Modern Bede
ANTHONY KING
7 he Making of the President 1968 Theodore H. White (Cape 45s) It is becoming the fashion every four years to compare Theodore H. White's new book unfavourably with the one that went before —rather as though every edition of the Annual Register were thought somehow in- ferior to its predecessor. To be sure, Mr White's first effort, on the 1960 election, had a dramatic unity that its 1964 successor lacked. The author hero-worshipped John F, Kennedy and his hero won. To be sure, too, ihis latest volume is without the St George- Ad-the-Dragon motif that made the 1964 book so satisfying to all who delighted (and who did not?) in the slaying of Senator Gold- water.
But in fact -there was a certain mere- triciousness about the earlier volumes. What, one wonders, would 1960 have been like if Kennedy had lost? After all, he very nearly did. Likewise, if Rockefeller or Scranton had taken the 1964 nomination from Goldwater but had then lost to Johnson in November, all the book's excitement would have been concentrated in the contest for the Republi- can nomination; the rest would have been anti-climax. Mr White produced aesthetic books because he was observing aesthetic elections.
Last year was altogether messier, and it is to Mr White's great credit that in this third volume he does not impose a spurious unity on events which—although each was dramatic enough in itself—lacked any sem- blance of dramatic order. Who, he asks, could have predicted on 1 January 1968 that the Tet offensive, although a military failure, would shatter American confidence in the direction of the Vietnam war? Who could have foreseen on 1 February that before the end of the month George Romney would be driven, humiliated, from the New Hampshire primary? Or on 1 March that Senator McCarthy would succeed in New Hamp- shire beyond his supporters' wildest dreams, that Robert Kennedy would enter the race, that before the end of the month Lyndon Johnson would leave it? Or on 1. June that Robert Kennedy would be dead three weeks later? 1968 was not a drama or even a melo- drama; it was a ghastly kaleidoscope.
Mr White obviously did not enjoy it. He has always been the professional politician's alter ego. Like the politicians in 1968, he was bewildered by the new forces erupting into American politics. He went along, for in- stance, to the first Conference of Concerned Democrats in Chicago. Some 460 delegates were in attendance from forty-two states but, he admits, 'as this reporter, familiar with the old politics, tried to read them or operate ith them, he could find no jugular'. Like the Pros too—especially the Truman-Kennedy- umphrey liberals of whom he is one—this hronicler of a gentler age refused to recon- ile himself to the new politics of violence, obscenity, character assassination and (above III ineffable self-righteousness. To him the reservation of a decent, if at times faintly idiculous, political system matters more than he victory of any particular cause, however ighteous. And many of 1968's causes— lack power, student power, Wallace's rusade--were not righteous at all. 'All we aye to bate today,' be observes, Is hate
heroes for our modern Bede to worship as he had worshipped Kennedy eight years be- fore. He found Nixon altogether more attrac- tive than in 1960, yet there remained the sense that Nixon's personality was un- finished, unpredictable. Many were able to worship McCarthy, but Mr White was not of that faith. He was repelled by the Senator's supreme egotism, his love of abstract ideas, his disdain for human individuals: 'All through. the year, one's admiration for the man grew—and one's affection lessened.' As for Lyndon Johnson, Mr White's dislike of him is matched only by his loathing for the President's conscienceless harassers : the Syracuse demonstrators preparing paper cups of urine to throw at him, the buttons, worn on the lapels of non-violent protesters, call- ing for his assassination ('Lee Harvey Os- wald where are you now that we need you?').
Hubert Humphrey might once have been a suitable love-object, but four years' ser- vice under Lai had made him appear un- attractive—even, it seemed, to himself. Naturally an outgoing man, he had become-- moody and reserved. Impulsive by nature, he had taken to calculation. 'Fire, flash, humour, high purpose had always been the style of a Humphrey campaign—now they were absent.' No, there could be only one hero for Mr White in 1968: Robert Kennedy. The chap- ter on Kennedy's terminated candidacy is the fullest and most sympathetic in the book. Mr White argues persuasively that Kennedy was the one man in American politics who could bridge the 'chasms between white and black, old and young. He alone was in a position to use the skills of the old politics to curb the passions of the new. Would he have been elected President if he had lived? 'The "ifs,"' comes the reply, 'trail off from there, echoing without answer in the corridors of history.'
But the 1968 book is not pare impression- ism. Its author was indeed alienated from the mood of last year and from most of its men. Even so, he has lost none of his bril- liance as a journeyman reporter (his phrase). Almost all of the matters one wants explained —Johnson's sudden abdication, the fading of McCarthy's candidacy despite Kennedy's assassination, The emergence of 'the new Nixon'—are treated plausibly and in detail. Only the choice of Agnew as Nixon's run- ning-mate is dealt with cursorily. Mr White does not know why Agnew was picked; he rather suggests that Nixon does not know either. It would have bees good to learn more about the Wallace campaign (it is easily forgotten that Wallace got 13.5 per cent of the vote) but even this most tireless reporter could not be everywhere at once.
The only element completely missing from the whole series, as from our own Nuffield election studies, is an understanding of the mass electorate. There is no whiff in these pages of the fact (and it is a fact) that a good half of McCarthy's votes in New Hampshire came not from doves but from hawks who either misunderstood McCarthy's position on Vietnam or else regarded any protest against Johnson's neither-peace-nor- victory policy as better than none. Many who supported McCarthy in the primaries voted for Wallace a few months later. But to say this is only to point out that these books do have limitations; it is not in any way to diminish a great achievement. Whether or not one shares his prejudices—and the present writer happens to share them all— Theodore H. White remains the most per- ceptive, evocative writer on American politics today.
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