Blue Skies in Camelot: An Alternate 60's and Beyond

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 18: I Am a Rock - January through June 1966. ​

Above: February 1966, At the Resolute Desk, President John F. Kennedy prepares for a call from French President Charles de Gaulle.​

At home, John F. Kennedy was, according to Time magazine, “the most admired man in America.” His domestic agenda: the war on poverty, social security expansions to cover healthcare for the elderly and disabled, and stronger federal action on civil rights, had been passed in a sweep of starry eyed reform. Many political pundits noted, with some amazement, that they hadn’t seen such forceful, speedy action on the issues facing the country since Franklin Roosevelt’s fabled “100 Days” to combat the Great Depression in 1933. The economy was booming. The recession and stagnation Kennedy had inherited from the Eisenhower years had ended halfway through his first term, replaced now in his second with rising wages, increased spending power, and heightened productivity. More Americans than ever before, especially women and minorities, were finishing high school and attending university. The goals the President had set out in his New Frontier were rapidly coming to fruition, and Kennedy’s popularity had never been higher. In a Gallup poll released on January 8th, 1966, 77% of respondents reported approving, at least mostly, the President’s job performance. He had grabbed poverty and racial prejudice by the horns and fought them head on, his supporters said. He persuaded the Commies in Moscow to stop funding North Vietnam’s efforts to invade the South. No “dominoes” would fall in Southeast Asia. Containment it seemed, had been achieved. So why then, was there something amiss in the national zeitgeist?

An uncomfortable restlessness had settled over the United States of America as JFK began the second year of his second term. The “Leave it to Beaver” style conservatism and family values of the 1950’s had long worn out their welcome, and were rapidly being replaced with something new, something distinctly 60’s. Social awareness became mainstream, as the protest songs of Bob Dylan and others mixed with the President’s inspiring, ideal filled rhetoric to rouse the public into a new kind of consciousness. Young women were no longer content to get married and become docile housewives, leaving the public domain to men while they cooked, cleaned, and cared for the children. The women of the class of ‘66 read The Feminine Mystique and had posters of Marilyn Monroe in their dorm rooms. They now had birth control, and increased autonomy to make decisions for themselves in every aspect of their lives. Men didn’t enlist en mass to go fight the commies on some foreign battlefield like their fathers and older brothers had in Korea. In fact, men were coming home from overseas in Vietnam. Peace had been given a chance and worked! Instead, they and their female counterparts joined CORE. They marched on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr. to protest unfair treatment and the need for civil rights. In San Francisco, both sexes grew out their hair, smoked marijuana, and listened to a new breed of Rock N Roll; heavy, psychedelic, and anti-establishment. The counterculture was in full swing amongst young people across the nation, and in the center of it all was President Kennedy in an almost paradoxical position: the President of the United States, ultimate symbol of the establishment, yet seen as a crusading hero by the hippies and protesters as well.

Throughout the social changes sweeping the country and its culture, President Kennedy remained the strong, smiling face of progress. In March of ‘66, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Voting Rights Act of the year prior in Katzenbach v. Morgan. More than simply confirming the constitutionality of the bill, the court’s decision further allowed the Voting Rights Act to prohibit literacy tests against Americans who obtained at least a sixth grade education in a school where the language of instruction was Spanish. The result? Millions of Americans in Puerto Rico and other places in the Southwest were now secure in their right to vote. The Court also handed another landmark decision down in June, with Miranda v. Arizona. The Court held that the constitution’s protection against self incrimination applied to police interrogations, and led to the development of the “miranda rights” procedure, in which police are required to read these rights to a suspect upon arrest. The decision was lauded by protesters across the nation, who were now better prepared to protect their speech and deal with the potential aftermath of being arrested while speaking out.


In their personal affairs, the President and First Lady found and brought joy to the nation with the birth of their second daughter: Rosemary Kathleen Kennedy on April 17th, 1966. A beautiful, healthy daughter, Rosemary Kathleen was named for two of the President’s younger sisters, one of whom was mentally handicapped and kept away from the public eye, and another whom JFK had once been eminently close to, but had passed away in a plane crash in 1948. The birth of Rosemary had been a great personal triumph for the President, and seemed, to those in his inner circle, the culmination of two years of newfound closeness between he and Jackie. The pair did everything they could to spend time together. The President would sneak kisses with Jackie or short calls across the building in between meetings, and the First Lady often cancelled unimportant trips to remain in Washington with her husband and the children. Marveling at how far Jack had come since his days of near constant infidelity and dalliance, Secretary of Defense Robert Kennedy wrote in his diary: “Finished cabinet briefing today with Jack, headed back to Pentagon to burn the midnight oil and tidy up plans for securing Tan Son Nhut. Was about to leave when Jackie came into the Oval Office, her hair undone and a look in her eyes like a kid on Spring Break. Jack saw her and that was it. I was whisked out of there in an instant. I swear I could hear them going at it before I even made it down the hall. If I didn’t love the two of them to pieces, and wasn’t so happy to see them in such bliss, I’d be downright disturbed. They probably didn’t even bother to leave the Oval Office.”

Aside from enjoying his administration’s successes and the closeness he shared with Jackie and the kids, whom he often took sailing off the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, President Kennedy continued to face headwinds against the fulfillment of the remainder of his policy objectives. Change, and especially progress did not always come easily in the Land of the Free. James Meredith, known for integrating the University of Mississippi as its first black student, was shot while completing a solo march from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi. While Meredith was hospitalized, other civil rights activists organized to complete his march, which Meredith rejoined along with 15,000 other marchers. As a result, 4,000 African Americans in Mississippi were registered to vote. This demonstration marked the first time that activist Stokely Carmichael first uttered the phrase “black power,” a mantra in later waves of civil rights activism which reflected the growing anger African Americans and activists felt toward the discrimination they faced. This was especially present in the deep south, where George Wallace and his ilk remained the political representation of choice for disaffected whites. Vice President Terry Sanford spoke out against Wallace in a speech in the VP’s native North Carolina, declaring: “The time has come at long last for the South to reconcile its pride with the reality of race relations. We have made mistakes in the past in how we treated our fellow Americans. Now we must rectify those mistakes, and teach men like George Wallace that there is no room for racism, bigotry, and violence in the America of tomorrow.”

Wallace snidely countered that “there is no room for Terry Sanford in Alabama, today! He best remain north of Montgomery, if he knows what’s good for him.” The former Governor of the Yellowhammer State, it was said, was already gearing up for a second run at the White House in 1968, touring south of the Mason-Dixon line and stumping two years early. In speeches filled with incendiary rhetoric, sweeping oratory, and metric tons of energy, Wallace rallied what he called “the silent majority” of White Southerners behind him and his platform: anti-busing, segregation, and law and order. Whether he intended to seek the Democratic nomination, to “save it” from the liberals, or to run once again on a Third Party ticket was unclear, and Wallace declined to comment for the time being. All that was clear was that Wallace would continue to be a problem in American politics, and whomever rose to claim the mantle left by JFK would need to contend with him.

Abroad, Kennedy’s foreign policy was facing a headache in the form of French President Charles de Gaulle. The two leaders had once been close, with de Gaulle being one of Kennedy’s staunchest supporters during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and personally calling to ask on his condition after the attempt on his life in Dallas. In the years since, however, their relationship cooled significantly. De Gaulle blocked the admission of the United Kingdom to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1963, which, given the US and UK’s “special relationship” prevented US influence within the organization for a time. This was unacceptable to Kennedy. The rift was deepend when in February of 1966, de Gaulle withdrew France from NATO’s military command structure. De Gaulle, haunted by the memories of 1940, wanted France to be the master of its own destiny, not forced to follow lockstep behind a stronger ally, as it had behind Britain in the 1930’s. The French President also ordered all foreign military to leave France within a year. This action especially was received rather poorly in the United States, prompting Secretary of State Robert McNamara to ask de Gaulle whether the removal of American military personnel was to include exhumation of the 50,000 American war dead buried in French cemeteries.

Despite de Gaulle’s insistence on French independence from American defense strategies, he did congratulate Kennedy on his plan for de escalating the situation in Vietnam and his efforts to improve relations between the US and Soviet Union. To de Gaulle, communism was a temporary phenomenon, and the Soviet Union little more than a new incarnation of the Russian Empire. Typically pragmatic over ideological, de Gaulle’s was a politics of power and control, not ideals and rhetoric. Throughout the rest of Kennedy’s presidency, de Gaulle would continue to support a “Western European axis” of defense against the Soviets, which was largely opposed by Harold Wilson’s Labour government in the UK. The British continued to follow Winston Churchill’s position: that given a choice between the United States and France, one should always side with the Americans. This was especially pertinent in the wake of rapidly developing events in Rhodesia, where Wilson was immensely grateful for Kennedy’s support. Since the UK would not be eligible for entrance into the EEC again until 1969, Kennedy laid off on the issue, and focused his diplomacy with de Gaulle on restoring their relationship. This much was successful, and de Gaulle seized the opportunity to restore, as much as possible, France’s reputation as a secondary power. To that end, he offered to host the next summit between Kennedy and Khrushchev, scheduled for June the following year in Nice, rather than the United States. Initially reluctant, Kennedy eventually agreed, hoping the gesture would enable him to convince de Gaulle to reconsider his position on British entry into the EEC come ‘69.

Making matters worse for Kennedy, his administration’s success in Vietnam seemingly came with a price tag as well. On March 27th, 20,000 Buddhists marched on Saigon to protest against totalitarian and anti-free speech measures being employed by President Nguyen Khanh in the wake of challenges to the previous year’s election results. The election of 1965, the first under South Vietnam’s new constitution, had been a resounding victory for then Chairman Khanh, the head of the military junta. American media outlets reporting in the country estimated a Khanh landslide, with over 76% of all votes cast going to the young officer. When state media reported the Khanh triumph at over 90% of the popular vote however, accusations began to arise of possible coercion, ballot box stuffing, and other less than “free and fair” measures being employed to keep Khanh in power. An investigation by the United Nations into the election failed to discover any direct wrongdoing on the part of the government, but did make note of the squads of soldiers patrolling the streets at all hours, including on election day. The investigators concluded that even if no coercion or rigging was occuring, the background threat of force demonstrated by the massive military presence undermined voters’ confidence in the new government, and could not help but influence their decision. Secretary of State McNamara summed up the administration’s position on the issue in a blunt memo, directed to the President-elect: “Clean up your act, or find another country to pay for your guns, bombs, and hospitals.”

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: Britain struggles with a colony on the brink of war.
​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 19: Get Off My Cloud - The Origins of the British/Rhodesian Conflict ​

UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson was despondent. He was joined in his less than sunny disposition by many of his countrymen in the wake of recent events befalling the nation. The woes seemingly began right at the turn of the new year. Sure, things had begun promising enough as the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland met for the first time in 43 years on the 14th of January, but such attempts at progress were quickly overshadowed by grim tidings. Sir Winston Churchill, beloved hero, political icon, and symbol of rugged stoicism and Britain’s greatest triumph, suffered a stroke the very next day. Never the epitome of healthy living, Churchill would pass away on the 24th at his home, Chartwell, at Kent. He was 90 years old.

The news of Churchill’s passing struck the western world to its very core. During his lifetime, Churchill had served his country during both World Wars and had rallied the Britons to the defense of liberty in 1940 when, after the fall of France, they stood as the lone combatant against Nazi Germany. His “never surrender” speech and others marked him as one of history’s greatest orators, and one of its finest wartime leaders, especially as London faced terrifying aerial assaults from Goering's Luftwaffe. He was credited with seeing the allies through to victory over the Axis, and at the time of his death, was the last living of the “big three”: himself, Franklin Roosevelt and Josef Stalin. By decree of the Queen, Churchill was to be the first person in thirty years to receive a state funeral while not being a member of the Royal Family. Dignitaries and representatives from over 100 nations came to St. Paul’s Cathedral to pay their respects to the “British Bulldog”, including French President Charles de Gaulle, Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, former United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith, the last of whom would be at the center of Harold Wilson’s difficulties in the year to come…

The procession moved to Tower Pier where the coffin was taken on board the MV Havengore. Naval ratings 'piped the side' and the Royal Marine band played the musical salute due to a former First Lord of the Admiralty, Rule Britannia. As his coffin passed up the Thames, dockers lowered their crane jibs in a salute. The Royal Artillery fired a 19-gun salute (as head of government and as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports), and the RAF staged a fly-past of sixteen English Electric Lightning fighters. An American newspaperman covering the event reported tearing up at the display. “Never before,” he wrote the following day. “Have I ever seen such love, admiration, and mourning from a nation toward a single man. God Bless Sir Winston Churchill. The world will never see his like again.” During the subsequent funeral broadcast, Australian Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies, then the longest serving Commonwealth Prime Minister, and former President Eisenhower both eulogized Churchill and paid their respects. Across the western world, a deep sense of loss was felt. “The last of the lions” was put to rest that day, and the British Empire, already dead and buried, would soon be little more than a distant memory. A wisp of glory condemned to the history books the way Camelot was to its fairy tales. At least, that was the hope of Prime Minister Ian Smith, of Rhodesia.

Leader of the “Rhodesian Front” party in his native country, Smith had been elected the year previous by removing his ally and patsy, Winston Field from power and by asserting that a lasting "place for the white man" in Southern Rhodesia would benefit all of the country's people. The new Prime Minister said the government should be based "on merit, not on colour or nationalism", and insisted that there would be "no African nationalist government here in my lifetime". The first Rhodesian PM born not in the UK but in Rhodesia itself, Smith had only been to Britain four times before he attended Churchill’s funeral. He entered St. Paul’s not with respect for the fallen British hero on his mind, but rather, a desire to end the independence issue forthwith.

Throughout 1964, Smith had hoped that then Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home would be his opposite as the two nations entered discussions over Rhodesian independence. Home, while still a believer that decolonization should follow the principle of NIBMAR (“no independence before majority african rule”), had been willing to compromise on the particulars and let Smith’s government decide which parameters would determine whether the conditions of NIBMAR had been met or not. Unfortunately for Smith and the Rhodesian Front, Home was narrowly defeated in the ‘64 UK general election, allowing Harold Wilson and his Labour party to come to power. Wilson was far less accommodating of Smith’s “racist, hard right beliefs” and of the RF’s methods for proving majority African rule. Following Wilson’s election, Smith declared that a mostly white referendum held in October of ‘64 and an indaba (meeting) of tribal chiefs in favor of independence proved majority acceptance of his party’s aim. Wilson’s government and African nationalists rebutted that the indaba could not possibly represent the views of the majority of Black Rhodesians, and demanded further evidence. The new British Prime Minister vowed that if Smith and his government declared independence without meeting the conditions of NIBMAR, then there would be “severe political and economic consequences.” The situation became heated as Churchill was laid to rest in the winter of ‘65.

Smith and Wilson met in London after the funeral for two days of talks. Both sides hoped that the other would yield even slightly, so that a peaceful solution to the problem could be reached. These discussions broke down however, when Smith became convinced that Wilson was bluffing, and would not use military force against Rhodesia if it declared its independence. With assurances of continued trade from South Africa, which had recently left the British Commonwealth to protect its own racist regime; and Portugal, who despite the ancient Anglo-Portuguese treaty were not friendly with the Wilson government, Smith walked out of the conference with no solution to the problem, or any intention to find one.

Tensions mounted throughout 1965. Wilson warned Smith that no “UDI”, or unilateral declaration of independence would be accepted. Once again, he threatened “dire consequences” if his conditions and demands were not heeded. But still, Smith trusted in his neighbors’ promises of friendship, and made little effort to diplomatically resolve the situation. His government won reelection in May of 1965 on a promise of independence within the year. The RF won all 50 of parliament’s “A” roll seats, almost entirely through the votes of the white minority. Though many in the British government were earnestly interested in continuing discussions with the Rhodesians, Smith’s interest in fulfilling his campaign promise superseded his patience for bickering. On November 11th, 1965, after a consensus decision from his cabinet, Prime Minister Ian Smith declared UDI to be in effect for Southern Rhodesia from the United Kingdom. Colonial Governor Sir Humphrey Gibbs, under orders from Prime Minister Wilson formally sacked Smith’s government, declaring them “traitors and illegal usurpers”, but he was mostly ignored by the new government, who immediately sought relations with outsiders to gain legitimacy.

In this regard, they were almost universally unsuccessful. The UN General Assembly and Security Council joined Britain in condemning UDI as illegal and racist. By allowing Smith and his cohorts to secede successfully from the UK in Rhodesia’s current state, they reasoned, they would implicitly be condoning his government’s oppressive, minority rule policies. This worried U.S. President Kennedy and others, who felt that such actions would then inspire South Africa’s Apartheid government to see no need to change its own modus operandi. For their part, Wilson and his fellow Britons were shocked and outraged by Smith’s decision. For the following month, arguments in Parliament were dominated by what the UK should do to respond to Smith’s illegal declaration.

Black nationalists in Rhodesia, as well as their overseas backers in the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) clamored for the UK to remove Smith’s government with military invasion. Wilson and the Labour party rejected this idea, however, as the logistical reality of invasion proved daunting. Further, Wilson worried about the possibility of Rhodesia pre-emptively striking Zambia once news reached Salisbury, and over the psychological impact of British soldiers being forced to fight their former countrymen in the Rhodesian Security Forces. Hoping desperately to avoid war, Wilson instead drew up economic sanctions on the Smith government, banning the import of Rhodesian goods to Britain, and the transport of oil into the African country. When Smith continued to receive oil and other essential goods through South Africa and Portuguese Mozambique, Wilson dispatched a Royal Navy squadron to the Mozambique Channel in March of 1966. This blockade was endorsed by UN Security Resolution 221 the following month and for a time, tensions between the two nations seemed to cool, albeit slightly. The British Prime Minister and American President Kennedy both hoped that the blockade would be enough to pressure Smith out of power, but time would prove their wishes to be in vain. Even with the RN ships in the vicinity, most shipments made it through anyway, utilizing land routes and pushing Rhodesia onto the path to self-reliance.

What was more, the blockade caused issues of its own. On the morning of June 4th, 1966, the carrier HMS Ark Royal was carrying out search and intercept missions near the coast with its early warning aircraft when the sky was shaken by the sound of anti air fire. Several dozen rounds of ammunition were expended and within a minute, one of the British fighters was shot down. The pilot, 27 year old Lt. Archer Douglass was killed instantly as his Supermarine Scimitar crashed into the ocean after taking heavy fire from the guns. Assuming that the Smith government had ordered a strike against the Royal Navy’s blockade, the Wilson government reluctantly went to the United Nations Security Council and asked for permission to retaliate with force. The Council, appalled to see the British fleet fired upon, granted the permission almost immediately, though they asked that the Royal Navy keep the retaliatory strikes to a minimum necessary to restore order. The next day, reports reached 10 Downing Street that a second volley of anti air fire had shot down a second Scimitar. Another plane down, another pilot dead. Wilson sent an urgent telegram to Salisbury, demanding that Smith explain the attacks, on pain of invasion. No response presented itself as days melted into weeks. Public pressure mounted on the government to do something in response to the “murder of two of our boys!” This severely backed Wilson and his government into a corner on how to move forward. On the 18th, her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II called the Prime Minister to Buckingham Palace to discuss the crisis. Her private cohorts reported her mentioning the phrase “enough is enough” as she completed the summons. Shortly thereafter, Wilson appeared before the House of Commons, ragged, forlorn and with a look of tragic defeat spread across his face. “Hello my fellow Britons.” His short speech began. “I come before you in government today to inform you and the world at large that as of this afternoon, by Royal Prerogative, there now exists a state of war between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the illegal state of Southern Rhodesia. May God grant us swift victory over these traitors, and God save the Queen.”

President Kennedy, though devastated at the outbreak of war, stood behind his nation’s ally in their time of crisis. American forces would not be involved, but he offered Wilson every available aid save boots on the ground. Secretary of Defense Robert Kennedy ordered the CIA to share all available intelligence with the British that they could uncover in the region.“We want our friends to win this thing,” The President told his brother and Secretary of State McNamara in a private Oval Office meeting. “Get me the South African and Portuguese ambassadors on the phone, too. I’m going to tell them that if they get any funny ideas about aiding Smith, I’ll be the first one to request UN sanctions on them. So help me, I will run their economies into the ground! It’s one thing to make a power grab while the British have their pants down, it’s another to kill innocent boys while they’re just doing their jobs.” Kennedy banged his fist on the Resolute Desk, righteous fury burning clearly in his eyes. “Any questions?”

“No sir.” McNamara shook his head, silently glad to see his boss taking such a firm stand against these bastards.

When Bobby did not speak up either, the leader of the free world sighed deeply. “Very well, get to it.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.” Both Secretaries bowed their heads and departed, leaving JFK alone with his thoughts. True to his word, the President promptly called the aforementioned ambassadors and made his administration’s position on the war eminently clear. Both diplomats ended the call giving their sincerest assurances that no aid would reach the Smith government so long as war existed between the UK and the “rogue state.” Suspicious, Kennedy ended the call hoping he could trust their word.

What did not become immediately apparent as tempers flared, was where the anti air fire had come from in the first place. British recon failed to pinpoint the guns’ location, or even to identify who had fired them, and planes flying in formation with the lost fighters, trying to return fire reported poor visibility during their missions. In the heat of the moment, the British government was pressured by its people into blaming the most likely culprit: the Smith regime, and declaring war. This didn’t exactly add up to President Kennedy, who couldn’t understand why the Rhodesians would attack the British when the blockade had to that point been unsuccessful at stopping oil shipments anyway. It would take decades of intelligence gathering to learn the truth, but in the end, Kennedy would be proven right. It wasn’t Smith’s regime which fired on the Scimitars, but rather defectors of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA). Convinced that a British invasion would weaken the forces of Smith’s government enough to win the ongoing “Bush War” between them and the various rebel factions supporting socialist majority rule in the country, the defecting ZANLA forces saw the opportunity to create a crisis and force Britain’s hand. They predicted, correctly, that Smith’s government in Salisbury would ignore the British government’s wires, as they had been since stripping the Colonial Governor of his powers back in November of ‘65. Since Wilson had twice already “cried wolf” about a threat to go to war with his new nation, Smith saw no reason not to see the British threats as once again hollow. He denied that his government had anything to do with the shootings, but refused when asked by the UK and UN to launch an investigation in Rhodesian territory. From there, diplomatic options had been expended and Wilson was forced to go to war. Given the bloodshed and turmoil which would ensue in the next several years throughout Rhodesia, it would seem that ZANLA was successful in their aims, tragically so, even.

As war was breaking out in southern Africa, President Kennedy felt a tremendous weight building, like the static that permeates the sky just before a storm. More passionately in love with her than ever before, Jack could still almost curse Jackie for her damned jinx at his inauguration. Blue skies ahead for us. He mused to himself. Little Rosemary will grow up in a world where people fight and die because a few evil men wield power like a cudgel. It reminded him of something he’d said in a speech, years before: “Humankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.” That night, the President held his wife close and just lay next to her in bed, listening to her breathe. Despite leading a nation with the capability to destroy the world several times over, Kennedy felt utterly powerless.

He stood, abruptly rising from the tangle of bed sheets in a cold sweat. For a moment, the weight he sensed collapsed in on him and filled him with dread. Would anything he did matter, in the end? His back ached, he realized, as did his head. He couldn’t be just 49 years old, as everyone around him claimed. No. He’d seen and lived enough pain to fill several lifetimes. Tragedy was an old family friend to the Kennedys. One need look no further than Kathleen, Rosemary, Joe Jr., and his father’s ever deteriorating health to see that. Death, the old bastard had come for all of them, save Joe Sr. Even the reaper could be put on hold for Jack’s father. Maybe Father paid him off. Bobby had joked to Jack once. Christ. Jack thought. Even Bobby looks older now. He’s working so Goddamned hard. Death had come for Jack too, he didn’t forget. The fucker missed by a razor’s edge.

The President felt his wife’s hand on his shoulder, soft, warm, and reassuring. ”Jack, darling, what’s wrong?” In the dim light provided by the bedside lamp, the First Lady sat up. “Come back to bed, won’t you?”

Jack smiled sadly and turned to face his wife; now with confidence the love of his life. “What do you think they’ll say about me, when this is all over?” He asked her, uncertainty straining his voice. “When we move out of here and the historians write their books about me. What do you think they’ll say?”

At first, Jackie didn’t know how to respond. She was biased of course, what wife wouldn’t be when asked something like that? She thought of saying nothing, of asking him to forget it, but it clearly meant a great deal. Then, as though reading his mind, she uttered precisely what he needed to hear. “That you were a hero.” Her voice was firm, a stone in contrast to his wavering words. “That you fought with everything you had to be the best you could be, and gave this country every ounce of devotion you could manage. You’ve done so much good, Jack. You can’t hold yourself responsible every time something terrible happens somewhere in the world.” The First Lady pulled her husband close to her and squeezed. “You may be the President of the United States, but you’re still just a man. Any historian worth reading is bound to remember that.”

Years later, Mrs. Kennedy’s assertion would prove vindicated. Her husband would, in fact, go down in history as one of the nation’s greatest Presidents, but not before his second term tested his strength, courage, and resolve to their limits. There could not be blue skies just yet, not until the country, and its leader along with it made it through the crucible that was the 1960’s. - Arthur Schlesinger Jr., JFK.

.

Next time on Blue Skies in Camelot: The latter half of 1966 in the United States, and the Midterm Elections.​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 20: Ain’t Too Proud to Beg - The 1966 Midterms​

Above: Ronald Reagan, Spiro Agnew, and Governor George Romney, GOP Gubernatorial Candidates for California, Maryland, and Michigan respectively.

​

1966 was a strange year for the political landscape of the United States. At home, the New Frontier and War on Poverty were flying through Congress at breakneck speed. Though the President was not as young as he once was, and his charm may have worn thin for some, he retained enormous personal popularity. Polls had Kennedy’s approval rating sitting pretty at 70% at the start of the summer, right as the midterm races were really starting to heat up. On Independence Day, Kennedy signed the Freedom of Information Act, helping to expand public trust for their government. He projected continued easy confidence, despite the myriad of issues simmering just beneath the surface of national affairs. Abroad, for the first time since the end of the Second World War, relations were improving with the Soviet Union. The joint mission to the Moon, while still controversial, was underway and seeing rapid progress already, according to NASA. Yuri Gagarin, first man in Space made headlines the world over when he stepped off a plane at Washington’s Dulles International Airport in July. Along with him were more than two dozen Soviet scientists, aeronautical engineers, and cosmonauts, all of whom were “eager, thrilled” to work with their American counterparts, per Gagarin. Kennedy scored some “rally around the flag points” from continued operational success in Vietnam, despite the number of US personnel in the country continuing to decline. His brother’s extensive planning and eye for detail were proving to be godsends as calls for the President’s head continued at the Pentagon. Between inviting the Soviets to US soil to collaborate on missile technology and refusing to continue the buildup in Vietnam, JFK was just about the last person the Military brass wanted in the White House.


The United Kingdom, America’s closest ally, was now engaged in a war with a former colony in Southern Rhodesia, which changed the geopolitical dynamic once again. The United Nations was practically unanimous in its support of the UK’s decision to invade, especially so after the two jet fighters were shot down near the Ark Royal. In the US, however, some were skeptical. Senator Barry Goldwater (R - AZ), who was already positioning himself for a second run at the GOP nomination in ‘68, expressed his concern that the war against the Smith regime was a distraction from the true threat to global freedom: communism. “It is true,” Goldwater said in a speech on the Senate floor. “That the Smith government is responsible for atrocities and for lying about the mandate of its people. But should this truly be the primary focus of the west’s attention and resources? While our British allies send men and material to southern Africa to combat this third rate dictator, Khrushchev and his goon squad are laughing all the way to the bank. What happens when the Kremlin decide the ruse is up, and it’s time to strike at us and all we hold dear? Will the United Kingdom be ready to answer the call? Or will the United States stand alone, as they are too busy in a sub-Saharan boondoggle?”

The President shot back that the United States was “more than ready” to combat communism, in the event that it were necessary. “In the bold tradition of Lexington and Concord, we stand, eternally prepared to pay any price, and bear any burden for the preservation of liberty at a minute’s notice.” Kennedy said in a speech on the Fourth of July, outside of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. “Let every American rest assured, that the process of peace and warmer relations we have pursued with the Soviet Union is not a concession of defeat, but rather, a stratagem toward victory in this great twilight struggle. To those who would seek to isolate us, and break this trend, I can only remind them of the wisdom of the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, who asked ‘Do I not destroy my enemy when I make him my friend?”

Continuing his focus on achieving his agenda before the Congressional elections, President Kennedy signed a bill into law on October 15th providing for the creation of the Department of Transportation. Alan Stephenson Boyd was selected to serve as its first head, as Secretary of Transportation in the cabinet. The new department’s mission was said to be: “ensuring a fast, safe, efficient, accessible, and convenient transportation system that meets our vital national interests and enhances the quality of life of the American people, today and into the future.” Early projects included the expansion of the nation’s fledgling high speed railway system, which had originated in 1965 with overwhelming bipartisan passage of the High Speed Ground Transportation Act. Though the trains currently only had lines between New York City, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, Kennedy had plans of adding a route to Boston, and eventually expanding the program to include lines across the interior of the country. “Rails connect us, bind us together, and make commerce and travel easy and affordable.” The President said at the bill signing ceremony to create the DOT. “An investment today will mean tremendous gains tomorrow.” The initiative created widespread celebration and excitement across the political spectrum, except for diehard conservatives, who continued to decry the ballooning of the federal budget. Countering the right wing of his party, Senator George Bush (R - TX) described the rail project as “a worthy investment” and expressed his hopes that one day, such a line would exist across the Lone Star State as well.

...​

All in all, the Republican strategy for ‘66 was a simple one: avoid attacks on President Kennedy, or his popular economic programs. Focus instead on the “deteriorating moral fabric” of the country and the need for “law and order” in the streets. After a narrow defeat for Rockefeller and his “dime store New Deal” as Senator Goldwater called it in 1964, the conservative coalition at the heart of the GOP was ready to throw its weight around and make demands on the establishment. Striking a firmly conservative tone, candidates across the nation followed Ronald Reagan and Spiro Agnew’s lead in demanding “responsible leadership” in their state houses and in Washington. They pointed to growing protests and demonstrations not as symbols of progress, as Kennedy and the Democrats contended, but as “unrest” and “disturbances of the peace.” Hippies, as the kids were starting to call themselves, smoked pot, dropped out of school and collected government assistance instead of contributing to society. Responsible, hard working people were being asked to foot the bill while Little Bobby from down the street went to college on a government scholarship to be turned into a pinkie socialist. Meanwhile, access to birth control and in many places, abortion, was tearing the moral fiber of the nation at the seams. Pure, innocent women were becoming harlots, taking advantage of the new technology as an excuse to abandon their virtue. To many blue collar Americans throughout the nation, this rhetoric struck a deeply resonant chord. Why should they bust their asses while their neighbors’ kids got off easy and made a mess of things? The divide between generations made for great political theater, that much was clear. Even independent George Wallace got in on the action. When a “hippie” protester attended a Wallace speech and called him a fascist, Wallace shouted back that “I was killing fascists when you were still in diapers, squirt!”

Even the Civil Rights movement, the right wingers claimed, had grown too unruly for its own good, and needed to be reigned in. Indeed, the movement had grown increasingly violent in the wake of Malcolm X’s assassination and continued inequality. Frustration at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his brand of peaceful protest had boiled over in August when during a Civil Rights march in Chicago, a white mob counter marched and a rock thrown by the mob struck Dr. King in the head. This development came on the heels of CORE’s decision on the 4th of July to endorse the ideology of “black power”, much to the chagrin of Dr. King and other more mainstream Civil Rights leaders. Despite Washington’s efforts to legislate equality, and the President’s continued solidarity with the movement, it seemed like the country was being pulled, kicking and screaming through old wounds not yet ready to heal.


Following the attack on Dr. King, a race riot nearly broke out on the 7th of August in Lansing, Michigan as a protest by CORE and other groups led to a standoff with local police. In the sweltering summer heat, activists decried unfair hiring policies and wage inequalities in front of the Governor’s mansion. Just as fights were poised to break out, however, something unforeseen occured. Governor George Wilcken Romney, a liberal or at least moderate Republican of the Rockefeller mold, and long publically known as a supporter of the civil rights movement, emerged from the mansion, yielded his police protection, and waded through the assembled crowd to a podium to speak. Asking for silence, and eventually receiving it after fifteen minutes of standing stoically through jibes, hollers, and chants from the protesters, Romney proceeded to engage the activists in a dialogue about the issues and why they were gathered that day. Unlike the rest of his party in this election season it seemed, Romney expressed deep sympathy for the plight of the Americans before him. “I cannot begin to compare your experience with my own,” the Governor said, sadness in his eyes. “But people of my faith know a thing or two about discrimination and the fear of persecution. You see, I am a member of the Mormon Church, and since our founder first wrote our sacred text, we have been pushed, beaten, and shunned, much as you all are now.” He paused to gather his thoughts and collect himself. “I will not shut your protest down. I ask only that you continue to follow the example that Dr. King and President Kennedy have set for you. You may remain in front of my home as long as you like. The cameras are rolling and you are performing a great service for our democracy through your peaceful actions today. If you would allow me, I wish to join you, and march against these injustices that for too long have defined race relations in this country.” Stunned to silence, the crowd slowly began to applaud. It began with scattered clapping and gradually grew to cheers and a deafening roar of approval. Of all the things the young protesters expected to hear from their old, stuffy, white Governor, an offer from him to join and lead a march had been last among them. The event, called “the Lansing Miracle March” catapulted Romney, who was already a favorite for reelection in November into the national spotlight and earned him sterling praise from both sides of the aisle. Across the country, in Albany, Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, knowing he couldn’t possibly seek the nomination of his party to the Presidency again after what happened in ‘64, nonetheless needed a moderate to back against Goldwater when the time came. As the image of Romney shaking hands with CORE members and calling for “peace and understanding” beamed into his office on the evening news, Rocky smiled to himself with glee. He had found his man.

...​

On November 8th, election day came and went, and the results were not surprising. They were, however, disappointing to many. The party in power tends not to do particularly well in midterm elections, and 1966 was no different. Though they maintained their control of both chambers of Congress, Democrats yielded 49 seats in the House of Representatives to the GOP as well as three seats in the Senate. This perturbed President Kennedy, who with his shrinking control over his Democratic allies in Congress was beginning to worry about his ability to pass the rest of the War on Poverty. “If there’s one thing I refuse to be,” JFK said in a call to his brother, Ted, in the wake of the elections. “It’s a fucking lame duck.” Pundits blamed poor Democratic performance on several factors, most notably the success of the “law and order” rhetoric employed by their Republican opponents. The GOP also made inroads with typically Democratic demographics, targeting the aforementioned blue collar workers and white working class in the south. Running on “decaf” versions of George Wallace’s incendiary racial views, Republicans won seats in states like Florida, Alabama, and Georgia for the first time since the end of Reconstruction. In addition to the gains they made in Congress, the Party of Lincoln also expanded its control over state Governorships, picking up seven new seats there as well.


Among the Governors of the “Class of’ ‘66” were George Romney, handily reelected in Michigan, Spiro T. Agnew of Maryland, and Ronald Reagan of California. The former Hollywood actor faced an able opponent in Congressman James Roosevelt II, one that had both the resources and the force of personality to take Reagan to the mat. Polls showed the race sliding back and forth between the two throughout the fall, with Roosevelt using his experience of “results for the people of this state” as evidence that he was more qualified for the job than Reagan. The Gipper responded by asserting that “not all experience is good experience”, and insisting that the problems facing California were caused by insiders with “experience” just like Roosevelt. If the people wanted real change in Sacramento, they needed a plucky outsider willing to take on the corruption, the hippies, and the welfare queens. In the end, it came down to the wire. By a margin so slim it required a recount to verify, Ronald Reagan was elected Governor of California. In his acceptance speech, Reagan struck a conciliatory tone and thanked Roosevelt for a “spirited campaign that brought out the best of both of us.”


Across the state, as he prepared to concede the race, Roosevelt turned to his wife, Gladys and sighed. “This is it. After this, I’m done with this damn game.” After striving and failing for all of his adult life to live up to the glory of his family legacy, the Congressman was ready to ride it into the sunset, and enjoy what time he had left far away from the fight. Only time would tell if he would be allowed that mercy, however.

President Kennedy was wrong to worry that the ‘66 elections marked the effective end of his time in the Oval Office. Instead, they heralded the rise of a vocal new critic of his administration and a sign that the fight for the soul of America was only just beginning.

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: A Snapshot of Foreign Affairs from 1965 - 1966.​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 21: My World is Empty Without You - Foreign Affairs 1965 - 1966
​

Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson had plenty on his mind as his flight departed Toronto International in June of 1966. His forehead ached slightly, and there was something about the cover of his seat that itched and made his skin crawl. He cleared his throat. First with a gentle cough and then with a tall glass of water. He leaned back in his seat and took a deep, refreshing breath. There were some in the opposition who would call this trip a vacation, Pearson was sure. Clearly, Diefenbaker has no frame of reference for relaxation. There would be no breaks from his duty on this voyage, he knew. He was not flying to the United Kingdom for a tour of Buckingham Palace from Her Majesty or for a round of golf in the summer sun with the Duke of Edinburgh, he was going to provide counsel to a friend and ally at war. Canada may be her own nation now, with her own destiny, the Prime Minister had said during the Second World War, but she remains ever tied to her old companion across the waves: Mother Britannia. For the peace loving Pearson, there was no chance that the Great White North would join the invasion of Rhodesia. She was simply too far removed from the conflict. Canada could however, send its leader to the Old World, to give advice, and discuss what a plan for peace might look like. If there was one thing that Pearson was known for internationally, it was his talent for brokering peace deals involving the British.


If nothing else, the journey abroad would give the Prime Minister a reprieve from the ongoing battles he’d been facing at home in Ottawa. Despite a small majority government and the general support of the public, Pearson was facing resistance to many of his initiatives. The Canadian Pension Plan, plans for a federally funded metro system in Montreal, and of course, Pearson’s signature legislation: Medicare, or universal health care for each and every Canadian, paid for by the government; such sweeping progressive reforms were naturally going to face some roadblocks in Parliament. As of yet most were getting passed, including Medicare, which would eventually make it through on December 31st of that year. But the fight and partisan politics grew tiresome to the Prime Minister. He knew the game, he had played it well himself while leading the opposition for years through Progressive Conservative governments. That doesn’t mean I have to like being on the receiving end of it. He laughed to himself, slightly. Pearson found less joy in making enemies than he did in earning friends.


Though from Ontario himself, the Prime Minister had convened the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1963, which officially made both French and English official languages of Canada. Pearson insisted that after him, Canadian Prime Ministers should strive to speak both languages, to better represent “our nation’s rich, and varied cultural heritage.” After decades of quiet conflict between Anglo-Canadians and Quebecois, the last thing the country needed was disunity in the face of the Cold War world. His premiership had also marked the unification and modernization of Canada’s armed forces, and the creation of new student loan programs to help Canadian students keep up with their American counterparts. Despite his success, Pearson knew that no matter how good he was at politics and managing domestic issues, his true talent lay abroad, in dealing with the other nations of the world.

Many in his own country and abroad compared him to John F. Kennedy, the energetic American President just south of the border. Both men served during a World War, pursued social reforms for their nations and peaceful relations with the greater world while also stressing the importance of strong national defense. Considering the American a close personal friend, Pearson joked in private that “we’re only alike because he’s been copying me.” Twenty years Kennedy’s elder, Pearson also had additional experience that JFK found to be endlessly worthy of praise.


It was this experience coupled with Pearson’s quiet strength that caused Harold Wilson to call on him for advice in the early days of the Anglo-Rhodesian Conflict. “Lester,” Wilson had said to the Canadian on a phone call the week prior. “We’re getting ourselves pulled into a real mess down in Africa. I could use someone with your… perspective on these things, if you could spare the time.”


Pearson had smiled, sensing as always the chance to reach out and gain a new friend. “Please sir, call me Mike. Lester is for bill signings and the swearing in. As for your ‘mess’, I’m happy to help. Where should we begin?”


As it turned out, the two leaders had a lot of ground to cover as Her Majesty prepared to give a speech on international television, rousing Britons to the defense of the Commonwealth. First and foremost was the matter of what to do with the rogue state if the invasion was successful. Some African nationalists went so far as to demand Smith’s head, “blood for the blood spilled by his racist hands!” they cried at rallies and on the radio. The British public sympathized with such desires, more than 60% reported that they “would like to see Smith killed” for what was believed at the time to be his regime’s attacks against the United Kingdom and her pilots. The Canadian Prime Minister, a former airman himself, felt great sympathy for the lads, but favored the UN’s official stance on the conflict: that first and foremost the UK was performing a peacekeeping operation by disarming a violent, antagonistic regime. Pearson insisted that Britain have not only a clear goal in mind for what constituted “victory” in a war with their former colony, but also a plan for ensuring NIBMAR in its aftermath. “Smith is a brute.” Wilson scoffed during an early meeting at 10 Downing Street. “There is no way that we can hope to negotiate with a criminal and a traitor.”


Pearson nodded and reached across the table to pour himself a second cup of tea. “Oh, don’t trouble yourself.” Wilson noticed and raised his hand, ready to get the beverage for his guest. The Canadian insisted.


“That’s quite alright, Harold. I can get it.” He poured steadily, but gently, stopping the stream of piping hot liquid just before reaching the rim of his cup. He eased himself back into his seat, drew a long sip, and responded. “Traitor he may be, and danger to the world he certainly is, but Smith is still a man, a human being, made only of flesh and blood, like you or me.” Pearson set the tea cup down and adjusted his bow tie out of habit. “If we answer violence with only ever escalating violence, we do not show the world that there is another way, a better way. We merely become like the monsters we seek to contain.”


Wilson puffed on his pipe. “Please don’t evangelize me, Les… Mike. I didn’t want into this damned thing in the first place. If it were up to me, we’d be containing him with sanctions and embargoes, not bombs. I thought we were past all this. Isn’t that what the UN is for? To prevent armed conflict?”


Pearson sighed. “Unfortunately, Mr. Prime Minister, we are past the hypothetical stage. Like it or not, your nation is at war. I am not here to evangelize, merely to make a suggestion.”


“Oh? And what would that be?”


Pearson stood and crossed the room to look out the large bay windows at the London skyline outside. For one of the few days of the year, the sun shone brightly overhead and birds could be heard chirping in a nearby tree. “Find Winston Field, extradite him to England, declare him the legitimate Prime Minister of Rhodesia. Work with local rebels to gain favorable position on the ground, and surround Salisbury.” He smiled, wily, even in his unassuming manner. “Then you issue an ultimatum to those in the capital: give up Smith and accept Field as Prime Minister, or face a direct attack. I have a feeling they will choose the more civilized solution.”


“And from there?” Wilson asked, somewhat intrigued by the Canadian’s plan.


“You hand Field the keys to the Kingdom, as it were. Tell him to form a new government, one that enfranchises the local population that helped to remove that tyrant, and pressure him to apply for membership to the Commonwealth. Then you can keep an eye on them and make sure they uphold every treaty and dictum that the UN places on them.” Pearson resumed drinking his tea and nodded, satisfied at his own train of thought. “I realize that Field was an accomplice of Smith’s in the Rhodesian Front, but I do not believe is of the same stock as your enemy. I think that when the time comes and you offer him a chance at redemption in the eyes of history, Field will make the right choice.”

…​

“I know darling, we have to get out.” Professor Tan De, formerly of Peking University, spoke in hushed tones hardly above a whisper. On the other end of a phone of dubious security, was his wife, Lin, whom De had not seen in several days. The capital city was the epicenter of a veritable earthquake in the People’s Republic, and the two had been kept apart by the oldest of human emotions: fear. De had good reason to be afraid. His was a most detested profession in the aftermath of Chairman Mao’s notification to the politburo on May 16th. In the basement of a friend’s apartment, De had wired up a telephone to contact his better half and assure her that he was still alive. “They haven’t found me yet.” He sighed deeply as he struggled to keep his hands from shaking. Come now. He thought in his father’s voice. You must be strong. “But Guo says they’re looking, and he’s not sure how long we can hold out.”


For the past month and a half, the “red guards”, radical groups of riled up students had taken to the streets with red bands around their arms and a thirst for blood in their hearts. They were doing the Chairman’s work, they said. Removing “capitalist anti-revolutionaries” from society, according to the guards, was the final step necessary for China to have its “great leap forward” and rise from the ashes of over a century of foreign occupation, domination, and humiliation. Only by purging dissent to the Maoist model, could it ever hope to succeed, they claimed. It would appear that father was right. De thought to himself. I should have known this day would come.


Throughout his entire life, the thirty-four year old English professor had thought that he was normal. In fact, he sometimes pondered if he was the quintessential man of his country, occupation, and time. A communist, of course, but never a fanatical adherent, De had prefered to think of himself as rather apolitical. He hoped that the upheaval of his father’s generation would end with his, and that any children he and Lin should have would grow up in a China devoid of the violence that had rocked his early years. Any chance of such a future died when the Red Guards shut down Peking University.

“Those representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Party, the government, the army, and various spheres of culture are a bunch of counter-revolutionary revisionists.” Chairman Mao had said in May, to secure his hold on power. “Once conditions are ripe, they will seize political power and turn the dictatorship of the proletariat into a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.” The aging chairman sought to grow his cult of personality further, De realized. After years of failed collectivization and the misery that had been the “great leap forward”, Mao was seeing his authority slip in favor of moderate reformers such as Deng Xiaoping. Fearing removal, Mao decided to use what sway and charisma he yet wielded to pull a page from the playbook of Hitler and Stalin: find a scapegoat to pin all of his failings on.


In the eyes of Mao and his red guards, it was people like De; academics, business-people, and artists who were keeping the People’s Republic from its righteous place at the peak of glory. By spreading free thinking, and western ideas about how to live, they were trying to put China back into the chains of foreign imperialism, the Chairman claimed. Further, traditional Chinese culture had become an enemy to overcome as well. Confucianism with its belief in filial piety restricted the love one could have for the state, as it insisted that love and duty toward one’s family outweighs even that for one’s country. Naturally, in a PRC which saw its only major ally, the USSR improving relations with the United States, the people of China would need to be totally and utterly united behind their government. This was a matter of national survival. As if this wasn’t enough to force Mao’s hand, the destalinization of the Soviet Union by Khrushchev and his allies had terrified the seventy two year old Chairman. If even mighty Josef, the man of steel, could be replaced and taken down from his pedestal, surely Mao was not immune to such worries.


And so it was that De had been told that all academic activity at Peking University was suspended indefinitely. He was ordered to report to a commissary for a new work assignment. After hearing news of Xiaoping fleeing the country to avoid a purge however, De thought it safer to disobey. In his friend’s basement for two days now, De was tired, dehydrated, and scared. “Please, just wait for me a little longer.” He pleaded over the line to Lin, whom he heard packing bags on the other end. “I will only be here until nightfall. Then I will run to you, my love.”


His wife, aware of the roaming mobs of red guards throughout the city, decided that their only chance was to make a run for it. Try and escape the city, make it to the coast and catch a ride on a ship headed for Hong Kong. Her sister, Shi, knew a man from the underworld. One who would take even the damned aboard his boat, for the right price. In his heart, De just hoped that price wouldn’t have anything to do with his wife. “I know you are afraid. I am too.” He shook his head, wishing this were all some terrible dream. “But we can make it. In Hong Kong we’ll be safe. With the money we’ve saved, we can escape to London, Paris, anywhere we wan-” De opened his mouth to continue but all he heard on the other end was a dial tone, the sound of a disconnected call. “H-hello?” He asked into the audial abyss. “Lin?”

Above the dial tone he heard footsteps from above his head. Guo? He silently prayed. No. He’s back too early. There’s no way he returned so fast in all this chaos. The footfalls continued overhead for a moment, each growing louder and more imposing than the last. The professor closed his eyes and held his breath, hoping against hope that whomever had come was just here to rob his friend. Looting had become a commonplace occurrence, and one that did not spell immediate doom. Anything was better than never seeing Lin again.


His illusions were shattered when a second set of boots joined the sounds made by the first. Shit! These were followed by another, then another, and finally by a fifth. They made quick work of searching the upper level of the apartment, De would tell by the pace of their steps and the spaces between them that this was not looting, it was a search party. They weren’t here to steal possessions, bane of the proletariat existence. No, they were here for him, and it wouldn’t be long before one of them thought to check the basement.


Desperate, De looked for a way out of his unintentionally created prison. The walls were cinder block and earth, no way he was digging through that without them hearing. The cellar was sparsely lit and empty save a simple wooden chair, the telephone he’d been using, and a crate of oranges Guo had purchased for his friend to eat. The professor’s fingernails smelt of citrus as they tore toward the only possible means of escape: a tiny window opposite the creaky stairs. Only one issue: the window didn’t open. No latch, no handles, no help. De pushed the pane with all his might, throwing his shoulder into the work. Despite his best effort, the damned thing just wouldn’t give. What was worse, he’d made quite the thud while trying and now the footsteps suggested he’d just sealed his own fate.


From behind, he heard a familiar voice and the rapport of a gunshot. “Professor!” the cocksure declaration of a red guard. “Going somewhere?”

De turned to see Song Wei, one of his former pupils pointing an AK-47 at the sky and then at him, smoke still billowing out of its barrel. “Wei!” he yelled and threw his hands into the air. “Please, you don’t have to do this.” He stared at the red band around his student’s arm in shock. Of all the blowhard, arrogant young adults he’d taught in his time at the University, Song Wei had seemed to De more of a practical joker than a protector of the proletariat. “I… I can give you money, food, anything you want!”


The red guard scoffed and fired into the ceiling again, causing De to wince and his fellows to laugh. “What’s the matter, gramps? Scared of a little peashooter like this?” He set the gun against his shoulders and cracked his neck. “Unfortunately for you, bourgeois that you are, I cannot be swayed by promises of material things.” He reached down and plucked an orange from the crate, tossing it to another red guard in his posse. “I’m only interested in ridding this country of traitors to the revolution.” He aimed the rifle at his former teacher once more. “Do you have anything you’d like to say before you are purged, so that we may be made pure once again?”


Tears formed in De’s eyes. This wasn’t supposed to be how his story ended. He was never a great talent by any means, but he was an academic, an intellectual! When his father died fighting the Japanese invaders, De’s mother had told him it was so that he could live in a country free of the tyranny of a foreign yolk. What good was his father’s sacrifice if all it bought he and China was another master, this one of domestic make? During the Civil War, he’d prayed that Mao and the Communists would make China prosperous, like they promised. Instead, they were instigating a reign of terror. One of the red guards approached De and pulled his hands down to rest behind his back. He couldn’t see, but he felt the rope tying him at his wrists, and the blindfold pulled over his eyes. “Please.” He said as the tears rolled down his cheeks. “Don’t hurt my wife. She’s a good woman. Never had anything to do with… capitalist propaganda or anything like that.”


Song Wei considered his teacher’s words for a moment. “I am sorry, teacher, but that is a request I cannot oblige. You see, in the past, I had to obey your every order. My work was to be written to cater to your standards, and every day I was supposed to please you. You were my elder, and that meant you were my superior. No more.” The red guard placed the rifle butt in his shoulder and aimed at Tan De. “Now, we are all equal. There is no respect unless it is earned in the eternal struggle against imperialist oppressors. Goodbye, you old fool. And may your dim, ancient way of life die with you.”


The last thing De perceived was a loud bang, followed by an instant of pain, then nothing. Darkness took him then, and the red guards prepared to leave their latest victim behind. “Grab the oranges.” Song Wei said with a smile. “Purging all these traitors is hungry work.”

“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” - Chairman Mao Zedong​

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: Marilyn, Music, and the Man in Black.

​

PS: Just wanted to take this opportunity to quickly thank all of you for your excellent suggestions, analysis, and ideas that have contributed greatly to this TL!

In particular, my private conversations with @historybuff have proven instrumental in helping me organize my thoughts, and he's given me quite a few great ideas as well!

​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 22: Good Vibrations - Marilyn, Music, and the Man in Black​

“I have an answer for you, Marilyn but it’s not one that you’re going to want to hear.” Dr. Robert Vice, with his unkempt hair and foggy glasses was just the latest in a series of stooges that the starlett had visited in the past few years. Gynecologist was the professional term for what he did, but stooge seemed to Marilyn a more apt description. “I know you and Joe are trying, and I’ve been rooting for you all the way, but after examining your charts and getting the x-rays back from last week… I think it best that you accept the reality of your situation. You have endometriosis, Marilyn. Between that and your age I can’t in good conscience recommend that you continue trying to have a baby. I respect your drive to be a mother, but the medicine just isn’t there.”


Frustration mingled with deeply felt sadness in the actresses’ stomach. “Come on, Doctor. That’s it? There isn’t an operation, or a drug I can take? I’ve been fighting this thing for years. All I want is to be a mom!”


“I’m aware.” Vice replied, wiping fatigue from his eyes and adjusting his spectacles. “Unfortunately the likelihood of any pregnancy you could develop not ending in miscarriage is severely low. If motherhood really means as much to you as I think it does, then there is another option.” He reached into his frumpled white lab jacket to pull out a glossy pamphlet. “There are always plenty of children on the streets and in the system who could use a good home. There’s nothing that says that adopting a child keeps you from being a ‘real’ parent. To that child, you’d be changing their entire world.”


“He makes a good point.” Joe DiMaggio sighed as he leafed through the pages of the pamphlet. He pointed to a forlorn looking lad on the inner fold. “Imagine taking this kid home and giving him a real chance, eh? We’d make sure he never goes hungry, always has someone to look after him when he’s sick.” He stood behind his beloved wife and wrapped his arms around her neck, gently. “We’d teach him to walk and talk, and when he’s old enough he’d call us ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ and everything. Come on, honey; whaddya say?”


Mom. Marilyn thought to herself, the word hanging on her lips. An unspoken wish, an unfulfilled promise. Throughout her career, she felt that her body had her trapped in a bizarre sort of abusive relationship. Without her looks and vivacious curves, she might not have ever gotten the chance to pursue her dream of acting, but with them she was, for a long time, overlooked, underestimated. Men, especially the directors and producers of Hollywood saw her as a fading beauty, an ex-bombshell whose power to put asses in seats was steadily declining as her powers of seduction and arousal went out to pasture. Her body also kept her from her greatest dream of all: motherhood. This damned condition of mine. She cursed silently. Why do you have to keep this last wish of mine from me? Her body gave her success, and pleasure to millions of men across the world, but it refused to yield up new life.


As Joe held her however, Marilyn noticed something she never had before. His arms weren’t nearly as thick as they used to be. They felt almost fragile, coiled as they were. Her husband was still active, jogged every morning before work and lifted weights in the evenings from time to time. But long gone were the tight, wiry appendages which knocked fastballs hundreds of feet into the air and out of Yankee Stadium for home runs. His body was getting old too. No longer could Joltin’ Joe head up to the plate and lead his team to victory. But Joe could still coach, no matter how old or tired his limbs became. Despite his physical limitations, he would be a leader on the Diamond, just in a different manner than he originally intended. He was still the world’s greatest living ballplayer, and God dammit, she could still be a mom!


“Alright Joe.” Marilyn said, managing after a time to smile. “Let’s adopt a baby.”


Two weeks later, the couple welcomed a three week old orphan into their lives from a foster family in nearby Burbank. A beautiful boy with eyes as blue as the ocean and hair like the bark of a chestnut tree, Joe insisted that he take Marilyn’s surname when they filled out the adoption papers. “He’ll be both of our sons.” Joe explained patiently and with love for the child already clear in his eyes. “But this is your dream, my darling.”


“Arthur Percival Monroe” was the name the couple decided on for their new son. Continuing their late night tradition of reading poetry and novels in the nude together, the happy parents to be had just finished T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, and felt that only the names of the great King and one of his gallant knights could fit their princely baby. Tears filled the actresses’ eyes regularly in their first few nights with “Percy” as they took to calling him. Late night tantrums and troubles with feeding were always ignored, so happy was Marilyn to finally have a child of her own, a life that she could care for, cultivate and make ready for an uncertain future.


It was just after putting Percy to bed for the night one evening in the summer of ‘66 that Monroe’s phone rang in the kitchen. Wrapped only in her fluffy, pink bathrobe, as was her usual habit, Marilyn made her way downstairs and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”


“Good evening, Marilyn. I’m sorry to bother you at so late an hour.” It was a voice familiar to Monroe after so many years. Her agent, Norman Brokaw had a distinctive manner about him when he had something important to tell her. “But I’ve got something big for you, and I think you’d love it.” The actress’ silence to Brokaw represented interest, and so he continued. “How would you feel about being in a picture? I know that things are busy with the baby and all. But this one shouldn’t take too long to shoot and seems like a surefire hit. The script is dynamite and Mike Nichols is insistent. You’d be perfect for his leading lady.”


Marilyn grinned. The prospect of working so soon after adopting Percy seemed risky, but Joe would keep a good eye on him, and she thought it best that her son grow up knowing that mothers could be breadwinners outside the home just as well as fathers could. “Very well, Norman. I’m intrigued. You may send the script over for my consideration.” The actress said. “Now that the baby’s sleeping through the night, I might have a moment to sit and actually read it. What’s it called anyway?”


Brokaw did a great job of putting sufficient oomph into the lackluster title to keep her interest, even have her excited to see what this project was about, anyway. “The Graduate.” His voice radiated giddiness. “It’s going to be magnificent.”

…​

Above: Ann Margret and Elvis Presley at their wedding. Attendee Johnny Cash reported “Never in all of my days have I ever seen two people more happy and in love.” The ceremony was rather tasteful and private for a union between two celebrities, and plans were made for the couple to buy a permanent residence in San Francisco, in addition to their mansion at Graceland.


“Oh man Chet, this guy is good!” Elvis Presley and Ann Margret were, in the eyes of those who worked with them, the best example of “puppy love” you could ever ask for. The King and his Queen held hands and sipped coffee on a green sofa while his producer, the aforementioned Chet Atkins played back fresh takes from recent sessions. Ann wasn’t involved in the process except to provide support and encouragement, but once filming of her two episodes for the first season of Batman were finished, she became a fixture around the studio; often bringing homemade donuts, fruit salad, and other goodies to the various musicians working on her husband’s latest album. Of all of these studio employees, one stood out above the rest: a guitarist from Seattle with big hair and even bigger sound named James Marshall Hendrix.

“Yeah Elvis, he’s… something alright. I asked him to just sort of riff around for a while, you know, and the next thing I know we’re all standing around the booth just listening.” Atkins’ eyes were filled with wonder as he rolled back the tape to play for his client again. “He’s got the amp making all kinds of feedback, but it doesn’t sound bad. It wasn’t an accident or anything, he just made it part of his playing. You familiar with that new blues-rock song, ‘Hey Joe’?”


“‘Course.” Presley replied. “It’s got a great sound to it.”


Atkins grinned ear to ear and paused the tape to prepare his two guests to take the revelation in. “Well I’d bet everything I own that you haven’t ever heard it done like this.” The producer pressed play and almost instantly, the room was filled with aggressive, wailing guitar and Hendrix’s soulful, urgent vocals.

Hey Joe, where you goin' with that gun of yours?

Hey Joe, I said where you goin' with that gun in your hand?

Oh, I'm goin' down to shoot my old lady.

You know I caught her messin' 'round with another man.

​

Elvis’ eyes went wide. It was like nothing he’d ever heard before. Rock n Roll had always been loud, fast, and driving, that was what had earned it its reputation as the devil’s music when he was first making his ascent up the mountain of fame. But Presley’s genre of music always exercised restraint. For every Jerry Lee Lewis kicking over a piano bench in a moment of libido, there was a Pat Boone releasing neutered covers, or an Ed Sullivan to make you sing to a hound dog in a tuxedo. (Presley had never forgiven the host or the Colonel for that one.) Even the Beatles, for all their long hair and new sound, still wore matching suits and spoke politely in their interviews. Their biggest hit so far in the States had been, after all, about holding hands (the horror!). Here, in Hendrix’s demo tapes, was Rock in a more primal, animalistic form. The careful restraint imposed on Rock n Roll by a generation unready for its full potential was torn away, the chains broken. In their place, was an entirely new breed of music, one which reflected the changing times of an evolving United States. The shrieks of Hendrix’s amplifier matched those of protesters under attack from the police at UC Berkeley. The lyrics’ tale of justice as a very personal force echoed the thoughts of many in the Civil Rights movement, frustrated at the snail’s pace of progress they were seeing across the country.


Taking it all in, Ann nodded approvingly. “This is really something, Chet. Who is this guy?”


Atkins shrugged. “His name’s Jimi Hendrix and he’s from Seattle, that’s pretty much all any of us can get out of him. He’s almost as shy as your husband was when I first met him. I wanted you to hear it, Elvis because I think there’s really something to this tune. If I can rub some sandpaper round the edges, smooth it out a bit, I think it could be a big hit for you.” He paused, trying to contain his excitement. “So what do you think? Will you record it?”


The King nodded, borrowed his hand back from Ann and stood. “Sounds good to me. But on one condition.” He pointed to the studio proper, on the other side of the glass barrier separating the booth from the microphones and other equipment. “I want this Jimi kid in there with me when I record it. I ain’t ever heard someone make that kind of noise with their guitar before. I don’t want to do this song unless I’ve got the same kind of backing he gave himself on it. Deal?” The producer gave his assent and within the hour, Hendrix was called in, told he was needed for a recording session that afternoon.

A legendary meeting for fans of rock music the world over, both were initially too impressed with each other to say more than a sentence in greeting. It was once they were in the studio, with work between them to bond over, that an easy friendship quickly spawned between the two. In a single take, both Presley and Hendrix gave “Hey Joe” everything they had. The raw power of Elvis’ voice blended seamlessly with the pure energy of the guitar player’s licks to create what would go down in music history as one of rock’s greatest anthems. As they wrapped up production for the day, Elvis took Jimi aside and smacked his shoulder. “If you don’t mind my saying, Jimi, you’re probably the best guitar player I’ve ever seen.”


Hendrix was thrilled at the compliment from a living legend. “Well thank you, Mr. Presley.”


“Please, call me Elvis.” The King smiled warmly and sat down, extending his arm to offer a glass. “You want some sweet tea? Ann makes a mean lemonade too, if that’s more to your liking.”


“Neither for right now.” Hendrix waved the offer away sheepishly. “Thanks, though. I’m glad you like the sound, Elvis. It’s nice to know that I’m not just making noise, you know?”

“Sure.” Elvis laughed. “They used to say that about me when I first made it big, if you can believe that. I was ‘just sound’, or worse ‘Elvis the Pelvis.’ They thought I was going to make the sky collapse or something. I was just singing songs and making music. New music granted, but still just music.” He allowed himself a swallow of Ann’s tea, savoring every drop. “You got a band you play in or anything? There’s no way a guy as good as you should spend his whole life doing session work.” He enjoyed this kid already, Elvis could tell. He projected sensitivity and a quiet, shy demeanor, all qualities that the boy from Tupelo, Mississippi was known for himself at one point or another. He figured he and Hendrix were kindred spirits, in a way.


“As it happens,” Hendrix raised his eyebrows. “A couple of guys and I have a little outfit together right now. We call ourselves ‘Buster and the Battery’, on account of me being called Buster as a kid and all of us being vets from the Army.” He shrugged, dismissive. “But I’m not really sure that there’s much chance of us going anywhere. I earn a better living from studio work than we’ve ever gotten from gigs.”


“Thank you for your service. It’s always nice to meet a fellow veteran. You play songs like that one we done today?” The King inquired, finishing off his glass and pouring himself another.


“All kinds.” Hendrix admitted. “But mostly, yeah. Blues-Rock all the way, hard, heavy, and loud.”


“Interesting.” Presley set his glass aside and rolled his neck to stretch out an ache. “Well Jimi, if all your friends in the Battery play half as good as you do, I’d be foolish not to take this opportunity while it’s here. After I finish working on this album, I’m set for another tour all over America, Canada, and England. Would you and your boys be up for being my opening act?”


For a second, the guitarist was speechless. Opening for Elvis Presley, the King of Rock N Roll himself was a surefire ticket to the big time. Hell, even The Beatles had warmed the crowds up for him on their recent tour all over the world. Breaks like this came, he knew, once in a lifetime and he’d be a fool to pass it up. “Elvis, we’d be honored to open up for ya.”


Elvis offered a hand for Hendrix to shake. “Well alright! I’ll make sure to keep you in the know about how things are coming along, and when we’ll be heading out, you hear? In the meantime, keep on playing that thing like there’s no tomorrow. You’ve got a gift, Jimi. Don’t ever let anyone tell you different.”


As he departed Chet Atkins’ studio that sweltering day in San Francisco, Jimi Hendrix felt something rare enough in his to that point tragic life: thrill. No matter what happened out on the road to Buster and the Battery, he was sure of one thing. It’s going to be one hell of an experience.

…​

Above: Johnny Cash, “The Man in Black”, outside of The Falcon, a theater in Cardiff, Wales. The photograph was taken by Bob Dylan, who performed alongside Cash that night. The pair brought the crowd to their feet with a duet of Dylan’s song “Girl from the North Country”. It was the last show of each of their respective 1966 European tours.


John Ray Cash, born February 26th, 1932 in Kingsland, Arkansas went by many different names to many different people. To those he considered friendly or familiar, he was “J.R.”; to legions of fans who turned out to hear him play his unique blend of rockabilly-country, “Johnny Cash”; and from music critics and writers he had earned a more foreboding moniker: the Man in Black. Country music’s greatest outlaw, Cash earned a reputation for spending time in jail for minor crimes and for playing music which cut through the niceties often associated with his genre, and spoke directly to the disaffected, the downtrodden, and the depressed. By his side in March of 1966, as he stepped outside for some fresh air after a concert at the Falcon was Bob Dylan, often seen as something of a rebel in his own right.


Unlike the older Cash, who’d spent his formative years picking cotton on a family farm and having the Christian Gospel ingrained into his bones, Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24th, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota to two Jewish parents: Abram and Beatrice. Dylan had taken criticism from his more devout fans recently over his decision to “go electric” for his newest record, Highway 61 Revisited. Previously the darling of the folk movement, Dylan was beginning to develop as an artist, and leave the burgeoning scene he’d helped create behind for a more complex and mature sound.


Together, the Man in Black and the Bard stood in the damp evening air and watched the clouds overhead cloak the night sky in misty secrecy. “You played great tonight, JR.” Dylan said to break the silence. From his pocket he produced a cigarette and a lighter. “You need a light?”


Cash shook his head. “Thanks Bob, you too.” He lit his own and together they smoked in solemn enjoyment of the gentle breeze blowing between the brick, pre-war buildings. “You better be careful, I might steal those songs of yours if you keep writing ‘em like that.” He inhaled deeply and gestured with his hand. “It’s poetry, what you do.”

Dylan chuckled. “I appreciate that. Play ‘em as much as you want, but don’t you go about stealing them at the cost of your own. You’ve got your own songs to sing, your own stories to tell, J.R.” He shook his head and let the smoke flow out of his nostrils while he thought. “That thing you do with your guitar when you play… your voice, your whole sound, man. That’s poetry in its own way. Compared to you, I’m just some nasal-voiced Jew with a dictionary.”

“You and I both know that isn’t true, but I’ll keep that in mind, Bob.” Cash pulled on the sleeve of his black stage shirt to reveal the weathered leather band of his wrist-watch. “Shit. I’ve got to head back in. June will be calling me out to do ‘Jackson’ anytime now.” He tugged his leather jacket back on and snuffed out his cigarette beneath the heel of his shoe. “Nice talking to you, Bob, and playing too. Next time we cross paths, we should do this again.”


“Couldn’t agree more.” Dylan replied, waving goodbye and leaning against a neighboring building. “Don’t be a stranger, eh? You ever work up the courage and ask Miss June to marry you, I’m the first person you tell.”

He sees right through me. The man must be the smartest musician I’ve ever met. Cash laughed out loud. “Will do. Take it easy.” With those few words, the Man in Black headed back into the theater to a standing ovation from the eager crowd inside. The boom-chicka-boom of his guitar swelled and his deep bass voice collided with June’s sweet intonations to create the illusion of an American freight train riding loose through the Welsh countryside. As he and June bowed and finished their set that night, Johnny Cash had no idea that his promise to Bob Dylan would ultimately prove unfulfilled. For that brief cigarette break would be the last he and the Folk Rock prophet would ever see of each other.


A few short months later, while driving his motorcycle home to Woodstock, New York from his manager’s house nearby, Bob Dylan would be run off the road by an oncoming truck and crash into the trunk of an ancient tree. The 25 year old Dylan, arguably the greatest songwriter in the world, was killed instantly. In the blink of an eye, Rock was deprived of one of its greatest stars. The fledgling voice of a new generation was snuffed out.

Rest in Peace: Bob Dylan

May 24th, 1941 - July 29th, 1966​

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: Two Americans stand at a crossroads.
​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 23: Strangers in the Night - Two Americans at a Crossroads​

Enrolling at Wellesley College, a private women’s liberal arts school just west of Boston in the fall of 1965, young Hillary Rodham was already making waves in the intellectual quarter of the student body there. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Rodham had grown up in the mold of an ideal suburbanite daughter by the standards of her time. Participating in softball and swimming, and earning countless merit badges as a girl scout, Rodham developed an early interest in politics which manifested in a position on student council throughout High School. This interest was fostered and encouraged by her father and high school history teacher, both of whom were fervent Republicans and Anti-Communists. Throughout her secondary education, Barry Goldwater’s book Conscience of a Conservative was a staple of Rodham’s backpack loadout, and when Barry ran for President in 1964, young Hillary was one of many “Goldwater Girls” who signed up to volunteer for his campaign.


Of course Goldwater’s candidacy that year was doomed. Nelson Rockefeller overcame his infidelity issue and managed to take the GOP nomination for himself, something that Hillary’s father, Hugh felt was “a damn tragedy.” For her part, Hillary felt somewhat relieved that Barry hadn’t gotten the nomination after all. Though she maintained the outward image of a devout conservative, within herself Hillary felt a growing conflict and awareness that perhaps her own political beliefs did not quite align with her father’s. More and more, she found herself questioning his hardline attitude at the dinner table, and sympathizing with the plight of women and African-Americans involved in the movement for Civil Rights. She summarized her feelings best to a friend and suitemate a few weeks after arriving at Wellesley: “I feel that I’m a mind-conservative, but a heart-liberal.”


“Are you a Democrat?” Her friend asked, trying to help Hillary figure her alignment out. “There’s nothing wrong with being a different party from your folks, happens all the time.”


That’s not it. Hillary knew. She couldn’t abide the recklessness of big government and the excess of the Berkeley type protests sweeping the country. Whenever she saw a protest at her own college, unless it was about women’s rights, she felt a compulsive roll of her eyes coming on. “I just want to be a Republican who believes in smaller, more efficient government but more progressive social policy!” She burst out, frustrated to her friend. “Rockefeller’s got the right idea, I think. But he’s too sleazy and self-interested.” She leapt up onto her dorm room bed and sighed. “Why can’t we have another Dewey or an Eisenhower in this Grand Old Party?” She threw up her hands. “Either it’s Goldwater, who’s too far right or Rockefeller and his ilk, and they’re knee deep in corruption.”


Her friend, unsure of what to say, stood and headed for the door. She had a date that night and she wasn’t going to miss it talking politics with a girl she’d only just met. “I don’t know, Hillary. Maybe you ought to run or something. Do like Smith did and show the boys how it’s done. Heck, her campaign was successful enough to get her on the ticket! Imagine how far our generation can go if we put her minds to it.”


Holy hell. Hillary realized. She’s right. No more did Rodham have to sit around and hope that some man was going to come along with just the right message and personal credentials for political office. She would not change majors, as she was briefly considering. Political science was ideal for someone who wanted to study law and one day craft legislation themselves. Yes. She grinned, excitement building inside her. She didn’t have to switch parties or do something dramatic to achieve the ends she wanted, there could be a place for her in the Republican party, after all. I’ll be a Rockefeller Republican for more than just the country-club members. She vowed. Small, reasonable government that hears the plight of the common man and woman, and endorses moderate, but steady social change. She wouldn’t attend any rallies like the liberals did on campus, but she would write editorials, call congressmen, and before long, seek to right any wrongs herself. A centrist crusader had an excellent ring for her, she decided. The only issue now was how to get there.


By the end of her freshman year at Wellesley, Rodham would serve as President of the college’s Young Republicans, the leader of the club’s “Rockefeller-Republican” faction. Throughout the ‘66 midterms, she and her fellow moderates would run an extensive letter writing and fundraising campaign for John Lindsay, moderate Republican candidate for Mayor of New York City and then Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke, who, in a landmark election, would become the first African-American elected to the United States Senate by popular vote. In a private letter penned in the aftermath of the GOP’s success that year, Brooke wrote that “without the help of Ms. Rodham and her fellow college students, my campaign may not have been a success at all. I can only assume that there are big things ahead for that young woman, and that the sky's the limit on what she may achieve, if she puts her mind to it.”

…
​

Across the country at Georgetown University, another young American, one William Jefferson Clinton was forced to come to a decision about his future as well. “Bill” as he was known to friends and acquaintances, had lived a rather different life from Ms. Rodham. Whereas Hillary had spent her early life in the comforts of Middle Class hobbies and suburbia, Bill had seen a rougher kind of existence, all beginning in a little town called Hope, Arkansas. After his father died in a car crash while he was but three months old, Bill’s mother, Virginia remarried one Roger Clinton Sr., a used car salesman who lived in nearby Hot Springs. The family moved there, and young Bill took his stepfather’s surname as his own. Though he found a family for himself, Bill didn’t have long to be happy, circumstances continued to shift beneath his feet over the next several years.


Roger, despite being an able provider was also an alcoholic, and deeply abusive to Bill’s mother and half-brother, Roger Jr. On more than one occasion, young Bill was forced to intervene on pain of violence to stop his stepfather’s drunken abuses toward the rest of the family. In a journal he privately kept throughout his early years, Bill expressed an intense desire to “get away from all this, and take Mom and Roger Jr. with me.” As his education reached the secondary level at Hot Springs High School, it seemed that he may have found his ticket out.


An avid reader, active student leader and natural musician, Bill found that he possessed a multitude of talents, each of which was tempered by his own inherent charisma. Teachers and peers alike reported on his ability to “persuade a cinder block to accept his point of view” if he set his mind to it. He ran for and won Student Council President, sang in the choir, and played tenor saxophone in the school band. At the last of these, he proved so adept that during his senior year he won first chair in the state band saxophone section. Accolades piled up for “Bubba”, another nickname from those close to him, and for a time he considered dedicating his life to music. This, along with medicine however were briefly set aside as he developed a third major love: public affairs.


Considering his natural inclination toward oratory and rhetoric, it seemed almost inevitable to those who knew him that Bill would take an interest in politics. A trip as a Boys Nation Senator to the White House to meet President Kennedy in 1963, coupled with watching Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech on television lit a fire beneath young Clinton. The inspiring words and soaring ideals expressed in the world all around him touched him in a way he’d never felt before. His anger, coupled with acute ambition drove him to one conclusion: he should study law and one day make a go at public office. Once in power, he would do everything he could to help families like his, ones torn apart by strife, substance abuse, and working class living, and help make the country a better place. All this was undoubtedly on his mind when he applied to and was accepted by Georgetown Law School for the fall semester of 1964. There, Clinton hoped to earn a degree in foreign service, political science, or even history. All in all, “whatever stood the best chance of getting him into law school.”


For a time, this seemed to be a consistent plan for Bill. As his first semester began, Clinton chose to forgo running for class President to focus his energies on volunteering for President Kennedy’s reelection campaign. The often grueling hours at the campaign office did a number on the young man’s grades however, and by election night, Bill was starting to feel overextended. That night, as the results from New York were made final and the election was called for the President, Clinton headed into Washington to grab a drink at Willie’s an aptly named little hole in the wall that he and his friends sometimes frequented for a date or a bite to eat. Exhausted and worked, he felt, down to the bone, there was only one item on the menu Bill had any interest in. “Scotch, straight, no frills please.” He told the barkeep, and slipped a crumbled wad of bills across the counter. Shep, the barman never made an effort to ask for ID. Cops didn’t frequent this part of the city, they’d be even less likely to on election night. Bill received his drink within a moment or two.


He shook the glass back and forth for a moment, enjoying the simple pleasure of watching the ice clink back and forth against its dingy container. It was the first time in months that he could lean back on the rickety barstool and think clearly. No door to door vote rousing or girls calling his apartment to worry about. Just him, a bit of the hard stuff, and some smooth jazz on the jukebox. Bill never drank much. He didn’t want to turn out like Roger Sr., but he made sure to make time to enjoy himself. At least, he had always in the past. Now he wasn’t so sure.


Days were filled with hard work, and nights with hardly restful sleep. Between classes, volunteering and trying to make friends, Bill couldn’t remember the last time he’d been able to just sit and take in a night. To smell out the air freshener in the corner, run his hands along the smooth, worn wood of the bar, and tap his feet to the low murmuring of a jazz band pressed on vinyl. When did the simple things get traded out for the complicated world of politics and activism? He quietly pondered. Was it winning student council elections in High School? Or shaking the President’s hand and hearing Dr. King? Was it really a quest for a better world that drove him, or some sort of dubious desire to be well liked and popular? There’s nothing wrong with America that can’t be fixed by what’s right with America. He’d written that in an essay for public affairs class earlier that semester. Bill thought it sounded like something President Kennedy might have said, or at the very least maybe former Vice President Johnson. A fitting message for a real campaign speech. His professor had disagreed, slapping Bill’s paper with a “C” grade.


Maybe if that’s the case, he thought as he sipped his scotch. Then it doesn’t need me to spend my life trying to guide it along. He thought back to his tenor saxophone, lying dusty and discarded beneath his messy bed, tucked away in its leather case. Oh how great it would be to unwind, inhale a little marijuana and just make music again. His feet longed for rhythm and his ears for melodies. His heart thumped to a jazzy beat, Bill realized. There was no amount of campaigning that could change that about him. There would always be a President Kennedy or someone like him out there to fight the good fight and make things right. Bill didn’t need to worry himself being that someone.


After finishing that semester, Bill Clinton dropped out of Georgetown and bought himself a used Rambler American automobile. He put the car up on the highway and set a course for Detroit. There, he would make a name for himself in some jazz clubs and try and scrape out a living as a session musician. Loaded in the sleek, compact body of his Rambler were a tenor saxophone, a suitcase full of scraggly looking suits, and a young man from a little town called Hope, with eyes as big as stars and a dream on his heart. What could be more American than that?

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: A Peek into the Pop Culture of 1966
​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Pop Culture in 1966: To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before

Billboard’s Year-End Hot 100 Singles of 1966 (Top 10)
​

1. “Cherish” - The Association​
2. “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration” - The Righteous Brothers​
3. “Reach Out I’ll Be There” - Four Tops​
4. “Hey Joe” - Elvis Presley (feat. Jimi Hendrix)​
5. “Last Train to Clarksville” - The Monkees​
6. “We Can Work It Out” - The Beatles​
7. “California Dreamin’” - The Mamas and the Papas​
8. “You Can’t Hurry Love” - The Supremes​
9. “When a Man Loves a Woman” - Percy Sledge​
10. “Paint it, Black” - The Rolling Stones​

News in Music, Through the Year​

January 14th - Young British singer David Jones changes his last name to “Bowie” to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees.

January 17th - Simon and Garfunkel release Sounds of Silence, to commercial and critical success.


February 17th - Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys begins recording “Good Vibrations” with the Wrecking Crew, continuing for several months and marking the launch of the acclaimed Smile sessions.


February 19th - Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin perform at the Fillmore for the first time.


March 4th - The Beatles’ John Lennon is quoted in the London Newspaper, The Evening Standard as saying that the band was now more popular than Jesus. In August, following publication of the remark in Datebook, there are mass Beatles protests and record burnings across the Bible Belt in the United States. When one is being organized in Memphis, Elvis Presley speaks out against the burnings saying “Sure, it was a boneheaded thing for John to say, but he has the right to say it, don’t he? It’s a free country!”

April 11th - First public performance in the Metropolitan Opera House, of Giacomo Puccini's La fanciulla del West, though the official opening of the new opera house would not take place until September 16.


April 23rd - For the first time since its January 18, 1964, issue, the Billboard Hot 100 chart fails to have an artist from the UK with a Top 10 single, ending a streak of 117 consecutive weeks.


May 1st - The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who perform at the NME poll winners’ show in London.


May 6th - The first issue of Džuboks, the first Yugoslav magazine dedicated to rock music and the first rock magazine in a socialist country, is released.


May 13th - The Rolling Stones release “Paint It, Black” the first number one song in the US and UK to feature a sitar, played by Brian Jones.


June 1st - The Doors, a new band formed by Jim Morrison in Los Angeles, play their first ever gig at the Whiskey A Go-Go, where they open for Them, featuring Van Morrison.


June 18th - A young session musician named Jimmy Page replaces Paul Samwell-Smith as bassist for British Rock group the Yardbirds.


July 2nd - The Beatles become the first musical group to perform at the Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo, Japan. Protests are formed against the performances, as some locals felt that it was inappropriate for a Rock n Roll group to play at Budokan.


July 29th - Bob Dylan is killed instantly in a Motorcycle accident near Woodstock, New York. He is mourned by millions of fans the world over and goes on to achieve mythic status within the realm of Rock music.

July 31st - British Supergroup Cream, consisting of Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce debut in London alongside the Yardbirds. The two acts help to usher in the “Psychedelic age” of Rock Music.


August 5th - The Beatles release Tomorrow Never Knows, featuring such classics as "Yellow Submarine" and "Dr. Robert", adding to the year’s growing Psychedelic sound.


August 11th - John Lennon appears at a press conference in Chicago, apologizing for his “unfortunate” remark. He writes to Elvis that the band are considering an indefinite end to touring. The King begs them to reconsider, telling them “the road is the lifeline of any Rock n Roll act.”


August 25th - Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck falls ill, allowing bassist Jimmy Page to replace him on Lead Guitar for the band’s show that night at the Carousel Ballroom.


September 12th - The Monkees’ first episode debuts on NBC television.


September 23rd - Featuring Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page on dual lead guitars, The Yardbirds begin a tour of the UK opening for the Rolling Stones.


October 4th - Elvis and his opening act, Buster and the Battery, reach the UK leg of their tour. Jimi Hendrix and his band decide to stay in London to cut a record with producer Chas Chandler.


October 22nd - The Supremes become the first all-female group to top the Billboard Hot 200 album chart with The Supremes-A-Go-Go.

November 9th - Avant-garde artist Yoko Ono stays home ill from the preview of her art exhibit at the Indica Gallery in London, complaining of a bad cold.


November 30th - Jeff Beck announces his permanent departure from the Yardbirds, allowing Jimmy Page to become the group’s sole lead guitarist. From this base, he will create a new, far more influential hard rock band.


December 1st - John Lennon meets Swiss actress and sex symbol Ursula Andress at the release of her new film Once Before I Die in London. Recently divorced, Andress begins a quiet affair with Lennon that will eventually lead to the breakup of his marriage as well.


December 6th - The final series of recording sessions for the Beach Boys’ Smile begin to wrap up. Brian Wilson and Mike Love report a growing rift between them, but insist that the band will soldier on and tour to promote the new album when it is released.


December 9th - The Who release their first album, A Quick One.


December 16th - Buster and the Battery release their first single in the UK, their own version of “Hey Joe” with Hendrix singing lead.

1966 in Film: The Year’s Biggest
​

The Bible: In the Beginning… - Biblical Epic/Drama. Directed by John Huston and starring Michael Parks, Ulla Bergryd, and Richard Harris. The first in a planned series of films telling the stories of the Old Testament, In the Beginning starts things off with Genesis. Reviews are moderately positive, though many critics are disappointed by the film’s “heavy handedness”.


Hawaii - Historical Epic. Directed by George Roy Hill and starring Max Von Sydow and Julie Andrews. Hawaii tells the story of an 1820s Yale University divinity student who, accompanied by his new bride, becomes a Calvinist missionary in the Hawaiian Islands. It was filmed at Old Sturbridge Village, in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, and on the islands of Kauai and Oahu in Hawaii. Lauded by critics and audiences alike, the film wins multiple Golden Globe awards for its cast and costume design.


The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - Spaghetti Western. Directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood. Seen presently as one of the greatest western films ever produced, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly initially received mixed reviews upon release. Eastwood’s third collaboration with Leone, the concluding film of the Dollars trilogy was the most financially successful for the pair.


A Man for All Seasons - Biographical Drama. Directed by Fred Zimmermann and starring Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller, Leo McKern, and Orson Welles. The film depicts the final years of Sir Thomas More, the 16th century Lord Chancellor of England who refused to sign a letter asking Pope Clement to annul King Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon and refused to take the oath of supremacy declaring Henry the head of the church of England.

Everyone’s Favorite Television Programs in 1966​

Star Trek - Starring William Shatner, DeForest Kelley, and Leonard Nimoy.

Batman - Starring Adam West, Burt Ward, and Julie Newmar.

The Green Hornet - Starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee.

Hogan’s Heroes - Starring Bob Crane.

Get Smart - Starring Don Adams, Barbara Feldon, and Edward Platt.

1966 in Sport​

June 8th - The AFL and NFL reach an agreement to merge as equals into one league under the NFL name, to take effect with the 1970 season.

AFL Championship Game: The Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Buffalo Bills 31 - 7.


NFL Championship Game: The Green Bay Packers defeat the Dallas Cowboys 34 - 27.
​

The Miami Dolphins joined the AFL and the Atlanta Falcons joined the NFL this year as well.




The World Series: The Los Angeles Dodgers win their second straight World Series, 4 games to 3 against the Baltimore Orioles. Recent Dodgers acquisition Roberto Clemente is named World Series MVP, and batting coach DiMaggio suggests that Clemente might be "the best since I played the game myself!"

NBA Finals: The Boston Celtics pick up an unprecedented fourth straight championship after defeating the Los Angeles Lakers 4 games to 3.

​

Stanley Cup: The Montreal Canadiens follow up their championship in 1965 with a second cup victory over, this time over the Detroit Red Wings, beating them 4 - 2.

​

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year: “The Inheritor” - Representing the Baby Boomer Generation, aged 25 and under. ​

Nobel Laureates - 1966

Physics - Alfred Kastler

Chemistry - Robert S. Mulliken

Physiology or Medicine - Peyton Rous and Charles Brenton Huggins

Literature - Shmuel Yosef Agnon and Nelly Sachs

Peace - None awarded in 1966

Other Pop Culture Highlights and Headlines of the Year​

August - The Lunar Orbiter 1, the first American spacecraft to orbit the Moon, is launched by NASA as part of its joint mission to the Moon with the Soviets. In November, Buzz Aldrin and Jim Lovell complete the last of the Gemini Mission flights by performing several experiments while in orbit. NASA and the Soviet team are tirelessly at work to complete Kennedy and Khrushchev’s goal of a Moon landing before the end of the decade.

Cassius Clay defeats Henry Cooper in two title bouts in the United Kingdom.

In Italy, Pope Paul VI meets with Arthur Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This represents the first official meeting between the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches in 400 years.


England defeats Germany to win the 1966 World Cup Final!

Kevlar is invented in the United States by Stephanie Kwolek and Fibre Optics in the UK by Charles Keo and George Hockham.


President Kennedy casually admits to being a fan of Star Trek during a press conference, granting the show a boost in ratings during its mid season slump.

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: A return to U.S. politics​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 24: I’m a Believer - JFK, Jerry Falwell, and the New American Crusade​

Above: President Kennedy addresses US Servicemen as they return home from South Vietnam. The administration’s withdrawal plans called for all American personnel to be out of the country by the end of the year. (Left). Evangelical Southern Baptist preacher Jerry Falwell speaks at the opening ceremonies of the Lynchburg Christian Academy, a segregated school opened by his Thomas Road Baptist Church in Virginia. (Right.)


The dawn of a new year brought both tremendous promise and trepidation to an American people increasingly aware of divides within their society. In Washington and state houses across the country, change was once again on the way as the Democratic party staved off an insurgent GOP and the New Deal Coalition continued to crack and fade in the shifting sands of domestic politics. As was becoming the norm for the turbulent decade, marches and demonstrations were planned across the country. The Civil Rights Movement had achieved a great deal in the name of greater freedom and equality for African-Americans and other minority groups, yet obstacles persisted nonetheless. For one thing, the movement itself was fracturing along lines of methodology. Followers of Martin Luther King Jr. and other proponents of non-violent protest were being questioned by the increasingly popular “Black Power” movement, personified by the Black Panther Party and their rhetoric of taking what was rightfully theirs by force. The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act had been great steps forward, but race relations were a complex issue, and expecting that legislation alone could sew up the wounds of centuries of mistreatment was setting oneself up for disappointment.


Particularly pertinent in 1967 was the issue of housing discrimination across the United States, particularly in the South. Since the passage of the first Jim Crow laws in the aftermath of the Civil War, white landlords and renters had been able to refuse to rent out or sell property to African Americans. This practice was struck down in 1917 by the Supreme Court case Buchanan v. Warley as unconstitutional, yet persisted when nineteen states legally allowed so called “covenants”, or agreements between property owners not to rent or sell homes to racial and ethnic minorities. These covenants too, were declared in 1948, but the practice was not banned in private deeds and agreements. This lack of a ban on housing discrimination, even in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, proved a major issue for African Americans seeking better living accommodations as they attained higher incomes and a broadly better quality of life throughout the Kennedy years thanks to the still booming economy. With Voting Rights secured, the movement began to push for a “housing bill” and turned to the President to champion yet another piece of legislation for social progress and advancement.


President Kennedy, eager to disprove his critics and demonstrate his continued potency as the nation’s Chief Executive, jumped at the challenge the bill represented. Adding it to the list of goals left to complete before the end of his administration, the President reached out to Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and asked him about the possibility of getting a housing bill passed in the current political climate. Mansfield replied with concrete confidence and certainty: “Mr. President, with the economy running like it is, and the boys coming home from that damned jungle, I’d say your chances are looking pretty good.” Further, Mansfield believed that though the Civil Rights Movement had earned some bad press in the wake of the Watts riots and other violence throughout the previous year, bipartisan support for its goals, if not its methods, remained relatively high. Southern Democrats in the Strom Thurmond mold continued to vehemently oppose it, of course, but there was not much that could be done about that. The crucial swing votes, Mansfield insisted, were intact. House Speaker John McCormack concurred, telling Kennedy that any bill he backed to end bigoted housing practices would make it through the lower chamber of Congress as well. Satisfied with the legislation’s prospects, the President gave the bill the go ahead, seeing it introduced to the House by Congressman Emanuel Celler (D - NY) in the first few weeks of the 90th Congress’ tenure.

…​

Though the President and his allies in Washington were working to once again expand inclusion of African Americans in society, just 180 miles south, another battle was being launched, this one toward exactly the opposite end. Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and along the banks of the James River, Lynchburg, Virginia was a sleepy city of some 65,000 and home to the Thomas Road Baptist Church. Boasting of a congregation of several hundred members, the church had been founded by its bombastic Pastor, Reverend Jerry Falwell and thirty four other disaffected evangelicals back in 1956. Committed to a conservative worldview, Falwell had managed to cultivate his small community into a successful venture, expanding from just a worship house to build Lynchburg Christian Academy in the winter of 1967. This new school, dedicated in Falwell’s words to “providing members of our congregation with a Christian alternative in education” was little more than an excuse to construct a segregated school in modern Virginia.


Falwell’s views on race were “old fashioned” to say the least in a nation rapidly progressing toward egalitarianism. In speaking of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, Falwell said:


“If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God's word and had desired to do the Lord's will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never had been made. The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line.”


A longtime personal friend and supporter of former Alabama Governor George Corey Wallace, Falwell was not at all surprised to receive a call from him on a brisk January morning, as Falwell was finishing lunch and his midday prayer. “Governor Wallace,” Falwell grinned and let his southern drawl drip over the line like icing down a cake. “I do declare that this is a particular honor. To what do I owe the pleasure of speaking to you this morning?”

“Nice to speak to you too, Reverend.” Despite his capacity for charm when the need arose, Wallace wasted little time on pleasantries. The nation he and Falwell had grown up in, the one Wallace had plans to save, was rapidly deteriorating before their eyes. Hippies had, two days before on the 14th, completely overrun the Golden Gate Park Polo Fields in San Francisco, at an event they called the “Human Be-In”, a mass celebration of free love, psychedelic music, and mind altering drugs like LSD. It was at this event that Timothy Leary would utter his famous maxim for counterculture of the era: “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Wallace watched coverage of the event on television with his children and wife, then current Alabama Governor, Lurleen, and was absolutely disgusted. The images of “unwashed, savage kids” in their long hair, roman sandals and beads singing songs of rebellion and practicing lewd sex well within the public eye, rose a great deal of cain for the self professed segregationist. Only a minute into their call, Wallace confirmed that Falwell too, had seen the footage and was equally disturbed. “I’m telling you, Father, these damned anarchists ought to be shot.”


“I don’t know that I’d go that far.” The Preacher laughed. “But I agree that their behavior is unacceptable. Something really ought to be done about it. Police called in to break up the riots, put these kids back in their place. Wasn’t Governor Reagan sworn in on the 2nd?” Falwell asked, hope plainly evident in his voice. “He seems like just the man to fix the problems they’ve been having out there on the West Coast, if you ask me. It’s a real shame we can’t get anyone like that to run for President. The Good Lord knows that the country could use some law and order.”


For Falwell and his flock, the recent trends in American society needed to be stopped not just because they presented a challenge to christian ideals like purity and restraint, but because they undermined America’s position as God’s chosen country. Ever since the puritans boarded the Mayflower and built their settlement near Plymouth Rock, to Falwell, the New World had been a blank slate, granted to the White man by Divine Providence to serve as the bedrock for a new Kingdom, one built squarely in the image of his omniscient will, devoid of the sin and hierarchy of the Old World. Here, in the bountiful once-wilderness of America, man could strive to build a nation worthy of the legacy of Christ. But now? Falwell was unsure if his beloved country was still living up to its potential.


“I’m glad you feel that way, Reverend.” On the other end of the line, a deep, satisfied grin spread across the face of George Corey Wallace. “Because I happen to be preparing to run for President myself. I called to ask if you would help me in my endeavor.”


“Me?” Falwell replied, flattered and flabbergasted in equal parts. “Well Governor, I’m humbled, but confused. You surely must have powerful friends all across the country. Your run last time ‘round was an inspiration to true conservatives throughout the South. Why turn to someone like me before even announcing your campaign?”


Wallace nodded, this was a question he had expected, prepared for. “Because Reverend, I’m not just running for President this time. I have bigger plans, and I need someone with your set of skills, your tenacity, your dedication, your faith, to help me see them through.”


“Bigger than running for President?” Falwell guffawed. “No offense, Governor, but I must remind you that pride goeth before the fall. I believe that with the proper support you could make a solid run at the White House, maybe even force the thing into the House of Representatives like you planned in ‘64. But winning outright would be impossible unless you win the backing of one of the major parties.” The very thought nearly made the Minister gag. Neither the Democrats, nor the Republicans, the party he had happened to support throughout his adult life, seemed particularly willing to tackle the problems facing the country into the latter half of the 20th century. Sure there were glimmers of hope like Reagan here and there, but in terms of national politics, conservatism seemed mostly dead in the water.


Most of the speculative GOP candidates for President in the next year’s election seemed hardly any less liberal than the likely Democrats. George Romney, for instance, the good looking, slightly graying Governor of Michigan had led the “miracle march”, a name Falwell found almost as distasteful as the event itself. It wasn’t a damned miracle. He had told himself bitterly after it happened. Just a damned n****r lover trying to peddle votes. Even Barry Goldwater, conservative icon and Senator from Arizona, was more socially liberal than Falwell felt comfortable with. Earlier in 1966, Goldwater came out in favor of a woman’s “right” to an abortion, and said that “religion has no place in politics, Presidential or otherwise” when asked in 1960 if then-Senator Kennedy’s Catholicism disqualified him from the Presidency. To a self-professed “political preacher” like Falwell, such opinions were blasphemous. Only we Godly men can lead this country toward its destiny. “Are you seeking the Democratic nomination then, Governor?”


“Not quite, Reverend. Nor am I seeking the Republican nod, either. No, I think the time has come for us as a nation to admit that our two party system has failed us. If neither party is willing to look frankly at solutions to the violence and debauchery flooding our streets, perhaps the time has come for a new party to rise in their place.” Wallace leaned back in his favorite armchair and worked himself up to deliver the fever pitch of his call. I always was a damned good salesman. He thought smugly to himself. “Reverend, I want to be the founder of a new, decidedly conservative party. Not just for my own quest for the Presidency, but all the way down to the grassroots themselves. I want Mayors, aldermen, Governors, Senators, all paying homage to the great cause we’d represent. I think that together, with your connections to the religious right in our fair country, and my skill at pitchman-ship, we could change the face of political life in America forever.” He let the offer sink in for a moment, not wanting to rush his prospective partner. “So Father, what do you think?”


Falwell was silent, stunned, and thrilled at the proposition laid before him. Knowing there would be mountains of work ahead if he was to see this crusade to save his country through, the Minister did not delay. “I only have one question, Governor.” He placed his hand on his bible and flipped to a favorite verse. Psalms 118:6: ‘The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?’


“Of course, Father, what is it?” Wallace responded, realizing he had done his part in convincing Falwell.


“When do we begin?”

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: Tensions rise as the Space Race becomes a cooperative struggle. ​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 25: Light My Fire - The Soviet-American Moon Mission Gets Heated​

Above: Astronaut Neil Armstrong of Wapakoneta, Ohio, and Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov of Tisulsky, USSR, two of the several men selected to work on the joint American-Soviet Moon Mission.


Thirteen stripes of red and white, alternating between the two colors to represent the thirteen original colonies which broke away from Great Britain in 1776. A field of blue sky containing fifty stars, each one representing a state; a region of people with their own distinct culture and history who came together to form one united nation from their massive differences. E Pluribus Unum, from many one, went the national slogan of the Americans. Alexei Leonov appreciated the symbolism and sentiment of the American flag, even if he’d been taught for all his life to despise it. There’s something charming about it. Leonov thought. Thinking that people fit together so naturally, like pieces of a puzzle, or the weave of cloth.

Back home, Leonov reflected, the Soviet Union had something of a similar path to nationhood, as it were. Born like America in the fires of revolution, the USSR represented both to its own people and abroad, the exemplar of a new ideology, and at that, one dedicated to equality, to freedom. Of course, to the Soviets, definitions of these ideals were drastically different than they were to their American counterparts. Did freedom mean liberty from imperialist domination, or the ability to belong to a political party other than the one of your father? Did equality mean that no single man could claim a crown over the peasants beneath him, or that a crown could be bestowed, but only by the will of his peers? As different as the answers are, at least we’re asking the same questions. Leonov thought. Why should I hate a man just because he happens to be born somewhere different than I? The cosmonaut grappled with such thoughts as he toiled away on the joint Moon Mission in Houston, Texas through the winter of 1966 and into 1967.


To Leonov, and anyone else who was paying attention to the project, its very survival and solvency seemed perilous from the start. After surviving public scrutiny in Congress thanks to President Kennedy’s well received television address, the project suffered other obstacles as well. Long, drawn out hearings were held in both houses of Congress between members of the Military Brass, Department of Defense and NASA arguing whether or not bringing Soviet scientists into the country to work on the Space Program constituted a national security risk, especially as advanced missile designs were discussed for use not just to deliver men to the Moon, but Nuclear warheads to intended targets. To make matters worse, the President had promised that bringing the Soviets aboard the mission would be a net gain for the United States as it would save the country’s checkbook a bundle, as opposed to having to fund the entire mission to the Moon themselves. As of yet, the Soviets had sent several dozen scientists and cosmonauts in the team led by Gagarin, but any substantial amount of funding had yet to materialize. Khrushchev made his promises, but many in Congress and the Military were starting to wonder if Kennedy was being played the fool for letting the Soviets into the country to steal secrets.

After months of debate, and with a vote to curtail funding for NASA soon to make its way to the House floor, Secretary of Defense Robert Kennedy was able to negotiate a compromise. The Soviet scientists and cosmonauts would be permitted access to American rocket technological information and designs only after the designs and reports were sent through the NSA for “redaction and necessary censorship.” Further, the military would be granted permission to pursue its own development of space-level rocketry independent of NASA, through the Air Force at Vanderburg rather than Cape Canaveral. The President and Secretary of State McNamara were not pleased with what amounted, in their eyes, to a massive shift in authority from civilian to military agencies. Robert Kennedy insisted to his brother however, that he “couldn’t have his cake and eat it too.” The American public had first thrust JFK into office in 1960, largely on Kennedy’s rhetoric of closing the so-called “missile gap” with the Soviets. Just as technology had allowed the United States to not only match, but surpass the Soviet Union, the President was seemingly inviting the “enemies” of the nation to come in and reap the benefits of years of American work and ingenuity, not to mention billions in taxpayer dollars. Some of the President’s most bitter enemies even began to whisper about whether or not Kennedy’s insistence on a joint Moon Mission could constitute treason according to the “giving comfort” clause of the Constitution. Bobby set out for his brother a choice: either fears of Soviets stealing American missile capability could be put to rest by giving the military what it wanted, or Jack could call for an end to the joint mission, risking embarrassment and losing everything he had worked for politically over the last several months on the issue. The President, never a fan of the military-industrial complex he felt too strongly controlled policy in the country, was angry but convinced and yielded.


What this meant in practical terms, was a nightmare for Leonov and his peers, who often had to train for missions aboard vehicles they seldom understood and were hardly briefed on. They were promised additional information by the scientists they brought with them from Moscow, but Leonov privately began to wonder if it was really possible to work with someone on a project when they weren’t willing to trust you with the details. Accustomed to the bloated, Kafkaesque bureaucracy of Soviet agencies, the cosmonauts treated the Americans’ secrecy and cold demeanor toward them with cynical humor. “I expect they’ll fly us to the Moon in a biplane.” Valentina Tereshkova, the sole woman in the program, joked to Leonov one evening. “Anything else would have to be stricken from the record.”

…
​

Gemini XII, the last of the planned American space flights of that project, was completed by Buzz Aldrin and James Lovell on November 15th, 1966. A resounding success, Gemini had come a long way in advancing not only American capability to put human beings in space with better rockets and orbital launch systems, but also in their ability to conduct scientific work in the space environment, with advances like spacewalks and better space suit technology progressing all the time. Beyond political issues, the next program, Apollo-Svarog, was an intense personal gauntlet for many of the patriots involved.


One such young man was Neil Alden Armstrong, 36 years old, from the nation’s heartland at Wapakoneta, Ohio. An Eagle Scout, former Navy test pilot and veteran of the Korean War, Armstrong knew from the time he first saw an airplane at the age of two with his father that he was born to fly. Naturally quiet, and renowned for his good humor and humility, Armstrong was well liked by his fellow astronauts around Houston and was being fast tracked to possibly command an American mission to the Moon. This distinction for Armstrong continued after Apollo became Apollo-Svarog, and the Soviets were invited, but was called into question following the tragic events of January 27th, 1967.

Apollo-Svarog I, the first planned flight of the joint mission, was to be a low Earth orbital test of the program’s newly designed Command/Service Module. Aiming for a launch date of February 27th, the program coordinators picked a crew and backup crew of four a piece, two Americans and two Soviets each time, in the name of keeping everything fair and balanced between the two nations. Of course, the original designs for the module had only been made to accomodate three, so new plans were drawn up, more time spent on figuring out how to make the thing work. Armstrong privately wondered if all the “goodwill” this mission would represent was really worth it in the end. It seemed to him more a hindrance having the red tape the Soviets brought with them, than some grand help for humanity. He was also disappointed to learn he wouldn’t be involved in AS I, the selected crew was as follows:


Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom (USA) - Command Pilot

Ed White (USA) - Senior Pilot

Valeri Kubasov (USSR) - Engineer

Pavel Popovich (USSR) - Tertiary Pilot and Backup commander


The Soviets complained, naturally, that an American was placed in primary command of the test, rather than a Cosmonaut. Their complaints fell on deaf ears however, as NASA was already under intense pressure about the Soviets being too involved and accomodated. Trying to tell an American to take orders from a Soviet was a surefire way to break the camel’s back and get the project cancelled altogether. Despite all of the roadblocks standing before it, the project seemed ready to move ahead and the test went forward on that pleasant Texas day in January.


The test, originally scheduled to begin at 1:27 CST was delayed by several hours due to difficulties connecting the module’s communications systems to ground control, and Grissom complaining of a strange odor, which he compared to “sour buttermilk” over his open microphone. The cosmonauts and astronauts alike waited for the installation of a heat shield hatch which would act as a protective coating for the module on its descent back into Earth’s atmosphere once the tests were completed and this thing finally made it off the ground. Unfortunately for Grissom and his men, it wasn’t heat from the outside of the module they would need to be shielded from.


At 6:31 CST a momentary increase in AC Bus 2 voltage occurred. Nine seconds later, both Grissom and Popovich exclaimed “Hey! Fire!” over their microphones and the sounds of hurried, frantic motion were being picked up by mission control. Due to the nature of the air in the cabin, made exclusively of oxygen, the fire grew rapidly into a conflagration which consumed the entire interior of the module. Ironically, the hatch that was meant to serve as a shield from the heat wound up serving as the door to a giant oven, cooking the explorers with nary a way out, as the inner latch to release the hatch grew stuck in the heat.

Workers on the ground rushed to release the module and rescue the astronauts and cosmonauts, but were held back when fears mounted that the fire could spread to nearby stores of rocket fuel and ignite into a massive fireball, which would likely kill all of the ground workers as well. When the likelihood of this proved nill, and the screams of the men inside had long since faded into tragic silence, the workers were finally permitted to approach the module and remove the bodies, which had been melted into the nylon of their seats by the intensity of the heat. All four were killed within minutes of the fire breaking out, though the fatalities must have been anything but painless.

Watching the afternoon’s events play out with his fellows on closed circuit television, Armstrong felt a giant pit in his stomach as his friends and their Soviet counterparts were pulled from the burned husk of a module. Their bodies were nearly gelatinous in composition after exposure to the fire, and for a moment, Armstrong was reminded of the ashes of comrades burned alive in gas fires he’d witnessed from above during armed recon over Korea. He began to shake with fury as he realized the connection. Soviet bombs had killed his comrades near the 38th parallel, and the damn commies were likely behind this failed mission as well.


He turned his attention to the Soviet sitting next to him, Leonov, he thought his name was. “Tell me.” Armstrong’s voice wavered, hardly above a whisper. “Was losing two of your boys worth taking two of ours, you son of a bitch?”


Leonov, still struggling with his grasp of English, turned to face Armstrong and was abruptly met with a fist to the face. The brunt of Armstrong’s fury fell on Leonov then, and the two engaged in a brawl on the floor of the control center. Though several astronauts, such as Buzz Aldrin rushed to pull the two men apart, others, who mistrusted the Russians as fellow veterans from Korea or for some other reason, cheered the American on. “Kick his ass, Neil!” one of them laughed while Valentina Tereshkova rushed to get her superior. Though they were coming together to prove the strength of the human spirit, it seemed that even these intrepid adventurers were not immune to human impulses and emotion. Like Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy might say to Mr. Spock, “These are men, not machines! Your confounded logic can’t appeal to them all!”


In the end, Armstrong was given a stern warning from his superiors and charged a fine for his assault on Leonov. Threatened with removal from the program if his actions continued, Armstrong satisfied himself with the beatdown he’d given the Russian that day in Houston. The two men would eventually reconcile, and serve together on arguably the most important of all Apollo-Svarog missions, but not before sharing a beer at the Wrangler, a local dive and bonding over the oddest of things: fly fishing.

… ​

The political aftermath of the AS-I disaster was taxing for President Kennedy, to say the least. In the wake of myriad doubts from Air Force experts, powerful senators, and a skeptical public, the program desperately needed a success to save face and show the world that cooperation between East and West was more than just the stuff of science fiction or idle liberal fantasy. Desperate to avoid being painted as an amateur, and wanting nothing more than to continue the quest for his dream of seeing the joint Lunar mission through, Kennedy ordered NASA to assemble a team of its absolute best to look into the fire, produce a thorough report of the causes of the accident, and rule out in no uncertain terms that the Soviet members of the team were in any way responsible for what occurred to the module.


Once sabotage was successfully dismissed as impossible, thanks to the thorough questioning of Senators Hubert Humphrey (D - MN) and others, Kennedy slowly began overseeing the steps necessary to restoring public faith in the project. Appearing in an hour long television special alongside John Glenn, Yuri Gagarin, and the cast of NBC’s smash hit Star Trek, Kennedy assured the American people that every possible precaution was being made to ensure that such a tragic accident would not occur again.


“The sacrifices of Gus Grissom, Pavel Popovich, and their heroic crew will never be forgotten by this administration nor any that seek to reach out and touch the stars. As was the case with the great explorers of the past, taming this, the final frontier, requires all the courage, bravery, and tenacity that we as a species can produce. I ask only that as we move forward with project Apollo-Svarog, we as a nation commit ourselves not only to scientific advancement, but to new friendships with our fellow man. As the cast of this wonderful program have shared with you already, infinite are the possibilities of what we can achieve when we set aside our differences and strive, united, against impossible odds to touch the face of God. Thank you all, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.”

In the weeks and months that followed, public trust in the President and the Mission was slowly, but surely restored. The quest for the Moon would continue, but not without top to bottom changes, and a new emphasis on safety, as well as results. Of all the struggles President Kennedy would find himself in over the last two years of his Presidency, Moonshot would ultimately prove one of his most triumphant.

Next Time on Blues Skies in Camelot: The President makes history, and even the Jordan River has Bodies Floatin’

​

MINOR RETCON: The Political Party formed by George Corey Wallace and Jerry Falwell will be known as the “American Conservative Party” rather than the “Conservative Party, USA” and use this logo:

​

Thanks to Nerdman3000 for the awesome logo design!​

​

I will soon make the change to the relevant chapter (Chapter 24) as well, just wanted to bring everyone’s attention to this retcon right away.

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 26: Ain’t No Mountain High Enough - More from the First half of 1967​

Above: Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall, a man who would prove a leading figure in President Kennedy’s legacy.​

Throughout the first half of 1967, one scene became particularly familiar in the Oval Office: that of President Kennedy, seated or standing, with his head resting in the palm of one or both of his hands. No one ever claimed that being Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful nation in the world would be an easy job, and Kennedy had always been renowned for his ability to perform under pressure. But of late, the moral responsibility of being the country’s chief executive had started to weigh on him more than usual.


Following the tragedy that the Apollo-Svarog fire had been, along with continued escalation of violence between protesters and police, and dozens of race riots across the country, Kennedy’s sterling popularity among the people began to decline. JFK had largely earned a reputation among the people for strong moral judgement, robust action, and a steady, non-partisan approach to political leadership, but each of these leading qualities came under attack in the wake of what was becoming the start to a truly rocky year.


Continuing to ally himself firmly with the Civil Rights Movement, despite its faults, the President earned scathing criticism from “law and order” types. Not segregationists of the Wallace/Falwell variety, but average, blue collar, white, working class males especially began to question how the leader of the free world could claim that “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable” while not, in their opinion, cracking down hard enough on the Black Panthers, and other armed, violent protesters. Chief among these critics was the new Governor of California and rising star of the Republican Party, Ronald Reagan.


“We have, in Washington,” Reagan said in a joint PBS interview with Secretary of Defense Robert Kennedy. “Leadership that refuses to lead. All around us, anarchy poisons the good fruit borne by the toil of civil society. If the President is so concerned about those who would make violent revolution in this country, why does he let them march up and down Pennsylvania Avenue?”


Bobby tried to go to bat for his brother in the interview, privately fuming that the Californian would use what was supposed to be an informative event for the public as an opportunity to soapbox and position himself as his party’s newest icon. “What I’m afraid you don’t understand, Governor, is that we enjoy in this country, the right to freedom of speech and peaceful protest. If the government is doing something that we disagree with, we have the right to speak out against it. Just what you are doing right here on this program right now would not be possible without that sacred natural right.” He cleared his throat before continuing. “As to the riots that have been occurring across the country, the President will do all that he can to combat those who hurt, and harm and break the law for their own benefit. But we must do more than keep innocent people safe and lock up the looters. We have to look into their eyes, then at ourselves in the mirror, and ask if we’re really doing all that we can as a society to help the less fortunate, the disenfranchised, and the down and out. If a man isn’t suffering injustice, and can work by the sweat of his own brow to attain the American Dream, then he is unlikely to throw it all away by throwing up his fists and succumbing to violence. Through good government, and an appeal to the better angels of our nature, we can overcome this problem plaguing our streets. The same cannot be said for callous cruelty and scapegoating, as Governor Reagan would have you believe.”

The Defense Secretary’s comments were well received, and breathed some life back into his brother’s approval ratings after the dip bottomed out around 51% at the end of January. Reagan would recover from the verbal thrashing however, scoring political points by decrying each of the Kennedy Administration’s new economic policies and by claiming for himself the nickname “Ronald the Right”, a moniker he derived from a letter he received from a fanatical supporter later that year.


As for robust action, the President could at least claim continued momentum on that front. By mid-June, The Fair Housing Act was not the only step forward in race relations being pursued by the West Wing. On the 12th, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Tom C. Clark announced his plans for retirement in order to avoid a conflict of interest as his son, Ramsey, was being considered for the position of Attorney General, to replace the soon to retire Nicholas Katzenbach. Appointed to the court by President Truman back in 1949, Clark had earned a deserved reputation as a progressive justice, siding with the Warren Court’s majority decisions on several prominent cases, including Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, which upheld the public accommodations provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As Clark was preparing to step down, he took comfort in knowing that the incumbent President, Jack Kennedy, would select a replacement who would at the very least continue his legacy. As it turned out, JFK wanted to do more than simply continue someone else’s work. He demanded it be taken up a notch.

Enter Thurgood Marshall, Solicitor General of the United States. 59 years old in what came to be known as “the summer of love”, Marshall had distinguished himself throughout the Kennedy years both in his current position and previously as the Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Having served also as the Chief Counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Marshall seemed to the President eminently qualified for a place on the Court. The first African-American to be named to the Court, Marshall’s impressive record on Civil Rights, Kennedy hoped, would be the great capstone on his tenure in the White House. For what better rebuke of such decisions as Plessy v. Ferguson, or Dred Scott v. Sanford, could there be than naming a black man to the Highest Bench in the land? There was a very brief screening process for the position, but after only a single meeting with Marshall in the Oval Office, Kennedy knew he had found his man.


On June 12th, 1967, President John F. Kennedy nominated Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court of the United States of America. When asked at a subsequent joint press conference why Kennedy had such confidence in his decision, the President simply smiled and said: "This is the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place.” The media and public reacted, largely, with jubilation and support. While many throughout the South, particularly Jerry Falwell and the American Conservative Party decried the decision and Marshall’s history for “judicial activism”, the Civil Rights movement believed that in Marshall they could now point to a significant victory and claim a new hero. The argument that civil disobedience and peaceful protest were leading nowhere seemed to show its cracks in the wake of such progress. Kennedy put all possible pressure on the Senate to ensure that Marshall’s confirmation went through smoothly, privately relaying in a late night phone call to Senator George Bush (R-TX), “You want to be on the right side of history, don’t you, George?” Bush indicated that he did by being one of 68 senators to vote “aye” on Marshall’s confirmation shortly thereafter. The final vote was 68 - 12.

…​

While President Kennedy and the United States handled domestic affairs and Civil Rights issues, across the globe in the eastern Mediterranean, the tiny, besieged nation of Israel gave its air force the green light on a preemptive attack of its enemies. For years in the aftermath of the Suez Crisis of 1956, tensions had been slowly building in the Middle East. The spring months of 1967, however managed to take these pressures and amplify them with a series of unfortunate events. In April, Syria shot at an Israeli tractor ploughing between the two nations’ Demilitarized Zone. This prompted a confrontation between aerial units, but no casualties. A brief spat before the storm to follow.


May brought Nasser’s Egypt misinformation about Israeli intentions from the Soviet Union, prompting Nasser to demand the immediate evacuation of UN Peacekeeping forces from the Sinai Peninsula who had been stationed there since ‘56. American President Kennedy and Canadian Prime Minister Pearson both privately wrote to Nasser and begged him to reconsider, but Nasser was reluctant to trust the westerners, whom he imagined were concerned more with their own imperialist goals, rather than the wellbeing of his people. He further escalated the situation by announcing a blockade of Israeli access to the to Red Sea via the Straits of Tiran on May 23rd. With the Red Sea seen as international waters, Israel warned Egypt and her allies that such a move would very well be seen as a casus belli, as the Jewish state mentioned in the 1956 treaty which resolved the Suez Crisis. Nasser ignored the threats, and issued decrees to allies Syria and Jordan that they should prepare to mobilize their armed forces immediately. Surrounded by potential enemies, and with numerical advantage set firmly against them, Israel knew it would need to act quickly, and decisively if it had any chance of defending itself. Thus, on the morning of June 5th, Israel’s air force launched preemptive strikes against their Egyptian counterparts and war was declared.


Caught by surprise, nearly the entire Egyptian air force was dismantled, disabled or otherwise destroyed by carefully executed Israeli strikes. The aggressors on the other hand, suffered few losses, and having obtained air superiority, swiftly turned their attention to Syria and Jordan, who were just then beginning to move their forces across the border into Israel. Israeli counter attacks over the subsequent five days led to Egypt ceding the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula, Jordan ceding the West Bank of the Jordan River (including East Jerusalem), and Syria ceding the Golan Heights as well. In all, a lightning-quick, decisive Israeli victory became the news passed from every pair of lips across the Arab World and beyond. Around the globe, people became variously incensed, inspired, and awestruck by the performance of little Israel, who bravely stood against three enemy nations and still managed to come out on top and defend itself. Or, who savagely attacked three neighbors so that it could callously seize land and did so without any major condemnation from the international community, depending on who one asked.


Whatever one’s position on the Six Day War, as it came to be known, one thing was for certain: it made a significant impact on the balance of power geopolitically. Following an apparent case of mistaken identity during the initial aerial assaults, the Israeli air force attacked Hope, a Royal Navy research vessel assigned to accompany the HMS Eagle to active duty in the Rhodesian Conflict. Hope had slowed its advance in pursuit of Eagle through the Suez to refuel when it was supposedly mistaken for an Egyptian ship of similar size and age and attacked. 179 British casualties, including 31 killed resulted from the error, and although Israel made every effort to make up for the incident, including paying reparations to the United Kingdom and the families of the victims, the accident strained relations between the former allies for several years to come.

The war also caused a huge surge of patriotism and zionism throughout Israel and the Jewish populations of the world at large. Where before immigration to Israel had been a mere trickle over the years, following the conflict, it became a deluge. In particular, Jews from the Soviet Union and her satellite states who were previously thought to have been fully assimilated into their socialist society, saw renewed interest in their ethnic and religious heritage and homeland. So called “victory coins” were minted in Israel to celebrate the great military triumph, but what was less talked about were the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian nationals who had been displaced as a result of hostilities.


Sensing that the displaced Arabs and Jews in Arab-majority nations were only the beginning of the foundations being laid for yet another future conflict in the Middle East, President Kennedy added the topic to an ever expanding list he was preparing for a warm, sunny day in July. The President was a man of his word, and he had promised both First Secretary Khrushchev and President de Gaulle of France that the latter would play host to a summit of the three powers in July of ‘67. “I’m not sure about you, Bobby, Bob,” Kennedy sighed to Secretaries of Defense and State Kennedy and McNamara, “but it seems to me that this whole situation has the rest of the world holding its breath. Sure Khrushchev has agreed to our little gentlemen’s peace in Vietnam, but can he hold the line in Arabia too without someone kicking him out in Moscow?”


“I’m not sure, Mr. President.” McNamara replied over a mug of black coffee. “But what we do know is that pretty soon, if intelligence and rumors are to be believed, that won’t be the only news we’ll have to be watching for from Moscow.”


“Oh yeah?” The President grinned, sadly. “How do you figure? Is Khrushchev calling Gagarin and his Cosmonauts home? That’d sure get Goldwater off my back.”


“No, sir. It’s about the process to select his successor. Nikita Khrushchev is considering his own retirement.”

​

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: Another potential Savior rises to claim the soul of a nation.​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 27: Soul Man - The Coming of the Prophet​

Above: Charles Milles Manson, aged 32, photographed upon release from the Federal Correctional Institution, Terminal Island, Los Angeles, California on March 21st, 1967.


Mary Brunner, a 23 year old graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, lived a fairly typical life for a young woman of her skills, education, and upbringing. A library assistant at UC-Berkeley, she had played witness to many of the ongoing protests and demonstrations there, though as of yet she hadn’t herself participated. Getting riled up about free speech, civil rights, or feminism seemed a surefire way to get herself fired. And seeing as she was a poor midwestern girl far from home, surrounded by a million potential pitfalls, Mary decided that protest was simply a risk she couldn’t afford to take.


Nonetheless, California was, as songs and zeitgeist informed her, the land of mysteries, dreams, and endless possibilities. This was particularly true in 1967. Though the “summer of love” as it came to be known had not yet bloomed from the rain and chill of a Bay-area winter, the times already were a-changin’, and something unmistakably fresh was in the air. The narrow election of Ronald Wilson Reagan to the state’s Governorship the year before had already created dramatic ripples throughout the lives of the young people living there. Especially pertinent to Mary and millions of other young women, hoping to embrace sexual liberation in the wake of recent societal changes and the example of Marilyn Monroe was Reagan’s very public opposition to abortion. Though he hadn’t yet made any moves to ban the practice, Reagan scared the youth of California for other reasons as well. While President Kennedy encouraged peaceful protesters, calling them “the pride of any healthy democracy”, Governor Reagan decried them as “the harbingers of the end of western civilization.” When the black panthers marched on the State Capitol, armed and demanding that their voices be heard by the new Governor, Reagan responded by announcing his plans to institute a ban on openly carried weapons. The culture wars had only just begun in the Golden State, and young Ms. Brunner found herself in somewhat of an uncomfortable middle position.


Mary had moved to California in the first place for the same reasons as many young people did. Her family back home had tried their best to instill in her the values of the “decent”, hardworking midwestern family, and in the process had pushed their daughter away. While completing her studies, Mary had been swayed by the works of Betty Friedan and others, and found herself believing that even if she couldn’t get involved in the fight for feminism directly, she could contribute to the struggle in her own way. Living independently and earning a wage of her own were already large steps for a woman at the time, and Mary liked to believe that in some way, she was making a difference. If nothing else, the Berkeley job enabled her to meet plenty of interesting students and faculty, and have a great deal of fun in her free time.


All across nearby San Francisco, “hippie-ism” was beginning to spread from its nucleus at the corner of Haight and Ashbury. A movement dedicated largely to overthrowing the conservatism of the preceding decade, the counterculture had allies in the media, press, and government, but myriad enemies as well. It seemed like Timothy Leary’s invitation to “Turn off. Tune In. Drop Out.” was controversial, and being a young Californian meant picking a side on the issue. Were you going to be a sandal wearing pot smoking hippie, or would you reject it all together for the “Leave it to Beaver”, safe and secure way of your parents? For a rebellious young woman like Mary, the answer was obvious. She attended a Warlocks concert in November of 1966, where she tried marijuana for the first time and started becoming part of the “Cabal”, the fanatical fans who hung around the band after every show. Mary made herself a fixture at rock shows and parties, much to the horror of her parents who caught a sight of her at the “Human Be-In” in their local newspaper. They begged her to come home, or at least settle down before something terrible happened to her. They said that there was still time to prevent a tragedy. Mary refused, believing herself to be truly free for the first time in her life. Shortly thereafter, in mid-May, she met a man, or rather, a force of personality, that would make sure that that freedom was false and short lived.

Mary first encountered Charles Manson at a coffee shop near Haight-Ashbury, leaning against the counter and idly strumming at a resonator guitar he’d picked up for a handful of dollars at a local pawn shop. The whole restaurant reeked of poorly covered pot smoke and the tables were covered in a thin film of grime. This didn’t matter to Mary. These small imperfections gave the joint character, as far as she was concerned. She ordered a small coffee and watched this long haired musician play for a while. He was not particularly talented, she decided after taking in a couple of bars. He stumbled on the transitions between chords and his fingers didn’t press quite hard enough on the strings, producing a buzz which only served to undermine the musicality of anything he played half well. He won’t be opening for the Warlocks anytime soon. She giggled silently. There was something more to this man however, Mary realized. Every time she tried to look away from him and focus on her drink or the Kerouac novel haphazardly opened before her, she found her gaze drifting back to the hippie with the steel guitar. Eventually, he caught her eyes and smiled at her, his teeth white and pure as new-fallen Wisconsin snow.


He stretched the fingers of his right hand, electricity seeming to pour out of his every movement, every twitch. “Good to meet you, miss.” His voice, previously unheard, bore no trace of its former midwestern accent. That, like much of himself had been completely buried under the new coat of California paint. He patted the empty stool next to him, an invitation Mary did not know how to decline. “Come on over, I want to play a little something for ya.”


Mary did as the man asked. She watched, spellbound as he lazily pulled a capo out of his ramshackle guitar case and placed it over the first fret of his instrument. “Just finished learning this.” The hippie said, almost sheepishly. “It’s from that new Beatles record. You like the Beatles?”


The young woman shrugged. The Beatles were sort of old news as far as she was concerned, more the stuff of teeny bopper magazines than the real stuff she listened to. In their matching suits and playing with that old has-been Elvis, the Fab Four were looking too respectable for her tastes. She would take the Warlocks and Rolling Stones over John, Paul, George, and Ringo anyday. Nonetheless, she wanted to be polite, and so simply nodded her head.


Manson smiled and began to strum a modified A-chord. Slowly, awkwardly at first, he quickly settled into a groove, and played much better than he had been before Mary had joined him at the counter. It was like he was some sort of conduit rather than a person, channeling the music through him the way a wire carried power to warm Mary’s apartment every morning. He opened his mouth, and sang in a gravelly, world-weary voice.


“I read the news today, oh boy

About a lucky man who had made the grade

And though the news was rather sad

Well, I just had to laugh

I saw the photograph”


Mary gasped. She was spellbound.


“He blew his mind out in a car

He didn’t notice that the lights had changed.

A crowd of people stood and stared

They’d seen his face before,

Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords”


She hadn’t heard this new Beatles record, but whatever it was, Mary was certain this man was doing it far more justice than it deserved. In his curls of dark brown hair, she saw the limbs of a mighty chestnut forest. In his eyes, burning, was the intensity of a bonfire and a desperation, a rabid sexuality she had never seen distilled so cleanly into a single person. He was a mania. A perfect specimen of the spirit she sought far from home in the cold midwest. If California was the land of the sun, the promised refuge for youth like her, than this strange, bizarre figure must be her prophet, the one who would show her the way.


Before she knew it, the song was over. Manson took a deep breath, set his guitar back in his case and simply stared at the floor for a long moment. Mary waited, her own breathing halted, caught in her chest. What kept her locked so firmly in her seat? Was it fear? Excitement? She couldn’t say. Her attraction to this urchin was immediate, but she couldn’t find words to express it. Curse her family for not training her to be more sociable. She was blowing this chance big time. Thankfully for her, he broke the silence which followed.


“Let’s get out of here. You want to walk for a bit?”


Mary beamed like a schoolgirl. “Yes! Please. I’d like that a lot.”

…​

Weeks passed, and Mary was swept up in the tidal wave that was the Summer of Love. That night in May, ‘Charlie’ as he introduced himself, had done more than Mary had expected. The sex was better than she had dared to hope, even if he refused to use protection. He’d been caring, gentle even in his lovemaking. Come to think of it, everything Charlie did lined up perfectly with the image Mary saw when first she looked at him. A powerful, peace loving man, she saw no reason not to let him move into her apartment with her when he asked. After two weeks together, Charlie had convinced her to quit her oppressive job at Berkeley, and ask her parents to send money instead. “You don’t want to work for those fascists.” He’d laughed slightly at her concern and protests. “Tell you what, we’ll get ourselves a van. Travel up and down this land and tell people the way things are. The way they could be.”


Mary was unsure at first, but Charlie waved her concerns away in a puff of Marijuana smoke and good natured jibes. “Come on Marioche,” a nickname Manson had taken to calling her. “We need to save as many of the people as we can!” According to the stories Charlie told Mary after another frenzic night of passion, he had good reason to spread the word. Charlie wasn’t just another guru preaching peace and free love to the good hippies of San Francisco, no. He had been sent for a greater purpose. “You might not believe me.” He’d said as she lay in his arms one night in June. “But you don’t have to look any further than my name to see who I am.”


He chuckled and said his name real slow, with intense emphasis on each syllable. “Charles Willis Manson. Charles’ Will Is Man’s Son. Don’t you see, Marioche?” He took one hand and pantomime-painted against the ceiling, as though plucking imagery out of thin air. “I am the Son of Man, reborn. It’s like I told you the other night. The Lamb and the Tiger are become one on this Earth, to judge the damned and the good on the final day alike. It is in me that they have found their home, and built their temple. I have only to spread their word and I will build a grand new Kingdom in their name. You’d be the perfect apostle, especially with that name of yours! Mary, Mary Manson has a nice ring to it, don’t it?”


Having left her job and other friends behind weeks ago, Mary didn’t have much choice but to concur. Even if the particulars of Charlie’s beliefs sounded a bit wacky, who was she to judge? She had come a long way from home to get caught up in something bigger than herself, wasn’t church a great kind of something bigger? Besides, Charlie seemed so sure, so certain in everything he was saying. Mary wasn’t even sure where she stood on what to make for breakfast every day. Maybe giving in and letting herself drift for a while wouldn’t be the worst thing she could do. Maybe Charlie Manson would, at the very least, be her savior.

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: The Race for the White House in ‘68 kicks off.​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 28: I Can See for Miles - The Candidates for ‘68 (Part I)​

Above: George Corey Wallace, 48, former Governor of Alabama and proud segregationist, formally announces his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States as a member of the new American Conservative Party on September 1st, 1967.


In the crowded, hot gymnasium of a High School in Montgomery, Alabama, one could scarcely draw breath without feeling it immediately pressed out of them by the throng. Overhead, on banners of fine cloth mingling freely with repurposed bed sheets, the red, white, and blue bison of the newly minted American Conservative Party stood bold and defiant. The sea of onlookers and supporters, mostly working class white men, their wives and children with them, hooted and hollered as the bison was raised and event organizers took the stage to cut flags bearing the Democratic donkey and Republican elephant to shreds. Though bombastic, physical, even orgiastic in execution, this first rally for the campaign for President in 1968 was treated by its centerpiece as something far more serious. Tonight was no mere “rally”. It was the start of a political and social revolution.


That centerpiece, the lightning rod that was George Corey Wallace, stormed the stage and was greeted with a thunderclap of applause far greater than even he could have ever dreamed of receiving. Father Falwell had done his duty well, Wallace thought. Serving as the warm up speaker for the evening, Falwell had laid out, in no uncertain terms, the magnitude of the situation the United States was facing. The preacher had quoted Revelation, informing those souls wise enough to attend that evening’s congregation that “if we don’t do something quick, we could be facing the very end of christian civilization as we know it.” Backstage at the time, Wallace had snickered. He privately wondered how much he could justify the theatrics of all this. The pomp, the circumstance. Sure, at the core of Wallace there was a furnace of hate, constantly churning and pumping out the regressive rhetoric which worked its way through his teeth and into the world. But how much did he really believe it, anyway? How much of this was a genuine attempt to save the country he loved, and how much was his own ambition, working through him toward an ever larger following, more donations, more votes? I’m going to the White House, someday. Wallace had decided, back in ‘64. Now it’s just a matter of time, manner, and place.


The former Governor harbored no illusions about his chances this time around. 1968 would not be the year that he entered the Executive Mansion. The party he represented was new, untested, and disorganized. All they had were two charismatic firebrands manning the helm, and a powerful symbol to rally behind in that most American of all animals: the sturdy, reliable, buffalo. It was that very creature which would come to dominate the subject matter of Wallace’s speech that evening in Montgomery. Unwilling to get specific about the policy proposals of his party’s platform, Wallace was always more comfortable as an “ideas” man anyhow. Actual proposals and solutions would come later, when cooler heads and logic prevailed, after removing the scourge of leftism from America’s streets. In the meantime, he would speak to his people. The disaffected, the forgotten, those that the Kennedys and Rockefellers of the world were pompously ignoring and leaving behind. “No matter what they say about us,” Wallace began his speech. “We conservatives are not an extinct species. The white man is not a minority in his own country, and with God as my witness, I will not surrender to the so-called tyranny of progress while yet I draw breath!” Cheers filled the hall and seemed to cause the very rafters of the ancient school to shiver with their ferocity. Wallace smiled, big and honest as the day he was born. We may not be a major party right now. He thought. But they’re fools if they think they can ignore us forever. “There’s a change that’s a comin’ to this fair land!” Wallace roared. “And we will be the agents of that change. Together, with your support, we will reclaim our country! We will rise up and make them listen! I believe I speak for all gathered tonight when I resolve myself once again to the following promise: segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!”

…​

Above: “Mr. Republican”, 58 year old Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. The runner up to the GOP nomination in ‘64, Goldwater began the race in ‘68 with an already established network of volunteers and supporters.


Idle speculation will be the death of this party. Thus were the thoughts of Barry M. Goldwater as he sat in his office on Capitol Hill. The July of ‘67, the summer of Love was sweltering awfully outside, and many of the Senator’s staffers were overjoyed by the recent installation of air conditioning throughout the offices. As for Goldwater himself, he could take the contraption or leave it. Unlike many of his volunteers and aides, he was accustomed to the warm bake of the Arizona sun. If anything, the luxury of coolness was just another expense at the end of an ever increasing tab to be picked up by the Federal government. This meant higher taxes for the average Joe just trying to make his way in the world. That ran counter to everything Goldwater stood for. Idle speculation and the loss of proper direction. He corrected his prior thought.


Indeed, the question of speculation dominated headlines and talking circles of the Republican party across the nation. In particular, speculation centered on the Arizona Senator. He seemed, in the eyes of many, the natural heir apparent to the GOP nod in ‘68. He had put up a spirited campaign against Rockefeller three years prior, and up to the convention itself had been expected to seize the nomination. His supporters were not the “country club” Republicans of the east-coast elite, they were the common men and women of the United States who were sick and tired of big government. They wanted a real choice in who would be deciding their policy, not the illusion of a choice. Real, tough solutions to real, tough problems, not Democratic policies repackaged with an elephant on top. As 1967 dawned, Goldwater was the only candidate with a preexisting pool of supporters and volunteers to draw from. His grassroots efforts in ‘64 had truly paid dividends.


But not all was well and cheery for the Arizonan. His potential candidacy faced its fair share of challenges as well. Chief among them was the creation of the American Conservative Party by George Wallace and his ilk earlier that year. In ‘64, the “Goldwater base” of the Republican party had been an ideological soup of Americans, many of whom belonged to ideologies that had not even been defined yet. These included laissez-faire espousing classical liberals, social conservatives who opposed the judicial activism of the Warren Court, and yes, a fair number of racist southerners who would go on to vote for Wallace in the general election. The last of these groups had always disgusted Goldwater, who was by no means a segregationist. He had stressed over and over, to no avail, that he only opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because he believed some of its provisions to be unconstitutional. He agreed with the principle of desegregation, just not that bill’s specific means of enforcing it. And to his credit, the Senator had been good to his word. He had voted for every major piece of Civil Rights legislation since then. As supporters of that final variety peeled off of the Republican Party, defecting to the American Conservatives, many of Goldwater’s closest allies questioned whether he even stood a chance in ‘68 should he decide to run.


Surely with Rockefeller’s nearly successful candidacy in ‘64, the establishment would push hard for another moderate to top the ticket in ‘68. President Kennedy, a close friend of Goldwater’s, had seen his approval ratings shoot back up to nearly 70% in the aftermath of Thurgood Marshall’s appointment to the Supreme Court. The Commander in Chief, it seemed, connected with the American people and their ideals in a way no President had since FDR. What this meant for the Republicans was that they believed the people would not vote for any candidate whose positions ran counter to the Kennedy legacy. With Wallace siphoning off the votes of Southerners, racists, and social conservatives, Republicans worried that there would be no one left to support Goldwater. It was in this analysis that Goldwater would eventually find his impetus to run again. The Senator had personal ambitions of course. But this was about more than whether or not he would ever end up in the Oval Office. This was about defining what the Republican Party was going to stand for moving forward. A new ideology would be born out of Goldwater’s decision that day, a strange combination of interventionism abroad, liberal or apathetic views on social issues, and stark laissez-faire economics at home. These beliefs, today called “paleoconservatism” would come to define one of the two major wings of the Republican Party. The other, as it turned out, would also come out of the beliefs of another major candidate for ‘68. In the meantime however, Goldwater needed his focus to be on the task at hand.


“It’s a damned good thing, Falwell and Wallace are taking all those people away from our party.” Goldwater told an aide the morning he would make his announcement.


“How do you figure, sir?”


“Wait for my speech.” Goldwater grinned. “I’ll tell everyone at once.”


Later that day, on the steps of the Capitol, Senator Goldwater threw his hat into the ring for 1968. He addressed the elephant in the room head on.“Mark my word, if these preachers ever got control of the Republican party, and they were sure trying to do so, it was going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these radical Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, not George Wallace.” He paused and faced the television cameras.


“And if there are any Americans, and I believe there are, who believe in reasonable, competent, government that doesn’t take more of their hard earned money than it needs, while still performing its basic responsibility to protect the general welfare of the people, I present myself as an alternative to the madness that threatens to engulf us all. I am honored this morning to humbly announce that I seek my party’s nomination for the Presidency of the United States.”

…​

Above: Former Vice President Richard Milhous Nixon, 54 years old, and a veteran politician if ever there was one. Considered a spent political force by many in the United States, 1968 represented Nixon’s last chance to etch his name into history.


“Nelson, what do you mean you won’t support my candidacy?” Nixon’s voice and chest shuddered, both with a quiet, steadily building rage. “Don’t you see what’s going on here? Wallace is taking the South away from the Democrats forever! We have a chance to pick up all of Dixie and build our power base even further, but only if we have a savvy enough guy at the top of the ticket to make it happen. I don’t have to tell you that Barry Goldwater is the furthest thing from savvy we have in this party. Don’t tell me you plan on backing him?!”


Nixon heard Rockefeller sigh on the other end of the telephone. “No Dick, you know I’d never support Goldwater and his crazies. As far as I’m aware, a lot of them are leaving the party to go back Wallace anyway.”


The Californian snorted. “Yeah, the obvious gutter trash and so on. The Klan won’t be backing our nominee this time around, that’s for sure. I’m not talking about them, Nelson. I’m talking about the other conservatives in this country. Not the real racists, the guy who works down at the mill and wants to know where his hard earned tax dollars are going. I’m talking about the mother who watches her daughter marching off to college and becoming a harlot in roman sandals and plastic beads. Just because Wallace has formed a party of his own doesn’t mean we have to abandon the whole right of America to him! Look at what that smooth bastard Reagan did out here on the West Coast. We’re seen as the heart of Hippie-land and yet we elected a Republican over the son of Franklin Roosevelt! There’s something to this.”


Rockefeller coughed slightly to clear his throat. “I’m sorry Dick, my answer stands. I get what you’re trying to say and quite frankly, I find it disturbing. When you’re in a room full of crazies shouting all manner of nonsense, you don’t shift your beliefs to join them, you take a stand and defend what’s right. I don’t claim, nor have I ever claimed to be the most ideological Republican. I’m practical, right down to my bones. But I can’t see any good coming of us trying to cater to these hard right loons. It’s a firm no for me.”


“You snake.” Nixon spat under his breath. The former Vice President felt betrayed of course, though he couldn’t say he was surprised. Rockefeller was as slick and slimy as they come in the GOP, and if there was one thing Nixon understood better than anyone it was the personal side of politics. “Three years ago,” Tricky Dick shook his head and breathed deeply to calm his growing fury. “I took a real stand and endorsed you over Goldwater during the California Primary. Do you remember that, you son of a bitch?” No answer was immediately forthcoming, so Nixon went on. “That business with you and your woman was all over the front page; pollsters were predicting you’d lose the state and probably the nomination by nearly 3% of the vote. But I stood by you, Nelson. I got on the road and busted my ass off speaking in favor of you as a candidate. And you know why? Because I really thought you were our best chance of winning the White House back from that preppy New England prick. And now, after all that, I give you my loyalty and this is how you repay me? How dare you! What reason could you possibly have to not support me?”


The silence resumed, and for an instant Nixon wondered if Rockefeller had put the phone aside or otherwise vacated the call. Wouldn’t put it past him, coward. Nixon thought.


At last, the Governor of New York resumed to speak. “It’s like you said, Dick, I support the Republican most likely to carry the election for us. It’s nothing personal, only business. You understand that, I’m sure. It’s never been anything more than a business to you, either. Even your endorsement of me wasn’t geniunine, it was all for show. A stepping stone for you to use to run this time around or in ‘72, should I have won that election. Well I tell you what, Dick, it might still be business, but I take great pleasure in refusing this endorsement. Furthermore, I’ve found me a candidate who’ll whip you all the way to the convention. I hope you’re ready for a fight, because you’ve certainly set yourself up for one.” Rockefeller paused to smile and steal a peak at Happy, who was playing with Nelson Jr. in the next room over from his office. “Good luck, Dick. You’re going to need it.”


Nixon slammed down the phone with authority and nearly ripped the cord out of the wall. That cheap motherfucker! His mind raced alongside his heart, but above all the anger, there was one thought which dominated Richard Nixon before his campaign announcement, which he made anyway later that night: Who the hell could Rockefeller be talking about?!

…​

Above: Governor George Wilcken Romney of Michigan was 60 years old by the onset of the summer of love. Handsome, liberal, and beloved on his home turf: a crucial, populous swing state, Romney had also catapulted himself into the national spotlight by leading the “Miracle March” of 1966 and other major pushes for Civil Rights, as well as his landslide reelection to the Governorship that year.


Compared to the desperate plea of Senator Goldwater’s announcement or the painful inevitability of former Vice President Nixon’s, the launch of Governor George Romney’s campaign was understated and refined by comparison. Romney, hearing word from many Republican insiders that Nelson Rockefeller would back his candidacy should he announce it, decided that the time had come for him to leave behind the Great Lake State which had been he and his family’s home for several years, and to at last make his stride forward onto the national stage. The Governor formed an exploratory committee in February of 1967, and embarked on an ambitious and highly publicized tour of what he hoped would eventually include all fifty states. Beginning in the northwest corner of the nation with Alaska, Romney, his wife Lenore, and their beautiful family captured the nation’s hearts as images of them racing with sled dogs and shaking hands with loggers and oil rig workers were beamed back via television and carefully placed newspaper ads.


Through his interactions with everyday people, his willingness to visit even frigid Alaska to meet potential voters, and his immaculate reputation as a faithful family man of the highest order, the deeply religious Romney seemed to many Americans like a throwback to a simpler, better time not long ago in the nation’s history. President Kennedy had brought a vigorous, youthful face to Presidential politics, and though the President had regained his sky high personal popularity, the people remained mixed on the idea of letting his successor be yet another Democrat. Sure, they insisted, the “New FDR” that JFK had been had helped the nation address many of the issues staring it down, but Kennedy’s tenure had also brought strife and confusion to households across the nation. Societal change, even positive progress, often scared some folks, especially older voters. They worried that perhaps Kennedy had moved the country along too far, too fast, and an older, wiser figure might fare better in moving things ahead in the future. Besides, since 1933 the Republicans had only been in power for eight short years under Eisenhower, who owed his election far more to his popularity and legacy from the War than he did to any special programs or new proposals on his part. To voters increasingly concerned with fair play in the wake of more than a quarter of a century of Democratic dominance, a liberal Republican seemed an ideal solution. Many swing voters and independents liked the programs of the New Frontier and War on Poverty. Those had approval ratings almost as high as President Kennedy himself. The primary concern for these and other Americans was in keeping the government that wrote the laws in check. No one wanted the Democrats getting complacent on Capitol Hill.


Bearing all of this in mind, it isn’t hard to understand why George Romney became such an appealing candidate as the spring of 1967 brought the first Gallup opinion polls to households across the nation. Besides his aforementioned personal qualities, Romney was also one of the most liberal Republicans in the country. His policies as governor had been largely pro-union and “anti-waste”, and his reputation as a crusader for Civil Rights had earned him nearly 40% of the African American vote in his last election, a figure virtually unheard of for the GOP at large. In all five years since his initial election to the Michigan Governor’s mansion, Romney had presided over five balanced budgets. His state had plans to build new roads, bridges, hospitals and schools, especially in the economically disadvantaged, inner city areas of Detroit and Lansing, all paid for through careful financial scrutiny and a slight increase in income tax for the state’s highest earners. Not a bad record at all for an aspiring Presidential candidate.


Unique among candidates in the upcoming election cycle as well was Romney’s experience and expertise as a businessman. A former CEO of American Motors, Romney had turned that company around from the verge of bankruptcy into one of the most successful auto manufacturers in Detroit by focusing its efforts on high quality, affordable cars, rather than the luxury models offered at the time by Chrysler and others. Romney responded to his time at American Motors and how it qualified him for political leadership, when asked during an interview in Nome by quoting President Calvin Coolidge: “The business of America is business.” The words, coming from the lips of the graying, handsome Romney couldn’t help but sound, in the words of the New York Times: “Presidential”.


Romney did have several factors working against him, though. For starters, his charisma and charm seemed to come more from his appearance and actions than they did his words. The Governor was notorious for his long, often rambling speeches in which he would often make a point, contradict himself for effect, then return to his original point, leaving some audience members confused. One reporter following his campaign through Alaska joked that: “Someone ought to do us all a favor and invent a typewriter with ‘What Governor Romney meant to say was…’ as a single key.” Though Romney was capable of dramatic, powerful oratory of the sort he delivered before the Miracle March when he had time to prepare, he often struggled in situations where he was required to think quickly on the spot.


Another potential weakness of Romney’s candidacy was his utter lack of credentials or experience in foreign affairs. Serving as Governor of a heartland, midwestern state, Romney liked to joke that the most intense foreign policy talks he’d ever had were “with some polite Canadians camping on Lake Michigan, asking where they could find the nearest liquor store.” Though in other years this may have proven a fatal chink in the candidate’s armor, 1968 seemed the perfect year, at least at this stage, to focus almost entirely on a domestic agenda. American Troops were just finishing up their withdrawal from South Vietnam, where except for the occasional firefight between guerrillas, peace reigned and communism was contained. In Europe, the Soviet Union sought a continued detente with the United States and tensions were lower than anytime in years thanks to the hard work of President Kennedy and First Secretary Khrushchev. Unless some great catastrophe abroad erupted between then and November the following year, Romney believed that he could largely skate by with platitudes about “friendship and strength abroad, friendship and strength at home” and promising to hire a crack team of advisers on the subject to keep him informed.


Finally, there was the candidate’s highly publicized status as the head of the Detroit branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. A priest within that organization, Governor Romney followed the tenets of his faith devoutly. He did not drink alcohol or caffeinated beverages, never smoked a cigarette in all his life, and forbade himself to utter a swear or curse. First Lady of Michigan Lenore and he tithed annually, donating as much as 19% of their earnings to the Church as well. This was all well and good, but many Americans were concerned by what exactly this Mormon faith was, and what it meant if someone running to be their President was a practitioner. Furthermore, Romney was a natural-born U.S. citizen, but had been born and spent much of his early life in Mexico, living on Mormon colonies there that his family helped to found. During the Mexican Revolutions of the 1910’s, Romney’s family returned to the United States and he had lived there, a proud citizen all the while, ever since. Despite his being born a natural U.S. citizen thanks to his parents’ citizenship, there were whispers from some detractors and opponents, including the campaign of Richard Nixon, that perhaps Romney was not even eligible, per the Constitution, to be President in the first place. Both his religion and the issue of his birthplace would pester Romney throughout the primary process, but in a nation that had just elected its first Catholic President, who by most accounts had done a phenomenal job, few Republican-primary voters seemed overly concerned.


In a call to his youngest son, Willard, called “Mitt”, who was oversees doing his missionary work in France, Governor Romney explained his political philosophy and reasoning for running by quoting Chapter 18 of Mosiah, in The Book of Mormon:


“Bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; … mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life.”


Other announced Republican Candidates (as of September 1967)

Senator Hiram Fong (R - HI)

Former Governor Harold Stassen (R - MN)

Governor James A. Rhodes (R - OH)

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: The Democratic Candidates for President in 1968​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 29: Happy Together - The Candidates for ‘68 (Part II)​

Above: Senate Majority Whip Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr., 56 years old from Minnesota. Called “The Happy Warrior”, Humphrey was seen as the preeminent icon in Liberal American politics, and was respected for his legislative record and acumen by those on both sides of the aisle.


“It is the genius of the Democratic Party that it welcomes change - not as an enemy - but as an ally - not as a force to be suppressed but as an instrument of progress to be encouraged.” Thus began the address that Hubert Horatio Humphrey gave to formally announce his campaign for the Presidency on September 1st, 1967. Easily one of the most recognizable political entities in the United States, Humphrey was perhaps the second most popular Democrat in the nation, behind only President Kennedy himself. The Minnesota Senator stood confidently in the Senate chamber before the television cameras as he delivered his speech. Shoulders back, head up, and a gigantic smile rarely if ever leaving his face, Humphrey pulled out all the stops to project a sunny disposition to the folks watching at home. Inside himself, Humphrey was nervous. He had run for the White House seven years prior, his odds seeming promising at first, only to be outfoxed by the handsome Kennedy in the last handful of primaries and get boxed out by Richard Daley at the convention. He had borne that defeat with humility and did what he could to take it in stride. Your day will come. Humphrey had told himself then. Remember what Teddy Roosevelt used to say: “Do what you can with what you have, where you are.” The Happy Warrior had indeed taken those words to heart, standing in the Senate Chamber as a colossus among men.


President Kennedy’s strongest supporter in the Upper House, Humphrey was the real legislative mastermind behind the creation and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He had debated, fought, scuffled, and pulled with sweat, tears, and nearly blood on more than one occasion, to get the bill through. When at last President Kennedy signed the thing into law, the first call he had made was to the office of Senator Humphrey. “Senator,” The President had said. “This is just as much your achievement as mine. I couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you.” These words may seem perfunctory to the casual observer, just an executive thanking his ally for a job well done. But coming from John F. Kennedy to Hubert Humphrey, they were a monumental shift in position. The grudge between the President and the Majority Whip was legendary in Washington. It had begun with the grueling primary contests between the two in 1960, but carried on into the first several years of Kennedy’s administration. Despite their aligning interests on most issues, Humphrey was always suspicious of Kennedy, doubting his commitment to liberal causes.


Through his crusade for Civil Rights and the declaration of the War on Poverty, as well as some personal overtures encouraged by First Lady Jackie Kennedy, the President had done much since 1964 to mend the rift between himself and the influential Senator. Though they were still distant personally, they often stood arm in arm on questions of policy. Humphrey had applauded the President’s announcement of a withdrawal from Vietnam, and Kennedy had responded in kind by lending his support to almost all pieces of legislation the Majority Whip wanted to pass. Considered the great one-two punch of the Democratic Party, the Kennedy-Humphrey alliance had proven fruitful and powerful. The New Frontier, and all the great new strides and programs that came with it were largely a result of its influence and sway.


Another piece of terrific news informed Senator Humphrey’s decision that 1968 would be his year: Vice President Terry Sanford’s pledge not to run for President that year. Instead, Sanford expressed concern about the race for the U.S. Senate in his home state of North Carolina. There, incumbent States’ Rights Dixiecrat Sam Ervin had announced that he would be leaving the Democratic Party to run as a member of George Wallace and Jerry Falwell’s new American Conservative Party. Not wanting the seat to fall into the hands of the GOP and especially not the ACP as it would only grant them further legitimacy, Sanford, after conferring with his family and the President, decided that he would become the Democratic nominee for that race for the Senate. Sanford had done a phenomenal job as Kennedy’s right hand man, and by all accounts would have easily made Presidential material in his own right. Ever humble, Sanford had simply shrugged such suggestions aside and replied “Perhaps when the time is right, I shall seek that most prestigious office. For now, I am content to try and serve the people of my beloved home, North Carolina, and show this country that not all Southerners hold utterly backward beliefs.”

President Kennedy had agreed to support Sanford in his decision, thus leaving him open to back any other candidate he chose, should he wish to. Humphrey had ample reason to hope that Kennedy would fulfill their closening relationship and give him the nod. For now anyway, the President played coy and restrained himself to wishing the Senator good luck.


As for who would support him, Humphrey correctly believed that the labor unions and city bosses would be squarely on his side. The backbone of the Democratic Party since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, these factions would serve Humphrey well but also painted a gigantic target on his back. Already well known and experienced, their support guaranteed that the Minnesota Senator was to be seen as the out and out “establishment” candidate for ‘68. This didn’t bother Humphrey overmuch. He saw “establishment candidate” and “frontrunner” as virtually one and the same by the terms of the nation’s political media, especially as millions of young people, hippies and the like, were coming of age to vote. The counterculture loved Humphrey. His face was almost as common on their dorm room posters as the President’s was, or Che Guevara. The issue would be independents or reluctant Democrats in the general election. Though George Wallace was something of a blessing in disguise, robbing the Republicans of any support they could hope for from the far right, the GOP would benefit from being the out and out centrists in a potential three party race. Already known as something of a liberal “extremist” in more moderate circles, Humphrey would have to counter that argument if he wanted to score points in the electability department.


Thus, it was not Franklin Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy that Humphrey called upon in his announcement, but rather Harry S. Truman. “President Truman was never afraid to tell it like it was.” Humphrey smiled as he spoke fondly of the former President. “And it is in that spirit of honesty and straightforward leadership that I humbly announce my candidacy for my party’s nomination for the Presidency of the United States.” As cheers filled the chamber and Humphrey locked eyes with his beloved wife, Muriel, he delivered the final gut punch of his speech, designed to counter any claims of him being a “wimp”.


“Thank you, may God Bless America. Let’s go out there and give ‘em hell!”

…​

Above: Senator George Armistead Smathers, 54 years old by November of 1967. Nicknamed “Gorgeous George” by political adversaries for his slick charm and good looks, this Florida Senator had long harbored ambitions for higher office.


As much as Senator Humphrey insisted that change was the policy implement of choice for the Democratic Party, there were many within its ranks who understood that that wasn’t always the case, or some inherent fact of its existence. From its very inception under Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun, there had been a contingent of the Democrats who were opposed to, or at least suspicious of, Federal power as well as of social liberalism and progress. For every William Jennings Bryan or Woodrow Wilson, there was a Champ Clark; for every Franklin Roosevelt or Adlai Stevenson, a John Nance Garner. In short, Democrats had managed to be the party in power for a good chunk of American history by understanding that a careful watch on public opinion was necessary for determining a direction forward. This was especially pertinent, in the minds of many, as the Summer of Love lead many politicians across the country of all parties, to announce their quest for the White House the following November.


To George Smathers, influential Senator from Florida, his party’s chances in the election were likely more dire than those in charge were willing to admit. As July gave way to September and Hubert Humphrey had made his grand speech positioning himself for a run at the Oval Office, almost everyone in the Democratic Party considered him a shoo-in for victory. He had the good graces of the President, something Smathers had previously enjoyed as Kennedy’s close friend until the Commander in Chief had gotten on his high horse about Civil Rights. As a member of the “southern bloc” in the Senate who coordinated filibusters and did everything they could to prevent the Civil Rights Act of 1964 from even reaching the floor of the Senate, Smathers had ruined not just his relationship with the President, but burned bridges with Democrats throughout the North as well. Despite previous overtures toward moderation, it seemed that the national party establishment had decided somewhere along the line that they were comfortable with abandoning the South and embracing the far left positions of the counterculture. All around him, Senator Smathers watched with growing panic as his fellow Southern Democrats left his party en masse for the American Conservatives, taking with them valuable Senate seats, Governor’s mansions, and electoral votes when the time came to choose the next President. Gorgeous George felt utterly stuck. Trapped between a rock and a hard place insofar as he wasn’t a radical leftist who could bring himself to back Humphrey, nor a diehard segregationist in the Wallace mold, Smathers was forced to question his own politically viability in this uncertain future.


His U.S. Senate seat would be up for reelection in ‘68. He had already declined a personal invitation from Reverend Jerry Falwell to jump ships and run for another term as an American Conservative. The Conservatives had been lukewarm on Smathers to begin with, as even though he had been one of the few Senators to vote against Thurgood Marshall’s appointment to the Supreme Court, Smathers had, as a personal favor to the President, voted “Aye” on the Voting Rights Act. They promised that if Smathers did not jump ship and join their fledgling organization, he would be staring down a three way race for reelection against their candidate in addition to whomever the Republicans put up. In all likelihood, Smathers realized, that race would play out as a microcosm of how he expected all the national elections would go in ‘68. The Conservatives would steal away Democratic votes from white collar workers, splitting their base and allowing the Republicans to make massive gains in the process. Knowing that as a Democrat he stood little chance of winning this potential three way bout, Smathers deliberated on retiring from politics all together. Years and years of his life had been spent in the center of the nation, accumulating power. Walking away seemed simultaneously his most alluring and repulsive option. That was when a realization struck him: his party needed a choice. He could not stand idly by as the Democrats were lead to their doom by an extremist like Hubert Humphrey. Sure there would be favorite sons and other small fries, but there needed to be someone with clout who could stand up to the Happy Warrior and make him fight for the nomination. The thought of Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson of Washington State crossed Smathers’ mind for a moment. Jackson had been a vocal critic of the Kennedy Administration during the early stages of the Apollo-Svarog Program. But Jackson had recently held a press conference in which he expressed his desire to “continue to serve the people of [his] State in the Senate.” Jackson hadn’t ruled out a potential campaign for the White House in the future, but made it clear that as far as he was concerned, ‘68 was out of the question. To make matters worse, on most issues Jackson was just as liberal as Humphrey, exempting his interesting interventionist foreign policy. No, Jackson would not be the savior of the Democrats in ‘68, but perhaps Smathers could.


At 54 he was not an old man by any means, politically. As a matter of fact, he was just slightly under the average age of a U.S. President. He had nearly eighteen years experience in the Senate, a moderate voting record on most of the issues that mattered. He had ardently supported the passage of Medicare, Medicaid, and other popular New Frontier programs without stringing himself up as a puppet of the “out of control” Civil Rights Movement and its “politicized preachers” as Falwell ironically referred to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Smathers knew that the beating heart of the Democratic Party were not the long haired hippies of San Francisco, who were often too young to vote anyway; or egg-headed intellectuals who had cost the Party two elections with Stevenson atop the ticket. They were the hardworking people of the Midwest’s assembly lines, the farmers of the heartland growing staple crops and raising cattle for the nation. Smathers wanted his party to stand a chance of remaining in power. To maintain their dominance of national politics, the Democrats would need the New Deal Coalition, or as much as they could salvage of it. Senator George Smathers believed, as he made his campaign announcement outside one of his summer homes on Daytona Beach, that he would be the one to rally the Party and win the election. Not as progressive worshippers at the altar of change, but as reasonable moderates who steered the nation down a path to continued prosperity and peace.

Other Announced Democratic Candidates (As of September 1967)​

Former Senator Ralph Yarborough (D - TX)​

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: The President meets the King and the Man in Black​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 30: The Wind Changes - The King and the Man in Black Head to the White House​

Above: In a highly publicized series of meetings, President Kennedy invites Elvis Presley, the King of Rock N Roll to the White House to discuss the possibility of working together on a program to help fight drug addiction among the nation’s youth (left). Country Music Star Johnny Cash gives a free concert to the public in the West Wing. After performing, he and President Kennedy meet to talk prison reform (right).


Returning home to the United States on the heels of his second ever European tour, and leaving opening act Buster and the Battery behind to continue their own development in London, Elvis Presley was feeling more invigorated about his career than he had since it had begun some thirteen years before at Sun Studios. Away from the cheesy Hollywood movies and the Colonel’s often dictatorial control over his every move, the King finally felt like he could flex his creative muscles a bit. The summer of love brought days full of new recording sessions in San Francisco with Chet Atkins and nights spent in marital bliss with Ann, who had earlier in the year accepted a series regular role in the third season hit ABC series Batman, starring in the role of Poison Ivy. The songs came to the King easily under the watchful eyes of Atkins and Chips Moman, another bigwig brought in from back home in Memphis to help Presley refine his sound. In addition to a fresh perspective and another set of ears, Moman brought with him three tunes which would go on to be some of the biggest hits of Elvis’ career: a ballad about a desperate boy in a poverty stricken city trying to survive through thievery, “In the Ghetto”; another, a tale of a lovestruck lad struggling to find his love, who has fled from him, “Kentucky Rain”; and of course, “Suspicious Minds”; a soul-infused Rock smash which would arguably become Presley’s signature song.


In addition to the millions of copies each of these singles would sell, they earned critical accolades for the King as well. Critics who had previously dismissed Presley as (according to Rolling Stone): “an aging Rock N Roller trying to recapture the energy of ten years ago”, now hailed him for “recognizing and joining the growing social awareness and responsibility that Rock music carries with it.” Critics and fans alike also praised the new tunes and the album they were released on, Elvis from San Francisco for its bold new sound. Elvis combined the raw energy of his prior work with the Gospel-influenced soul he felt deeply in his southern bones. The audio was bigger, stronger, and more lush than his previous work had been, but it felt like it was keeping with the times. The minimalist beats produced on the records released by Sam Phillips captured teenagers’ sexual angst and desire for rebellion in the 1950’s, but this new, more informed and mature style of music seemed the next logical step in Elvis’ progression as an artist, and matched the prosperity and good feelings encouraged by the prosperity and progress of the Kennedy years. The record’s innocence, its earnestness were distinctly Elvis and his fanbase ate it up in droves.


Not all was perfect for the King during the Summer of Love, however. Though his career had never been healthier, his own personal health was beginning to suffer under the constant pressure of touring and making new music. An addiction to “uppers” and “downers”, pills designed to give him energy and then help him sleep it off, an old carry over that had begun during his army days; was beginning to catch up with him. On the off chance that he was forced to be without the drugs for any amount of time, Presley would become agitated, irritable, and difficult to work with, retreating into himself for long periods of time. One such night occurred in August of 1967, shortly after the release of Elvis from San Francisco. The King was returning from a night about the city with Ann in his pink Cadillac, when Elvis realized he didn’t have his pills. They’d been left in the studio earlier that day and were now locked in. He wouldn’t be able to reach them until the doors were opened again at eight the next morning.


Ann would later recall that her husband began to sweat, shiver, and curse under his breath repeatedly. Perennially known for his shy, soft spoken demeanor and kindness, these behaviors seemed vastly out of place, and Ann tried to ask him what was wrong. She imagined it was the city itself starting to eat away at Elvis’ patience. Elvis Presley was by no means a square. The King ruled over a domain occupied by the most rebellious, raucous variety of music ever recorded. He had shared a joint with Paul McCartney and Ann in London during the Elvis/Beatles megatour two years before. Despite all of that however, he was, in his heart of hearts, still that shy farm boy from Tupelo, Mississippi. He didn’t begrudge the hippies their long hair, roman sandals, or loud music, but the idea of “free love” struck him as foreign and tragic. In the wild, psychedelic parties of Haight-Ashbury, Elvis felt isolated, lonely, and overwhelmed. That very August night, he and Ann had gone out to dinner and been interrupted on more than one occasion by hippie types, asking if he could tell them what it was like to play with Jimi Hendrix or George Harrison. Elvis was always gracious and humble, but Ann quietly wondered if this frustration was something her soul mate had been bottling up for a while, now.


“Elvis,” she said, hoping to get his attention. “Darling, what’s wrong?”


“What?” He snapped, turning his head toward her with fire and brimstone in his eyes.


“You look terrible.” His wife replied flatly, and reached out to touch his hand. “Honey, what’s going on? Why are you so upset?”


Elvis pulled his hand away and sighed heavily. In all his years, Elvis had never been one to admit weakness or defeat. His liking the pills was just a silly, nervous habit; like tapping feet or chewing fingernails. The Colonel had told him over and over that it was nothing to feel ashamed about, everyone in Hollywood took pills. Yet he couldn’t help but hate himself a little every time he opened one of the bottles and popped an upper or a downer. He’d read about what almost happened to Marilyn Monroe because of her addiction to pills. His good friend and Sun Records alumni Johnny Cash struggled with them too. “Your life’s being drained from ya by those pills, Elvis.” Cash had told him in a phone call earlier that year, to let him know that Cash was being checked into rehab by June Carter, who wouldn’t even think of marrying him until he got himself cleaned up. “I’m not calling to preach, I’m certainly in no position to judge. But I care about you, friend. Just figured I’d say my piece and wish you’d get some help.” Cash’s call had ended abruptly when Elvis muttered something about “being fine” and hung up the phone in a daze. Now though, sitting in the car with Ann and seeing the concern spreading hopelessly across her face, something inside of Elvis broke. The dam gave way.


“I need help, Ann.” He said, barely above a whisper as tears filled his eyes. “Good lord, I need help.”

…​

Along with Cash, who managed to clean up his act and kick the habit over the course of the Summer of Love, Elvis checked himself into rehab shortly thereafter. With the support of his family, friends, and of course, Ann; the King managed to overcome his addictions, and was given a clean bill of health on November 11th, 1967. In the immediate, Ann and his friends thought it best for Elvis to take some time off to relax and regain his strength before returning to the road or studio again. It had been the stress of performing and producing that had turned him onto pills in the first place, after all. During that time, Elvis stayed at home in Graceland and watched a lot of the evening news.


Never a very political person, Elvis nonetheless couldn’t help but think and reflect when images of hippies and young people being arrested at parties, drugged out of their minds were beamed into his living room on the TV. The inspiring words of his pastor, and his recent therapy sessions still fresh in his mind, an idea happened upon Presley in the early winter weeks of 1967: maybe he could do something to help counter the growing trend of drug use among the nation’s young people. Using his immense personal wealth and connections within the entertainment industry, it didn’t take long for him to get a hold of Evelyn Lincoln, President Kennedy’s personal secretary. After some brief small talk, the King asked if she thought it at all possible that he could get a meeting with the President, even a very brief one. Lincoln responded that she could promise him nothing, but that she would bring the idea up to Kennedy the very next time she saw him. The King thanked her profusely, and stated his intentions should such a meeting be arranged: “I want to do what I can to help raise awareness of the dangers of prescription drug abuse, and was hoping that the President would have an idea about how I could do that.”


For his part, Kennedy was mostly ambivalent on the idea of meeting with Presley. He was walking with Ted and Bobby after they’d returned from a series of hearings on the Hill when Mrs. Lincoln brought the idea up to him, resulting in a furious storm of laughter from the three Kennedy brothers. “Who does he think I am,” The President laughed. “Ed Sullivan?” Lincoln scolded him for his dismissive attitude, reminding him that a concerned citizen, particularly a celebrity with the potential reach of Elvis Presley was a rare enough thing in this day and age, and ought to be encouraged, not derided. After making sure that his crowded schedule allowed time for a meeting, the President gave the idea his reluctant approval.

The King and the President met for the first time in the Roosevelt Room for a one hour meeting on the afternoon of December 13th, 1967. Much more well spoken and intelligent than Kennedy initially would have given him credit for, Presley managed to leave something of a lasting impression on the President in the short time they spent together. Though Kennedy would not bring Presley aboard as some sort of “Youth Adviser” as Ted had jokingly suggested, the President would take the issue of licit and illicit drugs, and the potentially devastating effects of addiction into serious consideration for the rest of his administration. Later that month, Country music star Johnny Cash would perform with Elvis in the West Wing and meet with the President for a series of conferences to talk about the possibility of reforming the nation’s prison system, which Cash felt was overcrowded, inefficient, and not serving its true purpose to the American people: to reform and rehabilitate criminals, not just punish them.


The concert, which was recorded and released as a live album, would eventually go platinum. The proceeds from sales all went to various non for profits dedicated to achieving the reforms Cash and Presley sought.


Though some conservatives gave the President flak for inviting “Rock N Rollers” to the White House when there was “important business to be done”, the President shrugged off such criticisms by reminding the press that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had often met with important figures in the entertainment industry during World War II to discuss what they could do for the war effort. “Recall if you can,” the President said to his detractors. “My first inaugural address. I called upon the people of this great country to ask not what their country could do for them, but what they could do for their country. If Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash want to lend a hand, who are we to tell them not to?”

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: A Look into the British-Rhodesian Conflict
​

Photo Credits for the edited images of Kennedy and Elvis to Hulkster'01 and Nerdman3000 respectively!
​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 31: We Gotta Get Outta This Place - The British War with Rhodesia (Part I)​

“Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death.” - British Prime Minister Harold Wilson​

Despite their historical reputation for imperialism and conquest, the British people are, at their core, not inherently jingoistic. As a matter of fact, by the latter half of the twentieth century, the citizens of the United Kingdom were skeptical of war, and pacifism, with its preference for diplomacy as a solution to issues ran deep throughout multiple strata of society. The First World War had been a dramatic wake up call to Britons. War was not gallant, it was not pretty. In the words of American Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman: “War is hell”. After emerging from the lethargy of disarmament that had followed the Great War and its millions of casualties and broken bodies, the Second World War had been, as Churchill pointed out, the British Empire’s “Finest Hour.” An island of liberty in a continent overrun by authoritarian fascism, for more than a year, Britain and the overseas realms of the Commonwealth had stood alone against Hitler and refused to surrender. Together with the United States and Soviet Union, the United Kingdom overcame Hitler’s war machine and proved essential in the foundation of the United Nations. Perhaps a few decades too late, the world had been made safe for democracy.


Despite the allies’ great victory however, the war had been the last triumph of the British Empire, and the blow that would ultimately prove its undoing. In its wake, the nation was left in massive debt, with most of its major cities in ruins from the near constant German bombing raids. Wartime rationing continued for years after V-E day while the government of Labour PM Clement Attlee struggled to pick up the pieces of a world nearly torn to shreds by the war. Decolonization, the reforming of the British fiscal policy to lessen military spending and increase aid to its people in rebuilding, and a new reliance on America for financial and military backing all contributed to a steady decline in British prestige. Following the disaster that the foray into the Suez in 1956 would prove, the sun, it seemed, had finally set on the British Empire.

Nonetheless, Britons are a proud people, and stubborn. Stoicism and a hardline resolve amongst them had been born in the crucibles of the World’s two great conflicts, and left them demanding that they continue to have a role to play on the world stage, even if their days at the top of the totem pole were over. They would be a steadfast ally of the United States, of course, but Britain would continue to serve her own purposes as well. All of this had played into the public’s reaction to the Rhodesian attack on the pilots of the HMS Ark Royal in the summer of 1966. Despite Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s insistence on tabling the Rhodesian issue in a diplomatic manner, the deaths of Lt. Archer Douglass and the other pilots seemed to many Britons the final straw. War, when it was announced by royal prerogative through the Prime Minister, was greeted with thunderous applause. New versions of “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary”, “Keep the Home Fires Burning”, Vera Lynn’s “We’ll Meet Again” and other patriotic songs were recorded by contemporary artists, and sold in record numbers. Union jacks waved frequently and proudly from the homes and businesses of many middle and working class Britons. Though there were protests and words of caution, most notably from John Lennon of the Beatles and other celebrities, overwhelming public sentiment became unilateral in its support for swift, decisive military action.


This presented an issue to Wilson’s government, namely: the need for increased defense expenditures right about the time that they had intended to balance the national budget. For years while in opposition, Labour had made plans to scrap or at least reduce funding for modernization projects for the Royal Navy and Air Force, as well as cancel production of a new fleet of aircraft carriers to replace the current Audacious class when they were to be decommissioned in a decade or so. A proud “peacenik”, Wilson much favored using government funds to pay for education, the National Health Service, and other economic ventures rather than a potentially costly war halfway around the world. The times, naturally, forced Wilson’s hand however. The plans which were previously facing the chopping block were allowed to go through as initially intended by the Tories.

Thankfully for Wilson and the Labour Party, they enjoyed the full confidence of Her Majesty, in addition to the British people. Queen Elizabeth II, rarely an overt political presence, gave speeches, visited sailors aboard the Ark Royal and compared the struggle to come in Rhodesia with her father’s own experiences in the Second World War. “Twenty years ago, we were fighting to preserve freedom for ourselves here in Britain.” She said proudly. “Now, we seek to protect those same ideals abroad as well. The Rhodesian people suffer under the yolk of an oppressive regime which rules its people by fiat and uncompromising aggression. The United Kingdom, and all freedom loving nations of this world, must stand against such obvious villainy.”

…​

The British Military had its work cut out for it if it was going to bring the war to a successful conclusion. In the aftermath of the British declaration of war on the 18th of June, 1966; the Smith government had done exactly as Wilson feared they would, and invaded neighboring Zambia. Independent as of October 1964 but still part of the Commonwealth, Zambia represented the most likely British base of operations from which to invade Rhodesia. Though the British had prepared for such a move by Rhodesian Security forces by placing several regiments of Royal Marines on the northern shores of Lake Karuba, their planners had underestimated the size and ferocity of the offensive to come. In a nighttime raid on the evening of the 20th, nearly all of Rhodesia’s three thousand elite troops were carried over Lake Karuba in French manufactured SNIAS Alouette-II transport helicopters and took the 1,000 or so Royal Marines in the vicinity totally unawares. The marines and their Zambian allies put up a brave fight, but the Rhodesians used their mobility to their advantage and quickly forced their surrender, taking most of the garrison prisoner.


As British reinforcements were still being shipped to Rhodesia via transport ships through the Suez, the Zambian military would be forced to largely defend itself in the coming days and weeks. Furious that their fellow Commonwealth nation had failed to uphold their end of the bargain, Zambia decided to use what resources it could bring to bear to mostly defend its capital, Lusaka. Kenneth Kaunda, President of Zambia addressed his people over radio and television, asking them to remain vigilant in the wake of “Rhodesian aggression” and to do everything they could to protect their families, as he was unsure to what degree they could rely on Britain for protection. Thankfully for the Zambian people, Smith did not believe his nation’s security forces had the numbers to truly overrun Zambia, and so contented themselves with holding the north banks of Lake Karuba and taking up defensive positions there for the time being. Back in Salisbury, plans were being drawn up for increasing the small nation’s manpower reserves, as well as for opening up the potential for South African intervention on their side. Such a political stand by their neighbors to the south could be their ticket to victory, particularly with how lukewarm Smith knew Harold Wilson to be on the prospect of the war to begin with. “Wilson is a coward.” Smith told his generals confidently. “A few more victories and we shall have this war in the bag by Christmas.” Smith had some reason to be confident: his largely white security forces were well paid, well trained, and eminently loyal. Even before UDI, they had been largely independent in their command structure and organization from the British military. Thus, when it came time to do away with their “colonial overlords”, most didn’t see the change as too dramatic and defections were minimal.

Knowing that Britain’s forces were not yet in a position to effectively counter and invade Rhodesia properly, Wilson in the meantime decided to adopt, at least in part, Canadian Prime Minister Pearson’s suggestion: that upon confirmation of the location of former Prime Minister Winston Field, a crack team of commandos be paradropped in from the Ark Royal to retrieve and extradite him to the United Kingdom. From there, he could be negotiated with into potentially forming a new government in exile of Rhodesia. The new government would be granted legitimacy by the British, and hopefully thereafter, the international community and would be made a new dominion of the Commonwealth. This plan had been given the green light by all of the members of Wilson’s war cabinet, though some expressed doubts that it would be the widely reaching success that Pearson and Wilson were hoping it would be. Despite his moderation as opposed to Smith, Field was still a founder of the Rhodesian Front party, by no means a British patriot. Many of the rebel groups Wilson hoped would back the government in exile were communists or socialists, supported by the USSR or China, who were unlikely to support any government which did not cater to their Marxist worldviews.


Nonetheless, the plan went ahead on the 17th of August, 1966. Wilson waited with baited breath as reports filtered back to 10 Downing Street via the Ark Royal on the progress of the commandos. The mission was complicated in of itself, as it involved moving several Type 192 Bristol Belvedere helicopters, transporting the commandos; through the airspace of Mozambique, a territory still in the hands of Portugal at the time. With Portugal still friendly to the Smith regime despite President John F. Kennedy’s stern warnings against interfering with British operations in the region, there was a fear on the part of Wilson and the operation’s planning team that the helis could face resistance before or after reaching their target landing zones near Salisbury.


The Rhodesian air force was briefly considered a threat, but quickly dismissed as such after reconnaissance backed by CIA intelligence revealed that Smith had only 1,000 personnel who were capable of flying at the time of the mission. Furthermore, only a few hundred fighter aircraft were available and most could not be scrambled immediately unless they had several minutes worth of advanced warning. Thanks to the low altitudes at which the Belvederes would fly the commandos, there was little chance of detection by Rhodesian radar. In all, the biggest threat to the operation’s success would be any ground based security forces the British encountered between landing and extracting Field with them on the helis. At 02:14 local time, “Operation Anvil” as the mission came to be codenamed, was launched from the Indian Ocean. Via secure telephone, Prime Minister Wilson addressed the commandos, telling them: “the fate and the freedom of millions of Rhodesians rest on your shoulders tonight, lads. Don’t let them down.”

Thankfully for Wilson and the war effort, the British commandos were some of the best trained soldiers in the world. From launch at 02:14 to its successful conclusion at 06:00, Operation Anvil went off without a hitch. The Belvederes dropped off the paratroopers near the outskirts of Salisbury, whence the commandos would then move in squads of six toward the compound where CIA intelligence had assured them that Field and his family were being kept. The British reached the compound at 04:35, where they encountered token resistance from security forces left in charge of guarding the old Prime Minister. The Smith regime had focused most of its crack troops on the invasion of Zambia, and thus left green recruits on guard duty for what they believed to be a low priority mission. Inflicting three kills and two captured on the Rhodesians while taking no casualties themselves, the commandos retrieved Field and his family, informing them of their intentions in the country. Though Field has his qualms about working with the British government, he was wise enough not to resist and be taken to the Isles by force. By 06:00, Field and his family were on the Belvederes and en route to the Ark Royal waiting in the Indian Ocean.

Back in London, Wilson telephoned Ottawa to share his good news and rejoicing at the success of the operation. “Mike, we’ve done it.” He said, cheer running down his voice like the drippings of a fine meal down a chin. “Your idea was simply smashing!”


On the other end, in North America, Lester B. Pearson smiled sadly and rubbed late-night weariness from his eyes. “I’m glad to hear that, Harold. But be wary, you’ve still got a long way to go before the situation will start to stabilize.” Pearson’s wife, Maryon was starting to stir from her own sleep and Lester knew he needed to finish the call quickly, lest he face her wrath. “Start negotiations forthwith. The rebels on the ground will not be an easy sort to negotiate with. If you need more advice or help, always feel free to call.”

“Thank you Mike, I certainly will. Goodnight.” The receiver clicked and Pearson let out a satisfied, if nervous sigh. He leaned over to kiss Maryon’s forehead and eased himself back to bed. It’s not going to be as easy as he’d like it to be. Pearson shook his head at the thought of Wilson believing the war to be won. Peace rarely, if ever, is.

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: The War in Rhodesia Continues​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 32 - Kind of a Drag - The War in Rhodesia (Part II) ​

Following the resounding success of Operation Anvil, the British people were riding high and feeling invincible. Winston Field and his family had been quietly shepherded back to London so negotiations between he and Prime Minister Winston could begin straight away. On August 18th, Wilson gave a speech before the House of Commons declaring that “the political theatre of this war is complete. I believe it now rests with the brave men and women of our Royal Armed Forces to bring its other fronts to the victory we and the people of Rhodesia so richly deserve.” Wilson’s speech was not the most stirring one ever delivered before Parliament, but was still greeted with vigorous applause by his fellow Labour MP’s and the majority of the Tories and Liberals as well. In the aftermath of the snap elections Wilson had called in March earlier that year, his Labour Party now occupied 364 seats to the Conservatives’ 253 and the Liberals’ 12, a sizable addition to their popular majority. Buoyed by public support for the war and his technocratic, reformist policies, Wilson enjoyed a major uptick in personal popularity, and the “rally around the flag” effect was only strengthened as Britons watched the Royal Marines return home with Winston Field and his family, safe and sound.

Not all in Parliament were forceful in their praise of Wilson or “his” war, however. Pacifists in all three of the major parties and beyond found easy issue with the conflict, believing that the Prime Minister, for all his proclamations of desiring peace and diplomacy had not done everything in his power to avoid armed conflict. Others, particularly among the Tory opposition, took issue with Wilson’s swift and unequivocal adoption of Lester Pearson’s “Field plan”. The more nationalistic among the Conservatives worried that Wilson and his war cabinet were putting too much faith in a former member of the Rhodesian Front, the very party that had led that nation to its UDI the year before. Field, in their minds, was a traitor to the Commonwealth, a villain who was not to be trusted, much less given a stamp of approval and shipped back with the full will and influence of the United Kingdom and her allies behind him. These Tories wanted the war not to be a tactical, contained effort to swap one Rhodesian leader for another, they wanted to teach the rebels and bigots in the Smith regime a lesson. They demanded that no nation would ever again declare their independence from the British or any other European Empire again without first guaranteeing African Majority rule. Nations like Portugal and South Africa, who tolerated such policies needed to be put on notice. If nothing else, this war was an opportunity for the UK to reassert its position on the world stage not just as an ally of the United States in the great “twilight struggle” of the Cold War, but as a great champion of freedom in its own right. Though these Tories were mostly quiet in their opposition, preferring to work behind the scenes, influencing public opinion through anonymous letters to the press and other methods, this contingent of Conservatives did not look to their party’s leader, Edward Heath, for direction, but rather to a recently elected chap from Plymouth, Devonshire, who had the family name, if not the personal credentials to stand out among a crowd: The Honourable Randolph Churchill.

Widely considered a political non-starter, more like his namesake grandfather than his famous progenitor, Churchill had earned a rather nasty reputation during his first stint in the Commons from 1940 to 1945 for not turning up to votes, not taking his job seriously, and for all around behavior that his contemporaries summed up as “lazy”. In the time since his defeat for reelection to represent Preston in the ‘45 wave which swept his father’s government out of office, the younger Churchill passed his time in one pursuit after another. He divorced his first wife and remarried, became a journalist covering American politics for a time, and generally stayed far away from British politics, an area in which he felt passionately but ashamed due to his prior failures. It is in that most noble of pursuits, Randolph wrote in his diary late one night. That I believe I am destined to have no future. If my father’s name shall be forever enshrined in the great books written of our history, mine shall be confined to no more than a footnote. In the early 1960’s however, Churchill underwent a bit of a change of heart. In the United States, he observed the vigor with which President Kennedy and his allies pursued change and what they believed to be right. He became inspired by what he referred to as “the American’s innate inability to give up, to surrender. They can and will fight for as long as they can, with everything they have.”


The final catalyst for Randolph’s decision to reenter politics came shortly before his father’s funeral in 1965. Hoping to make peace with his father before his passing, given their rather contentious relationship in Winston’s later years, Randolph visited his father in Kent and spent several weeks at his home. The pair would read books together, work in his father’s garden, and listen to radio dramas on the BBC with his mother. It was the closest they had been in years. On the final day, only two weeks before Winston would ultimately pass away, the elder Churchill revealed to his son the true reason why he never accepted a peerage when offered one for the second time upon his retirement in the ‘50’s: he knew that if he did accept it, his son would one day inherit it, and thus be disqualified from serving in the House of Commons. “You have a great potential within you, Randolph.” His father had said in a wheezing half whisper. “You need only to reach in and seize it.” Through only a few words, Winston made his intention for Randolph clear: go back into politics, and serve your country.


In the aftermath of his father’s passing, Randolph threw himself back into the family business with zeal. He became acquainted with the movers and the shakers of the Conservative Party, and positioned himself as a candidate once again for a seat in Plymouth as Prime Minister Wilson made clear his intentions for a snap election in 1966, hoping to grow his majority. Despite all odds and the dismissals thrown at him by the establishment, which considered him at best, a quaint reminder of his father’s legacy, and at worst an alcoholic joke; Randolph Churchill managed to edge out a victory in Plymouth that year. Even as Tories were thrown out en masse to make room for more Labour MPs and liberal reformers, a new Conservative with an old name would be heading to the House of Commons once again.


As his father had once been, Churchill quickly made a name for himself as a firebrand for military “preparedness” and a more hawkish foreign policy. As soon as the Rhodesians had issued their UDI in November of ‘65, Churchill had made demands for war from the campaign trail. He called invasion “the only responsible option for the United Kingdom in a tangled mess of a situation.” Once in office, he did what he could to influence his fellow Tories in support of an invasion, and vowed to be a maverick if necessary, and support “whichever party in this House that is in favour of teaching these bigots that the United Kingdom will not stand for treason.” Dismissed by many as too radical in his rhetoric, those in the Conservative Party who were suspicious of the Field plan nonetheless came to see Randolph as a potential leader, someone they could follow and rally behind. In the aftermath of the success of Operation Anvil, Churchill agreed to live and let live for the time being. He would give Wilson and his government a chance to negotiate an agreement with Field before he went on an offensive on the floor and in the papers. I will not accept terms unfavorable to freedom or to the British people, though. Churchill thought one night as he poured himself yet another glass of brandy. And Wilson is more toasted than I am if he thinks that the rebels are going to want Winston-fucking-Field as their Prime Minister after everything he and Smith have done. In his imagination, Churchill was terrified by visions of a never ending war of jungles and desert plateaus. A conflict between brothers, socialists, communists, and democrats with the United Kingdom trapped in a never ending cycle of violence should they refuse to step in and administer the situation themselves. If he’s not careful, Churchill sighed. Wilson’s going to pull us into a quagmire.

…​

The fears of Churchill and the Tories would ultimately prove tragically founded. The negotiations between Field and Wilson went along smoothly enough. The Rhodesian was so thankful to be alive and out of the hands of Smith’s government, let alone facing the possibility of a return to power, that he practically jumped at the chance to accept Wilson’s demands. Wilson left the meeting with Field and the pair was photographed together outside of 10 Downing Street by reporters. When one asked by one what the two had accomplished, Wilson smiled brightly and replied, “today lads, I’ve won the war!”

Across London, Randolph Churchill stewed at the Prime Minister’s presumption and arrogance. He hurled papers across his study and roared to his aides, “A paper victory! A hollow promise! Come next year, Wilson’s line will be seen as this generation’s ‘I believe it is peace for our time!’” Churchill’s anger may well have been justified. Even with the Declaration of the creation of “the Commonwealth of Rhodesia” by Field and Wilson on September 13th, 1966, there was still the practical reality of the war to contend with.


By the completion of the negotiations, the British troops en route to join the Ark Royal task force via the Suez had arrived and were beginning to be deployed defensively in Zambia. Simultaneously, the Royal Air Force began coordinating its bombing runs with the needs of Royal Marines already on the ground near the border with Rhodesia and based them on intelligence gathered and refined multiple times over by MI-6 and the CIA. The Yanks had managed to guarantee, with some certainty, the locations of the air strips used by the Smith regime’s already meager air force. Wilson and his military planners believed, correctly, that if they could neutralize any fighter aircraft that Smith had in his arsenal, then the RAF could use its well organized bomber squadrons to soften up Rhodesian defenses, and clear the way for the Royal Marines to push south, surround Salisbury and force Smith to capitulate. It was a thorough, and many believed, bullet proof plan. Churchill disagreed. The Tory was concerned that the plan failed to take into account the political reality of the aftermath of such a conflict. The British may very well overrun Smith’s security forces with their superior numbers and technological edge, but until such time as the new Field government could effectively rebuild a military to protect itself, it would be utterly at the mercy of ZANLA, ZIPRA, and other local rebel groups. What was more, as a member of the British Commonwealth, Rhodesia and her protection would be the responsibility of the United Kingdom and her allies. Churchill demanded to know whether or not Wilson and his Labour government, who still insisted that defense cuts were to come after the war was completed; had any sort of plan for maintaining Rhodesians’ safety and freedoms. The Wilson government declined to answer.

For what it was worth, over the next several months, the plan went off without a hitch. The overwhelming initial RAF strike effectively crippled the Rhodesian air force and immediately cleared a path for the Royal Marines and Infantry to blaze on south through the contested state toward Salisbury. The fighting in the jungles around the southern shore of Lake Kariba was especially intense, as many of the British and Rhodesians felt the immense personal and political stakes of the battles they found themselves in. For Britain, this was a defensive war for freedom for black Africans, pride, and prestige for the UK; for the white Rhodesians, this was an invasion by a foreign oppressor, who sought to continue to influence and control them, ironic given how they were treating their own majority population. But as the tide began to favor the British, with the RAF’s air support and the army’s artillery proving too much to overcome, Smith gave the order for his remaining security forces to return, at once, to the capital. There, Smith began to give a series of increasingly fanatical speeches, vowing to never let “the imperialists seize the capital of the people!”


Over the next several weeks, the British slowly, but surely encircled the capital and began to choke the life from the Rhodesian capital. When Smith still refused to surrender, the British commander, Brigadier General Robert Murray, issued a decree to the people of Salisbury: a promise of immunity and fair treatment if they manage to secure the city and turn it over to the British immediately. Though the city’s denizens did not immediately take the offer, after several days without food, water, or electricity, their dedication to Ian Smith began to be overwhelmed by their more basic human needs. On October 18th, 1966, Smith was preparing himself for day 11 of the siege of Salisbury when he was greeted in his private bedroom by several high up officers of the Rhodesian Security Forces. He allegedly opened his mouth to ask what they thought they were doing, but the bullet from one of their American-made pistols went through his skull before he managed to get the words out. By late afternoon, General Murray was in Smith’s former office. There, he used the telephone to call Prime Minister Wilson to give him the news: “It’s over, Sir. The city is ours.”

A declaration of victory for the United Kingdom, and the formation of the Commonwealth of Rhodesia followed shortly thereafter. In London, parades were held in honor of the gallant soldiers and pilots who’d secured the first major British military victory since the Second World War. Wilson was toasted by ally and rival alike for his patient, effective leadership, and her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II addressed her people proudly over the BBC. Around the world, everyone from President Kennedy to the UN General Assembly congratulated the British on a job well done, and expressed their hopes that a lasting, just peace could now take place in the region. Once again, Randolph Churchill was not so sure, and refused to attend the ball thrown in Wilson’s honour shortly thereafter. Another man was celebrating this turn of events however, a former prisoner whom the British had set free during their liberation of Salisbury. Former ZANU leader and active revolutionary Robert Mugabe was now ready to leave the city, head for the countryside, and prepare for the true fight that was still to come: throwing off the imperialist chains for the sake of the people once and for all. Though that fight would have to wait until the guerrillas could be rallied, and the British were lured back into a false sense of security. In the meantime, Mugabe and his supporters would lie in wait, and let the United Kingdom believe it had shown its prowess as a world power once again.

Rule, Britannia!

Britannia, rule the waves!

Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!

​

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: A Look at the World at large, outside of Britain​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 33 - Up, Up, and Away: An Overseas Snapshot, 1966 - 1967​

1967 was coming to a close and had been a very special year indeed for Canada and her people. It had been 100 years since the creation of the nation as a dominion on July 1st, 1867 with the Constitution Act. At that time, only four provinces joined the new country: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, all nestled on the comforting shores of the Atlantic, as near as could be to the motherlands in Britain and France. The nation seemed shy, polite, and nervous to take its first steps away from its roots. This would change rapidly with the construction of the transcontinental railroad by the government of Sir John A. McDonald and the foundation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Over the course of a century, new provinces were added, along with new territories and a new national identity neither really French, nor English, but something else entirely. Two World Wars had hammered the molten ore of Canada’s existence into solid iron. Heroes in the trenches, on the waves, and in the air flew the Maple Leaf and felt the call of their beautiful country down to the very marrow of their bones. Now a peaceful neighbor of one of the world’s two great superpowers, Canada had earned a reputation as a peacemaker and a loyal friend. Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, considered one of the greatest in his country’s history despite his short tenure in the position, could not have been more proud.

Having spent the last several years accomplishing every major initiative he had set out to complete, Universal Health Care being chief among them; Pearson was able to place one task above all others for ‘67: to celebrate. Expo ‘67, the largest and most successful world’s fair in history was a smashing success in Montreal. A new honour and national order, second only to the Order of Merit, the Order of Canada; was created to bestow upon especially worthy men and women who performed exceptional feats or otherwise did their country proud. Across the country, new universities were opened, books were written, and Pearson felt a swelling in Canadian national sentiment the likes of which he had never seen before. To the aging, tired leader, this was more than he could have ever asked for. To Pearson, there seemed no better time to begin considering his retirement.


Not all was peaches and cream for the Great White North, of course. Harold Wilson and his government’s insistence on defense spending cuts while also trying to organize an occupation of the Commonwealth of Rhodesia disturbed Pearson, as it had Randolph Churchill. Pearson worried that Wilson had bit off more than he could chew, and had not returned his calls. Pearson hoped to offer more advice on what Britain’s next step should be in stabilizing the region, particularly in the wake of increased Chinese and Cuban rabble rousing there. What’s more, the media had had a field day when French President Charles de Gaulle had arrived in Montreal and gave a speech in front of 100,000 people in which he declared: “Vive le Quebec libre!” (Long live free Quebec!). Furthermore, de Gaulle also compared his arrival to that of his in Paris, when it was liberated from the Nazis. Interpreted as a call for Quebecois independence from Canada, the statement had delighted many Francophones in Quebec, but infuriated millions across the country and in the Canadian government. Pearson himself fumed at the comment, which he believed violated the friendship cultivated between the two nations as allies during the First and Second World Wars. Canada had been one of the nations most responsible for coming to France’s aid in her hour of direst need. Pearson rebutted de Gaulle in a speech the following day, proclaiming that “Canadians do not need to be liberated!” and making it clear that the French President was no longer welcome in Canada. He also expressed his opinion of de Gaulle to American President Kennedy in a private phone call: “I don’t care what the man did while a general for Free France, as a President, all he does is blow hot air!”

But despite these minor flare ups, Pearson believed he could step away and leave behind a legacy he was proud of for Canada. A liberal reformer at home, and a tremendous advocate for peace, friendship, and fellowship abroad; “Mike” would go down as one of his country’s finest leaders, and announced his intentions to enter the history books on December 14th, 1967. “Good evening, my fellow Canadians. I am speaking to you over the CBC tonight to inform you that after much consideration with my family, I will be stepping down as your Prime Minister early next year. The last several years have been some of the fondest in my life, and I only hope that I can say that I left you all off a little better than I found you.” The public agreed that he had, giving him a nearly 80% approval rating as 1967 petered out and Christmas loomed just around the corner. The question that remained as this titan of the Liberal Party prepared to step away from public life was this: who could possibly hope to succeed Lester B. Pearson?

…​

Succession was also the talk of the town around Moscow in the brisk early days of May, 1967. Unlike Comrade Stalin, who had left behind a gaping power vacuum in the wake of his death fourteen years earlier, First Secretary Khrushchev hoped for a lengthy, relaxing retirement and to leave behind a stable power structure which would continue his policies for the foreseeable future. Though an autocrat of the highest order in the manner in which he governed, Khrushchev had also taken several steps toward reform for the Soviet Union after decades under the iron grip of Stalinism. For one thing, Khrushchev had helped to calm and dismantle the cult of personality built around Stalin, as well as the Gulags and forced labor camps Stalin had used to control and often, kill, political dissidents. In 1965, he had allowed his new Premier and Deputy Secretary, Alexei Kosygin to pursue a series of economic reforms designed to decentralize the Soviet economy and encourage growth. Conservative hardliners within the party opposed the measures vehemently, but thanks to the loyalty of more liberal and moderate factions of the party, as well as the military and KGB following Leonid Brezhnev’s “accident”, Khrushchev had been able to safely pass and employ the reforms anyway. The results were fruitful. The economy was growing and doing better than it had in years. The Soviet military, though nominally standing down as Khrushchev pursued continued detente with the Americans, stood stronger and more capable than ever before. It was not yet the equal of the Americans, President Kennedy had made sure of that, but the First Secretary was confident that the USSR could defend itself and its interests should the need arise. It was in this air of confidence and security that Khrushchev made his decision to walk away.

Older than he liked to admit, Khrushchev did not want to stick around long enough to be considered weak. He had almost been removed by Brezhnev, and he wasn’t naive enough to think that the hardliners in the party would wait forever before pushing back against the reforms of his tenure. Privately, Khrushchev placed his hopes for a stronger Soviet Union on Kosygin, the man whom he had already designated to serve as his logical successor. Kosygin was the mastermind not just behind the economic reforms, but the July ‘67 summit with President Kennedy in Paris as well. There, he had demonstrated a great talent for foreign affairs, and seemed to get along with the American delegation fabulously. But not all within the party were happy with the knowledge that Kosygin would be taking power, even with his relative popularity in the Supreme Soviet. In the shadows, conservative elements began to pipe up again, asking for meetings with Khrushchev and voicing their concern that under a Kosygin regime, they feared that their voices might go ignored. They softly, gently threatened the Deputy Secretary, though all of this was left unsaid, of course. It was the Russian way to handle these things with subtlety, there was no need to make things clear. Khrushchev, for his part, understood. He asked what they wanted in exchange for a promise to back Kosygin when the time came.


Their answer? They wanted Vladimir Semichastny out as head of the KGB. Semichastny, a staunch Khrushchev ally, had been the primary mover behind keeping his friend in power during the “quiet” coup attempt of 1964. Had Semichastny not been in charge, or had not been so damned true to his word, the USSR would have Brezhnev in power, and would not be yielding ideological ground to the filthy capitalists. The conservatives would back Kosygin, alright. But only if they had a meaningful check on his power. They wanted one of their own to head operations at the KGB, so they could keep an eye on Kosygin, and make sure he did not move too far, too fast against the interests of any wing of the party against another. Had he been younger, Khrushchev might have been inclined to fight them, to use whatever power and influence he could muster to have these men arrested and killed for even daring to threaten the soon to be leader of their beloved Soviet Union. But Khrushchev was not the man he once was, and so agreed to their terms. On May 18th, 1967, Vladimir Semichastny was sacked and replaced by the hardliners’ first choice: Yuri Andropov.

As Soviet Ambassador to Hungary during the 1956 uprising against Soviet domination there, Andropov had proven himself an effective, and oftentimes brutal, defender of the revolution. If there was anyone who could be trusted to keep the “weak”, reform minded, liberal Kosygin in line once he took office, the conservatives believed that Andropov was their man. Khrushchev made the necessary appointment, and retired himself shortly thereafter, asking Semichastny to move into a cabin near the one the First Secretary intended to retire to himself. Semichastny, feeling utterly betrayed by the friend he had once risked everything to protect, refused, and instead returned to his native Ukraine, where he would eventually serve as the Deputy Prime Minister of the local SSR.


On August 11th, 1967, First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev officially stepped away from power and Alexei Kosygin was sworn in as his replacement. The western world joined with President John F. Kennedy as he called Kosygin to offer his congratulations and to wish him the best of luck as he took office. To those outside of the Soviet Union, there was cause to hope that the detente between the two superpowers could continue and the Cold War could keep on thawing. Unbeknownst to them, there was a situation developing in Czechoslovakia which would ultimately force that hope to prove impossible.

… ​

“El Presidente” Fidel Castro sat in the Presidential Palace in Havana, smoking one of his signature cigars and wearing a frown which dominated his usually calmly cheerful face. This morning had been particularly bothersome for the revolutionary leader. He had received news he wouldn’t like. He’d known the missive would be bad from the face of the carrier assigned to bring it to him. The boy looked like he was marching toward his own execution. Such looks made Castro sad. Of all the masks he was forced to wear as the leader of the bastion of the revolution in the New World, that of the brutal dictator was always his least favorite. Nonetheless, Castro had taken the letter from the boy and read it carefully. He knew the fate of his nation would rely on its contents.


Nothing in the letter surprised Castro. Once he’d seen that it was postmarked from Bolivia, and flown at such high priority, he knew it could be from only one man. Che Guevara, Castro’s old comrade and brother in arms during the revolution shared a complex relationship with the Cuban President. Through their efforts combined, they had thrown off the chains of capitalist imperialism, and given the fate of the Cuban people back to themselves. Without Che’s help, it is unlikely that Castro could have achieved as much as he had. That being said, Guevara was also a consistent thorn in the dictator’s side. Castro was, at his core, ever a pragmatist. He believed in doing what made sense economically and politically at any given moment to best advance the national interest of Cuba. Guevara on the other hand was an ideological purist, an ideologue who would never compromise on his Marxist principles, a man who flew to New York to speak before the United Nations’ General Assembly and called the imperialists out on their evils to their face. Such bold attitudes were admirable, Castro supposed, but also dangerous.

In his letter, Guevara shared his thoughts on a subject which weighed heavily on Castro’s mind already: that of Khrushchev’s decision to retire. The Soviet Union, and the tremendous amounts of economic aid they sent to Cuba were the primary means by which the Communists maintained the wellbeing of their nation. Khrushchev had been a major supporter of the Cuban Revolution, and had, in every year since, sent millions of dollars worth of aid to the island nation. What scared Castro and Guevara alike was the recent detente being pursued by the two great superpowers of the world. With the Soviets warming their relations with the Americans, the amount of aid the USSR would want to send to Cuba came into question. Khrushchev would never consider reducing aid, of course. Cuba had been his pet in the New World. The furthest reach of the Soviet sphere of influence, a happy little satelite for him. His successor on the other hand? Of Kosygin’s position on the matter, Castro and Guevara were less sure.


Kosygin already announced that he would continue to pursue closer relations with the west. Though President Kennedy seemed to have adopted a “live and let live” mentality toward Cuba in the wake of the Missile Crisis (besides the hundreds of attempted assassinations of Castro by the CIA), there was no guarantee that whomever occupied the Oval Office next would employ the same attitude. There were some candidates, such as Senator Goldwater (R - AZ) who were already promising openly that if elected they would take the Soviets to task over the question of Cuba. If Kosygin prioritized his friendship with the Americans over his protection of Cuba, and so reduced the amount of aid sent, Cuba’s economy would be in a lot of trouble.


Guevara’s solution could have been guessed from a mile away, as far as Castro was concerned: abandon the Soviets and warm up to the People’s Republic of China. The Sino-Soviet split caused a major rift personally between Cuba’s two most prominent leaders. Guevara had sided with the Chinese, for ideological reasons; while Castro preferred the Soviets because they were offering more in the way of aid for Cuba. To Guevara, China represented a new bastion of Communism that was less prone to political domination and exploitation than the Soviets. Mao could offer the protection and support that the Soviets could, without the possibility, at least for the time being, of having their foreign policy tossed aside as the Communists in Moscow abandoned their beliefs to cozy up to the Americans. Castro was unsure.


Though Guevara pointed to the cultural revolution washing over the PRC as a great example of the people “taking to their streets for what they believe in”, Castro was more skeptical. To him, the whole affair seemed more an opportunity to take care of Mao’s enemies and divide the people against each other, perhaps blinding them to the fact that millions of them were still without food, shelter, and basic education. Castro felt that the revolution there was a thinly veiled attempt on Mao’s part to shamelessly protect his own position at the expense of his people. It disgusted him. Yet, he could see Guevara’s point that blindly staying loyal to the Soviets over the Chinese could prove disastrous should Kosygin wimp out and leave Cuba to its fate. As he was want to do, Castro decided to pursue a middle approach.


Beginning in March of 1967, in Cambodia, Prince Norodom Sihanouk was seeing armed resistance against his regime. The Monarchy had flip flopped their allegiance in the Cold War multiple times over the last several years, but recently allowed the People’s Republic of China to station Vietcong divisions in the eastern border regions of his country. The North Vietnamese and China, without Soviet aid, hoped to use these positions to attack South Vietnam once President Kennedy and the Americans had completed their withdrawal. Unfortunately for China, the Prince got cold feet on the plan (following a hefty offer of aid and support from Secretary of State McNamara) and ordered the Vietcong out of his country by April 1st. The Vietcong agreed, but began to encourage hard left movements within Cambodia, particularly the so called Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot, to begin to organize resistance and strike government arms depots with guerilla bands. Because the Prince was deeply unpopular within his country, thousands of poor Cambodians flocked to join the Khmer Rouge and China began funnelling aid, training and support into the movement. President Kennedy and his cabinet took notice, but did nothing more than increase the amount of aid they sent to the Monarchy. Kennedy doubted whether or not the Prince could be trusted, and still did not want to entangle America in a quagmire in Southeast Asia. Castro on the other hand, saw an opportunity for Cuba.


While not distancing himself at all from the Soviets, Castro would pull his country closer to China by backing a revolutionary movement alongside the People’s Republic. Though Castro and Guevara, who quickly signed off on the plan, had no way of predicting it, their little excursion in the jungles of Cambodia, would set into motion a chain of events that became one the great tragedies of the 1960’s.


Viva La Revolucion!

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: An Update On Pop Culture in 1967​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Pop Culture in 1967: Peace, Love, and Rock & Roll​

Billboard’s Year-End Hot 100 Singles of 1967 (Top 10)

1. “To Sir with Love” - Lulu
   
   
2. “The Letter” - The Box Tops
   
   
3. “I’m a Believer” - The Monkees
   
   
4. “Light My Fire” - The Doors
   
   
5. “I Think We’re Alone Now” - Tommy James and the Shondells
   
   
6. “Respect” - Aretha Franklin
   
   
7. “Happy Together” - The Turtles
   
   
8. “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” - Frankie Valli
   
   
9. “Ruby Tuesday” - Elvis Presley (Rolling Stones Cover)
   
   
10. “All You Need is Love” - The Beatles

News in Music, Through the Year​

January 4th - The Doors release their eponymous debut album.


January 14th - At the Human Be-In in San Francisco, live music is provided by Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and several other groups.

February 16th - “Aretha Franklin Day” is declared in Detroit, Michigan.


March 11th - The Beatles appear on American Bandstand and announce work on a new album. This will become Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.


March 25th - The Who perform their first concert in the United States in New York City.


March 31st - Kicking off a UK tour with Cat Stevens in London, England, Jimi Hendrix of Buster and the Battery finishes his band’s set by lighting his guitar on fire. A Rock tradition is born.

May 1st - Paul McCartney reveals that all four of the Beatles have “dropped acid”. On the same day, Elvis Presley makes a statement announcing his “disappointment” that the Beatles have taken to using psychedelic drugs.


May 2nd - After begging with Capitol Records for more time, Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys release Smile to widespread commercial and critical acclaim. The leading single, “Good Vibrations” quickly goes platinum.


June 1st - Sgt. Pepper’s, widely seen as the most influential Rock album of all time is released by the Beatles.


June 16th - 18th - The Monterey Pop Festival, one of the first of its kind, is held, with over 55,000 in attendance.


June 25th - In the first ever worldwide television broadcast, the Beatles perform “All You Need is Love” with Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, and members of the Who singing backup vocals. Elvis Presley was invited to attend, but was undergoing rehab at the time and so was forced to pass.


August 23rd - Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein is saved from a potentially fatal overdose of carbitral, a form of barbiturate, when Paul McCartney follows him home after a recording session at Abbey Road, suspecting that something was up with him. McCartney rushes Epstein to the hospital and the doctors there manage to save his life, much to the relief of the band.

September 17th - The Doors are banned from the Ed Sullivan Show after Jim Morrison refuses to change the line “Girl we couldn’t get much higher” from “Light My Fire”.


October 14th - Tammi Terrell faints and collapses into duet partner Marvin Gaye’s arms onstage during a performance at the Hampton University Homecoming in Virginia. She was later diagnosed with a brain tumor, and die from brain cancer in 1970 at the age of 24.


October 18th - The first issue of Rolling Stone rolls off the presses in San Francisco, California. The inaugural cover features John Lennon biting his lip and winking at the camera.


November 22nd - Otis Redding records “Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay”.


December 5th - George Harrison begins recording tracks for Wonderwall Music, what will ultimately become his first solo album.


December 10th - Otis Redding and his backing band, the Bar-Keys survive a crash landing of their plane outside of Madison, Wisconsin. Considered a “very close call” by the injured pilot, the plane nearly crashed into Lake Monona, which would surely have been fatal. Besides scrapes, bruises, and a few broken bones, no one is seriously hurt.

1967 in Film: The Year’s Biggest​

The Graduate - Romantic comedy-drama. Directed by Mike Nichols and starring Dustin Hoffman (in his film acting debut), Marilyn Monroe, and Ann-Margret Presley. By far the highest grossing film of the year, The Graduate won an Academy Award for Best Director for Nichols and was nominated for six other categories as well. The performances of the three stars were widely praised, and Monroe was said to give “the finest performance of her career”. The film would go on to be iconic of the era, a bona fide classic.


The Jungle Book - Animated musical-comedy. Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman and produced by Walt Disney. The Jungle Book would be the last film to be personally approved by Disney before his passing the year before. This, combined with beautiful animation, fantastic voicework, and a superb score catapulted the film into massive critical and commercial success.


Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner - Comedy-drama. Directed by Stanley Kramer and starring Sidney Poitier, Spencer Tracy, and Katharine Hepburn. Massively influential for its rarely positive depiction of interracial marriage, the film became a box office smash as well.


Bonnie and Clyde - Biographical/Action. Directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. Incredibly successful and controversial at the time for its graphic on screen depictions of violence and sexuality, Bonnie and Clyde would be pointed to as a major influence on the start of the “New Hollywood” era to follow. To the millions of young Americans involved with the counterculture, the film became a rallying cry to attack the establishment and was very popular.

Everyone’s Favorite Television Programs in 1967​

Star Trek - Starring William Shatner, DeForest Kelley, and Leonard Nimoy.

Batman - Starring Adam West, Burt Ward, and Ceser Romero.

Bewitched - Starring Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York.

Green Acres - Starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor.

The Andy Griffith Show - Starring Andy Griffith, Don Knotts, and Ronnie Howard.

1967 in Sport​

January 15th - The first “Super Bowl” is held between the AFL Champion Kansas City Chiefs and the NFL Champion Green Bay Packers. The Packers win 35 - 24.

The World Series: The St. Louis Cardinals continue the “Curse of the Bambino”, defeating the Boston Red Sox 4 games to 3. Cardinal Pitcher Bob Gibson is declared World Series MVP.

NBA Finals: The Philadelphia 76er’s go 4 games to 2 over the San Francisco Warriors.

Stanley Cup: Toronto Maple Leafs win 4 games to 2 over the Montreal Canadiens during Canada’s centennial year.

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year: British Prime Minister Harold Wilson for his management of the War in Rhodesia.​

Other Headlines from the Year​

Throughout - Activist Ralph Nader’s book “Unsafe at Any Speed” helps raise the alarm about unsafe automotive designs in U.S. cars. In response, President Kennedy orders the foundation of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The board’s foundation will shortly thereafter lead to new safety standards including head rests, energy-absorbing steering wheels, shatter-resistant windshields, and safety belts.


December - The first successful human to human heart transplant is carried out by Dr. Christiaan Barnard in South Africa.


April - In Loving v. Virginia, the United States Supreme Court rules 6 - 3 that state bans on interracial marriage are unconstitutional under the 14th amendment’s “equal protection” promise.


Throughout - The People’s Republic of China tests its first Hydrogen bomb.

Throughout - The United Kingdom and Ireland officially apply once more for admission into the European Economic Community (EEC). Again, French President Charles de Gaulle blocks their admission, fearing that their membership would be a “trojan horse” for American influence into the organization.

Summer - Late in the summer of 67', Ann Margret, having finished filming for her role as Helga Brand in the latest James Bond film You Only Live Twice, found herself once again offered the role of Catwoman by ABC for their Batman television series, following the departure of actress Julie Newmar. Still intrigued by the prospect of joining the show, Margret would nonetheless surprise the producers after she instead began expressing more interest in playing as a relatively new Batman villianess from the comics instead, that of Poison Ivy, who premiered in the comics the year before. Excited at the prospect of bringing in the wife of Elvis Presley into the show, the character of Poison Ivy was quickly written into the new season with a large role, as the new love interest as well as enemy of the caped crusader; a character who's introduction would inadvertently also later on would give the Eco-Environment movement one of it's most prominent symbols and icons.


One major and important contribution to the Batman comic book lore resulting from the introduction of Poison Ivy into the show would be in giving a clearly defined origin story for the the comic book villianess, who lacked one at that point in time in the comics. This new origin, created by the shows executive producer William Dozier, would reveal that the character of Poison Ivy, born Pamela Isley, would have been a young childhood friend of Bruce Wayne, whose path of villainy as a eco-terrorist later in life would put the Batman at odds with his great sense of justice, and his heart. With a new origin and a major role in the new season, Margret's addition to the cast, alongside that of Yvonne Craig's casting as Batgirl, would help breathe new life into the shows declining ratings, allowing it to live beyond a third season and be green lite for a fourth season, scheduled for 1968.

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: Politics as Usual? ​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 34 - I Say a Little Prayer: The Beginning of the Time of Turmoil​

Above: First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy visit the home of the President’s brother, Secretary of Defense Robert Kennedy; Hickory Hill in McLean, Virginia. There, they hope to spend some time together as a family and escape from the stresses of the world for a while.


The President of the United States of America leaned back in a large leather armchair and rolled his neck in a narrow, tight circle, hoping it would ease some of the tension he was feeling. Earlier in the day, Kennedy had taken his eldest, Caroline out for an afternoon of sledding with Bobby and his eldest, Kathleen. A great time was had by all, but now the President’s back was acting up again. Looking around the quaint, reconstruction-era home around him, Kennedy smirked. What would really help is a good roll in the hay. His beloved wife was not around however, and would not be back from a carriage ride with Ethel and several of the children for a while yet. The thought of possibly sleeping with someone else didn’t cross Jack’s mind, either. Five years down the line, the President was still making good on his promise. Letting his eyes wander the walls of his brother’s study around him, Jack was struck by the tremendous pride and love swelling in his chest for the myriad people captured in photographs along them. Jackie was his love, of course, but the children too, and Bobby, Ted, their families… to the Kennedys, family was a sacred thing. He would not be anywhere near his current position without them.


Perhaps it was his father’s poor health that had Jack in such a family-oriented mindset. Optimistic Doctors’ reports and calls from his ever caring mother, Rose, belied the true depth of his aging father’s sickness. After the stroke in ‘61, aphasia had set in on Joe Kennedy, Sr. As its effects took hold, along with mental breakdown typical for a man of his age, the patriarch of the Kennedy family was losing his ability to speak, or to effectively communicate at all. The last time the President had seen his father was the summer previous, during a weekend getaway to Hyannis Port. They had spoken as fondly as was possible, but a harsh reality was setting in for JFK: soon his father, the titan who loomed ever large over the ambitions and dreams of his children, would be passing away. The man responsible for taking the Kennedys from just another Irish-American family to one of its preeminent political and social dynasties would be moving on from this world to the next, leaving the family without its head. Birth order and primogeniture made Jack’s destiny within the family eminently clear, as well. When his father did give up the ghost, it would be Jack’s responsible to soldier on as the family’s new head. The eldest surviving son, Kennedy would soon need to add “family patriarch” to his already massive list of responsibilities. He would be expected to manage family affairs, drama between branches, and of course the political and business endeavors of his siblings and their offspring in the time to come. Jack’s father had no intentions of the dynasty he had worked so hard to create ending after Jack’s second term was brought to a close. Now, the torch would be his to carry onward. And I thought being President was a bitch. Jack shook his head and eased himself into a more comfortable position.

Thankfully, Jack had slowly begun to prepare himself for the role of patriarch. He memorized birthdays, organized family reunions and get togethers, and closely monitored the careers, political and otherwise, of his relatives. What’s more, he would be granted a slight reprieve before he need apply himself to managing his family’s political prospects. Teddy had been reelected to his senate seat in 1964, leaving him safely seated until ‘70. Bobby, though in prime age to begin making a push toward the national stage in his own right, remained cool to the idea of running for office. He had served his country well as Attorney General and now at the Pentagon, but cared more, it seemed, for managing Jack’s affairs, then worrying about his own. If Jack was the face and heart of the Kennedy dynasty, Bobby was its muscle.

That afternoon, the President had been looking forward to challenging Bobby to a game of chess, or maybe flicking on the TV and catching an episode or two of Star Trek. Both of which came second of course, to finding some alone time for he and Jackie. This weekend was a getaway, and the only work he wanted to be doing was that of unwinding. That seemed unlikely to happen as Bobby entered his office, still in a suit and tie, and holding a dossier. “Good Afternoon, Mr. President.” The Secretary of Defense greeted his brother, sounding every bit the altar boy he once was. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”


Jack sighed. He was wearing an old sweater from his time at Harvard, and running his hands along some stubble building up on his chin after not shaving for a few days. Responsibility took hold of his body as he replied: “Not at all. What’s eating you, kid?”


“I just got off the phone with General Abrams at the Pentagon. It’s Cambodia, Jack. The communists are on the move and beginning a major offensive against the Prince’s government.” Bobby watched as his elder brother raised his eyebrows and prepared to speak. “I know what you’re about to say.” Bobby cut him off. “It’s not like before, Mr. President. These aren’t just angry villagers picking up rifles and harassing garrisons. We’re talking at least 10,000 well armed and trained guerrillas ready and willing to die if it means getting Prince Sihanouk out of power.”


President Kennedy nodded, taking this all in. “I see. What are they hoping to accomplish? We just shipped thousands of small arms and millions of dollars over there after Bob [McNamara] made his little visit. I imagine the Prince’s army should be more than well equipped to defend itself against even a strong offensive.”


Bobby yielded the point. “True. But it’s not territory or positions the communists are after, Jack. They can come back for those later. Right now, it’s all about seizing those weapons we sent, spreading propaganda, and filling out their ranks. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you how unpopular the Prince is with his own people. He violates them and their rights whenever convenient, changes allegiance between us and the Soviets on a whim, and refuses to allow a people's’ government to form without then immediately disbanding it. If the Cambodian people see an alternative, armed, locked and loaded, ready to take the Prince out, there’s a good chance they might just hear him out.”


Jack frowned and motioned for Bobby to sit at his desk. “We just finished bringing the boys home from Vietnam, Bobby.” The President ran his hands through his hair, which was showing more gray than he cared to admit. “What does General Abrams want me to do?” The Commander in Chief worried that he already knew the answer to that question.


Bobby opened the front page of the dossier he’d been carrying and slid it across the desk to his brother. Inside the cover were a series of photographs: air strips, and what looked like poor attempts at concealing arms manufacturing facilities in the jungle. “They’re preparing for war, Jack. The General and I think that if we hit them hard and fast with some B-52’s, we can nip this in the-”


“No.” The President’s answer was firm.


“But Mr. President,” Bobby pleaded. “We have a chance to stop this before it gets out of hand! Give Abrams the order and we can clear these commies out before anyone gets hurt.”


Jack’s face grew hot and he felt his right hand curl into a fist. “Bobby,” the President turned his eyes to the ground. “How did Joe die?”


The question hung, heavy as lead over the two of them after Jack said it. Bobby didn’t respond, so the President continued. “He got shot down while flying missions over enemy territory. If I do as you and General Abrams ask and send in the Air Force, what am I going to tell the mother, or the brothers and sisters, of another poor kid that gets shot down because some damned guerilla got lucky? Don’t you see what’s happening with the British in Africa? Wilson is throwing a party, not even worrying about the boys who are going to lose their lives protecting the new government when the locals realize their rights still aren’t fully protected. I will not give the uniforms a war just because they want one to try out some of their new toys. God damn it, we’re better than that!” Jack banged his fist on the desk, then stopped to calm himself. “America will never step away from a challenge to liberty, but we do not go picking a fight. Do you understand? Tell Bob and the others at State that we’ll ask Congress to up our aid shipments to the Prince’s government. Get McCone on the phone and let him know that I want a close eye kept on guerrilla activity and updates should they push further than we’re comfortable with. Who’s backing these bastards anyway? I thought Kosygin pledged to keep Khrushchev’s promises to us in Southeast Asia.”


“He has, Jack.” Bobby replied sheepishly. “We aren’t sure who’s providing most of their backing at the moment, but our sources in the Kremlin assure us it isn’t the Soviets. You want my bet, probably Castro and the Chinese.”


If he weren’t so tense, Jack might have laughed. “Of course. Well, get confirmation and we’ll put together a response through State.”


Bobby picked up the dossier and straightened his tie. “Right away. Thank you, Mr. President.”


The Secretary of Defense turned to leave, but the President caught him by his right wrist. JFK sighed. “If they go too far, if too many people are going to get hurt if we sit on the sidelines through the whole thing… I’ll consider sending in the Air Force. I am not afraid to blow them all to hell, Bobby; but only after we’ve exhausted every other possible option first. Giving peace a chance worked for us in Vietnam, let me try it in Cambodia.” The elder Kennedy brother stood, stretched and smiled, despite himself. “Now if my ears don’t deceive me, that sounds like the kids coming back from a sleigh ride. If you’d excuse me, I have more exciting matters to attend to.”


Bobby let his brother leave without another word. I hope you’re right about this, Jack.

…
​

“If the anarchists ruling our streets lie down in front of my automobile, ladies and gentlemen, I make to you this solemn pledge: it’ll be the last damn automobile they ever lie in front of!” The law and order crowd had turned out well to Madison Square Garden, much to Jerry Falwell’s delight. The ACP organized a rally in New York to make a statement, that their party could offer a platform to Yankees as well as their own down in Dixie. The John Birch Society and other far-right organizations across the country were already tripping over themselves to support Wallace’s bid for the White House, but Falwell knew that their movement needed support from elsewhere too. He turned his attention from the 20,000 gathered back to the stage.


“And I’ll tell you another thing,” hoots and hollers washed over George Corey Wallace as he brought his stump speech toward one of his favorite punchlines. “When we sweep into Washington this November, they’re gonna have to build a bridge across the Potomac for all the liberals who’ll be trying to escape to Virginia!” The crowd went wild. One woman screamed “I love you, George!” at the former Alabama governor. It was more stand up comedy show than legitimate political speech, but Wallace and Falwell didn’t care. The first step to attaining power wasn’t to provide solutions to anything, but to point out problems, strike a nerve and dig your nail into it. To say the least, Wallace had struck a nerve.


“Did you know that there are only two four letter words in the English language that the hippies don’t know?” Wallace asked, a terrible grin enveloping his face. “W-O-R-K and S-O-A-P.” More cheers, more laughs. New York, America’s city, in many ways, the beating heart of the United States had seen more than just the 20,000 in attendance show up for Wallace’s “little get together in the garden”. 1,000 liberal activists from Columbia and NYU had arrived to picket outside the stadium, where clashes with police became an all too common occurrence. The American Conservatives’ message and platform: “a better life for the average working man” sounded pretty good to northern factory-working whites who felt largely ignored by President Kennedy and his party’s great crusade for the black man’s rights. Though the majority of Americans still found George Corey Wallace to be too extreme to be taken seriously, that was starting to change.


Democrats the nation over began to sweat, as a gallup poll released on January 16th showed that one in four polled union members in northern states planned on supporting Wallace come November. Especially to frontrunner Humphrey, this was cause for concern. The unions and organized labor had long been the bread and butter of the Democratic Party in the north. Many suburbanites considered themselves respectable if they were wealthy enough not to worry about voting Republican. And though blacks, women, and other minority voters leaned Democrat, a very likeable or strong Republican candidate could sway enough the other way to make a difference. If the Democrats wanted to ensure that northern swing states like Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin were safe for them, they needed to protect their flanks from Wallace’s onslaught. This divide about what to do with regard to Wallace’s growing popularity highlighted one of many key differences between the two titans vying for the nomination. Senator Humphrey insisted on “staying the course” and denounced Wallace at every turn. Senator Smathers thought otherwise.


Striking a more moderate tone, Smathers had this to say about the former Alabama Governor: “While of course I cannot agree with some of the foul things that Mr. Wallace has said on the campaign trail, I must admit that I admire him for having the courage to say them. At the end of the day, I think Governor Wallace raises an important point about this campaign: my opponents want to make this an election on race. Is the black man being treated well enough in this country? Are his needs being met? Well I have an even more important question at the center of my campaign: are the needs of all men being met in this country? I want this campaign to be about real issues that matter to real Americans. Not just a chance for hippies and intellectuals to run roughshod over the good people that make up these United States.”

The address in which Smathers said this was televised across the nation and was watched closely by Senator Humphrey and President Kennedy back in Washington. Though Smathers thought he was playing it smart by not decrying Wallace, he was playing directly into Humphrey’s strategy of forcing him to make a stand. The worst position that a moderate can find himself in is having to choose, decidedly which side of an issue he is on. He can talk up the pro’s and con’s all day long, but the American people will eventually demand a decision. Humphrey responded to Smather’s “all men” speech with a scathing accusation of his own:


“Where was Senator Smathers when the President, the Senator’s own close personal friend; came back to Washington, after having been shot and nearly killed; and demanded that the time had come for action on civil rights? Where was Senator Smathers when the time came to craft Medicare and Medicaid? My opponent claims that he ‘supported’ these measures, but he voted against civil rights, and he only backed our new health care bills after I had seen that they would pass without him anyway. My opponent claims to be a moderate, but in truth, he’s a Dixiecrat. He’s hardly any better than George Wallace, and even then, that’s a fairly low bar to overcome.”


Within days, the war of words between the major Democratic candidates was all over the newspapers. Humphrey remained popular and ahead of Smathers and his other opponents in the polls by approximately 9% by the end of January. The gap however, was narrowing. At the end of December, Smathers managed double digits in only a handful of states. A month later, he was only trailing Humphrey by single digits in most of the North and West. Extensively touring Dixie as well, Smathers refused to concede all of the former Confederacy to Wallace, and believed he could still find support there as well as among blue collar whites in the north. On the other hand, Humphrey’s supporters were seeing a hardening in their resolve as Smathers made himself out to be easily painted as backward. Smathers often refused to hold rallies in Northern cities like Chicago and Detroit, because he knew large populations of African Americans were likely to arrive and ask him uncomfortable questions about where he stood, exactly on civil rights. Humphrey countered this by making himself available to potential voters of all backgrounds, races, and creeds. In highlighting his own humble beginnings and racial egalitarianism, Humphrey successfully painted himself as the classic American hero: an underdog with a heart of gold, despite his overwhelming status as front runner.

On March 12th, Senator Humphrey won the New Hampshire primary with 53% of the vote to 43% for Smathers, the rest being divided between various write ins. An impressive, commanding victory in what was supposed to be a tight race gave Humphrey momentum and discouraged an already nervous Smathers campaign. Nonetheless, the race had just begun and the big question of the Democratic primaries remained: who was President Kennedy throwing his support, and his 75% approval rating, behind: the only non-family member who had been an usher at his wedding; or the firebrand Senator who had once been his chief rival?

Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: The Beginnings of the GOP Primaries​

 

[President_Lincoln]

Chapter 35 - Those Were the Days: The Race for the GOP Nomination Gets Under Way​

If the race for the Democratic nomination in 1968 was a head to head clash between moderation and playing to the party base, the Republican race developed to be as much a contest of personalities as one of ideals. Though Governor Romney and Senator Goldwater each pretty perfectly represented the liberal and conservative wings of the GOP, respectively, they were also distinct characters themselves. Romney gave off the warm, genial impression of a grandfather or local minister; Goldwater the crotchety, mildly annoyed air of a kooky neighbor. Romney’s was a charm brought on by his good looks, wealth, and religiosity; Goldwater’s lack of charm came from his unwavering dedication to his beliefs but enchanted his supporters all the same. Across the country, these titans battled with speeches, slogans, and signs, each trying to sell their brand of what it meant to be a part of the Party of Lincoln in 1968. In the midst of this rhetorical divide, former Vice President Richard Milhous Nixon once again saw an opportunity to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.


Gallup polls as of January ‘68 had him trailing his two major competitors by only a handful of points nationally, with 41% of respondents backing Romney, 33% supporting Goldwater, and the remaining 26% favoring Nixon. In polls conducted in several key states, including his home state of California with its massive number of delegates, Nixon lead both Romney and Goldwater by 10%. Though he lacked the backing of any major figures within the Party, unlike Romney who had Rockefeller strongly in his corner, and Goldwater who’d easily won the support of that slimy bastard, Reagan; Nixon did have one thing going for him: a masterful, Machiavellian political mind the likes of which the nation had rarely seen before. In the winter of ‘67-’68, he’d had an epiphany: his “southern strategy” he had been putting together was never going to fly now that Wallace had beaten him to the punch. The Democrats would, undoubtedly lose the Deep South, but so would the GOP. Besides, that had been a long term plan, for winning the general, not picking up the nomination. He canned the plan at once, and went back to the drawing board. Staring down an uphill battle to the convention, the former Vice President realized he would have to change his tact if he stood a chance at winning. His solution? A bold, comprehensive effort to position himself as the most reasonable man in a three way race.


The American people, in Nixon’s mind, were not a complicated lot. They didn’t want harsh, scathing ideology like the kind being spouted by Goldwater at his rallies, which looked more like county fairgrounds than the political process at work. Nor did the American people want the “lite liberalism” of the Rockefeller-Romney variety either. Nixon’s time as Vice President, serving under President Eisenhower, had taught him a valuable lesson, though it would apparently take years to fully ingrain itself: play the middle. Bring people together and speak in platitudes. Few would have called Ike a liberal, yet he expanded the nation’s infrastructure, cut back on conventional defense spending, and defended civil rights, all the while leaving the New Deal almost completely intact. The only eight years a Republican sat in the White House since 1933, Ike’s tenure could, Nixon believed, be a roadmap to putting one back in the Oval Office again.


So what did this mean for Tricky Dick’s strategy? Well for starters, it meant a change in image was in order. Say what he could about Romney and Goldwater, they both had personas that inspired their core base of backers. For Romney it was that of a dignified, reserved public servant; a shepherd who could gently guide his constituents and shield them from danger, want, or harm. For Goldwater, it was that of a firebrand crusader, the leader of the angry mob with his pitchfork and torch, ready to take on the ever growing establishment of “Washington politics”. If average Republican voters thought about Richard Nixon at the beginning of 1968, it was likely as the loser President Kennedy had defeated just over seven years prior. If not that, then perhaps it was as the slick, almost greasy politician; a cutthroat with the hair of a carney. In either case, these perceptions simply wouldn’t do. Nixon decided to position himself as the candidate of “responsible government”, which quickly became a slogan of his campaign.

The Californian began to soften his persona, and added a dash of self deprecating humor to his speeches and public relations efforts. His appearance on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast went a long way toward endearing him to average Americans, for example. After several weeks of campaigning on the “New Nixon”, the former Vice President began to see results. Polls in the key opening state of New Hampshire began to narrow. At a public policy dinner in the state capital of Concord, Nixon smiled, yucked it up with some locals, and even managed to make himself seem approachable. This, combined with his seemingly middle of the road, reasonable stances on the majority of the issues made him very appealing to undecided Republicans who just didn’t feel comfortable supporting such “extremes” as Goldwater or Romney. Before anyone knew it, it was March 10th. The New Hampshire Primary was only two days away, and polls showed it to be a virtual three way tie.

…​

With Richard Nixon no longer seen as the out and out underdog in the race, Senator Goldwater moved swiftly to make sure he wouldn’t be the candidate to replace his rival at the bottom of the heap. Utilizing the impressive campaign infrastructure and grassroots support he had built for himself during his ‘64 run, Goldwater made an honest effort to set the record straight on his positions.“I am not, nor have I ever been against the advancement of civil rights for African Americans or anyone else, for that matter.” The Arizona Senator said in a speech. “I was a founding member of the Arizona NAACP, as a matter of fact, and believe strongly in the need for all Americans to enjoy freedom and equality under the law. My issue with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was one of legality and constitutionality, not race politics.” The crowd was lukewarm in its response, so the Senator turned his oratory on the insurgent Nixon. “My opponent from California on the other hand is a known two-timer and flip-flopper on every issue under the sun. Having served several decades now in political life, I can earnestly say that Richard Nixon is the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life.” The crowd laughed and cheered, remembering that when Nixon had spoken in the town a day before, he had reversed position on a tax issue during a subsequent Q&A session with the audience.


Goldwater struggled, overall, for the same reason he had four years earlier: he was an ideological purist who was not willing to compromise in the name of attracting broader appeal. Sure, The National Review under William F. Buckley would write editorials favoring him until the cows came home. Popular California Governor Ronald Reagan was quick to give his endorsement to Goldwater once again as well, and gave speeches for “Mr. Republican” up and down the Golden State. But outside of his small, concentrated band of libertarian leaning right wingers, Goldwater found little support. Goldwater seemed to many the type of outlier who belonged in Congress, keeping the more centrist leaders in Washington honest and in check. “If Senator Goldwater were ever allowed in the White House,” New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller liked to joke. “Your kids would all be born with eleven toes.” The fears of Goldwater’s inclination toward nuclear war or aggressive foreign policy rang especially true in the wake of continued detente with the Soviet Union.


That being said, enough conservatives were fed up with the establishment of the party that they were willing to back Goldwater. The John Birch types had thankfully been purged from the party by the arrival of George Wallace and the American Conservatives, allowing more “right, but not far right” voices in the GOP to speak up and demand recognition. These conservatives voiced concern about the “alarming consensus” surrounding the ballooning of Federal power. Country Club Republicans and the Democrats alike seemed utterly content or unconcerned with authority being entrusted so firmly in the nation’s capital, but these conservatives would not sit silently by and watch it happen. No, sir. Calling themselves “Jeffersonian Republicans”, Goldwater supporters began to write editorials in their local papers, take out ad space on television, and ask questions about the need for federal intervention in all walks of life. Though they would ultimately fail to elect Barry Goldwater to the Oval Office, Jeffersonian Republicans and their ideology: Paleoconservatism, would be the basis for another candidate’s victory some years in the future.

Describing Goldwater and the confidence he inspired in his supporters, Governor Ronald Reagan had this to say: “Well, what we’re seeing in the country today is, I think, a Republican Revolution. For the first time in several decades, we’re seeing real conservatism being considered and the American people are waking up and asking: ‘Do we really need the government to solve all of our problems for us? And if so, does that really make us any better than the Soviet Communists we claim to stand in opposition to?’ I think that Governor Romney and Vice President Nixon are both fine Americans, but if you’re asking me who has my vote in the California Primary, my answer should have been clear from the beginning: Senator Goldwater is a true defender of liberty and will make a fine President of the United States.”


As March 12th rolled around, Goldwater gave one final speech in preparation for the Primary in New Hampshire. In this speech, which later came to be called the “Minuteman” speech, Goldwater evoked the image of the Patriots at Lexington and Concord. He compared his supporters to those “great heroes of American History” and reminded them that “A government that is big enough to give you all that you want is big enough to take it all away. If you want to prevent that tyrannical government from becoming a reality, you must be ready at a minute’s notice to go to the ballot box, and vote for a choice, not an echo later this evening.”

…​

Hoping to cement his frontrunner status and counter any gains being made by Nixon and Senator Goldwater, Governor Romney also took to campaigning in the Granite State, the next stop on his “Fifty State Tour” of the nation. There, in a flurry of energy, he made “whistle stops” in every small town, village, and hamlet he could. From the very beginning of the race, Romney correctly believed that in order to win the nomination, he would need to prevent himself from being painted as “too liberal”. In the general election, his liberal Republican status and centrist views would make him endlessly electable, but in a close, three-way primary such as this one, they were a horrendous ball and chain. Leonard Hall, Romney’s campaign manager, saw the winning strategy for his candidate to be thus: focus on knocking Richard Nixon out of the race, then uniting the majority of the party against Goldwater.


In Hall’s mind, Nixon was the only other major candidate whom the GOP establishment would support if they felt he had a good chance of winning the election. Goldwater could potentially be the nominee of course, but he was relying heavily on a small base of people who, while hopelessly devoted to him, did not represent a broad enough group to cinch the nomination. If Romney could stop Nixon before he really had a chance to get out of the gate, then the rest of the primaries could basically be a repeat of Rockefeller’s run in 1964: focus on Goldwater’s “craziness” and allow him to bury himself while conventional GOP support solidified around Romney. The only question left for Hall was how best to unravel the Nixon campaign and show the American people that his candidate was the only real choice in this primary. Hall wanted a big win in New Hampshire, preferably with Nixon finishing third behind Goldwater.


The answer seemed to come in highlighting that in the case of each of Nixon’s new claims about himself and “responsible government”, Romney had stronger credentials. “Since I was first sworn in as Governor of Michigan,” Romney said in a speech in Manchester. “I have refused to sign any budget that was not balanced when it crossed my desk. My state has built new schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, and more, all while paying greater attention to the needs of the disenfranchised and helping grow American businesses. What have my opponents, Vice President Nixon or Senator Goldwater done in the last eight years?”


The campaign highlighted another major achievement of the Governor’s while in Michigan: a scholarship program he had helped to create which enabled 15,000 high school graduates to attend college in his state. “Higher education is the future of this country.” Romney said. “And the future must be carefully cultivated and encouraged. If I am elected, we will see these kinds of scholarships for young men and women all across the United States. Armed with the accumulated knowledge that only a college degree can bestow, Americans will cure diseases, solve societal ills, and perhaps one day, end world hunger.” His rather progressive outlook on education was balanced by a more typically conservative view on welfare, which stressed personal responsibility, and the need for volunteerism and “tighter knit communities.”


Romney’s policy based message, steeped in facts, figures, and no small amount of charm laid on thick by himself and his wife, Lenore, paid dividends as the returns of the Primary began to trickle in late on the night of March 12th. Though the race was tighter than Romney or Hall might have liked in their wildest dreams, the results were better for them than the press had anticipated.


Results of the Republican New Hampshire Primary:


Governor George Romney - 41%

Fmr. Vice President Richard Nixon - 32%

Senator Barry Goldwater - 25%

Other/Write-In - 2%


Romney and his family held a huge celebration in their Manchester hotel room, with the Governor calling Mitt, who was just waking up in Paris, to tell him the news of his great victory. The Nixon and Goldwater camps were disappointed, naturally, by the results, but neither candidate made any signs of slowing their pursuit. George Romney may have won the first round of the nominating slugfest, but there was a long road ahead to the convention, and Richard Nixon in particular wasn’t about to hand over his “rightful nomination” to some overly religious soft-skull from Michigan (in the former Vice President’s own words). He decided to change tact and go after Romney’s seemingly impeccable personal qualities. After all, there wasn’t anything the American people despised more than an uptight bore…

Next Time On Blue Skies in Camelot: The First Third of 1968 in the White House
​

OOC - My apologies for not getting this update posted on Monday, as per the usual schedule! Easter weekend was a blast with the family, though it was immediately followed by a return to the "nearing the end of the semester" gauntlet of studying and work. I will do my best to post new updates on Mondays and Fridays as I have been, though I warn in advance that there may be times over the next few weeks that I could be forced to miss one here or there in favor of work.

Thank you all for your patience and well wishes! Hopefully we can really ramp up production over summer vacation.