Timeline
Taken from
this
place
- January 5
- Dr. Benjamin Spock; William Sloan Coffin the
chaplain of Yale University; novelist Mitchell Goodman; Michael Ferber, a
graduate student at Harvard; and Marcus Raskin a peace activist are indicted
on charges of conspiracy to encourage violations of the draft laws by a grand
jury in Boston. The charges are the result of actions taken at a protest rally
the previous October at the Lincoln Memorial. The four will be convicted and
Raskin acquitted on June 14th.
- January 10
- The 10,000 US airplane is lost over Vietnam.
- January 17
- President Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973) (an
LBJ Library photo by Kevin Smith taken this day) delivers the State of the
Union Address.
- January 23
- North Korean patrol boats capture the USS
Pueblo, a US Navy intelligence gathering vessel and its 83 man crew on charges
of violating the communist country's twelve-mile territorial limit. This
crisis would dog the US foreign policy team for 11 months, with the crew of
the Pueblo finally gaining freedom on December 22.
- January 31
- At half-past midnight on Wednesday morning the
North Vietnamese launch the Tet offensive at Nha Trang. Nearly 70,000 North
Vietnamese troops will take part in this broad action, taking the battle from
the jungles to the cities. The offensive will carry on for weeks and is seen
as a major turning point for the American attitude toward the war. At 2:45
that morning the US embassy in Saigon is invaded and held until 9:15AM.
- February 1
- During police actions following the first day of
the Tet offensive General Nguyen Ngoc Loan,
a south Vietnamese security
official is captured on film executing a Viet Cong prisoner by American
photographer Eddie Adams. The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph
becomes yet another
rallying point for anti-war protestors. Despite later claims that the prisoner
had been accused of murdering a Saigon police officer and his family, the
image seems to call into question everything claimed and assumed about the
Amrican allies, the South Vietnamese.
- February 2
- Richard Nixon, a republican from California,
enters the New Hampshire primary and declares his presidential candidacy.
- February 4
- Martin Luther King Jr. delivers a sermon at his
Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta which will come to be seen as prophetic.
His speech contains what amounts to his own eulogy. After his death, he says,
"I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to
give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that
Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody... that I tried to love and
serve humanity,. Yes, if you want to, say that I was a drum major for peace...
for righteousness."
- February 7
- International reporters arrive at the embattled
city of Ben Tre in South Vietnam. Peter Arnett, then of the Associated Press,
writes a dispatch quoting an unnamed US major as saying, "It became necessary
to destroy the town to save it." The quote runs nationwide the next day in
Arnett's report.
- February 18
- The US State Department announces the highest US
casualty toll of the Vietnam War. The previous week saw 543 Americans killed
in action, and 2547 wounded.
- February 27
- Walter Cronkite reports on his recent trip to
Vietnam to view the aftermath of the Tet Offensive in his television special
Who, What, When, Where, Why? The report is highly critical of US
officials and directly contradicts official statements on the progress of the
war. After listing Tet and several other current military operations as "draw[s]"
and chastising American leaders for their optimism, Cronkite advises
negotiation "...not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to
their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could."
- March 12
- The New Hampshire primary election brings
shocking results. The Eugene McCarthy campaign, benefitting from the work of
2,000 full-time student volunteers and up to 5,000 on the weekends immediately
preceding the vote comes within 230 votes of defeating the sitting president
Lyndon Johnson. These students, participants in what McCarthy refers to as his
"children's crusade" have cut their hair, modified their wardrobes, and become
"clean for Gene" to contact the conservative voters in the state.
- March 16
- Senator Robert Kennedy, former Attorney General
and brother of former president John F. Kennedy (1961-63) ends months of
debate by announcing that he will enter the 1968 Presidential race.
- March 16 (same day)
- Although it will not become public knowledge for
more than a year, US ground troops from Charlie Company rampage through the
hamlet of My Lai killing more than 500 Vietnamese civilians from infants to
the elderly. The massacre continues for three hours until three American
fliers intervene, positioning their helicopter between the troops and the
fleeing vietnamese and eventually carrying a handful of wounded to safety.
View the BBC Special Report on the incident.
- March 22
- In Czechoslovakia Antonin Novotny resigns the
Czech presidency setting off alarm bells in Moscow. The next day leaders of
five Warsaw Pact countries meet in Dresden, East Germany to discuss the
crisis.
- March 28
- Martin Luther King Jr. leads a march in Memphis
which turns violent. After King himself had been led from the scene one 16
year old black boy is killed, 60 people are injured, and over 150 arrested.
- March 31
- President Lyndon Johnson delivers his Address
to the Nation Announcing Steps To Limit the War in Vietnam and Reporting His
Decision Not To Seek Reelection. The speech announces the first in a
series of limitations on US bombing, promising to halt these activities above
the 20th parallel.
- April 4
- Martin Luther King Jr. spends the day at the
Lorraine Motel in Memphis working and meeting with local leaders on plans for
his Poor People's March on Washington to take place late in the month. At 6pm,
as he greets the car and friends in the courtyard, King is shot with one round
from a 30.06 rifle. He will be declared dead just an hour later at St.
Joseph's hospital. After an international man-hunt James Earl Ray will be
arrested on June 27 in England, and convicted of the murder. Ray died in
prison in 1998.
Robert Kennedy, hearing of the murder just before he is to give a speech in
Indianapolis, IN, delivers a powerful extemporaneous eulogy in which he pleads
with the audience "to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of
this world."
The King assassination sparks rioting in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit,
Kansas City, Newark, Washington, D.C., and many others. Across the country 46
deaths will be blamed on the riots.
- April 11
- United States Secretary of Defense Clark
Clifford calls 24,500 military reserves to action for 2 year commitments, and
announces a new troop ceiling of 549,500 American soldiers in Vietnam. The
total number of Americans "in country" will peak at some 541,000 in August
this year, and decline to 334,000 by 1970.
- April 23
- A rally and occupation of the Low administrative
office building at Columbia University, planned to protest the university's
participation in the Institute for Defense Analysis is scuttled by
conservative students and university security officers. The demonstrators
march to the site of a proposed new gymnasium at Morningside Heights to stage
a protest in support of neighbors who use the site for recreation. The action
eventually results in the occupation of five buildings - Hamilton, Low,
Fairweather and Mathematics halls, and the Architecture building. It will
culminate seven days later when police storm the buildings and violently
remove the students and their supporters at the Columbia administration's
request.
- May 3
- The US and North Vietnamese delegations agree to
begin peace talks in Paris later this month. The formal talks will begin on
May 10.
- May 6
- In France, "Bloody Monday" marks one of the most
violent days of the Parisian student revolt. Five thousand students march
through the Latin Quarter with support from the student union and the
instructors' union. Reports of the ensuing riot conflict, either the police
charge unprevoked, or demonstrators harass them with thrown stones. The
fighting is intense with rioters setting up barricades and the police
attacking with gas grenades. Over-night the battle will subside, but only
after engaging the sympathies of large numbers of French unionists.
- May 11
- Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr.'s
designated successor, and the Southern Christian Leadership Corps are granted
a permit for an encampment on the Mall in Washington, DC. Eventually, despite
nearly a solid month of rain, over 2,500 people will eventually occupy
Resurrection City. On June 24th the site is raided by police, 124 occupants
arrested, and the encampment demolished.
- May 13
- The actions taken by the students and
instructors at the Sorbonne inspires sympathetic strikes throughout France. As
many as nine million workers are on strike by May 22. President de Gaulle
takes action to shore up governmental power, making strident radio addresses
and authorizing large movements of military troops within the country. These
shows of force eventually dissipate the French revolutionary furor.
- June 3
- Andy Warhol is shot in his New York City loft by
Valerie Solanis, a struggling actress, and writer.
- June 4/5
- On the night of the California Primary Robert
Kennedy addresses a large crowd of supporters at the Ambassador Hotel in San
Francisco. He has won victories in California and South Dakota and is
confident that his campaign will go on to unite the many factions stressing
the country. As he leaves the stage, at 12:13AM on the morning of the fifth
Kennedy is shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24 year old Jordanian living in Los
Angeles. The motive for the shooting is apparently anger at several pro-Isreali
speeches Kennedy had made during the campaign. The forty-two year old Kennedy
dies in the early morning of June sixth.
- June 8
- Robert Kennedy's funeral is held at St.
Patrick's Cathedral in New York. Senator Edward Kennedy, the youngest brother
of John and Robert delivers the eulogy. After the service, the body and 700
guests depart on a special train for the burial at Arlington National Cemetery
in Virginia.
- June 27
- As the "Prague Spring" continues in
Czechoslovakia Ludvik Vaculik
releases his manifesto "Two Thousand Words". This essay, criticizing
Communist rule in Czechoslovakia and concluding with an overt threat to
"foreign forces" trying to control the government of the country was seen as a
direct challenge to the Soviet Administration who extended ongoing military
exercises in the country, and began planning for their invasion later in the
summer.
- June 28
- A bill adding a 10 percent surcharge to income
taxes and reducing government spending is signed by President Johnson. The
president effectively admits it has been impossible to provide both "guns and
butter."
- July 7
- Abbie Hoffman's "The Yippies are Going to
Chicago" is published in The Realist. The yippie movement, formed by
Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Paul Krassner, all committed activists and
demonstrators, is characterized by public displays of disorder ranging from
disrupting the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange to the destruction
of the Clocks at Grand Central Terminal, the main commuter station for workers
in New York City. The Yippie's will be in the center of action six weeks later
at the Chicago Democratic National Convention, hosting a "Festival of Life" in
contrast to what they term the convention's "Festival of Death."
- July 24
- At the Newport (Rhode Island) Folk Festival
singer Arlo Guthrie performs his 20 minute ballad "Alice's Restaurant" to rave
reviews.i
- August 8
- At their Party convention in Miami Beach the
Republicans nominate Richard Milhouse Nixon to be their presidential
candidate. The next day Nixon will appoint Spiro Agnew of Maryland as his
running mate. Nixon has been challenged in his campaign by Nelson Rockefeller
of New York, and Ronald Reagan of California.
- August 20
- The Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia with
over 200,000 warsaw pact troops, putting an end to the "Prague Spring," and
beginning a period of enforced and oppressive "normalization."
- August 26
- Mayor Richard Daley opens the Democratic
National Convention in Chicago. While the convention moves haltingly toward
nominating Hubert Humphrey for president, the city's police attempt to enforce
an 11 o'clock curfew. On that Monday night demonstrations are widespread, but
generally peaceful. The next two days, however, bring increasing tension and
violence to the situation.
- August 28
- By most accounts, on Wednesday evening Chicago
police take action against crowds of demonstrators without provocation. The
police beat some marchers unconscious and send at least 100 to emergency rooms
while arresting 175.
Mayor Daley tried the next day to explain the police action at a press
conference. He famously explained: "The policeman isn't there to create
disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder."
Twenty-eight years later, when the Democrats next held a convention in
Chicago, some police officers still on the force wore t-shirts proclaiming,
"We kicked their father's butt in '68 and now it's your turn."
- September 1
- Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey kicks off his
presidential campaign at New York City's Labor Day parade.
- September 7
- Women's Liberation groups, joined by members of
New York NOW, target the Miss America Beauty Contest
in Atlantic City. The protest includes theatrical demonstrations including
ritual disposal of traditional female roles into the "freedom ashcan." While
nothing is actually set on fire, one organizer's comment - quoted in the
New York Times the next day - that the protesters "wouldn't do anything
dangerous, just a symbolic bra-burning," lives on in the derogatory term
"bra-burning feminist."
- September 29
- This date marks the thirtieth anniversary of
Neville Chamberlain's Munich agreement ceding Czechoslovakia's Sudatenland to
Hitler. This action widely seen as a major contributing factor to the
devastation of World War II. The domino theory which underlay so much of
American action in Vietnam can be seen as a direct response to the failure of
international response to the German dictator.
- October 2
- Police and military troops in Mexico City react
violently to a student - led protest in Tlatelolco Square. Hundreds of the
demonstrators are killed or injured.
- October 3
- George Wallace, who has been running an
independent campaign for the presidency which has met significant support in
the South and the Midwest, names retired Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis E.
LeMay to be his running mate. At the press conference, the general is asked
about his position on the use of nuclear weapons, and responds: "I think most
military men think it's just another weapon in the arsenal... I think there
are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons. ... I
don't believe the world would end if we exploded a nuclear weapon."
- October 11
- Apollo 7 is
launched from Florida for an eleven day journey which will orbit the Earth 163
times.
- October 12
- The Summer Olympic Games open in Mexico City.
The games have been boycotted by 32 African nations in protest of South
Africa's participation. On the 18th Tommie Smith and John Carlos, US athletes
and medalists in the 200-meter dash will further disrupt the games by
performing the black power salute during the "Star-Spangled Banner" at thier
medal ceremony.
- October 20
- Jacqueline Kennedy is married to Aristotle
Onassis, a Greek shipping magnate on the private island of Skorpios.
- October 31
- President Johnson announces a total halt to US
bombing in North Vietnam.
- November 5
- Election Day. The results of the popular vote
are 31,770,000 for Nixon, 43.4 percent of the total; 31,270,000 or 42.7
percent for Humphrey; 9,906,000 or 13.5 percent for Wallace; and 0.4 percent
for other candidates.
- November 14
- National Turn in Your Draft Card Day is observed
with rallies and protests on college campuses throughout the country.
- November 26
- After stalling for months, the South Vietnamese
government agrees to join in the Paris peace talks.
- December 11
- The unemployment rate, at 3.3 percent, is the
lowest it has been in fifteen years.
- December 12
- Robert and Ethel Kennedy's daughter, Rory, their
eleventh child is born.
- December 21
- The launch of Apollo 8 begins the first US
mission to orbit the Moon.