American Experiment

by James Macgregor Burns

  [Broder on 1968 election]: Broder, p. 3705.

  Into the Quicksand

  [Inaugural protest]: New York Times, January 20, 1969, “militant—but for the most part genial,” quoted at p. 21; ibid., January 21, 1969, p. 24; see also Gitlin, Whole World, p. 214.

  417 [Lippmann on “new Nixon”]: quoted in Steel, p. 589; see also Jonathan Schell, The Time of Illusion (Knopf, 1976), p. 20.

  [White on Nixon]: White, Making 1968, p. 143.

  [Nixon’s election night promises]: quoted in Schell, p. 17.

  [Nixon’s Vietnam strategy]: Richard M. Nixon, “Asia After Viet Nam,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 46, no. 1 (October 1967), pp. 111-25; Henry A. Kissinger, “The Viet Nam Negotiations,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 47, no. 2 (January 1969), pp. 211-34; Nixon, Memoirs, pp. 347-51; Tad Szulc, The Illusion of Peace: Foreign Policy in the Nixon Years (Viking, 1978), pp. 23-31; Seymour M. Hersh, The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (Summit, 1983), ch. 4; Roger Morris, Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (Harper, 1977), pp. 149-54; Herring, pp. 221-26; Gelb and Belts, pp. 348-50, 354-58.

  [“We will not make”]: quoted in Herring, p. 221.

  [“Seek the opportunity”]: Address to the Nation on Vietnam, May 14, 1969, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971-75), vol. 1, pp. 369-75, quoted at p. 371.

  418 [“War for peace”]: quoted in Herring, p. 223.

  [“Not going to end up”]: quoted in H. R. Haldeman and Joseph DiMona, The Ends of Power (Times Books, 1978), p. 81. [“Madman Theory, Bob”]: ibid., p. 83.

  [Peak level of American Troops]: see Richard Dean Burns and Milton Leitenberg, The Wars in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, 1941-1982: A Bibliographic Guide (ABC-Clio Information Services, 1984), p. 144 (Table 4).

  [Secret Cambodian bombing]: see William Shawcross, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia (Simon and Schuster, 1979), ch. 1; Hersh, ch. 5; Szulc, pp. 36-39, 52-61; Karnow, pp. 589-92; Schell, pp. 32-38; U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Impeachment of Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States: Report, 93rd Congress, 2nd Session (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974), pp. 217-19; Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Little, Brown, 1979), pp. 239-54.

  419 [“Only by revolutionary violence”]: Giap, “The South Vietnamese People Will Win,” in Russell Stetler, ed., The Military Art of People’s War: Selected Writings of General Vo Nguyen Giap (Monthly Review Press, 1970), pp. 185-225, quoted at p. 213.

  [Nixon’s “Vietnamization”]: FitzGerald, pp. 404-14; Gelb and Betts, pp. 349-50; Herring, pp. 229-32; Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 271-77.

  [American attitudes toward the South Vietnamese]: see FitzGerald, chs. 10-14, 16-17 passim.

  420 [Numbers of South Vietnamese troops, late 1969]: Herring, p. 231.

  [Demoralization and decay among American troops]: David Cortright, Soldiers in Revolt: The American Military Today (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1975), chs. 1-2; Richard Boyle, The Flower of the Dragon: ‘The Breakdown of the U.S. Army in Vietnam (Ramparts Press, 1972); Herring, pp. 243-44; John Helmer, Bringing the War Home: The American Soldier in Vietnam and After (Free Press, 1974); Baskir and Strauss, ch. 4; Cincinnatus; Edward Shils, “A Profile of the Military Deserter,” Armed Forces and Society, vol. 3, no. 3 (May 1977) pp. 427-31; Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (Harper, 1972), pp. 181-85 and passim; Col. Robert D. Heinl, Jr., “The Collapse of the Armed Forces,” in Marvin E. Gettleman et al., eds., Vietnam and America: A Documented History (Grove Press, 1985), pp. 322-31.

  420 [My Lai]: Seymour M. Hersh, My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath (Random House, 1970); U.S. Department of the Army, The My Lai Massacre and Its Cover-up (Free Press, 1976); Seymour Hersh, Cover-up: The Army’s Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4 (Random House, 1972); Boyle, pp. 127-43.

  [Service people against the war]: Cortright, part 1 passim: Matthew Rinaldi, “The Olive-Drab Rebels: Military Organizing During the Vietnam Era,” Radical America, vol. 8, no. 3 (May-June 1974), pp. 17-52.

  [Draft offenders]: Baskir and Strauss, pp. 5 (Figure 1) and 69 (Figure 4); see also ibid., ch. 3; G. David Curry. Sunshine Patriots: Punishment and the Vietnam Offender (University of Notre Dame Press, 1985); Willard Gaylin, In the Service of Their Country: War Resisters in Prison (Viking, 1970).

  [Exiles]: Baskir and Strauss, p. 169 (Figure 7) and ch. 5; Renee G. Kasinsky, Refugees from Militarism: Draft-Age Americans in Canada (Transaction Books, 1976).

  421 [Women Against Daddy Warbucks]: New York Times, July 3, 1969, pp. 1, 5; ibid., July 4,1969, pp. 1-2; Ferber and Lynd, pp. 202, 210-11;Women Against Daddy Warbucks, “Our Statement,” in Robin Morgan, ed., Sisterhood Is Powerful (Vintage, 1970), p. 530.

  [Baltimore draft office action]: New York Times, October 28, 1967, p. 5; Zaroulis and Sullivan, p. 230; Ferber and Lynd, pp. 201-2.

  [Catonsville Nine]: New York Times, May 18, 1968, p. 36; Ferber and Lynd, ch. 14 passim; Zaroulis and Sullivan, pp. 229-37 passim; see also William Van Elten Casey and Philip Nobile, eds., The Berrigans (Praeger, 1971); Jack Nelson and Ronald J. Ostrow, The FBI and the Berrigans: The Making of a Conspiracy (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1972). [“Some property has no right”]: quoted in New York Times, May 18, 1968, p. 36.

  [SDS internal quarrels]: Sale, chs. 22-23; Freines, ch. 6; Gitlin, Whole World, ch. 6; Gitlin, Sixties, pp. 377-91; Miller, pp. 284-85, 311-13.

  [“Vanguarditis”]: Carl Oglesby, “Notes on a Decade Ready for the Dustbin,” Liberation, August-September 1969, p. 6. [“A weapon”]: Miller, p. 285.

  [SDS Chicago convention]: Sale, pp. 557-79; Karin Ashley et al., “You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows,” in Harold Jacobs, ed., Weatherman (Ramparts Press, 1970), pp. 51-90; Andrew Kopkind, “The Real SDS Stands Up,” in ibid., pp. 15-28; Zaroulis and Sullivan, pp. 251-55.

  [“A peculiar mix”]: Sale, p. 562.

  422 [Flacks on disintegration of the New Left]: Flacks, Youth and Social Change (Markham, 1971), p. 101.

  [“Go for broke”]: Nixon, Memoirs, p. 393.

  [“Once the summer was over”]: ibid.

  [Administration deadline threats and plans for major offensive] : see Hersh, Price, ch. 10 passim; Szulc, pp. 149-56; Morris, pp. 163-68; Nixon, Memoirs, pp. 393-96, 405-7 passim; Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 284-86, 303-4.

  [Moratorium day]: New York Times, October 16, 1969, pp. 1, 18-22; Time, vol. 94, no. 17 (October 24, 1969), pp. 16-20; Zaroulis and Sullivan, pp. 264-73; Schell, pp. 52-55; Nixon, Memoirs, pp. 400-3.

  423 [“Flame of life”]: quoted in New York Times, October 16, 1969, p. 19.

  [“This is my son”]: quoted in Newsweek, vol. 74, no. 17 (October 27, 1969), p. 32.

  [Nixon’s address]: November 3, 1969, in Nixon Public Papers, vol. 1, pp. 901-9, quoted at pp. 908, 909; see also Schell, pp. 62-66; Nixon, Memoirs, pp. 407-11. [November 1969 demonstrations]: New York Times, November 14, 1969, pp. 1, 20-21; ibid., November 15, 1969, pp. 1, 26-27; ibid., November 16, 1969, pp. 1, 60-61; Zaroulis and Sullivan, pp. 276-300 passim; Time, vol. 94, no. 21, (November 21, 1969), pp. 23-26.

  424 [Lon Nol coup]: see Shawcross, ch. 8; Hersh, Price, ch. 15; Kissinger, White House Years, pp.457-65; Norodom Sihanouk and Wilfred Burchett, My War with the CIA (Pantheon, 1973).

  [North Vietnamese Cambodian “sanctuaries”]: Shawcross, ch. 1 passim, pp. 64-72; Duiker, pp. 283-84; see also Roger M. Smith, Cambodia’s Foreign Policy (Cornell University Press, 1965).

  424 [Invasion of Cambodia]: Shawcross, ch. 9, pp. 150-51, 171-75; Herring, pp. 234-37;Karnow, pp. 606-10; Szulc, pp. 244-49, 252-75, 279-84; Nixon, Memoirs, pp. 448-51; Duiker, pp. 285-88; Hugh Sidey, “Anybody See Patton?” in Lloyd C. Gardner, The Great Nixon Turnaround (New Viewpoints, 1973), pp. 183-86; Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 467-75, 483-509, 517-20; Hersh, Price, ch. 16.

  [“If, when the chips are down”]: April 30, 1970, in Nixon Public Pa
pers, vol. 2, pp. 405-10, quoted at p. 409; see also Shawcross, pp. 146-49; Schell, pp. 89-95.

  424-5 [Protests against invasion]: New York Times, May 2, 1970, pp. 1, 9; ibid., May 5, 1970, pp. l, 17-18; Time, vol. 95, no. 19 (May 11, 1970), pp. 19-25; ibid., vol. 95, no. 20 (May 18, 1970), pp. 6-15; Zaroulis and Sullivan, pp. 318-31; Sale, pp. 635-42; Shawcross, pp. 152-53; Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 509-17; U.S. President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, Report (Arno Press, 1970), pp. 233-465; James A. Michener, Kent State: What Happened and Why (Random House, 1971); I. F. Stone, The Killings at Kent State: How Murder Went Unpunished (New York Review, 1971); Nixon, Memoirs, pp. 456-59.

  425 [“You see these bums”]; quoted in New York Times, May 2, 1970, p. 1; see also Nixon, Memoirs, pp. 453-56.

  [Veterans’ occupation of Statue of Liberty]: New York Times, December 27, 1971, pp. 1, 21; ibid., December 29, 1971, p. 32; see also John Kerry and Vietnam Veterans Against the War, The New Soldier, David Thorne and George Butler, eds. (Macmillan, 1971); Zaroulis and Sullivan, pp. 354-58; Vietnam Veterans Against the War, The Winter Soldier Investigation (Beacon Press, 1972).

  [Pentagon Papers publication]: New York Times, June 13, 1971, pp. 1, 35-40; The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, 4 vols., and index vol. (Senator Gravel, ed.: Beacon Press, 1971-72); Neil Sheehan et al., The Pentagon Papers: As Published by the New York Times (Bantam, 1971); George McT. Kahin, “The Pentagon Papers: A Critical Evaluation,” American Political Science Review, vol. 69, no. 2 (June 1975), pp. 675-84; H. Bradford Westerfield, “What Use Are Three Versions of the Pentagon Papers?,” ibid., pp. 685-96; Stewart Burns interview with Randy Kehler, August 1976; Peter Schrag, Test of Loyalty: Daniel Ellsberg and the Rituals of Secret Government (Simon and Schuster, 1974), pp. 35-37, 45-65, 80-100; Hersh, Price, pp. 325-32; Schell, pp. 151-54; David Halberstam, The Powers That Be (Knopf, 1979), ch. 22 passim; Harrison E. Salisbury, Without Fear or Favor: The New York Times and Its Times (Times Books, 1980).

  [Ellsberg]: Stewart Burns interviews with Daniel Ellsberg, October 29, 1976, December 16, 1977, October 5, 1978; Ellsberg talk in Santa Rita county jail, Pleasanton, Calif., June 26, 1983; Robert Ellsberg, “On Daniel Ellsberg; Remembering the Pentagon Papers,” 1976 Peace Calendar (War Resisters League); Daniel Ellsberg, Papers on the War (Simon and Schuster, 1972); Schrag, pp. 24-54 passim.

  426 [“Concept of enemy doesn’t exist”]: Janaki Tschannerl, quoted in Daniel Ellsberg talk at Isla Vista, Calif., May 13, 1975.

  [“Guilt-ridden, fanatic extremists”]: “An Interview with Daniel Ellsberg,” WIN, November 1, 1972, quoted at p. 7.

  [“Lots of people around the world”]: transcribed in Liberation & Revolution: Gandhi’s Challenge, Report of the Thirteenth Triennial Conference of the War Resisters’ International (War Resisters’ International, 1969), p. 107.

  [“Our best, our very best”]: Anthony Lukas, “After the Pentagon Papers: A Month in the Life of Daniel Ellsberg,” New York Times Magazine, December 12, 1971, pp. 29, 95, 98-106, quoted at p. 106.

  [Supreme Court decision on Pentagon Papers]: New York Times Co. v. U.S., 403 U.S. 713 (1970); see also Schrag, pp. 92-100.

  [Nixon’s war on Ellsberg]: Anthony Lukas, Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years (Viking, 1976), ch. 4 passim; Hersh, Price, ch. 28; Schrag, pp. 100-24 and passim; Schell, pp. 161-68; Nixon, Memoirs, pp. 511-15; Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA (Random House, 1984), ch. 3; Nixon Impeachment: Report, pp. 36, 157-70. [“Tailor-made issue”]: quoted in Nixon Impeachment: Report, p. 158.

  Songs of the Sixties

  426 [Woodstock]: Cook, Beat Generation, pp. 230-39, quoted at p. 230; Robert S. Spitz, Barefoot in Babylon: The Creation of the Woodstock Music Festival, 1969 (Viking, 1979), pp. 389-486; Andrew Kopkind, “Woodstock Nation,” in Jonathan Eisen, ed., The Age of Rock: Sights and Sounds of the American Cultural Revolution (Random House, 1969-70), vol. 2, pp. 312-18.

  [Life on Woodstock]: “The Big Woodstock Rock Trip,” Life, vol. 67, no. 9 (August 29, 1969), pp. 14B-23, quoted at p. 14B.

  [Roots of rock ’n’ roll]: Ed Ward, “The Fifties and Before,” in Ward, Geoffrey Stokes, Ken Tucker, Rock of Ages (Rolling Stone Press (Prentice-Hall, 1986), pp. 17-248; Carl Belz, The Story of Rock (Oxford University Press, 1969), chs. 2-3; Howard Junker, “The Fifties,” in Eisen, vol. 2, pp. 98-104; Charlie Gillett, The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll (Outerbridge and Dienstfrey, 1970), ch. 1; Nik Cohn, Rock from the Beginning (Stein & Day, 1969), chs. 1, 4.

  [Black originals and white covers]: Arnold Shaw, The Rockin’ ’50s (Hawthorn, 1974), ch. 14; on racism in music, see Steve Chappie and Reebee Garofalo, Rock ’n ’ Roll Is Here to Pay: The History and Politics of the Music industry (Nelson-Hall, 1977), ch. 7.

  [“Little men with cigars”]: quoted in Jerry Hopkins, The Rock Story (Signet, 1970), p. 24; on the rock industry, see Michael Lydon, “Rock for Sale,” in Eisen, vol. 2, pp. 51-62; Chappie and Garofalo, ch. 2 and passim.

  427-8 [“Stem the tide”]: A. M. Meerio, quoted in Hopkins, p. 31.

  428 [Boston Catholic leaders and San Antonio city council]: ibid.

  [“I need it”]: “Honey Love,” quoted in ibid., p. 18, words and music by Clyde McPhatter and J. Gerald, copyright 1954, Progressive Music Publishing Co., Inc. [“Wop-bop-a-loo-bop”]: “Tutti Frutti,” recorded by Little Richard, words and music by Richard Penniman, D. LaBostrie, and Joe Lubin, Venice Music, Inc., Specialty Records.

  [“Shared with adults”]: Cohn, p. 15.

  [“Something in common”]: Janet Podell, ed., Rock Music in America (H. W. Wilson Co., 1987), p. 5.

  [“Culturally alienated”]: Jeff Greenfield, “They Changed Rock, Which Changed Culture, Which Changed Us,” New York Times Magazine, February 16, 1975, pp. 12-13, 37-46, quoted at p. 38.

  [Folk music]: R. Serge Denisoff, Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left (University of Illinois Press, 1971); Denisoff and Richard A. Peterson, eds., The Sounds of Social Change: Studies in Popular Culture (Rand McNally College Publishing Co., 1972), passim; Wayne Hampton, Guerrilla Minstrels: John Lennon, Joe Hill, Woody Guthrie, and Bob Dylan (University of Tennessee Press, 1986).

  [Dylan]: Wilfrid Howard Mellers, A Darker Shade of Pale: A Backdrop to Bob Dylan (Oxford University Press, 1985); Robert Shelton, No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan (Morrow, 1986); Lawrence Goldman, “Bobby Dylan—Folk-Rock Hero,” in Eisen, vol. 1, pp. 208-13; Ellen Willis, “The Sound of Bob Dylan,” Commentary, vol. 44, no. 5 (November 1967), pp. 71-78; Hampton, ch. 6; Cohn, ch. 17.

  [“Hungry, restless”]: Goldman, p. 211. [“Greatest holiest”]: quoted in Hampton, pp. 152-53.

  [“Blowing in the Wind”]: quoted in Willis, p. 73, initially recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary, words and music by Bob Dylan, copyright 1962, M. Witmark and Sons, Warner Brothers Records.

  429 [“Established topical song”]: ibid., p. 73.

  [“Musical great white hope”]: Denisoff, Great Day Coming, p. 181.

  [Dylan at Newport, 1965]: Shelton, pp. 301-4, “Play folk music!” quoted at p. 302; Hampton, pp. 176-78; Paul Wolfe, Dylan’s Sellout of the Left,” in Denisoff and Peterson, pp. 147-150.

  [“If Whitman were alive”]: quoted in Willis, p. 77.

  [Release of forty-eight Dylan originals]: Hopkins, p. 83.

  [The Beatles]: Hunter Davies, The Beatles, rev. ed. (McGraw-Hill, 1978); Wilfrid Howard, Twilight of the Gods: The Music of the Beatles (Schirmer Books, 1973); Geoffrey Stokes, The Beatles (Times Books, 1980); Jon Wiener, Come Together: John Lennon in His Time (Random House, 1984); Hopkins, ch. 15; Ned Rorem, “The Music of the Beatles,” New York Review of Books, vol. 10, no. 1 (January 18, 1968), pp. 23-27.

  429 [“Most persistent noises”]: Newsweek, quoted in Hopkins, p. 70.

  430 [“Not even for kings and queens! ”]: ibid.

  [“You really do believe”]: quoted in Davies, p. 198.

  [“Mainstream of mass culture”]: Will
is, p. 76.

  [“Twentieth century working-class songs”]: Hopkins, p. 79; on the Rolling Stones, see David Dallon, The Rolling Stones: The First Twenty Years (Knopf, 1981); Stanley Booth, The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones (Vintage, 1985); Hopkins, pp. 79-80.

  [“Asked for their pants”]: Hopkins, p. 79.

  [Reagan’s pop music appreciation]: see Fred Bruning, “The Reagans and the Beach Boys,” Maclean’s, vol. 96, no. 18 (May 2, 1983), p. 13.

  [San Francisco rock]: Hopkins, ch. 7; Belz, pp. 197-208; Cohn, ch. 12; Lar Tusb, “West Coast Then … and Now,” in Eisen, vol. 2, pp. 251-56.

  [“LSD experience without the LSD”]: Hopkins, p. 92.

  [“1-2-3 What are we fightin’ for”]: “I Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag,” quoted in ibid., pp. 97-98, recorded by Joe McDonald, words and lyrics by Joe McDonald, copyright 1965, Alkatraz Music Co.

  431 [Counterculture and New Left]: Gitlin, Sixties, esp. ch. 8; Hampton, chs. 1-3, 6-7; Denisoff and Peterson, ch. 3; William L. O’Neill, Coming Apart (Quadrangle Books, 1971),esp. ch. 8.

  [“Rock and Roll, Rock culture”]: Smucker, “The Politics of Rock: Movement vs. Groovement,” in Eisen, vol. 2, pp. 83-91, quoted at p. 88.

  [“Getting stoned”]: quoted in O’Neill, p. 244.

  [“Open a new space”]: Gitlin, Sixties, p. 202.

  [O’Neill on countercultural materialism]: O’Neill, p. 264.

  [Record sales, 1968]: Hopkins, p. 121.

  [“Try to dig it”]; quoted in ibid., p. 123.

  [“Hey people now”]: quoted in Gitlin, Sixties, p. 204.

  [SUPERZAP THEM]: quoted in Time, vol. 90, no. 1 (July 7, 1967), p. 20.

  [“Cultural and spiritual revolution”]: Robert A. Rosenstone, “ ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’: The Music of Protest,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 382 (March 1969), p. 142.

  [“We want the world”]: quoted in Hopkins, p. 100.

  [“Sex starts with me”]: quoted in O’Neill, p. 243.

  432 [“Idea of leadership”]: quoted in Hampton, p. 20.