Focus 580; 1968: the Year That Rocked the World

This morning in the first hour of the show we will look back to the year nineteen sixty eight at our guest is Mark Kurlansky. He is the author of a recently published book which is titled One thousand sixty eight the year that rocked the world and it's published by Ballantine and the very first line of his introduction goes like this there has never been a year like 1968 and it is unlikely there will ever be one again. That seems like a rather sweeping statement but when you start to catalog all of the events of 1968 it appears to be perhaps something of an understatement. 1968 was the year both when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. It was the year of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and that student demonstrations that went with it. It was the year of the Prague spring of the anti-war movement the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. It was the time of the beginning of the women's movement and also the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. And the question that we will explore this morning is. In what ways if any are these events related.

Why is it that so many momentous events took place in 1968. That's what it is he explores in the book as we talk of course questions and comments are welcome. The only thing we ask of callers are the people try to be brief so that we can keep the program moving along and getting as many people as possible but of course anyone listening is welcome to call if you're here in Champaign Urbana. The number is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line that's good anywhere that you can hear us and that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 Let me tell you just a little bit more about our guest Mark Kurlansky began his career as a foreign correspondent writing about the last years of Franco ism and Spain especially in the Basque provinces. For 25 years he's reported on international affairs from the Caribbean. Paris and Mexico. He's also written extensively about Europe and Latin America. He's been regular contributor to the Partisan Review. He's also written for the International Herald Tribune The Chicago Tribune Harper's and New York Times Magazine among

other publications. And he is joining us this morning by telephone. Mr. Kurlansky Hello. Thanks very much for talking with us. It's a pleasure. We certainly appreciate it. What in a moment we can go on and talk in in greater detail and in the book that you talk about basically four or four things that were very important at this time and also ties people in different parts of the country and different of the world together. But before that I guess I'm interested in what it was that drew your interest to this project and concentrating on this one year. Well I think I've been thinking about for a very long time I guess. I did 68. Well why did it happen. What did it mean where did it go. Very. Flexible to for help think I understand. I first talked

to my editor about this buck. I've had good fortune to have an editor that I've I've worked out something like a lot of books with the same editor. We first started talking about this book over 10 years ago. Yes it's a very unusual phenomenon and history in a moment doubt. Well I'm a huge changes in the world and there was a sense we all had that we were up to a few changes in the web but they were very different than what we have abjured. And it took me some time to really kind of understand happened. Where were you in 1968 or what were you doing in 1968. I was a student in Indianapolis. And

very much opposed to the Vietnam war demonstrated. I guess. Really a typical 1968 student you explain in the book make the argument that they were really there for things for big things that themselves were related. And then one way or another helped to make connections between movements and people in different places and right. Probably the thing I would think that the thing that would loom large just a lot of people's minds would be the Vietnam War. Yeah. Bloodiest year Vietnam War. Fifteen thousand Americans. In that year alone. So the war was extremely unpopular around the world.

It was the age of the colonialization. Lots of new countries were being formed in Africa Asia and the Caribbean and Latin America. Breaking away from our colonial rulers and. Forming new countries and to everybody in the world. Except the United States government. That's what Vietnam was I for me struggling for its independence. To the government it was a domino in the in the Soviet communist conspiracy to take over the world. But nobody else thought that way. And people were quite angry about the war. And it served as a kind of a rallying point so that in a lot of countries such as Germany and France and Mexico to begin with.

Movements on local issues were very small but you. Could you could get large crowds for demonstrations against the American war. It's also true that in the US at a time when the civil rights movement had become very splintered between Martin Luther King. Tactics of violence and the black power movement. The one thing that everybody and civil rights could still agree on was opposition to the war in Vietnam so it was a unifying factor. Opposition movement. And I think it's probably important to make the connection with the civil rights movement as you do because a lot of people who were involved in the movement to protest the Vietnam War at least some of them had had experience working in the civil rights movement and I think that they they

use that movement civil rights movement as a kind of a template to design the movement to protest the war so there would be action there. Well I mean all of the important student leaders you know FTF of the Free Speech Movement. Well the people that experience Abby had experience of the civil rights movement. The Freedom Summer the freedom summer of 1964 when they went south to register black voters. But even more than that all over the world the civil rights movement which had been going on for more than 10 years by 1968 was something that had been seen and very well covered and it very much admired the. Protest was in the air.

Demonstrating for things having said and so that many many movement began over fairly small issues the first student demonstrations in Prague were over bad lighting in dormitories of the French student movement started over co-educational dormitories are up there with the sad that. If there were something that you wanted to make a point about you would do what the civil rights workers did you would you would have marches and sit ins. And that was a starting point that often grew because of repression. It's remarkable how all over the world. It is very small marches movements were attacked by police and the media should became police brutality and it grew from there.

Ellen mentions or at least I think I mentioned that this 1968 was the year of the Tet Offensive and this was a time when I think that the United States government or people in the military were were trying to make the argument and perhaps some people believe them that this was a war that could be won and Tet. And one of the things that it did was it offered a different sort of some different viewpoint on the war. It's not only that it could be why we were there late. There's Krog attacking inside the US Embassy and attacking all of the hearts of all the city he said. So they lost all of these battles. The attack of the US Embassy was basically a suicide mission. How come they had this ability to do these attacks. We had been told that the war was about

to end that it was at a turning point that they were well defeated and clearly they were. But also just the fact of it being on television which was extraordinary. You know seeing live warfare feedback day's battle in the evening. Nobody had ever experienced anything like that it had a huge impact. Think about wars. The more people can see a void the less they're going to like it. Yeah well that is the third of your four things that he has the kind of media coverage that now perhaps we're used to but didn't really exist so much before that time where there were two. Crucial inventions Wild West live satellite transmissions which had the first live transmission had been I think

58 but for quite a few years it was not very useful because you could only broadcast from a certain point at a certain hour when the Fattal light was in the right position. Daniel Schorr told me the story was. What he used to work for CBS. They discovered that a satellite was in the right position for a broadcast from early that midnight hour to broadcast live from the Cronkite show so they had him stand in front of the Berlin Wall. You know that absolutely Dr. guard at the prison wall of midnight and he's just standing there in the dark and I you know the lights for about a minute and you know you heard that dog barking that that could be a dog barking at somebody running for freedom or not we don't know

yet. Nothing to thank as it was not think Oh my God. But there was this kind of excitement that it was a lie for a living. But by dead hundred sixty eight satellites were what they call geo stationary. There it could fix their position relative to the earth and you could. They had enough of them set up well enough so that you could broadcast from most places at most times. And it became very you know a practical tool that the other effect was. During the Sixties there was the transition from film to video tape which is much cheaper but off so it doesn't need to be processed so you can just shoot it and then broadcast it so you have the instant a rebroadcast. Which is what the Chicago convention was. That

they filmed 17 minutes of Chicago police clubbing demonstrators and broadcast that wildly clubbing were still going on. You know that. That's why today of the Betty demonstrations and many incidents instances of police violence. The one that we most remember is Chicago. Because it was broadcast instantly on television around the world you have to remember that in 1968 people were not accustomed to TV being a media like that and it had an impact that's almost not a badge of all today. I doubt that you know technology will ever have a great impact is that had we don't live in a world where we're used to technology changing our life and our perceptions well using technology

that we hadn't even thought of five years ago and we accept the fact that you know two years from now something new will come along that will use again and where just to cut them to the idea of new technology changing our lives about it and I think 68. This was a basic. The way television was broadcasting what was happening around the world as it was happening. Let me reintroduce our guest and we have a couple of callers I want to bring into the conversation we're talking with Mark Kurlansky. What we're talking about is his most recent book which is titled 1968 the year that rocked the world it's published by Ballantine Books He's the author of a number of books he's been a foreign correspondent. He's written about Spain about Europe the Caribbean and his work has been published in a number of papers including the International Herald Tribune Chicago

Tribune. He's also written a lot about food. He is the author of the book Cod a biography of the fish that changed the world and also salt a world history. In addition to a book about the Basque and titled The Basque History of the world and a number of others so if you're interested you can head out and look for his book. Of course that the newest one should be in the bookstore 968 year that rocked the world. Questions Comments welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. First up color here is in urban and line 1. Hello good morning. I have a couple of issues I was hoping that the author could address the first one as I get. Well I was born in 1972 so I wasn't around for any of the events of 1968 that I somehow made it through the US educational system without really learning about these as well and that wasn't try started taking and some college and learning things one from a French perspective that I started learning about the importance of.

They always talk about may make us healthy today at 68 and so you've heard about Paris 68 before you learned about everything every year. More or less I mean I guess I did. Heard about different events but didn't know that they had all happened in 100 people and we don't seem to have this kind of an assault that the French have for what happened over there and between 68 and I was wondering if you had any thoughts about why we don't see these events as being as important here. Aside from our general lack of historical knowledge of it that we seem to have a problem for some of the tree and then the other thing was you were talking about people taking on TV the activities of the civil rights demonstrators here to fight for whatever it was that they wanted there in their countries. And that's something that's really taken off in France. They definitely have a lot of demonstrations even for things that it's hard to

see that would be difficult to change there would be very difficult to change. And here we have we haven't had that kind of demonstrating and it seems to be frowned upon by a lot of people are seen as unpatriotic and I wondered if you had had any insights into that. OK let me try to remember all this. But the. Yeah. I don't think it's true that the French have been a solider for 968 and we don't. But the French Fred 68 which of course you know 1968 in the US was was a culmination of years of activities. In in France it was a flogger explosion. I mean is it most of the world in 68. Things were going God absolutely nothing was going on in France

until the spring. The French tend to look at their. Are there a 68 at the beginning of the modernisation of their country. Their country was in many ways still in the back thousands had a 19th century leader Charles de Gaulle who was 78 years old and had many a very institutions and many things about the country. It just hadn't changed. If so to the French people it was a watershed year. It had a different sort of way more about the social structure of the country the political change fact in fact fail to overthrow that all

the time. Try to remember what the other party arrested was it was it was about the fact or at least the caller's observation that perhaps in Europe particularly in France the people are more likely to go out into the street. Oh yeah well one of the reasons for that in France I lived in France for a lot of years. And one of the reasons for that is that the French labor unions organize demonstrations and are able to turn out huge numbers. To demonstrate a variety of social and economic issues and we don't have. A system like that. We do have demonstrations so there were a considerable number of demonstrations against the Iraq war. Millions demonstrated. It's very encouraging for me to see because I had really been discouraged Tripper lack of public involvement and political life in the country

and actions like for a while there and right people were actually getting involved. Yeah it was organized through the Internet and in a lot of ways that that word around in the in 1968. I think there's a lot of things carried out in this country right now and a lot of them are not all that visible because they are kind of the Internet. It reminds me of something that he talked about how in the early 60s. He had to travel to rob the country and got out to the west coast. This is while he was editor of the Michigan Daily at the University of Michigan and he wrote all the stories for the Michigan Daily about movements of student movements and all sorts of social and political things that were happening in the country and he got back to Ann Arbor and the

faculty advisors said you know what are you reading this if you're just making it up the stuff doesn't happen is that nobody knows about this but you you're just it's just a fantasy. But you know I don't either year or so. It became very clear that all of the stuff was around and he suggests that you know right now may be a moment very much like not oh Never years where we correct you need to be pronoun a president I think you'd expect more cover. Thank you. Right. It's quite possible but if you think that we should wait to work out it OK. Thank you very much. Thanks for the call let's go to line number two this caller is in champagne. Hello hi. I want to ask a complicated question but I maybe we could put three dates and points on a triangle and you could discuss them. I mean talk about 68 is the date that rock the world but what about

67 and having rocked the Arab world and then maybe just 2001 and the other point on the triangle 67 68 2001. I guess what I'm curious about is Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 68. I guess there's also a controversy about whether he was actually killed by Sirhan Sirhan a Palestinian Christian. But I'm just wondering if you can talk. It seems to me I was pretty much asleep I was in high school at that time. Well actually I was in grade school at that time but. I'm just wondering it seems to me that 67 really wasn't on the radar of American very much and I don't remember really much discussion of that for. Acted Sirhan Sirhan with a Palestinian buddy and you know what his motivation might have been if he did indeed assassinate Robert Kennedy. And then you have to what happened I have various things going on in the Arab world you have a new world order and I'm just

wondering you know and also about Vietnam and you know what happened with the Occupied Territories. Can you make any any kind of connections we weren't really talking about the Middle East in 68 but things were going on. Well that is certainly something that Mr. Polanski you deal with in the book as well. Yeah I mean the sad but of course you know obviously that happened in 68 that didn't happen out of the blue they just. Things led up to 68 was a critical year in the Middle East of course because 67 was when the Six Day War was 68 was when Yasser Arafat emerged as a leader. A lot of things began to change in the Middle East as a result of the.

Of the six day war. I do think that you mention about fair being a Palestinian or. I have the same question I get. A lot was not made of it. I mean we were told that he was not interested in Palestinian issues and had not been involved in the house that he had issues. We don't we don't really understand you know and he's still alive and in prison. If he was the one who killed Robert Kennedy and he did it alone I certainly don't have any understanding of why he did it. It's it's a very strange thing. It's always been it is always been asserted that it had nothing to do with Palestinian

issues and there isn't any particular logic why the Palestinians would want to kill Robert Kennedy either so I don't know much about Kennedy Thomas relation to Israel in terms of support of NCL but getting back to you know what. I know how you relate to for example the backlash or at the quote Republican revolution which seems to be you know destruction of democracy and anything that was ever thought in the enlightenment or intentionally managed to return to the Middle Ages. Well anyway what do you think about this backlash that it's a blaming of everything that's gone wrong in America and the people that were involved for example in protesting Vietnam and that kind of thing. Well yeah I mean that if you had mentioned France earlier this happens in France to the to the far right in France claims that everything bad that's ever happened to France was caused by the students who demonstrated in 68.

I actually I think that in 68 I mean this what you call the Republican revolution happened in 68 and I think that this was the beginning of a lot of the bad things that happened in the US. Richard Nixon completely reconfigured power taxi destroyed the liberal wing of the Republican Party. He. Bet into racism and fear as has been the strategy of every Republican candidate for president since then. And you know it. If it continues. In the end 1968 Nixon saw that bigots were very angry about the civil rights movement about the fact

that the US would find they you know righted some wrongs and made some progress in civil rights and he saw that you know you could get those. There was a racist vote out there to be gotten out. Also there was there's a fear that if these demonstrations that riots and all these things might go too far and then just a general uneasiness and fear that he was very good at exploiting and you know to the stay I mean you see this with George W. Bush who is basically saying that. You need to reelect him because otherwise the Arabs will catch up. We have I want to thank the last caller we have others. Let's go on to the next and that's and Belgium. Danville line number four. Hello.

Yes hello. To be interesting to point out that during 1968 Mowbray's that you're talking about happening to a country you don't have a very robust economy. It was just going along a true sense to everyone of us Baby Boom boomers a very good night at that time and not all parents who are making good money at the time but it was interesting to us bring up a lot of things. Thank you so much sir. Thanks for being here you know it's interesting that a number of people have said that to me. And it seems to be the way people remember it. And it's true about the economy of the 60s in general. But actually by 68 there were a lot of problems with the economy which had to do with the fact that so much money was being drained off for the war in Vietnam. Because. This huge gold crisis.

It caused a huge problems and foreign exchange deficit. JOHNSON In 68 was actually trying to pass laws and helping people from traveling abroad as a measure to keep Boyd's spending down which is kind of absurd I mean the foreign spending was being done by him not by tourists that there were actually a lot of economic problems. I 68 that were being caused by the war. I want to call it makes me think of the fourth set of the beginning that you said there were these sort of four major factors that you can see going on here that helped shape that time helped too but we never got actions for it. The the fourth one we talked about the Vietnam War the civil rights movement we talked about the increasing importance of television and sort of the immediacy of that kind of news coverage. The

fourth thing didn't have to do with this emergence of a sense among younger people that they had their own values and that their values were different from their parents values. You know people who were bored after World War Two like myself I was born in 1948. I grew up with it said that they saw the world in a completely different way than the people aboard before World War Two. And what this match was that there were this large young population coming of age that didn't really think about each of the approaches of the people who were in charge. And this was true. In Western countries and it was true of the Soviet bloc and it was true you know emerging third world countries all over the world probably because World War 2 had changed the world so much. And we really did grow up in a very different world than they did and we saw things very

differently. One of the huge. Impacts on us was the nuclear weapons. Dad I grew up in a world in which we were absolutely being told about how any at any moment somebody could push a button and life as we know it on the planet would disappear. This was something that I don't know whether you were in the Soviet Block or the western block all of us thought about it it's the reason why right people of by age did really think very much of the Cold War the Cold War was an outbreak of World War 2 thinking that too I bides was just going to lead to the nuclear destruction of the world. The Cuban missile crisis. I remember being terrified during the Cuban missile crisis. Ed and

I did not particularly admired John Kennedy's You know what it's come to be called his nuclear pricks but Shep. I thought nuclear brinksmanship was insane I said. Who were these people John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev who were going to play poker and decide whether or not to blow up the world. And the other thing that greatly influenced my generation was the Holocaust. I would move the world the Holocaust was to see that as an example of what happens when there is not political activism. When people see things that are colored Rogge don't do anything about it. And so there was this said that you are obligated to speak out about things and this was adopt a point of view of only of Jewish people I mean very severe like the Free Speech Movement. But we talked about how the

Holocaust taught you that you have to be politically active. And of course it was a very strong factor in European movements in the German movement at a time where doxies were still being found all over the government. Let's talk with some other listeners here. Next is Aurora. Hello. Yes hi good morning. I had to do it is that were political activists during that era. And I just wondered if I could say something about the parents and what the parents went through that will born before World War 2. And then they have these daughters. That didn't wear shoes to their graduation as it from college as a sign of how they felt about the war had peace signs on their sleeve and on their mortar boards.

And then I had a nephew that graduated from U of I and he was about to go to the graduation and I said well I'm going to be the first one in out family to graduate from from from university I'm going so I went down there and as you sat at the graduation and looked down all these mortar boards had peace signs on the top of there on them and you could see the activism there. It was I mean it was stifling. And I never condemned it but it was there. And it was all around you. And it was it was so difficult to. Say well I guess that's the way you feel. And just listen to them and and they work. As it turned out they were right. I I never knew how I felt about the war I don't like war in general. And

it was just a very difficult time. For those as you said born before World War 2 if you were bringing up children then I had too much children that went to college and there was none of that. It went from the highest to the lowest as far as how they felt about what was going on in politics et cetera. That's that's all I have to say. And I. I guess if U.S. had thought of going to the graduation the university with no shoes on you know you just say well OK. Critical one you know but that's that's what they try to do in any way they could show how they felt about things. Thank you. Well thanks for the call. Well I think the caller raises obviously an interesting perspective not one that you or I have but that a lot of people probably like. Back to bed I used to get from my parents.

I mean I. I don't know I'm sorry I'm a parent and if I if my daughter speaks out against war whether she paints it on a mortar board or on her shirt or However she does it I'll be proud of her. But you wouldn't think that amazes me when I look back at that time. It is these grew bigger issues why they were such a big thing. I mean this obsession with hair like. Bobby Kennedy got all these letters saying you know if you're going to run for president you better cut your hair. And in fact when he did announce that he was running for president he did cut his hair and Joe de Batz who who you know more than any single person is responsible for making football the national sport. You know we would do these incredible feats on the field and people would sit there in the stands with us. I'd say get a haircut Joe.

I really to this day cannot understand why people cared so much what lengths people's hair works. Well I think dealing I think is interesting is the comments of the caller about how we have this peak of student activism and how quickly it seemed to drop off when the war ended when the war ended as there was nothing that was the thing that galvanized people and when the war was over then there was no issue that could take its place and very quickly. Political activism it seemed to really fell apart in this country on the left. Yeah well there were a lot of strange a fad. I mean they were actually you know into that to this day. It gets debated a lot I fortunately was only 20 years old and so was not entitled to vote in 68 Had I been able to vote I don't know what I would have. Because both candidates were to be acceptable. We had what for years. To

get at anti-war candidate and neither one were anti-war candidates. People argue I've had this argument all the time I was giving a talk in Washington D.C. the other day and one of how free speech writers. What's challenging me on that I said that you know I mean this country would have been so much better off with Hubert Humphrey as president than Nixon and we wouldn't have had Watergate and all that I think Watergate had a lot to stifle things but. And I'd cite that's all true but you know at the time the thinking was. You know that by not supporting Humphrey and not letting a Democrat and who wasn't really going to do the job that open the possibility of getting the government in in the in the next election who was the you know they get the kind of candidate that we want it. We did a

better campaign which I worked out by the way would be you know a total disaster. Basically it was a total disaster that's how I would Watergate had already started to be exposed. But that really the complete failure of the McGovern campaign and Watergate had a lot of those things that happened in the 70s contributed to this. I do activism now really on the political ideologies but just on the act of him 10 minutes left. We have some other callers I want to introduce Again our guest We're talking with Mark Kurlansky. If you're interested in reading more about nine hundred sixty eight you should look for his book which is entitled One hundred sixty eight the year that rocked the world. It's published by Ballantine and he began his career was a foreign correspondent. He wrote about the last years of Franco was I'm in Spain. He also reported on international affairs from the Caribbean Paris and Mexico and has written extensively

about Europe and Latin America. Questions welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. But somebody here on a cell phone want to get to them. I'm going to right here. Hello. Yes I'd like to ask. Some. Are talking. It's interesting. Were casualties some thousand. But at the time the. Major thing was which mention of why there was such a protest against groups particularly people in that were killed doing it or at that point ever. Well it's still quite a bit of demonstrations against the world particularly Larch point and I was young at that age in college and I think the main reason for getting like the who are disaffected could vote couldn't drink big die

and the fact that there's a lot of stigma just didn't understand who's behind this war and we still haven't had a lot of reasons why we want words. But retrospect but give your opinion on them. OK. Yeah well I think that there's no doubt that the numbers of American casualties greatly contributed to the anti-war sentiment and it's not coincidence that 1968 which was the year of the highest casualties was when the anti-war movement really grew. But there were. Other factors about the war I mean the fact that the war the whole logic of pursuing the war was a Cold War logic and there were a lot of people who are just rejecting the whole notion of our of the Cold War. This idea that the communist bloc in

the Western bloc necessarily had to square off and be enemies was was not completely accepted by the people of my generation who you know grew up with nuclear weapons. I think that. You know like like the Iraq war I did it was it was very shaky from the beginning there that the Gulf of Tonkin incident that I. Was Supposed To justified it's never is it to this day it's not clear that it ever even happened. So the the reasons for going to war were were very much question. I would like to think that you know the world is moving towards us is in a world where people scrutinized and questioned

much more whether we ought to go to war in any war. Let's go to Bloomington Indiana for another caller. This is our toll free line. 1:4. Hello Mr. Holland. You spoke them championed the civil rights and Republic. Had not more Democrats voted against the Civil Rights Bill. The Republican President Kennedy was not the court's civil rights because of the political problems that it caused. It would cause him to fall. Democrats House and President Johnson misquoted. I know President Johnson supports civil rights bill but he's also quoted as making a comment like um there goes the cloud or there goes the fall of the South and he was right he was right. So it seems that the caller is making the point is that that on the Democrats and perhaps their support for civil rights wasn't really any stronger than was the Republicans.

Do you think that's true. I mean there were Republicans. I mean the Republican Party was different in those days and there was a liberal wing to it and the first black senator was. Brooke of Massachusetts was it was a Republican and then there was a lot of black support for the Republican Party at the end. It wasn't split up the way it is today. The Democratic Party what wasn't the party of the blacks. All of the you know the southwest was solidly Democratic including people who were very anti civil rights. So yeah I mean it certainly was not at the time got up so that you know the Republicans were opposed to civil rights and the Democrats supported it. Oh so wrong.

We have about five minutes left. And one of the things that I guess I'm interested in having you talk about because you make the argument that not only it was this year important in and of itself but that the things that happened in 1968 in some sense made us the people that we are even now. Can you talk about that. Yeah. I'm not sure which I'm sure you mean but do you mean politically or. Well I guess primarily I mean politically but I suppose that there are some ways that you could argue culturally that the that it did that too. But maybe maybe we should since we don't have all that much more time with you constant in politics. Yeah well I mean. Political movements of the past 30 years have all stemmed from 1968 or that the feminist movement and gay rights movement had been fire battle movement.

You know there are a lot of areas in which we have made progress in this country. This came out of 68 so it's not really it's not really true that everybody went home and 1970 and set out forget it didn't do anything for the people who led these movements such as the environmental movement the feminist movement came directly out of these movements and took these ideas of political action and applied them to these other issues. Well try to get one more caller in here in the couple minutes we have left in Urbana 1 1. Hello. Well the gentleman caller from Indiana I think deserves some comment. In 1965 we were seeing the end of a tremendous political shift in 1900 both parties were dominated by liberals but by the 1930s

the progressive liberals were shifting to the Democrats. Well the Democratic Party still had almost all of the true conservatives by 1965. Separative I shipped it to the Republican Party and remained there while the progressive liberals are largely Democrats in fact there are very few liberals left in what had once been almost entirely liberal a liberal Republican Party. Would you comment on that. Yeah well. The liberal wing of the Republican Party was a huge factor in American politics right up till the 68. Nelson Rockefeller who was a liberal was considered the only Republican who had a chance of beating the Democrats in 1968 and rabbit's disastrous campaign which he

at one point announced that he wasn't going to be a candidate and. Did a lot of missteps so that Webb the Republicans batted by Abby had a sub or 68 Rockefeller was the one who had everybody's good wishes had Nixon was the one who had all the delegates and bad. It was widely believed that what Nixon would do is pick a liberal running mate perhaps job let's say the bearer of New York who interestingly you know was so liberal that New Yorkers today don't remember that he was a Republican. But Nixon didn't pick a lever only picked Spiro Agnew. He had Strom Thurmond in 1968 had become a Republican and he had promised him that he would pick somebody of his liking it to the liking of the anti civil rights faction in the south and so he picked Spiro Agnew.

This really was the end of liberalism in the Republican Party. There have been somewhat liberal Republicans since but they have generally given the message from the Republican Party that they have no future. We're going to have to stop I think because we've come to the end of the time. We certainly there will be more that could be said and how encouraged people if you're interested in the subject to go out and look at the book that we've been talking about it's titled 1968 the year that rocked the world by our guest Mark Kurlansky in the book is published by Ballantine. And Mr. Kurlansky thanks very much for talking with us today. It was a pleasure to speak with all of you. Thank you.