Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Presidency 20140927 : vimarsana.c

University center of president ial history, this event is about 50 minutes. The first thing the speaker wants to know when he is invited to speak at a Different Institution like smu, who will be in the audience . Will it be 20yearolds . Or will it be people with a memory of that election . The answer was, itll be a mix of people which were no use at all. That is to make some general remarks about the election and specific remarks and give you this handout which is a kind of the menu, if i do not talk about them in my prepared remarks and you have an interest about pursuing, you will have the opportunity to do that and the question and answer. I would not try to give you a comprehensive summary of my book which is not only about the 1968 election but the years leading up and following the election. Rather, i will try to give you a high point and rely on you to decide what you want to hear. America coming apart, america coming apart has been the theme of most commentary of america in 1968 and the nearly halfcentury since that year. The titles of the leading the books about this period in which the 1968 election occurs includes america coming apart. For example, a book titled america divided. A book titled the unraveling of america. The 1960s days, rage. The theme of my book is different. Not america coming apart but America Holding together. Not coming apart but holding together. I will return to that theme later in my talk. For the moment, let me acknowledge how great the strains on this comp on this country were in that year. Think about some of the events that occurred in 1968 starting at the end of january with the tet offensive in vietnam was severely undermined Public Confidence in president lyndon b. Johnsons conduct of the war. It was a war that president johnson inherited from president kennedy but continued and escalated. In late 1967 on the eve of the election i am talking about, they went around the country on a success of defensive making the case was finally turned the corner. That success was near. On january 30, which in vietnam that year was the start of a new year, new years in vietnam as life thanksgiving and our country, the specific year varies from year to year. It happened on january 30 and because it was a holiday and was a widespread understanding among at least the south vietnamese that a ceasefire would be in place a lease on a de facto base, a lot of south vietnamese soldiers went to their home villages and neighborhoods to be with their families. The North Vietnamese with the assistance of the viet cong attacked in a way that had never attacked before including occupying portion of the American Embassy inside of saigon. Almost everyone who studied the tet offensive has concluded it into being a Major Military victory for the United States and the south vietnamese allies but the facts on the ground cannot compare with a psychological effect of the tet offensive which was undermining the idea that communists were out of gas and on the last leg and the warmth was drawing to a close. By march of 1968, the popular challenges to president johnsons a renomination within the Democratic Party but first the antiwar senator, maccarthy and then senator Robert F Kennedy of new york which ended up triggering the president s withdrawal from that election. Maccarthy had been persuaded to run against johnson, to challenge johnson for the democratic nomination and in the fall of 1967. He was not getting anywhere. Until be tet offensive and until the New Hampshire primary that took place in amid march of that year and if that is for me i will call them back. In which maccarthy like the offensive but came so close to defeating him it was a psychological victory and a few days later senator Robert F Kennedy enters the nominating contests as well which was johnsons worst nightmare. There was an incredible dislike between kennedy and johnson. A visceral dislike. A chemical dislike. Johnson spent his entire presidency thinking that senator kennedy was just waiting for an opportunity to drive him from office. This was his worst nightmare. He even had nightmares about this process. Now it was coming true. By the end of march 1968, some of you remember watching the speech, primetime, network television. These were the days there were only three networks and at the president gave a speech in prime time, that was all that was on. The nation was watching president johnson on the evening of march 30 giving the speech about vietnam which ended with the statement he would not seek nor would he accept the nomination of his party which took the country entirely by surprise. In april, just a few days after johnsons withdrawal, in memphis, tennessee, the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther king and the aftermath of that assassination, rioting in over 100 american cities. So much so that the Vice President Hubert Humphrey which was in new york when the riots broke out was told by the secret service, with cannot take you back to your office on the senate side of the u. S. Capitol and with cannot take you back to your office and the executive Office Building adjacent to the white house because the rioters are so close to the capital and the right rioters are so close we cannot ensure the safety of the Vice President of the United States. That is april and june of 1968. The assassination of Robert Kennedy on the night of his greatest victory in the california primary. The story about that is kennedy having appeared on National Television to celebrate victory in that primary decided to do Something Different from what he usually did. Usually when kennedy would make that kind of appearance, he would exit the hall and has security people had begun clearing a path through the cloud crowd. He decided he would talk to the assembled press and the quickest way to get there was to not go through the crowd but through the kitchen where there awaited a young immigrant named Sirhan Sirhan with a 22 pistol who shot and killed senator kennedy that night. When the Democratic National convention gathered, the worst rioting at a National Convention and american history. It was carried to america over the national broadcasts. Extraordinary violence and turmoil. The sense if political figures were dying at the hands of assassins, is a Major Political party could not hold this convention in peace, surely america was coming apart at the seams. All year long through 1968, the simmering anger that attended the thirdparty candidacy of former alabama governor, george c. Wallace, which always seemed on the threshold of breaking out into actual violence. 1968 was by any reckoning, a turbulent year. I talked about the democratic side of this. The republicans were conducting a fairly conventional contest for their partys nomination. There were three major contenders. Governor Nelson Rockefeller of new york. An unlikely character he was. Thirdgeneration rockefeller, when he was born, his birth was announced on the front page of the New York Times. He ended up in public service. In the 1950s, he decided he wanted to go out and ask people for their votes and ran for governor of new york and turned out to have a wonderful sort of civility. He ate a hotdog on a Street Corner in new york city and it was arresting if he was elected governor in 1954. 1958 and reelected in 1962 and 1966. And played a kind of hamlet role through the first few months of 1968, will he get in to the contest for republican nomination or will he stay out . Initially, he threw his support by somebodys last name you may recognize about the first time maybe a new. George romney. Rockefeller anointed romney to be the candidate for the republican nomination who represented his sort of moderate liberal Northern Wind of the party. Romney, much to his embarrassment, confessed early in the campaign, confessed to a local Television Interviewer that he had been to vietnam in 1965 and received the greatest brainwashing that anybody had ever received through the generals there. Instead of being taken as sort of a confession of wisdom, he came to realize that the war was hopeless. Instead of the brainwashing remark got taken as sort of a synonym for a lack of intelligence to begin with and serious criticism was how long does it take somebody to get over a brainwashing . Romney was out and rockefeller was in. Meanwhile, the right wing of the party was a new figure in the National Political scene even though he was fairly well along in years. This former screen actor, very successful screen actor, people tend to write off Ronald Reagans career as if it was amateurish. I was reading New York Times review of reagan when he was a Box Office Star in hollywood. The movie critics wrote he has a nice way of looking. That was Ronald Reagan in terms of how he was through most of his career. Ronald reagan after his film career came to an end started working for a company, general electric, which have facilities in 48 states. Reagan was hired to go around from plant to plant and address workers and to the expectation was when they were fired, tell inside hollywood stories. Instead, he adopted a probusiness, conservative ideology and started giving very serious political speeches. He ended up being a republican candidate for governor of california in 1966. He was enormously successful in that role. In the 1964 president ial election, the conservative party had had its way in choosing the nominee, senator Barry Goldwater of arizona. He was defeated overwhelmingly by president johnson. The service were looking for somebody who could carry conservatives were looking for somebody who can carry that message of but in a more appealing away. That person became a Ronald Reagan, elected governor of california in 1966 and for conservatives who were a wing of the Party Instead of the whole party in our day. Reagan became the new champion. Who else was there in 1968 on the republican side . Former congressman, senator, Vice President , president ial candidate, defeated candidate for the opener of california, richard nixon. People have experiences and some of us learn from those experiences and some do not. Nixon, he would talk about in detail later on, and he was somebody who learned from experience. He had run against john f. Kennedy and he had lost. In part because nixon in 1960 had come to think of television as a gimmick that have worn off and therefore im a when he participated and nationally televised debates in that year, he did not take the television aspect of the debate seriously. He also ran his own campaign. He did not delegate or trust. What is the saying about lawyers . A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. By 1968, nixon had digested the experience that had led to his defeat. Put together a very good team, Good Campaign organization. Mastered television in that year. There was a book written called the selling of the presidency which was meant to be an expose but reads as a tribute to how sterling nixon had came to television. He ended up winning the parties nomination that year. 1968 was by any reckoning a turbulent year. Here is a where the America Holding together theme comes in. The year culminated in a peaceful and the candidate most favored by democratic voters huber humphrey. Voter turnout and that election was more than 60 . Both Major Party Nominees work hard during the election to placate the loudest elements of their parties. Nixon moved far enough right to keep on board conservatives whose loyalties lay with the republicans 1964 nomination. Humphrey eventually mold far enough left eventually moved far enough left to win antiwar democrats. To be sure among the largest element of the electorate was even further to the right on racial and cultural issues and neither nixon nor humphrey was willing to move in that direction to capture the 14 of the voters who constituted the core of wallaces support. Wallace was George Wallace was a former governor of california. He has been essentially his whole life running for office. His early political career had been known in alabama politics as according to one press account the number one dogooder and the legislature. Until he ran for governor in 1958 and was defeated by an opponent holster is racial segregation as the main issue and famously after that election and i have to say an ugly word to quote wallace accurately, he said i will never be outniggered again. He was the candidate of racial segregation and elected. He stood in the schoolhouse door if you will of the university of alabama in symbolic resistance to integration of the university. In 1964, entered democratic primary against president johnson in the north who thought like robert e lee taking the offensive and to pennsylvania. Wallace took his campaign and to the north in 1964 and won 30 or 40 . In 1968, he was term limited so he cannot run for governor of alabama. Politically, it was a major liability. If you are the governor of alabama or most states, you can raise money easily from all the contractors and Insurance Companies and Highway Builders and others who do business with the state. He was not the governor by 1968 when he wanted to run again. He got his wife elected governor of alabama in 1966. From the state of texas where pa ferguson was exceeded by ma ferguson. Wallace decided to run in 1968 as an independent candidate. Most Historical Records talk about anger and dissent on the left, it was wallace, and the kindest terms, who got 10 million votes. Just as significant for the countrys healing as events of 1968, the peaceful election. The high voter turnout. Both Party Nominees to reach out to the dissident elements of their parties. The aftermath of the election. President nixon, the Democratic Congress, and both major parties work actively after the election and for the most part successfully to will those sectors of the electorate that were still alienated from the normal channels of constitutional politics and government. Nixon ultimately was driven from office partly through his second term for the crimes and other abuses of power he committed as president. During his first years in the white house, he surprised the left with his diplomatic openings to the countrys leading enemies, china and the soviet union and the acquiescence to a wide range of environmental, feminist, civil rights, and other domestic reforms. By reducing draft calls and eliminating the draft, nixon took much of the wind out of the campusbased antiwar movement. At the same time, he courted wallaces support by honoring their cultural fears and concerns. If you think of the people in the 90s and city election who felt left out by the choice between nixon and humphrey weather on the left or right, nixon and the Democratic Congress spent much of the first term reaching out and bringing them back and giving them a sense that the process of government and politics could work for them. On capitol hill and Congressional Democrats push nixon leftward it on policies and became a vehicle of which opponents of the war in vietnam could advance their cause. The democratic and republican parties opened up the president ial process so most those who feel shut out in 1968. America holding together, not america coming apart is my theme in this book. The resilience of a political system that after enduring great strengths largely recovered from them. Resilience is an interesting term. The title of my book is resilience america. Resilience originates in it refers to the ability of a metal, a piece of metal that has been subjected to great stress and strain to regain its shape. Isnt that interesting . If you go to amazon. Com and type in resilience, what you will find in the book section alone, about 4000 titles in some way about resilience and most of them are Business Books or selfhelp books. But the basic concept which i think applies to this election and to the aftermath of a political system and a nation that was subjected to great stress and strain that pulled apart elements of his constitutional system of politics. During that election and after, the system regained much of its shape and it is an extraordinary thing to me that over the last 46 years as we speak tonight, it has been that long since we have witnessed the assassination of a National Political leader. In these last 40 plus years, National Party conventions now consisting of delegates openly chosen in primaries and caucuses have gathered every four years without the threat of violence and disruption. The most extraordinary thing which i always make a point of telling my students at rhodes college, the extraordinary thing about our political system is the thing we never think about because we get to take it for granted. That is no american in our lifetime has ever woken up on the morning of january 20, 1969 or any january 20 have woken up on the morning of a scheduled president ial inaugurati