What do you think?
Rate this book
Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics
From the celebrated host of MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, an important and enthralling new account of the presidential election that changed everything, and created American politics as we know it today.
Long before Lawrence O'Donnell was the anchor of his own political talk show, he was the Harvard Law-trained political aide to Senator Patrick Moynihan, one of postwar America's wisest political minds. The 1968 election was O'Donnell's own political coming of age, and Playing With Fire represents his master class in American electioneering, as well as an extraordinary human drama that captures a system, and a country, coming apart at the seams in real time.
Nothing went to script. LBJ was confident he'd dispatch with Nixon, the GOP frontrunner; Johnson's greatest fear and real nemesis was RFK. But Kennedy and his team, despite their loathing of the president, weren't prepared to challenge their own party's incumbent. Then, out of nowhere, Eugene McCarthy shocked everyone with his disloyalty and threw his hat in the ring. A revolution seemed to be taking place, and LBJ, humiliated and bitter, began to look mortal. Then RFK leapt in, and all hell broke loose. Two assassinations and a week of bloody riots in Chicago around the Democratic Convention later, and the old Democratic Party was a smoldering ruin, and, in the last triumph of old machine politics, Hubert Humphrey stood alone in the wreckage.
Suddenly Nixon was the frontrunner, having masterfully maintained a smooth facade behind which he feverishly held his party's right and left wings in the fold through a succession of ruthless maneuvers to see off George Romney, Nelson Rockefeller, Ronald Reagan, and the great outside threat to his new Southern Strategy, the arch-segregationist George Wallace. But then, amazingly, Humphrey began to close, and so, in late October, Nixon pulled off one of the greatest dirty tricks in American political history, an act that may well meet the statutory definition of treason. The tone was set for Watergate and all else that was to follow, all the way through to today.
Long before Lawrence O'Donnell was the anchor of his own political talk show, he was the Harvard Law-trained political aide to Senator Patrick Moynihan, one of postwar America's wisest political minds. The 1968 election was O'Donnell's own political coming of age, and Playing With Fire represents his master class in American electioneering, as well as an extraordinary human drama that captures a system, and a country, coming apart at the seams in real time.
Nothing went to script. LBJ was confident he'd dispatch with Nixon, the GOP frontrunner; Johnson's greatest fear and real nemesis was RFK. But Kennedy and his team, despite their loathing of the president, weren't prepared to challenge their own party's incumbent. Then, out of nowhere, Eugene McCarthy shocked everyone with his disloyalty and threw his hat in the ring. A revolution seemed to be taking place, and LBJ, humiliated and bitter, began to look mortal. Then RFK leapt in, and all hell broke loose. Two assassinations and a week of bloody riots in Chicago around the Democratic Convention later, and the old Democratic Party was a smoldering ruin, and, in the last triumph of old machine politics, Hubert Humphrey stood alone in the wreckage.
Suddenly Nixon was the frontrunner, having masterfully maintained a smooth facade behind which he feverishly held his party's right and left wings in the fold through a succession of ruthless maneuvers to see off George Romney, Nelson Rockefeller, Ronald Reagan, and the great outside threat to his new Southern Strategy, the arch-segregationist George Wallace. But then, amazingly, Humphrey began to close, and so, in late October, Nixon pulled off one of the greatest dirty tricks in American political history, an act that may well meet the statutory definition of treason. The tone was set for Watergate and all else that was to follow, all the way through to today.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published November 7, 2017
796 people are currently reading
3886 people want to read
About the author
Lawrence O'Donnell
11 books74 followersLawrence Francis O'Donnell, Jr. is an American political analyst, journalist, actor, producer, writer, and host of The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, a weeknight MSNBC opinion and news program that formerly aired at 10 p.m. Eastern, but moved to the 8 p.m. slot, replacing Keith Olbermann's Countdown in late January 2011. He frequently filled in as host of Countdown before getting his own show on the cable network.
O'Donnell has also appeared as a political analyst on The McLaughlin Group, The Al Franken Show, and Countdown. He was an Emmy Award-winning producer and writer for the NBC series The West Wing and creator and executive producer of the NBC series Mister Sterling. He is also an occasional actor, appearing as a recurring supporting character on the HBO series Big Love, portraying an attorney. He began his career as an aide to U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and was Staff Director for the Senate Finance Committee.
O'Donnell has also appeared as a political analyst on The McLaughlin Group, The Al Franken Show, and Countdown. He was an Emmy Award-winning producer and writer for the NBC series The West Wing and creator and executive producer of the NBC series Mister Sterling. He is also an occasional actor, appearing as a recurring supporting character on the HBO series Big Love, portraying an attorney. He began his career as an aide to U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and was Staff Director for the Senate Finance Committee.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 464 reviews
November 28, 2017
Until 2016 the most wild and complex modern election was the 1968 election. If a screenwriter had written the '68 election no one would have believed it. Assassinations, riots, treason, war, and literal fist fights on the floor of the Democratic convention. 1968 was the year that modern campaigning was truly invented and it laid the groundwork for the 2016 election of 45.
Lawrence O'Donnell is one of my favorite tv hosts. He's smart, funny, and blunt. I was afraid to read this book, I stared at it on my coffee table for a week debating if I should read it or not. I love politics but our current political climate makes me feel exhausted. I've always been a pessimist and with every passing day my view of my country drops lower and lower. I feared this book would make me sadder.
I wasn't alive in the 1960's but it is one of my favorite time periods. It was a revolutionary time women's lib, civil rights, Vietnam, and almost yearly assassinations. A lot of the progress made in that decade is currently under attack. Why are we still fighting about a woman's right to use birth control? Why was the Civil Rights Act gutted? How is it that a racist like George Wallace was too extreme to be elected in the 60's but America elected one in 2016?
With Playing With Fire Lawrence O'Donnell attempts to explain how we got here. I highly recommend this book.
Lawrence O'Donnell is one of my favorite tv hosts. He's smart, funny, and blunt. I was afraid to read this book, I stared at it on my coffee table for a week debating if I should read it or not. I love politics but our current political climate makes me feel exhausted. I've always been a pessimist and with every passing day my view of my country drops lower and lower. I feared this book would make me sadder.
I wasn't alive in the 1960's but it is one of my favorite time periods. It was a revolutionary time women's lib, civil rights, Vietnam, and almost yearly assassinations. A lot of the progress made in that decade is currently under attack. Why are we still fighting about a woman's right to use birth control? Why was the Civil Rights Act gutted? How is it that a racist like George Wallace was too extreme to be elected in the 60's but America elected one in 2016?
With Playing With Fire Lawrence O'Donnell attempts to explain how we got here. I highly recommend this book.
November 9, 2017
I have been staring at this computer screen for half an hour, trying to find the words to explain how I feel. I think I am so unable to find the words because I am struggling with my 18-year-old self.
Lawrence O'Donnell has captured so many of the feelings from that incredible year. This book is not just a recounting of the events that happened in 1968. It also reminds me viscerally of how I felt the year I graduated from high school. As O'Donnell describes each of those monumental occurrences: the war in Viet Nam, the politics of Nixon, McCarthy, Humphrey, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy, I found myself drawn back to my reactions.
I can see the little black and white TV in my younger sister's room to see the news about MLK's shooting. I can remember someone writing in my yearbook about her hope that Bobby would survive. And I remember all the boys from the neighborhood who were drafted for whom there were no student deferments (not on the poor side of the town).
Maybe this book works so well for me because I have such vivid memories and O'Donnell's story-telling uses those memories to talk about that year. He also draws connections between then and now. Those connections give me hope. We survived then. We can survive now.
I recommend this to everyone interested in modern history, especially those who remember 1968.
Lawrence O'Donnell has captured so many of the feelings from that incredible year. This book is not just a recounting of the events that happened in 1968. It also reminds me viscerally of how I felt the year I graduated from high school. As O'Donnell describes each of those monumental occurrences: the war in Viet Nam, the politics of Nixon, McCarthy, Humphrey, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy, I found myself drawn back to my reactions.
I can see the little black and white TV in my younger sister's room to see the news about MLK's shooting. I can remember someone writing in my yearbook about her hope that Bobby would survive. And I remember all the boys from the neighborhood who were drafted for whom there were no student deferments (not on the poor side of the town).
Maybe this book works so well for me because I have such vivid memories and O'Donnell's story-telling uses those memories to talk about that year. He also draws connections between then and now. Those connections give me hope. We survived then. We can survive now.
I recommend this to everyone interested in modern history, especially those who remember 1968.
November 16, 2017
The publication of MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell’s new book, PLAYING WITH FIRE: THE 1968 ELECTION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN POLITICS comes at a propitious moment in American political history. According to O’Donnell 1968 is the watershed year that set our current politics in motion – a partisan conflict were by ideology and party affiliation has become more important than the needs of the American people. O’Donnell argues that before 1968 the terms conservative democrat and liberal republican existed, today they are pretty much extinct. By examining 1968 we can discern the origin of this political schism and conjecture on how it affects the United States domestically and in the realm of foreign policy. The comparison between our current politics and 1968 is fascinating as Donald Trump seems to have adopted the populist message of Alabama governor George C. Wallace, be it state’s rights or white nationalism, and Bernie Sanders can be compared with Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy and his liberal socialist agenda. We must also mention the emergence of Roger Ailes and the role of Fox news in molding a certain part of the electorate, because in 1968 Ailes joined the Nixon campaign, which over decades led to the creation of his successful news outlet and helped formulate the term “fake news.”
The election of 1968 was about life and death as the war in Vietnam controlled people’s lives. A person’s draft status dominated their waking hours be it soon to be high school graduates, college students, and recent college graduates. The United States found itself in this situation due to the machinations of the Johnson administration in late July and early August, 1964 that resulted in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which provided Lyndon Johnson with almost imperial powers to conduct a war. According to Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach appearing before Senator J. William Fulbright’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized the president to use “the armed forces of the United States in any way that was necessary,” and argued further that the constitution did not require the Senate to play a role in foreign policy. Johnson would take the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as almost carte blanche in getting the United States into a quagmire in Vietnam. Keeping with the theme of comparing the past to the present, the Patriot Act passed by Congress and signed into law on October 26, 2001 in response to 9/11 has been used in a similar fashion by three presidents; Bush, Obama, and Trump to conduct war on their own terms in the Middle East, and currently it appears, in Africa.
For O’Donnell the key figure in 1968 is Senator Robert Kennedy who appeared as a political “rock star.” People believed that he would never send America’s youth to fight in Vietnam a subject he rarely spoke about in his speeches. People related to Kennedy because they recognized the pain he was in and believed his empathy for the electorate was real. Many believed that it was only justice for Robert Kennedy to reclaim the presidency that was lost in Dallas when his brother was assassinated in November, 1963. The 1960s was an era of change, and no one’s view of the world changed more than Robert Kennedy. By 1968 the Senate began questioning Johnson’s “monarchial” approach to Vietnam and this would help foster the political upheaval we are still dealing with today.
O’Donnell does a wonderful job replaying the events leading up to 1968 and what took place that incredible year. My main problem with O’Donnell’s approach is that it mostly based on his own experience and writing and a slew of secondary sources and in some cases not even the best ones. A case in point is the Johnson-Kennedy rivalry and contempt for each other. The best study of rivalry is Jeff Shesol’s MUTUAL CONTEMPT: LYNDON JOHNSON, ROBERT KENNEDY, AND THE AND A FEUD THAT DEFINED A DECADE an in depth nuanced look that O’Donnell might have consulted. There are many other examples including his over-reliance on Evan Thomas’ biography of Kennedy, which reinforces my belief that O’Donnell needs to broaden his research, with the integration of more primary materials that would further his arguments as a significant part of the book reads like Theodore White’s THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT 1968.
To O’Donnell’s credit there are many fine chapters and insights interspersed throughout the narrative. By delving into the different factions on the left and the right the reader is exposed to the ideological struggle that existed in both the Democratic and Republican parties. The introduction of Allard Lowenstein, the role of Gene McCarthy’s candidacy, in addition to the rise of the radical left, we can see the beginning of the splintering of the Democratic Party. The chapters dealing with the Kennedy-McCarthy competition for the Democratic nomination is well played out as is the candidacy of Hubert Humphrey after Robert Kennedy is assassinated. Republicans also experienced many fissures in their quest for the presidency. The discussion involving the reinvention of Richard Nixon, the liberal quest of Nelson Rockefeller, and the rise of Ronald Reagan on the right within the Republican Party are all artfully explained and we see the end result, and the type of campaign the “new Nixon” ran.
Among O’Donnell’s most important points include the machinations within both major political parties, the role of the Tet Offensive in Johnson’s withdrawal from the race, Kennedy’s candidacy, and the politics of fear employed by George Wallace. Perhaps O’Donnell’s most interesting comments encompass the rise of Ronald Reagan as a conservative spokesperson for General Electric allowing him to develop into a viable political candidate. O’Donnell’s is right on when he argues that Reagan was GE’s tool in educating workers, and indirectly the public in the evils of unions, government interference in the economy, and the benefits of giving freer rein to corporate America embodied in General Electric.
In addition, O’Donnell is correct in pointing out that the militarization of America’s police forces that we experience today began in 1968 following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. King’s death led to burning and rioting in 30 US cities that called for 18 Army Brigades, consisting of 50,000 troops to restore civilian control. The result was 20,000 arrests and 39 dead. Another example of how the past formed the present is the concept of “premeditated confrontation” that ABC introduced as a way to save money on their coverage of the Republican convention. By pitting the well-known conservative intellectual William F. Buckley against Gore Vidal, novelist and liberal commentator the expected explosions took place. When we watch PBS, the networks, and cable television today, we can easily discern where these types of panels originated.
O’Donnell forces the reader to relive or learn for the first time the impact of the assassination of Robert Kennedy and to contemplate a counter factual approach to history by conjecturing what America might have experienced had he been elected to the presidency. Vietnam, civil rights, and numerous other issues would probably have played out much differently than it did under the Nixon administration, an administration that came to power based on the treason Nixon committed by interfering with the Paris Peace talks at the end of October, 1968 thereby contributing to the ongoing war in Vietnam and perhaps lost the opportunity for peace that led to the death of over 20,000 more Americans.
What is clear from O’Donnell’s narrative is that Donald Trump copied the 1968 Richard Nixon playbook in his presidential run. First, the slogan “America First” began with Nixon as did the concept of the “silent majority” that Trump also followed. Second, Nixon’s approach was one of anti-tax, anti-government, anti-abortion, pro-law-and-order, just as was Trump’s. It is also clear that 1968 was a dividing line in the evolution of partisan politics and a realignment of the American electorate, it is just a question of how long the American people will suffer because of these changes. For O’Donnell, Eugene McCarthy is his hero because he was the first one to take the risk and try and end the war. Bobby Kennedy, is also his hero, but he was not the first to challenge an incumbent president as McCarthy had. In conclusion, I would recommend that O’Donnell include more of his comments that have been on display recently on various programs on MSNBC, because they strengthen his overall narrative argument.
The election of 1968 was about life and death as the war in Vietnam controlled people’s lives. A person’s draft status dominated their waking hours be it soon to be high school graduates, college students, and recent college graduates. The United States found itself in this situation due to the machinations of the Johnson administration in late July and early August, 1964 that resulted in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which provided Lyndon Johnson with almost imperial powers to conduct a war. According to Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach appearing before Senator J. William Fulbright’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized the president to use “the armed forces of the United States in any way that was necessary,” and argued further that the constitution did not require the Senate to play a role in foreign policy. Johnson would take the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as almost carte blanche in getting the United States into a quagmire in Vietnam. Keeping with the theme of comparing the past to the present, the Patriot Act passed by Congress and signed into law on October 26, 2001 in response to 9/11 has been used in a similar fashion by three presidents; Bush, Obama, and Trump to conduct war on their own terms in the Middle East, and currently it appears, in Africa.
For O’Donnell the key figure in 1968 is Senator Robert Kennedy who appeared as a political “rock star.” People believed that he would never send America’s youth to fight in Vietnam a subject he rarely spoke about in his speeches. People related to Kennedy because they recognized the pain he was in and believed his empathy for the electorate was real. Many believed that it was only justice for Robert Kennedy to reclaim the presidency that was lost in Dallas when his brother was assassinated in November, 1963. The 1960s was an era of change, and no one’s view of the world changed more than Robert Kennedy. By 1968 the Senate began questioning Johnson’s “monarchial” approach to Vietnam and this would help foster the political upheaval we are still dealing with today.
O’Donnell does a wonderful job replaying the events leading up to 1968 and what took place that incredible year. My main problem with O’Donnell’s approach is that it mostly based on his own experience and writing and a slew of secondary sources and in some cases not even the best ones. A case in point is the Johnson-Kennedy rivalry and contempt for each other. The best study of rivalry is Jeff Shesol’s MUTUAL CONTEMPT: LYNDON JOHNSON, ROBERT KENNEDY, AND THE AND A FEUD THAT DEFINED A DECADE an in depth nuanced look that O’Donnell might have consulted. There are many other examples including his over-reliance on Evan Thomas’ biography of Kennedy, which reinforces my belief that O’Donnell needs to broaden his research, with the integration of more primary materials that would further his arguments as a significant part of the book reads like Theodore White’s THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT 1968.
To O’Donnell’s credit there are many fine chapters and insights interspersed throughout the narrative. By delving into the different factions on the left and the right the reader is exposed to the ideological struggle that existed in both the Democratic and Republican parties. The introduction of Allard Lowenstein, the role of Gene McCarthy’s candidacy, in addition to the rise of the radical left, we can see the beginning of the splintering of the Democratic Party. The chapters dealing with the Kennedy-McCarthy competition for the Democratic nomination is well played out as is the candidacy of Hubert Humphrey after Robert Kennedy is assassinated. Republicans also experienced many fissures in their quest for the presidency. The discussion involving the reinvention of Richard Nixon, the liberal quest of Nelson Rockefeller, and the rise of Ronald Reagan on the right within the Republican Party are all artfully explained and we see the end result, and the type of campaign the “new Nixon” ran.
Among O’Donnell’s most important points include the machinations within both major political parties, the role of the Tet Offensive in Johnson’s withdrawal from the race, Kennedy’s candidacy, and the politics of fear employed by George Wallace. Perhaps O’Donnell’s most interesting comments encompass the rise of Ronald Reagan as a conservative spokesperson for General Electric allowing him to develop into a viable political candidate. O’Donnell’s is right on when he argues that Reagan was GE’s tool in educating workers, and indirectly the public in the evils of unions, government interference in the economy, and the benefits of giving freer rein to corporate America embodied in General Electric.
In addition, O’Donnell is correct in pointing out that the militarization of America’s police forces that we experience today began in 1968 following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. King’s death led to burning and rioting in 30 US cities that called for 18 Army Brigades, consisting of 50,000 troops to restore civilian control. The result was 20,000 arrests and 39 dead. Another example of how the past formed the present is the concept of “premeditated confrontation” that ABC introduced as a way to save money on their coverage of the Republican convention. By pitting the well-known conservative intellectual William F. Buckley against Gore Vidal, novelist and liberal commentator the expected explosions took place. When we watch PBS, the networks, and cable television today, we can easily discern where these types of panels originated.
O’Donnell forces the reader to relive or learn for the first time the impact of the assassination of Robert Kennedy and to contemplate a counter factual approach to history by conjecturing what America might have experienced had he been elected to the presidency. Vietnam, civil rights, and numerous other issues would probably have played out much differently than it did under the Nixon administration, an administration that came to power based on the treason Nixon committed by interfering with the Paris Peace talks at the end of October, 1968 thereby contributing to the ongoing war in Vietnam and perhaps lost the opportunity for peace that led to the death of over 20,000 more Americans.
What is clear from O’Donnell’s narrative is that Donald Trump copied the 1968 Richard Nixon playbook in his presidential run. First, the slogan “America First” began with Nixon as did the concept of the “silent majority” that Trump also followed. Second, Nixon’s approach was one of anti-tax, anti-government, anti-abortion, pro-law-and-order, just as was Trump’s. It is also clear that 1968 was a dividing line in the evolution of partisan politics and a realignment of the American electorate, it is just a question of how long the American people will suffer because of these changes. For O’Donnell, Eugene McCarthy is his hero because he was the first one to take the risk and try and end the war. Bobby Kennedy, is also his hero, but he was not the first to challenge an incumbent president as McCarthy had. In conclusion, I would recommend that O’Donnell include more of his comments that have been on display recently on various programs on MSNBC, because they strengthen his overall narrative argument.
October 17, 2024
Outstanding story about 1968, its politics and impact upon the future of the United States.
April 10, 2022
I'd like to begin this review with a question. How do you follow up reading and reviewing the most highly-anticipated book of the year? In my case it was simple to go from one presidential campaign to another. Although the campaign that I chose was not just any campaign it was the granddaddy of all presidential campaigns: the campaign of 1968.
Of course, I was not alive in 1968 but having studied the 1960s at length I can readily assure you that I am quite familiar with the causes and the outcome of this campaign. As we all should be aware next year marks the 50th anniversary of the Year 1968 and all of its myriad causes and issues. So in a way I guess you could say that I was not willing to wait until January to read this book. I'm glad that I didn't, however I felt that the book really didn't per se concentrate on the actual 1968 presidential campaign but dealt more with the run-up and the causes and issues of said campaign. Much of this book reminded me of the game change series in the regard and that's it was basically structured where the author dealt with one political party at length and then switched jarringly to the opposition.
The year 1968 had everything seemingly going for it. However you look at it there was something in it for everyone. It was the year of the "Dump Johnson" movement as well as the year of the "New Nixon". Of course both Robert Kennedy and the crux of the Civil Rights movement as well occur seemingly at times in tandem. If anything reading this book has caused me to want to read next year Teddy White's third volume of his Making of the President quartet as well as delve deeper into the Vietnam War itself.
Of course, I was not alive in 1968 but having studied the 1960s at length I can readily assure you that I am quite familiar with the causes and the outcome of this campaign. As we all should be aware next year marks the 50th anniversary of the Year 1968 and all of its myriad causes and issues. So in a way I guess you could say that I was not willing to wait until January to read this book. I'm glad that I didn't, however I felt that the book really didn't per se concentrate on the actual 1968 presidential campaign but dealt more with the run-up and the causes and issues of said campaign. Much of this book reminded me of the game change series in the regard and that's it was basically structured where the author dealt with one political party at length and then switched jarringly to the opposition.
The year 1968 had everything seemingly going for it. However you look at it there was something in it for everyone. It was the year of the "Dump Johnson" movement as well as the year of the "New Nixon". Of course both Robert Kennedy and the crux of the Civil Rights movement as well occur seemingly at times in tandem. If anything reading this book has caused me to want to read next year Teddy White's third volume of his Making of the President quartet as well as delve deeper into the Vietnam War itself.
November 17, 2017
LOD is one of my best friends. I love his writing and I love him on TV, but the best is when he gets on a jag late at night when we're chatting and just turns world events into a story. This book is the closest I've experienced to that joy being done for the public.
I was 13 in 1968 and I knew all these names and words, but never knew the story. Now I feel I know the story.
This book is opinionated, but it's not liberal porn. I loved it.
I was 13 in 1968 and I knew all these names and words, but never knew the story. Now I feel I know the story.
This book is opinionated, but it's not liberal porn. I loved it.
December 15, 2017
In my book (The Color of Money), I have a chapter on the 1968 election and as I was writing it, I was thinking "you could write a whole library on this election!" This book is a worthy first volume for that library. I think we are far enough out and every strand of American politics that either died or was born during that election has played out. The harvest has been an ugly one. But it all started in 1968. I've read a lot of books about the 2016 election as well and none have been satisfying. This one was. There is more in here that will illuminate the current climate than anything about the 2016 election. The one thing is that it read more like a bio of McCarthy than an analysis of the changing nature of America and what led to the election results and the tensions that the candidates exploited. So it's a great first book to the library--let's fill it with more books that talk about the neoliberalism, the "real Americanism," the "libertarianism," the "states rights disguised as segregationism" that all started in 1968. America changed dramatically between 1963 and 1968 and the ways it split the country are still corroding it today.
January 23, 2022
"Playing with Fire," by Lawrence O'Donnell is an insightful, horrifying look at Presidential politics during the 1968 election. It actually starts off with the election of President Kennedy in 1960 where Mr. Kennedy was put over the top, most probably, by Chicago Mayor Daley by making sure Kennedy won by enough votes to carry Illinois and hand him the presidency.
Nixon didn't dispute the election, possibly the only decent thing the man ever did. After the assassination of President Kennedy and the re-election of Lyndon Johnson in 1964 by a landslide, Johnson decided to seriously increase our presence in Vietnam and at one time there were over five hundred thousand U.S. troops in Vietnam and a President who didn't want to hear any bad news about the war and so his advisers fed the man made up facts that made us look like we were on the verge of victory.
But the body bags kept accumulating and suddenly the ruse was over. The first politician to come out against the war was Senator Eugene McCarthy and with only the radicals on the left with him he decided to run for president against the current president who was of the same party which was unheard of.
He came in second in The New Hampshire primary but performed 30 points higher than anyone imagined and he was actually looked upon as the winner. His momentum continued and his message was simple, "Stop the War," (LBJ, how many Americans have you killed today).
After much hesitancy, Robert Kennedy decided to run for president, and Johnson decided to drop out, not wanting to lose to another Kennedy. Kennedy immediately became the favorite and won a number of primaries as his message became closer and closer to Senator McCarthy's message of stopping the blood shed. After winning the California primary, Robert Kennedy was assassinated and until this very day the question remains that if he had not been killed and became president how different the landscape of American politics would have looked?
At the Democratic Convention in Chicago, Vice President Humphrey was nominated for the Presidency; even though McCarthy had more primary votes which didn't mean all that much back then when only fourteen states held primaries. The Democratic machine controlled who won and they were not electing Senator McCarthy. In the streets of Chicago there was demonstrations and riots and police brutality that made as much news as the convention itself.
Nixon was the Republican candidate and as the polls got closer and they had both candidates within one percentage point, Richard Nixon secretly interfered with the Paris Peace conference going on to stop the war. After all the parties had agreed to a plan to stop the war, Nixon convinced the South Vietnamese President to pull out of the negotiations because if he, Nixon, was elected he would give them a much better deal. That act of treason resulted in an additional five more years of war and an additional twenty-one thousand US deaths and God only knows how many civilian deaths.
The consequences of Nixon's actions while in office forced the low-life to resign, and the primaries for both parties, taking place in all fifty states, became the new norm for choosing a presidential candidate. The candidate who achieved the magic number of votes would become the presidential nominee for each party.
This book is a million times more detailed than this review, but if one thing came across clear and simple and that was how corrupt democracy can be with the right players at the table.
Nixon didn't dispute the election, possibly the only decent thing the man ever did. After the assassination of President Kennedy and the re-election of Lyndon Johnson in 1964 by a landslide, Johnson decided to seriously increase our presence in Vietnam and at one time there were over five hundred thousand U.S. troops in Vietnam and a President who didn't want to hear any bad news about the war and so his advisers fed the man made up facts that made us look like we were on the verge of victory.
But the body bags kept accumulating and suddenly the ruse was over. The first politician to come out against the war was Senator Eugene McCarthy and with only the radicals on the left with him he decided to run for president against the current president who was of the same party which was unheard of.
He came in second in The New Hampshire primary but performed 30 points higher than anyone imagined and he was actually looked upon as the winner. His momentum continued and his message was simple, "Stop the War," (LBJ, how many Americans have you killed today).
After much hesitancy, Robert Kennedy decided to run for president, and Johnson decided to drop out, not wanting to lose to another Kennedy. Kennedy immediately became the favorite and won a number of primaries as his message became closer and closer to Senator McCarthy's message of stopping the blood shed. After winning the California primary, Robert Kennedy was assassinated and until this very day the question remains that if he had not been killed and became president how different the landscape of American politics would have looked?
At the Democratic Convention in Chicago, Vice President Humphrey was nominated for the Presidency; even though McCarthy had more primary votes which didn't mean all that much back then when only fourteen states held primaries. The Democratic machine controlled who won and they were not electing Senator McCarthy. In the streets of Chicago there was demonstrations and riots and police brutality that made as much news as the convention itself.
Nixon was the Republican candidate and as the polls got closer and they had both candidates within one percentage point, Richard Nixon secretly interfered with the Paris Peace conference going on to stop the war. After all the parties had agreed to a plan to stop the war, Nixon convinced the South Vietnamese President to pull out of the negotiations because if he, Nixon, was elected he would give them a much better deal. That act of treason resulted in an additional five more years of war and an additional twenty-one thousand US deaths and God only knows how many civilian deaths.
The consequences of Nixon's actions while in office forced the low-life to resign, and the primaries for both parties, taking place in all fifty states, became the new norm for choosing a presidential candidate. The candidate who achieved the magic number of votes would become the presidential nominee for each party.
This book is a million times more detailed than this review, but if one thing came across clear and simple and that was how corrupt democracy can be with the right players at the table.
July 27, 2019
1968 was the most formative year of my life. I was sixteen, campaigning for Eugene McCarthy in both my hometown in Illinois, as a precinct captain no less, and during my first long trip overseas alone, in Hawaii. Then, returning to Chicago without informing the family, I spent the Democratic Convention in (as part of the candidate's entourage, handing out press releases and holding back crowds) and around (here, identified as much with being in the SDS as in the campaign) the Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue. I saw 'the police riot'. Hell, I was in the middle of it! I also saw lots and lots of celebrities, people I'd only read or read about before, folks like Dick Gregory, David Dellinger, Allen Ginsberg, Phil Ochs (well, him I'd seen in concert), etc., etc.
This gripping account of that year's presidential campaign took me back to those days and, evoking tears, to the assassinations of 1968. O'Donnell writes as well as he speaks on his regular spot on MSNBC and his heart was/is in the right place, his being a sympathetic study of the peace movement of the period.
This gripping account of that year's presidential campaign took me back to those days and, evoking tears, to the assassinations of 1968. O'Donnell writes as well as he speaks on his regular spot on MSNBC and his heart was/is in the right place, his being a sympathetic study of the peace movement of the period.
November 19, 2017
I was sixteen in 1968, and I remember being a Gene McCarthy supporter in spite of my inability to vote. I was anti-war, as were most of my friends, I was pro civil rights, and was discovering my conscience slowly but surely. I also lived in Chicago and have vivid memories of the bloody protests and the subsequent trial of the "Chicago 7." Remembering these things has given me more of a perspective on current events than a younger person might have. I understand protest and confrontation. I understand the need to be involved. I lived through Watergate and I understand the nature of political corruption.
Or I thought I did until I immersed myself in O'Donnell's account of the events which made Richard Nixon President of the United States, a complex, difficult, often painful process of backroom deals, back-stabbing, and cynical maneuvering by virtually every actor on that stage. I learned a great deal about history that I thought I knew well, and learned that a great many of the people involved in this drama were far less admirable than I had imagined. Or maybe I should just say they were more human than they appeared to be at the time.
I would urge you to read this book if you're at all interested in the people and politics of that era and especially that campaign. I was fascinated by the portraits of the major players from Johnson, who crippled himself by adhering to a losing strategy in Vietnam to the detriment of his legacy in other areas such as civil rights, Nixon who was a brilliant politician, but who put all that intellect to work in self-serving ways, Bobby Kennedy who was opaque and manipulative, and Eugene McCarthy who was a decent human being but utterly unfit to be president. They, and the more minor players in this drama, are wonderfully drawn by O'Donnell in this rich narrative.
One thing about this book which both amused and bemused me was O'Donnell's jabs at Donald Trump, a thread that ran through the book for reasons not immediately clear to me. O'Donnell isn't a cheap-shot kind of guy. He's thoughtful, well-informed, and pretty even-handed, so the connections to Trump should have been provoked by practical reasons, right?
Well it took me long enough to suss them out. This book isn't just about 1968 and Nixon, and Vietnam, it's about the here and now. The comments about Trump aren't just jabs, they're sharp and incisive parallels to the worst of the world in 1968, the things we really should have left behind us, but can't seem to shake off. 1968 was, after all, the end of the liberal wing of the Republican party. It was the year when the Dixie-crats drew the line in the sand on integration (They were not having it!) the war in Vietnam (Yes, please.) and the role of authoritarianism in government. (They were Law and Order guys right down the line.) It was the year when southern Democrats stopped being democratic and turned into the moderate wing of the Republican party.
The parallels that O'Donnell draws become quite clear when he discusses Richard Nixon's greatest crime, which had nothing to do with Watergate. He colluded with Nguyễn Văn Thiệu to keep South Vietnam out of peace talks until after the election which he expected to win (and did.) For Nixon, American lives were far less important than his political future. What he did was technically treason, and the only reason he wasn't called out on it was that Johnson and his advisers felt that win or lose, charging Nixon with treason would do more harm to the country than good. That collusion has clear parallels to the Trump campaign and Russia, though the extent of Trump's involvement isn't actually known as of this writing. And the law that made Nixon's actions treasonous probably don't apply to the Russia scandal, though again, that's not wholly clear at this time.
By the end, understanding those parallels between then and now, the deep divisions in this country, the fears and concerns, the push-pull of civil rights, it was heartening to listen to O'Donnell's epilogue in which he reminds us of the most important thing of all: Our participation in this process is what made a difference. The anti-war movement saved lives.
Political participation is life and death.
I really recommend this book to anyone who wants to read it as history, as a cautionary tale, as biographical material, or just as a surprisingly exciting story about the ins and outs of politics. I would cheerfully read anything O'Donnell has written, and would happily listen to his narration of any political history because he was just that good.
Or I thought I did until I immersed myself in O'Donnell's account of the events which made Richard Nixon President of the United States, a complex, difficult, often painful process of backroom deals, back-stabbing, and cynical maneuvering by virtually every actor on that stage. I learned a great deal about history that I thought I knew well, and learned that a great many of the people involved in this drama were far less admirable than I had imagined. Or maybe I should just say they were more human than they appeared to be at the time.
I would urge you to read this book if you're at all interested in the people and politics of that era and especially that campaign. I was fascinated by the portraits of the major players from Johnson, who crippled himself by adhering to a losing strategy in Vietnam to the detriment of his legacy in other areas such as civil rights, Nixon who was a brilliant politician, but who put all that intellect to work in self-serving ways, Bobby Kennedy who was opaque and manipulative, and Eugene McCarthy who was a decent human being but utterly unfit to be president. They, and the more minor players in this drama, are wonderfully drawn by O'Donnell in this rich narrative.
One thing about this book which both amused and bemused me was O'Donnell's jabs at Donald Trump, a thread that ran through the book for reasons not immediately clear to me. O'Donnell isn't a cheap-shot kind of guy. He's thoughtful, well-informed, and pretty even-handed, so the connections to Trump should have been provoked by practical reasons, right?
Well it took me long enough to suss them out. This book isn't just about 1968 and Nixon, and Vietnam, it's about the here and now. The comments about Trump aren't just jabs, they're sharp and incisive parallels to the worst of the world in 1968, the things we really should have left behind us, but can't seem to shake off. 1968 was, after all, the end of the liberal wing of the Republican party. It was the year when the Dixie-crats drew the line in the sand on integration (They were not having it!) the war in Vietnam (Yes, please.) and the role of authoritarianism in government. (They were Law and Order guys right down the line.) It was the year when southern Democrats stopped being democratic and turned into the moderate wing of the Republican party.
The parallels that O'Donnell draws become quite clear when he discusses Richard Nixon's greatest crime, which had nothing to do with Watergate. He colluded with Nguyễn Văn Thiệu to keep South Vietnam out of peace talks until after the election which he expected to win (and did.) For Nixon, American lives were far less important than his political future. What he did was technically treason, and the only reason he wasn't called out on it was that Johnson and his advisers felt that win or lose, charging Nixon with treason would do more harm to the country than good. That collusion has clear parallels to the Trump campaign and Russia, though the extent of Trump's involvement isn't actually known as of this writing. And the law that made Nixon's actions treasonous probably don't apply to the Russia scandal, though again, that's not wholly clear at this time.
By the end, understanding those parallels between then and now, the deep divisions in this country, the fears and concerns, the push-pull of civil rights, it was heartening to listen to O'Donnell's epilogue in which he reminds us of the most important thing of all: Our participation in this process is what made a difference. The anti-war movement saved lives.
Political participation is life and death.
I really recommend this book to anyone who wants to read it as history, as a cautionary tale, as biographical material, or just as a surprisingly exciting story about the ins and outs of politics. I would cheerfully read anything O'Donnell has written, and would happily listen to his narration of any political history because he was just that good.
November 15, 2017
Many recent works have revisited the tumultuous 1968 presidential election, which seeded many of the conflicts and resentments American politics still wrestles with today. Though covering well-trod ground, MSNBC host O'Donnell teases a gripping narrative bristling with fresh, provocative insights.
Most of the book focuses on the Democratic primaries between Lyndon Johnson, still clinging to hope for reelection despite the Vietnam War's increasing unpopularity (ultimately dropping out for his Vice President Hubert Humphrey), the insurgent candidacy of Eugene McCarthy and the tragic last campaign of Robert Kennedy, resulting in a disastrous Democratic civil war. O'Donnell captures these conflicts and personalities with insight, weighing their respective strengths and weaknesses: he praises Kennedy's sincere conversion to the antiwar movement while excoriating his vacillation in entering the race; similarly, he views McCarthy as a weak, hesitant, vain campaigner, but also the bravest candidate running. "Without McCarthy," O'Donnell writes, "the Vietnam War would not have ended in 1973." It may seem hyperbolic, but there's enough truth for it to register.
O'Donnell is less insightful on Richard Nixon and the Republicans, whom authors like Rick Perlstein have spent the past decade combing for every crumb of importance. He devotes a lot of time to Nixon's media savvy, carefully crafting his image as an elder statesman above petty divisions while fanning racial resentments and craving for "order" after a decade of demonstrations, riots and rising crime. Most interesting, perhaps, is O'Donnell's recounting of Nixon's convention maneuvers, from his manipulation of Strom Thurmond and other conservatives wavering towards Ronald Reagan to John Lindsay's quixotic bid for Vice President, which he views as the last stand of Republican liberals. Not to mention the account of Nixon's sabotaging the Paris Peace Talks, an old topic now but still brazen enough to shock. But O'Donnell portrait of Nixon is the least-interesting aspect of the book, except perhaps his facile characterization of George Wallace, about whom he has little to say beyond obvious, shopworn comparisons to Donald Trump.
While not as thorough or densely detailed as other works on this election (Perlstein's Nixonland or Chester and Hodgson's old An American Melodrama), Playing With Fire still offers a compelling narrative of a tumultuous time, capturing the year's anger and confusion, sound and fury, riots and reaction in vivid detail. No one reading this book will come away doubting that most of the problems America faces today - an electorate deeply, angrily and often violently divided along racial, sectional and political lines, politicians who are all image and little substance, candidatesdoing anything, up to and including colluding with foreign governments, to win without being called to account - stem from 1968.
Most of the book focuses on the Democratic primaries between Lyndon Johnson, still clinging to hope for reelection despite the Vietnam War's increasing unpopularity (ultimately dropping out for his Vice President Hubert Humphrey), the insurgent candidacy of Eugene McCarthy and the tragic last campaign of Robert Kennedy, resulting in a disastrous Democratic civil war. O'Donnell captures these conflicts and personalities with insight, weighing their respective strengths and weaknesses: he praises Kennedy's sincere conversion to the antiwar movement while excoriating his vacillation in entering the race; similarly, he views McCarthy as a weak, hesitant, vain campaigner, but also the bravest candidate running. "Without McCarthy," O'Donnell writes, "the Vietnam War would not have ended in 1973." It may seem hyperbolic, but there's enough truth for it to register.
O'Donnell is less insightful on Richard Nixon and the Republicans, whom authors like Rick Perlstein have spent the past decade combing for every crumb of importance. He devotes a lot of time to Nixon's media savvy, carefully crafting his image as an elder statesman above petty divisions while fanning racial resentments and craving for "order" after a decade of demonstrations, riots and rising crime. Most interesting, perhaps, is O'Donnell's recounting of Nixon's convention maneuvers, from his manipulation of Strom Thurmond and other conservatives wavering towards Ronald Reagan to John Lindsay's quixotic bid for Vice President, which he views as the last stand of Republican liberals. Not to mention the account of Nixon's sabotaging the Paris Peace Talks, an old topic now but still brazen enough to shock. But O'Donnell portrait of Nixon is the least-interesting aspect of the book, except perhaps his facile characterization of George Wallace, about whom he has little to say beyond obvious, shopworn comparisons to Donald Trump.
While not as thorough or densely detailed as other works on this election (Perlstein's Nixonland or Chester and Hodgson's old An American Melodrama), Playing With Fire still offers a compelling narrative of a tumultuous time, capturing the year's anger and confusion, sound and fury, riots and reaction in vivid detail. No one reading this book will come away doubting that most of the problems America faces today - an electorate deeply, angrily and often violently divided along racial, sectional and political lines, politicians who are all image and little substance, candidatesdoing anything, up to and including colluding with foreign governments, to win without being called to account - stem from 1968.
June 15, 2018
This is an intense political history, focused on the events of the 1968 US Presidential election. It covers a dozen people, from candidates to the sitting President. There are two assassinations, multiple protest, and one terrible, unwinnable war. Not exactly light reading. But O'Donnell weaves the stories together into a compelling account. I'm very glad I read it, even though it took me a long time.
Full review at TheBibliophage.com.
Full review at TheBibliophage.com.
August 18, 2025
Incredible book. O'Donnell definitely put the time in to research this book extremely thoroughly, and to show what a wild and multi-faceted election cycle this was. I wasn't alive then, and even my parents were just kids, but the repercussions of this election can still be felt to this day.
One of the things that struck me was the anti-war movement, and how it impacted the election cycle. I kept thinking of the parallels between the 1968 cycle and the 2024 cycle, and how the conflict in Gaza impacted the US election. The protests at Harris rallies and in the streets and such. I know that wasn't the ONLY factor impacting it - there was also the fact that Harris was a woman, was Indian & Black, was picking up the campaign/candidacy late (by today's standards anyway), and so on... but I cannot help but think that Gaza was a wedge, and that the perfect was made the enemy of the good, and the result is further harm under the administration we ended up with. Again.
And I am INCREDIBLY conflicted about this aspect. I am anti-war. I am for peace. I am for justice and equality and fairness and freedom. But I'm also a realist and a pragmatist, and to me it was so easy to see that this division only served those who don't care about Gaza at all. Sigh.
I commend Eugene McCarthy's desire to run to facilitate ending the Vietnam war - especially after learning about the manipulation that was used to get us into it. Wanting to end needless death is never a bad idea. But politics is ugly and greedy and self-serving, and with a crowded field, a bunch of wishy-washy, will-he/won't-he contenders, his commendable policy based intentions were never going to be enough. I cannot believe how many different people were in & out and how convoluted and messy it all was, and then for it to end in such a violent convention! Really crazy.
I was so surprised that Johnson kept undermining his own party in so many ways by giving Nixon inside info and asking him to not act on it. Like, I know I'm a jaded cynic who has lived with the repercussions of what politics have become since then, but I was internally screaming at Johnson's lack of sense. Ugh.
I found myself really feeling for McCarthy, and I can tell that O'Donnell really respects him. Not only for the fact that his decision to run really opened the flood gates for the 1968 election contention and showing that the status quo can be impacted and changed, it is not set in stone, but for doing so because he felt that it was the moral and ethical thing to do if nobody else would do it. Sometimes it doesn't turn out as hoped, but even that is still progress.
O'Donnell's epilogues at the end really reframed the perspective for me in a way that the rest of the book didn't. The whole time as I was listening I was disappointed in how much of a chaotic mess it was, and how it was all for nothing and we ended up with Noxious Nixon and 5 more years of war anyway - exactly what McCarthy was trying to avoid... And yet, O'Donnell's framing is one of gratitude and hope and optimism.
Without McCarthy's courage to run against his own party's incumbent, would the same attention have been brought to the war? Would the same pressure have built to push for ending it, saving who knows how many lives? Likely not.
This was an incredible book, and I definitely see myself re-reading it at some point.
One of the things that struck me was the anti-war movement, and how it impacted the election cycle. I kept thinking of the parallels between the 1968 cycle and the 2024 cycle, and how the conflict in Gaza impacted the US election. The protests at Harris rallies and in the streets and such. I know that wasn't the ONLY factor impacting it - there was also the fact that Harris was a woman, was Indian & Black, was picking up the campaign/candidacy late (by today's standards anyway), and so on... but I cannot help but think that Gaza was a wedge, and that the perfect was made the enemy of the good, and the result is further harm under the administration we ended up with. Again.
And I am INCREDIBLY conflicted about this aspect. I am anti-war. I am for peace. I am for justice and equality and fairness and freedom. But I'm also a realist and a pragmatist, and to me it was so easy to see that this division only served those who don't care about Gaza at all. Sigh.
I commend Eugene McCarthy's desire to run to facilitate ending the Vietnam war - especially after learning about the manipulation that was used to get us into it. Wanting to end needless death is never a bad idea. But politics is ugly and greedy and self-serving, and with a crowded field, a bunch of wishy-washy, will-he/won't-he contenders, his commendable policy based intentions were never going to be enough. I cannot believe how many different people were in & out and how convoluted and messy it all was, and then for it to end in such a violent convention! Really crazy.
I was so surprised that Johnson kept undermining his own party in so many ways by giving Nixon inside info and asking him to not act on it. Like, I know I'm a jaded cynic who has lived with the repercussions of what politics have become since then, but I was internally screaming at Johnson's lack of sense. Ugh.
I found myself really feeling for McCarthy, and I can tell that O'Donnell really respects him. Not only for the fact that his decision to run really opened the flood gates for the 1968 election contention and showing that the status quo can be impacted and changed, it is not set in stone, but for doing so because he felt that it was the moral and ethical thing to do if nobody else would do it. Sometimes it doesn't turn out as hoped, but even that is still progress.
O'Donnell's epilogues at the end really reframed the perspective for me in a way that the rest of the book didn't. The whole time as I was listening I was disappointed in how much of a chaotic mess it was, and how it was all for nothing and we ended up with Noxious Nixon and 5 more years of war anyway - exactly what McCarthy was trying to avoid... And yet, O'Donnell's framing is one of gratitude and hope and optimism.
Without McCarthy's courage to run against his own party's incumbent, would the same attention have been brought to the war? Would the same pressure have built to push for ending it, saving who knows how many lives? Likely not.
This was an incredible book, and I definitely see myself re-reading it at some point.
June 16, 2021
Slightly better than average, gives a great picture of mainstream presidential politics in 1968 but very little insight into the passion in the streets. The history of racial tension in America before the Sixties (particularly the brutal racism of the Irish) is rigorously suppressed.
Take the case of Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago. O'Donnell condemns the mayor for turning loose the Chicago Police on hippy protestors outside the Democratic Convention in 1968. This was supposed to be a new low in American political life, something appalling and unprecedented. But O'Donnell doesn't mention the fact that in 1919 there was a terrifying race riot in Chicago that went on for days. Dozens of black men, women, and children were murdered by Irish mobs. One of the toughest mobs was called Regan's Colts, and one of the most vicious hoodlums in the mob was a seventeen year old kid named Richard Daley. That was political violence too. But O'Donnell has nothing to say about how Richard Daley became the man he was in 1968. He has nothing to say about the bone-deep hatred the Irish in Chicago felt for blacks newly arrived from the South.
Like most Irish-American journalists, O'Donnell is a bit of a sentimentalist at heart. Racial violence, murder, mutilation, those are merely quaint relics of yesteryear. O'Donnell doesn't think of the old Irish machine politicians as Klansmen or terrorists. They're just charming scamps, and almost everyone's life got "a little better" once the machine politicians took over America's cities. It's only when they started hurting white people that the machines became dangerous. O'Donnell is the kind of journalist who can't understand the present because he has no intention of confronting the past.
Take the case of Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago. O'Donnell condemns the mayor for turning loose the Chicago Police on hippy protestors outside the Democratic Convention in 1968. This was supposed to be a new low in American political life, something appalling and unprecedented. But O'Donnell doesn't mention the fact that in 1919 there was a terrifying race riot in Chicago that went on for days. Dozens of black men, women, and children were murdered by Irish mobs. One of the toughest mobs was called Regan's Colts, and one of the most vicious hoodlums in the mob was a seventeen year old kid named Richard Daley. That was political violence too. But O'Donnell has nothing to say about how Richard Daley became the man he was in 1968. He has nothing to say about the bone-deep hatred the Irish in Chicago felt for blacks newly arrived from the South.
Like most Irish-American journalists, O'Donnell is a bit of a sentimentalist at heart. Racial violence, murder, mutilation, those are merely quaint relics of yesteryear. O'Donnell doesn't think of the old Irish machine politicians as Klansmen or terrorists. They're just charming scamps, and almost everyone's life got "a little better" once the machine politicians took over America's cities. It's only when they started hurting white people that the machines became dangerous. O'Donnell is the kind of journalist who can't understand the present because he has no intention of confronting the past.
November 22, 2017
I received my copy through a Goodreads giveaway. I own White's The Making of the President 1968 and An American Melodrama; what else did I need to know about the tragic, tumultuous and eventful election of 1968? With the hindsight of 50 years and the election of 2016-PLENTY! I enjoy the author on MSNBC and was a fan of The West Wing which he produced; but O'Donnell is also a great writer who in these pages blends the past with the recent-the rise of Trump and Trumpism in the GOP. It hovers over these pages which bring to life the long departed: the ill cast and reluctant Eugene McCarthy, the tragic Bobby Kennedy, the ever controlling LBJ and the duplicitous Richard Nixon. An aside: as a 20 year old outside of the state Democratic convention in South Carolina I was thrilled when Hubert Humphrey shook my hand and called my name (from my name tag!). Four years later I mourned his passing; these pages remind me why I did not like him in 1968 as a candidate as he remained under the heavy thumb of LBJ. O'Donnell's account of the Chicago riots at the Democratic convention is detailed and colorful. As a native of South Carolina I well remember George Wallace campaign official (and later civil rights activist!) Tom Turnipseed (who could forget that name). Turnipseed and his wife both appear in these pages noting how watching the 2016 Trump campaign was so like George Wallace's ugly and race baiting 1968 run. In a similar vein the author recalls Pat Buchanan's appeal in his politics and notes Buchanan's honest assessment of how Trump's campaign succeeded on Buchanan's issues. But this is ultimately a well written history of a terrible and emotional campaign in a country torn apart by the Vietnam War. For all there is to criticize LBJ about, it is Richard Nixon's conniving in 1968 to underscore any peace overtures which also reverberates now as a campaign contacted a foreign government (in a time of war) to manipulate and sabotage a sitting administration and achieve electoral success-while American soldiers died! O'Donnell cites John Farrell's excellent new Nixon biography, and one also gains perspective reading both these works in light of Ken Burn's The Vietnam War. Indeed, O'Donnell raises the issue of treason in Nixon's campaign actions in 1968. This terrific book brings it all back, and I will treasure this ARC which I won through Goodreads as a reminder that times may be bad, but they've been bad before and we survived. We should learn from our history. We need leaders who know history. It repeats and sometimes tragically succeeds.
November 26, 2024
bobby kennedy still dies in this. richard nixon still becomes president. oh, he also commits treason! as it turns out, history doesnt suddenly change if you just read about it enough. but whatever, this was great. [actual review? maybe one day]
June 22, 2024
excellent account of a difficult time
August 21, 2024
This is an excellent, detailed analysis of events leading up to the 1972 DNC. I did not realize the corrupt dealings between Johnson and Nixon until this book.
February 2, 2018
An exceptional read. Like many other reviewers, I remember that election quite well, but I was young and in college, and thus distracted by life. I had no idea of all that was going on -- as no one could at the time it was all happening. O'Donnell lays it all out, both the events that made it to the daily newspapers and TV screens, and those that were taking place behind the scenes and weren't, in some cases, known until many years later: the secret deals and betrayals, moments of doubt and fury, the literally criminal -- and even traitorous -- acts done by the Nixon campaign, and so much more. O'Donnell may be guilty of overselling his argument that this was the election that forever changed American politics and elections, but any excesses are more than made up for by the examples that strike true. Every chapter is a revelation. And there is more than a hint of an echo of what is taking place in America today.
July 2, 2018
This was comprehensive, entertaining, filled in some knowledge gaps and most importantly for me had no sacred cows.
Covering the events that led all of the candidates up to the election, the pop culture elements, the assassinations, civil rights, the Vietnam war and everything else O'Donnell really sets the stage. Then he drives it some with a compelling tension of the events where you really see from the perspective of each candidate. Their mistakes, misgivings, flaws and triumphs all spelled out.
It's hard not to see the turbulent 60's as repeating themselves as race and economic divides dominate the news feeds and protestors are viewed as civil disruptors. A tale of caution as we move forward while stuck in the past.
Covering the events that led all of the candidates up to the election, the pop culture elements, the assassinations, civil rights, the Vietnam war and everything else O'Donnell really sets the stage. Then he drives it some with a compelling tension of the events where you really see from the perspective of each candidate. Their mistakes, misgivings, flaws and triumphs all spelled out.
It's hard not to see the turbulent 60's as repeating themselves as race and economic divides dominate the news feeds and protestors are viewed as civil disruptors. A tale of caution as we move forward while stuck in the past.
April 6, 2018
I was 12 during the 1968 election so I remember some of the events, the big ones like the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations. I remember liking Hubert Humphrey, mainly because he was a home state boy. This is a very detailed look at that election that was different from any election before it. The author has his own show on MSNBC.
December 20, 2017
Eerily relevant.
January 28, 2021
This is so... doggoned enlightened, fifty years on, from what we know, now, about influence and upheaval of 1968. I've never watched O'Donnell, missing out on MSNBC since it's first year, but you want to read this book, putting events, even crimes, in historical perspective.
Nixon is worse than we thought, documented here citing the recent biography by Richard Nixon: The Life John A. Farrell, documenting his treason to the Vietnam Peace Talks on the eve of November 1968 election through the conduit of Ann Chenault to Nguyen Van Thieu. As one of those with a perverse fascination with Nixon, I thought I had read about this in Steven Ambrose's biography. The telling here, in the concluding chapter, "The Perfect Crime," will chill you.
But the whole book is full of the twists and turns of contemporaries, full of resonance to the 2016 election cycle.
Especially, and this is the best book I've read about him, the late Senator Eugene McCarthy, and what made him tick, the testimony by Nick Katzenbach that drove McCarthy to run against LBJ, and for peace. There is an elegeic section in Epilogue, the "where are they now" stuff; here is a bit about Senator Eugene McCarthy.
"He made the bravest decision of any candidate in 1968, a decision that changed his party, changed the campaign, changed the antiwar movement into an important faction of the Democratic Party, and changed the course of history."
You need to read this.
Nixon is worse than we thought, documented here citing the recent biography by Richard Nixon: The Life John A. Farrell, documenting his treason to the Vietnam Peace Talks on the eve of November 1968 election through the conduit of Ann Chenault to Nguyen Van Thieu. As one of those with a perverse fascination with Nixon, I thought I had read about this in Steven Ambrose's biography. The telling here, in the concluding chapter, "The Perfect Crime," will chill you.
But the whole book is full of the twists and turns of contemporaries, full of resonance to the 2016 election cycle.
Especially, and this is the best book I've read about him, the late Senator Eugene McCarthy, and what made him tick, the testimony by Nick Katzenbach that drove McCarthy to run against LBJ, and for peace. There is an elegeic section in Epilogue, the "where are they now" stuff; here is a bit about Senator Eugene McCarthy.
"He made the bravest decision of any candidate in 1968, a decision that changed his party, changed the campaign, changed the antiwar movement into an important faction of the Democratic Party, and changed the course of history."
You need to read this.
October 29, 2022
Normally, I am hesitant to read history by Journalists because I feel like they know surface level stuff about the subject and act like they are they have been studying the topic their whole live. But this one is different. While I wouldn't say there was anything groundbreaking in the history, Mr. O'Donnell gives us insights into this book that one would not consider until reading this book. A great narrative history with the insight and political science that a skilled reporter like he has, O'Donnell paints a lovely, if chaotic picture of the '68 election, and the consequences of the event today. A masterful history that isn't a rehashing of the standard US History textbook edition, and he puts some unique personal details in the book, and a quick read. Highly recommend for political junkies.
December 18, 2017
"Playing With Fire" is an informative book about the trials and tribulations of the 1968 U.S. presidential election by MSNBC news host Lawrence O'Donnell. I like O'Donnell on TV. I wasn't sure I would feel the same way about him as an author. I did, however. O'Donnell was quite detailed and always remained on track. He didn't write with quite the panache of Jay Winik or David Halberstam. I could let that slide, however. Few historians are such fine stylists. To sum, "Playing With Fire" was, for me, worth the risk. I would happily read something else from Lawrence O'Donnell in the future.
December 5, 2024
In a word—phenomenal. I highly recommend listening to the audio because O’Donnell smooth voice made me feel like we were chatting over dinner. I have 2 degrees in History and O’Donnell’s writing is so exciting and engrossing that I wished he was my History Professor.
December 24, 2017
I had no particular interest in the 1968 election, but I like Lawrence O'Donnell a lot so I decided to give this a go and it was pretty interesting. I was 5 at the time, so obviously didn't realize what was going on around me.
Every time I read a book like this, I think wow - it was exactly the same then as now. From Lincoln on the Bardo, to this. So I wonder - is this just the way of politics? The divisiveness and all that goes with it - or are we reading into what happened then and likening it to now? The parallels are sometimes eerie.
This was a race with a lot of candidates and the Vietnam war and Civil Rights as platforms. It was a race that brought us our first anti-war candidate (Eugene McCarthy), our first televised right vs. left arguments (Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley) and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. It also gave us the birth of Fox News, and Roger Ailes as a political influencer.
There was a lot of fascinating stuff in this book. Details. Lots of details. Every minute little detail. Can you tell where I'm going with this? The book (for me) got bogged down in too much detail, which is why it was ultimately 3 stars.
It was a fascinating time, and parts of the book really gripped me, and other times I sad there and said yadda, yaddda, yadda, Nonetheless, I'm glad I read it.
Listened to audio read by Lawrence. It was well done.
Every time I read a book like this, I think wow - it was exactly the same then as now. From Lincoln on the Bardo, to this. So I wonder - is this just the way of politics? The divisiveness and all that goes with it - or are we reading into what happened then and likening it to now? The parallels are sometimes eerie.
This was a race with a lot of candidates and the Vietnam war and Civil Rights as platforms. It was a race that brought us our first anti-war candidate (Eugene McCarthy), our first televised right vs. left arguments (Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley) and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. It also gave us the birth of Fox News, and Roger Ailes as a political influencer.
There was a lot of fascinating stuff in this book. Details. Lots of details. Every minute little detail. Can you tell where I'm going with this? The book (for me) got bogged down in too much detail, which is why it was ultimately 3 stars.
It was a fascinating time, and parts of the book really gripped me, and other times I sad there and said yadda, yaddda, yadda, Nonetheless, I'm glad I read it.
Listened to audio read by Lawrence. It was well done.
January 3, 2018
Playing with fire is the best book on 1968 that I've read, Lawrence O'Donnell combines the social and political history of that time into one seamless narrative, The bulk of the book focuses on the campaign season that year highlighted by an almost a minute by minute analysis of each convention. He also offers probing character studies of each Candidate. The similarities between the Wallace campaign and the Trump campaign are startling and I hope the reader will pay them special attention.
At times I think the author stretches when trying to compare 68 to 2016… There's also a little bit too much hero worship of Eugene McCarthy and Al Lowenstein for me… But Lawrence is entitled to his opinion… That's his job and he's good at it.
Minor flaws aside this is a must read for anyone interested in politics, destined to become a classic of the genre and the future standard for every subsequent book on 1968.
At times I think the author stretches when trying to compare 68 to 2016… There's also a little bit too much hero worship of Eugene McCarthy and Al Lowenstein for me… But Lawrence is entitled to his opinion… That's his job and he's good at it.
Minor flaws aside this is a must read for anyone interested in politics, destined to become a classic of the genre and the future standard for every subsequent book on 1968.
July 4, 2018
So amazing to see how presidential elections were run in 1968. As the author states at the end of his book, there were so many “what if’s” that could have changed the course of history. One of the biggest being what if Bobby Kennedy hasn’t been assassinated? Would there never have been a “Watergate” because there would have never been a President Nixon. A lot to ponder. A great book for anyone interested in political elections and the behind the scenes intrigue of what power can do.
March 16, 2019
Detailed look at the year leading up to the '68 election. The book does a good job hitting the political and cultural concerns from one of the most turbulent years in American history.
8/10
8/10
Displaying 1 - 30 of 464 reviews