The 1968 Democratic Primary Campaign: How Vietnam Crashed the Party
Over fifty years ago President Lyndon Baines Johnson shocked the United States when he announced on public television that he will not be seeking a second term. The United States’ efforts in Vietnam declined as presidential policy mandated an increase in manpower yet produced a decrease in results. The bombing operations in Vietnam caused many antiwar protests throughout the country, culminating in a violent clash with Chicago police officers in August 1968 at the Democratic National Convention. From 1964 to 1968, the foreign policy of President Johnson caused an upheaval in the democratic party.
On August 28, 1968, the streets of Chicago were filled with blood as the Youth International Party (Yippies) and police clashed outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention (DNC). Although the 28th was the third day of the convention, protesters arrived as early as the 25th eager to show their disapproval. As the police swung nightsticks, dragging protesters, launching tear gas, and pushing the angry mob away from the convention, shouts of “the whole world is watching, the whole world is watching” in front of television cameras continued throughout the night. The antiwar and anti-Vice President Humphrey protesters, predominantly young and white, initially set out for “peaceful demonstrations and marches in Chicago despite the provocative presence of thousands of armed police, National Guard and Federal troops” (New York Times 1968); however, the 1968 DNC proved to be the boiling point founded on inept foreign policy and domestic strife from the previous five years.
Often considered one of the worst years in American history, author James T. Patterson (1996, 678), labeled 1968 as “the most turbulent year” in his award-winning book, Grand expectations: The United States, 1945–1974, while Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, David S. Broder (2011, 1322), called it “a year of almost unprecedented violence and turmoil.” The year began with a devastating blow to the American psyche as North Vietnamese and Viet Cong (VC) soldiers staged the Tet Offensive, causing many civilians and politicians to doubt President Johnson’s and General Westmorland’s ability to protect the Republic of Vietnam (ROV). College campuses throughout the US conducted antiwar protests, specifically against the mass bombings of North Vietnam known as Operation Rolling Thunder. Due to the mismanagement of Vietnam, Democratic Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy attempted to unseat the incumbent President Johnson for the Democratic nomination in August, while segregationist and labor politician George Wallace broke from the party in the attempt to split it for good. The civil rights movement, a series of peaceful protests under the direction of Martin Luther King Jr., changed course with King’s assassination and sparked riots throughout the country. Robert Kennedy’s assassination in early June shattered the hopes of a candidate who was strong on civil rights and peace in Vietnam, which left the party with Vice President Hubert Humphrey to reignite the flames of antiwar protesters.
According to Isaac Newton’s third law of motion, “for every action there is always opposed an equal reaction; or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts,” which author V.F. Lenzen (1937, 258–260) explains how the action and reaction are simultaneous in accordance with the pressure applied to each other. Political and historical reactions are not always simultaneous like Lenzen described, but if Newton’s third law of motion were applied to American society from 1963–1968, it would have to be restated as “for every action there is eventually opposed a greater and malicious reaction.” Every one of these problems caused a dichotomy within the Democratic Party, which could not repair itself by the time of the DNC. Later that year, Republican Richard Nixon won the presidential election even though Humphrey regained many votes due to foreign policy changes in the fall. Hindsight reveals that the Democrats truly lost the presidential election on August 28th, because the Vietnam War crashed the Democratic Party.
In many aspects, Vietnam and Korea are comparable wars. Based upon the Truman Doctrine, “the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures” (Office of the Historian 2016), the spread of communism was a very real and legitimate threat during those two conflicts. Author Martin Catino (2010, iii) offers an explanation on why the US was so strongly opposed to the spread of Communism when he states:
“Communists, imbued with fanatical and religious-like ideology, not only brutally killed their opponents during wars but unlike other militants in history continued or increased the high levels of killing after victory was achieved in order to obtain a Marxist utopia and not just domination–and that often inflicted not upon foreign enemies but their own people.”
Both wars divided American sentiment and in both conflicts the northern military was initially superior, the President of the US did not ask congress for a declaration of war, yet Vietnam differed due to its initial advisory role to the ROV and North Vietnam’s attrition tactics. Even though US soldiers in Vietnam had significant technological advantages, such as the M16A1 rifle and the Bell UH -1 Iroquois “Huey” helicopter, Vietnam significantly differed from Korea due to foreign policy and battle strategy that truly hindered the success of American Soldiers.
Following the Korean War, President Eisenhower announced his “New Look” policy, which relied upon heavy fire power and a substantial nuclear arsenal. However, President Kennedy took a subtler approach to Vietnam, calling the “New Look” policy “a choice between holocaust or humiliation” (Addington 2000, 58). Unlike Korea, Kennedy favored the use of Special Forces (Green Berets) in a limited advisory role to the ROV, helping South Vietnamese soldiers and citizens to conduct the operations needed to defend themselves from the growing VC. For the most part, this policy was successful and maintained the status quo till 1963. ROV President Ngo Dinh Diem’s domestic policies began the downward spiral for the ROV, which brought attention to US citizens leading to the eventual protests.
Cautiously supported by President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson, Diem caused massive turmoil and protests, ultimately leading to his assassination and coup of the ROV government. Two factors caused the demise of Diem, which are his antagonistic attitude toward his own people and the infiltration of northern communists. With an 80% Buddhist population, Catholic Diem often discriminated against the practice of Buddhism, dedicated South Vietnam to the Virgin Mary, and in May of ’63, “Diem forbade the pagodas from flying religious flags in honor of Buddha’s birthday” (Addington 2000, 65). From June to August, protests began to rise with dramatic effect beginning with the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc. Well photographed by the Associated Press, Duc sat in the lotus position in the middle of a busy street in Saigon, doused in gasoline, and struck a match. Two days later the LA Times (Los Angeles Times 1963) reported, “Police Thursday narrowly averted a riot by 3,000 angry women mourning the death of a Buddhist priest who turned himself into a human torch Tuesday.” By the end of August, five more monks committed public self-immolation, Diem imposed martial law, mass protests went throughout the South, pagodas were invaded in order to arrest monks, all causing President Kennedy to lose faith in Diem. As protests continued, The North began to infiltrate and cause dissension within the South. Because of Diem’s policies, the VC continued to grow and spread the idea of communism, which Catino (2010, 160–161) writes, “Hanoi effectively co-opted dissent in the South and thereby destroyed the productive energies of reform that could have aided the people of South Vietnam. Breeding apathy and opposition in the South, Hanoi not only impeded reform there but also prolonged the war.”
By the end of November 1963, the assassinations of Diem in Saigon and Kennedy in Texas shifted the war from limited US involvement to an active assault on North Vietnam. President Johnson, with the help of General William C. Westmoreland, approved of OPLAN 34A, which assisted ROV guerrillas in raids and sabotage missions on the north coast. By early August 1964, tensions were high due to the raids on Hon Me and Hon Ngu, causing North Vietnamese torpedo boats to follow the USS Maddox into international waters. On August 2, 1964, the Captain of the Maddox declared the boats hostile and opened fire, beginning the First Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
The Maddox, assisted by the Turner Joy, conducted another reconnaissance mission on August 4th. Due to bad weather, visibility and radar were not reliable, yet the radar of the Maddox showed torpedo boats approaching. After opening fire upon the Gulf, the Maddox reported what would later be called the Second Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which a later investigation revealed the Maddox opened fire on no one. The second incident legitimized President Johnson’s push for an armed conflict with North Vietnam as he gave a televised speech on August 4, saying, “My fellow Americans: as President and Commander in Chief, it is my duty to the American people to report that renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply.” Johnson continued to explain some of the details of the conflict then remarks, “In the larger sense this new act of aggression, aimed directly at our own forces, again brings home to all of us in the United States the importance of the struggle for peace and security in southeast Asia.” Johnson concluded by saying, “but it is my considered conviction, shared throughout your Government, that firmness in the right is indispensable today for peace; that firmness will always be measured. Its mission is peace” (Miller Center 2018). With a unanimous decision in the House on August 6th, the Senate passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution with a 98–2 vote on the 7th. The Resolution gave Johnson carte blanche to war policies and the inception of a war built on deception, which Addington (2000, 77) states, “only years later, and through the Pentagon Papers, were the American people to learn on what shaky grounds — essentially in retaliation for a ‘non-event’ — Congress had dealt Johnson what he considered to be a ‘free hand’ for conducting a war in Southeast Asia.”
For the remainder of 1964, forces on both sides began to increase. The popular communist organization in the South, the National Liberation Front (NLF), continued to infiltrate the local communities and receive supplies by means of the Ho Chi Minh trail in neutral Laos and Cambodia.[1] In the late 1950s the NLF operations carried out were the genocide of Southern local leadership, which Catino (2010, 161) states, “the North relied on guerrilla tactics and nighttime infiltrations into the many villages throughout South Vietnam–a situation that uprooted its entire village life and created nightmare-like conditions for its people.” By removing local leadership in the South, this removed any legitimate opposition to the NLF ideology, and by 1965, the assassinations declined due to the South’s inability to raise up new leadership in local villages.
In February 1965, the VC conducted hit-and-run attacks in the South at Camp Holloway, killing nine Americans, and bombing the Viet Cuong Hotel, killing twenty-three Americans and injuring twenty-one (Pittsburg Press 1965). This was just the type of action that Johnson required to unleash his greater and malicious reaction of Operations Rolling Thunder, Steel Tiger, and Barrell Roll. Operation Rolling Thunder was a sustained bombing campaign against strategic military locations in North Vietnam, Steel Tiger bombed the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos, while Barrell Roll bombed the Trail in northern Laos. By the summer of 1966, Operation Rolling Thunder averaged between 250 to 300 airstrikes per day, however, late July saw record high sorties (single plane strikes) between 600 to 800 air strikes per day (Dailey Freeman 1966). By 1968, Operation Rolling Thunder became the greatest political issue during the presidential primary campaign. The leading platform for Senators McCarthy and Kennedy as they entered the race was to halt the mass bombings, which also caused antiwar protests against Vice President Humphrey, who did not change his stance till after the DNC. Operation Rolling Thunder gained so much coverage and protests over the span of four years, that it overshadowed the civil rights movement.
As the Vietnam War experienced many changes due to foreign policy, technological innovations, and the decade old anti-communism/McCarthyism sentiment, the home front imposed its own reaction. College campuses and students throughout the nation began protesting anti-communist (red-baiting) sentiment as well as the mass bombing campaign in North Vietnam. Students occupied buildings, blocked streets, staged sit-ins, held picket signs and bullhorns, and by 1968 the most common chant heard around the nation was, “hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” (Farber and Bailey 2001, 44). Known as the “New Left,” often referred to as the “Counter-Culture,” the sons and daughters of the “Greatest Generation,” college students who demanded change and “called for a more participatory democracy” (Farber and Bailey 2001, 30), this new wave of protestors were better known as “Baby-Boomers.”
As they transitioned from teenagers to adults, the Baby-Boomers developed their own culture, their own style, and their own way of thinking. Raised on beat writers like Jack Kerouac, rebel movies stars like James Dean, rock and roll music from Elvis Presley to Little Richard, the counterculture formed with a sense of pride founded on rebellion. Some from this counterculture followed the teachings of Timothy Leary that stressed isolation from traditional society and develop a reliance on “mind-expanding drugs for a new lifestyle” (Addington 2000, 110). At the University of Michigan in 1962, students formed the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which brought about a new line of thinking toward democratic socialism. Focusing on the importance of traditional democracy (the vote of the people and not the representative republic) and the importance of economic equality, the Port Huron Statement highlighted their views and goals of a more democratic society when they proclaimed, “as a social system we seek the establishment of a democracy of individual participation” (Miller 1988, 333). The Port Huron statement continued to announce, “the economy itself is of such importance that its major resources and means of production should be open to democratic participation and subject to democratic social regulation” (Miller 1988, 333). The counterculture grew increasingly worried and displeased with their representation in government, demanded their views be heard, and protested the 1950s McCarthy style of fear toward free speech. As the war in Vietnam escalated and many viewed the foreign policy shifting toward a tyrannical executive power, citizens became nervous. The counterculture movement also began protesting and condemning the use of napalm and agent orange (Operation Ranch Hand), which destroyed crops and foliage in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia as early as 1961. The May 2 Movement (M-2-M) in 1964, which urged men from ages eighteen to twenty-five to resist the draft, was a direct result from Johnson’s policy to supplement the war with the National Guard and drafted civilians rather than active duty soldiers (Addington 2000, 109).
Meanwhile, beginning in October 1964, student protests over free speech and the Vietnam War swept through the nation. One of the most significant, the University of California at Berkeley Free Speech Movement, which one Berkeley professor later described the protesters from the movement as, “odd hairy people exuding a visible aura of unwashed disinhibition” (Dayton Dailey News. 1965). Initially, students gathered to protest the suspensions of their classmates over political free speech, which eventually grew to over 500 demonstrators known as the first Sproul Hall sit-in. After the arrest of Jack Weinberg, who refused to leave his “banned” political table, students surrounded and blocked the police car for 36 hours, growing to a force of over 7,000 from October 1st to the 2nd of 1964. By 7:30 in the evening, with California highway patrolman surrounding the protesters, the president of UC Berkeley announced the release of Jack Weinberg and the lift of the political ban on campus (University of California Regents 2018).
The antiwar movement continued to rise as protesters marched to the Lincoln Memorial on October 21, 1967. Burning draft cards, singing, and even placing flowers in the rifle barrels of those guarding the Pentagon steps, the anti-war movement was in full bloom. Nearly 100,000 protesters moved from the Lincoln Memorial and crossed the Memorial Bridge to the Pentagon as one protester claimed, “We shall raise the flag of nothingness over the Pentagon and a mighty cheer of liberation will echo through the land” (Mettler, 2017). The most interesting group of protesters, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), consisted of very few in 1967 but grew as the war progressed. These soldiers drew a considerable amount of credibility and became “a more convincing argument to many at home than those of protesters who had never been near a Vietnam battlefield” (Addington 2000, 112). Martin Luther King Jr. was an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, because it shifted federal funding from Johnson’s “War on Poverty” to Southeast Asia, while Muhammad Ali famously told reporters, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong,” was later convicted of draft evasion. The New York Times (New York Times 1967) suggested that Cassius Clay’s defiance “may have far greater influence” to other black men due to the fact that 22% of battlefield deaths by 1967 were black soldiers.[2]
The most significant blow to the Democratic Party began in 1965, as Democratic Senators began to distance themselves from Johnson’s foreign policies and became austere critics of the Vietnam War. The first “Dissenter” to separate from the President’s policies, Arkansas Senator J.W. Fulbright, became the most outspoken against the bombings when in October, he “urged once again that the bombing in North Vietnam be suspended” (Kenworthy 1965). As Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Fulbright wanted to suspend the bombings to induce peaceful negotiations with the North Vietnamese. However, the suspension of bombings did not bring the North Vietnamese to the negotiation table as the Senator had hoped, and Johnson continued the bombing campaign.
In his book, The Arrogance of Power, Fulbright (2011, 52–59) argues against the mission of America to civilize other nations and labels it as “welfare imperialism.” Fulbright continues to say that with good intentions, the US is dragging other nations into a system that they do not necessarily agree with nor do their people accept. He argues that America is only imposing freedom upon the Vietnamese, disguised as commitment to freedom, but truly a façade to American pride. Fulbright sites the 1966 Saigon demonstrations when American jeeps were burned, and protesters shouted, “down with American imperialists,” which he also sites a Vietnamese citizen saying, “any time legions of prosperous white men descend on a rudimentary Asian society, you are bound to have trouble.” Fulbright makes a beautiful description of Vietnam when he writes, “we are still acting like Boy Scouts dragging reluctant old ladies across streets they do not want to cross.”
Eventually joining Fulbright’s arguments, the New York Times (Herbers 1967) reported that Minnesota Senator, Eugene McCarthy, claimed that it was the duty of the Senators to “speak out against the President if they felt his policies were fraught with danger.” The same article remarks that Democratic Senators Mike Mansfield, Frank Church, and Wayne Morse all agreed that continuing the escalation of bombing and activity could “bring Red China and the Soviet Union into the war.” Many Democratic Senators began speaking out against the war, and by the end of 1967 the Party showed serious disunity. Still supportive of the Party’s commitment to Vietnam, Senator Robert Kennedy, remained loyal as he said in a 1967 CBS interview, “I have some reservations as I’ve stated them before about some aspects of the war, but I think that the United States is making every effort to try to make it possible for the people of South Vietnam to determine their own destiny” (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Staff. 2018). Kennedy goes on to explain that the other Senators and civilians, who opposed the war, are in fact very patriotic for expressing their views. Despite Robert Kennedy’s opinion, Johnson’s foreign policy caused dissention among Democratic Senators, and by October 1967, a group call the Dissenting Democrats organized a movement to persuade Johnson not to run for reelection, as well as putting their support behind Kennedy for the 1968 presidential bid (Aarons 1967).
The North Vietnamese Government understood how to shape public opinion and decided that a well-coordinated assault would swing the war in their favor. Author James Wright (2017, 24) offers his thoughts on the Tet Offensive in January 1968, when he writes, “the Tet Offensive…proved to be a turning point — a psychological one, not a military one.” Until 1968, North Vietnam’s influence in the South grew weaker, and following their defeat at the Battle of Ia Drang Valley in November 1965, North Vietnam’s strategy returned and remained a war of attrition. In order to gain the upper hand, Hanoi strategist developed a plan of simultaneous attacks throughout South Vietnam on the Vietnamese New Year (Tet Nguyen Dan) in late January. The initial stage consisted of massing forces near the Northern Marine base Khe Sanh, which provided a ruse as the VC reinforced their numbers and moved to infiltrate the rest of the ROV. The primary goal of the VC was not to defeat the US, but to “subvert public confidence in the government’s ability to provide security, triggering a crescendo of popular protest to halt the fighting and force a political accommodation” (Stewart 2010, 339). With forces growing in the North, General Westmoreland, and his staff (fearing a repeat of Dien Bien Phu, bolstered forces in Khe Sanh), were unprepared for the events to come in the South. Even though there were premature attacks on January 30, the full force of the Tet Offensive opened on the 31st. The VC attacks erupted in five major cities, sixty-four towns, and spanning throughout thirty-six of the forty-four provinces (Stewart 2010, 340).
US troops held off the VC and the result of the Tet Offensive received the opposite reaction in South Vietnam. The people of South Vietnam did not rebel but were emboldened to actively resist the now weakened VC due to many deaths from the offensive. However, this sentiment turned out to be the precise result in the US, where Americans watched waves of VC attacking the Saigon embassy on television. Prior to the Tet Offensive, it was widely believed that America was winning the war. Military and political leaders reassured the public that the VC were losing momentum, yet because “Vietnam was America’s first living room war” (Wright 2017, 184), the American public watched the Tet Offensive for themselves, dropping Johnson’s approval rating from 40% to 26%. To make matters worse, following Tet, General Westmoreland requested an additional 206,000 troops to conduct bombing as well as search and destroy missions, culminating in the Accelerated Pacification Program by the end of March 1968 (Patterson 1996, 681–685).
In the summer of 1967, the Dissenting Democrats and similar groups like the National Student Association attempted to search for a candidate to take down Johnson in ’68. Senators Kennedy, McGovern, and Church all turned them down, yet Eugene McCarthy took up the challenge as the anti-Vietnam candidate. Popular with college students, they admired McCarthy’s charisma, intelligence, and courage to criticize the President; however, his attitude outside of the college sphere “left many people cold” (Patterson 1996, 690). The American public was not only looking for a candidate that could solve Vietnam, but who would continue breaking down racial barriers. McCarthy often avoided the topic of race and did not even speak in areas with a heavy black population. When McCarthy first announced his candidacy in November 1967, his campaign team decided to focus on four major primaries: Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Oregon, and California. The New Hampshire primary was added last, yet it was the primary with the greatest impact and reaction. McCarthy (1987, 185) comments on the early campaign trail in his memoir explaining, “although the public image of that campaign is one of happy students walking through the snow…it was actually one in which the Johnson administration and Johnson partisans conducted a vigorous, sometimes vicious campaign.” On March 12, 1968, McCarthy shocked the public at the New Hampshire primary by trailing President Johnson’s write-ins by less than 4,000 votes. Although he did not win the primary, it was enough to not only shock the public and President, but it caused Senator Kennedy to join the race.
With the protests from the previous years and the Democratic Senators’ opposition to Johnson’s foreign policies, Johnson’s reaction to the growing support for McCarthy and Kennedy brought the American public to a screeching halt on the night of March 31. On national television, Johnson began his speech:
Good evening, my fellow Americans: tonight, I want to speak to you of peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia…Their attack — during the Tet holidays — failed to achieve its principal objectives. It did not collapse the elected government of South Vietnam or shatter its army — as the Communists had hoped. It did not produce a “general uprising” among the people of the cities as they had predicted…Tonight, I have ordered our aircraft and our naval vessels to make no attacks on North Vietnam, except in the area north of the demilitarized zone where the continuing enemy buildup directly threatens allied forward positions and where the movements of their troops and supplies are clearly related to that threat…With America’s sons in the fields far away, with America’s future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world’s hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office — the Presidency of your country. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President. (Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library 2007).
On April 2, McCarthy defeated the President with nearly 57 percent of the Wisconsin primary votes. McCarthy believed the President dropped from the race because of Kennedy, which he also hoped that Johnson would deescalate the war. Because of Kennedy’s late entry to the campaign, the first primary he could enter was Indiana on May 7. Kennedy came out the victor with 42 percent of the vote and repeated his victory against McCarthy in Nebraska. McCarthy claims the losses were due to Kennedy supporters attacking his voting records, calling these tactics, “cheap and petty” (McCarthy 1987, 193). Finally, in California on June 4, Kennedy won the primary with 46 percent of the vote due to his ability to gain support from black and Mexican American voters.
Kennedy conducted a different campaign than McCarthy, which he appealed to the minority voice. He appealed to the working class, wanted to deescalate Vietnam with minimal retaliation, was the only candidate willing to enter the ghettos, and was the exact candidate the liberal public wanted. While in Indianapolis, he learned of Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination, and despite his committee and authorities asking him not to speak in the black section of the city, he climbed on top of a car and made the announcement anyway. Kennedy, pleading for non-violence because King would not want violence, explained to the crowd, “Dr. King dedicated himself for justice and love between his fellow human beings. He gave his life for that principle, and it’s up to those of us who are here — his fellow citizens and public officials, those of us in government — to carry out that dream” (Apple Jr. 1968). Kennedy took his grace and sincerity one step further by chartering a plane for King’s wife and family to arrive in Memphis and then fly to Atlanta with the coffin. Although he was well liked and his plea for non-violence was sincere, America did not listen and over 160 American cities and towns erupted in riots; Washington, D.C. experienced the worst of the riots and lootings with over seven hundred fires.
Kennedy continually gained momentum and consistently gathered former McCarthy supporters as the primaries proceeded. After winning the California primary, just after midnight on June 5th in the Ambassador Hotel kitchen, Sirhan Sirhan shot Robert Kennedy three times. Over the years, scholars debated whether Kennedy would have won the 1968 election if he was alive; however, author David Broder (2011, 1338) writes, “in a very real sense, neither Humphrey nor McCarthy nor the Democratic Party ever recovered in 1968 from the shock of the Kennedy murder.” With Kennedy’s death, the hope of minorities for a candidate who understood their needs went away. He understood what they were going through, which Alden Whitman (1968) reported, “over the last three years Mr. Kennedy developed strong bonds with the black community in this country. Often unable to articulate the reasons, Negroes felt that he understood their plight better than most white men.”
Following Kennedy’s death, all that remained of the Democratic party was a declining McCarthy, Vice President Hubert Humphrey (seen as an extension of Johnson before his break from foreign policy in September 1968), and a few new-comers in the summer such as George McGovern, Lester Maddox, and several people calling for Ted Kennedy (he declined the nomination). With Kennedy’s death, Humphrey’s nomination at the DNC was a sure thing. After Johnson’s March 31 announcement, the President put his support behind Vice President Humphrey and not McCarthy or Kennedy, which authors David Farber and Beth Bailey (2001, 45) explain, “because in 1968 only a minority of convention delegates were selected through presidential primaries, while the majority of delegates were appointed by party leaders, Johnson’s support meant that Humphrey would almost surely win the Democratic nomination.” Besides Humphrey’s nomination, the DNC’s major arguments came from the decision to continue or halt the bombing operations in North Vietnam. The majority plank in favor of the use of force sustained the policy by a vote of 1,567 to 1,041. That afternoon, embittered supporters of the minority plank (calling for a halt of bombing) wore black armbands and began “singing the civil rights anthem, ‘We Shall Overcome’” (Broder 2011, 1346).
The DNC continued to escalate, which Chicago Mayor Richard Daley anticipated and brought in 12,000 police, 5,000 National Guardsmen, and 6,000 federal troops to counter the Yippies, who gathered and multiplied by the day. With the violence on the streets of Chicago the night of August 28, the DNC exhibited similar anguish inside. While nominating George McGovern, Senator Abraham Ribicoff claimed, “With George McGovern we wouldn’t have Gestapo tactics on the streets of Chicago” (Patterson 1996, 696). The actions of both the politicians inside and the protesters outside the DNC did more damage to the Democratic Party than they could ever imagine. Humphrey eventually distanced himself from Johnson’s policies in Vietnam, and Johnson halted the bombing campaigns in late October. The Democratic party was in tatters because of the inept policy to mold Vietnam into a Southeast Asian version of America. Every action from 1963 to 1968 was met with a greater and malicious reaction. From President Diem’s assassination to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Operation Rolling Thunder to the protest in front of the Lincoln Memorial and the Pentagon; Robert Kennedy’s assassination to the Chicago riots; all of these events were reactions of anger trying to attain peace. The late 1960s saw incredible social change, political upheaval, and protests that American’s have rarely seen before. No one foresaw the political climate in the late 1960s better than Bob Dylan (1963) when he sang the lyrics of his hit song, “Come senators, congressmen please heed the call. Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall. For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled, there’s a battle outside and it is ragin’. It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls, for the times they are a-changin’.”
References
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Addington, Larry H. 2000. America’s War in Vietnam: A Short Narrative History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Apple Jr., R.W. 1968. “Kennedy Appeals for Nonviolence.” New York Times (1923-Current File), April 5, 33. http://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?url=https://search proquest.com.ezproxy. Liberty.edu/docview/118178330
Broder, David S. 2011. “Election of 1968.” In History of American Presidential Elections, vol. 3, 1944–2008, 4th edition, eds. G. Troy, A. M. Schlesinger Jr., and F.L. Israel . 1317–1359. New York: Facts on File, Inc.
Catino, Martin S. 2010. The Aggressors: Ho Chi Minh, North Vietnam & and the Communist Bloc. Indianapolis: Dog Ear Publishing.
Dailey Freeman. 1966. “Planes Give No Sightings of MIG’s.” Daily Freeman. July 29. https://www.newspapers.com/image/255145659/?terms=Operation% 2BRolling %2B Thunder
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Dylan, Bob. 1963. “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Icon. https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/ timesthey-are-changin. (accessed December 13, 2018).
Farber, David R., and Beth L. Bailey. 2001. The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s. Columbia Guides to American History and Cultures. New York: Columbia University Press.
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Herbers, John. 1967. “6 Senators Warn President on War.” New York Times (1923-Current File), May 16, 1. http://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest.com.ezproxy. liberty.edu/docview/118092036
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Staff. 2018. “‘The Image of America and the Youth of the World,’ with Gov. Ronald Reagan, CBS Television and Radio, May 15, 1967.” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about jfk/the-kennedy-family/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/the-image-of america-and-the-youth-of-the-world with-gov-ronald-reagan-cbs-television-and-radio may
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Miller Center. 2018. August 4, 1964: Report on the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. University of Virginia Miller Center. https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential speeches/august-4–1964-report-gulf-tonkin-incident
Miller, James. 1988. Democracy in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago. New York: Simon and Schuster.
New York Times. 1967. “The Draft: Cassius vs. Army.” New York Times (1923-Current File). April 30, 190. http://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?url=https://search proquest.com.ezproxy. liberty.edu/docview/117646544
— — — . 1968. “Hundreds of Protesters Block Traffic in Chicago: Anti-War and Anti Humphrey Groups Clash With Police After Ouster From Park.” New York Times (1923- Current File), Aug 26, 25. http://ezproxy. liberty. edu/login?url=https://search proquest.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/docview/118349048
Office of the Historian. 2016. Truman Doctrine, 1947. United States Department of State: Office of the Historian. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/truman-doctrine
Patterson, James T. 1996. Grand expectations: The United States, 1945–1974. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pittsburg Press. 1965. “Air Armada Rips N. Viet in Retaliation.” The Pittsburg Press. February 11. https://www.newspapers.com/image/149086834
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University of California Regents. 2018. “Free Speech Movement 50.” https://fsm.berkeley.edu/ free-speech-movement-timeline/
Whitman, Alden. 1968. “Robert Francis Kennedy: Attorney General, Senator and Heir of the New Frontier.” New York Times (1923-Current File), June 7, 18. http://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login ?url=https://search-proquest com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/docview/118267987
Wright, James. 2017. Enduring Vietnam: An American Generation and Its War. New York: Thomas Dunne Books.
[1] President Diem and his administration contemptuously referred to the NLF as Viet Cong.
[2] Although Ali changed his name in 1964, it was never a legal name change in the American court system; therefore, many newspaper titles still referred to Muhammad Ali as Cassius Clay till 1968.
