I was surprised to see this listed as a four star rating. This is, as the title states, a look at what possibly could have happened had JFK survived the assignation attempt. The book begins with the trip to Dallas on a rainy day. The bubble shield is on the limo. As the car makes the turn past the book depository, shots ring out and the bubble top explodes in pieces. A bullet hits Kennedy in the spine. A hurried drive to Parkland Hospital with an invasive surgery, allow the polls to increase, and a temporary hero is back in the White House.

Kennedy's injuries add to his already compromised spinal health, but he can walk. From there on we see a president who is physically, emotionally weak. Kennedy pays a high price in lack of southern support because of his pro-civil rights legislation.

Living with the fact that his terrible mistake in the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba is a thorn in his side when he seeks another term. His ensuing decisions not to take pro- active stances regarding war label him a soft candidate when he runs for his second term.

Kennedy's meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna showed him as an ill-prepared weakling resulting in the Berlin wall. As Kennedy's personal life spins out of control his sexual liaison are now fodder for the a media no longer willing to look the other way.

Overall, I can't recommend this book. It was dry, pedantic and uninteresting. ( )

Beginning with the fateful change from recorded history of using a protective bubble top for President Kennedy's limousine in Dallas on November 22, 1963, the book follows plausible actions by Kennedy and others intersecting with actual events to create a believable, although workmanlike, alternate history. We follow Kennedy into his second term, where he accomplishes many things (perhaps too smoothly), but a scandal arises, based on his known infidelities, that threatens to derail his second term. ( )

I really enjoyed reading this book. I've been a fan of alternate history books (the books by Turtledove are a favorite) for some time, and am glad that I've had the opportunity to add this book to my library. The direction this topic went was very plausible and it was fun to consider the "what if's". I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in JFK or in alternative history. ( )

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: November 22, 1963: JFK does not die. What would happen to his life, his presidency, his country, his world?

Based on memoirs, histories, oral histories, fresh reporting, and his own knowledge of the players, this book looks at the tiny hinges of history—and the extraordinary changes that would have resulted if they had gone another way.

Now he presents his most compelling narrative of all about the historical event that has riveted us for fifty years. What if Kennedy were not killed that fateful day? What would the 1964 campaign have looked like? Would changes have been made to the ticket? How would Kennedy, in his second term, have approached Vietnam, civil rights, the Cold War? With Hoover as an enemy, would his indiscreet private life finally have become public? Would his health issues have become so severe as to literally cripple his presidency? And what small turns of fate in the days and years before Dallas might have kept him from ever reaching the White House in the first place?

As with Then Everything Changed, the answers Greenfield provides and the scenarios he develops are startlingly realistic, rich in detail, shocking in their projections, but always deeply, remarkably plausible. It is a tour de force of American political history.

My Review: See all those questions in the publisher's copy above? Those are the very ones that Jeff Greenfield, a pundit and powerful columnist, addresses with a great deal of panache and a large helping of nerve. Greenfield was often seen on Nightline during its glory years as THE political chat show.

Greenfield graduated with a JD from Yale before going to work for Sen. Robert F. Kennedy after the president was assassinated. That in mind, imagine my surprise when RFK comes across as a really vicious, very nasty character in this telling of his brother's presidency. Apparently he was no saint. But then again, neither was Jack, as we all now know.

What makes me most happy about this book is its major weakness: If you're not conversant with the politics and personalities of that day, this book will read like a fairly dry novel. Without knowing the name McGeorge Bundy, for example, there's not much point in picking up the book. Better yet, if the name carries with it an image of hornrims and a honking accent, the book will light a little Eternal Flame for Camelot.

And for my own part, I'd LOVE to have seen what Vaughn Meader would've done with a second term! (Yes, I know that went whoooshing over a lot of non-gray heads. So will the rest of the book.)

So why give the serviceable, journalistic prose four stars? Because the prose isn't the point. The tale, the imagining of JFK fighting and winning a very different 1964 election battle and doing so much damage to his own interests...that is what people with memories of that horrible, horrible moment in time when our president was murdered before our horrified eyes would pay the $12.99 for a Kindle copy, or $26.95 for a hardcover version of the book to experience.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. ( )

I love a good, plausible alternate political history and thoroughly enjoyed Greenfield's trio of novellas, Then Everything Changed, as well as his Kindle single about Al Gore beating George W. Bush. As a result, I thought I'd love his alternate history about how JFK survived the November 22, 1963 assassination attempt and lived to have a second term. Alas, I liked it, but did not love it.

The book takes a look at such key events as whether JFK would've won a second term, what we would've done in Vietnam had JFK lived, what might've happened with civil rights/voting rights, and whether the hippies and other countercultural events might've happened.

One thing I like about Greenfield's books is that they are plausible and he cites sources for the positions he takes. They are not "out there" and, with a few minor twists or turns, they could've happened.

As I say, I'd liked this book, but didn't love it. He doesn't go out on many limbs and, in fact, is awfully cautious in his predictions. This is quite a limited alternate political history. Very policy-oriented and, unfortunately, somewhat dry at times.

I think the novella or Kindle single is actually a better format for alternate political history. To me, it felt like he was stretching things to try to create an entire book. By the end of the book, by the end of JFK's second term, it seems like he was really stretching things to keep the book going. I wish he'd put his political focus aside a bit more and gone more into greater detail about how our society might be different had JFK lived.

Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting, thought-provoking book and I admit that I did not see the ending coming. I just think that he might've done more with it. It's a bit skimpier than I would've expected. Very good, but not great. ( )