Russell A. Rourke counselor John O. Marsh. In 1976, he became a special assistant to President Gerald R. Ford. His responsibilities included legislative liaison between the White House and Congress. After President Ford lost his bid for re-election in 1977, Rourke serve on the White House Transition Team. At the close of the Ford Administration, Rourke accepted a position as administrative assistant to Republican Congressman Harold S. Sawyer of Michigan. In May 1981, President Reagan nominated Rourke as assistant secretary for legislative affairs in the Department of Defense. In that capacity, Rourke was the principal adviser to Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger
Assassination of John F. Kennedy in popular culture Dallas. It also has Robert F. Kennedy becoming President in the late 1970s, with Martin Luther King Jr. as his Vice President, after both men were saved from their assassinations in 1968 by the same time traveler. In Stephen Baxter's novel "Voyage" (1996), the Dallas assassination attempt only succeeds in crippling Kennedy, but Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy is killed. Kennedy is re-elected in 1964 and commits the United States to landing a manned vessel on Mars, which occurs in 1986. The novel uses the assassination attempt only as the impetus for an alternate history US space program. Jeff Golden's 2008 novel