April 4, 1968 dawned with hope in the air.
Less than a month before, anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy had stunned the world by getting 42% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, nearly beating President Lyndon Johnson.
Four days after that, on March 16, Senator Robert Kennedy announced that he would join the race for the Democratic nomination, calling Johnson's Vietnam policies "disastrous and divisive." Volunteers flocked to the campaigns of both Senators---charged by the prospect of ousting LBJ and ending the war.
The war, of course, proceeded apace. Ironically, the same day that Kennedy made his announcement, U.S. troops under the direction of Lt. William Calley massacred hundreds of unarmed men, women and children at My Lai. And at the end of February General William Westmoreland formally requested that an additional 200,000 troops be sent to Vietnam, lest the war be lost.
At home, the Kerner Commission, appointed by President Johnson to investigate the causes of riots and violence in the cities the previous summer, issued its recommendations on February 29, saying that "our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white---separate and unequal." Martin Luther King was in the midst of a Poor People's Campaign for economic justice, and he was traveling back and forth to Memphis to support a garbage workers strike and unionizing effort for better pay and working conditions.
And then, on Sunday, March 31, President Johnson asked the three networks for television time, and as always, we gathered round to watch. Mostly he talked about the war. He didn't mention McCarthy or Kennedy, or King. He didn't mention Westmoreland's demand for more troops, though he did say he was increasing the troops to the "previously authorized level" of 525,000. He announced a halt to some of the bombing campaign against North Vietnam, and he held out the prospect somewhere down the road---of peace.
But what seemed most hopeful for the future was the surprise ending of his speech.
With American sons in the fields far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes....Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.