All language subtitles for 1968.The.Year.That.Changed.America.S01E01.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-AlfaHD_Subtitles01_Unnamed.ENG

- ♪ Hello, darkness,
my old friend ♪

♪ I've come to talk
with you again ♪

- The enemy is not beaten,

but he has met his master
in the field.

- I'd like to say hi
to Mom back there at home.

I know she's worried about me,
so hello, Mom.

- ♪ And the vision
that was planted in my brain ♪

- Diana Ross, yes.
- Diana Ross.

Everybody knows Diana Ross.
You're how many years old?

- 23 years old
forever and ever.

- We are planning
simultaneous action

in many cities.

- ♪ In restless dreams,
I walked alone ♪

♪ Narrow streets
of cobblestone ♪

- Today I state
that I am a candidate

for president
of the United States.

- I want it
to be confirmed that I

will be in
the New Hampshire primary.

- ♪ I turned my collar
to the cold and damp ♪

- Well, I think
we have to support, uh,

the president
and the administration.

- ♪ By the flash
of a neon light ♪

♪ That split the night

♪ And whispered

♪ In the sounds

♪ Of silence

- Mr. Speaker, Mr. President,

members of the Congress,
and my fellow Americans,

I was thinking as I was walking
down the aisle there tonight

of what Sam Rayburn
told me many years ago:

the Congress always extends
a very warm welcome

to the president
as he comes in.

- As 1967 faded into 1968,

Lyndon Johnson
knew he had compiled

one of the most
important presidencies

for domestic policy
in history.

- Our food programs have
already helped millions

avoid the horrors of famine.

And last year,
Medicare and Medicaid

brought better health to more
than 25 million Americans.

- Also, that great period
in which he passed

all this landmark
civil rights legislation,

dismantling much
of institutionalized racism,

would give him
a place in history.

- In terms of civil rights,
no tree in the forest

is as tall as Lincoln's
except Lyndon Johnson.

- If ever there was
a nation that was capable

of solving its problems,
it is this nation.

- Johnson had to be the best.

He just was driven
by this idea to be top dog.

That's also how he felt
about Vietnam.

- Since I reported to you
last January,

the enemy has been defeated
in battle after battle.

- He knew all of that
would make him a candidate

for some future
Mount Rushmore.

But he also knew
that he was unlikely

to be in any future
Mount Rushmore

because of the Vietnam War.

This was the frustration

that made Lyndon Johnson's
fingernails sweat.

- B-52 bombers today
made six raids

on North Vietnamese positions

around the United States
Marine base at Khe Sanh.

- Khe Sanh is a Marine base

up in the northwestern corner
of South Vietnam.

And North Vietnamese forces

start surrounding it
and attacking it.

- 6,000 American Marines and
500 South Vietnamese Rangers

are surrounded by
40,000 Communist troops.

- And General Westmoreland
says, "This is great.

This is the big culminating
battle that we've wanted."

- Johnson is very worried
that the outcome of this battle

could change
the outcome of the war.

- The eyes of the nation

and of all history itself...

Are on that little
brave band of defenders

at Khe Sanh and the area
that is around it.

- It's hard for me to imagine

that the '60s would've
turned out the way they did

had there been
no war in Vietnam.

all:
Peace now! Peace now!

- They raise their voices,
their placards,

and they march
against the government.

- 1968 is the
culminating moment

for a generation
of young people

who really
couldn't understand,

with so much unrest at home,

why there were
so many resources

going into the Vietnam War.

- I had a big sign on
my bulletin board at home

that said, "Alienation is when
your country is at war

and you want
the other side to win."

- They're stampeding people.

They just ran someone down
back there.

- To understand the passion
behind the antiwar movement,

you have to keep in mind

that the United States
had a draft at the time,

that every year,
young men were waiting

to find out would
their number be the number

that's chosen for service?

- President Johnson
orders another

10,500 men sent to the war.

- And there is also
a sense that

even if you weren't chosen,
your friends were chosen.

So you're in it together
as a generation.

- In the beginning,
it was said we were simply

sustaining and strengthening
South Vietnam.

Well, the early escalation
did not satisfy that,

and so the objective
was extended to include

nation-building
in South Vietnam.

Then we were told
that we were saving

all of southeastern Asia.

- Eugene McCarthy was
this senator from Minnesota

who entered
the New Hampshire primary

as an anti-Vietnam War
candidate.

And the young people
flocked to his banner.

They cut their hair off.
They put on clean clothes.

The saying at the time
was that they were

"going clean for Gene."

- It's just crucial you pay
very close attention

to the appearance
you are presenting.

- Good afternoon, we're
representing Senator McCarthy,

who's seeking the Democratic
nomination for president.

- Right.

- When McCarthy
chose to be a candidate,

I dropped out, you know,

at the end
of the first semester

and went to work
for the campaign.

The issue was Vietnam.

- You have to say that

this war has gone too far.

- What makes 1968
such a pivotal year

in American history
is that an incumbent president

couldn't seem to hold
his party together.

- Will there be some kind of
split in the Democratic Party?

They're all getting
quite vocal.

- Yes.
- They're saying that

if the Republicans
nominate a moderate

or a liberal Republican,

Democrats will come over
and support him

and the conservatives
in the Republican Party

will go over and support
Lyndon Johnson.

- Yes.
- Is that possible?

- Yes.

- Now here is NBC News
correspondent Frank McGee.

- The new Communist campaign
in Vietnam continues.

Just after midnight their time,

a band of Vietcong raiders
blew up a power installation

and attacked two
police stations in Saigon.

At Hue,
the old imperial capital

400 miles to the north,

the Vietcong is holding on
to part of the town.

- I remember
there was a graphic

put up on the screen
on the news.

It was these
cartoon explosions

that were just all over
this little strip of a country

on the other side of the world.

- It all amounts
to the most ambitious series

of Communist attacks
yet mounted,

spreading violence into at
least ten provincial capitals,

stretching the entire length
of the country.

- For a year that was
supposed to start off

as being a grand,
sophisticated,

you know, exciting year,

it was redefined literally
in 48 hours by Tet.

- The attacks
on the night of the 31st

were really my first exposure
to major combat.

Initial reports
were very clouded,

and we couldn't really
get a good grasp

of what was happening,

except something was happening
all over Vietnam.

- This is the main
Vietnamese-language

radio station in Saigon.

- This neighborhood
is called "Bàn Co."

- Nha Trang.
- Saigon airport, Tan Son Nhat.

- Heavy casualties
in Hue, South Vietnam.

- Hear the rounds
flying low overhead.

- The Tet Offensive--
simultaneous attacks

on every city and town
in South Vietnam--

shocked the American people.

- The enemy, very deceitfully,

has taken advantage
of the Tet truce

in order to create
maximum consternation

within South Vietnam,

particularly
in the populated areas.

- Every year,
there was a cease-fire

on the lunar New Year
holidays known as Tet,

and they believed that year
would be the same thing.

But that wasn't what happened.

- These are our American
combat military police

and troops from the
101st Airborne Division,

half a block from
the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.

Vietcong snipers
and suicide commandos

were holed up inside
the embassy compound

and firing from
surrounding buildings.

Now CIA men and MPs
have gone into the embassy

and are trying
to get the snipers out...

by themselves.

- Military police got back
into the compound

of the $2 1/2 million
embassy complex at dawn.

The fighting went on
for a total of six hours

before the last known
Vietcong raider was killed

in the small residence
of the embassy's

mission coordinator,
George Jacobson,

who had been hiding out
all alone all morning.

- You had quite an escape
at the very end.

How did that happen?

- Well, they put riot gas

into the bottom floors
of my house,

which, of course, would drive
whoever was down below

up top where I was.

They had thrown me a pistol

about ten minutes
before this occurred.

And with all the luck
that I've had all of my life,

I got him before he got me.

- With the pistol.
- I'm sorry.

- And he had what?
- An M16.

- And you got him.

- That just really
scared people because it--

that showed Americans
being attacked,

the Marines unable
to defend the embassy.

In reality,
they did defend the embassy.

They--they killed them
and drove them back,

but it's not the way
it looked on TV.

And then at the same time,

the destruction of this
beautiful, ancient city of Hue,

and, you know, my God,
what are we doing here?

- It's been like this
all weekend in Hue--

one nasty little firefight
right after another.

Rounds going overhead.

Little firefight
across the Perfume River.

What do you think of
at a time like this?

- Oh, keeping down.

Bullets are flying overhead
too fast.

- Well, we weren't prepared
for combat in an urban area,

so we had to go in and, to use
the Marine Corps phrase,

we had to adapt,
improvise, and overcome

the many obstacles
and challenges that we had.

How do you cross a street?
How do you go in and attack

a fortified position
which is a home?

- Colonel Cheatham,
what are your men about to do?

- Well, I've got two companies
here that are just about

to clear the next
two blocks up.

- What kind of fighting
is it going to be?

- It's house to house
and from room to room.

- Had you ever expected

to experience this kind
of street fighting in Vietnam?

- No, I didn't.

I think this is the first time
the Marine Corps

has been street fighting
since Seoul in 1950.

- Most of the fighting
happens in the countryside.

But the North Vietnamese

political and military
leadership

believed that large-scale
military action in the cities

will stimulate
a popular uprising

and basically
make the American position

in South Vietnam untenable.

- He apparently hoped that

when his troops
mingled with the people,

intimidated them,
terrorized them,

that they would join his ranks.

- But the South Vietnamese
people don't rise up.

- The biggest fact is that

the stated purposes
of the general uprising,

a military victory
or psychological victory,

have failed.

- The Tet Offensive may have
been a huge military defeat

for the NLF
and the North Vietnamese,

but psychologically,
it was an enormous victory

because it suggested
that this war had no end.

- We lost a lot of people.

We probably have to
drop back today to regroup.

- How do you feel yourself?

- Scared, I guess.

But I'm hopeful we're
gonna drop back and regroup

'cause I lost my engineer,

and I need another man
to help me with my job.

- There was something
deeply corrupt

and even evil
in our involvement.

And I'll tell you the moment

that defined Tet
all over the world.

It was the moment
when General Loan,

who was the chief of police

of the Saigon
Police Department,

pulled out a snub-nosed
.38 revolver

and held it up to the temple
of a Vietcong

and shot him, bang.

Eddie Adams of the AP
took the picture.

It was, the next day,
all over the world.

And it was injected

right into the center
of the American brain,

and it made Americans
feel morally unclean.

Can it be that we, who are
the most idealistic people

in the world...

Can it be that
we're actually evil?

That was what Tet did.

- Awful sick of it.

I'll be so glad to go home.

I don't know, just,

it's the worst area we've been
in since I've been in Vietnam.

- Do you think it's worth it?

- Yeah, I--
I don't know, they--

they say we're fighting
for something, I don't know.

- 1,000 striking
sanitation workers

marched on Memphis City Hall
this afternoon

and demanded Mayor Henry Loeb
hear their grievances.

- On February 1st, in Memphis,

two sanitation workers
were crushed

in the back of a garbage truck.

Memphis policy did not
allow them to seek shelter

in a rainstorm because
the white citizens of Memphis

did not want to see sanitation
workers in their yards

and that sort of thing.

The rain was so terrible
that they got into the back

of this barrel trash truck,

and a broom fell on the--
the lever

and compacted them
with the garbage

and killed them.

- The situation in--
in Memphis was local.

That sense that
they were desperate

led them to accept
these conditions

until they just got
to be intolerable.

And then they went on strike.

- The garbage collectors,

predominantly Negro,

want higher pay
and union recognition.

- Public employees cannot
strike against their employer.

I suggest that you
go back to work.

- Police used riot control gas

and nightsticks this afternoon
to break up

a disturbance among a group
of striking garbagemen.

- Over 1,000 of us were maced,

and a march that stretched
from down

at the beginning
of that corner up to here

was broken up.

That became the cry,
essentially,

for the entire Negro community
to say,

well this--
the fight was on.

I saw that strike
as another part

of the emerging movement
of nonviolence

in the United States.

And that's the way
King saw it as well.

- The vast majority of Negroes

in our country
are still perishing

on a lonely island
of poverty in the midst

of a vast ocean
of material prosperity.

And it is criminal

to have people working
at a full-time job

getting part-time income.

- I think King was inspired
by that movement,

and he saw that as
a poor people's movement.

- We are poverty-stricken,
and we have been

at the bottom too long.

- It was always hard to be
Martin Luther King,

but it was really hard
in 1967, '68.

He had alienated many of his

moderately conservative
white allies

by his attack
on the war in Vietnam.

- Let us save
our national honor,

stop the bombing,

and stop the war.

- On the other hand,
his continued insistence

on nonviolence
had alienated him

from many activists
who felt that

nonviolence
had run its course.

- Is this what you want to do,
destroy the country?

- I'll destroy
a whole bunch of y'all.

- You want to destroy who, now?
You want to destroy who?

- You and a whole bunch
of others like you,

anybody who gets in our way.

- People started saying,
"We aren't gonna

"get our rights in
the Martin Luther King way,

"so what are we gonna do?

"We're gonna build black power.

"We're gonna build
black companies.

"We're gonna build
black organizations.

We're gonna have
our own power centers."

- Black power,

black power, my friends,

means that we are
developing now

a new breed of cats.

- This is what spurred
Stokely Carmichael.

- The major enemy is the honky
and his institutions of racism.

That's the major enemy.

- This is part of what spurred

the Black Panther Party
to organize.

all: ♪ No more pigs
in our community ♪

- With the pigs
and their mentors,

the people who control the pig,
the power structure.

- So there was a sea change

in the civil rights movement
and its goals,

and that impacts
the black perspective

being played out every day
in American society.

- ♪ Uh

♪ With your bad self

♪ Say it loud

♪ I'm black and I'm proud

♪ Say it loud

♪ I'm black and I'm proud

- "Say it loud.
I'm black and I'm proud."

There's no ambiguity there.

You know,
this is a civil rights anthem.

This is a black power anthem.

- I want you to know
that I'm a man,

a black man, a soul brother.

- James Brown had been the
dominant black musical figure.

He was the best showman
by far

in any genre of music.

He also was
a smart businessman.

He took over booking
of his own shows.

He owned radio stations.

- This is Tony Scott
from WRDW Augusta,

a James Brown station.

- So he was
the hardest-working man

in show business.

Then he becomes
soul brother number one.

- James Brown program.

- He's black and he's proud.

- Mr. Brown is number one
soul brother

in the United States.

- You know,
there's no question that

James Brown was a huge
influence for Sly Stone.

You hear it in the music.
But Sly Stone was different.

There were women,
and the band was integrated.

That was a big deal.

all: ♪ I

♪ Am everyday people

- Sly Stone is a product
of the black church

and also a child
of the Bay Area,

with its incredibly
progressive politics.

And he also was a radio DJ.

There was no show better,

there was no band
more interesting to look at,

and he was writing hit song
after hit song after hit song.

- ♪ Dance to the music

- When Sly came out with
Haight-Ashbury/pimp outfits,

it was over.

Every R&B group had to flip it.

- So in 1968, the Supremes
put out "Love Child."

both: ♪ Tenement slum

- And it's this whole idea
of, you know,

what it's like
to grow up in a tenement.

- ♪ Started my life

- "I started my life
in an old, cold,

rundown tenement slum."

- ♪ Tenement slum

- ♪ My father left
he never even married Mom ♪

♪ I shared the guilt
my mama knew ♪

♪ So afraid that others knew

♪ I had no name

♪ Oh

- Diana Ross is singing this?

You know, for The Supremes,

this is a darker,
more mature album.

They're actually singing
about some social issues.

And then you always
got to remember, you know,

Motown promoted itself
as the sound of young America.

They never promoted themselves
as the sound of black America.

For Motown,
that was a big step.

all: ♪ Love child

- ♪ Never meant to be
- ♪ Wait, won't you wait now

- ♪ Love child
- ♪ Scorned by

all: ♪ Society

- Have you thought
about graduate school?

- No.

- Would you mind
telling me, then,

what those four years
of college were for?

What was the point
of all that hard work?

- You got me.

- "The Graduate" is probably
the most important movie

of the '60s?

Maybe it's the best movie
of the '60s.

- Elaine!

Elaine!

- The pervasive sense
of alienation, of being

not at one
with the world around you,

that's the idea of the '60s,

and that is the crucial idea
of 1968.

- Now, you know,
we are just about

the friendliest folks
you would ever want to meet.

- In "Bonnie and Clyde,"
Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway

play this impossibly
attractive couple

robbing banks as some kind of,
you know,

sexual sublimation.

- What's it like?

- When it was released in '67,

people didn't know
how to take it.

- What you mean?
Prison?

- So it was rereleased
in early 1968.

- Armed robbery.

- It had a tone
that challenged people,

that they hadn't seen
in a film before.

And this was a movie
that changed the way people

regarded how those
sort of movies were done.

- So we go to see
"Planet of the Apes"

at a all-black theater
in Brooklyn.

And we're having the best time
because, like,

we identified with the apes.

Hell yeah, fuck--
fuck Charlton Heston.

I mean, you know,
why are we rooting for him?

- Do we want something?

Come on, speak.
Come on.

- Charlton Heston
lands on this planet,

and he realizes that
this planet is literally

a planet of the apes, except
the apes are now in charge.

- Take your stinking paws
off me, you damn dirty ape.

- Charlton Heston
would have to confront

the tragedy
of a broken civilization.

- You maniacs!

You blew it up!

Oh, damn you!

God damn you all to hell!

- This was a hit.

It really captured something
very deep in the psyche

of America in a year when
the cities were falling apart.

- Please go in your homes.

Please go in your homes.

- In 1965,
after the Civil Rights

and Voting Rights Acts passed,
you have the Watts riots.

And then in '66
and '67 in Newark.

In Detroit.

Dozens of people are killed,

and Johnson is chagrined.

And he says, "Look what
I've done for the blacks.

Why are they
doing this to me?"

- There had to be a response
to that by the establishment.

And that's what led
to the Kerner Commission.

- We need to know the answer,
I think,

to three basic questions
about these riots.

What happened?
Why did it happen?

What can be done to prevent it

from happening again and again?

- Now, asking the question
and accepting the answer

are two different things.

And they didn't like
the answer.

- For the last few days,

this country has lived
under indictment:

a charge of white racism,
national in scale,

terrible in its effects.

The evidence
to support that charge

has now been presented
in the text of a report

released just last night.

"Our nation," says the report,

"is moving toward
two separate societies,

black and white,
separate but unequal."

- Hands up!
- Get them up.

- Get your hands up.
Just go.

- You told people
by the Civil Rights Act

that we would have
more freedom,

and we told them that
they'd pass this law

and we'd have this.

When you give people hope

and you don't
fulfill that hope,

then you are more likely
to have problems.

- Every time I come to town,

you overcharge me
for everything I get.

And how in the world do you
expect for me to get it?

Then if I go out there
and steal something,

now, that's what make
criminals out of people.

You're not gonna
give them nothing,

just enough
to keep you eating.

Yeah, I eat breakfast
this morning.

I don't know where
dinner coming from.

How do you think I feel?

- In 12 out of 24 riots
studied by the commission,

the spark that
touched off disorder

was a violent response
of our own institutions.

- First one who drops
their hands is a dead man.

- The answer was that American
institutions created this

and that it was going to take

a lot of resources
to deal with it.

- George Wallace is a Southern
segregationist politician

and a former Democrat.

And he runs for president
as an independent

and taps into
the deepest wellsprings

of American rage and reaction.

- Well,
I think that the Negro,

no doubt about it,
has got out of hand,

and I think Wallace
will enforce law and order.

- You can see character
in his eyes,

got a little spark to him,
a little backbone, you know.

That's what--that's what
the American people need.

- Wallace realized
that if you could remove

overt racism from conservatism

that lots of Americans
would go for it.

all: We want Wallace!
We want Wallace!

- Because they were tired
of the rights revolution.

It was too much change
for them too fast.

- Well, let's come
to the basic question.

Would you let your daughter
marry a Negro?

- I don't even want to--

in fact, I don't even want
to get in a discussion of race,

really, because the most
important thing in our country

is maintaining law and order.

Race relations are going
to work themselves out.

I don't believe
in intermarriages

of Negro and white,
if you would.

I'm candid and honest about it.

I don't think it's good
for either race.

I think the races
ought to remain intact.

- One of the most
astute men in the field

of politics and world affairs
on the scene today.

Ladies and gentlemen,
the former vice president

of the United States,
Richard M. Nixon.

- When 1968 begins,
it's an open question

whether Richard Nixon
can win anything.

- You have that stigma
as a loser.

- Yes.
- Because of losing

two big contests.

How do you--
how do you plan to combat that?

- The way you combat it
is to win something.

- Nixon lost two big elections
to Jack Kennedy,

and he lost to Pat Brown
in California.

And people would say
the guy's a political loser--

talented, yes, but a loser.

- America will be watching
on March 12.

Let the message go out
from New Hampshire--

the people of New Hampshire
want a change,

and America will have
a change in November.

Thank you.

- Television is a vital
political meeting place.

To be successful,

a candidate
must use the medium

and use it well.

Richard Nixon
prefers informal,

no-holds-barred discussions.

- Hi, how are you?

- New Hampshire was the first
time we saw a new innovation

in televised campaigning.

Richard Nixon's aides
would gather

a group of ordinary citizens
and have them,

instead of the media,
asking questions.

- Any further questions
that you have?

- And they made it
look like Richard Nixon

was this brave truth teller

who was willing
to face down any critic,

when, in fact,
it was completely staged.

- This is "The Nixon Answer,"

in which Richard Nixon
discusses the issues

with citizens
of New Hampshire.

- Lawlessness, crime,

is a major problem
in this country today.

And we talk about civil rights.

You know what
the most important

civil right in this country is?

It's the right to be safe
in the streets,

to be safe in your home.

- Nixon's campaign
in New Hampshire was a classic.

- Nixonite from way back.

- "There is a new Nixon,"
the reporters were saying.

He's much better disciplined.

He also is more relaxed.

He takes criticism well.

- I plan to shake
a lot of hands,

and I have a good,
strong hand,

and I also like
to talk to people.

- The intelligence
of the old Nixon

combined with the better
behavior and outlook

of the new Nixon--
that's the candidate in '68.

- I am myself, and I'm going
to continue to play that role.

If people looking at me
say, "That's a new Nixon,"

then all that I can say is,

"Well, maybe you didn't know
the old Nixon."

- After the initial attacks

of the Tet Offensive
were beaten back,

Hue was still occupied
by the enemy.

It had been completely overrun.

- The North Vietnamese
are deeply entrenched

in buildings and bunkers,
carefully camouflaged,

waiting for the Marines
to move forward,

to gun them down in the open.

They have been holding out
for three weeks

in what has become
the longest,

bloodiest battle of the war.

- Initially,
when we went into the Citadel,

the Citadel being a fortress

that was roughly
four square miles,

it was occupied
by some 7,000 NVA.

- What remains
of an old tower fortress

built more than a century ago

again is put to combat use.

That's the North Vietnamese
strongpoint.

That's where the rocket firing
had been coming from.

Now the Marines are trying
to silence the firing

with grenade launchers.

- I had a strong group
of Marines.

They were magnificent
in every way,

unwavering in going forward
under intense fire.

- After 24 days
of heavy fighting,

the Americans and the
South Vietnamese troops

finally pushed the enemy
out of the Citadel.

The estimate was
that 80% of the city

was damaged or destroyed

and 80% of its population
was homeless.

In order to preserve
the city of Hue,

we had to destroy
the city of Hue.

- Whatever price the Communists
paid for this offensive,

the price to the allied cause
was high.

For if our intention
is to restore normalcy,

peace, serenity
to this country,

the destruction
of those qualities in this,

the most historical
and probably serene

of all South Vietnam cities,
is obviously a setback.

- Walter Cronkite
and the CBS Evening News

had a very large audience,

and when he delivered
what he did from Vietnam,

it had an impact.

- But it is increasingly clear
to this reporter

that the only rational way out
will be to negotiate,

not as victors
but as an honorable people

who lived up to their pledge
to defend democracy

and did the best they could.

- He felt that he had
a public obligation

to actually share
with the Americans

the fact that our government
is not telling us the truth.

- No matter what we say,

it is our napalm
burning thatched huts,

our antipersonnel bombs being
used against simple people,

our gas reported
to be nonlethal.

Just the other day,
it was reported

to kill only 10%
of the adults who inhale it

and 90% of the children,
so it's only semi-lethal.

- The big surprise of the
first primary of campaign '68

has been the strength
of Senator Eugene McCarthy.

They hoped for perhaps 35%.

The total they ran up
was a dream come true.

- The results on
election night gave us a sense

that there was
a real opportunity here.

We even got to feeling like,

"Well, maybe we can run
a national campaign after all.

Let's take a run
at this thing."

- The McCarthy vote
was just not a peace vote.

It was an anti-Johnson vote
on many other issues.

- Mr. Nixon, do you think
you can be stopped now?

- Well, let me--
- No!

- Well, sir, that's a--
that's a fair enough question.

Uh...

I can say this,
I'm not gonna stop myself,

that's for sure.

- New Hampshire was critical,
but you know what?

We looked at the numbers,

and Nixon's total
in New Hampshire

was more than
all the other candidates

in both parties combined.

- New Hampshire was
a significant turning point.

It locked in a certain
popularity that he had.

And at the same time,
you had the Democrats

fighting among themselves.

- The president
and his advisors

are most concerned about
what tonight's returns mean

in terms of Bobby Kennedy.

"McCarthy worked hard,
had good financing

and good organization
in New Hampshire,"

one of the president's
advisors says,

"but McCarthy
and New Hampshire

"don't mean a thing

unless they mean
Bobby is coming in."

- Would this encourage you
at all to change

your position supporting--
- I have no plans.

Yeah, I have no plans
at the moment other than--

as I say, maybe I'll have
something further to say

after I see the rests
of the figures, thank you.

- Would you accept a draft,
Senator?

- I don't think
anybody's suggested that.

- Well, I'm suggesting it now.

Would you accept it?

- I don't think that's
a practical matter.

- Would you refuse it?

- Well, I don't--
just don't think--

Will you accept one?

I don't think
anybody's suggested that

that's going to happen.

- All of Bobby's more seasoned
political advisors

were saying, "You don't depose
an incumbent president.

"All you're gonna do
is rip the party apart

and make sure that Nixon
or whoever's gonna win."

He was also worried that
if he ran against Johnson,

people would chalk it up
to Bobby's ruthless desire

to be president or his
loathing of Lyndon Johnson.

- Bluntly put, Lyndon Johnson
and Bobby Kennedy

hated one another.

- Bobby Kennedy
doesn't go after LBJ

until he's politically wounded.

- I am announcing today
my candidacy

for the presidency
of the United States.

I run because it is
now unmistakably clear

that we can change these
disastrous, divisive policies

only by changing the men
who are now making them.

- Can you imagine the anger
that Johnson had?

Here--here was his nightmare.

- I hear LBJ's trying
to get rid of 150 pounds--

Bobby Kennedy.

- Make us sweep all the way
down from Linden

back this way,
you understand me?

All right, lock arms, four of
you on each side of the street,

and let's--let's sweep it
all the way down.

- Today in Memphis,
a 3,000-man protest march

led by
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

in support of a seven-week-old

city sanitation
workers' strike.

The strike has turned
into a major racial issue

in Memphis.

- We were an orderly march
going up to Main Street.

I was in the middle of it,

and there were some unruly
people, no doubt loud people.

And I saw the police
in a phalanx

and said to myself,

"They're gonna
break up this march."

Then suddenly there are
a handful of men

busting a window over here.

- Chaos has just
broken out downtown.

- All right.

- Negro youth
are smashing windows.

- And I went back to King
in the first rank and said,

"Martin, the police up there
are planning to break us up,

"and you're gonna be
a major target,

so we're gonna
turn around and go back."

- That sound you just heard
was the sound

of tear gas
fired by a police officer

in an attempt to thwart
this unruly demonstration.

- Get that son of a bitch!

- If you do not
leave this area,

you will face arrest.

We urge you to return
to your homes immediately

for your own safety.

- Get your ass out of here!
- Move it! Move!

- We must not allow
the events of the day

to cause us to let up.

That would be a tragic error.

- There will be
continued marches.

We will not stop.

- I don't think King
had a choice.

He had to go back to Memphis

and prove that there could be

a nonviolent march.

- You have to bring into
account there's two behind you

and one is right here
over to my left.

- Good evening,
my fellow Americans.

Tonight
I want to speak to you

of peace in Vietnam
and southeast Asia.

No other question
so preoccupies our people.

- It is a new war in Vietnam.

The enemy now has
the initiative.

Now, there are finite limits

to the destruction
Vietnam can absorb.

There are only
so many buildings

and so many people.

The time is at hand

when we must decide
whether it's futile

to destroy Vietnam
in the effort to save it.

- We are prepared
to move immediately

toward peace through
negotiations.

- Daddy tried to the end
to get peace with Vietnam.

- I followed Chuck out
to get on the plane to Vietnam,

and so there's a picture
of Chuck and me

carrying this tin of cookies.

And before he left
on the airplane--

I am now pregnant,
but it's a secret.

And he says to me,
"I have signed my will,

"and if I'm killed,

the Marine Corps will
take care of everything."

- Now, as in the past,

the United States is ready
to send its representatives

to any forum, at any time,
to discuss the means

of bringing this ugly war
to an end.

- By the end of March,

President Johnson
is in despair.

Bobby Kennedy, his great
nightmare, is in the race.

- I'm interested in the future
of this country

and what this country
must stand for.

And I don't think
it's been satisfactory

up to the present time.

- So this on top
of all the other bad news

that he had in March
pushes LBJ over the edge.

- Finally, let me say this.

- He told very few people

about the last part
of his March 31st speech.

- Of course, Mother knew that
he was gonna do it that night.

I talked to him and said,
"Please, don't do it."

But Daddy had made
his decision.

- With American sons
in the field far away,

with America's future
under challenge

right here at home,
I do not believe

that I should devote
an hour or a day of my time

to any personal
partisan causes

or to any duties other

than the awesome duties
of this office.

- He just was worn out...

- Accordingly...

- By all of these heavy,
heavy burdens.

- I shall not seek

and I will not accept

the nomination of my party

for another term
as your president.

- I stood in the wings and--

and cried.

- Good night,
and God bless all of you.

- But I think it lifted
a lot from his shoulders.

And he said,
"I did the best I could.

It was very hard.
It was just very, very hard."

- In terms of politics,
it's still a long time.

A lot of things can happen.

- The next president
of the United States,

Hubert Humphrey.
- Richard Nixon.

- I've come from Oregon.

We had rather
a successful primary there.

- This campaign train is on
a life-or-death mission.

- At Columbia University,
students

barricade
university buildings.

- The students push forward,
and the police push back.

- Washington, Chicago,
Detroit, New York.

Racial confrontation,
violent destruction,

state of emergency.
- Mine eyes have seen the glory

of the coming of the Lord.