H-Diplo Roundtable XXV-18 on Nichter, _The Year that Broke Politics_ (2024)

H-Diplo Roundtable XXV-18

Luke Nichter. The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023. ISBN: 978-0300254396 (hardcover, $37.50); 9780300274929 (ebook, $37.50).

8 July 2024| PDF:https://hdiplo.org/to/RT25-18 | X:@HDiplo | BlueSky:@h-diplo.bsky.social

Editor: Diane Labrosse | Commissioning Editor: Daniel R. Hart| Production Editor: Christopher Ball

Introduction by John David Briley, East Tennessee State University.2

Review by Kari Frederickson, University of Alabama..10

Review by Irwin Gellman, Independent Scholar.15

Review by Aram Goudsouzian, University of Memphis.18

Review by Angie Maxwell, University of Arkansas.22

Review by Melvin Small, Wayne State University, Emeritus.26

Response by Luke A. Nichter, Chapman University.30

I am pleased to introduce this roundtable review of Luke Nichter’s The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968. Nichter is the James Cavanaugh Endowed Chair of Presidential Studies at Chapman University and the author of eight books on American presidents, five of which have President Richard Nixon as their primary subject.[1] The reviewers, Kari Frederickson, Irv Gellman, Aram Goudsouzian, Melvin Small, and Angie Maxwell find that The Year that Broke Politicsis a significant contribution to the scholarly literature on the election of 1968, which arguably marked the most volatile year in American politics since the beginning of the Civil War.

Fredrickson writes that

Nichter’s careful examination of 1968, tells a gripping story of political transformation. It would be difficult to find a more chaotic year in American history than 1968, with its political assassinations, violent confrontations in the streets over an increasingly unpopular war, and the stunning withdrawal of a once-powerful figure from the national stage.

Gellman notes that Nichter’s book “is exceptionally well researched and cogently written. It will remain the primary reference for the 1968 election for the foreseeable future.”Goudsouzian writes that

there will be more books about the presidential election of 1968. The story is just too fascinating to resist. Its significance for the American political history is too enduring. And as Nichter suggests, new sources will continue to raise questions and complicate the past.

Small notes that

Nichter is a careful and judicious scholar who has contributed dramatically to our understanding of what occurred during the [1968] campaign that took place during a tumultuous period in American history. As the candidates attempted to establish their campaigns, they dealt with unprecedented political, social, and military crisis…The Year that Broke Politics is clearly an essential source for one of the most important campaigns in American history.

Maxwell writes that after a thorough review of each the candidates, “Nichter recounts the volatile diplomatic history of 1968 in fine detail [and supplements] this well-trod ground with original interviews, and most notably the personal diaries of Reverend Billy Graham” as well with behind-the-scenes views of President Johnson as the war progressed and as his relationship with Nixon changed.

In providing the context of the tumultuous year of 1968, one must consider the year before, 1967, which was critical in understanding what led up to 1968. While Nixon did not formally decide to run for president until the end of the year, he was undoubtedly laying the groundwork. Meanwhile, Michigan Governor George Romney was touring the country and running for president on the Republican side even though he would not formally announce until in November. The Democrats assumed that the incumbent president, Lyndon Johnson, was running for re-election. After the explosion of race riots in Detroit in late July, Romney deployed the National Guard and was forced to ask his political rival Johnson for additional help in quelling the disturbance.[2] The following month, Johnson’s presidential approval rating dropped for the first time below 50 percent and stayed that way through the end of 1967. Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy announced that he was challenging the president for the Democratic nomination on an anti-war platform after Robert Kennedy turned down the opportunity to do so. After meeting with his family during the Christmas holiday and Billy Graham a week later, Nixon made the decision to run for president. Earlier in April of 1967, George Wallace, the former Democratic governor of Alabama, hinted on Meet the Press that he was also preparing to run as an independent but did not formally announce this move until February 1968 (83). By the time Johnson, whose approval ratings were in the mid-30s, went on national television on 3 March 1968 to announce that he was not running for re-election, Nixon had already won New Hampshire and Wisconsin primaries while Romney had dropped out of the race altogether. Following Johnson’s withdrawal a month later, Vice President Hubert Humphrey announced that he would take Johnson’s place on the ticket.[3]

After Nichter profiles the four major candidates—Johnson, Humphrey, Nixon, and Wallace—he turns the focus of this study to the next seven months of the 1968 presidential campaign. Nichter’s account differs from those of many of the earlier writings in his analysis of the Johnson-Nixon relationship.[4] One is his argument, which the reviewers praise, that the Johnson favored Nixon over his own vice president. Johnson believed that Nixon would sustain his legacy by following the same policy over the war; he did so after receiving a specific message relayed by Billy Graham that Nixon would do so and not be critical of Johnson personally during the campaign. In addition, Nichter cites Johnson insiders such as Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford, and executive aide Tom Johnson and Walter Mondale, who, in a 2017 interview with the author, indicated that Johnson preferred Nixon over Humphrey (222-228)1.Nichter’s account of Wallace’s “conservative populism,” also sets his book apart from those of other authors like Dan Carter, Michael Cohen, and Aram Goudsouzian, who argue that Wallace’s campaign was primarily centered around race.[5]

Nichter’s approach to the contentious issue of whether Nixon actually had a “Southern Strategy” that was based on race draws several sharp comments from the reviewers. Nichter argues that Nixon had been on the record in support for civil rights throughout his political life and that he did not suddenly become a racist. He could not, however, let George Wallace win the entire South if he wanted to win the presidency, and thus focused on the upper South voters of Tennessee, North Carolina, as well as the more populous Southern states of Florida and Texas, whose racial views which were more moderate and in line with his own personal feelings (72-73). Perhaps Nichter’s most intriguing new research involves Billy Graham’s liaison role between Johnson and Nixon. Other authors who have written on this campaign have briefly mention Graham talking to both Johnson and Nixon but have not discussed the collaborative role that the famous minister played during the campaign (151-161). Finally, in terms of the Anna Chennault affair, in which the socialite Republican operative with close ties to the South Vietnamese government was alleged to have acted under the Nixon campaign’s orders to tell Saigon to pull out of the peace talks, Nichter concludes Nixon had nothing to do with Chennault’s actions. A popular interpretation holds that Nixon was behind the Chennault affair. The professor uses evidence from the memoirs of both Johnson and Humphrey as well as the Teddy White’s original recollection of the 1968 campaign to say otherwise (202-212).[6] This sets Nichter’s account against some of the more recent works of John Farrell, Kyle Longley, and Ken Burns that argue that Nixon actually was guilty in the Chennault affair.[7]

Kari Frederickson has written extensively on the history of Southern politics, with her most recent on a prominent political Alabama family.[8] She notes Luke Nichter’s ability to captivate the reader with his careful examination of the presidential campaign 1968. Still, she comes away with questions as to whether his assessment is careful enough. Frederickson’s main concern is the book’s failure to appreciate the impact of racism on the presidential campaign of 1968. Citing the work of scholars who write on this issue, she maintains that Nichter’s dismissal of Nixon’s “so-called Southern Strategy” is ill-founded in the face of the behavior of the Republican Party and some of its members, using a statement made by US Senator Strom Thurmond as an example. Fredrickson further argues, contrary to Nichter, how the Republican Party and Governor George Wallace used white distaste for the Fair Housing Act and the striking of Freedom of Choice plans as leverage for votes that were geared toward stopping or slowing civil rights legislation. She further criticizes Wallace, stating that Nichter’s revisionist portrayal of Wallace as a “populist conservative” cannot be substantiated by the claims of Wallace’s family members. Frederickson discussed the nature of the Wallace administration, further questioning the idea of Wallace as a populist. Frederickson concludes by discussing Wallace’s use of race as a driving factor for his campaign and calls into question how Nichter could claim race was a “mere thread” (83) when the evidence from Wallace’s campaign shows otherwise.[9]

Irwin Gellman is the preeminent expert on Richard Nixon.[10] Gellman describes Nichter’s book as the “primary reference for the [1968] presidential election for the foreseeable future.” Gellman notes that Nichter not only introduces new source materials about the presidential election of 1968 but also constructs his book in a way that will appeal to both scholars and non-specialists alike. Gellman points out Nichter’s book moves away from the traditional representations of Nixon as “Tricky Dick” and “Wallace the racist” to a more robust analysis of both Nixon, Wallace, and the other significant people who were connected to the presidential election of 1968. He concludes by praising Nichter’s exceptional research as well as his examination of characters such as the Graham and the vital role he played as presidential messenger between Johnson and Nixon. He further highlights Nichter’s evidence to combat what Gellman refers to as “the unfounded accusations” regarding Nixon alleged interference in the Paris Peace Accords on the eve of the election via the channel established by Chennault.

Angie Maxwell is the authored of many works, including The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics (Oxford University Press, 2019).[11] Maxwell credits Nichter for “masterfully” demonstrating that collusion was rampant throughout the 1968 presidential election. She argues that Nichter destroys the myth that Johnson was neutral and distant during the campaign. Maxwell recounts how Nixon, through Graham, publicly promised that he would not embarrass the president personally during the campaign and “even more persuasively Nixon committed to following Johnson’s plans for de-escalating the conflict in Vietnam and for sharing credit with Johnson at the war’s end.” What is essential to Maxwell’s review, however, is her discussion of Nichter’s portrayal of Nixon, as well as Wallace and the Republican Southern Strategy. Maxwell raises multiple concerns that Nichter either does not include or downplays Nixon’s and the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy from 1964 forward. She writes that Nichter only mentions the term once and labels this reference “cynical.” She writes, “Nichter argues that Nixon’s decision not to compete with George Wallace for the votes of the ‘hardline racists’ in the region (‘five to eight percent of [Wallace’s] support,’ as described by campaign advisor Bill Safire) renders claims of a Southern Strategy moot. However, the Southern Strategy was not limited solely to attracting the vocal defenders of Jim Crow.” On the other hand, Maxwell argues that Nichter’s portrayal of Wallace is “spot on,” and that he “describes specifically what many others have missed about Wallace’s appeal in the South and beyond its borders. In the end, Maxwell’s review demonstrates how Nichter has excelled in his research on the presidential election of 1968.

Aram Goudsouzian, author of The Men and the Moment: The Election of 1968 and the Rise of Partisan Politics in America (University of North Carolina Press, 2019), both praises certain points of the book and expresses concerns about Nichter’s approach.[12] Goudsouzian notes Nichter’s skill in revealing the unlikely alliance between Johnson and Nixon, and, more notably, the shared relationship with Graham. Nichter, notes with approval, argues that Johnson and Nixon were political rivals but that they operated in a different era less polarized than today’s politics. “More importantly, they had common enemies,” Nichter writes, and “both came from modest means, had not attended the best schools, were centrists who sided with the populists in their parties and not the elites and felt the scorn of the media and the Eastern Establishment”(55). On the other hand, Goudsouzian raises important objections to the book’s one-sided narrative storytelling and its neglect of racial factors that the narrative does no account for. He argues that Nichter does not make sharp distinctions between Wallace’s racial politics and the “populist movement” when there were still prejudicial actions throughout the campaign. Goudsouzian writes that Wallace’s racial resentments remained important to the campaign and that Nichter’s narrative choosing to ignore the fact that the former Alabama governor “bolstered his national profile by demanding massive resistance to racial integration [and] raised money from and employed staffers from white supremacist organizations.” Goudsouzian also suggests that Nichter uses different standards across political lines when he cites John Farrell’s biography of Nixon is off base with Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman’s notes from a late October meeting with Nixon with rumors circulating about an upcoming bombing halt to keep Chennault working on the South Vietnamese government to stop any movement toward peace with “any other way to monkey wrench it? Anything [Richard Nixon] RN can do.” Nichter writes that Chennault’s memoir is flawed and it does not implicate Nixon in any way. However, in an earlier chapter, Nichter recounts a cash offer from the Soviet Union’s ambassador to the Humphrey campaign, even though the details cannot be verified (179). Goudsouzian argues that in both instances there appears to be enough context to suggest unethical behavior around the Nixon campaign. Nichter argues both in the book and the appendix that these notes are open to many interpretations and do not provide “smoking gun” evidence of Nixon’s political tricks (229-239). Nichter offers no formal response to these critiques in his response. Goudsouzian concludes that “future historians of the [presidential] election of 1968 will have to engage with Nichter’s contributions to the historiographical conversation around Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Chennault Affair.”

Melvin Small has written or edited many books on the 1968 US presidential election, including Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves (Rutgers University Press, 1988) and The Presidency of Richard Nixon (University of Kanas Press, 1999), to name a few.[13] Small elegantly notes that “his Herculean research effort is comparable to that of the exhaustive archival wanderings of [reviewer] Irwin Gellman.” Small highlights Nichter’s reexamination of the key political figures in the presidential election of 1968, and his concerns about this reexamination are of particular interest. Small raises concerns about Nichter’s “gentle” portrayal of Nixon and the fact that “even though Nichter is the co-author of two books on the Nixon tapes, he refrains from using them for this analysis of the 1968 election.” Still, Small concedes that “had we complete, presumably off-the record, tapes for Johnson, Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, and even President Barack Obama we might be surprised by the disappointing character flaws that would be revealed.” In addition, Small also raises concerns about Nichter potentially underplaying important social and political events across America currently, a similar point of interest to other reviewers, Beyond these concerns, though, Small concludes that Nichter’s book “is clearly an essential source for one of the most important elections in American history.”

While he does not address the points raised in the reviews, Nichter writes that the feedback offered by these reviewers should improve future editions of this book or other writings on this political period. He notes that he rarely ever writes something with the intention of it being the final word. Nichter argues that he has the advantage of approaching the subject with more personal and professional distance since he did not live through the events. He further observes that while he was trained as a diplomatic historian who has evolved into a presidential historian what he does now is “politics—political institutions, political behavior, and political evolutions…consequential history.” To him “key underlying question is what if, at important moments in his history, politics is not as we are told.” Nichter indicates that his goal for this book was to start a conservation. Judging by the reactions of those reviewing his work, he’s certainly accomplished that. The critical areas for likely later debate, in addition to his assertion that Johnson preferred Nixon to Humphrey as his successor, will probably be his depiction of Wallace as a conservative populist, Nixon’s Southern strategy, and the Chennault affair. These latter themes are essential to understanding the election of 1968 and unquestionably also resonate in today’s political climate.

Contributors:

Luke A. Nichter is a Professor of History and James H. Cavanaugh Endowed Chair in Presidential Studies at Chapman University. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the Norwegian Nobel Institute, an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the Massachusetts Historical Society, a Visiting Scholar at the University of Michigan’s Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies, a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute, and a Hansard Research Scholar at the London School of Economics.

John David Briley is Associate Professor of Political Science at East Tennessee State University. He is the author of Nixon Rebuilds: From Defeat to the White House, 1962–1968 (MacFarland, 2021), the chapter “1973,” in Ken Gaddy, ed., Sixteen and Counting (University of Alabama Press, 2017), and Career in Crisis: Paul “Bear” Bryant and 1971 Season of Change (Mercer University Press, 2006).

Kari Frederickson is Professor of History at the University of Alabama. She is author of Deep South Dynasty: The Bankheads of Alabama(University of Alabama Press, 2022), Cold War Dixie: Militarization and Modernization in the American South (University of Georgia Press, 2013), and The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932–1968(University of North Carolina Press, 2001).

Irwin Gellman is a former professor at Morgan State College, Chapman University, and the University of California, Irvine, and a former advisor to the Miller Center’s Presidential Recording project at the University of Virginia. He is the author of six books, including Campaign of The Century: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960(Yale University Press, 2022), The President and the Apprentice: Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon 1952–1961 (Yale University Press, 2015), and The Contender: Richard Nixon: The Congress Years 1946–1952(Simon & Schuster, 1999). His article, “The St. Louis Tragedy” was the basis for the movie, “The Voyage of the Damned.”

Aram Goudsouzian is the Bizot Family Professor of History at the University of Memphis, where he writes and teaches about the twentieth-century United States with a focus on race, politics, and culture. He is the author of The Men and the Moment: The Election of 1968 and the Rise of Partisan Politics in America (University of North Carolina Press, 2019); Down to the Crossroads: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Meredith March Against Fear (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2014); King of the Court: Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution (University of California Press, 2010); and Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon (University of North Carolina Press, 2004). He has also co-edited an essay collection with Charles McKinney, entitled An Unseen Light: Black Struggles for Freedom in Memphis, Tennessee (University of Kentucky Press, 2018), and collaborated with illustrator Bill Murray on the graphic novel Man on a Mission: James Meredith and the Battle of Ole Miss(University of Arkansas Press, 2022).

Angie Maxwell holds the Diane Blair Endowed Chair in Southern Studies and is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Arkansas, where she also serves as the Director of the Diane Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society. Maxwell is a Truman Scholar who received her PhD in American Studies from the University of Texas. Her research and commentary have been featured on MSNBC, NPR, CNN, and in The Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the New York Times, andHenry Louis Gates’ Reconstruction on PBS. Maxwell is the author of The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics (Oxford University Press, 2019), named the Times Higher Education Book of the Week, and The Indicted South: Public Criticism, Southern Inferiority, and the Politics of Whiteness(UNC Press, 2014) which won the V.O. Key Award for best book in southern politics and the C. Hugh Holman Honorable Mention for best book in southern literary criticism.

Melvin Small is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Wayne State University. Among the fifteen books he wrote or edited are Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves(Rutgers University Press, 1988), The Presidency of Richard Nixon(University of Kansas Press, 1999), and At the Water’s Edge: American Politics and the Vietnam War (Ivan R. Dee, 2005). He also wrote “The Election of 1968” in Melvin Small, ed., A Companion to Richard M. Nixon(New York: Wiley Blackwell, 2011), 143-163.

The Year that Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968, Luke Nichter’s careful examination of the presidential campaign of 1968, tells a gripping story of political transformation. It would be difficult to find a more chaotic year in American history than 1968, with its political assassinations, violent confrontations in the streets over an increasingly unpopular war, and the stunning withdrawal of a once-powerful figure from the national stage.[14] Although the political dominance of the Democratic Party, which began in 1932, would take another quarter century to come undone, the 1968 election constituted a critical turning point in the breakdown of the liberal consensus.

Given the tumultuous events that rocked the country, it is surprising that Nichter places so little emphasis on the role that race and the continuing fight for equality played in that year’s contest. The fight for access and equality continued into the late 1960s and moved north; this continuing struggle figured mightily not only in the 1968 contest but in the much longer political transition of white Southern voters in particular, but also among working-class whites in Northern cities (a key Democratic Party constituency), from the Democratic to the Republican Party in presidential election years. The year 1968 witnessed two critical developments in the continuing civil rights fight that played into this transition. The first was the April passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Titles VIII and IX of which are more commonly known as the Fair Housing Act. This act, which outlawed housing discrimination based on race, significantly impacted white working-class suburban neighborhoods in Northern cities that had long excluded—often through the use of violence—Black homebuyers and renters. The second development came in the following month with the US Supreme Court’s decision in Green vs. County School Board of New Kent County, which held that the Freedom of Choice plans failed to produce meaningful school integration, signaling a new round in the battle for racial equality. [15] These developments threatened to bring racial change to white neighborhoods and schools in the North, and animated the 1968 presidential contest. Neither development appears in the book’s index nor is discussed in the text.

As historian Kevin Kruse has recently argued, the transition of white Southern voters to the Republican Party, which was driven by the Republican party’s willingness (stretching back to the late 1940s) to court white racial resentment, is “well documented in manuscript archives, public speeches, party platforms, contemporary reporting, polling data, oral interviews, memoirs, and elsewhere [and] has long been accepted as a wholly uncontroversial fact.”[16] Nichter dismisses the notion that a Republican Southern strategy even existed (the term is not included in the index and the author refers to it as the “so-called Southern Strategy,”[122]), leaning heavily on President Richard Nixon’s documented distaste for segregation as proof. Nichter’s narrative consistently downplays the party’s history of leveraging white racial resentment for votes. White elected officials in the South, as well as Republican candidates and members of the Republican National Committee stretching back to the 1950s, saw things differently. Specifically with regard to the 1968 election, historians have noted the declaration of Strom Thurmond, the US senator from South Carolina and staunch segregationist, who rallied his fellow white Southerners to the Republican candidate with the statement that “if Nixon becomes president, he has promised that he won’t enforce either the Civil Rights or the Voting Rights Acts.”[17] For Thurmond and others, a vote for Nixon was, at the very least, a vote to slow down social change, if not to stop it in its tracks entirely. The book’s lack of an interrogation of this strategy is perplexing.

More of a matter of concern, though, is Nichter’s treatment of George Wallace, former Alabama governor and presidential candidate of the American Independent Party. Nichter criticizes the national media (one of a select group of “elites” who were demonized by the combative governor) or failing to understand the “true basis Wallace’s appeal” or to empathize with Wallace’s supporters (xii). At a minimum, the claim made by Wallace and others that his supporters were “looked down upon” by any number of elites and that is repeated here is in need of interrogation (88). This particular grievance and feeling of persecution have a long history among Southern whites in particular, and are conveniently trotted out whenever federal power in particular is used in a way they did not like—usually in the interest of racial equality or justice. Just as the much-ballyhooed “economic anxiety” of the average Donald Trump voter in 2016 and especially in 2020 turned out to be a thin cover for sour racial and cultural grievances, so too did the grievances of Wallace’s voters reside firmly in racial resentment.[18] Race was not merely a “thread” that ran through Wallace’s campaign, as Nichter claims; it was its heart and soul (83).

Nichter argues that Wallace was not a racist but a “populist conservative,” (75), a term that is not defined in the book. He further argues that Wallace’s appeal “involved much more than racist statements made years earlier….” [xi]. Whether Wallace’s personal feelings about race had changed by 1968 is inconsequential. He was a political animal whose primary concern was power. But, if the claim of Wallace’s racial transformation is taken seriously, as it is here, does Wallace’s record between his “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” at the University of Alabama in June 1963 and his run for the presidency in 1968 support it?[19] If we are to believe that his appeal to the grievances of [white] voters outside the South was based on legitimate populist principles, it would seem likely his record as Governor reflected his populism. Much is made in this book of Wallace’s “populist” accomplishments in Alabama, but those declarations were made in books and interviews by and with Wallace’s children, hardly unbiased observers (75, 79).

Two scholars who have most thoroughly analyzed Wallace’s gubernatorial years, historians Wayne Flynt and Jeff Frederick, allow that the Alabama governor’s ideology had a “populist streak,” but posit that he was mostly interested in the power that such a position afforded.[20] Programs that are held up here as examples of his concern for working-class Alabamians were, in reality, a way to strengthen his political control. For example, much is often made of Wallace’s role in the creation of the junior college system. (81). Rather than a well-thought-out educational system, in reality the junior college and trade school system created under Wallace was “a statewide network of political patronage and pork typified more by a stream of concessions and compromises to get new buildings built and new administrators hired than any well-though-out plan to attract new industry or prepare Alabamians to matriculate at a state university.”[21] The original plan was for ten colleges; in the end, during Wallace’s tenure, the ten eventually mushroomed to forty-two separate schools. The quality of the programs was poor, with junior college students often requiring remedial courses because they lacked the preparation they should have received in high school, and only three of forty-one junior college presidents held doctorate degrees; few had experience in higher education.[22]

Wallace’s contributions to the economic fortunes of his fellow Alabamians were equally hollow. Regarding industrial development, Frederick writes that legislation, including one law that was named after the governor himself, “along with the sweetheart deals sanctioned by the Wallace administration, created a climate that attracted low-skill, low-wage industry without allowing the state to reap many benefits.”[23] In the end, “the administration’s shotgun approach to offering concession after concession to any firm that would relocate to Alabama or expand its current facilities was that the state obtained short-term industries that drained public services without providing much to local communities.”[24] Alabama was poorly positioned to attract permanent, high-wage industries. During his first term as governor, though, Wallace built what Frederick calls “an impressive treasure chest of new industry, but over the coming years it would prove to be little more than smoke and mirrors.”[25]

Wallace’s record as a populist champion is flimsy. What cannot be denied is the role of race during his time as governor. According to Frederick,

during his entire first term, race was a staple of the Wallace administration, connected to almost everyone and everything coming out of Montgomery. Race was used to pass legislation, to create and maintain popularity, to build a war chest for future campaigns, to instill in white Alabamians a pathological fear of blacks and the federal government, and quite simply for its own sake.[26]

Wallace may have convinced himself and others that he was something more, but his record says otherwise. Writes Frederick, “his actions, rhetoric, and correspondence stain his record far beyond merely a staged promise to stand in the schoolhouse door.”[27]

If the bar is whether Wallace used offensive terms to characterize African Americans or made racially demagogic statements on the 1968 campaign trail, which Nichter implies, then Wallace clears the racist bar. But it is the responsibility of the historian to look beyond the platitudes of “law and order,” “private property rights,” and “local control,” (88) putting those phrases in context—something they have been doing for almost three decades. The passage of the Fair Housing Act, which began to introduce Black homeowners and renters into formerly white suburbs in the urban North, as well as the demise of the Freedom of Choice plans, which presaged affirmative programs to achieve racial balance, specifically, busing, terrified working-class whites North and South. Nichter references historian Kevin Kruse’s study of Atlanta when declaring that Wallace “expressed his values in terms of rights, freedoms, and individualism” (84.) He does not discuss all of Kruse’s point, which is that this rhetoric was employed in service to an older value, which was the maintenance of racial segregation.[28] Wallace’s talk of “local control of schools” and the sanctity of private property directly addressed racial fears of whites across the country. As historian Jefferson Cowie wrote recently, during Wallace’s 1964 and 1968 campaigns,

people around the nation began to see what the white folks in [Alabama] already appreciated: by wrapping racism into questions of federal power, and then making both race and federal intervention into an assault on American freedom, Wallace had himself a winning formula and a growing national audience.[29]

Federal power, which was portrayed as being the purview of pointy-headed intellectuals who advocated open housing and bureaucrats in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare demanding racial balance formulas—both ostensibly working in the service of Black people—became the enemy. “[T]o white voters,” Cowie writes, “more federal government meant less freedom [for whites] and more power to Black people; less freedom meant more fear and rage, and more fear and rage meant more support for George Wallace.”[30]

A racialized conception of “freedom” sat at the heart of Wallace’s 1968 campaign. As campaign worker Judy Turnipseed recalled, “One of our slogans was ‘Stand Up for America.’ Of course, we meant white America. But the way it came across was ‘Go away and leave us alone. We don’t want the federal government to come in and tell us what to do.’”[31] Ultimately, Wallace’s beliefs and approach to politics were devastatingly simple. As Wallace once told advisor Seymour Trammel, “my philosophy is going to be that people are not capable of governing themselves, and therefore, I’m going to tell them what they want to hear. And then just before the election, kick a nigg*r’s ass and get elected.”[32]

Luke Nichter in the introduction to The Year That Broke Politics challenges his readers “to take a fresh look” at the events surrounding the 1968 presidential election (ix). That is not precisely what Nichter has done. Using archives, interviews and other scholarly resources that few have seen and fewer have written about, Nichter has developed a more sophisticated narrative of this seminal confrontation as the subtitle, Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968, highlights.

The volume is divided into four parts. The first four chapters present biographies of the four candidates in the 1968 election: President Lyndon Johnson, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, former Vice President Richard Nixon and Alabama Governor George Wallace. Rather than presenting them as cartoon characters as so many authors have, Nichter portrays the complexities of each one of these prominent politicians.[33] Johnson is not just bigger than life, but the outgoing chief executive who was obsessed by his legacy. As Governor Wallace never fit his choice as a successor, Johnson briefly considered Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York and then quickly discarded that possibility (21-24). The selection narrowed down to Humphrey or Nixon. Johnson sometimes remained loyal to the Democratic Party, and at other times, believed that Nixon was a preferable successor.

As for Humphrey, Nichter points out that the vice president was much more than a civil rights champion. While he was stuck with Johnson’s hawkish position on the Vietnamese war and the mixed record of the Great Society, Humphrey looked for the impossible: to stress his own independence, and simultaneously, not to lose presidential blessings (29-46). Nichter presents Nixon, not as “Tricky Dick,” but as a seasoned politician who was seeking the presidency and winning Johnson’s approval by refusing to reject the president’s wartime policies (47-74).[34] Last, Wallace was not a one-dimensional racist, but rather was a far savvier politician who admittedly received enthusiastic support of racists, anti-establishment Americans, and the working middle-class (75-92).

The second section deals with the Paris meetings between the United States and North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam or DRV) which never reached the stage of peace negotiations. Nichter explains that both North Vietnam and South of Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam or RVN) for their own individual reasons opposed any settlement. This included the conflict between Johnson and Humphrey over the conduct of the war, and the battle between the American representatives in Paris and the State Department (93-110).

During television scenes that sensationalized the brutality of war, Republicans held their national convention in Miami. Rockefeller, on the left, and California Governor Ronald Reagan, on the right, maneuvered to stop Nixon from a first ballot victory. They failed, and Nixon emerged as the candidate who had achieved one the greatest political comebacks in American presidential history (111-122).[35] While the Miami convention was relatively free from protests, the Democratic convention in Chicago was chaotic. Television viewers watched the anarchy as anti-war protesters outside and the anti-war politicians on the convention floor created havoc. Humphrey lived through riot scenes before receiving the presidential nomination and with it, the image of a loser (123-139). Finally, George Wallace held his convention in Pittsburgh. The major event at that gathering was the selection of Air Force General Curtis LeMay as vice president and the embarrassment he caused to the Wallace campaign (140-150).

The third part starts with documents from the archives of evangelist Billy Graham that no one other than Nichter has examined. That new material discloses that Graham played a significant role in the campaign by acting as a messenger between Johnson and Nixon. Nixon sent messages to Johnson through Graham, with pledges to continue Johnson’s Vietnam policies, promises not to attack the president personally, and give him credit for the outcome of the war (151-161). While the Republican candidate was trying to get Johnson’s support, the president was hoping for movement toward serious bargaining to end the war, but he only received signs of stalemate. Once again, the three main characters, Johnson, Humphrey, and Nixon, each had different ideas on the direction of the fighting. Johnson wanted peace but did not know how to achieve it. Humphrey, because of his ever-increasing momentum toward the doves, was denied information on the White House’s actions. Nixon, who also was not privy to the bargaining in Paris, tried to encourage Johnson’s policies and attacked Humphrey.

The last section of the book concentrates on the final weeks of the campaign and the legacy that Johnson left to his successor. Nichter and others maintain that by this time Johnson preferred a Nixon victory and refused to lend Humphrey the required assistance for a triumph.[36] Without Johnson’s enthusiastic backing, the Humphrey campaign did not gain any momentum until he returned to basic Democratic principles of President Franklin Roosevelt’s populism by concentrating on the economy and announcing a dovish Vietnam policy that contradicted that of the president. While the Democratic base of about 40 percent of voters returned to support Humphrey, it was not enough to carry him through to victory (213-221).

The results were close. Nixon won 43.4 percent of the popular vote, Humphrey 42.1 percent, and Wallace 13.5 percent. While Humphrey almost pulled even with Nixon, and Wallace won several states in the South and did well in several others, Nixon had a clear victory in the Electoral College (Nixon had 301 Electoral College votes, Humphrey, 191, and Wallace, 46). Johnson welcomed Nixon to the White House and made the transition as smooth as possible. Johnson’s legacy was not as he wished; the fighting in Vietnam continued and parts of the Great Society were being dismantled.

Nichter begins his book with Johnson’s attack on Nixon for committing treason (ix). This was in reference to the “Chennault Affair” in which Nixon allegedly instructed Anna Chennault—the Republican lobbyist and wife of American World War II aviator General Claire Chennault—to carry messages to the South Vietnamese government urging them not to agree to any settlement until Nixon took office. Nixon, Chennault allegedly told the South Vietnamese, would get Saigon a better deal. Chennault’s role is discussed in the most controversial section of the volume entitled the “Dragon Lady” (202-212). The 1799 Logan Act, which was named for Pennsylvania state legislator George Logan who conducted unauthorized negotiations with the French in 1798, criminalized negotiations by unauthorized American citizens with foreign governments, and was designed to prevent such bargaining from occurring. In over two hundred years, however, no one has ever been tried under the law, and there are doubts that the act is constitutional.[37]

As Nichter notes, it is not possible to prove a negative; thus, treason could, no matter how remotely, have happened. However, the possibility is minute. Chennault did not have access to Nixon during the campaign and did not have contact with major South Vietnamese officials. Neither the South nor the North Vietnamese were ready for negotiations. Finally, the Americans and the North Vietnamese in Paris had not even reached the stage to begin any bargaining. Building on the work of others who claimed that they had proof that Nixon had committed treason, historian John Farrell introduced conflated documents to prove these unfounded accusations.[38] Farrell’s documents are reproduced and analyzed in Nichter’s appendix (229-239). The myth of “Tricky Dick” persists even though the allegation is without merit.

Nichter’s work is exceptionally well researched and cogently written. It will remain the primary reference for the 1968 election for the foreseeable future. However, even the best historians make errors. A minor one appears on page 5. Johnson was not elected to the House in 1936, but in a 1937 special House election.

Why does the presidential election of 1968 keep inspiring such fascination? One reason is the dynamic interplay among the various candidates who were vying for the Oval Office. Consider Democratic Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy, each of whom sought to serve as the authentic voice of the “conscience” Democrats, united by their demands for a robust liberal agenda and a reconsideration of the Vietnam War, yet riven by opposing political styles and mutual disdain. Behold Republican Governors Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan, who were pulling on the progressive and conservative wings of a Republican Party, while sometimes eyeing an awkward partnership to depose the presumptive nominee, former Vice President Richard Nixon.[39]

Then there is President Lyndon B. Johnson’s contempt for Hubert Humphrey—his own vice president and his party’s nominee for president. While Humphrey sought a Vietnam policy that could unite the fracturing Democrats, Johnson kept refusing to accept a bombing halt on North Vietnam, while consistently undercutting and belittling Humphrey, whom he believed was too soft and unmanly. “He cries too much,” LBJ once remarked. “That’s it—he cries too much.”[40]

Among the virtues of Luke Nichter’s The Year That Broke Politicsis that it centers another key relationship: the unlikely alliance of Johnson and Nixon. Nichter convincingly demonstrates that Johnson not only had misgivings about Humphrey, but also considered his Republican rival to be the better choice for president. Johnson believed that Nixon would best carry out his legacy on the Vietnam War. Nixon cultivated their alliance, positioning himself as the solid choice in an era of chaotic protest and angry backlash.

Johnson and Nixon were longstanding political rivals, but they operated in an era of more cooperation across party lines. “More importantly, they had common enemies,” writes Nichter, “both came from modest means, had not attended the best schools, were centrists who sided with the populists in their parties and not the elites, and felt the scorn of the media and Eastern Establishment” (55). The two men illuminated the class and culture dynamics that stirred Washington, DC in the decades after World War II.

Nichter illustrates how Johnson resisted a bombing halt of North Vietnam, absent concrete commitments that it would lead to good-faith negotiations and avoid endangering American military forces. In the summer of 1968, while US diplomats were negotiating in Paris, Johnson avoided substantive concessions, assuring South Vietnam President Nguyen Van Thieu of the American military commitment. Johnson then rallied his forces to crush a peace plank in the platform at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

While Humphrey stumbled toward a Vietnam position that was distinct from the president, Nixon pledged to refrain from criticizing the administration’s war policy. For most of that fall, Johnson shunned any open campaigning for his vice president. “Why?” he asked, “Nixon is supporting my Vietnam policy stronger than Hubert” (213). Johnson did appear at a huge rally at the Houston Astrodome right before Election Day, but as Nichter paints it, it was less an endorsem*nt of Humphrey, and more a political farewell for Johnson.

Better than any work on the 1968 election, Nichter’s book highlights the significant role of evangelist Billy Graham. The Southern Baptist minister had spiritually counseled both Johnson and Nixon, cultivating close relationships with both leaders. Troubled by the rising crime rates and social protests of the late 1960s, Graham represented the moderate Southerners who helped tilt the election to Nixon. The chapter entitled “Messenger” focuses on Graham’s role as trusted go-between for the current and future presidents, relaying Nixon’s promises to respect and uphold Johnson’s legacy. Fostered by Graham, the Johnson-Nixon relationship helped ensure that for most of 1968, the Democratic Party failed to unite around Humphrey’s candidacy.

The Year That Broke Politics further details how American diplomats such as Undersecretaries of State Averell Harriman and George Ball, as well as presidential adviser Clark Clifford, sought to use the Paris Peace Talks to boost Humphrey’s candidacy. In a private document Harriman wrote that “for several years, I have taken the position that Viet-Nam was important in US policy, but that other things were more important. When asked what was more important, I always gave as my first point, not permitting it to elect Nixon as president” (197).

Nichter’s discussion of the Paris negotiations highlights the opinions of Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, who grumbled that Harriman and Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance were pressuring Washington for more concessions, at the possible expense of Thieu’s regime in South Vietnam. A deal in Paris benefited Humphrey, who on 30 September finally delivered a speech that articulated a somewhat independent position in support of a bombing halt. Ultimately, on 31 October, Johnson announced a bombing halt. Nichter characterizes this not as a moment of hope, but as a failure of diplomacy (196-201). The accelerated negotiations hampered Thieu from gathering political support among his constituency.

Nixon interpreted Johnson’s bombing halt as a break in their mutual understanding about Vietnam. It roused his suspicions that the president was employing an “October Surprise” to deliver the election to Humphrey. This last-minute drama is the backdrop for the book’s final major contribution: itoffers a reinterpretation of the infamous “Chennault Affair,” when the socialite and lobbyist Anna Chennault allegedly served as a backchannel liaison for Nixon, urging Thieu to derail the Paris talks and cast the status of the Vietnam War in doubt by Election Day in the US.

John A. Farrell’s biography of Nixon cites chief of staff Bob Haldeman’s notes from a 22 October 1968 meeting with Nixon, amidst rumors of the impending bombing halt. “Keep Anna Chennault working on [South Vietnam] SVN,” the notes state. “Any other way to monkey wrench it? Anything [Richard Nixon] RN can do.”[41] Addressing the document in both the text and an appendix, Nichter makes a thorough case that these notes are open to many interpretations, and they do not provide “smoking gun” evidence of Nixon’s chicanery.

Nichter charges Farrell with lifting phrases out of context to make a sensationalistic claim of election malfeasance. “This is the worst kind of history,” he writes (235). Claiming that his book interprets the election of 1968 beyond the prevalent myths of left and right, he argues that Johnson did not call a bombing halt to create an “October Surprise” for Humphrey, and Nixon did not commit treason by interfering in diplomatic negotiations. Informed by copious archival collections and scores of interviews, The Year That Broke Politics offers the possibility of transcending popular narratives about the 1968 election.

Yet there are hints that Nichter applies different standards across political lines. Although Chennault’s memoir documents clandestine meetings with Nixon and his campaign manager John Mitchell, Nichter argues that the memoir is flawed, and that the available evidence does not implicate Nixon (208, 234-239). But in an earlier chapter, he recounts a cash offer from the Soviet Union’s ambassador to the Humphrey campaign. Though the details from the memoir of Anatoly Dobrynin cannot be corroborated, he states that “there is no reason to doubt the ambassador’s account” (180). In both cases, there appears to be enough context to arouse suspicions about unethical behavior around the presidential campaign. But there are distinctions in the narrative’s tone when discussing malfeasance on the different sides.[42]

It is unfortunate, too, that Nichter’s narrative bolsters misguided right-wing narratives of a colorblind conservatism. He rejects the notion that Nixon pursued a “Southern Strategy,” highlighting Nixon’s personal history and lack of campaigning in the Deep South (68-73). Yet Ronald Reagan’s convention challenge for the nomination, which invigorated Republican delegates from the Deep South, is mostly unmentioned, as is Nixon’s vigorous courting of South Carolina’s conservative kingmaker Senator Strom Thurmond, which included assurances to resist court-ordered busing plans to integrate schools. Without question, Nixon danced on a line to maintain party unity. But to downplay the importance of race as a central factor in the realignment of American politics in the 1960s, and in this election, is a historical disservice.[43]

The third-party campaign of former Alabama Governor George Wallace helped drive this political realignment. Nichter explains how Wallace extended his national appeal by adopting a class-based message of populist conservatism, which resonated with voters who had grown disenchanted with the excesses of 1960s liberalism. In Nichter’s reading, the media mischaracterized him as “a fascistic redneck racist from a backward state with backward ideas” (86). Yet racist resentments remained important to the Wallace phenomenon—it is impossible to separate the candidate’s populist message in 1968 from the man who bolstered his national profile by demanding massive resistance to racial integration, who raised money from and employed staffers from white supremacist organizations, and whose rallies inspired racist epithets and racial violence.[44]

Regarding race and violence, Nichter’s chapter on the Democratic National Convention includes the untenable assertion that “Chicago was not like other big American cities. It had not experienced the deadly riots seen in Los Angeles, Detroit, Newark, or Washington, D.C., even after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.” (123). In fact, on 5 and 6 April 1968, riots on the West Side of Chicago in the aftermath of the King tragedy resulted in 12 deaths, over 100 injuries, and over 2,000 arrests. Mayor Richard Daley issued a “shoot to kill” order on arsonists, a significant “law and order” prelude to the chaos on Chicago streets during the convention.[45]

There will be more books about the presidential election of 1968. The story is just too fascinating to resist. Its significance for the American political history is too enduring. And as Nichter suggests, new sources will continue to raise questions and complicate the past. The Year That Broke Politics is not the definitive one-stop book on the election—for all its in-depth research, it focuses on a few key characters and themes, and it falls victim to some conservative biases. But future historians of the election of 1968 will have to engage with Nichter’s contributions to the historiographical conversation around Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Chennault Affair.

In the introduction to The Year that Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968, Luke Nichter highlights the background of unprecedented circ*mstances against which this consequential presidential contest took place. Pivotal elections, he contends, are “defined by some political, economic, social, or military event, but 1968 included all four types of events” (x). The pull of each one on not only the sitting president, Lyndon Johnson, but on his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, on the former vice president, Richard Nixon, and on the Alabama governor, George Wallace, muddied allegiances, confused audiences, and made strange bedfellows, indeed.

Though Nichter thoroughly covers each candidate in the 1968 race—both in the primaries, and those who made it to the general election ballot—he places the outgoing president, Johnson, at the center. Nichter credits Johnson, despite his having dropped out of the race that March, with having the most significant influence on its outcome. That influence—even outright collusion—was deliberate. “Nothing was as it seemed,” Nichter argues (ix). Johnson’s presence is felt in each chapter, as is his single obsession in those last months of his term: the war in Vietnam.

Nichter recounts the volatile diplomatic history of 1968 in fine detail. Supplementing this well-trod ground[46] with original interviews, and, most notably, with the personal diaries of Reverend Billy Graham, Nichter not only tells us what happened behind the scenes, but also about how Johnson felt at each turn in the war. Protecting and expanding the robust domestic agenda of the Great Society was of secondary importance to Johnson, he suggests. Charting a path to bring the war to some kind of conclusion, or to at least take a step down that path, consumed a president who was grappling with the end of a long political career and worried about his own legacy. Nichter relays a memory recorded by Graham of a conversation with Johnson in which the outgoing president admitted, “Maybe Nixon will do a better job than I did…. I tried awfully hard, but I made some mistakes” (228).

As a sitting vice president who had lost the presidential election in 1960, Nixon knew what it was like to leave the White House. Whatever empathy he may have felt for Johnson he wielded strategically, and he used Graham as his go-between. In September of 1968, Nixon, via Graham, promised not to criticize Johnson publicly during the campaign—a significant offer, given that criticism of an outgoing administration of the opposite party is low-hanging fruit for candidates. Even more persuasively, Nixon committed to following Johnson’s plans for de-escalating the conflict in Vietnam and for sharing credit with Johnson at the war’s end. Johnson passed words of praise back to Nixon, and simultaneously kept the Democratic nominee, his own vice president, Hubert Humphrey, at arms’ length (172). Nichter uses this example of collusion to debunk the myth that Johnson was detached from the 1968 campaign. He argues convincingly that though Johnson was quiet and absent from the campaign, doing as little for Humphrey as possible without being accused by Democrats of being neutral, he was, in fact, not neutral. He was partial to Nixon and to the promise of his favorable legacy.

The collusion with Nixon indirectly allowed Johnson to influence the fault lines of the 1968 campaign. With little variation in their talking points on Vietnam, the Republican nominee was but an echo of the president. Voters who had attempted to understand the differences between the candidates would have had to contrast their respective domestic agendas. Nichter’s narrative at times downplays the conflicts at home, while returning repeatedly to the war abroad. That is how 1968 must have looked to Johnson. Nichter’s narrative choice effectively explains how the violence of war, the increasing incidents of protest violence, the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and of Senator Robert Kennedy, and the societal changes ushered in by the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, could have merged in the minds of American voters, escalating in tangible and intangible ways the tension on the home front.

Scholars and students of politics and history are should read this book given its demonstration of the way in which Vietnam shaped the political cosmology of voters in 1968, its reconsideration of the (decisive) role that Johnson played in the election outcome, and its evaluation of previously unknown details about Graham as political negotiator and presidential confidante.

What Nichter does not include in his analysis—in fact, he openly dismisses it—is the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy. He mentions the term only once and labels it as “cynical” (72). Nichter argues that Nixon’s decision not to compete with George Wallace for the votes of the “hardline racists” in the region (“five to eight percent of [Wallace’s] support,” as described by campaign advisor Bill Safire (72), renders claims of a Southern Strategy moot. However, the Southern Strategy was not limited solely to attracting the vocal defenders of Jim Crow.

Wallace made his appeal to white grievance directly and forcefully and attracted the voters who wanted their racism said plainly and out loud. Nixon understood that the surrogates of 1964 Republican Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater’s “Operation Dixie” in the South were too brazen in their appeal to white grievance and he knew that Wallace would win those who championed such an appeal. But this faction did not represent the majority of the white voters in the region. Most Southern white “moderates” of that time wanted to maintain the racial hierarchy status quo, but politely, and without being criticized. They did not want their politicians standing in doorways and blocking African American children from going to school and the media coverage that ensued. They wanted enforcement of bussing to halt. They wanted to “move past race,” before ceding anymore of their advantages for the sake of equality.[47]

Nixon recognized that the majority of white voters would be enticed by a candidate who would dial down federal enforcement of Civil Rights policies, appoint justices from the South to high federal courts, and code the language of white grievance so they could sanitize white supremacy to the public and rationalize it in their own hearts and minds.[48] Wallace made white grievance a badge of honor; Nixon provided a way for it to be masked. Nichter’s portrayal of Wallace is spot on, and he describes specifically what many others have missed about Wallace’s appeal in the South and beyond its borders.[49] “Wallace’s supporters felt threatened by challenges to women’s traditional roles as homemakers and to the place of Christianity in the public sphere,” Nichter claims (89). A further discussion of this point would forecast the post-1968 polarization in American politics.

In terms of Nixon’s Southern Strategy, Nichter downplays the role of Senator Strom Thurmond, who whipped votes for Nixon at the convention in order to fend off a late surge by California Governor Ronald Reagan.[50] Nichter does not address what Nixon’s choice of Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew as vice president—a choice that had been vetted by Thurmond—signaled to the white Southerners. Agnew, who was lauded even decades later by Nixon aide Pat Buchanan,[51] gained Nixon’s attention after his aggressive tongue-lashing against African American activists in Baltimore.[52] Even Nixon’s use of Billy Graham as a Southern surrogate can be considered part of the Republican strategy to court the white South,[53] and not just the Wallace “hard-liners,” but the “moderate” white beneficiaries of Jim Crow. Irrespective of his personal feelings on civil rights or women’s equality, by making Wallace’s message more palatable Nixon helped to rebrand the Republican Party by nationalizing Southern white resentment. Others who followed in his footsteps further stoked its fire. Nichter defends Nixon against such criticism, arguing that “he was criticized for not condemning Wallace, but he reintroduced genuine two-party competition in the South, increasing the region’s national political importance” (71).

In 1968, a South divided between Wallace and Nixon may have seemed like the end of one-party dominance, and the Democratic block which had, in fact, afforded the region more influence in the Congress, in the region. Making such a claim now, however, with the hindsight of five decades, ignores significant Southern realignment scholarship, not only about the Republican Southern Strategy, but also about the racial composition of the Southern electorate in the first presidential election cycle since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.[54] That broken piece of American politics, after near a century of activism, was finally fixed through the powers of Congress, at least for the time being.

Collusion was, indeed, at the heart of the 1968 election, as Nichter masterfully demonstrates. A great deal of what was “broken” that year—allegiances, personal trust, public trust, the electoral map, political norms, the lives of those assassinated at the height of their influence, perhaps even the spirits of those who called for peace—did, indeed, exacerbate a collective sense of political chaos that realigned and polarized the parties and redefined American politics for the twenty-first century.

For someone who has written about the 1968 election in several books and articles and also lived through that turbulent year, it is humbling to discover areas of personal omission and commission that I wish I could revise in light of Luke Nichter’s convincing revisionist monograph The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968. His main goal is to reconsider two ideas that have dominated much of the literature on the election—that President Lyndon B. Johnson strove for a breakthrough in the Paris Peace Talks in October to help elect his vice president and Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey and that Republican nominee Richard Nixon sabotaged that effort.

The text of 239 pages is bolstered by 76 pages of footnotes. Nichter examines virtually everything that archives nationwide can offer, along with conducting scores of valuable interviews. Indeed, his Herculean research effort is comparable to that of the exhaustive archival wanderings of Irwin Gellman.[55]

Nichter is a careful and judicious scholar who has contributed dramatically to our understanding of what occurred during the campaign that took place during a tumultuous period in American history. As the candidates attempted to establish their campaigns, they dealt with unprecedented political, social, economic, and military crises including the capture of the USS Pueblo,theassassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the revolution in Czechoslovakia, and the incipient revolutions at home. The year 1968 in the United States was an annus horribilis. If anything, as Nichter examines the politics, he underplays the turmoil in the streets, the hundreds of bombings on college campuses, and the alienation of millions of young middle-class Americans, some of whom were indeed the dope-smoking, long-haired, draft-avoiding Marxists whom both Republicans and many Democrats assailed.[56]

I can remember at innumerable dinner parties in 1968, young liberal historians and their partners, after having consumed a number of bottles of cheap wine, expressing their fears that the end of democracy was near. Such fears in 1968, compared to such fears today, now look wildly exaggerated. But to us, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, and Alabama Governor and third party candidate George Wallace were evil or at least misguided men who were bent on destroying the country. Nichter disagrees emphatically. He portrays these four politicians in a balanced and positive manner—arguing that none was out to destroy the country. For example, Americans had genuine concerns about law and order, a concern shared by Nixon and Wallace as well as Johnson. And the majority of Americans opposed the protesting left. Despite the 58 percent of Americans who in October 1968 thought that getting into the War in Vietnam was a mistake, they disliked the anti-warriors more than the war.[57] The same holds true for the elite journalists who opposed the war but who opposed the countercultural and sometimes violent antiwar protestors even more.[58]

Nixon was a moderate who “thrilled no one but did not offend anyone either” (66), and who had “matured” (74) since 1960. The idealistic Humphrey “maintained an innocence about politics” (34). The media “misunderstood” (75) George Wallace, who was more a “populist conservative” (140) who shared many Americans’ anti-elitist attitudes than a simple racist. And poor old Johnson, who was beleaguered on all sides, overwhelmed by his domestic and international challenges, and who tried to do the right thing for his country and his legacy. Nichter, however, is less charitable towards New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, both of whom were contenders for the Democratic nomination.

My one critique of the emphasis on the humanity and goodwill of these political figures is Nichter’s gentle treatment of Nixon. Even though Nichter is the co-author of two books on the Nixon tapes, he refrains from using them for this analysis of the 1968 election.[59] In evaluating the man’s character in 1968, how can one avoid the nasty, prejudiced, and narcissistic person revealed on the tapes from 1971 to 1973? Of course, had we complete, presumably off-the record, tapes for Johnson, Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, and even President Barack Obama we might be surprised by the disappointing character flaws that would be revealed.

In addition, writing in the fall of 2023, one might take issue with Nichter’s assertion that Nixon was “probably the most investigated politician in US history” (236).

After his biographical introductions, Nichter moves swiftly through the conventions, the Paris Peace Talks, the campaigns, and the elections. He pays limited attention to the riots at both conventions, although the unmentioned riots in Miami’s Black districts took place several miles from the convention site. There is no doubt that Nixon ran a smooth and well-financed campaign compared to his opponents. Nichter also approves of Nixon’s selection as his running mate of Maryland Governor Spiro T. Agnew, who appeared to be a Southern progressive, despite his attacks on Black radicals, and, of course, the later discovery of his corruption.

Vietnam dominated the campaign with the politicos, although most likely not with the voters in November. It was a complicated issue, with Nixon and Johnson both advocating similar policies, especially on the issue of what it would take for the US to end the bombing of North Vietnam. Humphrey faced conflicting pressures from Johnson to support his policies and from the Democratic left to stop the bombing at once as a way to peace. Throughout most of the campaign, as Nichter points out, Johnson’s foreign policies were closer to Nixon’s than to Humphrey’s. He also suggests that the Republicans’ general moderate platform was acceptable to Johnson who respected Nixon.

Nichter devotes one chapter to the influence of the evangelist Billy Graham on his friends, Johnson, Nixon, and former President Dwight Eisenhower. At first glance, one wonders why there is the need for an entire chapter devoted to Graham. But Nichter demonstrates that as a man behind the scenes he was essential to this story. Although the nation’s most famous preacher got along quite well with both major candidates, as well as George Wallace, there is no doubt that he supported Nixon’s program. Nonetheless, he tried to appear neutral, unlike current evangelical leaders. His most significant role in the campaign was as a courier who relayed secret private messages between Nixon and Johnson. It was Graham who informed Johnson that Nixon told him that Nixon respected Johnson and would go easy on him during the campaign, especially if Johnson maintained his then current Vietnam policies. As a quid pro quo, Johnson took it easy on Nixon while offering little support to his vice president, Humphrey. It is revelatory to note the apparent fervent religiosity of all the candidates, and President Eisenhower, all of whom prayed privately with Graham (151-161). A cynic might contend that the need to be seen with the wildly popular evangelist outweighed their alleged spiritual needs.

A related chapter deals with the Paris Peace Talks that hovered over the campaign. Nichter does an admirable job describing the positions of the participants, including the South Vietnamese, who were not invited to Paris and who proved to be one of the problems with which the Americans had to deal. As with the secret relationships with Billy Graham, the American negotiators not only conducted secret negotiations with the North Vietnamese but also secret talks with Moscow in order to obtain better information on Hanoi’s positions and also to push the Communists toward mutual concessions. American voters did not have a clue about these secret relationships (93-110).

Nichter reports that the Russians offered the under-financed Humphrey campaign contributions, which, of course, the Democratic candidate rejected (180). On the other hand, he ignores the Greek Junta’s alleged large contribution to the Nixon campaign.[60] During the campaign, Johnson’s lukewarm support for Humphrey was visible. However, the Nixon-Johnson rapprochement did suffer in the closing weeks when the first ever “October Surprise” worried Nixon that Johnson was using a diplomatic breakthrough at the Paris Peace Talks to help Humphrey, while Johnson worried that Nixon was sabotaging his diplomatic coup. Nichter makes a good case that the president was trying to achieve a peaceful resolution to the war as one of his legacies and that Madame Anna Chennault, the Republican operative with close ties to the South Vietnamese government, was not acting under the campaign’s orders to tell Saigon to nix the deal (202-212). On the latter, a useful appendix on the Chennault affair helps to clear things up.

Although Humphrey, who had been far behind Nixon during most of the campaign, appeared to be closing during the last weeks of October, he did not win the race. The final electoral vote count (301 for Nixon, 191 for Humphrey, 46 for Wallace) reflected a substantial margin for Nixon. Nixon’s gains among many former Democratic blue-collar voters along with overall success of his law-and-order theme (218) contributed to his victory. And he did this, as Nichter contends, without the alleged “Southern Strategy”—Nichter contends Nixon conceded the South to Wallace—but with the popular “Bring Us Together” slogan. This approach, in addition to a shaky Humphrey campaign, helped Nixon deliver “a powerful rebuke of a decade of liberalism and government overreach” (218).

The Year that Broke Politicsis clearly an essential source for one of the most important elections in American history.

Response by Luke A. Nichter, Chapman University

[1] Luke A. Nichter, George W. Bush: Life of Privilege, Leadership in Crisis (New York,: Nova Science Publisher’s Incorporated, 2012); Nichter, Lyndon B. Johnson: Pursuit of Populism, Paradox of Power (New York: Nova Science Publisher’s Incorporated, 2013); Nichter, Richard M. Nixon: In the Arena, from Valley to Mountaintop (New York: Nova Science Publisher’s Incorporated, 2014); Douglas Brinkley and Nichter, The Nixon Tapes: 1971-1972 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015); Douglas Brinkley and Nichter, The Nixon Tapes: 1973 (Boston: Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016); Nichter, Richard Nixon and Europe: The Reshaping of the Postwar Atlantic World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Nichter, The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020), Nichter, The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023).

[2] John David Briley, Nixon Rebuilds: From Defeat to the White House, 1962–1968(Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press, 2021).

[3] Michael Nelson, Resilient America: Electing Nixon in 1968, Channeling Dissent, and Dividing Government (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2014), 67-93.

[4] There are many books written on the 1968 campaign. Some of the earliest books were Lewis Chester, Godfrey Hodgson, and Bruce Page’s An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968 (New York: The Viking Press, 1969), Stephen C. Shadegg, Winning a Lot More Fun (Toronto: The Macmillan Company, 1969) and Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1968 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969), as well as the more recent works by Recent historiography of the 1968 election includes Aram Goudsouzian, The Men and the Moment: The Election of 1968 and the Rise of Partisan Politics in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019); Lawrence O’Donnell, Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics (New York: Penguin Press, 2017); Michael Schumacher, The Contest: The 1968 Election and the War for America’s Soul (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2018); Michael Cohen, American Maelstrom: The 1968 Election and Politics of Division (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); and Michael Nelson, Resilient America: Electing Nixon in 1968: Channeling Dissent and Dividing Government (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2014).

[5] Dan T. Carter, The Politics of Rage: Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics(New York: Simon and Shuster, 1995).

[6] Lyndon B. Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspective on the Presidency, 1963–1969 (New York: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, 1971); Hubert H. Humphrey, The Education of a Public Man: My Life and Politics (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1976); Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, 1968 (New York: Athenium House, 1971), 471-473.

[7] John A. Farrell, Richard Nixon: The Life (New York: Random House, 2017), 342-345; Kyle Longley, LBJ’S 1968: Power, Politics, and the Presidency in America’s Year of Upheaval (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2018), 239-255; The Vietnam War, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, PBS, 2017.

[8] Kari Fredrickson, Deep South Dynasty: The Bankheads of Alabama, (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2021).

[9] Jeffrey Frederick, Stand Up for Alabama: Governor George Wallace, (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007), 13.

[10] Irwin F. Gellman has written three major books on Richard Nixon. His latest is Campaign of the Century: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022).

[11] Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields, The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).

[12] Aram Goudsouzian, The Men and the Moment: The Election of 1968 and the Rise of Partisan Politics in America(University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2019).

[13] Melvin Small, Johnson, Nixon and the Doves (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988); Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1999).

[14] Aram Goudsouzian, The Men and the Moment: The Election of 1968 and the Rise of Partisan Politics in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968); Lewis L. Gould, 1968: The Election that Changed America (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2010).

[15] Gregory D. Squires, ed., The Fight for Fair Housing: Causes, Consequences, and Future Implications of the Federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 (New York: Rutledge, 2017); Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Race for Profit: How Race and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2021); Brian Daugherity and Charles Bolton, eds., With All Deliberate Speed: Implementing Brown v. Board of Education (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2008).

[16] Kevin M. Kruse, “The Southern Strategy,” in Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer, eds., Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies about our Past (New York: Basic Books, 2022), 170.

[17] Thurmond quoted in Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields, The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 3-4.

[18] Michael Kazin, “Trump and American Populism: Old Whine, New Bottles,” Foreign Affairs 95 (November/December 2016), 17-24; John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavrek, Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018).

[19] The Stand in the Schoolhouse Door took place at Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama on 11 June 1963. Wallace, in an attempt to stop the desegregation of the University of Alabama, symbolically stood at the door of the auditorium to block the entry of African American students.

[20] Wayne Flynt, Alabama in the Twentieth Century (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004); Jeff Frederick, Stand Up for Alabama: Governor George Wallace (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007).

[21] Frederick, Stand Up for Alabama, 50.

[22] Flynt, Alabama in the Twentieth Century, 241. Flynt argues that Wallace went through numerous transitions, leaving populism behind in 1958.

[23] Frederick, Stand Up for Alabama, 45.

[24] Frederick, Stand Up for Alabama, 45.

[25] Frederick, Stand Up for Alabama, 46.

[26] Frederick, Stand Up for Alabama, 53.

[27] Frederick, Stand Up for Alabama, 53.

[28] Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 11.

[29] Jefferson Cowie, Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (New York: Basic Books, 2022), 333.

[30] Cowie, Freedom’s Dominion, 388.

[31] Cowie, Freedom’s Dominion, 396.

[32] Frederick, Stand Up for Alabama, 38.

[33] Recent historiography of the 1968 election includes Aram Goudsouzian, The Men and the Moment: The Election of 1968 and the Rise of Partisan Politics in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019); Lawrence O’Donnell, Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics (New York: Penguin Press, 2017); Michael Schumacher, The Contest: The 1968 Election and the War for America’s Soul (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018); Michael Cohen, American Maelstrom: The 1968 Election and Politics of Division (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).

[34] On Nixon’s early career see Irwin Gellman, The Contender: Richard Nixon: The Congress Years, 1946–1952 (New York: Free Press, 1999) and Gellman, The President and the Apprentice: Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon 1952–1961 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015).

[35] See also John David Briley, Nixon Rebuilds: From Defeat to the White House 1962–1968 (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2021).

[36] See also Walter LaFeber, The Deadly Bet: LBJ, Vietnam, and the 1968 Election (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015).

[38] John A. Farrell, Richard Nixon: The Life(New York: Doubleday, 2017), 342-348; Don Fulsom, Treason: Nixon and the 1968 Election (Elwood: Pelican, 2015).

[39] See, for instance, Michael A. Cohen, American Maelstrom: The 1968 Election and the Politics of Division(New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); Lewis Gould, 1968: The Election That Changed America, 2nd ed.(Chicago, Ivan Dee, 2010); Walter LaFeber, The Deadly Bet: LBJ, Vietnam, and the 1968 Election(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005); Michael Nelson, Resilient America: Electing Nixon in 1968, Channeling Dissent, and Dividing Government(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2014); Lawrence O’Donnell, Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics(New York: Penguin, 2017); Michael Schumacher, The Contest: The 1968 Election and the War for America's Soul(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018); Dennis Wainstock, Election Year 1968: The Turning Point(New York: Enigma Books, 2012).

[40] Theodore White, The Making of the President 1968(New York: Atheneum, 1969), 325.

[41] John A. Farrell, Richard Nixon: The Life(New York: Doubleday, 2017), 342-48; John A. Farrell, “Tricky Dick’s Vietnam Treachery,” New York Times, 1 January 2017, SR9.

[42] See Anatoly Dobynin, In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to America’s Six Cold War Presidents (1962-1986)(New York: Times Books, 1995).

[43] See Kevin M. Kruse, “The Southern Strategy,” in Kevin M Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer, eds., Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past(New York: Basic Books, 2022), 169-196.

[44] Dan T. Carter, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, The Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995), 110-370.

[45] Clay Risen, A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination(New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2009), 146-181.

[46]Carole Fink, Philipp Gassert, and Detlef Junker, eds., 1968: The World Transformed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998);Melvin Small, “The Election of 1968,”Diplomatic History, 28: 4 (2004): 513–528;Jonathan Colman.Foreign Policy of Lyndon B. Johnson: The United States and the World, 1963–1969 (Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 2010).

[47] Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields, The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 101-106.

[48] Robert Mason, Richard Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 160; Reg Murphy and Hall Culliver, The Southern Strategy (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), 2.

[49] Dan T. Carter, From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963–1994 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995)

[51]Lisa Beard,If We Were Kin: Race, Identification, and Intimate Political Appeals(New York: Oxford University Press, 2023).

[52]Peter B.Levy, “Spiro Agnew, the Forgotten Americans, and the Rise of the New Right,”The Historian,75:4 (2013):707-739,DOI:10.1111/hisn.12018; Justin P. Coffey,Spiro Agnew and the Rise of the Republican Right (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015).

[53]Rick Perlstein,Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008); Perlstein,The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015).

[54] Maxwell and Shields, The Long Southern Strategy.

[55] See Irwin F. Gellman, The Contender: Richard Nixon, the Congress Years, 1946–1952 (New York: Free Press, 1999); Gellman, The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952–1961 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015); and Gellman, Campaign of the Century: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021).

[56] For a related monograph on the turmoil at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, see Heather Hendershot, When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022). Note that Hendershot also uses “Broke” in her title.

[57] Melvin Small, Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press), 130.

[58] Small, Covering Dissent: The Media and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994).

[59] Douglas Brinkley and Luke A. Nichter, eds., The Nixon Tapes:1971–72 (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), and Brinkley and Nichter, eds., The Nixon Tapes:1973 (New York: Harper, 2016).

[60] James H. Barron, The Greek Connection: The Life of Elias Demetracopoulos (New York: Melville House, 2020).

[61]See H-Diplo Roundtable XVII: 27on Luke A. Nichter, Richard Nixon and Europe. The Reshaping of the Postwar Atlantic World(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 4 July 2016;http://www.tiny.cc/Roundtable-XVII-27;H-Diplo Roundtable XXII-30 on Nichter, The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020), 8 March2021;https://issforum.org/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XXII-30.pdf

[62] Conversation with Geir Gunderson, Supervisory Archivist, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 30 December 2023. During a quiet Friday afternoon in the research room—I was the only researcher there—we discussed the argument in my book that Johnson preferred Nixon. Suggesting something similar might have occurred in 1976, Geir said he was familiar with records at the Ford Library in which Humphrey and McGovern documented their support for Ford. I asked for more information, which he provided, in case I might need to refer to it one day. I needed it sooner than I realized!

[63] Douglas Brinkley and Luke A. Nichter, The Nixon Tapes, 1971–1972 (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014).

[64]Nichter, The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020); Nichter, Richard Nixon and Europe: The Reshaping of the Postwar Atlantic World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Brinkley and Nichter, The Nixon Tapes: 1973 (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015).

[65] Robert Dallek, Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). Randall Woods, LBJ: Architect of American Ambition (New York: Free Press, 2006).

[66] The fourth and most recent edition of Robert Caro’s planned five volume examination of Lyndon Johnson isCaro, The Passage to Power (New York: Vintage Books, 2012).

[67] I was a history professor at Texas A&M University–Central Texas from 2008-2021, during which time I made dozens of visits to the Lyndon B. Johnson Library and various Johnson-related sites in the greater Austin area and adjoining Texas Hill Country. As a caution of what not to do when one prefers to stay married, I dragged my long-suffering wife Jennifer to the debut opening of the Lyndon B. Johnson Ranch to the public on 27 August 2008, on what would have been his 100th birthday.