Then Everything Changed by Jeff Greenfield

This book starts out with an interesting premise. Alternate histories have been a game many political and history junkies have theroized for year. Greenfield takes three different actual events and twists the fates just a notch.

He has the would be assassin of JFK in 1960, after he was elected but before he was inauguarated, succeed leading to a constitional crisis and an eventual Johnson Presidency under different circumstances.

We also see what might have happened had someone spotted Sirhan Sirhan a moment sooner and RFK not been killed. An eventual convention fight between Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey leads to a President that sharply changes history.

Lastly and perhaps most interestingly we see what might have happened had Gerald Ford not made his mistake in the Carter debates about Eastern Europe. This history being one that has been considered less has more bite and is therefore the most interesting. How Ford's election and Carter's non election would have shaped the future's of both the Democratic and Republican parties is a very interesting exercise.

So the book has merit and was interesting. For me however much of the good of the book was taken away by the cutesy references that hinted at a future not seen such as LBJ proclaiming he could be caught having sex in the Oval office and still be elected. Of course knowing what did happen allows these references to be made but I found them to be clumsily inserted.

An interesting book but forgettable.