Mr. Chairman, my fellow americans my fellow democrats, i proudly accept the nomination of our party. applause this moment is one of personal pride and gratification. Yet one cannot help but well reflect the deep sadness that we feel over the troubles and the violence which have erupted lid regrettably and tragically in the streets of this great city. And for the personal injuries which have occurred. Thats Hubert Humphrey accepting the 1968 democratic nomination for president. A chicagos comrade hilton hotel. The democrats had gathered for the convention in the midst of the vietnam war while thousands of protesters demonstrated outside. Hubert humphrey longtime minnesota senator and unsuccessful candidate for president in 1968 is the focus of this weeks contenders program. We are live from Minnesota History center. Mick caouette is the documentarian of Hubert Humphreys life. Just finished documentary last year. We are standing in the middle of an exhibit about the tumultuous year of 1968. I want you to set the stage for people. As 68 don, this country was in an uproar about the vietnam war. Set the stage. Well the, vietnam war had been going on for about 15 years a long time. The ted offensive at the end of january really set the stage, because it was obvious to everyone that the war was not being one. The North Vietnamese reach all the way to the American Embassy in saigon. President johnsons Approval Ratings just plummeted. Mccarthy been in the race in the fall, Bobby Kennedy was joining the race and it was just utter chaos at that point. Of course right after president johnson resigned on the 29th of march, three days later marvelous or king was assassinated. The first part of the year was terrible chaos. It was a year when people were turning on the radios to wake up there seem to be another huge story every day. We will try to tell some of that story in the context of Hubert Humphreys quest for president. We will be here for about two hours. Well run more about the history in the times in the biography of senator humphrey. We will be we will begin taking your telephone call so you can be part of our discussion. What is important for young people to understand . What is different about the wars we fight today is the draft. This was real in the sense for american families. The draft was the point at which the protest started. When the draft was instituted. Now people have a choice. If people want to enter the military if they are against the war, they can stay away. In those days, there was no choice. You either went to canada or you did something to get out of being drafted. That is what caused the protest parade people were not even able to vote until they were 21 but they were being drafted when they were 18. Thats is what caused the protests. People were not even able to vote. Was it fair to say that every American Family had a personal connection to this war . Have someone who went to the war and someone who was against it in the same family. Lyndon johnson his own kids were against the war. He had kids antiprotests war protester stay at his house. Families were broken all over it. The other thing that people should understand was television. Television is bringing it into peoples living rooms every night. When you talk about the effect of the . It was wide open because nobody had really done any kind of television was not restricted. It was all brand new. Nobody in the administration had any control over it. The journalists were just going out there and getting whatever they found. We do not have that now. It is much more controlled on the battlefield. We were seeing things in the living room that you wouldnt see now, actual battle scenes it had a profound effect on the country. Another reason why people came out against the war was they started seeing it all the time on tv. 300 body bags were coming back every week. They were showing the body bags coming back. It had a profound effect. It changed the average persons mind. We have to remind people that the war started before Lyndon Johnsons term. It had been raging for 15 years. Earlier with advisers. So Lyndon Johnsons attitude about the war was what. I think he was confused about a for a long time, but it was important to him to win the war. It colored everything that he did. When people tried to talk about any kind of the settlement, he would not do it. He was interested in winning the war. Once he got into it, he did not have a lot of options. That was the only one he wanted. He had no other options and it affected when he left office, too. He wanted someone to come into the office to continue this war policy. And wouldnt end the war and make him lose the race. So Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey became teammates in 1964, following the assassination of kennedy. What Linda Johnson right in his own right. What was the relationship like . How is this period for senator . Humphrey the intensity in vietnam started at the same time he became Vice President. The top an incident in vietnam of 1964 it was a resolution in congress that lbj asked for and it was passed. Humphrey signed on to. That as did jim mccarthy and others. The convention came later in the summer and humphrey became Vice President. He walked into the beginning of johnsons real involvement with the war. They never really talked about the vietnam during the campaign. It was more about Barry Goldwater being trigger happy. Humphrey and johnson were the peas candidates and goldwater was the war candidate basically. Vietnam was not talked about. They were talking more about nuclear annihilation. In 60 . For yeah and 64. They won by a landslide. 44 of 50 states. In the spring, in the early part of the year, there was another incident in vietnam. Johnson called a cabinet ad hoc and adviser meeting. He is already decided to bomb North Vietnam in retaliation. He asked people around the table what they thought of this. Everybody pretty much agreed and humphrey said it was not a good idea. And he backed off and he had written a memo earlier this and we should not get involved. Shouldnt send ground ships, and shouldnt bomb this is not a good idea. Both are you politically the people in the country will understand it. He spoke up again at this meeting. Johnson got angry. Hunter went back and wrote another memo, a lot of detailed. At that point, he was completely frozen out of any discussion about a vietnam. We have our first two video clips to show you. The first one is 1964. Remember that Lyndon Johnson had been operating without a Vice President when he came into office after the kennedy assassination. There is a great deal of speculation coming to the convention about who his choice would be. Here is a film from the 1964 convention as Lyndon Johnson announces his choice for Vice President. The next vicepresident of the United States, my trusted long time laughter personal laughter laughter colleague senator Hubert Humphrey of minnesota. [applause] lawyer democrats and most republicans and the senate vote for the education legislation, but not senator goldwater. applause most democrats and most republicans in the the senate voted to help the United Nations and its peacekeeping functions when it was in financial difficulty, but not goldwater. applause i couldnt help but think that that particular moment how far we had, all the hard work and effort, this was a great moment in my life. Saw mr. Johnson said in his judgment, mr. Humphrey was the best man to be president in case anything happened to have. No longer is the vice presidency just another job. Doug that video and much of the video where you can see is from mick counts documentary on hubert i have. Free thank you for letting us show it to our audience tonight. Lost a followup here. First of all, the scene of the energetic Hubert Humphrey addressing the crowd and having the crowd eating out of his hand and the cutaway to Lyndon Johnson, who did not seem to share the moment. What was happening there . Well he did not like the spotlight being taken from him. Humphrey was believed to be a better public speaker. He was a little bit upset about a humphrey taking the show away. That was Lyndon Johnson. The goldwater part of that speech was written by a number of people. It was written by bill lawyers. He wrote that back and forth. There was a call and response kind of thing that caught on. That was an early one. Worked really well. The call and response . Yeah not senator goldwater. Senator humphry had ambitions for the presidency for quite a while. He toyed with it in 1952 and made a real bid for in 1960. And harry was accepting the Vice President ial nomination. You could see how excited he was at that moment. He earned the nickname the happy warrior. He loved politics, right . He loved politics. He got in trouble for calling it about the joyful of politics he was joyful about politics. He believed it was a way to better the country, to change the country. It was an innocent way. He believed in the the country he believed in the American People. He really believed in our system. That was the way for him to change the country. Another clip and this was later on in 1974 when Hubert Humphrey was gathering material for his memoir any made audiotapes. He talks a bit, and this is just one example, of the relationships you referenced. And how it became very testy between Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey over vietnam. He reflects on some of the ways that Lyndon Johnson used the powers of the office to keep his vicepresident under control. Lets listen. There was not a time that ever got a plane that i didnt have to ask for and leave me if anybody would ever tell you that johnson was extravagant, it surely was not with this vicepresident. Many times he would say to me, it was better to take a smaller plane. If you have a plane that is is too big, there will be too many people who want to ride with you. Why you will be encumbered with people that see there is an extra seat that has not been used. From time to time, on short trips, up and down the atlantic seaboard, i would king or beach craft or queen or one of the smaller planes that were available. Or the condor there was a military plane. For our longer trips we used a jet star. Never in the continental United States, did we use air force one,. Those were to be only used for overseas trips. At no time was i ever permitted to bring a newspaperman or a person of the media Radio Television repress with me on any plane within the United States. President for bennett and off course are respected his command it is. Wish i gather he felt that the vicepresident should be heard and seen, but not reported upon too much. Of course, Lyndon Johnson had been the majority leader in the senate. When Hubert Humphrey had been serving their. These two men had a long relationship and served in leadership together. Could you talk more about how johnson used the levers of power to control Hubert Humphrey. Well as i said earlier when he had an argument with johnson about vietnam, and johnson froze him out for at least a year. About any talk of vietnam or any foreign policy. He cut off his privileges. He shortened his staff. At one point, he tapped his phones. He did a number of things to control humphrey. He did not want him speaking out against vietnam. He did not want him speaking out about anything. He wanted to keep quiet. He had a way of calling them my planes and my boats. Johnson had a sort of possessive attitude about these is if they were is not the American Peoples. He was very much in control of that. Humphrey dealt with it a lot. There were times when he gave three or four speeches per week. He had to get a call and get permission free speech of each week. That last about a week. Did humphrey talk about how he reacted to this . He had to been unhappy. He was miserable for a long time. Johnson was shutting him out of any of the inner circle. He was on the outside. He wanted to be involved in what was going on. It was a bad time for him. Then he was back to he was said to vietnam things change in 1966. We are going to walk around this exhibit tonight and give you a sense of the exhibit that has been put together. Showing the year 1968 with focus on politics. I want to remind you about your participation. In about 10 or 12 minutes, we will start taking calls. Here is how you can do it. We really look forward to your comments on 1968. The year in which Hubert Humphrey was a contender for the president of the United States. The equity walk along with me and will go to our next stop here. How did you first get interested i grew up here, so he was always in the air when i was a kid. I spent some time working here and saw his archives. The archive for a documentary filmmaker, that is a gold mine. Hubert humphrey had four children. Are they still here . His daughter is no longer alive. She died a couple of years ago. His grandson buck is probably more involved than the others in politics. Skip the third hubert the third works with advertising i believe so, none of them really in politics at this point. We are at the exhibit about the politics and political life of Hubert Humphrey. He was not born in minnesota. He was born in south dakota. 90 miles from the minnesota border and one of those Little Railroad towns. He was born in 1911. It was a remarkable little town. His father was the druggist. His mother was his mother was methodist, a social gospel person. He had a great combination of the preacher and the politician. He got it from both sides is bill moores calls it a great combination of the pitcher and a politician. Both sides. He went to a Pharmacy School himself. How did the end up in politics . He went to Pharmacy School for a job. He always wanted be in politics. He did it for a short time to help his father with the drug store. I do not think he ever really want to be a pharmacist. He ended up getting a doctorate as i understand. He went to get a masters degree. Why was studying politics . I initially, he was going to get a doctorate and teach. He was so good at public speaking and so good at communicating, a lot of people convinced him to run. Deep down he really did want to run. He ended up coming back to minnesota and becoming the mayor of minneapolis. When did he serve as mayor and what was the city like that . He came back from lsu from the south in 1940 and minnesota had been a republican state never had a democrat on the senate. The reason why was the non republicans were divided between the democrats and the labor party. He helped to unite the two parties and built himself. He built itself his own political base. The city was corrupt and and bigoted all kinds of problems with segregation. When he first came, nation magazine called it the capital of the antisemitism in the United States. When he left, he got an award from the National Council of christians and jews for what he did. Talk a little bit about the ds eliza still active. He would humphrey was really its founder. He was probably the greatest negotiator of the group. What does it stand for . Democrat democrat pharma labour party. At the pain time, it was a group of farmers and laborers who had differences with a more professional democrats. Fdr democrats. There was a split their. They just did not like each other and humphrey was one of the people that convinced them they will never win an election if they did not get together. The Democrat Farm labour party i believe ran for we will talk a little bit about the speech. From 1960, when he first seriously thought about running for president. This is one of those joy of being a politician. Lets watch. How do you think your race is going . It has been an uphill fight. I think we have been what has been the most exciting part of the campaign . Right now. Thank you, senator. This is good fun. Politics ought to be fine. And there we see Hubert Humphrey just enjoying life. Did he bring this to his politics all the time. All the time, that was pretty much how he ran. People who had madam it was 11 00 at night he would get off the plane and work to three in the morning and everyone was asleep and it still be like that. He could just do that, he ran like that constantly. He loved what he was doing. What were some of his what were some of his other characteristics. I heard that he was known for talking a lot. Absolutely, but it is also a good listener. He did talk a lot he would come other prepared speech and just top for an hour. He knew a lot about a lot of things is very intelligent. Astounding memory. Maybe new five to 10,000 people by the first name. A politicians gift to be able to remember. Names he can go back five years later and remember there name, the familys name, what they did for a living. We will start taking some calls. First topic or in ohio, welcome to our discussion of Hubert Humphrey. First up is it is a Wonderful Program to be participating in. Thank you.