1968: The Year That Rocked the World. What a strange year…even from an American point of view. What do you remember? — I was two years old.
For most Americans 1968 was this series of events: The assassinations of MLK and RFK, The Prague Spring, USS Pueblo, Tet, The My Lai massacre, Civil Rights Act, Student protests, Apollo 6 & The death of Yuri Gagarin. The political election of Nixon, Wallace, McCarthy, Humphrey, Rockefeller, Reagan, Romney, McGovern and even Pigasus.
On a “smaller” scale: Onassis marries Kennedy, Saddam Hussein’s coup d’etat brings the Ba’tathists into power, US Army Deputy Operations officer Colin Powell wrote denials of initial reports regarding the My Lai massacre.
–Even Hypertext (aka – the web) was publicly demonstrated by Doug Englebart in 1968.
Clearly 1968 changed the world…
After finishing Mark Kurlansky’s book I realize the biggest global ‘event’ was the student protest movement. From France, Poland, Mexico, Greece, Czechoslovakia to America. –Where have all student protest gone forty years later?
Kurlansky impressed me with two re-occurring issues: the global student protest movement and the Polish/Czech clashes with the Soviets. I was surprised to learn 1968 brought students around the world together via protesting. He also discussed the following global issues:
DeGaulle’s “escape” to Baden-Baden, Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia (and killing students), the Democratic National Convention & Chicago riots, Mexico City Olympics and Tlatelolco massacre. Most Americans may be surprised at Mexico’s violent killing of students a month before the Summer Olympics.
I learned more about Abbey Hoffman, The Black Panthers, The Weatherman (aka The Weather Underground), Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Bobby Seale and Allen Ginsberg. It was refreshing to see Kurlansky discuss the Chicago Seven, Mayor Daley and the violent Chicago Police.
The communist leadership in Poland (Wladyslaw Gomulka) and Czechoslovakia (Alexandar Dubcek) proved the Soviets would not only blink, Moscow did not understand how to reel-in their satellite states – except with bloodshed.
The massacre at Mexico City’s “Plaza of three Cultures” killed almost 500 unarmed students. President Ordaz ensured Mexico would place it’s “best face” to the world while suppressing student protests.
Could my timing be any better?
Mexico arrested former President Luis Echeverria on June 30th 2005 on genocide charges in his role in the 1968 massacre.
So much to cover in a remarkable year that saw most Americans focused on ending the war in Vietnam and the Presidential campaign that brought Nixon into office.
By the end of this amazing year 14,589 US deaths in Vietnam were the highest of any year during our war in Vietnam. Czechoslovakia was still defiant against the Soviets. Even Gorbachev noted the Prague Spring was the beginning of “profound stagnation” of the Soviet economic system.
1968 was a year like no other and reading Kurlansky’s book was an enjoyable experience.