During his iconic career at CBS News, Dan Rather was on the ground in Dallas moments after President Kennedy is assassinated; covered the Civil Rights moment and the Vietnam War; and was the only anchor in China’s Tiananmen Square before the crackdown on protesters. He also famously was roughed up during the 1968 Democratic National Convention — which inspired PvNew to ask Rather, still going strong at 92 (you can read his current “Steady” columns at steady.substack), to reflect on that tumultuous moment in U.S. politics and how it compares to what has happened in 2024.
One of the hallmarks of a good broadcast journalist is the ability to roll with the proverbial punches during live events. You have to be a good ad-libber and be able to pivot, ready for the unexpected. Suffice it to say that on March 31, 1968, I was not ready when President Lyndon Johnson delivered a shocker.
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First, a little context. In early spring of 1968 the country was in turmoil. The unpopular war in Vietnam was raging. Protests and riots abounded on college campuses and in cities large and small. A sitting president was being challenged in the primaries.
I was White House correspondent for CBS News at the time. That Sunday the White House asked for airtime from the networks for an Oval Office address. I anchored a special report sitting alongside my colleague Roger Mudd. The president’s press office had handed out an advance copy of the speech that was pretty mundane. It dealt mostly with changing strategies in Vietnam. Then, at the very end of the address, almost 40 minutes in, Johnson suddenly went off script and stunned the world. “I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president,” he said.
Frankly, I had forgotten my reaction, but it all came back recently when I saw a recording of that broadcast on YouTube. It reminded me that I was more than a little bit surprised, disappointed and angry — mostly because I was caught off guard by the announcement.
In analyzing the speech, Mudd and I mentioned two likely Democratic contenders, Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy. It wasn’t until several minutes in that we remembered Hubert Humphrey, the sitting vice president. Humphrey would go on to win the nomination and lose the general election to Richard Nixon. Though rumors had swirled for months that Johnson might bow out I was not among those who thought he would actually do it. It just wasn’t in his character. He hated to lose. And though this wasn’t technically losing, in his mind it was equivalent.
President Joe Biden’s exit from the presidential race in July was almost anticlimactic by comparison. It came after a terrible debate performance and weeks of speculation and pressure from party leaders. His announcement was, not surprisingly, made on social media. The Oval Office address was several days later and at that point a formality. While the exit was tame, the political mayhem in which the decision was in some ways similar to 1968.
Like Johnson, Biden was facing an Everest-sized battle to remain in the White House. In Biden’s case the consequences of losing were even graver. While no one knew exactly what Richard Nixon would do, Donald Trump’s playbook is an open book.
Let’s hope we never live through another year like ‘68, especially those four calamitous months leading up to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, divisions over Vietnam hardened and riots escalated nationwide.
In an effort to guarantee the safety of convention goers, the city ramped up security forces, creating what looked and felt to me like a police state outside the International Amphitheatre. Inside the hall was not much different. Speaking of rolling with the punches, I was involved in an altercation on the convention floor in which I was sucker punched in the stomach by a plain clothes security guard while trying to interview a delegate on live television. The delegate was being strong armed off the convention floor. I remember Walter Cronkite calling out the heavy security presence when he told the nation, “I think we got a bunch of thugs here, Dan.”
Outside the hall it was pure hell as police and protestors clashed for days. There were calls for the convention to be suspended until the violence stopped.
The country did quickly steady itself and move forward. But the psychological effects and long-range political ramifications of what happened in Chicago reverberate today. In the wake of the convention the Democratic Party moved further left, the Republican party moved further right. The public’s faith and belief in the political system and national leaders suffered wounds, some of which are still open.
It is with this historical reality that the Democrats return to the city of Chicago for their convention on August 19. The old amphitheater from 1968 is long gone, demolished and replaced by a shopping mall. This year’s convention will be held at the United Center. While I am sure there will be protests, I am also hopeful we will see nothing like the Chicago of 1968. And unlike the fractured and divided Democrats of that year, this convention now looks like it will be a celebration of Biden’s decades of public service and an anointing of a new generation of leadership in Kamala Harris.
It would have been inconceivable in 1968 for a major political party to nominate a woman, much less a woman of color. My lifetime has seen so much change, and progress.
Back in ‘68, when I signed off from covering Johnson’s surprise speech I quoted 19th century British politician Benjamin Disreali. I think his wise words apply just as well today. “What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens.” So we must be ready for anything, armed with what history has taught us. 1968 may have been 56 years ago, but it is a reminder that this nation has had periods of deep division and turmoil in the past and we have endured.
“Rather,” the documentary about Rather‘s landmark career in news, is currently streaming on Netflix. The feature utilizes the story of Rather’s life on television to also explore the evolution of broadcast journalism, the troubles a free press now faces, along with the slide of American society from hard-fought advances in social justice and democratic freedoms. Frank Marshall directed “Rather,” which comes from Wavelength and Original Productions, in association with Anchor Entertainment and The Kennedy/Marshall Company. You can also read PvNew’s 2023 conversation with Rather here.
