If you could go back in time, would you stop the JFK assassination from happening? How do you think it would have altered the course of history?

[smahala1991]

Wednesday will be the 60th anniversary of the JFK assassination.

[WindAtMyBack]

No, for a couple of reasons.

1) When you change history you have no idea what the alternate history would be like.

2) Kennedy is probably the most over-rated president in my lifetime. He's the one who got us into that damned Vietnam War. He also damn near got us into a nuclear war.

He's portrayed as some kind of hero because of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but you don't hear the whole story. Very likely it would not have happened in the first place if not for him. He's portrayed as making the Soviet Union back down. In reality the other way around is more accurate - the Soviets forced the US to back down, and it worked.

He was by far the most confrontational cold war president. If he had lived, the cold war could have gone in a much worse direction. Johnson basically continued Kennedy's policies. It was until the next president (Nixon) that the cold war started to thaw and eventually end altogether. If Kennedy had lived, that may not have ever happened. Very likely it would have escalated and may still be going strong.

[legalboxers]

Yes. I would also stop the assassination on his brother and Dr. King as well. And investigate Georg Bush since he was in charge then of the CIA

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/10/27/russian-born-oilman-real-international-man-mystery-vivid-presence-jfk-files/807303001/
Russian-born oilman, a real international man of mystery, a vivid presence in JFK files

Within days after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, the CIA's man in Dallas received a call from a friend who said he met Lee Harvey Oswald at a social function the previous January.

Oswald's host was George de Mohrenschildt, a Russian-born petroleum engineer whose story as detailed in long-secret JFK assassination files released Thursday reads like an off-kilter spy novel. That's one reason why de Mohrenschildt, who died in 1977, has been a staple of Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories for almost 54 years.

He was the uncle of President George H. W. Bush’s prep school roommate, a friend of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s parents, an associate of Oswald and a notorious womanizer and bon vivant who was rejected by the wartime Office of Strategic Services for alleged Nazi sympathies. In December 1963, he surfaced in Haiti to tell CIA operatives there that he knew Oswald, Kennedy's assassin.

[Tessafowler03]

It was only a big deal for America …the rest of the world couldn’t give a shit

[DeeDeeDeVour]

I'd find a way to prevent JFK's assassination from happening.

[GoodGuyBreakingBad]

Yes, I would stop the assassination of JFK as well as the late Martin Luther King Jr. I think JFK would have made America a much better Country.

[Anonymous]

Heck no. That guy made soooooo many enemies. I’m not saying he deserved it, but uh, he was kind of a POS.

LBJ was a far worse person in some ways, (he was an absolutely ruthless politician) but frankly I sort of hate those upper crust East coast snobby elites who think their crap doesn’t stink. That was JFK. A big phony with a nice smile and a good tan and a rich daddy. At least LBJ came up on his own (he was soooo ruthless.)

JFK was also the guy who brought in Robert McNamara as Secretary of Defense. He helped get the US further into war and stubbornly dragged out the damned conflict, killing thousands and thousands sand thousands.

So screw Kennedy.

[exitseven]

A lot of people did not like JFK. He had a lot of enemies. That might be why he was killed. Still he steered the country through some rough times and he hdid a lot to develop the pace program, civil rights and actually cut taxes. The last Democrat to do so. I would stop the assassination and try to help him win a second term

[TonyMetal___86]

The sides who decided to kill him will kill him sooner or later, maybe if you can go back in time, you can only stop this specific assasination scene but they will be other scenes that you won't know about which will lead to the same fate!

Anyways, going back in time is nearly impossible theoratically, unlike going to the future which is a lot easier...

[Dargil]

I would. Modern world history would be changed beyond recognition.

[BoopBoopBeep]

Can't say I would. I'd be afraid I'd make something worse, or there'd be some butterfly effect preventing me from being born, thus creating a paradox.

[Pudsmucker]

Instead of trying to change history by saving somebody's life. I would do some heavy investments with what I had. First off I would invest in IBM, Microsoft, Google. I would purchase gold $20 an ounce back in the 70s.

[KostasKouvalis]

They tried that on Timeless and he was still assassinated a few months later in Austin. Some things are destiny

[Fuentes]

JFK stood up to the government and got whacked for it, but he didn't sign the civil rights bills, Johnson did so I am not a fan of JFK.

[DextroShade]

I would rather go back in time and kill George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg.

[Mangospacho]

Nah. They would’ve just tried to get him over and over again.

[msc545]

Maybe. He might have stopped that shit in Vietnam.

[OddBeMe]

He most likely would have ended the Vietnam war.

[WindAtMyBack]

He's the one who STARTED the Vietnam War. Johnson continued the war with the same policies, and that same idiot McNamara giving bad advice.

[OddBeMe]

@WindAtMyBack mmm…Googling Vietnam war: conflicts started 1955. Nope.

[WindAtMyBack]

There were a small number of troops there, supposedly in non-combat roles, but the US was not really in the war until Kennedy. He's the one who turned it in a real war for the US.

[OddBeMe]

@WindAtMyBack lol, dude. In 1970s our troops were supposedly in “non combat roles”.

Regardless, 1963 had a momentum of anti war movement by Kennedy heading into the presdiential election. Would he really have done it? Who knows.

Historical what ifs.

[WindAtMyBack]

In the 70s they were not "non-combat" roles. They stopped pretending to be non-combat long before that. By late 60s the war was already starting to deescalate. I watched it on the news all through the 60s, and I watched the daily double digit casualty numbers. In the earliest days, people might have believed the non-combat claim. But by the mid-60s, they didn't even pretend to be non-combat.

I think they stopped drafting in '71. They stopped registration for the draft in late '73 or early '74. I was the last year to sign up for it. The war lingered in the early 70s, but it was quickly grinding to a halt. The peak was in the mid 60s. Nixon became president in '69 and almost immediately started cutting troop strength.

[OddBeMe]

@WindAtMyBack (cough) Tet offensive was 1968 dude.

[Anonymous]

Hell yes I would, JFK was a great President