rubber soul

35. JOHN F. KENNEDY- PART 2


Assassination: The 1964 election season was already underway in November 1963 and Kennedy decided on a goodwill political trip to Texas, accompanied by First Lady Jackie and Vice President Johnson. It was already assumed that Barry Goldwater would get the 1964 Republican nomination and the President made speeches that were critical of the potential candidate in San Antonio and Houston. Dallas was next after a speech in Fort Worth on the 22nd.

Kennedy had been cautioned not to go to Dallas by various people, especially United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, who had been heckled and assaulted in Dallas. Dallas authorities were also concerned, but Kennedy insisted on going to Dallas anyway.

On the morning of November 22nd, President Kennedy and the First Lady attended a breakfast at Fort Worth before embarking on the short flight to Dallas. There, at Love Field, he was greeted with a warm reception before occupying the Lincoln Continental Convertible with the top down with Governor Connally and his wife in the middle seats and the Kennedys in the back. The motorcade drove into downtown Dallas and there seemed not to be a hostile being in sight, just cheering crowds as the motorcade went by.

The motorcade turned on Houston and Elm streets. As the car was turning, Mrs. Connally remarked to the President, “You can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.”

Kennedy agreed. Then shots rang out. One bullet reportedly missed but another hit Kennedy in the neck (it is assumed it went through and also hit the Governor). As the President clutched at his throat, a third shot rang out. This one was a bullseye as Kennedy’s head exploded. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Hospital but there wasn’t really much anyone could do. The President was pronounced dead at one PM, Central Standard Time.

You would think that would be it after the funeral obviously, but the fun was just beginning. Vice President Johnson, at the protest of the Kennedy aides, had himself sworn in on Air Force One with a stunned (because of losing her husband, not because of Johnson) First Lady as a witness. It was a savvy move of course, but we’ll talk about that more in his profile.

As for the investigation, the assassin had actually gotten away for a couple hours. Maybe he would have gotten even farther had he not been stopped by a Dallas police officer, who he shot and killed. Next thing you know, the world knew all about Lee Harvey Oswald and the Dallas Police spent the next two days parading him around for the press to see.

And that proved to be the biggest bonehead thing to do ever because, on Sunday, November 24th, and in front of live cameras, Lee Harvey Oswald would be cut down himself, by girlie club owner Jack Ruby, starting endless conspiracy theories that ranged from the Russians and Cubans to the Mafia and even the Vice President. None of the theories have been proven and while the Warren Commission, arranged by President Johnson, had what you could call a sloppy investigation (which was at least less sloppy than the autopsy), no one could prove anything other than Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone with no support from any entity.

So, John F Kennedy lives on as the greatest martyred President since Lincoln. It would be well over a decade before tales of affairs that would make anyone but Bill Clinton blush and a conspiracy that he had an affair with Marilyn Monroe and had a hand in her suicide in some way. And, of course, there were the Mafia rumors too (we didn’t mention he was buddies with Frank Sinatra and Rat Pack member Peter Lawford was Kennedy’s Brother-In-Law).

But whatever the truth may be, he goes down as one of the most idealistic Presidents in American history.

Odd notes: Kennedy’s father, Joseph Kennedy, made much of his fortune running illegal liquor in the 1920s.

Then Senator Kennedy got into a car accident with a young Larry King (https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/...john-f-kennedy)

Final Summary: Jack Kennedy is not the first, nor the last President to have two different lives, one that was the President, and one that was, well, a scoundrel. No, Kennedy certainly wasn’t the worst human being ever to reside on this Earth, even among our Presidents, but he no doubt felt a bit entitled because of his upbringing and, if I were to judge him on his character alone, frankly, he wouldn’t rate very high.

But Kennedy the President is a different matter. He inspired us to be the best we could possibly be, and he always seemed to have a knack at doing the right thing such as when he finally found the courage to introduce the Civil Rights Act. When he did screw up, such as with the Bay of Pigs, he was the first one to take responsibility. He obviously took Harry Truman’s buck stops here to heart. He inspired the space program, and the Peace Corps remains one of his greatest legacies. And it should also be noted that it was Kennedy, along with Khrushchev (and it probably cost him his premiership) that said enough of the nuclear arms race after the near miss of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and they were in the process of the first arms reduction treaty.

But there will always be one lingering question concerning Kennedy. What about Vietnam? Would Kennedy have escalated the war the way Johnson would? Or would he have found a way out? Yes, Kennedy was a Cold Warrior, but he was also a realist when he had to be. Maybe he would have seen the writing on the wall long before Johnson did. I’d like to think that given how he handled the Cuban Missile Crisis.

But thanks to a whack job in Dallas, we’ll never know.

Overall rating: B+

https://millercenter.org/president/kennedy

__________________

rubber soul

Disclaimer


From this point on, if I haven't done so already, my liberal bias may start to be showing as we cover the more recent Presidents, starting with Lyndon Johnson. These are the Presidents who have, for the most part, helped me to form my own political views so if you happen to be a fan of Ronald Reagan, or think Donald Trump is the greatest US President since Julius Caesar, be forewarned!

__________________

rubber soul

36. LYNDON B. JOHNSON (We're on the Eve of Destruction)




Born: August 27, 1908, near Stonewall, Texas
Died: January 22, 1973, Johnson City, Texas

Term: November 22, 1963- January 20, 1969
Political Party: Democrat

Vice President: Hubert Humphrey

First Lady: Lady Bird Taylor Johnson

Before the Presidency: Lyndon Johnson was the oldest child of struggling farmer Sam Johnson. Sam wasn’t much of a success as a farmer, but he gifted with the gift of gab, and he served five terms in the Texas Legislature before returning back to farming. The family moved to Johnson City when Lyndon was five. There, Lyndon seemed to want to follow his father’s dreams and, at one point, told a classmate he wanted to be President of the United States.

Johnson’s family struggled throughout his childhood, and it gave the young Lyndon a resolve that he wouldn’t let farm prices drop to the point where working class families, like his own, were ruined. He graduated as President of his six member Senior class and his family managed to get enough funds together so Lyndon could attend summer courses at Southwest Texas Teachers’ College. However, his grades were poor, so he was rejected.

So, he decided to sow his wild oats instead. He took off for California with some friends. He drifted a bit between California and Texas, working odd jobs along the way. It got so bad that he would be arrested in 1927. This woke Lyndon up, and this time, the teachers’ college accepted him.

Johnson wasn’t the best student, but he involved himself in extracurricular activities and excelled in his student teaching. He ended up being assigned to teach a small Hispanic school in a poor area. This was during the Great Depression. Johnson excelled in his position and did well financially considering the times, but he really yearned for a political career, so the teaching period was brief.

In 1931, he became an aide to a Congressman of Corpus Christi. There, in Washington, he proved to have a strong work ethic, answering every inquiry from the Congressman’s constituents.

In 1934, while visiting Texas, Lyndon would find love when he met wealthy Claudia Alta Taylor. They would be married within three months, and she would be better known later as Lady Bird Johnson.

Still in Washington, Johnson was clearly a fan of President Roosevelt’s New Deal and was able to procure an appointment as Texas Director of the National Youth Administration, which helped young people find employment. He excelled there as well.

Then fate stepped in. The congressman in his home district died in 1937 and Johnson jumped at the chance to run for his seat. With help from his wife’s inheritance, and being a strong advocate of FDR’s New Deal, he won election at the age of twenty-eight.

Congressman Johnson, due to his age mostly, was somewhat undistinguished at first though he was able to get some housing projects and dams for his district. He also was able to secure electrical power to his old Texas Hill country, something he would consider as his proudest achievement.

One of Texas’ US Senators died in 1941 and Johnson tried for the seat. He was pitted against “Pass the Biscuits, Pappy” O’Daniel. Both were accused of fraudulent methods but O’Daniel proved to be better at it. Johnson returned to the House.

By now, the US was in World War II and Johnson persuaded FDR to give him an officer’s commission in the Naval Reserve. Johnson was appointed as congressional inspector of the war progress in the Pacific which enabled him to keep his seat. He even went on a bombing mission and won a Silver Star. As such, Johnson was able to help out with the war effort and use his political savvy at the same time.

After the war ended, America had entered a different world. Now it was the Cold War against Communism. Johnson, as a New Deal liberal, seemed to be on the wrong side of politics by 1948. This was an issue for him as he went up against Texas Governor Coke Stevenson for the Senate seat.

Stevenson was considered a rather popular Governor due to his more conservative views. The two battled it out for the Democratic nomination, but this time, Johnson was older and wiser, and he knew all the tricks to get elected in Texas. Despite three suspicious vote tallies in South Texas, Johnson edged Stevenson for the nomination and easily defeated his Republican opponent. Lyndon Johnson was now a Senator.

And it was in the Senate where Johnson would truly make his mark and then some. Johnson’s strategic skills made him one of the most powerful Senators in America by the end of his first term. Indeed, he was named the Majority Whip in 1951, after only two years in the Senate. later, when the Republicans took back the Senate, Johnson was named Minority Leader. He was now the most powerful politician in his party.

In 1954, the Democrats were able to take the Senate right back and Senator Johnson was now the Majority Leader. And few would have the power and influence that he had in the fifties. And, though he supported military preparedness, he preferred to use his clout when it came to domestic issues, particularly on spending bills that would help the less advantaged. Johnson was a populist, ultimately, though at least he tried to use it for good.

It is argued that Johnson may have been the most powerful Senate Majority Leader ever. No, he didn’t manipulate the Senate the way Mitch McConnell would, but he knew how to influence other Senators to see things his way. It was called the Johnson treatment in which, basically, Johnson would lean over you as if he was stalking his prey. No one was better at the art of persuasion than Lyndon Johnson.

He also supported President Eisenhower where he could even though he was of the opposite party. As such, he helped push through the Civil Rights Act of 1957, managing to calm Southern nerves along the way. He also helped to get America into the space race after the Russians launched Sputnik.

Johnson’s ambitions and hard work would come at a physical cost, though. In 1955, Johnson suffered a massive heart attack and was sidelined for a time. Like Eisenhower, heart issues would be a major health problem throughout his later life. Johnson did address it though by stopping smoking, lost weight, and tried to delegate some of his work.

By 1960, Johnson felt that he did all he could in the Senate and now it was time to go for the big prize, the Presidency.



Summary of offices held:

1937-1949: US House of Representatives, Texas

1941-1942: United States Naval Reserve, Lieutenant Commander

1949-1961: US Senate, Texas

1951-1953: Senate majority Whip

1956-1957: Senate Majority Leader

1957-1961: Senate Majority Leader

1961-1963: Vice President of the United States


What was going on: Vietnam War, Civil Rights movement, the Beatles, Space program, the Great Society, the assassinations, student protests

Scandals within the Presidency: Bobby Baker corruption charges

Why he was a good President: Only FDR can boast of a stronger domestic agenda than LBJ. Because of Lyndon Johnson, we have the Civil Rights Act that criminalized discrimination, the Voting Rights Act (or at least the part that the Supreme Court allows), Medicaid and Medicare, the Fair Housing Act, and a few other things as well. If we judged LBJ on this alone, he’d probably get an easy A.

Why he was a bad President: One word: Vietnam. While almost a savior domestically, he stubbornly waged the war in Vietnam and over 35,000 American Servicemen would die on his watch alone (Another 20,000 would die under Nixon). He had to deal with protests at home and abroad and, while Nixon would handle them worse, Johnson couldn’t have been prepared for the divide he was causing.

What could have saved his Presidency: Staying out of Vietnam is the easy answer of course. Without Vietnam, he could have been Teddy Roosevelt.

What could have destroyed his Presidency: Well, Vietnam pretty much did, but it could have been worse had he reverted back to the old segregationist policies.

How he became Vice President: Johnson’s Presidential ambitions dated back as early as 1952 when he tried to get on the ticket with Adlai Stevenson. He again would try in 1956. Now it was 1960 and this time, he was going to go for all the marbles.

But he faced long odds, on one hand you had the popular Midwest liberal, Hubert Humphrey (who would later be Johnson’s VP), and, even worse for Johnson, there was that young charismatic idealist from Massachusetts named John Kennedy. All three were Senators.

This was not going to be Johnson’s year either. Kennedy outmaneuvered everybody, even the crafty Johnson, and would secure the nomination. The only question now is who he would pick as his running mate.

Johnson and Kennedy weren’t exactly buddies and Kennedy didn’t expect Johnson to accept the bid for Vice President (Kennedy was pressured by certain Democrats, including some of his closest advisors as a way to attract the South). To Kennedy’s surprise, Johnson accepted, and he was on the ticket. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise as Johnson campaigned hard for the ticket. In fact, it may have very well been Johnson that made the difference in one of the closest elections in American History.

So, Johnson was Vice President, but he would be frustrated that the Kennedy Administration would keep him on the back burner. In fact, it would even be rumored that Johnson would be dropped when 1964 came around. Still, Kennedy nabbed him as head of the Space Program. He also was a key advisor on military affairs, and he also chaired the President’s Committee for Equal Employment Opportunity. Overall, though, he was generally shunned by Kennedy aides, something that grew more frustrating as time went.

On November 22, 1963, Vice President Johnson accompanied President Kennedy to Dallas, Texas. It was a political trip (It looked like LBJ would be on the ticket after all), and Johnson was ready to shake some hands and secure some Texas endorsements, starting with Governor Connally no doubt.

Vice- President Johnson’s car was two vehicles behind Kennedy’s convertible as the motorcade started just before noon.

Two hours later, Lyndon Johnson was President of the United States.

First term: The events of November 22, 1963, are controversial for a variety of reasons and not just because of the assassination. One of them involved the new President, Lyndon Johnson, who insisted he be sworn in on Air Force One. This drew protests from the Kennedy camp, especially after he asked the still shocked first lady, Jackie Kennedy, to witness the proceeding which was also going to be a photo-op. He was sworn in by judge Sarah T. Hughes, a friend of the new President. More controversy occurred as the plane landed at Andrews Air Force Base as Kennedy’s casket was hurriedly removed from the plane. President Johnson gave a quick speech lamenting Kennedy and the country and, while sincere, lacked the charisma of any Kennedy speech. People worried for the immediate future.

But after the mourning period of President Kennedy passed, the new President went right to work starting with the formation of the Warren Commission to investigate what happened in the Kennedy Assassination. That too would prove controversial as they never really had all the information they needed (probably more the fault of zealous Kennedy aides and a sloppy autopsy than anything Johnson did), and a slew of conspiracy theories would soon arise. One of the members of the Warren Commission happened to be Congressman Gerald Ford of Michigan, who would also become an accidental President one day.

One thing Johnson was determined to do was to finally get Kennedy’s Civil Rights bill passed. Johnson had been something of a segregationist, being a product of the South, though not as blatantly racist as the likes of Strom Thurmond for example. But he knew that the African American vote was an important bloc and he always had sympathy for the less fortunate. So, the Civil Rights Bill became his priority in 1964.

Of course, it drew a lot of hostility from the Dixiecrats, and Johnson would later say that it probably cost the Democrats the South for a generation (as it turned out, a lot longer than that). Still, he felt it was the right thing to do and, with the use of his legendary Johnson treatment, he was able to get the groundbreaking bill that banned discrimination in most shapes and forms (the LGBTQ movement wasn’t in play yet). Thus, in many ways the Civil Rights Bill is much more Johnson’s legacy than Kennedy’s.

The other issue he inherited, of course, was Vietnam and this would be the issue that would ultimately sink Johnson’s presidency. Kennedy had been very involved in Vietnam of course, but he also used a bit of restraint even as he had hawks like Defense Secretary Robert McNamara who wanted to go all in. Johnson agreed with McNamara and felt that a quick military intervention was all that was needed to stem the tide of Communism in Vietnam.

Johnson needed an excuse though and he found it in what was called the Gulf of Tonkin incident. There actually was a confrontation between North Vietnam and covert operations in the Gulf, but the second confrontation, the one that sparked direct American involvement in the war, never actually happened. It would later be blamed on miscommunication. The Congress fell for it in any event and passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving the President authority to essentially wage war, which he would do after his inauguration the next year.

The Vietnam war was not to be blown sky high just yet and Johnson would go into the 1964 election with a lot of goodwill. The Civil Rights act along with Johnson’s other domestic ideas were very popular and he would be very difficult to defeat in 1964.


Election of 1964: Johnson was all but coronated as the Democratic nominee in 1964. He had a lot of goodwill post-Kennedy and even with a strained relationship with his Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, who nonetheless supported him, there was absolutely no one that was going to try to deny Johnson his bid for a term in his own right.

It was a different story on the Republican side. Barry Goldwater remained the frontrunner, but he was said to have rather extremist views, something that concerned the more moderate members of the party. No one knew it then, but Goldwater had started a movement that would shift the Republican Party much more to the right and eventually give America the gift that was Ronald Reagan.

Of course, there were other candidates to consider. There was talk of a Nixon comeback, but he had been stung by his loss for Governor of California and he really wasn’t ready for a comeback- yet. There was a stop Goldwater movement that lobbied for the nominations of either Nelson Rockefeller or William Scranton. As it was, Goldwater, who was ultimately nominated, would have to pick Liberal Republican William Miller as his running mate.

Goldwater’s style of Libertarianism didn’t sit well with American voters and his speech about Extremism in the name of liberty being no vice didn’t help matters much. The Johnson campaign exploited this with a devastating TV commercial known as the Daisy girl ad which suggested Goldwater would lead us to nuclear war.

So, it was to no surprise that Johnson would win by the largest popular vote margin in history. Some white Southerners did vote for Goldwater given he opposed the Civil Rights Bill (though for libertarian reasons, not because of any hatreds), but for the most part, it was pretty much a rout with Goldwater carrying only six states, his own state of Arizona and five in the Deep South. Lyndon Johnson had a mandate.

__________________

rubber soul

36. LYNDON B. JOHNSON (part 2)


Second Term: With the election behind him, President Johnson set on his ambitious domestic agenda that promised to be the most reaching since the New Deal. He pushed for what he referred to as his Great Society programs. First though, he needed to get through the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that Martin Luther King was pressuring him to do. Johnson was concerned that getting a voting rights act through now might derail his domestic agenda in general, but again, dumb white racists made the decision for him.

For there was an incident in Selma, Alabama known as Bloody Sunday. A peaceful march across the Edmund Pettis bridge was halted by Alabama state troopers. The marchers did indeed halt, but it didn’t end there. The troopers attacked the marchers with tear gas and nightsticks and, of course, the event was televised.

So, Johnson had his cause to act, and this time it wasn’t manufactured. He made a speech imploring white Americans that the Black Americans’ cause was theirs too. The bill passed with great bipartisan support, and it banned literacy tests among other things as well as allowing the Justice Department to intervene where discriminatory practices kept less than half of eligible voters from being able to do just that, vote. Yes, some of the bill would, decades later, be ruled unconstitutional simply because times had changed (and, of course, after George Floyd, we know that things haven’t really changed at all, thanks, John Roberts). Some of the bill survives though and it is a great companion bill to the Civil Rights Act of the year before.

With the Voting Rights Act behind him, President Johnson began work on his other projects, starting with Medicare and Medicaid, something that would guarantee at least some health insurance to the elderly and the poor. Of course, the conservatives, whose idea of helping people is to let them starve, were freaking out (You should listen to Ronald Reagan’s album, Ronald Reagan speaks out against Socialized Medicine, it’s a comedy classic). The bill passed anyway, and the Supreme Court hasn’t outlawed that as of yet (and, after okaying Obamacare twice, they probably won’t), so, along with Social Security, older people have at least a little bit of security.

Lesser known, but equally important accomplishments in the Johnson Administration, include the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD for short, the National Endowments for the Arts, the National Endowments for the Humanities, the Public Broadcasting Act (PBS, if you’re wondering), and the Consumer Protection Agency, and these are just the ones I can think of right off the bat.

These great accomplishments would put any other President in the far upper tier to be sure, but sadly, Johnson’s foreign policy was a downright disaster.

For the Vietnam War was, to the doubt of no one, President Johnson’s war. The US began to bomb North Vietnam in February 1965 and soon troop levels were increasing faster than today’s gas prices. By the end of 1965, nearly 200,000 US troops were fighting in Vietnam. That number doubled by the end of 1966 and more than half a million troops were in Vietnam by the time Johnson left office.

And the war was going nowhere. Young American men had to live in fear of their lives being interrupted at best and maybe ended at worst. More and more troops were coming home in body bags and colleges were erupting in protests throughout the country. Even worse, there was still racial strife domestically as Martin Luther King was now getting resistance, first by a white mob in Chicago, then with more radical black activist groups such as SNCC and the Black Panthers that advocated violence instead of King’s non-violent approach. King even alienated Johnson for a time when he spoke out against the Vietnam War.

And as such, the last two years of Johnson’s presidency would end up in two of the worst years in American History. In 1967, despite some positive goings on such as the Summer of Love, there would be race riots in Detroit and Newark as well as more escalation in Vietnam. The ongoing war in Vietnam had an even bigger impact on the young as protests dominated throughout the year, some of them violent. The most notable protest however was very peaceful when protestors descended on the Pentagon in October 1967, remembered mostly for Allen Ginsburg’s attempt to “lift the Pentagon.”

1968 would even be worse as it wouldn’t even have a summer of love. Instead, the year started out with the Pueblo Incident off North Korea where a US spy ship was captured, and the personnel were imprisoned for almost a year.

But that paled to what would happen in Vietnam the next month. In February 1968, the Vietcong pulled a surprise attack on what was called the Tet Offensive. By now, the Vietnam War was on the TV news daily the same as if you were watching a rerun of the Flintstones. So, it was to no surprise that the horrors of the war were seen by just about everyone, with a street execution shown as the exclamation point.

This was the last straw as Walter Cronkite publicly spoke out against the war on his newscast. This, along with the entry of Robert Kennedy in the Presidential Race drove President Johnson to this fatal announcement.

“I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President”.

(We’ll cover the rest of 1968 in a special post before we get to Nixon)

Post Presidency: The few years of Johnson’s post presidency were somewhat quiet as he retired to his ranch. His heart was failing, and he never really got over the guilt of sending thousands of young men to their deaths in Vietnam. Still, he wasn’t a broken man as he kept busy writing memoirs and overseeing the building of his Presidential Library. He died in January 1973, just two days after the Paris Peace Accords officially ended US involvement in the Vietnam War.

Odd notes: Before the Presidency, Johnson was a noted segregationist

Johnson had a propensity to show off his scar from a gall bladder operation.

He grew his hair out after the Presidency

Final Summary: In some ways, you can compare Lyndon Johnson to Woodrow Wilson as something of a Jekyll and Hyde. Wilson of course did his own great things, but his blatant racism ruined his legacy. Johnson, on the other hand, did so many great things domestically and African Americans can actually congregate with White Americans freely (even if some of the whites don’t like it much). Johnson is the one most responsible for that.

But then there is Vietnam and that’s the Hyde side of LBJ. Believe it or not, as a Cold Warrior, he did it with all the best intentions, but he was too much of a cowboy President (I didn’t mention it earlier, but he ordered Marines into the Dominican Republic in 1965 to protect American Citizens), and that was his downfall when it came to Vietnam. He also was easily hurt as he felt betrayed when Martin Luther King went against him on Vietnam.

So, like Wilson, it would be easy to give Johnson and A on domestic policy and an F on Vietnam, but somehow, I think because of the domestic gains, I think LBJ deserves a little better than that.

So, I’m giving him a few bonus points.

Overall rating: B-

https://millercenter.org/president/lbjohnson



NOTE: Stay tuned as we post a special entry on Friday concerning the pivotal political year of 1968 that started the US on the slow descent that we enjoy to this day.

__________________

rubber soul

1968 SPECIAL (and it's not the Elvis Presley Comeback Special)




“I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”

I’d like to say the troubles of the Johnson Administration ended there but, unfortunately, it was only the beginning.

The Presidential campaign was already underway as it had been obvious Johnson was not going to be coronated this time. Between Vietnam and the racial tensions, not to mention the anti-war protests at home, which was already sparking a law and order backlash, it was to no surprise that Johnson would have competition in this election.

And it came in the form of anti-war candidate Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota. His insistence to get out of Vietnam hit a note with younger voters and other liberal minded Democrats were attracted to his positions as well. And, with everything going on, Johnson had every reason to fear a rejection at the Democratic National Convention, especially after Johnson barely won the New Hampshire primary.

But Johnson was about to get an even bigger headache. For the good part of a year, there was a draft to get Robert Kennedy, now a Senator from New York, to run. Like McCarthy, he was a vehement opponent of the Vietnam War, but he also emphasized programs to help the poor and disadvantaged, even visiting an economically challenged town of white folks in Appalachia. He was also visiting African American towns in Mississippi as well and people could see the genuine emotion in his face as he visited these areas. After his brother had been assassinated, Kennedy took a reassessment of himself and out of it came a compassion that has rarely been seen in anyone in politics, quite frankly.

So, after the New Hampshire primary, and realizing he had the best chance to defeat Johnson, Bobby Kennedy announced his candidacy for President.

This was likely the last straw for Johnson. He had threatened to resign before but this time, with McCarthy and Kennedy running, and Cronkite now against him, Johnson decided he had enough and wasn’t going to run again. Instead, he would back his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, as he at least shared some of his Vietnam policy, even actively campaigning for his election.

So, as April began, it looked like a three way contest for the 1968 nomination while the Republicans were trying to figure out who would hold their banner. At this point it appeared to be between Michigan Governor George Romney and, guess who, Tricky Dick Nixon, who was ready for his comeback tour. As of early April, Nixon already had the decided edge.

Now, you may ask why I’m doing 1968 as a separate chapter. It’s quite simple really; there were events in 1968 that frankly went beyond politics and, in some cases, even the political events went way beyond just some mention in a Presidential bio.

For just four days after Johnson’s announcement that he wouldn’t run, Martin Luther King was shot and killed in Memphis. King had been there to support a garbage workers’ strike and had made an inspiring speech at a church the night before pledging that “We will get to the mountaintop.” He also admitted that he likely wouldn’t get to the mountaintop with them. It proved to be tragically prophetic.

Because King was now dead, and the inner demons of anger rose. Cities like my own city of Baltimore erupted in violence. Forty-three people were killed, thousands were injured, even more thousands were arrested, and there was enormous property damage in what was seen as the worst violence since the Civil War. President Johnson sent in Federal troops to quell the violence as he needed to do but worried that local authorities would use unnecessary force. He was even reported to say, “What did you expect? I don’t know why we’re so surprised. When you put your foot on a man’s neck for three hundred years, and then you let him up, what’s he going to do? He’s going to knock your block off.” Legislatively, Johnson was able to respond by getting the Fair Housing Act passed, the last of his many great domestic accomplishments.

By May, the riots had passed, and it was back to Vietnam and the primaries. Kennedy was doing well at first, but hit a roadblock when McCarthy pulled an upset win in Oregon. It was assumed that if Kennedy had any chance of winning the nomination, at this point being reserved for Humphrey’s to lose, he would have to win the California Primary in June.

Meanwhile, there was now an attempt to finally try to get the US out of Vietnam as the Paris Peace talks were getting underway. Long story short, the talks would never get very far, and it is even rumored that Nixon may have meddled in an effort to improve his own election chances. In any event, the talks failed, and the war went on.

By June, Bobby Kennedy’s campaign was beginning to take flight. It had been an idealistic campaign to be sure as he was still remembered for his comforting speech in Indianapolis the night Martin Luther King was killed. Yes, he lost in the Oregon primary, but it looked like he had a fighting chance in both California and South Dakota. The primaries were on June 4 and Kennedy had won both. At the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Kennedy gave what would be his last speech finishing with the words “It’s on to Chicago and let’s win there.”

As Kennedy as his entourage were exiting through the kitchen, shots rang out. After the melee was over and the assassin being held on the floor as a reporter screamed, “Get the gun,” Robert Kennedy lain on the floor with a bullet wound to the head, barely conscious as a busboy tried to comfort him. Kennedy was rushed to Central Receiving Hospital. By then he lost consciousness. He then was transferred to Good Samaritan Hospital where they operated on him, listing his condition as grave as to life.

On June 6 at 1:44 AM, Robert Kennedy was pronounced dead and the idealism that in some ways started with the Kennedys died that day as well.

The summer of 1968 contrasted with the positive vibes of the previous summer. We were still mired in the Vietnam War, and we just went through two major assassinations, what else could possibly go wrong?

Well, your friendly neighborhood mayor Richard Daley of Chicago was happy to give the answer. For, the Democratic National Convention to coronate Hubert Humphrey was underway and Daley wasn’t going to let a bunch of unkempt hippies ruin Chicago’s week in the spotlight.

Of course, those unkempt hippies were in Chicago to protest the war and planned peaceful, if vocal protests in Lincoln Park. Daley, of course, had a problem with that and a violent confrontation between the Yippies, as they called themselves, and the more than willing Chicago Police took place. This and a few other skirmishes set up what would become a night where the whole world was watching.

On the night of August 28, protestors marched in front of the Convention Center. The police responded the best way they knew how, with violence. Tear gas was thrown, protestors were beaten in front of a live audience. Word of the violence got into the convention as well as Senator Abe Ribicoff of Connecticut accused Mayor Daley of using Gestapo tactics. Even more telling, as a reporter was being roughed up by Daley’s security, Walter Cronkite called the security personnel a bunch of thugs. By the time Hubert Humphrey came on for his acceptance speech, he was reduced to making a desperate plea for harmony.

The rest of 1968 was relatively calm as Humphrey ran up against Nixon and his Law and Order campaign (more on that with the next post) and a third party bid by traditional segregationist, George Wallace, who would have some success in the South. Needless to say, with the damage done in Chicago, Humphrey was not to be the next President which is a shame for a couple of obvious reasons, but also because he was, even with his support of the war, a basically decent guy. In any event, after 1968, the United States would never be the same.

And not for the better.

__________________

rubber soul

RICHARD M. NIXON (Here's to the State of Richard Nixon)




Born: January 9, 1913, Yorba Linda, California
Died: April 22, 1994, New York, New York

Term: January 20, 1969- August 9, 1974 (resigned)
Political Party: Republican

Vice President(s): Spiro Agnew, Gerald Ford

First Lady: Patricia Ryan Nixon

Before the Presidency: Richard Nixon grew up in a small town in California. He was the son of an odd mix of parents. His father was a bit of a boor while his mother was, as he would famously put it, a saint. Young Richard was ambitious from the start and excelled at school and would excel at Whittier College and Duke University law school. Even with his impressive academics, however, he couldn’t get into the FBI when he applied in 1937.

Nixon settled in Whittier, California where he met and married Pat Ryan, destined to be his long suffering wife. The Nixons moved East as opportunities began to present themselves. Nixon got a job with the Office of Price Administration in Washington.

After Pearl Harbor, Nixon enlisted in the Navy. It wasn’t an especially distinguished stint, but he left with an Honorable Discharge in 1945. When he got home, his political career started when he was approached by a group of Southern California Republicans.

Nixon learned the art of negative campaigning and dirty tricks from the get-go, and he set his eyes on Jerry Voorhis, the Congressman from California’s 12th District. Voorhis was a New Dealer who was also an avowed anti-Communist. No matter, Nixon’s men was able to come up with a document linking him to a PAC, not a Communist backed PAC mind you, but enough to scare the votes enough to go with Nixon. Richard Nixon was going to Washington.

This was the period of the Great Red Scare and Nixon would exploit it as hard as he could. Next in his crosshairs was Alger Hiss, a prominent employee at the US State Department. He was under investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee in which Nixon was a member. Nixon went after Hiss like a pit bull, all but destroying his career (though later documents suggest that Hiss was, in fact, passing information to the Soviets). Nixon had reached National prominence.

Buoyed by the success in the Hiss case, Nixon then went for the Senate seat. This time the victim was Helen Gahagan Douglas. He came up with a “pink sheet” that compared Douglas to a Communist Party member, calling it the Douglas-Marcantonio Axis. This not only won Nixon the Senate seat in 1950 but also the derisive moniker, Tricky Dick. Yes, Richard Nixon was a despicable man even in the early days, but in the paranoia days of the early fifties, he was the next best thing next to Joe McCarthy.

And as such, he was being touted as a possible Vice Presidential candidate in 1952. Eisenhower would go with Nixon after Nixon guaranteed some California delegates. Eisenhower may have regretted it though as it wasn’t much long before Nixon became the news in not a good way. A news article accused Nixon of taking illegal gifts and Eisenhower was ready to dump him. Nixon knew this too.

So, with TV now the rage, he arranged what we would now call an informercial that we know now as the Checkers speech. Here, Nixon highlighted his dog, explaining that Checkers was a gift given to him for his daughter and he wasn’t going to give the dog back. It was pure manipulation at its best as Nixon came off as a warm family man. Nixon saved his place on the ticket.

And, despicable as Nixon was, he did have a soft spot for his family. His wife was devoted to a fault and his two daughters adored him. This would come into play later when his political career came to a spectacular end.

Eisenhower won the election easily and Nixon was the youngest Vice President in history. As Vice President, Nixon would become an expert in foreign affairs, visiting dozens of countries. There were two notable trips in particular. On the Latin America Trip in 1958, Nixon was met with protests and a mob in Caracas stoned his motorcade. This only made Nixon more popular.

The incident that gave him real glory happened in 1959 though when he met Nikita Khrushchev in the Soviet Union. There the two staged what was called the Kitchen Debates as they traded words about the merits of their two respective countries. Both parties looked quite positively, and it gave Nixon a reputation of being able to stand up the big boys.

Nixon even had some Presidential experience when he had to fill in as Acting President when Eisenhower suffered his heart attack in 1955. Nothing major happened and, for all extensive purposes, Nixon didn’t do anything to embarrass Eisenhower when he returned.

So, when 1960 rolled around, Nixon was a prime candidate for President, and he would be nominated by the Republicans. Nixon wouldn’t be ready for the glamour that was Kennedy though and this time, the same TV that saved his political career would now be his Achilles hell. The two candidates, who were also personal friends, decided on four televised debates. Kennedy was a handsome man and was able to show his charm in front of the cameras. Nixon, on the other hand, looked like he hadn’t shaved, and while he may have had a better grasp of the issues than Kennedy, his delivery seemed off and people were turned off by his general appearance. As such Kennedy won the debate.

And, despite some controversy, Kennedy also won a close election. It’s true Nixon could have contested it, and no one could have really blamed him, especially in the case of Illinois, but Nixon decided not to contest the election and conceded gracefully. Nixon figured he’d just try again in 1964.

But first, he would try a stab at California Governor in 1962 after writing his book, Six Crises. Nixon ran as a moderate against the staunch conservative, Joseph Shell, in the primary, and won the nomination easily. The general election was a different matter though as the Democratic Governor, Pat Brown, was quite popular. Nixon felt the press liked Brown a little too much too and, when Nixon lost big in the general election, he announced that they wouldn’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.

Nixon instead spent the bulk of the sixties campaigning first, for Goldwater, then for Republicans in the 1966 midterms. For somewhat who had been supposedly retired from politics, he seemed to be ready for another Presidential run in 1968

Summary of offices held:

1942-1946: United States Navy, Commander

1947-1950: House of representatives, California

1950-1952: United States Senator, California

1953-1961: Vice President of the United States


What was going on: Vietnam War, The Apollo Space program, Kent State, relations with China, Energy Crisis, Watergate

Scandals within the Presidency: Agnew tax fraud trial, and, um, Watergate

Why he was a good President: He was surprisingly strong on the environment, creating the EPA among other things. It took him long enough, but he did finally get us out of Vietnam. And the space program flourished under him. Plus, he handled the inflation issue about as well as anyone could have in the early seventies. And, of course, he was very adept at foreign diplomacy, forging relations with China and signing the SALT nuclear arms agreement with Russia.

Why he was a bad President: Well, Watergate of course, but his paranoia sometimes would go amok as he wasn’t afraid to curtail the civil liberties of those who protested his policies, particularly when it came to Vietnam. Plus, who remembers his infamous enemies list?

What could have saved his Presidency: A lot less paranoia and more of where he did best, with foreign diplomacy and moderate domestic policy. Oh, and a little more honesty and openness wouldn’t have hurt either

What could have destroyed his Presidency: Oh, I don’t know, maybe a political scandal? You know, like, WATERGATE????

Election of 1968: Nixon came into 1968 as the Republican front runner with George Romney and Nelson Rockefeller on the left and Ronald Reagan on the right. Reagan, at this point was a former actor who was now Governor of California (he did what Nixon couldn’t do, defeat Pat Brown). Reagan had taken the mantle of Goldwater conservatism and it was he who would transform the United States into the wonderful wasteland it is today. For now, though, he was just beating up hippies in California.

Despite the loyal competition, Nixon’s nomination never really was threatened. Romney dropped out after he turned against the Vietnam War and Rockefeller was way too liberal for these Republicans. On the other hand, Reagan’s conservatism scared the pants out of them. They much preferred someone close to the center, in other words, Nixon.

So, Nixon was up against Humphrey in the general election (see the 1968 chapter for the fun on the Democratic side). A third candidate also had his hat in the ring. Mr. Segregation Now himself, George Wallace, was running on the third party American Independent ticket, and he would indeed make some noise, though he probably would hurt Nixon more than Humphrey.

As for Nixon, he ran on a law and order campaign, essentially a reaction to both the civil unrest of recent years and the student protests that were getting out of control, such as in Chicago. He also had a secret plan to get out of Vietnam (he didn’t but people are pretty gullible sometimes). And, oh yeah, he also had as his running mate, Governor Spiro Agnew of Maryland. Great, so Nixon would not only embarrass himself a few years later, his Vice President would embarrass my home state as well (In 1973 for sure but one can argue he started to embarrass us in 1969).

Anyway, even though Humphrey was gaining on Nixon in the days before Election Day, it was too little too late. Nixon won with a razor thin plurality (yep, yet another plurality), though he fared a little better in the Electoral Vote with Wallace gaining most of the Deep South. Nixon took the rest of the South which fulfilled LBJ’s prediction from four years earlier. Hatred doesn’t die very easily.

First term: Buoyed by the support of his “Silent Majority,” President Nixon embarked on the first of his international trips, the first one being to Europe. Back at home, Nixon would concentrate on two things in his first year, scaling back the war in Vietnam, though not ending the involvement, just that fewer men would have to go. He also had to deal with the political unrest at home as young protesters were now being attacked by groups that called themselves Hard Hats. When you say Hard Hats, think of a lot of violent Archie Bunkers on steroids. Nixon, not a fan of the protestors, was certainly favoring the Hard Hats, at least in secret.

When it came to foreign policy, Nixon was a hands-on President, keeping his Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense out of the loop. He had a group of trusted aides around him from Chief of Staff HD Haldeman to security advisor Henry Kissinger. As such, he was often commanding the Vietnam War from the White House.

Domestically, things started out well, but inflation was becoming a major problem. By 1971, and despite Nixon’s best efforts, it had spiraled out of control to the point that Nixon ordered Wage and Prize freezes over the next year in hopes to get the inflation under control. It didn’t really work though as domestic policy really wasn’t Nixon’s forte, but he would sign off on the Environmental Protection Agency and signed the Clean Air act.

Nixon was President when NASA had its greatest moment. John Kennedy’s dream of a man on the moon before 1970 had been realized as Neil Armstrong took the first steps off Apollo 11 in July 1969. More moon missions would follow throughout Nixon’s first term.

But like Johnson before him, Vietnam was ultimately Nixon’s Achilles Heel. Even though Nixon was now slowly withdrawing troops from Vietnam, there was still a draft, which was now a televised lottery (Congratulations to those born on September 14th, you win a free trip to Vietnam), and the withdrawal was much too slow for not only the young, but for middle America as well as many of them had now turned against the war (The 1968 Tet Offensive being the turning point for many). On top of that, Nixon replaced troop withdrawals with bombing missions in North Vietnam. By 1970, it had spread to Cambodia and Nixon announced that US planes had bombed that country as well.

College campuses all over the country erupted in protest over the Cambodia bombing and it reached a boiling point when National Guardsmen fired on protestors at Kent State University in May 1970. Four people were killed, two of whom were only observing the protests in between classes.

Nixon, to his credit, didn’t overreact as now colleges were shutting down in the wake of the Kent State tragedy (another shooting incident also happened at black college Jackson State later that month). Instead, he tried to talk directly with a group of anti-war protestors at the Lincoln memorial. Yes, it was as bizarre as it sounds, and Nixon was no doubt feeling out of place as he tried to get with it.

Nixon ultimately was quite the paranoid, especially when it came to Vietnam. He had the Oval Office secretly bugged as a way to use it against those that may oppose him. Needless to say, that backfired spectacularly. He also would go back into his bag of dirty tricks as the Pentagon Papers were being published in 1971. His Attorney General, John Mitchell, was something of a pit bull and he would be used to discredit people and, in the case of Daniel Ellsberg, even try to prosecute. Mitchell also would take initiatives on his own as when he tried to deport John Lennon in 1972.

Even with all the fun and games going on around him, Nixon still had a bit of political capital going into 1972, and his trip to China would prove to be the most lasting achievement of his administration. He struck a diplomatic relationship with Chou En Lai and Americans were seeing Red China in a positive light for the first time. Critics called it Ping Pong diplomacy, but it worked. Nixon would also have talks with Brezhnev later and he would be credited with toning down the rhetoric of the Cold War quite a bit.

1972 was, of course, election season, but it was also the year of the Paris Peace Accords. Henry Kissinger even went as far to say that pace was at hand, though that proved to be premature. North Vietnam, having the upper hand really, was still playing hardball, so Nixon ordered more bombings of North Vietnam as 1972 ended, after all Nixon was already re-elected, what could they do to him now? In the end, North Vietnam signed the accords, and the US was finally getting out of the war as Nixon’s second term began.

__________________

rubber soul

RICHARD NIXON (PART 2)





Election of 1972: Despite the problems with inflation, everything else seemed to be going quite well and President Nixon was relatively popular. After his goodwill trip to China his popularity swelled even more and there didn’t seem to be much doubt he’d win re-election.

But Nixon was also, arguably, the most insecure President in history as well, at least before Trump, anyway. So, his campaign group, the Committee to Re-elect the President, or CREEP for short, went back into their bag of dirty tricks.

And the biggest victim was Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine. The former Vice Presidential candidate was considered the Democratic frontrunner in February 1972. So, Donald Segretti and Ken Lawson forged a letter, known as the Canuck letter, that suggested Muskie was prejudiced against French Canadians. This was printed in the Manchester Union Leader and Muskie was forced to respond. He was a bit emotional as Americans learned the important lesson that you’re not allowed to cry in politics, or you’ll be considered a loony bird. Muskie never recovered from the dirty trick.

Muskie did hang on until May, though, as other candidates vied for the Democratic nomination such as George Wallace, Shirley Chisholm, Hubert Humphrey, and George McGovern. The Nixon camp badly wanted the liberal, but flighty, McGovern as he seemed to be the easiest candidate to beat in November. The Democrats knew this too as they tried to do everything they could, short of a stop McGovern movement, even trying to deny him the California delegates that would have put him over the top.

Before the fun and games at the Democratic Convention though, a couple of matters of significant importance occurred. In Laurel, Maryland, George Wallace, still pushing his law and order against blacks mantra, was shot, and paralyzed by a weirdo not unlike John Hinckley really. Wallace would win the Maryland and Michigan primaries, but his presidential aspirations were over (and, on the positive side, a lot of that hateful racism was too).

The other major event didn’t get a lot of press at the time, but it would ultimately lead to the downfall of Nixon. On June 17, 1972, five men connected with CREEP were caught breaking in to the DNC offices at the Watergate Hotel. Nixon, through G. Gordon Liddy and others, tried to cover the incident up with mixed success, but enough to get them past November. This, of course, marked the beginning of the Watergate scandal.

But back to the election. After McGovern won his court battle, he was awarded the California delegates and he won the nomination. He then picked Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri as his running mate- for a week. Seems that he had been treated for depression in the past which is another lesson learned: Never see a psychiatrist or people will think you’re a loony bird, just kill yourself instead. The nervous nellies of the Democratic Party dumped Eagleton as a result and went with Sargent Shriver as the running mate instead. Shriver was a Kennedy in-law so what could possibly go wrong there?

As it turned out, nothing, but it didn’t matter. Nixon won in the biggest landslide to date with more than 60% of the popular vote, McGovern winning only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

So, America went with Nixon, and they got what they wanted, whether they liked it or not.

Second Term: The second term started out promisingly enough for President Nixon as he signed the Vietnam Peace Accords. There would still be some non-combatants in Vietnam for the next two years, but the fighting part of the war was over for Americans. Plus, the POW’s were all coming home.

The glad handing that the Vietnam War was over didn’t last very long, however, because after the Watergate burglars were sentenced to prison, the press, then Congress, began to jump on the scandal that was now becoming full blown. Several aides were connected to the break-in including Chief of Staff Hadleman and Attorney General (now former AG) Mitchell. Nixon too got involved by trying to cover up the cover up. He invoked Executive Privilege, ostensibly to protect his aides, but really, to protect himself. When that didn’t work, he threw his aides under the bus, notably his White House lawyer, John Dean, who was willing to tell the truth about the whole mess.

And, indeed, as the Senate held their Watergate hearings, it would be John Dean that would expose the scandal for what it was as he told the committee that he told Nixon that it was a cancer on the Presidency. Even worse, it was confirmed that Nixon had been taping practically everything in the White House. By now a special prosecutor had been assigned to the Watergate case and there was a battle between Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, Congress, Judge John Sirica, and the White House, for rights to hear the tapes. Needless to say, the White House was stonewalling.

Meanwhile, Watergate wasn’t the only crisis brewing. In 1973, Israel was at war with Syria and Egypt again, this time in the Yom Kippur War. Again, Israel won out, but this time, the Arab nations decided they were going to stop selling gas to the West, thus, the Energy crisis had begun.

And yet, there was another scandal in the Administration, and it had nothing to do with Watergate. You see, Vice President Spiro Agnew of Maryland (don’t remind me), was being investigated for taking kickbacks from when he was a County Executive. As a result, he pleaded Nolo Contendre and resigned as Vice President.

Now, after Kennedy had been assassinated, they pushed through an Amendment giving the President the right to pick a new Vice President upon confirmation by the Senate. Nixon got to be the first President to do just that, but he also had to have the approval of the Democratic controlled Senate, so he wasn’t going to get one of his buddies in, that was for sure.

So, upon the advice of fellow Republicans, he made what may have been the best decision of his Presidency. He chose House Minority Leader Gerald Ford of Michigan, a conservative to be sure, but also a man of impeccable character. He would win confirmation easily.

Now back to Watergate and the beginning of the end. Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox was still demanding the tapes and Nixon continued to stonewall to the point that Cox took him to court. Cox was also defying Nixon’s orders to basically lay off and drop the subpoena.

So, on October 20, 1973, Nixon ordered his Attorney General, Eliot Richardson, to fire Cox. Unfortunately, for Nixon, he appointed an honest man and Richardson refused and resigned. Likewise, so did his deputy AG when he was ordered. Finally, he got Robert Bork to do the dastardly deed. This act even outraged some Republicans and for the first time, serious talk of impeachment was on the table.

And impeachment hearings were the rage in 1974. The House now had their own special committee. Hillary Rodham was actually one of the aides. They were spirited hearings to say the least as the Republicans were split between Nixon loyalists and the ones more outraged at his behavior. Even the Democrats had a couple of Southern sympathizers (Nixon still held some popularity in the South).

After some back and forth between Nixon and the courts, the Supreme Court finally ordered Nixon to give up the tapes. He did, but not before the House Judiciary Committee recommended impeachment. It was a foregone conclusion he would be impeached.

And, after hearing the tapes, it was pretty obvious the Senate was going to remove him from office as well as not only did most of Nixon’s defenders turn on him, but Senator Goldwater also told Nixon that there were only four Senators that would vote to acquit him- he was not one of them.

So, on August 8, 1974, Richard Nixon announced he would resign the Presidency the next day. As such, he became to first President to truly leave the White House in disgrace.


Post Presidency: After leaving Washington, the first thing people wondered was if he would be prosecuted. A pardon by President Ford would answer that question and, after a serious bout of phlebitis, Nixon set on his way to redeem his image. In 1977, he did a series of interviews with David Frost where he infamously said, “It’s not illegal when the President does it” Still, he was reluctantly accepted as an elder statesman and often would be asked about international issues, sometimes by the President of the day.

Though never fully regaining his dignity, Nixon would die less broken than he had been twenty years before.

Odd notes: Nixon had a bowling alley installed under the White House

Nixon almost won Charles Manson a mistrial

Nixon was in a photo op with Elvis Presley



Final Summary: Okay, this one is a little tough. It would be easy to give Nixon an F just for Watergate and the enemies list alone, but he does have some foreign policy accomplishments. He did do things to make the environment a little better (the first Earth Day was during his Presidency).

Still, even without Watergate, I don’t seem him rating better than a C (conservatives will probably disagree with me on this). He was paranoid to a fault, and it did affect how he ran the White House (it’s also probably why we got Watergate to begin with). He encouraged secret files on those he didn’t like, and he did play dirty when it came to politics, just ask Edmund Muskie.

But it is ultimately Watergate that not only brings Nixon down as a President, but as a man. And, really, when you rely on destroying people’s lives to get what you want rather than relying on your own strengths (which he actually had in abundance, he just never trusted himself), you just come off as a little man.

And, in the end, that’s what Richard Nixon was, a little man.

Overall rating: D

https://millercenter.org/president/nixon

__________________

rubber soul

38. GERALD FORD (I beg your pardon...)



Born: July 14, 1913, Omaha, Nebraska
Died: December 26, 2006, Rancho Mirage, California

Term: August 9, 1974- January 20, 1977
Political Party: Republican

Vice President: Nelson Rockefeller

First Lady: Betty Bloomer Ford

Before the Presidency: Gerald Ford was born as Leslie King, Jr., in Omaha, Nebraska. His father was a wife beating alcoholic and the mother moved to Grand Rapids Michigan when Leslie was three. There she met Gerald Rudolph Ford who raised young Leslie as if he were his own son. He only learned as a teenager that the elder Ford was not his biological father. It didn’t matter to him, though, and he would change his name to Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr.

Ford excelled well in school, starring in football, and finishing in the top five percent of his class. He worked his way through college, majoring in economics. He was also one of the better football centers in the country and it won him a scholarship to the University of Michigan. He excelled at football and both the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions offered him a contract. He turned them both down because he wanted to enter law school. He ended up being an Assistant Coach at Yale so he could attend law school there. He graduated with honors in 1941. While at Yale, Ford became acquainted with a who’s who of future politicians including Robert Taft, future Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, and future Secretary of State Cyrus Vance among others.

Ford returned to Michigan in 1941 to open a law practice. Of course, this was also the time World War II broke out in the Pacific and, like most of the Presidents of his generation, he joined the Navy. He proved to be a dependable officer, being involved in a handful of naval battles with the Japanese. He was awarded ten battle stars and came away with the notion that the US must stay engaged in international affairs.

When Ford returned home, he got involved in politics. He met and married Betty Bloomer and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1948.

Ford was a popular congressman within his own district as he would be re-elected twelve times. He also gained importance in the House as the years went, first becoming a member of the House Appropriations Committee. He was a staunch anti-Communist and supported both Republican and Democratic Presidents that hoped to contain Soviet and Chinese power.

Congressman Ford also developed a reputation for being able to work with both parties. He was known as a hard worker with a lot of integrity and gained the trust of his congressional colleagues. Of course, he was a Republican and he supported the Presidential bids of Eisenhower and Nixon. Ford, in fact, was one of Nixon’s biggest defenders when Nixon was embroiled in controversy in 1952.

Heavy losses in 1962 and 1964 meant changes in the Republican Party and Ford would benefit from it. As one of the most respected people in Congress he served on the Warren Commission that investigated the Kennedy Assassination. In 1965, he won the election for House Minority Leader where he quickly became one of President Johnson’s biggest critics on his Great Society programs. A moderate conservative, he endorsed George Romney for President in 1964 but happily switched to Goldwater when he procured the nomination.

Ford also supported the Vietnam War, his biggest criticism being that Johnson didn’t prosecute the war vigorously enough. Ford, of course, and like most Republicans, supported Nixon’s bid for President in 1968 but the Nixon White House viewed Ford as an intellectual lightweight (and they should know, right?). Ford, nevertheless, supported Nixon’s policies, notably, Nixon’s initiatives for welfare reform. He also supported the détente with the Soviet Union and stronger relations with Red China.

Ford won his last election in 1972 and had decided he would serve two more terms then retire in 1977. He had served Congress as honorably as one could, and he had nothing else to prove.

But Spiro Agnew got in the way.

Summary of offices held: 1942-1946, United States Navy, Lieutenant Commander

1949-1973: House of Representatives, Michigan

1965-1973: House Minority Leader

1973-1974: Vice President of the United States.




What was going on: Post-Watergate, Fall of Saigon, Swine Flu vaccine fiasco, Energy crisis

Scandals within his administration: Earl Butz racist comments

Why he was a good President: He healed the country after Watergate, pure and simple.

Why he was a bad President: Though he certainly meant well, he made some tactical errors, plus he was very reluctant to open the purse strings making one think in another time, he could have been Herbert Hoover.

What could have saved his Presidency: A stronger economic backbone maybe. He failed at getting the US out of a recession just like Nixon and later Carter.

What could have destroyed his Presidency: He could have been Spiro Agnew

How he became Vice President: Watergate was the dominant news event of 1973, of course, but another scandal was also emerging. This had to do with Vice President Spiro Agnew. He resigned as part of a deal to avoid prison for accepting bribes as County Executive, Governor of Maryland (I could have a field day with corrupt Governors of Maryland), and Vice President. Under the 25th Amendment, the President could appoint a new Vice President with confirmation by the Senate and the House. Of all the men on Nixon’s short list, Ford was the only one that a majority of both houses would deem worthy, so, he was tabbed as the new Vice President with an overwhelming majority of both houses confirming him. He took the oath on the House floor.

As Vice President, he would at first vigorously defend the President, but as more information came to light, he would temper his remarks. As it was, Ford was able to stay distant from the Watergate controversy itself. Ford, in fact, was one of those who urged Nixon to release the tapes. He finally broke with Nixon days before his resignation noting it was impossible for Nixon to claim it wasn’t an impeachable offense.

Ford, now seeing the writing on the wall, spoke with his advisers in anticipation of becoming President upon Nixon’s resignation or removal. On August 8, 1974, Nixon announced his resignation.

And, on August 9, Gerald Ford was the 38th President of the United States.

First term: As Ford was sworn in, he announced that, “Our long national nightmare is over.” Deep inside, he knew he had only one job to do, and that was to restore faith in American Government. In some ways, he got off to a rocky start, however, when he decided to pardon Nixon. This especially upset the Democrats and they held hearings to determine if something improper had been done. President Ford himself testified before the committee, the first President to ever do so, and he acquitted himself quite well, saying that the country had to heal. It was easily his most controversial decision, and some think it may have ultimately cost him the presidency in 1976.

Nevertheless, Ford was able to get Watergate into his rear view mirror, and he was able to address the immediate needs of the country. For starters, the US was still in an energy crisis and he, along with Congress, found ways to alleviate the pain by keeping Daylight Savings Time throughout the winter for example. Ford also granted a limited amnesty to draft evaders on the condition they perform alternative service. Unfortunately, not many would take that olive branch and it would be his successor, Jimmy Carter, that would make amnesty more palatable.

Ford, like Nixon before him and Carter afterwards, struggled with inflation. He was no more successful than Nixon had been with his Whip Inflation Now program and by the time he left office in 1977, the United States would be in the throes of a recession.

Other domestic issues that Ford failed to address included busing, and the racial violence that surrounded it and the New Yok City bailout, which Ford opposed to the point that one paper’s headline read: PRESIDENT FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD. Ford would eventually relent, however, and New York City was saved from default.

President Ford fared better when it came to foreign affairs. He favored détente with the Soviet Union and signed the Helsinki Accords in 1975. Like Nixon’s pardon, it grew plenty of criticism, this time from both parties, but it did put us another step away from nuclear war.

A bigger headache though would be Vietnam. Yes, the American troops were home, but the US was still economically supporting South Vietnam’s military, though on a limited basis. By 1975, the North Vietnamese were making its final drive on Saigon. Ford asked Congress for more military assistance, but they offered humanitarian aid only.

It wouldn’t have mattered anyway; Saigon fell in late April 1975 and the US was out of Vietnam once and for all. A month later, the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia seized the cargo ship Mayaguez, creating an international incident. Ford ordered a commando raid to free the crew and 40 Americans died as a result, but the Khmer Rouge did ultimately release the vessel.

While President, Ford learned that the CIA was not quite the squeaky clean organization that he thought. He appointed Vice President Rockefeller to do an investigation. Meanwhile, the Senate had a select committee of its own. In no real surprise, Rockefeller cleared the CIA while Senator Frank Church more or less condemned them. Ford took the middle road, firing director William Colby and replacing him with George Bush.

In popular culture, Ford garnered quite a bit of sympathy. He seemed clumsy at times, tripping on the Air Force One steps for example, and Chevy Chase in particular, savagely lampooned him. Ford took it in stride, however.

In more serious notes, Ford would survive two assassination attempts in September 1975 and even be involved in an auto accident the following month. It seemed like the poor guy was cursed. But he took it in stride; he knew how to be the President when it really mattered.

Ford’s last year in office had him partly busy with battling Reagan and Carter for the Presidency but it was also the year of his last political blunder, that of the Swine Flu vaccine. There was a bit of a scare with the swine flu virus and President Ford, well to be fair, everyone really, was pushing for everyone to take the new Swine Flu vaccine. Unfortunately, it had some pretty severe side effects and 32 people died before the vaccinations were stopped.

So, it wasn’t the luckiest two and half years for President Ford, but he did manage to bring trust and integrity back to the office. That has to count for something.



Election of 1976: Ford, wanting to be elected in his own right, announced his candidacy in late 1975. One would have though the Republicans would have been behind him since he essentially followed their policies, albeit with not a lot of success.

But Ronald Reagan, who we’re going to hear a lot about from now on, decided that maybe 1976 was his time. Indeed, he had a lot of backing from conservatives who disagreed with Ford’s détente policies as well as his economic policies (their mantra was, America, drop dead). It promised to be a rough and tumble contest.

In the end and after a closely fought primary season, Ford narrowly won the nomination, but Reagan left with quite a bit of clout as he okayed Ford’s pick for Vice President, Bob Dole of Kansas (Rockefeller had more or less been pushed out).

We’ll cover the Democratic side a little more when we cover Jimmy Carter, but he would prove to be a formidable opponent. Carter was not really a liberal, actually he was more like a born again moderate but, like Ford, he oozed with integrity. And America needed a fresh face after the Hell that was Watergate.

It was a civil but hard fought campaign on both sides. Both sides also agreed on debates, starting a tradition of sorts as there have been debates in each election cycle since then. For the most part, the debates were draws, except for the one gaffe Ford is always remembered for when he asserted that there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Of course, he later recanted that comment, but he never really got out from under that gaffe. And that, along with the pardoning of Nixon, likely was the difference as he lost a relatively close election to Carter.


Post Presidency: Ford was more or less retired after leaving the White House in 1977, which had been his original plan as a congressman anyway. He stayed publicly active, however, lecturing on college campuses and even doing commentary for NBC briefly. In 1980, he was boosted as Ronald Reagan’s running mate, but the deal went sour when Ford insisted on a stronger presence. Reagan rejected that and went with George Bush. Ford, nonetheless, remained a respected elder statesman in the GOP. He also served on various commissions and corporate boards. He also would make occasional appearances with former President Jimmy Carter, who he would ultimately become friends with.

In 1999, President Clinton gave Ford the Presidential Medal of Freedom for “binding the nation together after the nightmare of Watergate.” He died in 2006 with no one ever questioning his sense of basic decency.

Odd Notes: He once locked himself out of the White House (https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/...ut-gerald-ford)

Chevy Chase doesn’t look a bit like him.


Final Summary: Honestly, Ford isn’t remembered for a lot of personal accomplishments. He obviously wasn’t an economic wizard. He had to sit idly as helicopters were dumped in the South China Sea. There were other things he seemed powerless to accomplish as well.

And, yet he wasn’t an ineffective President. He made the controversial decision to pardon Nixon, not because he deserved it, or he owed him somehow. But it was because it was the right thing to do. He was desperate to heal the country whatever it took and, while it seemed to divide the country more at first, healing was exactly what it did. Even Ted Kennedy, perhaps his biggest detractor, acknowledged that Ford did the right thing.

And Ford was self-depreciating at a time when it was needed. We didn’t get much of that out of Lyndon Johnson and we got none whatsoever from Nixon. But most importantly, he brought a sense of integrity and decency back to the White House not seen since, quite frankly, Eisenhower.

I caught a TV show on the Presidents where Ford had hoped he would leave the country in better shape than when he entered the presidency. So, I guess the question is, did he leave the country in better shape in the end, putting politics aside, of course?

Absolutely.

Overall rating: C+

https://millercenter.org/president/ford

__________________

rubber soul

39. JIMMY CARTER (Smile, though you're heart is aching)



Born: October 1, 1924, Plains, Georgia
Died: At 98, he’s still with us. The oldest ex-President in American history

Term: January 20, 1977- January 20, 1981
Political Party: Democrat

Vice President: Walter Mondale

First Lady: Rosalyn Smith Carter

Before the Presidency: James Earl Carter was the son of a peanut farmer. He grew up in the small town of Plains, Georgia where he learned the value of a hard work ethic from his father, who was a successful businessman. His mother, Lillian, was trained as a nurse and counseled poor African American women on health care matters at a time when whites and blacks were not allowed to mix.

Young Jimmy knew the value of hard work and saving money at a young age. He sold produce from the family farm as early as age ten. At age thirteen he was able to buy five houses that were sold on the cheap. The family then rented the houses out.

Teenage Jimmy became enamored with joining the Navy after receiving letters from his uncle. In 1941 he submitted an application to the United States Naval Academy. That same year, he graduated at the top of his small high school class.

Though World War II had broken out, Carter had to wait two years before being admitted into the Naval Academy. Three years later, he would graduate in the top ten percent of his class.

Carter, now married to Rosalynn Smith and with family, had figured on a career in the Navy. Lieutenant Carter served in the submarine service. An incident in Bermuda gave a glimpse of Carter’s character when British officials offered a party invitation to white crewmembers only. Lieutenant Carter refused the invitation and his crewmembers followed suit, giving a glimpse at both the respect he garnered as well as his basic support of civil rights, something that seemed unusual for a Southerner.

Carter later worked under the famed Admiral Hyman Rickover. Rickover was something of a brutal taskmaster, but Carter came to admire him, even comparing him to his own father (stern but loving basically).

Carter’s naval career was cut short due to tragedy in the family. His father was dying of cancer and the fam was in decline. Carter resigned from the Navy so he could help on the family farm.

Carter returned to Georgia at a critical time in civil rights history. Brown v. Board had been decided by the Supreme Court in 1954 and the Montgomery Bus Boycott would begin over a year later. Times were changing in the South, whether the whites liked it or not. Carter was one of the few whites that actually did like it. As such, he was the only businessman in town to refuse to join the White Citizens Council and it cost him quite a bit of business as he was boycotted. But he stuck to his guns and the boycott slowly fizzled out.

With the farm back up and making a profit, Carter was able to serve on local boards for hospitals and the like. In 1962, he decided on politics and ran for the Georgia State Senate. He initially lost until it was discovered that Carter was the victim of fraudulent voting. A court overturned the election and Carter was in the Georgia Senate.

During his two terms, Carter was known as a hawk when it came to wasteful spending. He also voted with his convictions as a born again Christian as he helped to repeal discriminatory laws against African- Americans. He went even farther as, while his church in Plains voted to keep African Americans out almost unanimously. It was the Carters and a third person that prevented the vote from being totally unanimous.

In 1966, Carter was considering a run for Congress. He opted to run for Governor instead. By now, there was a large white backlash and Carter would lose the nomination to the controversial Lester Maddox. Carter, though, gave it another try in 1970. This time, he knew he had to get some segregationists to vote for him if he was going to win and he distanced himself from African Americans to the point that the Atlanta Constitution called him a racist. It’s something of a sad commentary that you had to be labeled a racist to win in Georgia, but it worked. Jimmy Carter was now the Governor of Georgia.

And imagine the surprise of the segregationists when it turned out Carter wasn’t a racist at all. He called for an end to segregation at his inaugural speech, making national news as a result. He was seen as the symbol of the New South, a much more tolerant version that rejected groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Carter was definitely a progressive as blacks were much more prominent in state government under him. He also hated wasteful spending as he streamlined a number of state agencies. It wasn’t perfect, as he often clashed with the State Legislature. Indeed, Carter was also seen as a bit arrogant among his peers, but the intentions were always good, and he still was able to make great strides in the environment and education.

Carter would develop National ambitions as he studied the George McGovern campaign in 1972. He was saddened that McGovern had been successfully labeled as an extremist and realized that a new Democrat would be needed in 1976 with maybe more views closer to the center but still nowhere near the right.

And maybe Jimmy Carter was that man.

Summary of offices held:

1946-1953: United States Navy, Lieutenant

1953-1961: United States Navy Reserve, Lieutenant.

1963-1967: Georgia State Senator

1971-1975: Governor of Georgia


What was going on: Energy crisis, Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown, Iranian Hostage Crisis, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Begin-Sadat peace talks

Scandals within the administration: Bert Lance banking scandal, Debategate

Why he was a good President: Like Ford before him, he brought honesty and integrity back to the White House. His ideals on energy and human rights remain timeless to this day. And, of course, there were the Camp David Accords

Why he was a bad President: He was in over his head with Iran. He also had a rocky relationship with Congress. And maybe he was a bit too hands on for his own good.

What could have saved his Presidency: A successful end to the Iranian Hostage Crisis a little earlier might have been enough.

What could have destroyed his Presidency: A failed Camp David Accords. He could have turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Election of 1976: Jimmy Carter came in as a dark horse for the Democratic nomination. The Democrats had held out hope that maybe Ted Kennedy would give it a run, but he wasn’t ready quite yet.

So, the field was ripe with favorites such as Frank Church of Idaho and Henry Jackson of Washington. By now, the parties depended on voter primaries to nominate the candidate, though they were often fixed to favor the preferred candidate or for whoever had the power at the time (such as Hillary Clinton in 2016). And the voters were trying to run away from Watergate, still fresh on peoples’ minds, as far away as they could. They saw in Jimmy Carter, a sense of honesty and decency, almost as if he were an innocent really, and he proved to be a major candidate once the primaries started. His outsider status scored him victories in the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary, perhaps the two most important primaries in any election. Carter campaigned hard as the others slowly dropped out, his only real opponent at the end was the maverick Governor of California, Jerry Brown, and he was a latecomer.

Carter didn’t have enough delegates to win the nomination going into New York City but by now the super delegates were sold on him and he won nomination on the first ballot. He would choose Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota as his running mate and Mondale, along with a close working relationship with Carter, would revolutionize the Vice Presidential position by making it much more than just being a stone’s throw away from the Presidency.

After a bitterly fought campaign on the Republican side, Carter would square off with the incumbent President, Gerald Ford. It was, for the most part, a civil campaign on both sides as both candidates were beyond reproach. Of course, as in any election, they had their criticisms of each other, but Ford had to carry the burden of Watergate giving Carter a decided edge.

That edge disappeared though as Carter was also pretty adept at making missteps. In one, he admitted having lust for women in a Playboy interview. That only brought the polls to a dead heat. Ford then made his famous gaffe about no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe.

Then there was the October surprise when Carter’s church denied entry to an African American minister despite Carter’s pleas to allow him in (Carter later nearly left the church over the incident).

It was a close election, the closest since 1960, in fact, but when it was over, Carter would win. The future seemed bright with large Democratic majorities in both houses and the Republicans still trying to recover from Watergate.

And, of course, they would.

First term: President Carter started out with a lot of good will. He had planned on accomplishing a lot during his Presidency and started by unconditionally pardoning Vietnam War draft evaders. The US was still mired in an Energy Crisis and Carter was having his own version of fireside chats, urging the American public to turn down their thermostats.

The honeymoon didn’t last very long. Carter would have difficult relations with his own party in Congress as they expected the pork barrel projects to continue while Carter railed against wasteful spending. No, he wasn’t about to slash welfare benefits or anything like that; he just wanted to know where the money was going.

Carter’s popularity slipped rapidly among the public and Congress took advantage of it by shooting down programs they would have ordinarily supported such as a Consumer Protection Bill. They obviously wanted to get rid of Carter that bad (and they asked so hard in 1980, they got it, the dummies).

That didn’t mean Carter didn’t have his accomplishments. Despite dealing with low poll numbers and a political scandal involving his budget director, Bert Lance, he was able to make the US less dependent on foreign oil. And even with his struggling relations with Congress, he was able to get many of his initiatives through, even more than LBJ had in fact, but because of Carter’s basic modesty, he got very little credit for it and publicly came off as a rather inept President.

There was controversy within his family too. His sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton, was a well-meaning evangelist who thought she could somehow convert porn king Larry Flynt into a devout Christian. This drew more than a few laughs.

A bigger problem for him would be his n’eer do well brother, Billy Carter. He, needless to say, was not an evangelist. Indeed, he was everything his brother Jimmy was not, a beer drinking good ol’ boy. Carter cringed wondering what would come out of Billy’s mouth next. Billy became something of a celebrity and was marketing his own beer known as Billy Beer. In the end, Billy would step over the boundaries too far and he would be under investigation for his business dealings with the Libyans (he would later be cleared).

President Carter, for the most part, managed to stay above the family fracas and he would make his greatest accomplishment in 1978. For decades there were wars in the Middle East involving Israel and the other Arab states, notably Egypt and Syria. But by 1977, Egypt’s President, Anwar Sadat, had enough, and offered an olive branch to Israeli PM Menachem Begin. Though a staunch war hawk, Begin accepted the offer and the two began negotiations. Of, course, both sides were far apart and there were accusations from both sides in the press. Sadat, by then, had a bit of a diplomatic relationship with President Carter and he and Begin both asked for his help. Carter, being something of a peacenik, gladly accepted.

And President Carter more or less took charge, practically locking the two leaders in a cabin at Camp David until they could reach an agreement. And, in September 1978, an agreement was reached. The Camp David Accords was the result and, while not perfect (Israel still has skirmishes with the Palestinians in particular), there has been a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt and Middle Eastern wars in general (Save Iran and Iraq maybe) have been in decline. Begin and Sadat would share the Nobel Peace prize in 1978 but many, including Sadat, thought the prize should have gone to Carter.

If the Camp David Accords signaled the Carter administration at its peak, then it was all downhill from there. Carter did have some success when he returned the Panama Canal back to Panama (a pretty controversial issue at the time), but other world events would signal doom for the Carter Presidency in 1979 and 1980.

For decades, the United States had supported the right wing regime of the Shah of Iran. By the late seventies, the Iranians had enough of the Shah and was hell bent on overthrowing him. Their leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, returned to Iran from exile and the writing on the wall was for all to see, including the Shah.

Carter was no big fan of the Shah, but he felt obligated to honor the commitments of previous Presidents, so when the Shah fled from Iran and was diagnosed with cancer in Mexico, Carter allowed the Shah to enter the United States for treatment. This enraged the fundamentalist Islamists that now ruled Iran, and, in November 1979, a throng of Iranian students stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and took sixty-six Americans as hostages. They demanded the return of the Shah, all assets that the Shah had taken, and an apology from the nation they were referring to as, “The Great Satan.”

Carter did no such thing, of course. Instead, he froze all Iranian assets while staging secret negotiations. Meanwhile, the press had jumped on the hostage crisis like never before and Nightline, an ABC news program, began a running total of days the hostages were held in captivity.

And it got to the point where the incident that probably proved the nail in the coffin took place. Frustrated, Carter went along with a plan for a helicopter rescue of the hostages in 1980. It was not a well thought out plan to begin with and the mission was aborted after the helicopters were well inside Iran. It should have ended there, but one of the helicopters suffered mechanical problems and crashed, killing eight soldiers. After the incident, Iran moved and dispersed the hostages making it virtually impossible for another rescue. Worse, for Carter, it solidified his reputation as an inept President.

Carter had a little better success with the Soviet Union. Taking a page out of Lyndon Johnson, I guess, the Soviets thought they could prop up a Communist regime in Afghanistan, so they invaded the country. This drew international outrage and President Carter called for an Olympic Boycott (the 1980 Olympics were being held in Moscow). It drew a mixed reaction from Americans and a slew of protests from the athletes themselves, but Carter stuck to his guns and the US would not participate in the Olympics that year. And, while it didn’t get immediate results, The Soviets would take an economic hit and when they boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, their ploy would backfire spectacularly. More to the point, Afghanistan became the Soviet’s Vietnam, and they would finally withdraw with their proverbial heads between their legs in 1988.

Despite some accomplishments, Carter’s popularity was rather low. By 1980, the US was in another recession, there was international embarrassment from the ongoing hostage crisis, even as Carter continued to negotiate, and there was a feeling of malaise, as Carter put it in an infamous address in 1979. Re-election did not seem to be in the cards.

But he was going to give it a try anyway.


Election of 1980: Before the election season even started, President Carter would suffer the humiliation that few incumbents had suffered, a credible challenge within his own party. Senator Ted Kennedy had been coy for years about running for President and, with two brothers having been assassinated, you could understand the trepidation. But Kennedy saw the weakness in Carter and saw 1980 as his opportunity at last, so he entered the race. Carter reacted by saying he’d whip his ass. The Democrats were split between the two factions and the New York press seemed giddy when Ted won the state. Indeed, it was a closely fought contest throughout, but in the end, Carter would wind up with the nomination.

Carter’s weak renomination (he had to give up a lot to Kennedy’s platform) contrasted negatively to the practical anointment of Ronald Reagan for the Republicans. Of course, the Republicans had their factions too and one, liberal Republican John Anderson, would break off to run as a third party candidate. Of course, we’ll have a lot more on Reagan (and Anderson) later.

Carter never really had much of a chance as the economy and the hostage crisis kept his poll numbers low. He didn’t do himself any favors either when he boycotted the first debate because he didn’t want Anderson on the podium. When he did get to debating Reagan, it was more or less a disaster as Reagan kept going, “There You Go Again.”

And so, in no real surprise, Carter got thumped in the general election, winning all of six states plus DC. Ronald Reagan was to be the next President of the United States. The Democrats finally got Carter out of the White House and now they had to uh, reap the rewards?

One more note about Carter to show you what kind of man he was. A one term President may have more or less coasted his way out, but Carter didn’t do that. Instead, he was determined to get the hostages out of Iran, and he worked for their release up to the morning of Reagan’s inauguration. And, though the Iranians timed the release for the inauguration as a way of humiliating Carter, history doesn’t work that way. In some ways Carter’s efforts at getting the hostages out was as important as the Camp David Accords had been.

And Jimmy Carter left with his dignity intact.

__________________

rubber soul

JIMMY CARTER (Part 2)


Post Presidency: I like to talk about dual personality Presidents but up to now that was basically a good vs. evil dynamic. Carter is a little different, for while you can argue Carter was a bad President, he was never certainly a bad person.

What he was, and is, though, is a great ex-President, maybe the greatest ever. For Carter didn’t pack his bags and retire to his peanut farm, which no one would have blamed him for. Instead, he put his Christian values where his mouth was and started what became known as Habitat for Humanity. This was an organization where volunteers, including Carter himself, would build houses for the poor and underprivileged. He was often seen on television, and it helped to promote the cause of helping the less fortunate.

He also stayed active with foreign affairs in ways other Ex-Presidents didn’t dare venture. Everyone has an opinion, but Carter actually went to work. He often monitored elections in nations known for their fraudulent practices. When monitoring the Nicaraguan elections in 1990, Daniel Ortega was legitimately defeated. One wonders what may have happened had Carter not been there, but Carter, now a respected elder statesman was, and Ortega accepted his defeat graciously.

Carter would also mediate between countries with their own axes to grind, sometimes at the request of the State Department, sometimes on his own, and sometimes with rebuke from a sitting President such as with Clinton with North Korea for example where he briefly was able to ease nuclear tensions with the rogue nation.

In 2002, Jimmy Carter finally won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Odd notes: Carter was once attacked by a swamp rabbit

Carter has consistently insisted that he has seen a UFO.

Final Summary: If I could judge Jimmy Carter as just a human being, he’d be an easy A. Few ex-Presidents, if any, have been as exemplary as Jimmy Carter. He took advantage of his elder statesman status like no other, using his status to improve the lives of people rather than to try to improve his own personal standing (like Nixon for example).

Even if I were to rate him on just his Vice President, Walter Mondale, who strengthened that office and truly became a partner of the President (See Gore, Cheney, and Biden on that note), he’d get an A.

But, alas, I have to rate Carter just for his presidency and, let’s face it, the guy was in way over his head. There is no doubt he truly wanted to do good, but he learned the hard way, that if you want to make it in Washington, you’re going to have to grease some palms.

When he was able to do good, he could do it spectacularly such as in the Camp David Accords. But the late seventies probably wasn’t the right time for Carter with some of the things going on such as Afghanistan and Iran as well as the Three Mile Island disaster back home. He couldn’t figure out the economy either, to be honest.

But even saying that, the decency that is Jimmy Carter still goes a long way. Maybe he wasn’t exactly Abraham Lincoln, but he wasn’t James Buchanan either. And he sure wasn’t Richard Nixon.

And even if the country wasn’t necessarily a better place because of Carter, the President, the world certainly is because of Carter, the ex-President.


Overall rating: C+

https://millercenter.org/president/carter

__________________