Fifty Years Ago, the World Turned Topsy-Turvy

by admin | March 30, 2018 9:13 am

Fifty years ago, on March 31, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson preempted regular programming on the three network channels to make a startling announcement. Our family gathered around our snowy black-and-white television in Allenstown, N.H., to watch.

Nineteen days earlier, Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy had stunned pundits by taking nearly 42 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary against the incumbent president. Johnson “won” the Democratic primary — the first in the nation then and now — with 49.6 percent of the vote. But McCarthy’s unexpectedly strong showing was national news. It prompted Sen. Bobby Kennedy, brother of the slain president, to enter the race a few days later.

I was 12 years old and[1] avidly followed politics, the Vietnam War and the Red Sox. I read the Concord Monitor and Boston Record-American, the latter long defunct. I think my parents subscribed to the Record-American instead of the more-respected Boston Globe (still in existence) because it cost less. McCarthy’s insurgent race against a sitting president was fueled by anger at how the Vietnam War had escalated, with growing casualties and no apparent end in sight. Legions of college students descended upon the Granite State to campaign. On the day of the March 12 primary, I was persuaded by a pretty female college student to stand outside a polling place across the Suncook River in Pembroke as freezing rain fell and hand out McCarthy leaflets — my first foray into politics.

Admittedly, I was influenced more by the fact that an attractive girl had asked me to hand out leaflets than any strong feelings for McCarthy. I was 12, after all. But my interest heightened after his strong showing in the primary. Like many, Bobby Kennedy’s entrance into the race seemed to me opportunistic, although our entire Catholic clan was fond of this political family, who, after all, were from a neighboring state.

So we watched television on that Sunday night. Johnson’s speech bumped a rerun of “The Smothers Brothers,” the popular comedy show on which Bobby Kennedy had appeared just a few weeks earlier. Toward the end of his speech, at 9:40 p.m., LBJ stunned viewers by announcing he would not seek re-election, nor would he accept the nomination if offered.

The next three months wrought huge changes, across the country and in our household. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King was gunned down in Memphis, sparking riots. Bobby Kennedy was credited with preventing violence in Indianapolis, where he was campaigning, with a powerful, calming speech. Two months after King was murdered, Kennedy was dead as well, gunned down in the kitchen of a hotel where he and his supporters were celebrating his victory in the California primary. The war continued, and the world seemed to have gone topsy-turvy.

We moved to Texas, arriving on June 23, 1968, in a 1964 Mercury Comet pulling a U-Haul trailer. A moving van brought the rest of our belongings. We spent that summer living with my grandfather in Longview, while my parents searched for a house. We watched the Democratic National Convention in Chicago with a mixture of horror and fascination, as Mayor Richard Daley’s police officers savagely beat anti-war protestors. Hubert Humphrey, Johnson’s vice president, managed to gain the nomination with the help of the party machinery, despite having not even campaigned in the primaries. McCarthy’s supporters filled the halls but did not have the votes. Young people howled in the streets.

My grandfather was a typical 1968 Southern Democrat. Back then, virtually all local and state races were decided in the Democratic primary, with rare exceptions such as the election of U.S. Sen. John Tower. So Grampa voted in the Democratic primary, much as anyone now who wants to have a say in local elections in East Texas for the most part has to vote in the Republican primary.

I used to tease Grampa that, except for Johnson, he had not voted for a Democrat for president since Harry Truman. Eventually, he gave up the pretense of being a Democrat. That led to spirited discussions, when I became George McGovern’s campaign manager for Gregg County in 1972 — a certain sign of a doomed campaign, since I wasn’t old enough to vote.

The spring and summer of 1968 were turbulent times. Fifty years later, I wonder if we are in for another period of unrest. At the moment, it seems likely.

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