It was not just the week nor was it just the US. 1968 itself was one of the worst years of the latter half of the 20th century around the world. The year began with the Tet Offensive which contributed in large part to the terrible year in the US, it completely polarized the American public making not only the anti-war faction much larger and more radical but the pro-war "patriotic" faction much more radical as well, ending up with the worst presidential selection in recent American history between a corrupt Democratic political hack (Hubert Humphrey) and the corrupt Republican hack Richard Nixon, (Nixon was so unpopular that with a tired and disliked Democratic administration in office, a very unpopular war and a political hack as an opponent, he still just barely squeaked out a narrow win.). That year also saw the invasion by the Soviet Union of the Republic of Checoslovakia and the vicious crushing of its hopes and dreams of a more democratic form of goverment. It effectively guaranteed another 30 years of slavery for the people of Eastern Europe. It was also the year that the corrupt PRI dictatorship in Mexico used undercover agents to provoke Mexicos's students into widespread protests in the streets in order to use the Army to gun down thousands so as to supress all dissent prior to the 1968 Olympics there. This is still a huge trauma in the country and considered one of Mexico's blackest moments in history, not only by its citizens in general but by its own Army as well. 1968 was the year of the Isreali Six Day War when the victorious Isrealis conquered Jerusalem, Gaza, the Golan Heights as well as the West Bank, an action which after 40 years of occupation, still reverberates throughout the Middle East. Of course the murders of King and Kennedy were terrible and traumatic incidents which wounded a whole generation of Americans (and even non-Americans like myself) but in truth, the whole year was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish and in fact laid a terrible trauma upon the whole world...........
The Worst Week
LBJ. RFK. MLK. In a year of tumult, one five-day span in early spring '68 was disorder distilled.
11/10/07: Frida Berrigan, daughter of peace activist Philip Berrigan, on what it's like to grow up in a family devoted to social justice. (Video: Lee Wang)
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
Lyndon Johnson's presidency was collapsing. By day, LBJ watched as the Vietnam War worsened and his polls and credibility plummeted. Brave boasts by the generals that they could see the light at the end of the tunnel in Vietnam had been swept away; now even establishment figures like CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite were saying the United States had to begin winding down the war. In the New Hampshire primary in mid-March, an upstart peace candidate, Eugene McCarthy, a senator heretofore known more for his poetical moods than his legislative achievements, had nearly upset the incumbent president. As the winter of 1968 turned to spring, LBJ's aides were telling him he would lose the Wisconsin primary to McCarthy on April 2.
11/10/07: Frida Berrigan, daughter of peace activist Philip Berrigan, on what it's like to grow up in a family devoted to social justice. (Video: Lee Wang)
Johnson dreaded the nights. He dreamt that he was lying in the Red Room of the White House, his body wasted and numb. His grandmother had been paralyzed in her last years, and so had Woodrow Wilson, another president who had struggled with the burden of war. Waking from his tortured sleep, LBJ would take a small flashlight and walk the halls of the White House until he found the portrait of Wilson. Touching the painting, he would be soothed, for the moment, and go back to bed.
Johnson was bitter. "How is it possible," he repeatedly asked, "that all these people could be so ungrateful to me after I had given them so much? Take the Negroes. I fought for them from the first day I came into office. I spilled my guts in getting them the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress … I asked so little in return. Just a little thanks. Just a little appreciation. That's all. But look what I got instead. Riots in 175 cities. Looting. Burning. Shooting …" On and on, Johnson would rant, against the students and poor people who had turned against him, despite all he had done for them, "young people by the thousands leaving their universities, marching in the streets, chanting that horrible song about how many kids had I killed that day …" ("Hey! Hey! LBJ! …")
Johnson's worst dream, the most violent and diabolical, began with a twisted take on a cattle stampede. "I felt," Johnson later confided to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, "that I was being chased on all sides by a giant stampede coming at me from all directions." There were "the rioting blacks, demonstrating students, marching welfare mothers, squawking professors, and hysterical reporters. And then the final straw. The thing that 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 his name, were dancing in the streets."
Sen. Robert Kennedy had announced for the presidency on March 16. On Sunday evening, March 31, Johnson was scheduled to go on national television to address the nation. The speech was supposed to be about Vietnam, and it contained some surprising news on the war front. Johnson announced that the United States would cease bombing in almost all of North Vietnam, and he invited the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table. But as evening air time approached, the speech still didn't have an ending. At about 5 p.m., as Johnson's speechwriter, Harry McPherson, was laboring over a draft, the president phoned McPherson to tell him he had written his own peroration. McPherson instantly guessed what it would say. "I'm very sorry, Mr. President." "Well," Johnson replied, "I think it's best. So long, podner."
March 31, 1968, was the beginning of one of the worst weeks in American history. From works by historians like Goodwin, Taylor Branch and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., it is possible to reconstruct the inner thoughts of the major players who staggered on- and offstage that week, like doomed actors in a Greek tragedy.
Discuss