EGN NEWS DESK
Joe Biden’s option to step apart has resurrected dialogue of Lyndon Johnson, who shocked Americans by doing the identical factor on March 31, 1968. In each circumstances, the Presidents opened the door for his or her Vice Presidents to be the Democratic nominee for President.
And but, as a result of Johnson by no means relinquished party management behind the scenes, the Democratic National Convention resulted in chaos and division, not party unity. As aide Joseph Califano admitted, Johnson’s “folks organized the conference and nearly dictated the platform.” The classes from Johnson’s unwillingness to step again can assist Biden keep away from making errors that will damage Kamala Harris’s possibilities of capturing the presidency.
After Republicans met in Miami in early August 1968, their nominee, Richard Nixon, led Vice President Hubert Humphrey by 16 factors (with Alabama Governor George Wallace taking 18%). The large lead left Democrats panicking about Humphrey successful the nomination on the Chicago conference. Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy—who had been operating since day one—hovered round, however few institution figures appreciated him. Many Democrats lamented the lack of the assassinated Robert Kennedy and talked about drafting his brother, Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy. Yet others pushed Johnson to reenter the race.
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and John Criswell (labeled by TIME as “probably the most highly effective determine inside the Democratic National Committee”) pushed a Draft Johnson narrative. On Aug. 9, Criswell wrote: “The president ought to come to the conference” on Tuesday evening for “an look and birthday celebration.” Criswell hoped such an look may spur a draft motion, one which he was keen to steer “if there’s any probability he’ll do it.”
Read More: How the Democratic Party Gave Away Its Ability to Simply Pick a New Nominee
Many outstanding Democrats have been not less than open to Johnson reentering the race, as a result of Humphrey had angered them by proposing to abolish a rule that gave extra voting energy to those that ran the state delegations. That included Texas Governor John Connally, a Johnson protege. The Texan (and soon-to-be-Republican) confused: “If Humphrey thinks he’s received the nomination locked up, he higher depend the delegates once more . . . He’d higher do not forget that we within the South can deny him the nomination.” Not lengthy after, the Texan advised one Johnson loyalist that if Humphrey “wasn’t cautious, Lyndon Johnson can be entered within the nomination.”
This discuss dominated the weeks operating as much as the conference. One former Johnson lawyer, Jake Jacobsen, noticed that “this conference goes to draft the President if there’s the slightest indication the draft can be accepted.”
Johnson did little to quash the discuss. He was irritated that Humphrey was laboring, by way of speeches and behind-the-scenes negotiations, to vogue a compromise between “hawks” and “doves” over Vietnam, which heightened rumors of a conference problem. While anti-war forces wished Humphrey to go far additional, Johnson noticed his efforts as a betrayal by his Vice President. He thought’s Humphrey’s place was too weak as a result of it included requires an unconditional bombing halt and troop withdrawal. Johnson noticed it as undermining his efforts at reaching peace.
Johnson did inform college students at Texas State University: “I’m not a candidate for something, besides possibly for a rocking chair.” Nevertheless, behind the scenes, he inspired Connally to gauge curiosity within the Draft Johnson motion. Connally reported: “I consider in his coronary heart he wished the second of drama, the emotion of the conference swept away as in olden instances, and the vindication it could current.”
When the conference opened, fights developed over delegate choice guidelines as protests intensified within the streets outdoors. Johnson watched all of it unfold on three televisions within the workplace at his ranch as he labored feverishly on a speech. One aide noticed that he saved “fantasizing that the conference can be such a large number that he would go in and be acclaimed because the nominee.”
But folks on the bottom in Chicago reported important opposition. Even Lady Bird Johnson acknowledged after the combat over delegate guidelines that “the chance of our making the journey . . . appeared to dwindle to virtually nothing.” As Johnson saved working the telephones, Connally made yet one more effort, polling southern governors on drafting Johnson. But regardless of the President’s Texas roots, every stated no due to his positions on civil rights and different liberal insurance policies. Daley even wavered, saying he may assist Kennedy to cease Humphrey. Nonetheless, Johnson continued to inform folks he’d go to Chicago to assist the nation.
After lunch and a swim, Johnson made a sequence of eight cellphone calls, together with to Daley and Criswell, that afternoon together with his aircraft on standby. Only at 5 PM did his press secretary George Christian inform the press that he was staying in Texas.
That evening Johnson watched the chaos in Chicago — inside and out of doors of the conference corridor. South Dakota Senator George McGovern joined McCarthy in a Stop Humphrey motion whereas the press labored itself right into a frenzy pushing the concept of drafting Ted Kennedy. Battles erupted over the Vietnam platform plank amid shouts of “Stop the War” and close to fistfights occurred amongst passionate delegates. The solely point out of the president, nonetheless, got here when Anita Bryant sang “Happy Birthday” to him.
The conference damage the Democrats because the contentious debate over Vietnam break up the delegates. In the streets, the police clashed with protestors, the tear fuel choking conventiongoers. One journalist wrote: “The Democrats are completed.”
Read More: The Election Where a Democratic President Secretly Wanted the Republican to Win
Humphrey limped out of Chicago, wounded largely by his having to defend the president’s Vietnam plank, and Nixon seized on it as an indication of the opposition’s decay as he preached about regulation and order and a imprecise “peace with honor” in Vietnam.
But Johnson—nonetheless politically astute—predicted the hole would chop as Nixon confirmed his true self. He tried to assist Humphrey on the finish with some joint marketing campaign appearances and extra importantly by way of what gave the impression to be a practical negotiation with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, solely to have the Nixon marketing campaign sabotage it. And Humphrey virtually pulled off a significant upset as he got here inside half 1,000,000 votes of Nixon and solely misplaced 43.4% to 42.7%.
This instance is illustrative in a number of methods for in the present day. First, it reveals how awkward this sort of scenario could be, particularly if Harris breaks with Biden on sure points. And it exhibits the best way that bitterness over the method could cause seen friction on the conference.
Yet, the case of 1968 additionally factors to the significance of making unity and momentum round Harris and letting her chart her personal course — even when which means criticizing Biden. When President Biden addresses the Democratic Convention on Monday evening, his speech might want to give attention to serving to Harris win. He can’t simply rejoice his personal report. He additionally must stage a real passing of the torch second by which he acknowledges the necessity for a brand new technology of management within the party.
There is a key distinction between Biden and Johnson, nonetheless. The latter was spiteful and vindictive. Biden, against this, appears extra inclined to do what it takes to make sure Harris wins. He’s additionally politically astute and is aware of the election might depend upon him managing conflicting feelings that might forestall him from absolutely embracing Harris and her—not his—imaginative and prescient for the presidency.
Kyle Longley, Salvatori professor of historical past at Chapman University, govt director of the Society for Military History, and writer of LBJ’s 1968: Power, Politics, and the Presidency in America’s Year of Upheaval and forthcoming in 2026 of The Death of LBJ: Days within the Life.
Made by History takes readers past the headlines with articles written and edited by skilled historians. Learn extra about Made by History at TIME right here. Opinions expressed don’t essentially mirror the views of TIME editors.
