What if the Tet Offensive was launched in January of 1965 instead of 1968? I use this simple question to rewrite the history of one of the most pivotal events of American History. And in the process, rewrite the fates of millions of people, including Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Beating Plowshares into Swords is framed as an excerpt from an oral history of a 1960's that never was, and told through the voices of those who planned, fought, protested, and profited from an Alternate Vietnam War. This is how things might have been if history had deviated from its course only slightly.