In doing research for another project today, I had reason to go back and look back through the archives of
Time magazine. It didn't take very long before I became completely sidetracked, looking through the covers from 1968, one of the more storied years in recent American history. It has a particular resonance for me -- I was 12, and just discovering politics, the war, race relations ... well, the list could go on. I was 12. I was discovering everything.
Looking at the 52 cover images of
Time in 1968 brought the whole year back to me. And I found myself wondering ... if I'd been, in 1968, what I am now -- 48, a longtime print journalist and someone whose personal views are eclectic but colored mostly liberal -- what would I have thought of the coverage, as represented by what made the covers?
I noticed immediately that Martin Luther King did not make the cover in 1968, not even the week after his murder. I checked, and found MLK made the cover of Time three times, in 1957, 1964 and 1965. King was slain on April 4; Alexander Dubcek, the Czech reformer, was on the April 5 cover (and I am sure that was in print by the time of the King assassination) ... and LBJ was on the April 12 cover, with the headline The Search for Peace in Asia/The Specter of Violence at Home.
The year began with a caricature of Johnson and a literary allusion (LBJ as Lear). Skipping over some pop cultural and business covers, we then come to Lloyd Bucher and the Pueblo Incident in February, followed by North Vietnamese General Giap (Days of Death in Vietnam and a great-looking artist's rendering of John Kenneth Galbraith portrayed as The All-Purpose Critic.
Nixon and Rockefeller appear jointly in March (The Race for the GOP Nomination) reminding me that Nixon was the conservative candidate within his own party. And Sen. Gene McCarthy made the cover after his surprising showing against LBJ in the New Hampshire primary.
Gen. Creighton Abrams (New Man in Vietnam) appears at the end of April.
Hubert Humphrey, Bobby Kennedy and the Paris Peace Talks all made the cover in May, along with a striking cover on Poverty in America.
In June we get a college-kid cover with the dark and reversed (and backward) legend, Can You Trust Anyone Under 30 ... Then RFK's death, followed by a stark image of a hand holding a smoking gun, The Gun in America I wonder how many there were then ...
In July, associate Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas made the cover, as Johnson's nominee for chief justice. Fortas withdrew in the face of a filibuster. He had accepted a $15,000 speaking fee from American University law school. He later resigned amid scandal over having accepted another speaking fee from a foundation controlled by Louis Wolfson. Wolfson was a financier who was under investigation for violating Federal securities laws. (Wikipedia)
That all made me wonder about how Scalia would have been been perceived back then ...
July covers also include The Police In The Ghetto and one with both Rockefeller and McCarthy (The Challengers.)
I was surprised by the Aug. 9 cover -- it was a headshot of GOP convention "keynoter" Dan Evans, headlined Republicans: The Men and the Issues. He was the governor of Washington at the time; I had to look it up. On Aug. 16 we get Nixon and Agnew; at the end of the month, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Humphrey and Muskie "grace" the cover of the Sept. 6 issue and if I'd been a supporter, I would have been plenty pissed. Nixon/Agnew, three weeks earlier, were shown in a terrific (though later, notorious) photo, well-dressed, smiling, hands clasped over their heads. The Humphrey/Muskie cover showed an artist's representation of the two against a sickly yellow background, with Mayor Daley looking over them against another backdrop depicting the violence at the convention in Chicago. Yeah, that was the news ... and the cover told the story. Amazing how close Humphrey came to winning, all in all. Agnew got the cover to himself on Sept. 20 in a favorable way. (Headline: Becoming a Household Word.
In October, we see a big "Law and Order" issue; a cover for "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In;" and (finally!) The Revolt of the Right with George Wallace and Gen. Curtis LeMay. In the artist's depiction, Wallace is wearing overalls and carrying a wrench. LeMay is in uniform and carrying a model bomber.
In the runup to the election we get: Jackie Kennedy's marriage to Onassis; New York mayor John Lindsay (The Breakdown Of A City) and LBJ, halting the bombing just before the election.
Anyway, so much for the history lesson. But overall, I was struck by how ... the coverage tilted perhaps slightly to the right, politically. The fact that Humphrey's campaign surged throughout October, to the point where most people think he would have won if the election had been held a week later, didn't make the cover. And Agnew gets his own, separate, favorable cover? We all (weel, all who are old enough) remember race riots in 1968, and inner cities burning; but Time covers depict inner cities as a law and order issue, perhaps playing into Nixon's hands.
The pre-election Time cover on the decision to halt the bombing was dramatic and stark -- a huge red stop sign symbol with the shape of a bomb cut out in the middle, with Johnson's profile shown in the bomb cutout. I'd say the cover art reflects a conscious decision to play the story right -- put it on the cover -- but to minimize its impact on the Nixon-Humphrey race.
I know I'm just looking at the covers, and I'm not judging, at all, Time's overall coverage. Still, the cover is the single most important editorial decision made at Time every week. And looking at the covers in 2004, vs. 1968 -- I think I'd argue that, in this area, anyway, the coverage is more even-handed now than it was then.
Feel free to jump in, disagree or even just reminisce. ;-)