Could Lyndon B Johnson Run for President Again in 1968

President Lyndon B. Johnson is shown during his nationwide television broadcast from the White Firm on March 31, 1968. Bettmann/Bettmann Archive hide caption

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Bettmann/Bettmann Archive

President Lyndon B. Johnson is shown during his nationwide television broadcast from the White House on March 31, 1968.

Bettmann/Bettmann Annal

Much of the history of 1968 we recall now is relived through the TV coverage Americans watched at the fourth dimension. Just 1 particular moment from March of that yr was a Idiot box event by definition.

It was the terminal evening of the calendar month, a Sunday, and much of the nation sabbatum down to sentinel its favorite prime-time shows. But on this dark, they found their regular programming had been pre-empted for a speech by the president of the United States.

The networks had been told it would exist a speech about Vietnam, the Southeast Asian nation where war had raged for years and escalated into a crisis that would define the era. Indeed, on that night, President Lyndon B. Johnson would devote nearly 40 minutes to talking about it.

He spoke of a pause in the massive bombing campaign that was devastating much of communist North Vietnam and portions of embattled South Vietnam, where the U.S. was defending an anti-communist regime.

Johnson's speech was his most hostage plea yet to be taken seriously equally a peacemaker. He meant that plea to exist validated past the closing statement he had called to include that night. Instead, that argument defenseless the nation past surprise, shattered the political mural and utterly overshadowed the rest of the speech.

"With America'due south sons in the fields far away, with America'south time to come under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world'southward hopes for peace in the remainder every twenty-four hours, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a twenty-four hours of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office — the presidency of this country," Johnson intoned, looking earnestly into the camera lens.

Tens of millions of viewers suddenly came to total attention. What did he but say? What could that mean?

"Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my political party for some other term equally your president."

LBJ Library via YouTube

With that, the man who won a landslide of ballsy proportions in 1964 stepped away from the office and the destiny he had spent his life pursuing.

Johnson'due south speech communication that nighttime delivered such a shock to the nation that some who first heard the news the post-obit day thought it had to be an April Fools' joke. Anybody who knew anything about the president knew how much he cared about beingness president.

It seemed more likely that the war itself would suddenly cease than that the larger-than-life Texan in the White Firm would run up a personal white flag.

It was not like the Washington, D.C., or the White Business firm of today, when scarcely whatsoever development happens without days of foreshadowing in news leaks and on Twitter.

On this occasion, at least, history arrived without warning. LBJ had told his speechwriter, of course, and a typist who saw the draft. He had told his daughters and his wife, Lady Bird, and a handful of his closest aides. But all of these intimates had heard him muse about retirement for years. They had no special reason to believe him this time.

He had met with Vice President Hubert Humphrey, showing him ii copies of the text that Dominicus morning. I had the annunciation, one did not. He did non commit to either at the fourth dimension.

It was a final indicator of his ambivalence, which was showing even as he edited the speech while rehearsing it for the cameras in the Oval Office that evening. Some of this rehearsal was captured past CBS producer John McDonough, who shared it forty years later on in a segment on NPR.

LBJ can be heard in the segment, returning to sentences he had decided to change. He did not rehearse the catastrophe, leaving his options open to the final minute.

Later, equally he delivered the live version, White Business firm aides were calling members of his Cabinet to make sure they were watching and knew what was coming.

Simply few others knew, even as the speech neared its end. Those in the dark included the news anchors and commentators who had no advance text and heard the president'southward words just before he signed off.

Typical were the reactions of Roger Mudd and Dan Rather who were covering the speech live for CBS and plant themselves at a loss for words.

"What I'd rather do," said Mudd, "is get home and come back tomorrow morning and begin to talk about it."

If the professionals felt that way, the nation equally a whole was at least as flummoxed. If at that place was ane thing Johnson had established in four decades in Washington it was his relentless interest in existence in ability.

But what the country could non have known at the time was that LBJ had been agonizing over this decision for more than than half-dozen months. A serial of health problems — gallbladder and kidney rock surgeries, a serious respiratory infection, middle bug — had plagued the president in 1967.

In the fall of that twelvemonth, he sat with his most trusted intimates to re-assess the re-election campaign everyone assumed he would conduct. 2 were told to draft a withdrawal statement for a national party dinner in Oct, and again for a political part in December. The notion returned every bit part of the planning for the State of the Union Accost in January 1968.

Each time, Johnson considered the statement and discarded it.

And so came the Tet Offensive, the enormous endeavour by Northward Vietnamese troops and communist guerrillas to seize key targets in South Vietnam. Throughout the month of February, major cities in the South were battle zones. Even the U.Southward. Embassy in Saigon was attacked and briefly held past the enemy.

Although the offensive failed with great loss of life for the communist forces, the impression left in the U.South. was of the enemy's forcefulness and resilience. The war seemed more futile than ever. Johnson's blessing rating fell into the mid-30s, the approval for his handling of Vietnam fifty-fifty lower.

In that moment, New Hampshire held its first-in-the-nation presidential preference master. Upstart Democratic candidate Eugene McCarthy, a trivial-known senator from Minnesota, came embarrassingly shut to beating the president.

Days later, New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy had joined McCarthy in challenging the president's renomination. Kennedy, younger brother of the president whose assassination initially had put Johnson to the Oval Role, was now in the race.

But whatever Johnson thought his chances were of winning another term, past late March he had become obsessed with ending the war in Vietnam.

Robert Dallek, the historian and Johnson biographer, wrote that LBJ "wanted to end the war in 1968 without regard for domestic political considerations.

"The issue at present, as he saw it, was the historical reputation of his five-twelvemonth administration."

For a time immediately after the March 31 proclamation, LBJ seemed to be succeeding in this concluding ambition. Media reaction to his sacrifice was overwhelmingly positive. The Washington Postal service, which had been savaging his war policy, praised his "personal sacrifice in the name of national unity" and wished him "a very special place in the annals of American history..."

The editorial writers were not alone. LBJ'south polling went from 57 percent disapproval to 57 percent approval most overnight.

Even those who saw him as even so scheming, yet hoping for a draft at the nominating convention, had to respect the size of Johnson's gesture. He had new leverage in dealing with a recalcitrant Congress on a tax increase, a bill banning discrimination in housing and a spending increment for his signature Not bad Society programs.

Johnson gave a bravura performance at the almanac White House Correspondents Dinner, ruthlessly poking fun at himself and at his critics. He joked that while he had pledged not to seek the nomination of "my party," he might still be willing to talk to the Republicans. The line got a big laugh.

NPR via YouTube

But the relentless narrative of 1968 would plough tragic once again and again. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis the calendar week after Johnson'south withdrawal speech. Two months later, Robert Kennedy was fatally shot the night he won the California primary (and with information technology, quite perhaps, the Democratic nomination).

The convention itself in August would become a street riot, with Chicago police officers beating the youthful antiwar demonstrators they had been chosen in to command. The delegates inside the convention hall would nominate Humphrey for president, and the vice president would lose in November to Republican Richard Nixon.

In retirement the following year, Johnson saw his health continue to deteriorate as he watched the state of war he could not stop proceed to toll lives. He lived through all of Nixon'due south kickoff term and landslide re-election, dying the aforementioned week Nixon took the oath a second time. Although most American troops had left Vietnam by that fourth dimension, the war would non end until the last North Vietnamese victory in 1975.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2018/03/25/596805375/president-johnson-made-a-bombshell-announcement-50-years-ago

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