Annus Horribilis

I have been thinking a lot about bygone days, as my weary readers are well aware. It seems safer back there, though when one actually looks at it objectively, there have been a few rough spots in our national life. 1968 was one of them.

One correction to Marlow’s magnificent essay “Crossings” we published yesterday: the SS United States was operated, of course, by the United States Lines, not the venerable Cunard Lines of the United Kingdom. The editorial staff has been justifiably flogged, with thanks to alert readers around the world.

But going back to that fateful year also brought back some awful memories. Stop me if any of this seems familiar.

January

January 5
Dr. Benjamin Spock; William Sloan Coffin the chaplain of Yale University; novelist Mitchell Goodman; Michael Ferber, a graduate student at Harvard; and Marcus Raskin a peace activist are indicted on charges of conspiracy to encourage violations of the draft laws by a grand jury in Boston.
January 17
President Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973) delivers the State of the Union Address about the Great Society and the war in Indochina, where a half million American troops are fighting.
January 23
North Korean patrol boats capture the USS Pueblo, a US Navy intelligence gathering vessel and its 83-man crew on charges of violating the communist country’s twelve-mile territorial limit.
January 31
At half-past midnight on Wednesday morning, the North Vietnamese launch the Tet offensive at Nha Trang.

February

February 1
During police actions following the first day of the Tet offensive General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, a south Vietnamese security official is captured on film executing a Viet Cong prisoner by American photographer Eddie Adams.
February 2
Richard Nixon, a republican from California, enters the New Hampshire primary and declares his presidential candidacy.
February 4
Dr. Martin Luther King delivers a sermon at his Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta which will come to be seen as prophetic. His speech contains what amounts to his own eulogy. After his death, he says, “I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody… that I tried to love and serve humanity.”
February 7
International reporters arrive at the embattled city of Ben Tre in South Vietnam. Peter Arnett, then of the Associated Press, writes a dispatch quoting an unnamed US major as saying, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”
February 18
The US State Department announces the highest US casualty toll of the Vietnam War. The previous week saw 543 Americans killed in action, and 2547 wounded.

March

March 12
The New Hampshire primary election brings shocking results. The Eugene McCarthy campaign, benefitting from the work of 2,000 full-time student volunteers and up to 5,000 on the weekends immediately preceding the vote comes within 230 votes of defeating the sitting president Lyndon Johnson.
March 16
Senator Robert Kennedy, former Attorney General and JFK’s brother, announces he will run for President against LBJ. The same day, troops from the Americal Division (23rd) conducted what would become known as the My Lai Massacre.
March 22
In Czechoslovakia, Antonin Novotny resigns the Czech presidency setting off alarm bells in Moscow. The next day leaders of five Warsaw Pact countries meet in Dresden, East Germany to discuss the crisis.
March 28
Martin Luther King Jr. led a march in Memphis that turned violent. After King himself had been led from the scene one 16 year old black boy is killed, 60 people are injured, and over 150 arrested.
March 31
President Lyndon Johnson delivers his address vowing to limit the war in Vietnam by halting bombing north of the 20th parallel and announces he will not seek re-election

April

April 4
Martin Luther King spends the day at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis working and meeting with local leaders on plans for his Poor People’s March on Washington. At 6pm, he is assassinated by James Earl Ray. His murder sparks rioting in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Newark, Washington, D.C., and many others. Across the country 46 deaths will be blamed on the riots.
April 11
United States Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford calls 24,500 military reserves to action for two-year commitments, and announces a new troop ceiling of 549,500 American soldiers in Vietnam. The total number of Americans “in country” will peak at some 541,000 in August this year, and decline to 334,000 by 1970.
April 23
A rally and occupation of the Low administrative office building at Columbia University protesting the school’s association with defense contracting results in the further occupation of five buildings, which lasts a week before police storm the buildings and remove the students and supporters

May

May 3
The US and North Vietnamese delegations agree to begin peace talks in Paris later this month. The formal talks will begin on May 10.
May 6
In France, “Bloody Monday” marks one of the most violent days of the Parisian student revolt. Five thousand students march through the Latin Quarter with support from the student union and the instructors’ union. The fighting is intense with rioters setting up barricades and the police attacking with gas grenades.
May 11
Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr.’s designated successor, and the Southern Christian Leadership Corps are granted a permit for an encampment on the Mall in Washington, DC. Eventually, despite nearly a solid month of rain, over 2,500 people will eventually occupy Resurrection City. On June 24th the site is raided by police, 124 occupants arrested, and the encampment demolished.
May 13
The actions taken by the students and instructors at the Sorbonne inspires sympathetic strikes throughout France. As many as nine million workers are on strike by May 22. President de Gaulle takes action to shore up governmental power. The show of force eventually dissipates the French revolutionary furor.

June

June 3
Andy Warhol is shot in his New York City loft by Valerie Solanis, a struggling actress, and writer.
June 4/5
On the night of the California Primary Robert Kennedy addresses a large crowd of supporters at the Ambassador Hotel in San Francisco. He has won victories in California and South Dakota and is confident that his campaign will go on to unite the many factions stressing the country. As he leaves the stage, he is shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24 year old Jordanian living in Los Angeles.
June 8
Robert Kennedy’s funeral is held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.
June 27
As the “Prague Spring” continues in Czechoslovakia, Ludvik Vaculik releases his manifesto “Two Thousand Words.” This essay is seen as a direct challenge to the Soviets, who begin planning for their invasion later in the summer.
June 28
A bill adding a 10% surcharge to income taxes and reducing government spending is signed by President Johnson. The president effectively admits it has been impossible to provide both “guns and butter.”
July
July 7
Abbie Hoffman’s “The Yippies are Going to Chicago” is published in The Realist. The Yippie’s will be in the center of action six weeks later at the Chicago Democratic National Convention, hosting a “Festival of Life” in contrast to what they term the convention’s “Festival of Death.”
July 24
At the Newport (Rhode Island) Folk Festival singer Arlo Guthrie performs his 20-minute ballad ‘Alice’s Restaurant” to favorable reviews.

August

August 8
At their Party convention in Miami Beach the Republicans nominate Richard Milhouse Nixon as their presidential candidate.
August 20
The Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia with over 200,000 Warsaw pact troops, putting an end to the “Prague Spring.”
August 26
Mayor Richard Daley opens the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. While the convention moves haltingly toward nominating Hubert Humphrey for president, the city’s police attempt to enforce an 11 o’clock curfew. On that Monday night demonstrations are widespread, but generally peaceful. The next two days, however, bring increasing tension and violence to the situation.
August 28
By most accounts, on Wednesday evening Chicago police take action against crowds of demonstrators without provocation. 100 are sent to emergency rooms while 175 are arrested.

September

September 1
Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey kicks off his presidential campaign at New York City’s Labor Day parade.
September 7
Women’s Liberation groups, target the Miss American beauty pageant in Atlantic City. The protest includes theatrical demonstrations including ritual disposal of traditional female roles into the “freedom ashcan.”
September 29
Thirtieth anniversary of Neville Chamberlain’s Munich agreement ceding Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to Hitler.

October

October 2
Police and military troops in Mexico City react violently to a student – led protest in Tlatelolco Square. Hundreds of the demonstrators are killed or injured.
October 3
George Wallace, who has been running an independent campaign for the presidency which has met significant support in the South and the Midwest, names retired Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis E. LeMay to be his running mate. LeMay advocates the use of nuclear weapons for peace.
October 11
Apollo 7 is launched from Florida for an eleven-day journey which will orbit the Earth 163 times.
October 12
The Summer Olympic Games open in Mexico City. On the 18th Tommie Smith and John Carlos, US athletes and medalists in the 200-meter dash will further disrupt the games by performing the black power salute during the “Star-Spangled Banner” at their medal ceremony.
October 20
Jacqueline Kennedy is married to Aristotle Onassis, a Greek shipping magnate on the private island of Skorpios.
October 31
President Johnson announces a total halt to US bombing in North Vietnam.

November

November 5
Election Day. The results of the popular vote are 31,770,000 for Nixon, 43.4 percent of the total; 31,270,000 or 42.7 percent for Humphrey; 9,906,000 or 13.5 percent for Wallace; and 0.4 percent for other candidates.
November 14
National Turn in Your Draft Card Day is observed with rallies and protests on college campuses throughout the country.
November 26
After stalling for months, the South Vietnamese government agrees to join in the Paris peace talks.

December

December 11
The unemployment rate, at 3.3 percent, is the lowest it has been in fifteen years.
December 12
Robert and Ethel Kennedy’s daughter, Rory, their eleventh child is born.
December 21
The launch of Apollo 8 begins the first US mission to orbit the Moon.

Compiled from multiple sources. I guess it could be worse. Rights reserved.
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