It Can't Happen Here

For me the only plot hole concerning the coup was the absensce of the Vice President..yes hes vacationing in Italy but they find out about the possible coup on Tuesday/Wednesday...plenty of time to fly the Veep to a secure location as a back up vs the coup.

It's already happened here. Before the movie came out.

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LBJ's mistress tells all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPdviZbk-XI&;

I enjoy the film as a political thriller. I even bought a used copy of the book (which I hope to read this month.)

But I think it reflects leftist paranoia with the military and anti-communists. I recall an interview with one of the co-authors of the book, Fletcher Knebel, maybe a couple of decades after the book and film. He said he was actually surprised that the military never attempted a coup in the U.S. (Of course, if you're a conspiracy theorist, you may believe that there have been plots but have been thwarted by the FBI, etc and hushed up to spare the public.)

Could a military coup, if attempted, actually have succeeded in the U.S. during the 1960s or 1970s? The federal government, as we may have learned in grammar school, is divided into three separate, co-equal branches. Even if Congress adjourned as Casey points out to Lyman, they could still reconvene for emergency purposes. Could the military really block Senators and Congressmen from going to the Capitol? Then there's the Supreme Court. I have no idea how they would rule.

Then you have 50 state governors, with mayors in major cities, and county government. They have militias, state guard units, state troopers, police forces, and sheriffs at their disposal. Factor in every private citizen who owns a firearm.

Scott could seize the television networks (although the Emergency Broadcast System was established in 1963 and may not exist in the film's universe), but what about the local, independent TV stations and radio stations? People still read newspapers, and there were a lot more of them, back then. It's unlikely that his message would be the only one heard.

Even lots of Americans who despise Lyman and idolize Scott would probably not go along with a coup. Yes, Scott could convince some people that it's an emergency situation, but that would go only so far.

Ironically Scott would be proved partially right. The Soviets did break the 1971 Salt I Agreement (not a treaty because it was not ratified by the Senate) and the 1972 ABM Treaty.

Lyman would be proved wrong in the sense that he saw total nuclear disarmament by the U.S. and the Soviet Union as necessary to prevent nuclear war. Although both sides came close in 1961 and 1962 with the Berlin Crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis, nuclear weapons haven't been used since 1945. In fact, nuclear deterrence worked.

The U.S. and the Soviet Union (later the Russian Federation) succeeded in reducing the nuclear arsenals with periodic reduction treaties (the 1987 INF Treaty, the START treaties), but both nations still have nuclear weapons (as do other countries).

Scott could have ran for office in the presidential election and probably defeated Lyman even by landslide. He would have followed Dwight Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant, Zachary Taylor, William Henry Harrison, Andrew Jackson, and George Washington as former generals who got elected president.

Lewis' novel is quite good. It may be a bit long-winded in parts concerning the protagonist but the ideas are executed well.

What the OP neglected in his post was the crucial communism factor. If Scott were able to rile up the masses about an imminent nuclear war with Russia, then he would have popular support in addition to the military and many prominent politicians. At present, Americans may fear isolated terrorist attacks, but in the large they don't take seriously nuclear bomb level devastation, nor an enemy like Russia that could plausibly invade the country and defeat our military. If Scott were able to plant that seed of fear and have it grow, then with the support of the terrified herd he could indeed sustain power after a successful coup. Even a resistive POTUS could not survive tens of millions of people angrily marching in Washington DC, all convinced that the president was leading them down the road to war and defeat. At the very least his political support would run for cover.

A lite version of this is playing out right now in 2015 with the Iran nuclear deal. Both sides, for or against it, are convinced that the other is laying out a prescription for war.

Romans thought the same, after hundreds of years of rules by a Senate, they could not comprehend a man...a general...who would sack Rome.

But then there was the Roman general Sulla...the Felix...'the lucky one'...he did so as he marched his troops across the Rubicon. Hundreds of years after his death, people were still afraid of him.

We like to think of ourselves as more evolved today, but the reality is veil of civilization is can be easily removed.

You learn from history that no government is immune, given the right conditions.

Taking power and holding power are two different things. Scott was under the opinion that once he took power that the people would hail him as being in the right. The idea that they wouldn't take to him didn't enter into his head.

Also, he timed things rather well. Capture the President while he's alone. Do it while the Vice President is overseas (thereby making it easy to prevent him from assuming office). And do it while Congress is in recess (thus making it easy to prevent them from coming back into session, and thus having the Speaker of the House or the Senate President assume office).

By freezing out the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch, Scott prevented any credible authority figures from challenging his actions. At that point he expected his force of personality to carry the issue.

Such a coup could easily happen in the USA. The risk factors for military coups world wide include the following:

1. Having an armed forces or militarised police (the US has both);
2. An entrenched written constitution which the military hold themselves out as defenders of;
3. A culture of extreme nationalism;
4. Politically active military leaders;
5. A culture of weak civilian control of the military;
6. A weak parliament;
7. A weak cabinet;
8. A powerful head of state;
9. A weak civil service;
10. A culture of patronage or corruption in the civil service;
11. A culture of the civil service not being politically neutral;
12. Weak or overly politicised news media; and
13. A culture of extremism or abuse between the main political factions in the country.

The USA has all of these risk factors. It is a wonder that you do not have coups on a regular basis.