The RFK Assassination

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"Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live."

Robert F. Kennedy

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Today is the 50th anniversary of the fatal shooting of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles after he had declared victory in the California presidential primary.

He didn't die immediately. He lingered for about 24 hours.

I have written on this blog before about my memories of that event. What I am thinking about today is the aftermath — when his body was brought back to New York for the funeral, then carried by train to Washington where he was buried next to his brother in Arlington Cemetery.

I remember watching the funeral service on TV — and seeing Sen. Edward Kennedy's moving eulogy to his brother. I remember the stoic demeanor of Kennedy's widow, Ethel. In the context of what had occurred in the preceding days, it was heart–breaking.

But I suppose my dominant memory is of the train making its way from New York to Washington. It is a distance of only about 200 miles — ordinarily a four–hour trip by train, historian Theodore White observed, but more than doubled by the crowds that came out to pay their respects. It seemed as if nearly everyone who lived between those two cities came out and stood beside the railroad tracks until the train carrying Kennedy's body went by.

At first, the crowds were mostly small groups, but as the train proceeded, the crowds grew larger, standing three, four, five rows deep, sometimes more. Every segment of the American population was represented — young, old, black, white, affluent, poor. Sometimes they spilled onto the tracks, forcing the train to slow down even more. My memory is that a handful of people may have been killed after being struck by the train.

There have been museum exhibits recently that sought to capture that experience for those who have no memory of that time, but the sensation is incomplete without knowledge of the signs that were always present during Kennedy's life — and followed him to his grave.

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When Kennedy walked among us, those signs encouraged him to seek the presidency or demanded justice after he made his decision to run. After he was shot and his fate was still unknown but widely anticipated, the signs read "Pray for Bobby." Along the train route, they simply said, "Goodbye" or "So long."

White tried to describe the scene — but how do you describe the indescribable?

"There were the family groups: husband holding sobbing wife, arm around her shoulders, trying to comfort her," he wrote. "Five nuns in a yellow pickup truck, tiptoeing high to see. A very fat father with three fat boys, he with his hand over his heart, each of the boys giving a different variant of the Boy Scout or school salute. And the people: the men from the great factories that line the tracks, standing at ease as they were taught as infantrymen, their arms folded over chests. Women on the back porches of the slum neighborhoods that line the tracks, in their housedresses, with ever–present rollers in their hair, crying. People in buildings, leaning from office windows, on the flat roofs of industrial plants, on the bluffs of the rivers, on the embankments of the railway cuts, a crust on every ridge and height. Pleasure boats in the rivers lined up in flotillas; automobiles parked on all the viaducts that crossed the line of the train. Brass bands — police bands, school bands, Catholic bands. Flags: individual flags dropped in salute by middle–aged men as the train passed, flags at half–staff from every public building on the way, entire classes of schoolchildren holding the little eight–by–ten flags, in that peppermint–striped flutter that marks every campaign trip. He turned them on, black and white, rich and poor. And they cried."

No other politician in modern history could connect with as many disparate groups as Bobby Kennedy. It is something no one tries to do anymore because it is so difficult to achieve. And in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

Fifty Years Since the Death of Martin Luther King

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"Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation."

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
April 3, 1968

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Today is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tenn.

Many articles have been written recapping that event for those not old enough to remember. It is not my intention to add to them. If the reader wants to know what brought King to Memphis, there are many sources for that information.

Nor is it necessary for me to discuss the aftermath of the assassination. Dr. King was the face of the civil rights movement. When that face was taken away, it sparked predictable violence across America — sadly, that violence also led to widespread looting, prompting Roy Wilkins, the executive secretary of the NAACP, to lament that "Martin's memory is being desecrated." It was more than that, really. It was a violation of the concept of home and the security that word implies.

"For home in America is as much home to blacks as to whites," historian Theodore H. White wrote at the time, "and violence menaces them as much as it does Americans of any color."

The night before he died, Dr. King said something that could just as easily have been said yesterday: "Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars."

Trouble is in the land today. One need look no further than San Bruno, Calif., or Austin, Texas, to see that.

Sometimes there is a racial aspect to the violence, but to focus on that alone is to miss the point; the truth is that race relations have improved in half a century. Segregated schools still existed in 1968. If they exist today, it is in the form of private schools to which only affluent families have access. Laws protect Americans from racial (and sexual) discrimination in the workplace.

Are there areas where improvement is needed? Of course. Wholesale change does not happen overnight — or even over decades. America has always been a work in progress. But there can be no denying that the America of 2018 is better than the America of 1968.

So on this day I would say that Dr. King's dream is partially fulfilled. Much work has been done, and much remains to be done.

The work will not be finished until all Americans, regardless of their color — or gender or age, for that matter — enjoy the same rights and privileges of citizenship.

Then the dream will be fulfilled.

The Turning of the Tide

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In hindsight it is neat and orderly to say that the Tet offensive, which began in late January 1968, was the turning point in Vietnam.

And, strategically, perhaps it was.

But public opinion had been turning against the war for quite awhile. The escalation of the conflict in the mid–1960s had spawned Eugene McCarthy's insurgent presidential campaign that would force President Lyndon Johnson to abandon any plans he had to seek another term, and it would lead to Bobby Kennedy's campaign as well. There were protests — and chaos — in American cities. It was a turbulent and terrifying time in American history.

Through it all, I suppose, a majority of Americans continued to believe that victory was still possible in Vietnam — until the Tet offensive revealed the weaknesses of America's war effort. While the Tet offensive failed to meet its military objectives, historian Theodore H. White called it "the shadow on the walls."

Again, in hindsight, it was. But no one really recognized the shadow for what it was — at least at first.

Two days into the offensive — 50 years ago today — one of the most famous photographs of the Vietnam era was taken. It would lead to a Pulitzer Prize for the photographer, Eddie Adams of the Associated Press, who snapped a picture of the execution in Saigon of Nguyễn Văn Lém, a Viet Cong operative who had been involved in the slayings of a South Vietnamese officer's wife and children.

It was a powerful picture, powerful enough to mobilize opposition to the war even — or, perhaps, especially — if the person looking at the picture did not know the details behind it. To the uninformed, it could well appear as if Vietnam was like the lawless old west with people being randomly murdered in the streets. The picture did not say why the man was being executed.

The executioner was Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, chief of South Vietnam's national police. He shot Nguyễn Văn Lém in front of Adams and a TV cameraman for NBC News. According to Adams, the shooter walked up to him and said, "They killed many of my people and yours, too," and walked off.

Film footage of the shooting was subsequently broadcast worldwide, invigorating the antiwar movement and providing the first of many shocking, unexpected and critical moments in what would be a thoroughly unpredictable year, filled with riots in the streets and assassinations.

But it could really be said to have begun on this day with the shooting of one man in the streets of Saigon.

Wisconsin: A Maverick Wild Card

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"It was Wisconsin, as a matter of fact, that in 1903 first invented the presidential primary, which so many other states have since copied. And the political philosophy that inspired that revolutionary invention has made and left Wisconsin in political terms an unorganized state, a totally unpredictable state, a state whose primaries have over many quadrennials proved the graveyard of great men's presidential ambitions."

Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1960

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When Theodore White wrote the above, it was a very different political landscape across the United States than the one we have today. When all is said and done, more than three dozen states will have held presidential primaries in 2016. In 1960, only 14 states and the District of Columbia held primaries.

Most state delegations were chosen at state party conventions in those days. A primary's value was more symbolic than actual. In 1960, Wisconsin's primary was the second in the nation, coming four weeks after the New Hampshire primary. John F. Kennedy, from neighboring Massachusetts, easily won the New Hampshire primary as expected. Wisconsin's importance was that it would demonstrate whether Kennedy appealed to voters outside his native region.

Kennedy did win Wisconsin, receiving 56% of the vote, but it was determined that much of his margin in that primary came from heavily Catholic precincts. It would be a month later, when Kennedy trounced Hubert Humphrey in heavily Protestant West Virginia, that he demonstrated conclusively that he could win the popular support of Protestant voters outside of New England.

Still there is little doubt that Kennedy's wave of momentum began in Wisconsin on April 5, 1960.

As we round the stretch and head toward the finish line in Wisconsin two days from now, it is worth reviewing the recent history of the Wisconsin primary because it has been such a maverick state — and if the front–runners in both parties lose there, as polls currently suggest they will, it could change the dynamics of both races.

Wisconsin may still prove to be "the graveyard of great men's presidential ambitions."

When White wrote that 55 years ago, he had no way of knowing that eight years later a president would drop out of the race because of an insurgent challenger (and his own problems with a civil war in Southeast Asia). A few days later — and only two days before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. — the insurgent, Minnesota Sen. Gene McCarthy (the Bernie Sanders of his day), won Wisconsin's primary with 56% of the vote.

"[I]n Wisconsin," White wrote in his book on the 1968 presidential election, "one could see naked the end of the historic Johnson mandate of 1964."

In 1972 Sen. George McGovern used his victory in Wisconsin as his springboard to the nomination, eclipsing pre–Democrat primary campaign front–runner Ed Muskie and former Vice President Hubert Humphrey with 30% of the vote in a 10–candidate field.

In 1976 President Gerald Ford got off to a fast start, winning the first five primaries and the Iowa caucus, prompting many party leaders to openly encourage former California Gov. Ronald Reagan to withdraw prior to the North Carolina primary. If Reagan had withdrawn, it might well have ended his hopes of winning the presidency. But he won North Carolina, and the candidates moved on to Wisconsin two weeks later — even though Reagan had more or less written off Wisconsin because of a money crunch brought on largely by his losing streak in the primaries.

Although momentum was with Reagan after the North Carolina primary, Wisconsin sided with the president. It might well have backed the challenger, who took 44% of the vote, if he had been able to run the kind of advertising campaign that would have been necessary to defeat a sitting president. Reagan went on to win the Texas primary and made a close race of it right up to the party's convention in Kansas City that summer, but many people — myself included — believe the decision to more or less bypass Wisconsin was the greatest mistake Reagan made in the 1976 campaign.

On the Democratic side, former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter scored an upset over liberal Mo Udall, who had been counting on Wisconsin's liberal tradition to juice up his campaign.

Instead, Carter won, 36.6% to 35.6%, and the momentum carried Carter to the nomination in July and the presidency in November.

In 1980, Reagan had been alternating electoral momentum with George H.W. Bush in the primaries until he won Wisconsin. After that, he seldom lost another primary, won the nomination and went on to win the presidency.

If you're curious as to the kind of effect that Trump's recent gaffe on abortion can have, it might be useful to remember the 1992 Democratic primary in Wisconsin.

Former California Gov. Jerry Brown announced in New York that, if he was the nominee, he would give Rev. Jesse Jackson serious consideration for the running mate slot. Jackson, the first true black contender for the presidency, was a controversial figure; when the votes were counted in Wisconsin, Bill Clinton defeated Brown by 37.2% to 34.5%. Clinton won all but two of the remaining electoral contests and claimed the party's nomination that summer.

Wisconsin is a legitimate wild card, capable of producing perhaps the only true political drama until this summer's conventions.

Republican front–runner Donald Trump and Democratic front–runner Hillary Clinton are currently running second in Wisconsin polls. If those polls prove to be correct, it could change the complexion of the races.

As Leo once said on The West Wing, "I'd watch."

Fifty Years Since the Freedom Summer Murders

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"Mississippi seems almost too small a state to torment the conscience of the nation so deeply. Two little communities live there, entirely separated, hating and fearing each other in a condition of total lawlessness and immorality. ... [F]or three centuries, they have had only animal relations with each other, and all politics, all decision, is magnetized by the primordial fact of race hatred."

Theodore H. White
"The Making of the President 1964"

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In 1964, Ole Miss history professor James Silver labeled Mississippi the "closed society," and, as historian William Manchester observed, "it became clear as the 1960s progressed that an astonishing number of its people, white and black, were actually unaware of the civil rights movement. There were no attacks on the freedom riders there because the state police did not allow them the freedom of movement necessary to be mobbed."

As hard as it may be for most 21st–century people, even those living in Mississippi, to understand, Mississippi seemed to exist under a huge bubble in those days. If they weren't aware of the civil rights movement before, though, Mississippians started to become aware of it 50 years ago tomorrow.

It was on that day in 1964 that three civil rights activists — two Northern white men and a Mississippi black man — went missing in Neshoba County, Miss. After training in Ohio for what was being called "Freedom Summer" — and being given explicit instructions for what to do if they encountered any local resistance — more than 200 volunteers departed for the South on June 19 and arrived on June 21.

"Almost immediately," wrote Manchester, "three of them were reported missing."

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In hindsight, the scenarios that were suggested while the three were officially missing — their bodies were found about six weeks after their disappearance — may seem outlandish, but, at the time, they probably seemed thoroughly plausible to white Southerners who were openly fearful of intervention by "outside agitators."

While the search went on, as lakes and rivers were being dragged and helicopters were doing aerial reconnaissance, rumors were spread that the three had actually gone to Cuba or Chicago, where they were laughing at all the fuss their "disappearance" had caused.

If only that had been true.

In reality, what had happened was that the three were taken into custody that afternoon for allegedly speeding. They were held for about six hours while the execution squad was assembled, then they were released after reportedly paying a fine. They were never seen alive again.

Here is what happened, according to the story that emerged after their bodies were found.

Shortly after their release, the men were stopped by the execution squad. They were taken to a remote location and shot at point–blank range; the black man was savagely beaten before he was shot. Their bodies were buried near the base of a dam and not found for weeks; their car was burned and left on an abandoned logging road. It was found the day after the three disappeared.

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In the early weeks of the search for the three missing civil rights workers, the prevailing opinion among white Mississippians, Manchester wrote, was that the searchers "had no expectation of finding the youths. They were there ... to win Negro votes for President Johnson" in his campaign against Arizona Republican Barry Goldwater.

(That wouldn't help in Mississippi. Comparatively few blacks voted in Mississippi in those days — but, since Mississippi gave Goldwater more than 87% of its vote, Johnson probably didn't expect to carry Mississippi, anyway.)

Eventually the searchers did find the bodies after the case had drawn national attention. In the account of the killings that emerged, the deputy sheriff addressed the men after the bodies were buried. "You've struck a blow for the white man," he said. "Mississippi can be proud of you." Then he warned them all to remain silent — or risk certain death.

Three years later, the case led to the conviction in federal court of seven members of the execution squad for depriving the men of their rights.

It was the first successful prosecution of a civil rights case in Mississippi.

If you're one of the so–called "millennials," that might not seem so special. But let's put it into some perspective.

When America was founded, the Founding Fathers wanted the states to have most of the say over how things were done within their state boundaries. Thus, most criminal charges, like homicide and theft, were — and still are — state charges. The federal courts get involved only when an alleged crime involves a federal law or cases reach the federal level in the appeals process.

These murders were committed at a time when juries in Mississippi — and most of the South, for that matter — routinely acquitted white defendants charged with killing blacks.

Federal authorities knew this so they used the strategy of prosecuting in federal court with the strongest charge in their arsenal — depriving the victims of their civil rights.

Compared to depriving someone of life, that may not seem like much, but it was that or nothing. Prosecutors operated on the belief that something was better than nothing.

Insurgency in New Hampshire

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"On Tuesday, March 10, New Hampshire enjoyed an old–fashioned New England blizzard: up to 14 inches of snow from the Canadian to the Massachusetts border — snow crusting the kepis of the Union veterans, snow blocking Gov. John King's new state highways, snow slushing the streets of Manchester, snow over mill and factory and ski slope and farm. New Hampshire's polls closed at 7 p.m. ... By 7:18, Walter Cronkite announced over CBS that Henry Cabot Lodge had won New Hampshire."

Theodore H. White
"The Making of the President 1964"

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To say the least, it was an unexpected way to begin the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

In 1964, the Republican Party was divided between its conservatives and its moderates. Former Vice President Richard Nixon managed to bring the two groups together in 1960, but he wasn't a candidate in 1964. Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona was the favorite of the insurgent conservatives, and Gov. Nelson Rockefeller of New York was the candidate of the establishment moderates.

"By 1964, New Hampshire was not quite so rural, Yankee and insular as popular myth held it," recalls the Manchester (N.H.) Union–Leader. "Yet the 1964 primary provided a result so startling that the belief in the Yankee traits of independence and inscrutability would find new life."

Startling was probably a good way to describe 1964.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963 cast a dark shadow over everything. It was a startling event — to put it mildly — and it changed the political landscape in 1964.

Historian Theodore White wrote that, until the assassination, Goldwater saw Kennedy as "history's perfect opponent." The two men would "debate the issues up and down the country, they would draw the line between the conservative and liberal philosophies," much as they had when they had been colleagues in the Senate. Goldwater expected to lose, but he also expected to do well enough to put the fledgling conservative movement in position for greater things in the future.

Goldwater genuinely liked Kennedy, White wrote. When they were in the Senate together, Goldwater often chided Kennedy with "Your father would have spanked you" for casting certain votes. They disagreed often, but they liked each other.

"And then came the assassination," White wrote. "The assassination shocked Goldwater as it shocked every American by its brutality and senselessness. ... Now, after the assassination, he was faced with running against another man, a Southerner, of an entirely different sort. "

Goldwater was heartsick, White wrote. He had received hundreds of hateful letters "as if he, personally, were responsible for the killing of the man he was so fond of." He thought of abandoning his campaign, then thought better of it.

When the campaign for the nomination began, Rockefeller was seen as the front–runner, but he lost considerable momentum due to a couple of related personal issues. First was the subject of his recent divorce. At the time, no president had ever been divorced, and that was enough of a social taboo by itself (at least until once–divorced Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980).

But then Rockefeller remarried in 1963. His bride, who was 15 years younger, had recently been divorced, too, and she had given up custody of her four children to her ex–husband. That was a double whammy.

"Have we come to the point in our life as a nation," asked Prescott Bush, the father and grandfather of presidents, "where the governor of a great state, one who perhaps aspires to the nomination for president of the United States, can desert a good wife, mother of his grown children, divorce her, then persuade a young mother of four youngsters to abandon her husband and their four children and marry the governor?"

So that was working against Rockefeller, who lost 20 percentage points among Republicans amid rumors that he had been having an affair with his bride while she was still married. The rumors were fueled by the rapid succession of events — her divorce quickly followed by her remarriage to Rockefeller. The appearance of it would cost Rockefeller the nomination, many said, although many also were not comfortable with Goldwater.

The race between Goldwater and Rockefeller was regarded as close when New Hampshire's voters went to the polls 50 years ago today. Both sides thought they would win, but neither one did.

They were undone by ex–Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, Nixon's 1960 running mate who won the primary as a write–in. Lodge received 36% of the vote to 22% for Goldwater, 21% for Rockefeller and 17% for Nixon.

To say the least, it was a surprising outcome. Some folks probably were shocked, and Lodge likely was one of them. The whole write–in movement had been the work of a small group of political novices; Lodge didn't think it would amount to much and made no effort to encourage the movement. In fact, he had renounced it two months earlier.

But former President Dwight Eisenhower had publicly urged Lodge to run in December, and moderate Republicans were encouraged the day before the primary when it was revealed that Lodge had not had his name removed from the ballot in Oregon, site of the next officially contested primary.

It was a time when delegates were still won in caucuses or state conventions, not primaries, and that was the path to the nomination for presidential hopefuls, but contested primary results were often viewed as evidence of a candidate's vote–getting ability (or lack thereof).

In the aftermath of the New Hampshire primary, all the attention was on Lodge. Without lifting a finger, he had won the first Republican primary. But there would be no more legitimate tests of vote–winning skills for a couple of months.

Illinois actually was next on the political calendar, but the state's party leadership was staunchly behind Goldwater. New Jersey's primary was a week later. No candidates had filed so all votes were write–ins.

Primaries were held in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania the week after that. No candidates appeared on the ballots in those states, either. The day before the primaries, Rockefeller called for air strikes in Laos and Cambodia to help South Vietnam. It was a controversial position. Lodge won Massachusetts, Pennsylvania voted for its governor, and Rockefeller received 9–10% of the vote in both.

Mostly uncontested primaries followed in Indiana, Nebraska, Ohio and West Virginia.

Lodge began to reconsider when the write–in campaign paid off with a victory in New Hampshire. So did the press and GOP elders.

Lodge won primaries in Massachusetts (the state he had represented in the U.S. Senate) and New Jersey, but then he decided that he really didn't want to be president and withdrew his name from consideration.

As the campaign moved West for the Oregon primary, White wrote, "Lodge's picture was on the magazine covers across the country; Lodge led every poll from coast to coast. ...

"In the aftermath of the New Hampshire primary," White wrote, "Oregon's Republicans shifted as the nation's Republicans shifted, and the first Harris (Poll) samplings showed thus: for Lodge, 46%; for Nixon, 17%; for Goldwater, 14%; for Rockefeller, 13%."

"For Rockefeller," wrote White, "the name of the game was now impact. From New Hampshire on, there was no longer any realistic chance of his becoming the Republican nominee. But to veto the choice of Goldwater, he must prove before the convention assembled that Republican voters would not have Goldwater on any terms."

That next round would belong to Rockefeller — but the nomination would go to Goldwater.

Television's First Live Murder

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Fifty years ago, plans were being finalized in Washington for John F. Kennedy's funeral the next day.

Back in Texas, churches in Dallas were holding their usual Sunday services under most unusual circumstances. At Dallas' Northaven Methodist Church, Rev. Bill Holmes gave a sermon that is still talked about half a century later. Holmes told the congregation that Dallas could not avoid its own responsibility for the assassination even if only one man pulled the trigger.

As Holmes spoke, the suspect in Kennedy's assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, was gunned down while being transferred from police headquarters to Dallas County's jail. The TV networks provided live coverage so some folks who were watching their TVs instead of attending church to pray for the Kennedys saw Oswald get shot by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner.

"The killing occurred in the presence of 70 uniformed Dallas policemen," wrote historian William Manchester. "Because NBC was televising the transfer, it was also television's first live murder."

That shooting left a gaping wound in the American experience that probably will never heal.

Because Oswald's death meant some questions will remain unanswered — no matter what kind of evidence is uncovered. There were questions that only Oswald could have answered. Investigators might have been able to establish whether he spoke the truth or not. But without Oswald's testimony — like the forensic evidence that was lost when the limousine was cleaned of blood spatter and John Connally's suit was sent to the dry cleaners — the case will forever remain unresolved.

Nothing that has been uncovered in the last half–century has definitively established the guilt or innocence of anyone.

The killing of Oswald short–circuited the American judicial system. Admittedly, it doesn't always work, but it was the only hope to get Oswald's side of the story. Maybe he would have told the truth. Maybe he wouldn't. That is the kind of thing that juries must decide, and, most of the time, jurors simply have to hope that they have seen and heard enough evidence to reach the right conclusion.

That hope was snuffed out by Ruby, acting as judge, jury and executioner, 50 years ago today — but that is only if one accepts what he said at the time. Conspiracy theorists cite Ruby's organized crime connections and speculate he was sent to rub out Oswald to keep him from talking.

In the words of John Pope of the New Orleans Times–Picayune, Oswald's death "opened the floodgates to a tsunami of speculation about Kennedy's murder." Is it any wonder that JFK conspiracy theories have found a welcome audience from an America still seeking closure for what happened here 50 years ago?

Three previous American presidents had been killed by assassins. The American public managed to achieve closure with two of them when the accused assassins were arrested, charged and eventually convicted. The absence of an assassin to convict, to hold responsible leaves a wound that does not heal easily.

The first presidential assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was killed before he could be brought to trial, which was another supposed link between the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy (a list of such links has been making the rounds almost since the day Kennedy was killed, but many of the items on the list have been discredited). And, to a degree, I suppose, the assassination of Lincoln by a Southern sympathizer led to more than a decade of abuse, known to history as the Reconstruction era. Was that because there was no formal trial for Booth? I don't know.

No one disputed that Booth shot Lincoln. There was a theater full of witnesses who saw Booth leap from Lincoln's box after the shooting. I have heard of no credible witnesses who could identify Oswald as the man who fired at Kennedy from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

"It would have been easier for the American people to accept any enemy, any conspiracy, any plot and then avenge John F. Kennedy," Theodore White wrote. "But what they had to face was an act of unreason, avenged by an individual act of obscenity."

That "act of obscenity" was witnessed by millions and captured on film. There was no doubt about who killed Oswald.

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But doubts about who killed John F. Kennedy have lingered now for half a century.

I believe they will linger forever.

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.

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.

The Passing of a 'Giant' Among Journalists

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"Before politics was fed into computers and moveable maps came out, Jack Germond had it all in his head."

Walter Mears
Former Associated Press reporter

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Journalist Jack Germond, who died last week, was, in the words of colleague Jules Witcover, "a giant" of American journalism.

Many years ago, I read — for the first time — "Marathon," the book Witcover and Germond co–authored on the 1976 presidential campaign. I have read it several times since, each time with greater admiration.

The task was something of a marathon itself. The campaign was legendary at the time because the eventual winner, Jimmy Carter, had been running for a couple of years and, in that time, had risen from virtual obscurity to the presidency.

But you couldn't really tell the story of that campaign without going into a certain amount of detail on the Watergate scandal and the resignation of the man who won the previous presidential election, Richard Nixon.

So, whereas historian Theodore White had the luxury of writing about a single year — and, perhaps, a portion of another — in his groundbreaking accounts of presidential elections from 1960 to 1972, Witcover and Germond had to write about virtually the entire four–year period between the 1972 and 1976 elections.

They also had to write about something that was new in presidential politics at that time. Carter rose to prominence in large part because, unlike previous presidential hopefuls who chose to enter some primaries but not others, Carter ran everywhere. Germond and Witcover chronicled that development meticulously.

Nixon probably was the last president to take the traditional route to the White House. His campaigns in 1968 and 1972 were the transition from old–style presidential politics, in which nominations were decided by delegates who were handpicked by party elites, to modern presidential politics, in which the popular vote in primary elections tends to determine how a state's delegation will vote at the national convention.

And Witcover and Germond were there to report on it — for their contemporaries and the generations to follow.

"Jack was a truly dedicated reporter and had an old–fashioned relationship with politicians," Witcover told the Baltimore Sun. "He liked them, but that did not prevent him from being critical when they did bad things and behaved badly."

Journalists like Germond achieved a new influence on American politics during the transition of which Germond wrote. He was, in the words of NPR's David Folkenflik, "one of the reporters who helped to determine presidential winners and losers."

Howard Kurtz echoed Witcover's sentiment.

"Germond ... was a throwback in more ways than one," Kurtz wrote for Fox News, "a poker–playing, racetrack–dwelling, Falstaffian figure who would close down the bar at New Hampshire's Wayfarer Inn, then be up at 7 the next morning interviewing county chairmen."

Ah, yes, the horse racing thing. That is another passion I shared with Germond. I don't know how Germond came by it.

I've always enjoyed horse racing, but I discovered a true passion for it when I worked as a copy editor for the Arkansas Gazette's sports department.

I don't know if Germond ever did any better than I did at the track. I hope he did.

I do know that he achieved things in journalism I probably will never achieve. And I'm all right with that.

Because there aren't many Jack Germonds — maybe one or two — in a lifetime.

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.

The Empire Strikes Back

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"You will be better advised to watch what we do instead of what we say."

John Mitchell
July 1969

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John Dean had wrapped up his testimony about a week and a half earlier, and Congress had adjourned for its July 4 recess.

When the Senate Watergate Committee resumed its business 40 years ago today, the former attorney general of the United States and former manager of Richard Nixon's re–election campaign, John Mitchell, was scheduled to testify. He testified for three days.

Mitchell and Nixon were friends before Nixon became president. They had been friends since 1946, and they were colleagues on the same law firm before Nixon launched his second campaign for the presidency. Mitchell managed Nixon's successful 1968 bid and Nixon's re–election campaign in 1972 as well.

For whatever reason, Mitchell had Nixon's full confidence. Many Americans did not realize this 40 years ago, but Mitchell seemed to understand Nixon's personality — and, as a result, occupied a unique role among Nixon confidantes.

He might have been better suited to be Nixon's chief of staff, but I suppose Nixon was drawn to Mitchell's accomplishments in the legal field.

When Mitchell joined Nixon's New York law firm in 1967, he occupied the office adjacent to Nixon's, Theodore White wrote in "Breach of Faith." The men had several things in common, White wrote — born only eight months apart, they were of the same generation, and both had been veterans of World War II.

"Nixon was lonely in New York," White wrote. "[H]e enjoyed visits to Mitchell's country home ... where he could pound the piano. Tart–tongued, bald–headed, Mitchell had an almost roguish charm — and an air of tough, unruffled calm. Smoking his pipe, he would sit at a conference table, almost always speak last, then speak with apparent good sense."

In his book about the 1972 campaign, White wrote that Mitchell was the "[h]ardest of all the hard men around the president, by far," and that truly was something in the Nixon White House. "[H]e was as charming a conversationalist as one could meet," White wrote, "and at the same time as cold a personality as one ever encounters in politics."

I didn't see Mitchell's testimony when it happened, but I saw clips from it many times after. And I would agree with White's assessment. Mitchell's cold public persona came across loud and clear.

When Mitchell began his testimony 40 years ago today, he was almost surely the most well–known representative of the Nixon administration to appear. Dean had made an instant splash because he was the first to point the finger at Richard Nixon. For that reason, more than any other, there had been much anticipation of his appearance. But he was virtually unknown before his testimony.

Two big names who would follow Mitchell into the witness chair in July 1973 — Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman — were highly placed Nixon loyalists, too, but they were not as well known. Like so many other things that summer, the relative anonymity of Haldeman and Ehrlichman would soon be things of the past, but, on this day in 1973, Mitchell was probably the most effective witness to make the case for Nixon in the aftermath of Dean's testimony.

And he took a bullet for Nixon 40 years ago today. He accused Magruder of lying in his testimony, and he disputed what Dean had said.

(Mitchell had a way with words. He was the one who labeled administration activities "White House horrors." It was a phrase members of the committee used when questioning Mitchell — sometimes incorrectly, in Mitchell's view. When Sam Dash, counsel for the majority, used the phrase in a reference to the Watergate break–in, Mitchell corrected him: "Those are not the White House horrors, Mr. Dash." The distinction? The planning of such an operation was a "White House horror;" the actual carrying out of the plan was not.)

But Mitchell's smug, often arrogant attitude, which may have been appropriate for a courtroom, made it hard for anyone, even Nixon's defenders on the Senate committee, to like him.

Dash asked Mitchell at one point about a meeting he had with G. Gordon Liddy at which illegal activities were discussed, "[W]hy didn't you throw Mr. Liddy out of your office?"

"Well, I think, Mr. Dash," Mitchell replied, "in hindsight I not only should have thrown him out of the office, I should have thrown him out of the window."

The remark drew a smattering of apparently sympathetic — and somewhat nervous — laughter.

"Well, since you did neither ..." Dash said as the committee room erupted in loud laughter, refusing to be diverted from his point, " why didn't you at least recommend that Mr. Liddy be fired from his responsible position at the [president's re–election] committee since obviously he was presenting to you an irresponsible program?"

To which Mitchell replied, "Well, in hindsight I probably should have done that, too."

Folks became more familiar with Haldeman and Ehrlichman when Mitchell testified for a second day.

After he returned to the stand, Mitchell said that Haldeman and Ehrlichman did participate in a coverup, but they did so to protect Nixon.

But first, he had to answer a question from Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye, who observed that Mitchell had testified that he regarded Nixon's re–election to be so important that he was "willing to engage in activities which have been well described as being irregular."

"To what length are you now willing to go to deceive in an effort to avoid further implication of the president in the activities under investigation by this panel?" Inouye asked. "More specifically, are you willing to lie to protect the president?"

"I do not have to make that choice," Mitchell answered, "because, to my knowledge, the president was not knowledgeable."

After being grilled by the committee chairman, Sen. Sam Ervin, on decisions he had made following the Watergate break‐in, Mitchell remarked, "It is a great trial being conducted up here, isn't it?"

On his third day of testimony, Mitchell was questioned about conflicts in his testimony and vigorously defended his credibility.

I have often wished that I could have seen Mitchell's testimony when it was happening because I get the feeling, from seeing brief video clips and reading transcripts of his testimony, that he wasn't persuasive.

If anything, he struck me as being evasive. I always thought he was a weaselly sort.

"[Y]ou enjoy the distinction ... that it was your purpose not to volunteer anything," Dash said at one point. "Is there a distinction between your not volunteering anything and lying? If you do not volunteer an answer to a direct question, you might say you do not volunteer anything, but actually you are lying."

Mitchell's reply? "I think we would have to find out what the specifics are, what the particular occasion and ..."

See what I mean?

A Cancer Growing on the Presidency

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"We have a cancer within, close to the presidency, that's growing."

John Dean to Richard Nixon
March 21, 1973

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When the Senate Watergate Committee convened in mid–May 1973, wrote Theodore H. White in "Breach of Faith," the committee's vague objective was to investigate 1972 presidential campaign activities.

In five weeks of hearings, the committee had heard some intriguing testimony but nothing that could directly link Richard Nixon to the crimes that had been committed in his name.

That started to change 40 years ago today when former White House counsel John Dean began a week of testimony.

Well, actually, the tide began to shift a couple of weeks earlier when Jeb Magruder, a former special assistant to the president and deputy director of Nixon's re–election campaign, testified that the former attorney general and campaign director, John Mitchell, had authorized him to burglarize the Democratic headquarters.

That certainly ratcheted up the interest in Dean's testimony. Mitchell and Nixon were close. Mitchell, after all, had directed Nixon's campaigns in 1968 and 1972. In between, he had been Nixon's top law enforcement officer.

There was nothing very exciting about the testimony on the surface, though. As theater, it was tedious. Dean delivered an opening statement on the first day in a lifeless monotone, and he referred to many people with whom viewers weren't necessarily familiar.

While there may have been nothing exciting about his delivery, there was plenty that was exciting in his testimony. And a buzz of excitement preceded his appearance before the Senate Watergate Committee. His testimony became must–see TV long before the phrase was used to promote a network schedule.

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Dean had a lot to tell the senators, and he used his entire first day on the stand to read a massive opening statement, pausing occasionally for a sip of water.

Dean told the senators that Nixon had been involved in the coverup all along. He also said he warned the president — prophetically, as it turned out — that "there was a cancer growing on the presidency and that if the cancer was not removed the president himself would be killed by it."

Looking back on that conversation, with the benefit of the transcript of the actual recording, White observed that Dean, in his choice of the cancer analogy, had "obviously thought through his briefing [for Nixon] carefully."

As the week went on, Dean told the senators that Nixon had misled the nation and insisted his accusations against Nixon were true. He revealed the existence of the "enemies list" and told the senators its purpose, and he told a story of a president who was obsessed with demonstrations and spoke of using IRS audits as weapons against his political foes.

Dean's testimony that week was often so detailed that some observers openly wondered how he could possibly have retained so much detail about conversations he'd had months earlier. To confirm what he said, it would be necessary to have some kind of corroborating evidence. But the conversations hadn't been recorded. Or had they?

"The televised hearings were already an unexpected hit that summer," wrote Matthew Cooper last month in the National Journal, "but the ratings soared with Dean's testimony. Still, when Dean finished, Nixon's defenders dismissed his account as one man's obfuscations and misinterpretations of what the president meant."

"Then, a few weeks later, a former White House aide named Alexander Butterfield testified before the committee that the president had installed a taping system in the White House," Cooper wrote.

And all bets were off.

The Peaks in a Scandal Investigation

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"Somewhere between my ambition and my ideals, I lost my ethical compass."

Jeb Magruder

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More than a quarter of a century passed between our births, and I was still a boy when he appeared before the Senate Watergate Committee 40 years ago today.

It's fair to say I didn't completely understand what was happening. Nevertheless, I understood enough that I must say I kind of empathized with Jeb Magruder. I couldn't really help it.

He had had a meteoric rise. He started out as a salesman, then, when he was 34, he was appointed to the White House staff. For one so young, it must have been mind–boggling.

It also led him to do things in his service to Richard Nixon that he almost certainly never imagined he would do. But I always admired the fact that he never tried to pass the buck.

After informing the senators of his work for the Committee to Re–Elect the President (in which he participated in Nixon's 49–state triumph, at the time the second–largest electoral vote margin in history), he said, "Unfortunately, we made some mistakes in the campaign ... For those errors in judgment that I made, I take full responsibility. I am, after all, a mature man, and I am willing to face the consequences of my own acts."

In hindsight — and even at the time — most people would say they were more than errors. But perhaps that is semantic quibbling. Magruder did confess to his own guilt when he testified before the Senate Watergate Committee — which is more than can be said of Nixon.

Magruder's testimony was the first, really, to put the coverup conspiracy inside the walls of the White House, but he was careful not to implicate Nixon when he did so. (He reversed that in a PBS documentary in 2003, nearly a decade after Nixon's death.)

"These mistakes were made by only a few participants in the campaign," Magruder insisted 40 years ago today. "Thousands ... assisted in the campaign to re–elect the president, and they did nothing illegal or unethical. [A]t no point ... did the president have any knowledge of our errors in this matter."

Magruder did assert, however, that John Mitchell, John Dean and Bob Haldeman were involved. That wasn't exactly news in June 1973 — but now it was on the record. That was an important legal step.

In his book "Breach of Faith," Theodore H. White wrote of how the committee's investigation had moved slowly at first and likened its progress to hiking up a trail and reaching peaks along the way.

With his testimony, White wrote, "Magruder made the first peak — publicly, under oath, he said the authority to burglarize Democratic headquarters had been given him directly by the former attorney general, John Mitchell."

Magruder went on to write a book titled "An American Life: One Man's Road to Watergate," but he followed a rather different path to his testimony before the Watergate Committee.

In "All the President's Men," Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein wrote that Magruder, initially reluctant to say anything, had been regarded as a "super–loyalist" — but he went to the prosecutors in April of 1973 when the house of cards that was the coverup was collapsing around him.

One of Woodward's sources within Nixon's re–election campaign organization told him Magruder would be "the next McCord" — a reference to Watergate burglar James McCord's letter to Judge John Sirica in early 1973 just before the burglars were to be sentenced. It prevented the sentencing from being that last act in the Watergate drama — and was, in White's words, a "peak" in the Watergate scandal.

Much like Magruder's testimony 40 years ago today — although I don't think I would call it a game changer.

The Nixon White House had kept the Watergate scandal under wraps for nearly a year — until McCord began talking about things like perjury and hush money — and they managed to keep a lid on things for awhile longer.

But the peaks in the investigation were coming more frequently now. The next one would come within two weeks when John Dean took the stand.

The Shooting of Robert Kennedy

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Five years ago, just a few days before the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, I wrote of my memories of that time.

Today is the 45th anniversary of that event, and I have no new revelations about it to share. Neither, it seems, does anyone else, although I have been fascinated by the articles I have found on the subject.

Five years ago in Newsweek, for example, Evan Thomas wrote about the looming "what if" from 1968: What if Kennedy had not been killed? Would he have spared the nation the agony of Watergate?

Thomas never really answered that question. He wrote of the pros and cons of Kennedy's personality and candidacy — and he did point out some inconvenient historical truths. For example, Americans in the 21st century are conditioned to believe that presidential candidates win their party's nominations via the primary route, and Kennedy won many primaries in the spring of 1968 — but choosing delegates in primaries is a fairly recent political phenomenon.

In 1968, most convention delegates were still selected by party bosses, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey was the choice of the Democratic Party's establishment. It is by no means certain that Kennedy would have prevailed at the party's convention later that summer in Chicago.

To me, though, the fact that Thomas' question was even asked in 2008 seems to be proof of what Theodore H. White wrote in "The Making of the President 1968":

"The gash that Robert F. Kennedy tore in the story of 1968 aches still — aches in personal memory, but more in history itself. Of all the men who challenged for the presidency, he alone, by the assassin's bullets, was deprived of the final judgment of his party and people."

Clearly, the "gash," as White put it, still ached after four decades.

A year earlier, in The Independent, Liz Hoggard recounted the event as Emilio Estevez's movie "Bobby" was in theaters. That was interesting, but it really added nothing to what was known about the shooting.

Last year, Michael Martinez and Brad Johnson of CNN reported that a witness had told them there was a second shooter in the pantry that night.

To date, nothing seems to have come from that assertion.

An interesting addition to the story came from CBS recently. CBS reported the story of a black doctor who did what he could to save Kennedy's life.

That is interesting, as I say, but it really adds nothing to the tale. The doctor wasn't successful, and it provides no evidence of who else might have been involved.

A few days ago, Gina Logue of the Murfreesboro (Tenn.) Post wrote that Kennedy's assassination was the end of our national innocence.

I'm not so sure I buy that one, but I will agree that it was a traumatic event for the country.

A lot of things have been described as the end of our national innocence, but I'm inclined to think that there is some event like that for every generation.

I really began to think that five years ago. At the time, I was working for an online study guide. Two young women in their 20s were working with me. We wrote history and civics questions and lessons for students in subscribing school districts to use.

Around this time, I recall hearing one of them ask sort of general questions about Bobby Kennedy that told me she knew nothing about him — other than the fact that he had the same last name as the president who was killed here in Dallas nearly 50 years ago.

She had been affected more by Princess Diana's untimely death 10 years earlier. That was probably the major innocence–robbing event for her generation — at least until 9–11.

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Folks in that age group really can't understand how different it was for my generation, who had only three TV networks (and no internet) — nor can my generation truly understand what it was like for our parents, who grew up with the radio and nothing else, not even a landline phone, in many homes.

There's no question that the shooting of Bobby Kennedy, like the shooting of Martin Luther King a couple of months earlier, had a profound effect on everyone. But, in a culture that had been rocked by the killing of a president, the murders of civil rights activists in Mississippi, race riots, a seemingly never–ending war, the fiery launching–pad deaths of three astronauts and King's shooting within the previous five years, it's hard to justify regarding it as a generational flash point.

More like one in a series of flash points.