A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Roger D. Branigin (1965 – 1969)

As a lawyer in Lafayette, I know the name Branigin primarily from the law firm Stuart & Branigin across the street and the Branigin Bridge on 231 over the Wabash. Branigin was born in Franklin and went to the public schools in Franklin, Indiana and then to Franklin College. He went to Harvard Law School then returned and joined the prosecutor’s office in Franklin County. In 1930, he went to work for the Federal Land Bank and the Farm Credit Administration in Louisville out of Louisville. In 1938, Branigin joined the Stuart firm in Lafayette which had historical ties to Purdue University and the development of the railroads in the area. During World War II, he served in the Judge Advocate General’s Department, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Branigin was an active Democrat, and in 1948, he was the chair of the state’s Democratic convention where Henry Schricker was nominated. Schricker subsequently appointed Branigin as chairman of the state conservation commission. In 1956, Branigin ran for the Democratic nomination but was defeated by Ralph Tucker. In 1964, however, he did get the nomination. Branigin had learned some lessons from his 1956 effort.

Roger Branigin reported that in his  unsuccessful bid for the gubernatorial nomination in 1956 he drove  19,000 miles and “talked to all the wrong people.” The money goes  primarily for meetings, dinners and travel.

In 1964, Branigin had the support of party leaders, and won on the first ballot. The Democratic Party became somewhat more fractured during the general election. Branigin made it clear early on in the general that he was going to disassociate himself from the Welsh administration. Party leaders were aligned with Welsh. Nevertheless, the Democrats managed to raise and spend a great deal of campaign money when compared to recent years, labor lined up behind Branigin and provided manpower for his campaign, and the Republican candidate, Richard Ristine could not keep up.

The results of the election are well known. The Democrats carried  the state for President Johnson, re-elected Vance Hartke to the Senate,  elected Roger Branigin Governor, elected two additional Congressmen  for a total of six of eleven, and won overwhelming control of both  houses of the Indiana legislature for the first time in 30 years. The  Democrats hold a 35-15 margin in the state Senate and a 79-21 majority in the House. The Democrats also won most of the county elections. It  was the greatest Democratic victory since 1936.

By distancing himself from Welsh and because Ristine had been the Republican Lieutenant Governor who facilitated passage of a state sales tax through the Senate, Branigin was able to attack Ristine as a tax raiser. This was, of course, a landslide year for President Johnson. Branigin’s victory over Ristine was also substantial — Branigin won by more than 250,000 votes and 13% of the 2 million votes cast. The 1964 campaign was something of a rebuke to the Republicans who had argued that Hoosiers wanted a “true conservative,” firmly committed to repealing New Deal programs. In Barry Goldwater, they had gotten the candidate they wanted. But, it turned out, that agenda was not necessarily what Hoosiers really wanted.

That said, Branigin did not necessarily see eye-to-eye with the more liberal Democrats who had been elected to the General Assembly. One Democrat quipped that Branigin was  “the best Republican governor the Democrats ever had.” Nevertheless, one of his first acts in 1965 was to reverse the anti-union “right to work” law. In 1958, just after the law had been passed, the wife of a Nashville, Indiana carpenter described the law as follows:

“I pooh-poohed when the right-to-work was first called a mankiiller. But it is. The man I love is being killed by it. He is a carpenter, strong, capable, hard-working, able to do three men’s work, which he does. Thereby, he keeps his job, luckier than most carpenters these days.

“He retains his job by doing man-killing work, but the rest of the crew is fired each Friday. A fresh group is brought in on Monday. There is no longer a union steward whose job it used to be to see that the company provided fresh drinking water, toilet facilities, a place to change and keep dry clothes, safety precautions, etc.

“My man comes home each day thirsty, soaking wet and heartsick because eager, hard-working family men on the job are being laid off when they can’t double or triple their output. This is not an isolated case.

“I am a school teacher. I address this to other teachers, office workers, business people, and others who know first hand what the “[Governor] Handley law” really is–a right-to-work-a-man-to-death law. I plead for its repeal.”

Repealed by Branigin and the Democrats in 1965, the right-to-work law would be re-adopted by the Indiana General Assembly 47 years later in 2012.   

Even though Branigin went along with the right-to-work repeal, he ended up vetoing the General Assembly 100 times, the most ever for a one-term governor. Among the issues he disagreed with the General Assembly about were “legalizing abortion in Indiana, prohibiting the use of strikebreakers in labor disputes and outlawing the death penalty.” Where legislation did succeed was in “providing more scholarships to Indiana college students, repealing the personal property tax on household goods, improving state prisons, parks, highways and forests, and expanding the powers of the Civil Rights Commission.”

Matthew Welsh (1961-1965)

Matt Welsh was a Democratic governor who served from 1961 to 1965. He was born in Detroit in 1912, but his parents came from southern Indiana. During World War I, when his father was traveling for work, the kids and his mom moved back to southern Indiana. After the war, his father was involved in the financial industry, and the family moved to Vincennes. Matt went to college at the Wharton School, then studied law at IU-Bloomington and finished his law degree at the University of Chicago. (While in law school, Welsh co-authored a law review article on special legislation with future law professor Frank Horack.)

After law school, Welsh opened a law practice in Vincennes. He won election to the General Assembly in 1940 and, again in 1942, but resigned to enlist in the navy once World War II broke out. He did not see much action during the war and returned to his law practice in 1946. He served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana from 1950 to 1952. In 1955, he was elected to the Indiana Senate where he was largely powerless as a Democrat in a Republican dominated chamber. He became minority leader in 1957 and served in that capacity until 1959.

Welsh had lost a bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1956 when he lost to Terre Haute mayor Ralph Tucker. But, his attempt in 1960 was successful. The general election campaign was against Crawford Parker. The main issue was the looming budget deficit and, to some extent, the national civil rights debate. Both candidates promised to support civil rights, but Welsh gave the stronger statement in favor. He called for fair employment laws, decent housing without discrimination, and improved educational opportunities. He also promised to strengthen laws on equal access to public accommodations.

Ultimately, Welsh won a very narrow 1% victory (about 23,000 votes) over Parker. In an unusual twist that was permitted by Indiana’s Constitution at the time, Welsh’s lieutenant governor was Republican Richard Ristine — the office of governor and lieutenant governor were split between the parties.

The most immediate challenge for Welsh was a looming $18 million budget deficit. His predecessor, Governor Handley, had attempted to reform the tax system and impose a gas tax. The public didn’t much care for that, and this had hurt Handley’s chances when he ran for the U.S. Senate. Nevertheless, Welsh proposed a tax increase of his own.

The Indiana General Assembly, however, was divided with Republican strongly controlling the House, and the Democrats with only a two-vote majority in the Senate. This created deadlock on most of Welsh’s taxing measures. He was able to advocate the passage of the Property Tax Assessment Act of 1961 which improved the efficiency of the revenue department, gaining the government money in administrative savings, and reimposing a small state property tax; the state property taxes had only recently been repealed in the state. A second reform bill was passed creating the Division of Tax Review which had power to review and reassess property taxes statewide. The Division of Audit was also created, which for the first time which allowed the government to audit tax data and forcibly collect it and also begin cross-checking state tax returns with federal tax returns. Warrant officers were hired who, with the assistance of a local sheriff, could seize money and property to pay delinquent tax debts. This led to thousands of individuals statewide having their unpaid back taxes seized by the government. Despite all the activity, state revenue still fell short forcing the government to use its reserve funds; an even larger deficit was predicted for the 1958 tax year.

. . .

[Welsh] advocated a plan of tax increases in every many area he called the “2-2-2 plan”. It would impose a 2% sales tax for the first time in the state, raise the state income tax to 2% on net income for individuals, and 2% on the net income of corporations. Additionally, he advocated an increased tax on cigarettes to construct two new bridge in the state.

The 2% sales tax that was implemented at the time cost Welsh some of his popularity. (Ristine, the Republican lieutenant governor cast the deciding vote in favor of the sales tax, possibly costing him the chance to become governor in 1964.) Voters took to calling him “sales-tax Matt” and bumper stickers began to crop up, saying “Indiana – Land of Taxes.”  

During Welsh’s term, the state’s Department of Administration was created to help streamline state government, and the Highway Department’s patronage system was replaced with a merit-hiring system. School consolidation was accelerated, and the number of public schools in the state was cut in half, from 966 to 466. Satellite campuses for the state’s universities were created in order to expand access to higher education for Indiana’s citizens.

Another accomplishment was the establishment of the Indiana Civil Rights Commission in 1961. While southern states often imposed its racist traditions by law, white Hoosiers often shared the sentiments of their southern counterparts, but implemented the bigotry through tradition and culture more than through explicit legal provisions.

Control of the civil rights movement in Indiana was tightly guarded by the powerful white majority. Media reports of the destructive battles in the South made Hoosiers all the more determined not to allow the movement to rage out of control in Indiana. The line of separation between blacks and whites in Indiana had been clearly understood and rarely discussed in public until the early 1960s.  

The initial legislation that passed in 1961 was less strong than Welsh had proposed. The Commission had investigatory powers but not much in the way of enforcement powers. In 1962, the Commission conducted a survey, attempting to discern the reasons for unfair accommodation in public services. “The fear of a loss of business and white customers’ reactions were the most common reasons given by business owners for their refusal to serve blacks on an equal basis.”

In 1964, Welsh threw his hat into the Presidential ring, mainly to block the aspirations of George Wallace. Wallace was opposing LBJ for the Democratic nomination for the 1964 campaign and was known for his 1963 declaration, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”  Wallace wanted to find electoral support in the North. Indiana is the middle finger of the South thrust up into the north, so it probably seemed like a likely place to campaign, particularly since Johnson was content that he had enough votes from caucus states to take the nomination without competing in the primary states.  Welsh was a strong supporter of civil rights and thought that a win by Wallace in the Indiana primaries would be damaging to the state’s Democratic party. Welsh was able to capture the state’s delegates and, at the convention, he released them to vote for LBJ. Welsh’s campaign slogan was, “Clear the way for LBJ, vote Welsh the fifth of May.” Welsh won that primary with approximately 70% of the Indiana votes compared to 30% by Wallace.

That year, Welsh participated in centennial celebrations of the Civil War. One thing he did was return Confederate Battle Flags captured by Hoosiers. However, he declined to do so for Wallace’s Alabama, leaving those battle flags on display at the Indiana War Memorial.

Gerald Ford (1974-1977)

Gerald Ford was the accidental President. He had not run for or been elected as President or Vice-President. However, he was selected as V.P. when Spiro Agnew resigned due to bribery accusations and then, when Nixon resigned due to his involvement with and cover up of the Watergate break in and associated dirty tricks, Ford was the next man up.

The name Ford was given at birth was actually Leslie Lynch King, Jr. However, due to abuse, Ford’s mother left her husband (Ford’s biological father) shortly after Ford’s birth. She went to live with her parents for a couple of years, and began a relationship with and married a man named Gerald Ford when (future President) Ford was two. They started calling the child Gerald Ford. He was never formally adopted and didn’t legally change his name until he was twenty-two years old. Ford was a gifted football player and played for the Michigan championship teams in 1932 and 1933. He passed on offers from the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers and, instead, went to law school at Yale.

Ford graduated in 1941 and opened a law office in May of that year, but after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of that  year, Ford enlisted in the Navy. Among other assignments, Ford served on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific theater.

In 1948, he married Betty Ford. He also ran for Congress for the first time that year. The wedding was apparently delayed because Betty had been divorced and had been a dancer. That raised the potential for scandal at the time. But, he won his election and would serve in the House of Representatives for 25 years. Ford described his philosophy as “a moderate in domestic affairs, an internationalist in foreign affairs, and a conservative in fiscal policy.” After LBJ’s landslide victory in 1964, Ford was selected to replace Indiana’s Charles Halleck as House Minority Leader.

When Agnew resigned the Vice-Presidency, Ford was the strong recommendation of Congressional leaders consulted by Nixon. Ford was confirmed by the Senate as the new Vice-President by a vote of 92-3 on November 27, 1973. On August 1, 1974, White House Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig told Ford that smoking gun evidence of Nixon’s involvement with the Watergate scandal had been found and that an impeachment or resignation was likely. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, and Ford became President. As part of his speech upon taking office, Ford stated, “our long national nightmare is over.” He selected Nelson Rockefeller to be his Vice-President. Rockefeller’s top competitor for the position was apparently George H.W. Bush.

On September 8, 1974, Ford allowed Nixon to escape responsibility for his actions by giving him a full pardon “for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.” His rationale was that Nixon had suffered enough by being forced to resign and that prosecution would disrupt the tranquility of the United States. The move undermined Ford’s credibility and probably caused his loss in the 1976 election.  

Ford also introduced a conditional amnesty program, granting amnesty to draft dodgers conditioned upon their reaffirming their allegiance to the United States and serving two years working in a public service job. Later on, President Carter would grant a full pardon.  Ford replaced most of Nixon’s cabinet, keeping only Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Secretary of the Treasury William Simon. Among those chosen by Ford was Donald Rumsfeld who would be his Chief of Staff and then Secretary of Defense. Dick Cheney would take Rumsfeld’s place as Chief of Staff. Indiana’s Earl Butz was named Secretary of Agriculture. Butz was forced to resign after making some spectacularly racist comments.

The 1974 midterm elections were predictably bad for the Republicans, giving the Democrats a majority in the House with 291 out of the 435 seats and 61 seats in the Senate. Inflation had become a major concern, climbing to 12%. Ford urged citizens to reduce spending and consumption, advocated a one-time 5% increase in the corporate income tax, and a reduction of $4.1 billion in the federal budget. Unemployment reached 9% in 1975 and the country was experiencing its worst recession since the Great Depression. Reversing course, Ford sought to stimulate economic activity by advocating a tax cut.

Internationally, relations with the Soviet Union and China continued to thaw. Tensions remained high in the Middle East, and Kissinger’s efforts at peace negotiations were mostly ineffective. Following the peace accords negotiated by the Nixon administration, American forces were withdrawn from South Vietnam. On April 29-30, Americans and “at-risk” Vietnamese were evacuated from Saigon as the North Vietnamese were taking over the city. 130,000 Vietnamese refugees came to the United States in 1975.

Ford was the subject of two assassination attempts. On September 5, 1975, in Sacramento, Charles Manson follower, “Squeaky” Fromme attempted to shoot President Ford with a Colt-45 pistol but was thwarted by the Secret Service. On September 22, 1975, in San Francisco, Sara Jane Moore took a shot at the President. The first shot missed and a retired marine in the crowd grabbed her gun as she fired off a second shot which also, consequently, missed the President.

The election of 1976 was a tough one for Ford. He lost, but kept it surprisingly close given the circumstances – losing by 2% in the popular vote and 57 electoral votes. He faced a conservative insurgency from the Republican right in the campaign of Ronald Reagan. Ford dumped the more liberal Rockefeller and chose Bob Dole as a running mate. The nomination still seemed to be up in the air by the time of the Republican convention, but Ford got a narrow majority on the first ballot. In addition to party opposition also had to contend with high inflation, high unemployment, the loss of Vietnam, and (less seriously) Chevy Chase caricaturing him on Saturday Night Live as a klutz due to a couple of stumbles Ford had taken. However, he also benefited from the imagery of being the incumbent President during extensive Bicentennial celebrations. Ultimately, however, he was defeated by the outsider campaign of Jimmy Carter.

Living to age 93, Ford would go on to enjoy one of the longest post-Presidencies to date — at 29 years, second to only Jimmy Carter (35 years) and Herbert Hoover (31 years).

One of Nixon’s foreign policy breakthroughs was a trip to China. China had turned communist in 1949. Initially, there was cooperation between China and the Soviety Union which necessarily meant that relations with the U.S. were poor. Nixon had a reputation as being strong against communism which led to the expression, “only Nixon could go to China.” (In other words, if someone who hadn’t made a career out of red-baiting had gone to China, Nixon’s supporters would have raised hell.)  Improved relations with China, in turn, led to improved relations with the Soviet Union — the Soviets were concerned about being entirely frozen out if the U.S. and China became too friendly.

The war in Vietnam wore on, and Nixon was convinced it could not be won. Protests were widespread in the United States and sometimes violent. However, there was some increased activity – including massive bombing and ground wars in Laos and Cambodia during the Nixon administration. By 1973, however, conscription ended and the Paris Peace Accords were signed. The U.S. pulled out, and in 1975, North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam.

In 1973, the Yom Kippur War triggered an international crisis and an oil shortage in the U.S. An Arab coalition with Soviet arms invaded Israel. Israel initially suffered losses, but with U.S. assistance reversed the situation and began to rout the Egyptians and Syrians. The changing balance of the war made peace negotiations volatile. Nixon ordered the U.S. military to DEFCON 3, pulling the world as close as it had been to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Arab OPEC nations retaliated against the U.S. support of Israel with an oil embargo. The resulting spike in the price of oil set off recessions and inflation that persisted until the early 80s. Oil prices would remain elevated until 1986. Oil producing nations in the Middle East began to accumulate great wealth. This helped fund Saudi Arabia’s export of its fundamentalist version of Islam, Wahabbism and fund extremist organizations such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Domestically, at 4.7%, inflation was as high as it had been since the Korean War in the 50s. This was in part due to government expenditures connected with Johnson’s Great Society program and the Vietnam War. Nixon imposed wage and price controls and took the U.S. off the gold standard. These policies dampened inflation in the short term but probably exacerbated it over the long term. The controls produced food shortages and “farmers drowned chickens rather than sell them at a loss.”  Price controls were not the only way in which Nixon was far away from what serves as conservative orthodoxy today. His initiatives helped create the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA). “In 1974, Nixon proposed more comprehensive health insurance reform—a private health insurance employer mandate and replacement of Medicaid by state-run health insurance plans available to all, with income-based premiums and cost-sharing.” While nothing like a full-throated supporter, Nixon also expressed support for the Equal Rights Amendment and made some efforts to enforce school desegregation orders issued by the courts. However, at the same time, Nixon was mindful of his intent to pursue a Southern Strategy that would cater to white southerners and attempt to bring them into the Republican fold. White Southerners had been solidly Democratic since the Civil War. But the passage of the Civil Rights Act and support for civil rights by northern Democrats had alienated them from the Democratic Party.

During the Nixon administration, on July 20, 1969, humans — specifically Americans — set foot on the moon. We had met Kennedy’s goal of landing on the moon by the end of the decade. As the centuries or millennia pass, if the United States should cease to exist (and assuming humans continue to exist), this is the achievement that seems most likely to be remembered by future generations. We were the first to set foot on land beyond the Earth. As Neil Armstrong said, “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

But that historic event is not the one for which Nixon will be most remembered. Instead it is his  resignation in advance of impeachment. In 1972, Nixon beat George McGovern in a historic landslide victory. McGovern had a variety of problems. He was behind most of the election, was painted as soft on war and drugs, and he ditched his vice-presidential running mate, Thomas Eagleton, when it turned out he had mental health issues. During the election, the Committee to Re-Elect President Nixon was involved in a variety of unsavory activities, among which was breaking into the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C.

In 1973, his vice-president, Spiro Agnew resigned and took a plea deal related to accepting over $100,000 in bribes while he was governor of Maryland.  Nixon chose Gerald Ford, the House Minority Leader from Michigan to be appointed as Vice-President.  Throughout that year, a series of revelations brought the Watergate scandals to light. “The scandal grew to involve a slew of additional allegations against the President, ranging from the improper use of government agencies to accepting gifts in office and his personal finances and taxes; Nixon repeatedly stated his willingness to pay any outstanding taxes due, and paid $465,000 in back taxes in 1974.” Nixon’s efforts to cover up his and the White House’s involvement hurt him as much as the underlying crimes and misdeeds. A tape came to light showing that he had been informed of the misdeeds and was involved in plans to thwart the investigation. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. Gerald Ford who had been elected neither as President or Vice-President became the new President following Nixon’s resignation.

Richard M. Nixon (1969 – 1974)

Richard M. Nixon was, of course, our first President to resign from office. Like I mentioned earlier, this was a turbulent time for the Presidency. From 1933 to 1961, we had had only three Presidents. We had that many in the period from 1974 to 1977.

Nixon was a Quaker from California, born in 1913. Much of his early life was spent in the Los Angeles suburb of Whittier. In his teens, he’d get up at 4 a.m., travel to Los Angeles to get vegetables at the market, then clean them and display them at the family grocery store before heading to school. He graduated high in his high school class then went to Whittier College. He continued to work at the family store, participated in the debate society, and developed a reputation as a very hard worker. He attributed a quote to Eisenhower with which he identified, “We were poor, but the glory of it was that we didn’t know it.”

He caught a break inasmuch as Duke University’s law school was new and offered a number of scholarships in an effort to attract top students. The scholarship availability was apparently more limited for second and third year students, making competition fierce. Nixon held on to his scholarship and graduated third in his law school class.

He tried unsuccessfully after law school for a post with the FBI. He was approved but, due to budget cuts, the offer was never extended; and Nixon headed back to Whittier where he got into private practice, working for corporations and drawing up wills. Nixon met his wife, Pat, while participating in community theater. Trying to improve his prospects, Nixon went to work for the federal government, but only briefly as an attorney. After World War II broke out, he enlisted in the Naval Reserve, and then sought and obtained a logistical post in the South Pacific. In 1945, he was appointed to a post where he assisted with terminating war contracts.

After the war, in 1946, Nixon ran to unseat an incumbent Democrat from his Congressional seat. He won after intense campaigning and after painting his opponent as being tied to communist groups. He supported passage of the Taft-Hartley Act which limited the power of unions and supported the Marshall Plan to give financial aid to Europe. In 1948, as a member of the House Un-American Activities Commission (HUAC), Nixon helped break the Algier Hiss case — Hiss was accused of being a spy for the Soviets. Much doubt has been cast on that allegation due to the manner in which the investigation was conducted and the future conduct of HUAC and Senator McCarthy with respect to trampling the rights of citizens and generally attempting to profit from anti-Communist hysteria. That said, the growing consensus seems to be that Hiss was, in fact, engaged in espionage. In any event, Nixon’s political star rose on account of his spy hunting.

In 1950, at the age of 37, Nixon ran for the U.S. Senate. He successfully painted his opponent as a communist-sympathizer and won by 20%. It was during this campaign, he earned the appellation “Tricky Dick.” In the Senate, Nixon was friendly with Joe McCarthy but was able to keep a bit of distance from the inflammatory Senator. “[Nixon] supported statehood for Alaska and Hawaii, voted in favor of civil rights for minorities, and supported federal disaster relief for India and Yugoslavia. He voted against price controls and other monetary restrictions, benefits for illegal immigrants, and public power.”

In 1952, Eisenhower was in the process of being nominated for President. He did not have much of a preference for Vice-President, and Nixon was selected because he was young, had a base in electoral-vote rich California, and had a reputation as strongly anti-communist. There was a bump in the road when it was found out that there was a legal but politically questionable fund set up by Nixon’s political supporters that helped pay for political expenses. Nixon went on air and gave the notorious “Checker’s” speech which was widely watched and well-received. Nixon remained on the ticket.  

In 1960, after having served as vice-president for eight years under Eisenhower, Nixon ran for President in his own right. It was a close campaign, but ultimately, he lost out to John F. Kennedy. Then, in 1962, he ran a lackluster campaign against Pat Brown to be governor of California which he lost by 5%. Complaining about the media, Nixon said, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.” The timing was politically fortuitous. He mostly sat out the 1964 Goldwater campaign and, when the Republicans got crushed that year, Nixon escaped blame. He helped other Republicans campaign in 1966 and received some of the credit for the positive results the Republicans enjoyed that year. With Democrats splintered over the Vietnam War, Nixon thought his prospects were good, and he decided to run again.

The Democratic side was chaotic. Johnson decided not to run after an unexpected loss in New Hampshire. Robert Kennedy was assassinated just moments after winning the California primary. Nixon’s main opponent was Michigan’s George Romney. Amid the chaos, Nixon attempted to project an image of stability, claiming to represent the silent majority against the counterculture – hippies and war protesters. He had a secret plan for “Peace with Honor” in Vietnam, and campaigned as a “law and order” candidate, contending that crime was too high. Ultimately, Nixon carried the day. He won 43.4% of the vote, Hubert Humphrey won 42.7% of the vote, and segregationist George Wallace took 13.5% of the vote. Despite getting only 0.7% more than Humphrey in the popular vote, Nixon had 301 electoral votes to Humphrey’s 191 and Wallace’s 46. Nixon’s win in California, Illinois, and Ohio was narrow. Had California gone the other way or Illinois & Ohio together, the vote would have gone to the House of Representatives.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)

Born in 1908, LBJ was a Democrat from Texas. He was a U.S. Representative from 1937 to 1949 and Senator from 1949 to 1961. In 1961, he was JFK’s Vice-President and became President when Kennedy was assassinated.

Johnson had worked his way through school and then became a teacher in 1930. While he was a teacher, Johnson was politically active — working on a Congressional campaign and becoming a legislative secretary to Congressman Richard Kleberg. There were some powerful Texan politicians who Johnson got to know — including Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn and Vice-President John Nance Garner.

During World War II, Johnson was originally in the Naval Reserve but was called to active duty after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Despite requesting active duty, he was sent to inspect domestic shipyard facilities. However, in 1942, Roosevelt assigned Johnson — a trusted political aide — as part of a survey team to provide information to Roosevelt in the Southwest Pacific. Roosevelt wanted more direct information than was flowing through MacArthur. Johnson lobbied for more resources directed to this theater of the war, calling the conditions deplorable. After coming under fire during observation of a bombing mission, Johnson was awarded the Silver Star.

In 1948, Johnson ran for and won a Texas seat. The Democratic nomination was controversial. He ran in a three way race. A former governor, Coke Stevenson, won the initial vote, but lacked a majority. Johnson campaigned hard and won the runoff by 87 votes out of nearly 1 million cast. There were allegations of voter fraud involving Johnson’s campaign manager, future governor John Connally. Johnson’s skill at navigating the Senate was legendary. From the outset, he was able to court older, influential Senators. He proved adept at committee work and managing the press. In 1953, he became the youngest majority leader the Senate had seen. He worked well with Representative Rayburn and President Eisenhower in getting Eisenhower’s agenda passed.  

He was a phenomenal gather of information about where his colleagues stood, their hopes, their fears, their prejudices, and their philosophies. He was known for giving those he would persuade, “the Treatment,” described as follows:

The Treatment could last ten minutes or four hours. It came, enveloping its target, at the Johnson Ranch swimming pool, in one of Johnson’s offices, in the Senate cloakroom, on the floor of the Senate itself—wherever Johnson might find a fellow Senator within his reach.

Its tone could be supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint, and the hint of threat. It was all of these together. It ran the gamut of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking, and it was all in one direction. Interjections from the target were rare. Johnson anticipated them before they could be spoken. He moved in close, his face a scant millimeter from his target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. From his pockets poured clippings, memos, statistics. Mimicry, humor, and the genius of analogy made The Treatment an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless.

In 1960, Johnson sought the Democratic nomination but lost to Kennedy. Accounts differ as to how he became the vice presidential nominee. However, generally speaking, even though Johnson was not well liked by the liberal wing of the party or members of labor, but he was seen as necessary or at least desirable for bringing votes from the South in what was anticipated to be a close general election against Richard Nixon.

The election was close, but Kennedy & Johnson got the victory. Johnson sought to be an active Vice President. The folks in the Kennedy administration, particularly, Robert, didn’t much care for Johnson. However, John recognized that Johnson would be a bad enemy to have, so he tried to keep him busy and relatively happy. Among other things, he was tasked with evaluating U.S. options to catch up with the Soviets in the space race. Johnson made the recommendation that the U.S. try to reach the moon by the end of the 60s.

When Kennedy was murdered, Johnson was sworn-in very quickly — just over 2 hours after the assassination. Johnson moved quickly on his legislative agenda. In the days following the assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson made an address to Congress saying that “No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the Civil Rights Bill for which he fought so long.” Some found Johnson’s haste to assume power unseemly. In passing the Civil Rights legislation, Johnson’s legislative savvy was instrumental – as was his ability to convince Republican leader Everett Dirksen to help overcome a filibuster in the Senate. It probably helped that the parties were in transition. Conservative Southerners had not switched from Democrat to Republican. There were still plenty of progressive, northern Republicans. The fact that the opposition to racial equality was not unified in one party meant that divisions within parties could be exploited to move legislation. This bill probably accelerated the transition. After passing the Civil Rights legislation, legend has it that Johnson said, “We have lost the South for a generation,” anticipating that southern whites would move away from the Democratic party due to the backlash.

Following the passage of the Civil Rights Act, there were a series of “long hot summers,” where urban riots took place from 1964 through 1971, including the Watts riots in 1965 and riots in over a hundred cities in 1968 after Martin Luther King was assassinated. With respect to the riots, Johnson is reported to have said, “What did you expect? I don’t know why we’re so surprised. When you put your foot on a man’s neck and hold him down for three hundred years, and then you let him up, what’s he going to do? He’s going to knock your block off.”

Johnson also moved quickly to move on Kennedy’s tax cut initiative, negotiating a budget that was less than $100 billion, and also moved on a “War on Poverty” initiative, recruiting Sargent Shriver for the effort.

His 1964 Presidential campaign touted “The Great Society” which included elements of  “urban renewal, modern transportation, clean environment, anti-poverty, healthcare reform, crime control, and educational reform.”

Johnson also dramatically increased our involvement in Vietnam. In August 1964, there were ambiguous reports concerning an attack by North Vietnamese ships on a U.S. ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. Based on this incident, Johnson sought and obtained a resolution from Congress for the use of force in Southeast Asia. The Johnson administration relied on this resolution to rapidly escalate our military involvement in Vietnam.

In 1966-1967, there was growing disillusionment with the Johnson administration. Vietnam was not going well, and the press saw a credibility gap between what they were being told and what was actually happening. The Democratic governor of Missouri cited, “Frustration over Vietnam; too much federal spending and… taxation; no great public support for your Great Society programs; and … public disenchantment with the civil rights programs.”

The 1968 Presidential election resulted in unexpected opposition to Johnson. Initially, most Democrats did not have an appetite to challenge a sitting President from their party. Eugene McCarthy, an anti-war candidate, challenged him and did surprisingly well in the first primary — taking 42% of the vote in New Hampshire. Blood was in the water, and Robert Kennedy entered the race. Johnson lost control of the Democratic Party. There were four main factions that came to oppose one-another: labor and party bosses (Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Daley); students and intellectuals opposed to the war (Eugene McCarthy); Catholics, Hispanics, and African Americans (RFK); and segregationist white Southerners (George Wallace). In addition to losing control of the primary process, Johnson was concerned about his own health. He dropped out of the race. When Robert Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson’s support for Humphrey carried the nomination. However, the Democratic Party did not unite, and Nixon was able to win the election.