white es the impact of house chiefs of staff. then we discuss the latest report on reconstruction spending in that country. sure tobe sure to watch c-spa's washington journal live at 7:00 eastern sunday morning. join the discussion. ♪ announcer: on "lectures in history," university of washington professor margaret o'mara teaches a class about the 1968 president election and the events that impact the outcome. she talks about how the vietnam war eroded political support for johnson and helped lead to his decision not to seek reelection. she also describes month by month events that led up to the election like student protests, the rise of the black power movement, and the assassinations of martin luther king jr. and robert kennedy. her class is about an hour and 10 minutes. margaret: let's get started. welcome.

today we are talking about 1968, a year when a heck of a lot happened, including a presidential election. a year where there were a lot of social, economic, political parallels that are in some ways familiar to us now because, in part, some of the changes the early 21st century america has experience -- particularly in politics were set in motion in this late 1960's period. let's get started. i want to start with an unlikely as official news conference or address to the american people. march 31, 1968. president lyndon johnson gave a televised address to the nation. his subject but was the vietnam war. by this point the vietnam had escalated into a bloody conflict involving over half a million american soldiers. a war that had gradually started as a small engagement against

communist, put -- potential prime minister aggression in southeast asia in the 1950's had escalated into a major conflict that was tearing america apart. johnson gives a speech about the war. he looks tired. he looks old. the glare of the television lights did not help matters. at the very end he lands this bombshell. because of the importance of resolving the war in vietnam and peace talks were already ongoing with the north vietnamese, he says "i do not believe i should devote an hour a day of my time to any personal partisan causes. accordingly, i shall not seek and i will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president." so how did we get here? how did lyndon johnson, who had

been elected in a landslide victory, less than four years earlier get to the point where he is decided not to run again for reelection because he does not think -- not only does he not think he will win, he does he does not think he will get the party nomination. how does this happen? this is a very hard scenario to imagine when johnson was first running for president in 1964. it was also a hard scenario to imagine given his administration's role in a broader, mainstream liberalism in 20th-century america. liberalism that has -- it is tied in with progressive ideas about progress and technology. ideas that animated things like the 1939 world's fair, the futurama exhibit and some of the other things we talked about in this class. this idea that big organizations

and new technology. big corporations and big government can bring good things about. america is getting better and better and that experts are the ones who can give the answers -- provide the answers for where america goes next. but having expertise, whether it be the expert engineers at general motors envisioning the city of the future in the futurama exhibit in 1939, or be it the architects of things like the marshall plan, rebuilding europe and japan after world war ii, or the engineers of nasa who are building the rockets to send and to the men by the end of the 1960's. this optimism and faith in big organizations and big technologies is starting to break down. the thing that breaks down that faith more than anything else is the war in vietnam. this again was hard to imagine four years earlier.

in 1964 johnson's opponent was barry goldwater, republican senator of arizona and someone from the far right of the republican party. the mainstream of the republican party in the early 1960's and before was not that far removed from the democrats, certainly there were lots of issues on which they differed. this general understanding that progress was possible, expertise with valuable, that you needed big organizations to get things done even though dwight eisenhower warned the american people in his farewell address about the growing military-industrial complex and the scientists who no longer knew how to innovate because they were on a government paycheck. he surrounded himself with scientists and understood the

importance of these lark organizations -- large organizations to conduct business of the unites states. both democrats and republicans are part of this broader postwar consensus about what the role of the government does, the importance of people with expertise in charge, and goldwater is someone who comes out of right field. not left field. although he was a sitting senator, he was a politician, a very seasoned politician and someone with a very firm and clear ideology -- conservative to libertarian. today we would call him more of a libertarian. he was a great believer in freedom of every kind. individual freedom and freedom from communism. he was the ultimate anti-communist crusader, following in the footsteps of people like richard nixon. someone who comes and seizes the nomination for the republican party from more moderate abilities. -- possibilities. he is quite a hardliner. johnson very successfully runs

against him as someone who was out of touch with the mainstream of politics, someone who was way too conservative for america. someone who does not have america's interest at heart. someone who should not be trusted to have his finger on the nuclear button. nonetheless goldwater, despite the fact that a lot of the experts and establishment were very worried about goldwater, he had a lot of grassroots support, particularly among young people. maybe not this young, although i had to throw this picture because i love it. he galvanized an incredible grassroots support from teenagers, housewives, people who are not part of the political establishment. a lot of people in the sun belt communities, suburban sun belt communities of southern california, arizona, and the southwest who believe that

america was on the wrong path. they were worried about communist influence in public schools and local governments, and were still -- the age of mccarthy was over, but they were still -- there was still a lot of people worried about the same things that joe mccarthy had good morning america about a decade before. but the democrats rule the day. the democrats have -- johnson in the democrats run a campaign that is successful not just in bringing -- building enthusiasm among the liberal coalition that had started in the age of franklin roosevelt with white working class voters from the north and west and african-american voters, but also to successfully paint goldwater as an extremist, someone who could not be trusted. the electoral map in 1964 was a landslide victory for the

democrats. here is -- what is interesting -- goldwater does not win very much. he wins his home state of arizona. he takes states that had been solidly blue, democratic for decades and decades. he is the deep south, the electoral votes of the deep south gopher very well -- very goldwater. why do they do that? because of civil rights. this is after the civil rights act was signed into law by johnson. something the whites of the deep south find something that is a great betrayal of their states rights and their way of life by the federal government.

goldwater is a states rights guy. he is a believer in freedom. he is a believer in as little government intrusion as possible including any business of the south. because of that you have states going red in the south of the first time, but hardly the last time. 1968, fast-forward. johnson's electoral victory is -- enables him to get major pieces of social legislation -- passed in the wake of 1964 to advance his anti-poverty agenda that he and john f. kennedy did. to pass programs of what he calls "the great society," including the centerpieces of medicare and medicaid, major social programs, health insurance for the elderly and lower income people. a whole host of other anti-poverty programs, job

creation programs, and enlargement of the domestic side of the government. what johnson also oversees is the large meant of the military side of the government because of the war in vietnam. he oversees this massive escalation of the conflict. it is ironic because in he comes into office, he is very conflicted about it. this is kennedy's war. this is not something, from the get-go, we hear this in the tapes of johnson's phone conversations with friends and colleagues in the oval office saying, "i don't know how we will get out of this, but we cannot just pull out." losing is not an option. when losing a war is not an option -- remember, look at the 20th century wars. world war ii only a couple of decades in the rearview mirror, this great american victory. ferment -- for america to lose a war, to pull out of a conflict

in a small, less developed country, to not be able to win that war, that would be a terrible blow. it would be a cold war blow because this was a proxy war for american democracy versus soviet communism. soviet and chinese communism, vietnam is one of those dominoes in the middle. so he escalates. by 1968 the escalation has been quite massive. one of the things that is propelling it is now that men are being drafted. as the war escalates, you need to draft more young men in the military. you need more soldiers. the draft is instituted in the run-up to world war ii by roosevelt. we do not have -- now we have an all volunteer military, we did not then. the escalation of vietnam means the escalation of those being called up in the draft. during the nearly 10 years of heavy american involvement in

the war, a total of 11.7 million served in the armed forces. a little over 2 million of those went to vietnam. within that number, 1.6 million saw combat. overall, of the entire 18-25 population, it is a little over a quarter of the population drafted up. the uncertainty of the draft, the fact that every young man has to register for it, makes it a possibility and probability for everyone. at the peak of the draft, in 1966, 3 hundred 47,000 americans were drafted. by 1968, going into 1968, one third of the 20-year-old men were in the service. one in 3 20-year-old males in the united states were in the military. this was not evenly distributed by race, there was a disproportionate number of the men of color drafted up. that is something that thread through the antiwar movement and becomes a rallying cry for and

connects the problem of the war overseas with the problems of race relations at home. it is something that you cannot get exempted from. no one is exempted from it. even though some people are more easily able to dodge than others. the draft increases the antiwar base. coming into 1968 there is already incredible antipathy about vietnam and a very vibrant antiwar movement. in the early days of 1968, towards the end of january, there is a north viennese assault on south vietnamese strongholds including cities that changes the visibility of the war and amps up pressure and broad-based antiwar sentiment beyond just those who are getting drafted. mrs. -- this is a vietnamese holiday in early 1968, there is

an attack that the johnson administration did not see coming. they come to the city's and it goes from major cities over the next three weeks of this, over 12,000 civilians are killed. a million refugees are created. it has a huge toll on the north vietnamese. many more north vietnamese depths than south the enemy soldiers or american soldiers. ultimately the american forces prevail. it is not a win. the north vietnamese push back. this type of attack, this coordinated attack is something the johnson administration did

not predict what happened. they were saying there was no way they north vietnamese had this capacity to do this. they also do not have the -- there is no way they will prevail. they were right on the second point. one of the things that made it so visible is that because it was fighting in the cities. the fighting in the range of television cameras. it is where all of the foreign correspondents were located. so the fighting is beamed from the streets of the cities in vietnam back to the nine states.

-- united states. it becomes more visible. when you hear about guerrilla warfare in the jungles, it is different. actually seeing this erupt in the streets, that changes the dynamic. the antiwar basement which has at its core these young college students, vulnerable to the draft, and at institutions where they had time on their hands to protest, and a platform to get people to listen to them start to expand. it becomes a more broad-based youth movement. it is enabled in part by the fact that there are so many young people. another reason that vietnam becomes such a political flashpoint is demographics. it is the baby boom. it is a new generation of young people. a group that male and female is termed man of the year by time magazine in early 1967. by r -- start to be understood by their elders as this new generation that is not only large and numbers, but care more about social justice and steal it -- geopolitical issues than

their previous generations did. they are intensely engaged in many of them in rectifying the injustices of the world and increasingly starting to talk about vietnam alongside civil rights and other injustices at home. they are connecting his problems -- these problems. it is a different sort of politics than we see an earlier civil rights movements, which are about fighting for consumer-based citizenship. by withholding your buying power to get what you want, by using the front of respectability and good behavior as a way to commence -- convince people to go along with your cause. this is the way political protests have been conducted for quite some time in united take, not just the 1950's and 1960's, but well before that. this new generation has different tactics. very quickly, lyndon johnson, the person who thinks these people should be my people, they should be my supporters, very

soon these young people turn on lbj. lbj is the war criminal. lbj is the person responsible for this debacle in vietnam. lbj is the person sending people there. vietnam gradually starts to take over everything else that johnson is trying to do. it starts taking over fiscally because it is eating up a giant chunk of the budget. you cannot also have the generous antipoverty programs and welfare programs of the great society and have the big spend of increasingly expensive war. it also is eroding political support. by the time you get to 1968 it is not just the kids on the street. there are other people protesting for peace. there are other people out on the street or sitting in the living room watching the tet offensive and fold on the television and wondering what is going on. somehow things are going wrong.

the scope and scale of the war and the sneak attack, surprise attacks of the tet offensive, something where the u.s. back troops eventually prevailed, but it goes against what the leaders in washington had been telling you can public about how the war is going. it is showing a different more than what leaders are saying. everything is going fine, we are working towards peace, we are de-escalating, etc.. the moment that really turns the tide politically, or maybe it is the final straw that breaks the camel's back, is when the person who is the arbiter of how americans understand the news of the day, someone who is seen as a trusted source -- not fake

news, but real, serious news -- walter cronkite, the veteran cbs reporter who had reported extensively from vietnam, he now sits at the anchor desk. the person who told america that john f. kennedy had been shot and killed. he is the person who later informs america of the men landing. he is the person who is delivering the news of the day to millions of american households. how many people -- how many people watched the network nightly news in the last month? ok. there are a few. network, not cable. network. how many people make a point to watch it every day? no hands. one hand. all right. but you probably know walter conk right -- cronkite. [laughter] this is where news came from.

it is not likely of all tend out from the news. how many people consulted a new source of the last one in four hours? it is not like you are tuning out. you're probably tuning in -- getting more news than you want. we have too many places to find it. but then walter cronkite, or the other anchors were the places you went. the nightly news, you got 30 minutes of what to think. anza very 28, cronkite and his broadcast with a three-minute speech about the war in vietnam. he looks at the camera, he reads from the script, looks up at the viewer sitting in the living room and says "it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of vietnam is to end in a stalemate. to say that we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of evidence to be optimistic have been wrong in the past.

to say we are mired in stalemate seems the only real and unsatisfactory conclusion. on the off chance the political analysts are right, and the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions before negotiations. it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and to the best they could." so while all of this is playing out there is a presidential election going on. and the summer of 1967 the democrats -- a group of left, young left-leaning democrats have started a dump johnson movement determined to find someone else to run for the democratic nomination. they cast about -- for a number

of potential candidates, landing first on trying to persuade young left-leaning democrats robert kennedy, the brother of the former president, now senator from new york to run, he says he is not interested. after going through and looking at a few short list, they finally come to the senior senator from minnesota, eugene mccarthy. gene mccarthy was in -- an unlikely person the run for president. he was fond of quoting poetry on the floor of the senate. he did not have a lot of friends in the senate. he was -- one colleague referred to him as the most intelligent man in the senate and that was not a compliment. [laughter] he was seen as kind of a cold fish, standoffish. two intellectual for his own good. he was someone who was kind of a cold war hawk. he was not a liberal softy. he was someone who believed in

vigorous intervention to stop the spread of communism. he was someone who was on the side of, initially the house of un-american activities committee. he was not in uber liberal guy. it was increasingly clear to him, particularly as the escalation increase to 1966 and 1967 that the war in vietnam was untenable and needed to end. he becomes -- he joins the race in november 1967 as the antiwar candidate. he gains a good deal of support and by early 1968 he is running very strong and -- in the ramp up to the new hampshire primary which then was in early march. the new hampshire primary mccarthy does not win. he gets over 40% of the vote. it is the moment when johnson, who gets -- he realizes this

fringe antiwar candidate -- obscure antiwar candidate is someone who could potentially be a challenger, and also the antiwar sentiment is running so strong that it is not wise for him to run for reelection. as mccarthy's campaign gains steam and a lot of the energy of the campaign comes from young people. these young college people who join on -- care more about a war in vietnam than any other issue and to have their first experience in organized politics by jumping on this support of the mccarthy campaign. they are encouraged by campaign organizers to get clean for jean, meaning cut your hair, shave your beard, where tidy clothes. do not look like a long-haired, young hippie.

look like a campaign worker as a way to increase the support for mccarthy beyond just young people in their college dorm room. mccarthy is not the only -- as the mccarthy campaign gains steam and becomes clearer and clearer that johnson and his vice president hubert humphrey, who would be another possible nominee for the 1968 democratic nomination, that they are increasingly hobbled by the war in vietnam. robert kennedy reconsiders his idea about not getting in the race. by middle of march, too late to actually get formally on the ballot for wisconsin. the wisconsin primary coming up, nonetheless -- he is a significant right in candidate and on the ballot for later primaries going forward, kennedy

jumps in. kennedy -- by this point the supporters of gene mccarthy, who might have been inclined to support committee the summer before now have -- they have plighted themselves to gene mccarthy and they see kennedy as this johnny-come-lately, just getting in on the bandwagon once it gets going. among the diehard mccarthy supporters there was a great dislike of bobby kennedy. here is a homemade sign in iowa, at a campaign rally in these ring in 1968 supporting mccarthy. handwritten and marker on the posters "bobby go home." -- post is "bobby go home." you are either with gene mccarthy or bobby kennedy. and kennedy and mccarthy did not

like each other very much either. mccarthy was a well-financed opponent. he would say things like, he plays touch football, but i play football. kennedy was extremely good at calibrating himself to be the larger cultural zeitgeist. reaching out, not just to college students, all of whom come in nearly all of whom are white. but reaching out to a multiracial coalition of democratic voters, people who had fond memories and loyalties to his brother, john, and to these other members of working-class members of the roosevelt coalition, the new deal coalition to build support around his candidacy. by the end of march you have johnson realizing that it is

just untenable for him to stay in and say he's getting out. it just gets more crazy from there. but there is so much more that happened with the election's outcome and also where american history goes from there. including the assassination of martin luther king in 1968. a moment that transforms, a moment that rocks all of american society, that the cover is devoted to on life magazine, a major photojournalistic magazine of the day. but also has effects on the broader contours of the civil rights movement. the civil rights movement as we know is already changing and already has many different civil

rights movements and ideas about the way to affect racial justice and civil justice. -- social justice. but the aftermath of the king campaign is violence. in washington dc, civil riot ing breaks out. there have already been a number of civil disorders, riots in predominantly black neighborhoods in large cities. some before that, 1967. the economic and political frustration for black of poor -- of poor, black communities overflows after king's assassination as well. robert kennedy has an immediate -- a sort of example of his mastery of the political moment

and also his heed in understanding to the broader questions of 1968 that extend beyond vietnam. they go beyond the white college students quite frankly. , as the news came through the wire on april 4, he was in indianapolis campaigning during the indiana primary, and he gives this in prompt to speech. opmptu speech. news has come that dr. king has been killed. he breaks the news to the crowd around him, a majority minority crowd. he says this is the time -- i too had a brother, i lost a brother to this sort of violence. he gives this very eloquent impromptu speech, and there is not disorder or fire in indianapolis that evening. whether bobby kennedy gets credit for that is a different matter, but nonetheless, it was an example of this mastery of

politics and his ability to reach out to a broader coalition, an ability that makes many people feel the ultimately would have been successful had he lived to become the nominee and the major party candidate in november 1968. but the king assassination also shifts -- there were other things dr. king has started to build that continue, including the poor people's campaign, which was another focus on the moving away from voting rights and desegregation of the south, more broad-based economic justice. the month after king's assassination, the march on washington, the poor people's march on washington that he is organizing and planning, that continued. and it follows the summer of 1968 by other marches in other cities and other marches on washington where the calls for justice have become more

multiracial. you have white people, hispanic people, african american people. it is more focused around economic issues, around the broader injustices that are not just southern problems, that are everywhere. there are new voices in the civil rights movement as well. former student nonviolent coordinated committee chair -- remember we talked about this in previous lectures, a southern civil rights organizer, one of the students who is a leader of the student-led civil rights movement of the early 1960's by the middle of the 1960's, some of the student leaders are shifting their focus and message, and that includes stokely carmichael, the chair from mississippi. by 1966, 1967, 1968, the

language of civil rights has not been about, let us sit at your lunch counter. let us participate in a broader white society, but one that is strongly separatist, africanist, and is a message of black nationalism. one that says we can't wait for white society weight to get its act together. so much changes necessary for -- change is necessary for justice to be achieved we have got to do it. we have got to do it -- this peaceful nonviolent means will not be the only way to do it. so here is an example. carmichael, i'm using his knees of many leaders on the left of the emergent black nationalist movement in the late 1960's. activists who are coming out of the civil rights movement in many cases, people who are articulating a reality that nonviolence has only gotten us

so far, voting rights can only get you so many things. here he is talking in berkeley in the early 1968, at a rally that is to support free cueing a freeing hughley newton , member of the black panther party who was imprisoned on murder charges after the killing of a white policeman outside oakland. the jailing, the conviction and jailing becomes a great cause of the black power movement and other allies on the left. carmichael says that but thousands of miles of water between us but they forgot blood is thicker than wander -- water. we are an african people with african ideology. we will build in this country. well, there will be no country. this is a very different type of articulation of african-american

civil rights and is also accompanied with a more militant stance, visually militant and politically militant, and the presentation of the black power activists is very different than the civil rights protesters of the montgomery bus boycott or the greensboro sit in's. there are no more suits and ties, no more, we will make ourselves look like the respectable middle-class people we are. the customers we deserve to be. we are going to be militant. we are going to dress to express our power and our difference, our youth, our power are different. so this is an image that, think about how these images are transmitted through print media and television media to the audience in 1968. these sorts of images also are

flashed into living rooms, white living rooms and civil disorder in predominantly black neighborhoods any major city like detroit, where the mass movement, significant writing -- rioting occurs and most damaging civil disorders of this period happen in detroit in 1967 where black neighborhoods are up in flames, and white residents, particularly white working-class residents, who are proximates and feel themselves in danger of this, are increasingly worried about the violence in their midst. so for african-americans, many of whom are frustrated with the incompleteness of the civil rights victories, the slowness with which white politicians have responded to the deep and enduring inequities, the

segregation in poor neighborhoods, the limited economic opportunities, the limits on housing, jobs -- this can be -- these are empowering images of people fighting back. to some other african-americans, activists, this is disturbing, because we have got this far because we were nonviolent. we were peaceful. this type of violence is not going to advance the cause. to many whites, ordinary people sitting in the living rooms, watching television, they were already feeling anxious about the changes going on around them. they see these images and think, we need, what we need is law and order. these images are coming across at the same time as images of college students growing their hair long and misbehaving.

there is a lot of image of -- it isn't just the violence they are seeing in city streets, it is also the violence in other places as well and the violence , in vietnam. there is very little good news walter cronkite is delivering it -- in 1968. that is what politicians who have law and order messages who are coming out and saying i will clean up the streets. we are going to reduce crime. we are going to create order out of this chaos, are increasingly potent and convincing. the progenitor of this messaging is ronald reagan who had a foreshadowing of what happens in 1968. he is elected of california. california is the place where these two types of disorders first breakout, first on the campus of berkeley in 1964, the free speech movement,

demonstrations, mass demonstrations. then on the streets of los angeles. in ronald reagan runs against 1966, the incumbent liberal governor who had beaten richard , nixon for the governorship several years earlier. running on this message of law and order and bringing order out of chaos. that is an important step. the people running in 1968 take note from that. talking about disorder, let's talk more about disorder on college campuses. you have the men of the year, the men and women of the year, this massive number of young people. young people are going to college in greater numbers than ever before. young people who are increasingly attuned to broader

social issues, they are caring about the issues in america around them. america thatng in is acting with brutality across the world, particularly on nations filled with those people of color and postcolonial nations. they are mad. not all of them, but a lot of them. shocked theg that older generation is not just the discontent the marching on the , streets, that participates in -- the participation in peaceful protests but the increasing , violence and disrespect of -- withy which with which these take on even at the , most elite college campuses in the nation. so in april and may, this -- columbia university is one of

many places, one of many college campuses across the country that becomes consumed by these sorts of protests, the violence, were -- where the administration of the university becomes a target of student discontent, not only in the context of the university. columbia has been expanding its campus and expanding into predominantly black neighborhoods and razing homes and building new administrative buildings. that became a flashpoint for discontent. but also discontent talking about the war in vietnam, how research universities are complicit in the warmongering machine of the u.s. government because they are doing military research. they are researching things like chemical weapons agent orange , and napalm, being developed at university campuses. so 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971 on many campuses including this

one, there are increasing protests and acts of violence against university properties and violence which students are caught up in. the increasingly militant stance of these very privileged young people, these people whose parents are like, oh my gosh, you have it so good. \yo have it so good. -- you have it so good. you grew up in a time of peace and prosperity. we worked hard so you could go to this nice school. what are you doing? you are growing your hair long and occupying the president's office. this might have been the face of young america that is a spotter -- this fodder of newspaper headlines, and it is the face of young america we remember you think about the 1960's, we think of the counter culture the , hippies, the left, the antiwar left. we think about people growing their hair long, dropping acid, dropping out.

but let's not forget that this was not everybody, and that in the when the moderate left, comes together and you have strong leftist movements both within and out side formal politics, pushing towards a more leftist solution, it is also the moment when the moderate right -- modern right is coming together. there are also young people on college campuses, young people in high school, young people who are just post-collegiate, who have very different ideas about what america is, what it should be, who are championing conservative values, who are not disrupting their parents by -- distressing their parents by doing drugs, but are projecting a more wholesome image. and also, who are going to -- gravitating to conservative

thinkers and politicians. barry goldwater, ronald reagan, on and on, as people who have the answers for what is ailing america. the solution is not more government, freedom for people -- is not freedom for people to do it they want. the solution is less government. the solution's returned to traditional values of charge and family. so the late 1960's is the beginning of not only the modern politics of the left but also of the right. to understand the 1960's as a hippie timeaired, is to mr. reid things going on that were powerful. it also explains how 1968 played out how it did. so june begins with an event that completely upends not only the democratic political

landscape but the broader political landscape of 1968 america, which is the assassination of bobby kennedy the night right after he has won the california primary, the primary that probably would have sent him, secured him the note -- in the nomination. kennedy surges past mccarthy, becomes the candidate to beat in the late spring and early summer. at his evening of triumph, he is struck down by an assassin's bullets. this is something that has a devastating effect not only on the people who were the supporters of robert kennedy but on a broader public that already had been devastated by other assassinations. hero after hero is slain, john f. kennedy, martin luther king,

now robert kennedy. so kennedy's assassination, just like king's assassination, precipitates a broader national mourning. now it throws the nomination into more turmoil. it is not clear who, if anyone, can bring them together. meantime, the republican party is debating who will be their nominee. by the early summer, it is clear that person who is going to be the nominee is the most unlikely of candidates, richard nixon. why is he unlikely? he lost a lot. he lost to kennedy in 1960 narrowly, but he loses. he runs for california governor in 1962, and he loses to pat brown, the liberal ronald reagan later defeats four years later

and famously says you will not have richard nixon to kick around anymore after that. he had a very adversarial relationship with the press. enemy and was the highly adversarial. and is recorded again and again in the history books the pivotal moment of the 1968 elections was -- 1960 elections was the televised debate in which he suffered from all sorts of sweat and television was not kind to him. it is kind to jfk. there are many reasons the election played out the way it did and there are different interpretations of the magnitude of the debate. from 1960 isr richard nixon was not good at television. by 1968, television was more important than ever before. to show up well on television,

you could get television advertising. advertising was key to gaining political support and convincing people to, onto your side. and his allies are watching what is going on, particularly after reagan's victory in 1966 and seeing other potential contenders for the republican nomination of 1968 fall by the wayside. nelson rockefeller in george romney, people who have been likely candidates all of a sudden are no longer strong possibilities. this gives an opening to richard nixon. ,s he makes this great comeback he is very mindful of what his public image will be, so mindful that it is the public satire of esquire magazine. do? does he he hires a madison avenue ad agency to build a television

presence around him. he hires key aids were very savvy to the power of television media to deliver a message. chief among them being roger ailes, a young aide who goes on to found fox news. also among the staff is patrick buchanan, who later becomes a presidential candidate himself. is responsible for writing some of the more strongly conservative speeches that nixon gives during the campaign. he has got a really savvy television group around him and he builds a public image that is very different from the image in .960 one key prong is advertising and

using it creatively in a way that does not foreground him, his face, or his voice that much. his voice is there in voiceovers. they have images decided to play on emotions rather than -- here is my policy, here is what i will tell you. he is here at cutting edge in his use of media in a way that is the complete opposite of what he does in 1960. his team makes sure he carefully controls the media environment where, if there is a town hall meeting, all the people asking him questions have been prescreened and preselected, so he will not get anything out of the side, the side. he is also keying into the broader anxiety the public has about all the changes going on. he is looking at what happened with what reagan did in 1966 and what other republican candidates

are doing elsewhere in 1966 and in 1968 to play up the concern about crime and law and order. he says a great many americans have become committed to answers to social problems for their personal freedom. this group of quiet americans he famously labels the silent majority. these are the people he is speaking to. it is a very powerful message. but his message, he is a calendar, the silent majority are the more conservative americans. and one major contender is george wallace. george wallace is someone who has gotten a lot of attention of late partly because he is a strongly populist voice, as a candidate in 1968 and

afterwards, and had messaging about personal freedom and the kind of anti-elite message that is very reminiscent of the message donald trump used so effectively on the stump in 2016. they are very different people, but wallace's campaign like trump's appeal to the populist interest in this notion of the people versus the powerful, that these excerpts, the pointy head that got us into this mess in vietnam and tell us things that are good to us, they don't know that. why do the college professors and bureaucrats know what is what? we should not have them messing in our lives. wallace of course is a southerner. he was a former governor of alabama. he first ran for alabama governor in 1968 and lost. he ran as a racial moderate. he learned from that loss he

needed to be much more strident on race and the preservation of segregation. in 1962 he ran for alabama governor and won but became a staunch defender of segregation. in rising to national prominence, he was not speaking to alabamians concerned about how states rights were being infringed upon, how local traditions and customs of racial segregation were being infringed by national mandates, but he also -- and you can listen to some of his speeches as governor, he is talking to southerners who might have left the south, letting other places, seeing changes in the racial order around them and the social order, and that is something they are not pleased about. so by 1968, he has transitioned

this message not talking specifically about racial change but social disorder and crime and law and order concerns. he is not talking about race, but he kind of is. so both national parties have kowtowed to every person. i'm not talking about race. but yet he is talking about low taxes. he is talking about keeping your community the way it is, he is talking about states rights. he is speaking against the measure that has been used by the federal government to try and implement and institute of fairer racial order in the south and elsewhere. he garners a great deal of support not just in the south but the north as well. this type of message is a kind of harsher and undiluted message of nixon's silent majority. by august you get to the national convention. he is about preservation of homeowners rights and low taxes. he's talking about keeping the community waiters. thinking -- talking vociferously against the measures used by the federal government to try and implement a better or fairer racial order. he garners a great deal of support not just from the south, but in the north as well. this type of message is the kind

of harsher and more on diluted version of nixon's silent majority. by august, you get to the national convention. we rarely ever hear about the republican convention. it really didn't make much news compared to what happened at the end of august to the democrats in chicago. so the republicans came into their convention with richard nixon pretty clear where they were going to go. the democrats come into their convention, it is not clear whether the establishment is led by and personified by hubert humphrey, johnson's vice president running for the nomination, had not ran in any primaries, but he is running for the nomination. will talk later about how the

nomination changed -- process has changed. but chicago becomes the destination for the antiwar left. here we have a group in new york that is sponsoring buses to go to the convention and is talking about how the tens of thousands will demand an immediate end to the war in vietnam. and an end to the war against black america. the causes of racial injustice and the end of the war abroad are twinned, being linked together. as the democratic establishment converges on chicago, so do the protesters. violence ensues. why is this such a meaningful and important event? television. you can't think of a place with more television cameras both inside and outside the hall that

at a national political convention. everyone has descended on chicago. when all of these protesters camped out across the city of chicago protesting that democrats, the conduct of the war, protesting the injustices of the social order, when they are set upon by chicago police department, at the orders of a democratic mayor, richard daley who is here on the floor of the senate, the floor of the convention, then this becomes a must-see television. the rifts in the democratic party become visibly displayed at the convention at the end of august. that you have both within and -- within the all, your strife within the party and you have violence outside. and then coming bruised and battered out of the fray is a

nominee that nobody really wanted except the establishment types, and this will -- since the beginning of the johnson movement more than a year before, so may democrats have been trying to displace the establishment, displace the man who had gotten the u.s. so deep into the war. and humphrey's eventual nomination is a great defeat for the democratic left and it causes broader rifts and fractures in the democratic party to require a lot of work. coming in to the last days of the campaign, it is a very close race. nixon and humphrey, it is not clear who will win. it is not clear to people who

are looking at it from elsewhere either. while all of this discord is going on at home, and paris, there have been a series of talks for peace in vietnam. the johnson administration, this is what he set out to do as he announced he would not run. he would focus on bringing an end to the war. by the end of october, he is close to getting there. there is a willingness, the north vietnamese are recognizing the election is close. looks like nixon might win. if nixon wins, he will have a more hardline and willingness to immediately stop the american bombing of north vietnam, the main thing the north vietnamese wanted. it was in their interest to

negotiate with the south vietnamese and the americans. then strangely at the last -- they've been moving towards a conclusion and getting closer. johnson and humphrey were hopeful something would be resolved before the election because that would be useful. south vietnam steps away and negotiations fall apart. for a long time there is speculation the nixon campaign had something to do with it and there was no proof. , want to end with this to show here you are taking history class. , we alwaysthings need to remember the past and the interpretation of the past is never static. history is always an argument

.ver what happened

against the

established institutions that continues to condor politics today. with people on the right and left got fed up with the way things were going because keep in mind, the establishment in the 1960's was a liberal establishment. it was an establishment dedicated to big government. it was responsible for an everest leading war in vietnam. it was an establishment that have betrayed both on the right and left. it was an establishment in the eyes of some white southerners, it had the trade their states rights by enforcing integration at public schools and facilities. it was an establishment that apply to college students about vietnam. it was an establishment that is falling short of promises of progress, of everything getting better. this skepticism infused politics

and with the end of the nixon with his resignation, watergate becomes another blow to that trust in institutions, the faith in the people. a further breakdown on right and left. i will leave it there. thanks for coming. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you're watching american americanv, 48 hours of history programming on c-span3. follow us on twitter at c-span history for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest news. this -- history professor paul talking about the first

congressional debate on slavery and race. here's a preview. the petition argued that the people of african descent were entitled to an equal liberty with their free white counterparts. emphasizing the equal humanity of slaves, rather than their status as property. the evolution society urged congress to approach the topic of slavery. they link the founding principles of a new nation to what i call the political greed of america with the cause of slavery's abolition and to clinch the point, the pennsylvania abolition society had a president and a leading figure of a national identity sign the document. you can see in the bottom right for those of you that don't spend your days reading this writing, that is indeed the

signature of benjamin franklin. notpetition asks the house only to assert its immediate powers over regulating the slave trade, but to ratify a larger vision of the republic and the land of genuine liberty. nation or the rights and humanity of enslaved blacks were knowledge. i want to show you the feel of the pennsylvania abolition society. you can see a slave having broken his chains and this white taking the advocate slave by the hand standing side by side. as i said, the petition is asking the house not only to assert the media powers, but ultimately forcing revision. >> watch the entire program on

sunday. american history tv, only on c-span3. >> american history tv, historian and author elizabeth cobbs talk about the women who served overseas as telephone operators in the u.s. army signal corps during world war i. she also explores how their service impacted the women's suffrage movement in the u.s., as she discusses the six-decade fight by these women to be recognized as military veterans. the national archives in washington dc hosted this 50-minute event. >> after the united states entered world war i, women as well as men eagerly volunteered to serve their country. although women were prohibited from joining the army or navy, they found ways to contribute, taking jobs once performed by men overseas. one group possessed a skill