The "what if?" game gets played out in both fiction and non-fiction. This book falls firmly into the latter category. While the three timelines presented in this book didn't actually happen (ask President Hart if you don't believe me), Greenfield uses actual historical quotes to illustrate what could have been and, in the scale of all things, doesn't veer too far away from our own timeline.In brief, the jumping off points are:
(1) A suicide bomber takes out President-elect John F. Kennedy in Palm Beach, propelling LBJ to the Oval Office three years sooner than in our timeline. (In reality, the bomber called off his plans at the last minute.)
(2) Bobby Kennedy exits through the kitchen, but with brother-in-law Steve Smith in front of him, who notices and takes down Sirhan Sirhan before he can carry out his plot. (In reality, you know what happened.)
(3) In the most unlikely of the three divergences, President Ford corrects a horrific gaffe during a debate with Jimmy Carter, allowing him to close the gap in the 1976 election. (In reality, said gaffe was widely credited with killing his comeback momentum and paving Carter's path to victory.)
I won't spoil things anymore than I already have for prospective readers, but the first one was the most horrifying, the second, bogged down in convention minutiae, was the least interesting (C'mon, Jeff! It's RFK!!), and the third was the most speculative and, frankly, humorous. Again, nothing drifts too far from reality. No President Hulk Hogan or Amerika type scenarios. For those who think Greenfield made everything up from scratch, he provides "real" context for each story element in the appendix. All in all, well worth reading, especially if you read more politics than fiction, oddly enough.
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