On this day in 1968

a reply to: Damla
Perhaps it should have been the reason.
"Watergate", of course, was the name of the building infiltrated by the famous burglary team. But it's too early to do an anniversary thread on that one.

a reply to: DISRAELI

ok, i am sleepy anyway. bye.

Another member has drawn attention to one which wasn't on my radar;
Zond5 mission

I'm pretty sure Nixon did not get a water bucket
IIRC Humphrey and Wallace were offered a chance to do the same but refused

the Soviet space program was never the same after the death of their Chief Designer, Korolyev.

This is regarded as the effective begining of "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland- the period of renewed violence between Protestant and Catholic-


Also a couple of days ago George Wallace chose General Curtis LeMay as his running-mate in the Presidential election. I don't know if his candidacy reduced the vote available to Humphrey and handed the victory to Nixon. It certainly marks the breakdown of the historic Democrat coalition of right-wing Southerners and left-wing Northerners. (The history of that coalition is what makes it possible for modern Republicans to make the taunt that "the Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan)

On this day Donald Crowhurst, the final competitor in the round-the-world yacht race organised by the Sunday Times, sailed his trimaran “Teignmouth Electron” into Teignmouth harbour.
That’s Teignmouth in Devon. Locally pronounced “Tin-muth”- not to be confused with Tynemouth at the opposite end of the English coast.

Teignmouth, with its sister village of Shaldon across the river estuary, is a small nineteenth-century resort. It boasts a pier, an aquarium, a hilly promontory called the Ness, two dozen hotels, and countless boarding houses.

[“The strange voyage of Donald Crowhurst”, p76. Nicholas Tomalin & Ron Hall]
My gran was one of those B&B landladies (4, Carlton Place), which is where my local knowledge comes from.
Teignmouth was always trying to make itself better known, but sometimes the efforts would backfire. There was the occasion when the mayor, in his regalia, and the town council were on the station platform, with bunting all over the place, ready to welcome a special train, and the train driver forgot to stop.
As a summer barman at the Carlton Hotel, I was listening once to the grumblings of a theatre man about the way the town managed things;

Upstairs were Mr. Bailey and Tom and his wife, with an organ-playing couple from the Carlton Theatre and another theatre man. The organ-player gave a tirade against the town of Teignmouth. He said its rulers had no idea at all about how to organise holiday entertainment. An example is that they had themselves shifted a heavy organ down to the marquee, to provide music on the day of the carnival, and had received no kind of acknowledgement for it. And he had never known a town like this for organising things to clash with one another, such as having the carnival in the evening instead of the afternoon, taking business away from theatres, pubs etc.. The locals themselves, apart from the entertainers, didn’t really want even the visitors...

The town’s investment in Crowhurst’s venture was not particularly generous. The deal was that Crowhurst would add “Teignmouth” to the name of his vessel and start his voyage from their harbour, and in return Rodney Hallworth, the town’s public relations officer, would start a local fund-raising campaign. By the time he arrived, this fund had collected £250.

This publicity exercise would backfire (or succeed) in a spectacular way in 1969, when the voyage of Donald Crowhurst reached its notorious climax.

Harold Wilson, British Prime Minister, had been making a second attempt to end the Rhodesian crisis by personal discussion with the Rhodesian Premier Ian Smith. They had been talking at Gibraltar on board H.M.S. Fearless, repeating the 1966 talks on H.M.S. Tiger. He now came back to report to the House of Commons.
The negotiation had failed because Smith would not accept the terms (being too honest a man, as somebody pointed out, to sign on the dotted line and then renounce the conditions after independence had been agreed).
However, Richard Crossman regarded the venture as a success in terms of domestic politics, because it demonstrated that the failure to reach a settlement was not the Labour government's fault.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono (both still married to other people) were arrested on a charge of possession of Cannabis.

At three o'clock on Thursday, October 31st- with only nine hours in hand- Donald Crowhurst was towed over the bar of Teignmouth harbour to start his voyage. The weather was cold and drizzly. The last of the last-minutes supplies, a parcel of torch batteries, was tossed aboard as he prepared to raise his sails. Then, instantly, things went wrong, Crowhurst had found that his rubber buoyancy bag, which had been hurriedly lashed round the mainmats the day before, had also been lashed round two halyards; he could not hoist his foresails. Furthermore, John Elliot had accidentally attached the jib and staysail to the wrong stays; they were in reverse order...

"The strange voyage of Donald Crowhurst", p94- Nicholas Tomalin & Ron Hall

Crowhurst was the final entrant in the round-the-world non-stop yacht race organised by the Sunday Times. The intention of the rigid deadline was to keep the competitors away from the Southern Hemisphere winter.
Crowhurst's preparations had been rushed and chaotic. They were not properly controlled, and he had complicated things by devising ingenious improvements which could not be completed in time.
Problems with the yacht contributed to the way that he later abandoned genuine racing and drifted into a deceptive presentation of his progress, which brought his voyage to a dramatic climax in 1969.

For the benefit of the television cameras, Richard Nixon spent the day campaigning in the old-fashioned way, on a "whistle-stop" trian journey through Ohio.

The big news of the day was the broadcast by President Johnson announcing "the October surprise", the agreed halt on the bombing of North Vietnam, and the apparent prospect of the Viet-Cong and the South Vietnamese government entering the nogotiations.
At first glance, this seemed to have won the Presidential race for Hubert Humphrey. The weak point in the announcement was that Johnson could only say that representatives of South Vietnam "are free" to participate. This did not amount to a guarantee that they would appear. Once this was realised, the brief surge in support for Humphrey ebbed away again.
A day or two later, Nixon had to field an angry telephone call from Johnson, complaining that the Nixon campaign was privately influencing President Thieu to hold back from entering the peace process.

Nixon thought he had grievances of his own about this episode. For one thing, he had spent six months deliberately refraining from direct attacks on Johnson, hoping the President would likewise refrain from giving the Democrat candidate any direct help. He felt let down.
He also argued that Johnson had committed the grave sin of allowing considerations of domestic politics to affect his conduct of foreign policy. He was serious enough about this criticism to remain obsessed by it. One of the stories which emerged in the middle of the Watergate revelations was that Charles Colson had once proposed fire-bombing the Brookings Institute, so that a party of fake fire-fighters could enter the building and search it. They would have been looking for a document relating to the 1968 bombing-pause, which had been transferred there to be out of Nixon's reach.

My source is "Before the Fall", pp 86-93, by William Safire. Democrat sources are available.

He also argued that Johnson had committed the grave sin of allowing considerations of domestic politics to affect his conduct of foreign policy. He was serious enough about this criticism to remain obsessed by it. One of the stories which emerged in the middle of the Watergate revelations was that Charles Colson had once proposed fire-bombing the Brookings Institute, so that a party of fake fire-fighters could enter the building and search it. They would have been looking for a document relating to the 1968 bombing-pause, which had been transferred there to be out of Nixon's reach.

I could not track down that story a couple of days ago, but my original source for that paragraph was actually "The Ends of Power", pp 251-253, by H.R. Haldeman

I read that book based on your posts
fascinating

at one point he mentions Nixon and LBJ like two wary roosters circling. two heavyweights of their generation that never ran against each other (except 1960 I guess).

they have been beating Nixon over the head for years with that secret negotiation stuff.

I’d like a good thread on McNamara’s “Morons” fascinating study of just some of the ways that the Vietnam War was majorly mismanaged...

a reply to: ElGoobero
You mean the Safire book, or the Haldeman mentioned in my last thread?
The Safire book is great fun, especially with the side-views of Kissinger.

a reply to: BigDave-AR
I haven't read the book, and don't have enough knowledge in that area.
Perhaps you could start a thread yourself, bringing out the essence of his argument?

The American Presidential election.
In the Republican telethon on the previous night, Richard Nixon nearly gave his aides heart attacks by using the slang term "nut-cutting". William Safire fended off enquiries from fellow-journalists by mumbling something about the thrifty habits of squirrels.

In the final count, Governor Wallace won a band of states from Arkansas to Georgia. In effect, this announced the break-up of the historic Democrat coalition of northerm radicals and southern conservatives.
Texas was true to the old coalition, for the moment, and voted for Humphrey, along with Washington state and a line of north-eastern states between Missouri and Maine.
All the other states went to Nixon.

Time for rapprochement with China, Henry Kissinger becoming a sex-symbol, Watergate...

originally posted by: DISRAELI
The American Presidential election.
In the Republican telethon on the previous night, Richard Nixon nearly gave his aides heart attacks by using the slang term "nut-cutting". William Safire fended off enquiries from fellow-journalists by mumbling something about the thrifty habits of squirrels.

In the final count, Governor Wallace won a band of states from Arkansas to Georgia. In effect, this announced the break-up of the historic Democrat coalition of northerm radicals and southern conservatives.
Texas was true to the old coalition, for the moment, and voted for Humphrey, along with Washington state and a line of north-eastern states between Missouri and Maine.
All the other states went to Nixon.

Time for rapprochement with China, Henry Kissinger becoming a sex-symbol, Watergate...

most analysts agree that Wallace took more votes from Nixon than Humphrey.
next election (1972) Nixon swept all those states.
not sure of numbers but Wallace might have been the most successful third party candidate in US history, at least as far as electoral votes.

Nelson Rockefeller was having a lunch meeting with some of his advisors, including Henry Kissinger. "We were discussing what attitude Rockefeller should take toward a possible offer to join the Nixon cabinet and what Cabinet position he should seek if given a choice".
The same issue was being raised among Nixon's advisors. In a conversation on Air Force One;

"At Treasury", I said, "what about David Rockefeller- no, you can't have two Rockefellers in the Cabinet".
"Is there a law" Nixon asked without changing expression "that you have to have one?"

"Before the Fall", William Safire, p33.

Unconscious of this trend in Nixon's thinking, Rockefeller's friends considered the question carefully.

One group of advisors held that Rockefeller's influence would be greater as governor of a major state...
I was of the view that if given the opportunity Rockefeller should join the Cabinet; I further urged that he would be happiest as Secretary of Defense. I thought that the President-elect would almost surely carry out his announced intention to act as his own Secretary of State... As Secretary of Defense [Rockefeller] would be able to implement his decades-long interest in national security. I thought also that the Secretary of Defense could play a major role in the design of foreign policy.

This conference was interrupted by a telephone call from Dwight Chapin, for Richard Nixon, wanting to speak with Kissinger himself. Kissinger took the call and accepted an invitation to go and meet Nixon on the following Monday.
Not realising the significance of this call, he then returned to the discussion of Rockefeller's future.
"The White House Years", Henry Kissinger, p8

Henry Kissinger went to see Richard Nixon, by appointment, and found it a puzzling meeting. Nixon was finding it hard to get to the point.

"His subject was the task of setting up his new government... He had very little confidence in the State Department. Its personnel had no loyalty to him... He was determined to run foreign policy from the White House...”

Kissinger agreed that there was a need for a more formal decision-making process (in comparison with the informality of the Johnson Administration).
Nixon outlined some of his foreign policy views, and asked what, in Kissinger's view, should be the object of his diplomacy. Kissinger suggested making it less idiosyncratic and relating it to basic principles of national interest transcending changes of Administration.
Kissinger managed to grasp that he was being asked whether, in principle, he was prepared to join the Nixon Administration in some planning capacity.

Calling in Bob Halderman, "Nixon told Halderman to install a direct line to my office at Harvard so that the President-elect could continue the conversation later. Halderman jotted down this curious request, which presupposed the absence of normal telephone communications between New York and Cambridge, on a yellow pad. He never made any effort to implement it."
Halderman then took Kissinger away and into his own office. "He seemed eager to describe his job to me. Matter-of-factly he explained that his principal function was to prevent end-runs... He also pointed out that he was changing the title of senior White House personnel from "Special Assistant to the President" to "Assistant to the President", since no-one knew what the "Special" meant. Having delivered himself of these pronouncements in a manner which did not invite comment, Hakderman cordially bade me good-bye."

The key to the puzzle was that Nixon intended to offer Kissinger the post of National Security Advisor, and thought he had just done it. Halderman, too, was putting Kissinger “in the picture” on the assumption that he would be joining the team. The problem was that Kissinger himself was quite unconscious that any such offer had been made. This would have to be sorted out later.
"The White House Years", Henry Kissinger, pp12-13

Two days previously, Henry Kissinger had visited Richard Nixon, by appointment; Nixon had sounded out his views on the management of foreign policy, but the meeting had no clear objective or conclusion.
The mystery was cleared up today when Kissinger was invited to another meeting with John Mitchell.

I found John Mitchell seated behind his desk puffing a pipe. Self-confident and taciturn, he exuded authority. He came straight to the point; "What have you decided about the National Security job?"
"I did not know I had been offered it."
"Oh, Jesus Christ", said Mitchell, "he has screwed it up again." Mitchell rose from his swivel chair and lumbered out of the room. He returned in five minutes with the information that the President-elect wished to see me, and he escorted me down the hall.
This time it was clear what Nixon had in mind; I was offered the job of security adviser...

Meanwhile Kissinger's old patron, Nelson Rockefeller, had also seen Nixon, and had been informed "that he could be of greater service to his country as Governor of New York than as a Cabinet member".

"The White House Years", Henry Kissinger, pp13-14