Were elected through back channels, small party conventions. In 1968, 73 of democratic delegates through the convention had been elected this way. Less than 25 were elected in the way we normally do it. President Lyndon Johnson took himself out of the race. He was not up for reelection in 1968. This initiated a freefall in the Democratic Party between a number of candidates. One of which who was very popular was unfortunately dead by august of 1968. That was robert kennedy. He was a peace candidate. He had been a unifying candidate for many people in the party. He was assassinated in june of 1968. That is one thing lying behind the convention in august of 1968. The kennedy delegates who had been elected, pledged to kennedy. Hubert humphrey, Lyndon Johnsons Vice President had become the nominee by august. There was another peace candidate, mccarthy who had delegates like kennedy who showed up in chicago in august. It is something of a freeforall where the delegates are concerned. It is more of a freeforall in many ways as you will see. Because of the vietnam war, because of Robert Kennedys assassination, there were a lot of people who had come to chicago to demonstrate against the war, against the Democratic Party, against lyndon b. Johnson. There were a lot of people on the streets outside of the convention in the hilton hotel, which is still there. The city made some strategic errors. Mayor daley had denied anybody a permit to spend the night in the parks or to be in the parks after 11 00 p. M. That wasnt something of a problem because there were so many thousands of young people who had come. There were a couple of groups, the National Mobilization committee to end the war. There was the Youth International party called the yippies. They are the ones you have probably seen. The mobe was trying to forge a consensus among young voters. The yippies were led by Abbie Hoffman and were known for their street theater and various antics. I think at one point in the Stock Exchange they manage to get in and drop dollar bills onto the floor and watched all the people on the floor of the Stock Exchange scramble for the money. That was exactly what they were looking for. While the democrats were wrangling in the convention hall, protesters in the streets started to clash with police. Peace now is what they are chanting. [video clip] prof. Dailey that is the Chicago Police. They are chanting the whole world is watching. The Police Charged the crowd and they started with nightsticks beating up people indiscriminately. Hitting people on the head, teargas. You can hear the reaction to the teargas. The police beat reporters to keep them from filming. This was shocking to people for a whole bunch of reasons. It was one of the first times that white young people were beat up indiscriminately by the police. Thousands of them. It made the news. It made the world news, which is why they chanted the whole world is watching. It was a huge embarrassment for the United States. Obviously, also a defining moment for the people who were there. That is grant park. The scene of president obamas election rallies. Lets see what is happening inside the convention. That is what is happening outside. There is a very famous moment, i cant remember who it is looking out and watching the police beat up the protesters, saying these are children. What is happening . Here is what is happening inside the convention at the hilton. Dan rather. Get your hands off me. Dont push me. [commotion] prof. Dailey we have a young dan rather. I dont know what is going on but there is security people around dan. He is obviously getting roughed up. We tried to talk to him and see who he was, what his situation was. The security people as you can see did this. I didnt do very well. Prof. Dailey that is exactly what they had. They had a bunch of thugs posing as secret service agents. That is exactly what they were doing. They were going down the aisles in the convention beating people up. Mostly the media in the convention. There is huge uproar in the convention. We will pass on some of the dialogue between the mayor, who can be very colorful in his language and some of the other delegates. This is the first time there is an investigation of all of this. This is the first time anything is called a police riot. That is what it was. The blame for the riot can be laid squarely on the shoulders of mayor daley. He denied protests to people who wanted to peacefully protest the war. He had a take no prisoners mentality. He told the Chicago Police go in there and take no prisoners. He ensured that chicago would be the site when all of the world would see the unbridgeable gaps among americans. There is a literary person who said the war is destroying us as we are destroying vietnam. Another reporter was more succinct and said the democrats are finished as he scrolls in a notebook, watching police chase hippies down michigan avenue. The twin legacies of the Chicago Convention and Lyndon Johnsons aggressive policies in vietnam handicapped Hubert Humphreys candidacy. He was in a very difficult position. He was the Vice President. It is bad form to criticize a sitting president. Even if the president is a lame duck president as Lyndon Johnson was. Humphrey was much more inclined to press for peace than johnson had done. The economy was booming. There was Government Spending on the increasingly expensive war in vietnam. That part looked ok. The democrats were all right there. The war is increasingly unpopular. Humphrey finally separated himself from johnsons war policies in september, 1968. Saying he would be open to peace talks. He became a plausible peace candidate at that point. Appealing to some of the young people who were here. At the same time, labor stepped up. The labor constituents who are generally strong with organizing the vote and getting people out to vote. That is what labor did in those years. The late help from a labor helped hubert humphrey. It also created the impression that the election was closer than it really was. The republican, Richard Nixon, wins and he wins with 43 percent of the popular vote. Humphrey had 42. 7 of the popular vote. Where was the remaining 13. 5 of the vote . That went to former alabama governor George Wallace, who ran as an independent. There is george. You can tell from the confederate battle flag behind him what his policies might have been. He ran as an independent. He is important here not just for who he is but for what his campaign has. It detaches traditionally urban white sectors to the people who voted for the democrats. White workingclass voters in cities. They were attracted to wallace. He did very well in ohio, michigan, indiana, illinois. He got more than 10 of the white vote in those places. Westerners like him to, idaho, nevada, they like George Wallace. He split the southern vote with humphrey excuse me, with nixon. Wallace is a former democrat, now an independent. He and nixon split the southern vote, traditionally the democratic vote. Between them, they take every state in the south except for texas, Lyndon Johnsons home state. Richard nixon, former Vice President under eisenhower. Earlier a republican congressman from california. He wins the election in 1968 in part by taking away some of wallaces issues. He talks about restoring voice to the choir americans. The americans who are not making trouble. He takes some of that vote and has a Vice President who has become famous and not for good reasons. Spiro agnew talks about exactly who will be represented under nixons presidency. He says nixons campaign was bringing us together after the democratic debacle. He was going to bring people together and bring the country together. Here is how spiro agnew defined how that went. It is time to divide on lines. He says when the president said bring us together, what he meant was the functioning, contributing portions of American People. The new president would have his job cut out for him. The same americans who voted overwhelmingly for nixon at least catapulted him to the white house gave democrats both houses of congress. Richard nixon will be the first president to enter the white house without control of either house of Congress SinceZachary Taylor in 1849. That is how unusual it is. That represents in part a real distrust at this point of government. Wanting to have real checks and balances. It is an extreme version of that kind of distrust that you see. Nixons job is to sew the nations it had fractured. They were all at odds with each other. This phrase, Middle America, was not a phrase in the 1960s. It is a new phrase that describes a portion of america that is where american president ial elections will be fought and won for the next 40 years. This thing, Middle America, it was not very firm in the late 1960s. It was hard to figure out who was in Middle America and who was not in Middle America. Maintaining majority was tricky. Nixon had a majority that was formed by disgruntled white democrats. Wallace voters, it was an increasingly conservative fiscally and culturally conservative Republican Party. This is where Richard Nixon is standing in the middle. It manages to get the voters who will vote for both of those things that becomes very important. The election in 1968 is regarded as a bellwether for the next president ial election. The democrats win only one of the next six president ial elections between 1968 and 1992. You have a long period of unified republican control of the white house. It is a profound shift in american politics. Nixon realizes his future depends in good measure on his ability to get the 13. 5 percent that voted for George Wallace. Nixon needs to have those people in order to win. He understands wallace voters in the south or north are spooked by the social changes. They are spooked by racial changes, by youth behavior, hippies, all of these things. Nixon takes on this wallace law order mantel where he talks vaguely about calming things down. He will be the protectors of middleclass against the lawless urban class. This is what he is always talking about. People in the cities. They are burning the cities. They are wrecking america. He had a hard time. He had to lure these wallace voters, which included democratic voters in the north, workingclass urban catholics traditionally. They voted democratic. They voted for mayor daley who was an urban catholic. Richard nixon needs those votes. This is the moment when the Republican Party starts to reach out to what was traditionally a democratic working base. It was a base of white ethnics that had been part of the new Deal Coalition in the 1930s. We tend to think of workingclass whites as being democrats. They are only democrats for about 30 years. Nixon understands that democrats want security. We talked earlier, Social Security, different programs. People want security. They are defenders of the new deal social safety net. There arent wallace republicans democrats, old democrats from the democratic coalition. Those people want to keep the new deal. They are not interested in republican economics as they are being described. A syndicated columnist later says his definition of american conservatives americans are conservatives, what they want to preserve is the new deal. What do they want in this new deal . He is not there anymore, wallaces American Independent Party calls for increases in national healthcare, and the right to collective bargaining. You can see why wallace was appealing to the working class. It reminds you again how Long National healthcare has been on the agenda. We talked about it already under fdr and under harry truman. Here it is again with George Wallace. Leading conservative magazines described George Wallaces brand of conservatism and nixons adoption of it as countrywestern marxism. To romance these workers, nixon embraced key elements of lyndon b. Johnsons vision, signing a whole bunch of laws that were passed by the democraticcontrolled congress. I will read you the list of laws that Richard Nixon passed. As a republican, he passed all of these laws with the democratic controlled congress. Republicans begin to complain after a while. He passes a National Environmental policy act created the epa. The Environmental Protection agency. He passed the clean air act, the Consumer Protection agency act. The federal the Noise Pollution and control act. The equal Employment Opportunity act. The federal Election Campaign act of 1971. The employment Retirement Income security act. The Occupational Safety and health act, which is always a constant target under republicans ever since. Workers in dangerous occupations like coal mining or who were exposed to Hazardous Substances like asbestos were big fans of all of these things. These were very popular things. Republicans held applause. The republican president said Fortune Magazine was putting cuffs on capitalism through corporate regulation. Nixons blend of republicanism and radicalism confused the new york times. It was congenial to the errors of populism. The eras of populism, era of new deal, these people of the countrywestern marxist liked it a lot. This cemented the white workingclass electorate. These people never voted republican in their life. They voted for Richard Nixon. What is happening with the economy in the 1970s. The basic answer is nothing good is happening with the economy. American prosperity, especially workingclass prosperity had been synonymous with the National Interest since world war ii. If you look at world war ii in the 1950s, there is talk about the American People and all of these things. If you remember, the g. I. Bill of rights, which was there to help workingclass americans buy houses, help them go to school, these things had been done with the interests of the white workingclass in mind. Fdr said already in 1944 that every american had a right to a job, living wage, home, and education. These are things on the agenda since the new deal. Even by 1944, you have the expanded new deal in the second bill of rights that roosevelt is talking about. This is a quote from roosevelt in 1944. We cannot be content, no matter how high the general standard of living may be. If some fraction of our peoples ill fed, ill clothed, ill housed, and ill secure. Americans found this position americans found this position very appealing in 1944. They still did 30 years later. It was a bedrock of both parties. There are few people, like libertarian barry goldwater, who wanted to tinker with the Social Security state. But nobody else did, or nobody else with any power. In 1973, a gallup poll said that 91 of americans believed that tax laws should be changed to ease the burden on moderate and lower income and increase those on higher income and corporations. 91 of americans want to see their taxes lowered and taxes on the rich and corporations are raised. The majority of Americans Still believe that. It just hasnt been part of policy. In 1973, 72 of americans agree that the federal government has a responsibility to do away with poverty in this country. Although 69 were skeptical about welfare, 62 thought more should be done to help the poor. One thing to bear in mind is that full employment as a goal is part of the basic platform of every Political Party until the 1970s. They dont achieve it, but it is there as a goal. The idea that everyone should have a job. They dont get it. It is there that has the value. It is something that disappears later on. But the key to prosperity in this country this is true when you talk about the right to work platforms and legislation. The key was always the opportunity to work. To have a job. This is in part because of what has been happening for the 30 years back. If you look back to the new deal, when roosevelt entered the white house in 1933, 25 of americans could not find a job. You remember this. A quarter of americans who wanted a job could not find a job. Throughout the 1930s, unemployment never dipped below 14 . Where is unemployment today . Thats right. Roughly 4 . That is really, very low. In the 1950s, unemployment dips down to 4. 6 , almost as low today. By 1969 it was 3. 9 , we would have to recount the votes to tell the difference between then and today. Very low by 1969. Between 1945 and 1970, this is important. Americans became richer overall, meaning people got they were doing better overall. At the same time, the gap between rich and poor contracted, it got smaller. This is known as the great contraction. We will talk about this more later on. This is an important thing. Now, of course, if you look at those same statistics for americans, it has been getting wider and wider. This period between 1945 and 1973, it got narrower. Lets talk a little bit about vietnam, which has not been talked a lot about yet. We will talk more about it on thursday. Richard nixon was a brilliant statesman. He really was. And he was desperate to disentangle the United States from vietnam. He wanted to get america out of the war. He was not at all clear how to do it. In part, he wanted to get out because he wanted to pursue a vigorous antisoviet foreign policy. Nixon says he came to washington in as an anticommunist. 1946 that didnt mean he couldnt play with the communists when he needed to, like when he established relations with china, quite dramatically. But he wanted to get out of vietnam for all kinds of reasons. Americans did not want to be there anymore, either. He had an ally at his side. Im sure you all know who it was. It was Henry Kissinger, also a brilliant statesman. Possibly not as brilliant as he himself thought and thinks. But still very effective. If you were the secretary of state, you hated him. He was the National Security advisor and did end runs around the state department whenever he wanted to. Whenever kissinger thought we should be doing something, he just did it. He never told anybody and they found out later on. Which was sort of embarrassing if you were the secretary of state. It was kissinger who articulated what came to be called nixon doctrine. Nixon really did have a doctrine. The nixonkissinger doctrine. What it was was effectively a rejection of containment. We talked a while back about the idea of containment, that the United States could contain communism everywhere. This is how the United States got involved in these wars, including with vietnam, which turned out not to be a little war at all. The nixon doctrine announced that although america would reward its friends with economic aid and even with weapon sales, that it was no longer going to dedicate its own troops to combat communist growth anywhere in the world. Mainly in asia, africa, and latin america. It would send money, it would send weapons, it might send advisors, that is how we got into vietnam in the first place. That was maybe not a good idea. They were not going to send american troops to fight other peoples wars. He had, at the same time, a threepronged approach to end the war honorably. No one wants to end a war dishonorably. I think pretty much everybody was on board for ending the war honorably. This meant trying to preserve an independent, proUnited States government in south vietnam. This is difficult because North Vietnam was actually winning the war. They do, in fact, the minute the United States takes its troops out of vietnam, the north winds. This is still the goal. Nixon tries to accomplish this through a series of meetings in paris. This is between Henry Kissinger and the North Vietnamese. He also wants to do what he calls a vietnamization of the war. In other words, by pulling american troops out and replacing them with south vietnamese troops trained by the americans, armed by the americans, trying to get our ,roops extricated from vietnam by expanding the air war. This is something youve probably seen images of or heard about. It becomes extremely controversial. The idea to expand the air war is to force North Vietnam to compromise. We talked already and talked about the way that war that is targeting civilians becomes acceptable in world war ii. This is basically what is happening in vietnam. They say usually there is a military base or target of some sort. In truth, what they are doing is targeting civilians and killing a lot of them. These tactics do not work. The bombing of North Vietnam does not end the war. It does not particularly demoralized the North Vietnamese. As this happens, as the bombing expanded, you get a massive Antiwar Movement in the United States. 750,000 people participated in the november moratorium in 1962 in washington, d. C. , which is still the largest antiwar demonstration in American History. It may be the largest demonstration at all. Maybe not. Maybe some of last years demonstrations were bigger. But it is the largest antiwar demonstration in American History. Nothing like it has been seen in 1972. People werent populating the mall. The closest thing wouldve been Martin Luther kings march on washington. But that is quite small compared to this. That is 100,000 people simply on the mall. This is three quarters of a million American People in washington and march. The Antiwar Movement at this point split and turned violent. Between the fall of 1969 and the spring of 1970, not very many months, maybe six months, there were at least 250 bombings. They were directed at rotc buildings on College Campuses. At draft boards, draft centers. At federal offices, and the headquarters of certain corporations that were considered to be particularly involved in the war. 250 bombings in six months is a lot. Just think how we felt a week ago when bombs that did not go off were sent in the mail. If bombs were going off around us every week, we would become very unnerved and people did. The goal of these bombings were young people doing this. Why were they doing this . The goal as they put it was to bring the war home. They wanted to force americans to experience the war that was being endured on a much greater scale by the vietnamese. In other words, they wanted to bring home some of the terror that the vietnamese were , experiencing having our government drop bombs on them. A member of the underground organization, one of the organizations that split from the students were Democratic Society in the 1960s this is the member of the underground explaining. She says, we felt that doing nothing in a period of repressive violence is itself a form of violence. If youre sitting at your house, live your white life, go to your white job, allow the country you live in to murder people and commit genocide, you sit there and do not do anything about it, that is violence. This had very little effect on the government. From thering of 1969, fall of 1969 until the spring of the spring of 1969 that nixon wraps up the Bombing Campaign against the vietnamese. He does something dangerous. He secretly in other words without informing congress, which had the right to be informed, he secretly extended the bombs to the North Vietnamese army bases and also to supply routes in cambodia and laos. Suppliedcong was being by communist in laos and cambodia. It was very difficult the American Government kept trying to cut off that lane of supplies into North Vietnam with bombings. It was unsuccessful. So in april of 1970, nixon sent south vietnamese and american troops across the border into cambodia. This is completely illegal. We were not at war with cambodia. There was no authorization from congress to go to war with cambodia. They just sent troops across the border into cambodia. Also failed to dislodge the North Vietnamese continued to, who make supplies from cambodia. It did have the effect of the unintended and undesired effect of supporting local communist insurgents in cambodia. As a response to this. The resulting cambodian communist victory was helped by the North Koreans and encouraged by the United States, was catastrophic for the cambodian people. 2 million of whom fell victim to the genocide that was perpetrated by the communists as part of what they call the rural relocation program. It is hard to do this in secret. The president got found out. It was revealed. Again, it is hard to go to war against another country with no one noticing. Immediate protests in congress, responses to this in the media and on College Campuses nationwide. This is when College Campuses explode. Students out in the quad, out wherever, protesting the american policies. Protesting the war, protesting the draft. You all would be eligible for the draft, depending on which year it was and depending on when you graduated. Think about that one for a second. It is not a good moment for young people. You would be out there too, probably, protesting. At Kent State University in ohio, you have seen this image , im sure. Kent state was a Public University with a largely workingclass, white student body. Students burned a copy of the constitution and then burned down the campus rotc building. Not Good Behavior if youre the president of the university. That is what they did as a protest. The governor of ohio denounced the students as, he said, the worst type of people we harbor in america. He dispatched National Guard troops. They werent rioting but there were a lot of people out. This is one of the most tragic moments in the whole student movement. Because what you get is 19yearold National Guardsmen who are unnerved by 19yearold students throwing rocks at them. And they shoot them. And they kill four students at ohio state. They also kill another two people who had not participated in the riot at all, but who found themselves within the two mile range of the guardsmens bullets. They managed to hit two people beyond from where they were. The response to the kent state murders was fast and furious. 1. 5 Million Students nationwide walked out of class. A fifth of the nations colleges and universities closed doors temporarily. 11 days after this, Mississippi State troopers opened fire on a dormitory at jackson state, and an africanamerican college. They killed two people. Another two students. Still, the war drags on. In april of 1971, a year after the murders at kent state, a half Million People gather again in washington to demand americas immediate withdrawal from the war. A week later, thousands of protesters assembled in washington again, aiming to use massive nonviolent protests to paralyze the city. They will cut off the highways, do all of those things. Before they had a chance to act they had done nothing yet, they gathered. But they had not done anything. Before they had a chance to act, police and military swept the downtown area in washington, d. C. , 7000 people were arrested and were incarcerated temporarily in robert f. Kennedy stadium. Newsweek magazine was appalled and he condemned the attacks on the protesters seemed more appropriate to saigon in south korea in war times than in washington, d. C. President nixon was unperturbed. A few days later, he told his aid this is a nixon quote that can be read. It says, one day, we will get them. We will get them on the ground where we want them. We will stick our heels in, step on them hard and twist. Right . That is our president. Somewhere between 1967 and 1971, the war we were fighting ceased to be a war between the United States and vietnam and became a vicious battle among americans. President nixon finally achieved a negotiated settlement in vietnam in january, 1973. You see how long this is dragging out. This is into his second term. American bombing ended, as did the draft. Since then, we have had an all volunteer draft since 1973. In november, 1973, Congress Passed something called the war powers act. This spelled out the procedures to be followed when the introduction of American Forces could lead to involvement in combat. This was passed over president nixons veto. The one thing every president since nixon has in common is they have interpreted the war powers act as an unconstitutional infringement on executive policy. The paris Peace Agreement was negotiated by Henry Kissinger, unsurprisingly. It left the North Vietnamese and vietcong troops in control of the south. In other words, it did not push the North Vietnamese back, the thing they tried to do the entire time and failed at. They failed to address the basic issue of the war that they had gotten into in the first place. Whether vietnam would be one country or two countries. They dont address that. That question is addressed in the spring of 1975 when North Vietnam launches a military assault on the north excuse me, against the south and the americans failed to intervene. On april 30, 1975, americans glued to their television sets, watched as North Vietnamese tanks rolled into saigon and as American Helicopters evacuated americans from the United States embassy in south vietnam. If you have seen those images, they are really retching because they have people getting onto the helicopters and people desperately trying to get on also and two are not able to get on who are left, people who had aided the americans. The final cost of the war in vietnam can be measured in lots of ways, as every war, it can be measured in money, the end of the great society. Whatever Lyndon Johnson had hoped for in his social programs was swallowed up by the war in vietnam as he himself recognized what happened. He predicted that. He knew it. 58,000 americans died in vietnam. 3 million to 4 million vietnamese died in that war. 300,000 americans are wounded. Countless vietnamese are also wounded in that war. It has a 100 billion price tag, which does not sound like much today, but was a whole lot then. It was enough to bankrupt all of the social services that we had. We talked about how you pay for a war. Whether or not you raise taxes. Every war we talked about has been did you raise taxes or take on debt . One of the things president johnson did that kept the war going as long as it did without people protesting was he refused to raise taxes. Instead, he used debt. Several of his advisors wanted him to use taxes. When you raise peoples taxes, they ask why. When you say it is because we are in this war that we forgot to mention, they might say lets , talk about that war before we go any further. The vietnam war had more repercussions than the dead. It permanently divided a generation. Every Political Campaign for at least the next 40 years until barack obama was fought in part on where were you during vietnam . What did you do during vietnam . Did you fight . Did you get a deferment . Did you have some kind of injury . Barack obama is the only one young enough not to have this be an issue. I thought when barack obama was elected, the torch has been passed from the vietnam generation and we will get it out of our politics. But that baby boomer generation just pulled it back. We still have vietnam in our politics. Although by this point, no one cares. No one seems to care. It was a huge issue in 1992 when bill clinton was running for president. That was the big issue. Where were you in vietnam . By the time we get to a 70yearold candidate, it is not important to anybody in particular anymore. We can talk a little bit about where are we now . We can get a little bit to the other thing Richard Nixon is known for. He actually did get us out of the war, but he also put a lot of people in jail in the end. I am not talking about people on the streets, im talking about people in his own administration. As he did during the watergate crisis. Nixon was always kind of paranoid about how he was being treated. How he was going to win. Whether he would stay in office. Whether people liked him. People did not like him, which is why he was kind of paranoid about whether or not people liked him. Again, in 1972, he is running for reelection. First, he has to get reelected, but that is quick. Watergate starts in the reelection of 1972. Richard nixon did not have any worries about being reelected. He was not going to be not reelected in 1972, but he got himself into a position it is hard to say, nixon has always been someone who engaged in dirty tricks as a politician. His nickname already was tricky dick. Which gives you an idea of his reputation amongst politicians. Then in the election, one of the things that happened earlier we will not go there right now. One of the things of nixons political operatives is breaking and entering. Breaking into the psychiatrist office. Wanting to break into the assassin. George wallace gets shot in 1972. The assassin wanted to get nixon , he couldnt get close enough, so he shot George Wallace instead. Did not kill him, left him paralyzed. The first reaction of nixon upon hearing George Wallace had been assaulted was to send one of his guys to break into the apartment of arthur bremmer, the shooter and try and plant mcgovern propaganda from the 1972 election. The fbi had already gotten there and could not get in there and nixon says, never mind, we will try again another time. He starts to go a little nuts in the early 1970s. He says, lets break into this guys apartment and plant democratic literature. Lets break into the brookings institution. He wants to break in to see if he can find anything on daniel ellsberg. He wants to break into the National Archives and steal secret vietnam papers about president johnsons aides. He was enamored about this. There are ways we can do that . There are ways we can break into the National Archives . No, but he thought it would be a good idea anyway. He had this thing called the enemies list, which was very long. I know people in the 1970s who were offended that they were not on the list, that they were as big of a critic as anybody else, why werent they on the enemies list, when it was finally published . But he also likes to play dirty in the election. In 1972, he had his people go around his opponent was a guy named edward muskie. The former governor of maine. Nixon planted rumors that muskies wife was a drinker and she told dirty jokes. This was enough to get you in trouble politically in 1972. This is not nixon himself, these are his people, but they got a fake schedule for muskies pilot when he was trying to fly muskie around to Campaign Events and completely screwed up his schedule he could not get , anywhere on time. They had rumors that muskie was going to have carl stokes, the africanamerican mayor of detroit, as his running mate. Again, this may or may not have played well with people. Before we end, he had a fake harlem for Muskie Committee calling people at midnight and saying to them, this is the harlem for Muskie Committee, can we count on your vote . Not if you are somebody who dont who doesnt want black people in office, you cant. That is the kind of thing that Richard Nixon did. He wasnt in any trouble of losing his job ever. But it was amusing and perhaps addictive. To and with this building the watergate hotel, it , is still there in washington. Brandnew then, very posh and funky. It is apartments, but people have offices, including the Democratic National convention. The dnc has its office there and Richard Nixon was to break in to the dnc to see if they have anything on him. Nothing particular, but just to see. It was a mistake. The people who burgled on his behalf are caught and arrested. That is the beginning of the downfall of Richard Nixon. Thanks. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] listen to lectures on history on the go by streaming our podcast anywhere, anytime. You are watching American History tv on cspan. You are watching american covering history cspan style with archival films, lectures in college classrooms, and visits to museums and historic places, all weekend, every weekend, on cspan3. Bookshelf, history Sidney Blumenthal talks about his book all the powers of earth, the political life of abraham lincoln. The third in his biography of abraham lincoln. He focuses on the years leading up to lincolns president ial victory. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to president lincolns cottage. I am the ceo and executive director here. Please take a minute to silence your phones before we begin. While you are doing so, we have a fair number of members with us tonight. Supporters of president lincolns cottage. In seeing some of the names on the list i wanted to take a , moment to recognize two members who have been dedicated supporters since before we were open to the public. Eric reese has been a member for