- Series
- As we see it: Vietnam '68
- Air Date
- 1968-07-01
- Duration
- 00:27:54
- Episode Description
- Columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak
- Series Description
- A series of appearances of noted spokesman presenting their various views on the war in Vietnam, conducted over a period of five weeks on the campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, under the sponsorship of the Miami University Student Senate.
- Subject(s)
- Creator(s)
- WMUB (Producer)Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) (Producer)
- Contributors
- Evans, Rowland, 1921-2001 (Speaker)Novak, Robert D. (Speaker)
- Genre(s)
- Geographic Region(s)
- regions
- Time Period
- 1961-1970
[00:05 - 00:10]
And what do we do if we can't. This is a question I think President
[00:10 - 00:16]
Johnson should start addressing himself to publicly and quickly.
[00:16 - 00:21]
Mr. Novak will now discuss some of the political ramifications.
[00:21 - 00:21]
Good
[00:21 - 00:35]
Lord.
[00:35 - 00:37]
Thank you Dean.
[00:37 - 00:40]
President Shriver gentleman and I
[00:40 - 00:46]
I think that by way of introduction I might de explain why
[00:46 - 00:52]
Mr. Evans is talking about the substantive aspects of being at Nam
[00:52 - 00:56]
and I'm talking about was going pang while he was making Rosa
[00:56 - 01:01]
three trips to be at 9am and enjoying such frivolous activities as getting
[01:01 - 01:06]
shot at by the Be calm and dodging bombs and Sajjan I was
[01:06 - 01:11]
doing the difficult work going to all the conferences and
[01:11 - 01:16]
such hardship poses Palm Beach Florida and
[01:16 - 01:19]
St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands in Palm Springs.
[01:19 - 01:26]
And so I even told Mr. Evans that if the war is still going on after
[01:26 - 01:30]
this election and I fear it will be that maybe he'll give me one of those
[01:30 - 01:35]
easiest time of calm be it now. And I can see the war firsthand. But for now
[01:35 - 01:40]
I'm going to talk about the politics of it. And I think the politics of Viet Nam
[01:40 - 01:46]
will be shown clearly as never before in a very important
[01:46 - 01:51]
election being held tomorrow.
[01:51 - 01:56]
But a thousand miles away premier in New Hampshire a New Hampshire Democratic
[01:56 - 02:01]
primary election now just a few weeks ago
[02:01 - 02:06]
nobody in the right mind would have said that the New Hampshire Democratic primary.
[02:06 - 02:12]
It was an all important all the press including a couple people named Evans
[02:12 - 02:16]
Novak wrote it off as a.
[02:16 - 02:17]
Landslide.
[02:17 - 02:22]
Johnson Johnson with Senator McCarthy
[02:22 - 02:28]
almost certain to suffer humiliation with Senator McCarthy's campaign in
[02:28 - 02:34]
as a candidate uninspiring. And the whole thing a deadly bore.
[02:34 - 02:39]
In fact the early polls were absolutely phenomenal.
[02:39 - 02:44]
One poll taken by the Democratic organization of New Hampshire at the start of the year
[02:44 - 02:49]
showed eight percent for Senator McCarthy.
[02:49 - 02:54]
Whose name appeared on the ballot a 12 percent write in vote for Senator Robert F.
[02:54 - 02:58]
Kennedy and an 80 percent vote for President Johnson
[02:58 - 03:01]
which might have been termed a go to conference.
[03:01 - 03:09]
Now I'm going to make a prediction that ain't the way it's going to come out tomorrow. I
[03:09 - 03:14]
think Senator McCarthy is sure to get 25 percent.
[03:14 - 03:19]
He probably will get 30 percent and conceivably
[03:19 - 03:24]
conceivably might go as high as 40 percent which would be a ringing
[03:24 - 03:30]
defeat for President Johnson. The question is why as
[03:30 - 03:34]
Senator McCarthy suddenly developed into AG
[03:34 - 03:39]
charismatic figure who has swept the good citizens of New Hampshire off their feet.
[03:39 - 03:44]
Not that I noticed and I was there quite recently is President Johnson more
[03:44 - 03:50]
disliked more disbelieved than he was a month ago. I don't believe so.
[03:50 - 03:55]
I think it is wholly the fact that the war has gone against
[03:55 - 04:01]
the United States forces in Viet Nam that we have not been
[04:01 - 04:06]
winning that the end is nowhere in sight and that the casualties are
[04:06 - 04:11]
high and that I think is the key to the politics of Vietnam.
[04:11 - 04:16]
There has been in this country's history no real parallel
[04:16 - 04:24]
to the impact of the Vietnamese war has had on internal politics.
[04:24 - 04:28]
President Johnson has had the researchers on his staff dig up all the
[04:28 - 04:33]
dissent in the Mexican War in the Civil War and one war one on what have you but there's been
[04:33 - 04:38]
nothing like this. The Korean War just 15
[04:38 - 04:43]
years ago. Had some dissent but nothing like this and the dissent was of a
[04:43 - 04:48]
different nature. It is mainly of people who approved of the war but didn't approve of the way it was
[04:48 - 04:53]
being fought. There was universal applause
[04:53 - 04:58]
from the British people in the British press and from both parties liberals and
[04:58 - 05:03]
conservatives in the British parliament. As the war began there was
[05:03 - 05:09]
rapt attention through the newspapers to the British victories scored
[05:09 - 05:14]
over the boards and there were predictions in the Parliament that the war was
[05:14 - 05:18]
going to end in a few months. But somehow on a much
[05:18 - 05:23]
despised army fighting on its own ground without any of the military
[05:23 - 05:28]
competence without any of the power backing of Britain managed to keep the
[05:28 - 05:32]
war going and going and going and the opposition
[05:32 - 05:38]
in parliament suddenly became restive. It began to say when is
[05:38 - 05:42]
this war going to end. I do we get into it in the first place. There were
[05:42 - 05:47]
huge cries from the government benches that this was treason that this was disloyalty
[05:47 - 05:52]
and the public became very very dissatisfied.
[05:52 - 05:58]
Many years after Joseph Schumpeter in his essays on imperialism
[05:58 - 06:04]
describe what happened to the Boer War in this in the to the Boer to the British public
[06:04 - 06:09]
during the Boer War in this fashion. He said that imperialism as I catch
[06:09 - 06:14]
word as a phrase this embodied for meaning was a very popular
[06:14 - 06:19]
political doctrine in Britain when Disraeli sounded.
[06:19 - 06:24]
But when Gladstone practiced it in South Africa and British blood began
[06:24 - 06:28]
flowing in pot imperialism was discredited. That is it
[06:28 - 06:33]
was popular only so long as it was not put into practice. And I
[06:33 - 06:38]
think that much can be said for what has
[06:38 - 06:43]
happened today on a similar vein in the guide to add I communism and I communism
[06:43 - 06:48]
is always a very popular political catch phrase in this country as long as it's
[06:48 - 06:53]
not put into practice with guns and bullets and laws. As
[06:53 - 06:58]
soon as this is the blood starts flowing. Anti-communism loses
[06:58 - 07:03]
appeal and the public begins to turn against the war. This I think
[07:03 - 07:06]
is a the nature of a western modern
[07:06 - 07:09]
bourgeois civilization.
[07:09 - 07:15]
I do think however that there are some complicating factors
[07:15 - 07:21]
that differentiate the America of the 1960s from the
[07:21 - 07:26]
Britain of the turn of the century at the time of the Boer War.
[07:26 - 07:31]
I think simultaneously with the Viet Nam war and cause not
[07:31 - 07:35]
entirely by it but by other factors there is an alienation
[07:35 - 07:41]
of various groups in American society and a splitting apart of them.
[07:41 - 07:46]
On issues that are quite different from the war quite separate from the war but tend
[07:46 - 07:50]
to converge on the war.
[07:50 - 07:55]
That is the intellectual community students the
[07:55 - 08:01]
academic community perhaps some members of the professional classes
[08:01 - 08:07]
and felt more alienated because of the war partly but
[08:07 - 08:11]
because of other factors from the bureaucracy.
[08:11 - 08:16]
From the the professional elite who are running the government
[08:16 - 08:21]
who are running a computerized government in their view is a de Umanai government.
[08:21 - 08:27]
On the other hand there is a mutual and perhaps more serious alienation of
[08:27 - 08:32]
the working people of the country the lower middle class the blue collar
[08:32 - 08:37]
workers the white blue collar worker who feels
[08:37 - 08:38]
that.
[08:38 - 08:43]
When he looks at as the intellectuals and the bureaucrats numbering
[08:43 - 08:47]
them into one basket have ruined his country have
[08:47 - 08:53]
have given the negro too much and got us into a war we can't win
[08:53 - 08:58]
and put on all the professors phony doctrines and done nothing and done
[08:58 - 09:04]
nothing for the common people and have trod upon good American virtue.
[09:04 - 09:08]
So you have three differences. Groups all alienated from each other to government. You know
[09:08 - 09:13]
electoral community and the workers and this is a phenomenon that is not. It is not
[09:13 - 09:18]
singular to the United States with his Viet Nam war and its racial problems. What I think is
[09:18 - 09:23]
found all over Europe indeed in Eastern Europe perhaps even more than it is
[09:23 - 09:24]
in Western Europe.
[09:24 - 09:30]
Now what this means is that the attitude of
[09:30 - 09:35]
these various alienated groups toward the war is
[09:35 - 09:40]
shaped and heightened by that sense of alienation.
[09:40 - 09:44]
I think the intellectual community the academic community looks at
[09:44 - 09:50]
opposes the war more on a moral basis than anything else. It feels that the
[09:50 - 09:54]
dehumanizing bureaucrats have brought us into a war which has no
[09:54 - 09:59]
moral basis which is immoral in fact in many of its aspects. The other
[09:59 - 10:04]
hand the blue collar worker feels that the bureaucrats and the professors
[10:04 - 10:09]
have sent their sons and their dad to to fight into a
[10:09 - 10:14]
foreign war with no hope of winning it but putting some of their crazy doctrines into
[10:14 - 10:18]
effect hold back American power and did not win the war.
[10:18 - 10:24]
I think perhaps this this sense of alienation is heightened by the
[10:24 - 10:29]
by the drafting laws of the country which in a sense have said that those who are
[10:29 - 10:34]
not who are neither intelligent nor wealthy enough to go to college are going to be the ones who
[10:34 - 10:39]
fight the war. All those who go to college can sit by and up until recently go on
[10:39 - 10:44]
endlessly. Sitting by while the middle and lower and middle and lower classes of
[10:44 - 10:49]
the country fight the war. That's why I think you are finding two
[10:49 - 10:54]
separate kinds of opposition to the war in Viet Nam.
[10:54 - 10:59]
The older kind the kind that began when we first got in on a big scale
[10:59 - 11:04]
in 1965 and his continuing is of a moral variety.
[11:04 - 11:09]
The other kind and this is the more important kind and the reason the Gene McCarthy is going to get a
[11:09 - 11:13]
lot of votes in New Hampshire tomorrow is a more pragmatic kind that
[11:13 - 11:18]
is there is generally support for the war for its
[11:18 - 11:23]
purposes. But there's a feeling that we are winning and so if we're not
[11:23 - 11:26]
going to win it would better get out.
[11:26 - 11:33]
I think that Senator McCarthy's early problems in his
[11:33 - 11:37]
campaign for the presidency were based in part
[11:37 - 11:42]
on his early speeches which call this an immoral war.
[11:42 - 11:47]
By making that stand he limited his support to the most narrow
[11:47 - 11:52]
opposition to the Vietnam War. He completely cut off all those who do
[11:52 - 11:57]
not feel it is immoral and that the vast vast majority of the American people but
[11:57 - 12:01]
feel it is not being won and should be liquidated in one way or
[12:01 - 12:06]
another. He has since corrected that mistake and now say a little bit of luck that
[12:06 - 12:12]
night. I think the difficulty in understanding the type
[12:12 - 12:16]
of opposition that has developed in the war particularly since the Tet
[12:16 - 12:21]
Offensive look a few weeks ago can be found in the very grave problems
[12:21 - 12:26]
the pollsters are having in analyzing what's going on in
[12:26 - 12:28]
regard to public attitudes toward Vietnam.
[12:28 - 12:34]
I was appalled I saw the other day by a nationally Apolo poster of
[12:34 - 12:39]
national reputation in which he decided or
[12:39 - 12:44]
determine that over 70 percent of the voters in New Hampshire the Democratic voters in New
[12:44 - 12:46]
Hampshire were hawks.
[12:46 - 12:51]
Now how could you have over 70 percent hawks and
[12:51 - 12:56]
and but by the way let me let me add that in only 5 percent were dogs and the others were in
[12:56 - 13:01]
between someplace but Huckabee have over 70 percent and the possibility
[13:01 - 13:06]
that President Johnson is not going to get much more than 65 percent or perhaps even
[13:06 - 13:11]
less on the vote and only 5 percent Dobson the possibility that Senator
[13:11 - 13:17]
McCarthy is going to get 25 or 30 percent or more.
[13:17 - 13:22]
I think the reason is that is the pollster asked the person in New Hampshire to
[13:22 - 13:27]
win the war. Would you you extra
[13:27 - 13:28]
military pressure.
[13:28 - 13:34]
Short of nuclear weapons or including nuclear weapons against the Communists
[13:34 - 13:40]
and the responses yet and he's put down as a hawk. Let's
[13:40 - 13:45]
ask him the second question that the pollster sometimes doesn't ask. If that isn't
[13:45 - 13:49]
going to be used would you want to get out. And you say yes
[13:49 - 13:55]
I figured out is that a hawk or a duck. I did classify that and I think
[13:55 - 14:00]
the answer is that he wants the war ended and he is not too
[14:00 - 14:04]
fussy as long as the ending of the war has some kind of
[14:04 - 14:10]
filigree some kind of facade that keeps American honor and
[14:10 - 14:13]
is not regarded as a sellout.
[14:13 - 14:17]
I think what is being shown from a political standpoint that in
[14:17 - 14:22]
particular really since the Tet Offensive in Viet Nam there are two kinds of political
[14:22 - 14:28]
doctrines of the American people won't will not by I'm Viet-Nam one is
[14:28 - 14:33]
a straight anti Vietnam position that the war is
[14:33 - 14:38]
immoral and that we should get out because it is immoral. The
[14:38 - 14:43]
father or the uncle or the grandfather with boys in Viet Nam.
[14:43 - 14:47]
Some of them buried were not. Absolutely not except that.
[14:47 - 14:53]
More interesting. The second thing he will not accept is the candidate
[14:53 - 14:57]
who wraps the flag around him and says
[14:57 - 15:03]
Please have faith in me believe me I am the patriotic
[15:03 - 15:08]
candidate and we're going to end the war. He's not going to buy that either.
[15:08 - 15:13]
I think that what is happening is that President
[15:13 - 15:18]
Johnson's strategy of wrapping the flag around him and calling
[15:18 - 15:22]
all those lists implying that all those who dissent on Beate
[15:22 - 15:27]
now are somehow less patriotic than he is is
[15:27 - 15:32]
not going to work not because of the basic fairness of the American people which is
[15:32 - 15:37]
never been shown up particularly in past elections but merely because we are not
[15:37 - 15:42]
winning the war. We are winning the war. It would be something else other words
[15:42 - 15:47]
you cannot be a patriot a president. A painter a janitor and a war that is
[15:47 - 15:52]
not being won and therefore given the tastes and
[15:52 - 15:56]
the shows the attitudes of the voters of a Western
[15:56 - 16:01]
democracy therefore is an unpopular war. I think this was shown very
[16:01 - 16:06]
clearly in in in New Hampshire when after the Tet
[16:06 - 16:11]
off fans of McCarthy started to move up in the polls obviously his campaign
[16:11 - 16:15]
was taking hold and Governor John King the chief white house
[16:15 - 16:20]
agent in New Hampshire said that if in effect that a victory for
[16:20 - 16:25]
McCarthy was a victory for HO Chih min. And if McCarthy does get
[16:25 - 16:30]
40 percent of the vote and I don't like it he can thank Governor John King statement for it. You simply
[16:30 - 16:34]
won't wash to do that sort of thing. If the war is not in its
[16:34 - 16:39]
essence a popular war on the other hand I think that Senator
[16:39 - 16:44]
McCarthy has seen that his early statements about the war being an immoral war
[16:44 - 16:49]
is certainly not the answer to any political victory. And he has become more
[16:49 - 16:54]
and more ambiguous about what he would do and what his
[16:54 - 16:58]
nature of his opposition is to the war in Vietnam. He says it is a bad
[16:58 - 17:03]
war. It is it is not it you say does not say it is a bad war he says it is
[17:03 - 17:08]
unfortunate that so many American boys are dying in this war and he
[17:08 - 17:12]
promises that the war will be ended if he is if he is elected
[17:12 - 17:13]
president.
[17:13 - 17:19]
Now I think that we should go back at this point to the
[17:19 - 17:22]
some of the reasons for the McCarthy candidacy.
[17:22 - 17:27]
Apart from the senator's own which are somewhat difficult to ascertain.
[17:27 - 17:32]
Those who pushed him into this are those who recommended that he run. Abby
[17:32 - 17:37]
what I thought was a very hair brained idea that if McCarthy showed
[17:37 - 17:42]
a lot of a lot of support a lot of steam
[17:42 - 17:45]
in these primary elections he certainly would be nominated.
[17:45 - 17:50]
He certainly wouldn't stop President Johnson from getting the nomination. He certainly wouldn't
[17:50 - 17:55]
give the nomination to Bobby Kennedy but he would push the Republican
[17:55 - 18:00]
candidate to the left. And you may now realize this but this is precisely
[18:00 - 18:05]
what is happening. If you compare the town of
[18:05 - 18:10]
Richard M. Nixon his first statement on Vietnam on February 3rd
[18:10 - 18:14]
in Concord New Hampshire and his most recent statements there is a
[18:14 - 18:18]
perceptible shift at that time in his early statement
[18:18 - 18:24]
Mr. Nixon was talking about the necessity for victory in this war.
[18:24 - 18:29]
His accent was on the military aspects. If nothing else Mr
[18:29 - 18:33]
Nixon can spot a trend and he is seeing the McCarthy
[18:33 - 18:39]
tide beginning to rise. And suddenly I think it was
[18:39 - 18:44]
February 28 or 20 Feb. 28 and no is Leap
[18:44 - 18:49]
Year night love February 29 and woman in New Hampshire. He suddenly said
[18:49 - 18:54]
lamely I'll end the war. Which sounded very much like what Senator
[18:54 - 18:59]
McCarthy was saying on you know nobody tends to believe Mr. Nixon they sometimes believe second.
[18:59 - 19:04]
Carter that's another story. But he says I am the war on
[19:04 - 19:10]
and I'll keep and I'll win the peace in the Pacific. Now I don't know what winning the
[19:10 - 19:14]
peace exactly means but he did say I'll end the war. And a lot of newspaper
[19:14 - 19:19]
reporters said he is moving to the hawkish
[19:19 - 19:24]
side of President Johnson because he said he's going to end the war and that means
[19:24 - 19:29]
more military at sekret setting and that is the way the people regarded when they heard it.
[19:29 - 19:34]
And if there was any mistake just the other night last Thursday night in a
[19:34 - 19:39]
national radio address Mr. Nixon said that there
[19:39 - 19:43]
cannot be a wholly military situation in Vietnam
[19:43 - 19:48]
and in fact he said President Johnson.
[19:48 - 19:54]
Had err in putting so much reliance on the military and
[19:54 - 19:59]
not worrying about the diplomatic political and psychological aspects of the war.
[19:59 - 20:03]
Again saying he would end the war now for us Misc. Nixon
[20:03 - 20:08]
ologists the handwriting is on the wall. He is moving to the
[20:08 - 20:12]
back of the president gingerly cautiously
[20:12 - 20:17]
ambiguously moving to the left of the president to get this
[20:17 - 20:22]
anti Vietnam sentiment and perhaps get there before his friend
[20:22 - 20:28]
Nelson Rockefeller gets there.
[20:28 - 20:33]
You know all of this. There is the expectation by many
[20:33 - 20:38]
particularly the stalwarts of the Republican party who'd been beaten so many
[20:38 - 20:43]
times in so many ways that they really have no
[20:43 - 20:48]
confidence whatever in the other side to make mistakes too.
[20:48 - 20:53]
There's been an expectation by many that to use the cliche
[20:53 - 20:58]
President Johnson would pull a rabbit from the hat. That
[20:58 - 21:02]
President Johnson with Sun hollow at the last minute
[21:02 - 21:07]
or perhaps at the last minute just before the campaign starts
[21:07 - 21:12]
bring up negotiations perhaps
[21:12 - 21:18]
make some kind of sweeping gesture to the Vietcong
[21:18 - 21:23]
that brings them to negotiations table and have a whole war wrapped up.
[21:23 - 21:26]
By Election Day.
[21:26 - 21:31]
I think that's paranoia in reverse because I think that if Lyndon B
[21:31 - 21:36]
Johnson could have brought this war knew
[21:36 - 21:41]
how to bring this war to an end if he had seen his way
[21:41 - 21:46]
clear to doing the things necessary to bring it would have been done a long time
[21:46 - 21:47]
ago.
[21:47 - 21:52]
You may have heard this talk just before the 66 election again by the Republicans there was going
[21:52 - 21:56]
to be some tremendous tour de force by the president just before the election to
[21:56 - 22:00]
prevent the Republican victory in that year's congressional elections.
[22:00 - 22:05]
There was a lot I don't think there's going to be this time although you can never quite
[22:05 - 22:10]
predict Lyndon Johnson I will say though that from
[22:10 - 22:14]
all indications all the good the the outward indications that we
[22:14 - 22:19]
have. Run quite the contrary may indicate
[22:19 - 22:24]
that President Johnson does feel that that sentiment from the
[22:24 - 22:29]
country is solidly in favor of the war no matter what.
[22:29 - 22:34]
No matter what the reverses that have been so suffered in Viet Nam
[22:34 - 22:39]
are. He has said constantly that he feels his pressure is from the hawks and those
[22:39 - 22:43]
who want to escalate the war and those who want to to
[22:43 - 22:48]
bomb an oil and tar greater extensive bomb Hi pong to
[22:48 - 22:53]
mind the harbor do we use tactical nuclear weapons and who knows all
[22:53 - 22:58]
else they might go into. But President President Johnson feels that this is
[22:58 - 23:03]
his threat and he feels the dissenters are just a bunch of people hang around universities
[23:03 - 23:08]
and places like that he doesn't have to worry about it. I think he feels that by
[23:08 - 23:13]
wrapping the flag around by campaigning and military installations that is
[23:13 - 23:18]
the way to gain support. I don't think I think he reads the polls and he
[23:18 - 23:22]
sees that through the inexact formulations and inexact questioning
[23:22 - 23:26]
techniques. Oh the. Of the of the of the
[23:26 - 23:31]
questionnaires that there is an 80 percent or 95 percent
[23:31 - 23:36]
job rating and sums I mean Hauke rating and some stating he assumes well
[23:36 - 23:41]
that there are for me or they might even be beyond me. I don't think he
[23:41 - 23:46]
grasps the extent of the anti Vietnam sentiment which is
[23:46 - 23:50]
not based on any test of Asako or any
[23:50 - 23:55]
illogical opposition to the war but is based wholly on war
[23:55 - 24:00]
weariness on a war that is not going to end. Now
[24:00 - 24:06]
after tomorrow. Assuming Senator McCarthy makes the kind of showing I think you
[24:06 - 24:11]
will anywhere from 25 to 40 percent I would
[24:11 - 24:16]
guess around 30 percent as is likely an entirely respectable showing.
[24:16 - 24:21]
I think that in much more trouble I had for President Johnson. I think that in
[24:21 - 24:25]
Wisconsin which is a more dovish state the New Hampshire
[24:25 - 24:30]
Senator McCarthy boy would be showing in New Hampshire
[24:30 - 24:35]
will in April. Have a good shot at getting in excess of
[24:35 - 24:40]
40 percent of the vote in Massachusetts. Where
[24:40 - 24:46]
by some incredible bungling by the White House he is given a free shot
[24:46 - 24:51]
at the delegation. He has been president as Senator McCarthy has been given a
[24:51 - 24:55]
leg up in that race. And all this leads to the big showdown in
[24:55 - 25:01]
California in the June primary there where some 200
[25:01 - 25:06]
delegates at stake. I think it is entirely possible if this
[25:06 - 25:11]
McCarthy momentum increases at the anti-war sentiment increases.
[25:11 - 25:16]
I think it is entirely possible that McCarthy will beat the delegation there that
[25:16 - 25:22]
is headed by Attorney General Thomas Lynch as a stand in for President Johnson.
[25:22 - 25:27]
Incidentally they they've been calling that delegation the Lynch
[25:27 - 25:31]
and Johnson delegation but that some people are leaving out the hyphens.
[25:31 - 25:42]
What does this all mean. As I said before it doesn't mean that Gene McCarthy is going to be
[25:42 - 25:47]
nominated for president. It doesn't even mean I don't think that Bobby Kennedy is going
[25:47 - 25:51]
to put on his armor and jump into McCarthy's place at the last minute
[25:51 - 25:56]
after McCarthy has done the dirty work. I don't think that Johnson is going to drop out
[25:56 - 26:01]
from faint hearted at this stage of the game and try to give the
[26:01 - 26:07]
nomination to Vice President Humphrey what it does mean.
[26:07 - 26:12]
What it does mean is that there is indeed an anti-war
[26:12 - 26:16]
sentiment in the country which goes beyond the universities it goes beyond the
[26:16 - 26:21]
intellectual community that he's cut into the the great
[26:21 - 26:26]
alienated middle class and lower middle class in the country who are sick of
[26:26 - 26:31]
sunning their boys to die in some war that the the educated
[26:31 - 26:36]
classes the better educated classes are not fighting and who are resentful of a war that they
[26:36 - 26:41]
did that never ends. And I think this feeling is
[26:41 - 26:45]
going to be the great danger for President Johnson in the fall because if the
[26:45 - 26:49]
Republicans with either Mr. Nixon or
[26:49 - 26:55]
Governor Rockefeller took to Governor Rockefeller. Use this
[26:55 - 27:00]
anti-war feeling and exploit it. Not with the intellectuals who
[27:00 - 27:05]
will never vote for Nixon Anyway I guess but with the common people who
[27:05 - 27:09]
want to end the war like it or not is entirely possible that Viet
[27:09 - 27:14]
Nam may lead to the inauguration of a Republican president next January.
[27:14 - 27:20]
Thank you.
[27:20 - 27:27]
Thanks.
[27:27 - 27:32]
You've been listening to a discussion on the war in Vietnam with a noted columnist Rowland
[27:32 - 27:37]
Evans and Robert Novak Evans and Novak spoke in the series as we see
[27:37 - 27:42]
it Vietnam 68 this form of opinion featuring noted spokesmen on the
[27:42 - 27:47]
war in Vietnam was sponsored by the Miami University student senate and organized by Dave
[27:47 - 27:52]
speller Berk Miami student recording an editing was done by the staff of Miami
[27:52 - 27:57]
University radio station WMUB in Oxford Ohio. This is
[27:57 - 27:58]
national educational radio.
🔍