In Pursuit of Peace in the Middle East

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"The Framework for Peace in the Middle East and the Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty Between Egypt and Israel were two major steps forward. For a few hours, all three of us were flushed with pride and good will toward one another because of our unexpected success. We had no idea at that time how far we still had to go."

Jimmy Carter
Keeping Faith (1982)

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It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the presidency of Jimmy Carter endured more bad days than good.

But today is the 35th anniversary of one of the good ones — maybe the best one — for it was on this day in 1978 that Carter, Israel's Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords.

Those accords led to a peace treaty the following year — the first such treaty ever signed by the still–new nation of Israel with any of its Arab neighbors in the Middle East — and a shared Nobel Peace Prize for Begin and Sadat.

Secretly, the three men had been engaged in nearly two weeks of negotiations at Camp David, Md., the presidential retreat. Their mutual suspicions required Carter to negotiate with each one separately, going from one cabin to another. At one point, I have heard, he even took the two men to nearby Gettysburg in the hope that they would be inspired by the story of America's civil war.

At the time the accords were signed, it seemed to the general public that the negotiations at Camp David were virtually spontaneous, but appearances can be deceiving. In truth, the Camp David Accords were the outcome of more than a year's worth of diplomatic discussions between the three countries that began after Carter became president in 1977.

What was unique was the fact that Carter managed to bring the two leaders to the same place at the same time.

But even that wasn't enough to ensure the success of the negotiations.

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It required a lot of hard, behind–the–scenes work. The two nations had a brief but stormy history that aroused great passion on both sides — and erected often–enormous barriers between them.

Since Israel was established in 1948, there had been three armed conflicts between Egypt and Israel by the time of the Camp David Accords. Israel won them all and, as a result of the 1967 war, controlled the Sinai Peninsula that connects Africa and Asia.

But Sadat, who probably deserves more credit for the Camp David Accords than he received, traveled to Jerusalem in late 1977 to speak to Israel's parliament, the Knesset. Less than a year later, he joined Carter and Begin at the presidential retreat.

At the time of the accords, Sadat was widely praised outside the Arab world — within it, though, he was roundly condemned. Three years later, on the eighth anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, Sadat was assassinated by Muslim extremists while he watched a military parade in Cairo.

The peace process continued.

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The Day a Birmingham Church Was Bombed

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A couple of weeks ago, the nation paused to remember Dr. Martin Luther King's inspiring "I Have a Dream" speech that was given at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.

That was certainly a great moment — an uplifting moment — in American history. But 2½ weeks later, in the truest sense of Sir Isaac Newton's laws of physics, there was an equal and opposite reaction.

Fifty years ago today, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. — which had been used as a meeting place for King and other civil rights leaders (and a gathering place for civil rights rallies) — was bombed during the Sunday School hour. Four black girls were killed. Three were 14 years old, and one was 11.

As much credit as one may be tempted to give King for the legislative and judicial triumphs of the civil rights movement of the '60s, it is my opinion that what happened 50 years ago today was the movement's critical moment.

There were still a few places in America in 1963 — as there are today — that were thought to be safe places to be — home, school, church. To attack one of any of these was to attack all such places in America — and thus it was an affront to nearly all Americans, whether they supported or opposed the civil rights cause, because nearly all Americans have homes (however modest), attend school and/or frequent a house of worship.

Martyrs are often necessary for truly transformational movements to achieve their objectives, and I think it was that way with the civil rights movement. King's speech was a tremendous high for supporters of the movement, but, as such things often do, it seems to me that it may have created a sense of complacency. The momentum of the movement may have stalled.

I don't know. It was before my time.

But, based on what I have read, in books and newspaper accounts, it was far from certain, in the aftermath of King's speech, that the Civil Rights Act would pass. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church restored the movement's momentum.

Sympathetic Americans were probably tempted to believe, after seeing King's speech, that the movement's triumphs were coming at an historically rapid clip, which may have led many to assume that supporting civil rights and voting rights legislation were no–brainers — while unsympathetic Americans may have felt a sense of urgency to stop what was perceived as a threat to a way of life.

In the aftermath of the bombing, many newspapers in the North lamented that they hadn't taken the movement as seriously as they should have. The Milwaukee Sentinel, for one, wrote in an editorial that "the hour is late and the situation is critical."

The bombing had the effect of ratcheting up sympathy and support for civil rights. On July 2, 1964, the Civil Rights Act was enacted, winning congressional approval by better than 2–to–1 margins in both the House and Senate.

It probably wouldn't surprise many 21st–century observers to know that most of the opposition in both chambers came from Southerners.

But it might surprise those observers to know that most of those Southerners were Democrats.

And it might also surprise those observers to know that, outside the South, nearly as many Republicans as Democrats supported the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

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Will We Ever Know the Truth About JFK?

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President and Mrs. Kennedy disembark in Dallas.

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In a little more than two months, it will be the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy here in Dallas.

It goes without saying that it was a traumatic event for this country — particularly so for this city (my grandmother always regarded it as a black eye for Dallas) — and I suppose many people have lived for years, probably decades, with a desire to know the real story of what happened that day. Perhaps they, like my grandmother, believe that whoever pulled the trigger couldn't possibly be local because, well, everybody knew that folks from Dallas wouldn't do that kind of thing — even though Dallas in general was known to be hostile to the administration.

Initially, I guess, a majority of Americans accepted the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. That was how most Americans were raised in those days — to respect authority and accept its word on everything (the deceit of the Johnson and Nixon presidencies would go a long way toward eroding that inclination).

At the dawn of the 1960s, conformity was in fashion in America, just as it had been (and still was) in the European cultures from which many Americans' ancestors had come — and they, like all other immigrants before and since, brought their values with them.

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After the home movie that Abraham Zapruder made that day went public a few years later, suspicions rapidly grew among Americans that the Kennedy assassination had been part of some sort of conspiracy. America had been souring on the Vietnam war, and the pump was primed for conspiracy theories to flourish.

A general consensus arose that the true story had not been told, either by omission or commission, and that view gained some momentum in the mid–1970s when a special congressional committee evaluated the evidence from prominent assassinations in the 1960s — President Kennedy, his brother Bobby and Martin Luther King — and determined that it was probable that there had been more than one gunman in Dealey Plaza that day.

I guess that is the only thing that many Americans agreed on — and, I will admit, I was one of them. There is little agreement about who was responsible — some say the CIA, some say organized crime, others say Cubans, still others say right–wing extremists. Some of the more elaborate scenarios combine two or more.

I use the past tense — was — for myself not because I now believe the Warren Commission (I don't), but because I believe that, whether the Warren Commission was right or wrong, it doesn't matter now. Too much time has passed, too many material witnesses are deceased or suffering from dementia, and we will never know what the truth is.

Some people will never believe that. They will keep searching for the truth, and I do hope they find it, but I have strong doubts that anyone ever will.

Some people will insist that they already know the truth. I have dealt with such people all my life — on some subjects, I must admit, I am one of those people — and I have learned that it is usually futile to attempt to change their minds.

And who knows? They might be right — as one of my favorite journalists, H.L. Mencken, liked to say in letters to angry readers.

Perhaps Lee Harvey Oswald did shoot Kennedy. Perhaps he did act alone. I don't know. What I do know is that there have been unanswered questions from the start. Granted, some of the questions eventually received plausible answers, but it has often seemed in the Kennedy case that, whenever a single question has been answered, it has raised two new questions, and we seemed to drift farther from the truth than we were before.

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Not even the best mystery writer could invent as many red herrings and dead–end leads as there have been in this case over the years. It is alleged that many of these were the results of sloppy investigative work or human error or even coincidence.

If Oswald really did act alone, it is hard to imagine the investigation into the murder of any president being handled as sloppily — or as many coincidences occurring. There has been plenty of doubt about the number of shooters — heck, even the number of shots — in Dealey Plaza that day, and it did take the Dallas police an inexcusably long time to seal off the Texas Schoolbook Depository after the shots were fired and the consensus among witnesses was that at least some of those shots had been fired from that building.

Maybe there are simple explanations for things that appear to be so clearly sinister. I am a defender of our legal system in spite of its flaws, and I know things are not always how they seem — but, really, so many? It defies logic and common sense.

Suppose Oswald had not been killed but had lived to face trial. America's legal history is filled with cases where juries acted differently than many observers expected. How many times in your life have you heard of a verdict that was contrary to public opinion? That was one of the things I learned during my days on the police beat. You can never tell what a jury will do, but you can be sure that someone won't like it.

No one knows what a jury might have said about the case against Oswald. The closest we came was the case brought by Jim Garrison in New Orleans that was re–enacted in Oliver Stone's "JFK." That trial was only a few years after the assassination, when the trail presumably was still warm, and it resulted in an acquittal.

In 2013, it is a decidedly cold case, and I believe it will remain so.

In (almost) the words of a once–popular TV show, the truth may be out there. I just don't think that, at this stage, anyone will find it.

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George Wallace: No Middle Ground

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"There's some people who've gone over the state and said, 'Well, George Wallace has talked too strong about segregation.' Now let me ask you this: how in the name of common sense can you be too strong about it? You're either for it, or you're against it. There's not any middle ground as I know of."

George Wallace
1962

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There are many people who, regardless of almost anything else they ever did or will do, will forever be linked to the American civil rights movement.

Some made only brief contributions to the movement's history; others were a part of the conversation for years.

George Wallace, who died 15 years ago today, was one of the latter.

Earlier this year, MSNBC's Chris Hayes asserted that Wallace had been a Republican. Hayes and I don't always see eye to eye on issues, but ordinarily we do agree on historical facts. This time? Well, I'm sorry, but he had his facts wrong.

His was an understandable assumption, I suppose. Most Southern states have been solidly Republican for many years, and Wallace probably would be a Republican if he was living and running for office.

(Wallace's son and namesake was elected state treasurer in Alabama as a Democrat, but he switched to the Republican Party a decade later and was elected to the Alabama Public Service Commission.)

But George Wallace's time was the middle of the 20th century. Most successful Southern politicians were still Democrats, as they had been for more than a century.

If that sounds strange to 21st–century ears, remember that it was a time that was significantly different from today. In those days, both parties had liberals, conservatives and moderates. The parties are far more polarized today.

(I noticed in yesterday's Dallas Morning News that editor Sharon Grigsby wrote about "sorority racism" at the University of Alabama.

(With a black man in the White House for nearly five years now, it's been fashionable to toss around the accusation of racism at anyone who so much as disagrees with the president. I grew weary of that long ago. But that doesn't mean that I deny the existence of racism. I just think there are more important battles to fight than the ones that have been waged.

(This sorority thing falls in that category. I appreciate, as does Grigsby, the work that went into the Alabama student newspaper's article that exposed sorority racism on campus, but if the exclusive nature of the Greek system is the most egregious offense that one can find on the 'Bama campus, things are a lot better than they used to be.)

Wallace was probably best known for seeking the presidency as the nominee of his own political party, the American Independent Party, in 1968. Well, Wallace wasn't actually the founder of the party. That was Bill Shearer, a right–wing political activist who, along with his wife, founded the party to give Wallace, by that time the former governor of Alabama (existing state law prevented him from seeking re–election in 1966), a platform from which to campaign for the presidency.

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But his political story actually began some 30 years earlier when, as a 19–year–old, he contributed to his grandfather's campaign for probate judge. Seven years later, he was appointed one of Alabama's assistant attorneys general. About a year after that, he was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives.

Ironically, considering the tone of his later political career, he was considered a moderate on racial issues in those days. But he shifted his politics after losing the Democratic nomination for governor to an avowed segregationist in 1958.

"I was outniggered," Wallace reportedly told Seymore Trammell, his 1958 campaign director, "and ... I will never be outniggered again."

(Such a pivotal moment in a politician's life story always sounded like satire to me — sort of like Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind.")

He gained national notoriety in 1963, when he pledged, in his inaugural address, to "toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny" as a tireless advocate of segregation. About six months later, he made what was largely a symbolic gesture when he made his "stand in the schoolhouse door" in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent black students from enrolling at the University of Alabama.

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As I say, the value of the stand in the schoolhouse door was largely symbolic. There was Wallace, small of stature, trying to stand up to the big guys who were assaulting the beliefs and values of his state. He lost, but he was able to take credit for the attempt to defend the little guy.

"There was always a grand sense of persecution among the Wallace workers," wrote political historian Theodore H. White of the 1968 campaign, "a nearly religious faith that everyone was against them but the people, and that the saving of white America from the pointy–heads was a cause greater than politics."

And in the cauldron that was 1968, there was a time when Wallace was a serious contender for the presidency. Like Ross Perot in 1992, though, Wallace did best in the national polls when he said the least. But it simply wasn't in Wallace's nature to remain silent.

Thus, it was probably inevitable that he tumbled in the polls the more he opened his mouth.

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"Why does the Air Force need expensive new bombers? Have the people we've been bombing over the years been complaining?"

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His rhetoric was incendiary, and, ultimately, it appealed to only a small minority of American voters — too small even to force the race into the House of Representatives, where Wallace hoped to play kingmaker.

Nevertheless, his campaign was the most successful third–party effort in nearly 60 years; forty–five years later, he is still the last third–party candidate to win at least one state (he won five — Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi — worth 45 electoral votes).

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His national ambitions were dealt a permanent blow in 1972 when he was shot while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, and he was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Wallace tried to win the nomination again in 1976, but by that time, another Southern politician, Jimmy Carter, had overtaken him in his regional base. Wallace's day had ended.

My memory is that, at the conclusion of the 1976 primary season, Wallace gracefully accepted the voters' verdict and told the nominee–to–be that he would support him in the general election campaign.

"It must have been one of the most difficult conversations Wallace had ever had to conduct, this telephone call to the man who had dashed his own presidential hopes and replaced him as the South's political hero," wrote Jules Witcover and Jack Germond in their book about the 1976 presidential campaign, "Marathon."

Wallace returned to Alabama. In 1982, after apologizing to the black voters of Alabama for his racist past, Wallace won his final term as governor. When that term ended in January 1987, he retired from public life.

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"I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about niggers, and they stomped the floor."

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I guess that was the great irony of George Wallace.

Nationally, I guess he was the poster child for bigotry and intolerance, but, in his judicial career before he ran for governor, Wallace was known as a liberal judge who treated everyone the same, regardless of race.

Wallace was an enigma in life, and he remains one 15 years after his death.

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A Ride in a Tank

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The Saturday Night Live parodies of presidential debates sometimes seem like they've been a part of presidential campaigns forever — even though the SNL parodies, like the debates themselves, haven't been regular parts of presidential campaigns for quite 40 years yet.

Twenty–five years ago, the debate parodies were still evolving, but they had already established themselves as truly (and humorously) insightful. And I thought one of the best examples came in a 1988 parody when, after Dana Carvey gave a spot–on impression of a typical George H.W. Bush meandering, cliche–ridden response, Jon Lovitz (as Michael Dukakis) shrugged his shoulders on rebuttal and said, "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy."

There were times that fall when I couldn't help wondering the same thing.

And then there were days like this one when I knew why he lost. For it was on this day in 1988 that Dukakis took his ill–advised ride in a tank, presumably to show the voters he was tough, not a wimp, but he only managed to look ridiculous.

It happened at the General Dynamics Land Systems plant in Sterling Heights, Mich. Dukakis came to participate in a photo opp in an M1 Abrams tank.

As I say, the idea probably was to make Dukakis look tough and assertive, but he never really looked comfortable — sort of like Calvin Coolidge when he did a 1920s photo opp in a Native American headdress.

It was a disaster for Dukakis but a bounty for Bush. The Bush campaign of 1988 — under the leadership of Lee Atwater — never hesitated to exploit a perceived weakness in the opposition.

And, to misquote a memorable line from Saddam Hussein, Dukakis' tank ride was the mother of all political weaknesses.

The Willie Horton–inspired commercials (of which I will have more to say next week) get most of the attention in the accounts of that campaign, and they certainly deserve their own chapter in the history of race relations in America, but the Dukakis–in–the–tank commercial may have been the most effective of the campaign because it so neatly capitalized on everything that made voters uneasy about the Democrats' nominee.

He was perceived as stiff and passionless, a typical wishy–washy, appeasing liberal when it came to things like national defense.

At a time when voters were having to select the successor for Ronald Reagan (who, even in his late 70s, was perceived as being macho, a cowboy, standing tall on the world's stage) being tough and assertive was a clear plus — but being a phony was a definite minus. Dukakis came across as being phony, as not being a genuine leader.

And Dukakis' photo opp wound up reinforcing the negative image the Dukakis campaign intended to disprove.

In other words, you can't smear lipstick on a pig and call it a trophy wife.

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Myth America

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I think the origin of the phrase "women's liberation" can be traced back 50 years, maybe more, but it may not have been widely used until this day in 1968 (I was a child in 1968 so there are certain to be things of which I knew little and understood even less).

Forty–five years ago today, hundreds of women staged a protest in Atlantic City, N.J., home of the annual Miss America Pageant. They were protesting what they saw as the meat market atmosphere of the pageant.

And women's liberation joined all the other groups of that day that demanded to be treated better than they had been treated up to that time. As I say, I was just a child, but the logic of the argument did not escape me. My parents had always taught my brother and me that a principle upon which this nation was founded was simply this — all citizens should be treated the same.

Now, at a time when there were protests for and against just about everything by just about everyone, it was necessary to stand out in some way. As much as it was anything else, the '60s was a very theatrical decade, and you had to be entertaining to gain attention. The protest at the Miss America Pageant found its dramatic hook — so to speak.

Into a barrel labeled "Freedom Trash Can," the protesters dumped such symbols of domestic oppression as makeup, pots, mops, high heels, girdles, false eyelashes — and bras, lots and lots of bras.

But, contrary to what rapidly became urban legend, the trash can's contents were not set ablaze.

(I will admit that, as a writer, I appreciate the dramatic side of that tall tale. But that doesn't change the fact that it simply is not true.)

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That was what mainstream America thought, however, and "bra burning" became synonymous with the women's liberation movement.

I heard the phrase, but I had little idea what it meant. I only knew that the idea seemed alien and, in some ways, frightening to the adults in my world. Actually, fire was a frightening thing for me as well. It was frightening for anyone who had seen uncontrolled fire — and you could see it on the news every night — although I have to admit that I didn't fully understand things from the adults' point of view. Now that I am an adult myself, I think I can understand the confusion my parents, my grandparents and their peers felt.

They had seen the war protesters burning their draft cards so the idea had some legitimacy. They had just witnessed riots in the streets at the Democrats' national convention in Chicago; a few months earlier, they had seen race riots in nearly every major American city following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

It was a confusing, frightening time in America. Traditional roles — gender, racial, you name it — were under assault. Those roles may have been — well, they were — based on unfair stereotypes, but they gave most Americans a guide for who they were and what their role in the culture was.

I don't have a vivid memory of the things my elders said, but my impression was that they were fearful of the violence, the aggression — and, also, probably, the threat posed to that social yardstick — that was implied by the idea of women burning their bras in protest. It was almost as if women were seen as the last friendly, traditionally nurturing demographic group in America. If the idea of their violent revolt was true, no hope was left.

And that is all it was, really — an idea, an idealized image, not a fact.

As I say, there were other items that were trashed during the protest, but nothing was burned. No fires were started.

In fact, according to the story I heard, that whole rumor started when a reporter who was covering the protest compared (I presume in conversation with other reporters) the women protesters to Vietnam War protesters burning their draft cards.

And a myth was born.

Nevertheless, I can remember hearing my mother, my grandmothers and the other women of their generations speak disapprovingly of what they thought was going on in Atlantic City.

After the fact, I wondered if, secretly, my grandmothers and the women of their generation weren't a bit envious of those younger women who were asserting themselves so publicly, perhaps expressing what my grandmothers and their friends had long believed but had never had the nerve to say.

My grandmothers were young when American women won the right to vote, and they may have thought that was as much liberation as they could expect in their lifetimes. Then, as they were approaching the end of their lives, the younger generation was doing things my grandmothers never would have dreamed of doing.

The times really were a–changing.

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When the Cold War Got Hot

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What would your answer be if you were asked to name the hottest moment of the Cold War?

Most people would probably say the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and they'd get no argument from me — but my choice would be the event that happened 30 years ago today.

I'm referring to the shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007.

It was a Thursday, the first day of September. Labor Day was coming up, which meant a three–day weekend, and football season was about to begin. With the exception of the stubborn summer heat, it was the time of year I like best.

But when I got up that morning, I was greeted by the worst possible news — a Korean commercial air liner traveling from New York to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska, had been shot down by the Soviet Union over the Sea of Japan.

At first, the Soviets denied any knowledge of what had happened to the doomed airliner, but they eventually had no choice but to admit their complicity. However, they insisted the plane had violated Soviet airspace and was on a spy mission.

The Soviets said it was a deliberate attempt by the Americans to test their readiness or even to start a war — an accusation that was perceived as plausible in some quarters because of Ronald Reagan's rhetorical history. The United States accused the Soviets of hampering search–and–rescue missions.

All the while, the world saw friends and relatives of the victims on the scene, sobbing and demanding their loved ones' remains.

At first, the Soviets were blase about what happened, saying only that an unidentified aircraft had been shot down in Soviet airpsace. The United States reacted in horror, and the State department alleged that the Soviets knew all along that it was a civilian airliner.

Ronald Reagan described what happened as a "massacre." He issued a statement at the time in which he contended that the Soviets had turned "against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere."

That morning I went in to the newsroom of the newspaper where I was employed, and I had a conversation with the managing editor. It just so happened that Arkansas' junior U.S. senator, David Pryor, was speaking to a local group (the Lions or Rotary or Jaycees or something like that) at lunch that day, and I sensed an opportunity.

I was an eager young reporter, and I thought it was a golden opportunity to get some quotes from a U.S. senator about a developing international story. And it was.

But Pryor was either very cautious or very ill informed. Granted, I didn't have much of a chance to ask many questions — and even less of a chance to absorb what had happened, so little was known in those first hours — but the senator managed to avoid saying much of anything except "Let's see how this plays out."

In hindsight, that was sage advice — and characteristic of the David Pryor I knew. He was never a shoot–from–the–hip type, not brash or impulsive. He wanted to know as many of the facts as he could before he reached a conclusion.

So, as I recall, I wound up with a pretty dry article that really didn't add much to the wire coverage that thousands of papers across the country would be running. Nevertheless, I wrote a short sidebar. It localized the story, I suppose, but it didn't add a lot to it.

A resolution that was satisfactory to all sides was never reached, which permitted several conspiracy theories to flourish, the most prominent, I suppose, was one that held that Korean Air Lines 007 was on a spy mission that involved Rep. Lawrence McDonald, a conservative Democrat from Georgia who was a passenger on that flight.

Thirty years later, there are still advocates of that one.

I guess that isn't surprising. McDonald was the kind of Democrat who could be seen routinely in the South in those days — conservative, even extreme. He was a member of the John Birch Society. He was also a member of the House Armed Services Committee and an outspoken anti–communist. I've heard that former President Richard Nixon was supposed to be seated next to McDonald, but Nixon decided not to go after all.

Thirty years ago, McDonald was on his way to attend a commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended hostilities in Korea. He was supposed to travel with two senators and another representative, but his flight from Atlanta was delayed by bad weather, and he missed it.

Consequently, he wound up on the doomed Korean Air Lines flight instead — and perished with the crew and the rest of the passengers.

McDonald's political leanings and the fact that the Soviet Union had shot down his plane made it inevitable that conspiracy theorists would say he was the target of an assassination plot.

But that never did make much sense to me, given that McDonald's presence on that plane was a last–minute thing that no one could have predicted and for which no assassination team could have prepared.

I think the story that eventually emerged is pretty close to what happened.

The flight was diverted from its intended course by what was apparently a faulty autopilot setting and steadily drifted into Soviet airspace.

Soviet military leaders, no doubt feeling the stress of the heightened Cold War tensions of the early 1980s, ordered the plane to be shot down. All 246 passengers and 23 crew members were killed.

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There was a lot of posturing, and, for awhile, I honestly believed a war was about to begin.

A few days later, the Soviets conceded what the rest of the world already knew — that a civilian airliner had been shot down. At least one high–ranking Russian official insisted the plane was on an espionage mission. The Americans suspended all Russian air travel to the United States.

In the end, I think most people agreed that it was a case of a misunderstanding that had the worst possible consequences. The flight that went off course happened to be following a flight path that had been followed recently by a known U.S. spy plane, and the Russians happened to be planning a missile test in that vicinity that very day.

(That's one of life's mysterious ironies, I suppose — sort of like the fact that slow communication between the FAA and NORAD, coupled with an emergency exercise that had been planned for that day, delayed their responses on Sept. 11, 2001.)

Combine that with the fact that old guard Cold Warriors were running things in both the Soviet Union and the United States 30 years ago and I suppose it was inevitable that something would happen.

The world was fortunate it didn't escalate into something worse.

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The Quest for a 'New Day for America'

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"[M]ay we ... just quietly and silently — each in our own way — pray for our country? And may we just share for a moment a few of those immortal words of the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi — words which I think may help heal the wounds and lift our hearts? Listen to this immortal saint: 'Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light.' Those are the words of a saint. And may those of us of less purity listen to them well. And may America tonight resolve that never, never again shall we see what we have seen."

Vice President Hubert Humphrey
Chicago, Aug. 29, 1968

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Hubert Humphrey faced a difficult task 45 years ago tonight. In hindsight, it was probably an impossible one.

By nature a man of peace, the vice president had to deliver his speech accepting the Democratic Party's presidential nomination against the backdrop of chaos in the streets of the host city, Chicago, and the broader backdrops of a war in Vietnam that was growing increasingly unpopular and a crime–plagued nation.

"After its days of turbulence and excitement," wrote historian Theodore H. White, "no speech could have pulled the Democratic convention together except a masterpiece ..."

Humphrey, White observed, tried to do the impossible — rewrite his speech (which had been crafted in the weeks and months leading up to the convention) in the days and hours before he was scheduled to deliver it. The "Happy Warrior" wanted to offer a message of healing and unity, not merely rehashes of old talking points.

But even before the turbulence of Chicago, that was something that was easier said than done, given the fact that, as the vice president, Humphrey was expected to be supportive of the administration — even though he disagreed with the administration on several aspects of the conduct of the war. So, too, did many of the delegates — and millions of Americans watching on TV.

After the clashes between demonstrators and the Chicago police earlier that week, the task became even more daunting, but Humphrey knew that both the delegates in the convention hall and Americans watching on TV would expect to hear him speak about peace in a context that encompassed not only the war but deteriorating relations between and respect for fellow Americans.

"A man of more native eloquence than any of his advisers," White wrote, "Humphrey might, had he had time, have created the required masterpiece. But he had no time."

Ah, yes, time. It was running out on the Democrats. And Humphrey did not produce the necessary masterpiece.

In August 1968, Gallup reported for the first — but not the last — time that the share of Americans who responded "no" when asked if the United States had made a mistake sending troops to Vietnam was less than 40%.

Three years earlier, the share of Americans who said "no" to that question was 61%. The pro–war administration of which Humphrey had been a part for more than 3½ years was losing ground on war and peace — and that issue, more than anything else, would decide who won the election.

It was the growing opposition to the war that had sparked the riots in the first place. One can only wonder how much worse they would have been if Lyndon Johnson had been in town to accept the nomination. But he had withdrawn from the campaign in March, making it necessary to nominate someone else, and the logical someone else was Johnson's second in command.

But Humphrey's convention was being tarnished by violence in the streets. Was there anything he could say to erase that image from the voters' memories?

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Humphrey had chosen as his second in command Ed Muskie, senator from Maine, and Muskie did his best to energize the delegates.

But Humphrey, who called for a "new day for America" in his speech, awoke the next day to more of the same.

"Whatever hope there was ... rested on the belief that words can soothe, that words can heal, that words carry a message," White wrote.

Actions speak louder than words, my mother told me when I was small, and the actions in Chicago spoke louder than any words Humphrey could speak.

At some point in the predawn hours of the final night of the convention, something apparently was thrown from one of the floors of the hotel where Eugene McCarthy's campaign operation was based — which led to an inevitable clash between the students who made up most of McCarthy's staff and the Chicago police, who were understandably weary from a week of confrontations and, apparently, acted independently of any chain of command.

What America saw on its TV screens was more of the same — young people being beaten by police — and America's voters would decide that they wanted a change.

"[W]hen Humphrey's campaign began with a sickening lurch," wrote historian William Manchester, "his admirers despaired."

Perhaps they knew what was coming.

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The Work That Remains to be Done

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"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Martin Luther King
Aug. 28, 1963

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The headline on a recent Pittsburgh Post–Gazette editorial read: "Fifty years ago common Americans made history."

I know what the headline writer was trying to say, but, if I had been there, I would have suggested changing "common" to a different word — "average," perhaps, or "ordinary." Because what happened 50 years ago today was extraordinary. There probably isn't a better word to describe it. (Uncommon may be appropriate, but it doesn't seem adequate.)

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial half a century ago today.

And, since last Friday or Saturday, there is no telling how many times portions of it have been cited by others — or, better still, the entire thing has been seen, thanks to the enduring miracle of film and video tape. There truly is a timeless quality to it.

Jenny Price of the University of Wisconsin–Madison News writes that "it still has an impact" on listeners today, and I'd have to agree with that. On several occasions, I have watched film of the speech with people who had never seen it before, and they never fail to be inspired by it.

It has been quoted countless times, probably most often on King's birthday but on other occasions as well — and I'm sure it will be quoted in hundreds, if not thousands, of commemorations of the speech's 50th anniversary.

Commemorations of King's speech have been under way at least since last weekend, and I am sure it already has been quoted many times in connection with that.

Thousands of people gathered to commemorate the occasion in Washington last weekend. I don't know if they listened to a recording of the speech or watched a video tape of it, but its message was very much on their minds.

On this day in 1963, King was the last of many speakers on what was a sweltering summer day in Washington, and he was introduced as "the moral leader of our nation." Most Americans probably knew who he was by the time he delivered that speech during the March on Washington. Those who didn't almost certainly knew who he was after he gave it.

I don't know how many people will be in Washington today. I do know that a lot will be going on there, and this milestone anniversary seems sure to draw a crowd at least as big as the one that heard King speak 50 years ago. As the Associated Press reported, "Marchers began arriving early Saturday. ... By midday, tens of thousands had gathered on the National Mall."

And that was more than four days ago.

The speech is known, as I say, as the "I Have a Dream" speech, and it is called that as if it was written and shaped and crafted lovingly for weeks, if not months, before it was given, which much of it was, but the truly remarkable thing about it is that the most frequently quoted portion of it was largely improvised. It was not part of the prepared text.

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"That part of his speech was an idea King had used in previous speeches," writes the Washington Post. "King, an experienced preacher by then, added it as he sensed the crowd's mood.

"As the final speaker on the long summer day, King wanted to leave the crowd revved up. To do that, he began repeating himself again."

That, the Post informs readers, is a speaker's device known as anaphora, and it can be effective. In the hands of a gifted orator, it can be very effective.

After all these years, the speech really needs no additional hype. In the last half century, it may have been quoted more frequently than any other speech from any period in American history — more often than John F. Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you" or FDR's "nothing to fear but fear itself" or even Lincoln's "four score and seven years ago."

As the century drew to a close, the speech was voted the top speech of the 20th century.

"For King," wrote Theodore White, "1963 was the year to move. ... [B]ecause it was a century from the Emancipation Proclamation and Negroes were still held in servile condition; because it was almost a decade from the Supreme Court's 1954 decision on school desegregation and the glacial pace of desegregation had been tragically disappointing; because all over Africa in the previous decade black men had reached self–expression under their own leadership; because ... the movement he led as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had found, as he call[ed] it, 'its undergirding philosophy' of nonviolence."

There was an interesting dynamic that could be seen at work in the black community in those days. Part of black America believed that patience really is a virtue, and patience would yield lasting results, but there were those who said patience had produced nothing, and they urged violence as a way of achieving what nonviolence seemed to have failed to achieve.

But King did not advocate violence when he spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial 50 years ago today — or at any other time in his life. His towering oratory, both 50 years ago today and throughout his life, sought to elevate all who heard it.

And his words continued to elevate, even after, about five years later, violence took King's life.

That was a truly dark time in America's history — a time when, ironically, King's message of nonviolent protest was briefly eclipsed by greater violence in America's cities as black Americans, even many who had supported a nonviolent approach, reacted to King's murder by lashing out in a blind rage.

But, in many ways in the last half–century, things have changed. Probably not as quickly as many hoped, but that is simply human nature, which King understood. Change comes slowly but surely — or, as King himself put it, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Historians disagree over whether King or someone else said that first, but it probably does not matter. It was a reflection of what King believed and consistently advocated.

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I grew up in the South, and, in my then–small Arkansas hometown, I remember seeing segregation. It wasn't as pervasive in Arkansas as it was in states in the Deep South, but it was there.

I was too young to read so I don't know if there were signs that said "white only" or "colored only" above drinking fountains or on restroom doors, but I remember seeing blacks confined to a single section in the balcony of the town's only movie theater, and, when I started school, my first–grade class was the first incoming group in the history of my hometown to be integrated, even though it was much more than a decade after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.

Change does come slowly; nevertheless, as the New York Post wrote in a recent editorial on the anniversary of King's speech, "There's no denying the progress that has been made since 1963 — beginning with the fact that a black man is now president of the United States, something King himself likely never expected to see."

With reservations, I agree with that, but I also believe that one of the great failings of the Obama presidency — and I think history ultimately will agree with me — is that he has been preoccupied with electoral success and has used race primarily for political gain rather than to unite alienated groups.

Perhaps that would have been an unintended consequence of electing the first black president, no matter who he/she turned out to be. Maybe the first black president needed to be re–elected to thoroughly establish the historical credibility of a black president — most presidents, after all, have not been elected twice, and re–election is generally regarded as one of the marks of a successful presidency — and that, once that particular color line or glass ceiling (or whatever the current popular terminology for it may be) was shattered, the next black president could get down to the serious business of leading.

Perhaps that is how history works. I don't know.

I do know that today, when a member of any group is not permitted to eat where others eat or shop where others shop, it becomes a national news story, and the owner of the business is targeted for public ridicule and shame.

That is progress. Or is it?

It is also a national story when a celebrity admits using a racial slur decades ago and is viciously attacked as a "racist."

I definitely do not believe that is progress — I don't know anyone who can justify everything he/she said or did 30 years ago — and I don't believe King would think it was progress, either. His vision called for equal treatment for all, not preferential treatment for some and discriminatory treatment for others. He saw that all around him, and he knew it wasn't fair.

(Here is an example from my own life. It may or may not be relevant. I'll leave that to you to decided.

(My father went back to school at the age of 48 to study architecture. Up to that time, he had been fulfilling his parents' vision for him to be a teacher, but they were both gone, and he made the decision to study the subject that really had been his first love. I remember asking him about that once, and he replied, "Why should I commit the rest of my life to a decision that was made by an 18–year–old?"

(I think King would have a similar approach to someone who used a derogatory word three decades ago but has not made a habit of it.)

Regardless of which group benefits and which does not, any kind of preferential treatment contradicts the message of King's life. I think he would see swapping discriminatory treatment of groups not as moving forward but more of a lateral move — if not a step backward.

As a Southerner, I have frequently acknowledged the terrible things that happened here before I was born and even when I was a child, but I also know that many things have changed. There is still work to be done, but it was never the work of this region alone. Because of its more notorious past, the South repeatedly has been made the scapegoat for a nation's sins.

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As the Post says of the changes in America since King gave his most famous speech,

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"[he] would be pleased, but we doubt he'd be content to leave it at that. As he told those marchers: 'We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and the Negro in New York has nothing for which to vote.' In other words, civil rights was not exclusively a Southern issue."

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Over the years, I have had the impression that the South has been America's whipping boy for racism for which people in every region share guilt.

It is just (and I'm about to use a word here that one never hears associated with racism, but I'm going to use it, anyway, in the hope that you, dear reader, will grasp the meaning beneath the surface) a more honest kind of racism in the South.

I'll grant you that honest is a strange word to use in connection with racism, but, please, hear me out. I'm not saying that racism is, in any way, good or honest, but I am speaking about the ways racism is expressed.

My sense has been that there are many people in the North and the West and the East who are every bit as racist as anyone I ever encountered in the South — and I have been to most of the states east of the Mississippi River and several of the states west of it — but they keep their racism hidden, cloaked in the language they use and policies that they say are the same for everyone but really aren't.

I teach in a community college these days. I have many different kinds of students in my classrooms, and I can tell from what I overhear them saying to each other that they take it for granted that they will be allowed to eat in any eatery they choose or shop in any store they choose — or attend any school they choose.

I've been teaching at this community college for more than three years now, and, frankly, I originally expected to hear stories about students (or their friends or relatives) being denied the right to vote, but I haven't overheard anyone talking about that.

Perhaps, I have pondered, young people don't vote with any more frequency than they did when I was a young person. But then I think, that can't be true, not when you consider the credit that young voters received for the two Obama elections.

So maybe their silence on the subject means they take the right to vote for granted. If anyone was prevented from voting, that might spark a conversation, and, I conclude, if I don't hear anything, that must be seen as a sign of progress toward the fulfillment of the American vision, right? Well, perhaps, but, nevertheless, as the Post writes, "we still have a ways to go."

I still hear stories from some of my students about being stopped by the police for no apparent reason other than the color of their skin, and I know there is still work to be done. Profiling is only one aspect of it. As a crime–solving tool, profiling is essential, but, when misapplied, whether deliberately or not, it can breed distrust among people it is intended to protect.

"When we look at the high unemployment rates for African–Americans in our city, for example, or the way our public schools are failing our African–American children," says the Post, "we know the civil–rights challenges are real and continuing.

"Fifty years after King's dream, we should also have learned that none of these challenges are beyond the ability of an America serious about resolving them."

Joshua DuBois of Newsweek writes, "Instead of being in a state of perpetual struggle, an endless existential march, I believe there is far more evidence to support the idea that we are right on the verge of Zion. And the only thing that will stop us from getting there is the hopeless belief that we can't."

Here is what I believe: The reason why any progress has been made in the last 50 years was Americans were mostly united, not divided, when it happened.

It was with a shared sense of purpose that Americans have risen to any occasion and met every challenge — so far.

"United we stand, divided we fall" is as old as the Scriptures (albeit in somewhat different language), which may be why King, a minister, recognized its value for effecting true and meaningful change while most politicians do not.

King's dream is not dead. It has not been completely fulfilled, but enough of it has been accomplished to make Americans confident that we are moving in the right direction.

Yes, there is still work to be done, but America has always been a work in progress.

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The Chaos in Chicago

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"The confrontation was not created by the police; the confrontation was created by the people who charged the police.

"Gentlemen, let's get the thing straight, once and for all. The policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder."

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley
August 1968

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I think it is fair to say that America in 1968 was a nation mired in a malaise.

It had not been an uplifting year. It began with the Tet offensive in Vietnam that showed everyone how easily the Viet Cong could penetrate the grounds of an American military post.

In the months ahead, first Martin Luther King and then Bobby Kennedy were assassinated and then, a week before the Democrats were scheduled to hold their convention and nominate their presidential candidate, Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia.

And through it all were the demonstrations. They never seemed to end. Most of the demonstrations were against the war in Vietnam, but others were focused on other things — racial injustice, sexual injustice, the "gap" between the generations.

If there was one thing on which the average American could depend, it was that each night's news report would have something about a demonstration for or against something somewhere.

There would be some uplifting moments later in the year, but 45 years ago today, there wasn't much for anyone to be happy about.

The Democrats were holding their 1968 national convention in Chicago. There was important business on the agenda — the nominations for president and vice president took center stage, but there was unrest in the land as well. A sizable portion of the population had soured on American involvement in Vietnam, crime seemed to be out of control, and racial discord could be seen in every major American city.

Perhaps no one summed up the scene better than historian Theodore H. White in his book, "The Making of the President 1968."

"A contagion of madness, a sense of helplessness, a sickening loss of control denying order and identity to all, had been spreading" prior to the start of the convention, he wrote.

By the second day of the convention — 45 years ago today — nearly all of Chicago "slept peacefully and went to work tranquilly," White observed, "[b]ut, politically, the contagion had begun to flush and agitate downtown Chicago with high fever."

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Chicago, in August 1968, was about to put on display, for the whole world to see, a microcosm of the division that gripped America.

It was probably inevitable that there would be a clash between the dissatisfied (i.e., radical) elements of American society and the Chicago police, who represented (in the public's eyes) the establishment. Both were moving into place like planets forming a celestial line, the immoveable object and the irresistible force.

Something had to give.

I watched it unfold on TV, I heard Abraham Ribicoff accuse the Chicago police of "Gestapo tactics," and I asked my parents what was happening, but they never found the words to explain it all. I guess it was too complicated for a child to comprehend.

Actually, it was pretty hard for adults to comprehend, too. My parents had trouble explaining it to me, and I always figured that meant they didn't understand everything, either.

I remember that my father got frustrated and stopped trying to explain. In hindsight, it seems like that scene was replayed in many households around that time. And that was the thing that stood out about the Vietnam era, I suppose — very little seemed to make sense, and, consequently, very little could be adequately explained.

To be sure, it was a surreal scene. There was chaos outside the convention hall, but there was chaos within as well. CBS newsmen Mike Wallace and Dan Rather were roughed up by security guards on live television. CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite observed, "I think we've got a bunch of thugs here."

Viewers clearly got the sense they were watching actual muggings — in living color, to use the popular broadcasters' phrase of the time.

Outside the hall, police were beating demonstrators in the streets. There was a lot of what appeared to be smoke, but it was probably tear gas. There was commotion in Grant Park, where Barack Obama would celebrate his first election as president 40 years later.

While the nation and the world watched on TV, demonstrators retreated to Grant Park and re–formed, chanting "Sieg heil" or "Stop the war!" over and over as they protested under the watchful eyes of the broadcast media.

As Tuesday became Wednesday, other groups joined with the original group — and the folks watching at home saw total mayhem in the streets and at the convention hall, which journalist Terry Southern described as "a military installation; barbed wire, checkpoints, the whole bit."

The Walker Report described what took place in Chicago as a "police riot."

And the sight of the chaos in the streets of Chicago — compared to the relative calm of the Republicans' convention in Miami a few weeks earlier — may well have played an important role in Richard Nixon's eventual victory in November.

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Read My Lips

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Twenty–five years ago tonight, George H.W. Bush delivered his first presidential nomination acceptance speech.

He had delivered two vice presidential acceptance speeches — when he was nominated to be Ronald Reagan's running mate. But this was his first presidential nomination acceptance speech.

He may well have won the presidency — and simultaneously doomed his re–election bid — with a single pledge he made in the convention hall in New Orleans — "Read my lips. No new taxes." The polls wouldn't reflect the shift in popular support until a few weeks later, but I have no doubt that what Bush said on this night 25 years ago played a significant role in his eventual triumph.

It clearly played a role in his defeat four years later.

I understood why he said it, and I understood why he broke his promise as president.

To put this into historical perspective, the American voters had not given the presidency to the nominees of the same party in three straight elections since the days of Franklin Roosevelt.

Until that time, it happened fairly regularly; FDR himself was elected president in four straight elections. But since World War II, voters had not stayed with the same party in more than two consecutive elections — no matter how popular the incumbent was.

In 1988, the general consensus was that Reagan could have won a third term if he had been permitted to run. But he was limited to the two terms he had served.

That left the Republican nomination up for grabs, and Bush did as every incumbent president or vice president (when the president was prohibited from doing so) had done for more than 35 years — he sought his party's nomination. But so did others, including Sen. Bob Dole (who would be his party's nominee eight years later).

Although he had been vice president under Reagan for eight years, Bush had never persuaded the party's conservatives that he was really one of them. Not when Reagan — grudgingly — named Bush as his running mate in 1980.

Not even in his eight years of loyal service as vice president (during which Bush frequently supported policies he had opposed as a candidate for the GOP nomination in 1980) did he earn their support, let alone their respect.

He felt he had made a gesture to that wing of the party when, in what was widely called his first presidential–level decision, he chose Dan Quayle to be his running mate, but it had been met with ridicule.

So when it came time to deliver his acceptance speech, he needed something that would stir up the conservatives, a line that would remind them of Reagan and, at the same time, show them that Bush had learned some things as Reagan's apprentice and was ready to assume command.

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"I'm the one who will not raise taxes. My opponent now says he'll raise them as a last resort, or a third resort. But when a politician talks like that, you know that's one resort he'll be checking into. My opponent won't rule out raising taxes. But I will. And the Congress will push me to raise taxes and I'll say no. And they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again, and I'll say, to them, 'Read my lips: no new taxes.' "

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That "Read my lips: no new taxes" thing was a good line, written by speech writer Peggy Noonan, who had crafted some winning speeches for Reagan during his presidency.

"It was a strong, decisive, bold statement," wrote TIME in 2008, "and you don't need a history degree to see where this is going."

No, you didn't. After Bush made his speech, the poll numbers began to turn in his favor — and the previously unthinkable, that Bush would defeat Dukakis, started to seem possible.

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Dan Quayle's Coming-Out Party

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Twenty–five years ago today, Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana was introduced as Vice President George H.W. Bush's choice for a running mate.

And the focus at the Republican convention in New Orleans shifted almost immediately from speculation about the identity of Bush's running mate to skepticism of the choice.

"This was supposed to be his showcase week," lamented Ed Rollins, manager of the 1984 Reagan–Bush campaign that carried 49 states.

Rollins wasn't the only alarmed Republican. About a month earlier, just after the Democrats' convention, Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis led Bush by 17 points.

By the time the voters went to the polls in November, Bush had overtaken Dukakis and wound up winning by 12 points, perhaps the most remarkable reversal in presidential politics in modern times.

But on this day in 1988 — and in the days that followed — there was considerable gloom in Republican circles and considerable glee in Democratic ones.

Most presidential tickets get some kind of bounce — even a modest one — from their party's convention, and the Bush–Quayle ticket did get a lift.

But there were doubts it would happen while the convention was in progress. And even after polls began to report that the shift was occurring, there were those who believed it wouldn't last.

The Republican gathering in New Orleans was supposed to present the "real" George Bush to the American people. With his announcement 25 years ago today that Quayle would be his running mate, the "real" George Bush may well have been revealed — for good or ill.

It certainly showed his sensitivity to public perception.

By 1988, there were growing concerns about the age of the team leading the executive branch. Outgoing President Ronald Reagan was in his late 70s, and Bush was in his 60s.

There were those who said the Republican Party needed to present a younger face to attract younger voters. I always felt that Bush's selection of Quayle was a clear indication that the vice president was listening to those voices.

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"I'm proud to have Dan Quayle at my side," Bush would say — and I am certain there were times in the next four years when Bush regretted making that statement almost as much he must have regretted the "no new taxes" pledge he made a couple of nights later.

Although I often disagreed with Bush, I had to admit that I admired the facts that he didn't pass the buck on his tax reversal, and he stood by his vice president in spite of frequent suggestions that what his campaign for re–election really needed was a new running mate.

When Quayle was introduced as Bush's running mate 25 years ago today — and two days later, when he accepted the nomination — he was whooping and hollering and bouncing around like a preschooler on a sugar binge.

His performances invited ridicule from the late–night TV guys and contributed to the general perception that he wasn't especially bright.

That perception hardened as the nominees entered the fall campaign. Quayle had his debate with Democratic vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen for which to prepare; that debate is remembered, of course, for Quayle's comparison of his political experience to that of John F. Kennedy when he sought the presidency nearly 30 years before and Bentsen's rebuttal that Quayle was "no Jack Kennedy."

But even before that debate, Quayle was contributing to his own poor public image by making remarks like this — "The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. No, not our nation's, but in World War II. I mean, we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century, but in this century's history" — at a mid–September press conference.

In hindsight, it's hard to imagine that Bush reversed his fortunes with that convention. But he did, or at least he began the process, and it really had nothing to do with Quayle. It had a lot more to do with the famous pledge not to raise taxes that he made in his acceptance speech. That was what the delegates wanted to hear.

It had a lot to do with the fact that Reagan was a popular president who couldn't seek a third term. As far as most of the voters were concerned in 1988, the lesser half of the Reagan–Bush ticket was better than nothing.

And it didn't matter to them who his running mate was. Sure, Quayle was a nuisance and a bit of an embarrassment, but that wasn't particularly important.

The Democrats tried to make Quayle an issue in the '88 campaign, but it didn't really take until four years later — after 3½ years of Quayle's verbal missteps in office.

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Introducing the 'New' Nixon

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On this night 45 years ago, Richard Nixon delivered his second presidential nomination acceptance speech. He had been presenting himself as a "new Nixon" — which meant (presumably) that he had changed since the last time he sought the presidency in 1960 — and his speech on this night in 1968 was his opportunity to make his case to the American people.

Neither Nixon nor anyone who listened to him speak could have known that a burglary that wouldn't happen for nearly four years would lead him to make a very different kind of speech on precisely the same date six years later.

On this night in 1968, Nixon used the word "new" some two dozen times in his speech — most frequently with the word "leadership."

There was a genuine yearning for new in America in 1968. The war in Vietnam had been losing support steadily since Walter Cronkite delivered his commentary on the war in February (in which he famously declared that the United States was "mired in a stalemate" and could not win).

People on both sides of the fence were dissatisfied with how things were going in Southeast Asia. You could see the defections in the declining poll numbers — in support of the war and in support of the administration that was conducting it.

Just about every other policy was satisfying no one. Race riots had occurred in just about every major city. Crime was seen as out of control. Environmental policy was under fire.

Many people think America today is a polarized nation. But it really can't compare to the America of 1968.

Nixon told the Republican delegates — and the folks watching at home — 45 years ago tonight that it was time for "new leadership."

That kind of appeal — or something like it — is typically made by the nominee of the out–of–power party. But when Nixon ran in 1960, he represented the party that had been in power for the previous eight years, and he had no real choice but to defend the policies of the Eisenhower administration of which he had been (and still was) a part — even the policies with which he may have disagreed.

He couldn't very well appeal for new leadership when he had been part of the old leadership.

Nevertheless, defending the Eisenhower administration probably wasn't such a hard thing to do. In the fall of 1960, Gallup consistently reported that President Eisenhower's approval ratings were in the upper 50s.

In 1968, after eight years of Democratic rule, Nixon was running as the challenger. He was freed from the yoke that incumbency can be. He was his own man, a "new" Nixon, and he wanted everyone to know it.

Eight years earlier, Nixon had not taken advantage of the asset the popular Eisenhower had been until the final weeks of the campaign. It was believed by many that Ike made a difference, helping Nixon close the gap nationally and in several states. Had it not been for Eisenhower, the 1960 campaign might not have been as close as it was.

It was very close, one of the closest presidential elections in this country's history, but Nixon came up short.

In 1968, Nixon was destined for another cliffhanger, but he would face it as his own man, no longer beholden to Eisenhower although Nixon did make a personal appeal to the delegates on Ike's behalf. Eisenhower was in Walter Reed Hospital when Nixon delivered his speech, and the former vice president implored the delegates to "win this one for Ike!"

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Nixon was already confident of victory — or, at least, he seemed to be. He assured the delegates there was a distinction between his 1960 campaign and his 1968 campaign. "This time we're going to win," he said.

I don't know if he truly believed that, but he was convincing — in his way.

Nixon went on to explain to the delegates and the viewers at home why that was so. "My fellow Americans," Nixon continued, "we are going to win because our cause is right. We make history tonight — not for ourselves but for the ages. The choice we make in 1968 will determine not only the future of America but the future of peace and freedom in the world for the last third of the 20th century."

As Nixon outlined what he saw as the challenges facing America, he said, "[L]et us begin by committing ourselves to the truth — to see it like it is and tell it like it is — to find the truth, to speak the truth and to live the truth — that's what we will do. ... The time has come for honest government in the United States of America."

Ironic, considering the legacy of lies the Nixon administration ultimately would leave behind.

There wasn't really anything new in Nixon's speech, historian Theodore H. White wrote. "[T]hose who had followed [Nixon] could transmit, at the end of every 10th sentence, the tested punchline. What was new was context and frame. He was saying exactly what he thought: it was to be the campaign of a conservative but not the radical conservatism of Barry Goldwater driving from the party all those who disagreed; it was a centrist conservatism, inviting both extremes to a unifying moderation."

The American people, desperate for honesty in government after being repeatedly deceived in the Vietnam years — and some, perhaps, believing Nixon when he said he was a "new" Nixon — responded to Nixon's call.

And that, too, is ironic because, six years later — to the day — Nixon announced that he would resign, revealing that there never was a "new" Nixon — just the old one in disguise.

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The Mysterious Death of Warren Harding

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President Warren Harding and his wife, Florence

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Today is a milestone anniversary of a presidential death that is still shrouded in mystery.

No, I am not speaking of the Kennedy assassination.

Here in Dallas, we know (or most of us do) that this year is the 50th anniversary of that assassination — which is, of course, still a subject for debate, but this year it seems to be even more of an industry than usual (until just recently, the city was taking applications for free tickets for people who want to be in Dealey Plaza at the precise moment on November 22 — 50 years later, of course — when the president was shot).

Before we turn our full attention to that anniversary, let us pause for a minute or two to think about another presidential death that happened 90 years ago today.

I'm speaking of Warren Harding, America's 29th president, of whom e.e. cummings wrote

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"He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."

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Based on what I have read of President Harding, he was an amiable, well meaning individual, but he was also someone who was easily manipulated.

He was a journalist by trade and had a relaxed management style as publisher of a newspaper in Marion, Ohio. It has been said that, in some 30 years as the newspaper's publisher, Harding never fired anyone. He seemed to like people, and they liked him. But, as I say, there were those in his administration who took advantage of him.

On Aug. 2, 1923, President Harding died of an apparent heart attack in San Francisco. But there were suspicions at the time of other causes — and those suspicions have lingered. It might have been a stroke, some thought, or it might have been ptomaine poisoning.

Or it might have been a deliberate act.

Harding had been on a speaking tour of the western United States that summer. It could have been anything, people said at the time — heat, food, whatever — and an autopsy would have clarified things considerably. But, as Kennesaw State professor Russell Aiuto observes at Crime Library, there was no autopsy. The president's widow, Florence Harding, would not allow it.

"Within an hour of [Harding's] death, he was embalmed, rouged, powdered, dressed and in his casket," Aiuto writes. "By morning, he was on a train, headed back to Washington, D.C."

That got suspicious tongues wagging. Think the Kennedy assassination is awash in conspiracy theories? For nearly a century now, Harding's death has variously been attributed to natural causes, negligent homicide, suicide and murder. There is a solution to suit every taste.

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President Warren Harding and
Vice President Calvin Coolidge

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Natural causes is supported by the knowledge that, as Aiuto observes, Harding "lived the fat–filled, tobacco–infused and alcohol–drenched life of early 20th Century America with gusto." There are indications that Harding suffered from coronary artery disease that went undiagnosed and, consequently, untreated.

Negligent homicide had its defenders, too — like one of Harding's physicians, who believed Harding could have been saved had it not been for medical treatment he had been given, treatment that would have been effective if Harding suffered from indigestion but not effective for angina.

Then there have been suggestions that Harding may have killed himself.

It seems to be beyond dispute that Harding was despondent, presumably about Cabinet members whose conduct was under fire, during his tour of the West. And his behavior during that time prompted questions at the very least. He had made out a new will before leaving Washington in June. He sold his newspaper, which he had owned and published for decades, a few weeks earlier — and for far less than its value.

But suicide seems less likely when one considers that the signs pointed to his intention to seek re–election the next year.

That brings us to the last prospect, murder. Like the current occupant of the Oval Office, Harding's administration was beset by numerous scandals, any one of which could have led to homicide.

Even Mrs. Harding has been mentioned as a suspect. A book that was written by a man with a checkered past and published several years after her husband's death alleged that Mrs. Harding had two motives: 1) to save his reputation by having him die while he was at his most popular, and 2) to get even with him for his extramarital affairs, especially one that supposedly produced an illegitimate child.

Mrs. Harding died a year after her husband so it wasn't possible for her to defend herself against the charges — which don't seem to have been given much credibility.

Aiuto describes Harding's life and presidency as both comic and tragic. "Harding had many admirable traits — kindness, charm, generosity — but he was basically an inept man, without many talents," Aiuto writes.

"Besides the buffoonery of his days in the Senate and the White House," Aiuto goes on, "there is the tale of a man in over his head, trusting of untrustworthy associates, trying to do his best."

It's possible that one of those untrustworthy associates — with unguarded access to the president — poisoned him. It's just as possible — maybe even moreso — that Harding's lifestyle or medical malpractice hastened his demise.

After 90 years, though, it seems highly unlikely that the truth of the matter will ever be known.

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