On the argument you made earlier but have apparently dropped that Nixon lost because the elections were stolen in Illinois and Texas, a suggestion on a slightly related topic. If you have not read Robert Caro's chapter on Johnson's senatorial election in 1948, the one in which he beat Coke Stevenson, let me recommend you drop everything and do so.
That chapter by Caro just reinforces the fact that LBJ stole Texas in the Kennedy election. What a villain!
On the Bay of Pigs. That was an operation approved by Ike. Nixon knew about it and would have gone ahead. He respected Ike, knew all the people who had planned it, and it would have been against his nature not to have done it. With, of couse, full US backup.
Yes, it's all "woulda, coulda, shouda," but the logic of Nixon OK'ng the taking of Cuba makes sense, IMO. You recoil from the concept because the major changes in history that would have followed would have shown just how bad Kennedy's decisions were.
It is interesting to speculate what Nixon would have done in Nam. Alternate history is one of my favorite reads. [I am in the middle of reading the Harry Turtledove novels on his version of history between WWI and WWII at the moment.] I think if he had gone in he would have used a lot more force, as Goldwater wanted to do in 1964. North Vietnam's electrical power system would have been easy to take out, and would have brought them to their knees. Combine that with mining their harbor, and they would have been reduced to a fourth world country. The very threat of these actions kept North Vietnam coming back to the table in the 70's.
The line of thought I am following here is so entertaining that I expect a couple of books to be written on it. |
