Literature / McGoverning

An alternate history timeline located at AlternateHistory.com, written by the user Yes. As the name suggests, it focuses primarily around former US Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern.

If you’ve heard of McGovern, it's likely because of his loss to Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential campaign. The loss was one of the most staggering landslides in US electoral history, in which the only state he managed to win was Massachusetts^note Though he did also win the District of Columbia. This means that, such as it is remembered, McGovern's legacy is heavily debated. To his supporters, he was a noble but doomed idealist whose sincere and principled stances were thwarted by a flawed campaign, antipathy from his own party, and the cynical machinations of Nixon’s corrupt political machine as it actively sabotaged him at every opportunity. To his detractors, however, he was a dangerously naive and weak ideologue whose pandering and submission to America's enemies would have seriously weakened and even destroyed the United States. His crushing defeat is remembered as the point where the Democratic Party first clamped down on its activist wing so as to prevent a repeat of that disaster, the beginning of a long move to the political center that culminated in the Presidency of Bill Clinton in The '90s. In any case, in our world, whether you love him or loathe him, it’s pretty widely agreed that McGovern's loss was, for one reason or another, practically inevitable.

In the world of McGoverning, however, one Charles Colson has something to say about that.

If you’ve heard of Colson, it's likely because, as a senior aide to Richard Nixon, he was knee-deep in all sorts of corrupt activities, including involvement in the Watergate break-in. What's perhaps less well known is that Colson had plenty of other ideas for sabotaging Nixon’s enemies, many of which were... less than rational. In our world, (relatively) saner heads were able to put the kibosh on his more out-there plans, but in this world Colson — thanks to a heady and potent combination of blind fanaticism, lack of sleep, James Bond delusions, and an addiction to caffeine and amphetamines — goes completely off the reservation and decides it would be a good idea to stuff a homemade firebomb into the mailbox of the left-leaning Brookings Institution and raid the files... on the same night as the Watergate break-in.

This, naturally, goes about as well as you'd expect. And so, Charles Colson's arrest at the burning remains of the Brookings Institution leads to a much more intense and much earlier focus on Richard Nixon's corruption, a very different 1972 election, and some serious changes for the life of George McGovern and the whole world...

The timeline can be found here.

---

This work includes the following tropes:

• Action Politician: When Salvador Allende, the President of Chile, is targeted in his presidential palace by an assassin, he picks up an AK-47 and goes on the offensive. This is especially ironic because in actual history, he used the same gun to commit suicide after being deposed in a coup d'état in 1973.
• Actually Pretty Funny: What McGovern thinks of the outgoing Nixon staff filling an office with toilet paper to convey the message that the incoming McGovern team is full of shit.
• Ambiguous Situation: Did Orlando Letelier know about Allende's planned assassination ahead of time? Not even the author knows.
• Attack of the Political Ad: Nixon puts out an ad implying McGovern is playing games with the military; McGovern counters with another ad, courtesy of Warren Beatty, claiming that Nixon deliberately sabotaged Vietnam War peace negotiations at the cost of thousands of lives to win the Presidency.
• Backfire on the Witness Stand: Senate Foreign Relations calls Anna Chennault to testify about the X File, hoping to get evidence of Nixon's guilt. She manages to put forward a fairly effective defense.
• Badass Bookworm:
  • George McGovern, war hero and former History professor at Dakota Wesleyan University.
  • Doug Coulter, described as "the only Harvard MBA who’d led Montagnards in combat we could find at the time".
• Courtroom Episode: "Tipping The Scales", a two-parter covering the Nixon trials.
• Crusading Lawyer: All of the "Brookingsgate Irregulars" (including Hillary Rodham, William Weld, and Bob Mueller), but especially John Doar.
• Didn't Think This Through: The PLO tries to assassinate Golda Meir with a car bomb during a New York parade. They fail, however, to pay for parking, and instead destroy a scrapyard in Staten Island.
• Domestic Abuse: It is never outright stated, but it is made abundantly clear that Nixon physically takes out his frustrations on his wife Pat. This is used as a plot-point; when it looks like the Republicans are going to expose a love-child fathered by McGovern before his military service in World War II and use this against him, the Democrats respond by threatening to bring up all the dirt they have on every misdeed a married Republican has committed against his wife and family — including Nixon's spousal abuse. The message is received.
• Election Day Episode: The last section of "October Surprise? You Should See November...", covering the 1972 election, and most of "Ad Interim" and all of "Conclave", covering the 1974 midterms.
• Failed Future Forecast: The magazine cover that opens the timeline? It's real. In this case, however, it's invoked; although everyone was expecting McGovern to lose, the press didn't want to face another real-life example of this trope as they had with the 1948 election, and so produced some dummy copies of the cover in question just on the off-chance that they were needed. The author happened to come across one and was inspired by it.
• A Father to His Men: After McGovern determines that an apparent security breach was in fact a young enlisted man on a joyride, Admiral Tom Moorer speculates that he would have been one of these had he remained in the Air Force:
  Mister President, said Tom Moorer in a ruminative tone, I have thought sometimes about what might’ve been if you had kept that uniform on and stuck around when the Army Air Corps turned into the Air Force. After a pause Moorer added: I don’t believe you ever would have made general.
  McGovern grinned back, almost impishly. Now Tom, said McGovern, I might want to take that as a compliment.
  A look of guarded but friendly sarcasm crossed Moorer’s face. I thought you might, Mister President, said Moorer. The admiral tilted his head a little. You’d have been a fine colonel, though. Just fine.
• Fictionalized Death Account:
  • Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Caetano Veloso are fatally shot during a protest against military rule in Brazil.
  • Salvador Allende survives a coup, but is killed a few weeks later in an assassination attempt by rogue military brass.
  • Ariel Sharon is killed in an Egyptian commando raid during the Yom Kippur War.
  • Carlos the Jackal and several fellow terrorists are hired by Saddam Hussein to take over an OPEC summit at the organization's headquarters in Vienna (Similar to the siege in real life). The terrorists kill a couple of senior diplomats and appear set to make their getaway, when instead, the Iraqis double cross them - Carlos and his gang are killed by Austrian sharpshooters.
  • Saddam Hussein attends an Arab League summit in Algeria to sign a peace agreement with the Shah of Iran and Hafez al-Assad of Syria. On his arrival he's assassinated by a Red Army Faction terrorist in revenge for her comrades who were killed alongside Carlos in Vienna after the Iraqis betrayed them.
  • Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini cracks his head in a fall and dies of an unattended cerebral hematoma.
  • Fanne Foxe goes on a different wild, drunken ride in downtown DC, still flees the car in question, but trips in the Tidal Pool, cracks her head, and drowns, setting up a far larger scandal for Congressman Wilbur Mills just before the midterm elections.
• Force and Finesse: Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, respectively, are described as these:
  The bluff Rabin, clumsy with words and sentiment, felt keenly the lack of Peres’ francophile charm. Peres, the face of Israel to its military suppliers, midwife of the nukes, had never worn the uniform and craved Rabin’s rugged sabra credibility.
• Good Ol' Boy: House Majority Leader Hale Boggs and his "boys".
• Historical Domain Character: All of them.
• Historical Hero Upgrade:
  • Played with in the case of Richard Nixon. His criminal activities are still exposed and he's still remembered as a crook, but since he narrowly loses the 1972 election rather than being forced to resign in disgrace, it's implied (and confirmed by the author) that it will be a lot easier for his supporters to hand-wave what he did, leading to this trope in various circles.
  • Similarly, while not exactly lionised, it is noted that the Watergate burglars tend to be overlooked in this particular version of history. Perhaps understandably, as a drugged-up political fanatic blowing up a think-tank is naturally going to attract more attention than a bunch of third-rate spooks bungling a break-in.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Richard Nixon pushes George Wallace to run in the Democratic primary in order to divide and sabotage the party. After Brookingsgate and the Democratic National Convention, Wallace announces a third party campaign, hoping to throw the election to the House.
  • Usually a master of media management, Jesse Helms' racially-charged comments about McGovern's proposed "Medicare-for-all" legislation are caught on a hot mike, helping rally votes for cloture.
  • Despite knowing about Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe's gay affairs, Harold Wilson forms a Liberal-Labour Coalition Government anyway, believing that Thorpe can be controlled. His gambit backfires when Thorpe's desperate attempts to conceal his affair with Norman Scott are publicly revealed.
• Inspirational Martyr: Orlando Letelier refers to Allende as one of these, and may have knowingly allowed his assassination to proceed in order to make him into one.
• It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: The McGovern administration makes a deal with Israel to provide Pershing II medium-range missiles in exchange for their participation in Middle East peace talks. Israel secretly shares the technology with South Africa for use in their nuclear weapons program.
• The Last DJ: Archer Blood's outrage at the Nixon administration's inaction during the Bangladesh genocide almost destroyed his career - and did, in our timeline.
• Significant Name Overlap: Phil Hart, McGovern's vice-presidential candidate and eventual VP, and Gary Hart, McGovern's chief of staff. They weren't related in real life. Amusingly, they also have practically opposite personalities; Phil is widely respected, admired, and liked, and has a rather gentle, peaceful personality, while Gary seems to piss off and antagonise almost everyone he comes into contact with.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Charles Colson is driven to destroy the enemies of Richard Nixon and secure his place in the White House and the history books. His bombing of the Brookings Institution directly leads to a world where George McGovern wins the 1972 election. Whoops.
• Notably Quick Deliberation: Ervin v. Nixon is decided in a day from hearing to decision.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Nixon's White House staff refuses to provide the incoming McGovern team with briefings or information, steals 'A' keys from their keyboards (for "amnesty, abortion, and acid"), and fills their offices with toilet paper.
• Pocket Protector: Archbishop Aloisio Lorscheider narrowly averts death when a bullet aimed at his heart is stopped by his ornamental cross necklace. Understandably, many people see this as a miracle.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: McGovern's chief lieutenants fit this dynamic, with the impetuous Gary Hart contrasting with the cool-headed Frank Mankiewicz.
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • Charles Colson's plan to bomb the Brookings Institution. Best of all, he actually proposed this in real life.
  • George Mitchell asks William Loeb, editor of the Manchester Union-Leader and staunch conservative, to sue the Nixon campaign for fraud over the "Canuck Letter". It works, largely because Mitchell appeals to Loeb's desire to protect his newspaper's reputation; by filing the lawsuit, Loeb can avoid any blowback over the fact that the letter was a forgery, while standing by the letter (even though Loeb privately believed it was authentic) would tarnish the Union-Leader's reputation.
• Revealing Cover-Up: The Brookings Institution is bombed, in part, to allow the Watergate break-in to happen uninterrupted. It doesn't work out.
• Sadistic Choice: Does the Army Corps of Engineers open the Morganza Spillway and deliberately flood Southern Louisiana, or does it not do so and potentially allow the Old River Control Structure to be overwhelmed, which would shift the river permanently, destroying Morgan City and leaving New Orleans and much of America's chemical industry stranded? McGovern chooses to open the spillway.
• Scandalgate: The combined Brookings Institution and Watergate incidents become known as Brookingsgate. Some readers were disappointed to see that this world still winds up with the "-gate" suffix.
• Scare Campaign: Rick Stearns claims in "Conclave" that the McGovern campaign will likely have to run one of these to win a second term; if a liberal Republican wins the primary, they will have to scare conservative voters into thinking that candidate will sell them out and they should stay home or vote third-party, whereas if a conservative wins, they will have to scare moderate voters that that candidate is an extremist.
• Shout-Out:
  • The timeline and the style used in it is a homage to the writings of Hunter S. Thompson, particularly his famous coverage of the 1972 election. For what it's worth, Thompson shows up in the timeline; he's much the same as he ever was, but has a few more reasons for optimism in this version of history.
  • The Introduction alludes to Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72, while a later chapter namedrops Fight and Be Right.
• Shoot the Messenger: After watching the "Coffins" advert designed by Warren Beatty, Nixon gets so enraged that he kicks the screen of the television in.
• Simple Country Lawyer: Sam Ervin, the original one, makes a number of appearances.
• Strawman News Media: Tim Crouse declares McGovern essentially impossible to report on because of this:
  Almost no one could actually report on President McGovern, at least not by the official rules of objective journalism. This was because, for nearly all professional reporters, what McGovern did and said was not “news” in the strict sense since none of its substance was new. To the press everything he did was a foregone conclusion, for good or ill. Everything filtered into one frame or the other. The people who could just take an act of this White House, work from facts, and then reason towards the administration’s logic or to possible outcomes, were few and far between. For everyone else those were just details in a tale already told. The outcome would be what they thought it would be, because George McGovern was who they thought he was. Not even Dick Nixon had wrecked American journalism so thoroughly, and President McGovern hadn’t even tried.
• Taking You with Me: Israeli General Ariel Sharon goes down fighting, Uzi in hand, during the Yom Kippur War.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and Posse Comitatus agree to coordinate on their response to the McGovern presidency, but that doesn't mean that any of them especially like each other.
• 25th Amendment:
  • Hillary Rodham uses this to argue that President Nixon was not immune from prosecution during his presidency, since he could have stepped down temporarily if dealing with that criminal case made it impossible for him to discharge his duties.
  • The McGovern administration sees this amended further by the War Powers Amendments, which expands the scope of eligible presidential succession in case of disaster.
• Velvet Revolution: Not completely, but the fall of the military junta in Greece happens with very little bloodshed.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Nixon generally doesn’t cope very well with the aftermath of the bombing, the investigations or the campaign, but losing the election, including his home state of California, completely unhinges him, leading to drinking, violence against his wife, and planning to drop atomic weapons on Vietnam.
  • Charles Colson has a more tantrum-y example upon being apprehended by police and firefighters after the bombing, then has a period of instability while awaiting trial due to Going Cold Turkey from his addictions, which gradually ends with him converting to born-again Christianity. This version leads to him inadvertently exposing huge amounts of Nixon's corruption, since he's just so happy to talk to anyone and take his mind off things he'll shoot his mouth off about anything, even to a reporter who comes to visit him.
• We Interrupt This Program: McGovern first hears of Egypt's invasion of Israel from news breaking into a baseball game broadcast.
• Wham Line:
  • An emotional example. After being given proof that Nixon's 1968 campaign sabotaged peace talks with North Vietnam by Lyndon Johnson, the senior staff of the McGovern campaign debate what to do next. Several staffers worry that if they expose it, they could risk backlash from the voters and accusations of playing politics with national security, and even possible criminal charges for exposing secret information. All debates about what the right thing to do is end, however, when VP candidate Phil Hart, driven to soberly reflect on his own experiences on Utah Beach during World War Two, looks up and utters only three words:
    People died, George.
  • Nixon's statement "Blow the safe" inspires Colson to execute the plan that starts the plot, and later comes back to haunt him when it's found in the Watergate tapes.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Colson's plan is inspired by James Bond, with him even referencing Operation Grand Slam in his internal monologue. It doesn't work out like a Bond film.
• Young Future Famous People: Bill Clinton shows up on the McGovern campaign and later as Undersecretary of Agriculture for Rural Development. Additionally, a number of other people who later became famous (including Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Maine Senator George Mitchell, and Governor of Massachusetts William Weld) are briefly mentioned.