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From a strictly political standpoint, Agnew fit perfectly with the strategy we had devised for the November election. With George Wallace in the race, I could not hope to sweep the South. It was absolutely necessary, therefore, to win the entire rimland of the South—the border states—as well as the major states of the Midwest and West. Agnew fit the bill geographically, and as a political moderate he fit it philosophically.
In my two meetings with him before the convention I never raised the possibility that he might be considered for the vice presidential spot. When I asked him what he might want to do if we won in November, he said he would not be interested in a Cabinet position but would like to be considered for a federal court appointment if an opening occurred.
In the series of meetings I held that night after the nomination, lasting into the early morning hours, I purposely gave no clue to my tentative choice—or even that I had one. The names most mentioned by those attending were the familiar ones: Romney, Reagan, John Lindsay, Percy, Mark Hatfield, John Tower, George Bush, John Volpe, Rockefeller—with only an occasional mention of Agnew, sometimes along with Governors John Love of Colorado and Daniel Evans of Washington.
The meetings produced no strong consensus for any candidate, but they did gradually tend to eliminate all except Agnew. Before finally deciding, I asked each of two close friends and long-time associates: would he himself be my running mate?
The first was Bob Finch. Bob was probably my closest friend in politics, and after winning the lieutenant governorship of California in 1966 he had become a rising star in the party. I was sure of his answer, but I told him, “You have many of Lindsay’s best attributes. You have youth and freshness, and you would have great appeal to the party and to independent voters.” He was deeply moved by my suggestion, but he strongly rejected it, arguing that the leap from lieutenant governor to Vice President would be perceived as too great. Besides, he was my former aide and a long-time personal friend, and there would be charges of cronyism. Also, he and Reagan had already developed a rivalry in California, and Reagan’s supporters would be extremely irritated if he were chosen.
Next, I took Rogers Morton aside. I had immense respect for Morton, and we saw eye to eye on nearly all issues. As a congressman from Maryland, he knew Agnew well. I asked him for a totally honest, candid appraisal of him. Morton stretched his giant frame and paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. Agnew, he said, was potentially a very good candidate, though he had a tendency to be “lazy.” He hastened to add that he did not mean this in a derogatory way, but only as a warning that if Agnew were placed on the ticket, he would have to be given a heavy schedule. I then surprised Morton by saying, “Rog, maybe you would be the better choice for me.”
Morton smiled for a moment and then became completely serious. He said that as a member of the House he lacked the credentials for the job—or at least credibility as a candidate. “If you want to know the truth,” he said, “If it’s between me and Ted Agnew, Ted would be the stronger candidate.”
That pretty well clinched it for me. Had Morton said that he wanted it, even at that late moment I might well have picked him. Politically he had the same border-state advantages as Agnew. I knew him far better than I knew Agnew, and I considered him one of the best campaigners, one of the ablest individuals, and one of the most astute politicians in the party.
Finally, after a last review with Mitchell, I decided: it would be Agnew. I asked Morton to telephone him.
About an hour later I went downstairs to tell the waiting press corps. Absolute shock and surprise greeted my announcement. Soon after I announced my choice, Agnew met with the press and acquitted himself well under a barrage of subtly hostile rapid-fire questions. Admitting that his name was not exactly a household word, he assured everybody that he would work to change that situation.
I turned immediately to putting the final touches on my acceptance speech. No other campaign speech would be as important, because none would have a larger or more attentive audience.
As I was getting ready to leave for the convention hall, a minor revolt developed over my selection of Agnew. Some of the party’s liberal elements, led by New York Congressman Charles Goodell and Rhode Island Governor John Chafee, sought to enlist John Lindsay to carry their banner in a floor challenge to Agnew. When Lindsay declined—in fact, with Brownell acting as intermediary, Lindsay agreed to place Agnew’s name in nomination—the dissidents got George Romney to lead the challenge.
My first reaction was that the politicking was a harmless way to let the delegates blow off steam. But as I thought more about this challenge, it began to make me angry. Nothing was more important this year than Republican unity. We could not afford a replay of 1964. I asked Mitchell for suggestions. He was unconcerned: “Ah, screw ‘em, Dick. It’ll blow over.” Mitchell was a superb manager, but he lacked the political experience to foresee the effect of an apparently unimportant episode like this. I told him, “John, we’ve got to look past the exigencies of the moment. I’m not going to stand for this kind of revolt. If the sore losers get away with something like this now, they’ll do the same damn thing during my presidency. It’s a test of my leadership, and I’m going to stand firm. I don’t want Agnew’s first national exposure to be humiliation.”
I told him that I expected him to impose whatever discipline he could on the delegates because I wanted to lose as few votes as possible on this challenge.
The revolt was cut short when Agnew received 1,128 votes to Romney’s 186. A few days after the convention Romney wrote to me: “I assume you received my note of August 9 and the attached press release on the vice presidency insurrection. As someone said afterwards, it was like a good big burp! It relieved the tension and united your support.”
As Pat and I approached the podium in the convention hall, the roar was deafening. Except for winning the election, very few things are more satisfying to a political candidate than the moment of accepting a presidential nomination.
In 1960 I had had to defend Eisenhower’s record: now in 1968 I was the challenger against an incumbent administration, and I felt that a tougher approach was called for. I described the problems America faced exactly as I saw them:
America is in trouble today not because her people have failed but because her leaders have failed.
When the strongest nation in the world can be tied down for four years in a war in Vietnam with no end in sight;
When the richest nation in the world can’t manage its own economy;
When the nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of law is plagued by unprecedented lawlessness;
When a nation that has been known for a century for equality of opportunity is torn by unprecedented racial violence;
And when the President of the United States cannot travel abroad or to any major city at home without fear of a hostile demonstration—then it’s time for new leadership for the United States of America.
My fellow Americans, tonight I accept the challenge and the commitment to provide that new leadership for America.
I had written the conclusion of the speech as a personal testimony to the political and social opportunity we have in the United States. It was intentionally dramatic, and it was completely true.
Tonight, I see the face of a child.
He lives in a great city. He is black, or he is white. He is Mexican, Italian, Polish. None of that matters. What matters, he’s an American child.
That child in that great city is more important than any politician’s promise. He is America. He is a poet. He is a scientist, he is a great teacher, he is a proud craftsman. He is everything we ever hoped to be and everything we dare to dream to be.
He sleeps the sleep of a child and he dreams the dreams of a child.
And yet when he awakens, he awakens to a living nightmare of poverty, neglect, and despair.
He fails in school.
He ends up on welfare.
For him the American system is one that feeds hi
s stomach and starves his soul. It breaks his heart. And in the end it may take his life on some distant battlefield.
To millions of children in this rich land, this is their prospect of the future.
But this is only part of what I see in America.
I see another child tonight.
He hears a train go by at night and he dreams of far away places where he’d like to go.
It seems like an impossible dream.
But he is helped on his journey through life.
A father who had to go to work before he finished the sixth grade, sacrificed everything he had so that his sons could go to college.
A gentle, Quaker mother, with a passionate concern for peace, quietly wept when he went to war but she understood why he had to go.
A great teacher, a remarkable football coach, an inspirational minister encouraged him on his way.
A courageous wife and loyal children stood by him in victory and also defeat.
And in his chosen profession of politics, first there were scores, then hundreds, then thousands, and finally millions who worked for his success.
And tonight he stands before you—nominated for President of the United States of America.
On the whole the convention came off very well. It looked good on television, and the first post-convention Gallup poll showed me leading Humphrey 45 percent to 29 percent—a 16 percent margin.
Immediately after the convention, our entourage flew to California. On the way, Agnew and I stopped in Texas to meet with President Johnson, Secretary of State Rusk, Deputy Defense Secretary Cyrus Vance, and CIA Director Richard Helms. They gave us a full-scale intelligence briefing, ordered by Johnson for each of the nominees.
Johnson and Rusk came out to meet the presidential helicopter that flew us to the LBJ Ranch. It was a very hot day, and we soon had our coats off. Johnson was expansive and cordial, and I could see that he was already enjoying his role as a noncandidate in this election year.
After our meeting we had a delicious lunch of steak and fresh corn on the cob, followed by Lady Bird’s homemade toll-house cookies. Johnson drove me from the ranch house to the helicopter pad. On the way he went by the little house where he was born and showed me the plot of land where his parents were buried. After seeing Johnson at his ranch, I understood what Billy Graham had meant when he said that Johnson “loved the land” and always wanted to go back to it.
As I started to board the helicopter, Johnson’s dog darted past my legs into the cabin. There was a great deal of laughter, and I practically had to pick the animal up and carry him down the steps. Johnson shouted in mock anger, “Dick, here you’ve got my helicopter, you’re after my job, and now you’re gonna take my dog.”
There were going to be seven key states in the 1968 presidential campaign: New York, California, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Michigan. Of these I had won only California and Ohio in 1960. This time I had to win at least three in order to have a chance of winning the election.
The Deep South had to be virtually conceded to George Wallace. I could not match him there without compromising on the civil rights issue, which I would not do. But I would not concede the Carolinas, Florida, Virginia, or any of the states on the rim of the South. These states became the foundation of my strategy; added to the states that I expected to win in the Midwest, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Far West, they would put me over the top and into the White House.
Because of the Wallace candidacy I expected the race to be very close. My polls showed that Wallace’s vote was overwhelmingly Democratic but that when his name was not included in the poll sampling, his votes came to me on more than a two-to-one basis, especially in the South. Therefore it was essential that I keep the Wallace vote as low as possible. A major theme that we used very effectively in key states such as Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia was that Wallace couldn’t win. Our message to would-be Wallace voters was: “Don’t waste your vote.”
While the Democrats gathered in Chicago for their convention, I went to Key Biscayne to rest and think. With Bobby Kennedy gone, I knew that Humphrey would get the nomination. Eugene McCarthy nonetheless continued his quixotic candidacy. Although the outcome of such a contest was a foregone conclusion, most of the media sympathized with McCarthy and the coverage given his challenge would have national impact, regardless of its actual influence on the convention’s choice.
Thousands of young people had converged on Chicago for the Democratic convention. Many were sincere protesters against the Vietnam war, but some were little more than semiprofessional agitators and educated hoodlums. A series of clashes with the Chicago police finally erupted into a pitched battle on the night of Humphrey’s nomination.
Like millions of other Americans watching television that night, I did not want to believe my eyes. It seemed as if the Democrats’ convention was confirming every indictment of their leadership that I had made in my campaign speeches. Television magnified the agony of Chicago into a national debacle. I knew, of course, that the impact of Humphrey’s nomination would now be seriously undermined. He would have to spend his entire campaign trying to patch up the divisions in his party. Even before the confrontation with the police, McCarthy and his zealous followers had been embittered by the convention because their efforts to pass a peace plank in the platform were defeated.
Humphrey chose Senator Edmund S. Muskie of Maine as his running mate. A former governor who had shown great political skill in getting re-elected in a traditionally Republican state, Muskie was a strong addition to the ticket.
My first scheduled stop in the 1968 presidential campaign was a motorcade through downtown Chicago on September 4. In some respects this was a risk because the city was still tense and reeling from the Democratic convention and from the criticism being leveled against Mayor Richard Daley and the Chicago police force. The risk paid off. As our motorcade passed through Chicago’s Loop at noontime, an estimated half million people turned out in genuine good cheer, with frequent outbursts of enthusiastic support. The contrast with the bitter confrontation that Humphrey was now tied to could not have been greater.
I knew that Humphrey would not remain in his slump forever. His was the majority party, and as Tom Wicker of the New York Times put it, “No Republican, as has often been said, unites the Democrats the way Nixon does.” Humphrey would soon begin to recover his early losses. The only questions were when and by how much?
The first Gallup poll after the Democratic convention showed that I still had a substantial lead:
Nixon
43%
Humphrey
31%
Wallace
19%
Undecided
7%
But the problem with being the front-runner is that you are the target for everyone behind you.
Though painted as an underdog, Humphrey was not alone in his battle. In addition to his designated partisans, he had in his corner the giant combine of American organized labor. Although intellectuals, upper-middle-class liberals, and young people had temporarily deserted Humphrey, the union bosses never wavered. Under George Meany’s orders, labor unions across the country provided Humphrey with millions of dollars, tens of thousands of marching feet, sophisticated direct mail and data processing, and other costly facilities. Although the union leadership was solidly behind Humphrey, the rank and file was far from united. Hundreds of thousands of blue-collar Democrats had voted for George Wallace in the primaries, and Humphrey would not necessarily inherit their support.
The anti-Nixon and anti-Wallace union propaganda eventually began paying off for Humphrey, but he needed more. The stigma of Chicago was not so easily erased. Lyndon Johnson stayed home in the White House, and Humphrey became a handy target for everyone on the left who hated the Johnson administration and the Vietnam war. During Humphrey’s first weeks of campaign appearances, he was subjected to persistent heckling; the chant “Dump the Hump” dogge
d his steps. At one point he was driven almost to tears in front of the television cameras when he could not finish a speech before a derisive audience.
In an attempt to separate himself from Johnson on the war issue, Humphrey delivered a nationally televised speech from Salt Lake City on September 30. He said that his first priority as President would be to end the war and obtain an honorable peace. Although he continued to oppose a unilateral withdrawal of forces, he said that he would stop the bombing of North Vietnam “as an acceptable risk for peace because I believe it could lead to success in the negotiations and thereby shorten the war.”
Humphrey’s speech was shrewd. While it scarcely differed from Johnson’s position, he made it sound like a major new departure. As antiwar columnist Joseph Kraft put it, the speech “has to be judged more by the music than the words. . . . The important thing is that the Humphrey campaign may finally be getting off the ground.” The New York Times also concluded that Humphrey’s proposal “may be a frail straw for doves to clutch at, but it is more hopeful than anything the administration or the Republican candidate has so far offered.” By this point the doves were clutching at straws; they were beginning to realize that, however disappointed they were with Humphrey, and however disillusioned by Chicago, unless something were done to knock down my commanding lead in the polls, I was going to be elected President on November 5.
Liberal support and money started pouring back into Humphrey’s campaign. Humphrey’s problems with hecklers considerably abated; they began instead to focus their efforts on disrupting my campaign. These were not the hecklers of the American and British campaign tradition who press candidates with barbed questions and comments. These were anarchistic mobs. As soon as the speeches began they would start shouting, chanting simplistic and often obscene slogans, less to be heard themselves than to prevent the speaker from being heard. It was not an exercise in debate but a descent into hate.