1967 – a year of sweeping social change, primarily among the youth and countercultures. A year of turning corners and taking long, hard looks at our Foreign Policy among those on Capitol Hill.
Senate Majority leader Mike Mansfield (D-Montana) was guest on this episode of ABC Radio’s Issues and Answers. He gives a report card on how the President is doing in terms of domestic issues – taxes, poverty and race relations.
For the most part, Mansfield is upbeat and gives a positive assessment of the Vietnam War and our Foreign Policy in other areas. But the bottom line was; Vietnam was slowly turning into a protracted excursion with some estimating our presence in Southeast Asia would be for at least 10 more years..
Some information on Mansfield via the U.S. Senate site:
Serving as Democratic whip when Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson resigned in 1961 to become vice president, Mike Mansfield was a logical choice to succeed Johnson. He was reluctant to become floor leader, however, being a Catholic at a time when the nation had just elected its first Catholic president. President John Kennedy and Vice President Johnson convinced him to take the job, and Mansfield served a record-setting 16 years as majority leader. His style of leadership, which shared power widely among senators, facilitated enactment of a profusion of legislation in the 1960s and ’70s. He was particularly instrumental in guiding the strategy that broke a filibuster and allowed for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1998, 21 years after leaving office, Mansfield returned to the Capitol to inaugurate the Leader’s Lecture Series.
But 1967 was still relatively new – this broadcast is from March of that year. There was a lot to happen over the coming nine months, and 1968 would be another story entirely.
But to give you some idea of the political mood in the country, certainly one as seen from Capitol Hill and not Main street – here is that episode of ABC Radio’s Issues and Answers for March 4, 1967.
