November 25, 1993: The Leon Lett Game

November 25, 1993, 30 years ago: Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas is hosting its annual Thanksgiving Day game. The Dallas Cowboys are hosting the Miami Dolphins. These are 2 teams used to warm weather all year long.

Not today: It's snowing, and the weird roof at the stadium means that the fans are covered and protected, but the field is not, and it's a mess. The temperature at kickoff was 26 degrees Fahrenheit. With the wind-chill factor, it was zero. This remains the worst set of home-game weather conditions in the 1st 64 seasons of Cowboys history.

The Cowboys, coached by Jimmy Johnson, are the defending NFL Champions, having won Super Bowl XXVII thanks to a well-balanced team, featuring an offensive attack with "The Triplets," 3 future Hall-of-Famers: Quarterback Troy Aikman, running back and eventual NFL all-time rushing yards leader Emmitt Smith, and receiver Michael Irvin. They are 7-3, and, despite having lost to the Atlanta Falcons the previous week, are favorites to repeat.

The Dolphins were in their 24th season coached by Don Shula. Two weeks earlier, against the Philadelphia Eagles, Shula won his 325th game as a head coach, surpassing George Halas as the NFL's all-time leader. With Steve DeBerg filling in at quarterback for an injured Dan Marino, the Dolphins were 8-2, and among the favorites in the AFC. This game, broadcast nationally on NBC, was being talked about as a possible Super Bowl preview.

In spite of the slick field, Keith Byars ran 77 yards for a Dolphin touchdown, for the only score of the 1st quarter. The Cowboys struck back with 2 touchdowns by Kevin Williams, one on a 4-yard pass from Aikman, the other on a 64-yard punt return. It was 14-7 Cowboys at the half.

In the 3rd quarter, Pete Stoyanovich, a son of North Macedonian immigrants, and a native of the Detroit area, so he was used to watching the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving, kicked a 20-yard field goal. In the 4th quarter, he kicked a 31-yarder, to pull the Dolphins within 14-13. The Dolphins launched a late drive, and, with 15 seconds left, set up a 41-yard field goal that, barring a miracle kickoff return by the Cowboys, would have won it. But, given the weather conditions, the field goal wouldn't be easy.

Among the players that Johnson sent out to defend the kick was defensive tackle Leon Lett, a 25-year-old native of Fairhope, Alabama, outside Mobile. The previous January, Lett had been one of the players who helped the Cowboys win the Super Bowl, beating the Buffalo Bills, 52-17. Late in the game, Lett picked up a fumble, and had nothing but green real estate between him and the end zone. It could have been 59-17, which would have topped the 55 that the San Francisco 49ers had scored 3 years earlier, and become the most points by a single team in Super Bowl history.

But Lett decided to count his chickens before they hatched: He waved the ball in the air well before reaching the goal line. He had no idea that Bills receiver Don Beebe was running like hell behind him, and managed to knock the ball out of his hand at the 1-yard line. The Cowboys entire team came out of that game looking like one of the greatest teams of all time, except for Lett, who came out of it looking like a fool.

But Lett was otherwise a good player, who went on to make 2 Pro Bowls. Despite missing the 1st 5 games of the '93 season due to injury, he had played all 4 defensive line positions, and was leading all NFL defensive linemen with 4 deflected passes. He seemed like a good choice to defend against a potential game-winning field goal.

As it happened, another lineman, Jimmie Jones, blocked Stoyanovich's kick. The ball spun harmlessly to the snow-covered artificial turf. Everyone from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who had come down to the sideline to stand with the team, to the crowd of 60,198 (about 5,000 short of a sellout, understandable due to the weather), was celebrating what looked like a Cowboys win.

Everyone, it seemed, except Lett. Had he done nothing, the play would have been whistled dead as soon as the ball stopped, and the Cowboys would have had the ball at the previous play's line of scrimmage, the Cowboys' 24. Instead, the ball came to a stop at the Cowboys' 10, spinning upright on one of its points. And a Cowboy player slid in, trying to recover what he thought was a fumble, and instead slipped, and kicked the ball forward, toward the Cowboys' end zone.

The Dolphins quickly realized what had happened, and went after the still-loose ball. Offensive tackle Ron Heller recovered it. At first, Cowboys radio announcers Brad Sham and Dale Hansen couldn't tell who the blundering player was. Then, they saw the replay. Sham: "Oh, no! Leon Lett! Leon Lett!" Hansen, really, really wanting it to be anybody else: "Not Leon Lett!"

The NBC cameras caught Jones pumping his fists in the air, and then realizing that the game hadn't been won after all. He looked like a kid on Thanksgiving who'd been promised the turkey's drumstick, and then it had just been snatched by his big brother.

Because it was off a blocked kick, the rule said that the ball had to be given back to the offensive team at the defensive team's 1-yard line. The Dolphins set up again, and, this time, Stoyanovich nailed the kick. Final score: Miami 16, Dallas 14.

Lett immediately went down in history. Comparisons were made to Bill Buckner of the Boston Red Sox in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Sure, Buckner's error was in a much more important game. But the thing everyone says about Buckner is that he shouldn't be judged by one awful moment in an otherwise sterling career. Now, Lett had two such moments.

In 2013, on the game's 20th Anniversary, Lett was interviewed, and said, "I have been trying to think back for, what, 20 years now, and I don't know what happened. It was a brain freeze."

With a result like that, a fan might have been forgiven for thinking it at the time that it would have ruined the Cowboys season, and sent the Dolphins on a great run. Just the opposite happened. The Dolphins lost their last 5 games, including in overtime to a terrible New England Patriots team in the regular-season finale. As of the conclusion of the 2022 season, the '93 Dolphins remain the last NFL team to start a season 9-2 and not make the Playoffs.

In contrast, the Cowboys never lost another game, winning the NFC Eastern Division, facing the Bills in Super Bowl XXVIII, and beating them again, 30-13. The following year, they lost the NFC Championship Game to the San Francisco 49ers. The year after that, they won Super Bowl XXX, beating the Pittsburgh Steelers. The count for Leon Lett: Super Bowl rings 3, big-game gaffes 2.

A graduate of Emporia State University, an NCAA Division II school in Kansas, Lett played until the 2001 season, and went into coaching, spending time on the staffs at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV) and the University of Louisiana at Monroe (formerly known as Northeast Louisiana University).

Since 2011, Lett has been the assistant defensive line coach for the Cowboys, first under Jason Garrett, a backup quarterback to Aikman in the game in question, now under Mike McCarthy.

It seems silly to say that Lett had to redeem himself for one play in a Super Bowl won by his team, and another play in a season in which his team won the Super Bowl again. Clearly, he had something to do with all 3 of those Super Bowl wins.

The play will be shown on television, and looked up on YouTube, every Thanksgiving, and every time someone puts together a list of NFL mistakes, for as long as TV and YouTube exist. But Leon Lett deserves to be remembered for more than a moment which made him a "turkey."

*

In the other NFL game that Thanksgiving Day, on CBS, the Chicago Bears beat the Detroit Lions, 10-6 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

There were 3 college football games played that day. The University of Louisville beat the University of Tulsa, 28-0 at Skelly Stadium in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That was not, and still is not, a major rivalry. Texas vs. Texas A&M was, and will be again when Texas joins the Southeastern Conference, as A&M did a few years ago. At this point, they were both still in the Southwest Conference, and A&M beat Texas, 18-9 at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas.

The other game was Georgia vs. Georgia Tech, at Grant Field at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta. The original structure was built in 1913, making it the oldest stadium in NCAA Division I-A (now FBS, the Football Bowl Subdivision), but so much has been built around it that it looks like a modern stadium.

This game was televised nationally on ABC, and the lead announcer was Keith Jackson, the greatest of all college football announcers. In his opening, Jackson said, "This is the day when the waistline takes a whuppin', and ancient rivalries are replayed." He was from Georgia, so he knew both programs well; but he graduated from Washington State, so he could be completely objective with this rivalry, known as "Clean Old-Fashioned Hate."

Georgia led only 16-10 at the start of the 4th quarter, but ran up the score. Late in the game, the Bulldogs scored to make it 43-10, and coach Ray Goff, who had quarterbacked them to the 1976 SEC title, decided to go for a two-point conversion. Echoes of former Ohio State coach Woody Hayes, who, on an occasion when he needlessly went for two in a blowout, was asked why, and said, "Because I couldn't go for three." The Yellow Jackets didn't like this decision, and a fight broke out on the field. The conversion was unsuccessful, and 43-10 was the final. This was one of many times, in many rivalries, that Jackson said, "These two teams just... don't... like each other!"

In recent years, the NBA and the NHL have chosen not to schedule games on Thanksgiving Day, to avoid competing for TV viewers with the NFL and the NCAA. On this day, however, 1 NHL game was played.

Fittingly, it was in Canada, which celebrates its Thanksgiving on the 2nd Monday in October: The Quebec Nordiques beat the Los Angeles Kings, 8-6 at the Colisée de Québec. That's only slightly less than the 10-6 by which the Bears beat the Lions. For the Nords, Joe Sakic and Valeri Kamensky each had 2 goals and an assist. For the Kings, Luc Robitaille had 4 goals, and Wayne Gretzky had a goal and 3 assists. 

November 24, 1983: "Sesame Street" Says Goodbye to Mr. Hooper

November 24, 1983, 40 years ago: Sesame Street airs its best-remembered episode, perhaps its most important, and certainly its saddest.

William Lee (no middle name) was born on August 6, 1908 in Brooklyn. He was a member of the Group Theatre and then the Federal Theatre in New York in the 1930s, and was later blacklisted as a result of being an unfriendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He recovered from this, and in 1956, began appearing on the soap opera As the World Turns, as Grandpa Hughes -- already playing a grandfather at the age of 48.

He taught at the American Theatre Wing, and then, in 1969, at the age of 61, he got the part of Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street. Show co-creator Joan Ganz Cooney said, "He gave millions of children the message that the old and the young have a lot to say to each other." He said of the role:

I was delighted to take the role of Mr. Hooper, the gruff grocer with the warm heart. It's a big part, and it allows a lot of latitude. But the show has something extra, that sense you sometimes get from great theater, the feeling that its influence never stops.

Mr. Hooper operated Hooper's Store, across from 123 Sesame, the signature building on the show's set. In a 1974 episode, "Mr. Hooper" (everybody called him that, except Big Bird -- more on that in a moment) was, like his portrayer, canonically revealed to be Jewish, when his phone rang, and he began speaking Yiddish. In a 1977 episode, he told Big Bird, "I grew up in a neighborhood where that was the only language a lot of people spoke."

In the 1978 special Christmas Eve On Sesame Street, Mr. Hooper came through to provide a happy ending. Muppet roommates Bert and Ernie unwittingly recreated the O. Henry story The Gift of the Magi: Neither one of them had enough money to buy the other a Christmas present, so Ernie traded his beloved rubber duckie to Mr. Hooper for a cigar box, so Bert would have a good place to store his beloved paper clip collection; and Bert traded that collection to Mr. Hooper for a soap dish, so the rubber duckie wouldn't keep slipping off the edge and into the bathtub.

In one of the rare appearances by one of the show's human characters in Bert and Ernie's apartment, Mr. Hooper gave Ernie a present. He unwrapped it, and it was his rubber duckie. And he gave Bert a present. He unwrapped it, and it was a box containing his paper clip collection. The boys realized what had happened. Then they felt guilty that they hadn't gotten Mr. Hooper anything. He said, "I got the best Christmas present ever: I got to see that everybody got exactly what they wanted!"

A quirk in Big Bird's character was that he always mispronounced Mr. Hooper's name, usually coming out "Mister Looper." I remember a "Mr. Dooper" and a "Mr. Stooper" -- that last one really annoyed Mr. Hooper. When Mr. Hooper got his GED, we finally learned his first name, when he was introduced at the ceremony -- by a grownup -- as "Harold Cooper."

On November 24, 1982, at the age of 74, Will Lee taped an episode of Sesame Street -- as it turned out, for the last time. He didn't feel well that day, and barely spoke to the cast. The next day, he appeared live on national television as part of Sesame Street's float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. There was no indication at that time that he was ill. But, just 12 days later, on December 7, 1982, he died of a heart attack. 

The Children's Television Workshop, producers of Sesame Street, had a dilemma. They based their whole show on the fact that kids were smart enough to learn things. So they knew that kids would notice if Mr. Hooper were played by a different actor, or if he stopped appearing altogether, and would need an explanation. They considered saying that the character had retired and moved away. In the end, they decided to tell the truth -- or, rather, to write the actor's truth into the character's story.

On November 24, 1983, one year to the day after his last taping -- Thanksgiving Day, a day when families were together, to help explain anything that the show might not have properly covered to the kids watching -- the episode aired, at 4:00 PM Eastern Time, hence the time of this post. It was revealed that Mr. Hooper had died some time earlier (no cause was given), but that Big Bird still didn't grasp what this meant. He had to be told that it means, "Mr. Hooper's not coming back."

Bob McGrath, who played music teacher Bob Johnson, said of the human cast, "We barely got through that show." Carroll Spinney, who both wore the Big Bird costume and operated the Oscar the Grouch Muppet, said, "The best episode we ever did was Mr. Hooper's death. Those were real tears. Will was the sweetest man."

Big Bird, played by Carroll Spinney, surrounded by, left to right:

Maria (Sonia Manzano), Bob (Bob McGrath),

Susan (Loretta Long) and Gordon (Roscoe Orman)

For a few years by that point, Northern Calloway had played David (his last name was never mentioned), a young black man who had been Mr. Hooper's assistant. David inherited Hooper's Store. After that, David hired Gina Jefferson, a teenage girl played by Alison Bartlett-O'Reilly. But Calloway fell victim to mental illness, left the show in 1989, and died a year later.

The store was then bought by Mr. Handford, a black retired firefighter played by Leonard Jackson for one season, then by David L. Smyrl. Jackson played Mr. Handford as a grumpy old man, while Smyrl found the same balance between grumpy old man and kindly old gentleman that Lee had. (David's disappearance was explained as the character simply moving away, while the change in actor for Mr. Handford was less drastic, since the character wasn't original and beloved, as Mr. Hooper and, to a lesser extent, David were.)

In 1998, Smyrl left the show, and it was explained that Mr. Handford had sold the store to Alan (whose last name has never been revealed). Alan is played by Japanese-American actor Alan Muraoka, and has run the store ever since -- his 25 years in charge nearly twice as long as the 13 years we saw Mr. Hooper run it, although we have no way of knowing how long it was open before 1969.

But, to this day, the drawing of Mr. Hooper that Big Bird made, and showed in the farewell episode, rests adjacent to Big Bird's nest, as a reminder of Mr. Hooper, and of Will Lee.

Carroll Spinney, in his 80s, began to pull back, allowing Eric Jacobson to take over as Oscar in 2015, and Matt Vogel to replace him as Big Bird 2018. Spinney died the following year. But, like Oscar, Bert and Ernie, Grover, Cookie Monster, The Count, and all the rest, Big Bird lives. Which means he'll never see Mr. Hooper again -- barring the invention of a Star Trek-style holodeck or the intervention of an artificial intelligence setup that can simulate the character.

November 24, 1973: The Ohio State-Michigan Tie

Glenn Edward Schembechler Jr. (left) and Wayne Woodrow Hayes

November 24, 1973, 50 years ago: The football teams of Ohio State University and the University of Michigan play each other at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. This was intended as the 30th time that the winner of this game would win the Big Ten Conference Championship. (And there have been many more since.)

Wayne Woodrow Hayes, known as Woody, had coached at Ohio State since 1951, and had already won the Big 10 title 7 times, and the National Championship in 1954, 1957, 1961 and 1968. 

Glenn Edward Schembechler Jr., known as Bo, had played for him at Miami University in Ohio, and had coached under him there and at Ohio State, before becoming head coach at Miami and then at Michigan in 1969.

Ohio State was going for back-to-back National Championships in 1969, with a supposedly unbeatable team, but Bo's Wolverines shocked Woody's Buckeyes in Ann Arbor, re-establishing Michigan as a national football power, and beginning what would eventually be known as "The Ten-Year War" between not just the two programs, but between the two men. Ohio State won in 1970, Michigan in 1971 and Ohio State in 1972.

Ohio State came into the game at 9-0, having been ranked Number 1 for most of the season. The closest any team had come to beating them was Wisconsin, and they lost 24-0. The Buckeyes had hung 60 points on Northwestern, 56 on Minnesota, 55 on Iowa, 37 on both Texas Christian and Indiana, and 35 on Michigan State. With sophomore running back Archie Griffin, on his way to becoming the only 2-time Heisman Trophy winner, and future All-Pro linebacker Randy Gradishar, they looked unbeatable -- just as they were in 1968, and just as they looked in 1969.

Michigan came into the game 10-0, and ranked Number 4. They'd had some closer calls, only beating Navy by 14 points and Illinois by 15. But they scored 49 on Indiana, 47 on Stanford, 35 on Wisconsin, and 34 on both Minnesota and Purdue. And they had a strong defense, shutting out Navy, Oregon and Michigan State. Only Stanford and Indiana reached double figures against them. Cornerback Dave Brown, defensive tackle Dave Gallagher, tight end Paul Seal and placekicker Mike Lantry were named All-Americans.

A crowd of 105,223 plowed into the enormous bowl in Ann Arbor, nicknamed The Big House. Millions more watched Chris Schenkel and former Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty call the game on ABC. It was Ohio State vs. Michigan. It was "The Game."

It rained before the game. Coupled with both coaches' distaste for the forward pass -- Hayes famously said, "There are three things that can happen when you throw the football, and two of them are bad," meaning an incompletion and an interception -- this game was destined to remain mostly on the ground. Michigan passed for only 90 yards, and Ohio State attempted only 4 passes.

The game was scoreless after the 1st quarter. Early in the 2nd quarter, Blair Conway kicked a field goal to put Ohio State up 3-0. Michigan struggled, and Ohio State gained a lot on the ground through Griffin. But it was the other big back, Pete Johnson, who ended up scoring the Buckeye touchdown, putting them up 10-0 just before halftime.

Midway through the 3rd quarter, Ohio State got to the Michigan 34-yard line, but on 4th and 2, Hayes, that most conservative of football coaches, refused to gamble on a 51-yard field goal attempt, and went for the 1st down, and couldn't convert it. That gave the Wolverines new life, and they drove 11 plays, and Lantry got them on the board with a field goal.

Midway through the 4th quarter, Michigan was able to drive down to the Ohio State 10-yard line, but the Buckeyes held them, and it was 4th and inches. Hayes put 9 men on the line of scrimmage, making a "goal-line stand" on the 10, because he had predicted that Wolverine quarterback Dennis Franklin would once again hand off to Ed Shuttlesworth.

But Schembechler, unlike Hayes, was willing to gamble, although not with a pass: He had Franklin fake the handoff to Shuttlesworth, and got himself through the line for a touchdown. It was 10-10.

With 6 minutes left, Michigan got the ball on their 10. Franklin drove into Buckeye territory, but with 2:23 to go, he was injured and had to leave the game. Schembechler decided to gamble again, and had Lantry try a 58-yard field goal. It had the distance, but was just wide left.

Ohio State couldn't do anything with their opportunity, and quarterback Greg Hare threw an interception that must have driven Hayes up the wall. The Wolverines got the ball to the Buckeye 28, and Lantry attempted a game-winning 45-yard field goal. But he missed again, and 10-10 was the final score.

So now, there was a tie not just in the game, but for the Big 10 title. And, at the time, the Big 10 had a rule that now seems ridiculous: No league team could go to a bowl game except the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. Until 1971, they had another ridiculous rule: No team could go to the Rose Bowl 2 years in a row. In other words, if a team won back-to-back titles, the 2nd place team would represent the league in the Rose Bowl instead.

With that rule having gone by the wayside, and the title being tied, the Big 10's representative to play the University of Southern California (USC) in the Rose Bowl would be up to a vote the next day, held in a telephone conference call of the league's athletic directors. Since Ohio State had gone to the Rose Bowl the year before, it seemed simple enough: It was Michigan's turn.

Even Hayes agreed. He hated Michigan as much as any coach has ever hated his school's arch-rival. You approached him with great care during "Michigan Week." And he usually referred to them as "that school up north." Ohio State fans began referring to them by the initials of that epithet: "TSUN." 

But as competitive as Woody was, this time, he admitted, "We had to win this one to go, and we didn't. If they vote Michigan, Michigan deserves to go." And if the vote were a 5-5 split, then the old rule about back-to-back trips to Pasadena would be observed, and Michigan would go.

The vote was 6-4 for Ohio State. The Buckeyes voted for themselves, of course; and also got the votes of Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue, Wisconsin and Michigan State. The Wolverines voted for themselves, and also got the votes of Indiana, Iowa and Minnesota.

Bo blew his stack. He would have blown it again if he had lived long enough to hear a recording released in connection with the 2013 Big Ten Network documentary Tiebreaker, of Michigan State athletic director J. Burt Smith, 4 days after the game and 3 days after the vote, that he had voted for Ohio State, because they "best met the definition of the most representative team."

Another rumor came out that MSU voted for Ohio State in retaliation for Michigan's "No" vote on their admittance to the Big Ten in 1949. (The University of Chicago had dropped out in 1940, and so the league was a Big Nine for a few years.) Granted, Michigan State hates Michigan as much as Ohio State does, but 24 years is a long time to hold a grudge, especially over a move that didn't even work.

In his 1989 memoir, Bo, Schembechler said that Illinois coach Bob Blackman was told by his athletic director, Cecil Coleman, that he would vote for Michigan, but that Coleman voted for Ohio State anyway.

Bo also suggested in that memoir that the Big Ten knew that Franklin's injury would make it problematic for Michigan, and they'd already lost the last 4 Rose Bowls to the league then known as the Pacific-Eight, and they thought Ohio State would have a better chance to win. As it turned out, that was correct: Ohio State won the 1974 Rose Bowl, beating USC decisively, 42-21.

But the tie ended up hurting Ohio State, if not as much as it hurt Michigan. Notre Dame, ranked Number 3, upset the new Number 1, Alabama, in the Sugar Bowl, and were awarded the National Championship. Ohio State ended up Number 2 in both the Associated Press poll (AP, the football writers) and the United Press International poll (UPI, the football coaches). Michigan finished Number 6 in both polls.

In 1972, '73 and '74 combined, Michigan went 30-2-1, their only non-wins being the '72 loss to Ohio State, 14-11; the '73 tie with Ohio State, 10-10; and the '74 loss to Ohio State, 12-10. Three non-wins, by a combined total of 5 points. And yet, they didn't go to a bowl game in any of those seasons. Even fans of the other 9 schools in the league at the time, used to hating Michigan and wanting them to suffer, had to admit that this was a bit unfair.

Finally, in 1975, the Big Ten voted to open postseason bids to as many as 4 teams, which has since been expanded to 6. Fittingly, Michigan became the 1st team to benefit, going 8-0-2 in 1975 before losing to Ohio State, and then going to the Orange Bowl, where they lost to Oklahoma.

What If JFK Had Lived?

The following is based on my interpretations of history, and my somewhat educated guesses as to what might have happened.

Although I am not convinced that this is true, just to make it all simpler, I'm going to presume for the sake of this post that Lee Harvey Oswald did, in fact, act alone.

November 22, 1963: Lee Harvey Oswald fires a shot, and misses. The driver of the limousine carrying President John F. Kennedy, his wife Jacqueline, Governor John B. Connally of Texas, and his wife Nellie, hears the shot, correctly guesses what it is, and hits the gas, speeding up. Seeing this, Oswald tries a second shot, but can't hit the faster-moving target. He goes home, gets a pistol, goes to run, and is stopped by Patrolman J.D. Tippit. Both men manage to get shots off, and kill each other.

Kennedy is safely driven to the Trade Mart in Dallas, and delivers his speech as scheduled. Later, he is told the conclusion of the Dallas police: Tippit's killer is also the man who shot at him. The FBI and the Secret Service accept this conclusion, and the matter is closed.

November 27, 1963: The day before Thanksgiving, JFK announces he is running for a 2nd term.

February 11, 1964: A few hours before their concert at the Washington Coliseum, JFK welcomes The Beatles to the White House.

(A keen observer will note that the photo above is simply JFK's head on the body of another famous Irish-American of the time, Ed Sullivan.)

June 17, 1964: Robert F. Kennedy resigns as his brother's Attorney General to take command of his re-election campaign. Nicholas Katzenbach, his deputy, is soon approved as his successor at the Department of Justice.

July 2, 1964: JFK signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. (Before you tell me that he didn't have Lyndon Johnson's appeal to the Senate and thus the means to break a Southern filibuster, let me remind you that this was not as tough a hurdle to overcome as getting past the House Judiciary Committee, which happened a few days before his assassination.)

July 16, 1964: Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona accepts the Republican Party's nomination for President at their Convention at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Facing charges -- toward his supporters more so than himself -- he says, "I would remind you, my fellow Republicans, that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And I would remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"

July 18, 1964: A race riot breaks out in Harlem in Upper Manhattan, New York City. Nervous about the election, JFK doesn't propose anything to aid urban poverty.

August 26, 1964: JFK accepts a 2nd term at the Democratic Convention at Convention Hall (now named Boardwalk Hall) in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He says, "I would remind you, my fellow Americans, that extremism in the defense of liberty is no defense of liberty! And I would remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is the only pursuit of justice."

August 28, 1964: A race riot breaks out in North Philadelphia. Nervous about the election, JFK doesn't propose anything to aid urban poverty.

October 30, 1964: Goldwater sees a poll that suggests that victory is possible, due to having a hammerlock on the South because of the Civil Rights Act, and also being able to win several Western States, including his home State of Arizona. His advisors think he has 237 Electoral Votes in the bank, and if things break right in other States -- Congressional and Senate candidates helping, and weather holding down Democratic turnout -- he has an outside shot at the magic number of 270.

October 31, 1964: Francis Robert Kennedy is born in Hyannis, Massachusetts, named for his uncle Bobby, or Robert Francis. To this day, there are conservatives who believe that the Kennedys had labor induced so that the birth could happen before the election. They call it "the original October Surprise," although it would hardly have been the first one.

November 3, 1964: JFK is re-elected. Goldwater wins the Western States of Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska and Utah; and the Southern States of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia. But that's it. JFK wins 60 percent of the popular vote, Goldwater 39. In the Electoral Vote, JFK wins to 440 to 98. It's the most Electoral Votes a Democrat has won since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940, and the highest popular vote any candidate has won since FDR in 1936.

(How did I arrive at those States? For what the candidates actually got in this scenario, I took every State in which Goldwater won at least 45 percent of the vote in real life. For the pre-election Republican projections, I took every State in which he won at least 40 percent.)

January 20, 1965: JFK is inaugurated for a 2nd term, with Lyndon B. Johnson as Vice President. This time, in his Inaugural Address, he proposes a War On Poverty.

March 7, 1965: Police assault civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama.

March 15, 1965: JFK tells a joint session of Congress that a Voting Rights Act is necessary. In a speech written by Richard Goodwin, who had also written his Alliance for Progress address, he says, "It's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome."

July 30, 1965: JFK signs the Social Security Amendments of 1965 into law, creating Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor.

August 6, 1965: JFK signs the Voting Rights Act into law.

August 11, 1965: The Watts riot breaks out in South Central Los Angeles.

August 16, 1965: No longer needing to worry about re-election, since the 22nd Amendment means he can't run again in 1968 anyway, JFK addresses Congress, and asks them to pass a bill allowing cities with large black populations to hire more black police officers.

September 4, 1965: JFK is injured when his boat is overturned off the coast of his Hyannis home. He is taken by helicopter to the hospital at Otis Air Force Base at Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. His life is not in danger, but his back injury is worsened.

September 11, 1965: JFK signs 2 bills into law: The Minority Justice Initiative, allowing for the hiring of more black and Hispanic police officers; and the Economic Opportunity Act, creating the Office of Economic Opportunity.

Nepotism prevails: To run the former, he assigns his brother, and his former campaign chairman and Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy; the latter, his brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver. There are no cameras, TV or otherwise, at the signing ceremony. JFK still needs a wheelchair after his injury, and is in such pain that he can only sit up at his desk long enough to sign the bills in front of a few reporters.

November 9, 1965: A blackout strikes much of the Northeastern U.S., including New York City and JFK's native Boston.

November 22, 1965: Two years to the day after he was nearly assassinated, JFK signs the Infrastructure Act of 1965 into law, allowing for an overhaul of the nation's electrical grid, roads, bridges and water mains. This time, he was able to walk into the Oval Office for the ceremony -- slowly.

March 31, 1966: JFK reduces the U.S. military presence in Vietnam to 50,000 personnel. At this point, there have been about 2,500 American servicemen killed there. The total would not reach 3,000. Protests against the war have been minimal.

(In reality, according to a source I found, there were 200 U.S. military deaths in Vietnam through the end of 1963. Then JFK gave way to LBJ, and there were 216 in 1964, 1,928 in 1965, 6,350 in 1966, 11,363 in 1967, and 16,899 in 1968. Then LBJ gave way to Nixon, and there were 11,780 in 1969, 6,173 in 1970, 2,414 in 1971, and 759 in 1972. Nixon declared the war over in 1973, but there were still 68 U.S. death there that year, 1 more in 1974, and 62 in 1975. Officially, there were 7 afterward, possibly men who were wounded in combat, and never recovered, dying after the evacuation on April 30, 1975. Total: 58,213.)

September 8, 1966: "Space: The New Frontier." So begins the opening narration of a science-fiction series debuting on NBC on this night, Star Trek. The narration is by William Shatner, playing the captain of the starship Enterprise, James F. Kirk -- and the initials are not a coincidence.

November 8, 1966: The Republicans make big gains in the midterm elections, possibly due to a backlash against JFK's civil rights and poverty initiatives, and to his pullout in Vietnam. They gain 47 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and 3 in the U.S. Senate. This is not enough to take control of either house of Congress, but it is a warning to Democrats planning to run for President or Congress in 1968.

January 15, 1967: JFK becomes the 1st sitting President to attend a professional football game. And not just any game: The AFL-NFL World Championship Game -- later to be retroactively be named Super Bowl I -- at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He walks to midfield before the game, and referee Norm Schachter hands him the coin to toss. Forrest Gregg, captain of the NFL Champion Green Bay Packers, calls, "Heads," and wins the toss. The Packers go on to defeat the AFL Champion Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10.

March 26, 1967: Easter Sunday is ruined at Hyannis Port, when JFK foolishly decides to participate in the family touch football game, and his back is re-injured. He is taken to Otis Air Force Base (now part of Joint Base Cape Cod) in nearby Buzzards Bay. Beyond the injury, his adrenal system, weakened by Addison's disease, makes corrective surgery complicated. Remembering his 1954 surgery that not only failed, but nearly killed him, JFK opts for a nonsurgical rehabilitation.

April 23, 1967: JFK is told that his back has not improved much. He wonders if, 23 years after the death of Franklin Roosevelt, America is ready for another "wheelchair President."

May 29, 1967: JFK celebrates his 50th birthday at the White House, along with his wife Jacqueline; their children Caroline, John and Frank; his siblings, their spouses and children; and his mother Rose. He puts on a brave face, but it is clear to all that he is in terrible pain.

It is also Memorial Day, and, that morning, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had to substitute for him in the traditional laying of the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at nearby Arlington National Cemetery.

After the party, he lies in bed, and discusses the matter with Jackie, Bobby and Ted. If he were eligible to run for a 3rd term in 1968, it would be impossible. Can he continue in office, and serve out his 2nd term until January 20, 1969? No President has ever resigned, not even Woodrow Wilson, paralyzed in 1919 and 1920. And there is no mechanism for replacing a President who is alive, but incapacitated. Nor is there one for replacing a Vice President who becomes President, other than through the next election.

Jackie makes the defining argument: "Jack, there are other men who can do the job of President of the United States. You are the only man who can do the job of being Caroline, John and Frank's father." Ted agrees. Bobby, the best politician in the family at this point, is the last to accept it. But, knowing that LBJ, or any other Democrat who might be nominated, would have a tricky run of things in 1968, says that it would be easier for LBJ if he were the incumbent President. It is a hard thing for him to admit, as RFK and LBJ hate each other's guts.

June 1, 1967: On the day that The Beatles release their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, JFK speaks from the Oval Office, with all 3 major networks broadcasting in prime time:

"America needs a full-time President. Not that long ago, Franklin Roosevelt was able to serve as a full-time President, despite being unable to walk. I hope he was not in much pain. The amount of pain I have to endure on a daily basis has rendered this job more difficult than I could have imagined.

"For six and one-half years, I have, as the Oath of Office says, to the best of my ability, preserved, protected and defended the Constitution of the United States. But now, that ability has been greatly compromised. I find I can no longer give the office of the Presidency the attention it deserves.

"Therefore, I resign the Presidency, effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Johnson will take the Oath of Office, at that time, in the East Room, here at the White House. He has my full confidence in being able to do the job."

June 2, 1967: Lyndon Baines Johnson, 59 years old, takes the Oath of Office as President. He gives a short speech, not really an "Inaugural Address," thanking JFK for his service to the nation, praying for his recovery, and asking the American people for their prayers, to give him the wisdom and the strength he needs to be their leader.

Afterward, Lyndon and Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson walk JFK and Jackie to Marine One, which takes them to Andrews Air Force Base, to be flown back to Otis, and then to be driven to Hyannis Port. For the 1st time in public, JFK allows himself to be shown using a cane to walk.

June 4, 1967: LBJ calls Prime Minister Levi Eshkol of Israel, and tells him that if Israel is attacked by its Arab neighbors, which now seems likely, America will help, but will not help if Israel strikes first. Then, he uses the White House-to-Kremlin "hot line" for the 1st time in its history, telling Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin that if the Warsaw Pact interferes, it will be considered an act of war. The Soviets do not interfere. Israel strikes first the next day, and wins the war in 6 days.

June 12, 1967: Knowing that the situation in the Middle East made it too risky to do this last week, the Republican Party's leaders in Congress make a deal with conservative Southern Democrats. Essentially, it is a coup.

The Democrats had a 248-187 majority in the House of Representatives. But 50 of them are convinced to switch parties: 9 from Texas (a pretty hard rebuke of LBJ from his home State), 6 from Georgia, 5 from Alabama, 5 from Louisiana, 4 from North Carolina, 4 from South Carolina, 4 from Florida, 3 from Mississippi, 3 from Oklahoma, 2 from Virginia, 2 from Kentucky, 2 from Tennessee, 1 from Arkansas. Now, the Republicans have a 237-198 majority. (The Republicans knew they couldn't get enough Southern Democratic Senators to switch to get a numerical majority, but they also knew it wasn't necessary.)

The Republican Caucus then schedules an election for Speaker, and bypasses the outgoing Minority Leader, Gerald Ford of Michigan, because he hadn't supported the switch. And they needed someone who wasn't seen as a tool of the Southern segregationists. So the new Speaker of the House is the most conservative Northern member, John Ashbrook of Ohio. Ford becomes the new Majority Leader.

June 13, 1967: Having been betrayed by several House members of his own party, LBJ returns fire: To replace the retiring Justice Tom Clark, he appoints the Solicitor General, Thurgood Marshall, to the Supreme Court. He is the 1st black person appointed. There appear to be enough votes in the Senate, still controlled by Democrats. But the Republicans say they have enough votes to filibuster the nomination.

June 30, 1967: The Republican-controlled House has passed a lot of new legislation. With conservative Southern Democrats helping out, a "working majority" allows them to pass in the Senate. Much of this legislation repeals legislation from Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s, Harry Truman's Fair Deal of the late 1940s, and JFK's New Frontier. LBJ has vetoed all of it, knowing that there isn't a two-thirds majority in either house willing to override his vetoes.

The conservatives swear revenge. They had fired a shot across the bow, and LBJ had fired back. Now, waiting until after the 4th of July holiday, they are going to drop the bomb.

July 10, 1967: The House Commerce Committee begins hearings on the business dealings of Bobby Baker, who had been LBJ's chief of staff when he was Senate Majority Leader from 1953 to 1960. He had previously been investigated in 1963, but nothing came of it. Now, with LBJ as President, the Vice Presidency vacant, and a Republican next in line, a new investigation begins.

July 12, 1967: John William Smith, a black cabdriver in Newark, New Jersey, is pulled over. The partnered policemen who do so are one white man and one black man. The officers discuss the situation, and realize they can't charge Smith with anything other than speeding, so they write him a ticket, and move on.

(In real life, he was pulled out of his car by 2 white cops, beaten, and dragged to a precinct house. Black people living nearby saw this, and this was the beginning of the Newark Riots, which have scarred the city ever since. Newark was still a city in need of a lot of help, but, in this timeline, the riot never happened.)

July 17, 1967: The House Judiciary Committee receives a report from the Commerce Committee, alleging that LBJ knew about several questionable activities by Baker, and indeed helped to cover them up. Although he was not the President at the time, the Republicans on Judiciary begin hearings on whether to impeach the President.

July 23, 1967: The Detroit Riot breaks out, and it makes the Democrats, in power for 5 1/2 years, look bad. (I'm presuming that this one would not have been defused simply by having more black policemen in the city in question.)

July 24, 1967: On a strict party-line vote, the House Judiciary Committee draws up 7 Articles of Impeachment against LBJ: 4 of obstruction of justice, 2 of abuse of power, and 1 of fraud.

July 27, 1967: Speaker Ashbrook and the Senate Minority Leader, Everett Dirksen of Illinois, go to the White House, and offer LBJ a deal: They will halt impeachment proceedings, recommend no criminal charges to the U.S. Department of Justice, and confirm Marshall to the Supreme Court, if Johnson announces to the nation that he will not run for a full term in 1968.

LBJ consults with his family, and calls former Presidents Kennedy, Eisenhower and Truman, to get their opinions. All of them, including the Republican Eisenhower, are angry at what appears to be the Republicans metaphorically putting a gun to his head. But, since LBJ would not have to give up the office before the end of the term, and the historic Court appointment would be a huge part of his legacy, all 3 say he should do it.

July 28, 1967: LBJ tells the nation that he is acting in the best interests of the nation. "Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for a full term as your President." This leaves both parties' nominations for 1968 wide open.

July 31, 1967: All 7 Articles of Impeachment against LBJ are voted down by the House, although it is close. One comes within a 220-214 vote of passing.

August 30, 1967: Thurgood Marshall is confirmed by the Senate to be the 1st black Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. (This did happen on this date.)

September 4, 1967: In a Labor Day meeting at Hyannis Port, former President John F. Kennedy discusses the 1968 Presidential election with his advisors, including Robert F. Kennedy, his brother, his 1960 and '64 campaign chairman, and his 1st Attorney General. Their other surviving brother, Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy of Massachusetts, is also in the meeting.

They all agree that, since the Bobby Baker scandal is settled in the law, but not in the minds of the American people, LBJ dropping out was the right move. But they also all agree that, with the scandal so fresh, any Democrat would have an uphill battle in the general election. Therefore, Jack and Ted talk Bobby out of running for the office, but all agree to help whoever the Democratic nominee turns out to be.

December 3, 1967: Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota announces his candidacy for President. This is bad news for the Kennedys, as McCarthy doesn't like them, either, and would hardly conduct the office the way they would.

March 12, 1968: The New Hampshire Primary is held. With a previous Presidential run, in 1960, under his belt, one Senator from Minnesota, Hubert Humphrey, knows how to campaign. But it's the other, Gene McCarthy who emerges as a slight winner. Humphrey is seriously wounded as a candidate.

March 16, 1968: Former Governor George Wallace of Alabama, an open segregationist, announces his candidacy. He has smelled Humphrey's blood, and also believes McCarthy is a weak candidate. He thinks he can win over conservative Democrats, while the liberals split over the two Minnesotans, and then that he can beat the Republican nominee in the Fall.

March 31, 1968: RFK tells JFK he wants to run, because he might be the only Democrat who can beat Nixon in November -- and the only one who can beat Wallace in August, at the Convention. JFK says no, that the election is probably already lost, and that he should stay out, and bide his time, and prepare for 1972.

April 2, 1968: McCarthy beats Humphrey in the Wisconsin Primary. Wallace entered the race too late to get on the ballot, but gets 7 percent of the vote, as a write-in candidate. 

April 4, 1968: Dr. Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis. Several cities erupt in race riots, including Washington, D.C. Among the worst is in Indianapolis. (In real life, Bobby's speech there calmed everybody down. But, in this story, he isn't running, and isn't there to make that speech.)

May 7, 1968: Governor Lurleen Wallace of Alabama, wife of George and his stand-in -- at the time, the Governor of Alabama was constitutionally prohibited from serving back-to-back terms -- dies of cancer at age 41. George only takes enough time off from his Presidential campaign to tend to the funeral arrangements, and goes right back to running. (In real life, Wallace ran on the ticket of the American Independence Party, and did not enter the Democratic Primaries. He did so in 1972 and 1976.)

May 28, 1968: McCarthy edges Humphrey and Wallace in a close three-way race in the Oregon Primary. Many observers concede that Wallace lost a lot of support by campaigning so soon after his wife's death.

June 4, 1968: In an absolute shocker, Wallace wins the California Primary. He gets 35 percent of the vote, to McCarthy's 33 and Humphrey's 32. Mayor Sam Yorty of Los Angeles, a Democrat but widely seen as racist, had endorsed Wallace, and that made the difference.

June 5, 1968: A few minutes after midnight, Wallace claims victory in a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. A few minutes after that, he is shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian angry over his white-supremacist rhetoric.

June 6, 1968: Wallace dies at the age of 48. The Democratic nomination is now seriously up for grabs.

June 8, 1968: RFK calls another family meeting at Hyannis Port. He says he's getting into the race, because, with Southerners and racist Northern whites, having lost Wallace, now sure to turn to Nixon, neither Humphrey nor McCarthy, nor any other Democrat, can win. JFK says that's the point: Bobby can't beat him, either.

(In real life, Bobby did run, and won the California Primary, and was then shot -- officially, by Sirhan, who was angry over Bobby's support of Israel; the Six-Day War was exactly a year earlier. June 8 was the day of his funeral. In this timeline, since Bobby never lost Jack, he didn't become the great friend of the underdog, or a great crusader for civil rights. "Ruthless Bobby" never became "Saint Bobby." He's, essentially, still the man he was on November 21, 1963, only more bitter, and hardly the kind of man who could outpoll the 1968 version of Richard Nixon.)

August 7, 1968: The Republican Convention in Miami Beach, Florida nominates former Vice President Richard Nixon on the 1st ballot. Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York simply couldn't make the case. People working for Governor Ronald Reagan of California, who had not actually announced his candidacy, make a halfhearted effort, saying they can win the Wallace voters over, but most delegates are presuming that Nixon will do this.

In his acceptance speech, Nixon cites the Democrats' failures on race riots, poverty, and the pullout of Vietnam. He does not say that he would return U.S. troops to Vietnam -- he is not interested in political suicide -- but says, "The Democrats have let our noble allies down. And if they can do it to Vietnam, they can do it to Great Britain. To France. To West Germany. To Poland, which should be free and our ally. And even to Israel."

He is running as the sane man on crime, and the sane man on foreign policy -- and pandering to the Jewish vote, as well as the votes of white liberals and moderates who are nonetheless terrified of urban crime. He takes House Majority Leader Ford as his running mate.

August 28, 1968: The Democratic Convention, at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, is in chaos. They can't find a nominee. Humphrey, with a lot of political IOUs in his pocket, leads on the 1st ballot, but not with a majority. McCarthy won't drop out. (In real life, there was chaos inside and outside the Amphitheatre. In this timeline, with the Vietnam question settled, it's only on the inside.)

Complicating things further are the men getting into the race. Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson of the State of Washington is running as a foreign-policy hawk, as a counterweight to Nixon's claims. Governor John Connally of Texas, a passenger in the car when JFK was nearly assassinated in Dallas, is running on the request of outgoing President Johnson, to try to take Southern votes away from Nixon.

John Conyers, a 39-year-old black Congressman from Detroit, is running as a civil rights candidate. Unlike the others, he doesn't think he can win the nomination, but he thinks he can gain concessions from a candidate, and throw his Delegates to that man. In other words: "He can't win the nomination, but he can win the nominee."

A 2nd ballot is held. There is no significant change. Watching the proceedings from the gallery, RFK, not a Delegate, calls JFK. Jack tells Bobby, "If you get into the race now, you will lose. If not now, then in November. And then, no Kennedy will ever be elected President again." Bobby asks him who he's protecting: "Me? Or John? Or Frankie?" Meaning, his sons.

Jack can barely contain his fury: He has never been this angry at any of his siblings. He says, "I will bet you anything that you cannot even win the nomination. If you get into the race now, you will be seen as a craven opportunist." Bobby asks him to name his choice, that his endorsement would swing the nomination, and maybe the general election. Jack refuses, because he believes the nomination is worthless this time.

August 29, 1968: A 3rd ballot is held. McCarthy takes the lead. Humphrey is finished. But he is not willing to concede -- at least, not to McCarthy. He meets with Jackson, Connally and Conyers. They agree that Jackson, conservative on foreign policy but liberal on most other issues, including civil rights and labor issues, is the best candidate for November, even though he entered no Primaries.

Humphrey, then Connally, and then Conyers, each takes the podium in turn, to announce his withdrawal, and his endorsement of Jackson. A 4th ballot is held. Jackson wins a majority. Feeling betrayed, the McCarthy people walk out. Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, an ally of Humphrey and the Kennedys, is nominated for Vice President.

September 2, 1968: At a Labor Day rally at the Minnesota State Fair, in the St. Paul suburb of Falcon Heights, McCarthy announces he is running for President on the ticket of the Progressive Party, the 4th Party to bear that name since 1912. His running mate is Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, a Democrat who used to be a Republican.

October 20, 1968: John Bailey, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, calls the three living Democrats to have been President, and asks them to make a joint half-hour TV commercial for the Jackson campaign.

They all turn him down. Outgoing President Lyndon Johnson says he believes he wouldn't be of much help. Harry Truman, now 84 years old, declines, as he can no longer travel due to his health. John F. Kennedy, only 51 but not in the best of health, either, believes that television is no longer his ally, and that Bailey should save the DNC's money, and prepare to take Nixon on in 1972.

November 5, 1968: The election is a wipeout. Jackson wins only Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, his home State of Washington, and the District of Columbia, for 34 Electoral Votes. Nixon wins the other 46 States, for 501 Electoral Votes. McCarthy wins no States, but his presence in the race, and Morse's on his ticket, is enough to throw Minnesota, Wisconsin and Oregon to Nixon.

The popular vote is 47 percent for Nixon, 38 percent for Jackson, 13 percent for McCarthy, and 2 percent for scattered other candidates. And the Republicans take the Senate, and increase their lead in the House of Representatives.

Humphrey goes to his grave in 1978, Jackson to his in 1983, Connally to his in 1993, and McCarthy to his in 2005, each believing that, had the Democratic Party rallied around him, he would have beaten Nixon. RFK also believes this of himself. JFK and LBJ, agreeing on little else at this point, are sure that the election was lost as soon as the general public began hearing the name of Bobby Baker, dooming LBJ's chance at a full term.

July 20, 1969: Apollo 11 lands on the Moon. Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin walk on it. Back in their lunar module Eagle, they take a congratulatory call from the White House. It is from President Richard Nixon.

JFK, who had made landing on the Moon by the end of the 1960s a national goal, sees it reached. But he tells his family, "I've been through a lot, but seeing Nixon make this call, that really hurts."

He has been staying at a house on Chappaquiddick Island, off Martha's Vineyard, owned by his brother, Senator Ted Kennedy. Mary Jo Kopechne, who had worked for all 3 surviving Kennedy brothers, had never visited: She was back in Washington, working in Ted's Senate office.

May 4, 1970: Former President John F. Kennedy, 25 days short of his 53rd birthday, dies of a heart attack at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. The strain of his full (though not full-length) life, and all the prescription drugs he needed to maintain it and control his pain, finally became too much for him. He is buried on the grounds of the Presidential Library now under construction at Columbia Point in Boston.

With the Vietnam War over, the campus of Kent State University, outside Cleveland, is quiet. No National Guardsmen are on the campus, and no gunshots are fired.

November 3, 1970: Robert F. Kennedy, nearly 45, former U.S. Attorney General, pulls off an upset win over Senator Kenneth Keating of New York. He will now serve in the U.S. Senate along with his brother Ted.

July 1, 1971: The 25th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is ratified, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. (In real life, this was the 26th. But in this timeline, the 25th has never been passed, so this one becomes the 25th.)

November 7, 1971: With 1 year to go before the Presidential election, and with Jack no longer available to tell him it's a bad idea, Bobby announces his campaign for President.

February 24, 1972: The Manchester-based Union Leader, the largest newspaper in New Hampshire, the 1st State to hold a Primary, publishes a letter, alleging it to have been written by Bobby, and it is damning. It not only implicates him in the FBI's 1960s wiretapping of Martin Luther King, but suggests that it was his idea. It has him disagreeing with his brother Jack's decision to end the Vietnam War. Both of these concepts would anger liberals. And it suggests that both he and Jack had affairs with actress Marilyn Monroe. This would anger conservatives.

Bobby announces that he did not write the letter, and says no more -- because there is enough truth in it to ruin his candidacy.

March 7, 1972: Now looking like an enemy of liberals and, as Jack would have put it, a craven opportunist, having gotten into the race just 1 year after being elected to the Senate, Bobby gets clobbered in the New Hampshire Primary. Humphrey, Jackson, McGovern, and Senator Ed Muskie of Maine all finish ahead of him.

June 6, 1972: Humphrey, the most experienced candidate in the race, and the one with the most political IOUs, wins the California and New Jersey Primaries. 

June 17, 1972: Nothing happens at the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex in Washington. Why would it? Having won in a landslide last time, and seeing the Democrats in such disarray this time, Nixon doesn't need to have those offices broken into.

July 13, 1972: The Democratic Convention in Miami Beach is a mess. Among candidates still in the race, Humphrey has the most delegates. But many Southern delegates refuse to endorse the most pro-civil rights candidate in the race. So, in order to avoid a long, drawn-out process, Bobby, McGovern, Muskie and the rest drop out and endorse Humphrey. In the hopes of drawing some Southerners in November, the Convention nominates former Governor Terry Sanford of North Carolina for Vice President.

November 7, 1972: Nixon is re-elected, taking 57 percent of the vote, and beating Humphrey in the Electoral Vote, 350-168. Bobby talks it over with the Kennedy family, and he seems to be the only one in the room who presumes he can be the Democratic front-runner for 1976.

October 20, 1973: Since there was no break-in at the Watergate, there is no Special Counsel, and there is no "Saturday Night Massacre" on this day. Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, are free to work on settling the Yom Kippur War between Israel and Egypt, and do so within a few days.

August 9, 1974: Nixon has a problem. But it's not a scandal. It's the economy. For the first time, the nation has both high unemployment and high inflation at the same time. So he announces a program that his advisors have named "WIN," for "Whip Inflation Now."

Meanwhile, Governor Spiro Agnew of Maryland is convicted on multiple counts, including tax fraud and bribery.

September 8, 1974: The Washington Post publishes documents connecting Nixon to a scandal involving corrupt financier Robert Vesco, and to another involving the ITT Corporation. (In real life, this was the day that Ford pardoned Nixon.)

November 5, 1974: The Democrats retake control of Congress, riding the backlash against Nixon's scandals and his handling of the economy.

September 5, 1975: WIN hasn't worked. Unemployment is now higher than at any point since the end of the Great Depression, and inflation is still high. People are angry. Polls show that, if given a chance to go back and change their vote in 1972, 55 percent of voters say they would have voted for Humphrey instead.

On a visit to San Francisco, to make a speech about the economy at the Commonwealth Club, Nixon is shot by Sara Jane Moore. He is taken to a hospital, and is saved. But he is severely weakened by the experience, and is unable to return to duty. And there is no mechanism for replacing a President who is alive, but incapacitated.

(In real life, this was the day on which Ford faced an assassination attempt in Sacramento, and was unhurt. He faced another on September 22, in San Francisco, and survived that one, too.)

September 22, 1975: Back at the White House, Nixon, like Kennedy in 1967, bows to the inevitable, and resigns with more than a year to go in his Presidency. Ford is sworn in as President. With the Presidency, and then the Vice Presidency with his rise to the Presidency, having been rendered vacant yet again, he asks Congress to pass an Amendment to the Constitution, mandating what should happen should the Vice Presidency become vacant, and if the President be alive but physically unable to carry out his duties.

October 29, 1975: With New York City teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Ford is approached about a federal bailout. Although the conservative in him doesn't believe in such things, the human being in him doesn't want the people of the City to suffer any more than they already are. He is warned that, if he signs a bailout, the conservative wing of the Republican Party won't support him for a full term next year. He signs it anyway.

The next day, the New York Daily News prints a bold headline: "FORD TO CITY: LIFELINE!"

November 20, 1975: On his 50th birthday, Senator Robert F. Kennedy announces that he will not be a candidate for President in 1976. Though he should be just entering his political prime, he says, "I believe that the Democratic Party can use some new blood." He will, however, run for a 2nd term in the U.S. Senate.

July 15, 1976: The Democratic Convention is held at the new Madison Square Garden in New York. Representative Morris K. "Mo" Udall of Arizona is nominated for President, and Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota for Vice President.

Udall had held off Jimmy Carter, the former Governor of Georgia, who ran on an anti-corruption platform. But with Nixon having survived an assassination attempt, and resigned, and been replaced by the apparently clean Ford, Carter's arguments about honesty and character just didn't take hold.

August 19, 1976: The Republican Convention is held at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City. Ford is nominated for a full term as President. Despite a move by the conservative wing of the Party to get former Governor Ronald Reagan of California, or someone else more conservative than Ford, nominated for Vice President, Ford chooses former Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, in the hopes that "Rocky" -- soon to also be the title of a major motion picture about a fictional boxer -- can break the Democrats' stranglehold on the Northeast.

November 2, 1976: With the economy having turned around, the perception (if not the reality) of corruption purged from the Republican Party, and New York State solidly in his corner thanks to his bailout and his nomination of Rockefeller, Ford wins a close election, defeating Udall, 357 Electoral Votes to 190, and taking 52 percent of the popular vote. Udall does well enough that some observers are already predicting a rematch with Ford in 1980. (In this timeline, Ford can run again.)

In spite of Ford's winning of New York, RFK is re-elected to the Senate.

February 10, 1977: The 26th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is ratified, providing for filling a vacancy in the office of Vice President, and for the event of a President who is alive but incapacitated. (In real life, this was 10 years to the day after the passage of this Amendment, which was the 25th.)

September 17, 1978: The Camp David Accords are signed on the White House lawn. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt had made the initial overture to Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel, and now, they and President Ford sign the Accords. Within a few weeks, they will jointly be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ford needs this achievement, because the economy has begun to go south again.

November 7, 1978: The Democrats make big gains in both houses of Congress. RFK is named the new Senate Majority Leader.

January 26, 1979: Vice President Rockefeller dies at his office in Washington. An aide, Megan Marshack, is seen leaving the office by Secret Service agents. Their affair is quickly revealed.

March 26, 1979: The good news for President Ford is that his nominee for Vice President, the 1st ever under the new 26th Amendment, has now been confirmed by both houses of Congress: Senator Bob Dole of Kansas. The bad news is the meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The Republican Party had been stalwart in its support of nuclear power, and this hurts them, despite nobody dying as a result.

July 9, 1979: The Dow Jones Industrial Average drops a record 44 points. It does not escape public notice that the 50th Anniversary of the Crash of 1929 is just a few months away. The Federal Reserve Board announces that it will support the big banks to prevent failures. Ford discusses action with House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill of Massachusetts and Senate Majority Leader RFK.

July 12, 1979: The bad economy has hit the entertainment industry hard. Disco music, which had dominated American radio airplay and record sales in 1976 and '77, had tailed off in '78. All through '79, discotheques around the country were closing. Disco was "dying," and nobody seemed to be making a big deal about its lack of quality. The words "Disco sucks" never catch on as a slogan.

That night, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, White Sox owner Bill Veeck hosts Music Night. Fans had auditioned to be in an orchestra that would perform between games of a doubleheader with the Detroit Tigers. Others had mailed in requests, choosing the songs that organist Nancy Faust would play that night. Both games were played without incident, and were won by the Tigers. (In other words, there was no "Disco Demolition Night," because it was not considered necessary. Veeck had hosted a "Music Night" before, though the details were different from what I've outlined here.)

October 22, 1979: Despite pleas from his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, and from Chase Manhattan Bank chairman David Rockefeller, brother of the late Vice President, Ford decides not to allow Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah (Emperor) of Iran, into the United States for cancer treatment. Given the recent Islamic Revolution there, he decides that it would be an incendiary act, and it might put Americans in Iran at risk.

November 4, 1979: The American Embassy in the Iranian capital of Tehran is not attacked. But Ford also announces that he will not be running for a 2nd full term, though the 22nd Amendment allows him to do so. This opens the door for Vice President Dole to be the Republican nominee, and conservative activists, who might have preferred Reagan to Ford, announce they will back Dole if he runs.

November 7, 1979: RFK becomes the 1st Democrat to announce his candidacy for 1980, before an adoring throng at Faneuil Hall in Boston. (In real life, Ted did so on that day, at that location.)

January 12, 1980: In a debate in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the 2 leading Democratic candidates are each making their 2nd run at the White House: Bobby Kennedy and Mo Udall. Udall reminds the audience that he was one of the earliest Congressmen to oppose the Vietnam War, while Kennedy, as a member of his brother's Cabinet, supported it. Kennedy reminds the audience that there were a lot of people who once supported it but changed their minds, and that the war has been over since 1966.

But another candidate, one who has never run for public office but has a national profile through his civil rights work, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, reminds the crowd of Kennedy's attitude toward Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy answers with an apology: "My actions as Attorney General in regard to Dr. King were wrong. I am sorry. I am fully committed now to achieving the kind of progress on race relations that Rev. Jackson would like to see. The means can be debated. But the goal is the same."

January 21, 1980: RFK wins the Iowa Caucus. On the Republican side, Vice President Dole edges former Governor Ronald Reagan of California.

February 25, 1980: On the eve of the New Hampshire Primary, the Union Leader again goes all out. It prints a front-page editorial including every blot on RFK's record, including the rumor that he and his brother both had affairs with Marilyn Monroe, and may even have been involved in her death. It also alleges drug use by RFK's sons Joe, Bobby Jr., Michael and David.

Remembering that his inaction against the paper's charges in 1972 had cost him badly, this time, RFK wastes no time. Before the morning is over, he gets onto the back of a flatbed truck parked outside the Union Leader's office in Manchester, and returns fire on publisher William Loeb:

Mr. Loeb has chosen to attack me with charges about the conduct of the offices I have held, which is fair game. He has also chosen to attack me with charges about my private life, which is not.

For the record: I have never been unfaithful to my wife Ethel. I met Marilyn Monroe exactly once, after the Democratic Party fundraiser at the old Madison Square Garden in New York on May 19, 1962, where she sang "Happy Birthday" to my brother, John F. Kennedy, then the President of the United States.

What she and my brother may have done privately is no business of the current public at large, and has no bearing on this election. Both of them are dead now, and they should be allowed to rest in peace. It is utterly despicable that Mr. Loeb drags them into his attacks on me, when they are unable to speak on their own behalf.

Mr. Loeb has also chosen to attack living members of my family. In any family as large as ours, there are going to be more difficulties than in a smaller one. We have given our children the help they needed, just as parents should, just as a President should help his country in its time of need.

Mr. Loeb sits in his office, like a coward. He will not accuse me of anything to my face. Let the record show that, from this time forward, I will not launch, and I will not allow anyone working for my campaign to launch, any attacks on any member of the family of any of the other candidates for President, regardless of party.

Loeb does not take the bait, and remains in his office.

February 26, 1980: RFK wins the New Hampshire Primary, taking 40 percent of the vote, to Udall's 22, 17 for Governor Jerry Brown of California, and 4 for Jackson, who was unable to get much traction in a State with very few black people.

On the Republican side, because of his stance on taxes, Reagan upsets Dole, 38 percent to 35, with former Senator George Bush of Texas, a native of Connecticut with a house in Maine, and thus having some appeal to New Englanders, taking 22.

In the Primaries to come, Dole stops taking chances. He hits Reagan on the issues of abortion and guns, contrasting his record as a U.S. Senator, before he was Vice President, with Reagan's as Governor. People begin to see that Reagan the actor was merely playing the part of the conservative icon that rock-ribbed Republicans said they wanted, and Dole, from a small town in Kansas, was the real thing.

June 3, 1980: Reagan wins the California Primary, but it's not enough: The Primaries that Dole wins on this night clinch the Republican nomination for President for him. As his Vice Presidential nominee, he selects Jack Kemp, a Representative from a District based on Buffalo, New York, the leading Congressional champion of tax cuts, and a former All-Pro quarterback.

August 14, 1980: At Madison Square Garden, RFK shocks the Democratic Convention by selecting a female nominee for Vice President: Representative Corinne "Lindy" Boggs of Louisiana, widow of former House Majority Leader Hale Boggs. It is the 1st all-Catholic ticket in Presidential history.

October 15, 1980: RFK and Dole have their 1st of 3 debates, at the Public Auditorium in Cleveland. The 2nd and the 3rd end up not mattering much. Dole brings up RFK's foreign policy record: "It is an appropriate topic, I guess, but it's not a very good issue any more than the war in Vietnam would be or World War II or World War I or the war in Korea, all Democrat wars, all in this century. I figured up the other day, if we added up the killed and wounded in Democrat wars in this century, it would be about 1.6 million Americans, enough to fill the city of Detroit."

(Dole did make that statement, in his 1976 Vice Presidential debate with Walter Mondale. The Public Auditorium was the site of the only debate in the real 1980 campaign, when Ronald Reagan told Jimmy Carter, "There you go again," and asked the key question: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?")

RFK is ready: "The Republicans of the World War I era supported getting into that war before the Democrats did. The Republicans opposed entry into World War II, because they saw the Nazis as opposing Communism. They supported the Korean War. And it was Republicans who first sent American troops to Vietnam, as Senator Dole well remembers, but hopes that you, my fellow Americans, will forget." The Dole campaign never recovers.

November 4, 1980: Robert F. Kennedy, approaching his 55th birthday, becomes the 1st brother of a President to achieve the office. He wins 428 Electoral Votes to Bob Dole's 110, getting over 56 percent of the popular vote.

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RFK's Secretary of State is George McGovern. His White House Chief of Staff is longtime Kennedy aide and speechwriter Ted Sorensen. His White House Press Secretary is 40-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, who had been working for him in one capacity or another since 1964.

His Administration was one of growth in many areas. In 1981, his Energy Sufficiency Act encouraged America's "Big Three" automakers (Ford, General Motors and Chrysler) to move toward electric cars. By the year 2000, 1 out of every 4 new cars sold in America was electric; by 2020, half were. He worked with the Governors and the corresponding labor unions to overhaul America's transportation infrastructure, making mass transit more "mass," and easing the transition to electric cars as OPEC raised gas prices in retaliation.

In 1982, he signed MediKid, a "Medicare for Children," and MediCoed, allowing state universities to provide free health care for their full-time students. By the time it was fully implemented in 1985, pretty much every American age 22 and under, as well as every American age 65 and over, had free medical care. He recognized the AIDS crisis early on, and increased funding for the National Institutes of Health. In 1983, he negotiated a peace deal that settled the civil war in Lebanon (so the Beirut barracks bombing didn't happen), but also found a peaceful settlement to the Grenada situation.

As a result, he was given the Nobel Peace Prize, and took that, and a booming economy into the 1984 election. The Republicans nominated Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, their most right-wing candidate yet. He attacked RFK for being weak on Communism, weak on crime, pro-labor, pro-abortion, and, because of his AIDS initiatives, pro-gay.

Helms also aired commercials attacking RFK for having a female Vice President, and for having appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the 1st female Justice on the Supreme Court. And his ad attacking RFK for his affirmative action policies were particularly noxious. His running mate is a young Congressman from Mississippi, Trent Lott.

The 1st debate is at the Kentucky Center in Louisville on October 7. Helms is sure that, in a Southern State, he can win. Lee Atwater, a Helms campaign aide, has bribed ABC News correspondent Brit Hume, one of the debate panelists, to ask a question: "If your daughter were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?"

Kennedy's answer: "No, because I'd want to kill the guy myself. And that's why grieving family members aren't allowed on juries, because every defendant, innocent or guilty, is entitled to an impartial jury and a full defense. I oppose the death penalty, because this country sets more men on death row free because they've been proven innocent than it executes. The death penalty is wrong, and it is no deterrent to crime. The only deterrent is the belief that you can get caught. And I support putting more and better police on the street. That means cops who will do the job the right way, and not be the kind of cops that Senator Helms, Bull Connor, and other right-wing maniacs would like."

Helms wins 5 States. His home State of North Carolina is not one of them. Lott's home State of Mississippi is. The others are Utah, Idaho, Nebraska and Wyoming, giving him 24 Electoral Votes to Kennedy's 509.

The highlight of RFK's 2nd term is the arms control treaty he signs with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986. The noblest moment is his speech following the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger earlier that year. The low point should have been a day of a high point: On October 19, 1987, just as the Shuttle Discovery restarted the space program, the stock market crashed. But RFK used the power of the federal government to shore up the economy, and there was no new depression.

Still, the unease over the crash carried over into 1988. That, and the refusal of many people to vote for a woman for President, doomed Vice President Lindy Boggs to defeat in 1988, as Representative Jack Kemp of New York, the football star turned idol of the tax-cutting wing of the Republican Party, was elected the 40th President of the United States. His Vice President is Dick Cheney, a Congressman from Wyoming, who had been White House Chief of Staff under Nixon and Ford. His Secretary of State is former Senator George Bush.

But Kemp's tax cuts tank the economy in 1990, leading to the worst recession since the mid-1970s. Despite the success of the Persian Gulf War of 1991, he loses in 1992, to Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas. The Clinton years pretty much play out the way we knew them. But with Dole having already been forcibly retired from politics, the Republicans nominate Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee in 1996, and Clinton beats him.

Without Reagan having been President, the rise of evangelicalism has been far less than in the history that we know. And with the elder George Bush not having been President, Governor George W. Bush of Texas doesn't get a boost there, either. Senator John McCain of Arizona is nominated by the Republicans in 2000, and he loses to Vice President Al Gore.

On July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn, and her sister Lauren Bessette arrive safely in Hyannis Port, having flown in John's electric plane. On August 6, 2001, William Bessette Kennedy, named for Carolyn and Lauren's father, is born.

That same day, Gore receives a security briefing suggesting that terrorist group al-Qaeda plans to hijack U.S. airliners. Gore approves a security plan. On September 11, Gore addresses the nation, explaining that the FBI and other government agencies had foiled a major terrorist attack. On October 6, Gore launches an attack on terrorist locations in Afghanistan. On December 18, the announcement is made: Osama bin Laden is dead.

There is no Iraq War: Building on RFK's energy and environmental initiatives, Gore accelerates America's move away from fossil fuels. He beats Governor George Pataki of New York in 2004. But he takes a hit on June 3, 2006, when his Vice President, John Edwards, is indicted for fraud in connection with an affair he'd had. Edwards has to resign. Gore appoints Senator Dianne Feinstein of California to be Vice President.

With the housing bubble bursting, the economy falls into recession in late 2007. Feinstein receives focus group results showing that Americans might be ready to vote for a woman or a Jewish person for President, but not both. She doesn't run. Former First Lady Hillary Clinton, now a Senator from New York, was touted as a candidate, but she saw the writing on the wall, and didn't run, either. The nomination was won by Senator Joe Biden of Delaware.

But voters, fatigued with 16 years of Democratic Presidents, decided to turn to a businessman to turn the economy around: Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. His Vice President: Former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas.

President Romney's solution to the recession: Tax cuts for the rich. This leads to the Crash of 2009, and his Presidency never recovers. At the 2012 Democratic Convention, held in his hometown of Boston, former President Robert F. Kennedy, 86 years old, makes his last major speech, endorsing the nominee, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. Obama's running mate is Bobby's nephew and sort-of namesake: Senator Francis Robert Kennedy of Connecticut. With FRK on his ticket, Obama becomes the 1st black President.

The Ares IV spacecraft put humans on the planet Mars on October 18, 2013. Former President Robert F. Kennedy died on June 29, 2014, at the age of 88. He had outlived his brother Jack by 44 years, and his brother Ted by 5.

The cases aimed at weakening campaign finance laws and the Voting Rights Act fail before a Supreme Court with very different Justices on it. And the rights of women and gay people take great leaps forward. Angered by this, and despising the black President more than he's ever hated anyone before, Donald Trump runs for President in 2016.

In the 1st debate, he tells President Obama, "You're going to jail." Obama says, "Why, to visit you?" When the audience's laughter subsides, Obama says, "I know what's in your taxes, Donald. You've cheated on them. You've had to, because you're not rich. You're billions of dollars in debt."

Trump says, "Wrong!" Obama looks in the TV camera, and says, "My fellow Americans, who are you going to believe? The man who gave you this booming economy, or a guy who dodged the draft, cheated on all 3 wives, and went bankrupt running casinos?" The audience laughs again. Obama wins in a landslide. In 2018, Trump is convicted on multiple counts of fraud connected with his businesses. As of November 22, 2023, he is still in prison.

But Vice President Frank Kennedy doesn't run for President in 2020. He decides that carrying out Obama's COVID defense plan is more important than his own personal ambition. This annoys his cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is an anti-vaccine activist. The Republican nominee, former Governor Mike Pence of Indiana, defeats the Democratic nominee, Senator Al Franken of Minnesota.

Pence has run a very conservative Administration, one that caters to religious extremists, albeit not one that caters to racial extremists. The economic slowdown has left him vulnerable for 2024. Frank Kennedy, 58 years old, currently leads all Democratic candidates in polls, and leads Pence, although most polls have his lead within the margin of error. No son of a President has won the Presidency since John Quincy Adams in 1824 (well, 1825).

Presidents in this timeline:

35. 1961-67 John F. Kennedy

36. 1967-69 Lyndon B. Johnson

37. 1969-75 Richard M. Nixon

38. 1975-81 Gerald R. Ford

39. 1981-89 Robert F. Kennedy

40. 1989-93 Jack Kemp 

41. 1993-2001 Bill Clinton

42. 2001-09 Al Gore

43. 2009-13 Mitt Romney

44. 2013-21 Barack Obama

45. 2021-present Mike Pence

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