Guest Post: JFK Survives, Lee Goes Free

This article first appeared on Today in Alternate History.

Nov 27, 2017 - Passing of Robert Oswald

Korean War veteran and former U.S. marine Robert Edward Lee Oswald, whose brother Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for shooting John F. Kennedy in Dallas, died on this sad day aged 83.

Fortunately for all concerned in 1963, first-year surgical resident Dr. Charles James "Jim" Carrico saved the precious life of the president on the operating table of Parkland Hospital. Meanwhile, the suspected would-be assassin was arrested on a local street corner by Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit and taken into custody. Upon hearing the shocking news on the radio that it was Lee Harvey Oswald, his elder brother rushed to the Dallas Police Headquarters, promising to find him a lawyer.

After a protracted legal process, and largely thanks to Robert Oswald's efforts in building a strong legal team, it was finally determined within reasonable doubt that Lee Oswald was not the real shooter. The only beneficiary was their mother, Marguerite Oswald, who wrote a best-selling book Brother's Keeper named after biblical Chapter Genesis 4, verse 9. This publication cleared the legal fees and allowed her to comfortably retire to Wichita Falls, where she died in 1981.

Unfortunately, many historians argue the tragedy averted in Dallas unfolded into an even worse tragedy in South Vietnam. Kennedy's campaigning in the Southern states paid off handsomely, but the main reason for his electoral victory was that the country wasn't quite ready for Barry Goldwater's conservatism and preferred Kennedy's diplomacy and military adviser approach. Over the course of the next turbulent five years, however, the political landscape rapidly changed mainly due to the unwinnable war in South Vietnam. In late 1963, JFK had himself admitted it was beyond his crisis management skills to resolve, "We don't have a prayer of staying in Vietnam.... But I can't give up a piece of territory like that to the Communists and get the American people to reelect me [in 1964]." This dreadful conflict, and its deep societal consequences, would result in a shift to the right and the election of a Goldwater protégé, the conservative war-hawk Ronald Reagan in 1968.

Author's Note:

In reality, he moved away and died in Wichita Falls. Marguerite Oswald wrote a booklet titled Aftermath of an Execution: The Burial and Final Rites of Lee Harvey Oswald which was never published.

Further Author's Note:

In this scenario, a surviving JFK does not pull out of Vietnam as he intended (and per the conspiracy theory in Oliver Stone's movie) due to fears he would not be re-elected in 1964, and after re-election he's committed, its too late - but the Vietnam tragedy prevents a Democrat win in 1968.

Provine's Addendum:

Reagan came into office in 1969 vowing to be "tough on Communism" and to "clean up that mess" in Vietnam. The Tet Offensive of 1968 had been utterly humiliating for the Kennedy administration, although advisers suggested it was a desperate effort that largely exhausted the North Vietnamese forces. As early as 1965, Reagan was suggesting, "We should declare war on North Vietnam. We could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas." Voters hopeful to end the war drove Reagan ahead in the polls.

The diplomatic situation in Southeast Asia was delicate, however. China had made clear that they would enter the war if there were any invasion of North Vietnam. Cambodia had sworn passive neutrality, allowing Vietnamese military camps and supply routes in the east along with American bombing of camps and routes, although Chief of State Norodom Sihanouk publicly denounced any Cambodian injuries. Laos was in civil war between the royalists and Pathet Lao, backed by the Soviets, Viet Cong, and People's Army of Vietnam.

While the American public still did not support outright war with China, Reagan pushed his state department to lean heavily on Laos and, especially, Cambodia to drive communist forces from their borders. By 1970, Cambodian neutrality effectively ended, and US troops conducted "hot pursuits" and systematic bombing as far as the central regions of the Mekong River. Without supplies, the Viet Cong in the south began to collapse, abandoning the Mekong Delta. The war in Laos was much more of a seesaw with land constantly being handed and back and forth between the sides. Reagan maintained distant relations with China, mostly focusing on encouraging them to stop supporting military efforts in Vietnam. With the growing Sino-Soviet Split separating USSR and Chinese interests, China became more hesitant to expend resources.

Death tolls and military spending climbed, but overall the American public remained supportive as Reagan's office ensured as much censorship as possible, even in fictional accounts. Following the success of the film M*A*S*H in 1970, Regan leaned on producers to ensure the 1972 television program that continued the story of doctors in the Korean War portrayed their efforts as heroic and the overall environment as something of a "summer camp" rather than allowing any major critique of American military action.

Reagan won reelection in 1972 and focused on "Americanization" of South Vietnam and Cambodia. Aid poured in, as did efforts to encourage American business and trade. While the efforts arguably stabilized the region and repaired much of the literal and figurative damage of the millions of tons of bombs dropped, it became heavily criticized by the American public. Many joked that people in Southeast Asia were living off welfare dollars while hardworking Americans struggled in the growing decline of American manufacturing. Voters decided to turn toward Democrats for 1976, who promised a package called the "Great New Society" with improved worker relations and social programs.

Guest Post: Puppet King

This article first appeared on Today in Alternate History.

28 May 1972 - Death of Edward VIII the "Puppet King"

On this fateful day in alternate history, pro-Nazi puppet Edward VIII, restored monarch of the United Kingdom, breathed his last in Buckingham Palace. A smoker from an early age, he had been diagnosed with throat cancer and was undergoing cobalt therapy at the time of his unlamented death.

Having reigned since the death of his father, George V, Edward had abdicated the throne after a scandalous summer forced him to make a choice between the divorced woman he loved and the official duties of the monarchy he despised. With an arrogant manner that veered between domineering and disinterested, red boxes were left unread. It was not only the king but the entire establishment that had fallen asleep at the wheel as Great Britain sleepwalked toward a devastating defeat at the hands of a reinvigorated German Third Reich.

Edward and "Mrs. Simpson" as the press referred to her despite their marriage toured the Reich the following year, socializing with prominent Nazi figures including Joseph Goebbels, Herman Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Albert Speer. Additionally, they had a tea meeting with Adolf Hitler in Berchtesgaden, his "eagle's nest" residence in the Bavarian Alps. It was this private meeting that fed persistent rumours that Edward was a Nazi sympathiser, apparently a discussion that set the stage for his later restoration. Ironically, it was his shortcomings in personality that made him the perfect choice for Head of State of a protectorate of the Greater German Reich when the UK fell to German forces. The most controversial aspect of the restoration was Operation Willi, the kidnapping which induced Edward to plead with the German dictator for a peace settlement with Great Britain in 1940.

Working initially with the puppet Prime Minister Samuel Hoare, Edward would reign for three more decades of continuing national decline while the Nazi rule of Europe slowly began to crumble. Counter-intuitively, what actually stabilized the Third Reich was Hitler's assassination in an early 1941 secret mission code-named Operation Foxley. Former members of Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) had continued clandestine operations, discovering that the German dictator took a walk alone at around 10 am every morning to the Teehaus on Mooslahnerkopf Hill from the Berghof residence. The signal was that when Hitler was at the Berghof, a Nazi flag visible from a cafe in the nearby town was flown. SOE parachuted in a German-speaking Pole and a British sniper into Austria, and, against the odds, they successfully executed the mission. Hitler's successors trod with a great deal more caution, scrapping his crazed plans to invade the Soviet Union and instead consolidating Nazi rule of the territories that had been conquered in 1940.

Inadvertently, and despite the very best intentions, the SOE had damned the British Isles to decades of darkness. It was their preservation of the status quo that allowed Edward to continue on the throne. Childless, his likely long-term successor Elizabeth, the Windsor Pretender, lived at the British Government-In-Exile's compound in Washington, D.C. Although the British Empire retained control over its territories in Africa and Asia, the predominantly white dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand broke away, recognizing his niece as the Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms. Unfortunately Elizabeth "II" would die without returning to England, which remained under Nazi control until her son Charles' triumphant return in 1982. In one of his first significant actions, the Luger that killed Hitler was placed on display at the Combined Military Services Museum in Maldon, Essex.

Author's Note:

In reality, Edward abdicated and was appointed governor of the Bahamas, but, after the war, he spent the rest of his life in France. Evidence of his complicity was revealed in the Marburg Files, a series of top-secret documents that was discovered in May 1945 near the Harz Mountains in Germany but not released in full for over fifty years. It is known that the Duke had an extended private conversation with Hitler, but the specific details of their discussion remain uncertain, as the minutes of their meeting were lost during the course of the war. SOE actually feared that Hitler's assassination would extend WW2, shelving plans for Operation Foxley that had been written up. In 1969, Edward declined an invitation from Elizabeth II to attend the investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales, replying that Charles would not want his "aged great-uncle" there.

Provine's Addendum:

As Winston Churchill, the prime minister of the British Government-in-Exile, described, an "iron curtain" fell across Europe between the spheres of German and Soviet influence. While the USSR and Germany stared one another down the increasingly militarized border of Eastern Europe, the British G-i-E and their American allies did much the same with a fortified Atlantic Ocean. The United States carried its own quasi-war with Japan, jockeying for superiority between the Philippines and Indonesia, though much of America's diplomatic attention was put into the Monroe Doctrine to shore up the allegiance of Latin America to keep fascism out of the Western Hemisphere.

A "Cold War" carried on with paramilitary actions to maintain the balance in Finland and Iceland as well as extensive international intrigue causing as much disruption as possible to each government's plans. Germany was kept busy trying to control its extensive gains and profit from the satellite colonies in Africa and South Asia along with their Vichy French and Italian allies. Initially economies boomed with extensive spending on military buildup and infrastructure, but the weight of the upkeep proved increasingly costly as the years went on. The rigid, government-influenced economies fell into slumps, inflation skyrocketed, and unrest turned violent so periodically it was nearly expected.

Following the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, the new Spanish king Juan Carlos began transitioning the government toward democracy. This spark set off a powder keg of revolution throughout the fascist world, overthrowing one government after the next as colonies declared independence and formerly unquestionable political parties fell out of public favor. Britain's government-in-exile was cheered as it arrived back in London, prompting the British Union fascist government to flee into exile in South Africa.

Trade reopened across the Atlantic, causing a new spike in economic activity. As the millennium came to a close, the "Western World" leaders began to wonder if they might be able to wait out the USSR and Japanese Empire in a similar fashion or if a new war might start between them.

Guest Post: The Unlamented Death of the Jacobite Rascal John Churchill

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History.

16 June, 1722 -

The discredited, untrustworthy English general John Churchill died in exile in Bourbon France. He was seventy-two but had been inactive from a stroke he suffered six years earlier. This medical condition had brought an abrupt end to his failed career of court intrigue and military conspiracy.

His father, Sir Winston Churchill, was a member of Parliament that possessed moderate property but was sufficiently influential at court to be able to provide for his sons there and in the armed forces. Despite this head start, John's life and times would be one of great turbulence, during which he fought two duels and constantly struggled in a changing political landscape. He had to try to navigate his way through the Commonwealth, then the Stuart Restoration, and then the Glorious Revolution seeing English, French-backed Scottish, and finally Dutch heads of state. At various times he fought in or alongside all of these armies, and, by necessity, he earned military and political advancement through his courage and diplomatic skill. However, his downfall was precipitated by his Protestant religion, the historical banana skin of the era.

Under slightly different circumstances, Churchill might have arisen to Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. Like General George Monck before him, he was not so much an enthusiastic pro-royalist as a pragmatist who had supported the restoration in order to avoid the country from collapsing into anarchy after Cromwell's death. In contrast, just across the English Channel, the French nation benefited from the political stability of seven decades of rule by the Sun King, Louis XIV. It was the Churchill family's tragedy to be crushed under this emblematic of the Age of Absolutism in Europe, a procession of English heads of state, and the inevitability of getting caught trying to play both sides of the room.

Having served under the Duke of Monmouth in the French siege of Maastricht, the French War Minister recommended a lieutenant colonelcy in a French regiment. Louis XIV responded with the withering assessment that he would rather give "more satisfaction to a rich and faded mistress, than to a monarch who did not want to have dishonourable and dishonoured carpet knights in his armies." Ironically, Churchill was to play a leading role in defeating the Monmouth Rebellion that temporarily secured the House of Stuart. Following Monmouth's clumsy execution and the persecution of his followers, he alerted French Protestant Henri de Massue to Charles' obstinacy, warning him that "If the King should attempt to change our religion, I will instantly quit his service."

This would actually happen four years later when Churchill was a key player in the military conspiracy that led to the Glorious Revolution. In his farewell letter to James, he explained that "This, Sir, could proceed from nothing but the inviolable dictates of my conscience, and a necessary concern for my religion." Despite his elevation to Earl of Marlborough, he faced persistent charges of Jacobitism. He was appointed a member of the Council of Nine to advise Queen Mary on military matters in the King's absence, but she made scant effort to disguise her distaste at his appointment. "I can neither trust or esteem him," she wrote to her husband. Unfortunately, the farewell letter was not the last he wrote to James, and this unwise correspondence was to prove his undoing. This led to his fall from office and imprisonment in the Tower of London.

When Churchill was released, he fled to France where the Bourbons considered his usefulness as the figurehead leader of a Jacobite invasion army. The crowning victory of Louis XIV over a disorganized alliance led by the Holy Roman Empire saw his feint hopes of fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession come to naught. In one sense, their ambitions were closely connected because Britain would remain a third-rate military power, and the Churchill family would emigrate to the Americas to rebuild their fortunes in the new world.

Author's Note:

In reality, he went through several changes of fortune in a long career under five monarchs but is considered by many to be the greatest British military leader. He led British and allied armies to important victories over Louis XIV of France. On his legacy, historian John H. Lavalle writes, "Marlborough's place as one of the finest soldiers Britain ever produced is well deserved."

Provine's Addendum:

Through the centuries, the Churchills would remain a noted family in American history, such as the revolutionary and amateur astronomer George Churchill, friends with Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin, as well as William Churchill, the fiery Congressman who argued for American naval superiority through his long career in the first half of the twentieth century.

Guest Post: Monty Remains in Command

This article first appeared on Today in Alternate History, a variant of Jeff Provine's scenario December 8, 1943 - Eisenhower Dies in Jeep Accident.

July 19, 1944

It was tragically ironic that General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, was killed in a non-combat related mechanical accident caused by an equipment malfunction in his signature Willy's 4x4 staff jeep. Rugged, reliable, and highly maneuverable, this famed workhorse of the American military had replaced equines in everything from cavalry units to supply trains and had been hailed by Ike himself as, alongside the Dakota and the Landing Craft, one of the three most important tools in the war.

A staff officer who had never seen combat in his 27-year career, Eisenhower had run Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) off-shore from England. The death of this soldier-statesman was a fateful act of destiny since Ike had been travelling to Tac to relieve General Bernard Law Montgomery of his command of the 21st Army Group, which comprised all Allied ground forces engaged in the Battle of Normandy (Operation Overlord). His mentor, Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), Alan Brooke was sharply critical, observing that "Ike knows nothing about strategy and is 'quite' unsuited to the post of Supreme Commander. It is no wonder that Monty's real high ability is not always realized. Especially so when 'national' spectacles pervert the perspective of the strategic landscape."

Despite very clear explanations in written briefings, Ike had failed to grasp Monty's strategy. Worse still, Monty's desire to remain withdrawn at Tac created a communication gulf allowing misunderstandings to arise. The historic significance of this tragic event was that Monty was still in command during the American break-out, Operation Cobra. This precious victory was earned by the hard-fought, but woefully under-valued, Operation Goodwood, the frustratingly slow British break-out that had convinced his antagonists, Ike, his British deputy Tedder, and Churchill to sack Monty. In simple military terms, Goodwood had started surprisingly well but stalled at Caen, whereas Cobra started very badly but ended in glory. Misunderstood from the start, Goodwood was the launch platform for Cobra, bought in the heavy cost of British lives that proved Monty was a true coalition soldier in the tradition of Wellington, Marlborough, et. al, who had also commanded Allied forces dominated by non-British nationals.

Ever since the invasion of Sicily, the hero of El Alamein had taken damaging blows to his reputation, mainly due for his abrasive character enraging his superiors. Monty's standard bluff that "his plan was working" had carried him through the worst period of his illustrious career. Regardless of Brooke's observation on "national perspectives," the reality was that American troop count dominated the British who were at the limit of their manpower. Of course, Ike was only a puppet for Roosevelt who sought to sharply diminish British influence in military strategy. However, Monty's destruction of 23 of Hitler's 38 divisions was a towering accomplishment that simply could not be ignored, and so he continued as Allied Ground Forces Commander while the more-humble American General Alexander Patch was appointed to run SHAEF. The only realistic alternative would have been to send US Chief of Staff George Marshall to Europe, and as Roosevelt had told him, "I didn't feel I could sleep at ease if you were out of Washington." Even though Monty lacked the naked unchecked aggression of US generals, it would only be due to his meticulous defensive planning that the German counter-attack through the Ardennes would be anticipated and crushed in December before the line could even bulge.

Author's Note:

In reality, Monty negotiated a temporary relief for his command although Ike took over on September 1st when Churchill promoted him to Field Marshall as a consolation prize. In Generals: Ten British Commanders who Shaped the World, the author Mark Urban offers the perspective that the Battle of the Bulge was caused by Ike's broad front strategy and Monty's intervention was the approach he had been arguing for throughout the Second Battle of France.

Provine's Addendum (with input from comments by Stan Brin and Mike McIlvain):

The death of Eisenhower sent a wave of gloom through the Allied nations, especially the United States, whose propaganda machine worked to ensure Eisenhower was seen as a hero despite dying in a simple vehicular accident. It changed Army protocol, keeping officers out of jeeps and driving in more stable, secured vehicles. Patton himself may have become a casualty, but he lived long after the war as a military adviser for decades into the Cold War. Historians can only postulate how many other commanders lived from what could have been lethal accidents in the Korean War.

Monty's strategies were criticized as leaving much of the western front stuck between Belgium and Holland with the more southerly armies directed by American generals getting no farther than Baden-Wurttemberg before meeting the USSR troops pushing from the east. Still more criticism came that he was protecting English-speaking lives at the cost of Soviet soldiers, while others felt that he had deprived the western Allies of more victory. Monty himself defended his record and became an outspoken conservative as the Cold War expanded, especially in the People's Republic of Austria and the troubled multiple states such as the People's Republic of Bavaria after Germany had been "balkanized" with Soviet insistence.

Guest Post: Western Allies attack the soft underbelly of the Axis without Eisenhower

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History.

 

May 21, 1944 -

Allied Command undertook a comprehensive re-evaluation of the landing operation for the invasion of France. This successful attempt to regain consensus followed the tragic death of Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower in a jeep accident one day after being unceremoniously appointed Supreme Commander in the coming Operation Overlord.

Having proven himself as supreme commander of a mixed force of Allied nationalities, services, and equipment on the battlefields of North Africa and Italy in 1942 and 1943, Eisenhower's ill-fated, botched appointment in a handwritten note from FDR to Stalin was an advancement over nearly four hundred more senior officers. The reason was that the job was considered largely political, not military tactics, and it was rather telling that his specialty was with logistics and his organizational abilities. Suffering from bad health and a fiery temper, he outwardly displayed confidence and serenity. But the main problem was he had lacked any direct combat experience during his twenty-seven years as an army officer and his broad front approach had been strongly resisted by his commanders. They much preferred a narrow front, a divisive conflict of opinion that brought into question their own vainglorious ambitions for becoming the architect of victory. Selecting a solitary ground forces commander would make matters even worse. The lack of respect for his credentials was self-evident from an argument he had with Bernard Montgomery. Eisenhower put his hand on Montgomery's knee and replied: "Steady, Monty, you can't speak to me like that; I'm your boss."

Rightly or wrongly, this broad v. narrow front circular argument was trapped in the logistical constraints inherent in Northern Europe. Logically, the only way to resolve this problem was to launch the main attack in Southern France through North Africa by an extension of Operation Torch and the invasion of the Italian peninsula. This of course was nothing more than the original logic of Prime Minister Churchill's soft belly strategy. The British had favored a more peripheral strategy that centered in the Mediterranean. As early as the Second Claridge Conference in July of 1942, he was firmly against the idea of an assault on the heavily defended northern shore of France.

Having restored harmony by substituting the broad v. narrow front with an agreed two-front approach, one fresh problem emerged. There were insufficient landing craft to launch both invasions simultaneously. However, the choppy waters of the English Channel would not be suitable until early June. This was the basis of an opportunity for going early in the south and this army group to proceed up the Rhone River and eventually occupy the right flank of the Allied offensive. It was therefore agreed that Normandy would be the second landing when the weather permitted, with Supreme Commander Allied (Expeditionary) Force George Marshall in charge of Montgomery, Patton, and Bradley in command of three separate army groups.

Their revised approach to attacking Fortress Europe had many secondary advantages over the original plan: the flatter beaches of the Côte d'Azur for amphibious assault, calmer weather in the Mediterranean and a side-step of the Atlantic Wall just as the Germans had masterfully taken with the Maginot Line. From a political perspective, Montgomery was given the honor of leading the first assault in Provence with Patton and Bradley in the rear driving the assault in Normandy. It was felt that this separation of command would avoid personality clashes and power struggles between Anglo-British commanders. Their strategic goal for this pincer movement was to make the German occupation of France untenable, forcing a withdrawal that would end the war before Christmas.

The impressive sight of the Royal Navy arriving in considerable force off the southern coast of France was a great delight to Churchill & co. Onboard were Montgomery's Expeditionary Force comprising British and Canadian Forces plus a French Army reluctantly serving under his command on the promise they could liberate Paris. They managed to successfully establish a beachhead, but, characteristically, Monty delayed his drive inland until he had accumulated overwhelming superiority. By this time, the second landing was ready for go-ahead and, following moments of savage fighting on the beaches, was executed at great speed by American forces. An early sign of aggressive intent was signaled by Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. arriving on Utah Beach as he repeated Pershing's famous words, "Lafayette, we are here!"

Hitler, wrongly believing that the pedestrian landing in Provence must be a feint, launched a furious counter-attack to "throw the Allies back into the English Channel." The centerpiece of the assault was a counter-attack from Mortain towards Avranches to cut off the American breakthrough at its narrowest point. Tragically, Roosevelt would die of a heart attack shortly thereafter; at the time of his death, he had been recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross to recognize his heroism at Normandy. The recommendation was subsequently upgraded, and Roosevelt was a posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor. Meanwhile, the uniquely American victory at Mortain would be the beginning of the end of the Second Battle of France. Montgomery and de Gaulle were infuriated with this lack of attribution as junior military partners, but they ultimately had fallen victim to their own hubris in being part of the first landing. This maneuver of course was the wily Marshall's plan from the very beginning.

Author's Note:

In reality, although initially designed to be executed in conjunction with Operation Overlord, the Allied landing in Normandy, a lack of available resources led to the delay of the second landing until August.

Provine's Addendum:

Marshall was hailed as the Hero of Europe, again much to the disdain of British military leaders as his fame continued into peacetime with a Nobel Prize for his plan to rebuild postwar Europe. While many hoped he would run for president, Marshall declined, and Omar Bradley instead won the 1952. Montgomery looked to imitate the peacetime political careers of American and French Allies, using his position as commander of the Western Union to tie the UK much more closely to the continent and ultimately shifting the capital of what would become the European Union to London. Patton, meanwhile, continued his service with the military, being among the first advisors in South Vietnam.

Guest Post: Biden VP in '80

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History with input from Robbie Taylor.

July 12 to July 15, 1976 - Democratic National Convention

Former Governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter arrived in New York City with enough delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination.

A Washington outsider and devout Christian certain of his own position, Carter felt a heavy weight of moral leadership responsibility to create an appearance of party unity, which had been sadly lacking in the 1968 and 1972 Democratic Conventions. This imperative was foremost in his mind, a primary consideration behind his choice of running mate. By inclination, he favored Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale, a "flexible liberal" and a protégé of Hubert Humphrey, as his running mate. Obvious alternatives included Edmund Muskie, Frank Church, Adlai Stevenson III, John Glenn, and Henry M. Jackson. All of these candidates offered regional advantages and other perceived benefits.

Taking soundings at the convention, Carter, a virtue-signaler, was tempted to make a more daring choice. Thirty-three-year-old "Blue Collar" Joe Biden of Delaware was the first senator to endorse Carter's presidential bid when he was a long shot. Certainly he had an inspiring personal story of family-based redemption, hope, and faith that resonated with Carter who was humble and supremely ethical. Like Mondale, Biden was also flexible, liberal on civil rights and liberties, senior citizens' concerns, and healthcare but conservative on other issues. Born in Pennsylvania, a state that was showing unexpectedly close polling figures, Biden offered more potential impact on the 27 electoral college votes. Delaware was smaller in area than Minnesota, but the "First State" was more populous. And finally, he was considered a better conduit for campaign funding.

To Carter's lasting disappointment, Biden was ineligible due to the Twelfth Amendment requirement that a vice president must be constitutionally eligible to the presidency. He would be thirty-four years old in November, so, being below the threshold of thirty-five, he could not fulfil this requirement. Nevertheless, Carter enthusiastically offered him a speaking slot, and Biden delivered a fine, if not somewhat emotional, address to the convention. Thereafter, he helped Carter by vigorously campaigning in the north-east.

Mondale, who delivered a well-received acceptance speech, soon proved his worth. He put in an impressive performance at the first-ever Vice Presidential Debate. Held at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas, Mondale was an assured figure to the 43.2 million viewers who tuned in. Due to Ford's gaffe in the second presidential debate, these televised performances played an unusually significant role in the 1976 race.

Mondale was a key participant in the negotiations between Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin that resulted in the Camp David Accords. But tragedy would strike during the Iran hostage crisis when VP Mondale bravely undertook a dangerous mission for his country. He was killed in a plane crash en route to the USS Midway (CV-41) in the Indian Ocean. In the final year of his first term office, Carter desperately needed an inspiring choice of running mate to beat Ronald Reagan. His thoughts immediately returned to Biden. Although much less of an activist vice president than Mondale, he freshened up the campaign much as Gerald Ford had sought to do in replacing Nelson Rockefeller with Bob Dole.

A former lawyer with a sharp mind, Biden distrusted Reagan's hawkish patriotism and exposed his back-channel dialogue with the Iranians. This October Surprise transformed the voting calculations handing Carter-Biden an improbable narrow victory in the polls. In a magnificent gesture, Carter famously sent Biden to meet the embassy hostages when they disembarked from Freedom One, an Air Force Boeing C-137 Stratoliner aircraft, upon their return.

Author's Note:

In reality, Mondale has been credited with shifting the US Vice Presidency into having a more substantive role in an administration as an advisor to the president.

Provine's Alternative Ending:

Unfettered from Carter, Mondale continued his efforts toward the presidency and worked alongside Biden, who was thought still too young to lead the free world in the presidency itself but was applauded as vice president. The Mondale-Biden ticket won in '84, managing to convince the public that they could recover from the second act of the double-dip recession as readily as the Oval Office had in the earlier part. With inflation under control, unemployment low, and wages matching the increased productivity thanks to the Democratic partnership with unions as well as increased automation in industry and offices, American workers in the 1990s came to a four-day workweek as predicted in 1956 by another then-vice-president, and ironically Republican, Richard Nixon.

Guest Post: NATO invasion of Dominica - October 1982

This post courtesy of Sea Lion Press.

The small and poor island of Dominica in the Caribbean had lunged from crisis to crisis since independence in 1978. Its initial prime minister was the incompetent and brutal Patrick John of the Dominica Labour Party, who in his first year oversaw civil service strikes, loss of banana crops due to the banana board's failure to provide antiviral sprays, and a bitter fight with a gang of Rastafari criminals known as the Dreads who grew marijuana in remote farms and raided nearby towns and plantations for food, money, and young girls they kidnapped and whose attacks on tourists had reduced tourism. John had four years earlier passed the the Prohibited and Unlawful Societies and Associations Act, better known as the Dread Act, which made it illegal to be a Rastafari, to have dreadlocks, or to support the political philosophy of the Dreads, who had openly talked about burning down Dominica's towns. More than that, anyone who was covered by this law could be arrested without cause and, if killed or injured by anyone within a dwelling, the person who assaulted them was immune from prosecution. Essentially, John had made it legal to kill anyone with Dreadlocks, despite committees he appointed to look into this confirming that the vast majority of Rastafari on the island were peaceful activists with the violent criminals being a small minority.

He had also created a full-time professional army called the Dominica Defense Force, which John was personally in charge of and which was de facto a militia of men loyal to Patrick John as a person rather than the government he represented. In May 1979, John banned public gatherings, protests, and strikes altogether, a desperate attempt to silence his critics. It didn't work. Huge crowds gathered outside the Government Headquarters, and, when the DDF came to move them on, they threw rocks at them. The DDF then opened fire, wounding several protestors and killing Phillip Timothy, a nineteen-year-old. This led to the collapse of John's government due to outrage and, at the next election, Eugenia Charles of the Freedom Party became Prime Minister.

Charles's government would not last long. In May 1981, the DDF, whose leaders were publicly suspended due to accusations of drug dealing, launched a surprise attack against the Dominican police force in an attempt to overthrow Charles's government. The police had the better of the early fight, but the DDF had unexpected reinforcements from a band of American and Canadian mercenaries led by Mike Perdue and recruited primarily from racist hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan. While the mercenaries were poorly trained and suffered large casualties, with the likes of Don Black dying early, they were well armed and added extra bodies to the fight. Soon, the DDF were able to accept the surrender of Charles and her government, with them leaving the island at gunpoint to go into exile. Charles would ask for support from Ronald Reagan to overthrow the regime, support that was initially hesitant as the USA came to grips with what exactly the second John government would look like.

However, things had not gone all the way of the DDF. Their plan had also involved an alliance with the Dreads, but the Dreads had double-crossed them and, forewarned about the battle, had attacked both sides, further reducing the number of armed men available to John. Thus when the socialist firebrand Rosie Douglas retreated to the northern town of Portsmouth and declared a shadow government there, John couldn't immediately attack him. Moreover, John quickly fell out with his mercenary allies who treated him with contempt and demanded large amounts of money and for him to let them run the island as a criminal's paradise, a center for cannabis and cocaine production and trafficking, to meet the increasing demand in American cities as well as a hub of the arms trade and a gambling center where dirty money could be spent in casinos, something that John felt would lose him his allies on the island who viewed him as a tough on crime leader.

The island quickly spiraled into chaos with Perdue, Douglas, and John vying for control and the Dreads thriving in this chaos. The increase in crime also burdened John's remaining international reputation, especially when he allowed the Barbadian arms dealer Sidney Burnett-Alleyne to use the island as a depot to sell to Apartheid South Africa, which was condemned by François Mitterrand, who had Dominica surrounded by two French islands. While the Reagan administration had hoped to come to a deal with John and wanted any intervention to be against the Communist rulers of nearby Grenada, the possibility of Libyan-backed Douglas gaining control scared them enough that they soon openly supported a restoration of the rightwing Eugenia Charles. In October of 1982 NATO forces invaded the island to restore order.

Note: In real life, the plan to restore John was discovered and stopped prior to it being carried out.

Provine's Addendum

Vice President George H.W. Bush had already been hoping to expand the CIA and U.S. military in the growing international drug war, but seeing all of NATO step in promoted ideas of stronger, Western-capitalism-driven involvement. Through international anti-drug treaties, the U.S. and allies could find open doors into just about any third world country to step in militarily to crack down on drug operations. While many supporters praised successful operations, critics accused it of being a new wave of colonialism or simply a waste of taxpayer money and soldiers' lives. Efforts at home to dry up demand for drugs such as the DARE program proved largely ineffectual. By the time of the Obama administration, it was evident that a change was needed leading to the legalization of marijuana and decriminalization of harder drugs, instead focusing on addiction treatment.