Reagan and the Rise of the New Right

I)    Hangover from Cold War Economics

A)  Success of Marshall Plan – the Marshall Plan pumped billions of dollars of economic aid into countries of Western Europe and Japan—which resulted in those countries rebuilding their economies utilizing more efficient factories, which allowed them greater productivity, at the expense of the American worker.

B)  Cost of War in Vietnam – the monetary cost of the War in Vietnam sucked up much of the money that could have gone to meaningful re-training of the US workforce, real efforts at battling the causes of poverty

1)   Increased borrowing by US government – cause a steep rise in interest rates

2)   End of the wartime boom – the money spent on war material for Vietnam meant a great deal of spending on the part of the US government, and therefore a great deal of jobs for many American workers. The end of the war meant this spending was no longer forthcoming, and many of those jobs ended.

C)  Stagflation – definition is a period in which there is high inflation accompanying high unemployment, with low levels of economic growth; by 1974 the United States was faced with double-digit inflation, and double-digit unemployment figures

1)   Inflation – inflation rate sent spiraling upwards by the costs of the War in Vietnam, government borrowing soaked up much of the available credit, which created higher demand for what was left, and sent rates upwards.

2)   OPEC oil embargo – the oil embargo of US and Western Europe in October of 1973, after the support given to Israel during the Arab-Israeli War. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) manipulated the price of a barrel of oil from $3/barrel to $12/barrel

(a) Political phenomenon, rather than merely economic, and a factor relating to the perceived defeat of the United States in Vietnam; countries in Latin America and the Middle East began asserting independence from US hegemony or leadership, since they believed (rightly) that there would be no US military intervention to force the issue.

(b) Oil shock – in 1974, the government had to ration gas, limit the speed on the interstate highway system to 55mph.  There were also long lines at the gas pump, as people waited for the available gasoline.  This resulted in people no longer buying the large, gas-guzzling automobiles that Detroit preferred to manufacture (because of the profit margins on such cars), which resulted in lay-offs in the automobile industry, as well as other petroleum-related industries.

(i)  The story of the small car (Skylark, Falcon, Vega)

3)   Decline in worker productivity – as US factories aged, and less money was spent by corporations on revitalizing these aging factories, worker productivity fell dramatically—and it is worker productivity that the post-war economic gains were built upon.

(a) “Blue Collar Blues” – there was great concern in boardrooms of corporations and in government offices over what was referred to as the “Blue Collar Blues” – worker dissatisfaction, which was thought to be the major contributing factor to the lack of gains in worker productivity

(i)  Lordstown – the fight against the assembly line

4)   Deindustrialization of the North – states in the industrialized North lost more than two million manufacturing jobs in the 1970s, and the South gained just over a million manufacturing jobs

(a) South largely nonunion, with parts of the governing structure there vehemently anti-union

(b) Corporations became activists in seeking to roll back government regulations.

(c) Corporation move to South in the United States, as well as to Mexico, and to Asia

(i)  By 1980, North Carolina (which still had a largely rural population) had one of the greatest concentrations of blue collar manufacturing jobs—as well as one of the lowest concentrations of union members, and one of the lowest blue-collar wage rates.

II)  The Counterculture

A)  Summer of Love (1969)

1)   Woodstock – “Three Days of Peace and Love” – a disaster waiting to happen, but the “hippy vibe” averted what could have happened in the fall of that year

B)  Altamont – free concert near San Francisco, featuring Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, and Rolling Stones—and “security” by the Hell’s Angels.  “Hippy vibe” did not work its magic here, resulting in numerous injuries from conflicts with the Angels (including singer Marty Balin of the Airplane), and one death (concert-goer knifed by gang of Angels).

C)  The Conquest of Cool – advertising firms begin using symbols of the counterculture to sell commodities

1)   “The Man” Can’t Bust Our Music – advertising campaign by CBS Records (part of one of the largest media conglomerates of that time)

2)   Volkswagen

3)   Levi Strauss and Company

D)  New Left legacy

1)   Feminism – many women in the “movement” quickly got fed up with rhetoric which proclaimed ideals of equality, while relegating them to making coffee, servicing male members (Stokely Carmichael quote on his position on women in SNCC)

(a) Drive for equal pay; equality of opportunity

(b) Day care

(c) Readjustment of family roles – common sense about gender roles

E)  Racism – no longer acceptable, in any form, in most forums—although it certainly still exists.

(a) Martin Luther King Day – the fact that we have set aside a day to honor a man who was spied on by the FBI, mistrusted by the presidents he dealt with, and openly despised by millions of white people says a lot about the effect of the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left had upon this country.  Opposition to the establishment of MLK day in Arizona by Gov. Evan Meacham (after a threatened economic boycott) led to his impeachment--although racism seems to boil up in Arizona rather frequently, as witnessed by events of the last week.

2)   Legacy of moralism in politics – although the moralistic tone of politics from the 1960s had been appropriated by the Right (largely the Christian Right), that was brought to the fore by the New Left, which insisted that the United States live up to its high expectations.

3)   Environmentalism – the environmentalist movement is directly related to the legacy of the New Left, and it’s questioning of corporate hegemony.

III)        Southern Strategy of Republican Party

A)  1964 Election – despite Johnson’s landslide victory over Barry Goldwater, the strategy that the Republican Party had followed for the past 46 years was established; undermine Democratic support in its former stronghold in the South, but appear moderate enough on issues to retain support in the Southwest and West.

1)   Barry Goldwater – only senator outside of the South to vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ostensibly because it undermined the constitution.

B)  1968 Election – Nixon’s southern strategy undermined by the candidacy of George Wallace, and it nearly undermined enough of Nixon’s support to cost him the election.  However, Humphrey’s campaign caught fire too late (after he had virtually turned over the running of the campaign to the AFL-CIO), and Nixon was elected

1)   Internal dissension of Democratic Party – liberal coalition coming apart as a result of the War in Vietnam.

C)  1972 Election

1)   Affirmative Action – Nixon administration transforms Affirmative Action into set asides for minorities

(a) Philadelphia Plan – Proposed by Secretary of Labor George Schultz; executive order which stipulated that workforce on government contract jobs had to reflect racial make-up of the area; this alienated a number of white blue-collar workers in the building trades, who had long benefited from family and friend connections to gain building trades jobs—to the exclusion of minorities

2)   Watergate – confirmed people’s worst suspicions about government

D)  1976 Election – the rise of the “outsider” candidate.

1)   Jimmy Carter – southern Democrat (and no friend of labor), first to run as a Washington outsider.

(a) Appointment of Paul Volker as chairman of the Fed – Volker put a choke hold on the economy by raising prime lending rate to unheard of heights to bring inflation under control

E)  Ronald Reagan and the 1980 Election – another “outsider” candidate

1)   Ronald Reagan – the economic malaise, coupled with the hostage situation in Iran, made Carter immensely unpopular as a president.

2)   Professional Air Traffic Controllers (PATCO) strike – air traffic controllers were ostensibly federal employees, unpopular with other airline related employees because they refused to honor picket lines of pilots and attendants; in response to this strike, Reagan fired all controllers who walked (and banned all those who were fired from seeking employment again as air traffic controllers), and replaced them.

(a) Signaled to businesses that it was open season on workers and the unions that represented them.


F. The Reagan Doctrine--Reagan had long been an opponent of "containment" of Soviet influence, and rejected Jimmy Carter's policy of making human rights the linchpin of foreign policy. The Reagan Doctrine was meant to rollback Soviet influence around the world.

1. Support for the Contras--Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua had overthrown longtime dictator Anastocio Somoza,  and were attempting to foster a similar revolution in neighboring Salvador. The Reagan administration began supplying arms to the Contras in the hope of destabilizing the Nicaraguan government.

2. The Enemy of My  Enemy is My Friend--despite back channel diplomatic efforts during the 1980 presidential election to free US hostages in Iran, the US supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, despite his use of weapons of mass destruction (biological and chemical weapons) against the Iranians--and dissident groups within his country.

3. Beruit--US Marines initially sent to facilitate PLO pullout, but after the assassination of Israeli -friendly Christian leader Bashir Gemayel, and Israel allowing Christian forces to retaliate by slaughtering more than 1,000 Palestinians in a refugee camp, the initial contingent was reinforced--but rather than act as an impartial arbitrator, US forces began shelling Muslim militia positions. The upshot was the suicide bomb attack that killed 241 Marines--and led to the quiet withdrawal of US forces from Lebanon.


4. Grenada--Reagan had been planning an invasion of this tiny Caribbean nation, and after the fiasco in Lebanon this gave him a quick victory to remove  the defeat from the newspapers.

5. Continued support for the mujahideen--begun under Jimmy Carter after the Soviet invasion to prop up that country's puppet regime, this policy maintained pressure on the Soviets--and kept them engaged in an increasingly unpopular war at home.


G. Reagan and "Winning" the Cold War

Weekly Assignment #14

From Going to the Source, Chapter 14, question 5 (Due May 6)

Weekly Assignment #13

From Going to the Source, Chapter 13, question 1 (Due April 29)

America and the Global Economy

I. Rise of the New Right – built on the ashes of the Goldwater fiasco in 1964, the Republican Party targeted white suburbanites, and particularly those suburbanites living in the South and West

A)   Watergate and Its Aftermath—Although apologists for Nixon point out that—rightly—that Nixon was not the first president to abuse the power of his office to strike back at his enemies. But Nixon was the first to do this in a systematic fashion, and to use the powers of his office to attempt to subvert a criminal investigation into the attempt on the part of his campaign to fix a national election.

1)    The Watergate break-in—the so-called “third-rate burglary” was an attempt to plant illegal listening devices at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. This was part of a much larger operation, run by the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP) to manipulate the Democratic primary election.

2) Agnew resignation--Vice-President Spiro Agnew resigned as part of  the deal to  avoid  charges of bribery and extortion (settling for the charge of avoiding paying income tax on the money he accepted in bribes and extorted).

3) Nixon resignation--in August 1973 Nixon resigned, after being forced to turn over a tape revealing that he knew of the break-in and the cover-up just after they happened--and lied to his staff, his lawyers, and most importantly, to the American people on this matter.
4) Growing distrust of government--this incident, coupled with the revelations from the release of the Pentagon Papers (that the Johnson administration had lied about the basis for the war in Vietnam), fed a growing distrust of the government--so much so, that political candidates began running as "political outsiders."

B)   Tax revolts – conservatives were able to use the growing distrust against government to feed a movement to choke off funds for the government, namely taxes.

1)    California Proposition 13 – sold the idea that taxes merely funded wasteful government spending, particularly for things like education, welfare, and other social programs

2)    Rise of “code” language – while it became unacceptable to use racial slurs in the 1970s and 1980s, this did not mean that race disappeared as an issue in American politics—only that these references to race were now used in a “code” language, like “welfare queens” and “drug lords.”

C)   Christian coalitions

1)    Southern Christian academies – with the implementation of Brown v. Board of Education, white Christian academies opened as a way for parents to avoid sending their children to integrated schools.  The Carter administration tried to end the tax breaks these led to these various groups organizing to resist this

2)    Southern televangelists – preachers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson used the technology of television to expand the scope (and number of contributors to) their “mission.”

3)    Reactions to gender politics

(a)   Abortion – Roe v. Wade linked control of reproductive rights to a woman’s constitutionally guaranteed rights to privacy.  To social conservatives, this upset gender roles and traditional patriarchy, and was considered an attack on “the right of a husband to protect the life of the child he fathered in his wife’s womb.”

(i)    Opposition of Catholic Church – while the Church may not speak for all of its female members on this issue, it was able to mobilize a great deal of opposition to the decision.

(b)  Opposition to the Equal Rights Ammendent – as the long sought-after ERA got closer to passage by the states, political opposition to the Amendment got more heated; this amendment would have simply recognized legally the changes that had largely already taken place in the United States.  Right-wing politicians like Phyllis Schafly, Jerry Falwell were able to distort its effects and change (by comparing it to the perceived slights whites received under Affirmative Action programs) and sway public opinion about ERA enough to prevent its passage.

(c)   Gay Pride movement – the Stonewall Riot in Greenwhich Village New York signaled that gays would no longer accept the harassment and stigmatization that they had received previously.  As gays “came out of the closet,” however, they met increasing opposition from politicians on the Right.

D)   Right turn of the Democratic Party – after the McGovern disaster of 1972 (who many party members felt was too liberal), and Carter’s victory in 1976 (who was certainly more conservative than many of the voters who voted for him), the Democratic Party became increasingly more conservative in its movement toward “the center.”

1)    Disenchantment of the poor – rather than mobilize voters who had historically made up their voter base (minorities, blue collar workers, and the poor), Democrats began to compete for the same suburban voters that Republican candidates were pursuing—white suburbanites

(a)   Decline of trade unions and urban machines – unions and machine politics had traditionally mobilized Democratic voters, and as these institutions declined, so did their effectiveness

(b) Capital flight--Although industry had been fleeing cities--and the increased power of labor unions there--since the Second World War, the economic malaise of the early 1970s, combined with the scrutiny the "urban problem" promoted, finally brought attention to the fact that the economy in the United States was undergoing a period of de-industrialization; by the  middle of the decade, many cities in the Midwest were transformed from the Manufacturing Belt to the Rust Belt.

E)    Election of Ronald Reagan – two bit actor, former president of the Screen Actors Guild, became spokesman for the vehemently anti-union General Electric Company in the 1950s, and began a rapid rightward descent.

1)    Presidential policies

(a)   Cut taxes – for the rich, anyway; Reagan got Congress to cut taxes for the rich from 73% to 28%,  but taxes for the poor actually went up, because they were hit with an increase in state and local taxes to make up for the shortfall as a result from the decline in federal tax revenue

(b)  Cut social programs – Reagan cut much spending on social programs, like welfare

(c)   Increase defense spending – corporate welfare for selected industries, fed boom on the West and East coasts (see below)

(d)  Results – federal tax revenues plummeted  by $750 billion, and generated staggering federal deficits of $150 billion and $200 billion, which kept the prime interest rate in double digits.

F)    Reagan boom – the Reagan years were beneficial for a small, select group of people, but the era was one of increasing disparity between the few rich, and the increasing number of poor

1)    Growing disparity – between 1977 and 1990, the income of the richest fifth of the population grew by one-third, and that of the top one percent almost doubled; but the total income of the bottom 60 percent of Americans actually fell, and the incomes of the poorest Americans fell most sharply.

II)   Reaganomics and its Effects on Working People

A)   Undermining of Unions – perhaps the greatest effect of Reaganomics was that it undermined the financial security of working-class people, by undermining the unions that represented their unions.

1)    The Reagan Recession (1981-1983) – one of the first effects of supply-side economics, or “Reaganonimics,” as it came to be called, was one of the worst recessions of the post-war era.

(a)   Demand from corporations for give-backs – corporations in financial trouble went to unions and its workers, and demanded concessions to remain in business.  Competitors then went to their unions and workers, to demand concessions to remain competitive.  The cumulative effect of this was at best to freeze the wages of working-class, and at worst to undermine the wage structure.

B)   Workers in Decatur, Illinois – Decatur is a small town in central Illinois, rising out of the prairie, which had a diversified (for the Midwest) manufacturing base, but which witnessed the full aftereffects (or aftershock, to use a nuclear analogy) of Reaganomics.

1)    A.E. Staley – locally-owned agricultural goods manufacturer, manufactured corn starch, corn syrup, soy products.  This company resisted buyouts through the early 1980s, but by the end of the decade was bought out by a London-based food processor.

(a)   Demand for 12 hour, rotating shifts – in order to more “efficiently” use its workers, management wants its workers to work twelve hour shifts, and do away with shift pay differentials; it also wants workers to move from one shift to another every other month (describe havoc this plays with lives of workers with families)

2)    Firestone – the tire industry was one of the largest casualties of the merger-mania of the 1980s, and Firestone was bought by Japanese manufacturer Bridgestone.

(a)   Demand for twelve-hour, rotating shifts; do away with annual pay increases—instead, have cost of living increases and productivity incentives.

(b)  Provoked strike – this strike proved costly not only to many workers (who lost their jobs, some temporarily, to strikebreakers), but ultimately to the company, as well—the replacement workers manufactured the AT Wilderness tires that went on Ford Explorers.

3)    Caterpillar – the industry leader in the production of heavy equipment at the time it provoked a strike by UAW members over concessions that it wanted in its contract—namely, a six-year contract, complete control over production decisions.  In the end, this company handed the UAW the worst defeat in its history.

III) The Reagan Hangover – is suffered by working people in this country, of course.

America and the War in Vietnam

A)   Vietminh and the OSS

1)     Ho Chi Minh – Ho was a Vietnamese nationalist who admired the works of Marx, and wanted to establish a socialist state in his country

2)     Vietminh armed forces – with military supplies from the US, the Vietminh fought an effective guerilla war against the Japanese.

B)   Japanese surrender – when the Japanese surrendered, the Vietminh expected the US to continue to support them in their effort to establish an independent country

II)               French attempt to re-colonize – the Vichy government (the government which controlled France during the Nazi occupation of that country) had surrendered to the invading Japanese, but many French rubber plantation owners had in fact cooperated with the Japanese, and were allowed to maintain their property.

A)   Vietminh resistance – not surprisingly, the Vietminh resisted the attempted French re-colonization, and maintained their guerilla war against the occupying forces.

B)   US aid to France – the US provided some military assistance to their NATO alliance partners, in the form of credits and some military advisers

1)     Geo-political decision – the officials of the US government decided that it was more politically important, in our “Cold War” against the Soviet Union, to make nice with France in their struggle to re-assert colonial control, than to ally with a small, insignificant country with which we had no economic interest, nor any real political interest.

C)   French military offensive

1)     1946 – while the Vietminh were still expecting the US to side with them in the dispute, the French forces in Vietnam were able to drive the Vietminh forces out of most of the cities in the country

D)   French military defeats – after their initial victories against the Vietminh, the French suffered a series of devastating defeats; in response, the French government changed military commanders in the country.

1)     “The light at the end of the tunnel” – soon after taking command of French forces, commander Gen. Henri Navarre declared that “Now we can see victory clearly, like the light at the end of the tunnel.”  That is not the last time that phrase is heard in relation to conflicts in Vietnam.

2)     Dien Bien Phu – in the jungle near this small hamlet, a large French force was surrounded by Vietminh forces, and after an extensive two-month siege, the Vietminh forced the French survivors to surrender on May 7, 1954.

3)     Geneva Accords – at the insistence of the United States, the country of Vietnam was divided “temporarily” along the 17^th Parallel, and nationwide elections to choose a government for a unified Vietnam were to be held in 1956

III)            Vietnam and the Domino Theory – the so-called Domino Theory was an ideology subscribed to by both liberals and conservatives; a politician who could be portrayed as “soft on communism” effectively signed their own political death warrant.

A)   Government of South Vietnam – largely a paper tiger, if not a myth.  The government in South Vietnam never enjoyed any widespread popular support; if it were not for the millions and eventually billions of dollars that the US poured in to the country, it would have collapsed of its own inertia long before 1975, when the North Vietnamese Army finally rolled into Saigon.  As a secret government study conducted by the Pentagon, and leaked as the famous “Pentagon Papers,” the “government” of South Vietnam was largely a creation of the United States government.

1)     Premier Diem – Vietnamese Catholic, he organized a “national referendum” that led to the creation of the Republic of Vietnam.  He then won a rigged election to head that government, and maintained control only with US support (eventually, that support from the US amounted to over $1 million a day)

(a)  Diem’s only support in the country come from other Vietnamese Catholics (a very small percentage of the population, by the way), and other Vietnamese who had collaborated with the French

2)     US $$$ -- the United States was positive that given a choice, no country would want to pass up the political and economic advantages that could be provided by alliances with the US

3)     National Liberation Front – in December of 1960, the National Liberation Front was established by forces loyal to Ho in the south; they were popularly known in the US by the derogatory term given them by forces loyal to Diem in the south, Viet Cong (which became “VC” or “Charlie,” eventually, in US GI slang)

B)   Kennedy and Counterinsurgency – Kennedy was elected over Richard Nixon (barely) in part because of his promise to “close the window of vulnerability” that he claimed existed and threatened the security of the US.

1)     Counterinsurgency – the creation of a Special Forces branch in the Army, which supposedly would be able to respond to Communist aggression around the globe

(a)  “Green Berets” – to train South Vietnamese forces in techniques of counterinsurgency, and dry up the sea of support which the National Liberation forces swam in (an allusion to an idea Mao espoused, where he compared guerilla forces to fish in a sea, undetectable among other fish.

(b) Cowboys and Indians – the Vietnamese forces were an unconventional enemy that enjoyed widespread support among the people of the rural countryside—which in Vietnam, meant most of the people living in the country.

(c)  Lack of success – the lack of success that the South Vietnamese forces enjoyed in their counterinsurgency battles meant that more and more money and material was flowing into the country from the US, as were more and more military advisors, to “support” the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN).

IV)            Escalation of US Involvement

A)   Gulf of Tonkin – the USS Maddox was allegedly “attacked” while offshore from North Vietnam, in disputed seas (North Vietnam claimed the area as sovereign territory, while the US maintained that the waters were international waters).

1)     Gulf of Tonkin Resolution – after the alleged attack, President Johnson asked Congress for, and received, authorization from Congress to “take all necessary measures to repel armed attacks against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.”

(a)  Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed unanimously in the House, and only two dissenters in the Senate (both of whom lost in the next election that they faced.

B)   Da Nang

1)     USMC – on March 8, 1965, a large force of Marines landed at Da Nang to reinforce an airfield there; by March 13 the Marine expeditionary force was joined by 40,000 other troops, and by late June of that year the Army commander in Vietnam, Gen. William Westmoreland, had received authorization to commit American forces to battle wherever he saw fit.

C)   The Undeclared War – as more troops were committed, soldiers and Marines from the United States began to assume more of the responsibility of the fighting in this undeclared war

1)     Search and destroy missions – troops from the US forces engaged in the small troop tactic of so-called Search and Destroy missions, where platoons ventured into the jungles of Vietnam, looking for enemy to engage and hopefully kill, or at least locate so that air support could be called in.  Most of the time, these patrols found nothing.  The fault of these tactics was, of course, that the enemy only engaged their pursuers at the time and place of their choosing

2)     The Air War – the US dropped four times the amount of bombs in Southeast Asia than were used by all belligerents during World War II; but this bombing campaign was relatively ineffective against an enemy that was fighting a low tech war anyway—there simply was not much infrastructure to destroy.

3)     Weekly body count – each Friday, the military released figures of casualties, which was how the “score” was kept.  Each week, the total number of casualties for the North Vietnamese Army and the National Liberation Front, which inevitably were higher than the combined totals for the United States and the ARVN—so we were winning the war, right?

4)     Selective Service – because of college student deferments, the burden of service in this war fell inordinately upon the working-class; in fact, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (the three premier universities in the country) between them only had one alumnus die.  George W. attended Yale, drank his way through four years, and then conveniently “served” in the Air National Guard; Albert Gore, Jr. graduated from Princeton, and served in Vietnam—as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes, the newspaper written for members of the military.

D)   Tet – Tet is the name for the Vietnamese New Year; after 1968 the word Tet is associated with the beginning of the end of US involvement in the war in Vietnam.

1)     “The light at the end of the tunnel” – in January 1968, Gen. Westmoreland declared that the end of the war, now three years along in the involvement of US forces, was at hand, that officers there were confident that they were able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

2)     The Tet Offensive – just after Westmoreland made his observance about the end of the war, the National Liberation Front launched its Tet Offensive.  This offensive caught the US and South Vietnamese forces completely by surprise, and NLF forces captured several cities in the south (including the center of religious life in Vietnam, Hue), and threatened to capture Saigon.  The NVA had coordinated an attack at a Marine camp called Khe Shanh at this time, and held it under siege for several weeks.

3)     Result – the effect of the Tet Offensive, from a military view, was a crushing defeat for the NLF and NVA; the US forces eventually defeated the combined force, and retook all of the lost territory; the NLF in particular was decimated.

(a)  The end of US involvement – it became obvious to even the most casual observers that the end of the war was no where close to happening; popular support for continued US involvement in the war began to shift dramatically from this point.

V. “Peace With Honor” and the 1968 Election

A)   LBJ—at the end of March, Johnson announced the “if nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve”—that he was withdrawing from the 1968 presidential race.

1)     “Clean for Gene”—US senator Eugene J. McCarthy, disenchanted with Johnson’s leadership on the war, decided to oppose Johnson for the Democratic nomination. In the New Hampshire primary, McCarthy ran an unexpectedly close second, thanks largely to his superior “ground game” staffed largely with college students, many of whom had “cleaned up” their image to campaign door-to-door in the state.

2)     RFK enters the race—John F. Kennedy’s younger brother, Robert, buoyed by the surge that the unknown McCarthy was enjoying against the despised incumbent Johnson, entered the race on March 16, 1968. Kennedy won several primaries after entering the race, including California on the night he was assassinated (June 4, 1968), but it was far from a foregone conclusion that he would have been nominated.

3)     Hubert H. Humphrey—the most traditionally liberal of the Democratic frontrunners—but Humphrey was burdened by being Johnson’s vice-president, and therefore tied to the war.

B) Nixon and the Southern Strategy—Nixon had closely observed the splintering of the Democratic Party coalition caused by the Civil Rights legislation, and the success that George C. Wallace enjoyed in the North in 1964, heaping scorn on “pointy-headed intellectuals” and voicing concerns about the rising crime rate and government intrusions into private life. Nixon and his vice-presidential running mate, Spiro Agnew (governor of Maryland—again, attempting to appeal to Southern whites), spent much of the campaign claiming to speak for the “Silent Majority,” talking about crime—and inviting conflict with long-haired protestors.

C) George Wallace—running this time at the head of the American Independent Party, with former Air Force general Curtis LeMay, Wallace remained a lightening rod for protestors. Nixon feared the number of working-class whites Wallace might siphon from his Southern Strategy, but it seems that he garnered just about as many from Humphrey.




D) “The Whole World is Watching”—the chant of protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in August 1968. Much of the American part of that world was watching—and hoping that the Chicago cops would hit the protestors harder with their nightsticks. Locally, Mayor Richard J. Daley’s popularity went up with his police department’s handling of the protest.

E) 1968 Election—despite a last minute surge by Humphrey, begun when he turned over the reigns of the campaign to the UAW, Nixon won the popular vote by 7/10ths of one percent (although his electoral victory was substantial)



VI. …The War Goes On
A. Vietnamization—Nixon proposed that the war should be carried on by the South Vietnamese—with American support and assistance. South Vietnamese officers saw this as a chance to enrich themselves, as American oversight waned.

B. Cambodia—to interrupt the North Vietnamese supply chain into the south, a secret invasion into Cambodia was undertaken in late 1969. When the secret leaked out in 1970, this sparked campus protests around the country, including Kent State and Jackson State, where students protesters were fired upon and killed by National Guardsmen.

C. “Peace is at Hand”—Henry Kissinger returned home from negotiations in Paris with promises of peace just in time for the 1972 presidential election.