"What If King Had Lived?" And Other Historical Might- Have-Beens

By Philip E. Tetlock

Dr. King's assassination in Memphis, Tenn., triggered riots in inner cities across the country and assured his place as a martyr for the civil rights movement. But what might have happened, both to King and to the movement he led, had he not chosen to walk out on the motel balcony that night and lived to march again? Such questions are hard to answer, but they are not unanswerable. History, after all, is about not only what happened but also what, for a few small turns of events, might have happened. Indeed, what didn't happen serves to underline the significance of what did. Such ruminations are the purview of counterfactual history, the examination of alternative outcomes based on plausible historical scenarios. To help distinguish frivolous flights of imagination from penetrating insights, counterfactual historians employ two standards:

--THE MINIMAL-REWRITE RULE A good counterfactual exercise tampers with as little of actual history as possible but still manages to get a big bang from what is changed. For example, as a foot soldier, Corporal Hitler had close brushes with death in World War I. Had this still unknown soldier been killed in action (with bullets whizzing all around him, it was a highly plausible possibility), humanity might have escaped World War II.

--THE SO-WHAT TEST An effective counterfactual scenario should checkmate critics who argue that things would have worked out the same way anyway (e.g., if Hitler had perished in the muddy trenches, some other fanatic would have taken his place. Maybe, but most historians see Hitler as an extremist, even for a Nazi--and one with a lot of charisma to boot). Counterfactualists tend to support the Great Man Theory of history.

Most of us normally do not think of small causes determining huge outcomes, such as millions dying because of a tiny but timely intervention. But maybe that just shows we are not thinking about our shared past in the right way. What-if thought experiments awaken us to the impact of chance and choice in history. There are endless games one can play with counterfactual history, but here are three deadly serious scenarios, each centered on a small event that turned out to have massive effects.

--By PHILIP E. TETLOCK

N.Y.C. TAXI KILLS BRITISH POLITICIAN

In 1931 Winston Churchill was seriously injured when he stepped in front of a New York City taxi. If the impact had been harder, Viscount Lord Halifax, later known for wanting out of an "unwinnable" war with Germany, would probably have become British Prime Minister on May 10, 1941, and gone on to encourage Hitler's peace feelers after the fall of France. Instead of grim Churchillian defiance, BBC radio would have broadcast Halifax's crisp announcement of the "end of this mad war." Unhindered by a battle with Britain, Hitler would have been free to launch an even more ferocious assault on the Soviet Union, pushing German troops to Moscow by early autumn. The Reich might not have lasted 1,000 years but probably would have done better than 12.

ASIA'S TITO NOW TILTS TO U.S.

In the 1940s some U.S. officials suspected that Ho Chi Minh was not just another Soviet stooge but a Vietnamese nationalist suspicious of his huge Chinese neighbor--an "Asian Tito." Had the pro-Ho factions in the CIA and State Department persuaded Eisenhower to compel South Vietnam to hold a reunification referendum in 1956--despite rampant McCarthyism in the U.S.--Ho would surely have won. While Ike would have taken some political heat, a newly reunited Vietnam backed by American power would have quickly asserted its independence from Beijing. With no war to fight in Southeast Asia, Lyndon Johnson would have concentrated his money and effort on Great Society programs and served out 2 1/2 terms in the White House.

REFORMER FIXES SOVIET ECONOMY

Yuri Andropov had only one year to make his imprint on Soviet policy before his kidneys failed him at age 69. But what if a timely transplant had allowed him to live the life span of Deng Xiaoping? Andropov was keenly aware of weaknesses in the Soviet system but had none of Gorbachev's moral compunctions about imprisoning or killing enemies. He almost certainly would have moved more aggressively to free the economy but more cautiously on social liberalizations--perestroika without glasnost. Following China's "Dengian policies," he might well have saved the Soviet Union--and extended the cold war indefinitely.

The author is Burtt Professor of Psychology and Political Science, Ohio State University