The Impeachment and Trial of John F. Kennedy | Bryce Zabel & Harry Turtledove | WGAw #1119082

The Story Behind The Story

We want to thank you for dropping in on this website. We're Harry Turtledove and Bryce Zabel, a couple of writers who met back in 1999 -- strange as this may seem -- at an awards ceremony where our middle-school kids were each finalists in a WorldCon science-fiction writing contest!

We both love our history bent and twisted whenever possible. We've each had a chance to do some bending and twisting in our two different business worlds -- publishing (Turtledove, Worldwar) and TV and film (Zabel, Dark Skies). So even though we've begun this alt-history project in book form, we hope to tell the story in film eventually as well.

After meeting through our talented kids, this particular project started over lunch at Korean BBQ in the LA valley. We began to imagine a world where, rather than Watergate exploding the world of journalism and politics as it did in our timeline, the engine is the JFK meltdown from a decade earlier. Think of this alternative history as the First Wave of the New Journalism -- basically, All The President’s Men for the Kennedy generation. Since we live in bitter and partisan times, it is also worth noting that both of us have been life-long Democrats. We do this because we think it's an enormously fascinating story, not because we hate JFK. We don't.

The John Kennedy of this alternative history is still an enormously likable man -- much like Bill Clinton -- skilled in politics, charming in person, intelligent, and deeply flawed as a human being. Unlike Bill Clinton, however, we think a strong case can be made that Kennedy's transgressions would eventually have been seen by a majority of Americans as having risen to the level of impeachable offenses. And, like Richard Nixon in our timeline, John Kennedy -- having survived the bullets of assassins in Dallas -- might very well have been forced to leave office before his second term was finished.

E. Howard Hunt: Voice from the Grave Blames LBJ

We seem to have picked an interesting week to start telling the story of WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT: THE IMPEACHMENT AND TRIAL OF JOHN F. KENNEDY. Just when you think it's safe to dip your toes in the Kennedy conspiracy, along comes radical new information from someone with spy cred and seemingly lots of inside knowledge about the facts...

It's actually a new "old" story getting significantly more play thanks to Rolling Stone. Basically, E. Howard Hunt, the CIA agent who organized the Watergate break-in, says in a new memoir published last month, American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond, that the man behind it all may, incredibly, have been Kennedy's vice-president Lyndon Johnson. This idea has existed on the radical fringe of JFK conspiracy theory almost forever, going even past Oliver Stone's "JFK."

Recently, it gained new currency in January during the run-up to the publishing of this book which, for the record, includes Hunt vehemently denying he had anything to do with the JFK assassination. The chapter, however, reads a little bit like OJ's book, If I Did It.

In any case, there is an excellent and comprehensive article about this in the just-out (April 5) Rolling Stone, "The Last Confession of E. Howard Hunt" by Erik Hedegaard. But it's more than a re-tread or synopsis of the book. Because the details of the JFK assassination come from Hunt's son and they were given to him on several occasions, and in writing. And they are in direct conflict with what Hunt says about his own involvement in the book itself. In both cases, though, Hunt's speculation about how it might have happened seems consistent with the point of divergence being his own involvement.

Articles of Impeachment: If Nixon and Clinton, Why Not Bush and JFK?

After Chuck Hagel let loose the "I" word on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, people are buzzing about the possible impeachment of that other George, George Bush. After Andrew Johnson actually got himself impeached back in 1868, it took another century before Richard Nixon resigned to avoid the same fate in 1974. Now we look at it as just another political weapon to use against a vulnerable incumbent -- going after Clinton in 1998 and Bush in 2007.

There's no question impeachment would have been a very steep hill to climb in the case of John Kennedy. He was still quite popular and he had a large Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. But coming up with possible articles of impeachment wouldn't have been that difficult. We know, because we've actually done it.

In both the Nixon and Clinton cases, the "Articles of Impeachment" were drawn up and, in reading them, we certainly noticed there is a lot of overlap and similarity in form. Like filling in a contract template, we've used those examples to write the Articles of Impeachment for John Fitzgerald Kennedy. We plan to modify and finalize them as the novel is completed, but our working draft reads like this.

ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT, JFK.pdf

Because many people still think of impeachment as the end result and not part of the process, a basic fact set helps to set this novel's world in a solid alternative-reality.

JFK's Reality Before Dallas

Our alternative-history take on a world where President Kennedy survived the assassination attempt in Dallas springboards to his likely impeachment for two reasons. The first is obvious: that without being martyred, the resulting investigation would have been much more likely to delve into details of his public and personal life that JFK had been able to keep quiet. The second is one that is not widely talked about, specifically because JFK was martyred, and that is that he had his share of political resistance before he ever got on the plane to Dallas.

Our case in point is this issue of Time magazine which was, ironically, just hitting the nation's newstands and mailboxes as the real events in Dallas unfolded. It's dated November 22, 1963.

The cover features Washington hostess Nicole Alphand, wife of then French ambassador to the U.S. Herve' Alphand. It details the capitol's social whirl, saying that from September to May there are roughly 200 official parties a month in Washington, perhaps 20 times as many private ones, and that Alphand was among the best of the dozens of hostesses keeping the champagne pouring and the canapes circulating. It's hard to imagine the French ambassador and his wife being the toast of Washington these days, isn't it?

What is arresting about this issue, however, is the political talk and the reporting that mentions President Kennedy. It's easy to look back now and think that Kennedy was a shoo-in for re-election but this issue starts out with its "Nation" section devoted to Republicans who seem to be falling over themselves for a chance to take him on.

In the late fall of 1963 the basic Republican Party facts are these: Only a year ago Nelson Rockefeller seemed to have his party nomination wrapped up, and only a month ago that same nomination appeared to be Goldwater's for the asking. But, unless it has an incumbent President seeking re-election, no party can afford to concede its highest prize so far in advance.

First Brother: Conspiracy Theorist

David Talbot, the founder and former editor of Salon magazine, has a new book hitting the stores, Brothers, about the relationship  between John and Robert Kennedy. In it, Talbot makes clear something we have used as a bedrock assumption to Winter of Our Discontent: The Impeachment and Trial of John F. Kennedy. Namely, Robert never for a minute believed in the Warren Commission and from Day One was looking into all the possible conspirators who would want to kill his brother.

Of course, in our book, RFK doesn't look alone because he still has JFK to help him. In our telling, it's the Kennedy brothers who realize that they came "this close" to Jack Kennedy being murdered in Dallas. They set out to find out who's responsible, to punish them and, simultaneously, to keep all the secrets of the Kennedy Administration still secret. It turns out that task is simply too much to ask. All the activities and investigations take on a momentum of their own. Eventually, while searching for killers, the question must be asked and answered: Who would want to kill the popular President Kennedy and why?

Kennedy's Next Speech

• In reality, President John F. Kennedy was scheduled to deliver a speech at the Dallas Trade Mart on the day he was assassinated, November 22, 1963. In our novel's timeline, the speaking engagement would also have been canceled based on what happened at Dealey Plaza. This is the speech the White House was prepared to make on the subject of national security. In Winter of Our Discontent: The Impeachment and Trial of John F. Kennedy, a version of this speech would still have been delivered by JFK, but it would have been tempered by the "near-miss" in Dallas. Here is the text of that final, undelivered speech.

I am honored to have this invitation to address the annual meeting of the Dallas Citizens Council, joined by the members of the Dallas Assembly -- and pleased to have this opportunity to salute the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest. It is fitting that these two symbols of Dallas progress are united in the sponsorship of this meeting. For they represent the best qualities, I am told, of leadership and learning in this city -- and leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. The advancement of learning depends on community leadership for financial political support, and the products of that learning, in turn, are essential to the leadership's hopes for continued progress and prosperity. It is not a coincidence that those communities possessing the best in research and graduate facilities -- from MIT to Cal Tech -- tend to attract new and growing industries. I congratulate those of you here in Dallas who have recognized these basic facts through the creation of the unique and forward-looking Graduate Research Center.

This link between leadership and learning is not only essential at the community level. It is even more indispensable in world affairs. Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this country's security. In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America's leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason -- or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.