fellow standing on top, that would have been impossible. those stones are rounded on top and narrow. >> what to do think at the time you're scaling it, were you sure you would make it or did you have doubts? >> well, i thought i would make it, all right. i wasn't very much afraid of that. i was a fairly good climber. of course, i never thought about what i was getting into. [laughter] i understand that when president theodore roosevelt personally presented you with a dal, it was at the parade at west point. >> they turned up in full dress.

they get close enough, i saw teddy roosevelt himself. adjutant handed him the medal. he handled the box himself. he took it and started to pin it here, hel dress code man,to me, now, young don't let this give you a big head. [laughter] >> wonderful. >> it was a very special. , because it was the hundredth anniversary of the academy. >> and you are a cadet at the time. >> as a -- i was a plebe. >> i graduated in 1905. science professor michael nelson explains how and why richard nixon's victory in

1968 presidential election came at a pivotal time in american politics. that year was marked by the assassinations of robert f kennedy and martin luther king jr.. nelson describes how candidate nixon worked to win over and alienated electorate to unite a country in turmoil. hosted by the southern methodist university center for presidential history, this event is about 50 minutes. >> is it going to be people within living memory of that election? mixanswer was, it will be a of people, which was no use at all. it enabled me to think about away to pitch this talk, if you will. that is to make some general

remarks about the election and some specific remarks about it. also to give you this handout, which is a kind of menu for things that if i don't talk about them in my prepared remarks and you have an interest in pursuing and hearing more about, you have the opportunity to do that in the question and answer. period. i'm not going to give you a comprehensive summary about my book which is not only about the 68 election but the years leading up to and following that election. i will try to hit some high points and rely on you to decide what you want to hear more about. america coming apart, america coming apart, has been the theme politicsommentary on in 1968, both at the time and in what is now the nearly half-century since that year. the titles of the leading books about this.

, the. in which the 1960 election occurred, convey this claim of america coming to -- coming apart. for example, the book titled america divided: the civil war of the 1960's. a book titled the unraveling of america. a book titled the 60's, years of with hope of rage morphing into rage as the decade unfolded. the theme of my book is different, not america coming apart, but america holding together. i will return to the theme later in my talk, but for the moment, let me acknowledge just how great the strains on this .ountry were in that year think about some of the events that occurred in 1968, starting

at the end of january with the , whichensive in vietnam severely undermined public confidence in president lyndon b. johnson's conduct of the war. the war in vietnam was a war that president johnson inherited from president kennedy. escalated.ed and in late 1967, on medieval of the year in which the election i'm talking about lace, johnson and other leading figures in his administration went around the country on what they called a success offensive, making the case that we had finally turned the corner in vietnam, that success was near. then on generate 30th, which in vietnam that year was the start of the new year, new years in vietnam is kind of like thanksgiving in our country. the specific day varies from year to year. in 1968 it happens to fall on january 30.

because it was a holiday and because there was a widespread understanding among at least the south vietnamese that a cease-fire would be in place at least on a de facto basis, a lot of south vietnam soldiers went back to their home villages and neighborhoods to be with their families. the north vietnamese with the assistance of the viet cong, which was a communist -- coming is forced with an south vietnam, took that occasion to attack in a way they had never before, the major cities of south vietnam am including saigon and for a few hours even occupying portions of the american embassy in saigon. has studiedbody who the tet offensive militarily has concluded that it ended up being a major military victory for the united states and south vietnamese allies, but the facts on the ground could not compare with the psychological effect of

the tet offensive, which was to undermine the idea that the communists were out of gas, that they were on their last legs, and that the war was drawing to a close. march, the 1968, by popular challenges to president johnson's renomination within the democratic party by first the antiwar senator eugene mccarthy of minnesota and then senator robert f kennedy of new york, which ended up triggering the president's withdrawal from that election. mccarthy had been persuaded to run against johnson, to challenge johnson for the democratic nomination in the fall of 1967. he wasn't getting anywhere. the tet offensive and until the new hampshire primary which took place in mid-march of that year.

if that is for me, i will call them back. in mid-march of that year, it was mccarthy, kind of like north vietnam and the tet offensive, didn't if he johnson in new hampshire but came close to defeating him that it was a psychological victory. a few days later, senator robert f kennedy of new york enters the nominating contest as well, which was lyndon johnson's worst nightmare. there was an incredible dislike between kennedy and johnson, a visceral dislike, a chemical dislike. johnson spent his entire senatorcy thinking that kennedy was just waiting for an opportunity to drive him from office. this was his worst nightmare. he even had nightmares about this prospect. now this worst nightmare was coming true. at the end of march in 1968, some of you remember watching the speech, primetime network

television, this was the days when there were only three networks and if the president give 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 his statement that he would not seek nor would he accept the nomination of his party, which took the country entirely by surprise. april just a few days after , in my citythdrawal of memphis tennessee, occurred the assassination of civil rights leader martin luther king , and in the aftermath of the assassination, writing in over 100 american cities -- rioting in over 100 american cities. so much so that vice president hubert humphrey who is in new york at the time the riots broke out was told by the secret service, we can't take you back to office on the senate side of the u.s. capitol, and we can't

take you back to your office in the executive office building adjacent to the white house, because the rioters are so close to the capital and they are so close to the white house that we can't assure the safety of the vice president of the united states. that is april. in june of 1968, the assassination of senator kennedy on the night of his greatest victory in the california primary. the story about that is that kennedy had not appeared on national television to celebrate , decidedn the primary to do something different from what he usually did third usually, when kennedy would make the kind of appearance, he would --t the hall to the craft through the craft. people had begun clearing a path through the crowd. he decided that night that he was going to go talk to the assembled press.

the quickest way to get there was to go through the kitchen where they're awaited a young palestinian immigrant named sirhan sirhan with a 22 pistol in his hand who shot and killed senator kennedy that night. of course in august of 1968, when the democratic convention gathered in chicago, the worst writing ever to attend a national party convention in american history, rioting that again was carried to the entire nation over the network rod , it short ordcasts violence and turbulence and a sense that if major political figures were dying, at the hands majorassins, if a political party could not hold its convention in peace, surely

america was coming apart at the seams. all year long through 1968 the simmering anger that attended the third-party candidacy of former alabama governor george c wallace, which always seemed to be on the threshold of breaking violence.ctual 1968 was by any reckoning a turbulent year. i have talked about the democratic side of this. the republicans, meanwhile, were conducting a fairly conventional contest for their party's nomination in which the three beingcontenders ended up governor nelson rockefeller of new york, what an unlikely , aracter he was third-generation rockefeller. when he was born, his birth was announced on the first -- on the front page of the new york times. he ended up spending a career in public service.

in some point, 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 common touch. the novelty of seeing a rockefeller even hotdog on a street corner in new york city was just a resting -- arresting. was reelected in 1962 and reelected in 1966. he played a kind of hamlet role during the first few months of 1968. will he get into the contest for the republican nomination or will he stay out? initially, he threw his support hine somebody whose last name you may recognize, but whose first name make him a to you, and that is governor george romney of michigan. tokefeller anointed romney be a candidate for the republican nomination, who

represented his sort of moderate liberal northern wing 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 from the generals there. instead of being taken as sort of a confession of regained wisdom, yet come to realize in his views that the war was hopeless. instead, this brainwashing remark got taken as a synonym for a lack of intelligence to begin with. serious criticism was, how long does it take somebody to get over a brainwashing? romney was out, rockefeller got in. i guesse, over there -- i should indicate you're right,

the right-wing of the party, was this new figure on the national political scene, even though he was fairly well along in years, this former screen actor, very successful screen actor, by the way. people tend to write off his screen career as if it were amateurish. i never reading a new york times review of reagan when he was the fifth leading box office star in hollywood one year, by the new york times movie critic. he wrote that he has a nice way dame. ronaldt a gam reagan after his film career came to an end had started working for a company you have all heard of, general electric, which had plants and factories and other facilities in 38 out of the then 48 states. reagan was hired to go around from plant to plant and address the workers.

the expectation was that he would tell inside hollywood stories, but instead he adopted in a serious way the kind of pro-business conservative ideology of his employer and started giving very serious political speeches. he ended up being the republican candidate for governor of california in 1966 and enormous the successful in that role. presidential election, the conservative wing of the republican party had had nomineein choosing the that year, senator barry goldwater of arizona. he was defeated overwhelmingly by president johnson. conservatives were looking for somebody who could carry that message, but in a more appealing way. that person became ronald reagan , elected governor of california in 1966 and for conservatives in the republican party, who then

were a wing of the party rather than as we have come to see virtually the whole party in our day, reagan became the new champion. who else was there in 1968 on the republican side? formercongressman, senator, former vice president, former defeated presidential candidate, former defeated candidate for governor of california richard nixon. experiences and some of us learn from those experiences and some of us don't. nixon will talk about this in more detail later on. nixon was somebody who learn from experience. in 1960 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 kind of gimmick that had worn off and therefore when he participated in a nationally televised debate that year, he take the television

aspect of those debates seriously. he also ran his own campaign in 1960. he did not delegate a trust. is a thing about lawyers? a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. a candidate who has himself her campaign manager has a fool for a campaign manager. in 1968, nixon had digested the experiences that had led to his defeat, put together a very good team, good campaign organization, mastered television in that year. there's a book written about the nixon campaign called the selling of the president, which was meant to be an exposé, but which really reads as a tribute to how thoroughly excellent had come to master this medium of political communication called television. nixon ended up winning his party's nomination that year.

i said, was by any reckoning a turbulent year. and here is where the america holding together the name comes in. the year culminated in a between thection candidate most favored by , andlican voters, nixon the candidate most favored by democratic voters, incumbent vice president hubert humphrey. for turnout in that election was more than 60%. both major party nominees work hard during the election to placate the loudest dissident elements of their parties. nixon moved far enough right to keep on board conservatives whose loyalties lay with the nominee, and964 whose hearts lay with the recently elected governor of california ronald reagan. humphrey eventually moved far

enough left to win back the support of many antiwar democrats. to be sure, the largest dissident element in the electorate was even further to the right, at least on racial and cultural issues. neither nixon nor humphrey was willing to move sufficiently in dutch to capture the 14% of the voters who constituted the core of wallace's support. yours wallace was at the time former governor of california. he had spent his entire life running for office. in his early political career he had been known in alabama politics as, according to one press account, the number one do-gooder in the legislature. he was a liberal voice in alabama politics until he ran for governor in 1958 and was defeated by an opponent who

stressed racial segregation as his main issue. famously after that election, and i have to say an ugly word to quote wallis accurately, famously after losing that election, wallace said i am never going to be out in a good ggered again. he was a candidate of racial segregation and was elected. he famously stood in the schoolhouse door, if you will come of the university of alabama. in a kind of symbolic resistance to integration of that university. in 1964 he actually entered some democratic primaries against president johnson in the north, sort of like robert e lee taking .he offensive into pennsylvania wallace took his campaign into the north in 1964 and 130% or primaries.e northern

in 1968 he was term limited so he couldn't run for another term as governor of california -- governor of alabama, which politically was a major liability, because if you're the governor of alabama and you're the governor of most dates, 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 going to be governor by 1968 when he wanted to run again. he got his wife elected governor 1966, barring a page from the state of texas paul ferguson was succeeded by ma ferguson back in the day. he ran as an independent candidate. although most historical writing about the 1968 election focuses on the anger and dissent on the who in thes wallace

kindest term was culturally conservative, who got 10 million votes. just as significant for the country's healing as events of 1968 election, the high voter turnout, the effort by most -- most major party nominees to reach out to dissident elements in their own parties, just as significant as those events was the aftermath of the election. , the democratic congress, and both major parties worked actively after the election, and for the most part successfully to woo those sectors of the electorate that were still alienated from the normal channels of constitutional politics and government. nixon ultimately was rightly driven from office part way 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 country's leading enemies, china and the soviet union, as well as with his acquiescence to a wide range feminist,mental, civil rights and other domestic reforms. by reducing draft calls and then eliminating the draft, nixon took much of the wind out of the campus-based antiwar movement. at the same time, nixon courted wallace's supporters by alternately honoring and pandering to their cultural fears and concern. if you think of the people who, in the 1960 election, felt left out by the choice between nixon and humphrey, whether on the left or the right, next in and the democratic congress spent much of nixon's first term reaching out and bringing them the senseiving them

that the process of government and politics could work for them. on capitol hill, congressional democrats push nixon left on domestic policy and became a vehicle to which opponents of the war in vietnam could advance their cause. opened up the presidential nominating process so that most of those who felt shut out in 1968 felt emboldened to pursue their goals through the two-party system. it is for these reasons that america holding together, not america coming apart, is my theme in this book. the resilience of a political system that after enduring great strains, largely recovered from them. his alliance is an interesting term. the title of my book is resilient america. termience actually is a

that originates in the science of metallurgy. it refers to the ability of a metal, a piece of metal that has been subjected to great stress shape.ain to regain its isn't that interesting? if you go to amazon.com and type in resilience, what you will find is just in the book section titles that in00 some way are about resilience. most of them are business books or self-help books, but the basic concept which i think applies beautifully to the selection and to its aftermath of a political system and a nation that was subjected to great stress and strain that pulled apart elements of its constitutional system of government politics, yet during

that election and after the election, the system regained much of its shape. it is an extraordinary thing to last 46 yearshe as we speak tonight, it has been that long since we witnessed the assassination of a national political leader. years,e last 40 plus national party conventions now consisting of delegates openly chosen in primaries and caucuses , have gathered every ford -- every four years without threat of violence and disruption. to me, the most extraordinary thing which i always make a point of telling my students at rhodes college, most extraordinary thing about our political system is the thing we never think about because we get

to take it for granted. no american in our lifetimes has ever woken up on the morning of january 20, 1969 or any january 20 that has occurred quadrennial he after that election, none of us has woken up in the morning and rescheduled presidential inauguration, even when the eggnog ration involve transferring power from one to hisd president victorious challenger, from the defeated incumbent political party together, none of us have woken up on any of those , will thisndering peaceful transition of power actually occur? or will those who are currently in power call out the tanks, call it the troops, lock up the opposition? we get to take that for granted.

to me, it is the most ordinary thing about our constitutional system that we do get to take it for granted. now, i'm going to stop there and because i really want to leave all the time we have remaining to your questions and my efforts to respond to them in some thoughtful way, either looking down this handout and noticing particular small arguments that i made about the events and the characters of the selection, or questions you have on your own, i'm going to open the floor, and you could order from this menu or you get to order à la carte and what you choose to ask about. thanks for listening so carefully. [applause] >> please ask your question into the mic so everyone can hear and so that c-span will be able to

your your question as well. let me start right here. in 1968, was there any worry on behalf of the republican presidentiale candidate wallace and his 10 million votes would throw the election to democrat? ,> there was more of a concern there was a concern, because most third-party candidates like ross perot, for example, who i understand is from around here somewhere? [laughter] the popularot 9% of vote. 1992 is half as wallace got. he got 13% in 1968. most third-party candidates are kind of like ross perot. their support is distributed throughout the country, so 90% of the popular vote equals zero electoral votes, because he did not win any states. wallace had this regional base in the deep south in particular.

in the rest of the south, he hoped, and in the border states. wallace, at one time, had a very good chance of carrying 15 states with 174 electoral votes. yes, these were votes that i think for the most part republicans thought would come out of their hide. the greater concern was that wallace would carry enough electoral votes and it could've been as few as three. depending on how close the republican nominees were. to deny either nixon or humphrey a majority of electoral votes. you would have to get more than half of the electoral votes or else election goes into the every state delegation in the house of representatives casts one vote. that has not happened since been aut it has never

less likely prospect than it was in 1968. wallace was relishing that possibility, because he thought that it would create a bargaining situation in which nixon or humphrey or both would come to him and say, what will it take for you to tell your jurors to vote? he involves were putting together his dear santa list of what he would ask for. that turned out not to happen. one of the reasons is that wallace had to choose just to meet state law. he had to have a vice presidential running mate or he did not win a vice presidential running mate anymore than he wanted a party platform or a national convention. , buts a freelance canada he had to choose a vice presidential running mate. his inclination was to choose former governor of kentucky, former baseball commissioner happy chandler, who agreed with wallace on everything except

racial segregation. aandler, as you may know, was baseball commissioner when jackie robinson began playing. he was all for that. wallace ended up choosing , one of theis lemay great generals of world war ii. the inventor of the strategic air command, but someone who is entirely ill-suited for politics. when wallace announced lemay's nomination for vice president, and held a press conference, and reporters decided to poke him like a bear baiters, and got him -- musingout philosophically about nuclear weapons and how they really weren't that adamant he went to and yound of keeney would find out that the crabs are bigger than ever and it was on and on. [laughter] , fornk what that did was

many voters who would've liked to have voted for wallace, maybe were planning to vote for wallace or would have voted for wallace, it made them think, is actually a consequence if we vote for this person, because he is part of a ticket, and lemay was clearly unsuited for civilian leadership of the united states. as part of why you see wallace's support going down and down and down. he still ends up carrying five states, all of the deep south states but south carolina, plus arkansas. 46 electoral votes, enough that if the election had been closer between nixon and humphrey in the electoral college, they would have thrown it into the house. but here's another point i want to make about wallace. that is, because after the 1968 , and so many of the antiwar voters in the democratic party felt like they had been

denied an opportunity to vote for somebody in november who shared their opposition to the war in vietnam, the democratic party ended the 1968 election with a large dissident antiwar element. their response is a party was to nominating process. every delicate would be chosen as a are today in a primary or caucus in which any democratic voter could participate. what that told wallace was, when he decided to run again for president in 1972, was the democratic party has opened up its process. instead of running as an independent, i'm going to run for the democratic nomination, because every vote i get will translate into delegates at the convention. the democrats open up the rules, they bring back his fringe figure into the mainstream of the political system. wallace would not have gotten the nomination even if he hadn't

been shot, another violent attack on a national political figure. but, what the parties did and both parties ended up opening up the process, was give people a sense of, if you don't like the way the system is working, the doors open. you can participate, you can be heard. that was part of the resilience, this regaining the vitality of the american political system after the traumatic events of 1960 eight. that is way too long answer to a very good question. >> what the 68 election where they have a compact on 5th avenue? >> house in 1960 election. that was the 1960 election.

>> at that it was 1968. in terms of the significance of that, the compact on 5th avenue. >> this gentleman is referring to that in 1960 on the eve of the republican convention, this is a convention that nominated then vice president nixon for .resident for the first time rockefeller, governor of new york, was threatening that he might get into the race at the very end for the republican nomination. the price exacted on nixon for not getting in. he would have lost, but it would've created, he could've disrupted the unity of the party for a while. the price rockefeller exacted was a series of concessions in the party platform. this got to be called by critics the compact on 5th avenue because rockefeller actually summoned nixon from chicago to his 5th avenue mansion or these terms.ear

nixon capitulated. this will tell you something about the republican party that in 1960, nixon still had to worry about his major political problem within the party coming from the left. when is the last time a republican nominee for president has had to worry about satisfying the last, the liberal elements of his party? certainly not by 1968 and certainly not in the 21st century. >> i would like to follow-up on the question about george wallace throwing the election to the house. there was a major effort in congress to pass a national popular vote amendment early in the nixon administration. my understanding always was that nixon and john mitchell pulled the plug on it because the

wallace voters, why in your view do think that happened and also, why do think we haven't seen an effort to do anything about that system since? >> is to replace the electoral college with a natural -- a national popular vote to choose the electorate. >> there was an effort in congress the year after the election to abolish the electoral college and replace it with a national vote by the people. because thed country had just had a scare. what if wallace had gotten a few more votes, what if nixon and humphrey had been more evenly divided, what if it had gone into the house with who knows what attendant chaos? the only way to do that was to amend the constitution, which is an incredibly arduous process in our country. when thever works subject is controversial.

unless it is the aftermath of example, when for the political party in charge was able to exact terms. two thirds of the house and two thirds of the senate and eventually three fourths of the states have to agree before an amendment could be added to the constitution. at that point, here's where the opposition emerged. i don't think they really cared about this issue. ,t emerged from small states just because they get three electoral votes no matter how small they are. they think oh, we will lose that edge if our votes are just counted like everybody else's. being the that end up setter potential -- of attention because they are so

big. they no candidates will come courting us because we are big and because you win a state and you get all of its electoral votes. the argument over the electoral and ie is complicated think evenly matched. make about where we are now. states didw many romney and obama pay any attention to, 10? 12? texas was not one of them. don't reason any candidate and texas was to raise money. i hear talus is a pretty good race for that. is a prettyllas good place for that. do they go to california? becausees went there both of them conceded romney is going to carry texas and obama will carry new york and california. so the states that ended up being the object of the entire campaign were a grab bag.

he did have large states like florida, but it was also small .tates like colorado in other words, we have gotten a system now where unless a state is purple, neither red nor blue, it may as well not exist in the campaign. that, i think, is an unhealthy consequence of the way that complex political forces at work in our time get manifested in the electoral college. i'm not arguing against electoral college, but that is a pretty good argument for at least taking another look at that issue. >> i was intrigued in your notes by a number of what that you presented. i would appreciate it if you could elaborate on two of them. that humphrey would have been nominated for president even if robert kennedy had lived.

is yournd what if contention that president johnson would have come very close to reconsidering or reneging on his statement that he would not run. i would appreciate you elaborating on it. >> these are among the things that i sort of elaborate on in the book. most of this book is a kind of narrative of characters and events. honestly, i would have to be awful not to make a book about the 1968 election interesting, because his was a time when clinical giants strode the earth and the events were astonishing. two of the what if, what if robert kennedy had lived? our viewn hindsight,

of robert kennedy has become romanticized and we think, as with his brother, if only he had lived, surely he would've been the democratic nominee for president. surely he would've been elected president, and only good things would've happened afterward. i am not attributing that to you, but that is a cultural thing. the truth is that in 1968, because the nominating process for the political parties had not been opened up, conventions were controlled by state party leaders, big-city bosses, union leaders and southern governors. at that time, amazingly, all of them are democrats. they were not going to nominate robert kennedy. at the time of kennedy's death, his own campaign sort of state-by-state break down of where the delegates were and what he would have to compass in order to get a majority, it is essentially an unimaginable

scenario. humphrey, because the union leaders, the state party leaders, the big-city bosses, the southern governors were for a plurality ofe democratic voters had manifested in the gallup poll were for him, almost surely would've been the democratic nominee anyway. now, what about humphrey was vice president and his boss, lyndon johnson, the president, who at the end of march was drawn from the election. johnson withdrew, but at a minimum he hoped that somehow he would be asked. remember, that convention was scheduled originally to coincide with johnson's birthday at the end of august. hopeon had this lingering

that he would be able to have a breakthrough and negotiations with the vietnam and somehow bring peace to the war, or a breakthrough in negotiations with the soviet union and be able to go to the convention on the evening of his birthday and announce peace and have the convention stampeded in his favor. dream butn unrealized i don't think it is one that johnson never abandoned. for that reason, until well after the convention, because it took him a while to get over the fact that it didn't happen, until well after the convention, he continued to treat humphrey -- the way staff sergeant would treat a private. it wasn't until the end of the 68 campaign, by the way, with a major appearance of the houston astrodome, an event that included johnson, humphrey and frank sinatra and texas ended up

being the one southern state that humphrey carried, but it took that long for johnson to get over the fact that even though you said i won't do it, that his party didn't come to him on its knees and finally realized that if humphrey lost, that would be taken by many people as a reflection on his leadership, which in fact it was. >> one more. first of all, i enjoyed your presentation, because i am old enough to have lived through it and i are members some of these things. you're pretty accurate. >> thank you. >> hubert humphrey, did he not thatof have a wimp image worked against him, particularly

compared to the personality of johnson? election,n the 1960 in addition to the television thing, there was a very close election, but for west virginia and chicago and papa joe's money , might have gone a different way. --i was beat to the humphrey i will speak to the humphrey thing. number one, if you are vice in adent, you are political position is wonderful and terrible at the same time. is wonderful because if you are vice president you are the number two leader of your party nationally. you get to go out and speak to your parties audiences all around the country, campaign for your party's candidates all around the country, if you might the kind of political either use that in most cases make you the odds on favorite for your party's nomination. biden, butind joe

nixon, humphrey, the elder george bush, al gore -- at the same time, by being a loyal number two in an administration, you have to subsume your independent identity into the president's identity, so that when you come before the voters in a general election and they are looking for a strong leader, which i think is something voters are always looking for, well, the impression they formed a view is not a strong leader, but a kind of lapdog or assistant to somebody else. humphrey faced that kind of inherent disadvantage of being vice president. on top of that, he happened to work for a particularly cruel president who had been a vice president himself. you can almost think of this as the abused child syndrome.

lbj as vice president with the unhappiest man on the face of the earth. he was not about to treat his vice president any differently. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, indeed. p.m., youunday at 8 can learn from leading historians about presidents and first ladies, the policy and legacies here on the presidency. to watch any of our programs are checkered tv schedule, visit c-span.org/history. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span three. >> this year marks the 50th anniversary of the 1964 mississippi freedom summer project when more than 1000 white and black volunteers from around the country, many of them