Some Great “What Ifs” of American History

I am just finishing up a book by Chris Wallace titled Countdown 1960 about the presidential contest that year between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. The book’s final pages are devoted to reports of voting irregularities and allegations of actual fraud in multiple states including Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina among others.

The unmistakable conclusion – based on a mixture of speculation, conjecture, and concrete evidence – is that Kennedy may have stolen the 1960 election, aided and abetted by his father Joe’s bribes, Lyndon Johnson’s political clout in Texas, Richard Daley’s political machine in Chicago, and even Frank Sinatra’s mob connections.

For instance, in numerous Democratic strongholds in both Illinois and the Lonestar State, Kennedy received far more votes than there were registered voters. Meanwhile, Democrat-appointed judges declared hundreds (if not thousands) of Nixon ballots to have been improperly completed and ordered them discarded and destroyed.

All of which begs the question: what if Richard Milhous Nixon had been inaugurated on January 20, 1961, instead of John Fitzgerald Kennedy? Would there still have been a Bay of Pigs fiasco and a Cuban Missile Crisis? Would JFK have lived to a ripe old age, perhaps running for president a second time in 1964 or 1968? And how would that have affected Bobby and Ted Kennedy?

Would LBJ have ever been elected president in his own right? What about Vietnam? Would Nixon have escalated the conflict the way Johnson did or gotten out early… and would the moon landing have happened as scheduled in 1969? How about Watergate?

It kind of makes your head spin, contemplating the answers to those questions, doesn’t it?

For the sake of our sanity – but also to have a little fun – let’s look at one “what if” from each American century, starting with the 1770s.

What if France had decided to remain neutral during the American Revolution? Could the ragtag Continental Army have defeated the mighty British military without the help of the French Navy? Remember, it was Comte de Grasse and his French warships that cut off Lord Cornwallis’ nautical escape route at the Battle of Yorktown… and it was the Marquis de Lafayette’s troops that helped Gen. George Washington pin down the British Army along the Virginia peninsula.

Without France’s direct involvement, the best the colonists could have hoped for may have been a stalemate and a negotiated peace with newly guaranteed rights being granted in exchange for remaining loyal subjects of the crown.

Fast forward 85 years or so to the Battle of Gettysburg, which took place July 1-3, 1863. Less than two months earlier, Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson had been mortally wounded by friendly fire at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Learning of Jackson’s injury and imminent death, Gen. Robert E. Lee said, “Jackson has lost his left arm, but I my right.”

Who knows what the results of the Battle of Gettysburg would have been had Jackson, Lee’s ablest and most trusted field commander, survived? Likewise, who knows how the Battle of Antietam, fought a year earlier on September 17, 1862, would have turned out if a copy of Lee’s battle plans hadn’t been carelessly discarded by a Confederate courier, recovered by Union soldiers, and handed over to Gen. George McClellan?

With a Confederate victory at Antietam and/or Gettysburg, France and Spain may have decided to throw their economic and military support behind the Southern cause… which would have made it a whole new ballgame.

Lee’s plan was to capture Harrisburg and Philadelphia, hopefully forcing President Lincoln and the North to sue for peace. Were it not for the two Confederate bullets that tore into Stonewall Jackson’s left arm and Lee’s stolen battle plans, today’s map of America might be divided along the Mason-Dixon Line into two separate countries.

Speaking of Lincoln, what would have happened if his military bodyguard that night at Ford's Theater had remained stationed at the door to his box instead of stepping out for a drink, leaving John Wilkes Booth easy access to his suite? Might the Reconstruction period have gone more smoothly with the compassionate "Father Abraham" at the helm of a newly reunified country? Would Jim Crow laws have ever been allowed and could the Civil Rights movement have been fast-tracked instead of having to wait another 100 years?

We already covered the 20th century “what if” with the 1960 election, but we could also add “what if” the press hadn’t covered up JFK’s extra-marital affairs… or FDR’s for that matter? Both men also had serious health issues – Roosevelt’s polio and Kennedy’s Addison’s disease – that, if made public, may have swayed enough voters to deny their election.

But we will never know, just like we will never know what would have happened if the FBI, the CIA, Facebook, Twitter, and the entire mainstream media hadn’t colluded and conspired in the fall of 2020 to dismiss Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian misinformation. Since then, multiple polls have shown that roughly 8% of Biden voters would have switched to Trump, re-electing him to a second term that year instead of in 2024.

Which means the President of the United States in 2025 would most likely be anyone’s guess, but I would lay odds that either Mike Pence (remember, there wouldn't have been a January 6th riot at the Capitol) or Ron DeSantis would be calling the shots in the Oval Office today.