Election Year 1968

The 1968 election saw the return of the Republican party to the White House and major changes in the political landscape. It was one of the most contentious and unpredictable contests in American history. From Lyndon Baines Johnson's exit following Eugene McCarthy's win in New Hampshire to the Robert Francis Kennedy murder, the Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination, and the Chicago Democratic Convention, it relives in this recounting of that explosive year. Vietnam was the main issue but also civil rights and George Wallace, who captured an astounding thirteen percent of the vote. The author interviewed some thirty-five politicians and players, most of them previously unpublished. Dennis D. Wainstock, PhD, is the author of Malcolm X: The Life and Times of an African-American Revolutionary, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb, and Truman, MacArthur and the Korean War. He teaches history at Fairmont State University and lives in Salem, West Virginia.