The Sixties (2013) s01e08 Episode Script

1 The enemy of freedom has chosen to make this year the decisive one.
Something's going to happen.
The change is on the way.
We can change America.
We can change the world.
What we need now is a reconciliation in this land.
There not anything wrong with you that a good haircut wouldn't cure.
Rest assured, we Democrats will stir it up well here.
This election year of 1968 has touched the emotions, the soul, and logic as never before.
I think we a little too much violence in this country.
We go up together or we go down together.
And we have not found an understanding for our fellow citizens.
We will have a new America, and I need your help.
If you look at the whole year as theater, as real acts of tragedy, there's an almost poetic feeling to it.
1968 was one goddamn thing after another.
Hardly a day goes by without a new report of another demonstration or protest against the Vietnam War.
There is in the land a certain restlessness.
Lyndon Johnson, whatever else one thinks of him, his reputation will always have the stone of Vietnam around it.
We're living in a middle of a beast.
Lyndon Johnson is a common murderer.
Johnson did things that no other President did.
Civil Rights, great society.
He should have been somebody that every young person and every liberal would have celebrated.
But they didn't.
He became the Vietnam War President.
We'd been told repeatedly that we're succeeding.
We're defeating them.
They can't hold out.
Johnson kept saying there's light at the end of the tunnel.
This is a CBS News special report.
Saigon under fire.
The enemy in Vietnam has demolished the myth that allied military strength controls that country.
The American Embassy is under siege.
Inside are the Viet Cong terror squads that charged in during the night.
The Tet Offensive was an enormous game-changer.
They were shooting up the American Embassy.
They had hit dozens of cities all over Vietnam.
It was a tremendous shock.
We have known for several months now that the communists planned a massive winter-spring offensive.
We do not think that our military operations are going to be at all materially affected.
He was unable to be honest with the American people because, of course, he was unwilling to simply say, "this is an un-winnable war.
" Cronkite in Vietnam report, reel 1, take 4.
These ruins are in Saigon, capital and largest city of South Vietnam.
When he went to Vietnam during Tet, it was the first time and maybe the only time that Walter had shown any kind of bias in his public broadcast.
It is increasingly clear to this report that the only rational way out will be to negotiate, not as victims, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.
After Walter Cronkite, Johnson's popularity sinks.
To most ordinary citizens, it has become obvious the war is not being won.
Opposition to the war was rising.
It wasn't just beatniks and young kids.
We are fighting a war and I'm convinced that it is one of the most unjust wars that has ever been fought in the history of the world.
Martin Luther King came out against the Vietnam War.
His own followers said, "You shouldn't be focusing on that, "you should be focusing on our issue.
" And he said, "They're intertwined.
You can't separate them.
" President Kennedy said on one occasion, "Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
" Do you honestly think that if there was an election, a vote for and against the war, that the anti-war people would win out? Well, it's really hard to tell now.
The polls are uncertain but the polls do say that most of the country is discontent with the manner the war is taking.
I think something ought to be done.
Senator, how are you? When some of the anti-war activists were looking for somebody to run for President, a number of people turned them down, including Robert Kennedy.
There are increasing reports out of Washington that your advisers are not telling you that you should run against President Johnson this year.
I have no plans.
I have no plans to change the statement that I've already made.
- According to Senator? - Get out of the way.
The assumption among the Kennedy intimates was that LBJ was totally unbeatable in 1968, and Bobby would run in 1972.
The anti-war movement needed a leader and it fell to Eugene McCarthy.
- How do you do? - Nice meeting you.
- Nice to meet you.
- Very nice to hear.
Senator, President Johnson supporters say you don't have a chance here in New Hampshire and you'll be lucky if you get 10% of the vote.
- What do you say about that? - Well, I don't know.
The people who are supporting me say I would do much better than that.
One Democrat, Senator Eugene McCarthy, defies precedent to bid for his party's nomination.
His platform, peace.
Eugene McCarthy does something that, you know, was taboo.
He comes out against a sitting President from the same party.
McCarthy came in from left field.
He was not thought of in the front rack of Presidential contenders.
But there was a great deal of frustration and even despair among the young.
Eugene McCarthy gave them hope.
We're volunteers for Senator McCarthy.
- Yeah.
- Reminding everybody to vote in the primary.
From NBC News Election Central in Manchester, New Hampshire, this is the news.
If McCarthy gets as much as 30% of the vote or more against an incumbent President he can legitimately claim an important victory.
McCarthy didn't win the New Hampshire primary, but he took enough votes that it scared Lyndon.
He got 42% of the vote.
But McCarthy was a nothing, an upstart.
If McCarthy could draw blood, Johnson was vulnerable.
They said at 68 was the year I think that marks the 12th to today.
How does it strike you, you're not disappointed? Oh, no.
Oh, he did win though.
This is exactly what he wanted.
He said you shouldn't have dissent, that it breaks down our system.
You should work through the democratic process to get what you want.
You can hope and, I mean, you've got to base it on the dream and this is coming true.
Whatever happened to Robert Kennedy? - I think - Boo! Perhaps the most important result out of all this from McCarthy's viewpoint is that he will, from now on, be treated as a serious Presidential candidate.
All of the sudden, after New Hampshire, there's a new political reality.
And Bobby very rapidly starts recalculating.
Would you welcome his entrance? Well, I don't know.
It's a little crowded now, but Let me tell the issue of 68.
The issue of 1968 is not the Johnson personality, but the Johnson policy.
And I happen to believe that this country can't afford four more years of Lyndon Johnson.
That is the issue of 1968.
For 16 years now, in the shadow play of American politics, there has always been Richard Nixon.
He's not coming back.
He never left.
Most political observers thought Nixon was finished.
He'd been counted out so many times.
So Nixon wanted to show the leaders of the Republican Party he was a winner.
We'll inaugurate a Republican President next January.
Thank you.
Media consultants worked with him so he wouldn't be the sweaty Nixon of 1960.
I'm really the most difficult man in the world when it comes to a so-called public relations firm.
Nobody's going to package me.
Nobody's going to make me put on an act for television.
If people looking at me say, "That's a new Nixon," then all that I can say is, "Well, maybe you didn't know the old Nixon.
" I wrote a diary of being on the Nixon campaign plane.
And I came out just saying, "What does he believe in? What does he care about? "How can we trust him?" I realized that the person I felt most related to was Robert Kennedy.
I have traveled and I have listened to the young people of our nation, and felt their anger about the war that they are sent to fight.
About the world that they are about to inherit.
I am announcing today my candidacy for the Presidency of the United States.
Eugene McCarthy clears the way and tests the water, but he wasn't the guy who was going to get there.
Bobby was going to get there.
This nation must adopt a foreign policy which says clearly and distinctly, "no more Vietnams.
" You have the declaration of another rival candidate from within his own party.
Currents of anti-war sentiment are building up.
And the same time, the war is getting worse.
I think if you're Lyndon Johnson, you feel you're being surrounded by a stampede.
Good evening, my fellow Americans.
Tonight, I want to speak to you of peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.
This is the moment for LBJ where the pressures of Vietnam are becoming almost overwhelming.
It is true that a house divided against itself is a house that cannot stand.
Accordingly, I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President.
You have just heard the President of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson, in an address from his office at the White House.
The advance text of his address did not contain those last remarks saying, and I quote from President Johnson, "I shall not seek and will not accept "the nomination of my party for the Presidency.
" Roger, no question about it.
This was a bombshell politically.
Well, you really don't know where to begin.
Our guest today on Meet the Press is the Vice President, Hubert H.
Humphrey, who yesterday announced his candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
Hubert Humphrey was LBJ's Vice President, and now he's running for President.
Humphrey has doubts about Vietnam, but has been a good soldier.
He has stood by Johnson.
Your President made the supreme political sacrifice to promote this cause of peace.
He was one of the casualties of this war.
I don't think there was ever an overwhelming enthusiasm for Hubert.
The drama of McCarthy and Kennedy had captured everyone's attention.
- Is the key Vietnam? - Yes, in a large way.
In a large measure, not totally, but there's a certain degree of general protest amongst the youth, which I think is, on balance, a healthy favor.
There was a lot of frustration on the part of students that the war was not drawing to a close despite our demonstrations.
So, the students began to become more militant.
At Columbia University, students barricade themselves in the University buildings.
Their leader is a 20-year-old ex-Boy Scout, Mark Rudd.
I would say that we now have more support than any group had, about any political issue, has ever held, on any at any time.
Columbia became the symbol of students in revolt.
Activists like Tom Hayden went to Columbia and said, "let's have more Columbias.
" There's nothing like feeling that you're fighting the power or somebody is listening to you, at least, to draw more people in.
We started shouting the phrase, and it's a phrase that's been used in other words and by actions of people all around the world when they face truth.
And that phrase is, "up against the wall, mother".
We have an idea that this was the beginning of something very important.
We took it as the beginning of revolution.
What's Happening to America? Conversation #3.
Tonight, our young people.
What's bothering them? Is there really a generation gap? Generation gap is a way that whites in this country, and the structure in this country, the system in this country, rationalizes its lack of responsibility in teaching this generation how to solve the problems which we are faced with.
1968 was the year that you could point to and say, "here is where the separation began "between past generations and generations going forward.
" I think all of us have a role to play.
And I think all of us have a great stake in the future.
You more than anybody else.
President Kennedy once said, "you have to the least ties to the past and the greatest stake in the future.
" You will always find idealism in youth, and I think that's something my father and my uncle recognized.
Why they always visited the universities.
I remember my father talking about how the founders of the American Revolution, you know, they were young people.
Well, you fellas don't even vote over here, you're not any older than my son! You don't even vote! Come up here and I'll autograph your sandals for you.
That'll make you feel better.
There was a third-party candidate in this election, George Wallace.
But Wallace was not affected by the Vietnam issue.
He was going to have a certain amount of support in the South, come what may.
There's not a dime's worth of difference in either one of the two parties.
And if they don't give the people a choice, we're going to give them a choice by having a new party.
It was just a plain, ornery anti-government streak in him.
It was his act, "you bastards in Washington are not going to tell me what to do.
" And you anarchists had better have your day now because I tell you again, you're through after November 5th in this country.
Do they know about Martin Luther King? Ladies and gentlemen.
Could you lower those signs, please? I have some very sad news for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world.
And that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.
When King was killed, Bobby was on his way to a campaign stop in Indianapolis, going into the ghetto.
And the cops said, "don't go.
" They were fearful of a riot.
Bobby went anyways.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling.
I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.
He gives this spontaneous speech to an absolutely devastated crowd.
This wasn't just politics.
He made it personal.
Let us say a prayer for our country and for our people.
Thank you very much.
This country and every person in it suffered a terrible loss tonight with the assassination of this man.
The perpetrator of this deed brings down upon all of us the painful charge that we Americans are prisoners of violence and destruction and death.
That is the tragedy of it.
Restraint, gentleness, charity.
Virtues we so desperately need that had a dark day.
King was the only rational voice that was left in America.
He stood against the war in Vietnam.
He stood against violence, period.
So when you killed him, you killed everything.
You killed the only rational voice that's left.
It became absolutely clear.
You don't want Dr.
King.
You assassinated nonviolent direct action.
You've tried to kill the dream.
Okay, here's a taste of the nightmare.
The outrage could not be contained.
Fires burn in the cities of America.
Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, New York.
These are just a few of the cities in which the Negro anguish over Dr.
King's murder expressed itself in violent destruction.
I remember coming back to Washington 2 or 3 days after King had been killed.
I was thinking, "What am I seeing here? This is the United States of America, "and there are machine guns on the steps of the Capitol?" 100 cities rage with riot, 20,000 are arrested.
People were in open revolt.
Sirens wailing, people screaming.
And it shook everyone, black and white, to the core.
Nothing could be more desecrating to the memory of Martin Luther King than to use his death as an excuse to engage in violence.
There was a faith and spirit vacuum, and when you find people who have lost that hope, fear tends to fill that vacuum.
People were increasingly afraid, and Mr.
Law-and-Order stepped up on the Republican side.
This is a nation of laws.
No one is above the law, no one is below the law, and we're going to enforce the law.
And Americans should remember that if we're going to have law and order.
Disbanding those provisions that exist between black and white.
I want us to work together, and I run on that basis for President of the United States.
My father's appeal was to, really, the most disenfranchised classes.
He felt like nobody else was speaking for them.
And that's where his space was, rather than with the liberals, because the liberals were for McCarthy.
I want to reassure you that I'm not yielding to anybody along the way, either the Vice President or Senator Kennedy.
Indiana, Bobby wins.
Nebraska, Bobby wins.
And then on May 28th, Oregon.
McCarthy's crowds in recent days have been good, larger than Kennedy's in many places, although without the frenzy that accompanies a Kennedy appearance.
I can't afford to lose if I'm going to remain a very active and viable candidate.
It would very adversely affect me in a very serious way.
The actual final figures yet to come in, but apparently Senator McCarthy has won a major victory in Oregon.
Senator Kennedy has suffered a severe setback.
They move on now to California and the primary there, a week from tonight.
And this result, tonight, does not prove, of course, that Kennedy is politically dead this year, it does prove that he is politically mortal.
It establishes that he is Robert Kennedy, after all, not John F.
Kennedy.
I think what will happen now is that McCarthy gets a new life.
He's still a long shot, but he has a chance now.
I think that, however, you don't write off Robert Kennedy because he can come off the floor and win big in California.
That's what he has to do.
But if he doesn't win big in California, he's had it.
We want Kennedy! We want Kennedy! We want Kennedy! We want Kennedy! Bobby Kennedy, having lost Oregon, knew that he had to win California.
And that would be his ticket to the Convention.
It will take a very big win, a spectacular win in California, the repair the badly shattered Kennedy image.
Bobby's going to do it.
You know, it's just the way everybody felt.
Final votes will be Kennedy, 48%, Senator McCarthy 41% He won! This land is your land, this land is my land, from California to the New York island.
From the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters, this land is Robert Kennedy's! All of us are involved in this great effort.
And it's a great effort not on behalf of the Democratic Party, it's a great effort on behalf of the United States, on behalf of our own people, on behalf of mankind, and all around the globe and the next generation.
My thanks to all of you, and now it's on Chicago, and let's win there.
I was upstairs in the Ambassador Hotel.
We were getting ready for our victory party.
And somebody called, I picked up the phone in the suite, and this colleague said, "something's happened to the Senator.
" Senator Kennedy has been shot! Senator Kennedy has been shot? Is that possible? It was bedlam.
I couldn't find Kennedy.
Finally found him and he was lying on the floor.
Somebody shot him in this corridor behind the kitchen, going to the kitchens here.
Everybody, please stay back.
Please stay back.
We need a doctor here.
Please, it's very important.
We need a doctor! Will you please clear this room? If you will not leave the room, we cannot get medical aid for the Senator.
Now, would you please? I can't say that people thought, "how this could happen?" Because we'd seen it happen.
Truth is that this had been in the back of everybody's mind, and one of the reasons why, you know, some people said, "don't do this, don't run.
" Robert Kennedy is in the most grave condition, and hope is difficult to find.
Senator Robert Francis Kennedy died at 1:44 A.
M.
today.
June 6, 1968.
He was 42 years old.
Thank you.
As you all know, there are no words that can really fully convey the feeling that one must have for the nation in the face of this tragedy, this new tragedy.
People say, "well, it was inevitable.
"His brother was murdered and so was he.
" Nothing's inevitable.
It just happened.
This plane will take back the body of Robert Francis Kennedy to New York.
Also on-board this plane today will be Mrs.
John F.
Kennedy.
Also on-board will be another widow, Mrs.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Somehow and in some way, we seem to be sending a great many of our young leaders to their early graves.
It's been a very emotional period for all of us who have worked for the Senator.
And personally, the most horrifying thing in these last few days was this morning when I tacked this black ribbon onto my campaign button.
Because now I am lost.
I'm desperate.
And I don't know where we're going from here.
When Senator Kennedy went down, he was trying to speak for those Americans, including the young, who feel a need to change many aspects of American life.
Well, that cause has not been stilled forever because even without him the changes will be made, because they have to be.
But nobody knows when, nor how, nor whether the changes will be made peacefully or violently.
In the meantime, this country has lost another leader.
As far as I'm concerned, we've lost the only leader that I feel gives us any hope for the future.
I mean, what happens to the country? I mean, you wonder if it's worth saving, you know? What is it? What's left of this country? I know what my own feelings were, and I think they were widely shared.
We have to question ourselves.
Is our country coming apart? What are we becoming? This Walter Cronkite in Miami Beach, at this first session of the Republican National Convention.
Richard Nixon was the leader, but he walked into the Republican Convention not positive that he would be the candidate.
The new-fashioned Nixon runs an old-fashioned campaign, and that's what the country seems to want.
There were challengers.
There was Nelson Rockefeller in New York, for starters.
And George Romney in Michigan.
There was some talk of Reagan.
But Nixon had a lock on the delegates.
We are a nation in crisis.
Right now, change rules America.
It's time for America to rule change.
It is my privilege to place in nomination, the man for 1968, the honorable Richard M.
Nixon.
There are 30 votes in Wisconsin and this should put him across.
Richard M.
Nixon.
Sit down and get to work.
Well, it looks like Nixon.
Nobody is really surprised.
And no committed Republican feels cheated.
What was the fuss all about? The Republicans understand that Nixon, in this time of tumultuousness, he gives people this sense of continuity.
What is most important now is for us to think how we can get this war ended.
Mr.
Nixon talks of an honorable peace, but says nothing about how he would attain it.
At this point, the war is continuing at as hot a pace as it's ever been.
More troops are being killed every week than at any time in the course of the war.
This weekend, the enemy stepped up attacks throughout South Vietnam.
We knew that we would not be able to influence the Republicans on Vietnam, so we wanted to put massive pressure on the Democrats.
I didn't think anything could happen with Vietnam without that challenge.
This is a CBS News campaign 68 Convention special.
What's going to happen in Chicago? On this eve of the beginning of the 35th Democratic National Convention, Chicago is nearly security-tight.
Perhaps the heaviest security ever provided for a political gathering in the free world.
The police, several thousand of them, are now deployed.
Soldiers have arrived in Chicago, and are standing by.
For the Convention, the plan was to have a mass anti-war demonstration and a mass counter-culture festival.
We gathered in the parks.
We are going to march because we have a right to, because that's what we came here to Chicago to do.
And no one is going to stop us.
Thank you.
There were many factions.
They were united only by a feeling that this is our moment.
This is Carnegie Hall.
No more war! No more war! We are concerned about the build-up of the force, because we think that anything that's built up like this is liable to be used.
The Democratic Convention is about to begin in a police state.
There just doesn't seem to be any other way to say it.
The people of Chicago, and its mayor, are proud to welcome a great political gathering of Americans who come here to shape the future of the nation.
And as long as I'm mayor of this town, there will be law and order in Chicago.
The two men, who most still believe this is all about, arrived in Chicago today to begin their final drive for delegate vote.
Most of us were saying it just wasn't politically possible for McCarthy to overcome those who were pledged to Humphrey.
So, there clearly needed to be another force.
Arriving now, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota.
McGovern got into the race because there was a big hole in the anti-war side, and, you know, Bobby Kennedy had a lot of delegates.
McCarthy said he didn't believe McGovern had enough strength to make any difference.
And so McCarthy said he'll continue the fight for the nomination, although it was clearly implied that his chances are very slim.
Mayor Daley set up all the conditions for conflict in Chicago.
He didn't give them permits to march, but he knew that they were coming anyway.
Over 10,000 demonstrators were gathered in Chicago's Grant Park.
The demonstrators are determined to march on Convention Hall tonight in protest.
The police are at the park in force.
You can count on it that the police and the authorities will always unify what you can't unify by yourself.
The tumultuousness of violence that was happening outside the Hall became reflected inside the Hall.
There seems to be some kind of battle going on over there.
Yes, directly under our booth here.
They're carrying a man out.
I got into a melee in the Convention Hall myself.
Don't push me.
Take your hands off of me unless you're trying to arrest me.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Well, Walter as you can see! I don't know what's going on.
I think we got a bunch of thugs here, Dan.
Well, mind you, Walter, I'm all right.
It's all in a day's work.
It reflected for all the world to see the oppression inside the Hall, in what was supposed to be a democratic society of free people nominating someone to be President.
Downtown.
Downtown Chicago across from Grant Park beside the Hilton Hotel.
There has been in progress for some time a peace demonstration.
The police have come to put it down.
The National Guard has been called to help.
You create disorder if you try to impose too much order with force.
So that's what happened.
They were suppressing our democratic rights in order to continue an un-democratic war.
People screaming, being dragged to the paddy wagons.
A scene of wild disorder on this, the night of the Presidential nomination to this Democratic Convention.
It was a police riot.
I had never seen that before in my life.
I had never seen groups of uniformed policemen going after civilians.
There were pools of blood on Michigan Avenue.
"The whole world is watching," chants the crowd on the side.
When George McGovern is President of the United States, we wouldn't have to have gestapo-style tactics in the streets of Chicago.
Did you see what was happening downtown? Yes, I saw it with this television set.
Do you think this is going to cost the Democrats the election? What's happening here in Chicago this evening? Oh, I don't think there's any question.
Not only the party but the country is split in half.
I think they'll veer away from this dissension.
Thank you very much.
Shirley MacLaine and Roosevelt Grier, watching the television set in the back of the hall about what's going on downtown.
It is my high honor to present the new leader of our party, the next President of the United States, the honorable Hubert H.
Humphrey.
I proudly accept the nomination of our party.
We got Hubert Humphrey as the candidate.
Humphrey was an example of what we were fighting.
He was a liberal who was going to betray our hopes.
I see an HHH on your lapel.
Does that mean you're for Humphrey all the way? Well, I wouldn't say all the way.
I'm a Democrat and he's the nominee.
Now it's true what George Wallace said.
If the first job at hand is to end this war, there isn't a dime of difference there between Humphrey and Nixon.
Vice President Humphrey remains, by any basis of measurement available, a complete underdog.
My feeling is that if he could cut himself off from the President, be his own man, then he has a chance of winning this election and it would make it very easy for all of us to support him.
Humphrey desperately needed to separate himself from the administration.
And he did.
Well I think the greatest task of statesmanship is to find a way to conclude and bring that war in Southeast Asia to an end and to do it properly.
The public was so happy that there was some movement towards peace in Vietnam.
Humphrey was back in the game, and it was neck in neck.
From NBC News election central.
Nixon is the one.
That's the natural banner for any sprightly front page tonight.
94% of the popular vote is counted.
There are the numbers.
It was one of the closest elections in American history.
Closer even than when Nixon lost to Kennedy eight years ago.
I have done my best.
I have lost.
Mr.
Nixon has won.
The Democratic process has worked its wheel.
George Wallace carried five states.
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
In our judgment, the people who supported us have an impact on bringing in the two parties in a different direction.
And I do wish for Mr.
Nixon the most success of any President in the history of our country.
Having lost a close one eight years ago and having won a close one this year, I can say this.
Winning is a lot more fun.
With Nixon's election, even though many people felt a sense of disappointment, there was a sense that there may be some normality over the horizon.
People were exhausted, so it was, in part, a sense of relief.
Maybe, thank God, it's over.
I plan to spend Christmas in the states, but I can't stand violence.
1968 certainly has been one of the unhappiest years in American history.
In the end, it always comes down to what the people do.
And this year the people, like the events of 1968, are largely unpredictable.
Our country was put to some enormous tests in 1968.
It was a bend, but there wasn't a break.
The issues that were thrown open in 1968 Who has authority, who deserves authority, what the limits of power are Those are profound questions that continue to matter.
This will be an open administration.
Open to new ideas, open to men and women of both parties, open to the critics as well as those who support us.
And I am confident that this task is one that we can undertake, and one in which we be successful.