era-1970s

Documents and stories set in the 1970s

Cold War propaganda-style illustration, Asia map with Soviet red dominating, figure at crossroads facing locked gate marked Opportunity Lost, paths labeled Engagement and Confrontation

The Road Not Opened

The China opening that never happened became the defining foreign policy failure of the Humphrey years. A senior State Department official's 1973 reckoning with the strategic cost of the road not taken.

The Burden He Would Not Put Down: LBJ, Vietnam, and the Presidency of 1968–1972
President at Oval Office desk addressing the nation, multiple microphones, American flag, December 1971

The Peace He Made

President Humphrey's Oval Office address of December 11, 1971, announced the Paris framework that formally ended American combat involvement in Vietnam. It was a peace Johnson had sought and could not make.

The Burden He Would Not Put Down: LBJ, Vietnam, and the Presidency of 1968–1972
The floor of the 1972 Republican National Convention, a weary Reagan delegate watching the third ballot tally

Third Ballot

The 1972 Republican convention delivered a three-ballot crisis that chose moderation over movement. Rockefeller's narrow victory here determined the November outcome as much as any Democratic decision.

The Burden He Would Not Put Down: LBJ, Vietnam, and the Presidency of 1968–1972