Fun facts about Jimmy Carter

At the time of writing, the former US president, Jimmy Carter is 99 years old. He is not just the oldest former president alive but has now lived longer than anyone else who has ever been US president. However, recent news reports suggest he has now in declining health. With this in mind, it seems an appropriate moment to reflect on his life and achievements.

Let us consider for a moment: Jimmy Carter was US president between 1977 and 1981. This is now an astonishing amount of time ago. The current British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak was born during Carter’s last year in office. John Lennon was shot barely six weeks before Carter’s presidency ended. Nine presidents held office during Carter’s pre-presidential lifetime. Six more presidents have been and gone in the years since he left office. He really is very old indeed.

Some more fun facts about Carter:

1. He was the first US president to be born in a hospital.
2. He is the last of the eight US presidents to have served in the Second World War.
3. He was born in 1924, the same year as George HW Bush (1924-2018). The 30th president Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) was in office then while former President William Taft (born: 1857) was still alive. Wild West veteran, Wyatt Earp was also still alive in 1924 as was author, Thomas Hardy. Non-silent films still lay in the future. Carter was born before Margaret Thatcher or Queen Elizabeth II.
4. Technically, Carter is still eligible to run for a second term as president, should he so wish.
5. Carter claims he once saw a UFO while serving as Governor of Georgia. He doesn’t think it had anything to do with aliens.
6. He wrote a historic novel called The Hornet’s Nest which was published in 2003.
7. Gerald Ford who died aged 93 in 2006 is the second longest surviving president to date.
8. Jimmy was married to his wife Rosalynn for 77 years, longer than any marriage to any US president. Sadly, Rosalynn died in November 2023, aged 96.
9. During 1980, Carter was stalked by potential assassin, John Hinckley. In March 1981, Hinckley shot Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan in a bid to “impress” actress, Jodie Foster. Hinckley failed on both counts: Reagan survived and Foster definitely wasn’t “impressed” by Hinckley’s gesture.
10. Carter has a first-class degree in Nuclear Physics. He was thus unusually well-qualified to understand the Three Mile Island crisis which occurred during his administration.
11. He is often described as a peanut farmer. Strictly speaking, he was not: he owned a peanut warehousing business.
12. In 2012, Carter appeared briefly as himself in the Oscar-winning film, Argo.

Carter’s one term in the White House occurred between 1977 and 1981. He was elected president in November 1976, a year of celebration in the USA as it marked the 200^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. But the 1976 Bicentennial Celebrations had a sour edge to them. The nation was undeniably going through a rough time. The 1960s had witnessed a surge in the levels of civil disorder and assassination. In 1974, Richard Nixon had resigned in disgrace over the Watergate Scandal. In 1975, Vietnam became a communist state, a development which sharply underlined how comprehensively the US had been defeated in the long war fought there. At home, the US was suffering from the effects of the global fuel crisis. Rising prices and recession were key issues by 1976.

Nixon’s successor as president, Republican, Gerald Ford could not be blamed for all these things. He had no involvement in Watergate whatsoever. But he had been appointed Vice President by Nixon and as president had chosen to pardon his predecessor. In many people’s eyes, he was tainted by association.

Ford also sometimes gave the impression of being simple-minded, a view that was re-enforced by foolish remarks made during a TV debate in which he claimed the Soviet Union did not dominate eastern Europe: a statement that was clearly fundamentally untrue during the Cold War years of the 1970s.

For these reasons and more, Ford looked vulnerable in the 1976 elections. But many people were nevertheless surprised that it was Democrat, James Earl “Jimmy” Carter who managed to narrowly beat Ford and become the 39^th US president.

Outside his home state of Georgia, Carter had been little known. He was seen as a peanut farmer. A few years earlier, he had appeared as a guest on the TV show, What’s My Line? Nobody had been able to guess who he was or what his job was.

But he was a serious politician, a former senator and a Governor of Georgia. His had a broad, infectious grin. His real strength was his honesty. “I will never lie to you,” he said. Carter’s outlook stemmed from his perfectly genuine religious beliefs. He was almost the exact opposite of Richard Nixon. And that was what American voters wanted in 1976.

Carter enjoyed a number of successes during his president, notably the Camp David Accords which offered hope for the prospects of peace in the Middle East and various breakthroughs in the relationship between East and West. But sadly, his presidency is now often seen as largely a failure.

By 1980, it was becoming clear Carter had failed to lift the clouds of economic gloom which had first descended on the nation before Carter had taken office. Carter’s electoral prospects were furthermore weakened by his failure to free the American hostages taken from the US Embassy in Tehran soon after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Operation Eagle Claw, a military mission geared towards rescuing the hostages proved a disastrous failure in April 1980. The hostages were only released on January 20^th 1981, shortly after the end of Carter’s presidency. Carter had proven to be a one-term president only, having been soundly defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan in the November 1980.

Despite this setback, Carter later won the Nobel Peace Prize and became a respected elder statesman. His fundamental decency and integrity have never been in doubt.

Podcast review 1: The Rest is History

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.

Napoleon Crossing the Alps, by David (1801).

YOU are Richard M. Nixon!

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

1. c) was the nickname you used. Any of them would have probably worked.
2. a) was what you said.
3. a) You have little alternative. It didn’t work.
4. 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.
5. c) of course! a) are all your supporters. b) are not really your friends either, but none for various reasons made the list.
6. a) Spiro Agnew used c) to refer to anti-war protesters. d) is a quote by President Eisenhower.
7. b) Although a) would have been a better decision.
8. c)
9. b) This really was your reasoning for picking Ford. It didn’t prevent your downfall after which Ford became president anyway.

Book review: Richard Nixon: California’s Native Son, by Paul Carter

What is it about Richard Milhous Nixon?

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.

TV review: American Crime Story – Impeachment

This ten-episode drama from 2021 makes up the third instalment in the American Crime Story series. All three have been based on real life high profile criminal cases from the recent history of the U.S.

The first of these, The People Vs OJ Simpson (2016) was thoroughly absorbing and had me completely gripped throughout. I must admit I have not seen the second story, The Assassination of Gianni Versace (2018) at all, so cannot really comment on. This third instalment centres on the 1998 White House sex scandal which culminated in the impeachment of U.S President Bill Clinton, a scandal often rather unfairly labelled ‘the Monica Lewinsky Affair.’

And it must be said, the choice of subject matter is something of a problem from the outset. While undeniably a huge scandal, the Lewinsky Affair always rather suffered from not really having any real central crime at its core. While I would not condone Clinton’s behaviour at the time, it was not criminal in the way Nixon’s behaviour during Watergate was and did not stem from criminal activity in the way the Iran-Contra affair was did the Reagan administration. It is a poor choice for an anthology titled ‘American Crime Story’: even today, it is not entirely clear if any serious crimes were ever committed. This was certainly not true in the cases of either Simpson or Versace.

Viewers today might find it amazing that in age before the War on Terror or the current COVID-19 pandemic, so much time, effort, money and attention was wasted on establishing the exact nature of the sexual relationship between a president and his intern. The scandal only continued because of the determination of Clinton’s enemies to blacken his name and discredit his administration. To some extent, they succeeded. But the scandal often felt needlessly voyeuristic and pointless. And seeing it all played out again here, often feels the same way.

Nobody did well out of the scandal. It is a story of victims.

Monica Lewinsky was one victim. Today, unmarried and at 48, even now still younger than Bill Clinton was when he first encountered her, she not only suffered tremendous harassment and a media furore at the time, but seems destined forever to be associated with certain sex acts in a scandal which has always been named after her, rather than the chief instigator of it, i.e. Bill Clinton. Beanie Feldstein’s central performance as Lewinsky is the strongest in the entire drama.

Then there is Linda Tripp, Lewinsky’s former friend. With her dowdy, unfashionable middle-aged appearance and conservative political views, Tripp is an easy figure to demonise. And yes, she did behave very badly indeed, betraying her young ‘friend’ by tape recording their phone conversations, later publicly defending these reprehensible actions by claiming she did them out of a sense of patriotic duty, but, in practice, always with one eye on a potential lucrative book deal. But Tripp suffered more than enough for her sins. She saw herself impersonated by John Goodman in drag on Saturday Night Live. She died in 2020, before she would have had the chance to see herself portrayed by an unrecognisable Sarah Paulson in this. Although a good performance, Paulson has expressed regret about wearing a fat suit for the role.

Another victim? Paula Jones (Annaleigh Ashford) whose initial allegations triggered the whole scandal in the first place. With none of the financial security or familial support, Monica Lewinsky at least received, Paula came off worse than most.

Probably its stretching things to describe Bill Clinton as a victim here but both he and Hillary suffered terrible public humiliation.. British actor, Clive Owen does a fine impression of the 42nd president although as with Sarah Paulson, he has been rendered entirely unrecognisable by make-up. The always excellent Edie Falco (of The Sopranos) plays Hillary. In retrospect, the scandal may well have guaranteed her status as a future presidential candidate while simultaneously ensuring she would never actually win the presidency itself, something which continues to have disastrous consequences both for the USA and the wider world to this day.

Of course, it’s certainly going too far to suggest the assorted legion of cranks and right-wingers who kept the scandal alive could really claim ‘victim’ status either. In the short run, they failed in their objectives: had Bill Clinton been able and willing to seek a third term in the year 2000, he was still popular enough that he would have probably won it. But in the long run, his otherwise generally successful presidency was tarnished by an unnecessary and tawdry scandal.

Much of the casting is interesting. Colin Hanks is good as ever as agent Mike Emmick while sitcom star Cobie Smulders is suitably malevolent as conservative battle-axe, Ann Coulter, a well-known figure in the U.S. Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino, whose own promising film career in the 1990s was wrecked after she resisted the advances of the abusive producer, Harvey Weinstein plays Monica Lewinsky’s well-intentioned and well-to-do mother. Jim Rash, Margo Martindale and Blair Underwood also make welcome appearances throughout the drama.

But, overall, despite some excellent performances, a few dodgy wigs and outfits too often contribute to a sense that this is almost as sleazy and unnecessary as the original scandal itself.

And while ‘impeachment’ was a popular buzzword in 2021: disgraced former US President Donald Trump had after all just been impeached for a second time, thus making him responsible for half of all presidential impeachments in 232 years of US presidential history. It was a poor choice of title in this case. The processes of Bill Clinton’s actual impeachment barely feature in the narrative at all.

Book review: The Making of the President, 1960-72, by Theodore H. White

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.

Book review: American Maelstrom

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.