March 31, 1968

[H2O Man]

Older DUers will remember that 40 years ago tonight, LBJ addressed the nation. It was supposed to be a speech about Vietnam. But there was a surprise at the end. LBJ said he didn't want "the presidency to become involved in partisan divisions that are developing in this political year. ... With your 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."

Earlier in the day, President Johnson had been considering two endings to his speech. He had gone back and forth, trying to decide if he should keep his options open, or put an end to his political career and retire to his ranch. His wife was pressuring him to retire. Many of his top aides had come to question if he was stable enough to serve as president. He had been telling select aides about nightmares he was having, about Bobby Kennedy challenging him.

Two US Senators from his own party were challenging him for the nomination. The response to his statement was intense. Kenny O'Donnell, Fred Dutton, and George McGovern had all said that LBJ wouldn't stay in a tough primary fight. But they were still surprised that he dropped out when he did. Robert Kennedy was returning from a hearing of his Indian subcommittee held in Flagstaff, Arizona. He was met at La Guardia airport by John Burns, the mayor of Binghamton, NY. RFK asked Burns if he was kidding.

It was a strange night in our nation's history. I'm curious what other DUers remember about it?

[JeffR]

1. I remember that night.

It was a strange, flat, still moment in all that chaos that was 1968. And it set in motion the most amazing primary season I've ever seen, barring - perhaps - this one.

[H2O Man]

9. It was

the best of times/ the worst of times. There are times when I think that 1968 and 2008 are very closely related.

[Art_from_Ark]

40. Exactly the way I think about it

1968 was quite a year, for the country as a whole, and for me personally.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

I remember it very well.

A lot of us celebrated; we thought it meant maybe Gene McCarthy would get the nomination and the war would end. He didn't, and it didn't...

[oldtime dfl_er]

4. are we related?

:rofl:

[oldtime dfl_er]

2. Wow, was that 40 years ago tonight?

I remember it, I was a callow (very young) teenager and my only thought was good, the old wanker is getting out of the way. To me, at that time, LBJ was as evil as Dick Cheney is to me today. I was a "Clean Gene" McCarthy supporter, we thought that even RFK was too compromised and possibly not sincere. But my shock and sorrow at the events of that summer have probably shaped a large part of who I am today.

[H2O Man]

55. It seems strange

to think that it really was 40 years ago!

[Mike Nelson]

3. Johnson saw the writing on the wall

Done in by Vietnam.
It got Nixon too.
When will they ever learn.
When will they ever learn.

[H2O Man]

5. "writing on the wall"

If my son stops over tonight, I'll have him help me post the (paper) tape LBJ was reading from that night.

[panader0]

6. Did he not also say "If elected I will not serve"?

I was 17, almost draft age.

[H2O Man]

10. The 3-31 statement

is called a "Shermanesque statement." General Sherman had said, "If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve." LBJ did not go this far. Many people close to him believed that he left the door slightly open, and he expressed some thoughts that summer that indicated he hoped to be "drafted" by the party.

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. I was with my parents watching it on TV and my brother just registered

for the draft, I came two years later. We sat there in shock and even my dad was
surprised since he worked for the joint chiefs and hadn't heard of the rumors
or if he did he feign surprise.

Even though the war was unpopular we thought he could win anyway if he really
wanted it. It changed the whole dynamics of politics for both parties and the
next months opened up all the candidates to a horse race that wasn't there before.

It was exciting to hear Kennedy, McCarthy run for president. Everyone in my family
including my Dad, which came as a surprise, thought Kennedy had the best plan
for Vietnam and had won the debates that came up later.

I went to RFK's grave the second day after he was buried.

[Olney Blue]

28. Thank you for posting this- I love hearing personal accounts like yours

of memorable historical events.

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

8. I was in the hospital. It was a Sunday night and I had my

appendix removed the Friday before. I was 14 years old. My parents came up to see me and my Mom and I were just chatting away, when my father interrupted both of us and told us to be quiet. When LBJ uttered his famous words, my Dad shouted "I knew he wouldn't run against Bobby Kennedy". My Mom wondered if this meant my brother Terry would be coming home from Vietnam and I was just stunned. I figured ole Landslide Lyndon would stay in the fight. I asked my Dad why he said what he did that night and he just said it was just a feeling he had.

One other thing is Friday is the 40th anniversary of Dr. King's murder. It's hard to believe, but I remember everything that happened like it took place only yesterday. 1968 was a very strange year.

[Usrename]

74. That's gotta be correct.

I remember Martin and Bobby both died on Thursday. Our church had choir practice on Thursday, and mood was so overwhelming that the acoustics there even seemed to change for both of them.

[TomInTib]

11. Oh, I remember it all too well...

knowing that I would probably soon be headed to The Bad Place and hoping that either McCarthy or Some-Fucking-Body would get our asses out before I had to go.

Just more Hope dashed on the Rocks of Reality.

[annabanana]

12. NYU Dorms

delirium. . .watching bunches of students run around Wash Sq Park chanting "Ho Ho Ho Chi Min, NLF is gonna Win".. It was a bit much, even for my fiercest hippie self...

[Ichingcarpenter]

13. Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Min, the viet cong are gonna Win".

I remember that chant too.

[Art_from_Ark]

71. My brother used to say a different version

"Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, 1,2,3 let it all hang in"
Kind of combining two of the well-known expressions of the day, sort of.

[truedelphi]

30. I often thought that the chant came from the infiltrated end

Of the movement.

The guys and gals that looked just a little too well styled to really be peaceniks and who were probably FBI.

[Ichingcarpenter]

35. Nay, it was used all the time

I was at a local party that got shut down
and all the teenagers started chanting it to taunt the cops.

OH, and the Viet Cong did win.

[Ishoutandscream2]

14. 1968 - Simply an incredible year

It seemed anything could happen in that year. And it did.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. 1968 was one of those years when everything seemed to happen at once

The Tet offensive, the My Lai massacre, the North Koreans capturing the U.S.S. Pueblo, Johnson's withdrawal from the campaign, MLK's assassination, RFK's assassination, student riots around the world, the Chicago convention, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Mexico City Olympics with the black athletes' protest, Jacqueline Kennedy marries Aristotle Onassis, the hair-breadth election of Nixon over Humphrey, Apollo 8 orbits the moon.

With all that going on, I graduated from high school and started college.

Here's a timeline:

http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/1968/reference/timeline.html

[cureautismnow]

47. Apollo 8 saved 1968.

Well, that and the White Album, too. :)

[H2O Man]

49. A young man

named George Foreman waved a small American flag as he walked around the ring after winning the Olympic heavyweight boxing title. It wasn't intended to express disagreement with Tommie Smith andJohn Carlos. Foreman has been outspoken in recent years about the lack of compassion that became fashionable in the Reagan years, and in republican administrations since.

[Ichingcarpenter]

80. A young man

lost his virginity that year

ME......LOL

[Art_from_Ark]

59. I remember the Christmas Eve broadcast from Apollo 8

and when the commemorative stampe came out the next year, I had to hurry to the post office to buy it.

http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/skyimage_1993_20864881

[JackRiddler]

58. You forgot the 10 days of May in France!

General wildcat sitdown strike.

On May sadly followed June. They took a few concessions and vacation days, instead of the revolution.

But that's the French for you.

(I missed it, by the way. Three years old. Don't even remember the moon landing.)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

65. I included it under "student riots around the world"

They had them all over Europe and in Japan and Mexico as well. Maybe some other countries, too.

[Art_from_Ark]

72. They had quite a thing going at Tokyo University for a while

protesting the Ampo Joyaku, I think

[Lydia Leftcoast]

75. I'm told that the reason some dorms at the older universities look like such slums

is that some of the more stubborn student radicals from the old days have simply refused to leave and are still squatting in the buildings, eking out an existence some how, taking advantage of the difficulty of evicting people in Japan.

[Art_from_Ark]

83. That might be a Japanese urban legend

The dorms at some of the newer universities look like slums, too.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

85. Oh well, it seemed like a really plausible explanation for the state of

some of the university dorms I've seen, most notably the one that's along the river in Kyoto.

[Art_from_Ark]

87. I was shocked when I saw the dorms at Tokyo University

So shocked, in fact, that I gave a speech about it, with a former Japanese prime minister in attendance!

[Art_from_Ark]

60. That was a bad year for submarines

The Scorpion was lost near the Azores, and I spent many weeks worrying about the fate of the crewmembers.

[stevedeshazer]

16. I remember it like yesterday

I was just thirteen. My father had been in a devastating car accident just four weeks before and was still unable to get out of the bed we'd set up in the living room. To help Pop endure his recovery, we had just bought our first color television (a Magnavox if I recall.)

Pop had broken ribs. When President Johnson made his announcement, my dad starting coughing and laughing, very painful in his condition. That's my memory.

See, my dad was a WWII combat engineer who hated war and hated Johnson.

Two months later, the Oregon primary was near and RFK came to speak in our little town, and about a thousand people showed up. My parents were Gene McCarthy supporters. They were mortified when some Bobby K supporters handed me a sign, which subsequently appeared in the local weekly newspaper. I still have a copy here somewhere.

So days later, Bobby was assassinated. Gene McCarthy lost. My Mom voted for Hubert Humphrey. Pop voted for Nixon on his promise to end the Viet Nam war.

Those were the days.

[H2O Man]

17. The Oregon primary

was bitterly contested. McCarthy delivered lines such as, "Bobby threatened to hold his breath unless the people of Oregon voted for him." (American Melodrama; page 304) McCarthy's speech at the Portland Coliseum was described by Jeremy Larner as "sickening." (Robert Kennedy & His Times; page 973) The memory of the damage done by McCarthy and Kennedy fighting should serve as a warning to progressive democrats today.

[stevedeshazer]

41. I appreciate your library of information

From the perspective as a kid in seventh grade, I can only say at the time that Robert Kennedy was amazingly inspiring; about a week later, Pop woke me up on that night in June 1968, when RFK was murdered.

After MLK and JFK, I knew things would never be the same.

Innocence.

Lost.

That is why Obama appeals to me.

[stevedeshazer]

42. And yes, Clean Gene won

The only election loss RFK ever had.

[H2O Man]

It was the first

loss for a Kennedy in US politics.

I think that Barack Obama offers us the opportunity to deal with some unfinished business from 1968.

[stevedeshazer]

45. I hope so.

:)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. I remember cheering. Finally, the bastard had quit.

Then came Chicago, and they ran Humpty-Dumpty, and the hopes for peace faded.

[muntrv]

19. April 4, 1968. That's the 40th anniversary of MLK's assassination.

[Me.]

20. I've Always Been Fascinated By The Bobby Nighmares

What caused them, guilt, fear? Did they continue after Bobby was killed?

[Ichingcarpenter]

21. Interesting, especially with what we know now

LBJ's health went down hill after he retired.

[H2O Man]

22. After he retired,

LBJ seems to have regained his emotional stability. He grew his hair long, and told friends that were he a young man, he would be a "hippie," too. There is no record of him being haunted by dreams after leaving the White House, although that does not mean that he didn't continue to have them after he retired.

I'll look through a couple of books, and post some of the quotes that deal with those times.

[H2O Man]

24. Flawed Giant

by Robert Dallek
page 627

"Plaguing Johnson as well was an irrational conviction that his domestic opponents were subversive or the dupes of subversives intent on undermining national institutions. Johnson's paranoia raises questions about his judgement and capacity to make rational life and death decisions. I do not raise this matter casually. It is a frightening difficult issue, which the country has never seriously addressed. ... Determining psychological incapacity may be impossible. We have never had a President who was so demonstrably depressed or unstable that he had to temporarily or permanently give up governing. ..."

Odd that LBJ and Nixon both were believed by those close to them as having, to some degree, emotional breakdowns that impaired their ability to govern.

[H2O Man]

26. "White house aides, Doris Kearns wrote,

'were frightened by what seemed to them signs of paranoia.' The president would enter into a compulsive monologue, punctuated by irrelevant laughs:

" 'Two or three intellectuals started it all you know. They produced all the doubts. ... And it spread and spread. ... Then Bobby began taking it up as his cause and with Martin Luther King on his payroll he went around stirring up the Negroes .... Then the Communists stepped in. They control the three major networks, you know, and the forty major outlets of communication. Walter Lippman is a communist and so is Teddy White. It's all in the FBI reports .... Isn't it funny that I always received a piece of advice from my top advisors after one of them has been in contact with someone in the Communist world? And isn't it funny that you could always find Dobrynin's car in front of Reston's house the night before Reston delivered a blast on Vietnam?' "
-- Schlesinger; Robert Kennedy & His Times; page 799

[H2O Man]

29. LBJ to Doris Kearns:

"I felt that I was being chased on all sides by a giant stampede .... I was being forced over the edge by rioting blacks, demonstrating students, marching welfare mothers, squawking professors, and hysterical reporters. And then the final straw. The thing I had feared from the first day of my Presidency was actually coming true. Robert Kennedy had openly announced his intention to reclaim the throne in the memory of his brother. And the American people, swayed by the magic of the name, were dancing in the streets."

Doris Kearns tells about LBJ describing this haunting dream in her book "LBJ and the American Dream" on pages 342-343.

[H2O Man]

31. Schlesinger:

"I wenty to a small dinner ... Bill Moyers was another guest. Afterward, Moyers drove me uptown. Johnson, he said, was by now well sealed off from reality; the White House atmosphere was 'impenetrable.' The President explained away all criticism as based on personal or political antagonism. Moyers used the word 'paranoid.' "
(Robert Kennedy & His Times; page 911)

[Me.]

51. A Truly Fascinating Group Of Posts

Thank you.

In one regard I am comforted, perhaps in a bizarre way, that these things mattered enough, had a big enough imprint,to haunt his dreams.

*/Cheney have been reported as having no problem sleeping.

[defendandprotect]

79. Cheney will not be able to escape nature . . . his day will come .. .

[Ichingcarpenter]

33. Thanks for all the history.... Actually LBJ gave good

TV speeches to the nation. He was personable and knowledgeable.
He reminded me of some of my relatives from Oklahoma at the time.

He makes chucklenuts look and sound like an idiot he is.

[H2O Man]

37. He was a fascinating character.

My father always said that but for the war, LBJ would be remembered as one of the three greatest US Presidents, with Lincoln and FDR. The stress from the war weighed heavy on him -- unlike Bush2 and Cheney, who appear to have no concerns for the pain, suffering and death they cause.

I think that LBJ had a very good side, and a very bad side. I've got a good collection of books about him. People should read, for example, Michael Beschloss's "Taking Charge," which is the White House tapes from 1963-1964, for a interesting view of President Johnson. Robert Caro's series on LBJ is the best. "The Years of Lyndon Johnson" is a 4-book series. The first three are available (The Path to Power (1982); Means of Ascent (1990); and Master of the Senate (2002). The last book,The Presidency, is being completed. Caro also plans to publish an edited version that combines the four books.

[H2O Man]

46. PS:

I just e-mailed a friend who is associated with Mr. Caro to see if he knows when the 4th book will be published.

[eppur_se_muova]

95. I tend to agree with your father. But Johnson wasn't going to be seen ...

as "the first US President to lose a war" (his words), no matter what. More diplomacy and less agression *might* have won a treaty for Johnson, but he wouldn't have it. Imagine LBJ running for two terms and fighting the "War on Poverty" with everything he had ... the lost opportunity of all lost opportunities, and all due to Johnson's refusal to accept even a partial defeat. Did more damage than just about any conspiracy ever imagined or executed.

Thanks for the update on Caro. I had no way of knowing when the 4th volume would be out. I remember seeing an announcement that he had won the Pulitzer, and it was almost like seeing a friend win it. His books were so absorbing it was hard to get back to the present world after finishing one up, and hard to wait for the next one.

("The Power Broker" is also a great read. I once saw an article about Caro where he said his editor had made him trim the book to 750k words from about 1000k. It made me squirm in pain to think I could have had the chance to read another 250k of writing like that!)

[H2O Man]

97. I wish I could remember

who it was .... but I remember reading one person saying that if they had a choice of one book to keep them comany on a desert island, it would be Caro's "Master of the Senate." One of the things I like about these books is how he uses LBJ as the vehicle to tell the history of an entire era. It's about Johnson -- his good and bad side are both examined -- but it is also a series of books filled with insights on numerous other characters and events.

If anything, the 4th one should be at least as good as the others. I think it will be the best.

[eppur_se_muova]

98. It's definitely a great book on the Senate ...

I think I saw one reviewer refer to it as "a loving biography of the US Senate" as well as part of a Johnson bio. I know I learned a lot of stuff that was *never* covered in Civics class!

Looking forward to Pt IV, pos def!

[defendandprotect]

77. Not so odd when you consider the violent histories of both LBJ and Nixon ---

See: Madelaine Brown - YouTube video re what she knew of LBJ's murderous history

See: Blood, Money, Power by Barr McClellan, probably at your library

[defendandprotect]

76. Presumably, LBJ's life of crime was haunting him . . .

If you want to read something more about this your library will have
"Blood, Money, Power" by Barr McClellan

LBJ was -- as Pierre Salinger says he and Bill Moyers understood him to be -- "clinically psychotic" . . .

The hatred for LBJ was building up to such proportions that I think it scared LBJ that he had lost the sympathy/support he had after the JFK coup --- and that it might work its way into a real investigation of the assassination.

As for the description of him as "clinically psychotic" . . . evidently this entailed his trying to make confessions. Finally, they seem to have decided to pay a psychiatrist to hear him out as the less dangerous solution, but gave the psychiatrist $1 million, if I recall correctly, to never repeat any of it.

[Mz Pip]

23. I remember it.

And oddly enough I remember where I was when I heard about it. I was driving home from classes as U of I in Chicago. I remember b being quite happy that he chose not to run again. I hated that damn war. My high school boyfriend was a Marine in Vietnam, I had friends who were being drafted who were not old enough to vote.

It was a mess.

[Blue_In_AK]

25. Oh, yes, I remember that very well.

[MadMaddie]

27. I want to thank all of our DU friends here for sharing your memories

I was 3 years old in 1968 my sister was born August of that year.

Believe it or not when you share your experiences with all of us you fill in the historical gaps that we didn't get in the history books. We are getting the emotional impact of 1968 and what it felt like in that year.

So again thank you for sharing.

MadMaddie

[eppur_se_muova]

96. "The recent past is more forgotten to us than ancient history ..."

Can't remember where that's from -- think it was a recent author or journalist. Can't teach politics in school, so there's a lot of things you can't discuss until college, or you have to read on your own.

[bluesmail]

32. I was just wondering to myself about 1968

and what a defining year it was and I missed this important event, thanks H20man

[spanone]

34. i remember watching that on television....i remember he looked like a beaten man

there was one hell of a year ahead of us




whaddya mean by 'older'

[Octafish]

36. A Thing or Two about 1968

Wish I knew then what I know now about a thing or two.

I was 11, but I still remember the words coming out of the television. The guy had had enough, was what I got out of it and the little conversation I remember with grown-ups.

I don't recall talking about Vietnam around the dinner table -- I was the oldest in 1968 at 10 and 3/4. My sisters were 7 and 4, so my folks didn't really bring it up. I do remember hearing about the war on the TV, though. I remember the horrible body counts, including the weeks were 480 and even more Americans had been killed. Unbelievable carnage on both sides. My dad kept it on to keep up with the news. He'd just gotten out of the Navy.

Anyway, I guess I still trusted the government then as for some reason I liked Nixon's "peace plan with honor" TV commercials. Although it was dawning on me and a few friends that things were very weird. Some of my pals' folks LOATHED Nixon and by the election, I liked Humphrey.

Since then, I've learned enough to since 1968 to know LBJ saw the war was the unwinnable morass President Kennedy had initially made it out to be. So, I'd ask LBJ why his intel reports varied from JFK's -- according to NSC documents examined by John Newman, Johnson's CIA reports indicated the situation was much more dire than the reports given to JFK.

Also, why he signed NSAM 273, reversing JFK's orders withdrawing every American soldier from South Vietnam by the end of 1965, as well as extending the level of US military support extended to the government of South Vietnam.

I'd ask why LBJ went along with the phony Gulf of Tonkin incident, escalating the war and calling up draftees which were sent to fight in a civil war in Vietnam.

I'd also ask why his Warren Commission included so many political, if not real-life, enemies of President Kennedy.

I haven't convicted LBJ of these in my imagination or writings, but I'd like to know the answers to them.

[Ichingcarpenter]

38. Yeah, LBJ has a lot of questions

that need to be answered.

McNamara is the asshole that really pushed the war thing.
Kennedy's relationship with him was someone
who he got counter arguments from in order to form
a balanced opinion.

McNamara walked over LBJ

[Octafish]

39. McNamara may've felt he had to toe the Pentagon line to keep the Pentagon in line.

Robert Strange had his hands full keeping the brass in line during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. stated the Adminstration was at war with the national security people. And now they wanted war in Vietnam to stop "communist expansion."

What horse shit then. With the war on terror, the same horse shit today. And the same class of individual benefits, the warmongering petrobillionaire turdball.

[Ichingcarpenter]

44. The Arrogance of Power by Senator William Fulbright

was required reading by the Joint Chiefs and my Dad gave me the
book with the Official Stamp of his Department.

McNamara was really scorn in it but he was liked but feared by the Joint chiefs

The book is available onLine for free.

Senator J. William Fulbright on the Arrogance of Power, 1966

The attitude above all others which I feel sure is no longer valid is the arrogance of power, the tendency of great nations to equate power with virtue and major responsibilities with a universal mission. The dilemmas involved are preeminently American di lemmas, not because America has weaknesses that others do not have but because America is powerful as no nation has ever been before and the discrepancy between its power and the power of others appears to be increasing....


We are now engaged in a war to "defend freedom" in South Vietnam. Unlike the Republic of Korea, South Vietnam has an army which without notable success and a weak, dictatorial government which does not command the loyalty of the South Vietn amese people. The official war aims of the United States


Government, as I understand them, are to defeat what is regarded as North Vietnamese aggression, to demonstrate the futility of what the communists call "wars of national liberation," and to create conditions under which the South Vietnamese people will be able freely to determine their own future. I have not the slightest doubt of the sincerity of the President and the Vice President and the Secretaries of State and Defense in propounding these aims. What I do doubt_and doubt very much_is the ability of the United States to achieve these aims by the means being used. I do not question the power of our weapons and the efficiency of our logistics; I cannot say these things delight me as the y seem to delight some of our officials, but they are certainly impressive.

What I do question is the ability of the United States, or France or any other Western nation, to go into a small, alien, undeveloped Asian nation and create stability where there is chaos, the will to fight where there is defeatism, democracy racy where there is no tradition of it and honest government where corruption is almost a way of life. Our handicap is well expressed in the pungent Chinese proverb: "In shallow waters dragons become the sport of shrimps." >>>>snip


LINK: http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/fulbright.html

[Octafish]

50. "In shallow waters dragons become the sport of shrimps."

We had statesmen in those days. Sen. Fulbright warned the newly inaugurated JFK against Nixon and Dulles' Bay of Pigs thing.

INVASION at Bay of Pigs

"Events are the ephemera of history."
Fernand Braudel

The Plan

Vice President Richard Nixon was devoted to the idea of opposing Castro as early as April 1959, when Castro visited the U.S. as a guest of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. "If he's not a communist," said Nixon, "he certainly acts like one." On March 17 1960, President Eisenhower approved a CIA plan titled "A Program of Covert Action against the Castro Regime."

SNIP...

On March 29 Senator Fulbright gave Kennedy a memo stating that "to give this activity even covert support is of a piece with the hypocrisy and cynicism for which the United States is constantly denouncing the Soviet Union in the United Nations and elsewhere. This point will not be lost on the rest of the world-nor on our own consciences."

A three-page memo from Under Secretary of State Chester A. Bowles to Secretary of State Dean Rusk on March 31 (Foreign Relations of the United States, Cuba, 1961-1963, Doc. No. 75, page 178) argued strongly against the invasion, citing moral and legal grounds. By supporting this operation, he wrote, "we would be deliberately violating the fundamental obligations we assumed in the Act of Bogota establishing the Organization of American States."

At a meeting on April 4 in a small conference room at the State Department, Senator Fulbright verbally opposed the plan, as described by Arthur Schlesinger in the Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Thousand Days: "Fulbright, speaking in an emphatic and incredulous way, denounced the whole idea. The operation, he said, was wildly out of proportion to the threat. It would compromise our moral position in the world and make it impossible for us to protest treaty violations by the Communists. He gave a brave, old-fashioned American speech, honorable, sensible and strong; and he left everyone in the room, except me and perhaps the President, wholly unmoved."

Five days before D-Day, at a press conference on April 12, Kennedy was asked how far the U.S. would go to help an uprising against Castro. "First," he answered, "I want to say that there will not be, under any conditions, an intervention in Cuba by the United States Armed Forces. This government will do everything it possibly can… I think it can meet its responsibilities, to make sure that there are no Americans involved in any actions inside Cuba… The basic issue in Cuba is not one between the United States and Cuba. It is between the Cubans themselves."

CONTINUED...

http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/baypigs/pigs3.htm

And yet, JFK and the good guys were overruled by the War Party.

JFK, Fulbright and the good guys stood up to them during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[Ichingcarpenter]

53. My Dad was a good guy

He helped write the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban treaty

And thanks for the links and I love that quote too

[Octafish]

69. He helped save the world.

It is an honor to be in the presence of his child.

Most of Congress, the Cabinet, the Pentagon and the Intelligence Community were four-square for nuclear combat over the missiles.

JFK needed every hand to prevent what would have been the destruction of the world.

Here's an important new work from Ira Chernus on how Ike (and his crowd) really felt:

The Real Eisenhower: Planning to Win Nuclear War

by Ira Chernus
CommonDreams.org
Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Peace activists love to quote Dwight Eisenhower. The iconic Republican war hero spoke so eloquently about the dangers of war and the need for disarmament. He makes a terrific poster-boy for peace. But after years of research and writing three books on Ike, I think it’s time to see the real Eisenhower stand up. The president who planned to fight and win a nuclear war, saying “he would rather be atomized than communized,” reminds us how dangerous the cold war era really was, how much our leaders will put us all at risk in the name of “national security,” and how easily they can mask their intentions behind benign images.From first to last, Eisenhower was a confirmed cold warrior. Years before he became president, while he was publicly promoting cooperation with the Soviet Union, he wrote in his diary: “Russia is definitely out to communize the world….Now we face a battle to extinction.” On the home front, he warned that liberal Democrats were leading the U.S. “toward total socialism.”

Everyone knows that, in his Farewell Address, he warned about the military-industrial complex (MIC). But few recall the words that immediately followed: “We recognize the imperative need for this development . … Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action,” because the danger of the communist foe, “a community of dreadful fear and hate<,> … promises to be of indefinite duration.”

This was not merely rhetoric for public consumption. Eisenhower never saw any hope of rapprochement with the Soviets. He always saw them as irredeemably treacherous, “implacably hostile and seeking our destruction,” as he wrote to Winston Churchill. “Where in the hell can you let the Communists chip away any more? We just can’t stand it,” he complained to a meeting of Congressional leaders in 1954, as he considered intervening in Vietnam. (He held back only because Britain and France refused to support him.)

Ike wanted to avoid nuclear war, but not at all costs. He told his National Security Council (NSC): “If the Soviets attempt to overrun Europe, we should have no recourse but to go to war.” The U.S. must be “willing to ‘push its whole stack of chips into the pot’ when such becomes necessary,” he told Congressional leaders, adding, “We are going to live with this type of crisis for years.” If World War III erupted during his term in office, he boasted, “he might be the last person alive, but there wouldn’t be any surrender.”

In private conversations with foreign leaders he said: “To accept the Communist doctrine and try to live with it” would be “too big a price to be alive. He said he would not want to live, nor would he want his children or grandchildren to live, in a world where we were slaves of a Moscow Power.” “The President said that speaking for himself he would rather be atomized than communized.”

Eisenhower signed NSC 5810/1, which made it official U.S. policy to treat nuclear weapons “as conventional weapons; and to use them whenever required to achieve national objectives.” “The only sensible thing for us to do was to put all our resources into our hydrogen bombs,” he told the NSC. He found it “frustrating not to have plans to use nuclear weapons generally accepted.” He and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, were “in complete agreement that somehow or other the taboos which surround the use of atomic weapons would have to be destroyed.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/18/7742/

Dulles. Dulles. Bush...

We owe everything to your Father and the other good guys.

[H2O Man]

54. Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty:

"Lyndon Johnson was riding in a car behind President Kennedy in the Dealy Plaza motorcade. Johnson was seared by that event. During his November 29, 1963 conversation with J. Edgar Hoover, Johnson asked, 'How many shots were fired?' and 'Were any fired at me?' We may be sure that he thought during his years as President about those shots that went right over his head. As any soldier can tell you, such an experience provides an excellent education." (JFK; page 310)

A person could believe Vince Bugliosi's version of Dallas, and still recognize that LBJ's psychological make-up would have made what Prouty states is true. LBJ was, by nature, a very suspicious person. He also had very little foreign policy experience when he became president. He relied upon many of the individuals who President Kennedy had learned not to trust.

[Richard Steele]

43. 3-31-68 has a very good chance of being the day I was CONCEIVED.

Dad had 3 days "shore leave" the last weekend of March '68;
and I was born on Dec 30th.

So, my memories of that particular day are a bit vague and hazy, at best.

[Ichingcarpenter]

48. Figures knowing your antiWar posts

LOL!!

I thought you were older though.

[Richard Steele]

64. You really should see my "astrological birth chart" sometime. I know you'd like it.

It's rather unusual- and more accurate at describing "ME" than
most of the professional "Psychological Examinations" I
suffered through in my younger days have ever been.

[Ichingcarpenter]

68. I have a major trine plus a lot of squares and oppositions

I have a $300 Kepler program that someone gave me that I use sometimes
to make some charts for friends. It gives a 20 page read out with
commentary which is dead on to the reader, if the times given are accurate
.

[Art_from_Ark]

52. I don't remember anything about his speech

I don't remember anything political about '68 until RFK's assassination. I didn't even know about Martin Luther King's assassination until the next year, when my mother got me a set of children's history books. But after RFK's assassination, I became very aware of the political situation, in large part because my friends' parents were talking about it and I started paying more attention to the nightly news.

[Ichingcarpenter]

57. We drove to Ft. Myers south for shopping

It was demolished to allow more graves. I spent
time in Walter Reed, for two weeks, in ward of soldiers when
I broke my arm skateboarding.
I saw the effects of war

You saw the war on TV, when you shopped, and then friends
started dying and you buried them where you use to shop.

[Art_from_Ark]

63. I didn't personally know anyone who was sent to Viet Nam

but I had two friends who had much older brothers who were in Viet Nam.

One came back alive, the other came back in a flag-draped box.

[Alcibiades]

56. I don't remember anything

Except that they killed Dr. King four days later, and then I was born four days after that, in the spring following the summer of love, to a soldier's wife.

[Two Americas]

61. a man was killed

A man was shot and killed on my front porch that night. I never knew who he was. A few days later, Dr. King was murdered, and the whole neighborhood was under military siege. Soon after that, Bobbie Kennedy visited. Not long after that, he was gone, too.

Detroit, Michigan, Spring 1968

[ConsAreLiars]

62. Hey, Hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?

I remember that as a victory, one that brought some hope. Hope that had been shattered over and over, but finally and forever 7 weeks later on June 6, 1968.

[Jack Sprat]

66. i thought i saw in the afternoon.

but it's been a long time and i was an active teen, so my memory could be in err.

[Robb]

67. Thanks to everyone for this great thread

It's a wonderful read. I was, by my math, -4 or so at the time.

This is one of those threads that reminds me why I'll always adore DU.

[defendandprotect]

70. As I remember it, I was enjoying the vile political climate for LBJ ....

as he continued to back the war. It had been going on for some time as hatred for Johnson grew.
They should resurrect some of the cartoons from that period -- when the cartoonists were not so
restrained as now.

I always thought that all war was insane --- I really didn't get the VN thing cause I couldn't see why we were there. It was all insane to me --- the napalm, the killings, agent orange --
and understanding how this war was harming America and our troops.

I didn't think that LBJ's resignation was going to be the end of the war and with Nixon it wasn't....

In fact, we now know that Nixon was making "October Surprise" moves to stop any positive effects in LBJ's halt in the war prior to the election, hoping for peace talks. Needless to say, that never happened. Four years later --- 1972 --- Kissinger ... "Peace is at hand!"

We have to take the profit out of war ---

[defendandprotect]

73. "Many of his top aides had come to question if he was stable enough to serve as president"...

This is true . . .
Pierre Salinger has related that he and Bill Moyers both felt that LBJ was "clinically psychotic."

Imagine that . . . !!!

And . .

It seems that we pretty much had the same situation with Nixon at the end of his days ---
so, as far as I can see, no matter who you are, no matter how insulated you may think you are --
if you are someone who has practiced violence in your life somewhere along the line you will begin to suffer the consequences of that reality.

Nature creates reality; we live it.

[TahitiNut]

78. I was in the midst of Army Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood (Missouri)

To the best of my recollection, the vast majority of us were happy LBJ wasn't running ... but it was too late for us. We knew we were probably going to see the beginning of a year Nam before the end of the year.

[oldtime dfl_er]

81. Photo of RFK

I've already mentioned my memories in this thread, and I have no interest in hawking my own wares in a thread like this, which I consider to be a precious island of peace and wonderful memories, experiences and lessons. But for those who believed in RFK (as I came to in later years), I want to share this fantastic photo of him from 1966.


http://www.cafepress.com/scarebaby.246720272
Title: Senator Robert Kennedy discusses school with young Ricky Taggart of 733 Gates Ave. New York/ World Telegram & Sun photo by Dick DeMarsico

[Mind_your_head]

82. What a concept.....America's president struggling with his conscience

.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

84. To Eugene McCarthy!

:web:

[Breeze54]

86. I remember my parents gasping in disbelief.

And I remember seeing him on TV and a lot of discussion about what would happen next.

That's about all....

[regnaD kciN]

88. Remember it very well...

My parents and I were watching the speech on our old console color TV in the den. We were kind of drifting through it (hey, it was an LBJ speech, no one expected a Kennedy/Obama effort) and, when he made the announcement, we all just sat there in shock for about a second before turning to each other to confirm that we had, after all, heard him correctly.

The overall feeling was shock more than anything like excitement or jubilation. None of us were big LBJ fans, but we (or at least I) didn't become politically involved until later that spring, when I was backing McCarthy. I remember that, before the N.H. primary, it was almost taken for granted that the November contest would be between LBJ and (George) Romney, until the latter self-destructed by claiming that the U.S. government had "brainwashed" him in Vietnam. His dropping out of the race opened the way for Nixon. Strange as it may seem, I think that the elder Romney would have done a better job than most of the candidates we've had since then, and certainly much better than dim-son Mittmentum.

[Hekate]

89. Thank you all for the memories we share.1968 was an awful year from beginning to end

It was my political baptism, and it about broke my heart before the end.

Coffee was 25 cents a cup -- bottomless cup, too. My friends and I were just under 21, so instead of drinking beer we hung out in an all-night coffee shop called Walter's and talked. In the daytime we worked the precincts and went to college.

Bob, a spectacularly intelligent guy and the one person among us who seemed destined for a career as a political operative, said that after giving his announcement LBJ went down to the White House kitchen and ate pudding like a man who was finally free of a great burden. That's the image I carry.

As for Bob, we lost touch with him a few years later and never saw him again. I can't find him on Google, and given his drinking habit even at that age, it's possible he didn't survive this long.

I have many memories of that year, nearly all of them sad.

Hekate

[Me.]

90. Morning

:kick:

[myrna minx]

91. Thanks to all who posted. I enjoy reading about people's personal

experiences during historic events. I was not quite a twinkle in my father's eye at this time so I have no memories to share, but I find this very interesting.

[H2O Man]

92. I think it is

a good thread, too. On Thursday, I suppose there will be an interesting, though sad thread, remembering that 40-year anniversary.

Thanks to all who participated here!

[myrna minx]

93. I can't even begin to imagine what it was like living through that time.

The only thing I have to compare to is the death of Senator Wellstone, which was a devastating blow. But to love through the assassinations of such giant figures would have been such a waking nightmare.

[sinkingfeeling]

94. I remember cheering LBJ's announcement. I was so very certain our next president would be Bobby. I

was living in an efficiency apartment on the edge of Ohio State University's campus. I was busy planning my July wedding and trying to squeeze in some campaigning for Bobby. I was too young to vote (then you had to be 21, but so wanted the war to end.

[southerncrone]

99. I was only 12, but I remember watching it on TV.

My family was very interested in the political scene, as many families were at the time. We didn't have 250 channels to distract us; only 4. Almost everyone watched "the news" every night.

We had been listening to LBJ drone on, and I remember it was so unexpected to hear him say this, that it stayed in my mind. His voice changed & it was almost like some other part of him were now talking. Strange, as I think back on it.

We had hopes of a peace candidate, but those of course were dashed. I had a cousin in Vietnam at the time, valedictorian of his class, but drafted to go to war. He came back sooooo changed; never to fulfill the full potential he possessed. Once again, we were saddled with a HAWK who laid the ground work for the despicable pack of rats who have ruled in the current administration.

The party suffered many tragedies that year, and seemed to stay in turmoil, as did the country. I hope this election does not suffer the same fate. As someone up thread stated, 1968 & 2008 have many parallels. May we learn from history.

[MikeH]

100. I was a senior in high school on March 31, 1968

I remember watching LBJ's speech that night on television, and remember sensing his feelings of anguish. And then I remember his statement about his not seeking and not accepting the nomination for president. At first I wondered if I had heard that right, or if he was going to qualify his statement. In the news commentary following it was confirmed that he did indeed say what I thought I had heard, and that it had come as a surprise.

I myself personally was going through a very rough time in the spring of 1968. I had had problems all throughout my high school years and earlier, and was having some bouts of depression by the spring of my senior year. It was a time that was supposed to be a happy time, looking forward to graduating from high school, but it was not a happy time for me. There was a sense of competition in high school, and I was struggling with feelings of not being quite with it in some ways. Also I was very anxious about going to college, and wondering how that would work out for me. As it turned out, college wasn't that bad, but I still had some major issues that it would take many years for me to fully come to terms with. (Fortunately I never came close to having to serve in the military or to go to Vietnam.)

And the general unrest that spring had heightened my anxiety and depression. I was wondering what was going to happen, and where I fit in in all that was happening.

I remember at the time I could not have been one of those who would voice opposition to the war in Vietnam, and I was not able to decide for myself who I had wanted for president. At the time I was not able to have any real thoughts of my own, as opposed to those of my father (who was very strong-minded, dominating, and very easily offended; my relationship with him was one of my major problems throughout my young adulthood), or those of any other strong-minded person. It would take a number of years before I came to have some real thoughts of my own.

It has been interesting when years later I would tell somebody that I graduated from high school in 1968, and the person would comment that that was the year of all the riots. So it really was a rough time.

I remember at the time rather naively liking the idea of Nixon making a comeback after he had been defeated for president in 1960 and governor of California in 1962. It would be later that I would fully realize that Nixon was really a pretty crummy character.

In retrospect going from Johnson to Nixon (after all that had happened in 1968, and after people had hoped for Robert F. Kennedy or Eugene McCarthy) reminds me of the saying: the more things change, the more they stay the same.