BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

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The Horrors of War cannot be overstated. Here in the final stages of the Vietnam War for America things gets brutal for the people of North Vietnam. In this episode we start with the tragedies that seem to always happen no matter how hard the military tries in war. Civilians die. Here we listen to the Vietnamese people talk about the horrific tragedy of a building bombed by accident, and the wiping out of an entire family.  It is all coming from news clips saved for a documentary on the War titled "Vietnam a Television History", episode 10. 

Then we move on to sad week here in America for the family of a new 29 year old Senator recently elected from Delaware. Senator- Elect  Joe Biden was on Capital Hill, setting up his new office, and meeting with his soon to be new collogues in the United States Senate, when he received a call no husband and father ever wants to receive.  His wife and three children were in a horrific car accident while Christmas shopping. His wife Neilia and his 18 month old daughter, Naomi,  were killed at the scene and his two sons, Hunter and Beau,  were rushed to the hospital. It would change everything for Joe Biden. 

Here we will listen in as President Nixon is informed of the tragedy and the President's call to the new Senator - elect to give him heartfelt condolences. A touching moment from the much more senior Nixon to a very young man who has just lost everything. 

Then America will learn of the passing of political giant. The blunt speaking, take no prisoners, tell it like it was, give them hell, Harry S. Truman,  33rd President of the United States has died peacefully in his sleep at a hospital in Missouri. Truman was 88 years old. It was the end of an era as Truman was the last of the World War 2 era leaders who had saved the world from tyranny. 

And now Richard Nixon would be working to finish his work to stop tyranny in its tracks in South East Asia. It seems his bombing of the north may have finally forced them to the table for a real and lasting peace. 

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President Theiu of South Vietnam kept stalling and not agreeing with one proposal after another. After the election, it became clear to North Vietnam that the leverage may be about to turn in their favor as it became clear that even though President Richard Nixon had been overwhelmingly re-elected an antiwar congress had also been elected in the United States. Now all they needed to do was stall until January 1973 and they could force a better deal or even just continue their efforts with no deal at all.  We had yet another stalemate in the Vietnam War. 

Richard Nixon decided it was time to take as drastic an action as he had taken in his time in office to force the war to an end. What became more interesting was that the Chinese, once an enormous worry for both the Johnson and Nixon administrations, were putting pressure on the North Vietnamese to end the war. All the intelligence pointed to that and it freed Richard Nixon to make a major offensive in an effort to break the stalemate. 

In this episode we listen as Nixon discusses his next moves with General Alexander Haig and then has a long wide ranging discussions of the situation with Dr. Henry Kissinger before the decision to pull the trigger on a massive bombing of the North Vietnam, including encroaching on Hanoi is decided. It would be known as the Christmas Bombing, or Operation Linebacker 2. 

You will get to hear a series of calls from Kissinger telling the President that the raids have begun and what damage has been done and what damage  we have sustained. To keep the mission simple we use B-52's for three days to bombard the North Vietnamese and then keep the mission going for 10 days. It will change the direction of the war.  Here it will all go down in real time as we listen in. 

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This episode opens with Henry Kissinger being frustrated with the antics of our ally in South Vietnam. At one point in these final days Kissinger even refused to go back to Vietnam and work with General Thieu. We will listen in to frustrated phone calls between the President  and aid to Henry Kissinger , Alexander Haig as they plot the next moves in a frustrating situation. 

Then we also listen in on a call that settles another issue on the political front as the leadership of the Republican National Chairmanship is settled with Bob Dole stepping down and George H.W. Bush stepping in to the new role. 

Then we move back to Vietnam and General Haig as they move more toward making a decision on how to deal with the growing issues with both our enemy and our ally half way around the world.

Then we switch gears and Presidents. We  listen in on Lyndon Johnson as he leaves his retirement home, the LBJ Ranch, and goes to his Library to speak on Civil Rights. On the video, you can literally see him pop a nitroglycerine pill right as he starts his speech and yet he moves through the address flawlessly and inspires the crowd and his nation to continue the efforts to secure civil rights in America. 

This speech would be his last major address to the nation and to the world. 

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The 1972 election is now behind us and Richard Nixon is ready to end this war in Southeast Asia. He is having issues getting an agreement amazingly not from the North Vietnamese but from the South.  As General Thieu fears that an agreement that leaves some North Vietnamese troops in his country will spell eventual defeat. An understandable fear. 

Nixon begins pushing harder and harder and in this episode you will hear the President and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, discussing how to push an agreement on the two sides. We also look at the slowly growing scandal of Watergate that is beginning to have ripple effects on the administration even though we are still a couple of months out from the trial of the burglars themselves.  

Finally President Nixon is planning on making some rather dramatic changes in his Administration, and he is starting at the Republican National Committee.  After the enormous 49 state win  the current RNC Chair  is reluctant to give up the spot but Richard Nixon wants to move his United Nations Ambassador George H. W. Bush over to the job. We will get to listen in as those plans are made between the current President and a man who will one day end up President while they talk about the political fate of a man who will go on to be Senate Majority Leader and the man Bush will defeat for the 1988 Republican nomination, Bob Dole. 

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It is finally election Day in 1972. We get to relive the news coverage of the big day and election night as Richard Nixon caps off his amazing run with a 49 state landslide victory for re-election as President of the United States of America.

You will get to hear the concession and victory speeches from George McGovern, Sargent Shriver,  Spiro Agnew, and Richard Nixon.

Then you can hear a phone call of congratulations between Richard Nixon and the 1968 Democratic Nominee for President Hubert Humphrey. Two men who had a lot of respect for each other even though they had been political adversaries.  The respect they had for one another  was true in 1968, and in 1972, and again just before Hubert Humphrey passed away in the late 1970's. 

We started both our book and this podcast show with a letter that proved it.  When Hubert Humphrey , in the throes of his fatal fight with cancer, called Richard Nixon in California and insisted that he sit in a place of honor at his funeral at the Capitol in Washington D.C. , 4 years after Watergate had removed Nixon from office.


***** Ranked number 17 as one of the 60 best American History podcasts of 2022 by Feedspot.com
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During the time I was a City Councilman in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and was active in the National League of Cities I was befriended by a number of Alaskans. They are great people, who often helped me with issues related to Beach Re-nourishment  and in turn I was always a big supporter of their issues mainly oil drilling in ANWR, the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. I was no where near as successful in helping them as they were with helping me in our roles as members of the Energy , Environment, and Natural Resources Committee. 

But it was through those relationships that I became familiar with the work of the Alaskan Federal Delegation. Though I always considered Senator Ted Stevens one of my favorite political figures, it was during this time I grew far more familiar with Senator Lisa Murkowski and Representative Don Young.  This episode features both, but it is in tribute to Representative Don Young.

Don Young, the Dean of the House, is one of American History's great characters and on top of that one of Congresses most effective legislators too.  He was always fun and always in the middle of debates important to his home state of Alaska and in turn to our country too.  He set a fine example of how our political leaders should act by being able to argue, often aggressively on an issue, but still maintain the type of relationships that can get things done. 

Young had his moments , like pulling a knife on Speaker Boehner or chewing historian Douglas Brinkley out on C-Span, but always he was able to effectively take care of the needs of his people in Alaska, especially the Native Americans so in need of the Federal help he and his collogues Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski fought to provide them.  They were a tiny delegation but packed a mighty punch and got an enormous amount of things done on behalf of Alaska.  Don Young was a central part of that effort, the only member of the House of Representatives from Alaska and the only one most Alaskans have ever known. 

When he passed away suddenly, on his way back home, on March 18, 2022, he had served in Congress 49 years. Don Young was the longest serving Republican in the history of Congress, the oldest member of the house at age 88, and the last person serving who had been elected in the 1970's. Don Young had also been chosen as the single most effective legislator on Capital Hill and hands down he had the best office décor in all of Washington D.C.  

In this episode we look back at his remarkable career, through his own words, and in the words of Senator Lisa Murkowski as she addressed the Senate on Don Young's life just after he passed away. There is no question that whomever is elected to the Alaska at Large U.S. House seat, they will have a great example to follow and have enormous shoes to fill. 

The Don Young Office tour courtesy of Roll Call 
https://youtu.be/bAsMKV6TSRw

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Now in the final stretch of the 1972 campaign, with negotiations to end the war in their grasps, and more news stories bubbling under the surface over Watergate, Richard Nixon marches on with a substantial lead in all the polls.

In this episode we listen to the back and forth between the parties in Vietnam, never quite able to get the deal done. News reports about the activities of both campaigns on the trail, with heavy hitting endorsements from actor Charlton Heston and singer James Brown for Richard Nixon and commercials with common folks opposed to the war for Senator George McGovern.

In the last half of the show, on election eve, President Nixon pays for a 20 minute address to make one final sales pitch to the nation as to why it is important for him to stay in office for the next four years.

Then , 30 years later in an oral history for the Nixon Library, hear George McGovern talk about all the things he had grown to admire about Richard Nixon.  and then finally  listen in on a phone call as Richard Nixon  performs an act of kindness from one candidate to another,  three  weeks before the November election, and it is an act that should remind all of us, on both sides of the aisle, that in the end, we are all fellow human beings, and fellow Americans first and foremost, no matter how divided we are on political issues big and small.



***** Ranked number 17 as one of the 60 best American History podcasts of 2022 by Feedspot.com
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This episode covers the growing issues that Watergate is creating, problems Nixon is having with our ally in South Vietnam that is slowing down his negotiations , and the 1972 campaign of George McGovern, which despite having some good issues for them developing still cannot seem to catch momentum.

First we will hear Richard Nixon talk with Bob Haldeman about leaks coming from a high up spot in the FBI concerning the investigation of the break in at the Watergate. It is sensitive material about campaign financing etc, and it had to be coming from the number two man at the FBI,  W. Mark Felt.  This meeting will show that while Deap Throat may have been a mystery to the world for four decades, Richard Nixon and his men knew exactly who it was that was leaking things to the Washington Post.

We will also listen in on calls between the President and his aids as he deals with all of the issues from the campaign to Vietnam, and get to hear George McGovern on the stump and in an oral history 30 plus years later.

Finally, the negotiations get disjointed and the North Vietnamese play a little public relations game of their own and force Henry Kissinger to speak out to the press in order to hold a tentative deal in place with the famous line "Peace is at Hand" 

***** Ranked number 17 as one of the 60 best American History podcasts of 2022 by Feedspot.com
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We join a 1972 campaign in wide open progress as George McGovern tries to make his case to the American people at a time when the economy is doing well and a peace looks like it could be with in grasp of President Nixon. It was a tough row to hoe.

Listen in as President Nixon continues to work toward a negotiated peace in Vietnam, with many frustrations along the way.  Plus you will hear Vice President Spiro Agnew on the campaign trail with a style uniquely his own.

Here we listen to ads, the speeches, and  the news reports  from along the 1972 campaign trail. We also get to hear the President as he works with Henry Kissinger trying to find a way to get the war over with.

***** Ranked number 17 as one of the 60 best American History podcasts of 2022 by Feedspot.com
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While Richard Nixon served as President at the height of the Cold War. He was also President when terrorism exploded on to the World stage as a tool of the extreme Islamic World. 

In this special edition we look back at one of the most horrifying events of the early 1970's, by tuning into the voices of the people who covered it for ABC Sports. It features interviews with a Hall of Fame Quarterback turned sports commentator, Frank Gifford, and his counterpart T.V. Host Jim Mckay, a man best known for hosting a Saturday afternoon show which covered obscure sporting events like the National Lumberjack Championship in Hayward, Wisconsin or the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. 

But with little to no notice, ABC Sports President Roone Arledge, moved Jim Mckay in from his role at ABC's Wide World of Sports duties to cover a hostage situation at the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.  McKay would bring the humanity of the moment to the small screen as he covered the tragic circumstances of an Israeli Olympic team being held hostage by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September.

It would be a tragic and grim moment for all involved and it would be the precursor for the challenges the free world still faces today, long after the fall of communism,  by religious fanaticism hell bent on staying in the late 11th century.   

***** Ranked number 17 as one of the 60 best American History podcasts of 2022 by Feedspot.com
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