1968 & All That | Content Section

Demonstrate or Procreate

Posted on March 28, 2018 by Frank Brinkley

To be young in 1968 was not very heaven but, as we oscillated between hope and dread, it was certainly an exciting time to be alive. In and around that year, a period that Richard Vinen calls ‘The Long ’68’, progress was palpable. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society promised to realise Martin Luther King’s dream. Winds […]

A Valediction to Power

Posted on March 28, 2018 by Tom Fleming

Everyone has a favourite president, but I’m suspicious of anyone who says it’s Lyndon Baines Johnson. Yes, he was the politician’s politician – one of the greatest legislators in US history – but he was also a monster. Kyle Longley recounts an episode when journalists were badgering Johnson to explain America’s war in Vietnam. LBJ unzipped his fly, pulled out his sizeable member and said, ‘This is why!’ They say the personal is political, but that’s taking things too far. Longley’s new book examines a year in Johnson’s life – his final one as president – in microscopic detail. At first, you wonder why he bothers. The opening chapter deals with the writing of the State of the Union Address for 1968, an overlong speech never

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