If Kennedy Lived: The First and Second Terms of President John F. Kennedy

August 18, 2014
The premise of Greenfield's alternate history, a follow-up to 2011's Then Everything Changed, is certainly a fascinating one, fleshing out plausible scenarios of what might have happened had J.F.K. survived his trip to Dallas. Illustrating how often minor things can change the course of history, rain causes the bubble top on the presidential limo to stay on, thereby preventing Oswald's shots from proving fatal. The imagined fate of L.B.J., Kennedy's 1964 reelection campaign, and U.S. involvement in Vietnam are all believable, though Greenfield can't resist some throwaway lines that undermine the suspension of disbelief (e.g., " âMakes sense,' Al Gore Jr. said. âIt'd be damned hard for a national candidate to lose his home state'"). Perhaps more fitting than plausible is what Jackie decides to do, in the light of her husband's philandering, after the couple leave the White House in 1969. In Greenfield's scenario, the overall arc of JFK's political career post 11/22/63 is logical and supports the point of such speculationsâto better understand what did happen by looking at the alternatives.

November 15, 2013
What would have happened if Lee Harvey Oswald had been off by a hair on Nov. 22, 1963? For one thing, Greenfield (Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics: JFK, RFK, Carter, Ford, Reagan, 2011, etc.) hazards in this counterfactual history, the 1960s might not have been the '60s--at least not the '60s of the Weather Underground, since some of the things the movement fought against might not have happened. The author supposes that Kennedy survived Oswald's bullets, though not unscathed--no thanks to "carelessness, negligence, and ineptitude on the part of the CIA and the FBI that bordered on the criminal"--and that in his second term, he made efforts to correct a couple of courses that were clearly astray. The first was Vietnam, a quagmire in the making that Kennedy manages, in Greenfield's vision, to extricate himself from. Vietnam falls, doing him some political damage but much less than would be inflicted on Lyndon Johnson. As for LBJ, the author observes that JFK's successor "saw political threats and opportunities through an intensely personal prism," while JFK was more detached and analytical. Greenfield supposes that something like the civil rights reforms that LBJ saw through would have come about but with a different tone. The noncounterfactuals that would have been brought to bear on JFK's second term are of particular interest, particularly the calving off of the South from the Democratic Party. Greenfield also does good service in demythologizing JFK to suggest that, had he indeed lived, his second term might have been marked by scandal and controversy, a Camelot undone by the president's own proclivities as much as by the events of the time. Yet, as Greenfield suggests as well, JFK might also have dismantled the Cold War--even if, nightmare of nightmares, Ronald Reagan might have become president in 1968. Well researched and thought through--an interesting, plausible exercise in pop history that doesn't take itself too seriously.

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May 1, 2013

Host of the PBS news show Need To Know, Greenfield asks the fateful question we all ask: What if Kennedy had not be assassinated? Apparently, his answer is unexpected.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2013

Greenfield (Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternative Histories of American Politics; JFK, RFK, Carter, Ford, Reagan), an Emmy-winning political analyst, speculates how much different the nation and the world would have been if Kennedy had been only wounded by Oswald and gone on to serve two full terms. Here, Kennedy recovers from a serious chest wound and ushers in a relatively peaceful era--compared to the real 1960s--in which the Cold War ends, the United States avoids entrapment in Vietnam, and student protests call for more progressive politics than JFK is already advocating. Yet Greenfield shows that all choices have their price. South Vietnam falls to North Vietnamese forces and Cold War treaties come at the expense of racial progress, as JFK signs a devil's bargain with Southern senators who reluctantly agree to support his diplomatic initiatives in return for limited civil rights legislation. Greenfield grounds his fictional history in research and interviews with some of the era's experts and, as in his previous excursion into alternative history, offers an ending that the reader will not see coming. VERDICT Although character development is not strong, and readers will have to decide if Greenfield's ironic view is plausible, Kennedy-era followers will enjoy this book, an alternate alternate history, if you will, to Stephen King's massive novel 11/22/63.--KH

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.