Original subtitles

- ♪ Time has come today

all: Strike! Strike! Strike!

- ♪ Young hearts can go their way ♪

- The students push forward and the police push back.

- ♪ Can't put it off another day ♪

- That's what the cops did.

- ♪ I don't care what others say ♪

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated

in Memphis, Tennessee.

- ♪ Time has come today

- Senator Robert Francis Kennedy

was 42 years old.

- The enemy is no longer closer to victory.

- ♪ Oh, the rules have changed today ♪

- We demonstrate against the war in Vietnam.

- ♪ Have no place to stay

- The number of men killed last week in Vietnam

was the highest this summer.

- They are running an all-white political party in 1968.

- ♪ My tears have come and gone ♪

- We all need George C. Wallace

for our President of the United States.

- ♪ Hey! I have no home

- Vote Republican in November.

- The peace groups are demanding permission

to march on Convention Hall.

- These cops here are tough.

They'd kill you with a smile.

- ♪ Time - As long as

I am mayor of this town,

there will be law and order in Chicago.

- ♪ Time

- This is the moment of truth for the Democratic Party.

- ♪ Time

- Tuesday night, I spent my evening

at Senator Kennedy's campaign headquarters

to celebrate his victory in California.

Tuesday night, I was in ecstasy with joy.

Wednesday morning, sorrow.

And this morning, utter despair.

Because now I'm lost.

I'm desperate.

And I don't know where we're going from here.

- By the early summer of 1968,

there was this ache in the American spirit, of

"What the hell is happening to us?"

"Is the country coming apart at the seams?"

- No words can really fully convey

the feeling that I have towards

the Kennedy family in this time of their particular tragedy,

or the feeling that one must have

for the nation in the face of this tragedy, this new tragedy.

- I really think McCarthy felt a sense of guilt,

in some weird psychological way, for this outcome,

because he has been a very nasty campaigner.

- This is one trauma too many.

And McCarthy

sort of gave up after Bobby died.

Instead of pressing on, he drifted away.

- There's one guy that offers an opportunity

to at least try to find a way to end the war,

and that's Gene McCarthy, and that's why I'm here.

- McCarthy didn't want to leap in with a bitter campaign

so soon after Senator Kennedy had died.

But it felt deserted.

Like, just when we need him most...

Gone.

- Senator George McGovern of South Dakota

is said to be announcing tomorrow

he is a candidate for the Democratic nomination.

- George McGovern ultimately feels that

he has to come in and declare for the Presidency

to give the Bobby Kennedy people a place to go.

- Representatives of Senator McCarthy

and of my office have been meeting together

to work out language on which our supporters

could join forces, in terms of a plank

on an end to the war in Vietnam.

- You expected to be here with Robert Kennedy.

- Yes, I think about it all the time.

Someone who I know was sorry that they had not

participated in the campaign of Robert Kennedy.

And they were gonna do it later on, in the summer.

And that person said to me that,

"One thing I've learned in life since the assassination

of Robert Kennedy, is never wait for summer."

That's kind of the way I feel about American politics today.

I think if you really feel about something, that you don't

put it off, you have to do something about it now.

- Bobby Kennedy's death

changed the nature of the campaign.

With him gone, whoever was going to be the nominee

of the Democratic Party

had to come to grips with what Kennedy represented.

- I'd like to present to you

the Vice President of the United States,

Hubert H. Humphrey, for a few words.

- Thank you!

- Hubert Humphrey could have come out against the war.

But he didn't want to do that, because he didn't want

to jeopardize his own nomination.

'Cause Lyndon Johnson had all the levers of power

in the Democratic Party.

- I am the Vice President of the United States.

The Vice President of the United States

does not make the policy.

- He is a puppet, so you can't tell

what he will think or do in office

because he's not used to thinking for himself.

The final say in the delegate selection was in

the hands of the party bosses and Lyndon Johnson.

- Someone questioned Johnson about Humphrey's loyalty.

He said, "Don't worry about Hubert.

I've got his pecker in my pocket."

- Earlier this year, top U.S. leaders vowed that

the Marine outpost at Khe Sahn would be defended at all cost.

But today, the U.S. command in Vietnam announced

that the Marines are pulling out of Khe Sahn.

- That's the last bunker on this base.

Now that the American troops have blown it up,

there's nothing to protect them from enemy artillery.

So now it's time for the final departure from Khe Sahn.

- "Why did we fight so hard to keep it

if we were going to give it up like this?"

was the question some asked themselves.

Others were relieved, because they privately believed

Khe Sahn was of marginal strategic importance anyway.

- Khe Sahn revealed the futility of the war.

What was the goal? There was no clear goal,

if the end result is abandonment.

- Khe Sahn symbolizes the frustration

of this kind of war.

A few must remember their comrades,

who are among the 2,500 Khe Sahn casualties.

- I think Khe Sahn stands as a symbol

of the whole war effort.

We got in for a-- supposedly, a strategic reason.

It became a point of pride for President Johnson

and others from the administration.

The small number of Marines at that outpost

were subjected to just brutal bombardment

for five months, and when it turned out

that the enemy wouldn't fight the way that we wanted

them to fight, we ended up packing up and leaving.

- Now--as perhaps befits this strangest of wars--

one of the most celebrated battlefields of Vietnam

has been reduced, once again, to a simple meadow.

- By the time we get to the Republican Convention in 1968,

Richard Nixon had done very well

in the primaries leading up to that.

But he did not go in to the convention hall

in Miami Beach, having been assured

of the nomination. He was sure.

- Nelson Rockefeller

decides at the last minute to try to make a serious push

to gain the nomination, even though he had

vacillated for months.

- I felt the problems facing this nation,

at home and abroad were so serious

that I had no right not to make available what experience

I had for the use of the party and the country.

- Rockefeller is probably the most liberal Republican

of the era.

They were moderate Republicans

who were just a few steps from liberals.

- Mr. Rockefeller would get 41% of

the black Democrats and Republicans--

and Independents, that is-- to cross over and vote for him.

Mr. Nixon's whole record on civil rights

has not been good.

- I want you to know that this marks

the end of one journey

and, we think, the beginning of another one.

- One of the key things that Nixon did was

to build a network of support among political leaders

that would be respected by Southerners.

Strom Thurmond, for example, of South Carolina.

- All that we could ask for

is somebody who would be just and fair,

and treat the South like the other sections of the country.

- Strom Thurmond had been a Democrat,

but he had left the Democratic Party

because of the Civil Rights act.

- The race is between Mr. Nixon and Mr. Rockefeller,

and I would prefer Mr. Nixon.

I think he would be better for the whole country.

- Convention will come to order.

- 1968 is the last presidential year

in which it was possible to run for President

without entering any primaries.

Ronald Reagan showed up in Miami Beach,

gave a press conference, and said,

"I'm running for President."

- Yes, as of this moment, uh--

in response to that resolution by the California delegation,

I am a candidate.

- Reagan is, in many ways, everything Nixon is not.

He's smooth, he's handsome, people like him.

And people are-- are confused, they're like,

"We believe that he's a true conservative,

"and we've never really trusted Nixon.

Okay, so, now what are we gonna do?"

- The name of the game right now is "stop Nixon."

Now if a lot of those Southern delegates

move away from Nixon to Ronald Reagan,

then they feel that Nixon can be stopped

on that first ballot.

- The real fear was that Rockefeller and Reagan

could hold off enough votes, so that that they could

prevent us having a victory on the first ballot.

And then it would break wide open.

Now, I didn't fear Rockefeller, I never did,

but Reagan... was something else.

- Are there any circumstances under which you would

accept the Vice Presidency?

- There is no circumstance whatsoever

that could alter my decision about that.

- The pressuring of delegates

to come out for Nixon or not to do so

proceeds with a kind of glad-handed desperation.

- The key to hanging on, as Nixon saw it,

was to hang on to Southern delegates.

- Why could it go either way?

- Well, you've got to reckon,

there's a lot of strength in our delegation.

- Many of them really wanted to go with Reagan.

And that's where Strom Thurmond turns out to be so important.

- Senator Thurmond, I'm told that there was some slipping

toward Reagan last night in the South,

and specifically in your own South Carolina delegation,

and that you personally stopped it.

Is that correct?

- There's no slippage in the South Carolina delegation.

We all are standing for Nixon.

- Nixon persuading Strom Thurmond

he's the best candidate who can win...

That we went with our hearts in '64 with Goldwater.

He took us down to a horrible defeat.

So let's go with a moderate now,

and then once we get in,

I can slow down the federal government's efforts

at desegregating schools in the South.

But the number one reason was that

it looked like Nixon could win.

- A candidate needs 667 delegates

to win the nomination,

but, with Nixon's estimated total at above 600 now,

that air of victory is obvious.

- Governor, may we ask you what you might have

done differently, thinking back now?

- Nothing; there isn't anything I could have done differently.

- It was a weary Governor Rockefeller

who hotel-hopped from one delegation caucus to another.

Wife, Happy, appeared anything but happy

as her husband began to show the strain,

and, perhaps, the futility of it.

- With the demise of Nelson Rockefeller

and the sort of exclusion of the moderate

and liberal side of the Republican Party,

you began to see the reshaping of

the Republican Party.

- We are having here, in Miami Beach,

the convention of the nice, white people.

All together, there are 26 non-white delegates

and 57 non-white alternates out of 2,666.

There are none of these magnificent, wounded

black faces to remind us of what's going on

in this country. There are only sunburns,

and smiles, and balloons.

- This is a lily-white delegation there, and, uh--

they don't know exactly what we want, so we thought

that we would get it together and then take it to them.

- Violence broke out tonight,

in a predominantly Negro section of Miami.

Two buildings, reportedly, were set afire.

Some looting was reported.

More than 200 police were sent to the area,

and some tear gas was used at one point to disperse

a rock- and-bottle- throwing crowd.

- Nobody can really say why it's happened,

it's just the pent-up anger, the frustration,

and the idea of being trapped in society.

It's just a way of saying,

"I will accept the abuse no longer."

all: GOP! GOP! GOP!

- 55-year-old Richard Milhous Nixon

has confirmed now that he will get a second run

at the Presidency of the United States.

- Nixon knew that he was making

one of the great comebacks

in American political history.

And he was able to tap into his own sense of renewal.

- As we look at America, we see cities enveloped

in smoke and flame.

We hear sirens in the night.

We see Americans dying on distant battlefields abroad.

We see Americans hating each other,

fighting each other, killing each other at home.

And as we see and hear these things,

millions of Americans cry out in anguish,

"Did we come all this way for this?"

- Nixon's speech was designed to say, you know, "I hear you."

Unless we stop shouting at one another,

we can't hear one another.

I mean, very powerful, powerful words.

- It is the quiet voice

in the tumult of the shouting.

It is the voice of the great majority of Americans,

the forgotten Americans, the non-shouters,

the non-demonstrators.

- Nixon wrote that speech,

contrary to a lot of his speeches,

where he would be getting help from his speech-writers.

That speech was all Richard Nixon.

- America's in trouble today, not because

her people have failed, but because

her leaders have failed. And what America needs

are leaders to match the greatness of her people.

- Richard Nixon presenting a face of placid calm

in a year of chaos.

And things are looking pretty good for Richard Nixon.

- What? - Is it your purpose here

to disrupt this convention?

- Life is disruptive in America, let's face it.

If you believe in life, you're disruptive.

You know? I don't want to go and fight in that damn war.

You know, that's a disruptive attitude.

They're gonna have to pull me by my hair.

Right?

- The activist part of my generation

is divided into two parts: those who decide that

they can change the world by supporting

a viable anti-war candidate, and those who think

that the entire system has to be torn down.

- Political pigs, your days are numbered.

We are the second American Revolution.

We are winning. Yippie!

Yippies were, um--

crazy people who did street theater.

- We're not gonna take part in an old men's election.

Young people know who's gonna win.

The winner's gonna be Pigasus the Pig,

'cause every party's running a pig.

- So why did you decide to become a candidate?

- The plan was to have a mass, moratorium-type

anti-war demonstration in Chicago.

And at the same time,

a mass counter-culture festival.

- We must stay in the streets,

and stay in active resistance, or else there will be no peace.

- I was with Rennie, Davis, and Dave Dellinger,

and we were trying to coordinate the mobilization,

which was this coalition of fractious groups who agreed on

something like total withdrawal from Vietnam now.

And Allen Ginsberg wanted everybody to chant "Ohm,"

to bring the war to an end and the police to their senses.

It was a motley medley of all kinds of people.

- When we first went to see Mayor Daley

and we thought his Deputy Mayor

to try and get a permit, he took me aside and said,

"Come on, what do you guys really want to do?"

And I said, "Well, did you see

'Wild in the Streets'?"

Which was a movie where young people put LSD

into the water supply

and took over the government.

And so this is what the police expected.

- Our administration will never permit

a lawless, violent group of terrorists

to destroy the purpose of this national convention

and take over the streets of Chicago.

- Before he became mayor, Chicago had

kind of become a run down, drab city.

- The city is plagued with strikes,

from cab drivers to telephone installers.

But Mayor Daley says

the city's never been in better shape.

- Mayor Daley wanted to show off how he'd

turned it into a modern showplace.

- Chicago loves size, scale. One hotel here brags

that it has more flush toilets under one roof

than any other building in the world.

- Daley's administration was absolutely committed

that, in his city, this was not gonna be a place

where protestors were gonna have a platform.

This was gonna be a place where

they were going to be put in their place.

- No one will be able to take over the convention hall

or the streets of Chicago.

- Mayor Daley had exercised such control over the city,

you couldn't even get near the convention center

where the convention was being held.

So, basically, all you could do is protest among

the major hotels in the loop area,

where a lot of the delegates were staying.

- The peace groups are demanding permission

to march on Convention Hall, the night the Democrats

nominate their candidate for President.

The city says no.

That would endanger security.

There is a possibility of mass arrests, unless the city

allows the demonstrators to camp out in public parks.

There is nowhere else for them to stay.

- I think it's in their best interest

to let us sleep in the park instead of roam

the streets at night. - Boy Scouts could sleep

overnight in the parks, but not hippies.

There's no other place to sleep,

so we knew, if you're going to drive people out

of the parks, they're going to be in the streets.

It's gonna be pandemonium. Is that what you want?

- How do you feel about the anti-war demonstrators?

- I don't like 'em.

I don't like 'em one bit. There's no reason for 'em.

They accomplish nothing.

- The police, largely working-class people,

who'd come up the hard way, see these privileged,

white students, and have to wonder, "What do they have

to be angry about?" And many of those

police officers themselves identified with the soldiers

who were coming back from the war in Vietnam.

- We are coming not because our fight is with policemen,

or with National Guard troops.

Our fight is with the policies of this administration.

- On this eve, of the beginning of

the 35th Democratic National Convention,

Chicago is nearly security-tight.

- The police, several thousand of them,

are now deployed.

U.S. Army troops began arriving in Chicago

in substantial numbers this morning,

at least 50 plane-loads.

But they will be available to reinforce

some 5,500 Illinois National Guardsmen, some 2,000 FBI,

Secret Service, and other Federal agents,

and the 11,000-man Chicago Police Force.

- We are concerned about the build-up of the force

because we think anything that's built up like this

is liable to be used. - Now, you're a girl.

Are you afraid of any violence that may occur?

- There'll be violence, yes, no doubt about that,

but I'm not afraid of it.

- About 500 students, hippies, Yippies, radicals, activists,

McCarthy kids, and other peace demonstrators

marched four miles from Lincoln Park

to the downtown hotels

housing the Democratic Convention Delegates.

They stayed on the sidewalks.

They stopped for traffic signals,

and they did not try to cross police lines.

- Kindly obey the traffic signals!

- As the protesters marched back toward Lincoln Park,

they clashed with police. - Whoa, hey! Cool it!

- We were told that we would have to leave the park

at 11 o'clock at night.

At 5 o'clock, the police started beating people up.

all: We want the park! We want the park!

- They disperse into the streets.

- I'm giving you one more warning!

- One more warning! - Clear the streets!

- And this is the first melee of many.

- A whole bunch of them picked me up and drug me,

and then they beat me. They put mace in my face.

- How'd you get that blood all over you?

- Because I came around and got a picture of him

after he squirted me with mace.

- And he clubbed you? - And he clubbed me.

- A Democratic Convention is about to begin

in a police state.

There just doesn't seem to be any other way to say it.

- I present to you now, the able and gracious mayor

of the city of Chicago, Richard J. Daley.

- Any political convention is a show.

And Chicago mayor Richard Daley

was a man of absolute control in the Democratic Party.

He was a machine politician. "This is my town!"

- Hey, Georgie! - Now they're raising

the Illinois, uh-- delegation's--

sign.

Apparently a brief effort to start a parade.

- Lyndon Johnson was wary of holding the convention

in Chicago, but he gave it to Chicago and Daley

because Daley assured him,

"It'll be a controlled environment.

We will keep it under control."

all: One, two, three, four,

stop this damn war!

One, two, three, four, stop this damn war!

- The Democratic Party was closed to change on Vietnam

unless it faced such massive pressure.

- Boo!

- That might make it turn.

- Mr. Vice President, this is the opening night of

the Democratic Convention. Are you gonna be nominated?

- That's my hope, my plan.

That's what we're trying to do.

- The security around this international amphitheater

has been worthy of an armed camp.

- Someone called the amphitheater "Fort Daley."

And I think,

at this point, that is not very far from the truth.

- I was distributing farm worker literature,

and Mayor Daley's hench-people shoved me aside,

and broke my glasses, and--

So, I mean, I wasn't hurt, but...

that's the floor of the convention.

- And what is your name, sir? - Take your hands off of me!

Unless you intend to arrest me!

- A small group of reporters

were allowed at least on the periphery of it.

And these guys started to strong-arm me.

But don't push me!

Take your hands off of me unless you plan to arrest me!

Wait a minute, wait a minute!

A guy hit me, short punch in the solar-plexus,

which knocked me down.

- I think we've got a bunch of thugs here, Dan.

- This was supposed to be a Democratic convention.

- The latest ABC Delegate count show:

Senator McCarthy, 706 votes.

Senator McGovern, 123 votes.

- Senator Eugene McCarthy has conceded defeat

in his bid for the Democratic Presidential Nomination.

- Hubert Humphrey has his lined up.

I think Senator Eugene McCarthy really, uh--

would have conceded defeat in his heart of hearts

a month or two ago.

- The nomination was really not in question anymore.

- Mr. McGovern? - It was not

gonna be McCarthy and it was not gonna be McGovern.

It was gonna be Hubert Humphrey.

That was a done deal before the Convention opened.

So the focus became on a peace plank

in the Democratic Party platform,

which was felt very strongly by those of us

who had been in the Kennedy campaign,

or were in the McCarthy or McGovern campaign.

It was our sort of last hope that

we might get something, at least.

- This is the moment of truth for the Democratic Party!

It was the issue of Vietnam, and its deeply held feelings

that the killing had to stop that motivated Robert Kennedy

to become a candidate for President.

A bullet stilled that voice,

but he is here today.

And if he were alive today,

he would be on that platform,

speaking for this minority plank.

Thank you.

- This is still a volatile convention,

as you see here with this demonstration on the floor.

A minority plank is the one

that would stop the bombing now,

without any pre-conditions.

- There's a minority among us,

represented over in Grant Park.

And let me say that the police department,

Mayor Daley, must all be related to Job, they've shown

that much patience.

They want pot instead of patriotism!

And they would substitute riots for reason!

- Move back, please!

- As the forces of the counter-culture

are girding their loins to battle the police

out on the streets,

the civil war within the Convention Hall

is almost as intense.

Do we accept this war? Or do we reject this war?

There could be no greater division.

- A "yes" vote here is to stop the bombing now,

unconditionally.

- Alabama votes 30 1/2 "no."

- It was a very moderate resolution.

It wasn't immediate, unconditional,

universal withdrawal.

It was, "Let's find a way to-- to crank this down,

and bring our troops home."

- California cast 166 votes "aye."

- The position of the other side was, "We don't want

to tie the hands of the Commander in Chief."

- No.

- "We don't know enough to make that judgment."

- Fifteen "no."

- "The military will lead us in the right direction,

and so let's leave it alone."

- Illinois, 105 votes "no," 13 "yes."

- The platform that was pro-war,

passed on a 1,500 to 1,000 vote of the delegates.

all: ♪ We shall overcome

- Nebraska, Alaska, and Vermont have joined New York

in this extraordinary demonstration

of anti-war sentiment on the Convention floor.

- Step it down! Step down!

All right, the marshals are going to the points!

- When the platform lost, somebody climbed the flag pole

pulled down the American flag, turned it upside-down,

which is, in the military, a symbol of distress.

And the police just knocked down

all the barricades, ran over all the marshals

who were trying to keep peace, beating people wantonly.

Everybody being gassed.

And inside the Convention, it was a replica of outside.

- Got a lot of pushing, the man being pushed--

Watch it, they're gonna knock that over.

The man is a delegate.

There's a priest in here, dozens of reporters.

And the man who got involved in it all

is very calmly smoking a cigarette!

This is a perfect indication of the mood

of this Convention on the floor.

- The greatest irony of the Democratic Convention

in Chicago: Richard Daley has an amazing secret.

Richard Daley is a fierce opponent of

the Vietnam War, because the son of

one of his closest friends has been killed

in the Vietnam War.

And from that moment on, he hates the war.

But nobody knows this in 1968.

- I came here to talk to you

about Hubert Horatio Humphrey.

- On the night of the, uh, nomination...

all: Peace now! Peace now!

- We on the outside gathered in the park,

across from the Conrad Hilton.

And the bridges were all closed off by Jeeps,

mounted with barbed wire,

machine guns placed on the streets,

pointed at these demonstrators.

And the breakdown of law and order was

being perpetuated by the forces of law and order.

- Downtown Chicago, at Balbo and Michigan Avenues,

there has been in progress, for some time,

a peace demonstration.

The police have come to put it down.

The National Guard has been called to help.

- Police...

and demonstrators tussling all over

this busy intersection...

on this, the night of the Presidential nominations

at this Democratic Convention.

- It was a police riot.

And I had never seen that before in my life.

I had never seen groups of policemen

with lead-knuckled gloves and clubs,

going after civilians.

There were pools of blood on Michigan Avenue.

- Walter, a bit confusing down here on the floor/

Shirley MacLaine and Roosevelt Grier are among those in front

of a tiny television monitor.

- What was your reaction to what happened downtown?

- Oh, it's devastating. So unreal as to what's

happening here, compared to what's happening down there.

- A girl being carried off to a paddy wagon

in something...less than a non-violent manner.

It was supposed to be a non-violent

demonstration today.

But one will never know what it was that

made it become violent.

- Mr. Chairman,

most delegates to this Convention do not know

that thousands of young people are being beaten

in the streets of Chicago.

- It didn't really explode inside the Convention Hall

until the delegates saw pictures of

the police beating people.

- And for that reason,

I request the suspension overruled,

to relocate the Convention in another city--

- Wisconsin is not recognized for that purpose!

It just blew to pieces

inside the Convention Hall. And it was a rampage.

- The security guards are pushing people back here.

You get that--!

Get her out of here! - Police all over the place,

and delegates, there's a really big fray

going on in here. - With George McGovern

as President of the United States,

We wouldn't have to have Gestapo st--tactics

in the streets of Chicago!

How hard it is.

How hard it is to accept the truth.

- The persistent chanting by the crowd,

"The whole world is watching."

A shot of gas, is it?

- Fourteen votes for Hubert Humphrey.

- Oh, no, I was wrong.

- Pennsylvania, 130 votes.

- Oh, here we go.

- Vice President Humphrey was in his room

at the Hilton when the tear gas began

floating over that way.

Blown by the wind, he got a good whiff of it.

And he began coughing and sneezing; he's alright.

- I think what was happening outside,

overwhelmed what happened inside.

- This is going to do it. - And 103 3/4.

- And Vice President Hubert Humphrey

is the nominee of the Democratic Party for

the Presidency of the United States.

- I feel like really jumping!

- Hooray, hooray, hooray, hooray, hooray!

- They can't nominate a man

for President of the United States and expect people to

take his candidacy seriously when the country wants

law and order, and the way they're conducting

law and order is to destroy every vestige of respect

for human dignity and for Democratic procedure.

How can the Democratic Party do this?

- Here was Humphrey, trying to express

his own great moment.

All of his political career, this was what he wanted.

And it was being utterly destroyed

by what was happening on the streets.

This was Hubert Humphrey's humiliation.

- As I stood and watched Hubert Humphrey tonight,

stand where he has wanted to for so long,

at the very top of the Democratic Party heap,

my first thought was: "Some heap."

The divisions in this party run very deep, indeed.

And Hubert Humphrey, uh-- who wants to be a healer

for the Party and for the country,

has very little time to heal the divisions

in this party in terms of the November election.

Uh, it's--it's my judgment that Hubert Humphrey

starts out an underdog.

- Nixon could be gleeful about trumping his enemies,

and it gave him great joy

to go to Chicago to begin his campaign,

in the very place where the Democratic Party

had been humiliated by a riot.

- ♪ Stand up

♪ And let's take the band up ♪

- Here comes Richard Nixon, the uniter,

coming through the city of Chicago,

you know, like a Roman emperor, and being cheered by

tens of thousands and harassed by no one.

So it looks like this would be

the fellow that can unite the country.

- ♪ Nixon's the one

- Humphrey's in an impossible situation.

He's associated with the chaos of the anti-war movement,

because of what happened at the Convention.

He has this albatross of a war tied around his neck.

And everywhere he goes, chaos follows.

- And we're faced on the other,

in the Republican Party, with the age-old coalition

of the Conservative Republican and the Dixiecrats,

the Nixons and the Strom Thurmonds

who prefer to remain silent.

- Humphrey came out of that Convention

not only with no convention bounce,

but actually going backwards.

- The problems of Hubert Humphrey are many.

His campaign does not have enough money

and it has little chance of getting enough money

because potential backers feel he has

little chance of winning.

Ask a Humphrey aide about this,

ask him, "Aren't you discouraged?"

And he'll tell you,

"I wouldn't say we're discouraged,

"but I would say that over-confidence

is not our thing."

- Beauties on parade in Convention Hall,

Atlantic City, during the oldest contest

of its kind, Miss America. The winner?

Deborah Dene Barnes, 20-year-old Miss Kansas,

a future piano teacher. Lessons, anyone?

- Women, use your brains, not your body!

- The 1960s was about women demanding

justice in the society, and nowhere was this

more public and powerful

than the 1968 Miss America Contest.

- No more pain! No more trying to hold the fat in vain!

- We had a freedom trash can, and we threw in bras

and diapers and high-heeled shoes and girdles

and steno pads and symbols of women's oppression.

- It struck a chord

with so many women around the country

that in some ways it was the first national emergence

of a women's movement, per se.

- Hey!

- I think in '68, everything felt a lot...

More on the edge.

George Wallace was running for president,

and it felt like the country could just turn into

just a sea of turmoil.

- You are some of the people that folks in this country

are sick and tired of, I can tell you that,

all over the United States.

They believe in four-letter words.

But I know two four-letter words you don't know.

W-O-R-K and S-O-A-P, you don't know those.

- What was striking was the extent to which

he was drawing support away from Hubert Humphrey

specifically, urban, Northern white workers.

often union members, often individuals who, traditionally,

had been strong supporters of the Democratic Party.

- What do you think is the biggest attraction

that Wallace has?

- Common sense and easy-to-understand language.

- You don't think he's going to win,

but you do have the sense that he's gonna get a lot of votes.

And what does that say about America?

- George Wallace's audiences have been growing both in size

and in emotional outbursts.

Here in Kansas City, this crowd showed the effect

he's having, as he campaigns about the country

with growing confidence.

- If the Presidential election were held today,

a CBS News survey shows

that Richard Nixon would win, hands down,

and Vice President Humphrey would finish third

in the electoral vote.

- Believe the Republican candidate owes it to the people

to come out of the shadows.

all: Dump the Hump! Dump the Hump!

Knock it off, will you, please?

- By September of '68, Humphrey is absolutely having

the worst political moment you could possibly imagine.

He's being heckled at every event that he goes to.

He practically has to beg Democratic politicians

to appear with him, and to endorse him.

It's a dispiriting campaign.

- He has not yet

in any particular instance indicated one disagreement

with any of the policies of the past four years.

- Vietnam is defining the 1968 election.

And Humphrey understands he has to do something dramatic,

he has to do something bold, and he knows what that is.

- As President,

I would stop the bombing of the North,

as an acceptable risk for peace.

Because I believe it could lead

to success in the negotiations and thereby shorten the war.

- Le Duc Tho, a member of the Hanoi delegation

at the Paris Peace Talks, said today

Mr. Humphrey's speech contained absolutely nothing new.

Whatever the North Vietnamese say,

the Vice President's speech last night

was clearly his most serious effort

of the campaign to establish his own position on Vietnam.

- Richard Nixon played a very subtle political game

on the Vietnam War.

He talked about peace with honor,

but never articulated that plan.

- When and if we win this election,

I hope the war will be over, but if it is not over,

then I think it's time for a new team to go in

that will not be tied in to the frozen policies of the past.

- Now Hubert Humphrey was articulating something

that many Americans felt,

but weren't hearing from Richard Nixon.

- Does this change your opinion of him

as a Presidential candidate?

- It might.

- Why is that?

- Well, because everyone wants the bombing stopped.

- When Humphrey gave the Salt Lake City speech,

it really alarmed me.

all: We want Humphrey! We want Humphrey!

- Because he untied that party

which had been ripped apart all year,

and you could hear the footsteps behind you,

where I was.

- The anti-war activists,

they stop heckling him.

- In Charlotte, North Carolina, a crowd of

10,000 people cheered the Vice President wildly,

and he loved it.

It was about the same wherever he went:

Tennessee, West Virginia, Florida.

And the Vice President seemed to gain new confidence.

- I need you.

Quite frankly, I think you may need me.

And I think--

- Nixon spends his whole life running scared.

And all of a sudden, the race that was

well in hand is getting close.

And he begins to sweat.

- This means absolutely-- this is sort of the kid stuff

that somebody goes through when he's behind.

- Nix on Nixon, that's what it's gotta be!

- This is the time and this is the place

to take off the gloves, and sock it to 'em!

- I'm gonna sting ya, and sting ya,

like a hornet and a bee, day in and day out!

- There's some real advantages

in being an underdog!

Sooner or later, your opponent will have to start looking

over his shoulder.

And that's the time that you pass him on the inside,

and get the medals, and win the prize,

and gain the victory!

- Apollo 7 starts the final push to the moon.

- North Vietnam said there will be no breakthrough

in the peace talks until the bombing has stopped.

- It's been a long time, Jack, I'll tell ya.

- Let's enlist the people in the handling

of the problems of America.

- He must be gettin' saddle-sore,

straddling all those issues.

- I don't mind speaking here, but when you start

throwing rocks that size-- who threw it?

- It's been one of the roughest political years

in American history.

In the next few hours, we'll see how it all turned out.