Mr. Chairman. My fellow americans. My fellow democrats, i proudly accept the nomination of our party. [cheers and applause] this moment, this moment is one of personal pride and gratification, yet one cannot help but reflect the deep sadness we feel over the troubles and the violence which have erupted, regrettably and tragically, in the streets of this great city and for the personal injuries which have occurred. [applause] that is neubert humphrey accepting the democratic nomination for president at chicagos Conrad Hilton hotel, or democrats have gathered for their convention in the midst of the vietnam war while thousands of protesters demonstrated outside. Hubert humphrey, longtime senator and unsuccessful candidate for president , is the focus of this weeks contenders program. We are live from minnesotas history center. The documentarian of Hubert Humphreys life just finished the documentary last year. We are standing in the center of an exhibit about 1968. To start our discussion, i want you to set the stage. This country was in an uproar about the vietnam war. The vietnam war have been running a long time at that point. Probably 15 years. January set the stage for the year. It was obvious to everyone the war was not being one. The North Vietnamese reached the embassy in saigon. President johnsons Approval Ratings plummeted. Bobby kennedy was joining the race. It was utter chaos at that point. After president johnson resigned on the 29th of march, Martin Luther king was assassinated. The beginning of the first part of the year was terrible chaos. Susan it was a year when people who were alive were turning on their radios every morning and there seemed to be a huge story every day. We will be here for two hours. We will learn more about the history of the time and the biography of senator humphrey. Our way in, we will begin taking your call so you can be part of our discussion. What is important for young people to understand, is that what is different from wars today and the vietnam war is the draft. This was real for American Families in a different way from the professional army we have today. Mick the draft was really the point at which the protests started, when the draft was instituted. Now people have a choice, if people want to enter the military, if they are against the war, they can stay away. You went to canada in those days are you did something to not be drafted. People were not even able to vote until they were 21 but they were being drafted at 18. They could not even vote people out of office. That is the biggest difference. Susan is it fair to say every American Family had a personal connection to this war one way or another . Mick i would say. Some of them had two. Someone who went to war and somebody against it in the same family. Robert mcnamara, his kids were against the war. Susan defense secretary. Mick families were broken over it. Susan the other thing people should understand, television. Television was bringing it into peoples living rooms every night. Will you talk about the effect of that . Mick nobody had done any kind of television was not restricted. It was all brandnew. Nobody in the admins ration or anybody else had any control. Journalists were going out and getting whatever they found. We dont have that now. It is more controlled on the battlefield. They were seeing things in the living room you would not see. It had a profound effect on the country. Another reason people came out against the war, they started to see it all the time on tv. 300 body bags were coming back every week at one point. They were showing the body bags coming back and the caskets. It had a profound effect, it changed the average persons mind. Susan the war started before Lyndon Johnsons term. He said it had been going 15 years. Lyndon johnsons attitude was what . Mick he was confused for a long time, but he did not want to lose it. It was important to him to win the war. It colored everything he did. People tried to talk about any kind of settlement and he would not do it. Once he got into it, he did not have a lot of options. That was the only one he wanted. It affected him when he left office, too. He wanted somebody who would continue his war policy and would not end the war. Susan so Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey became teammates in 1964 following the assassination of kennedy. What was the relationship like . How was this period for senator humphrey . Mick the intensity of vietnam started around the time he became Vice President. The summer of 1964 was there was a resolution in congress that lbj asked for and was passed. Humphrey signed on to that. He was not yet Vice President. Mccarthy and others. The convention came in the summer and humphrey became Vice President. He walked into the beginning of johnsons real involvement with the war. He never really talked about vietnam on the campaign. They were about very goldwater being triggerhappy and johnson being the peace candidate. Goldwater was the war candidate. Vietnam was not talked about. They were talking about nuclear annihilation. They won by a landslide. In the spring, the early part of the year, there was another incident in vietnam. Johnson called a cabinet and advisor meeting and decided to bomb North Vietnam in retaliation. He asked people what they thought of it. Everyone pretty much agreed. Humphrey said it was not a good idea. We should not get involved. This is not a good idea. He spoke up at this meeting, johnson got angry. At that point he was frozen out of any discussion on vietnam. Susan remember, Lyndon Johnson had been operating without a Vice President. He came into office after the kennedy association. There is speculation going into the convention about who his choice would be to run in 1964. Here is the 19 624 convention as Lyndon Johnson announces his choice for Vice President. The next Vice President of the United States, my colleague Hubert Humphrey. [cheers and applause] democrats and most republicans in the senate voted for education legislation, but not senator goldwater. [cheers and applause] most democrats and most republicans voted to help the United Nations get into peacekeeping functions when it was in financial difficulty, but not very goldwater Barry Goldwater. [cheers and applause] i could not help but think at that particular moment, how for we had come. This was a great moment in my life. Johnson said in his judgment, humphrey was the best man to be president in case anything happened to him. No longer is the vice presidency just another job. Susan that video, much of the video we are going to see tonight, is from the documentary. Thank you for letting us show it to our audience tonight. A lot of followup. First, the scenes of the energetic Hubert Humphrey, having the crowd eating out of his hands, then the cutaway to Lyndon Johnson, who did not seem to share the moment. What is happening . Mick the spotlight had been taken from him. Humphrey was believed to be a better public speaker. He was upset about humphrey taking the show away. But he was that way. Lyndon johnson. By the way, the not senator goldwater part was written by a number of people, that speech. There was a call and response kind of thing that caught on. That was an early one, that kind of speech. It worked really well. Susan the call and response . Mick yes, not senator goldwater, the call and response. Susan senator humphrey had ambitions for the presidency for quite a while. He made a real bid in 1960. Here he was at the convention accepting the Vice President ial nomination. You could see how excited he was. He earned the nickname the happy warrior. Mick he loved politics and he got in trouble for calling it the politics of joy, which is what he was about. He believed it was a way to change the country. He believed in a very innocent and we might think naive way. He believed in the American People. One at a time and all American People at once. That was a way for him to change the country. Susan another clip, and this is later on in 1974 when Hubert Humphrey was gathering material for his memoir. He talks a bit, and this is one example of the relationship and how it really became very testy between Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey as the administration more on, over vietnam. He reflects on some of the ways Lyndon Johnson used the perks of the office to keep his Vice President under control. There was not a time i ever got a plane i did not have to ask for. If anyone told you johnson was extravagant, it was not for his Vice President. He would say it was better to take a smaller plane. If it is too big you will be encumbered with too many people who see there is an extra seat that has not been used. From time to time on short trips , particularly up and down the atlantic seaboard, i would take king air, Beechcraft King air or queen air, one of the smaller planes available. Or a two engine military plane. We used the jet star. Never within the continental limits of the United States did we use air force one or two. Those were to be used by me only for overseas trips. At no time was i ever permitted to bring a newspaperman or a person of the media. On any trip within the United States. The president forbid it. I respected his command and his wish. I gather he felt that the Vice President should be heard and seen, but not reported upon too much. Susan Lyndon Johnson had been majority leader in the senate. These men had a long relationship and served in leadership together. Could you talk about how johnson used the levers of power to control the country . Mick he had this argument with johnson about vietnam. Johnson shut him out at that point for at least a year of any foreign policy. He cut off his privileges. He trimmed his staff. He did a number of things basically to control humphrey. He did not want him speaking out against vietnam, did not want him speaking out against anything johnson did not want to speak about. Wanted to keep him quiet. He had a way of calling them, my planes, my boats, johnson had this sort of possessive kind of attitude as if they were his and not the American Peoples. He was in control of that. He had to call and give permission for each plan that week. He lasted about a year end johnson sent him to vietnam. Susan he had to of been unhappy. Mick he was miserable. Johnson was shutting him out of the inner circle so he was kind of on the outside. He was not happy. He wanted to be involved in what was going on. This was a bad time for him. He was sent to vietnam a year later and things changed in 1966. Susan youre going to walk around this exhibit and give a sense of what has been put together here showing the year, with a focus on politics. I wanted to remind you about your per dissipation. We are going to be taking phone calls. We really look forward to your comments on 1968, a tumult she was here in American History and the year in which Hubert Humphrey was a contender for president of the United States. How did you get interested in Hubert Humphrey . Mick i grew up here. He was always in the air. I spent some time working here in the archive and the archive was just fabulous. Freud documentary filmmaker, that is a gold mine. Susan humphrey had four children. Are they still here . Mick his grandson is more involved in politics than the others. The sons are in sales. Skip hubert the third, his son, works in advertising. Susan we are at the exhibit about the political life of Hubert Humphrey. He was not born in minnesota. Mick he was born about 90 miles from the minnesota border in illinois. One of those towns that went along the prairie. He was born in 1911. It was a remarkable town. A lot of intellectualism going on. His mother was a methodist social gospel person. He got the politics of his fathers drugstore and had her social methodist social gospel kind of feel. He got it from both sides. The great combination of the preacher and the politician. Susan he went to Pharmacy School himself. How did he end up in politics . Mick he always really wanted to be in politics. He spends a year to help his father with a drugstore but i dont think he ever wanted to be a pharmacist for life. Susan he ended up getting a doctorate, i understand . Mick a masters degree at lsu. Susan why was he studying politics . Mick he was going to get a doctorate and teach. That was his first idea. He was so good at communicating a lot of people convinced him to run. He probably really did want to run. He ended up back in minnesota and becoming mayor. Susan when did he serve as mayor . Mick he came back from grad school in 1930. Minnesota had never elected a democrat to the senate. The reason why, the nonrepublicans were divided between democrats and the former labour party. He helped unite those and built himself his own political base. The city was corrupt and bigoted and all kinds of problems with segregation and things. Mission magazine called it the capital of antisemitism in the United States. Susan talk about the dsl. Is it still active . Hubert humphrey was its founding. Mick he was one of two or three people. He was probably the greatest negotiator. Susan what does it stand for . Mick democrat former labour party susan how does it distinguish itself . Mick it was a group of farmers and laborers who had differences it is a complicated story, but they had differences with the more professional democrats, fdr democrats. They just did not like each other. Humphrey was one of the people who convinced them to get together. The democrat former labour party farmer labour party. Susan when did he run . Mick 1948 after the speech. Susan we have a clip from 1960 when he first seriously thought about running for president. This is the joy of being a politician for Hubert Humphrey. It been an uphill fight. I think we have been doing quite well. What has been the most exciting part of the campaign . I just had to check. Thank you, senator. This is good fun. Politics ought to be fun. Hubert humphrey, the president for you and me susan there we see Hubert Humphrey just enjoying life. Did he bring this to his politics also . Mick that was the way he ran. He would light up a room. People say it would be 11 00 at night, he would get off the plane, everyone was asleep, and he would still be like that. He could just run like that constantly. Susan what were his other characteristics . I have read he was known for talking a lot. Mick absolutely, but he was also a good listener. He did talk a lot. He would come with a prepared speech and just talk for an hour. He knew a lot about a lot of subjects. An astounding memory. He may be new 5000 to 10,000 people. He would meet somebody ago back five years later, remember their name, what they did for a living, remarkable memory. Susan we are going to start taking calls and learn more about his political philosophy. First from copley, ohio, kurt, welcome to our conversation. Thank you and good evening. It is a Wonderful Program to be participating in. Susan thank you. You are welcome. You mentioned 1948. I have watched some of the clips on the internet of an actor named Ronald Reagan who endorsed Hubert Humphrey in 1948 for the u. S. Senate. When you think about it, where they kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum even though they were both democrats at that time . Also i wanted to find out what Hubert Humphreys relationship was with very goldwater in the u. S. Senate Barry Goldwater in the u. S. Senate versus their private life. Did Hubert Humphrey and jack kennedy get along when they were running against each other in 1960 and 1956 when they actually vied for the Vice President ial nomination to run with governor stevenson who ultimately they lost to the senator from tennessee . Susan thank you so much. First, his relationship with Ronald Reagan. Mick he was a lifetime friend of ragans. Reagans. He was the head of the actors guild. He was a democrat. He was of the same philosophy as humphrey. Reagan changed, humphrey stayed the same. They remained friends. Very goldwater and Hubert HumphreyBarry Goldwater and Hubert Humphrey were even better friends. They were giving speeches in iowa on the back of a hay wagon on a farm. They just ripped each other apart. Someone drove through town and saw them having dinner together. Susan before we talk about kennedy, could you talk about the senate . This is a time of very big names. Was there by buyer bipartisanship . Mick