What If Kennedy Had Lived?

42-years ago today, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, TX. The conspiracy theories still abound about who was responsible, why it happened and how it was carried out. That's a post for another day.

But what if Kennedy had lived? What if Oswald missed or the wound was non-life threatening and Kennedy recovered?

Let's look at some of what Kennedy accomplished prior to being murdered in Texas:

• He stood his ground during the Cuban Missile Crisis and forced Kruschev to back down and remove nukes from Cuba.
• He reiterated to Berlin that the US supported them againstcommunist tyranny.
• He reduced taxes (although they did not pass until after his death) in supply-side fashion, although libs and Dems hate when you say that.
• He increased "advisors" in Vietnam and increased them consistently.
• He was an advocate of civil rights reform.
• He had liberal tendencies on issues but was not a liberal in the sense we know them today.

Now let's suppose he survived Dallas and lived on. JFK would've easily won a second term in 1964 and all signs indicate that he would have continued increasing our presence in Vietnam. Anti-war types tend to argue this point, but Kennedy was a cold warrior who understood that the USSR would keep taking aggressive action until they were stopped. The key question is if after the Tet Offensive, would he have had the nerve to continue on or would he have started scaling back so he wouldn't leave the Democratic presidential candidate (presumably Johnson) burdened with an unpopular war?

On social issues, JFK would've pushed for the civil rights legislation that Lyndon Johnson eventually pushed through (with the help of the Republicans more so than Dixiecrats like Al Gore, Sr. who voted against it and filibustered it for months) He may well have not pushed as hard as Johnson because, as a Catholic and a New Englander, didn't have the clout of a southerner like Johnson.

Let's suppose Kennedy did serve his two terms and left Washington in January 1969. Would Johnson have been elected? Would Nixon have been elected? Would Bobby Kennedy have been in California on that fateful day? Would Edward Kennedy have been involved in the Chappaquiddick accident?

Let's look further, if Kennedy had lived, my guess is he would've attempted to leave Vietnam in 1967 or '68 (or earlier) and we wouldn't have the after effects of the anti-war/anti-military mindset that is rearing its ugly head even now. We may well have had a strengthened Soviet Union that would have still imploded due to the pressure exerted by Reagan, but may have survived a few years longer.

Lastly, would Jimmy Carter have been elected if Watergate never happened? And what of the Reagan revolution and the onset of conservatism in America?

Interesting questions to ponder.