With this election being pretty nasty, lets remember another vile close-edge election in 1960, when Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy (D) and Richard M. Nixon (R) fought bitterly, including the first televised Presidential Debate.

JFK wins barely, and allegedly by ballot-stuffing measures in Chicago and Texas.

BUT...what if Nixon say hadn't blundered on the Cuba question during the debate? What if Nixon thus had scored more votes and thus won instead?

So in this reality where Nixon was President starting in 1961, would we have had a Cuban Missile Crisis? Would we have escalated in Vietnam or not? Would we have been as committed to the NASA space program in that decade? What about Civil Rights legislation efforts?

Also, would he have been foolish enough back then to NOT burn the tapes?

Hard to tell but interesting. I don't know about the Cuban Missle Crisis; I know JFK really was into the Space program, but don't know if Nixon would have pursued it as he did or not.It's really hard to tell, however, if Nixon had won, how things would be different. However, one very good thing....JFK would have lived (I would like to think) and our nation wouldn't have to go the whole (at that time) "shocking" loss of a President.

Btw, I heard on MSN that today is exactly (to the day) 48 years since the Kennedy/Nixon debates. I was 12 and didn't understand a whole lot about politics, but was glued to the tv watching that debate and my parents' reaction to it. That was the beginning of my political interest.

TIS

Given Nixon's history with the Dixiecrats, I don't think we would have made as much progress with civil rights.

But, then again, there is the chance that a presidential assassination would still exist, and Nixon would've been shot to death, and I think I'd be more than fine with this.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley stole Illinois for JFK by the time-honored practice of having his constituents vote early and often. The Texas theft was subtle. To play it safe, LBJ ran for re-election to the Senate at the same time he was running for VP (as did Lieberman in 2000). TX voting machines in 1960 were configured so that when you pulled down the top lever (President and VP), you had to vote the party line all the way, unless you stepped out of the booth and asked a poll-watcher to reset the machine each time you deviated. This was cumbersome at a crowded polling place. So, since more Texans wanted LBJ in the Senate than Kennedy in the White House, they groaned, and voted for JFK and LBJ at the top so they could vote for LBJ for Senate without hassle. BTW: Democratic National Chairman John Bailey stole Connecticut for his pal JFK.


Many people think JFK won the election thanks to that first debate. But, given the closeness of the popular vote (183k votes), anything could have made the difference. For example, most black voters were registered Republicans in 1960. But when RFK went to bat for ML King Jr. after he was sentenced to a chain gang on a trumped up traffic charge, ML King Sr. changed his mind and urged all blacks to vote for JFK. That alome could have swung 183k votes.



Nixon had vastly more foreign policy experience than did Kennedy. In fact Nixon later proved to be the only globally strategic thinker in the White House since Woodrow Wilson. Khrushchev put the missiles in Cuba after JFK committed a great blunder: he met with K in Vienna just weeks after the Bay of Pigs disaster put him in the weakest position of any President meeting with a Soviet Premier. K kicked his ass, and thought JFK was a weakling, Nixon never would have made that mistake. And K would have been too wary of Nixon to put missiles in Cuba.
I don't know about Vietnam. Eisenhower never thought Vietnam was "stragegic." There were only 400 US troops there when he left office. But Nixon was a dedicated Cold Warrior, and might have escalated.
I doubt Nixon would have made the push for NASA with Kennedy's "vigah." JFK's championing of NASA at the moment of the USSR's greatest space triumphs was a real example of leadership on JFK's part.
Nixon had a good record on civil rights. JFK as President had a poor record until the Birmingham AL church bombing made it impossible for him to continue to ignore the movement. And, at the time of his death, his civil rights bill was dead in the water. But I can't envison Nixon getting passionate about civil rights.


Nixon's refusal to burn the tapes is so bizarre that it had to emanate from some really deep, dark place inside him. Perhaps if he'd won in 1960, he wouldh't have developed the paranoia and all-encompassing hatred that characterized him later.

Nixon's paranoia was already there in 1960, but it did worsen after the loss of the presidential election as well as the gubenatorial election in California in 1962.

His conduct in the aftermath of that election, however is telling about what kind of president he would have made. His famous "You wont have Nixon to kick around anymore" speech showed his unstable tmperament.

As a president, I believe he would have done well in foreign policy, and probably would have (as JFK did) had a nuclear test ban treaty. I also believe he may have gone either to Cuba or China to thaw relations.

I doubt the cuban missile crisi would have happened. This was the result of Khruschev underestimating JFK, and he would not have pulled that n Nixon.

On civil right, Nixon would have taken a lassiez faire approach, talking the talk but never intorucing the Civil Rights or Voting Rights bills.

Given that he was already in the tank for big money from Howard Hughes, and given that his moderate foreign policy approach could have split the GOP (Goldwater was ascending), I think Nixon in the 1964 election would have acted the same way he did in 1972. In otherwords, wiretaps, break ins, enemies lists the whole thing, and I suspect he would have been impeached around 1967.