Public Broadcast Laboratory; 120

It is Sunday evening March 31st, and this is PBL, the Public Broadcast Laboratory. And experiment in public television. Tonight, PBL originates from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and from the White House in Washington, D.C. Here in Milwaukee is PBL's Chief Correspondent Edward P. Morgan. Good evening. Wisconsin tonight is the latest political pivot point in the nation. In 30 minutes, PBL will carry President Johnson's address live from Washington. The timing of the President's suddenly scheduled speech brings new emphasis to Wisconsin's primary

election Tuesday, so PBL has changed the content originally planned for this broadcast. Immediately after the address from the White House, we will analyze it with economist Walter Heller flying in. We hope in time from Minneapolis and a professor from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, David Tar and political science and a cross-section of Wisconsin voters. President Johnson's name is on the Democratic ballot, Tuesday, so is that of his first Democratic challenger, Minnesota's Eugene McCarthy, whose pre-recorded interview with PBL will be seen here shortly. Under Wisconsin's cross-over law, Republicans can and may vote for him in protest against LBJ, since Richard Nixon has only token opposition on the GOP side. Taxes, the new problems of the dollar and the perilous road in Vietnam to which the President will address himself a new tonight, give more weight to Tuesday's outcome in Wisconsin. The Democratic Party is split over Vietnam and Milwaukee reflects that split in microcosm between the fourth district whose Congressman

Klim Zablaki supports the President, and the adjoining fifth whose Congressman Henry Royce is campaigning hard for McCarthy. Tension has been heightened by an open-housing march, a series of them led by Father Grappie, a Catholic priest, who's appealing his conviction for violating a curfew last summer. Yesterday, Senator McCarthy toured Negro neighborhoods and then charged the administration with a failure of moral leadership in civil rights. We start tonight's PBL report with a closer look at primary prospects. Over in Madison, the ice melted in Lake Mandota this week, and the famous University of Wisconsin crew lost no time in moving in. But the campus is watching politicians not athletes with the election just 36 hours away. Here are the observations of several newspaper men on the Wisconsin scene. First, Matt Foxx of the University's Daily Cardinal. Fragmented and it lacks direction. Most students, including some on the left, are wearing McCarthy buttons and canvassing votes for the Minnesota Senator. Others on the left are trying to

convince Madison voters to vote yes on a referendum to stop the war in Vietnam. The more radical students work in the draft resistance movement, they cannot participate within the political framework McCarthy represents. In short, the political situation is confused and complex. Leaders are scarce and ideologies are foggy. And always threatening the young men is the military draft. For many, a choice must be made not between McCarthy and Kennedy, but between jail and Canada. For the moment, McCarthy campaigned interest many on the student's left. But they really don't believe he can save them. They don't look upon them as a candidate, but as a man who is attacking Johnson and the war in Vietnam. So, what the student left will do after the primary here is not clear. Student activism proceeds pretty much on an ad hoc basis. These students go where the political action is. That may mean confrontations without chemical, university administrators, or the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where the many will continue working for Canada's is questionable.

For June means graduation and a loss of draft deferments. I personally know about a dozen students who aren't sticking around for anything this summer. They're heading north to Canada and leaving the memory of McCarthy rallies far behind. When Jean McCarthy left to rally here the other night to attract to 18,000 people, he was walking 10 feet off the ground. He said to me, I think I can take him. And he wasn't talking about President Johnson. He was talking about Robert Kennedy. The significant thing about the Wisconsin primary is that McCarthy is really out to defeat Senator Kennedy in this primary and not necessarily President Johnson. As it looks now, Senator McCarthy may very well take as many as seven, at least certainly six of the state's 10 congressional districts. If he does that, I think he's going to put Johnson on the defensive. The Johnson people now know they're in serious trouble. But the man that McCarthy is really after

in this thing isn't a president at all. It's Bobby Kennedy. The one missing quality in President Johnson's camp is that old-time enthusiasm, usually associated with political campaigns. Optimism is out, long face is in. Johnson headquarters usually have the error of a going out of business sale. They've had trouble attracting volunteers and most of the secretarial staff has been recruited from employment agencies. In Madison, fear of student descent has virtually driven Johnson forces underground. Cabinet officers from Washington have been on the defensive because of the Vietnam war. Postmaster General O'Brien, who managed John F. Kennedy's campaign here in 1960, made some impact by portraying Lyndon Johnson as the spiritual heir and executor of the late president. One official said that the hero Brian Tellet, Kennedy is running again. Only this time his name is Johnson. The Johnson agents have been poor-mouthing the chances of the president on the grounds that

mischievous Republicans will cross over to vote for Senator McCarthy. Despite campaign literature, urging voters to stand up for Lyndon, few major Democratic office holders have done so. The suspicion is strong that if you scratch many of them, deeply enough you'll find a Robert Kennedy sympathizer. The president is plainly an underdog. In politics, that sometimes helps, but not much. Richard Nixon is trying desperately to convince Republicans to vote Republican on Tuesday, but it appears that there will be a large crossover in the election. If you ask who is concerned Republican, are you going to vote in the Democratic primary? They'll invariably say no, but then they will go back to their friends and say, I can't wait until Tuesday. That's when I get my first crack at LBJ, and I'll get him again in November. Nixon people apparently are worried that the former vice president will finish third to Senator McCarthy and to the president in the election. If he does, they have a ready explanation

that is the crossover. Nixon has been pressing all week to keep Republicans in line. The Nixon organization here has spent about $450,000 in Wisconsin. If the former vice president should finish third, it will have accomplished little except to beat Harold Stassen. History has a way of repeating itself, or at least of combining events that produce striking comparisons between the present and the past, which are all too easy to forget. Wisconsin, for instance, had draft dodgers during the Civil War. Some of them beat it across the border to Canada, earning the nickname of skadatlers. The draft commissioner in the town of Port Washington was mobbed by a thousand rioters thrown down a flight of stairs, his house demolished, and the draft rolls burned. Resisters shot off a cannon in protest. A native of Wisconsin, who was later to provide his own heavy artillery

for peace movements and drastic political reform, was seven years old at the time. He was Robert Marion LaFallette fighting Bob. The LaFallette family dynasty held a seat in the U.S. Senate for some 40 years, filled the governor's chair for 14 years and conditioned Wisconsin to a tradition of progressivism in which other governors carried out LaFallette policies more or less for 15 more. In the Senate, LaFallette, reflecting in part the concern of Wisconsin citizens of German ancestry, voted against U.S. entry into World War I and the draft. Life, then a humor magazine ran a biting cartoon showing Kaiser Wilhelm decorating LaFallette with the Iron Cross and irony of historical ironies. Students of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, now a hotbed of protest against the war in Vietnam, burned the senator in effigy for his pacifism. LaFallette's biggest impact on America, however, came in political reform. Like his contemporary in California, Hiram Johnson, LaFallette led the fight against the banks, railroad lumber and other industrial

interests who kept politicians virtually in their vest pockets. Indeed, it was LaFallette's zeal and reform genius which helped invent in Wisconsin in 193 the device known as the presidential primary. Professional politicians never quite forgave him. The theory, which has worked with varying sometimes dizzying results, was to take the selection of candidates out of the hands of the bosses in smoke-filled rooms and give the voters a chance to express their preference with enough strength so nominating conventions could not ignore their choice. The supreme issue, fighting Bob once said, is the encroachment of the powerful few upon the rights of the many, and whether representative government can be restored. Still powerful in his home state, LaFallette was badly beaten when he ran for president on the progressive ticket in 1924 with Burton K. Wheeler of Montana as his running mate. LaFallette died in 1925. 50,000 people attended his funeral. He was succeeded in the Senate by his son Bob Jr., who took almost exactly

the same position against World War II as his father had taken against World War I. Young Bob was unceded in 1946 by a then unknown judge named Joe McCarthy. One paradox of the Open Primary, Theodore H. White indicated in the making of the president 1960, is that it could help provide such good state government while not preventing the sending of such a horrible leader to Washington as Senator McCarthy. In 1954, a Wisconsin newspaper editor, Leroy Gore, circulated a petition for Joe McCarthy's recall. Last week, PBL's Gary Gilson interviewed Gore in Old McCarthy country near the city of Manasha. People who live in Wisconsin. No, Wisconsin people have a tendency to be passionate politically. They take strong firm stands on the morality of politics. This I think is the reason why they could support a fighting Bob LaFallette and Joe McCarthy in the same, almost in the same generation. In the early 1950s, it was a feeling in

Wisconsin strong feeling that communism was real bad. If you voted against communism, you voted against communism by voting for Joe McCarthy. I sort of felt this way myself for too long, I'm sure. Those of you newspapermen who knew Joe McCarthy, does any of you think he was sincere in his crusade against communism? I think not. I know I never really thought Joe was too sincere. He would do such things as he would call John Hunter of the Capitol Times a communist or a Tula communism during his speech. And as soon as his speech was over, he jumped down off the stage and say how to do tonight, John. You can't hardly be any more phony than that. Do you see anything happening today that makes you think McCarthyism is being reborn? McCarthyism never really dies. It's just a farm of I think a farm of bigotry. It's prejudiced in a sense ignorance. I think

when these days when we some elements in our population imply that the economy quite patriotic, unless you support the war in Vietnam, this is I think a sort of prejudice. These bigotries are waiting around for somebody to latch on to something. I think when an issue arises, and the feeling is always there, the human race improves pretty slowly. Mr. Gore, this is McCarthy country. This is the Fox River Valley. And I remember reading just a couple of years ago, people up here had a memorial service for Senator McCarthy. Well, I'm sure that they're the remnants of the old McCarthy movement still around, not only here, but in other parts of the country. These are, this is particularly true and was constant. I think many of these people are foreign-born people who went through a number of severe hardships, for which the communists were chiefly accountable.

And they still confuse, I think, confuse had a communism with McCarthyism. They don't realize that you can be, you know, there's a right way and a wrong way to fight a thing. I sometimes want to, you know, you can be, you can be right for the wrong reasons, and you can be wrong for the right reasons. I sometimes think it's better to be wrong for the right reasons, and it is to be right for the wrong reasons. Joe McCarthy died in 1957. The latest LaFallet in public life is a bland but pleasant reflection of his father and grandfather. But Branson LaFallet, now 32, demonstrated the durability of the family name. When in 1966, he was reelected State Attorney General, the only Democrat to survive an important state office, the Republican victories of 66. He's now running for governor. His opponent may or may not be the two-term GOP incumbent Warren Knowles.

Branson's position on the Warren Vietnam has been cautious. On the draft, it's been qualified, and he's not taken sides publicly in the primary fight between President Johnson and Minnesota's Senator McCarthy. A political twist, Sharpe's Wisconsin cheese emerges here. Governor Knowles' independent-minded wife went to a huge McCarthy rally in Madison last Monday, and said afterwards, if she were a Democrat, she would vote for him. The fact is that under the LaFallet-inspired open primary, she could, and with impunity. On Tuesday next, as thousands of other Republicans may, if only to register a protest against President Johnson. What all this proves is a question. To bring a sketchy history sketchily up to date, John F. Kennedy won the Wisconsin primary, somewhat inconclusively, against Hubert Humphrey in 1960, and then Richard Nixon carried the state that November by some 65,000 votes. Politics is indeed a great game, but it's sometimes difficult to read the score. Earlier today, I interviewed one of the major contestants in Wisconsin,

Senator Eugene McCarthy, and I asked him, what was the difference between him and Robert Kennedy? The difference on the issues, I don't think, is very clear. Suggestion he has made is that he'd make a better candidate than I. That's conclusion he came to after New Hampshire, and I think he suggested that he might be a better president, and I suppose that'll be the substance of our contest as we go down the primary trail, known as the convention. That brings up the question of whether you will knock each other out, so to speak. Won't you have to join forces at some point in all, Candor, can either of you deny the president nomination? I don't really know. I think that the issue is more important than the number of delegates that you count up at this time, and you'll see how it runs. It may come down to a question of delegates at some time, but I don't see it developing that way. That to be a point of the convention, I think at which question of deals or concession to the other man won't really mean

anything. It will be, rather a matter of what the spirit of the convention of the country is at that time, and something of that will be indicated, I think, in the primaries along the way as we attempt to measure what kind of response we get. What contact, if any of you had directly with Senator Kennedy, or your camp with a Kennedy camp, since Senator Ted Kennedy came out here to Wisconsin, that 3am voyage to notify you of his brother's decision? I don't think we've had any kind of formal contact. I think there are a few people who are in my organization who've been called, who have some earlier ties with the candidates who've talked, but there's been no nothing that I would call any kind of a direct approach. Do you expect there to be as the thing gets there? I don't really know. I suppose that as we get readings on some of the primaries in which we're both entered, while there may be some attempts. I don't see much possibility of anything coming of them. Senator, you've been campaigning virtually without stop and varying degrees of

intensity since you announced in November. How would you analyze your following now? Is it basically anti-Linden Johnson? Is it basically anti-Vietnam War policy? Is it basically pro-Yugin McCarthy? I don't know whether I could sort it out. It started, of course, largely with people who were opposed to the war. That was the more or less the center of it. In that, of course, there were some who were, I suppose, opposed to the president, even without the war, it would have been, but there couldn't have been any cause mounted against him without the war. As we've gone along, I think that I've picked up some people with some kind of personal identification, especially as indicated in the Republican writing in New Hampshire, and I think among some Democrats. Regarding the right-in in Wisconsin, which is a little bit complicated, partly because of the fact this is the first time in Wisconsin history that the names of the presidential candidates

right in or otherwise will be either on or written into the ballot. There is a certain amount of insistence speculation that there will be a right-in for Senator Kennedy. What's your analysis of this and is there a danger that you, too, might wind up in the minority giving the president a weak plurality victory? I don't see any indication of that at this point of any significant right-in for Senator Kennedy. Of course, if he did get, you know, 10 or 15 percent, it might have the effect that you suggest to name it. The president might win it with it. Well, I mean, he might do it with 5 percent. I don't know how close it's going to be, but I don't see much evidence of any kind of organized effort at a right-in for Senator Kennedy here in Wisconsin. Moving across the aisle, former Vice President Nixon praised you the other day in his campaign in Wisconsin. I believe the point was that he was denouncing the alleged tactics of the administration

in questioning your motives. Do you have any comment on that possibly ironical comment? Well, he defended me some in New Hampshire, too, on one occasion against the attacks of the Democratic governor and the Democratic Senator of New Hampshire, who were suggesting that my campaign was giving great comfort and reassurance to the communists. This has become a mark of the Nixon campaign. I never thought he'd be defending me in New Hampshire. And again, I think what he said here was essentially right in terms of what was implied and what was said about me, but I was glad he said it. I didn't want to say it. Do you think, Mr. Nixon, is saying anything else right? Well, I don't know. I don't think he's making a very clear case with refer to the war in Vietnam. That's the critical issue, and that's the one he's been speaking on for the most part. Some of the other things he said about leadership in Washington, I suppose I couldn't fault

very much because they sound about like what I've been saying. Robert Lowell, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, has been one of your followers and backers. I remember encountering him in New Hampshire. And the New York Times said the other day, and I'm going to quote this, that Senator McCarthy looks on poetry not as an adornment of life, but the essence of it and even the necessary handmaiden of politics. How accurate a quotation or rather how accurate an inference is that? Well, I think that was Ken worthy of being carried away a little bit poetically. I think so. Well, I would say I look upon poetry as something which is incidental to life, but I think it has a real function. It has some very own politics, but I'm not building my whole campaign on Robert Lowell or on any other poet or any other poetry. He enjoys being round and it's kind of not just a relief, but he's a good company and no mind, he's coming out at all. But I suspect there's something deeper than this Senator. You're something of a poet

yourself. And I want not to be facetious. Is there some real aspect of American political life in which poetry needs to play more of a part? I don't know. You could talk about as that kind of specific or separate sort of function. I think poetry, you know, it's simply an attempt to get people to understand themselves or what life is all about. And politics is an important part of that. I've said that Robert Frost or even Robert Lowell is a kind of balance against the Manchester Union leader or that here in the Midwest, if you know some of the Midwestern poets or Carl Sandberg that it's really kind of offsets the long time effect of the Chicago Tribune. You can balance these things out and put it together, I think, in some kind of complex thing.

You've had a couple of unpoetic rounds with the press this past week, particularly Apropole, the resignation of a couple of members of your staff. Is the press a problem to you, Senator McCarthy? Well, the press is a problem to everybody. I mean, they're a problem to themselves. They wrote to, you know, this kind of contradiction for six weeks or two months, they said I had no organization. And then these two people left and they said my organization was coming apart. I just, I didn't see how they could write both, you know, that this was a terrible shock. And as I said, the press secretary is replaceable. The hard thing to get is a good driver. I mean, a fellow who drives a car well who doesn't put the brakes on at the wrong time and whom you feel in sympathy with. But there's no serious problem. Speaking of another kind of a driver, your campaign manager Blair Clark committed, though he is, is an ex-reporter himself and an amateur in politics. There've been speculation that you that you might fire him. No, that's another thing

with the press. I think at some point, this was kind of my protest. I think there was a decision made that my staff should be attacked at some point. And that this was the big game after New Hampshire. The decision made by the press? I think so. Somebody in the press and so this was established as the way to go. And the press is a little bit like the blackbirds in the fall. One flies off the telephone line. The others all fly away. And the other one comes in. He comes back and sits down. They all circle and they all come down and sit down and roll again. So this became the game. As earlier you know, the line was that McCarthy was lazy and lackadaisy, going indifferent that he was a bad campaigner. So they all wrote that to him, even those who didn't know me. And now they say I'm vigorous. So they're all writing about my vigor. And they get in the paper and they get sell their columns. They get paid for it. I don't mind it. I mean, this is part of the work. So they think about it. They call it not that we don't need to. I just look at it. I just look at it. I beg of objective. This affects others not just me.

So the thing about the organization, there was a story about Clark. I had no intention of firing him or removing him. I mean, not a question of firing him. He's a kind of a really a volunteer. No intention of replacing him. And the problem about the press secretary is a kind of thing that comes on. And especially as my efforts started, there were many people who were almost volunteers and who had read that they were committed to the issue before I became a candidate. And then as you move on from primary to primary and begin to tighten the organization, I said, this is a universal problem. They had it in the Franciscan order, you know, after St. Francis when they begin to try to organize the effort. There were a lot of unhappy Franciscans who thought of the old days when they just walked around barefooted, you know, passed out blessings. What about your relationships in the future with Richard Goodwin? They've been clarified. They haven't been clarified yet. I don't see any problem there, but I mean, no difficulty. He has a problem because of an old loyal candidate. We'll work it

out. He's been a level with me all the way. I've known what he might do. He's been a faithful servant. He's given full service to me in New Hampshire and here in Wisconsin, so we'll work it out. He's a professional. As you know, Senator McCarthy, following us this evening will be a nationwide broadcast by President Johnson on Vietnam. Has your campaign broadened from furnishing an alternative as you put it to a Vietnamese policy to an alternative of leadership? Well, I think that was always implicit in my campaign. I suggested it when I announced last November that it was not just Vietnam, it was also a question of priorities and that requires some leadership and some direction. The question of what you did if you had to try to do both things or some issues with reference to what I thought was a growing alienation in this

country, especially with students and young people from politics. I expressed some reservations, not just since I've become a candidate, but before that ed with the administration of the government, what I thought was the exploitation or the erosion of certain offices and agencies of the government, which has always been an issue. I suppose now it has come down to a kind of personalized contest in a way which does involve question of leadership and imagery and conception of government and the conception of the role of America. There's good reason to believe that President Johnson is going to come out heavily tonight in an appeal again to pass his tax increase. You've been against it. How does this strike you? Well, I've been against it on the base of the budget, which they set up to us, because I think that if that budget stands that way things are going, that the tax increase will have a depressing effect upon the economy. Now I'm judging it only in the context of the Johnson administration's program.

In the second half of this year, this is a position sustained by the economist. If, of course, the budget's going to go up by 10 or 15 billion dollars, and it may well do that, maybe more. If the war is escalated, then I think we ought to have a different kind of tax, and we ought to have wartime controls generally. Do you think the president deliberately tried this speech in relation to the voting on Tuesday in Wisconsin? Well, I don't really know. It would be an order. There'd be nothing wrong if he had done so, because this is a primary in which he is involved. There are some difficulties, I suppose. I don't really know what they are. I think the president office ought to come out and campaign for renomination every four years, but there seems to be a precedent or a policy on the part of the president not to do so. In which case, he would have to make his case by other means, such as what he's doing tonight. One final quick question. What will be the things that you will base your demand for equal time on assuming that he says them? I think this, if what he presents

is a kind of presidential position of government policy, that I don't think would be subject to challenge. There'd be no point in it anyway. The networks wouldn't respond, and the Federal Communications Commission will sustain the White House position anyway. But if he moves on to raise questions about those of us who criticize policy as to whether this is loyal, whether this is a disservice to the country, at that point, I think that the law would really indicate we should have equal time. Well, we'll see now, Senator McCarthy. What president Johnson is going to say. Thank you very much. We are standing by now for the special address by President Johnson. With the primary just two days away, PBL has invited a cross-section of Wisconsin voters to our Milwaukee studios, and they will watch the president's speech along with you at home. We'll ask for their reactions after the speech. Now we switch to Washington and the president of the United States.

Good evening, my fellow Americans. Tonight I want to speak to you of peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. No other question so preoccupies our people. No other dream so absorbs the 250 million human beings who live in that part of the world. No other goal motivates American policy in Southeast Asia. For years, representatives of our governments and others have traveled the world seeking to find a basis for peace talks. Since last September, they have carried the offer that I

made public at San Antonio, and that offer was this. That the United States would stop its bombardment of North Vietnam when that would lead promptly to productive discussions, and that we would assume that North Vietnam would not take military advantage of our restraint. Hanoi denounced this offer both privately and publicly, even while the search for peace was going on. North Vietnam rushed their preparations for a savage assault on the people, the government, and the allies of South Vietnam. Their attack during the Ted holidays failed to achieve its principle objective. It did not collapse the elected government of South Vietnam, or shatter its army as the communists had hoped. It did not produce a general uprising among the

people of the cities as they had predicted. The communists were unable to maintain control of any of the more than 30 cities that they attacked, and they took very heavy casualties. But they did compel the South Vietnamese and their allies to move certain forces from the countryside into the cities. They caused widespread disruption and suffering. Their attacks and the battles that followed made refugees of half a million human beings. The communists may renew their attack any day. They are, it appears, trying to make 1968 the year of decision in South Vietnam, the year that brings, if not final, victory or defeat, at least a turning point in the struggle. This much is clear. If they do mount another round of heavy attacks,

they will not succeed in destroying the fighting power of South Vietnam and its allies. But tragically, this is also clear. Many men on both sides of the struggle will be lost. A nation that has already suffered 20 years of warfare will suffer once again. Armies on both sides will take new casualties, and the war will go on. There is no need for this to be so. There is no need to delay the talks that could bring an end to this long and this bloody war. Tonight, I renew the offer I made last August to stop the bombardment of North Vietnam.

We ask that talks begin promptly, that they be serious talks on the substance of peace. We assume that during those talks, no, I will not take advantage of our restraint. We are prepared to move immediately toward peace through negotiations. So tonight, in the hope that this action will lead to early talks, I am taking the first step to de-escalate the conflict. We are reducing, substantially reducing, the present level of hostilities. And we are doing so unilaterally and at once. Tonight, I have ordered our aircraft and our naval vessels to make no attacks on North Vietnam, except in the area north of the demilitarized zone where the continuing enemy buildup

directly threatens allied forward positions and where the movement of their troops and supplies are clearly related to that threat. The area in which we are stopping our attacks includes almost 90% of North Vietnam's population and most of its territories. Thus, there will be no attacks around the principal populated areas, or in the food-producing areas of North Vietnam. Even this very limited bombing of the North could come to an early end if our restraint is matched by restraint in Hanoi. But I cannot, in good conscience, stop all bombing so long as to do so would immediately and directly endanger the lives of our men and our allies. Whether a complete bombing halt becomes

possible in the future will be determined by events. Our purpose in this action is to bring about a reduction in the level of violence that now exists. It is to save the lives of brave men and to save the lives of innocent women and children. It is to permit the contending forces to move closer to a political settlement. And tonight I call upon the United Kingdom and I call upon the Soviet Union as co-chairman of the Geneva Conferences and as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to do all they can to move from the unilateral act of de-escalation that I have just announced toward

genuine peace in Southeast Asia. Now as in the past, the United States is ready to send its representatives to any forum at any time to discuss the means of bringing this ugly war to an end. I am designating one of our most distinguished Americans, Ambassador Abril Haramon, as my personal representative for such talks. In addition, I have asked Ambassador Lillian Thompson, who returned from Moscow for consultation, to be available to join Ambassador Haramon at Geneva or any other suitable place, just as soon as Hanoi agrees to a conference. I call upon President Ho Chi Minh to respond positively and favorably to this new step toward peace.

But if peace does not come now through negotiations, it will come when Hanoi understands that our common resolve is unshakable and our common strength is invincible. Tonight, we and the other Allied nations are contributing 600,000 fighting men to assist 700,000 South Vietnamese troops in defending their little country. Our presence there has always rested on this basic belief. The main burden of preserving their freedom must be carried out by them by the South Vietnamese

themselves. We and our allies can only help to provide a shield behind which the people of South Vietnam can survive and can grow and develop. On their efforts, on their determinations and resourcefulness, the outcome will ultimately depend. That small, beleaguered nation has suffered terrible punishment for more than 20 years. I pay tribute once again tonight to the great courage and the endurance of its people. South Vietnam supports armed forces tonight of almost 700,000 men. And I call your attention to the fact that that is the equivalent of more than 10 million

in our own population. Its people maintain their firm determination to be free of domination by the North. There has been substantial progress, I think, in building a durable government during these last three years. The South Vietnam of 1965 could not have surfaced, survived. The enemy's tet offensive of 1968. The elected government of South Vietnam survived that attack and is rapidly repairing the devastation that it wrote. The South Vietnamese know that further efforts are going to be required to expand their own armed forces, to move back into the countryside as quickly as possible, to increase their taxes, to select the very best men that they have

for several and military responsibilities, to achieve a new unity within their constitutional government, and to include in the national effort all those groups who wish to preserve South Vietnam's control over its own destiny. Last week, President Chu ordered the mobilization of 135,000 additional South Vietnamese. He plans to reach as soon as possible a total military strength of more than 800,000 men. To achieve this, the government of South Vietnam started the drafting of 19-year-olds on March 1st. On May 1st, the government will begin the drafting of 18-year-olds. Last month, 10,000 men volunteered for military service. That was two and a half times the number

of volunteers during the same month last year. Since the middle of January, more than 48,000 South Vietnamese had joined the armed forces, and nearly half of them volunteered to do so. All men in the South Vietnamese armed forces have had their tours of duty extended for the duration of the war, and reserves are now being called up for immediate active duty. President Chu told his people last week, we must make greater efforts, we must accept more sacrifices, because as I have said many times, this is our country. The existence of our nation is at stake, and this is mainly a Vietnamese responsibility. He warned his people that a major national effort is required

to root out corruption and incompetence at all levels of government. We applaud this evidence of determination on the part of South Vietnam. Our first priority will be to support their effort. We shall accelerate the re-equipment of South Vietnam's armed forces in order to meet the enemy's increased firepower, and this will enable them progressively to undertake a larger share of combat operations against the communist invaders. On many occasions, I have told the American people that we would send to Vietnam those forces that are required to accomplish our mission there. So with that as our guide, we have previously authorized the force level of approximately 525,000. Some weeks ago, to help meet the enemy's new offensive,

we sent to Vietnam about 11,000 additional marine and airborne troops. They were deployed by air in 48 hours on the emergency bases, but the artillery and the tank and the aircraft and medical and other units that were needed to work with and to support these infantry troops in combat could not then accompany them by air on that short notice. In order that these forces may reach maximum combat effectiveness, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have recommended to me that we should prepare to send during the next five months. These support troops totaling approximately 13,500 men. A portion of these men will be made available from our active forces. The balance will come from reserve component units, which will be called up for service. The actions that we have taken since the beginning of the year

to re-equip the South Vietnamese forces to meet our responsibilities in Korea, as well as our responsibilities in Vietnam, to meet price increases and the cost of activating and deploying these reserve forces to replace helicopters and provide the other military supplies we need. All of these actions are going to require additional expenditures. The tentative estimate of those additional expenditures is $2.5 billion in this fiscal year and $2,600 million in the next fiscal year. These projected increases in expenditures for our national security will bring into sharper focus the nation's need for immediate action. Action to protect the prosperity of the American people and to protect the strength and the stability of our American dollar.

On many occasions, I have pointed out that without a tax bill, our decreased expenditures next year's deficit would again be around $20 billion. I have emphasized the need to set strict priorities in our spending. I have stressed that failure to act and to act promptly and decisively would raise very strong doubts throughout the world about America's willingness. To keep its financial house in order, yet Congress has not acted. And tonight we face the sharpest financial threat in the post-war era, a threat to the dollar's role as the keystone of international trade and finance in the world. Last week at the Monetary Conference in Stockholm, the major industrial countries decided to take

a big step toward creating a new international monetary asset that will strengthen the international monetary system. And I'm very proud of the very able work done by Secretary Fowler and Chairman Martin of the Federal Reserve Board. But to make this system work, the United States just must bring its balance of payments to our very close to equilibrium. We must have a responsible fiscal policy in this country. The passage of a tax bill now together with expenditure control that the Congress may desire and dictate is absolutely necessary to protect this nation's security and to continue our prosperity and to meet the needs of our people. Now, what is at stake is seven years of unparalleled prosperity.

In those seven years, the real income of the average American after taxes rose by almost 30%. Again, as large as that of the entire preceding 19 years. So the steps that we must take to convince the world are exactly the steps that we must take to sustain our own economic strength here at home. In the past eight months, prices and interest rates have risen because of our inaction. We must therefore now do everything we can to move from debate to action, from talking to voting. And there is, I believe, I hope there is. In both houses of the Congress, a growing sense of urgency that this situation just must be acted upon and must be

corrected. My budget in January, we thought, was a tight one. It fully reflected our evaluation of most of the demanding needs of this nation. But in these budgetary matters, the president does not decide alone. The Congress has the power and the duty to determine appropriations and taxes. And the Congress is now considering our proposals. And they're considering reductions in the budget that we submitted. As part of a program of fiscal restraint that includes the tax surcharge, I shall approve appropriate reductions in the January budget, when and if Congress so decides that that should be done. One thing is unmistakably clear, however, our deficit just must be reduced. Failure to act could bring on conditions that would strike hardest at those people

that all of us are crying so hard to help. So these times call for prudence in this land of plenty. And I believe that we have the character to provide it. And tonight I plead with the Congress and with the people to act promptly to serve the national interest and thereby serve all of our people. Now let me give you my estimate of the chances for peace. The peace that will one day stop the bloodshed in South Vietnam that will all the Vietnamese people be permitted to rebuild and develop their land. That will permit us to turn more fully to our own task here at home. I cannot promise that the initiative that I have announced tonight

will be completely successful in achieving peace any more than the 30 others that we have undertaken and agreed to in recent years. But it is our fervent hope that North Vietnam, after years of fighting that has left the issue unresolved, will now cease its efforts to achieve a military victory and will join with us in moving toward the peace table. And there may come a time when South Vietnamese on both sides are able to work out a way to settle their own differences by free political choice rather than by war. As Hanoi considers its course, it should be in no doubt of our intention.

It must not miscalculate the pressures within our democracy in this election year. We have no intention of widening this war, but the United States will never accept a fake solution to this long and arduous struggle and call it peace. No one can foretell the precise terms of an eventual settlement. Our objective in South Vietnam has never been the annihilation of the enemy. It has been to bring about a recognition in Hanoi that its objective, taking over the South by force, could not be achieved. We think that peace can be based on the Geneva Cords of 1954 under political conditions that permit the South Vietnamese, all the South

Vietnamese, to chart their course free of any outside domination or interference from us or from anyone else. So tonight, I reaffirmed the pledge that we made at Manila that we are prepared to withdraw our forces from South Vietnam as the other side withdraws its forces to the north, stops the infiltration and the level of violence thus subsides. Our goal of peace and self-determination in Vietnam is directly related to the future of all of Southeast Asia, where much has happened to inspire confidence during the past ten years and we have done all that we knew how to do to contribute and to help build that confidence. A number of its nations have shown what can be

accomplished under conditions of security since 1966 in Indonesia. The fifth largest nation in all the world, with a population of more than a hundred million people, has had a government that's dedicated to peace with its neighbors and improved conditions for its own people. Political and economic cooperations between nations has grown rapidly and I think every American can take a great deal of pride in the role that we have played in bringing this about in Southeast Asia. We can rightly judge as responsible Southeast Asians themselves do that the progress of the past three years would have been far less likely if not completely impossible if America's sons and others had not made their stand in Vietnam. At Johns Hopkins University about three years ago,

I announced that the United States would take part in the great work of developing Southeast Asia, including the Meekong Valley for all the people of that region. Our determination to help build a better land, a better land for men on both sides, the present conflict, has not diminished in the least. Indeed, the ravages of war, I think it made it more urgent than ever. So I repeat on behalf of the United States again tonight what I said at Johns Hopkins that North Vietnam could take its place in this common effort just as soon as peace comes. Over time, a wider framework of peace and security in Southeast Asia may become possible.

The new cooperations of the nation's area could be a foundation stone. Certainly friendship with the nations of such a Southeast Asia is what the United States seeks. And that is all that the United States seeks. One day, my fellow citizen, there will be peace in Southeast Asia. It will come because the people of Southeast Asia wanted. Those whose armies are at war tonight, those who, those threatened have thus far been spared. Peace will come because Asians were willing to work for it and to sacrifice for it and to die by the thousands for it. But let it never be forgotten. Peace will come also because America sent her sons

to help security. It has not been easy for her from it. During the past four and a half years, it has been my fate and my responsibility to be commander in chief. I have lived daily and nightly with the cost of this war. I know the pain that it has inflicted. I know perhaps better than anyone, the misgivings that it has aroused. And throughout this entire long period, I have been sustained. By a single principle that what we are doing now in Vietnam is vital,

not only to the security of Southeast Asia, but it is vital to the security of every American. Surely we have treaties which we must respect. Surely we have commitments that we are going to keep. Resolutions of the Congress testify to the need to resist aggression in the world and in Southeast Asia. But the heart of our involvement in South Vietnam under three different presidents, three separate administrations has always been America's own security. And the larger purpose of our involvement has always been to help the nations of Southeast

Asia become independent and stand alone, self-sustaining as members of a great world community. At peace with themselves, at peace with all others, and with such an Asia, our country and the world will be far more secure than it is tonight. I believe that a peaceful Asia is far nearer to reality because of what America has done in Vietnam. I believe that the men who endure the dangers of battle there fighting there for us tonight are helping the entire world avoid far greater conflicts, far wider wars, far more destruction than this one. The peace that will bring them home someday will come.

Tonight, I have offered the first in what I hope will be a series of mutual moves toward peace. I pray that it will not be rejected by the leaders of North Vietnam. I pray that they will accept it as a means by which the sacrifices of their own people may be ended. And I ask your help and your support, my fellow citizens, for this effort to reach across the battlefield toward an early peace. Finally, my fellow Americans, let me say this. Of those to whom much is given, much is asked. I cannot say and no man could say that no more will

be asked of us. Yet I believe that now, no less than when the decade began, this generation of Americans is willing to pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. Since those words were spoken by John F. Kennedy, the people of America have kept that compact with mankind's noblest calls. And we shall continue to keep it. Yet I believe that we must always be mindful of this one thing. Whatever the trials and the tests ahead, the ultimate strength of our country and our cause will I not in powerful weapons or infinite resources are boundless wealth,

but will I in the unity of our people. This I believe very deeply. Throughout my entire public career, I have followed the personal philosophy that I am a free man, and American, a public servant, and a member of my party in that order, always and only, for 37 years in the service of our nation, first as a congressman, as a senator, and as vice president, and now as your president. I have put the unity of the people first. I have put it ahead of any divisive partisanship. And in these times, as in times before, it is true that a house divided against itself

by the spirit of faction, of party, of region, of religion, of race is a house that cannot stand. There is division in the American house now. There is divisiveness among us all tonight, and holding the trust that is mine as president of all the people. I cannot disregard the peril to the progress of the American people and the hope and the prospects of peace for all people. So I would ask all Americans, whatever their personal interests are concerned, to guard against divisiveness and all of its ugly consequences. 52 months and 10 days ago, in a moment of tragedy and trauma,

the duties of this office fell upon me. I ask then for your help and gods that we might continue America on its course, binding up our wounds, healing our history, moving forward in new unity to clear the American agenda and to keep the American commitment for all of our people. United, we have kept that commitment. And united, we have enlarged that commitment. And through all time to come, I think America will be a stronger nation, a more just society, a land of greater opportunity and fulfillment,

because of what we have all done together in these years of unparalleled achievement. Our reward will come in the life of freedom and peace and hope that our children will enjoy through ages ahead. What we want when all of our people united just must not now be lost in suspicion and distrust and selfishness and politics among any of our people. And believing this, as I do, I have concluded that I should not permit the presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year.

With America's sons in the field far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace and the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office, the presidency of your country. Accordingly, I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president, but let men everywhere know, however, that a strong and a confident and a vigilant America

stands ready tonight to seek an honorable peace and stands ready tonight to defend and honored cause, whatever the price, whatever the burden, whatever the sacrifice that duty may require. Thank you for listening, good night, and God bless all of you. Back in our Milwaukee studios, let me first identify the two experts who will analyze this history-making address that we have just watched from Washington by President Johnson, Walter Heller, Regents Professor of Economics at the University of Minnesota,

and formerly the Chairman of the Economic Advisors of the White House, both under President Kennedy and President Johnson, and Professor David Tar, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I was going, gentlemen, to ask Dr. Heller the first question on the matter of economics, but the President changed the headline, Professor Tar, what do you think this does to the political situation in the nation and in Wisconsin? Wow, excuse me, wow. That's enough to clear your throat for it. The mind boggles that, as my mind is boggling here at the tremendous impact that this decision that the President has made is going to have upon our society. I had in thinking through most of

my thoughts during his speech, expected to say to you that in spite of all of the President was saying about guarding against divisiveness in the country, about his desire to stand above politics, the partisan politics, and so on, that in spite of all that, that we here in Wisconsin could hardly feel that the timing of this speech did not have something to do, not only with the grave situation in Southeast Asia, but with the primary here in Wisconsin. It now makes the primary in Wisconsin a rather difficult thing to estimate, and perhaps an even more difficult thing to analyze, because it is hard to say what a Democrat

voting for Lyndon Johnson, for example, on the primary on Tuesday, would be saying. In short, I am overwhelmed by his decision. Those who have known President Johnson fairly closely have always said that he's an unpredictable character. He has been an unpredictable President by all means, and although it has crossed my mind and we have discussed this, on a number of occasions about the prospect of the President not running for re-election, we had generally concluded that he was just too much a political animal, too deeply involved and personally involved in the affairs of this nation,

stepped down at this time, so I'm surprised to say at least. While you collect further your thoughts that have been fractured by all of us, Dr. Heller, I was going to ask you how valid and plausible you thought the President's argument for fiscal responsibility and a tax cut was. I'll amend that question as follows. Do you think his dramatic announcement that he will not run adds the added impetus, emotional or otherwise necessary to get these measures through Congress that he has not been able to do for 16 months? Well, you must remember, first of all, Ed, that I'm an economic analyst, not a psychoanalyst, and I don't know what will move Wilbur Mills and the United States Congress. I would say, first of all, that I think he did again make a strong case ever since August 3rd of last year. He's been making this strong case for the income tax surcharge. And interestingly enough,

he's been unwilling to put it on the basis of, so to speak, wrapping the flag around himself and saying we need this for war. He has used what I've regarded as a level-headed, essentially economic and equity argument for the tax increase, namely that if we didn't have it, we would have higher prices. We would have higher interest rates. We would have an unfair distribution of the costs of the war through inflation. And indeed, that it was terribly important on our international flank, both in terms of curbing the imports that have been upsetting our balance of trade. And in terms of this confidence factor, which you and I may want to denigrate because it involves the so-called international bankers, but it's a very real factor in whether or not the world is going to cooperate with us in reforming this international monetary system. So that I'd say

the economic case has been strong, is strong, will be strong. He did, I noticed twice tonight, refer to the fact that it was the lowest income groups who would take the beating, so to speak, if we didn't increase taxes, that that's where the expenditure cuts would hurt the most. Does his announcement, this dramatic announcement reinforce the likelihood of the tax increase, I should think on balance it would. I think for one thing, part of the problem has been credibility. I believe he's been utterly credible on the tax issue. I think the credibility factor politically will serve to reinforce the case for the tax increase. Separating the president's announcement, which we cannot, but trying to, for the sake of argument very briefly, A is a tax increased, increased justified, and B, what will happen to the economy? Will we, in other words, get a recession if we don't get it? Yes, the tax increase is justified.

You know, it's partly an economic argument in terms of what will happen to prices and interest rates and to the international monetary flank if we don't get it. Of course, it's partly also what will happen to government programs if we don't get it. I think there's no question, but what the American taxpayer would be paying higher prices, higher interest rates, than he otherwise would have to pay, and that there would be a greater danger of difficulty on the international payments front, and consequently, less of a chance of getting this Stockholm agreement that we've just reached with at least eight other nations, the general, as usual, accepted, that all told we weaken our economy, not in the direction of depression or recession, but in the direction of more inflation and more interest rate escalation. But more

and more important than that, it seems to me that unless we're willing to tax ourselves, unless we're willing to put on a temporary surtax now, which would be ready to come off at the end of hostilities in Vietnam, we're simply, as I say, asking for undercutting the very programs that are essential to the success of a democratic system. Our programs, our wars on poverty, on pollution, on the whole attack on the problems of the ghettos would be endangered if we don't get some additional tax revenues, because those are the programs that we'd have to, in the last and last, those are the programs with the least political muscle. Those are the programs that would take it in the neck if we don't have sufficient inflow of tax revenues into the federal treasury. Professor Tara, the speculation has been rife in Washington for months, that if Robert Kennedy ever challenged the president and the president thought he had good reason to believe that he was

at some time going too long before Senator Kennedy put his hat in the ring after the McCarthy victory in New Hampshire, the speculation was rife that the president would do everything he could to deny the nomination to Robert Kennedy. Would you believe that what the president did tonight gave an enormous advantage to Senator McCarthy in his fight, or would you think that the president has in mind to try to make Hubert Humphrey his successor? Obviously the president proved to us tonight that you can't out-guess him. It would be my impression that the immediate impact of the decision would be an advantage to McCarthy, but I would be very much surprised if the president left the choice in the Democratic party

up to those factions in the party now supporting McCarthy and Kennedy. That is to say while he himself has surprised us by announcing that he will step down, it would be practically inconceivable for me to, and I think to any political analyst to say that the president would not play an important role in the choice, and I would assume at this stage that perhaps Hubert Humphrey would be a possible alternative for the president to back. Certainly he enhances his role as a successor maker, so to speak, by the fact that he, as Harry Truman did, bowed out almost exactly at the same time of year. On the other hand, Mr. Truman had a great deal of difficulty in getting Adelaide Stephenson his choice to make the race.

Getting back to the broad area of economics for just a minute, Dr. Heller, what about the argument that the critics of President Johnson have made that a tax increase is a vote for more war in Vietnam? For my money ad, that argument is simply nonsense. It seems to me that the people who are working against the tax increase on that ground are going to be very bitterly disappointed in the long run if they succeed because they'll find that a vote against the tax increase is not a vote against Vietnam, but a vote against the war on poverty, either the war on the problems of the ghettos. But haven't the critics some validity in their argument that the war on poverty and the war in the ghettos has been sacrificed to some degree psychologically at least by the press of Vietnam? Oh, there's no question about that. The cost of Vietnam in terms of our economy,

in terms of our programs that used to go under the heading of the great society. That cost has been enormous, but you're not going to reduce that cost. You're not going to end that cost by not increasing taxes on the contrary. If you don't have those revenues, you won't be able in the reasonably near term to finance those programs as well. And when Vietnam's end comes, unless we have a surtax that we can rip off to satisfy the pension of the tax cutters for tax cutting, then we'll have to cut even more deeply into the war with all of our programs. You are an economist and Professor Tar is a political scientist. Neither one of you are sears or crystal gaisers, but just in the closing seconds here, who would you guess would be the Democratic nominee in August, Dr. Heller? That's a very tough one. I don't know Lyndon Johnson's candidate yet for sure, so I'm going to duck that question. Don't duck at Professor Tar.

My guess is Robert Kennedy. We're going to examine the startling developments of the evening with a group of Wisconsin voters now, and so I'm going to say to Dr. Heller and Professor Tar, thank you very much, gentlemen. Still to come on, PBL tonight, first reaction of Wisconsin voters to President Johnson's speech, a film report on a hotly contested foreign policy referendum in Madison, and the point of view of PBL chief correspondent Edward P. Morgan. PBL continues in one minute. PBL continues in one minute. PBL continues in one minute.

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PBL continues in one minute. PBL continues in one minute. PBL continues in one minute. PBL continues in one minute. PBL continues in one minute. PBL continues in one minute. Good evening, I'm Dave Dugan and Milwaukee, President Johnson's dramatic announcement tonight that he will not run for re-election. Obviously, as turned all conversation upside down, we are originally going to discuss the election coming up in Wisconsin on Tuesday with the various attributes of President Johnson versus Senator McCarthy, and we have assembled here a miniature town hall meeting, a group of citizens of Wisconsin, to give us their ideas on their reactions to the situation, and the news, of course, they would all agree, is fantastic, but people are just trembling now. I think if we could start right off very quickly, and let's go to the gentleman in the front row, if you would stand up, please, identify yourself, and tell us, sir, what do you think about President Johnson's decision not to run for re-election? My name is Roger Fessier, I'm an attorney here in Milwaukee, and first off, I would like to, because of the man and his surprising, like to reread what he said, and digested,

and look at it very carefully, because to me, it sounded a great deal like the same words that Franklin Roosevelt used in 1940, which was a signal to the Democrat convention to re-nominate him by acclamation, and which they immediately did. This may be the best way that Lyndon Johnson knows, in light of the Wisconsin primary, in light of the challenge made by Bobby Kennedy and McCarthy from Minnesota, as well as criticism from the Republicans, to put across the nature of his Vietnam policy, which is something everyone in a way disagrees with. Well, have you been a Johnson supporter, sir? No, I'm a conservative Republican, all right, and perhaps I'm overly suspicious, but I think if I were he, and I wanted to run for another term, I would do something like this. Does anybody disagree with that? How about this gentleman in the front row, sir? Would you stand, please? My name is Frank Zyber, I am a McCarthy supporter. I tend to take the President's statement

at his face value. A viewer that's something of a tragedy, and that the strains of Presidency of the United States have been very enormous, and perhaps President Johnson has a say this position to be one that is very difficult for him to do what he wants. If it is as I judge, then his statements about de-escalation are perfectly sincere, and I think also his statement about the need for additional revenue through a text basis sincere. But I now see a severe struggle occurring between the militants who desire and continue with escalation in Vietnam and others, and I think that a senator McCarthy will probably be the best individual with balanced judgment to be able to contain this struggle and to provide a progressive development for him. Well, do you think, sir, the President Johnson's announcement of stopping the bombing, and 90 percent of North Vietnam would have had any effect or will have any effect on the primary come Tuesday? Not that it will have, but coupled with his retirement announcement,

it may mean that Republicans will stay in their own part. All right, sir, in the front row, would you stand up please? Yes. My name is Marshall Colston, and I'm a McCarthy supporter for the Wisconsin Prime Minister. I'll probably support Kennedy later on. What did you think about President Johnson's announcement Well, I wasn't surprised. I've been predicting to my friends that President might not run. I felt that there were two very good reasons. One is that he has a country and a great deal of difficulty, and he doesn't see any way out of this. And another term, I believe, it's a lame duck term. He could not succeed himself, and the possibility that he'd have all kinds of difficulty with Vietnam and the cities, the great society program. I think that he felt that he had it, and I think that it's good for the country. Well, he spoke of not wanting to create divisiveness in the country. Do you think that his action tonight and saying he will not seek

renomination will eliminate any of that divisiveness? I think that it will, yes. I think that he himself has been a divisive factor and very severely so. I think that a good deal of the difficulty that we have now in regard to human relations, in regard to labor, in regard to quality education, in regard to a whole raft of problems here have been put behind Vietnam, which is his priority. All right. Is there a Johnson supporter here in the bike road, gentlemen? Yes, sir. Yes, I'm John Monday. I'm a student at Marquette and a Johnson supporter. I tend to doubt whether a whole story in this announcement. You don't deal with the whole story, is it? No, I can't believe that a man with his drive and ambition, once a place in the history of the way he does, is going to just chuck the whole works just before a campaign. I just don't believe it. It isn't in keeping with your idea of Lyndon Johnson. No, I don't think so. All right. Gentlemen, next you, please.

Also, a Johnson supporter? Yes, my name is Bennett. I'm a professor at Marquette University. I was a Johnson supporter until just a few minutes ago. That means that I do take the President's announcement of face value and with great sadness, I'm afraid. I was ready to say up until the last five minutes of the President's speech that I thought the McCarthy campaign had probably hit its high point two days ago and that now the political expertise of Mr. Johnson and the power of the presidency had finally been killed here. You mean specifically because President Johnson talked about a bombing halt in 90 percent of North Vietnam? He was taking a softer position? Yes, precisely. Not a softer position than he had. Well, at least in de-escalation. He's been saying this all along. I wondered what his opponents in the Democrat Party could possibly have to say now. You thought that he was taking some of the wind out of the sales of Eugene McCarthy? Certainly. Negotiations anywhere. A new government, including the NFL, representative of all parts of Vietnam. Like Mr. Monday, I think that the story is an all-in that is I want to know who Mr. Johnson's candidate is. I just don't see how it can be either Mr. McArthur

or Mr. Kennedy. Well, as a Johnson supporter, what gentleman would you like to have run? I was a eubert Humphrey supporter long before Mr. Johnson was heard of in the White House, but I have to think about whether he's a real possibility. All right, we have a journalist who was on earlier tonight and just stand up, sir. Please look around. My name is John Hunter and I'm a reporter in Madison, the Capitol Times. I think that the president's announcement tonight was the announcement of a man, a very eloquent announcement of a great American. I don't agree with Mr. Johnson on so many things, but tonight I think he realized himself that this country is deeply divided. He took the only course he could. I think that his announcement almost certainly will mean that a dove will be in the White House if the Democrats can prevail. I don't think a man like Richard Nixon can if the Democrats can unite. I don't think a man like Richard Nixon can overcome the thrust of history. I don't think he's got it anymore. Well, as a reporter and you have been covering the situation

in Wisconsin, do you feel that President Johnson's speech up until the point when he said he wasn't going to run would have taken some of the wind out of McCarthy's sales? Would have lost some of that he spoke from McCarthy. I'm certain it would have. His the limited bombing halt was an excellent suggestion and welcome suggestion. I would have thought up until the time Mr. Johnson announced that he would not seek or did not want the nomination of the Democratic Party. That Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Nixon should have asked for equal time to reply to him because I thought of in context of the Wisconsin primary. When he made that announcement, he wouldn't run. It changed the whole thing completely. Mr. Hunter, I know you're a reporter but you're also a man. How does it hit you emotionally? How do you feel as you were sitting here watching this when President Johnson said he was good? I think it's one of the great dramatic moments in American political life. Do you think it's good for the country? I think it's good for the country. Thank you sir. We have a report that Senator McCarthy got the word of the president's announcement when he was addressing a college audience outside of Milwaukee. We're in Milwaukee

right now. Senator McCarthy said it was a surprise which will change the political picture. The college audience broke out in shears when they heard of President Johnson's statement. And we have a group of citizens of Wisconsin. We had originally planned to discuss the election next Tuesday, but obviously with President Johnson's announcement, if you didn't hear it earlier, the announcement that he will not run for reelection, this changes the entire complexion of our discussion. I'd like to go back to somebody else here and the rest of you, all of you, to get your ID, what you think of President Johnson's announcement. Yes sir, in the front row. My name is Maurice Zitman. I'm the chairman of Madison Citizens for Hold on to Vietnam that's running a referendum on the war in the city of Madison. I think that President Johnson, in his dramatic announcement, has continued to muddy the waters and to muddy the issue. And there wasn't a word that was new in the speech of the president of the United States. He continues with the prevailing mythology that the war is a war between the North and the South, that the war was an aggressor. He fails to recognize the essential reality of the war as a civil

war. He brought in the national liberation front as if by an afterthought he still isn't willing to consider the need, the other necessity of having to negotiate with the very people that you're fighting, that really are the people of South Vietnam. He could have bombed and destroyed North Vietnam. The war in the South would continue to go on. He still hasn't recognized that. Secondly, the fact that the president has decided not to run makes it all the more imperative that we understand the importance of this election in rejecting the kind of foreign policy which he correctly characterized as preceding him in three administrations. Because it's not just the war in Vietnam that's the issue here. It's the issue of whether or not the United States is going to take on the task of policing the world, whether it has the right to police the world, whether it has the right to intervene and to topple governments that it sees fit to do so or not. Professor, you are the chairman of the committee you said in Madison was constant for the referendum to get us out of Vietnam. What do you think President Johnson's announcement today that he will not seek reelection will do to that referendum? Will it affect him anyway? Yes, I think it will. I think it's very important now. It's all the more important. As a matter of fact, it is even

that much more of a significant historical moment that the American people see how thoroughly the policy of intervention in Vietnam is rejected and therefore it's all the more important that there be a resounding yes vote on the issue in Madison because that defines the issue of the war in Vietnam all the more clearly. It's going to take the wind out of the sales obviously of McCarthy's vote precisely because he supposedly is no longer running against an opponent and for that reason a vote on the issue of the war in Vietnam is all the more significant. Well, and you said you don't feel the president Johnson in his discussion of Vietnam, what as far as you would like to have gone anyway that didn't make much difference. That's right. He's perpetuated the mythology and he's perpetuated not only perpetuated the mythology on the war but he's failed to deal with all kinds of other serious issues. He doesn't mention the Negro people of the United States except by somehow or other second-handed well we want to help those there are people. He doesn't recognize he talks about acting promptly on the policies that will somehow or other improve the welfare of the American people but he didn't even pay attention to his own Turner Commission report. He talks about equity

and yet he's got a policy which is to tax 10 percent surtax of this kind instead of taxing actively. Okay, thank you very much. In the back row, gentlemen, second from the end please. My name is Pat and I'm WIs. I'm a radio newsman from Madison. I disagree wholeheartedly with the isolation of Professor Zitman on the issue of the war and however I think is Anna and Alice is in some respects that have some significance. I am conservative Republican however I think at this point I'm going to revise my thinking slightly on President Johnson. I had formerly thought of him quite a lot as an opportunist as one issued rather interested more in his political future than anything but I think that at this point it becomes obvious that he is intentionally interested in the issue of the war. Professor Zitman was rising one respect that he hasn't changed anything. He hasn't changed much at all. Is there any exposition on Vietnam? He is called bombing homes before. He's

made the very same request of North Vietnam before. His concept of the war, well I think it is right, has not changed and therefore I think it could have a substantial effect. That is I think it could have the effect of electing a hawk in November. Sir? My name is Roland Day. I'm from Madison, Wisconsin and I'm the chairman of the Citizens' Orchinity Committee in the state. The President's announcement was indeed dramatic and I share the feeling of Mr. Hunters in that respect. However I did have the impression and in checking over my notes after the President's dramatic announcement that there was very little of anything new in the President's approach and at the call that has been issued by Senators McCarthy and Kennedy that any meaningful negotiations must include the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam that as I interpreted the President's remarks this evening, that aspect was lacking. I think it is extremely important now that there be on Tuesday a very

strong and heavy vote for Senator McCarthy. And you all that have the kind of committee and we have asked for this supporting Senator McCarthy in the state. And I also think it's important so that the Democratic Party does not get torn apart by those who was referred to follow President Johnson's old policies that vote Senator McCarthy and Senator Kennedy have spoken out so dramatically against. But I think that it's extremely important that Senator McCarthy and Senator Kennedy in the weeks ahead and has faced these primaries then determine what the real choice of the people is for that Democratic nominee. I am confident that when it's over with the choice is going to be Senator Kennedy. Well, by I ask you, sir, do you feel if you agree with President Johnson that perhaps this may imply some of the divisiveness in the country? I think that it will. And I think that probably that

Mr. Nixon will pick up the support of a number of those that have been for greater escalation and that the issue will now be one between the two parties. And I'm hopeful that that's what it's going to be. All right, Senator. Yes, sir? I'm Edgar Feig. I'm a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin. And I feel as though I'm one of the many thousands of citizens in this country who's been branded credibility gap before, I personally cannot take the President at his word in terms of his about intention not to be the Democratic nominee. I initially thought that the President was making a political speech timed at a very important time when I believe Senator McCarthy was on the verge of an important and very widespread victory in Wisconsin. And you're of a cocking support. I suddenly am. And I'm concerned now that the President has essentially

made this important and widespread McCarthy victory, which I think will take place on a second and apparently hollow one. Although I cannot, I cannot for a moment believe his sincerity in terms of turning down the nomination. I wish it were in fact the case because I think that would do a great deal to men, many of the wounds in this country, but I cannot take it as too seriously. Did you want to respond to that, Mr. Bussi? As a matter of practical politics. President Johnson couldn't do anything more effective for votes for himself on Tuesday than what he just did. And saying this will make a resounding victory for McCarthy is whistling in the dark for these people that are backing McCarthy. It's just a dream. Johnson will take it in a landslide now. And I won't vote for either one, of course. I'll vote for either Nixon or Reagan. Well, did you feel, and you said once before, you think that all the stories not in, you feel that maybe something might happen, then you feel that there's still probably only Johnson to run? A fire has been lit. It's got the boil over it. When it boils over, what will happen has been probably already planned,

but the point will be, I think probably Johnson will run further again. In the meantime, the senseless policy that he has in Vietnam will continue. And there'll be a lot of ridiculous debate and a lot of talk about mythology and about the vietcong, not being communist, but something politically respectable and so forth. All this nonsense that you hear will continue. But they'll continue. There's no win, war. There's this policy of killing Americans and accomplishing absolutely nothing and having no purpose, no objective, no victory. Not once tonight that you say a thing about victory yet, he has a nerve to talk about continuing a war. And if you're not, there are two things you should do with the war. You either win them or you avoid them. He's done neither. He's doing it. All right, thank you. We're going to go to a film report now on a referendum that's coming up on Tuesday in another aspect of the election. In Madison, Wisconsin, foreign policy is a big factor in local politics. Well, hotly contested

referendum on the primary ballot. That referendum is known as question eight, PBL's Elizabeth Farmer reports. Once we start talking about governments that have all the information and all the facts and we have to trust them, we are destroying the very fiber and the very principle upon which our democracy rests. We were dedicated to the proposition that people were supposed to determine their own destiny. We were dedicated to the proposition that the people tell the government, rather than the government tell the people, and I intend to see to it in my own small way and we intend to see to it in Madison in our own small way that that proposition has some life put into it. In Madison, Wisconsin, a breeding ground of controversial political theories and an old stronghold of American isolationism, a presidential primary and a local electoral contest are underway. All Wisconsin will choose among the presidential candidates and the presence of Senator McCarthy on the ballot has made Vietnam the big issue. But a determined group led by sociology professor Maurice Zitland has given Madison an extra choice to vote yes or no on an

unqualified proposition for a ceasefire and letting the Vietnamese quote determine their own destiny. Unquote. The proposition backed by a petition with 9,000 names calls for an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of United States troops in a way that was intended to leave the timing of the withdrawal open. But many people have taken it to mean that the withdrawal, like the ceasefire, must be immediate. Mr. Zitland is one of the authors of the proposition as it appears on the ballot and has been the target of some criticism. We asked him why the resolution was worded so strongly. Well, some people don't think it's worded very strongly. I think it's less the question of whether it's worded strongly than that it is worded unequivocally. The referendum proposition states that we want the fighting in Vietnam stopped and that we do not believe that American troops should stay in Vietnam. That instructs the government of what the feelings of the people of the

city of Madison are about the war. It's up to our government to act on that kind of an instruction and we see Madison instructing the government of the United States rather than the government of the United States instructing Madison. At a suburban coffee party, even some people supporting the peace candidates bridle at the language. I don't care what the wording is, like Castan Myers said in the second district here just today, that the wording is not quite suitable. It's a little too dramatic. I find it so objectionable and it's wording that I just could not hold forth in spite of the fact that I am opposed to the war and I do agree with most of the things you said. We could never arrive at a wording to please. They'll never do so. But this is exactly the point I'm making is that you can be opposed to the war and still not like the wording of this referendum in short, but we have an alternative. Now we can vote in the primary and in either party, we have a peace candidate. In the industrial part of Madison, whether withdrawal question expects

most opposition, the wording is often criticized. Feeding their purpose because if they make it so rough like they have and they get defeated, then these hawks and what have you think while the populations against it? If they could have worded it a little bit milder. Maybe I wouldn't even thought anything about voting for it, but this cut and drive withdrawal sort of thing, you know, unilateral withdrawal and all that. I can't go on that because it's impossible. And it's something that you're just not going to go up there and foolishly, right? It's so cut and drive that it did steer here, right? On the University of Wisconsin campus, two, the phrasing of the resolution gives some people pause. But the university with 30,000 students and a staff of 4,500 is a big source of support for Proposition 8. And some say the movement is entirely founded there. They are mistaken. The Madison Citizens Committee for a vote on Vietnam includes businessmen, professionals, a broad spectrum of clergymen and a labor leader and a bank president. Student power is the university's main contribution to the referendum effort.

No senior faculty members are active in the committee's work. These ward captains are meeting to plan the last big drive before the vote on Tuesday. So will you have a literature for us to hand out at that table? Yeah, okay. No matter if I can trip over on the way in the door, it's right over there. Okay. They are mostly graduate students, willing and sometimes eager to tackle the dirty job of door-to-door politics. We've done what is an unprecedented task in the community, something that I think we considered an insufferable task when we began this. We've got 9,000 citizens of the city of Madison representing over 20% of the community to put their name on the dotted line, saying that they intended to support this referendum, not merely that they thought that we should be allowed to vote on it. The important thing is that there are so many people that are working on this, and it's a terrific experience. All kinds of people working on this, who never before in their lives, were engaged in politics. So in that sense, we have done something

for the democratic process in the city. It will never be the same again, no matter what happens on April 2nd. And the campaign dedicated. These young political activists are a new phenomenon in American life. They are different from student politicians in that they direct their talk, not at each other, but to the voters of the communities where they happen to be. In Madison, they have tapped new sources of strength in the business community. People oppose to the American presence in Vietnam for the widest variety of reasons have been brought together by their efforts. Zeitlin explains why. Students are participating in this, perhaps for a variety of reasons. The students throughout the United States for reasons that would take us too far a field to understand the motivations behind this are obviously at the center of much of the protest and resistance movement in the United States against the war. But the same thing was true in terms of the civil rights movement. The same thing has been true in terms of the issue of civil liberties. And we live in a decade in which students have taken the initiative throughout the United States and putting back some

content into what we have become accustomed to saying, but accustomed to avoiding doing. The peace movement has been labeled a children's crusade, but in Wisconsin there are certainly mothers and fathers in evidence. Door-to-door canvassing and personal persuasion have been emphasized from the beginning of the campaign, partly of necessity since at first there was no money for big mailings of literature or for television spots. The organizers also felt that personal contact was the way to break down the habit of acquiescence in the war. About 300 campaign workers have canvassed Madison's 22 wards. In the suburban areas, residents of the wards have done the work. In some neighborhoods students filled the manpower gap. For every useful encounter there are several wasted ones. The canvassers found that many people were worried and confused about the war, but they encountered no rival canvassers. Groups opposing the question have made public statements, but they have not organized or taken to the field. How do you feel? Do you support the president's policy? Or do you have other ideas? Well, I would say that I feel that

when I'm against war, but if we're in there, we should try and negotiate to get out and if we can't do it peaceably, then go in to win, not just in the middle. I really don't know. I don't think anybody knows. You don't care to make a comment. No, not at all. All right, thank you very much. And I wonder if you mind telling me what you think should be done to end the war. I think that we all have very critical feelings about it, but I don't know if I can give any constructive suggestions as to what can be done. To get the conversation going, workers suggested alternative Vietnam policies and asked for opinions. People who showed the slightest interest were invited to coffee parties to hear arguments for question eight. Yes, I'm representing the Madison citizens for a vote on Vietnam, and I wondered if you mind

giving me your opinion of what could be done to end the war. In Vietnam? Yes. What steps would you favor? Boy, that's a good question right now, but I might suggest there are the possibilities of de-escalation, escalation, send it to the United Nations. Well, no, I would like, I'd rather have this here. I don't want to see it cleaned out. I don't want I don't want to back up because once you're back up, you're going to keep on backing up all the way. I see. So you would... It's all listening about. Continue. Did you vote in May? It's in the 1960s. Yes, ma'am. Many women who would feel out of place in a peace demonstration find canvassing both proper and dignified. For me and for many other people who can't go and feel we can't carry savings and take our babies

and they're walking in front. And I think that the thing that upsets me is not people who are undecided or people who are against the war or for the war. What really upsets me is when I encounter a person who says that they don't care, they don't want to get involved. And a number of people have said I don't vote. It don't do no good anyway. And this I find very upsetting. Remember 1964? That was the year you voted for peace. What did you get? War at night? A recent spirit of contributions has enabled the committee to buy TV time. By election time, $11,000 will have been collected. Stung by this campaign, the Amvets and the young Americans for freedom have taken full-page newspaper ads to reply.

Veterans for peace in Vietnam was created to support Proposition 8 in the name of patriotism and sound military judgment. These handbills quote seven generals opposed to the war. The Amvets national commander recently said the Vets for Peace included known communists, a charge denied by them. But Madison's established veterans groups have only recently moved to counter the campaign for Proposition 8. At our request, a debate with the veterans for peace was agreed to by the Veterans Council. The debate gave the citizens of Madison a chance to hear two sides confront each other in the same room, rather than through the newspapers. Two of the three Veterans Council representatives were students, not veterans. Liberals and conservatives alike rely on student advocates these days. It's my thesis that if we surrender in Vietnam, if we vote yes on this referendum and follow that policy that in the long run millions of more lives are going to be lost and if we stand firm now. I shall vote yes on the referendum April 2nd. This decision did not come easily. As a veteran,

I know what our troops are suffering. I intend to vote to put an end to that suffering. Our opponents in some have attempted and have shown very well, I think, that war is a horrible thing. But there aren't any of us here that would deny that. There aren't any of us here today that are supporting war. What we're saying is that a surrender and a yes vote after all would amount to a surrender would not lead to peace, but would lead as we've shown to much bigger and much more terrible wars in the future. The questions were on U.S. foreign policy and Madison's new role in it. We're not answering my question about violating our treaties. That's the essential issue. Not this other puppy cock. Are we not violating a treaty in the Assurance of Three Presidents? That's what I want. And deserting six other nations answer that question. And I'm supporting a referendum because it seems to me a yes vote as a vote that's saying that the military cannot get what we desire politically if we desire some sort of democracy in Vietnam. In September of 1938, Neville Chamberlain subscribed to your philosophy and surrendered,

Czechoslovakia to Hitler in the hopes that it would satisfy him. Doesn't this fact? Doesn't the fact that Chamberlain's England was at war with Hitler within a year make you question your policy of appeasement? Now, what would happen if we pulled out of Vietnam tomorrow morning? Do you think that it's a good thing that we hold referenda, like in Madison on April 2nd, on withdrawal during a period of time when we have so many troops deployed so far away? The people in Madison should be given a chance to decide, but they should be given the full facts of exactly what would happen as a result of withdrawing as this gentleman said here. If we would withdraw tomorrow morning, the immediate withdrawal and surrender to communism, is that what the people of Madison would want in this referendum? I think not. Madison is not a big factory town, but there is an active well-established trade union movement

and it has often been politically significant. This year there has been much speculation on how labor will vote on Question 8. Labor leaders have almost all publicly opposed it, but rank and file workers may not be so unanimous. The debate in the taverns and restaurants of Madison's east side reveals a certain number of does and a surprising number of McCarthy votes. Supporters of Question 8 claim that labor spokesmen are actually speaking for themselves and are out of step with their own constituents. Poles do indicate that labor will vote against present Vietnam policy in about the same numbers as everyone else in Wisconsin. The local chief of the Teenscher's Union was one of Question 8's original supporters, but no poll has yet predicted whether or not these working people are ready to accept the kind of political activism that this referendum represents. Even among professional and business groups, there are doubts that Madison should speak out so directly on foreign policy. What I do object to the use of a referendum for such a vast issue that you're dealing with here,

it's bad enough to deal with technical constitutional work. It's probably going to be difficult for many people to even grasp the bus referendum and all the implications of it, but this is not a proper use of the referendum device. Hasn't it ever bothered you that none of our elected representatives have ever been allowed to vote our opinion? We write our congressman and we talk to them. And yet this has never come to a vote and here I am given an opportunity to express part of my sentiment. And it makes me feel very privileged that I can vote yes and voice my opinion when Senator Fulbright is having such a difficult time voicing theirs or voicing the congresses. The petitioners had to force the city council to place Question 8 on the ballot. The alderman were concerned and angered at the thought of being identified with this proposition. In a council resolution they urged the voters to turn the question down.

The referendum committee has since retaliated by demanding that candidates for alderman state their position on withdrawal. Alderman Richard cop is called to account by two constituents for his affirmative vote on that council resolution. The alderman who are presently are the council as you are have seen fit to advise voters to vote against it. And so if I am electing a man who's going to advise me and how to vote then I want him to reflect my position my opinion. My position has been constantly that when the president and the Congress of the United States turn foreign policy over to the Madison Common Council then I will take a very strong position. I could assure you that I would take immediate action to appoint a committee to look into the problem and make a recommendation to the council on behalf of the citizens of Madison. As my closest contact with local government and because you when you are making a decision in

government expect us to tell you what we think so that you can make up your mind on any referendum I feel that the same courtesy should be extended and you should tell us what your feelings are. This was an emotional reaction to being forced to deal with a item of national or international importance and not one of the 22 elected officials that sit there have the knowledge the capability to or the qualifications to make a judgment on this and our reaction was no do not let Madison be spotlighted or put in the put under the gun on a question that should be really if you want an honest question put it on the ballot on the national basis. Like it or not for the first time in Madison's history the alderman like the candidates for president will be judged in part on their record on a foreign policy question. This Madison is not the only place where foreign policy and city government have got tangled up. In Cambridge, Massachusetts and in San Francisco propositions worded much like

Madison's were put to the electorate and in both towns there were people who objected that since city governments cannot make foreign policy foreign policy questions do not belong on a city ballot. But when that argument was taken to courts of law it failed. The courts rule that since city governments have the right to state their views on all sorts of subjects by passing advisory resolutions the people have the right to do the same by direct legislation in the referendum. Attempts to influence policy on Vietnam by referendum can be expected to continue as long as there are substantial and active groups opposed to their government's policies. But we need not fear a rash of referenda about the other great international issues of the day. People just don't care enough about most international questions to go to the back breaking work of getting them on the ballot. And the difficulties about the propositions wording show that foreign policy issues are even harder than most questions to compress into formally which fit into voting machines. Two days before the Wisconsin primary one great virtue of the referendum is obvious the results are easily understood. In America the vote for candidates

historically has great significance for we change policies here by voting for candidates more than by voting for programs. But the results of this primary will not be easily translated into a verdict on Vietnam or even on the candidates. All sides have already discounted opposition votes or even claimed them. McCarthy will probably cite his tally as a verdict on himself in Vietnam. But as in New Hampshire others will describe it more as anti-Johnson. The Kennedy forces will claim any large McCarthy vote as a sign of swelling RFK support. Nixon will claim many of them as crossover Republicans. But Rockefeller Republicans will claim the crossovers as a protest against Nixon. Only a vote for Stasson seems unequivocal and unlikely. In this kind of campaign question eight is a small beacon of simplicity. I'm Dave Dugan once again in our studios in Milwaukee. We took time out to show you that film report on the referendum in Madison. Of course the big news of the

night the fact that President Johnson announced earlier this evening that he will not seek re-election. He will not run for president again. We took time out because of course everything is tied in with the matter of Vietnam. The piece of the referendum in Madison was a very important factor in the election being held on Tuesday in Wisconsin. There have been some reports. Of course you know also President Johnson did also announce that there will be a partial de-escalation of the war. In 90% of the areas of North Vietnam there will be a bomb pause. He did not say for how long. A reaction to all this in Washington outside of the White House, small groups of demonstrators have appeared. One group held up a large white sheet on it was written in big letters just one word. Thanks. And in Wisconsin at Carroll College where Senator McCarthy was speaking when he got word of the president's decision, Senator McCarthy said things have gotten rather complicated. He said he hoped the president's announcement was reflected in Wisconsin's primary on Tuesday. Senator McCarthy said the president's announcement obviously must have taken his cabinet by

surprise because the many cabinet members who have campaigned for the president in Wisconsin obviously had no inkling. The president was about to bow out. And Senator Robert Kennedy learned of the president's announcement when he landed at Kennedy Airport in New York on the way back from his campaign trip in the West. Senator Kennedy said he would have no immediate comment. And aid of the president said the senator would comment on the president's announcement no an aid of the senator that would be an aid of senator Kennedy said the senator would comment on the president's announcement tomorrow morning. Senator Kennedy had previously scheduled a 10 o'clock news conference for tomorrow morning. That's partial reaction to the fantastic announcement tonight by president Johnson that he will not seek re-election. We have with us also a professor who was on earlier with the Edward P. Morgan discussing the various implications of the situation. And he would like now to add a little bit more to the situation professor you stand and identify yourself please. That's a David Tarkin University of Wisconsin. And I think that on a half hours reflection of the situation that we might also comment not only on the impact of the president's

decision on domestic politics but on the subject the issue that seems to concern us most deeply through open nation and perhaps it is the issue on which the president decided not seek re-election and that is the war in Vietnam. We just heard a telecast of the referendum issue in Madison and this is a very key issue there. In my opinion it's as it's stated in referendum terms it's oversimplified but I think that this is well covered in the film. Well how do you think president Johnson's announcement tonight that he will not seek re-election would affect the referendum in Madison which of course a yes vote would apparently call for withdrawal from Vietnam? Well I think that let me respond with this way. I think that the president's decision not to run for re-election is presumed by him to put himself in a better position to avoid both the charge of political machinations for the purpose of being re-elected and for the purpose of denying the

North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong a strategic option they think they may have that is to say use events in Vietnam such as the Tet Offensive to force the president's hand force the president to take options that are presumably more dove-like than the president might personally is required. So those are the major implications as far as you're concerned? I think so and I think that the real problem is is now whether or not the president's calculations are correct that is to say with the North Vietnamese feel free to negotiate with the president who is in effect if the pardon expression now elamed up president. Right thank you professor. We have a gentleman from Madison who is I believe the chairman of the Stassen president. My name is Floyd Springer and I'm state chairman of the Wisconsin Stassen president. And I guess we all would agree that this has been a

year of surprises on the biggest theme tonight. Well I'd like to suggest that in approximately 48 hours I think you can prepare yourself for another surprise the incredible of incredible the upset of upsets and that is the victory of Harold Stassen over Richard Nixon in the April 2nd Wisconsin primary and I'll tell you why all right one of the one of the chief problems that with Mr. Stassen has been leadership over the years he's had the temerity to bring forward ideas that others couldn't recognize there's three things he's been saying in these closing days of the Wisconsin presidential primary campaign that is first of all it is imperative for the sake of peace that both president Johnson and Richard Nixon be defeated in 1968 he's carefully delineated the equation of the Nixon record as a hawk with the Lyndon Johnson record over the three years. He's also said one further thing that if the Republican party does not nominate a peace candidate in August it will not elect a president in November. Well then sir is the chairman of the Stassen

for president committee in Wisconsin you feel that we've had one big surprise tonight with president Johnson saying that he's not going to run for reelection and you fully expect that president to Mr. Stassen will win on Tuesday and that'll be our second big surprise we haven't got any more time I'm very sorry but we'll all be looking forward to the second big surprise we have run out of time I'm very sorry but if we could have a show of hands to get a feeling of the implications of all this how many here feel that president Johnson's decision not to run for reelection is going to make it easier for a Democrat to win in the fall and how many think it will be easier for a Republican to win Mr. Nixon or someone else well that's for it's hard for us to say because we don't have a scientific sample here and we wouldn't claim to but it's been very interesting I thank all of you for coming I'm sorry that everyone was not able to be heard but it was most interesting to all of us now I'd like to say thank you I'm Dave Dukeen and for tonight good night I was going to comment that in less than a month the 1968 presidential campaign had been transformed from something gravely predictable to

an excitingly unpredictable race now Lyndon Johnson has canceled all bets some observers had lamented earlier that it was going to be probably those two synonyms of pragmatic politics Nixon versus LBJ anyway what a fantastic thing it is that it took an incredible declaration to make the president most credible or was it fantastic Lyndon Johnson is a proud man one of the proudest I know it is possible that he saw the divisiveness driving so deep inside his own party that he could not control it rather than face the humiliation of rejection by the Democratic National Convention in August in Chicago perhaps he felt that he could best protect his unrivaled landslide victory in 1964 for history and at the same time move to unify the party by withdrawing as a candidate for re-election perhaps he thought this was the best way to deny his enemy in the party

Robert Kennedy his bold if somewhat belated bid for the nomination but now who will Lyndon Johnson's candidate who is he going to be 16 years ago almost to this very evening I was in Milwaukee covering another primary election contest when Harry Truman announced that he would not run again in 1952 his reluctant candidate Adley Stevenson was overwhelmed by General Eisenhower technically the logical successor to LBJ would be Vice President Hubert Humphrey also from Minnesota but he is so intimately tied to the Johnson policies in Vietnam the very policies which have divided the party so deeply as if by a cleaver that the White House councils may indicate some other course some other choice that brings us back in a way to the Wisconsin primary or at least to the front runner in it like Richard Nixon on the Republican side Senator McCarthy now has no real opposition opposition against him here on Tuesday he had been expected by many

knowledgeable observers to beat the president gaining perhaps as much as 60% of the vote now his statistical victory will be of course meaningless but before McCarthy himself nominated Adley Stevenson at Los Angeles in 1960 he had been more than nominally a Johnson man LBJ once said that Gene is the kind of a man you'll who you would like to go to the well with with the momentum his strangely quiet campaign has gained so far might McCarthy get the president's nod again perhaps to block Senator Kennedy not very likely for McCarthy has been against Johnson on Vietnam that was what impelled him to challenge the president in the first place not very likely but what in this 1968 campaign so far has been likely after all the president can be said to have modified his own war policies tonight by his limited curb on the bombing and is moved to

remobilize the Geneva conference some skeptics may speculate that president Johnson's withdrawal is a grandstand play to stampede a draft for himself I doubt it for whatever that's worth and it's not worth much the other day in the Senate Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine read a letter from a constituent who had lost the son in Vietnam she wept without bitterness she wrote for her country sorrow confusion and concern overhang the poetic promise of springtime in this rich and tortured republic up to now the president's tactics or seeming tactics toward Tuesday in Wisconsin had provoked cynical response he had dispatched the vice president four members of his cabinet and Betty Fernese to the state to defend his policies his opponents sensing rising public discontent demanded better answers though they themselves couldn't guarantee that they had them now the president himself may have hastened the search for better answers in the cumbersome

but majestic operation of a democratic society that's this observer's point of view good night this has been another in the continuing series of interconnected broadcast produced and edited by PBL the public broadcast laboratory of NET tonight special assistance was received from public television stations in Washington DC Madison and Milwaukee Wisconsin tonight PBL salutes public television station WNED in Buffalo New York celebrating its 10th anniversary this week PBL also salutes WHRO in Norfolk, Virginia for the publication of its new television magazine 15th dimension a step in improving public

television service in eastern Virginia it is Sunday evening March 31st and this is PBL You