Ask not what could have been....Fore it could have been grand
What would the World have been like now if John F. Kennedy
had been able to fulfill his full term as President? How much different would the world
have been today? Would his life have changed things for the better as so many
believe? For that matter, what would have happened to Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. and even JFK’s brother Bobby? Would he have followed in his brother’s
footsteps as he had intended to in 1968 and thrown his hat into the political
arena attempting to become President as well?
These three men made a difference but they could have done so much more....
On June 6th, 1968, Robert Francis Kennedy was
assassinated while on a Presidential Campaign stop in Los Angeles. He was the
third important political figure to be assassinated in the mid to late 1960’s
following the assassination of his brother John F. Kennedy on November 22nd,
1963 and, just 2 months before RFK, Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in cold
blood by a single assassin.
He wanted freedom but on his own terms....he was taken far too soon from us
All 3 of these men were civil rights leaders in their own
way. JFK was the first Catholic US President and had seen America through the
Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis. He also oversaw the forced de-segregation
of the first US college in the Deep South (Alabama, among the worst in terms of
civil right violations) when he forced an all-white college to allow a black
student admission by sending in the National Guard to protect him and 2 other
black students. His beliefs were always questioned as was his decisions as
President. His assassination was the beginning of a tectonic shift in the way
politics and politicians conducted themselves as the controversy and conspiracy
theories mounted over who killed him (without resolution) and why.
One incident alone was not the tipping point but once Martin
Luther King was murdered, followed closely by Robert Kennedy, both of whom had
taken the 5 years since the death of JFK to spur the civil rights movement
forward, demanding equality and freedom for all peoples under law, things were
beginning to change. Much too quickly it would appear for some people at that
time.
Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. had been an advocate of peaceful resistance to government actions against
their protests for equality and freedom in the South and had been vilified by
the all white media as well as many US congressman and State Governors, who
feared that the same protests and demands of the Black community in Alabama
would migrate to their States. In essence, Alabama was the frontline state
where civil rights activists and racists alike had drawn a line in the sand and
Martin Luther King was considered to be the most influential leader in the
civil rights movement at the time. He was the General fighting the good fight
peacefully on the front lines.
This battle for equality would prove to be the most
important battle in US history with both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy fighting
against the establishment. This put both
men firmly in the cross hairs of many different factions that all supported the
continuation of the status quo, wherein white men had all the power and
everyone else was subjugated under their “rule”.
The argument could be made that their assassinations
actually spurred on the civil rights movement faster than it would have asserted
itself had the two men actually lived. I strongly disagree with this notion
and, in fact, when you add in the survival of JFK as well, I firmly believe
that the world we live in today would have been vastly different on a multitude
of levels. Lets start with a simple premise and go with the concept of “What if…”
What if JFK had not been shot and killed in Dallas on
November 22nd, 1963?
I believe that it was clear in his 3 years as President that
JFK was unafraid to make the big decision. He was, after all, the one who gave
the go ahead for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. At the same time, he learned from that
error in judgment and was able to successfully navigate the world through the
Cuban Missile Crisis only a year later, averting what was surely going to be a
nuclear war with the Soviet Union through an intelligent blockade of Russian
ships to Cuba where the Soviets had been stockpiling long range nuclear
missiles aimed at New York and Washington. The biggest error JFK made was not
reigning in Bobby when it came to his crusade as Attorney General, against
organized crime. Let’s say for this blog’s sake, that he was in fact able to
control Bobby’s ambition and get him to tone down his vigilance against them.
Not only do I believe that he wouldn’t have become a target to mobsters all
over the country, but he would have also shown that special Presidential
quality that supersedes everything, even family.
It is my belief that JFK would have easily won a 2nd
term in office in 1964, meaning that Lyndon Johnson and his war-mongering
cohorts would not have been able to push the USA into a war in Vietnam to the
same extent that we actually saw. While it is very probable that the US would
have still been involved in some capacity in the region, given how the Bay of
Pigs had gone, it is doubtful that JFK would have lept in, feet first, into
another conflict halfway around the world simply at the behest of his military
advisors, of whom he was already suspicious of to begin with.
The fact he never ws able to become President cost us so much in the long run...
So rather than sending thousands of drafted young men to
their deaths (the average age of the men who fought in Vietnam was 19), JFK
would have taken a more cautious approach and, given how he had used radical
strategy to avoid nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis, who’s to say
that the same type of outside-the-box thinking wouldn’t have resurfaced against
the Vietnamese Government as well?
Going back to 1961, JFK was the one who forced integration
in the Southern US College system when he used the National Guard to protect
the first Black students to enroll it what had been previously an all white
institution. Given how he handled that situation, it is logical to assume that
the demands being made by people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King would
not have fallen on deaf ears all throughout the 1960’s. Segregation of the
school system would have been the next major domestic issue JFK would have
tackled, removing Martin Luther King from the line of fire in the sense that
his demands would no longer have been termed to be so subversive to the culture
of the time.
I believe that had JFK lived, he would have been the first
sitting President to denounce segregation and call for full civil rights for
all citizens, regardless of race. It is
my firm belief that given the way in which he governed in his short 3 years in
office, JFK would have been a transcendent President who would have pushed the
government into forcing them to acknowledge the rights and liberties of all of its
citizens’ regardless of their race.
While this may have taken some of the revolutionary aspects
of Dr. King’s life away (and most likely prevented his assassination in the
process), Dr. King would have still been seen as a pioneer for his new role in
helping States complete their integration process. I could easily see that once
the dangers of his fight were taken away, Dr. King would have been freed up to
focus on the important aspects of the civil rights fight. He would have become the
first Black man to have the ear of a sitting President as I believe JFK would
have found an important role for him to play in the transition from the past to
the future of race relations in American history.
These two men should have been allowed to push their agendas through the White House
With the increased race relations and the smaller role of
America in Vietnam under JFK, Bobby Kennedy’s role reduced (or restricted), I believe
he would have chosen to leave JFK’s cabinet and ventured out into the private
sector as a lawyer. That flirtation would have lasted all of about 8 years as
it is more than likely that after his brother left office, Nixon would have won
the next election and attempted to make up for lost time with regards to
Vietnam.
The American people would have become disenfranchised with
him very quickly and, after 4 years, in 1972, Bobby Kennedy would have entered
into the race and won the Presidency back. Dr. King would have seen much of his
hard work pushed aside under Nixon and returned to his roots and continued to
mount pressure on the Government not to turn back the clock to the pre-JFK
days. Dr. King’s influence would have been especially strong during the 4 years
of Nixon’s uneventful Presidency.
Two great men who could have had an even larger role in our history
With Bobby as the new President-elect of 1972, the next 8
years start to look as if they could be great for the country on so many
levels. Bobby always was more open to innovative ideas and willing to look at
things from a different perspective, even more so then his Brother. In terms of
civil liberties, he would ensure that the gains made under JFK would be
expanded upon. Dr. King would have been able to once again revert back into the
“peace-time general” he would have been under JFK’s full 8 year Presidency and
continue to build upon his own personal legacy of peaceful change.
If all of these actions had been the way our history had
played out, Dr. King would have made someone like Malcolm X pointless in the
sense that Dr. King himself would have been able to secure the changes he and
many others fought so hard to gain without having to resort to violence to get
them. Groups like the Black Panthers wouldn’t have been necessary. The Nation
of Islam and their grip on the Black community in the early 1960’s to mid 1970’s
wouldn’t have been nearly as tight as it was. Violent protest and police
crackdowns on innocent people wouldn’t have been the norm in many of the larger
US Cities like Detroit, New York and particularly in the Bay Area.
Bobby was a man who didn't see colour when he looked at people
Bobby Kennedy would have been an even more influential and
dynamic President then his brother because of the way he looked at things
through a different lens. A father of 9, an attorney who knew more than just
what the text books said about how to interpret law, he was a determined and
focused man who once set to task, was like a pit-bull on a bone. His experience
as a lawyer had taught him that there was always 3 sides to every story and so
there were always 3 ways of doing things; the right-wing way, the left-wing way
and the way in between where both sides make concessions in order to achieve a
higher goal. In politics, the middle road is the one that always makes headway,
something the current US Congress needs to remember as they stall and bicker
with President Obama time and again just because they can.
It is absolutely frightening to think of the dominos that
fell after the deaths of these 3 historic figures. The way the world would have
evolved instead if even one of them, particularly JFK, had not been murdered, would
have altered much of how we look at the world today and how we look back on the
events of the recent American history. If JFK had not been gunned down in cold blood,
Dr. King and Bobby wouldn’t have either (in my estimation) as JFK’s Presidency
would have paved the way for a much brighter future.
More emphasis would have been placed on technology and
innovation as it was JFK himself who demanded of NASA that America be the first
nation on earth to visit the Moon setting off a space race that the Americans
ultimately won 6 years after his murder. He was a fair man politically and
would have fought for Civil rights of all people of all races. He would have forced
more schools to acquiesce to the Federal Government and de-segregate faster than
Lyndon Johnson did when he took over as President. His actions would have
forced states to recognize the equality of all its citizens sooner without the
unnecessary strife and bloodshed that transpired from the early 1960’s up until
the mid to late 1970’s (and still goes on in some small pockets of the Deep
South).
In a private moment, we can only imagine what might have been...
If Bobby had been able to become President in 1972, something tells me America would be in a much better position globally then they find themselves today. The oil shortage of the mid to late 1970’s would have created a new form of race as I firmly believe that Bobby would have had the foresight to try and diversify the energy resources and supplies of the US. I really believe that he would have had the wherewithal to start looking alternative energy sources or possibly cutting an energy pact with OPEC before they became the Oil Cartel they are today.
While there are some aspects of society today that these
three men would not have been able to change alone just with their presence
(like our materialistic society, the influence of corporations on government
are just 2 such examples), I think it is quite clear that these men were taken
from us at far too soon a time for the good of the world in general. These men
are viewed through the lens of history are seen as 3 of the most influential
men of the 20th century. Had they lived instead of being murdered
for their ideals, not only would the United States have been a much better
place for it, but the world in general would have been in a much more secure
and fundamentally sound place.
Who knows, with the cultural influences that these men had
on our society in death, their influence in life may have been even greater. We
may have even had the chance to have avoided ever seeing people like the
Kardashians on TV as we could have had a much more intelligent use for the
medium then that with which we are using it now.
One could only dream….
