Interview: Luke Nichter, author of new book about Richard Nixon and the 1968 Presidential Campaign

In a first at SD METRO, Associate Editor Doug Page interviewed Luke Nichter, author of a newly published book about the 1968 Presidential Election between former Vice President Richard Nixon, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, via a recorded Zoom call, placed on YouTube.

1968 was a tumultuous year, witnessing two assassinations of significant Americans, civil rights activist and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tenn., and U. S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, (D-N.Y.), the younger brother of the late President John F. Kennedy, in Los Angeles shortly after winning the Democratic Presidential Primary in California.

In Vietnam in 1968, the United States suffered the most U.S. servicemen killed during the war, nearly 17,000 deaths.

Nixon became the first – and, so far, only – native Californian to be elected president.

Nichter, a history professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., shows collusion between President Johnson and the Nixon campaign and mentions what many will see as the most unlikely conduit between the two. He also shows why Johnson provided such little support to his vice president in his effort to succeed him.

During the interview with SD METRO, Nichter discusses the demons both Johnson and Nixon carried throughout their lives and discusses the politician who suggested the hypothesis for the book, which is its conclusion. He also goes into Nixon’s career, how Nixon’s upbringing influenced his view of the world and his value of diplomacy, especially as it applies to the war between Hamas and Israel.

Nichter’s book, titled The Year That Broke Politics, comes with a 26-page bibliography, where he lists the 85 people he interviewed on behalf of the book, the majority of whom were close to or worked with either Johnson, Nixon or Humphrey. 

Nichter is also the author of a previously published book, entitled, The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., and the Making of the Cold War. 

Nichter’s new book was published by Yale University Press this year. 

The interview is found here.