Episode 40: UPHEAVAL!! (Part 1) 1968 Tet Offensive to the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

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Not since the Civil War had America been this divided. The decisions to both go to war in Vietnam and to pass several Civil Rights Bills that changed how America interacted socially led to an explosive Presidential Election year.  Never had their been a campaign with more extreme lows as this one had. 

First came a major offensive by the enemy in Vietnam during the Vietnamese New Year known as Tet. The offensive was actually a military failure but you would never convince anyone of that in the United States. It led to an upstart Senator from the State of Minnesota named Eugene McCarthy to challenge his own party's President in the New Hampshire Primary. He nearly won capturing over 40% of the vote. 

That brought in the younger brother of the slain former President, the former Attorney General turned New York Senator, Robert F. Kennedy into the race for President.  Over on the Republican's side, several Governors, George Romney, Nelson Rockefeller and even the new California Governor Ronald Reagan saddled up to run against Lyndon Johnson, but on that side of the aisle there was one clear front runner, Vice President Richard Nixon. 

Just six years before, in 1962, Nixon had lost a bid for the California Governorship and appeared totally washed up in politics. He had appeared to be a loser. But after the Republican's nominated an extremist candidate for President in 1964, Senator Barry Goldwater, many Republicans had abandoned the party and voted for President Lyndon Johnson in an unprecedented landslide election. Richard Nixon had not. He stayed loyal and worked harder for Goldwater than Goldwater did.  He then went out and campaigned all over the country for Republicans in the 1966 mid terms. 

Now Nixon was back, rested and ready, with a platform he had developed over many years in the wilderness and he, like all the democrats in the race, set dead aim on Lyndon Johnson, but LBJ had a surprise for them and when he bowed out it turned the entire election upside down. 

Sadly, just a few days later the Civil Rights Leader  who had led a movement of nonviolence and helped change the country for the better, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. It set the country on fire, and was just the first of many tragedies that 1968 would see happen. Relive this period of tumult in this first episode examining the critical year of Upheaval that was 1968. 

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