aid

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History with input from Jeff Provine, Eric Oppen and John Braungart.

August 9, 1917 -

The future of the sprawling Habsburg lands had become a power struggle contested by the newly crowned Emperor Franz Ferdinand versus Miklós Horthy, a former naval aide-de-camp to his late uncle, Emperor Franz Joseph. A striking militaristic figure, Horthy had become the rallying point for the Magyar faction as the Hungarian commander of the pre-dreadnought battleship ironically named SMS Habsburg.

As fate would have it, the aging Franz Joseph had died months short of the expiry of the Ausgleich Constitution of 1867 in which he had created the dual monarchy, two kingdoms united by one crown. Despite his reforms, the empire had become the "Sick Old Man of Europe" during the long years of his reign. Franz Ferdinand as successor aimed to reverse this slide into ruin by scrapping this outdated imperial constitution. The imperative to federalize the Habsburg lands was driven by a combination of his liberalism, and his own very personal reaction to the assassination attempt in Sarajevo that had brought the Great Powers to the brink of war.

Needless to say, the justification for this controversial decision was strenuously objected to by the Hungarians and, especially, the Magyars. Unfortunately for their nationalistic aspirations, Franz Ferdinand had pre-empted their rebellion by cultivating a close relationship with Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany to ensure foreign support needed to keep a Hungarian revolt from developing into a full civil war. Horthy aimed to restore the full statehood that had been lost by the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, but he had made bitter internal enemies for his controversial plan to Magyarize the majority of non-Magyar residents living in Hungary.

Vienna and Berlin shared a common vision for a United States of Greater Austria, which they both saw as the optimal solution to the structural weakness in governing the Habsburg lands. At some level, this framework mirrored the logic of the German Empire's unification of princely states. Despite the Magyar resistance, it seemed to work, at least in the short term. The German-supported Habsburgs were firmly in ascendance after eight months, and, by August of 1917, Commander Horthy was forced to call for aid from the Triple Entente powers of Russia, France, and Great Britain.

Very much an offensive alliance, the Triple Entente certainly took issue with German expansionism. But, Hungary wasn't Belgium and it would be desperately hard for them to support the Magyars even if they really wanted to. Due to the geography of Central Europe, this desired response would require a direct intervention by the Tsar's army to fight the Austro-German forces in Hungary. The prospects were looking rather bleak. In recent years, the Russians had adopted a cynical foreign policy, shamelessly working with both the Austrians and the Ottomans to achieve access to the Mediterranean, in direct contravention of what the Southern Slavs perceived as their vital interests.

A real problem was that the Tsar could not been seen to support separatist republicans for fear it would undermine Romanov rule, whereas Paris and London viewed Central Europe as a powder keg waiting to explode. Horthy would be disappointed, and Franz Ferdinand's declaration of a confederation of states was militarily unchallenged. However, the Entente statesmen were near-certain that the experiment would fail and they were only preparing to play the long game.

Author's Note:

In reality, Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, and Miklós Horthy served as regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar period and most of World War II.

Provine's Addendum:

The twentieth century became an era of empires that transcended even the centuries before. Lessons learned from Horthy's Magyarization efforts showed that reforms needed to balance patriotism with support for minorities rather than populist nationalism. Franz Ferdinand, who had previously argued to extend status quo with trialism (a third crown so make himself emperor of the Croats as well) instead sought economic incentives for the disenfranchised and balance among the many ethnicities. This required a skillful hand in striating politics from local elections to "nations" to a unified parliament merging further interests with the two parliaments that had existed for the Austrians and Hungarians. Some royalists decried Franz Ferdinand seemingly weakening the emperor's power since the crown would go to Charles I as Franz Ferdinand's own sons were discounted due to his socially imbalanced marriage. Others saw these actions, as well as the marriage itself, a much-needed equalizing in a rapidly changing world. They felt their opinions were proved as both of Franz Ferdinand's sons, Maximilian and Ernst, would serve as ranking members of parliament.

The other major powers of Europe kept their attention on overseas expansion. While most of the political borders had been set by the time of Franz Ferdiand's reign, there were still plenty of opportunities for economic influence. Spheres grew up and eventually overlapped, leading to conflict such as the Japano-Dutch War over Chinese and Indonesian land-holdings. The Western Pacific Accords redefined colonial boundaries between them as well as American, British, French, Russian, and German interests. Seeing that international discussion and diplomacy would be necessary, the Congress of Vienna became a permanent institution. Just as the meeting of European nations after the fall of Napoleon mapped political developments, so would its namesake, continually hosted by the emperor for generations.

Guest Post: Breckinridge Compromise

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History with input from Allen W. McDonnell.

November 6, 1860 - James Buchanan dies on election day

The precarious health of sixty-nine-year-old President James Buchanan was near final collapse. He had spent four years being unwell, suffering a variety of ailments ever since contracting the so-called "National Hotel Disease" prior to his inauguration. This dreaded condition had already taken the lives of his nephew and private secretary, Eskridge Lane.

The absence of firm presidential authority could not have come at a worse time. As he drew his last breath, seven Deep South cotton states prepared to secede if the "black Republican" Abraham Lincoln was elected president over the multitude of other candidates. Not yet forty years old, the young and vigorous Vice President John Breckinridge was a huge supporter of states rights and voluntary association. But he had no chance of winning the election himself because the national convention had been unable to agree on a unified platform. Worse still, the nomination of Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas had alienated many radical pro-slavery Southern Democrats due to his support for the concept of popular sovereignty.

At this point, the Democrats had nothing to lose and everything to gain. If it was too late the save the Union, then at least the sudden demise of Buchanan presented an unexpected opportunity to avert the outbreak of a bloody civil war. There was barely a Union army to speak of, and more than half of those forces would be loyal to the south. Certainly, there had been many compromises proposed before and brilliant minds put forward imaginative mental frameworks, but the national issue now was about expedience, avoiding an unnecessary tragedy.

For the first time, minds, and political will, became properly focused on solutioning. To de-escalate the situation, Breckinridge made a bold 'farewell' offer to the fire-eaters. The Union would vacate federal property in the seceded states, and these in turn would reimburse the Union for the full value of those facilities and also the costs of transporting any employees who chose to return to federal territory.

The founding fathers of the Confederacy listed the continuation of slavery as their primary justification in the various articles of secession. They dreamt of annexing Mexico and the Caribbean to create slave states out of those regions, but, instead, the seceding states were off to a hesitant start with a rump nation that was weak economically. Nevertheless, they were determined to meet Breckinridge's offer.

Unwilling to follow the "rash secession" of the lower South, the "Old Dominion" of Virginia stood aside; indeed, it was in the state capital of Richmond that Southern Democrats had nominated Breckinridge. While his offer was under consideration by the Deep South, further states chose not to secede, and the Breckinridge Compromise was finally accepted in good spirit on Christmas Eve 1860. In an act of selfless courage, Breckinridge was onboard the Star of the West when it evacuated the federals on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Meanwhile, President-elect Abraham Lincoln, who had his own pressures, was rapidly making political calculations. Mainly, this was about the long-term future of a viable slave-holders republic, the capital of which was Montgomery, Alabama, with a population of less than 10,000 people. De facto leader Jefferson Davis declared, "All we ask is to be left alone." Lincoln anticipated that a seven-state Confederacy could not survive in its present form despite being a geographic entity stretching from the Mississippi to the Atlantic Ocean, larger than many European countries.

There were many complex economic and political factors to consider, including the questionable governance ability of the Fire-eaters, the negative reaction of the great powers, mechanization, and slavery being on its way out as a viable labor system. Ultimately, the real question became when the seven states would return to the Union, and beyond that, whether the hero-of-the-hour Breckinridge might win the 1864 election. The paradoxical result of this outcome would be for Lincoln to be remembered as a do-nothing president like Buchanan.

Author's Note:

In reality, Buchanan recovered in 1857 and Lincoln was inaugurated as planned.

Provine's Addendum:

The Confederacy soon fell into political turmoil of its own making as Texas found it had very different  political interests from the other states, particularly as the issue of funding a navy versus frontier forts in the West. Texas soon seceded, again reestablished as the Republic of Texas, which would normalize relations with the United States over questions of the Red River boundary. This irony was not lost on anyone of the day, nor commentators later.

Fearful of losing more ground, most leaders of the Confederacy worked to drive public spirit with a few key causes. Runaway slaves was an issue of particular interest, although the Union to the north was steadfast in granting freedom following the post-Secession congress to be largely anti-slavery. Remaining slave states began a timetable for complete manumission with federal dollars paying for the lost "property" according to arguments based on the Fifth Amendment. The Confederacy knew it had no hopes of winning a war to stop the flow of the Underground Railroad, especially as Abraham Lincoln did plenty of saber-rattling to ensure that New Orleans remained a free port for Union river traffic.

Rather than looking northward, the Confederacy turned south in hopes of conquering Cuba. They became embroiled in the Ten Years' War, which became a muddled mess as the clearer lines between independence and loyalty to the Spanish Crown blurred over Confederate interests. As the war dragged on, male slaves were offered freedom for volunteering, their masters paid by the government; however, stories of the suffering and disease in Cuba meant few actually volunteered themselves. Eventually the Confederacy pulled out of the costly war, bankrupt as a nation and scrambling for international support. South Carolina would be the next state to secede, again, this time establishing itself as an independent nation. The other states had louder and louder factions calling for a return to the Union, leading to eventual revolution that would rock the former slave-holding states.

Guest Post: British Argentina

This Today in Alternate History post by Yosef Robinson first appeared on Quora.

What would Argentina have looked like today if Britain had captured it in 1806-1807?

The British start their takeover of the River Plate region in early July 1807 by temporarily directly controlling all of that area thanks to a daring maneuver by Lieutenant-General John Whitelocke storming the city before Santiago de Liniers could prepare defenses. However, a few months later, for various reasons including pro-independence and anti-British/Spanish rebellions, they give up direct control of Buenos Aires - city and province - in favor of independence as a British client state. The lighter British hand, along with a small economic boom from import/exports during the occupation, prompts local tolerance for British authority.

At the same time, the British retain direct control of Montevideo and the Uruguayan coast; soon thereafter, upon the defeat of Jose Gervasio Artigas and fellow Uruguayan rebels in favor of Spanish-American independence*, also the Uruguayan interior, plus what are now Entre Rios, Corrientes, and Santa Fe provinces. The British also control those points along the Patagonian coast that had hitherto belonged to the Viceroyalty, as well as eventually the ever-strategic Strait of Magellan. Various Spanish-speaking republics also form in the interior, such as Cordoba and Tucuman.

*Artigas and the other instigators flee to Paraguay, sort of like how the instigators of the Patriotes rebellion in Quebec in 1837 flee to the USA.

Gradually, the British take over various other places in that region, ultimately including places like Buenos Aires around the late 1830s-1840s (due to the threat posed by Juan Manuel de Rosas to the British presence in the region). The British take over many spots in the interior later yet, and most of these parts become part of a federal Dominion of Argentina starting in 1875, with the exception of Paraguay (always independent) and real-life Misiones province (becoming or being a part of Paraguay). The Argentine Chaco - up to and including Formosa province - gets to be a part of Argentina in this scenario.

Furthermore, the War of the Pacific in the nitrate mining area (northern Chile, in reality) ca. 1879–80 plays out differently in that the British are more heavily influential on the “informal empire” and economic level all throughout much of South America. Thus, they indirectly influence Chile, Bolivia, and Peru on account of all their economic interests in each of those countries, including the nitrate mines, even while themselves being neutral. There’s less military combat going on overall. While Chile gains the Antofagasta area for the nitrates, Bolivia takes over much of the zone north of the Antofagasta/Tocopilla area (with Bolivia thus retaining a coast to this day), as in the Iquique area for example. Peru gets to keep the Arica area even further north. After taking over previously-independent Salta/Jujuy ca. 1900 after considerable resistance, the British take over Bolivia right to the north from 1900-1905 as a protectorate for its tin-mining boom, until a popular revolt sometime in the 1940s or early 1950s overthrows the British and restores full independence. The British would have loved to make a northern access route to the Pacific through Bolivia even as far back as the 1860s-1870s, but the very difficult geography of the Altiplano just would have made it impossible using the transportation technology of that time.

A nationalist movement arises in the late 1940s and early 1950s among the Spanish-speakers of Argentina, including the appearance of a new flag, seen below. This leads to a 1967 referendum on Argentina becoming a republic, which is defeated. There is a linguistic and constitutional crisis as a result of that. The interior, Spanish-speaking provinces gain greater autonomy, but there is no separatist movement nor anti-English language legislation like there is in Quebec. A second referendum in the mid-1980s, with the "Yes" side winning, leads to the formation of a parliamentary republic, with a president replacing the Queen of England (represented by a governor-general) as the head of state.

An Argentina in all this scenario - which includes Uruguay plus the Falklands (without dispute, albeit as an internal territory much like, say, the Northwest Territories in Canada) and the Strait of Magellan area (in Chile in real life) - becomes bilingual and bicultural (in this case, Spanish and English) just as much as Canada or white South Africa, joining the family of anglophone countries. Indeed, it is more like white South Africa than like Canada, with a 60/40 split between the Spanish and English sectors. Roman Catholics, including many of the Anglos, outnumber Protestants three to one - with Catholics comprising just over half of the entire population. Another 20-25% are religiously unaffiliated.

The capital is Rosario (rather than Buenos Aires as in real life); in actual history, there were multiple unsuccessful attempts in the 1860s and 1870s at making Rosario the federal capital.

Because of a very well-endowed geography, as well as because of the more favourable political and economic legacy left behind by the British just like in the other Anglo countries such as Canada and Australia, plus being an Ally in both World Wars, Argentina is able to leverage its natural turn-of-the-20th-century prosperity much more effectively than in reality. It is able to more effectively industrialize, and somewhat earlier, than in real life.

As such, Argentina becomes not only a developed and stable country with a modern per capita GDP of at least $50,000, unlike in real life, but also a member of the G8 of the most powerful economies alongside Canada, the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. This alternate Argentina is a regional South American power, alongside Brazil.

Therefore, no Peronism, Dirty War, Falklands War, hyperinflation, IMF/World Bank austerity measures, etc., and further back, no interminable series of bloody 19th century independence and civil wars!

The current population of this alternate Argentina is almost 75,000,000 (as against just over 50,000,000 in real life in the territory covered by British Argentina). Not including the Argentine claim in Antarctica, its area is 3,020,849 km.² (1,166,356 miles²), making it the eighth largest country in the world by area. There are 21 provinces and two territories (the Falkland and South Atlantic Islands, and the Federal Capital Territory) in the country.

Neighbouring countries like Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay are all somewhat better off than in real life, at least economically.

Chile manages to avoid the deleterious Allende and Pinochet regimes, due to Allende narrowly losing rather than winning the 1970 election because of somewhat fewer poor people voting for him. It becomes a developed country in the 1990s, though even today it isn’t quite as developed as Argentina, more on the level of something like Greece or Portugal, or maybe Spain or Italy at best.

Brazil abolishes slavery earlier, due to a more significant British military presence in South America - the British having been instrumental even in reality to abolish the slave trade. On the other hand, it retains its monarchy longer, given the example of the British dominion of Argentina next door, such that when it does abolish its monarchy, it becomes a semi-presidential republic (along the lines of France) to this day.

Once Bolivia overthrows the British protectors sometime during or just after World War II, there is reasonably more political stability than in reality, and the elites are much more coherent and less fractured. In the 1970s and 1980s, there is a terrorist group along the lines of the Shining Path in Peru or the FARC in Colombia.

Paraguay is more populated than in real life because there is no massive population loss (especially of men) due to the War of the Triple Alliance (or Paraguayan War) in the 1860s, the British being a much more formidable foe of Paraguay than the real-life independent Argentines and Uruguayans. If anything, there might just be skirmishes between Paraguay and Brazil. Moreover, there is no full-fledged Chaco War in the 1930s, perhaps just skirmishes between Paraguay and Bolivia, and most certainly there is no proxy war between the US-owned Standard Oil and the British/Dutch-owned Royal Shell Company as in real life due to Bolivia being a British protectorate at that time (hence, the predominance of the Royal Shell Company in this scenario). Therefore, Paraguay’s northwestern border with Bolivia remains somewhat further south than what it is in reality.

Author's Note:

In reality, the British failed to take advantage of their victory over the militias on the field just west of the city on July 2, with Liniers being unharmed; that gave time for the militias to thoroughly organize themselves. On July 5, the Buenos Aires militias beat the British in urban warfare in the then-city of Buenos Aires itself. The militias' victory on July 5, without any help from Spain (their colonial master), paved the way towards the de facto independence of Buenos Aires in 1810--and the de jure independence of Buenos Aires and the rest of Argentina in 1816, a process which started in earnest after the people of Buenos Aires learned of the news of Joseph Bonaparte's invasion of Spain in 1808. The Uruguayan struggle for independence, at first from Spain and later from Portugal/Brazil, initially flirted with incorporation of much of what is now northeastern Argentina before eventually becoming a buffer state between Argentina and Brazil in 1828 with British help.

Both Argentina and Uruguay were subsequently embroiled in civil wars throughout most of the remainder of the 19th century. While they enjoyed prosperity and British financial, sports, and cultural influence in the late 19th and especially early 20th century (such that Argentina was known as an "honorary dominion" within the British "informal empire"), subsequently their political and economic situations deteriorated - pockmarked by dictatorships in the later 20th century - and they have steadily become significantly impoverished compared to the early 1900s. At heart, this is because their societies and land tenure structures have been led by oligarchies and have been unequal. This has been even more apparent in Argentina than in Uruguay, for while in Uruguay a welfare state and an egalitarian political system were set up initially under the leadership of Pres. José Batlle y Ordoñez in 1903 and have been kept intact (with occasional breaches), in Argentina only Peronism turned out to be the long-lasting reform, and overall a retrograde one at that.

Guest Post: Senators for Cities in the US

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History with input from Allen W. McDonnell, Eric Oppen, Mike McIlvain, Scott Eiler, and Jeff Provine.

June 15, 1776 - Mayor Whitehead Hicks declares NYC loyal to King George III

Whitehead Hicks, the forty-second Mayor of New York City, ordered the arrest of the Third New York Provincial Congress. Standing in front of the statue of George III in Bowling Green, Hicks declared the city loyal to the King of England, welcoming the British fleet with open arms.

The loyalist sentiment in the city was fiercely challenged by farmers and small-town dwellers who openly rebelled. It also gave Benjamin Franklin more ammunition to try to gain France's allegiance with regular news of British interests being sabotaged in New York, such as the Great Fire that September. Ultimately patriotism would prevail, and the British Army finally departed on Evacuation Day, November 25, 1783. In their wake, General George Washington triumphantly led the Continental Army from his headquarters north of the city across the Harlem River and south through Manhattan to the Battery at its southern tip. It was a glorious moment of triumph that left many important lessons to be learned by the victors if they were to seize the opportunity for liberty.

The troubling loyalist rebellion of New York City would prove to be a defining moment at the birth of the Republic. Across America, the apparent division between the city and the countryside was a nation-building challenge of the first order for the Founding Fathers to confront. Fortunately, a lasting compromise was hashed out at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. It was at the suggestion of the Virginian James Madison, who was dissatisfied with the weak national government established by the Articles of Confederation. He proposed a senator for the largest metropolitan area in each state while the other two senators would be appointed by the governor with the consent of the state legislature.

This was an imaginative technical fix, an adjustment of the original idea that state legislatures elected senators to ensure state issues were seen as important to federal government. But, inevitably, Madison's visionary brilliance was inadequate to foresee the long-term growth of the Republic, which in many ways could not possibly be anticipated from an 18th century lens. In a larger sense, that dynamic was at the heart of the uncertain experiment of American democracy. One particular development was urbanization that came up in the 19th and 20th centuries with more and more major cities and fewer folks in the countryside.

While citizens in the cities as well as the rural areas complained of imbalanced representation, this was only one of many critiques. A bi-state metropolis such as St Louis and Kansas City needed to have special status unique to their geography, greatly benefitting from the Madison Compromise. In fact, it was hard to imagine how they might otherwise be governed effectively if not directly represented in the Federal Capital by their own senators. Conversely, the Wyoming city of Cheyenne (population 64,000) received its own senator whereas the city of Casper (population 58,000) in the same state did not; this was an uneven representation that drew criticism of the Madison Compromise from citizens of Casper as well as out-of-state Americans.

The first major problem arose over Detroit, once the fourth-largest city in the nation after New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Based strategically on the United States-Canada border, its population sharply diminished after the slowdown of the motor car industry, and Grand Rapids became the largest city in Michigan. The census triggered the switch of senator, causing great consternation in Detroit. Infuriated local politicians in the Big D called for a post-Madison Compromise to update the Constitution to allow representation in Washington for multiple large cities in one state over a certain population threshold. The most radical solution proposed was a Detroit-Windsor conurbation gaining special status as a Bi-State City even though Windsor was over the border in Canada. Pundits howled that this could very well let Canadians determine American policy.

Author's Note

In reality, by early 1776, the office of Mayor in British-held New York became untenable, and Hicks resigned from office. He met with a committee of nine colonials formed by the New York Provincial Congress to investigate "domestic enemies" "disaffected to the American cause." Indicating his loyalty to George III, he was subsequently put on parole. The Great Fire broke out in the early days of the military occupation by British forces destroying 20 percent of the buildings.

Provine's Addendum

The debate about "City Senators" was also particularly loud in Texas, where Houston had its senator but San Antonio (the seventh largest city in the United States), Dallas (ninth), Austin (eleventh), and Fort Worth (twelfth) had none, despite each having nearly ten times the population of Manchester, New Hampshire (population: 115,644). However, Conservatives were nervous to change the since urban populations tend to vote more liberally than rural ones. They felt their bloc could hold back the amendment required to change Madison's system, but others thought it would only be a matter of time until the change came.

Yet another opinion frequently surfaced in debate: eliminating the senate and having more direct influence on Congress through the House of Representatives. Few seemed ready to consider such a hurried step.

Guest Post: FBI Special Agent Richard Nixon

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History, inspired by the alternatehistory.com TL Special Agent Richard Nixon.

In 1972, Acting FBI Director Clyde Tolson was put in charge of the initial investigation which would eventually lead to the resignation of President Nelson Rockefeller.

Only three weeks had passed since J. Edgar Hoover died in the middle of a presidential election year. Long-time special agents L. Patrick Gray and Richard M. Nixon desperately wanted to succeed Tolson as the permanent director. First, they had to navigate internal politics at the Bureau, Senate nominations, and the wishes of the next president, whether Nelson Rockefeller or someone less predictable should he lose in the fall.

Nixon didn't fancy these long odds and his "dark" sense of paranoia convinced him that he would be overlooked for promotion. He strongly felt a sense of injustice having enjoyed some soaring moments at the epicenter of historic events. During his early years, for example, he was trusted to be put in charge of security for African American opera singer Marian Anderson's concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., in 1939. The late J. Edgar Hoover had bitter remarks about Anderson and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who helped organized the concert, and said, "There is always trouble where ever these 'civil right' fighters go." The concert of course had no violent incidents. Rather than admitting he was wrong, Hoover praised Nixon for keeping the 75,000 attendees in line. From that special moment of favoritism onward, Nixon remained convinced he was destined to succeed Hoover.

But more than thirty long years past, Hoover's tainted legacy hang heavy. With Shirley Chisholm running as the first African American presidential candidate on an "unbought and unbossed" platform, it would certainly appear to segregationists that "the trouble" was growing. If a silent majority still respected Nixon, then it seemed to many liberals that he was a shadowy figure out of time, considered wholly unsuitable for the coming era. He understood the very narrow path to his dreams, but therein lie the life story of Richard M. Nixon--he needed a game-changer.

All three would-be Hoover successors were aware of Rocky's infidelities (they had also wire-tapped Martin Luther King, Jr., and had compromising records of his affairs). Whereas the indiscretions of FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, et al., had been overlooked to keep national confidence in the Oval Office, Nixon chose to go for this vulnerability for his own selfish purposes. He utterly despised the East Coast establishment as a result of childhood poverty preventing him going to Harvard. Driven by this bitter resentment, he made the fateful calculation to expose Rocky, and form a faustian pact with his Democratic rival, Ted Kennedy.

Ted K was no angel, and this calculated move would badly backfire on Nixon, however, as the reveal causing Rockefeller's scandal was traced back to Nixon, whose own shadowy actions came to the forefront. Reviews of Nixon's own shadowy actions came to the forefront, such as his effective damage-control covering up a 1969 car crash incident in Chippaquiddick for Ted Kennedy. Both men's public images were devastated.

Nixon's 36-year tenure at the Bureau ending in disgrace. In an angry resignation note he would state, "You don't have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last report."

Author's Note:

In reality, Nixon initially hoped to join the FBI after graduating from Duke. He received no response to his letter of application, and learned years later that he had been hired, but his appointment had been canceled at the last minute due to budget cuts.

Provine's Addendum:

After the shocking 1972 election year in which Rockefeller managed to win amid protests and the lowest ever record turn-out, the American public wanted a clean slate for their elected officials. Squeaky-clean Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter (who wouldn't even do an interview for Playboy) won handily in 1976 and again in 1980 over former CIA Director George Bush. A faction of neo-conservative Republicans in 1980 sought to push Ronald Reagan for the election, but his history of divorce became a major issue at the Republican National Convention.

Guest Post: Black Warrior Affair leads to an earlier Spanish-American War

This article first appeared on Today in Alternate History exploring a theme from a number of related articles including WI: America Buys Cuba, WI: The US acquired Cuba as a Slave State? and WI Cuba acquired by US in 1854?. The point of divergence is that the U.S. Minister to Spain Pierre Soulé maintains the secrecy of his meetings as per the expressed wishes of US Secretary of State William L. Marcy.

May 19, 1854 - 

The acquisition of a Cuban slave state saved the Union from disintegrating into Civil War.

Southern expansionists seized this fleeting opportunity to break a political deadlock with abolitionists. It was a moment perfectly crafted for them by the timing of "Bleeding Kansas" occurring during the presidency of Franklin Pierce, a pro-Southern Democrat. A dystopian vision of a future Civil War, this outbreak of violence centered on the question of whether Kansas, upon gaining statehood, would join the Union as a slave state or a free state.

The situation in Cuba was vastly different than newly settled Kansas: the majority of the population were slaves, an institution that had been part of the island for centuries. In the 1800s, independence attempts were underway to overthrow colonial authorities and Africanize the island. Southerners were apprehensive that events in the Republic of Haiti would repeat in Cuba. They cynically used this fear to turn the tables on Northern abolitionists. In so doing, they brought a fresh problem which had been hotly discussed in relation to Mexico: the assimilation of Catholic-faith, Spanish-speaking citizens. A secondary issue was that Cuban statehood would likely destroy the mainland domestic sugar industry, especially in nearby Florida. A further obstacle was the suspension of the neutrality laws being demanded by the Democratic majority on the foreign relations committee, Senators Mason, Douglas, and Slidell.

The biggest problem was Spain would never sell Cuba as it was its last province of its once great empire in the Americas and much Spanish pride and stability depended on holding Cuba. Disregarding these problems, the Southern expansionists' official rationale for annexing the island was recorded in the Ostend Manifesto. National security was the documented reason "justified in wresting" the island from weak Spanish hands. This was intended to prevent Britain or France from adding to Cuba their Caribbean possessions. Trade and sovereignty became the primary issues when Cuban authorities in Havana seized the steamer Black Warrior on a regular trading route from New York City to Mobile, Alabama. Ironically, or fittingly, cotton was the commodity in dispute with the consignees, Charles Tyng and Co. The larger truth of course was that it was trade and sovereignty were driving a wedge inside the Union.

The voyage of the Black Warrior followed customary practices, but a new factor was the over-zealousness of the recently appointed governor, Juan de la Pezuela. A regressive, conservative figure out of time, he insisted upon imposing the peculiarly Spanish methods of navigation laws in Cuba to American shipping, demanding a cargo manifest that the captain refused, having never been asked it before. Cuban authorities seized the ship in response. While this international dispute was symptomatic of the political conditions at the time, the intransigence of Pezuela and the machinations of Southern expansionists clicked into place to ensure the outbreak of war.

The ultimate American war aim was the control of trade across the Gulf or even Caribbean, but her naval forces were ill-equipped for this task. Pezuela was confident, and American victory was far from assured. War dragged on, but as the tide turned toward newly built American ironclads, Spain became interested in a peaceful settlement before it lost more holdings, perhaps even to the Philippines in the Pacific. Victory satisfied not only doves in Congress but also Southerners feeling their ports more secure with American Cuba. Abolitionists eager for statehood in Minnesota were satisfied in 1858 with the addition of another free state, required for maintaining Congressional parity per the Missouri Compromise crafted by Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky in 1820. 

The genius of the Southern expansionists' solution was to be found in their knowledge of the superior strength of the naval forces under Queen Isabella II. As they had correctly anticipated, the Union was forced to build a large navy in order to recover from a series of humiliating defeats. For ease of access from Florida, these new ships were operated from Southern ports and usually were commanded by Southern officers, creating a new military balance across the Mason-Dixon Line. These heavily armed vessels would prevent a Northern army from attacking should Dixie threaten to secede from the Union.

Author's Note:

In reality, while the Black Warrior Affair was resolved peacefully, it fueled the flames of Southern expansionism. Whereas the lack of secrecy surrounding the Ostend Manifesto led to exposure, denunciation, and creation of rallying cry for anti-slavery Northerners. Marcy himself summed this up in a letter to Senator Mason dated July 23, 1854, "To tell you an unwelcome truth, the Nebraska question has sadly shattered our party in all the free states and deprived it of that strength which was needed and could have been much more profitably used for the acquisition of Cuba."

Provine's Addendum (with inspiration from comments by Philip Ebbrell):

The Spanish-American War turned to favor American victories just in time to assure Franklin Pierce his bid for reelection in 1860. Culture shock followed the war with Cuban representatives in Washington, leading to a surge in the xenophobic and populist Know Nothing Party, who rallied for such things as an official national language and defense of religious freedom from alleged "Romanist" conspiracies. Catholic immigrants who had typically voyaged to cities on the northern Atlantic Coast began shifting the immigration pattern to Cuba as local Know Nothings carried out campaigns promoting "American-only" ideas.

The debates in Congress took a sharp turn in 1862 with the French invasion of Mexico. While Emperor Napoleon III had anticipated potential friendship in the United States as partners in recolonizing Latin America, Americans rallied behind the Monroe Doctrine. The US demanded France leave the occupation zone, which was an impossibility for Napoleon since the entire matter had been one of honor due to unpaid debts to begin with. The Franco-American War started soon after, lasting several months until it was obvious that the French Navy could not compete with a modernized American fleet thousands of miles closer to home. Mexico became liberated, yet it felt tremendous influence from the US and its ships massed in the Yucatan Channel. Britain would prove the ultimate winner of these nineteenth century wars in which it did not participate, establishing far-reaching colonies in the Pacific that expanded its political and economic footprint.

War had distracted America at large from the issue of slavery for years more, but peace brought promises of change. After much effort from numerous factions in Congress, a final reform in the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery while also instilling legal groundwork for a racial code that kept much of the same institutions in place. Slaves were freed, but many of them ended up working in "plantation towns" or, in industrialized cities, "factory towns" where the populace lived in rented property and shopped in stores controlled by wealthy land-owners. Racial tensions kept the working class frequently pitted against each other until the Workers Revolution of the early twentieth century.

Guest Post: Roger Mudd Anchors

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History.

The famous Roger Mudd interview undermined the presidential hopes of Senator Edward M. Kennedy in 1979. Kennedy later accused him of stumping him to boost his chances of succeeding Walter Cronkite as CBS Anchor. In this alternate scenario, Mudd does a 'Perry Mason' on Kennedy with far-reaching changes at CBS over the next 24 years.

March 9, 1981 -

The ageing Evening News anchorman Walter Cronkite was approaching his 65th birthday, the mandatory retirement age at CBS. After 19 years in the seat, he had gained the authority of a religious leader or founding father. Now he would have to make way for one of his younger colleagues, either his fellow Texan Dan Rather, Roger Mudd, or Mike Wallace. At a precipitous moment for the fourth estate, it proved to be an impossible choice to replace the pillar of American broadcast journalism, and so CBS chose both Mudd and Rather.

On the eve of his retirement, Cronkite appeared on The Tonight Show hosted by Johnny Carson. In his farewell statement, he announced, "This is but a transition, a passing of the baton. A great broadcaster and gentleman, Doug Edwards, preceded me in this job, and two others will follow. And that's the way it is: Friday, March 6, 1981. I'll be away on assignment, and Roger Mudd will be sitting in here next week. Good night." The following night, Carson did a comic spoof of his on-air farewell address.

Mudd and Rather combining forces made sense as the credibility threats to instant news coverage were immense. It might well have been the end of an era, but perhaps even more significantly, the beginning of a new one under President Reagan. As the "most trusted man in America," Cronkite had reported events from 1937 onwards, a distant, more innocent time, when the mainstream media was much tamer. Even if he was a throwback to that era, he had been at the very front of a new generation of reporters who held the US government to account. Since Johnson and Nixon, a third transition was underway in which the US government fought back. There was a pause in this power struggle with the fourth estate during the troubled terms of their lackluster successors, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, both of whom experienced low approval rates. However, Cronkite's replacement(s) would have to report on the recently elected Ronald Reagan, a charismatic and articulate former actor who was arguably even more media-savvy than journalists. After two decades of crises in the US government, it was that the wave of popularity would usher in a new dawn for America.

Although Rather had been favored, Mudd was certainly a formidable reporter with a strong personal connection to history and American's lived experiences. He was a direct descendant of the doctor imprisoned for treating Lincoln's assassin. Mudd's first live TV studio interview was with Dorothy Counts, a black teenage girl who had suffered racial harassment at her otherwise all-white high school in Charlotte, North Carolina. He also anchored the coverage of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom for CBS. However, his trajectory really took off after one of the most famous moments in the history of television, the so-called "Roger Mudd Moment." This occurred when he stumped the Democrat candidate Ted Kennedy with the question, "Senator, why do you want to be President?" If this was a low point for the Kennedy family, it was followed by a remarkable moment of solidarity in journalists as Mudd and Rather unexpectedly agreed to co-host the show.

To satiate Rather's ego, he would be prime, promoted to the top-tier position of managing editor. Signing off on his first broadcast, Mudd explained that Rather would be on air the following week, quoting from the Book of Proverbs 27:17, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." This arrangement, while testy in its toughest moments, added an extra weight of credibility and was proven to pass the test of time. Audiences and producers alike were impressed as Mudd insisted Rather stay on air to present the news seven minutes late after a delayed tennis match featuring Stephie Graff.

Mudd's record of hard-hitting interviews contributed in the power struggle with the Bush dynasty, from the 1988 Iran-Contra interview with the then-vice president to the later Abu Ghraib scandal and ultimately Dubya's disputed service record during the Vietnam War. The Bush family would join the Kennedy family in castigating CBS, with Dubya blaming Mudd in particular for stopping his re-election in 2004. Following Mudd's passing in 2021, Rather's summary was customarily monosyllabic. "Courage," was all he said.

Author Note:

In reality, CBS awarded the job to Rather and Mudd chose to leave CBS News and he accepted an offer to join NBC News.

Provine's Addendum:

Commentators at the time and historians alike long debated the outcome of the close 2004 election, whether it was a widespread temperament or a handful of Ohioan voters that sealed the election for Kerry. Either way, many agreed with George W. Bush that the turning point in the campaign stemmed from another "Roger Mudd Moment." The Electoral College was heavily criticized as Kerry did not win the popular election by millions, leading to the 28th Amendment assuring an overall popular election for the presidency.

While largely uneventful through the years of working to disentangle the United States from the Middle East, the Kerry administration proved incredibly unpopular as the national economy fell into steep decline in 2008. Although many Democrats argued that Kerry's recovery plans would have worked given more time, there was no time before the election in November that swept John McCain into office. McCain would return in 2012, narrowly defeating Hillary Clinton. The Democrats returned to the White House in 2016 with the election of Barack Obama, whose longtime service in the Senate had established connections that led to major reforms in healthcare, immigration, and bank regulation. Obama's handling of the 2020 COVID pandemic became widely praised, part of a list of credentials that would win him the Nobel Peace Prize.