HEY HEY LBJ, WHAT DID YOU DO 50 YEARS AGO TODAY?

It was a Sunday, the 31^st of March fifty years ago, 1968. I was in my last year of high school, already halfway out the door to college. The Vietnam war was a concern, but knowing I'd been offered scholarships, and would spend the next four years deferred from the draft, it was not an immediate worry. On that quiet spring evening President Lyndon B. Johnson was about to address the nation on television. I was watching it alone, but I began to shout to my family once the import of his now-famous words sank in. “...accordingly, I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

'We' had toppled a president! Eugene McCarthy's strong second place finish in the New Hampshire primary, backed by Vietnam protesters dubbed 'the Children's Crusade', had shown LBJ he would have to endure a battle to get what should have been, as a sitting president, an automatic nomination. Though he spoke of unity and his concentrating on finding a solution for the Vietnam War, those words rang hollow. I was celebrating. LBJ was a favourite of my grandfather, who was a long-time Democratic party hack. Ten years earlier Grandpa had come back from a 'Jefferson-Jackson' fund-raiser at which then-Senator Johnson spoke, and given me an LBJ-autographed programme. 'This man will be president some day,' he told me. LBJ fulfilled my grandad's prophecy, but now change was coming. Johnson would be gone. A war would be over.

Of course, that did not happen. Change came, but in none of the ways I'd anticipated. Johnson's crowning achievements in his brief presidency were the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Even as he stood down to 'unite' America, just four days later, Martin Luther King was assassinated, and the ensuing riots harkened a new era in the fight for racial equality. Robert Kennedy would enter the presidential campaign, running like McCarthy on an anti-war platform, but also as a potential civil rights healer. At the time I saw RFK as the cynical opportunist he had always been. Over time, I've come to re-assess my opinion, believing his conversion was real, spurred by King's move toward wider social activism. What we lost to two assassinations was no less than an opportunity for a racially unified anti-war movement for social justice. After RFK's murder, Johnson's vice-president, Hubert Humphrey, won the Democratic nomination at Chicago's bloody convention, then he lost narrowly to Richard Nixon in November 1968. 

The convention brought changes in the Democratic party that enabled George McGovern to win the party's nomination in 1972. By then I was 21, and he was the first of many losing candidates for whom I would cast my vote; he's still the one I believed in most whole-heartedly. Despite the Vietnam War, now four years deeper in to tragedy, despite the Watergate scandal, which was still years from being taken seriously by the mainstream media, Nixon trounced McGovern.

Immediately after Johnson's speech I wrote an anti-war poem, which was published in our very conservative local paper, the New Haven Register; my first published poem. I went away to college, marched against the war, went on strike in 1970 following the invasion of Cambodia and the killings at Kent State and Jackson State. I protested against the war and for Black Panther leader Bobby Seale in New Haven, when Yale President Kingman Brewster proclaimed the impossibility of a black man receiving a fair trial in America. I became a conscientious objector, and the draft missed me. I moved to Montreal anyway. Watergate came and went, as did, eventually, the war, and finally Nixon himself. All triggered by Johnson's withdrawal from the Presidential campaign.

Today, with America mired in perpetual war for perpetual peace, needing a Black Lives Matter movement to combat an epidemic of killings by the police, and with a president as shifty as Nixon but with none of his wisdom or integrity, I went back and through the miracle of the internet watched Johnson's full speech for the first time in fifty years. He seemed a more sympathetic figure now, trapped in the quagmire of Vietnam after sacrificing his Democratic party in his quest to achieve racial justice. A few years ago, when I wrote a review of the film Selma, I questioned whether it was fair to make Johnson the villain of the piece, especially when so many less ambiguous villains were available, starting with J. Edgar Hoover. Johnson's relationship with King was an uneasy one, but as another movie,All The Way, showed, he had to burn bridges of his own to get his Civil Rights legislation passed. He played a big-stakes political game, knowing what was at risk if he won, probably more than if he lost, and he did what he thought was right anyway.

LBJ may not actually have said 'there goes the South' in 1964 as he signed the Civil Rights Act into law, but that is exactly what happened: by 1968 the drift of the racist, fundamentalist, conservative Dixiecrats to Nixon's Republican party had begun. By 1980, when Ronald Reagan took the White House from Jimmy Carter, the transformation was complete: allied with the far-right oil men, military contractors, and western tycoons, the southerners could squeeze the traditional Yankee moderates within the Republicans: compromise with the hated 'liberals' soon became impossible.

Watching anew, I realised LBJ's speech was primarily about the divisions he saw growing in America. He began by speaking of divisive partisanship. Later he said “I will not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing”. I paid no attention to those words at the time, but five decades later, they sound more prophetic than “there goes the South”. Johnson had been a consummate arm-twister in his time as Senate majority leader, a master of bending those on both sides to achieve some sort of compromise. Today, Mitch McConnell is as ruthless as any Menshevik; the threat of Tea-Party purists backed by Koch and Mercer money being enough to keep all but the bravest or most foolhardy Republicans in partisan line. America enters new, undeclared, open-ended wars, with a bi-partisan monotony of rubber-stamped support behind them. Bernie Sanders' 2016 version of the “Children's Crusade”, like McCarthy's in 1968, merely confirmed the weaknesses of the Democrat's chosen candidate, who nevertheless nearly won.

We know now that Nixon was conspiring with the likes of Henry Kissinger to sabotage the Paris Peace Talks to end the Vietnam War, on which Johnson was staking his withdrawal from partisan politics. We know Johnson knew about it, and thought it treasonous, but was afraid to take action against Nixon for fear he would be accused of doing just what he had sworn he would not do: play party politics with the war. The conflict in Vietnam would persist until 1975, when the ignominious abandonment of Saigon put paid to the whole false notion of 'peace with honour'.

By then, Lyndon Johnson was more than two years dead. It is hard not to conclude the failure of his sacrifice to achieve either peace or justice left him empty. What he would have made of America's electing a black president, then following by electing one who's facing accusations of presidential treason with Russia is beyond speculation. But thinking back to 1968, and watching Johnson's speech, so remarkably un-televisual, so devoid of spin in today's terms, is to see it in a different light. It rings true, with a sense of battered honesty about it. We don't get many politicians acting at all honourably these days. Thus history adds nuance my young self could not, makes LBJ a more sympathetic figure. I still have that autographed programme. I find it means more to me today. It holds up better than my poem.

OUR NIXON: THE TRICKY DICK WE KNEW AND LOVED

There is a moment, watching the home movies of Tricia Nixon's wedding, when I wondered what similar Super 8 footage of Sonny Corleone's marriage might reveal. Our Nixon, which shows tomorrow at London's Open City Docs Fest, is built around home movie footage shot by H.R. 'Bob' Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and Dwight Chapin, three of President Richard Nixon's closest aides, three of his most loyal and devoted followers, all of whom would wind up in jail, cut loose by their hero on his way to becoming the only American president to quit in office.

The footage provides behind the scenes looks at some of Nixon's biggest moments, including the China visit, and his most important speeches. Context is set by clips from network newscasts, and by post-prison interviews with the three home movie makers. When I reviewed Nixon's Shadow, a book about his image (you can link to that review here), I asked whether, in Doonesbury's words, a new generation would recoil as they ought to, and now the same question holds true. But here the answer is more ambiguous.

The answer is that the footage is so infused with the adulation of the cameramen that it's almost hard to realise what is going on. Worryingly, I even found myself admiring Tricia, something I never did when I was young. My feeling was that viewers who were not there would not feel the almost visceral impact of Nixon on the times, and it is impossible for the documentary makers to summon that up from the past. Still there are surprises, the biggest one for me being a small protest by two of the Ray Conniff Singers when they performed at the White House. This was the 'square' music Nixon preferred, and the tiny banner of protest, and the heartfelt Christian plea they make for peace does more to set Nixon and Co. into context than any news reports.

Two things help make Penny Lane's carefully structured film work for an audience to whom Nixon is a blank slate, or worse, pace his posthumous re-evaluation, a statesman. One is the personality of the three aides, who are so obviously out of step with their own and our time as to exude mistrust even as they try to appear ingratiating. These are frat boys, squares themselves, Greg Marmalard and Doug Neidemeyer from Animal House gone from frat house to White House. It was Dwight Chapin's frat buddy Donald Segretti whose 'dirty tricks' on the 1972 election campaign got Chapin dumped, but also allowed the press a chance to ignore the bigger issues of government spying and malfeasance.

That took place under Ehrlichman, who was in charge of putting together the 'plumbers' unit, designed to counter White House leaks. Ehrlichman post-prison is easily the most engaging of the three: one of the real highlights of the film is a commercial he made, and which was quickly withdrawn, for ice cream. He says it's 'unbelieveably good' and then smirks 'and believe me, I'm an expert on that subject'. Stay through the credits to see it.

Haldeman was truest of true believers, cast as Martin Borman by his critics, all brush cut and Rumsfeldian arrogance. He gives an interview about his children calling his hair out of fashion, and, like his boss, admits he is. In his most telling quote, he speaks of their arriving in Washington with 'no great ideological thrust or noble ambition'. Once out of prison, he's rocking a carefully styled 70s do, but it doesn't change him at all. He still denies the truths the Watergate tapes reveal, that he as chief of staff was engineering a major cover-up, and unlike Ehrlichman, who doesn't seem surprised he never spoke with Nixon again, Haldeman seems hurt by his abandonment by the Tricky One.. You almost feel sorry for him. You feel even more sorry for his wife, who shows up in a few shots, always looking like a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

The second thing that helps us understand is a series of taped conversations which sometimes reflect on the footage already shown. The last of these, when an obviously drunken Nixon calls Haldeman after the speech announcing his and Ehrlichman's 'resignations', is telling. Nixon curses what he's done, but also asks Haldeman, whom he's just cut loose, to call round to get reactions to how his speech went for him. We've previously heard both his need for approval and Haldeman's unwavering willingness to provide that. And we still can't shake the feeling, as we do when we hear Alexander Butterfield explain to Nixon how the recording devices work, and Nixon saying 'there may be a day we have to have this' that Nixon, even drunkenly, was speaking for a record, double-accounting for posterity.

There's a fascinating discussion as Nixon and Ehrlichman deconstruct a TV show they can't identify, but is All In The Family, the American version of Til Death Do Us Part, and how it glorifies homosexuality. Nixon takes the lead: 'You don't glorify homosexuality on public television. You know what happened to the Greeks. Homosexuality destroyed them. Aristotle was a homo, we all know that. So was Socrates.' 'But he never had the influence television has,' adds Ehrlichman. 'The last six Roman emperors were fags,' Nixon begins, and Ehrlichman cuts him off with an explanation of 'fatal liberality' that Haldeman finally cuts short. Speaking of that, the discussions of Henry Kissinger, his duplicity, and his penchant for pillow talk, are fascinating. Haldeman later explains that Nixon feels it's OK for Kissinger to 'be a swinger in New York, Florida, or California, but he should not be in Washington.' He advises 'not to put him next to the most glamorous gal anymore, but to seat him next to some intelligent and interesting woman instead.' This was the White House in 1971.

Along the way there are other amusing cameos and side views. Ehrlichman's camera reveals in great detail the bidet in an ornate Paris hotel bathroom. Daniel Moynihan pops up in the foreground as Nixon's helicopter takes off. John Kerry speaks on behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against The War during the March on Washington; this is the footage that the 21^st century equivalent of Nixon's frat boys, Shrub Bush and Karl Rove, would use against him relentlessly 40 years later. When Nixon complains no one's called to congratulate him on a speech, and Haldeman says Nelson Rockefeller has, Nixon says 'well, the hell with him!'. And there's celebrity TV interviewer Barbara Walters, interviewing Haldeman, and carefully grimacing when he says history will judge Nixon as one of the great presidents; the grimace, of course, filmed later as a reverse.

But most important are the glimpses of the real Nixon, whose gloating at the press reaction to his announcement of peace with North Vietnam, a peace that never arrived, is a masterpiece of hypocrisy. This is what I grew up knowing, instinctively about Nixon, and what Our Nixon allows a new generation to acquire at its own pace, and learn, as mine did, to recoil.

THE LONE CRAZED PRESIDENT: POST CELEBRATES WATERGATE'S 40TH ANNIVERSARY

The Washington Post had scooped the world's press on next Sunday's 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, just as they did with the story itself 40 years ago. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward offer a fascinating catalogue of some of the ways they conclude that 'Richard Nixon was even worse than we thought'; you can link to that piece here.

But the retrospective is even more interesting for what it doesn't discuss, which is motivation. Exactly what was it that made Richard Nixon so sensitive to leaks and things that might slip out of the White House and be revealed? What were the things Nixon needed to protect? And who ordered the break-in?Answers come there none.

At the risk of being labelled a conspiracy theorist, which is about the worst thing the mainstream media can call someone suggesting larger forces might be at work in American politics (remember the derision of Hilary Clinton's reference to a 'vast right-wing conspiracy' against her husband? That sure proved far-fetched!). But Woodward and Bernstein (and even more so Woodward in his series of insider books about American politics) have always avoided any consideration of 'deep politics'-- something particularly unusual given Woodward's own background in Naval Intelligence. Now Robert Redford has announced he's going to make a documentary about Watergate, with Woodward (whom he played in the movie) and Bernstein coorperating, and I can only think that this Woodward thesis is about to be reinforced for the post-literate among us.

Of course the 'great man' approach to history remains a valid one,within its limitations. But what Woodstein are presenting, 40 years on, is an even more graphic account of Richard Nixon as the presidential equivalent of the 'lone crazed assassins' who have stalked American politics for at least the past 150 years. As I pointed out in my book about Oliver Stone, it's irony at the highest level that America's highest-profile conspiracy theorist should make a movie remarkably sympathetic to Nixon and his psychological flaws; the difference being that Stone never took his eyes off the bigger picture, and was thus better prepared to see him in the context of forces operating around, if not beyond, his control.

The Post article makes much mention of Nixon's anti-Semitism, and the ambiguous place of Henry Kissinger in his administration. But it contains zero discussion of Kissinger's role in Nixon's October Surprise. Nor is there any mention of, among others, Howard Hughes, Donald Nixon, the Mafia, Bebe Rebozo, Cartha DeLoach, or Pepsico. And what exactly was his concern about 'the whole Bay of Pigs thing' which the White House tapes reveal? Exactly what were the Watergate burglars looking for?

Beyond Nixon himself, there are still basic questions about the whole Watergate affair, and even more about the Post's coverage. What was the true role, and motivation, of Deep Throat? Was Mark Felt the only source, or was DT an amalgam for others? What role did Woodward's own history with Naval Intelligence play? And let us not forget that, although Nixon did eventually resign (leading to that wonderful cover of Rolling Stone, headlined cuttingly: The Quitter) the whole Watergate issue was swept under the carpet by the media during the 1972 election campaign, which was an almost total sweep of America for Nixon. That is the legacy we need to remember.