Lyndon Johnson – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

Social upheaval isn’t new … just look at the bumpy year of 1968

Walt Kelly’s *Pogo* comic strip often addressed political issues. This original 1968 Sunday strip realized $4,63 at a November 2016 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was on a mission that would include a march over a bridge in Selma, Ala., and he led a high-profile protest over voter-registration rules. Congress finally passed the Voting Rights Act, but it would turn out to be too late. King’s ideas about non-violence were poised for a rapid decline. The long-overdue legislation simply provoked an expression of rage, repression and frustration. Soon, riots broke out in Watts, followed by San Diego, Chicago, Philadelphia and Springfield.

The message seemed clear. This violence was not targeted against unfair laws, long-denied rights or even a new brand of segregation. It was against class distinctions and the invisible racism that deprives people of good jobs and better housing. The struggle to eat at the same lunch counters, and use the same restrooms, hotels or drinking fountains was over. This was about economic inequalities and disparities in everyday life. The voices that were speaking louder than MLK reflected the speeches of Malcolm X … belief in the purity and pride of the black race and separation from whites to obtain true freedom and self-respect.

The fever fueled urban rioting like a contagion, even after Malcolm was killed by a rival black Muslim in 1965. Eight thousand deaths or injuries occurred in 100 U.S. cities from 1965 to 1968. Malcolm’s provocative separatist ideology morphed into the hands of Stokely Carmichael and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, along with the Black Power sloganeering of Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers. Despite the efforts of broad swathes of committed people, there was a pervasive, ominous fear of a racial clash that was lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce.

In America, most years are routine… 365 days filled with weeks and months and only occasionally an event that might change the arc of history. Rarely do we experience shocks to the system that put us in a new orbit. Ironically, we’re in a classic worldwide disruption now and the path back to normalcy is filled with uncertainty. Even more critical is the simple fact that virtually everyone on this tiny speck has to join in or we all might perish. The pandemic is just one of the dangers. Climate change is a global concern and we’re also drifting back toward another Cold War with obvious parallels to the past. Nobody expected the events in 1914 to expand into a world war, yet almost everyone could see how WW2 was bound to occur.

And thus it was in 1968 when we endured a very bumpy ride.

Perhaps it began on Jan. 30 of that year when North Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive and caught everyone on our side flat-footed. A surprise attack on 100 cities was just implausible, but it did happen. Eventually, the military regained control, but in the process surrendered an enormous strategic PR advantage to the enemy. The American government had been promising that “Victory is in sight,” but was forced to retract the assertion. Walter Cronkite – the most trusted man in America – declared, “The Vietnam War is mired in a stalemate.” President Johnson took it one step further: “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the American people.”

This public embarrassment was followed by the astonishing Kerner Commission report in February. Established by the president, the blue-ribbon group was charged with investigating the causes of the rash of riots sweeping American cities. In a stinging rebuke, it blamed the riots on police brutality, racism and lack of economic opportunities. In siding with the rioters, the 468-page bestseller concluded with a bombshell: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one white – separate and unequal.” It charged that white society is clearly implicated in the ghetto – “White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it and white society condones it.”

President Johnson promptly ignored it.

As the 1968 presidential primary season rolled around, Tet gave a boost to long-shot Eugene McCarthy. Running as a one-issue candidate (the war), he snagged a surprising 42% of the New Hampshire primary. Enter Bobby Kennedy, who, like most of America, was undergoing a transformation over Vietnam, civil rights and the charge America was not a moral country. However, he clung to the belief that not having a Kennedy in the White House was the missing elixir. He announced his candidacy on March 16.

Two weeks later (March 31), President Johnson made a prime-time speech to the American people. After listing the many positive things that had been accomplished, he started talking about a growing division in America and asked everyone to guard against divisiveness and its ugly consequences. He closed by saying he couldn’t afford to waste any of his precious time on partisan politics and … “I shall not seek and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

It had a somber, even sad tonality that when read today doesn’t seem to fit together.

Four days later, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis and the now-familiar bright orange flames flared over Harlem, Chicago, Detroit and Kansas City. People were losing faith in our institutions and wondering who to blame.

Walt Kelly (1913-1973) seemed to be the only one with a plausible answer. Kelly was an American cartoonist and animator. He worked for Walt Disney studios until 1941, when he moved over to Dell Comics. There, he created a new lineup of animal cartoon characters, including Pogo Possum, Albert Alligator and Churchill LaFemme. The strip was layered with clever political satire. On Earth Day 1971, his son was complaining about sore feet from having to walk on all the tin cans, glass and junk that had accumulated in the swamp. This was when Pogo uttered his most famous observation … “Yep, son, we have met the enemy and he is us.”

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Late ’60s marked a dangerous era of tensions over Vietnam, Civil Rights

Posters by Walt Kelly with the popular slogan “We have met the enemy and he is us” (1970) occasionally appear at auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In 1968, we were living in San Jose when national politics got complicated after President Lyndon Johnson made a speech that concluded, “Accordingly, I shall not seek and will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

The date was March 31 and less than a week later, on April 4, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. The assassin, James Earl Ray, was on the loose and believed to have fled the country. Later, he would be apprehended at London’s Heathrow Airport and extradited to face first-degree murder charges. He pled guilty in return for a 99-year sentence and died in 1998 while still in prison.

The year had started off with an upset on Jan. 20 when the University of Houston, led by Elvin Hayes, defeated top-ranked UCLA, 71-69, in the Astrodome before 52,693 fans. It had been billed as the “Game of the Century” and was the first NCAA basketball game to be nationally televised in prime time, ultimately leading to “March Madness.” Although UCLA would go on to thrash Houston in the semi-finals (101-69) and defeat North Carolina in the championship game, the loss to Houston snapped a 47-game winning streak. Coach John Wooden simply commented, “I guess we’ll just have to start over.” From 1971 to 1974, UCLA won another 88 straight games.

Ten days after the UCLA upset, on Jan. 30, 1968, about 80,000 enemy troops launched a surprise attack on over 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam. It was the single most lethal day in terms of killed or mortally wounded U.S. military troops. Although the war would grind on for another six years, the “Tet Offensive” would turn out to be the beginning of the end, since it put the war into 50 million Americans’ living rooms every night on all three TV networks, which dutifully announced all the Viet Cong that had been killed. Even then, I never understood the logic on keeping track of enemy KIA and territory gained in the vain hope it would somehow boost public support (especially since it was the same territory we had won six weeks previously). It seemed analogous to fighting the Battle of Gettysburg (once a week) and then reporting on whether the North or South had won.

After the April murder of MLK, a wave of shock and distress spread across the nation, with riots and burning in more than 100 cities. Then two months later, disaster struck again when Bobby Kennedy was killed on June 5 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Tensions over Vietnam and Civil Rights were at a dangerous level and America’s leadership was being questioned. Walt Kelly’s frequently quoted Pogo line from that era – “We have met the enemy and he is us” – captured the mood of the country.

In August, we had dinner at the five-star Stanford Court Hotel on California Street on Nob Hill. Our host told us an amusing story about their last visit to the restaurant. Without mentioning any names, he explained that during dinner, the wife of his client had slipped a plate from the table into her handbag. Nothing was said, but when the check came, there was one line listed: “One dinner plate $75.” In a perverse way, it eased my concern that discretion and gentility were being eroded during all the domestic chaos.

Later I would learn that the hotel had been built on the same site that Leland Stanford (1824-1893) had built his magnificent mansion, which was legendary for its luxury and art collection. Finished in 1876 for the astonishing cost of $2 million, it was perched on two superb acres surrounded by a grand wall of basalt and granite. The Stanford manse was among the most elegant in the nation, but had been destroyed by fire in the 1906 earthquake.

Leland Stanford was one of the Big Four responsible for building the Central Pacific railroad that started in Sacramento and met the Union Pacific at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869. This was the joining of the first Transcontinental Railroad that completed an “iron belt” around the country. Leland Stanford and his wife Janie are responsible for creating Stanford University in honor of a son that died. Leland and his cronies – Mark Hopkins, Charles Crocker and Collis Huntington – were well known in 19th century history as “Robber Barons” and Stanford’s correspondence leaves no doubt that he used every trick in the book to cheat his partners, investors, the government and employees.

I suspect he never thought about stealing the silverware or china from restaurants.

Selecting a justice has always been a messy, partisan process

This photograph, circa 1968, autographed by Chief Justice Earl Warren and the eight associate justices, sold for $2,031 at a June 2010 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The Senate Judiciary Committee began hearings this week to consider the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in their “advise and consent” role to the president of the United States. Once considered a formality in the justice system, it has devolved into a high-stakes political process and is a vivid example of how partisanship has divided governance, especially in the Senate.

Fifty years ago, President Nixon provided a preview of politics gone awry as he attempted to reshape the Supreme Court to fit his vision of a judiciary. His problems actually started during the final year of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency. On June 26, 1968, LBJ announced that Chief Justice Earl Warren intended to resign the seat he had held since 1953. He also said that he intended to nominate Associate Justice Abe Fortas as his successor.

For the next three months, the Senate engaged in an acrimonious debate over the Fortas nomination. Finally, Justice Fortas asked the president to withdraw his nomination to stop the bitter partisan wrangling. Chief Justice Warren, who had been a keen observer of the Senate’s squabbling, decided to end the controversy in a different way. He withdrew his resignation and in a moment of pique said, “Since they won’t take Abe, they will have me!” True to his promise, Warren served another full term until May 1969.

By then, there was another new president – Richard Nixon – and he picked Warren Burger to be Warren’s replacement. Burger was a 61-year-old judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals with impeccable Republican credentials, just as candidate Nixon had promised during the 1968 presidential election campaign. As expected, Burger’s confirmation was speedy and decisive … 74-3.

Jubilant over his first nomination confirmation to the court, Nixon had also received a surprise bonus earlier in 1969. In May, Justice Fortas had decided to resign his seat on the court. In addition to the bitter debate the prior year, the intense scrutiny of his record had uncovered a dubious relationship with Louis Wolfson, a Wall Street financier sent to prison for securities violations. To avoid another Senate imbroglio over some shady financial dealings, Fortas decided to resign. In stepping down, Fortas became the first Supreme Court justice to resign under threat of impeachment.

So President Nixon had a second opportunity to add a justice. After repeating his criteria for Supreme Court nominees, Nixon chose Judge Clement Haynsworth Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, to replace Fortas. Attorney General John Mitchell had encouraged the nomination since Haynsworth was a Harvard Law alumnus and a Southern jurist with conservative judicial views. He seemed like an ideal candidate since Nixon had a plan to gradually reshape the court.

However, to the president’s anger and embarrassment, Judiciary Committee hearings exposed clear evidence of financial and conflict-of-interest improprieties. There were no actual legal implications, but how could the Senate force Fortas to resign and then essentially just overlook basically the same issues now? Finally, the Judiciary Committee approved Haynsworth 10-7, but on Nov. 21, 1969, the full Senate rejected the nomination 55-45. A livid Nixon blamed anti-Southern, anti-conservative partisans for the defeat.

The president – perhaps in a vengeful mood – quickly countered by nominating Judge G. Harold Carswell of Florida, a little-known undistinguished ex-U.S. District Court judge with only six months experience on the Court of Appeals. The Senate was clearly now hoping to approve him until suspicious reporters discovered a statement in a speech he had made to the American Legion 20-plus years before in 1948: “I yield to no man as a fellow candidate or as a citizen in the firm, vigorous belief in the principles of White Supremacy and I shall always be so governed!”

Oops.

Even allowing for his youth and other small acts of racial bias, the worst was yet to come. It turned out that he was a lousy judge with a poor grasp of the law. His floor manager, U.S. Senator Roman Hruska, a Nebraska Republican, then made a fumbling inept attempt to convert Carswell’s mediocrity into an asset. “Even if he is mediocre, there are lots of mediocre judges, people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation aren’t they, and a little chance?” This astonishing assertion was then compounded when it was seconded by Senator Russell Long, a Democrat from Louisiana! When the confirmation vote was taken on April 9, 1970, Judge Carswell’s nomination was defeated 51-45.

A bitter President Nixon, with two nominees rejected in less than six months, continued to blame it on sectional prejudice and philosophical hypocrisy. So he turned to the North and selected Judge Harry Blackmun, a close friend of Chief Justice Burger who urged his nomination. Bingo … he was easily confirmed by a vote of 94-0. At long last, the vacant seat of Abe Fortas was filled.

There would be no further vacancies for 15 months, but in September 1971, justices Hugo Black and John Harlan announced they were terminally ill and compelled to resign from the court. Nixon was finally able to develop a strategy to replace these two distinguished jurors, but it was only after a complicated and convoluted process. It would ultimately take Nixon eight tries to fill four seats, and the process has only become more difficult.

Before Judge Kavanaugh is able to join the court, as is widely predicted, expect the opposing party to throw up every possible roadblock they have in their bag of tricks. This process is now strictly political and dependent on partisan voting advantages. The next big event will probably involve Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a 25-year court member (1993) and only the second woman on the court after Sandra Day O’Connor. At age 85, you can be sure that Democrats are wishing her good health until they regain control of the Oval Office and the Senate. If not, stay tuned for the Battle of the Century!

JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Clear Objectives, an Overwhelming Force, Exit Strategy Crucial to Any War

Korean War stories were popular in comic books published in the early 1950s, like this *Two-Fisted Tales* from EC Comics.

By Jim O’Neal

When I started studying the history of war in early 1962, I was surprised that so many wise military men all warned about the danger of a land war in Asia. Words like “bogged down,” “embroiled” and “mired” were liberally sprinkled around in the hope of shaping foreign policy. I knew President Eisenhower had quickly ended the “police action” in Korea that President Truman had left unfinished. As an experienced military strategist, Eisenhower knew that fighting on the Korean Peninsula could easily expand into a direct confrontation with China. He had been determined to avoid restarting the global conflict he had helped end.

The 1950s were a good time for America as we helped rebuild the world.

Then the seeds of war in Vietnam started slowly showing up on the evening news. The implications were blurred by events in San Francisco. Hippies, flower children, sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll were far more entertaining. President Johnson started complaining about “JFK’s war” while he and Secretary of Defense Bob McNamara were quietly acceding to military requests for more troops and guns.

Eventually, draft protests grew more violent, followed by riots in major cities and MLK and Bobby Kennedy being assassinated. By 1968, the United States had 550,000 troops in Vietnam, having steadily grown from a few hundred “military advisers.” It would take another seven years and a different president to extricate the nation from an incremental war that had caused such domestic turmoil. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., lists 58,318 names (including eight women) as of May 2017 who were “declared dead.”

The wise military officers had been right.

One hundred years earlier, a similar series of events had culminated in a civil war. In the three months following President Lincoln’s election, seven states seceded from the Union. The new president was paranoid that the Confederates would attack Washington after they forced the garrison at Fort Sumter to surrender. He urged his military advisers to preemptively attack rebel forces in Virginia, but the Union army lacked training and was too slow.

Finally, on July 16, 1861, Union General Irvin McDowell led 33,000 slightly trained soldiers toward Manassas, Va. (later better known as Bull Run). Before they arrived, spies tipped off P.G.T. Beauregard, who quickly called for 10,000 reinforcements to bolster his 22,000 troops. Rumors of the pending battle spread quickly and there was a large contingent of politicians and civilians perched on a hillside with blankets and picnic baskets, eager to see a good fight. Among them was a young senator from Ohio, John Sherman, whose brother William Tecumseh would play a key role with General Ulysses S. Grant in ending the war.

However, 10 hours of combat on July 21, 1861, changed the way a nation viewed war. Both Federals and Confederates had come to these fields supremely confident of swift, relatively bloodless victories. Even Abraham Lincoln had attended church that day after being assured of an easy Union victory. Senator Sherman was one of the first to learn otherwise. “Our army is defeated and my brother is dead,” Secretary of War Simon Cameron informed him.

They left behind more than 800 dead and 2,700 wounded. They also left behind any illusions that the war would be won or lost on a single, lazy Sunday afternoon. Confederate officer Samuel Melton wrote, “I have no idea that they intend to give up the fight. On the contrary, five men will rise up where one has been killed, and in my opinion, the war will have to be continued to the bloody end.”

Another wise man who understood war.

Now flash forward to October 1998 when official U.S. foreign policy was changed by a benign-sounding Congressional action to remove the Iraqi government: the Iraq Liberation Act. Then, four years later in October 2002, the U.S. Congress passed the “Iraq Resolution,” which authorized the president to “use any means necessary” against Iraq. At 5:34 a.m. Baghdad time on March 20, 2003, the military invasion of Iraq began. Fifteen years later, we are still in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Niger. Some now call this the “long war” and there is no end in sight.

My friend Colin Powell says he did not invent the “Pottery Barn Rule” (if you break it, you own it). But he does believe that any war should have a clear objective, an overwhelming force to achieve it and a clear exit strategy.

He is a wise man.

Vietnam Exemplifies the Sad Results of False Expectations

This South Vietnam, National Bank of Vietnam 1000 Dong ND (1955-56), is one of Vietnam’s most coveted currency designs. It realized $32,900 at an April 2015 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The war in Vietnam was a continuation of a war that had been going on since the end of WWII. After the Japanese surrender, the French attempted to take back their former colony, but Vietnamese nationalists (led by communist Ho Chi Minh) defeated the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

In the peace settlement, Vietnam was divided into two separate states at the 17th parallel – North (a communist state) and South (a Western-backed democracy) with a DMZ in the middle to keep them apart.

However, the Viet Minh infiltrated the South, which the U.S. feared would lead to a takeover, followed by an Asian “domino” outcome. The response was a ramp-up in military aid, advisors and limited support troops. The first 3,500 combat troops landed in early 1965 and steadily increased to 200,000. By November 1967 (despite war protests), there were nearly 500,000 fighting the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese army (NVA).

To counter the protests, General William Westmoreland claimed the U.S. was winning and President LBJ stood on the deck of the U.S.S. Enterprise and declared the war would continue “not many more nights.” It was late 1967.

Within weeks, the Tet Offensive would highlight the absurdly misplaced optimism of these words.

It started early in the morning of Jan. 31, 1968. The sounds of firecrackers were heard and assumed to just be Tet, the annual Vietnamese celebration heralding the beginning of the lunar New Year, “The Year of the Monkey.” All over Vietnam, similar celebrations were going on.

It was actually a massive attack by the communists on the South, and the surprise trapped many noncombatants, especially journalists, who quickly relayed the news home; vivid reports made front pages around the world with scenes of carnage shown nightly on television.

After the first few days, TV legend Walter Cronkite reportedly blurted, “What the hell is going on? I thought we were winning the war!” It mattered little that within weeks the North Vietnamese were being pushed back with heavy losses. The dramatic images stuck in people’s minds.

The combined impact of the offensive and images would ultimately force President Johnson not to seek reelection – a shocking result for the leader and his advisers, given the fact the offensive would end with an American victory, the devastation of the Viet Cong as a fighting force, and a severe mauling of the NVA.

It was a heavy price to pay for the faulty military propaganda and lying to the public that the war was “almost” won. Setting false expectations always leads to sad endings – but leaders persist, yet today.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is President and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

It’s Been 43 Years Since a Human has Been on the Moon

This Apollo 11-flown U.S. flag on a crew-signed presentation certificate sold for $71,875 at a November 2013 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

On July 16, 1969, three astronauts lay strapped on their backs in their space module atop a massive Saturn V rocket. Neil Armstrong, “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins were going on a trip into the Florida sky headed for a landing on the moon.

The Apollo space program had begun just eight years earlier in April 1961. On April 12, the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first person into space and to orbit the Earth. That stirred President Kennedy’s competitive juices.

After Gagarin’s 90-minute orbit, JFK wrote to VP Lyndon Johnson – chairman of the National Space Council – asking: “Do we have a chance of beating the Soviets by putting a lab into space, or a trip around the moon … or by a rocket to go to the moon and back with a man?”

At the time, the American space program was not far behind – as Alan Shepard had traveled into space on May 5, 1961 – but lagged in the technology to reach the moon.

The Russians had already succeeded in launching three hard-landing rockets (unmanned spacecraft shot up with a goal of simply hitting the moon) and America was two years away from that.

So after Shepard’s feat, JFK issued his famous challenge while addressing Congress. “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.”

Back in Florida, Apollo 11 – with a mighty roar – lifted off into space to meet that challenge. Only 11 minutes after liftoff, it was in orbit with the three astronauts feeling the early stages of weightlessness.

Thirty-eight-year-old Neil Armstrong was the commander and would be accompanied by Aldrin on the moonwalk after the lunar module Eagle separated from the command module Columbia.

Michael Collins would not touch the moon’s surface, as he was responsible for making sure the Eagle launched and then re-docked for the journey back to Earth.

While only eight years had passed since JFK’s challenge, they had been difficult, turbulent ones. JFK was dead from an assassin’s bullet, as were brother Bobby and MLK Jr.

Riots in major cities and the Vietnam War had ripped at the nation’s fabric. The counterculture of drugs, sex and rock ’n’ roll was still in full throttle. (We were in San Jose and mildly surprised by the daily chaos just 45 miles up Highway 101 in San Francisco. Haight-Ashbury and Golden Gate Park were surreal.)

As millions of Americans watched Apollo 11 with awe and admiration, others felt it was a giant, expensive boondoggle designed to divert attention from widespread racial tensions and the 10 million people living below the poverty line.

Had America lost its mojo or were we entering a new, better phase? The jury was divided.

But nothing had distracted NASA except for a tragedy in 1967 when three astronauts on Apollo 1 died in a launch-pad fire. But they persevered and by July 1969 had made four successful manned flights, put spacecraft into orbit around the moon and tested the lunar module.

The Russian program unraveled when a chief scientist died and their highly secret N1 rockets exploded at least four times. Soviet politicians privately ceded the race to America and could only watch from the sidelines.

It took Apollo 11 three days to reach the moon and on July 19 the Columbia entered lunar orbit. On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin entered the Eagle and landed it on the moon.

“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” It was July 20, 1969.

There were four more manned missions to the moon. The last was in December 1972. Then the program was scrapped.

It has been 43 years since a human has been on the moon and we now rely on Ridley Scott (The Martian) and other filmmakers to fill the gap as we struggle with overpopulation, geopolitics and terrorism and a resurgence of racial tension.

Progress is difficult.

P.S. A surprising number of people (6 percent to 20 percent by annual polling) believe the whole moon thing was a hoax, anyway.