1) Lyndon Johnson Assassinated: McCormack, Hayden and Dean Rusk
Lyndon Johnson could easily have been assassinated along with President Kennedy. Johnson could have been in the car with Kennedy rather than Governor John Connally, and the space of time in which Oswald murdered Kennedy was more than enough for him to also assassinated Johnson in such a situation. Johnson could also have been within the line of fire in such a way that the shots to Kennedy could have passed into him fatally. There is also the matter, somewhat well known, that a secret service agent nearly shot him shortly thereafter, having mistaken him for a trespasser.
In such a case, the presidency would then fall to Speaker of the House John McCormack. If unimpeded by other events, McCormack would serve in the capacity of president until at least 1964. However, McCormack was also in his early seventies. A man of such advanced years is going to have difficulty overseeing the presidency in a nuclear age. He will also be forced to oversee the uniting of the nation following the tragedy in Dallas. And he will be overseeing the events that are unfolding in the foreign and domestic world in 1963-1964, which are anything but simple. It is possible that the stress could be enough to kill him. It is also possible that he could choose to side step the presidency, if at all possible. I am uncertain of the legal potential for that, but I also assume they are as well. I do not believe that it was considered that someone in the line of succession might attempt to refuse it, but it may be a legal consideration.
In either case, the additional POD would be the presidency falling to President Pro Tempore Carl Hayden. There is little to say here, as Carl Hayden would absolutely refuse to be president.
"I'd call Congress together, have the House elect a new speaker, and then I'd resign and let him become president."
If McCormack had the precedent of denying the position of the presidency without being required to resign his elected position, Hayden would certainly follow suite. There is little more to be said on the matter. Whereas there may have been a short McCormack administration, there would never have been a Hayden administration for any period of time.
The presidency would then fall to Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Kennedy had little respect for Dean Rusk, and essentially viewed him as the equivalent of a human potato. Kennedy was also planning to remove Rusk from the cabinet, place McNamara as Secretary of State, and place Robert Kennedy in the position of Secretary of Defense. However, that was tentative, and there are many possibilities for cabinet changes. Kennedy was likely to make them regardless, and Dean Rusk was very likely to be removed.
As he recalled in his autobiography,
As I Saw It, Rusk did not have a good relationship with President Kennedy. The president was often irritated by Rusk's reticence in advisory sessions and felt that the State Department was "like a bowl of jelly" and that it "never comes up with any new ideas". Special Counsel to the President
Ted Sorensen believed that Kennedy, being well versed and practiced in foreign affairs, acted as his own Secretary of State. Sorensen also said that the president often expressed impatience with Rusk and felt him under-prepared for emergency meetings and crises.
[13] Rusk repeatedly offered his resignation, but it was never accepted. Rumors of Rusk's dismissal leading up to the 1964 election abounded prior to President Kennedy's trip to Dallas in 1963. Shortly after
Kennedy was assassinated, Rusk offered his resignation to the new president,
Lyndon B. Johnson. However, Johnson refused Rusk's resignation and retained him as the Secretary of State throughout his administration.
Rusk would be an interesting president. Unlike McCormack or Hayden, he is physically suited to the office of the presidency. However, he was also a man Kennedy would never have wanted to have succeeded him. I am not well versed in Dean Rusk. However, Jacqueline Kennedy's view of him was a sort of kind ambivalence a mother would give to an unaccomplished child. He was perfectly decent, was intelligent and compassionate, but did not do well at making decisions based on what they understood and defined well. This is a rather interesting potential presidency.
