The 1968 election was one of great conflicts — and dominated by the Vietnam War.
Americans had gone in a few short years from supporting the war when it began with combat troops in 1965 (after years of small numbers of forces), based on the “Domino Theory” that communism was on a march to world domination and we had to draw the line on its expansion, to opposing the war in 1968. Robert Kennedy, assassinated in his run for the presidency, had turned against the war.
Lyndon Johnson found that despite great victories for the country in civil rights and the War on Poverty, and other successes such as the creation of PBS, the war had soured the American people on his presidency and when he only narrowly won his first primary, he announced he would not run for re-election and would spend the final year of his presidency trying to end the war.
The dominating issue for the election was the war. The Democratic Candidate, Hubert Humphrey, was Johnson’s VP and so could not be very critical of the war — giving Nixon an opening.
Outside of the war, and Humphrey’s nomination by the party despite not winning primaries to run, the voters preferred a Democrat - but they preferred an end to the war even more.
So, if the war was ending, Nixon was very likely going to lose the election. But if Nixon could present himself as the candidate who would end the war, he could win.
It’s not the issue for this diary, but worth noting that Nixon committed treason to win. LBJ had successfully achieved a peace agreement with North Vietnam. However, Nixon had secretly contacted South Vietnam’s leader and sent a message to refuse any peace deal under Johnson, promising he would offer a much better policy for South Vietnam if he won, and South Vietnam refused to agree to the peace deal, giving Nixon the slim edge he needed. LBJ knew of Nixon’s treason, but felt he could not reveal the secret means by which he had the evidence.
As the Smithsonian magazine summarized:
www.smithsonianmag.com/…
Nixon ran on a promise that he had a secret plan to end the war.
This was basically a lie.
To the extent it was true, it was about his plan with Henry Kissinger, to try to persuade the North Vietnamese that Nixon was a lunatic willing to use nuclear weapons, to scare them into peace.
It did not work.
In Nixon’s first National Security Council meeting, he asked the council for recommendations how to end the war. He did not have a “secret plan”. That was a scam for votes from gullible voters.
His presidency was dominated by the war. He referred to the war as the only policy that mattered, contemptuous of other policies such as arms control and limiting germ warfare.
He expanded the war for years, secretly bombing Cambodia with the falsification of bomber flight plans, roughly doubling Americans killed (22,000 more) and Vietname killed (roughly a million more).
His famous visit to China — Eisenhower had threatened Kennedy with public opposition if he recognized China — was largely driven by trying to gain Chinese help to end the war in Vietnam.
Perhaps it wasn’t all an act he put on, with his madman plan, as this private conversation shows:
Nixon: I’d rather use the nuclear bomb. Have you got that ready?
Kissinger: That, I think, would just be too much.
Nixon: A nuclear bomb, does that bother you?… I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christ’s sake! The only place where you and I disagree is with regard to the bombing. You’re so goddamned concerned about civilians, and I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.
Kissinger: I’m concerned about the civilians because I don’t want the world to be mobilized against you as a butcher
Without Nixon, the war could have ended in 1968. Because of Nixon, millions were killed, for nothing.
Trump is copying Nixon, with his claim of a secret plan to win the war with ISIL.
And there’s every reason to think we’d again face needless highly damaging policies from an out of control maniac were trump to be elected.