The Presidents: America and the Cold War (1966-1991)

[Nathan Madien]

Prologue
In the summer of 2004, the Republican Party was a political party that found itself on the outside looking in. For twelve years, the Republicans had struggled to persuade voters to put them in control of the White House. The decline in their electoral fortunes started in the early 1990s, as the United States began to put her four decade-long ideological and geopolitical struggle with the Soviet Union and the Republic of China behind her. Having led the country through much of the Cold War, the GOP fully expected to continue leading the country into the post-Cold War Era. Unfortunately for them, the end of the Cold War brought about a major political shift, as the American public demanded a greater effort by the Federal Government in resolving domestic issues than the Republicans were willing to offer. Indeed, their Presidential nominee in 1992, Bob Dole, did not offer much in the way of bold government action on a range of issues such as lowering the national debt and protecting manufacturing jobs from being shipped abroad to countries where labor was cheaper. In sharp contrast, Dole's Democratic opponent, Bill Clinton, offered voters a far more vigorous domestic agenda. "The Republicans don't have any new ideas," he declared on the campaign trail, "But I do!"
Voter discontent with the Republicans should have benefitted Clinton immensely; instead, he found that voters weren't exactly thrilled with the Democrats either. Their record from when they were in power had been a dismal one. The general disillusionment towards the two major political parties provided an opening for Ross Perot to mount an Independent campaign for the Presidency. A wealthy Texas businessman, Perot had an eccentric personality and a brash style of speaking, both of which made him easy to be made fun of (Dana Carvey in particular did spot-on impressions of him on "Saturday Night Live"). What made people take Perot seriously however was his populism and his ability to connect with voters, talking to them in a way that made them feel that he understood them and their concerns better than Dole and Clinton did. Perot capitalized on voter dissatisfaction with the Establishment, portraying the Republicans and the Democrats as being equally incapable of solving the nation's problems.
"Our nation is $4 trillion in debt. Every day, our nation goes $1 billion further into debt. Now, whose fault is that? The Republicans say it is not their fault, and the Democrats say it is not their fault. Well, these two folks have been in charge, and yet they say that it is not their fault that we’re $4 trillion in debt. If it is not their fault, then I guess an extraterrestrial dropped this debt on us.
Somebody has to take responsibility for this. The Republicans are not taking responsibility, and the Democrats are not taking responsibility. How are we going to pay down our debt, and not pass it onto our children, when they made it and they are not taking responsibility for it?"

(Bill Clinton looks on as Ross Perot answers a question from a voter during a town hall Presidential debate)
Perot campaigned hard on television and on the campaign trail throughout 1992, hammering away at the failures of the two major political parties while portraying himself as a successful problem-solver whose independence meant he was free to do what had to be done for the good of the country without regard to the party line. Voters from across the political spectrum responded strongly to him, believing that their personal lives would improve greatly if the country had a President who wasn't a career politician. On Election Night, Perot won a stunning victory, with Clinton coming in second place and Dole finishing a dismal third. For a country which had seen the Democrats and the Republicans be the dominant political forces since 1856, the election of an Independent candidate to the Presidency was unprecedented. Perot used his historic election to reshape the post-Cold War political landscape, establishing the Reform Party in 1994 to be a viable third-party alternative to the Republican and Democratic Parties. Faced with a new political reality in the mid-1990s, the two major parties had to figure out how to find their way forward. While the Democrats were able to, as historian H.W. Brands put it, "Perot and the Reformers were such a shock to the system that it effectively paralyzed the Republicans."
Over the next decade, the GOP struggled to compete with the Democrats and the Reformers, its' conservatism having fallen out of favor with the general electorate. In the summer of 2004, the Republicans were stuck in the political wilderness, having last won a Presidential election in 1988. Not since the 1953-1965 period of Democratic rule had the Party of Lincoln been out of power for so long. With the White House in Democratic hands, the Republicans held their nominating convention first. Their convention opened on July 26th at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Desperate to find a Presidential nominee who could finally end the losing streak and return the party to power, the convention nominated John McCain on the first ballot. A 67-year-old veteran of the Vietnam War and the Western Pacific War of 1967, McCain had represented Arizona in the United States Senate since he succeeded Barry Goldwater in January 1989. The former naval officer wasn’t popular with everyone within the Republican Party though, as he had established a reputation in the Senate as being a political maverick who marched to the beat of his own drum rather than strictly follow the party line. That maverick style, an annoyance to some, was seen as an asset by others in 2004. They claimed that it gave McCain the flexibility to appeal to a wide spectrum of voters that a more rigid Republican nominee would not possess. Some in the media even called him “the Wendell Willkie of the 21st Century.”
Willkie was another political maverick who in 1940 led the Republicans to victory in the Presidential election, defeating the Democratic incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt in a close race. If nominating a maverick for President worked for the GOP then, maybe it could work for them now in this three-way environment.

While McCain turned his attention towards making the case for electing a Republican President after twelve years with his acceptance speech, the convention took a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Steve Forbes, the 57-year-old son of the late former President Malcolm Forbes, took the stage to give a speech reflecting on his father’s legacy. “Forty years ago this month,” the two-time Presidential candidate began, “My father stood before you to accept the nomination for the Presidency of the United States. He accepted the nomination at a time when things were looking pretty bad here in the United States. The American people, try as they might, couldn’t get ahead in their lives. They were hamstrung by a bad economy, brought on by the stubborn insistence of the Democrats – who were then in power – to raise taxes as high as they could and to spend as much money as they could.
For those who lived in abject poverty, the Democrats, for all their talk about being compassionate to those who need help the most, were useless. They were content to pat them on the head, hand them a welfare check, and say to them month after month, ‘Here. This is all you need to get by.’
The Democrats made no effort at all to try to lift people out of poverty. What they did try to do was to nationalize the steel industry after steel workers went on strike in 1962. This move was so egregious that the Supreme Court struck it down as being wholly unconstitutional. In fact, one of the Democratic cabinet officials was so against nationalizing private industry that he resigned his post in protest and became a Republican. That cabinet official was Ronald Reagan.”
The audience applauded Forbes’ mention of Reagan, who had died the month before at the age of 93 from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease.
“When Reagan was asked why he left the Democratic Party, he replied ‘I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me.’”

(Steve Forbes)
“By the time my father accepted the nomination, the American people had come to the realization that there was only one way their lives could get better: elect my father to the Presidency of the United States. So they did, and…”
Forbes stopped speaking for a moment, cracking a smile at the sudden sight of a wave of reproduction “Forbes for President” signs from the 1964 Republican National Convention rising up from the audience.
“And guess what happened? Everyone’s lives got better. My father immediately cut taxes and reigned in spending, producing massive economic growth that the Democrats could only dream of. Everyone had more money in their pockets, more jobs became available, and the Federal Government finally began to move towards balancing the budget, which at that time hadn’t been balanced since the early ‘50s. Not coincidently, the President who had balanced the budget at that time was a Republican [Thomas E. Dewey].
For those who lived in abject poverty, my father provided them with opportunity. Real opportunity, not just a check in the mail each month. He reformed the welfare system, making it capable of giving those in need a hands-up instead of simply a hand-out. Under my father, poverty became something you could get out of, not be stuck in forever.
My father cared about those people. He also cared about civil rights. Throughout his time as President, my father showed an unwavering commitment towards advancing racial equality in this country. He appointed more black people to his cabinet, to positions throughout the Federal Government, and to the judicial bench than his three Democratic predecessors combined [Adlai Stevenson, John Sparkman, and Henry M. Jackson]. He did so not because he wanted to score points with the black community, but because it was the right thing to do. Martin Luther King Jr. praised my father for displaying what he called ‘moral leadership’.
When it came time to fill his first seat on the Supreme Court in 1968, my father only had one man in mind for that high position: Thurgood Marshal. Again, my father appointed Marshal as the first black justice of the Supreme Court not because he wanted to score points with the black community in an election year, but because Marshal was the right man for the job.
Whereas other people talked about advancing racial equality, my father did it. During his first year as President, my father worked with Congress to pass a civil rights bill. Although the bill that Congress passed didn’t go as far as he would have liked, it did end the segregation of public facilities and of public schools.”

(Thurgood Marshal, seen here posing with his family prior to being sworn in as the first black justice of the Supreme Court in 1968)
“When it came to small businesses, my father showed that he was a friend ready to provide them with a helping hand.”
Forbes was referring to the Small Business Development Act of 1966. Passed by Congress that spring, the SBDA had its’ roots in a memorandum Secretary of Commerce George W. Romney submitted to President Forbes in the beginning of 1966. Romney’s memorandum indicated that in the past year, the number of small businesses which opened their doors was just 47,000. It claimed that years of regulations imposed on businesses by the Democrats “has made it difficult for private enterprise to flourish in the numbers needed in order to generate significant job creation and economic growth, which go hand-in-hand.”
To spur the establishment of more small businesses, Romney recommended slashing red tape and providing greater financial assistance. President Forbes promptly followed his Secretary of Commerce’s recommendations and worked with Congress to enact the SBDA. Under the Act:

• The number of regulations imposed on businesses were reduced, along with the amount of Federal paperwork they had to do
• The Federal tax requirements for businesses were simplified
• The availability of long-term credit and equity capital for small businesses, provided by the Small Business Administration, was increased
• A mandate was established that at least 25% of prime Federal contracts would go to small businesses

The SBDA produced the desired effect, sharply increasing the number of new small businesses from 47,000 in 1965 to 70,000 in 1969. While many of these new small businesses were local in their reach, others would go on to become national and international corporations. Subway, Best Buy, Big Lots, Intel, and Wendy’s all got their start during this time.

(In November 1969, Dave Thomas opened the first Wendy’s hamburger restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. Named after one of his daughters, Wendy’s would go on to become the third-largest hamburger fast food chain in the world, behind Burger King and McDonald’s)
“Of course, one of the most important things my father did was to end the Vietnam War in a responsible manner. The Democrats wanted to simply abandon South Vietnam, not caring at all about the consequences of abruptly pulling out all our troops while the enemy was still out in the field. Not my father. He insisted on staying the course in Vietnam until victory was secured. And you know what? It was.
We stayed on the offense, eliminating the Viet Cong guerillas as a threat to the South Vietnamese. We expelled the North Vietnamese from the South, and even took the war directly to them. That was when the enemy recognized that we weren’t going to let them win and became willing to engage in meaningful peace talks.
What my father understood, and what the Democrats did not, and still don’t, is that our enemies only take us seriously when we are strong. They do not take us seriously when we are weak.”
“So what does my father’s Presidency, which took place in the past, have to do with where we are today,” Forbes asked in his conclusion, which came after he had mentioned several other highlights of his father’s legacy. “The answer to that question is this: while much has changed over these past forty years, one thing has not. The Democrats love to talk about how they are the party of progress. We are going to get a lot of that talk when they have their convention in Boston in a few weeks. But the fact is: it is the Republican Party, our party, which actually produces progress. Real, meaningful progress. My father left the country in better shape than how he found it. I know John McCain will get the country in better shape than it is now when we elect him to be the next President of the United States in November. With John McCain in the White House, he will deliver real, meaningful progress for the American people, not the illusion of progress we get from the Democrats, and for that matter, from the Reformers.
When the American people go to the polls this November to cast their votes, they will be faced with the same choice they were faced with forty years ago: real progress or fake progress. Forty years ago, they wanted real progress and got it from my father. We delivered then, and we will deliver now. That is the Republican guarantee.”
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Welcome to the third installment in the Presidents series: America and the Cold War (1966-1991). Having gone through the Vietnam War in the last AAR, this AAR will take us through the remainder of the Cold War Era.

For the prologue, I wanted to do a recap of the Forbes Presidency so far. Thus, his son's speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention. As the prologue indicates, things are not going very well for the Republicans by the time we get to their 2004 convention. Historically, the Republican Party at the Presidential level hasn't done very well in the post-Cold War Era. Since 1992, the Republicans have only won the Electoral College three times (2000, 2004, and 2016), and has only won the popular vote once (2004). Add in a much more successful Ross Perot and a more viable Reform Party, and things become more difficult for the Party of Lincoln.

Can McCain break the GOP's losing streak in 2004? Well...it's going to be a while before we find out, because we are heading back to January 1966 in the next update. Back to the good old days for the Republican Party.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

And the saga goes on and on,,,

 

[El Pip]

Welcome back for part 3! The Presidents are onto the home straight but we still have the West Pacific War to look forward to along with who knows what else? Can't wait.

“the Wendell Willkie of the 21st Century.”

There is no greater insult.

"Our nation is $4 trillion in debt. Every day, our nation goes $1 billion further into debt. Now, whose fault is that?

I find it amusing that such figures today would be seen as an incredible achievement, having a deficit that low seems almost impossible to imagine.

 

[Nathan Madien]

Kurt_Steiner: Kind of like "Star Wars".

When I wrote the first Presidents AAR way back when, I thought that was going to be it. One and done. I even mapped out the future Presidencies with the expectation that I wouldn't be writing a sequel. Then I discovered the Vietnam War Mod...and here we are today with AAR #3.

El Pip: Thank you very much, El Pip.

It feels great to keep writing, even if this is only one of two HOI2 AARs still active in 2023. I am sure even Paradox is surprised this part of their forum is still breathing, considering HOI4 is understandably where all the action is.

The Western Pacific War of 1967 is where this AAR is heading next. Then it is onto the 1968 Presidential election and from there we move into the 1970s, the era of bell-bottom pants, Studio 54, and great rock music.

Dan Quayle might disagree with you on that.

I agree. Given that the national debt now is $31 trillion, the fact that 30 years ago it was just $4 trillion is incredible.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Flagpole Incident
“Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States!”
The House Sergeant at Arms’ voice was loud and clear, easily heard by everyone in the House chamber. The room was immediately filled with the sounds of applause and cheering. It was 9:00 PM on Wednesday, January 12th, 1966. In the Capitol Building, members of the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and invited guests had gathered in the House chamber to watch President Malcolm Forbes deliver his first State of the Union Address. One of the constitutional requirements of being President is to “give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”
For a long time, Presidents simply submitted an annual written report to Congress, to be read by the House Clerk. It was President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) who began the modern practice of delivering the State of the Union in person before a joint session of Congress. Following protocol, Forbes waited until he received a formal invitation by Speaker of the House Gerald Ford before coming to the Capitol Building. As the President slowly walked into the room for the first time, followed by members of his Congressional escort committee, he was inundated by applause and requests for handshakes. Upon reaching the Speaker’s rostrum, Forbes shook hands with Ford and Vice President Everett Dirksen. He then turned to face his audience. For the first time since 1950, a Republican President was addressing a Republican Congress. The GOP controlled both chambers of the 89th Congress:

• House of Representatives: 264 Republicans; 171 Democrats
• Senate: 53 Republicans; 47 Democrats

“Members of Congress,” Ford declared in his dry Midwestern accent, “I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you the President of the United States.”
This elicited another round of applause. Ford and Dirksen (below) then sat down behind Forbes, which signaled to everyone else to sit down as well. After adjusting his black-rimmed glasses and clearing his throat, the 46-year-old President began to speak.

“Mr. Speaker, Mr. President [Dirksen, as President of the Senate], Members of the House and the Senate, my fellow Americans:
I come before you tonight to report on the State of the Union for the first time. As we gather here in this chamber, we find our Nation in the midst of a great struggle. Hundreds of thousands of our brave countrymen are engaged in a brutal and bitter conflict in Vietnam.”
The Vietnam War, without question the biggest issue facing the United States at the time, was the very first topic the President discussed. As he had since the moment he took office, Forbes was upfront with his national audience about the bloody nature of war. As the first World War Two veteran to make it to the White House, the President didn’t downplay what was going on in Vietnam; instead, he spoke frankly about why the country was enduring heavy causalities and why it was necessary. “I know the American people are wondering how much longer this war will go on, how much longer our men must be asked to fight and to possibly sacrifice their lives so the people of South Vietnam can govern themselves instead of being controlled by the forces of Communism. I stand before you tonight to report that we have before us a real opportunity for peace.”
He reviewed the recent offer made by the British Government to mediate an end to the Vietnam War and the willingness of the North Vietnamese Government to send a delegation to London to discuss peace – on the condition that the United States halted Operation Rolling Thunder, which had been going on since September 1964.
“The United States,” Forbes announced, “Is prepared tonight to take whatever steps are necessary to begin the talks for peace, including the immediate halt to the bombing of North Vietnam that is presently underway.”
That being said, the President also made it “absolutely clear” that the halt would be tied directly to the performance of the North Vietnamese delegation. “While the United States stands ready tonight to meet with the representatives of North Vietnam at the conference table in good faith, the United States will not stand by and do nothing if those representatives abandon the discussions of peace. Should Hanoi show bad faith by walking away after we had agreed to their request to halt the bombing, we will no longer be bound to continue to honor our end of the agreement. The bombing will resume, and it will continue until the North Vietnamese recognize the grave error they had committed to the cause of peace and return to the conference table.”
Once the President finished the initial focus on Vietnam, he shifted the attention of the State of the Union Address to how his Administration was dealing with the Soviet Union and the Republic of China, America's two biggest adversaries in the Cold War. After he was done talking about foreign policy, Forbes rolled out his domestic agenda for the upcoming year. He expressed confidence he could continue the string of legislative successes from the previous year. Nowhere in the televised speech did the President mention Panama. The Central American nation wasn’t on his radar that Wednesday night. Within days, that changed dramatically.

Established in November 1903, the Republic of Panama owed its’ existence to just one thing: the Panama Canal. As a narrow strip of land separating the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Isthmus of Panama was the ideal place in which to build a canal connecting the two oceans. Among those who recognized the strategic advantages such a canal would offer was President Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909). Upon taking office in the wake of the assassination of President William McKinley in September 1901, Roosevelt made it a national priority to build the Panama Canal. At the time, the Isthmus of Panama was a part of Colombia. To convince the country to let them build a canal through their territory, the Roosevelt Administration in early 1903 offered Colombia $10 million upfront and an annual payment of $250,000 for the leasing of a 6-mile-wide strip of land. Colombia rejected the offer. Rebuffed, TR changed tactics. He threw his support behind separatist rebels who wanted Panama to be an independent nation. With direct backing from the Americans, the Panamanians seceded from the Colombians and declared their independence that November. The United States then became the first nation to formally recognize the Republic of Panama; by cutting Colombia out of the equation completely, Washington was able to quickly negotiate a treaty granting them the right to build the canal through a 553 square mile area known as the Panama Canal Zone. While Panama would be a sovereign state, the Canal Zone would be US territory. Roosevelt’s intervention in Panama for the sole purpose of securing land there for building a canal became a source of controversy, with critics accusing him of being an unabashed imperialist. The President, driven by his vision of making the United States a global power on par with the great powers of Europe, brushed aside the criticism. “I took the Isthmus, started the canal, and then left Congress not to debate the canal, but to debate me.”

The Americans began their construction of the Panama Canal in May 1904, taking over from the French (who had attempted to build a canal without much luck). Thousands of workers poured into the Canal Zone, cutting their way across the mountainous Isthmus. Millions of tons of soil were removed, while extensive sanitation measures were implemented to protect workers from the scourge of deadly diseases like yellow fever and malaria. Using steam-powered shovels and giant hydraulic rock crushers, workers constructed a series of artificial lakes, artificial channels, and three sets of locks which raised and lowered ships above sea level. The Panama Canal was completed and formally opened in August 1914, two years ahead of schedule. It was a spectacular engineering achievement, but one that came at a heavy price: over 5,600 workers died during the course of the construction. In addition, the project cost the United States $500 million. With the Panama Canal now operational, ships could sail between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans much more quickly than the old routes that took ships all the way around South America. This benefitted not only commercial ships, sharply reducing their sailing time, but also naval ships. With the outbreak of two World Wars, the United States Navy took full advantage of the canal to swiftly shift naval assets between the two oceans as needed.

(The Panama Canal during the 1960s)
By the end of World War Two, the Panama Canal was seen as an international symbol of America’s immense power. This didn’t sit well with the Panamanians, who came to see the Canal Zone as being their rightful territory. Resentment towards what they referred to as “Yankee Imperialism” grew over time. Not helping matters any was the racist attitude of the Americans living in the Canal Zone. They lived separately from the Panamanians, looking down at them as second-rate people...at best. In an effort to placate Panama City, who was making complaints about being taken for granted by Washington, the Sparkman Administration (1954-1961) granted the concession of allowing the Panamanian flag to be flown alongside the American flag at all non-military sites within the Canal Zone. This concession seemed to help quiet down simmering tensions between the two countries. Then in August 1965, newly-appointed Panama Canal Zone Governor David Stuart Parker reversed course and ordered both flags to be removed from all non-military sites. His justification was that he wanted the Canal Zone to appear more “neutral” in light of the fact that many nations were sending their ships through the Panama Canal. Parker’s effort to internationalize the Canal Zone infuriated the Americans living there. They regarded the removal of the Stars and Stripes in order to create the appearance that the canal wasn’t just American property as a renunciation of their country’s sovereignty over the Canal Zone.

(David Stuart Parker)
After months of pressure by the American residents to restore their flag, Parker finally caved in on Sunday, January 16th, 1966. The American flag, he directed, could once again be flown at all non-military sites. However, he didn’t restore the right to fly the Panamanian flag alongside it. Whether intentional or simply an oversight on his part, this omission by Parker ignited a fuse among Panamanians. Looking back at it later, Forbes admitted that “removing the flags in the first place was the wrong thing to do. There’s no question about it. Parker should have left well enough alone. Nothing good came out of his decision to remove those flags.”
Parker’s order went into effect the next day. Across the Canal Zone, the Stars and Stripes were raised amidst patriotic singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner”. This outraged Panamanians, who saw it as a naked display of Yankee Imperialism. Unable to contain themselves any longer, the Panamanians took it upon themselves to fly their flag alongside the American flag – in spite of the fact that they had no permission to do so. When the Panamanian flag was raised outside the three-story Balboa High School, the Americans were angered by this display of Panamanian nationalism. They didn’t believe the Panamanians had any right to fly their flag within the Canal Zone, much less next to theirs’. A confrontation between the Americans and the Panamanians at the flagpole quickly turned into a physical fist fight. The Americans forced the Panamanians back and immediately took down their flag. Then, to show their utter racist contempt for people they regarded as being beneath them, the Americans tore it up.

The Panamanians were angry to begin with; seeing their flag be torn apart turned their anger up to 11. They surged forward, beating up whichever "ugly American" they could get their furious hands on. The situation escalated as word of the Flagpole Incident spread across the Canal Zone and into Panama. A crowd of 200 Panamanians took to the streets; fueled by a burning sense of nationalism, they desecrated American flags while shouting “This is our land!”
Fights broke out. Buildings and cars were vandalized and set on fire. The Canal Zone descended into chaos as the local police tried to quell the rioting. When their use of tear gas failed to disperse the unruly crowd, who reacted by pelting them with rocks, the police opened fire, killing and wounding several Panamanians. By nightfall, it had become apparent to Parker that the police alone wouldn’t be able to restore order. Faced with a hostile crowd of 5,000 Panamanians, he decided that reinforcements were needed to suppress them. After apprising Washington of the deteriorating situation in the Canal Zone, the Governor declared martial law. US infantry troops were ordered to join the police in combatting the rioters. For the next two days, intense fighting raged as the Americans sought to put an end to the hostilities. When peace was finally restored on January 19th, 28 Panamanian rioters (who would henceforth be treated by Panama as martyrs) and 4 American soldiers were dead.

(The scene outside the Pan Am Building, which was set on fire during the rioting)
Parker congratulated his men on restoring order, seeing it as a job well done. Unfortunately for him, that isn’t how the rest of the world saw it. Panama was outraged over the death toll; Panamanian President Marco Aurelio Robles publicly denounced America’s lethal use of military force against his people and promptly broke off diplomatic relations between their two nations. There was swift international condemnation of the United States for hypocritically crushing this display of Panamanian nationalism while lecturing the rest of the world about the importance of the freedom of expression. Moscow and Nanjing both strongly denounced America’s control of the Panama Canal as imperialist and urged Panama to nationalize it. Faced with this chorus of global criticism, Forbes knew he had a major foreign policy disaster on his hands. “Parker handled his job badly,” the President told his national security team at the White House, “And now we have over 30 people dead, and we have much of the world against us. All of this because of a flag that he should never have removed in the first place.”
For the United States, the Flagpole Incident couldn’t have come at a worse time. Two weeks after it, the peace conference to end the Vietnam War kicked off in London. The political fallout from gunning down protesting Panamanians followed the US delegation, led by Secretary of State Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., to the British capital. North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Xuan Thuy, who headed his country’s delegation, cited Panama as an example in his constant tirades about the United States and her various wrongdoings. Forced to sit through these tirades in order to make progress on the peace talks, Lodge wrote afterwards that his North Vietnamese counterpart “was a dreadful fellow to face across the table day after day.”

(Marco Aurelio Robles, who served as President of Panama from October 1964 to October 1968)
While Lodge worked to end the Vietnam War, Forbes worked to restore Panamanian-American relations. On April 15th, Washington and Panama City reached an agreement to re-establish diplomatic ties. The United States formally apologized for her conduct, removed Parker from his post, and guaranteed that the Panamanian flag would have a permanent presence alongside the US flag within the Canal Zone. When asked at a press conference why he was willing to grant concessions to the Panamanian government, Forbes honestly replied that “mistakes were made on our part” and that this agreement corrected those mistakes “so we do not have a repeat of the violence we saw down there.”
The Flagpole Incident spooked Forbes. Like many Americans, the President had taken America’s sole control of the Panama Canal for granted. The incident revealed the depth of the resentment Panamanians had that they were completely shut out of the canal which was responsible for their very existence. Being pragmatic, the President thought the time had come to re-negotiate the status of the canal. A few weeks after the re-establishment of Panamanian-American relations, Forbes publicly proposed granting Panama joint-ownership of the canal. This would give the Panamanians a stake in the day-to-day operation of the canal, “which I believe will go a long way in addressing the root cause of the violence we saw in the Canal Zone last January, which is the lack of representation on the part of the people of Panama.”
It was a reasonable-sounding proposal; the problem for Forbes was that it was completely unacceptable to the Right. Already unhappy with the President for granting what they deemed to be unnecessary concessions, conservatives in both political parties vigorously assailed this proposal. Even Forbes’ fellow Republicans accused him of wanting to turn over the Panama Canal to Panama. The fact that the President never actually proposed doing so made no difference to them. Just the mere suggestion of making any alterations to the status of the canal was enough to provoke the knee-jerk reactionaries. Republican Senator Ronald Reagan of California spoke for many of his fellow conservatives when he stated rather bluntly on “Meet the Press” (NBC):
“We built the Panama Canal, not the Panamanians. We paid for it with our blood, sweat, and tears, not them. Therefore, we own it, not them. Why should we just give them something we worked so hard to build? We shouldn’t. It is rightfully ours, and we should keep it.”
With his finger on the pulse of the Senate, Dirksen advised Forbes against trying to implement his proposal. He warned that the upper chamber “will reject any treaty you negotiate with Panama which alters the present status of the canal.”
That liberals on the other hand supported the proposal as a progressive step forward didn't shore up the President's willingness to put up a fight. Having already fought conservatives the year before over his civil rights bill and been forced to compromise with them, Forbes had little appetite for another uphill battle with the Right. When informed that White House mail was running 15-to-1 for keeping the Panama Canal solely under American control, he replied with resignation that “the odds are completely against me.”
The President quietly abandoned his proposal, recognizing the futility of trying to persuade conservatives that giving Panama joint-ownership of the canal wasn’t the surrender of America’s sovereignty to a foreign power that they were making it out to be. That was their hardline perception, and nothing he said could change it. The status quo over the Panama Canal would continue.

 

[El Pip]

This seems a strong argument for my "Great Idiots of History" theory, that the key is not great men doing incredible things that no-one else could of done, but idiots doing baffling things that no-one else would be stupid enough to do. Parker's action in Panama support this theory.

On the wider point the contrast with the US approach to Suez (even ITTL) to Panama remains hilarious.

 

[Nathan Madien]

El Pip: As we have seen time and again throughout history, all it takes to inflame tensions between countries is for someone from one country to do something stupid in the other. While Parker may have had good intentions in ordering the removal of the two flags, as the old saying goes "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Historically there was rioting in Panama in 1964, which inspired this update. The key difference between the two is the aftermath. Following the OTL rioting, President Lyndon B. Johnson initiated the negotiation process with Panama which eventually led to the Torrijos–Carter Treaties of 1977, which gave Panama full control of canal starting on the last day of 1999. Despite vehement opposition from conservatives, the negotiations were successful.

In TTL, Forbes' desire to begin negotiations with Panama is thwarted by the conservatives. He lacks the stomach for an uphill fight with them over the status of the canal and backs down. That means by the time we get to the 1970s, we won't have the diplomatic foundation in place for the Torrijos–Carter Treaties. If Reagan becomes President in the 1970s, there is no way he is going to negotiate with Panama. Without the Torrijos–Carter Treaties, it is quite possible that Panama might decide that if they can't gain control of the canal through diplomacy, they can gain control of it through nationalization. So we could see a Suez-type situation unfold TTL for the Americans.
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The End of Project Gemini
If you had gone to Launch Complex 19 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on January 24th, 1966, you would have seen a 109-foot-long Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile ready to be launched. If you had looked at the tip of the modified two-stage liquid-fuel rocket, you would have seen a black two-seat space capsule. This was Gemini 11, the 9th crewed spaceflight mission of Project Gemini. Inside the capsule, Command Pilot Charles “Pete” Conrad and Pilot Richard Gordon were strapped into their seats, ready to be blasted off into space. This would be Conrad’s second spaceflight (his first had been Gemini 5 in December 1964) and Gordon’s first. The two men waited patiently as NASA conducted the countdown to launch, which was being televised live on all three channels. At 2:42 PM, the countdown clock reached 00:00 and the astronauts felt the rocket lift off the launch pad. They were now on their way to Earth’s orbit, where they would spend the next three days.

94 minutes after lift-off, Gemini 11 rendezvous with the Agena Target Vehicle. 26-feet-long with a diameter of 5 feet, the ATV was an unmanned spacecraft NASA had developed for astronauts to practice rendezvous and docking maneuvers. Given that the upcoming lunar missions of Project Apollo would involve two spacecrafts (one would land on the surface of the Moon while the other one would remain in the Moon’s orbit), NASA wanted their astronauts to get a feel for the complex maneuvering in Earth’s orbit before heading off to the Moon to do it for real. Lockheed Aircraft had developed the ATV, which was a modified upper stage rocket, while McDonnell Aircraft had developed its’ docking target. Using his on-board computer and radar for guidance, Conrad was able to dock his spacecraft with the ATV while making the first orbit around the Earth. He then undocked with it. During the course of the mission, which took place 184 miles above the planet, Gemini 11 docked and undocked with the ATV a total of four times, demonstrating that these maneuvers could be done multiple times while in orbit. On January 25th, Gordon did his first extravehicular activity. Tethered to the space capsule, he removed a 100-foot-long tether from the ATV’s docking collar and fastened it to Gemini 11’s docking bar. The purpose of the EVA was to determine if Gemini 11 could passively stabilize the ATV. It could, but working in the weightlessness of space was a lot more intensive than had been anticipated, quickly wearing Gordon out. After only 33 minutes, he was too exhausted to continue with the EVA and went back inside the space capsule.

The next day, with Gemini 11 docked with the ATV, Gordon felt good enough to conduct his second EVA, in which he unfastened the tether and restored it inside the docking collar. Once Gordon was safely back inside the space capsule, Conrad undocked from the ATV for the last time at 4:55 PM. Having taken a series of photographs, and having made a total of 44 orbits, the crew was ready to return home. After re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere and releasing its’ red-and-white striped parachute, Gemini 11 safely splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean near the Bahamas on January 27th at 1:59 PM. For the first time ever, the re-entry had been handled entirely by the on-board computer system instead of being handled by the astronauts as it had been done in previous missions. The computer ended up bringing Gemini 11 down 2.8 miles away from the recovery ship USS Guam, an Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ship. A Navy Helicopter Squadron recovered the space capsule, and the two men happily stepped onto the deck of the ship after a job well done.

January 1966 found NASA staring at the clock on the wall. Five years earlier, President Henry M. Jackson (1961-1965) had boldly given the space agency the deadline of January 1st, 1970 to land men on the Moon. For centuries, mankind had looked up at this silver dot in the nighttime sky and dreamed about going there. Jules Verne wrote a pair of science fiction novels about reaching Earth's natural satellite in 97 hours and 20 minutes, and Georges Méliès made a French silent movie in 1902 in which a manned space capsule was shot directly at the face of the Moon, poking out one of its' eyes upon impact. Now NASA had less than nine years to turn those fantasies into reality. Adding to the pressure they were under was the stunning success of the Soviet space program. While the United States had put the first manmade satellite (Explorer 1) into orbit and the first man (Alan Shepard) into space, the Soviet Union had put the first animal (a dog named Laika), first man (Yuri Gagarin), and first woman (Valentina Tereshkova) into orbit, and had performed the first EVA (Alexei Leonov). The two superpowers were now locked in a technological race to reach the Moon first. NASA’s first manned step into the final frontier, as “Star Trek” (NBC) would memorably put it, was Project Mercury. Between August 1960 and February 1963, seven astronauts went into space to demonstrate that humans could endure this weightless environment. The first two Mercury missions were simply 15-minute jaunts into sub-orbit. John Glenn made the first American orbital flight in June 1961, orbiting the Earth three times over the course of nearly five hours. When Scott Carpenter (below) performed the final Mercury mission in February 1963, he spent three days in space and made 48 orbits.

After Mercury came Gemini. Carrying a crew of two astronauts (“Gemini” is Latin for “twins”, hence the program’s name), the Gemini missions featured a number of objectives their crews had to accomplish before NASA could move onto Apollo:

• Demonstrate that they could endure spaceflight for at least eight days, the amount of time it would take to reach the Moon and return to Earth
• Demonstrate that two spacecrafts could rendezvous and dock with each other in space
• Demonstrate that they could safely conduct EVAs outside the protection of their spacecraft
• Improve techniques for atmospheric re-entry and touching down at a pre-selected location

Built by McDonnell Aircraft, the Gemini space capsule was 18-feet-long, 10-feet-wide, and weighed 7,725 pounds. Unlike the Mercury space capsule, Gemini housed the retrorockets, electrical power system, propulsion system, oxygen supply, and water supply in a detachable white Adapter Module which was located behind the black Re-entry Module (which housed the two astronauts). It also featured a much improved 59-pound on-board guidance computer, which came with in-flight radar and an artificial horizon. The first Gemini mission, conducted in August 1963, was unmanned, as NASA used it to test the structural integrity of the new space capsule along with the new tracking and communication systems. Once it had passed all its’ tests, NASA allowed the space capsule to disintegrate while re-entering the atmosphere. This was followed by a second unmanned Gemini mission in May 1964, in which the heat shield and retrorockets were successfully tested.

Two months later, NASA began launching manned Gemini missions:

• Gemini 3 (July 1964): Virgil “Gus” Grissom and John Young orbited the Earth three times
• Gemini 4 (October 1964): James McDivitt and Edward White conducted the first American EVA
• Gemini 5 (December 1964): Gordon “Gordo” Cooper and Charles “Pete” Conrad became the first crew to spend over a week in space
• Gemini 6A (April 1965): Walter “Wally” Schirra and Thomas Stafford made the first rendezvous in orbit between two crewed spacecraft, the other spacecraft being Gemini 7
• Gemini 7 (April 1965): Frank Borman and James Lovell
• Gemini 8 (July 1965): Neil Armstrong and David Scott had to abort their mission after their space capsule suffered a thruster malfunction while docked to the ATV, which caused a near-fatal tumbling of their ship
• Gemini 9A (October 1965): Thomas Stafford and Eugene “Gene” Cernan rendezvous with the Augmented Target Docking Adaptor, but were unable to dock with it due to the nose fairing failing to eject from the docking target because of a launch preparation error
• Gemini 10 (November 1965): John Young and Michael Collins rendezvous and docked with the ATV

In the wake of Gemini 11, NASA decided the next Gemini mission would be the last. Officials at this point were eager to wrap up the $1.3 billion program and shift their focus fully to the Apollo program. They scheduled Gemini 12 for March, to be followed by the orbital flight of Apollo 1 in June.

Lovell, a crew member of Gemini 7, was selected to command Gemini 12. Joining him for the program’s final mission was Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, who was making his spaceflight debut. Shortly before 4:00 PM on March 11th (the day after the London Peace Accords was signed ending the Vietnam War), Lovell and Aldrin blasted off into space, where they spent the next four days making 59 orbits. Noting how difficult it had been for Gordon to perform his EVAs, NASA had developed a new technique to prepare their astronauts to operate in the weightlessness of space. Wearing a pressure suit, Aldrin had been submerged underwater in a pool, which simulated what he would feel working outside the space capsule. Buzz used the underwater training to hone his EVA skills until they became second nature to him. The intensive training paid off, as he was able to spend a total of five-and-a-half hours working safely outside Gemini 12, with only a tether preventing him from drifting off into the vastness of space. Pleased that Aldrin’s three EVAs had all gone smoothly, NASA regarded the mission as a great note in which to end Project Gemini on. After undocking with the ATV for the final time, Gemini 12 re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on March 15th, splashing down three miles off target near the Bahamas. She was then recovered by the Essex-class aircraft carrier USS Wasp, who had also been the recovery ship for Gemini 4, 6A, 7, and 9A. Other than being slightly exhausted and dehydrated, Lovell and Aldrin cleared their postflight medical examination and returned to Florida.

(Buzz Aldrin during his underwater EVA training)
With that, America’s second major space program was over. Project Mercury had demonstrated that her astronauts possessed, in the words of author Tom Wolfe, “the right stuff” for space. Project Gemini reinforced that, as they conducted complex maneuvers and spent days floating in space. Now it was time to take the ultimate step with Project Apollo. Grissom, White, and spaceflight newcomer Roger Chaffee were selected to be the three-man crew of the Apollo 1 mission. They spent the spring of 1966 conducting the final preparations for their mission, in which they would spend two weeks in Earth's orbit testing the new Apollo command and service module. By late May, with the inaugural launch of the new space program just a few weeks away, NASA officials felt that their astronauts were more than ready to begin traveling from the Earth to the Moon. So far in the six years since Shepard's history-making flight aboard Freedom 7, none of their manned missions had been catastrophic. Mistakes had been made of course, and there had been close calls (Gemini 8 being a prime example), but none of the missions had ended with the loss of the entire crew. What, in the complacent minds of NASA, could possibly go wrong with Apollo 1?

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On a side note, Cape Canaveral (which I have been to a few times as a resident of Florida) was historically known at this time as Cape Kennedy, after the slain President John F. Kennedy. Since JFK never becomes President TTL and therefore never gets assassinated, there's no reason to rename Cape Canaveral after him. So the original Cape Canaveral name remains in use in 1966, and the Kennedy Space Center has a different name today.

On another side note, there are 5 Gemini astronauts still alive as of this writing: Frank Borman, James Lovell, Thomas Stafford, David Scott, and Buzz Aldrin.

 

[Nathan Madien]

Upsetting the Bible Belt
The summer of 1966 found President Malcolm Forbes and conservatives again at odds. As a member of the moderate Eastern Establishment wing of the Republican Party, Forbes naturally didn’t see eye-to-eye with the Right on certain issues. One of those issues was Panama. Conservatives weren’t happy with the President for granting what they deemed to be unnecessary concessions to the Panamanian government in order to re-establish diplomatic relations following the Flagpole Incident. When the President then proposed granting the Panamanians joint-ownership of the Panama Canal, conservative backlash forced him to abandon it. Another issue which caused a disagreement between the two sides was, of all things, mail. In the mid-1960s, there was no such thing as online shopping. If you wanted to buy something without having to go to the store, you ordered from mail catalogues. Sears and JCPenney were among the major retailers who put out catalogues advertising the consumer goods they sold. While their catalogues were meant for an entire family to order things from, there were also specialty catalogues you could get that you could order adult-only items from. These sex-oriented catalogues ran afoul of conservatives, who claimed that their distribution in the mail was undermining the country’s morality. “Should we allow our children to see this filth?” an offended right-wing member of Congress asked, “Should we allow those who peddle in obscenity to use our mail system to support their multimillion-dollar obscenity racket? The answer has to be ‘No!’”
With Congress in a conservative mood, legislation was passed in the summer of 1966 which banned the distribution of sex-oriented catalogues. Supporters of the bill argued that it was necessary in order to, as they saw it, curb the flow of obscene products through the postal system. Congress then sent the bill to the President’s desk for his signature. Forbes, who saw things differently, vetoed it instead and returned it to Congress. In his first-ever veto message, the President stated that he had two objections to the bill:

• He viewed it as being an attack on business. To him, people who sold sex-oriented items had the same right to advertise in the mail as people who sold clothes and furniture.
• He also viewed it as being unconstitutional. He reminded the legislative branch that the Supreme Court had ruled in 1962 that prohibiting the distribution of pornographic magazines in the mail was unconstitutional because it violated the freedom of speech under the First Amendment. If this bill became law, he reasoned, then the Supreme Court would just strike it down for the same reason.

Congressional conservatives from both political parties were surprised by the President’s veto. He hadn’t vetoed any bill that Congress, which his party controlled, sent him and they didn’t think he would start now. They tried to override Forbes’ veto, which required a two-thirds majority vote in both houses in Congress, but came up short. His veto held firm.

People on the Right were naturally upset at the President for shooting down their morality measure. Nowhere was the anger more pronounced than in the so-called “Bible Belt”. Coined by American journalist H.L. Mencken in 1924, the Bible Belt stretched across much of the South and into the lower Midwest. Here there was a strong socially conservative Protestantism base, with more people attending church in this region than anywhere else in the country. With opposition to pornography being a traditional pillar of social conservativism, on the grounds that it was a force of morality corruption, the bill to ban sex-oriented catalogues from being distributed in the mail was very popular in the Bible Belt. By vetoing it, the President damaged his reputation here. Many people saw him as being a champion of immorality and turned against him. Forbes’ approval rating in the Bible Belt took a significant hit, even as it shot up in the rest of the country due to him ending the Vietnam War and beginning to bring the troops home. Running for President again as a third-party candidate in 1968, George Wallace shrewdly exploited the Bible Belt’s displeasure towards the Republican incumbent to garner votes. He pledged that if he was elected President, “I will take every obscene magazine and catalogue in the country and throw them into a big bonfire right on the White House lawn.”
The then-former Governor of Alabama added that when it came to morality, “there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between” the moderate Forbes and his liberal Democratic opponent Hubert Humphrey. He on the other hand claimed that he would as President champion morality.

(The extent of the Bible Belt)
For the Southern Baptist, Methodist, and Evangelical Protestant denominations which dominated the Bible Belt, morality was something to be taken very seriously. Anything that contradicted their religious views was strongly opposed. When a 24-year-old high school science teacher in Dayton, Tennessee for example taught that humans evolved from apes, as opposed to the Biblical teaching that God created humans, it led to one of the most famous trials in American history. In July 1925, John T. Scopes was put on trial for violating a state law which prohibited the teaching of evolution. Because science and religion were going head-to-head in the courtroom, the Scopes Trial attracted national attention comparable to the O.J. Simpson murder trial 70 years later. Everyone followed it closely in the newspapers and on the radio. Leading the prosecution was William Jennings Bryan, a three-time losing Democratic Presidential nominee who was one of the major crusaders against the teaching of evolution. Defending Scopes was Clarence Darrow, one of the most prominent attorneys in America. For a week in the sweltering summer heat, the two sides made their arguments for and against the teaching of evolution in what Mencken dubbed “The Monkey Trial”. Bryan for example claimed that the anti-evolution law was necessary in order to “save the Christian children from the poisonous influence of an unproven hypothesis.”
At one point during the highly-publicized trial, Darrow put Bryan on the witness stand so he could vigorously question what he called the “Bible expert.”
Their two-hour back-and-forth on whether Biblical stories like Adam and Eve should be taken literally got intense, with Bryan slamming Darrow for “casting ridicule on everybody who believes in the Bible.”
The defense attorney, who thought it was “foolish” to favor the Bible over science like Bryan was doing, shot back that “We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States.”
When everything was said and done, the Scopes Trial ended with the jury finding the defendant guilty after only nine minutes of deliberation. Upon being fined $100 by the presiding judge, Scopes reacted by stating:
“Your honor, I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom; that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our Constitution, of personal and religious freedom. I think the fine is unjust.”
So did the Supreme Court of Tennessee, which overturned the conviction on appeal because of a legal technicality: judges in Tennessee weren’t allowed by the state constitution to set fines over $50. Only the jury could do that…and they had been pre-empted by the judge, who had overstepped his authority. As for the state law which had set the Scopes Trial into motion, it was repealed in 1967.

(Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan during the Scopes Trial. Their courtroom showdown later inspired the 1960 film “Inherit the Wind”, a fictionalized account of the proceedings starring Spencer Tracy and Fredric March)
Forty-one years after the Scopes Trial riveted the country, the Bible Belt was up in arms. It wasn’t just Forbes’ veto of the sex-oriented catalogue ban that had them all riled up. A candid interview in a British newspaper had reached America’s shores, and what the interview subject had said about religion made Americans furious. It all began on March 4th when the “London Evening Standard” published an interview Maureen Cleave had conducted with John Lennon of the Beatles. Cleave was a 31-year-old journalist who had been covering pop music for the “London Evening Standard” since 1958. In 1963, she befriended the Beatles as they were beginning their meteoric rise to global superstardom and became a trusted member of their inner circle. In early 1966, Cleave used her intimate access to conduct wide-ranging interviews with what she called “the darlings of Merseyside” which sought to get into their minds. How did John Paul George and Ringo view the world? What were their personal opinions on their enormous fame and of life in general? Interviewed individually, the four young men candidly opened up to Cleave and told her things that they hadn’t shared publicly before. The “London Evening Standard” decided to publish Lennon’s interview first, to be followed on a weekly basis by Cleave’s interviews with Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney.

(Maureen Cleave)
At the time he sat down with Cleave, Lennon was known worldwide as being one of the two main singers and songwriters of the Beatles – the other being McCartney. He was also known for his sense of humor, which was reflected in both his artistic output and how he dealt with people. When the Beatles appeared on the annual televised “Royal Variety Performance” in November 1963 for example, Lennon cheekily said to the audience (which included Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret):
“For our last number I would like to ask your help: will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you will just rattle your jewelry.”
Then three months later came the infamous “Four of fish and finger pie” incident. During their history-making first visit to the United States in February 1964, the Beatles were invited to the White House to meet President Henry M. Jackson. It was an honor that made their manager Brian Epstein nervous. Why? Lennon’s sense of humor made him worry that he would crack a joke at the expense of the President of the United States. During the car ride to the Executive Mansion (which the British had set on fire during the War of 1812), Epstein lectured the Fab Four “to be on your best behavior” and shot Lennon a stern look. “That includes you, John.”
After Lennon smirked in reply, his manager grew even sterner:
“I mean it! I don’t want any of your funny stuff while we’re at the White House!”
Sure enough, while shaking hands with the President in the East Room, the rhythm guitarist struck. Lennon pointed out that Scoop had visited their hometown of Liverpool during a state visit to England and asked in a curious tone:
“Did you by any chance get to try our local specialty: four of fish and finger pie?”
Epstein glared at Lennon while his three band mates tried to hold back their chuckles. Jackson honestly couldn’t remember what he ate while in Liverpool, but he thought four of fish and finger pie sounded innocent enough. When he answered that he had, all four Beatles broke out in laughter while a mortified Epstein rushed up to apologize. The American President was visibly confused by the British reaction to his answer. When the reason for the reaction was explained to him afterwards, his confusion turned into downright embarrassment. “Four of fish and finger pie” was Liverpool slang for “female private parts”. John Lennon had just showed the world that he had the audacity to make a sexual joke to the President of the United States.

(John Lennon in 1966)
In Cleave’s interview, the public saw another side of Lennon. They saw a 25-year-old man who viewed the world through skeptical lens. He was opposed to the Vietnam War as being “wrong”, but thought the ongoing London Peace Conference wouldn’t ultimately amount to much. “I have read about what is going on over there [in Asia]”, he said, “I know everyone out there is preparing for war. We are preparing for it. The Americans are preparing for it. The Chinese are preparing for it. We all have our guns out you know. If this conference ends the war in Vietnam, so what? We are just going to have another war, so I don’t believe people really want peace. That they want to give peace a chance.”
Then he turned to the subject of religion. In the mid-1960s, Christian Church attendance in England was declining and there was a widespread secular belief that Christianity had grown irrelevant in modern times. Lennon told Cleave that he shared that belief:
“Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that. I’m right and I’ll be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now. I don’t know which will go first: rock and roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”
When the “London Evening Standard” published Lennon’s interview, it barely raised any eyebrows with the British public. They didn’t think there was anything really controversial about it. To them, it was just another voice saying what other people had already said. Nor was Lennon the only member of the band to take a dim view of Christianity. Despite the fact that Harrison had been baptized a Catholic, he too told Cleave that he had a low opinion of it. Given the public shrug to their comments, the story might have ended there had it not been for “Datebook”.

“Datebook” was an American magazine that covered what was popular with teenagers. It also gave readers the liberal perspective on social issues of the day like interracial dating and the criminalization of recreational drugs by the Forbes Administration. Given the magazine’s established open-mindedness, Tony Barrow, who was the Beatles’ press officer, thought it would be a good idea to have it publish the four Cleave interviews. By doing so, he believed that “Datebook” would show readers that the Fab Four – a term he coined – were serious young men with intellect and not just boys who mindlessly shouted “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” while looking like they hadn’t gotten a haircut in a long time. “Datebook’s” managing editor Danny Fields however had other ideas. When he read Lennon’s comment about religion, Fields had a lightbulb moment. Given that Christianity had a far stronger presence in the United States, he knew that the comment was far more likely to generate controversy here than it did across the pond. Since controversy was a guaranteed way to get more attention, Fields fatefully decided to emphasize Lennon’s “We’re more popular than Jesus” statement above everything else.

(Danny Fields)
The “Datebook” issue covering what Lennon had to say about religion hit the newsstands on July 29th. It produced the desired effect, as it sparked outrage from coast to coast…which in turn caused “Datebook’s” sales to skyrocket as everybody wanted to read the issue that everyone was talking about. Americans took offense to this British band blasphemously proclaiming themselves to be more popular than Jesus Christ. Of course, nowhere in the country were people angrier at the Beatles than in the Bible Belt. Within days of the issue’s publication, radio stations across the South were banning Beatles music. In Birmingham, Alabama, disc jockey Tommy Charles encouraged his listeners to join him in destroying Beatles vinyl records in protest. “I just felt it was so absurd and sacrilegious,” he later explained, “That something ought to be done to show them that they can’t get away with this sort of thing.”
Radio station bans and the burning of Beatles records and merchandise spread like wildfire across the country. Lennon’s comment had greatly angered religious Americans, which baffled the British. They couldn’t understand why their former colonial subjects were taking something a musician had said completely serious. “It seems a nerve for Americans,” “Daily Express” columnist Robert Pitman wrote, “To hold up shocked hands, when week in, week out, America is exporting to us a subculture that makes the Beatles seem like four stern old churchwardens.”
Even some Americans criticized the kneejerk reaction of their fellow citizens. For example, “America”, a monthly liberal-leaning Christian magazine published by the Jesuits, ran an editorial defending Lennon as “simply stating what many a Christian educator would readily admit.”
For Epstein, the anti-Beatles backlash in America couldn’t have come at a worst time. The controversy overshadowed the August 8th US release of the Beatles’ seventh studio album “Revolver”, which didn’t receive as much critical coverage in the States as their previous releases had.

When the band arrived in Chicago, Illinois on August 12th to kick off their third North American tour, they were besieged by reporters who primarily wanted to talk about the Jesus controversy. Having recently received death threats from Japanese nationalists for performing at the sacred Nippon Budokan martial arts arena in Tokyo and from Filipinos for snubbing First Lady Imelda Marcos while in Manila, Lennon was in no mood to deal with Americans who had been offended by his opinion. Pressured by his manager to issue an apology in an effort to put this whole thing behind them, Lennon tersely explained to reporters in a press conference at the Astor Hotel:

By saying he was sorry for speaking his mind, Lennon placated a lot of people. Nonetheless, the Beatles were dogged by the controversy throughout their 14-city tour. Not just Lennon but the other three band members grew visibly exasperated by having to discuss this matter over and over with reporters at every stop. They encountered protests at their venues, and when they arrived in Memphis, Tennessee on August 19th for their only performance in the Bible Belt, everybody was on edge. The Ku Klux Klan picketed their two shows at the Mid-South Coliseum, proclaiming that “the Beatles are not welcome in Memphis.”
Once again faced with death threats, the Beatles anxiously took the stage, not knowing what to expect from the Bible Belt crowd. When someone in the audience at their second show threw a lit firecracker at them, it sounded like a gunshot. “Everybody,” Barrow later recalled, “All of us at the side of the stage, including the three Beatles on stage, all looked immediately at John Lennon. We would not at that moment have been surprised to see that guy go down.”
Thankfully no one was hurt, but the incident only added to the misery the band was feeling as they slogged their way through the tour. None of the Fab Four were happy with the way things were going; by the time they reached San Francisco, California on August 29th for the tour’s final concert at the Candlestick Park outdoor stadium (below), John Paul George and Ringo were more than ready to go home to England. The country they had taken by storm just two years earlier was one they couldn't get out of fast enough.

In the summer of 1966, the President of the United States and the Beatles had both felt the sting of a Bible Belt angered by their actions. Forbes took a major political hit by vetoing a morality measure which the Bible Belt strongly favored. Lennon’s “We’re more popular than Jesus” remark, which he said to make a point about how Christianity was declining in England, stirred a hornets’ nest of hostility which originated in the conservative Bible Belt and then radiated outwards across the entire country. This in turn made touring the United States an awful experience that none of the Beatles were eager to repeat any time soon. In fact, they never toured again. By the time they played their last concert at Candlestick Park, the four musicians had grown to hate touring. “We had been through every race riot,” Harrison reflected years later, “And every city we went to there was some kind of a jam going on, and police control, and people threatening to do this and that. We kept being confined to a little room or a plane or a car. We all had each other to dilute the stress, and the sense of humor was very important, but there was a point where enough was enough.”
For them, the experience of being a band on the run, mobbed everywhere they went by screaming fans, wasn’t fun anymore. They had grown tired of trying to make themselves heard above the screams using sound systems that usually weren’t up to the task. As Lennon put it, “they could send out four waxworks and that would satisfy the crowds. Beatles concerts are nothing to do with music anymore. They’re just bloody tribal rites.”
Another problem with touring was that the Beatles were now making music in the studio that was too sophisticated to be performed live on stage. The simple two-guitars-bass-and-drums silly love songs that they started out their career with, like “Love Me Do” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, had given way to more musically complex songs like “In My Life” and “Eleanor Rigby”. Given that they were getting much more satisfaction in the studio than they were on the road, it was an easy enough decision for the Beatles to publicly announce in the wake of their third North American tour that they were permanently done with touring. From now on, they would be exclusively a studio band.

While the world was stunned by the news that the days of Beatles concerts were now over, the Fab Four weren’t the only musicians who had chosen to put life on the road behind them. In January 1965, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys had also retired from touring with his bandmates in order to focus his efforts solely on writing songs and recording in the studio. A year later in May 1966, Wilson released his masterpiece.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Believe it or not, the sex-oriented catalogue ban is based on an actual plank in the 1964 Republican Party platform. When I read it, it gave me an idea.

 

[El Pip]

Interesting times indeed. I'm sure Forbes would much prefer to that issues like Panama and space exploration dominated his agenda, but as these updates remind us more domestic concerns like the morality of the US postal system and the views of popular bands end up intruding. If Forbes can keep his head down I would hope such things will blow over, though I fear Wallace will remain a problem.

On which note;

“I will take every obscene magazine and catalogue in the country and throw them into a big bonfire right on the White House lawn.”

It would be nice if publicly admitting to wanting to be a book burner would finish his career, sadly I'm sure it wont.

 

[Mr_B0narpte]

It feels great to keep writing, even if this is only one of two HOI2 AARs still active in 2023.

Does this count as a HoI2 AAR?

Feels more like some just fictional story writing. Don't mean to be rude, just doesn't seem like the place for it. Can't see any mention of the game.

 

[Nathan Madien]

El Pip: It's striking how certain things haven't changed in the past 57 years. Social conservatives are making the same fuss today about morality that they did back then. They just find different targets to rail against. Even the Scopes Trial is still relevant to today's battles over what students learn (and don't learn) in the classroom.

The "We're more popular than Jesus" controversy has no effect on Forbes. The mail fight on the other hand is part of a larger problem for Forbes: namely, dealing with conservatives. The tension between the Eastern Establishment and conservative wings of the Republican Party has been going on for a long time, sometimes breaking out into full-on political civil war. Despite Forbes' effort to reach out and work with conservatives, the Right is proving to be a tough dance partner in the art of governing.

This in turn gives Wallace an opportunity to appeal to dissatisfied conservative voters in 1968. I don't think he can beat Forbes outright, given that he is such a divisive public figure, but he can certainly give Forbes a major electoral headache on the campaign trail.

If anything, publicly admitting to wanting to be a book burner will garner Wallace votes. You know, it's for protecting morality.

Mr_B0narpte: I consider this to be very much an HOI2 AAR. The game itself may not have appeared yet, but this AAR is nonetheless set in the HOI2 world which I have created over the course of three games (My Original HOI2 Game, the Cold War Mod, and the Vietnam War Mod). It continues the HOI2 narrative that I have spent the past 15 years writing.

There has been plenty of AARs over the years that continue their narratives past the point the game ends. This AAR is no different. In addition, AARs don't necessarily need to feature the games themselves. DensleyBlair for example has written the excellent Victoria 2 AAR Echoes of A New Tomorrow: Life after Revolution in the Commonwealth of Britain which was inspired by the game but does its' own narrative thing all the way into the 1960s.
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1966: A Year of Change
In the spring of 1966, a new album appeared in record stores across America. Released by Capitol Records, it was the eleventh studio album by one of the most popular bands of the era: the Beach Boys. Founded in Hawthorne, California in 1961, the Beach Boys were known for their tight vocal harmonies and their catchy songs, which reflected the laidback Southern California lifestyle of surfing, cars, and girls. From "Surfin' U.S.A." and "I Get Around" to "Dance, Dance, Dance" and "California Girls", people couldn’t get enough of the Beach Boys and their youthfully innocent music. At a time when the country was being divided by social unrest at home and a bloody war abroad, their largely upbeat music provided a much-needed escape. You could just sit back and relax, picturing yourself heading to the beach in your souped-up hot rod, wanting to catch some waves while also checking out the bikini-clad girls there. By mid-decade, the success of what Mike Love called “the formula” had firmly established the band in the landscape of popular music.

While they weren’t the only band performing surf rock (you had Jan and Dean for example, whose “Surf City” was a #1 hit in 1963), the Beach Boys were arguably the kings of that genre. People loved their current musical output and just assumed that they would stick with it. After all, if it isn’t broke, why fix it? Brian Wilson had other ideas. Like the Beatles, Wilson saw his band’s music as something that needed to evolve, both in terms of songwriting and in studio production. Just as the Fab Four wanted to show the public that they were capable of doing far more than just love songs aimed at teenage girls, Wilson wanted his band to show the public that they had more to offer than just songs about surfing, cars, and girls. “We needed to grow. Up to this point we had milked every idea dry,” he later explained. “We had done every possible angle about surfing and then we did the car routine. But we needed to grow artistically.”
In other words, he wanted the Beach Boys to be about more than…well, the beach. Determined to move his band in a different artistic direction, Wilson retired from touring in January 1965. His touring spot was initially filled by Glen Campbell; after he left the band to embark on what would become a hugely successful solo career, Bruce Johnston stepped in and became a permanent member of the group. Wilson in the meantime threw himself into his work in the studio, developing the new sound for the Beach Boys which he had fully laid out inside his head. Greatly inspired by innovative record producer Phil Spector and his dense “Wall of Sound” production, which used studio techniques to create a fuller, richer musical texture, Wilson worked closely with seasoned session musicians to craft the complex sound he was looking for. He then combined that sound with introspective lyrics, which British rock critic Nick Kent described as being “highly vulnerable, slightly neurotic, and riddled with telling insecurities.”

On May 16th, 1966, the public got a strong taste of Wilson’s progressive approach to music production with the release of “Pet Sounds”. That this wouldn’t be your typical Beach Boys album was first made evident by the album cover, which featured the band members feeding goats slices of apples at the San Diego Zoo. Previous album covers typically featured them hanging out at the beach and/or with cars. Then people heard the songs on “Pet Sounds”, which weren’t at all what they were used to listening to. Gone were the happy songs about surfing and cars; instead, listeners were treated to melancholic semi-autobiographical tracks like:

• “You Still Believe in Me”, which was about an unfaithful husband and his appreciation for his lover’s unwavering loyalty
• “I Know There’s an Answer”, which warned users of LSD to be wary of the drug’s mind-altering effects
• “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times”, which described someone’s disillusionment with trying to fit into society
• “God Only Knows”, which claimed that life after the dissolution of a romantic relationship could only be known by God

“Little Deuce Coupe” and “Fun, Fun, Fun” these songs were not. They were completely different Beach Boys songs…perhaps too different. Capitol Records didn’t quite know how to promote “Pet Sounds”, critics had lukewarm views about it, and the public reception of it was lackluster. It reached #10 on the Billboard Top LPs chart and sold 500,000 copies – far less than previous albums which were better received. It wasn’t even awarded gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of America. “Pet Sounds”, it turned out, was too much of a departure from the Beach Boys’ previous popular work for Americans to accept. Even Wilson’s fellow bandmates found the album lyrically difficult to get behind. “It took us quite a while to adjust to it, because it wasn’t music you could necessarily dance to,” Al Jardine later recalled. Part of the problem, Wilson’s wife Marilyn thought, was that his bandmates didn’t “understand what he was going through emotionally and what he wanted to create. They didn’t feel what he was going through and what direction he was trying to go in.”

(If “Pet Sounds” performed rather underwhelmingly, the Beach Boys were much more successful with “Good Vibrations”. Recorded at the same time, the single was released in October 1966 and became their third #1 hit. It also won them the 1967 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary R&R Recording)
Widely regarded today as being one of the greatest albums of all time, “Pet Sounds” was a clear demonstration of the new direction the Beach Boys were taking their music. It came out at a time when the American people themselves were going in new directions. The Vietnam War, which had dominated the nation's attention for the past four years, was now over. The United States had endured heavy casualties in order to successfully force North Vietnam to come to the negotiation table in London. The resulting peace agreement meant that American combat soldiers no longer had to fight in the jungles of Southeast Asia and could now start to come home. As soldiers looked forward to returning home and resuming their lives as civilians, anti-war activists who had been so fervently against sending those young men to fight in Vietnam had to figure out where to go from here. No longer having a war to spend their time protesting, vocal anti-war demonstrators vanished from city streets and from college campuses virtually overnight. As postwar calm settled over the country, these activists changed the course of their lives. There were other causes, like opposing the draft, that they could devote their idealistic energies to. The burgeoning counterculture, which rejected mainstream values in favor of an alternative lifestyle built on the pillars of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, beckoned. Why be angry and confrontational, hippies argued, when you can be happy and carefree? Some former anti-war activists even went as far as putting their activism behind them altogether and became productive members of society.

(Hippies in 1966)
Culturally, there were signs the United States in 1966 was undergoing change. You could see those signs everywhere. One obvious example was in the fashion sense of young people. Young men, who had always been expected by society to have short hair, were now growing their hair out long. As for young women, they became eager to wear an article of clothing that had become all the rage in London, which in the mid-1960s had developed an international reputation as being a “swinging” center of fashion and culture. It was called the miniskirt. Designed by Mary Quant (1930-2023), the miniskirt allowed women to show off more of their legs by placing the hem at the upper thigh.
“I was making easy, youthful, simple clothes, in which you could move,” Quant explained, “In which you could run and jump, and we would make them the length the customer wanted. I wore them very short and the customers would say, 'Shorter, shorter.'”
Another sign of change could be seen on television. Ever since commercial television took off in the United States in the late 1940s, people were used to seeing black-and-white images on their boxy screens. The mid-1960s witnessed a visual transition as technological improvements made it easier to broadcast shows in color. In September 1965, ABC, CBS, and NBC began the process of converting their entire prime-time programming from black-and-white to color. Some black-and-white shows like “Gilligan’s Island” (CBS) and “The Andy Griffith Show” (CBS) went to color that season. Other black-and-white shows, such as “The Addams Family” (ABC) and “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (CBS), went off the air at the end of that season. When the new TV season began in September 1966, the entire prime-time programming for the Big Three networks was in color.

(Two icons of 1960s fashion: Mary Quant, on the left, and the miniskirt)
In the world of music, 1966 saw the diversification of rock. Those who had grown up in the 1950s listening to the rock and roll music of Elvis Presley and Little Richard were putting their own stamp on the music. This led to the emergence of new ways to play it. The psychedelic culture of the era influenced acts like Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the Grateful Dead to incorporate electronic sound effects and extended instrumental segments into their work (which became known as psychedelic rock). Folk acts like the Byrds, Simon and Garfunkel, the Mamas and the Papas, and Buffalo Springfield meanwhile were giving their folk lyrics a rocking backbeat, resulting in the creation of folk rock. June 1966 saw the release of rock music’s first double albums: “Blonde on Blonde” by Bob Dylan, and “Freak Out!” by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. This development freed artists from only being able to fit their songs onto one vinyl record, thus allowing them to be more productive. Two months later, a rock band called the Doors went into a Los Angeles recording studio to record their self-titled debut album. With songs like “Break on Through (To the Other Side)”, “Light My Fire”, and the 12-minute long Oedipal “The End”, “The Doors” promised to lyrically sound like no other debut album. At the same time in New York City, a 23-year-old black guitarist from Seattle, Washington was attracting attention with his style, which one British fan called “mesmerizing”.
His name was Jimi Hendrix, and the British fan was Linda Keith, who was dating Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. Eager to show off his talent to others, she used her music connections to convince Hendrix to leave America for London, where he was set up with a manager, a record contract, and his own band: the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The young American amazed his fellow musicians in England, among them Eric Clapton, guitarist for a newly-formed rock band called Cream. Considered to be the country’s premier blues guitarist, the 21-year-old Clapton shared the stage with Hendrix at a show and was simply blown away by what he saw:
“He played just about every style you could think of, and not in a flashy way. I mean he did a few of his tricks, like playing with his teeth and behind his back, but it wasn’t in an upstaging sense at all, and that was it. He walked off, and my life was never the same again.”

On the political front, the South was undergoing a seismic shift. For nearly a century, the Democratic Party dominated the region with an iron fist. To maintain their grip on power, Southern Democrats vigorously enforced the Jim Crow system of racial segregation to suppress African-Americans. While Democratic Presidents and Presidential nominees were allowed to pay lip loyalty to racial equality, the immense political power wielded by Southern Democrats greatly limited what they could actually do about it. After being elected President in 1952 for example, Adlai Stevenson pragmatically made it known he wasn’t going to force civil rights progress onto the States. To do so, he warned, would “put the South completely over a barrel.”
This long-standing deference to Southern Democrats on the race issue ended rather abruptly with the election of Henry M. Jackson to the Presidency in 1960. A strong supporter of civil rights, Scoop decided he was going to do what no other Democratic President had done before and defiantly stand up to the South…even if it meant sacrificing a second term. Jackson was pro-active on civil rights throughout his Presidency, which earned him the admiration of African-Americans and the hatred of Southern Democrats. His policies triggered the collapse of the Solid South as a Democratic stronghold. Feeling that their way of life was under assault, White Southerners took their anger out on the Democrats by voting for conservative Republicans who advocated states’ rights. In 1962 for example, moderate Democratic Senator Joseph Lister Hill of Alabama stunningly lost his re-election bid to his Republican opponent James D. Martin, who ran to Hill’s right. Two years later, liberal Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough of Texas, one of the few Southerners to openly back Jackson, lost his re-election bid to his Republican opponent George H.W. Bush. Conservative Democrats chose to punish Yarborough by crossing party line and throwing their support behind Bush, who ran a conservative campaign.

(Republican Senators Ronald Reagan of California and George H.W. Bush of Texas in 1966. They had both arrived in the Senate a year earlier, Reagan appointed and Bush elected)
As Southern Republicans gained political strength, so did African-Americans. The passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1963, Scoop’s crowning achievement, guaranteed blacks the right to vote. Having spent decades keeping them out of the voting booth through intimidation, literacy tests, and poll taxes, segregationists could now only stand by and watch helplessly as African-Americans in 1964 poured into voter registration offices and into the voting booth. That election saw countless blacks be elected to town councils, magistrates courts, and even sheriff offices. “Elected offices whose doors have long been closed to the Negroes because of the color of their skin,” President Malcolm Forbes noted in a 1965 speech, “Have now been opened.”
The political landscape of the South was changing drastically, which was reflected in the 1966 Georgia gubernatorial race. At the time, the Governor of Georgia was not allowed to serve consecutive four-year terms. That meant incumbent Governor Carl Sanders, a self-proclaimed “segregationist but not a damned fool” who regularly sought compromises between his fellow segregationists and blacks, was ineligible to seek re-election that year. In a state that hadn’t seen a Republican Governor since 1872, it was the Democratic gubernatorial primary which decided who would be the next Governor. 1966 saw five Democrats throw their hats into the ring:

• Former Governor Ellis Arnall (1943-1947)
• Former Lieutenant Governor Garland T. Byrd (1959-1963)
• State Senator Jimmy Carter
• State Party Chairman James H. Gray Sr.
• Businessman Lester Maddox

A liberal, Arnall as Governor had abolished his state’s poll tax and supported civil rights. In sharp contrast, Maddox was a staunch segregationist who proudly boasted that he once personally blocked African-Americans from entering his Atlanta restaurant by wielding a bare pickaxe handle at them. The 59-year-old Arnall, an established state figure, led in the polls from the outset. Taking victory in the primary for granted, he ignored Maddox, who ran a stridently racist campaign. He called the former Governor “the granddaddy of forced racial integration who would never raise his voice or a finger – much less an ax handle – to protect the liberty of Georgia.”
Neither man paid any attention to Carter. A peanut farmer from Plains and a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, the former submarine officer had been elected to the State Senate in 1962. There he spoke up in favor of racial tolerance and integration, believing that it was wrong to treat African-Americans as second-class citizens. When he announced his candidacy for Governor, no one thought he had a chance against Arnall’s gubernatorial experience and Maddox’s segregationist appeal. Carter, however, was an astute campaigner who understood that the changing racial dynamic in the South – brought on by the VRA – provided him with an opening to prove his doubters wrong. The 41-year-old actively courted the growing African-American vote, visiting black-owned businesses and shaking hands with as many blacks as he could. “The time of racial discrimination is over,” he told them, “We need to have a Governor who will no longer see Negroes as something to work against, but rather as people to work for. I will be that Governor, with your help.”
African-Americans responded warmly to Carter’s appeal. Thanks to Scoop, they now possessed the political clout they were denied before…and they were determined to use that clout to take down the racially offensive Maddox. On September 13th, voters went to the polls to cast their vote in the primary. When all the votes were counted, the outcome was stunning:

• First Place: Arnall, 29% of the vote
• Second Place: Carter, 24% of the vote
• Third Place: Maddox, 23% of the vote
• Fourth Place: Gray, 19% of the vote
• Fifth Place: Byrd, 5% of the vote

Carter, who had been dismissed by the political experts as having no shot, had managed to edge out Maddox by a single percentage point. Although Arnall had won a plurality of the primary vote, it wasn’t a majority. As state law required the first-place candidate to win 50% of the vote, Arnall and Carter – being the top two candidates – were forced into a runoff election, scheduled for September 27th. Shocked by his third-place finish, Maddox angrily blamed Gray, another ardent segregationist, for costing him crucial votes:
“He should have left the race when his [poll] numbers went down like the Titanic!”
Carter’s upset second-place finish showed his fellow progressive Southern Democrats that courting the black vote was the way to defeat the old school segregationists who had been dominant for so long.

Even the Forbes Administration underwent changes in 1966. That summer, three members of the President’s national security team decided to head for the exit. They were all holdovers from the Jackson Administration, asked by Forbes to stay at their posts to maintain continuity in the midst of the Vietnam War. The first man to resign was CIA Director John A. McCone. A Republican industrialist from San Francisco, McCone started out in 1958 as Deputy Director of the CIA before being elevated to the top job in January 1961. Serious and innately skeptical, McCone was known for challenging assumptions by others until he had concrete intelligence confirmation. He also had no qualms about using the power of the CIA to engineer covert plots to overthrow foreign governments the US deemed to be troublesome…which endeared him to Scoop, who also had no such qualms. After competently serving two bipartisan Presidents, McCone handed Forbes his letter of resignation on June 15th. Greatly pleased that the United States had forced North Vietnam to come to the negotiation table through overwhelming military pressure, McCone saw little reason to stick around now that the conflict was over. He wanted to retire and spend more time with his family. To succeed him at the CIA, McCone recommended his Deputy Marshall Carter. A Lieutenant General in the United States Army, the Virginia-born Carter had served heroically in World War Two, where he earned three Distinguished Service Medals, two Legion of Merit awards, and the Bronze Star Medal for his meritorious service. Given his outstanding military record, Carter was easily confirmed by the Senate and took over as CIA Director.

A week after receiving McCone’s resignation, Joint Chiefs Chairman David L. McDonald told the President that he was leaving as well. An Admiral who specialized in carriers, the Georgia-born McDonald was appointed to the post in January 1962 on the strength of his belief that concentrated firepower was the key to victory. For Scoop, who favored bringing the full weight of the United States’ superior firepower and technology to bear, this was exactly how he wanted his Joint Chiefs Chairman to think. When the Administration was debating how many combat soldiers to deploy to South Vietnam, McDonald advised President Jackson to go big: 205,000 men. Anything less than that, he strenuously argued, “will not convince the other side that we mean business.”
McDonald’s advocacy of total victory in Vietnam put him at odds with Forbes, who preferred a more cautious approach. When the Joint Chiefs Chairman urged the new Commander-in-Chief to order a full-scale invasion of North Vietnam with the aim of capturing Hanoi and overthrowing her Communist government, he was firmly rebuffed. Forbes instead ordered a limited invasion of North Vietnam to eliminate the last Viet Cong position there, to be followed by an immediate military withdrawal from the country. “We are not invading North Vietnam to capture Hanoi,” he told McDonald, “We are invading North Vietnam to destroy the Viet Cong – and that’s all.”
When the North Vietnamese government demanded that the United States end Operation Rolling Thunder as a condition to discuss peace in London, McDonald urged the President to reject it outright. “What the North Vietnamese are saying is that if we don’t stop the bombing, there won’t be any talks. That, Mr. President, is blackmail.”
Once again, he was overruled by Forbes, who agreed to grant the concession on the understanding that the United States would resume the systematic bombing of North Vietnam should she walk away from the negotiation table. Frustrated by his dealings with the President over Vietnam, McDonald decided to resign that summer. To replace him, Forbes looked inside the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where he had already appointed two members:

• Chief of Naval Operations John S. McCain Jr.
• Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force John P. McConnell

To fill in the open Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff position, Forbes turned to Chief of Staff of the United States Army William Westmoreland (who had been appointed by Jackson). With Westy, as he was known, taking over the Chairmanship, his old job was assigned to General Alexander Haig. As one of the top commanders in Vietnam, Haig had emerged from the war a national hero. Among other things, it was Al who led the invasion of North Vietnam, which helped bring about the London Peace Conference. A Republican, Haig’s reputation was such that some conservative members of the GOP, turned off by Forbes’ moderation, encouraged him to run for President in 1968. Haig dismissed the idea of a primary challenge against the leader of his party – who was enjoying a 71% approval rating – as being downright absurd…although the idea of seeking the Republican Presidential nomination one day on the strength of his military record stayed in the back of his ambitious mind.

(Chief of Staff of the United States Army Alexander Haig)
The last Jackson holdover to leave his post was Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze. As Secretary, Nitze had been one of the principal architects of America’s clearly-defined strategy of winning the war in Vietnam. Having implemented the strategy under Jackson, Nitze saw the war through its’ successful conclusion under Forbes. The latter appreciated his inherited Defense Secretary’s experience and judgment, taking his advice into consideration when he was faced with major decisions about how to obtain peace in Vietnam. Throughout his five-year tenure at the Pentagon, Nitze insisted on the need to develop a military strategy in which everyone understood what the goals were and how they were going to get there. “One of the most dangerous forms of human error,” he warned, “Is forgetting what one is trying to achieve.”
Nitze informed Forbes in July that he was leaving at the end of the year. He opted not to resign immediately so he could oversee the beginning of America’s complete military withdrawal from South Vietnam. The President spent the next few months searching for Nitze’s successor, ultimately settling on Thomas S. Gates Jr. A Republican from Philadelphia, Gates was an investment banker who saw Navy action in the Pacific during World War Two. With his military experience, the former Lieutenant Commander was appointed to the post of Secretary of the Navy in January 1965. A believer in cultivating a good working relationship between the civilian and military leaderships, he got along very well with McCain, who was his principal military adviser on naval matters. Their relationship, which was social as well as professional, was taken into consideration by the President during his search. If the Secretary of the Navy was on very good terms with the Chief of Naval Operations, he reasoned, then he could get along with the rest of the Joint Chiefs. In December, Forbes publicly announced that Nitze was resigning and that he was appointing Gates to be the next Defense Secretary. The Senate overwhelmingly confirmed the appointment, and Gates settled into his new office at the Pentagon in January 1967.

War was on everyone’s mind at the time of Gates’ appointment, as tensions between the Republic of China and the West had reached the point that a military conflict was widely considered to be not a question of if but when. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Gates stated that his principal objectives as Secretary would be “to maintain and improve our present capability to retaliate against the Chinese with devastating effectiveness in case of a major attack upon us and our allies” and “to maintain with our allies a capability to apply the degree of force necessary to win the war promptly after it breaks out.”
The Vietnam War had defined Nitze’s legacy as Secretary of Defense; the Western Pacific War of 1967 would define Gates’.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

It would be nice if Sharon Tate avoided meeting the Mason Family.

And if the Masons got killed by a fire that ravaged their place after killind Jane Fonda it would be a nice plus.

 

[El Pip]

That was a rollercoaster of an update, from pop culture to grand strategic planning in the Western Pacific. Lots of familiar faces in slightly different places, which is in keeping with the established modus operandi of this work. We are inching towards the big war, a year or so away at most, and I must admit I am looking forward to it.

 

[Nathan Madien]

Kurt_Steiner: It would be nice, but sadly she is still going to meet a grisly end at the hands of that murderous family.

You sound like Quentin Tarantino, Kurt.

El Pip: I had originally considered starting this AAR off with this very update but decided to save it for later.

I love 1960s music, and the fact that many of the iconic musical acts of that decade were starting to pop up at this time made me want to do an update about it. I am looking forward to 1967, which saw the debuts of Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Band.

Finding new jobs for historical figures in this TTL: that is very much my modus operandi, as you put it. Ever since Wendell Willkie got elected President in 1940, we have seen countless political figures end up in entirely different places. George H.W. Bush for example historically lost his first Senate race in 1964. However, a much different political climate in Texas enables him to win his '64 Senate race instead. The same thing in Georgia with Jimmy Carter. Historically he never got into the run-off during his first run for Governor in 1966. But a different political climate again yields a different result.

Historically it was in May 1966 that Mao Zedong launched the brutal and devastating Cultural Revolution in China. In this alternate universe, China under Chiang Kai-shek is preparing for war with the West instead, having old scores to settle.

Given that Forbes is going from one war (Vietnam) to another (China), the expression "out of the frying pan into the fire" comes to mind.
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Dealing With Charles de Gaulle
Every President has his share of problems to deal with, whether it is slavery, a bad economy, a nationwide strike, or war. Some Presidents are able to deal with those problems effectively, while other Presidents end up making those problems worse. Then there are problems that stubbornly plague President after President no matter what they do about it. When Malcolm Forbes became President in January 1965, he inherited a foreign policy problem which went all the way back to the early 1940s. That problem was Charles de Gaulle. A rabid French nationalist, de Gaulle had long insisted that France was a strong independent power, not merely an American stooge who did her bidding. Completely unforgiving of what he regarded as insults against French honor, de Gaulle regularly treated Americans coldly and condescendingly. The Americans in turn found the French leader to be arrogant and obnoxious, unappreciative of the fact that twice during the 20th Century, Americans had heroically fought and died saving their first ally from the Germans. This mutual animosity caused Franco-American relations to deteriorate, which some Presidents tried to repair while others chose not to bother.

The catalyst for this long-standing hostility was the Casablanca Conference, held in January 1943. De Gaulle, then the leader of Free France, met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Wendell Willkie in the Moroccan city to discuss the next steps to be taken by the Allies in World War Two. The war at the time was a mixed picture for both them and their Axis enemies. Having cleared North Africa of Italian forces, the Allies had opened a second front in Europe by capturing Sicily and the “toe” of the Italian Peninsula. On the Eastern Front, the Germans had taken Stalingrad and were advancing towards the vital oil fields of the Caucasus. Their advances towards Moscow and Leningrad on the other hand had been completely halted by the Red Army, putting them in a strategic bind. The Germans were lacking the manpower to both continue pushing deeper into the Soviet Union and regaining the initiative against Moscow and Leningrad. For the Soviets, who had plenty of manpower left, the Germans overextending themselves was exactly what they were waiting for. In Asia, the Japanese had made their way across Burma and were now at the gates to India. Confidently believing that the days of the British Raj were now numbered, Tokyo was already looking ahead to the establishment of a Japanese Raj. Among other things, the Japanese planned to crush the troublesome India independence movement by executing Mahatma Gandhi and her other leaders. In the Central Pacific, the decisive loss the previous summer of four Japanese aircraft carriers at the Battle of Wake Island had enabled the Americans under the command of General Douglas MacArthur to conduct an aggressive island-hopping campaign towards the Philippines, which had fallen to the Japanese.

The biggest question facing the Allies at their conference in the Anfa Hotel was how to liberate France, which had been under German occupation since the summer of 1940. Churchill, who regarded Italy as being the soft underbelly of Europe, argued that the Allies should work their way up the Italian Peninsula, seize Rome, and swing westward into Southern France. Some on the American side, seeing Italy as a distraction, wanted to get into Northern France instead by conducting an amphibious assault across the English Channel. The sooner they were ashore, they contended, the sooner they could advance into Germany itself. The British weren’t too keen on this idea. They thought the Americans, who had so far only fought hapless Italians, were recklessly underestimating the military might of the Germans. The British didn’t want a repeat of Dunkirk, in which Allied forces couldn’t overcome the Germans and had to be withdrawn. Fortunately for them, the American whose opinion mattered the most wasn’t in favor of the Northern France approach. Ever since he led the United States into World War Two in February 1942, Willkie had been an impatient Commander-in-Chief. He was constantly talking about the need for America “to get aggressive,” constantly pushing his military leaders “to get on the offensive” as soon as possible. He told Churchill at a conference held in Washington, D.C. in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that he was eager to “open a second front someplace in Europe,” adding that it “doesn’t necessarily need to be across the English Channel from England.”
With the Allies having opened a second front in Southern Italy, Willkie was eager to keep the momentum going by pouring in reinforcements. He didn't want to slow the advance down by diverting forces to England for a cross-channel invasion. That was his main problem with the Northern France approach: it would take time to assemble an invasion force in England large enough to make an effective landing on the other side of the English Channel. The President found the Prime Minister’s proposal for an Italian thrust into Southern France appealing because it satisfied his desire for immediate action. The Allies already had a large military presence in North Africa which could be quickly transferred to Italy. By the time the Allies would be ready to attack German forces in Northern France from England, they could already be through Italy and into Southern France. “It makes far more sense, in my judgment,” Willkie said, “To go on the offensive against Italy than it does going on the offensive across the English Channel, which would take too long to do.”
With that, the matter was settled. The Allies would put all their eggs into the Italian basket. There would be no cross-channel invasion, although they would make a series of military and intelligence moves to convince the Germans that one was coming, thereby leaving their forces in Northern France in place.

Churchill was greatly pleased that Willkie (above) had sided with him on the France question. "Then Willkie, ever so casually," Fox News anchor Bret Baier wrote in a 2019 book about the Casablanca Conference, "Made an announcement which struck his European allies like a lightning bolt out of the blue."
In the course of the North African campaign, the Americans had fully occupied the former Free French colony of Morocco. Instead of returning the colony to Free French control, Willkie announced at the conference that the United States had unilaterally granted Morocco its independence. He then told the British and French leaders that he wanted them to make a public commitment at Casablanca to fully decolonize their Empires. He thought that doing so would “make it crystal clear” to the world that the Allies were truly committed to restoring the freedom of all people. Churchill, who had no idea this was coming, was visibly stunned. For a staunch imperialist like him, the idea of full decolonization was unthinkable. As he would privately declare afterwards:
“I have not become the King’s first minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire!”
Before the Prime Minister could respond to Willkie, a furious de Gaulle went off on him. Waving a finger right in the President’s face, de Gaulle angrily told him that he had no right to grant Morocco its independence or demand that the French give up their colonial empire. It was, he stridently claimed, a source of national pride. France deserved a global empire befitting her status as a great power. The entire aim of the French war effort, de Gaulle proclaimed with nationalistic flourish, was to fully restore their control of Metropolitan France and all her overseas colonies. As a worked-up de Gaulle went on and on in his lecture about the French Empire and how necessary it was, Churchill said nothing. He simply sat in his chair, recovering from the shock of Willkie's bombshell by puffing on his trademark cigar. The Prime Minister was used to seeing this self-centered Frenchman act as though he was the living personification of France itself. The President finally had enough of de Gaulle’s condescending attitude, snapping at him with visible annoyance:
“General de Gaulle, we Americans are not sending our boys to fight for your damn empire!”
Hearing this inflamed the overly sensitive de Gaulle further. He now shouted at Willkie that he was disrespecting the French and that he wouldn’t tolerate it. Willkie, who was normally affable with everybody, lost his cool with de Gaulle and demanded that he stop overreacting. The conference got heated between the American and French leaders; it approached the breaking point when de Gaulle threatened to walk out of the conference over the way he was being treated. Willkie sternly warned him that if he did so, the United States would immediately move to cut him completely out of the picture and deal with Henri Giraud instead. Giraud was a General who had a competing claim for the leadership of Free France. Although the British had insisted that the Allies uniformly recognize de Gaulle as the rightful leader, Americans who had interacted with Giraud recommended to Willkie that they should recognize him instead. Whereas de Gaulle seemed to care more about himself than the larger Allied cause, Giraud had pledged to be more of a team player in the war effort. American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had overall command of the Allied forces in North Africa and Europe, gave Willkie his view that they shouldn’t rock the boat when it came to de Gaulle, but conceded that “we wouldn’t have the same difficulties working with General Giraud that we are presently having with General de Gaulle.”

Churchill grew alarmed at the direction the conference was going. Recognizing that he had to move fast to avert a falling-out within the Allies, he called for an immediate break in the meeting. The quarreling American and French leaders retreated to their separate hotel rooms, where they had private meetings with the British leader. Now playing the role of peacemaker, Churchill persuaded de Gaulle not to walk out of the conference. He agreed that the Americans shouldn't have unilaterally liberated Morocco, but added that there was nothing they could do about it now. The Prime Minister pledged to use his friendship with the President to gently nudge him into changing his ways. Churchill reminded de Gaulle that Willkie had been a corporate executive prior to his election to the Presidency in 1940 and therefore was new to the fine art of international diplomacy. He needed to be less impulsive in dealing with his allies and more considerate of their differing views. “You need to be patient with Wendell,” he insisted, “He will get better. I will make sure of that.”
Churchill likewise advised Willkie to be patient with de Gaulle. It was just how he was with everybody. The Prime Minister pointedly reminded the President that de Gaulle had been the recognized leader of Free France for nearly three years; with his position secure, any talk now about Giraud as his replacement was a moot point. The United States couldn’t just unilaterally dump de Gaulle from his leadership position when everyone else on the Allied side had accepted it. Finally on the issue of decolonization, Churchill said it was best not to press it any further at this time. Talking as much about himself as he was about de Gaulle, he dryly remarked while pouring himself a drink that the “General is, as you saw yourself, rather touchy about it.”
In the end, Churchill, though an epic feat of personal diplomacy, salvaged the conference. He got both men to reluctantly stop fighting each other and return their focus to fighting Adolf Hitler instead. At the conclusion of the Casablanca Conference, Willkie and de Gaulle posed together with Churchill in front of photographers and newsreel cameramen in a display of Allied unity. With the demeanor of a grinning politician taking advantage of a photo opportunity, Willkie reached out his hand to de Gaulle. With a forced smile, de Gaulle rigidly extended his arm and stiffly shook the President’s hand. Standing between them, Churchill puffed on his cigar and looked rather pleased by what he was seeing. Given how close the clash between Willkie and de Gaulle had come to fracturing the Allies, their handshake was a sigh of relief. The crisis at Casablanca had passed.

(The Free French government during World War Two)
The Casablanca Conference, beyond its’ immediate impact on the course of the war in Europe, would have a far-reaching negative impact on Franco-American relations. De Gaulle left Casablanca hating Willkie for the way he had treated him and angry at the Americans for having the audacity to liberate a French colony on their own accord. It was especially hypocritical for Willkie to lecture the Europeans about granting freedom to their colonial subjects, given that blacks in America were being subjected to entrenched racial discrimination. Unwilling to forgive and forget, de Gaulle spent the rest of his life treating Americans with the utmost contempt. He shed no tears for Willkie upon learning in October 1944 that he had suffered a massive heart attack and died at the age of 52, his attitude being “Good riddance!”
A month later, American voters went to the polls and elected Thomas E. Dewey to the Presidency. Originally Willkie’s running mate in his re-election campaign, Dewey was suddenly elevated to the top of the Republican ticket in the wake of the popular President’s passing. Taking office in January 1945, Dewey was immediately faced with a war in the Pacific that was reaching its’ climax. The Americans were closing in on the Japanese home islands, prompting US leaders to begin planning for a full-scale invasion of Japan herself. Although India had fallen to the Japanese, the American naval blockade of their home islands was severely hampering their ability to continue their advance westward. With the Japanese running out of steam, British and Commonwealth forces were gathering in modern-day Pakistan in preparation for a major counterattack. Meanwhile at a secret laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, J. Robert Oppenheimer was nearly finished developing the world’s first atomic bomb, which promised to unleash devastation on a scale never seen before. In Europe, the war was over. The Allied invasion of Italy and deception campaign against Northern France had forced the Germans to divert their forces away from the Eastern Front. The German lines there weakened, giving the Soviets the chance to begin pushing them back. Faced with multiple threats and with its’ manpower stretched to the limit, the once unstoppable German war machine was overwhelmed. In July 1944, Berlin fell to the Americans and the two fronts linked up at the Oder River. Ordered to fight to the last man, the German military rose up and seized control in a coup d'état, killing Hitler and overthrowing his Nazi regime. Germany, now under the leadership of President Ludwig Beck (1880-1960), immediately surrendered, ending the war in Europe after nearly five years.

Even as the world was celebrating Victory in Europe Day, the seeds for the next conflict were already being sowed. In the course of pushing the Germans back, the Red Army had occupied Finland, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. The Soviets took advantage of their military presence in these countries to establish puppet governments. With Communism taking over Eastern Europe and gaining a foothold in Northern Europe, Dewey recognized that the United States couldn’t afford to return to her traditional isolationist position that whatever happened in Europe was none of her concern. She had to get involved in European affairs; otherwise, she risked losing all of Europe to the postwar spread of Communism. In a preview of the Cold War to come, the President decided to strengthen America’s political, economic, and military influence in the rest of Europe as much as possible. This included rebuilding America’s relationship with France, which had been damaged during Willkie’s tenure. In early February 1945, Churchill traveled to Washington to confer with the new President ahead of their upcoming conference with Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin at Yalta. At a joint press conference with the Prime Minister, Dewey strongly praised de Gaulle as “a great leader who inspired so many of his countrymen in France not to give up hope while they were living under the domination of the Germans.”
When he publicly suggested inviting de Gaulle to Yalta for consultation, Churchill had a noticeably less-than-enthusiastic look on his face. He thought having the temperamental French leader at Yalta would only complicate matters…and he wasn’t the only one who threw cold water on the idea. Stalin quickly made it known that he objected to including de Gaulle in discussions. He regarded the French as being irrelevant, a non-factor in the planning of postwar Europe. Only the Americans and the British mattered to the Soviet leader. Dewey’s efforts to reach out to de Gaulle were met with a cold reception. Resenting the fact that he had been excluded from conferences since Casablanca, he saw the invitation as being an insult by the Americans rather than the olive branch Dewey intended it to be. He knew the British and the Soviets didn’t want him to be there, that they weren’t going to treat him as being an equal. The Americans were therefore treating him as merely an afterthought, which only added to his grievances against them. “By trying to be nice to de Gaulle,” Richard Norton Smith, the author of a 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Dewey, later said, “Dewey only made him angrier. He didn’t understand just how much de Gaulle hated Americans, and that nothing he did could make him happy.”

(Thomas E. Dewey: the first President to have been born in the 20th Century…and the last one to have facial hair)
In January 1947, after seven years of leading France, de Gaulle was voted out of power by an electorate ready for a change of leadership. He went into retirement and watched as the French Fourth Republic experienced political instability, the loss of her Indochina colony, and the outbreak of war in her North African colony of Algeria. With their country in turmoil, the French decided that only de Gaulle had the force of personality needed to steady the ship of state. He came out of retirement in June 1958 to serve as Prime Minister; that was followed in January 1959 by his election to the Presidency. As President of the new French Fifth Republic, de Gaulle ended the bloody Algerian War in March 1962 by granting Algeria its’ independence, and brought about much-needed stability. He also demonstrated that his anti-American zeal hadn’t diminished any during his 11 years out of office. In July 1959, de Gaulle received a visit from Vice President Henry M. Jackson. Scoop had come to Europe to meet with some of her leaders ahead of his Presidential campaign the following year. The French President treated him coldly, using the meeting to stridently insist that his country was a strong and independent nation that didn’t need any help from the Americans. “Unlike the rest of Europe,” de Gaulle said with utter contempt for his neighbors, “France will not run to your country to seek defense against Russia. If the Russians dare to attack this nation, we will defend our honor to the utmost.”
After hearing the uber-patriotic President describe France as being a major power who didn’t need America for the umpteenth time, the Vice President left the meeting in disgust. He wanted to have a meaningful talk with him; instead, “that bastard did not care in the slightest what I had to say.”
The Vice President was deeply offended to the point that he refused to have anything to do with de Gaulle after he was elected President in 1960. He didn’t return to France nor have any contact with her egotistical leader. Franco-American relations, which had improved during de Gaulle’s absence from power, deteriorated during Jackson’s one term in office. He was succeeded by Forbes, whom like Dewey before him tried his hand at repairing relations with this difficult man. In June 1965, Forbes visited Paris as part of his European tour…and got an earful from de Gaulle. Being completely ignored for the past four years had made him even more irate, and he didn’t hold anything back. “We are not Britain!” he angrily shouted at Forbes while waving a finger in his face, “You cannot treat us like we are one of your stooges! We deserve respect!”
Bearing the brunt of his French counterpart’s blatant contempt for his country, Forbes privately regretted meeting him in the first place. In addition to being yelled at, the American President was lectured by de Gaulle over his country’s handling of Vietnam. He believed she was too militant to resolve a problem that in his view required a deft understanding of political nuance. De Gaulle sharply contrasted his diplomatic handling of the Algerian War to America’s overreliance on her military power to find a resolution to the Vietnam War. “You, sir, do not understand Asia.”

(In 1961, de Gaulle made a state visit to the former French colony of Cambodia, where he rode through the streets of Phnom Penh with her monarch Norodom Sihanouk. A few months after this photo was taken, the CIA overthrew Sihanouk in a coup after he had become too friendly with the Chinese for America’s comfort. Sihanouk then went into exile in China, where he was used by Nanjing for anti-American propaganda)
Speaking of the Chinese, de Gaulle squarely blamed the Americans for the growing tension with them. He claimed that the Republic of China had the right to assert herself as a strong power, given her history of being at the mercy of others. The efforts the Americans were making to contain China’s expansionism were pushing the Asian continent towards the brink of an unnecessary military confrontation. He warned Forbes that “you are backing China into a corner” and that if war with her broke out, “it will have been entirely your fault.”
That de Gaulle had taken China’s side was a reflection of his driving obsession of asserting French independence from American interests. With Washington having broken off diplomatic and economic relations with Nanjing, Paris saw the strengthening of those ties with the latter as the perfect way to demonstrate that France was pursuing her own interests. Whereas the Americans staunchly opposed the rise of China as the leading power in Asia, the French were much more willing to accept it. They regarded supporting the ROC as being the acceptance of reality that her rise had been made unavoidable by what de Gaulle called “the weight of evidence and reason.”
Amid much fanfare, de Gaulle arrived in Nanjing in April 1965 for a state visit. Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek, always eager to show off his country’s majesty to visiting foreign dignitaries, went all out. Chiang personally showed de Gaulle portions of the Great Wall of China, a series of fortifications that went back many centuries. In Beiping, de Gaulle attended a traditional Peking opera, watching intently as performers moved around a sparse stage while wearing elaborate and colorful costumes. At the state dinner in Nanjing, the French President was presented a ceremonial sword by his Chinese counterpart. The following April, Chiang made a reciprocal state visit to France. The two leaders rode together through the packed streets of Paris, which was adorned with French and Chinese flags. They arrived at Élysée Palace, the official residence of the French President, where they proceeded to sign the Sino-French Treaty of Friendship, signaling closer ties between their two countries. At the state dinner, which featured the finest wines the country had to offer, de Gaulle toasted Chiang for leading China’s transformation in 20 years from a war-torn and exploited country to a powerful nation “that deserves the respect of the world.”
He proclaimed that China was destined to become a “leader of progress among nations” and that any nation that was “foolish enough” to try to stop China “will inevitably fail, for the historical record shows that the march of progress will always triumph over the stubborn clinging to the status quo.”
A series of trade and business deals further cemented the partnership between France and China. Renault for example was allowed to set up shop in Guangzhou (China’s second largest industrial center after Nanjing), building and selling her cars in China. The Chinese in turn became a buyer of the Sud Aviation Caravelle, a short-range five-abreast narrow-body jet airliner.

(Introduced in April 1959, the Sud Aviation Caravelle could fly 90-131 passengers over a range of 890-1800 nautical miles depending on the variant)
For Washington, the decision by Paris to stand firmly in Nanjing’s corner was seen as a slap in the face. It complicated America’s efforts to contain China, who not only posed a military threat to her but to her allies across Asia. France now joined the Soviet Union in economically supporting the Republic of China, which was receiving no economic support from the United States, England, and other nations concerned about her bellicose behavior. Having thrown a monkey wrench into America’s containment efforts on one continent, de Gaulle proceeded to throw a monkey wrench into America’s containment efforts on another. On April 11th, a week after he hosted Chiang, the French President made the stunning announcement that France was withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Established early on in the Cold War, NATO provided collective security in Europe in order to deter the Soviet Union from trying to take over the rest of the continent. The French had provided NATO with a large military force; now that force would be withdrawn. In addition, de Gaulle demanded that all NATO troops be taken out of France by the end of 1966. “We will reassume on our territory,” he stated, “The full exercise of our sovereignty, which is at present impaired by the permanent presence of allied military elements.”
That France would no longer participate in NATO took the Forbes Administration completely by surprise. Yes, de Gaulle had been hostile to the United States for years, but no one in Washington thought he would go this far. The Americans had taken French membership in NATO for granted; now France was ending that membership abruptly and without prior consultation. “De Gaulle didn’t tell us, or anybody else for that matter, that he wanted to leave NATO,” Forbes later recalled, “He just got up one day and left.”
This wasn’t the first time NATO had lost a member though. In October 1956, the democratic Czech Republic became the first member of the treaty organization to end her membership. Prague, distrusting the West ever since the Munich Betrayal of September 1938 (in which she was forced by the British and French governments to cede the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany in order to maintain peace), made a deal with Moscow to leave NATO and normalize Soviet-Czech relations in exchange for an ironclad Soviet guarantee to respect Czech neutrality in the event that war broke out. NATO’s reaction to the deal was mixed. On the one hand, they were angry at the Czechs for abandoning the organization in favor of their own narrow self-interest. On the other hand, the Czechs had always been half-hearted about NATO. They didn’t believe that it really would protect them from the Soviets, so they only contributed the bare minimum to collective security. The loss of their forces didn’t really impact NATO’s overall strategic military strength, as other members then stepped in and made up the difference. The minor presence of the Czech Republic was something that could be safely written off.

Ten years later, France’s departure brought about a much different reaction. As a major power with a much larger military presence in the organization, the withdrawal of her forces hurt NATO a great deal. There was widespread speculation that NATO couldn’t survive without France and would collapse. Having started the year off with a foreign policy crisis in Panama, Forbes was now faced with a foreign policy crisis in Europe – one that had much graver implications. In the wake of de Gaulle’s announcement, British Ambassador David Ormsby-Gore met with the President in the Oval Office. The Ambassador told him that London was anxious to know what his mindset concerning the treaty organization was. “You can tell the Prime Minister,” Forbes replied squarely, “That we are not going to lose NATO. The United States will not stand idly by and allow one country to completely destroy the fabric of security which has kept many of your fellow Europeans free from the Communists. You have my word, David.”
To the President, NATO wasn’t just another international organization that the United States belonged to. He saw it as being the “Great Shield”, keeping the free side of the Iron Curtain free and preventing another major war from plaguing a continent which had seen plenty of major wars over the centuries. Forbes knew that if NATO lost her unity and vitality, it would only benefit the Soviet Union. He would find a way to keep the rest of the Western alliance together. He had to.

(Western Europe in the spring of 1966)
He dispatched Secretary of State Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. to Paris to confer with de Gaulle. Lodge reported back to Forbes that the French President felt “he had no other choice” but to withdraw his country. “He thinks NATO is too American, that it is really our organization, and that all its’ members are just our lackeys doing whatever we tell them to do. De Gaulle was rather adamant that for the sake of French honor that no one sees France as being one of our lackeys.”
So once again, de Gaulle was making a decision based solely on his hellbent determination to put distance between Paris and Washington. “So what happens if we all end up in a war with the Soviets?” the President inquired. “He is just going to stand by and do nothing?”
Lodge answered with a shake of his head. “He assured me that if a war breaks out and it threatens France’s sovereignty, he will commit his troops to fight shoulder to shoulder with those of NATO.”
He added that, although de Gaulle wanted all foreign soldiers to be removed from his country by the end of the year, those who were buried in French soil could remain where they were. Upon hearing this, Forbes uncharacteristically rolled his eyes at this “concession”.
“Well, that was very nice of him.”
Once he got de Gaulle’s anti-American rationale for leaving NATO, Forbes turned his attention towards the gaping hole it had created in her overall strategic military strength. The President was a man who was obsessed with numbers; he could spend hours pouring over data, crunching the numbers. The only way NATO could survive without France, he believed, was to completely fill in that gap. If NATO was just as strong after the withdrawal as she was before, “then the final analysis will show that we didn’t lose anything by the French leaving. In terms of the numbers of soldiers we have available to defend Europe, we will be right back where we started.”
Forbes spent the next several months meeting diligently with each of America’s NATO allies, either their leaders directly or their representatives, pressing them to contribute more forces to the organization as well as stressing the need to remain united. Some were willing to do the former voluntarily, while other allies dragged their feet on the matter. The President remained persistent however; by the end of 1966, he had secured contributions from every remaining member of NATO. With the gap filled, NATO no longer looked greatly weakened the way she had earlier in the year. Talk of her demise without French support, as illustrated by this political cartoon, subsided thereafter.

His efforts were applauded on Capitol Hill. “I am greatly pleased to see the President take the lead on this matter,” Speaker of the House Gerald Ford told reporters, “NATO is an alliance of free nations, and I see no reason why other nations cannot commit to a greater sharing of the burden. We must all provide our fair share for the common defense.”
Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona likewise approved of the President's handling of the NATO crisis, saying that "he is right to make the great North Atlantic Treaty Organization a top priority, for it is the greatest peacekeeping force ever devised by free men."
Conservatives were particularly happy to see Europeans pay more for their own defense, that it wasn’t just American taxpayers who were footing the bill. Of course, being conservative, they found something in Forbes' conduct to gripe about: his decision to refrain from being tough on de Gaulle directly. It was galling to the Right that the French President had stabbed the Western alliance in the back and they wanted their President to go after him personally. One conservative Democratic Congressman from North Carolina complained that “the President is being too soft on [de Gaulle]. He needs to give him hell for what he did.”
Republican Senator Ronald Reagan of California was so enraged by de Gaulle’s declaration of independence from NATO that he called Forbes and told him that he should retaliate by expelling French Ambassador Charles Lucet from the country. “That will show him!”
Forbes listened to Reagan’s knee-jerk reactionary advice, diplomatically told him that he would think about it, hung up the phone, and immediately threw the idea into the proverbial trashcan. As President, he understood that he needed to show patience and restraint in the way he dealt with other nations. His words and actions, after all, carried far more weight than those of some hotheaded member of Congress. Strongly denouncing the nationalist de Gaulle, while it might be popular with the American people whose anger at him was palpable, would do nothing to help resolve this crisis. To Forbes, the most important thing to do was to keep NATO together and demonstrate that it could go on without France. That he did so became, in the words of Richard Reeves (the author of a 2001 biography of Forbes), “arguably his finest hour as a diplomat.”
When France became the second nation to leave NATO, it opened the door to the very real possibility that other nations would follow. With members deciding to go their own way, NATO would have collapsed. In the face of the Soviet Union and her own collective security alliance known as the Warsaw Pact, this would have been a perilous situation at best. Indeed, Moscow was happy to see France leave, hoping that it would weaken NATO fatally. De Gaulle’s claim that France was a first-rate power however was colorfully dismissed by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev as being “bullshit.”
Given the enormous dangers that came with making a misstep, Forbes didn’t allow de Gaulle’s long history of being hostile to Americans to cloud his judgement. He kept his eye on the bigger picture, calmly steering NATO through this crisis and showing everyone on both sides of the Atlantic that it could fulfill its’ mission of providing non-Communist Europe with collective security – with or without the vain and egotistical personality of Charles de Gaulle.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

De Gaulle being the usual lovable chap we all know...

 

[El Pip]

I am certain it would have been better for all involved if De Gaulle had been involved in a tragic 'accident' and Giraud given the job.

In any case an interesting run over the alt-history so far and a valuable reminder that Willkie was a truly awful person in every way. Tragically I am forced to agree with de Gaulle about "good riddance" being an appropriate epitaph.

 

[Nathan Madien]

Kurt_Steiner: Given his personality, it's so easy to make de Gaulle out to be the "bad guy". He was such a pain in the neck for the Americans to deal with in real life, which gives me a good basis for crafting this update about alternate leaders dealing with him.

There is actually a book called "Charles de Gaulle: A Thorn in the Side of Six American Presidents". The front cover, which shows General Eisenhower unhappily dealing with de Gaulle, sums things up perfectly.

El Pip: "Did you hear the news? General de Gaulle has died in an accident!" "That's unfortunate. Anyway..."

For this update, I had to dig out my screenshots from the original HOI2 game, which I played way back in 2008, as a refresher. The original game file is long gone, so all I have left from that game are the screenshots. Looking back at those screenshots made me wonder what I was thinking back then when I played that original game. I still play HOI2, and how I play it today is very different from how I played it 15 years ago.

Some things change over time. El Pip having a low opinion of Willkie: that will never change.

To be honest, Willkie does deserve blame for America's subsequent difficulties with de Gaulle. While de Gaulle wasn't an easy person for anybody to deal with, the fact that Willkie did everything he could to antagonize him set the stage for all the problems that followed. It kind of reminds me of The Soup Nazi episode from "Seinfeld".

On a side note, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter died recently at the age of 96.
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From the Earth to the Moon
“As of today, I am directing NASA to begin a program whose purpose will be to land a man on the Moon by the end of this decade and return him safely to the Earth. We Americans have never shied away from taking on a challenge, and in this decade of the Sixties, there is no greater challenge for us to take on than reaching the Moon.”
-President Henry M. Jackson, June 1961

No one ever thought John Sparkman would become the President of the United States. A Senator from Alabama, he was chosen by Adlai Stevenson to be his running mate in 1952 simply to bring regional balance to the Democratic ticket. With Stevenson’s victory over his Republican opponent Robert A. Taft in that Presidential election, Sparkman became Vice President in January 1953. Like other Vice Presidents before him, he didn’t see the office as being a stepping stone to the Presidency – even though he was just a heartbeat away from it. Not since Martin Van Buren in 1836 had a sitting Vice President been elected to the Presidency in his own right. Then tragedy struck. In March 1954, President Stevenson was assassinated by Puerto Rican nationalists, thrusting Sparkman into the highest office in the land. Like another Vice President who became President following an assassination, Theodore Roosevelt, Sparkman used his unexpected Presidency to leave a lasting mark on the country:

• He pursued a robust conservation agenda to greatly improve the management and protection of the country’s natural resources
• He began the construction of the massive Interstate Highway System, which Americans across the country now take for granted every day
• He put America into space

Shortly after taking office, Sparkman made the development of satellites a national priority. The result was Explorer 1; launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida in May 1957, it became the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. Taking advantage of the national euphoria that came with this historic achievement, Sparkman quickly pushed through Congress legislation establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA’s first assignment was to put a man into space, which she achieved in August 1960 when astronaut Alan Shepard was blasted over 100 nautical miles up into the sky. His suborbital flight, which only lasted 15 minutes, made Shepard world famous as the first person to reach space.

(When Adlai Stevenson decided to pick John Sparkman to be his running mate at the 1952 Democratic National Convention, he couldn’t have imagined how consequential that decision would wind up being)
By the spring of 1966, NASA had amply demonstrated through the missions of Project Mercury (August 1960-February 1963) and Project Gemini (August 1963-March 1966) that her astronauts could operate effectively in the weightlessness of Earth’s orbit for days. Now it was time for America to set her sights higher and shoot for the Moon. The idea of conducting a manned lunar mission had been circulating in the United States since the late 1950s. Wernher von Braun, Nazi Germany’s leading rocket designer whom the Americans had recruited in 1944 to oversee their rocket development program, had wowed Sparkman with his grand visions of conducting manned missions to the Moon and even Mars. While sending astronauts to the Red Planet was beyond the technological prowess of 1950s America, the President thought going to the much-closer Moon was far more plausible. He directed NASA to study the feasibility of developing a spacecraft which could ferry a crew of three astronauts to Earth’s natural satellite, which was 239,000 miles away. When NASA concluded it could be done, Sparkman’s successor Jackson decided it would be done. In June 1961, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth (the Soviets had beaten the Americans to the orbital punch), his Mercury spacecraft making three orbits over the course of five hours. During his subsequent speech at Cape Canaveral hailing Glenn’s achievement, Scoop made the above announcement committing the United States to a manned lunar landing by the end of the 1960s.

Having been handed her marching orders, NASA had only eight-and-a-half years in which to carry out this complex operation. The first decision she had to make was what to call her lunar program. It was Abe Silverstein, a Jewish engineer from Indiana who had managed Project Mercury, who came up with the name: Project Apollo, after the ancient Greek god of light. “I felt that the image of Apollo riding his chariot across the Sun,” he explained, “Was appropriate to the grand scale of the program.”
Once the project had a name, NASA Administrator James E. Webb, a North Carolina Democrat who had held several positions in the Stevenson and Sparkman Administrations before being appointed head of NASA by Jackson, had to estimate how much it would cost. Webb initially estimated that Apollo would cost $12 billion; in fact, it would be twice that amount. Landing men on the Moon would ultimately cost the United States $25.4 billion:

• $8.5 billion for the Apollo spacecraft
• $9.1 billion for the Saturn launch vehicles
• $0.9 billion for the launch vehicle engine development
• $1.7 billion for mission operations
• $0.9 billion for the global tracking and data acquisition network
• $1.8 billion for ground facilities
• $2.5 billion for the operation of Apollo-related installations

Over 400,000 people would work on this massive undertaking, with involvement from over 20,000 companies and universities.

(James E. Webb)
The early 1960s saw NASA greatly expand her physical footprint. For example, she established a spacecraft propulsion research center in Huntsville, Alabama (known as the Sparkman Space Flight Center) to develop the Saturn launch vehicles. In order to get men to the Moon, a powerful rocket was needed that would give the Apollo crew the thrust they needed to break free from the pull of Earth’s gravity. Named after the sixth planet from the Sun, the von Braun-designed Saturn V was a massive three-stage liquid hydrogen-propellant rocket. It stood 363 feet tall (for comparison, the combined height of the Statue of Liberty and its’ pedestal is 305 feet), had a diameter of 33 feet, and weighed 6.5 million pounds when fully fueled. Constructed primarily out of aluminum, each stage of the Saturn V rocket was designed to provide different levels of thrust at different points during the launch:

• The 138 feet tall first stage provided 7,750,000 pounds-force of thrust at sea level. Powered by five Rocketdyne F-1 engines, the first stage would get the rocket up to an altitude of 42 miles in 2 minutes and 41 seconds.
• At that point, traveling 7,500 feet per second, the first stage would be jettisoned and the 81.6 feet tall second stage would immediately take over. Her five Rocketdyne J-2 engines, providing 1,100,000 pounds-force of thrust, would accelerate the rocket through the upper atmosphere, reaching an altitude of 109 miles in 6 minutes.
• Once the rocket had gotten through the upper atmosphere, the second stage would be jettisoned and the 58.6 feet tall third stage would immediately take over. Her single Rocketdyne J-2 engine, which provided 200,000 pounds-force of thrust, would put the Apollo crew into position to head towards the Moon at a velocity of 25,053 miles per hour.

The three stages of the Saturn V rocket were constructed in different parts of the country and shipped to Cape Canaveral. To put them together vertically, NASA built the massive Vehicle Assembly Building. Covering eight acres, the VAB was 526 feet tall, 716 feet long, and 518 feet wide, making it the largest single-story building in the world. Inside the building, the three stages were stacked on top of a mobile launch platform, which consisted of a 446 feet tall launch umbilical tower that had two elevators and nine retractable swing arms which provided access to different areas of the launch vehicle. The MLP itself sat on top of a crawler transporter; weighing 6 million pounds, the 131 feet long and 114 feet wide CT ran on four double-tracked treads. Each track had 57 shoes, which each weighed 1,984 pounds. From the VAB, the CT would carry the MLP three miles to Launch Complex 39. Moving at a speed of one mile per hour, it would take the CT about five hours to reach her destination.

During a launch, as soon as the Saturn V cleared the MLP, responsibility for the mission would immediately transfer from the four-story Launch Control Center in Cape Canaveral (the building next to the VBA) to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas. Also known as “Space City”, the MSC was a massive sprawling complex, containing 100 buildings spread out over 1,620 acres. At the heart of it was Building 30, which housed the Mission Control Center. The MCC was a four-tier auditorium which overlooked five large screens. Each tier had a row of computers that was dedicated to a specific part of the mission:

• The first row monitored parts of the Apollo spacecraft
• The second row monitored other parts, the health of the astronauts, and was where CAPCOM (Capsule Communication) astronauts directly stayed in touch with the Apollo crew
• The third row was where the flight activities were handled
• The fourth row was where NASA management sat, including the MSC director and the director of flight operations

With NASA’s missions growing longer and longer, shifts were set up so the MCC would remain staffed around the clock.

The Apollo spacecraft that would get the three-man crew to the Moon consisted of two parts. The first part was the 32,390-pound command and service module. Designed and built by North American Aviation, which had made a name for itself during World War Two with the P-51 Mustang long-range single-seat fighter and the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber, the CSM was 36.2 feet long and 12.8 feet wide. The cone-shaped stainless steel pressurized command module housed the crew, providing them with their system controls and displays. At the bottom of the CM was the two-inch, 3,000-pound heat shield; when it reentered Earth’s atmosphere, the phenolic formaldehyde resin coating the heat shield would absorb the intense heat, protecting the CM from melting. At the top of the CM was a two-foot compartment which contained two drogue parachutes and three main parachutes. At 24,000 feet, the drogue parachutes would deploy first so the speeding spacecraft could be slowed down to 125 miles per hour. At 10,700 feet, the drogues would be jettisoned and the main parachutes would take their place, slowing the CM down even further to 22 miles per hour, so it could safely splash down in the water. The unpressurized cylindrical service module housed the service propulsion, communication, and electrical power systems (the latter consisting of three 245-pound fuel cells, which generated power by mixing liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen together). The SM was connected to the CM’s heat shield with stainless steel straps, and would be jettisoned just before the CM re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

The second part was the 33,500-pound lunar module. Designed and built by Grumman, known for World War Two carrier planes like the F6F Hellcat fighter and the TBF Avenger torpedo bomber, the LM was 23.1 feet long and 31 feet wide. It was housed inside an aluminum cone which sat on top of the third stage of the Saturn V rocket, right beneath the exposed CSM. On the four-day journey to the Moon, the astronauts would press a button that would separate the four seven-feet-tall panels surrounding the LM. The CSM would then maneuver away from the LM, turn 180 degrees, and dock with it. Once firmly attached to it, the CSM would fire off thrusters moving the LM away from the now-discarded third stage. The entire process took about an hour. After the CSM arrived in the Moon’s orbit, two of the astronauts would enter the LM, unfold its landing legs, and detach from the CSM. The LM would then descend to the surface of the Moon, one astronaut operating the flight controls and engine throttle, while the other provided navigational information. Guided by the onboard computer system, the astronauts would head towards the targeted landing site, standing the entire time as there were no seats inside the LM. Once the four footpads made contact with the lunar surface, the contact indicator light would turn on, informing the crew that they could now shut off the descent engine. When it came time to return to the orbiting CSM for the trip back to Earth, the astronauts would activate the ascent engine. The ascent stage of the LM would then lift off the descent stage with 3,500 pounds-force of thrust, leaving it behind on the Moon. The ascent stage would rendezvous and dock with the CSM, and then be jettisoned.

On July 19th, 1965, a few days after the Gemini 8 mission, NASA publicly unveiled the crew for the first Apollo mission. Virgil “Gus” Grissom, age 39 from Indiana, would be the commander of Apollo 1. As one of America’s most experienced astronauts, he was a natural choice for the position. One of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, Grissom had conducted the second suborbital flight in November 1960. In July 1964, he commanded Gemini 3, the first manned mission of Project Gemini. Joining Grissom would be Edward White, age 34 from Texas. A competitor at the 1952 Summer Olympics (Men’s 400 meters hurdles), White joined NASA as one of the nine members of Astronaut Group 2. He flew into space in October 1964 aboard Gemini 4, where he became the first American to conduct a spacewalk (again, the Soviets had beaten the Americans to the punch). White spent 23 minutes floating around in the vastness of space, enjoying the experience of it so much that he called climbing back into the spacecraft “the saddest moment of my life.”
Rounding out the three-man crew would be Roger Chaffee, age 30 from Michigan. Chaffee had joined NASA as one of the fourteen members of Astronaut Group 3; the youngest American to be chosen for a mission, he would be making his first flight into space on Apollo 1. NASA planned to launch them into Earth’s orbit on June 21st, 1966, where they would spend fourteen days putting the CSM through its’ paces. NASA officials wanted to see how the new spacecraft would fare orbiting the Earth before sending it to orbit the Moon. Unlike the Mercury and Gemini missions, the first Apollo mission would include a live television feed, enabling Grissom, White, and Chaffee to show television viewers exactly what they were experiencing floating in their weightless environment high above the planet.

(Edward White, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, and Roger Chaffee)
Three days after their selection, the crew flew to the North American Aviation plant in Downey, California to check out their spacecraft. What they saw made them feel uneasy. The cabin they would sit in was filled with a lot of flammable material like nylon netting and Velcro, which would pose a serious fire hazard. When they raised their concerns to NASA management, they were dismissed out of hand. While it was true that this material could burn easily if it caught on fire, they saw no reason why it would. By the time NASA had gotten to the first Apollo mission, her management had grown complacent. While there had been technical issues with the Mercury and Gemini spacecrafts, none had been so serious as to lead to the loss of the entire crew. NASA assumed that whatever technical issues they came across with the Apollo spacecraft would be worked out and they could proceed on their merry way to the Moon. Management just couldn’t imagine a situation happening that would result in the Apollo 1 mission turning into a fatal catastrophe. None of the prior missions had. This nonchalant attitude greatly bothered the crew. It was their lives that would be on the line after all; if something went wrong, they would pay the price. As Chaffee put it, “There’s only room for one mistake. You can buy the farm only once.”
It wasn’t just the issue of flammable material that was cause for concern. Once the CSM arrived at Cape Canaveral, testing of the spacecraft revealed multiple issues that needed to be corrected. The environmental control unit in the CM didn’t work properly and there was a water/glycol coolant leak, among other things. Despite the fact that North American Aviation had shipped the CSM to Florida with a Certificate of Flight Worthiness, all these problems made Grissom skeptical that the CSM was really ready for primetime. He told NASA management up front that he thought they were moving too fast in launching Apollo 1 and that he was dubious the spacecraft would last a full two weeks in space. Management thought Grissom was just being a pain in the neck, giving him the derisive nickname “Gruff Gus”. While they were being dismissive of him, Walter Cunningham, a member of the Apollo 1 backup crew, agreed with Grissom that the CSM was too problematic at this point to instill confidence in it. “We knew that the spacecraft was, you know, in poor shape relative to what it ought to be,” he later explained. “We felt like we could fly it, but let’s face it, it just wasn’t as good as it should have been for the job of flying the first crewed Apollo mission.”
Following an altitude chamber test on April 29th, 1966 with the backup crew, backup commander Walter Schirra wasn’t pleased with the state of the CM. “I can’t point exactly to what is wrong with this ship,” he told Grissom, “But something about it just makes me uncomfortable. It just doesn’t ring right.”
On May 6th, the CSM was attached to the top of a Saturn IB rocket and rolled out to Launch Complex 34. 141.6 feet tall, and with a diameter of 21.67 feet, the Saturn IB was a two-stage rocket which had a combined 1,800,000 pounds-force of thrust. With the Saturn V not ready for launch yet, the smaller and less powerful Saturn IB was used instead.

At 1:00 PM on Friday, May 27th, a fully pressure-suited Grissom, White, and Chaffee climbed into the CM for a launch simulation known as a “plugs-out” test. The purpose of this test was to determine whether the spacecraft could operate nominally on internal power while completely detached from her support cables. With the launch just less than a month away, NASA was expecting this to be a routine test. Once he was strapped into his seat and was hooked up to the spacecraft’s oxygen and communication systems, Grissom complained of a strange odor in the air circulating through his suit which reminded him of “sour buttermilk.”
The simulated countdown was put on hold while technicians searched for the source of the odor. When they couldn’t find it, the countdown resumed at 2:42 PM. Three minutes later, the hatches were installed. There were three of them:

• A removable inner cabin hatch
• A hinged outer hatch which was part of the spacecraft’s heat shield
• An outer hatch cover which was part of the boost protective cover which enveloped the entire CM

Once the hatches were sealed, pure oxygen was pumped into the cabin at 16.7 psi, which was 2 psi higher than normal atmospheric pressure. As the countdown progressed that afternoon, the crew experienced difficulties communicating with the Launch Complex 34 blockhouse control room. At 5:40 PM, the simulated countdown was once again put on hold while the control room tried to resolve this latest problem. At 6:30 PM, with the communication issue still being worked on, Grissom turned to White and asked impatiently “How are we going to get to the Moon if we can’t talk between three buildings?”
White wasn’t sure. “They can’t hear a thing you’re saying.”
“Jesus Christ,” Grissom muttered in frustration. “What else,” he then wondered to himself, “Can go wrong on this damn test?”
About a minute later, he got his answer.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Dunno why, but the Space Race has never thrilled me too much.

 

[El Pip]

That's not gone well for them. In hindsight it all seems obviously doomed, but even at the time things like the use of pure oxygen must have raised some concerns. Even ignoring the fire risk it's really not healthy to breath pure oxygen, sure medically sometimes it is necessary but if you have the choice you really shouldn't.

Then again if you will hire Nazis to run your space programme then these things will happen, von Braun had never given a shit about any human life apart from his own before so why would he do so when in the US?

 

[DensleyBlair]

Rediscovering my now year-old commitment to get around to reading this “shortly” while filling in my YAYAs ballot surely ranks as one of the most leisurely of slower-than-real-time commitments. (And meanwhile @El Pip has been here since the beginning! You’re losing your edge, sir.)

Needless to say I will rectifying my lapse in memory forthwith. Looking forward to getting into this, @Nathan Madien!

 

[Rensslaer]

@Nathan Madien I have followed your "Presidents" series off and on over many, many years. I was a little surprised to see it still going!

I consider myself pretty well-versed on American politics. Less so on the '50s and '60s I suppose. But I had never heard of Sen. Sparkman despite him actually being the running mate in 1952. Interesting!

And I was aware of the Apollo I disaster but had never heard the audio. How heartbreaking.

Good to see these AARs of yours still running!

Rensslaer