# 1970's America



## lwhitehead

I need to know what 1970's America was like it's for my Roger's cove setting, I need to know what Northshore Massachusetts is like in 1970's. 


This is what I know, it was the era that ended Passenger Service, The era had the worst words in Songs following the 1990's that is. It was also the last era were children could go on adventures without interference from Adult interest groups they could roll around in the dirt.

LW


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## Winston

It was dirtier.  The air was bad in cities, and trash was strewn along most highways.  
Fashion stank.  Bell bottoms, big collars, wide ties and corduroy pants.
The cars were brick-like, with similar performance.  The exception being the Camaro / Trans Am / Firebird series. That's why the cool kids all bought them.  
Drugs?  Yes.  A lot.  
T.V. was a wasteland of conformity, much like 70s' society itself.  Norman Lear was single bright spot. Cinema was hit and miss. _Star Wars_ and _Jaws_ were offset by such horrid franchises like _Airport. _
Politics?  Two words:  Nixon and Carter.  
In technology, we developed the Space Shuttle.  It was overly complex, costly and inefficient. The shape of things to come.  'Merca.  
The good news was the people that hijacked planes back then usually just wanted money or political concessions  And most times STDs were common, but not deadly.   
We had our flag-waving Bicentennial.  Right after having our hats handed to us by a bunch of semi-literate rice farmers.  And we let Pol Pot kill 2 million people who wore glasses and read books.   
The decade started with The Manson Murders, and ended with Jonestown. 
Pull tabs on beer cans.  Quarter Pounders in styrofoam boxes. CB radios.  Disco.  Big hair.  Leaded gasoline.  Gloria Steinem.  Iranian hostage crisis.  Punk Rock.  Malaise.   
I'm sure there's more.  But anyone who lived through it is the worst person to use as a reference.
Oh, and Quaaludes.


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## Jack of all trades

Winston said:


> It was dirtier.  The air was bad in cities, and trash was strewn along most highways.
> Fashion stank.  Bell bottoms, big collars, wide ties and corduroy pants.
> The cars were brick-like, with similar performance.  The exception being the Camaro / Trans Am / Firebird series. That's why the cool kids all bought them.
> Drugs?  Yes.  A lot.
> T.V. was a wasteland of conformity, much like 70s' society itself.  Norman Lear was single bright spot. Cinema was hit and miss. _Star Wars_ and _Jaws_ were offset by such horrid franchises like _Airport. _
> Politics?  Two words:  Nixon and Carter.
> In technology, we developed the Space Shuttle.  It was overly complex, costly and inefficient. The shape of things to come.
> 'Merca.
> The good news was the people that hijacked planes back then usually just wanted money or political concessions  And most times STDs were common, but not deadly.
> We had our flag-waving Bicentennial.  Right after having our hats handed to us by a bunch of semi-literate rice farmers.  And we let Pol Pot kill 2 million people who wore glasses and read books.
> The decade started with The Manson Murders, and ended with Jonestown.
> Pull tabs on beer cans.  Quarter Pounders in styrofoam boxes. CB radios.  Disco.  Big hair.  Leaded gasoline.  Gloria Steinem.  Iranian hostage crisis.  Punk Rock.  Malaise.
> I'm sure there's more.  But anyone who lived through it is the worst person to use as a reference.
> Oh, and Quaaludes.



Sounds like you really hated those times.


Watching old shows like the Streets of San Fransico, it looks like the 70s were much cleaner. At least in terms of air quality. 

Pol Pot? I'll have to look that up. I have no idea what you're talking about.  (Looked it up. Cambodian prime minister. There's more there, I'm sure.)

Nixon, I get.  Watergate. Carter? What did he do that was so bad?

What happened with the rice farmers?


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## nickpierce

Having come out of the fifties pegged pants era with big feet (before big feet were an indication of cool - er, maybe that reference is no longer cool) I found bell bottoms innovatively refreshing. The first ones were created by splitting the outside cuff to mid calf seam of a pair of jeans (preferably Levi's) and sewing in a wedge of Paisley material.

And the aforementioned "rice farmers" now export furniture, clothes and sundry other articles to the former aggressor country. They also offer tour packages that let you visit tunnels and battle sites.

Ooops, kinda blended some sixties into my response.

 A seventies' fashion contribution: Shoes with stacked soles/heels.  Uggh.


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## Winston

nickpierce said:


> ... A seventies' fashion contribution: Shoes with stacked soles/heels...  Uggh.



_"They got little noses, tiny little teeth,
They wear platform shoes on their nasty little feet."_
Randy Newman '77


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## SueC

You can try http://www.history.com/topics/1970s. A lot of things were beginning to pop in the 70's as far as political and social-economic issues were concerned. But yeah, fashion sucked in the 70's. Hope we never go back!  LOL


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## Kevin

I would suggest finding someone from rogues cove Massachusetts. You know what that means, right? Road Trip! Woo-hoo! Yeah, because that is a pretty dang-darn specific place and time and about as close as I could come would be a Scorcese movie, or Townies , or Southies, which seems like would've been a completely unrelated culture considering that when I traveled to rural places it was pretty much a time-machine back to the Fifties in a foreign country. With the Internet/YouTube connective-ness, I'm sure the kids now may know of or do stuff like other parts, but back then? No.


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## Plasticweld

I grew up in Andover Mass, the northeast corner of the state, during the late 60s to mid 70s.  I have a good friend who used to live on the beach during  the summer who lived kind of the hippie style of the times.  PM me an email address and I will forward it to her.

I would offer to help but I was a true rebel of the times.  Member of the Republican party, Future Farmers of America.  Hard working, short hair, non pot smoking kid ,who was married and in business for myself by 18, hardly the stuff of stories :}


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## nickpierce

Plasticweld

I would offer to help but I was a true rebel of the times.  Member of the Republican party said:


> Now there is a tale I would like to read.


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## Terry D

I'm here to praise the 70's. We got out of Viet Nam, got rid of Nixon, saw Farrah Fawcett in every dorm room, ate lots of fondue, watched Dirty Harry, The Exorcist, Star Wars, The Godfather (I and II, we left the crappy III to the 90s), Animal House, Deep Throat, M*A*S*H (movie and TV series), Jaws, drove muscle cars, hitch-hiked without fear, watched women take a bigger hold on the workplace, played video games for the first time, listened to The Who, Led Zepplin, David Bowie, Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, Jethro Tull, and showed the world what young people with vision and conviction can do.

Yeah, we wore dickies and leisure suits, but we went to the moon 5 times, started fighting for gay rights, used pocket calculators for the first time, and saw the birth of home computers.

Time moves on. No decade is better or worse than another. All are, as Dickens would say, "The best of times and the worst of times." But I've got to admit, those leisure suits really sucked.


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## HorseDragon

I entered my 20s in the 1970s, but don't look to me as a resource. My experience was, well, discolored by a lot of very unpleasant things - peppered here and there with some quite wonderful things. I never did, however, join in many of the 70s reindeer games.

But I would suggest that you DO NOT treat the 1970s with revisionist retrospective - if you know what I mean. At all. Every generation looks back to the previous generation with a mix of critical disdain, derision and dismissal. Heck, even we who lived through it have a tendency to do that. And don't get me started on the 1980s.

Hopefully, your research will allow you to treat the time for what is was to the people living it. One of the things I dislike about modern TV shows, books, and movies is revisionist characterizations - no doubt created to 'relate' to a modern audience. I hope you can avoid that, but that is entirely up to you.

Cheers, and good luck!


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## Plasticweld

Terry D said:


> hitch-hiked without fear, .




That does bring back lots of memories.  I have hitch hiked thousands of miles.  When I was dating my wife I worked in a logging camp in northern Maine.   Every other weekend I made the trip from there to Andover.  I had a truck, if you could call it that.  A 1962 Willys Jeep pickup that got 9 miles to the gallon and had a 9 gallon tank.  Gas was .36 a gallon and there was no way I would spend that kind of money.  I could get from Maine to Mass in about the same time as it took to drive it.  The way back home would always take a hour or more than if I drove. 

It was always an adventure, always a step into the un-known and I loved it.  I met tons of cool people.  Having the clean cut look back then, short hair, clean work clothes meant that most older guys or women would pick me  up.  Just the fact that I was hitch hiking from one state to another, the hippies would pick me  up. I always had a sign with the name of the town just to the other side of where I was going, for the trip up and back.  

I had some great conversations.  I learned to tell stories and be entertaining, I figured it was cost of getting the ride, that I be entertaining.  Most when they found out I was a logger were interested in what that entailed.  Living in an old fashion style logging camp at the times was on its way out.  Meals cooked by company cooks and living in barracks, miles from no where, was unique even back then.   When they found out I was hitching hundreds of miles to go see my girl friend they usually wanted to know more. 


To this day I never drive by a hitch hiker without picking them up.  I have over the years hired many a bum who was traveling, for a few days,  had one guy for over 3 months. The stories I could tell :}  


Yes I miss hitch hiking and the whole idea of just giving some stranger a ride...Thanks for jarring the memories Terry :}


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## Ralph Rotten

If you wanna get a view into the 70s than listen to a song called AM Radio (by sublime I think).  
See, we did not have the massive amounts of media back then so pretty much everyone listened to the same music, even if they didn't want to.  Example: Anyone who lived in that day and age listened to Barry Manilow.  Not that they wanted to, but because they had no choice.  The primary way to hear music was top 40 radio.  There were no Ipods, and a reel-to-reel was as close as you got to a massive archive of music (without changing the tape or LP.)
Other songs that virtually everyone alive in the 70s had to listen to: Kung Fu fighting, Convoy, The Gambler, and you light up my life.  We knew these songs because they got played and played and played. There was no escaping them. Sometimes the hit d'jour was played every fifth song.  Remember 'a fifth of Beethoven'?  Uggghhhh.

There was no Netflix, the 70s were the dark ages.  Everyone wore their hair 'feathered' (Trump's hair is from the 70s).
We had 3 network channels so everyone watched the same damned TV shows.  Yes, everyone watched Gilligan's Island, I dream of Genie...

Then there was Star Wars.  Kids these days don't understand the impact of that movie.  It was more universally known than Santa Claus.  Even starving commies in China knew Star Wars.

And everybody had a variety show back in the 70's; Sonny & Cher, Donny & Marie, Dianna Ross, The Mandrell Sisters, Captain & Tenile...  

Back then a big music collection was 50 albums.  People listened to either country or rock, but rarely both.  

Getting caught smoking a joint was a big deal back then.
Sexual harassment was SOP.
70% of the population would mock you if you admitted to believing in life on other planets. 
Being gay was not cool, and when Rock Hudson finally came out it was bigger than Bruce Jenner getting a sex change.
Tennis shoes were all built like Keds.
Protesters were usually hippies, at least that's what your parents would tell you.
There were phases of the 70's, like the put-down phase, inspired by Welcome Back Kotter. Shirts often said things like "Up your nose with a rubber hose".  Yo Mama jokes started here.

Oh, and I almost forgot the bicentennial in 1976.  That was everywhere from about 1974-76.  They even had a Bicentennial Freedon train touring the country.

Kids in school collected milk money every monday morning.


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## ppsage

I hitch-hiked everywhere I went. Got targeted twice but that didn't stop me.


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## Terry D

One time while my father was driving me back to college after a break, we picked up a guy who was heading for the same campus. He'd started from San Francisco three days before, walked three blocks to the interstate, been picked up by a trucker who took him to Davenport, Iowa where he got a ride after about ten minutes to the small town where we picked him up. Three days, three rides, 2,000 miles. Not bad. 

Me, on the other hand, I tried to hitch the 50 miles from school to home one weekend and couldn't buy a ride. I walked 12 miles to the next town and was finally picked up by a guy who lived on my dorm floor.


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## Nellie

Ralph Rotten said:


> Then there was Star Wars.  Kids these days don't understand the impact of that movie.  It was more universally known than Santa Claus.  Even starving commies in China knew Star Wars.



Star Wars is here FOREVER, man! My kids understand the impact of Star Wars! They're both in their 30's now! My 15-year old nephew LOVES Star Wars! Can't wait to see the newest!




			
				Ralph Rotten said:
			
		

> Oh, and I almost forgot the bicentennial in 1976.  That was everywhere from about 1974-76.  They even had a Bicentennial Freedon train touring the country.



America's bicentennial was on July 4, 1976. America's 200th Birthday of Independence! FREEDOM!


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## Ralph Rotten

"Star Wars is here FOREVER, man! My kids understand the impact of Star Wars! They're both in their 30's now! My 15-year old nephew LOVES Star Wars! Can't wait to see the newest!"


Naw, your kids understand its current impact, but they do not understand how Star Wars hit America like a freight train.  There had never been a movie that impacted the entire world the way Star Wars did.  It was on the cover of every magazine, newspapers regularly posted stories about it, there were Star Wars cameos on every variety show, lines around the theater for every showing, kids scrapbooking every detail, it was a mania. People had a hunger for more Star Wars, and it swept the Oscars like a broom. Lucas made so much money that he literally opened his own movie studio.  Funny thing is, the movie was so low budget that the actors were offered a percentage in lieu of payment. They all took it except Mark Hamill, who insisted on being paid for his role.  He lost millions in that deal.

"America's bicentennial was on July 4, 1976. America's 200th Birthday of Independence! FREEDOM!"
Yes, I was there.  But the buildup began well in advance of the event.  If womeone is writing about the 70s, it might be something that would be seen in some scenes.


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## moderan

Agreed. SW, The Sword of Shannara, and Hotel California ushered in a new age of corporate commercialism, which had merely been undertone previously. Once distributors understood just how low the bar was for a blockbuster, that's all they wanted to do. The first two are both syntheses of previously-extant tropes, and really obvious. The third isn't...but its influence led to AOR and signaled the death of AM rock radio, which had been a driving force before. 1977 was a watershed.
And I remember very well the selling of the Bicentennial. And how it was eventually used to sell right-wing politics.


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## lwhitehead

The reason I need to know about USA in 1970's is for my Alt History project about North America under USSR Occupation since the Korea War, and at the end of WW2 USSR became the stongest power not the USA, 

LW


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## Kevin

So none of that USA 70's culture would've happened then.


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## Ralph Rotten

lwhitehead said:


> The reason I need to know about USA in 1970's is for my Alt History project about North America under USSR Occupation since the Korea War, and at the end of WW2 USSR became the stongest power not the USA,
> 
> LW



The Germans broke Russia so badly (20 million dead, infrastructure in rubble...) that they did not have a pot to piss in.  They were not exactly a financial giant before the war, and after it they were reduced to the might of Bolivia.  America had to lend/lease them aircraft and tanks just so they could keep fighting.  It would take some pretty serious alternate history to have put the Russians in the driver's seat following WWII.  They remained a paper tiger up until their collapse in the 80s.  As an example: The legendary Mig25 was nothing more than subterfuge---the plane would burn out its engines after only a flight or two, and it flew like crap. But Moscow did a good job of marketing it so we thought it was a real threat.  This was SOP for Russia in the post war years; they were never really our battlefield equal...but our warhawks played it up as such so they could sell us things like the B2 & the F15.


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## Kevin

So, he'd either have to ignore that reality, suspend belief, or, write an explanation around it. Simple one was used in man in the high castle for the same issue. What if Einstein were a committed commie, maybe some other brilliant theoretical phycisists too? It's not so preposterous is it? So off they go to the glorious Bolshevik /soviet Roosee-ah, true believers, early on- get a jumpstart. No rosenbergs, no heavy water, no need for that- they were years ahead- boom! Check mate- Game over. 
Send me a check.


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## Winston

It's called Chaos Theory, or "The Butterfly Effect".  I wouldn't go as far as Kev and say none of 70's culture would have happened, but it would have been drastically different.
Simple example:  The 1970's were shaped by the 60's, which was heavily influenced by The Vietnam War.  We would not have fought against Communists in your alt reality, because we would have been Communists.  There would have been no South Vietnam.  

Here's where you can have fun.  The Soviets did invade Afghanistan in 1979. In your alt timeline, it would make sense for Russia to use Americans as "cannon-fodder" in their aggression.  Keeps us in line, frees up their troops for another conflict (Sino-Soviet, likely).  So, under the heel of Soviet oppression, Americans are sent to die in a foreign war.  Think _Apocalypse Now _meets _1984_.
There would be an underground anti-war movement, with Brezhnev's KGB thugs beating and arresting dissidents way worse than J. Edgar Hoover's FBI.       

Remember, cause and effect


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## Kevin

Would we ever put up with occupation?


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## lwhitehead

Well Wolfenstein II Nazi America had Toys, Cartoons, and TV programs, Well in my setting USSR Occupied North America which is Balkanized the Architecture is Stalinist Empire, in this setting the Soviet Academy of Architective was shut down in 1955.

LW


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## Ralph Rotten

Kevin said:


> Would we ever put up with occupation?



300 million guns in civilian hands would have precluded a Russian occupation.
There were a lot of military grade weapons on the market after WWII & Korea. The govt loves to sell off their old stuff, and Americans love to buy it up.  It would have taken something significant to put Russia in the driver's seat.  They barely had resources to run their own kingdom. 

Possibly if the Russians discovered some new technology that put them back in the black.


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## lwhitehead

Well think of Post War Germany in our timeframe it was cut up between the Allies but what if USSR had full control and lion share of former Nazi Tech and People, now USSR had problems with there Metallurgy, Rocket and Jet Engines. If they iron out the kinks they had would have a working N1 Rocket allowing the USSR wining the Space Race, there would be no NATO just Warsaw Pact.

LW


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## Ralph Rotten

Really the best way to put the Ruskies in the driver's seat is to go back to WWII and derail the falling out between Hitler & Stalin.  Had Hitler not made that one blunder, the war may have turned out differently.  Keep in mind that in the early days, Hitler, the Emperor, Stalin, & Mussolini had carved up the world up into territories for each of them.  They literally divided the world into chunks, with a piece going to each of them.  I believe the Russians had dibs on America (but you should research that to be sure.)

So if you change that one little piece of history, your story could be plausible.  Hitler's undoing was taking on the Russians, on their home turf, while fully engaged with the rest of the world.  He simply bit off more than he could chew.  Had that not happened, we could all be speaking German right now.


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## Kevin

Ralph Rotten said:


> Really the best way to put the Ruskies in the driver's seat is to go back to WWII and derail the falling out between Hitler & Stalin.  Had Hitler not made that one blunder, the war may have turned out differently.  Keep in mind that in the early days, Hitler, the Emperor, Stalin, & Mussolini had carved up the world up into territories for each of them.  They literally divided the world into chunks, with a piece going to each of them.  I believe the Russians had dibs on America (but you should research that to be sure.)
> 
> So if you change that one little piece of history, your story could be plausible.  Hitler's undoing was taking on the Russians, on their home turf, while fully engaged with the rest of the world.  He simply bit off more than he could chew.  Had that not happened, we could all be speaking German right now.


 you mean we'd be speaking Russian( if North American was their portion). 
A terrifying proposal... I just last night finished  Alexander Dolgin's An American in The Gulag, and the before that Beasts in the Garden, which give first hand accounts of post war USSR and pre-war Germany so that makes me the absolute expert on this. 
( cough) anyway, apparently Der Furher was not the most logical cube in the tray- pulled off some great chess moves early on, but his desire for an Aryan super-wald ( sorry , my German) an expanded territory (east)at the expense of the Soviets could not be dissuaded. They pumped themselves up , pumped themselves up, could not see themselves in a realistic manner, and goose stepped off to their eventual doom... 

Perhaps, if he had bided his time ( he'd already waited 5 years to open hostilities) longer ( how much longer? 10 years? ) No, I keep coming back to Russian nukes. Like, they just start nuking the crap out of everyone to get them to capitulate or be wiped out- sort of like Ghengis Khan. Submit or be anihilated.


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## Blackstone

Not sure if it was mentioned, but the seventies was a fantastic decade for music in America. And arts generally actually.

Glam rock, heavy metal, funk, hip-hop, reggae and punk all either began or evolved during that time.

Literature-wise, while perhaps not something that people automatically think of a lot of genres popular today really got groovy during the seventies. Science fiction, fantasy, horror and more modern genres such as thriller and creative non-fiction/gonzo/psychedlia. 

Again I am not going to risk upping the apple cart by saying any of this stuff _started _during the seventies, but at the very least some major hits were scored. The fact the Ramones started in the seventies basically seals the deal. 

Politically the seventies were a mess, yes. Economically too. I think there were something like three different energy crises in that decade in the US, which is sort of incredible when you think about it. The seventies is also arguably when terrorism began on a globalized scale with various hijackings and hostage seizures. 

On a domestic level it always seems to me that while the 1960's was the more impact decade in terms of political and legislative change many of the consequences from these changes didn't really feature on a widespread level until the 1970's. For example, the sexual and gender revolution may have been a 1960's phenomena but the ubiquity of pornography, Roe vs Wade, increase in single-parent families, etc was all in the seventies. The anti-Vietnam campaigning was a product of sixties counter-culture however actions to actually end the war did not occur until the early seventies.

 So the 1970's was very much the transitionary period in which the changes of the sixties were recognized and the consequences felt. It would have been the first time most of America (outside of the coast cities) really entered what we would now call the modern world.

Sorry in advance, not sure how useful any of that is but its just thoughts.


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## Ralph Rotten

Kevin said:


> you mean we'd be speaking Russian( if North American was their portion).
> A terrifying proposal... I just last night finished  Alexander Dolgin's An American in The Gulag, and the before that Beasts in the Garden, which give first hand accounts of post war USSR and pre-war Germany so that makes me the absolute expert on this.
> ( cough) anyway, *apparently Der Furher was not the most logical cube in the tray*- pulled off some great chess moves early on, but his desire for an Aryan super-wald ( sorry , my German) an expanded territory (east)at the expense of the Soviets could not be dissuaded. They pumped themselves up , pumped themselves up, could not see themselves in a realistic manner, and goose stepped off to their eventual doom...
> 
> Perhaps, if he had bided his time ( he'd already waited 5 years to open hostilities) longer ( how much longer? 10 years? ) No, I keep coming back to Russian nukes. Like, they just start nuking the crap out of everyone to get them to capitulate or be wiped out- sort of like Ghengis Khan. Submit or be anihilated.




His brain was degrading due to syphilis.
Yup, if Hitler had not invaded Russia then things may have been a lot different.  If Hitler had not insisted that the new ME262s be used as bombers, things may have turned out differently.  If Hitler had not spent so much of his budget on super-weapons things may have been different.


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## Blackstone

lwhitehead said:


> The reason I need to know about USA in 1970's is for my Alt History project about North America under USSR Occupation since the Korea War, and at the end of WW2 USSR became the stongest power not the USA,
> 
> LW



Oh I missed this with my first comment, sorry!

I think you have your facts screwy. At the end of World War Two the USA and the USSR both became superpowers of roughly equal standing albeit in entirely different ways.

Russia was powerful following WWII, but the America of the 1950's was unparalleled in its wealth and optimism and opportunity (provided you were Caucasian) and any alternative history based on the US being inferior in terms of might and treasure following World War II is factually wrong. This is why so many Americans are nostalgic for 'making America great again'. It's got nothing to do with the constitution or religious freedom or anything like that; it is because for a short few years between 1946 and the late 1960's the United States was so powerful and rich (provided you were Caucasian...) that even now people of a certain age cherish the prestige.

It is true there were a few areas where the USSR was ahead of the game, Sputnik being the most obvious example, but none of these would have had any bearing whatsoever on the USA being occupied or not. It simply would not happen. Historically the Russians have always lacked naval dominance behind the US so any actual invasion would have to go through Alaska and down through southern Alberta, etc and that just isn't going to happen, especially not with the technology of the early 1950's. Couple with that a little thing called Mutually Assured Destruction and not only would invading the US be virtually impossible it would also be senseless. It's not like Russia ever needed _lebensraum 

_There are lots of really good possibilities for Alternative History but this particular scenario sounds like a dud. Why not pick something that actually could have happened if one or more relatively minor events had happened differently, research the heck out of that, and then write? An obvious but easy example would be the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the event that triggered World War One. That right there is an event that had it gone differently or not happened at all would have had massive implications for the future. 

Much more so than some far fetched Russians-In-Rhode Island thing.


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