The Making of the President, 1968: Johnson, Humphrey, Nixon, Wallace and the Election of the Century

FAIN: FEL-268376-20

Luke A. Nichter
Texas A & M University, Central Texas (Killeen, TX 76549-5901)

Research and writing leading to a book on the history of the 1968 U.S. presidential election.

The 1968 presidential election is called one of the most important in modern history, yet no one has written a thorough historical account. After research in dozens of archives in the U.S. and Vietnam, and 73 interviews to date – including cooperation by Johnson, Humphrey, Nixon, and Wallace family members, South Vietnamese officials, and Paris peace talks participants – a new international history emerges. Almost everything we “know” is a myth: the reason Johnson withdrew on March 31, his plan to accept the nomination in Chicago, the South Vietnamese role in the Chennault Affair which says Nixon sabotaged the Vietnam peace talks, Anna Chennault’s final interview with the author and unpublished records that reveal she was investigated by the FBI for lobbying on behalf of Taiwan and offered to work for Johnson and Humphrey as late as November 1967, Wallace’s surprisingly effective campaign that resonates with the Trump movement, and Johnson’s final preference not for Humphrey but Nixon.