Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics: JFK, RFK, Carter, Ford, Reagan by Jeff Greenfield

Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics: JFK, RFK, Carter, Ford, Reagan Reviews

• 
  Jim

  An interesting book to read in an election year and consider how small changes in our reality could have led to major political changes--and, of course, different presidents. In this book, Jeff Greenfield gives us three scenarios and explores the consequences.
  His first scenario has JFK assassinated--not in 1963--but in December 1960, before he took office. In reality, a suicide bomber decided not to attack President-elect Kennedy because he saw Kennedy's wife and daughter come to the door to wave good-bye as JFK left....what if Jackie and Caroline had not been there? Of course, Johnson would have been sworn in as president, in 1961 rather than in 1963. So no Camelot. LBJ no doubt would have done a better job getting legislation passed than JFK, but how would he have handled the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962? Would he have listened to the generals and let things get out of control leading to a nuclear war???
  The second scenario is one that I have considered and, quite frankly, wished had happened--and that is that Robert Kennedy was not gunned down in the kitchen of a hotel in LA in 1968. Greenfield has RFK not being assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan and going on to win the Democratic nomination and then taking on Nixon in the general election. Of course, RFK wins and Greenfield looks at what a Robert Kennedy presidency would have been like...
  The third scenario was of least interest. You might recall that the 1976 election was a close one and Jerry Ford did come close to defeating Jimmy Carter. What if Ford had pulled it off? He would still have faced the same economic problems that Carter in reality did--the energy crisis and inflation. Going into the 1980 election, those problems would have hurt the Republican candidate Ronald Reagan. And a Democrat would have been able to beat Ronnie...but what Democrat would have emerged?
  What changes would you like to have seen happen in political elections? I'm sure there are any number of them after 1980...
• 
  Cora

  I finished THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED quickly but I grew more and more annoyed with it as I did so. I'm up for a good counter-factual, and the scenarios explored in the book are not your standard what-if-JFK-had-lived scenario, but Greenfield's narratives feature a number of bad habits that writers of alternate history often fall into: anachronistic jokes, awkwardly shoe-horning in famous people (and famous quotes) into the story, and active wish fulfillment (in this case of the boomer high Broderite variety). (Greenfield's original dialogue is also often laughably bad.)
  
  Greenfield is also given to a particularly shallow kind of campaign storytelling that revolves almost entirely on imaging problems that get resolved through well written speeches. (Greenfield is a speechwriter turned journalist, so this is right in his wheelhouse.) Much of what he imagines would happen if history turned differently is hard to believe for that reason: he can't imagine major economic or institutional factors affecting history more powerfully than a snappy soundbite. This book was a waste of time.
• 
  Joseph

  In the end, it feels like an entire book of speculation arranged just to end with a weird and mean Clinton joke.
• 
  Matt Mitrovich

  I've made no secret on how I disprove of America presidential alternate histories. Next to the American Civil War, it is one of the easiest alternate histories to get wrong. When an alternate historian changes the results of an election they are doing one of two things: either the world will be a utopia when the loser wins or the world will be a dystopia when the loser wins. There is rarely any middle ground.
  
  Then I read Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics JFK, RFK, Cater, Ford, Reagan by Jeff Greenfield. The book is a collection of three novellas covering American politics from the 1960s to the 1980s. An Emmy-award winning veteran of politics and news, Greenfield bring his first-hand knowledge of the American political system and supports it with detailed research.
  
  The first novella diverges in 1960 when John F. Kennedy is killed by a suicide bomber days before the Electoral College would have voted to make him president. After a short constitutional crisis, Lyndon Johnson became president in 1961. The start of his presidency is highlighted by forcing through the Voting Rights Act of 1961, but it is overshadowed by Soviet missiles that are discovered in Cuba. Johnson's handling of the crisis is vastly different from how JFK did it in OTL, but thankfully I do not have to read When Angels Wept again.
  
  The second novella diverges in 1968 when Robert Kennedy narrowly avoids his assassination by Sirhan Sirhan. Kennedy's manages to defeat Humphrey for the Democratic nomination and Nixon for the presidency. LBJ carries out the withdrawal from Vietnam and Nixon helps RFK open China to trade without making the president look like he is being weak toward communism. Issues arise, however, when a Democratic supporter is caught attempting to steal documents from the Republican election headquarters...
  
  The third and final novella diverges in 1976. A unique POD for using historical characters that are generally ignored in most ATLs (especially my favorite jurist of all time). History changes when Gerald Ford corrected himself after misspeaking during a presidential debate against Jimmy Carter. He goes on to win the Electoral College vote for president, but not the popular vote, and then goes on to serve a full term complete with an economic meltdown and a very different Middle East (Iraq and Iran allied with Israel?). The 1980 presidential campaign gives us a Ronald Reagan who is unable to run as the candidate for change and the long-shot Gary Hart seeking to overturn Ted Kennedy's presumed coronation as the Democratic nominee.
  
  Greenfield has managed to craft an engaging tale of American politics, especially during a period of time when most Americans would ignore politics to watch Jersey Shore. More importantly, he managed to capture the American political system, warts and all, without offering any apologies for it. The idealists and crooks are presented side by side and treated the same by the author. Then Everything Changed both informs us about the America political system and entertains us by once again proving that plausible, well-researched alternate histories are far superior than the "rule of cool" timelines that dominate the genre.
  
  Is the book without faults? Of course not. Greenfield often uses events and people throughout the book to reference OTL political issues that would happen in the future. At first they are entertaining, but they happen so often and lack any subtlety that the reader sometimes feels that Greenfield is standing behind bringing a hammer down on his head again and again shouting "GET IT!" Greenfield also spends the last 10% of the book discussing the research he did when crafting his alternate history. The reader is presented with a series of short fact blurbs that interrupt the momentum of the book and could probably be skipped unless you have taken issue with one of Greenfield's assumptions and want to read his argument. Perhaps Greenfield was simply trying to prevent the inevitable "this is ASB" comment on AH.com, but footnote/endnotes would have been more preferable in my opinion.
  
  I still recommend this book, especially for the message contained in it. Consider the fact that all three alternate presidents in Then Everything Changed are Democrats, yet they tend to be centrist, appealing to both liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats. In our polarized society of American politics, where radical groups like the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street are competing for the attention of the American people, one can wonder whether the ideas of compromise and moderation can make a comeback.
• 
  Sally

  History turns on a dime. It is dynamic, not static. A missed meeting, a chance encounter, a different choice of words, and the outcome changes dramatically (from the inside flap).
  
  In Then Everything Changed, political analyst Jeff Greenfield gives us three events in 20th century American politics and presents the 'what might have been' scenarios. First is a little known attempt on John F Kennedy's life in December 1960, after election day but before the Electoral College met to confirm the results and pronounce him 'President-elect.' In the alternate history, JFK dies and Lyndon Johnson becomes President. The Bay of Pigs still happens, as does the Cuban Missile Crisis. The first is still a disaster, but the second has a drastically different result. Next up is the assassination of Robert F Kennedy in June 1968. RFK survives and wins the Democratic Party's nomination. His rise to the Presidency means that world events differ in this alternate history. Furthermore, there is no Watergate... The final scenario involves a debate between Ford and Carter in 1976 where Ford "misspoke" about Soviet domination over eastern Europe. This is a strange inclusion as perhaps it's only something that probably only political pundits would have seen as being a game-changer. After Ford wins the election, the action quickly moves to the election campaigns of 1980.
  
  Familiar names are scattered throughout the book, almost as cameos, but in some ways as a foreshadowing of events to come. For example, Ford wins the electoral vote while Carter wins the popular vote. Sound familiar? Greenfield tells us that as a result, "A newly elected twenty-eight-year old congressman from Tennessee, Al Gore, Jr., announced that his first act would be to introduce a Congressional amendment to award the Presidency to the popular-vote winner." There's no word on whether or not it passed.
  
  Greenfield knows his stuff. He was a speechwriter for RFK and has been involved with politics - either on the inside or as an analyst - for over 40 years. It means that this book is very indepth and gives us amazing insight into the 'what might have been.' On the downside, it means that the casual political observer is often left wondering if something really happened or not. For this reason, the 'Afterward: How Reality Shapes Speculation' is a vital part of the book. Greenfield takes each scenario and breaks down where his material came from, what was said and what was not. It's part bibliography, part explanation. In the first scenario, LBJ did not come across as a sympathetic character. In the afterward, Greenfield quotes LBJ's former press secretary, George Reedy, who describes his boss as being, "On the verge of a second childhood syndrome."
  
  In conclusion, I could only find one thing wrong with this book: it needs a sequel. What if Reagan was assassinated in 1981? What if Hillary Clinton hadn't stood "by her man"? What if the 2000 election did go to Al Gore? And so the list goes on.
• 
  Brian Eshleman

  This wouldn't be everybody's five-star book, but I thought it was amazing. The author seems a master of the interplay between the psychological patterns of historical figures, especially archtypes Lyndon Johnson and Robert F. Kennedy, and the ways in which these figures would react to circumstances slightly or significantly different than what they faced. He has been an insider in Washington for long enough to have seen these patterns play out, and yet, in my opinion, he does not allow his closeness to the action to keep him from being an evenhanded storyteller. RFK, for instance, for whom the author worked, is not portrayed such that surviving Sirhan Sirhan's attack would have solved all his or the nation's problems.
• 
  Michael Turashoff

  An interesting interpretation of what might've happened had history been turned in the other direction at a few pivotal moments in regards to the president of the United States. An interesting read, however, in some cases I think it dragged on.
  
  Maybe it would be more enjoyable for people who have lived through the era. An era that mainly began with JFK as president. My parents' generation.
• 
  Noah Gittell

  Asking the question - "what if?" - is a serious and delicate proposition. Looking at back at one's life to wonder what would have happened if a few key moments had turned out differently can lead to an innocent fantasy or a darker path of regret. Would I still be alive? Would I be happier? What would I be doing with my life? These questions are no simple matter. Greenfield respects this notion by crafting both a serious alternative-narrative of key moments in recent Presidential history, while throwing in a lot of fun and inside jokes to keep things balanced.
  
  At times, Greenfield's narrative can take on elements of a liberal fantasy, and I wonder how conservatives will respond to the book. Without spoiling too much, I can say that it was gratifying to see a serious Democratic challenger throw Ronald Reagan back on his heels in a Presidential debate and to see a liberal Senator be thrust into a leadership role at a key moment in history (perhaps THE key moment in history) and succeed. Greenfield widely restrains himself in the second narrative, in which Bobby Kennedy is not shot by Sirhan Sirhan, and lives to win the Presidency. It would have been tempting to turn this into a utopian fantasy that many liberals dreamed an RFK presidency to be, but Greenfield does not give into temptation. And that's the key to the story: Greenfield understands that political fortunes do in fact turn on a dime. In each narrative, even after the initial twist that changes history, there are several more, unforeseen twists that seem entirely plausible and, in many cases, foreshadow twists that actually happened more recently in history.
  
  Look for a desperate Republican candidate picking an unknown female vice-president to shake-up the ticket (and it's not John McCain). Look for a charismatic Democratic president to get caught with his pants down in the White Office (and it's not Bill Clinton). Contemporary figures such as Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld pop up from time to time, and Greenfield never misses an opportunity to poke a little fun at them, but he reveals a deeper truth: politicians's views are shaped by chance as much as history, and their views in turn shape history. This book reminds us how much of a factor luck plays in determining the quality of our lives.
• 
  Mal Warwick

  There is a subspecies of the human race that is afflicted, usually from birth, with an insatiable thirst for politics. This book was written for them — and, to this political junkie, what a book it is!
  
  Here we see one perspective on what might have happened had a little known but all too real would-be-assassin succeeded in killing John F. Kennedy in 1960, after the election but even before the Electoral College met to certify his winning the Presidency. With Lyndon Johnson ascending to the White House three years earlier than in reality, we can ponder how different the 60s might have been.
  
  Here, too, we can journey with Robert F. Kennedy through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel the night in June 1968 when he won the California primary — as his brother-in-law tackled Sirhan Sirhan, saving the Senator’s life and giving him a powerful boost in his face-off for the presidential nomination against Hubert Humphrey.
  
  In a third venture into alternate history, we view the changes wrought when President Gerald Ford quickly corrects his historic gaffe denying that Eastern Europe is under Soviet control — and proceeds to win the 1976 election against Jimmy Carter. Ford’s Presidency leads us willy-nilly into the disorienting world of 1980, as Senator Gary Hart jumps into a race against Ronald Reagan . . . and wins.
  
  In Then Everything Changed, we glimpse the past-that-might-have-been through the eyes of Jeff Greenfield, a shrewd political pro turned journalist, whose resume includes a stint as speechwriter for Robert F. Kennedy. Both as an insider and as a journalist, Greenfield has had a front-row seat on politics at the highest level in the land for nearly half a century. His speculations are solidly based on the historical record — he researched this book with with impressive thoroughness — and, in many cases, on the thoughts and opinions of key players at the time.
  
  Even the acknowledgements in this book are well worth reading, because it’s there that Greenfield reveals the sources he relied on — and shows just how closely he hewed to the historical record.
  
  (from
  www.malwarwickonbooks.com)
• 
  Debbie J

  I think Then Everything Changed resembles a history textbook, but with fantasy mixed in. The problem is, if you don’t know what truly happened, you may at times have trouble separating the fiction from the facts.
  
  Author Jeff Greenfield shows here a rich writing style and one which includes some stylistic choices I saw as annoying. First he takes real game-changing events and both has them happen in different time frames and involve other people.
  
  Next he has noted D.C. insiders posit the absurdity of such-and-such a thing happening and wow it turns out to be something which did indeed occur--later. Finally, he takes statements one famous politician made and has another speak them instead, often with less grand results. Initially these tricks seemed eye-opening; however, in short order they began to overstay their welcome.
  
  Without spoiling it, I must say I deemed the ending particularly irksome because it tried too hard to seem clever in a gasp-inducing, “I mean, can you just imagine?” way. After I’d trudged through 400+ pages of severe tests to my ability to suspend disbelief, reaching Then Everything Changed’s sly finale felt insulting.
• 
  Andi

  Gives you a lot to think about...what if JFK had been assassinated before the electoral college had cast its votes? How would that constitutional problem been solved? What if RFK hadn't been assassinated in California and he won the presidency? What social programs would we have today? Would we have gotten out of Vietnam earlier? The most interesting segment was on Carter and Ford. What if Ford hadn't flubbed the debate question about Soviet domination in Eastern Europe and had beaten Carter? How would Middle Eastern politics be different today? What would the US economy look like after 12 years of Republican presidents? Would Ronald Reagan have been elected president since there wasn't a President Carter to beat up on the campaign trail?
  
  The book really makes you think about how historical events can truly "turn" in an instant. A very good book for 20th century American political history buffs.
• 
  Matthew Kresal

  It's easy to believe that historical events are inevitable. That events both in the distant past and within living memory had to happen. Of course, that isn't the case as books such as writer Jeff Greenfield's Then Everything Changed remind us.
  
  Across three novellas/essays, Greenfield postulates scenarios where recent American presidencies could have been very different. Imagine a world where a suicide bomber killed JFK days before the Electoral College confirmed the 1960 election, leading to LBJ becoming President. Or a history where Bobby Kennedy avoided assassin's bullets after winning the 1968 California primary to become the Democratic nominee for President. And, finally, Gerald Ford overcomes a gaffe in 1976 TV debate that secures his re-election and sets the stage for a very different 1980 election.
  
  Building upon real-world events and sometimes overlooked historical nuggets, Greenfield spins some intriguing yarns. Readers might be surprised to learn that LBJ had a cunning last-second plan to swoop in and reclaim the Democratic nomination in 1968, for example. Or to see just how narrowly Jimmy Carter's lead over Gerald Ford was debate night 1976, or how the animosity between Ford and Ronald Reagan affected the election's outcome.
  
  And yet, the might have been tales are sometimes undermined by the same problems that occurred with Greenfield's
  If Kennedy Lived a couple of years later. The narratives often bogged down in detail, sometimes feeling as if he's trying to shoehorn in as much as possible (including pop culture references or historical figures from our timeline). Elsewhere, Greenfield plays things a little too safe such as LBJ, for example, moving the landing site for the CIA backed the Cuban exile invasion of Cuba as JFK did, thus causing some issues with the first entry in the book. Both are issues that undermine the more appealing aspects of the book.
  
  Perhaps the easiest thing to say is that there's a great book inside the covers of Then Everything Changed. Unfortunately, it's surrounded by a decent one as the final product is too winded for its own good. For those interested in recent American history, or in alternate histories, it's still a good read. But, how boy, how it could have been a great one.
• 
  Scott

  Well-researched and brilliantly-imagined account of what might have happened had JFK been killed prior to his inauguration, if RFK had survived Sirhan Sirhan's attack, and if Ford had actually beaten Carter. The author definitely achieves his goal of plausibility in each case with the behavior of all of the principle actors consistent with what I've read, what I know, and what I remember. This was a lot of fun.
• 
  Tony Heyl

  This was a lot of fun for a history/politics junkie like me. Greenfield, a CNN contributor, takes three actual instances of major events that nearly happened and then alters history. Instead of being shot in 1963, JFK is killed by a suicide bomber in the late fall of 1960, after his election but before the inauguration, making LBJ President for the Cuban Missile Crisis and very much altering how the civil rights struggles happened. (There had been a bomber in 1960, but he stopped himself at the last moment.) Instead of being killed by Sirhan Sirhan, Bobby Kennedy survives to go into a much different 1968 election. Finally, in 1976, Gerald Ford corrects his gaffe in a debate and wins the election over Jimmy Carter, drastically altering the Iran situation, the politics of Egypt, and the 1980 election.
  
  The book is actually very well researched and based on actual quotes, so each alternate history makes a lot of sense. You learn a lot about the players because it's a character study, and if you've studied the 60's at all, the personalities all ring very true. This was a very fun book.
• 
  Orville Jenkins

  This is an excellent, well-written, even riveting, analysis of American political history in the last half of the 20th century.
  
  This work represents a new, productive and insightful approach to history, called Alternate History. The approach is to review a key event or factor and develop what might have happened if one important event had turned out differently.
  
  Greenfield analyzes these Presidencies this way. What if John F Kennedy had been assassinated after his election, but before he was inaugurated? How would the next three years have unfolded?
  
  How would the Cuban crisis and the US-Soviet confrontation have been affected? How would Johnson’s presidency have been different if he had taken over in January 1961, instead on 1963?
  
  This book analyzes the Presidencies of the period from JFK through Reagan uses this format in three key story focuses. Greenfield provides excellent background on the people and events involved.
  
  You will learn a lot and gain keep insights into the forces behind American politics and culture over the last 50 years. This is a very forceful way to analyze the forces that affect us today.
• 
  Jeff Rowe

  Full disclosure: I listened to the audio version of this. But man, stunning is right. Stunningly boring. First of all, this guy has a huge crush on the Kennedys. Like how he thinks that if JFK were
  killed before his inauguration, Johnson is going to spend the next four years justifying everything as a tribute to John Kennedy. Come on. Then RFK survives the assassination attempt and goes on to make all the right political moves that give him the Democratic Party nomination. But instead of focusing upon how the course of the nation, or the world, is changed, the author imagines how backroom political maneuvering would have played out. I'm sure this guy knows all about insider WDC politics but man, who cares?
• 
  Brandon Murphy

  Greenfield tries to erase the Reagan revolution and prolong the Kennedy dynasty in this series of liberal fantasy. He would have been better suited to just change one fact and show how that would have changed 30 years of history, instead of 3 changes showing 4 to 8 years worth of historical change apiece.
• 
  Leslie

  Then everything changed, or not. The first section (JFK/LBJ) did change everything in a dramatic and OMG way.
  
  The second section (RFK) was mostly nothing but backroom politics in a “who cares” way. And, unfortunately, this section was much longer. The third section looked to be more of the same so I returned the book to my bookshelf.
  
• 
  Rob

  One for the political junkies but also an interesting take on alt-history. Small differences may make a difference.
  Greenfield certainly knows his modern American politics. This could well be read as a primer on modern politics in the U.S..
  He can certainly tell a story and tell it very well.
• 
  Zach Anderson

  I enjoyed this book. It took on three what if events and used historical data to justify certain paths political avenues took. I loved the arguments presented, though some of the endings took much suspension of disbelief. A fun read.
• 
  Clay Davis

  A fair look at the political system in America. The wars both military and political were very interesting.
• 
  Ty

  This books has a fascinating premise, which is weighed down by several problems in execution.
  
  Let me say off the bat that I am not going to get into particular political points about the historical aspects of these events. Already the site is saturated with reviews written by people of limited intelligence whining that the highly flawed Ronald Reagan is presented as something other than the second coming of Jesus Christ. No point in debunking their fallacies. They are what they are.
  
  Rather, I choose to concentrate on the book's value as entertainment. It's potential to encourage thought. To, in its own words, be "stunning". I think it fails on all such counts, because it fails to have a coherent narrative that held my interest. If you are going to succeed at making such a book entertaining or thought provoking to the majority of people, you need a narrative that people can relate to and/or sympathize with. One that is accessible to non-experts. The narratives in this book are not.
  
  And why are they not? To begin with, each of the three separate narratives reads more like a text book than a narrative. Meticulous details on seemingly every backroom meeting over a certain period are projected to the reader, with so little attention paid to character, greater impact, or creativity that only a professor of history or politics is likely to find the writing interesting. Worse than that, 90% of that dry presentation is about history that actually happened, in the years (decades) leading up to Greenfield-proposed divergence. So much effort is put into making sure we as the reader understand all of the nuance of our real history, that by the time the "switch" takes place, we've fogged over. There's too much history and not enough alternate in this alternate history experiment.
  
  Even once we get to the alternate realities, we are overcome not only with a continued overly academic approach to the theoretical material, but we are treated to constant winks at our own, real history. I started to write these down, but ran out of room on my paper. One or two nods to the real world is fine, but Greenfield borders on satire or comedy with how many times he dips into this well. There's the poll conducted at the end of the first narrative, (JFK is never president) indicating how depressed America is...released on November 22, 1963. There's a young black college freshman named "Barry Obama" who gets his picture taken with Gary Hart in another narrative...for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
  
  Then there is the young, ambitious Conservative Roger Ailes, who laments in the late 1960's that none of the networks are "fair and balanced", and that something ought to be done about it. (Ho, ho!) Or there is the young senator from Tennessee, Al Gore Jr, who is mentioned just long enough in the same narrative for us to realize that he wishes to pass a law that makes certain someone who wins the popular presidential vote cannot lose the electoral college, because nobody should have to go through that. (Stunned yet?)
  
  Then there is Bob Woodward working the obscure beat when a potential Bobby Kennedy Watergate scandal breaks...at roughly the same time our Watergate actually broke. (Complete with Woodward quipping that he should write a book called "One of the President's Men.")
  
  There are many more of these winks, as I said, but the cake is definitely taken by the final one; President Hart is boinking an intern in a private study, and is discovered by his Deputy Chief of Staff, Hillary Rodham. She rushes to her office to call her husband, Bill Clinton, to tell him all about it.
  
  Are you serious?
  
  That dovetails into the next complaint about the narratives. The stories, despite the huge divergences, seem to want to gravitate back towards how things happened in our time. Sure, Bobby Kennedy may have been president in this version of history, (huge change..) but he also had recordings of conversations at the White House. The scandal doesn't develop, but it's there. Stunning!
  
  Ford beats Carter after all, but Reagan still ends up the candidate in 1980. He picks Sandra Day O'Connor as a running mate...which is also quite different. (Not to mention not at all possible for a guy like Reagan.) Huge divergence in strategy, history and personal character, but his speeches in this history end up being pretty much the same empty speeches the real Reagan gave. Just given at different times. Sometimes. The whole interest in reading alternate history is to get a sense of how different things would be...not see the same, familiar irritations of our time played out in almost the exact same way.
  
  Granted, people tend to remain somewhat constant. I grant this, and accept that even in alternate histories of our time, many of the key power brokers would probably remain the same. Nor is it unreasonable to draw on their papers and speeches to speculate on what they might say in another universe. But when they say the same things verbatim, or make the exact same mistakes, just three years later or earlier, it feels like a rehash of history, not an examination of a "stunning" alternate reality. (The Plot Against America had the same problem. But it diverged widely, at least for a while.)
  
  Oh, we get a few nods here and there towards just how different life would be. Such as the stunning revelation that M*A*S*H is a flop in a world where RFK wins the presidency, or that The Jeffersons has to change its name in the midst of a bad economy after Ford defeats Carter. But no true exploration of what it means to live in these worlds is offered. Instead, we get dry dissertations on alternate political machinations in alternate smokey black rooms; dry writing is dry writing in any dimension.
  
  When Greenfield does touch on huge alternate events, (like Gitmo being nuked by the Cubans) he glazes over them. In the above example, he mentions that it was a narrow escape, America entered a depression, and there were high rates of radiation poisoning in Florida. Just at the MOMENT this narrative becomes interesting and truly alternate, (with a nervous President Humphrey taking over for an incapacitated LBJ), it ends! Now THAT would have been alternate history...not simply seeing LBJ act like Uncle Cornpone in different rooms a few years earlier than he did in real life.
  
  The other two narratives ended at a similarly intriguing jumping off point, without exploring it more. Given the meticulous detail put into describing every southern primary in an alternate 1968, you'd think some time could be spent on the world that was created as a result. It all ends up being a finely researched and intricately carved stairway to nowhere.
  
  Never is this more true than in the highly anti-climactic end to the Reagan vs. Hart alternate...which spends about a million pages on the tiniest details of the end of said campaign, only to end with a hackneyed Monica Lewinsky joke.
  
  The operatives in the third and final alternate history mention how Gary Hart is too egg-headish and dry and not interesting and charismatic enough to be elected. I'd assess this book in the same way. It had promise, but ultimately is sunk by its own self importance and geeky fetishism for political minutia, paying little to no attention to character, plotting, prose or pacing.
• 
  Socraticgadfly

  I had no idea Jeff Greenfield was this stupid. But, he is.
  
  First, the style is interesting. Novellas rather than short essays allow for much more depth.
  
  The first one was fairly good, on Richard Pavlick actually killing Jack Kennedy. There was little in the way of counterfactual history beyond the first part. A limited nuclear war over Cuba after the U2 shutdown is possible. And, LBJ never overcoming a sympathy for Jack is possible. OTOH, we saw what LBJ did with Jack’s actual death. So, who knows. Greenfield is probably stretching somewhat here.
  
  Well, not stretching at all compared to later portions.
  
  The second section is a huge dropoff with multiple skeptical errors, mainly connected to the DNC.
  First, Greenfield doesn’t mention anything about Bobby losing California delegates if the unit rule ended.
  Second, he doesn’t mention McCarthy winning ANY delegates. In fact, he treats the entire DNC as a two-man race. Reality is that Gene had 260 delegates entering the convention AND that he won New Jersey the same night Bobby won California.
  Third, the idea of LBJ calling nominee Bobby to offer any advice? Unlikely.
  Fourth, on the Republican side, Dick picking John Lindsey? Even more unlikely. Chuck Percy or Bill Scranton, moderate to moderate-conservative types, much more likely.
  As for Bobby the shot-at getting that much of a sympathy rush vote? Instead, more radical blacks might have said: “Sirhan Sirhan is right; Kennedy is supporting colonialism and imperialism. If Bobby won’t call out Israel like South Vietnam, no vote.”
  And, by this time, I was getting a bit suspicious of the “poor Kennedy” angle.
  Fifth, we had “hard hats for Nixon” in 72. Greenfield ignoring that possibility in 68 again seems deck-stacking.
  Sixth, on debates? 1980 is a key parallel. Yes, Reagan did an initial debate with John Anderson. And both candidates with less exposure benefited. But Ronnie eventually forced a 1-on-1 with Carter; why couldn’t Nixon have done the same?
  Seventh? The idea of Clark Clifford getting LBJ to flop on bombing halt? Even more ridiculous.
  Eighth? The post-inaugural RFK administration? As Camelot 2.0? Barf me. And, some of the specific claims, like Tom Keuchel for the Supreme Court? Laughable.
  Ninth, by this point, Greenfield is violating the basic rule of writing good counterfactual history, and that is to not pile counterfactuals on top of counterfactuals.
  
  This second was SO craptacular it guaranteed Greenfield wouldn’t get more than 3 stars. It also triple underlined “liberal medial” stereotypes. (I say this from a non-duopoly leftist POV.)
  
  At least the dustcover discloses that Greenfield had been a Bobby Kennedy speechwriter, so you know where this comes from.
  
  So, on to the third one — Ford winning re-election.
  First, was this possible? Yes, I’ve done an alt-history blog post about him wining both popular and electoral vote, for same reason Greenfield postulates.
  Second, would he have handled the Shah’s situation as postulated? Yes. Still a second oil embargo? Yes.
  Would Teddy Kennedy have faced opponents in 1980? Yes.
  Here, Greenfield starts going astray again.
  First, Carter’s Veep, Mondale, was from Minnesota, next to Iowa. 1980 was not a Senate re-election year for him, so free to run, and theoretically a little less warmed-over death than in 1984.
  Speaking of? Would Gary Hart, not even done with his first Senate term yet, AND facing Senate re-election in 1980, and with little in Senate accomplishments, jumped ship to run for Prez? Not that likely. Assuming Mondale was in, as well as Ted Kennedy, and possibly others, Hart would have folded relatively early on. Scoop Jackson, also not up for re-election in 1980, was another likely candidate. In reality, Hart was little known when he did run in 1984 and Mondale won Iowa. (Mo Udall, second to Carter in 1976, might also have made another run. As a fellow, and more experienced, Westerner, he would have undercut Hart.) And, some of Hart’s faux pas in 1984 probably would have been worse in 1980.
  And, Greenfield damned well knows most of these people would have run in 1980s, too.
  There’s historic errors in this section, too. Nissans weren’t sold in the US in the 1970s; Datsuns were. Greenfield is, I think, old enough to know that.
  And, he repeats one made by other historians. In the real world, nope, Carter was not the first president from the Deep South. Wilson, while born in Virginia, was raised in Georgia. Sherman's March to the Sea went near where he and his family lived.
  Would Teddy have sheepdogged for Hart? Unlikely, if Hart had quoted Bobby’s words to Teddy in their first debate. Nope, no more than Teddy did for Jimmy Carter.
  Next? If Hart selected Dale Bumpers as his Veep, there is NO WAY IN HELL Gov. Bill Clinton would have gotten the Arkansas Lege to pass an LBJ law. (Bumpers, like Hart, was up for re-election to the Senate.)
  Then, errors about consecutive elections. Greenfield says that only FDR had gotten four consecutive election victories in talking about the GOP as a party hoping for four straight. Well, if you go by parties, the Dems had one five straight with Truman in 48 and the GOP had won six straight in 1860-84.
  It gets stupider from there. Reagan nominating Sandra Day O’Connor as his Veep, and doing so because John Sears AND Ed Meese told him he had to because of the ERA? Reagan might have picked her for his own reason, if his astrologer had said so. (Ronnie turned Nancy on to astrology, not the other way around.) But, being pushed into it by Sears? And, Meese jumping ship on this issue? (And, Greenfield’s assumption that Sears would be around?)
  We were at 2 stars before this. Now we’re at one star.
  HAD Hart been nominated and HAD he faced Reagan, he might have pulled off what he did in a debate. But, unless Reagan was behind in polls by 7 percentage points or more in early October, he would have insisted on two debates, at least.
  And, a Hart presidency gets stupider. I doubt Hart would have named Rose Bird AG.
  And, Hart never would have offered the Deputy Chief of Staff job to the Madame Slickster, because Hillary most likely never would have accepted it. She was raking bucks and getting ready to trade cattle futures at Rose Law.
  We’re now officially in comic book territory. And in 1-star territory.
  
  “My goal here has been plausibility,” Greenfield says in his afterword.
  
  Well, guess what, Jeff? If you’re saying that with a straight face, you massively failed. Plausiblity isn’t there. Partisanship is, both as a Bobby speechwriter and trying to make Gary Hart the new RFK.
  
  I was, in addition, HUGELY disappointed because I expected better.
• 
  Megan

  Let's get the elephant out of the way first: I'm shelving this as nonfiction because of the volumes of research used to create these alternate histories, and because it read more like a nonfiction work than a novel. That said, obviously, there are liberties taken here with history that make it entirely fictional.
  
  What if JFK had been assassinated as president-elect? What if Robert Kennedy had been saved? What if Ford had handled just one question better in the debate?
  
  For someone interested in but only vaguely in tune with politics and history of JFK to Reagan, this was a fascinating thought exercise. I appreciated the research done to make these accounts plausible and for once felt an afterword was hugely important to the quality of the book. The reminders of how reality worked out at the end of the first sections was helpful, because while some of the bigger things were obvious to me, I'm not in tune with all the nuances. I have a feeling I'm not the target audience here; scholars of politics or this period of history are more likely to enjoy the details. Still, I appreciate that it was accessible to me and put into action the idea that a minuscule event could alter history entirely.
• 
  Steven

  I enjoy alternate history; in fact, I write it. I sure don't write it like this, though. Mr. Greenfield offers a very well researched book that contains three separate sections, each starting with a minor point of divergence and examining the effect on history, addressing many aspects.
  
  In the first section, an assassin kills John F. Kennedy after the election but before he takes office. In the second, Robert Kennedy doesn't get assassinated. In the third, Gerald Ford adeptly recovers from a verbal gaffe during a presidential debate. I found the book fascinating, and possibly even plausible. It's fun when you lived through those years and recognize the names. I also like Mr. Greenfield's observation that history is not just the interaction of major social movements, but sometimes turns on very trivial events that could go either way.
  
  My one quibble is the fact that the author, in each book section, has characters muse about what would have happened if the point of departure event had gone the other way. That's not typical conversation in our timeline; why would it be in theirs?
  
  Still, I enjoyed the book quite a bit and do recommend it. Kudos to whoever designed the book's cover. Great image!
  
• 
  Patrick DiJusto

  Pretty interesting book about what would happen if the timeline that we know changed at 3 different juncture points in recent history. First, what would happen if John f Kennedy had been assassinated in December 1960 - as he almost was! - instead of November 1963. Would Lyndon Johnson have been up to the task? Would the Great society have started 3 years earlier? Would the Vietnam war have continued?
  
  Second, what would happen if there had been one more person between Robert Kennedy and sirhan sirhan? Would they still living Bobby get the Democratic nomination in 1968? Would he be elected? And what would his first term be like?
  
  Third what would happen if Gerald Ford had won the 1976 Presidential election, as he almost did. How would Gerald Ford's personal friendship with the shah of Iran have changed Middle Eastern history? How would Ford's near complete lack of political imagination handle the systemic inflation of the late 1970s? And who would have run in 1980? Would it have been Ronald Reagan's year? Would it have been Ted Kennedy's year?
  
  All these scenarios play out in incredibly plausible ways, sometimes echoing exactly what happened in real life --and you can't get more plausible than that.
• 
  James S.

  The author doesn’t have the imagination for this project, and in any case he went about it the wrong way. When you’re already being creative by imagining alternate scenarios, why dramatize them? Especially when you’re not a novelist, as it quickly becomes clear this author is not? It doesn’t help that the author is more interested in the minutiae of back-room Washington wheeling and dealing than in the larger societal changes these alterations would cause. In any case, these chapters would have worked better as non-fiction essays; as they are, I quickly lost interest in the entire book.