Chapter 31 A year full of problems-1

This year is the year of flu and hairstyles in Hong Kong.The 121-year-old Pennsylvania Railroad merged with the 114-year-old New York Central Railroad, and service deteriorated doubly.The postage for the first category increased from five cents to six cents per ounce. Helen Keller, Edna Faber, and John Steinbeck were all American writers. — translators die, Maia Farrow and Frank Sinatra get divorced, and the U.S. ambassador to Guatemala is assassinated. The Willard Hotel in Washington declared bankruptcy.At least seven presidents, starting with Franklin Pierce, have stayed at the hotel.Red China (as it was still called then) exploded its seventh atomic bomb.France explodes its first hydrogen bomb.Hitler's remains turned up in Russia.Plutonium-235 from the wreckage of a U.S. Strategic Air Command B-52 crashed near Thule in Greenland has contaminated several square miles of the ice sheet.This is the 13th such accident.There was a famine in Biafra, Nigeria.

Some things go well.Barbra Streisand is great in "Funny Girl."Julie Nixon married David Eisenhower.Television censors removed footage of Pete Seeger singing an anti-war song from the Smathers Brothers show, only to change their mind six months later and allow him to sing an anti-war song.Human organ transplantation became very popular this year, although only one out of four patients survived for more than half a year.According to the Washington Daily News, one in eight Americans receives Social Security benefits.Little Tim quietly walked onto the stage.The ACLU decided to support draft evaders. "Everyone Laughs" offers several interesting wall banners: "Little Orphan Annie - Call 'Eye Bank' An eye bank means a storehouse of people's eyes for transplantation by others." - Translator ’, ‘Here’s your slum – you keep it clean’, ‘Forest fires keep out bears’, ‘George Wallace – your crime file is ready’ etc.The publisher produced John Updike's Twos and Twos, Charles Portis's True Courage, and Peter Devries's Cat's Pajamas and Witch's Milk.Ellen Drury's "Preservation and Conservation" also came out this year. "When will Drewley stop writing and rest?" asked Time magazine.

The budget of the Ministry of National Defense for this year has been revealed to be as high as 72 billion yuan, an unprecedented amount, which is disturbing. From this we can see the general trend of the situation. (Roosevelt was accused of turning the country into a workhouse when his national budget was only $8.8 billion.) New Jersey Congressman Charles Joelson learned that the language of the arms control bill had been watered down. Discomfited by the new figure, he replied, "But hundreds of thousands of Americans could die." The U.S. Census Bureau and the Public Roads Administration announced that there were 99.9 million registered cars nationwide, with 78.6 % of households own at least one car, and one in four households owns two or more.As a result, the serious situation of traffic congestion in the United States has been exacerbated.Most of the men under the age of 21 have sideburns and wear flared trousers.When young people say yes to something, call it "awesome" or "brave" or "boundary," and if you disagree, you're either mediocre or stupid.

This year, the horse "Dancing Shadow" won the Kentucky Derby, but was later disqualified due to allegations of doping in advance; to the runner-up. In West Virginia, the Consolidated Coal Company's No. 9 mine exploded, killing 78 people.The wreck of the U.S. submarine Scorpion, which killed 99 people, was the biggest naval disaster of the year, but it was dwarfed by the shocking encounter of another U.S. ship in North Korean waters. The USS Pueblo, a generic "technical survey ship," as the Pentagon calls it, is actually an electronic search ship full of antennas and sophisticated radar installations that allow it to sail slowly through the Sea of ​​Japan. While monitoring various situations that occur with electronic devices on land in North Korea.As long as it stays more than 12 miles away, that would have been perfectly legal.The North Koreans are also fully aware of the ship.During the first two weeks of its first mission in 1968, the North Koreans tried to jam it with patrol boats and low-skimming MiGs.So on January 23, the crew were not surprised when a fleet of torpedo boats approached and began to surround the Pueblo.Then one of the boats gave a signal: "Stop or I'm going to fire!" This was new.The captain, Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd Booker, replied, "I'm in international waters." The torpedo boat said, "Follow me." .Seeing that the fenders of the ship were equipped with anti-collision rope pads and rubber tubes, Booker immediately telegraphed to the base in Japan and said: "These guys are going to do it." Before the other party's people boarded the ship, he ordered The crew tried their best to destroy the secret equipment on the intelligence ship, tore apart the codes, and used sledgehammers, axes, grenades, etc. to destroy the ship's installations.

The entire United States was shocked by the news that a ship of the US Navy had been captured.It was the first time the British captured the USS Chesapeake in 1807.Dean Rusk said it was an "extremely serious incident" and an "act of war".Republican Senator Wallace Bennett of Utah demanded that U.S. warships be sent to storm Wonsan Harbor to recapture the "Pueblo" and rescue the crew.Democratic Senator Thomas Dodd wants the Navy to hijack any North Korean-flagged vessel "that is at sea."However, most people in Washington still agree with Rusk's opinion and maintain a calm attitude.Carl Monte of North Dakota (who is not an appeaser) pointed out: "We have enough troubles with war now, so why bother." Others in Congress also believe that war will only make "Pueb The crew of the "Lo" suffered disaster.I asked the Soviet Union to mediate twice, but both hit a wall.Arthur Goldberg, a former Supreme Court justice and then ambassador to the United Nations, tried unsuccessfully to get the UN Security Council involved.

In the end, representatives from the United States and North Korea negotiated a settlement in the lead-roofed huts in Panmunjom. It is here that the armies of the two sides reached an armistice agreement 15 years ago.At the same time, the North Korean Central News Agency broadcast Lieutenant Colonel Booker's so-called confession, admitting to "crimes" and "blatant acts of aggression" that it was "unreasonable."There was also an open letter written by the lieutenant colonel and the crew saying that they had "got all the necessities of life", but it read like an exaggeration, written almost entirely in pidgin English, which was unsettling.Signs appeared on American cars calling for "Don't Forget the Pueblo," as if anyone would ever forget.

A week after the Pueblo was hijacked, the North Vietnamese launched their most spectacular offensive yet, three thousand miles to the south.General Westmoreland foresaw this move and thought he knew the target was Khe San, the huge base of the United States Marine Corps.Khe Sanh resembled Dien Bien Phu in many respects, lying at the bottom of a basin between bomb-cratered red clay hills and lying across the main southward infiltration route of Communist "enemies."An American major explained to reporters: "This is the cork. If they can get past here, they will take all the countryside to the coast."

The basin was indeed a target for an enemy attack, and the North Vietnamese threw in 20,000 troops.It was besieged for 76 days, and then the siege was broken by Operation Pegasus, which involved 30,000 US troops.But Khe San was not the main target of General Vo Nguyen Giap. His plan was to attack almost all the large and small settlements in South Vietnam. On the evening of January 30 (Tuesday), people in various cities in South Vietnam celebrated the Lunar New Year's Eve as usual with a resigned attitude.The next day is the New Year's Day of the Year of the Monkey, the most unlucky day of the year, even worse than people imagined.If people were good at observing, there would be signs everywhere.For example, there are many young and strong strangers who enter various towns on sampans, scooters or bicycles.Also, the funeral procession was astonishingly large, and they all beat gongs, played flutes, set off firecrackers, and carried coffins (it turned out later that the coffins were not filled with corpses) according to old customs.Just after midnight, when the New Year's celebrations were fast asleep, the strangers (all members of the Viet Cong's elite unit) assembled and simultaneously attacked every vital point in the capital and a hundred other cities from south to north: the police station , military bases, government offices, radio stations and power stations, and foreign embassies including the U.S. embassy, ​​etc.After the US embassy was attacked by terrorists not long ago, it just spent 2.5 million yuan to rebuild it.

A total of about 60,000 Viet Cong troops participated in the Tet Offensive.After a 25-day offensive, they took control of a vast rural area including most of the Mekong Delta.American and South Vietnamese troops later drove them away from the large population centers step by step.In Hue, the old capital city, the fiercest fighting took place, and 70% of the houses were destroyed.In Ben Tre, it was only after air raids and shelling that the communist forces were defeated there.A U.S. military officer made an unforgettable comment on the Battle of Ben Tre afterwards: "In order to save the city, the city had to be destroyed." After counting the number of dead, it was found that the enemy's corpses were much more than those of the U.S. Army and the South Vietnamese army. The U.S. military commanders proudly declared that they had won the battle.President Johnson told a press conference that from a military point of view, the Viet Cong offensive was "a complete failure.""Clearly, ... its military objectives were not met," Secretary McNamara said in a televised address.

"If that's a failure," said Senator George Aiken of Vermont, "I hope the Viet Cong never achieve a major victory." The Spring Festival campaign is regarded as "some kind of victory".Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota said: "If the capture of part of the American embassy and a few major cities counted as a complete failure, by that logic, I think that if the Viet Cong had taken all of South Vietnam, the government would have declared their total collapse. " Another senator probably expressed the feelings of the vast majority of Americans. He felt incomprehensible and asked: "What's going on? Doesn't it mean that we are winning this war?" Indeed, the government earlier That's what was told to the people of the country.Only two months before, General Westmoreland had reported that there was light at the end of the tunnel.And that is the case now.

As David Halberstam later pointed out, the real casualty of the Tet Offensive was "whether the US strategy of attrition is credible at all"; Westmoreland, "whether Johnson's most important political ally today is credible" .If Westmoreland was no longer credible on the war question, neither was Johnson.Johnson's government had begun to unravel, with John Gardner resigning as secretary of health, education and welfare, Goldberg resigning from the United Nations, and McNamara leaving the Pentagon to be replaced by Clark Clifford. By April 19, 1968, the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam had increased to 549,000, and the number of casualties reached 22,951. By June 23 (Sunday), this war had surpassed the War of Independence and became the largest war in U.S. history. The longest war ever.Both of President Johnson's sons-in-law were in Vietnam, which would have engendered sympathy for him at other times, but now the resentment for the war runs too deep.Conscription evaders and deserters from the Army Corps established colonies in Canada and Sweden.Then, as summer approached and the 1968 bipartisan national conventions approached, two events prompted the ranks of protesters to grow.One is that General Westmoreland requested an additional 206,000 troops, and the other is that his headquarters announced that "the Khe San base in Quang Tri Province has been discontinued." It is too great a sacrifice for this cork.To cost the Marines so much wasted that bravery, and now the general doesn't want it at all. On April 10, the White House announced that the commander of the US military in Vietnam had changed.Beginning June 30, the new leader will be Westmoreland's classmate at West Point, Gen. Creighton Abrams. (According to Time magazine: "The New England general was strong and outspoken. . . . He could cheer up even a begonia.") What was needed was someone who could lead an orderly retreat, because It became increasingly clear that sooner or later that was the way to go.It was once hoped that this would happen soon. In May, Hanoi proposed to hold peace talks in Paris, which was scheduled to start on May 10 at the old Majestic Hotel, with Averill Harriman and Chun Shui as their opponents.Chun Suwon was Ho Chi Minh's foreign minister and retired three years ago. However, no changes occurred.After six weeks of tortuous diplomatic negotiations, representatives from both sides showed up in the same room and then argued with each other over the shape of the conference table.Meanwhile, the enemy stepped up his offensive, turning May into one of the bloodiest months, with 2,000 American deaths.Speaking at the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, President Johnson said there could be no talk of a ceasefire without the Viet Cong showing some "restraint."Harriman suggested to him that this seemed unlikely.Clark Clifford visited Vietnam and reported that the Communists were "reassembling, regrouping, rearming" for a new blitzkrieg.General Abrams studied Westmoreland's new campaign plan, code-named "Operation Total Victory." Senator Eugene McCarthy, already annoyed at Nick Katzenbach's reckless assertion that the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was a legal basis for war in Vietnam, heard Dean Rusk say in October 1967, "A billion Chinese People" are the real threat to the security of the United States, and they are even more angry.He later said: "At this point, I think I should call for an armistice." Encouraged by antiwar leader Arad Lowenstein, who was seeking a presidential candidate, the Minnesota senator formally offered to run for the New Hampshire presidential primaries.Polls predict that McCarthy will get at most 20% of the Democratic vote, but there are two factors in his favor. One is the Tet offensive of the North Vietnamese and the other is the support of thousands of college students who volunteer to work for it. These people shaved their beards , scrubbed clean, and dressed "refreshed for Eugene." Primary elections were held on March 12, and McCarthy received a surprising 42% of the vote to Johnson's 48%.If the number of votes turned to the Republican Party is also included, he received 28,791 votes to Johnson's 29,201, almost defeating the president.Immediately everyone felt that Johnson was beatable, and the most important immediate consequence of this vote was the effect on Robert Kennedy.Kennedy did not participate in the primary election. He also announced on January 20: "Under any foreseeable circumstances, I will not confront Lyndon Johnson." An election would split the party "very harmfully".At this time, he said that he was "re-evaluating" his status.On the Saturday after the New Hampshire primary, to the delight of his supporters — and the rage of McCarthy — he declared: “Today I announce my candidacy for President of the United States.” Then came the massive primary in Wisconsin, which turned out badly for Johnson.His organization was disintegrating, and even the sons and daughters of Democratic politicians loyal to him were falling for McCarthy.Kennedy didn't run in the caucuses there, but the papers reported every day that he was growing.Theo Do Sorensen, Kenneth O'Donnell, and Arthur Schlesinger all joined his campaign, and Lawrence O'Brien resigned from the Postal Service to run his campaign Secretary duties.With this situation in mind, President Johnson made a televised speech on March 31.He said he had ordered a reduction in bombing in Vietnam and spoke of competition at home and "all the evil that has come out of it."He said the country needed to be united.Then he said: I have finally decided that I should not have the presidency involved with the growing partisan divisions of this election year...I don't think I should spend a day or an hour of my time for personal partisan reasons...for this , I will not seek nor accept my party's nomination to run for the next president. After the shock of Johnson's exit from the race wore off, it was clear that the race for the Democratic nomination would be a trio of McCarthy, Kennedy and, as long as he was comfortable announcing it, Vice President Humphrey.Of the three, only McCarthy had participated in the primary in Wisconsin against the president.It was too late to remove the president's name from the list of candidates.McCarthy received 57.6 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, while Nixon received 81.3 percent of the Republican primary.Nixon's worst opponents were George Romney and Nelson Rockefeller. Humphrey announced his candidacy on April 27.McCarthy narrowly led in Oregon, and in every other state Kennedy won.Kennedy's most powerful stand was against the war and defending the interests of the poor and powerless.Black movement leaders were his natural allies, most notably Martin Luther King.King had seen Vietnam as the greatest obstacle to black progress.Negroes were overrepresented in combat units and money that should have been spent in the ghetto was spent on the war."No one can argue that the existence of war does not seriously affect the fate of the civil rights movement," King declared. In April 1968, Kim was in Memphis, supporting a two-month strike by 1,300 garbage collectors, mostly black.He first lived in a luxury Holiday Inn at 29 yuan a day, which attracted the ridicule of the newspapers, and then moved to a Lorraine motel run by blacks for 13 yuan a day. Before dinner on April 4, he was leaning on the iron railing outside Room 300 on the second floor, talking with several colleagues downstairs.At this time, in an ordinary apartment building across the street, there was a sniper crouching, holding a 30.06 caliber Remington air rifle equipped with a scope.He fired a shot, and the bullet penetrated King's neck and exploded behind his jaw, shattering the neck bone.He fell back over the railing, leaning against the hotel wall, his stiff hands stretched out to his head. Martin Luther King Jr. was the greatest nonviolent advocate after Gandhi, but the last irony of his life was that his death caused the worst arson, robbery and other criminal offenses in American history Activity.168 towns were damaged, with Washington hardest hit, with 711 arson incidents. "Pick up the guns!" Stokely Carmichael said to the Negroes, and many of them did.In the capital alone, ten people were killed, including a white man who was dragged from a car and stabbed to death.President Johnson ordered flags to be flown at half-mast on all Confederate buildings, a courtesy never before seen by a black man, but the terror continued.Some buildings within a few blocks of the White House were also set on fire.According to national statistics, there were 2600 arson incidents, 2600 people were arrested, and 21270 people were injured.To restore order, the government sent 55,000 soldiers, ten times the number of marines defending Khe San. Amid black hymns and church bells, an old rural cart pulled by two mules carried Martin Luther King Jr.'s coffin to the cemetery.An estimated 120 million Americans watched the funeral procession on television.There were 50,000 to 100,000 people attending the funeral, including most of the national leaders, such as Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, Nelson Rockefeller, Hubert Humphrey and so on.The funeral was held in Georgia, but Governor Lester Maddox did not attend.Maddox refused to suspend schools and opposed flag flying at half-staff.But the man he didn't want to commemorate would never again be hurt by this stubbornness.His epitaph, engraved in Georgian marble, is taken from an old slave hymn; the line King himself used to conclude his speech five years before marching on Washington: finally liberated, finally liberated; Thank God I was liberated at last. When the sniper rented the room where he shot and killed, he called himself John Willard, which turned out to be Eric Stavor Galt's pseudonym, and Galt was also a pseudonym.Those present saw him flee in a white Mustang with Alabama license plates and a Mexican tourist sticker, which was later dumped in Atlanta, Georgia.The CIA learned that this individual paid $2,000 (cash) for the car, under the name Galt.Now, police all over the world are looking for the fugitive.He fled to Toronto and took on a new alias, Ramon George Snyder.He went through the bare minimum (swears that's his name) to obtain a Canadian passport.He used 345 yuan to buy a tour ticket to Europe, stayed in Portugal for two days, and then flew to London.After arriving in London, he disappeared suddenly, no doubt thinking that nothing would happen to him from now on.