What is it?: Historians and old friends, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook discuss a variety of historical themes, usually for about forty or fifty minutes, two or three times a week.
History: As of January 23rd 2024, there have been 411 episodes, of which I have listened to just over 150. The podcast has been produced by Gary Lineker’s Goalhanger podcasts since its inception in November 2020. It is a success and can usually be seen hovering either within or close to the top ten on lists of the most successful podcasts in the UK. It has inspired a whole range of “The Rest of” podcasts also produced by Goalhanger such as The Rest is … Politics, Football, Business and Entertainment. All of these have also been successful (TRI Politics and TRI Entertainment often overtaking TRI History in popularity), even though, title-wise, only “the rest is history” is ever used as a common, everyday expression.
Format: Tom and Dominic are clearly old chums. Both are professional historians. Both are middle-aged men. Tom (who should not be confused with the 27-year-old Spiderman actor of the same name) is in his fifties, while Dominic will turn fifty in 2024. The tone is light, a world away from the stuffy, “That’s you that is” historians once portrayed by Rob Newman and David Baddiel. Like Newman and Baddiel, however, they do occasionally make each other break into laughter on air, sometimes not for obvious reasons.
Dominic’s speciality is modern history, Tom is better on the ancient world. This distinction is illustrated by the show’s logo which depicts Tom in the form of a Classical statue while Dominic is portrayed as a Churchillian bust. Both men will discuss every topic. Subject matter covered in the last year has included President Kennedy’s assassination, the Aztec Empire, the rise of the Nazis, Columbus, Reagan, Baghdad, Captain Cook and British fascism. The scope of the series is impressive. Subjects are always covered thoroughly and well. Guests (including Tom’s military historian brother) are sometimes invited in to discuss areas on which Tom and Dom are less confident. Novelist Zadie Smith appeared recently to talk about the Tichborne Claimant) while Stephen Fry was in an early Lockdown-era episode.
History boys: Tom Holland (not that one) and Dominic Sandbrook.
Running jokes: Tom is obsessed with cricket and is a big fan of Prince Edward who once praised one of his books. Dom often writes for the Daily Mail although is less reactionary than this makes him sound. However, he does admit to despising John Lennon and occasionally gets lost in a patriotic fervour. Tom also admits to being a big Tony Blair fan although generally the pod avoids discussing 21st century politics, particularly since The Rest is Politics started in 2022. Although not obviously religious himself, Tom is sometimes accused of finding a way to discuss religion within any subject they are discussing. Dominic is probably the more dominant of the two personalities. Tom can be slightly camp.
Historical figures who crop up a lot in Tom and Dom’s discussions, such as Otto von Bismarck are typically described as “very much a friend of The Rest is History.” The duo are also easily distracted by a silly name such as Estes Kefauver, Perkin Warbeck or Tiberius van Ladypleaser. I may have made one of these names up.
Optional extras: Fans can now buy a The Rest is History or get episodes, early and ad-free by joining The Rest is History Club. I am definitely a fan of the podcast, but have resisted both of these options thus far. I generally don’t mind waiting for episodes (I don’t listen to them all anyway). I also don’t mind the short commercial breaks (which are usually for The Week magazine or something).
Criticism: By far the worst aspect of The Rest is History is the tendency to introduce each episode with a quotation often delivered with an excruciating impersonation of the person being quoted. I have no problem with the quotes themselves, but I doubt anyone enjoys hearing Tom impersonating the likes of Hitler and Marilyn Monroe as much as he does performing it. Dominic is equally guilty in this regard. This aspect of the show which is already delivered with an attitude of “we know this bit’s crap but we’re going to it anyway” should be stopped immediately.
Overall: “The history book on the shelf. It’s always repeating itself.” So sang Abba, on their Eurovision-winning hit, Waterloo, fifty years ago. Happily, The Rest is History rarely repeats itself. It is a first-class podcast which you will find yourself returning to, again and again.
It is sometimes said of the nineteen sixties: if you can remember them, you weren’t really there. Oddly, reading the latest volume in David Kynaston’s epic Tales of a New Jerusalem series on post-war British life left me with much the same feeling. Kynaston’s 600-page book goes into so much painstaking detail about every aspect of British life during that period, that I almost feel as if I really do remember being there. Yet in reality, I wasn’t there at all. I’m not even old enough to remember the seventies.
The book doesn’t cover the whole decade, of course, merely the 27-month period between October 1962 and January 1965. The month of October 1962 was in itself hugely significant culturally. As John Higgs has discussed in his book, Love and Let Die, the same day, Saturday 6th October 1962 witnessed the simultaneous release of both the first Beatles’ single, Love Me Do and the very first cinema release for the very first James Bond film, Dr. No starring Sean Connery. It was also the month during which, thanks to the Cuban Missile Crisis, humanity came closer to wiping itself our than at any time before or since.
In truth, this entire two-year timespan, may well down as the most eventful in Britain’s peacetime history. The book’s title doubtless refers to the conditions which precipitated the Big Freeze of 1962-63, one of the coldest winters ever recorded, which strikes early in the book, but also the northern character of many of the changes wrought during this time such as the coming of The Beatles and the arrival of Yorkshireman, Harold Wilson into Downing Street in October 1964.
The year 1963 saw the government of Harold “Supermac” Macmillan dealt with a severe dose of Kryptonite, by the eruption of the Profumo Affair which shook British society to its foundations. By October 1963, Macmillan, who was approaching seventy had lost all appetite for the job and used the excuse of a perfectly treatable bout of prostate cancer to make a sharp exit from Downing Street (he went on to live until 1986). With no formal arrangements to elect Tory leaders yet in place, the subsequent “contest” to succeed the old man quickly turned into a farce, the skeletal Sir Alec Douglas-Home somehow emerging as leader, despite still being in the House of Lords at the time of his appointment.
Home should, in theory, have been easy meat for a Labour Party revitalised after more than a decade in opposition, by the election of the youthful Harold Wilson as leader earlier in the year. Today, a politician who always wore a raincoat and smoked a pipe would risk seeming like an odd ball. But in 1963, these things when added to the new leader’s heady, intoxicating, arguably slightly meaningless talk of the “white heat of revolution” helped make Wilson seem like the harbinger of a new, exciting, more technological and meritocratic new age. Wilson’s period as leader between March 1963 and October 1964, is still seen by many as the perfect template for any Opposition leader. Despite this, he only just managed to knock the stiff, untelegenic Sir Alec off his perch, leading Labour to victory with a single figure majority.
But it’s not all about politics. Far from it. Instead, we get a unique insight into almost all aspects of British life through the TV they watched, the newspapers and magazines they read, the music, the sport and the thoughts and feelings of people both famous and ordinary through their letters and diaries. It is a reminder that history is not always what we remember it to be and that people’s perceptions and attitudes back then might not be now exactly what we would now expect them to be.
For example, as some reflected idly on the return of Dixon of Dock Green (“like an old friend coming into the house every Saturday”), others discussed the possible implications of the contraceptive pill (“this is not a subject which a woman will discuss over morning coffee – even with her closest friends,” wrote Jean Rook in the Yorkshire Post). The Beeching Report was published. The Great Train Robbery happened. On the night of President Kennedy’s assassination, Beatles fans went to see the Fab Four perform at the Globe Theatre on Stockton-on-Tees. Mods and Rockers fought on Brighton’s beaches. The first episode of Top of the Pops went out. Some took an instant dislike to its first ever host: “What an odd-looking individual…like something from Dr Who…Mutton dressed as lamb.” Sometimes the effect is similar to reading a Twitter feed. The host on that occasion was the 37-year-old disc jockey, Jimmy Savile.
In Smethwick, the Conservative candidate, Peter Griffiths won the seat after fighting a blatantly racist campaign using the slogan, “if you want a n—– for a neighbour, vote Labour.” His election provoked huge controversy. On TV, however, despite some grumbling, The Black and White Minstrels Show continued to air and would do for many years. News stories like the unfolding Profumo Affair provoked mixed reactions ranging from sympathy for Macmillan, often hypocritical disgust, outrage over the nature of the media coverage and undisguised lust towards Christine Keeler from the future comedy writer, Laurence Marks, then a teenaged boy.
There is more detailed analysis too. With the perspective of sixty years, David Kynaston examines the impact of the Beeching cuts to the railways and also takes a thorough look at the condition of the welfare state as his epic series of books reaches its half way point, midway between the landmark 20th century General Elections of 1945 and 1979. Elsewhere, we are reminded that sport did not stop even on the day of Sir Winston Churchill’s state funeral with Peterborough United beating Arsenal that very afternoon. The Britain of January 1965 was undeniably massively different from the land the great war leader had been born into ninety years before. But it was also, as this superb book consistently reminds us, very different from the Britain of today.
Book review: A Northern Wind, Britain 1962-65, by David Kynaston. Published by: Bloomsbury.
Can you do better than the 37th president of the USA? Complete this quiz and find out!
(And remember, if things get too tough, you can always resign…)
1. 1950: You are campaigning to be elected to the US senate. Your opponent, the actress Helen Gagahan Douglas is actually fairly liberal Democrat but you want to imply she has communist connections. What nickname do you come up with for her?
a) Stalin’s sister-in-law
b) Mao’s mouthpiece
c) The Pink Lady
d) The Molotov cocktail
e) That goddamn crazy, liberal, pinko, commie-loving Hollywood bitch
2. 1952: You are delivering the famous Checkers speech on TV in a desperate bid to retain your position as General Eisenhower’s running-mate. But what exactly do you say about Checkers, a cocker spaniel dog during the broadcast?
a) “Believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was? It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he’d sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl—Tricia, the 6-year-old—named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.”
b) You denounce Checkers as a communist and deny having anything to do with him.
c) Counter-attack by accusing the Democrat candidate, Adlai Stevenson of having accepted a whole menagerie of animals as gifts including a snake called “Chess” and a penguin named “Ludo.”
d) Propose launching Checkers into orbit, making him the first dog in space before the end of the decade. e) Propose a “Checkers strategy” to rival Eisenhower’s “domino theory.”
3. 1960: The presidential TV debate with John F. Kennedy is approaching but you are in a bad way. You look haggard, shifty and sweaty while Kennedy looks pristine, polished and smooth. What do you do?
a) Leave the make-up people to attempt to cover-up your appearance as well as possible. Cover-ups always work.
b) Draw attention away from your appearance by mimicking Kennedy in an effeminate, high-pitched voice every time you speak.
c) Arrange for extracts from your successful 1952 Checkers speech to be inserted into the broadcast every time it’s your turn to speak and hope the content is still relevant.
4. 1968: You are running for president again. How will you tackle the ongoing Vietnam War?
a) Propose bombing Vietnam back to the stone age.
b) A more nuanced approach. Propose bombing Vietnam but only back to the iron age.
c) Unconditional surrender.
d) Pretend you have a “secret plan to end the war” leaving you free to come up with a plan at your leisure once you’ve been elected.
5. 1969: Congratulations! You have won the presidency. Time to compose your “Enemies List.” Who should go on it?
a) Dr Henry Kissinger, John Erlichman, H.R Haldeman, Pat Nixon and Bob Hope.
b) Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Charles Manson, Idi Amin and Patty Hearst.
c) Ted Kennedy, Barbara Streisand, Bill Cosby and Jane Fonda.
6. 1969: You claim to speak for…
a) The silent majority
b) The vocal majority
c) An effete court of impudent snobs.
d) The military-industrial complex.
7. 1972: Re-election looms. You seem to be heading for an easy win. Do you…
a) Let nature take its course. Campaign normally. Why not? You’re clearly going to win anyway.
b) Approve an orchestrated campaign of sabotage and dirty tricks against your opponents culminating in the Watergate break-in.
8, 1973: Watergate. How do you defend the administration from accusations of a cover-up?
a) There will be no BS from DC.
b) There will no dam built obstructing this Watergate.
c) There will be no whitewash at the White House.
9. 1973: Spiro Agnew has resigned as vice-president after being accused of tax evasion. Who should replace him?
a) Nelson Rockefeller? Bob Dole? A safe pair of hands who can take over should you be required to leave office.
b) Gerald Ford. Surely congress wouldn’t risk impeaching you if it meant someone like him becoming president?
ANSWERS
c) was the nickname you used. Any of them would have probably worked.
a) was what you said.
a) You have little alternative. It didn’t work.
d) You opt for this one. Eventually it was decided to adopt a policy of “Vietnamisation”: basically handing over the fighting to the Vietnamese enabling a gradual US withdrawal ensuring eventual defeat. Probably the best possible outcome in the circumstances.
c) of course! a) are all your supporters. b) are not really your friends either, but none for various reasons made the list.
a) Spiro Agnew used c) to refer to anti-war protesters. d) is a quote by President Eisenhower.
b) Although a) would have been a better decision.
c)
b) This really was your reasoning for picking Ford. It didn’t prevent your downfall after which Ford became president anyway.
Half a century after the Watergate scandal which precipitated his downfall and nearly thirty years after his death, the 37th president retains a strong hold on the popular imagination. Ultimately, most people would probably agree that while he undoubtedly had many good qualities, he was also deeply flawed. The same may unfortunately be said of this new biography of the man.
It’s a shame really that author, Paul Carter didn’t end this volume with Nixon’s first election to congress in 1946. For the chapters on Nixon’s early life, growing up poor in California are easily the best in the book. Although I admit I am something of a Nixon geek, I must admit there was much here I didn’t know. I didn’t know that there had been a small earthquake in the Nixon’s town on the day after one of his young brothers died. I also hadn’t really appreciated how much stage acting the young Nixon did. It’s fascinating stuff (to me, anyway).
“Just as Wicked redefined The Wizard of Oz, Richard Nixon: California’s Native Son boldly challenges common conceptions,” Carter argues, early on. “It is not political. It is nothing more than a straightforward biography that reveals an incredible life.” But this is a problem. Why shouldn’t the book be political? It is, after all, the life story of a politician.
It’s not true anyway. The book definitely is political. Although it rather skips over the most important phase of his life, the presidency (dealt with in just 24 of the book’s 292 pages), the previous 150 or so pages cover his earlier political career: his run for congress, the Hiss case, the notorious Pink Lady senate campaign, the Checkers speech, the vice presidency, his 1960 presidential campaign and defeat, his 1962 run for Governor of California and defeat – in impressive detail.
But the real problem with the book is that it deliberately avoids mentioning anything that will make it’s subject sound bad. This is unfortunate as these failings are some of the most interesting things about him. It’s even more unfortunate as it means, that apart from the first few chapters, this isn’t a hell of a lot of use as a history book. It presents a largely false impression of the man whose life it is describing.
“Nixon was not flawed, humorless, insecure or evil,” Carter writes. I would agree that he was not evil, although even then, some might argue his invading Cambodia might put him in that category. But flawed? Well, yes. It is no accident that he is the only one of the USA’s presidents thus far to have resigned. Insecure? Again, yes. He secretly bugged his own White House and authorised an illegal campaign of dirty tricks against his opponents, in an election he was sure to win anyway. And now you mention it: no, I can’t remember him ever saying anything particularly funny. Aside from “sock it to me” on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. And, I suspect, he didn’t come up with that line himself.
The book thus glosses over the fact that Nixon’s persistent ‘Pink Lady’ insinuation during his 1950 senate campaign was completely groundless. His opponent, actress Helen Gahagan Douglas was a New Deal Democrat. Despite Nixon’s notorious misogynistic claim (omitted in the book) that she was “pink right down to her underwear,” she was no more a Communist sympathiser than he was.
The 1960 presidential campaign is also presented misleadingly, Nixon’s decision to visit all fifty states is treated as if it was some sort of triumph. In reality, it was a rash promise which threw his entire campaign off course in an attempt to fulfil it. Nixon was also damaged by President Eisenhower’s response to a reporter’s question about useful ideas which Nixon contributed to the administration during his eight years as vice president. “If you give me a week, I might think of one. I don’t remember,” Ike said. Again, this isn’t mentioned in the book. Much is made of Nixon’s apparent integrity in choosing not to contest the election over alleged voting irregularities in Chicago. But, in truth, with Kennedy leading Nixon by a margin of 83 electoral college votes, Nixon challenging the result was never a realistic prospect anyway.
As mentioned, the details of the 1968 campaign and Nixon presidency, both skipped over, neither the best nor the worse aspects are discussed. Watergate is summarised thus: “Nixon attempted to cover-up any White House involvement in order to protect those closest to him.” A more accurate account would point out Nixon subjected the entire nation to an unnecessary trauma in a bid to save his own skin.
We all remember the quote, “there will be no whitewash at the White House.” It is the most famous thing Richard Nixon ever said. We remember it because it was so comprehensively proven to be a lie. There was a whitewash at the White House: Nixon made sure there was a cover-up. But you won’t find this quote anywhere in this book which itself attempts to whitewash the truth about Nixon and who he really was.
Book review: Richard Nixon: California’s Native Son, by Paul Carter. Published by: Potamic Books.
Written by: Chris Hallam. Originally published in Geeky Monkey magazine in 2017…
Fifty-three years. Thirty-five series. 827 episodes. Twelve Doctors. Doctor Who is a phenomenon without equal in TV or science fiction. Yet with series 10 and a new Doctor the way following news of the planned departure of Peter Capaldi at Christmas, is it still possible to put the show into some sort of perspective or is it doomed like the TARDIS to forever escape our comprehension? Join Chris Hallam as he explores…
The 7 Ages of Doctor Who…
Doctor Who is like nothing else on Earth.
In the UK, it remains the eighth longest series of all time rubbing shoulders with the likes of Coronation Street, The Sky At Night and Blue Peter. It is one of only a dozen or so programmes still showing to be old enough to have once been in black and white.
But in the realm of science fiction it is truly a world beater. Nothing else comes close to it in terms of longevity. Not Stargate, not Red Dwarf, not even Star Trek. Even if you collect all the different Star Trek series together and add them up (already an unfair comparison really) then Doctor Who still wins, in terms of both episodes and the span of time it’s been on. So if you think watching The OA on Netflix was a bit of a long haul recently, this should hopefully put things into perspective. It’s as if The OA was still on in 2069.
Science fiction isn’t really supposed to be like this, of course. Although in theory it should be more timeless than other genres, somehow it rarely seems to work out that way. It’s hard to imagine Blake’s 7 lasting into the 21st century, for example or Lost In Space even lasting into the Eighties. Most science fiction reflects its own times very strongly. Doctor Who owes its survival to a formula which ensures it can survive an ever-changing cast, its success in reviving itself after a sixteen-year hiatus and its evolution over the decades.
The history of the series so far can be divided into seven distinct phases…
THE FIRST AGE: GENESIS: 1963-1970
Star Trek had Gene Roddenberry. Star Wars had George Lucas. Harry Potter, JK Rowling. But there is no equivalent figure for the creation of Doctor Who.
The series emerged partly from a desire to fill the gap in BBC schedules on Saturday evenings, bridging the void between the end of Grandstand and the start of the then popular Juke Box Jury. But there was much more to it than that. it also formed the culmination of a collective effort to provide an ambitious new science fiction programme for the channel, following in the footsteps of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass series in the 1950s and other experimental shows like A For Andromeda (1961). The new series would be more ambitious and longer running than either.
A group effort it may have been but certain individuals certainly deserve credit for Doctor Who notably the Head of TV Drama, Sydney Newman described by author James Chapman as “the most important single figure in the history of the history of the golden age of television in Britain”. Another was producer, Verity Lambert who was keen to ensure that Doctor Who would be more than just a kids’ show from the start. It was Lambert who chose William Hartnell, the star of the first Carry On film Carry On Sergeant and a familiar figure from TV sitcom The Army Game as the Doctor. The first episode was broadcast, coincidentally, on the day after President Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963.
To a modern viewer, only the title, the basic theme tune, the TARDIS and the presence of a character named “the Doctor” would link the first episode to the current series in any way.
Four basic factors partly explain why Doctor Who has endured for so long. For one thing, the original creators were ingenious enough to make the basic premise sufficiently vague to allow future writers plenty of leigh-way to develop it further. The Doctor himself, for example was initially described as:
“A frail old man lost in space and time. They give him the name because they don’t know who he is…he is searching for something as well as fleeing from something. He has a ‘machine’ which enables them to travel through time, through space and through matter.”
A second key factor was the creation of the Daleks. Their immense popularity from their first appearance in 1964 ensured the series a place in the national psyche. The Doctor’s battles with the Daleks also enabled his character and the series to develop in unforeseen ways.
Another essential element was the introduction of the Doctor’s ever-changing companions – several, at first, but generally only one at a time from the 1970s onwards – which kept the format fresh.
But crucially, it was the Doctor’s ability to occasionally renew himself (the term “regeneration” was not used initially) which enabled the series to survive Hartnell’s decision to retire on health grounds in 1966. “This old body of mine is wearing a bit thin,” Hartnell’s Doctor uttered shortly before collapsing onto the floor of the TARDIS and beginning a dramatic transformation. Sadly, as with many other episodes from the period, the actual episode has been wiped by the BBC. Thankfully, this crucial sequence has survived.
The younger Patrick Troughton brought humour to the role and was clearly a very different figure from his predecessor. Indeed, Newman characterised The Second Doctor as a “cosmic hobo”. The Troughton era would be characterised by a more diverse range of monsters (including the Cybermen, Yeti and Warriors). But it was the idea of regeneration – initially conceived as a stop gap measure to deal with a series crisis – which ensured that the show could still survive when an overworked Troughton himself gave way to Jon Pertwee in 1970.
THE SECOND AGE: THE GOLDEN ERA 1970-1980
The 1970s was ultimately to prove to be the heyday of Doctor Who. The year 1970 itself indeed saw many crucial changes.
First, there was the new Doctor himself. Although traditionally associated with comedic roles up until that point (he had starred in radio’s The Navy Lark and came very close to being cast as Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army), Jon Pertwee took a decision early on to play the Doctor straight, distinguishing himself from Patrick Troughton’s more comedic approach immediately.
There were other changes. Pertwee was to be the first Doctor to have only one companion at a time: Katy Manning followed by Elisabeth Sladen. The series would also be broadcast in colour for the first time.
Finally, and crucially, following the Second Doctor’s trial by the Time Lords, Pertwee’s Doctor spent much of his entire tenure banished to exile on 20th century Earth as punishment for his violation of non-intervention laws. This is often cynically seen as a budgetary measure by the BBC. In fact, budgets rose for the series under Pertwee. Despite concerns that the Earth-bound setting might make the series resemble a 1970s version of Quatermass, the Pertwee Era (1970-74) is generally remembered with affection by fans.
Then came Tom Baker. The most eccentric of the Doctors, Baker’s relative youth and bohemian eternal student appearance raised eyebrows at first. In time, he would become the most enduring, the most popular and the most internationally recognised Doctor Who. His seven-year tenure (1974-81) witnessed a classic era for the series.
It is unusual for a series in its sixteenth year to be at its peak, indeed statistically after 16 years, most TV programmes are not only finished but long forgotten. But despite a growing Mary Whitehouse-led campaign concerning levels of violence within the series, such was the case with Doctor Who in 1979. Ratings were generally as high as nine to eleven million, peaking at 16.1 million for the final episode of City of Death in 1979. Admittedly, this was during a strike which had shut down production at ITV but even so, this remains an all-time high for the series. Critically, the show was doing well too, partly due to the contribution of talented young writers like Douglas Adams. Doctor Who was at a high.
Clearly, the only way was down.
THE THIRD AGE: FALLING SLOWLY 1980-1984
At just thirty, Peter Davison was already a likeable and familiar face to audiences having appeared in All Creatures Great and Small amongst other things and cameoing as the Dish of the Day in the 1982 TV version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy during his time as the Doctor. He nevertheless had a tough act to follow. The scripts reflect this insecurity; for example, on spying his new reflection the Doctor muses: “well, I suppose I’ll get used to in time.”
It is sad then, that the Davison era is associated with the beginning of a steep ratings decline which ultimately ended in the shows cancellation in 1989. This probably wasn’t Davison’s fault. Viewing figures had actually began to fall during Tom Baker’s last year, perhaps in response to radical changes introduced by flamboyant new producer John Nathan-Turner after 1980. These included a new heavily synthesized version of the familiar theme tune, new stylised costumes for the Doctors and updated filming techniques.
Fans generally welcomed the changes and Nathan-Turner was arguably only combatting an inevitable post-Star Wars decline for the series anyway; both budgets and expectations had suddenly risen dramatically. But whatever the truth: ratings did fall. Davison’s first series averaged only 5.8 million viewers with one episode dropping to 3.7 million: an all-time low for any Doctor Who episode up until that point.
Although in general Davison (now father-in-law to the Tenth Doctor David Tennant) is remembered fondly.
THE FOURTH AGE: DECLINE AND FALL 1984-1989
Who killed Doctor Who?
On the face of it, Michael (now Lord) Grade, the former head of BBC programming has often been happy to play the role of the biggest bogeyman in this story.
“The show was ghastly. It was pathetic,” he has said. “It just got more and more violent…it was just horrible to watch. It lost its way… I cancelled it. It was absolutely the right decision at the time.”
Grade indeed is right to take responsibility for the ultimate decision to pull the plug. But even ignoring his animus, there were other factors too. Ratings were now typically as low as four or five million and the show was becoming overly self-referential, appealing to its hardcore of fans but alienating everyone else. Attempts to attract publicity through unusual casting decisions such as Richard Briers and Alexei Sayle did not always help.
History has not been kind to the Sixth Doctor and in truth Colin Baker was dealt a rotten hand during his stint between 1984 and 1986 with most of this time spent in a period of enforced 18-month hiatus imposed by Grade. Baker’s spell as the Doctor ended acrimoniously, with the effect that the now traditional regeneration sequence had to be filmed without him.
Always vulnerable to the charge of being “just a children’s programme,” some scepticism met news of the appointment of Sylvester McCoy, an actor then primarily known for roles on kids’ TV (such as the Horrible Histories forerunner Eureka!) to succeed Colin Baker. In truth, McCoy soon warmed to the role helped (after a brief unhappy pairing with scream queen Bonnie Langford) by an especially able companion Ace (real name Dorothy) played by Sophie Aldred who had “been written with a greater sensitivity and subtlety than had usually been afforded by the role of companion” according to James Chapman in his book Inside The Tardis: The Worlds of Doctor Who. As Aldred’s confidence grew, Chapman argues, her initially tomboyish character was allowed to grow and develop in ways previously unseen in a Doctor’s companion.
But it was not enough. Chapman also argues that by the end, the BBC had lost interest in the show to the extent that they deliberately scheduled in slots where it was “doomed to fail” making its cancellation in 1989 inevitable.
Ultimately, the real question should not be who killed Doctor Who but why it endured for an impressive 26 years in the first place.
And even after that, it never really went away.
THE FIFTH AGE: LIMBO (1989-2005)
Years passed. Speculation about whether the series might yet return continued throughout the Nineties. The series’ cult following never went away and was reflected in the continuing fanzines and by sales of Doctor Who novels and magazines. But it was 1996 before a new Doctor Who came along and when it did it came in the form of what turned out to be a one-off TV movie.
By many usual criteria, the movie entitled simply “Doctor Who” was a success. Around nine million UK viewers watched it, certainly enough to suggest there was an audience for the new Doctor. Much of the critical feedback was positive. Certainly, most seemed happy with the choice of the new Doctor: Paul McGann best known for his role in the cult comedy Withnail and I (1987) and the BBC First World War drama The Monocled Mutineer (1986). The result of an audition process which had apparently included everyone from Mark McGann (Paul’s brother, one of an acting dynasty), Tony Slattery, Michael Crawford and John Sessions, McGann’s Doctor was styled as “a Romantic hero in the mould of Percy Bysshe Shelley” by writer James Chapman and was described as “the best” and “the sexiest Doctor ever” by others.
Probably the main failing of the TV movie, however, was with US audiences. Despite a US setting and the casting of American actors like Eric (brother of Julia) Roberts, the TV movie underperformed in the US and this ultimately ensured it would not continue as a series. Some have attributed this to poor scheduling choices – the film was put up against the final episode of long-running US sitcom, Roseanne. But in fact, it was more likely to have been let down by a simple fact; Doctor Who had never been on network TV in the US and so most American viewers were unfamiliar with the character, series and the concept.
It would take another later version of the show to slowly establish a foothold amongst US audiences. And it would need to establish itself in the UK first.
THE SIXTH AGE: THE RETURN (2005-2010).
Apparently, it isn’t possible to please all of the people all of the time. Well, maybe that’s true but the 21st century revival of Doctor Who certainly came damned close. By delivering a new Doctor Who imbued the all the production values the show deserved, the comeback pleased core fans, critics and newcomers alike.
Partly this was down to excellent casting. Although he only chose to play the Doctor for one series, Christopher Eccleston was one of the best known actors to have ever played the Doctor with a career encompassing memorable roles in TV dramas like Our Friends In The North and Russell T. Davies’s Second Coming to films like Danny Boyle’s debut Shallow Grave to Gone in Sixty Seconds. He was ably assisted by ex-pop star Billie Piper in the role Rose Tyler, one of the most popular companions ever.
Although much less well-known than Eccleston at the time of his appointment, David Tennant, star of Russell T. Davies’s Casanova, soon blossomed in the role of the Doctor, his performance developing from a rather uneven one in his early days in the TARDIS. By the time he left the series in 2010, he was rivalling Tom Baker for the position of most popular Doctor Who ever.
For to visit the Doctor Who of a decade ago is to see the show at an all-time high. Ratings for the 2007 Christmas special for example were almost higher than they had ever been, over 13 million. The show had furthermore spawned two successful spin-offs the more grown-up Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures. Things had never been better.
THE SEVENTH AGE: INTO THE FUTURE (2010-?)
The last decade as seen a slight decline in the series’ fortunes. Since the departure of Russell T. Davies as show runner in 2010, ratings have fallen. Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures have ended but have been replaced by a new spin-off series Class. Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi have both been well-received as the Doctor but there has been a growing sense that Doctor Who has gradually less compulsive viewing in the last few years.
Veteran actor Peter Capaldi has indicated that the forthcoming Series 10 of Doctor Who will be his last. But what does Series 10 have to offer? And what does Capaldi’s departure potentially mean for the show?
Ultimately, the future of Doctor Who is as yet unwritten. We do not even know much about Series 10. Yes, a few old favourites will return: Matt Lucas will reprise his recent role as Nardole. After a long build-up Pearl Mackie will finally take up her role as companion Bill to Capaldi’s Doctor. The likes of David Suchet and Ralf Little are also expected to appear.
Who then will be the new Doctor? Speculation has already been rampant although ultimately the decision as to replace Steven Moffat who his leaving his position as show runner after this series with Chris Chibnall might be as crucial.
For ultimately it is how Doctor Who responds to such changes, how successfully it renews and refreshes itself which will determine Doctor Who’s future. It is these qualities which have ensured its survival in the past half century and will maintain it in the future either as a cult or a show with a committed mass audience.
DOCTOR AT LARGE: BIG SCREEN TIMELORDS
One thing that might have made the idea of William Hartnell turning into Patrick Troughton a bit easier to swallow was the fact that many viewers had already seen the Doctor by someone other than Hartnell already. Veteran actor and future Rogue One star Peter Cushing had played the Doctor twice in the films Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966) both directed by Gordon Flemyng (father of the actor Jason Flemyng). Unsurprisingly, neither of these films is quite the same as the series. Despite his horror background, Cushing is a more good-natured Doctor than Hartnell in films which seem very specifically aimed at children. Roy Castle and future 21st century series star Bernard CribbIns provide comic relief respectively while the titles for both films suggest an attempt to capitalise on the early Daleks craze. Neither are bad films but after the second (probably superior) film did less box office than the first, no more films were made. Today, the two present an interesting curiosity as well as the earliest example of Doctor Who in colour.
ALL CHANGE PLEASE!: THE REGENERATION GAME
What brought on the Doctors’ big change each time?
FIRST DOCTOR (The Tenth Planet, 1966): Old and worn out, Hartnell’s Doc collapses on the floor of the TARDIS. A few minutes later, Patrick Troughton gets up again. Clever eh?
SECOND DOCTOR (The War Games, 1970): As punishment for his interventionist ways, the Time Lords force a “change of appearance” on Troughton’s Doctor as well as exile to Earth.
THIRD DOCTOR: (Planet of the Spiders, 1974). Poisoned by radiation, this saw the term “regeneration” used for the first time. In Doctor Who, that is.
FOURTH DOCTOR (Logopolis, 1981): Falls from a radio telescope. We’ve all done it.
FIFTH DOCTOR (The Caves of Androzani, 1984): Succumbs to poisoning while staring at Nicola Bryant’s cleavage. It’s what he would have wanted…
SIXTH DOCTOR (Time and the Rani, 1987) Colin Baker’s Doctor regenerates into Sylvester McCoy following a crash landing for the TARDIS. An irked Baker refused to participate, so McCoy was filmed throughout the process using clever special effects and a blond curly wig.
SEVENTH DOCTOR (The 1996 TV film): In a fridge in a morgue after being shot in LA.
EIGHTH DOCTOR (The Night of the Doctor, 2013): Paul McGann’s Doctor dies in a spaceship crash regenerating into the War Doctor (the late John Hurt) after drinking a special potion in this mini-episode. The War Doctor then himself regenerates from old age in the 50th anniversary episode The Day of the Doctor (also 2013). Do keep up please!
NINTH DOCTOR (The Parting of the Ways, 2005): Christopher Eccleston perishes after absorbing the time vortex.
TENTH DOCTOR (THE END OF TIME, 2010): Absorbs a vast amount of radiation thus saving Wilfred Mott (Bernard Cribbins). Tennant wasn’t even born when Cribbins appeared in the Sixties Who movie.
ELEVENTH DOCTOR (The Time of the Doctor, 2013): Receives a new lease of life after receiving a regeneration cycle from the Time Lords before regenerating into Peter Capaldi.
Sixty years on, Theodore H. White’s ground-breaking account of the 1960 US presidential elections is still regarded as a landmark in political reporting. White’s first book and to a lesser extent, his three subsequent volumes on the 1964, 1968 and 1972 contests have provided a template for all such works produced since, for example, the late Richard Cramner’s massive account of the 1988 Bush Vs Dukakis contest, What It Takes or Mark Halperin and John Heilemann books on the 2008 and 2012 elections won by Barack Obama.
White died in 1986, but his writing still provides a unique and fascinating insight into these four contests whose outcomes would prove to have dramatic consequences for both America and the world.
1960
The 1960 elections had everything. Two youthful strong rival candidates both destined in their time to become important and controversial leaders, a fiercely fought primary campaign, a charismatic outsider battling against religious bigotry, an ‘October surprise’ (the upset caused by the TV debates) and a nail-biting photo finish.
White admittedly had a lot to work with but his spell-binding and thorough account is at least as fascinating in discussing the ‘nearly men’ such as Hubert Humphrey, Adlai Stevenson, Lyndon Johnson and Nelson Rockefeller as it is about the eventual final nominees, John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon.
After a 2020 election which ended with only the second Roman Catholic being elected to the White House without the subject ever really being raised, its easy to forget how serious an electoral obstacle Kennedy’s Catholicism was considered in 1960 when he ultimately became the first.
The personality of Richard Nixon inevitably looms large throughout these four volumes. He was the Republican nominee in three of these four elections (1960, 1968 and 1972), the winner of two (1968 and 1972) and played a smaller role in the 1964 campaign. He comes across badly in this first volume. Initially, the clear favourite, he squanders his advantage, proving a difficult and awkward candidate losing the support of the popular incumbent President Eisenhower and lumbering his campaign with a foolhardy commitment to visit all fifty American states. He was lucky not to lose by more and luckier still to get a chance to stage a comeback.
Did White know about Kennedy’s relentless womanising? We do not know. He was certainly not alone in not reporting them if he did know, however, as non-reporting of candidates’ private lives was certainly the convention at the time. Gary Hart, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump were to be less fortunate in this regard. Nothing is also said about Mayor Daley’s electoral chicanery in Chicago. Kennedy would have won comfortably in the electoral college without Chicago anyway. Although it is discussed, less is made of the TV debates’ impact by White than has been made since. This is nevertheless a masterful account and the best of the four books in the series.
1964
Foregone conclusions rarely make for exciting elections and White is unfortunate that Democrat President Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory over Republican Senator Barry Goldwater was never really in doubt. White delivers an excellent account of the aftermath of the 1963 Kennedy assassination, however, and reminds us just how brilliant a candidate and a president LBJ was in his first year in office, regardless of what happened later. He also reminds us just how terrible a choice Republicans made when they opted for Barry Goldwater (“extremism in defence of liberty is no vice”) over the far more palatable and moderate, Nelson Rockefeller, who would become Gerald Ford’s vice president, a decade later.
“In your heart, you know he’s right,” Goldwater fans insisted. “In your guts, you know he’s nuts!” critics countered. In the end, Goldwater allowed himself to be painted into a corner and portrayed (White argues unfairly) as a potential welfare abolitionist and nuclear hawk. He lost to LBJ by a record margin. Again, less is made of things which have come to be seen as important since. Little is made of the landmark ‘Daisy’ Johnson TV campaign broadcast (in which a little girl picking daisies in a field is unexpectedly nuked. It was later parodied on The Simpsons) and ex-actor Ronald Reagan’s career-defining speech in favour of Goldwater is not mentioned at all.
1968
1968 was a US presidential election year like no other, more violent, traumatic and divisive than any before or since. The previous election in 1964 already seemed like a distant memory by the start of 1968, as the United States was reeling from a dramatic breakdown in law and order and mounting division over the increasingly bloody quagmire in Vietnam. LBJ seemed exhausted, his ambitious and admirable Great Society programme side-lined forever by the escalating war. Despite this, the president (who was eligible for one more term, having served the fourteen remaining months of the assassinated John F. Kennedy’s remaining term, plus one of his own) was still generally expected to win.
But shock followed shock in 1968. First, the US suffered a major setback in Vietnam as the Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive. Then, the little known senator Eugene McCarthy scored an impressive 41% in the New Hampshire primary: not a win but a major shock to the White House. This prompted Johnson’s hated rival Bobby Kennedy to enter the race. Like McCarthy, he ran on an anti-war ticket.
At this point, Johnson astonished the world by announcing his withdraw from the race declaring: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President,” in a televised address in March. Concerns that he might suffer another heart attack were a factor, something he confided to his Vice President Hubert Humphrey who effectively ran in his stead. He did indeed die following a heart attack on January 22nd 1973. Had he won and served another full term, his presidency would have ended just two days before.
White explores all of the candidates. The short campaign of Bobby Kennedy which would ultimately be a cut short by an assassin’s bullet. Eugene McCarthy: an often irritating candidate who lost all heart in the 1968 contest following RFK’s death. George Wallace, the racist demagogue running as an independent. And Humphrey, the eventual Democratic nominee after a disastrous Chicago convention marred by the brutal police suppression of anti-war protests outside. Despite a terrible campaign, “Humph” came surprisingly close to winning.
But he was narrowly beaten by Richard Nixon, ultimately a disastrous choice for presidency. Nixon had already seen off challenges from political newcomer Ronald Reagan and George Romney, (the father of Mitt Romney who was beaten by Obama in 2012). Romney Senior’s campaign was scarcely less inept than his son’s. Witnesses have described it as “like watching a duck try to make love to a football.”
There is no happy ending here. Nixon won after sabotaging Johnson’s attempts to secure peace in Vietnam before the election, despite publicly expressing support for them. This isn’t discussed here (White would not have known about these behind the scenes shenanigans) though at times White does show a great deal of warmth towards Nixon here, something he would probably come to regret later.
1972
By 1972, White’s books were having a political impact in themselves. At one point, we are told the Democratic nominee George McGovern first decided to run for the highest office after being inspired by White’s first Making of the President book back in 1962. The liberal McGovern would go onto be buried in a forty-nine state Nixon landslide. Today, in 2021, both Nixon and McGovern are long gone (McGovern died in 2012, aged 90) but for the first time in these volumes, a clear link can be forged to the present. A number of people mentioned (Gary Hart, Ralph Nader, Donald Rumsfeld, even William Calley of My Lai) are still alive, while we know, though it isn’t mentioned here, that the young Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham first met on the McGovern campaign. Also:
“And J. Caleb Boggs of Delaware of whom it was said had shaken half the right hands in his thirty years in public office, being defeated for the Senate by a young man, Joseph Biden Jr., who would reach the Constitutional Senatorial age of thirty, only a few weeks before he was due to take office.”
No other president in US history was making an impact in public life almost a full half century before they were in the White House. Reagan, after all, was not yet even an actor, 48 years before he became president. Trump, at that stage, was still a spoilt millionaire’s son. Perhaps nothing ever really changed.
Anyway, the shadow of Watergate looms large over the book. The initial summer 1972 break-in seems to have had no real impact on the November election. By the time, White finished the book, it was clearly becoming a major scandal although it was not yet at all obvious that it would ultimately bring down Nixon himself.
This election also spawned Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, from Hunter S. Thompson, a writer far more anti-Nixon and pro-McGovern than White was and indeed, rather fonder of including illustrations in his books.
In truth, you would have to be very, very, very interested in the machinations of the 1970s US Democratic Party indeed to find every page of either this or Thompson’s book wholly riveting. Despite this, it is still tempting to wonder how White might have covered the Ford-Carter contest of 1976 or perhaps Ronald Reagan’s 1980 and 1984 campaigns. As it is, we should be grateful enough for these four volumes which already tell us so much about a nation which had transformed beyond all recognition in the comparatively short period between 1960 and 1972.
Book review: Four volumes: The Making of the President, 1960, 1964, 1968 and 1972, by Theodore H. White. Published by: Harper Collins.
Reproduced, with thanks, from Bingebox magazine (2016):
It seems like a familiar sight. A lone sultry and very famous singer delivers a seductive performance of “happy birthday” to the birthday boy, actually her secret lover, who also happens to be her leader. But as she reaches the third line, something jars. The words change and things take a chilling turn. “Happy birthday…Mein Fuhrer,” are the star’s next words. For while this is Marilyn Monroe, she is not singing to President Kennedy, the charismatic young American president but to … someone else entirely.
So, begins the trailer for the second season of Amazon Prime’s, The Man In The High Castle. And as if we didn’t know already, this is a world in which history has taken a very different turn from our own. And not for the better.
THE REICH STUFF
The premise
of The Man In The High Castle stems from the endlessly fascinating question;
what would the world be like, had Nazi Germany and imperial Japan triumphed at
the end of the Second World War instead of the Allies, (that is the United
States, Soviet Union, British Empire and others)?
It was a
question which once haunted the feverish, troubled but hugely imaginative mind
of author Philip K Dick. The man whose writing ultimately inspired many of the
greatest science fiction films of all time including Blade Runner, Total
Recall, Minority Report and The Adjustment Bureau, Dick been just too young to
fight for the US in World War II himself but nevertheless realised what a close
thing the outcome of the war had been. Over fifty years’ ago, inspired by
another novel which convincingly imagined a victory for the slavery supporting
Confederacy in the 1860s American Civil War, he set to work producing a book
depicting a similar alternative ending to World War II.
Prone to hallucinations and sudden bouts of paranoia, Dick had a relatively short turbulent life, dying in 1982, aged just 63 without seeing most of his work reach the screen. But he enjoyed probably more success The Man in High Castle than with any other book during his lifetime.
WELCOME TO AMERICA: 1962
The first
season of The Man In The High Castle in 2015 brought the book’s chilling vision
vividly to the screen. The United States of America we know from this period
(portrayed in the early series of Mad Men, amongst other things) was confident,
victorious and powerful poised on the verge of huge successes such as in the space
race, but also riven by racial division and on the brink of disaster both in
the Cuban Missile Crisis and in the growing war in Vietnam. But the America portrayed
here is very different: it is no longer in fact, even the “United States” at
all. We soon learn that the west coast of the former USA is now under the
control of the victorious Japanese while the eastern bit is under Nazi German rule.
The Rocky Mountains meanwhile are a neutral buffer zone between the two sides,
this being where the mysterious “man in the high castle” is said to reside.
Tantalising hints as to what has befallen the
Allies are scattered liberally throughout both the series and the book. One
character suggests the great war leader President Franklin D. Roosevelt was
assassinated long before the war started in this reality, perhaps explaining
why the US did not win. Another suggests that the war dragged on until 1947 instead
of 1945 here, only ending when Nazi Germany dropped an atomic bomb on Washington
DC.
TORN ASUNDER
A divided
land then and few of the characters we meet are not facing a conflict of the
loyalty of some sort or another. With the first season still on Amazon Prime
some might want to steer clear now. But for everyone else, here’s a quick
reminder…
San
Francisco resident Juliana Crane (Alexa Davalos) for example, an expert in
aikido appears happy living under Japanese rule at the start of Season 1. That’s
until her half-sister Trudy who turns out to have been a member of the
anti-government Resistance, is unexpectedly killed. Juliana finds herself drawn
herself into the work of the Resistance as she attempts to complete Trudy’s
last job: delivering a tape entitled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy to the mythical
man in the High Castle. Intriguingly, the tape depicts an alternative version
of history in which the US and the Allies defeated Germany and Japan!
Essentially, the world in the tape is very like our own.
Juliana is
aided and abetted by her boyfriend Frank Frink (Rupert Evans) a man enjoying
some creative success but who has a dark secret which pushes him closer and closer
to full blown rebellion: he is Jewish. Joe Blake (Luke Kleintank) meanwhile
faces conflict of a different sort. Although supposedly a member of the
Resistance he is in fact a secret agent in the employ of SS Obergruppenfuhrer
John Smith (Rufus Sewell). Although very clearly a baddie, Smith is far from
the typical stereotypical black and white Nazi villain. As his name suggests,
he is an American-born participant in the new regime. A family man living a
comfortable suburban life, it is suggested he has been drawn to Nazism by the
apparent failure of the old American system in the Great Depression of the
Thirties. Trade minister Nobusuke Tagomi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) is yet another
character who finds himself torn between conflicting loyalties. The new series
also sees Chief Inspector Kido (Joel de la Fuente) begins to take more interest
in the Man in the High Castle.
With
Juliana, increasingly unsure what to do about the treacherous Joe, Joe doubting
his own continued commitment to the Third Reich, Smith increasingly doubtful
about the Nazi philosophy after the illness of one of his children, more revelations
from The Grasshopoper Lies Heavy tapes and mounting tensions between Germany
and Japan, the ten hour long episodes of Season Two of The Man In The High
Castle promise to be just as compelling and as full of intrigue as the first.
At the root
of the series’ success however is its authentic portrayal of a chilling but
plausible alternative version of American history that though perhaps a touch more
plausible in the wake of Donald Trump’s recent election victory, has mercifully
never existed.
WHO’S IN IT?
ALEXA
DAVALOS
Playing the
starring role of Juliana Crain, French-born Alexa has appeared in a good range
of TV (Angel, Mob City) and films (notably The Chronicles of Riddick and Clash
of the Titans).
RUPERT EVANS
With a key role
in Ewan MacGregor’s recently released directorial debut American Pastoral,
British actor Evans who plays Frank Frink has been in plays, TV and film
aplenty, notably offbeat superhero flick Hellboy.
RUFUS SEWELL
Instantly recognisable as the older man love interest Lord Melbourne in the recent ITV Victoria, Sewell, also British, has been playing sexy villains for years in A Knight’s Tale, The Legend of Zorro and other films and TV.
1968: Senator Robert Kennedy speaking at an election rally. (Photo by Harry Benson/Express/Getty Images)
1968 was a US presidential election year like no other, more violent, traumatic and divisive than any before or since.
The previous election in 1964 had seen President Lyndon B. Johnson defeat his rather alarming opponent Senator Barry Goldwater by a record margin. But this already seemed like a distant memory by the start of 1968, as the United States was reeling from a dramatic breakdown in law and order and mounting division over the increasingly bloody quagmire in Vietnam. LBJ seemed exhausted, his ambitious and admirable Great Society programme sidelined forever by the escalating war.
Despite this, the president (who was eligible for one more term, having served the fourteen remaining months of the assassinated John F. Kennedy’s remaining term, plus one of his own) was still generally expected to win.
But shock followed shock in 1968. First, the US suffered a major setback in Vietnam as the Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive. Then, the little-known senator Eugene McCarthy scored an impressive 41% in the New Hampshire primary: not a win, but a major shock to the White House. This prompted Johnson’s hated rival Bobby Kennedy to enter the race. Like McCarthy, he ran on an anti-war ticket.
At this point, Johnson astonished the world by announcing his withdrawal from the race declaring: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President,” in a televised address in March. Concerns that he might suffer another heart attack were a factor, something he confided to his Vice President Hubert Humphrey who effectively ran in his stead. He did indeed die following a heart attack on January 22nd 1973. Had he won and served another full term, his presidency would have ended just two days before that date.
Michael A. Cohen’s book is especially effective in its portrayal of the hugely diverse range of characters who ran for president in 1968. President Johnson: a man so crude he would sometimes take his own “Johnson” out during meetings. Bobby Kennedy is also demystified. Tragic as his assassination was, Cohen dispels the myth that his victory would have been inevitable had he lived. In fact, he may well not have even won the Democratic Party nomination. McCarthy: an often irritating candidate who lost all heart in the 1968 contest following RFK’s death. George Wallace, the racist demagogue running as an independent. And Humphrey, the eventual Democratic nominee after a disastrous Chicago convention marred by the brutal police suppression of anti-war protests outside. Despite a terrible campaign, “Humph” came surprisingly close to winning.
But he was narrowly beaten by Richard Nixon, ultimately a disastrous choice for the presidency. Nixon had already seen off challenges from political newcomer Ronald Reagan and George Romney, (the father of Mitt Romney who was beaten by Obama in 2012). Romney Senior’s campaign was scarcely less inept than his son’s. Witnesses have described it as “like watching a duck try to make love to a football.”
There is no happy ending here. Nixon won after sabotaging Johnson’s attempts to secure peace in Vietnam before the election, despite publicly expressing support for them. Everything shifted to the Right. Nothing was ever the same again.
Book review: American Maelstrom: The 1968 Election and the Politics of Division by Michael A Cohen. Published by: Oxford University Press.
Tragedy sometimes brings out the best in people. This is often especially true in the case of our political leaders. Ronald Reagan, for example, demonstrated genuine eloquence in the aftermath of the 1986 Challenger Shuttle disaster. John Major had a rare fine moment as PM when he payed tribute to his Labour opponent John Smith following his sudden death in May 1994.
It does not always work out that way, however. Such eloquence entirely deserted Labour politician George Brown when he appeared on the TV programme ‘This Week’ on the day of President Kennedy’s assassination on 22nd November 1963.
Brown was not a full blown leader: he had been beaten by Harold Wilson for the party leadership the previous February following the death of Hugh Gaitskell. But he was very senior party figure destined to be Foreign Secretary in the forthcoming Labour Government. He had also been closer to Kennedy than almost any other British Labour politician of the time. But his performance was to be hugely embarrassing “a compound of maudlin sentimentality, name dropping and aggression” according to author Peter Paterson.
Brown had met Kennedy three times, once in 1961 and twice in 1963, most recently just under a month before on October 24th 1963. A note undoubtedly supplied by the London Embassy for Kennedy’s perusal before his meeting with Brown, summarised the current thinking on the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party:
“He was a poor loser…His reaction to defeat, together with accumulating doubts as to his suitability for high office because of certain character defects such as irascibility, impulsiveness and heavy drinking, have left his future position in the Party in doubt.”
On November 22nd, Brown agreed to be interviewed soon after hearing the shocking news of the assassination while attending a drinks reception. Brown (who had had a dispute with presenter Kenneth Harris on air in the past), took immediate offence at the perfectly innocent and reasonable opening question: “I know you met President Kennedy once or twice. Did you get to know him as a man?”
“Now, you’re talking about a man who was a very great friend of mine…” Brown growled back, glaring at Harris fiercely and immediately began peppering his answers with over-familiar references to “Jack” and “Jackie” Kennedy. At one point tears welled up in his eyes: “Jack Kennedy, who I liked, who I was very near to…I remember it’s not many weeks ago I was over there with my daughter who lives in New York…and she was talking to Jackie across the garden. One is terribly hurt by this loss.”
In Private Eye magazine parlance, the Deputy Labour leader was (not for the first or last time) “tired and emotional”. His speech was slurred, his arms moved too much. He was “unwell” in the Jeffery Bernard sense of the word.
In short: he was pissed on air.
Worse had actually occurred behind the scenes before filming had begun. Brown had very nearly provoked a physical fight with fellow guest US film actor Eli Wallach, the star of ‘The Magnificent Seven’.
Having noisily asserted to everyone that the new president Lyndon Johnson (who he had also met) would be a great president, Brown began taunting the actor who was subdued and clearly upset by the day’s news, after he refused to be drawn into Brown’s increasingly tactless and insensitive conversation. Brown loudly asked why actors were so conceited and suggested Wallach was the sort who carried a newspaper around with him with his name in it. Wallach denied this, saying in fact no doubt accurately, that many people recognised him but could not place him or identify him by name.
The film actor attempted then to walk away, before the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party followed him and asked him if he had ever been in a play by Ted Willis (a Labour-supporting British playwright unknown outside the UK). “You’ve never heard of Ted Willis? “ Brown exclaimed before launching into more about the conceit of US actors.
Wallach snapped: “I didn’t come here to be insulted. Is this bastard interviewing me on this programme? If so, I’m leaving now!” Brown said more and Wallach took off his jacket. “Come outside and I’ll knock you off your can!” Brown told him to sit down and shut up.
Wallach ultimately had to be restrained by the other American guests. “I don’t care who he is, I’ll still knock the shit out of him!”
Later, Brown apparently made amends. But he still insisted on having the last word. “And now you’ll know who Ted Willis is!” he shouted at Wallace later.
Although his behind the scenes row with Wallach was not publicised at the time, ultimately, Brown’s very public drunken TV appearance humiliated him. The fact that he had a tendency to get drunk very quickly on very small amounts was already well known in Westminster circles. Now everyone outside Westminster knew about it as well.
Brown made things worse with a badly phrased apologetic letter written to the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy soon after. The assassination was “particularly harrowing for me” Brown wrote, “since it marked the end of a year which began with the death of my own colleague Hugh Gaitskell.” He seemed to be implying his own suffering was similar in scale to the former First Lady’s, a woman who had very nearly been killed herself when her husband was shot dead while sitting right next to her.
Ironically, Harold Wilson who had beaten Brown in the February 1963 leadership contest and who would lead Labour both in power and opposition until 1976 was effectively an alcoholic too, drinking much more than Brown but functioning better (at least until the mid-Seventies).
Brown survived the scandal but later described the last week of November 1963 as the “most miserable” of his life.
Thanks to “Tired and Emotional: The Life of Lord George Brown” by Peter Paterson (Pub: Chatto & Windus, 1993).
Chris Hallam's World View 