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All this merely prefaced a new year which put in question most of the assumptions on which the U.S. based its foreign power as well as its domestic politics and peace. In January came the first seizure of a U.S. warship on the high seas in more than 150 years—not by some great naval nation but by North Korea, which escaped unscathed. North Viet Nam launched the Tet offensive, stunning Saigon and temporarily capturing Hue. By February, George Romney was an ex-presidential candidate, while Nelson Rockefeller played Hamlet, thus opening the way for Richard Nixon, the perennial loser, whose chances had been so widely written off. Whoever expected a Senator with a professorial past, who sometimes bored his audiences, to defy the President and win the New Hampshire primary?
Not Robert Kennedy, who, as everyone had pointed out, would wait four more years—but then rushed into the race after McCarthy's victory. Not Lyndon Johnson, who, as practically everyone had" been betting, would run again—but who then announced his abdication and partial de-escalation in Viet Nam. (Everyone had learned to expect such sudden surprises from 1968, and from L.B.J., that till the last moment there was doubt if he really meant it.)
Suddenly, death began stalking the nation's most creative leaders. Sudden ly, faceless men sought fame by mag-nicide, the killing of someone big. In April the murder of Martin Luther King ignited Negro riots in 125 cities that killed 46 people, injured 2,600, and required 55,000 troops to restore order. In June came the second Kennedy assassination, an unbelievable replay of the first, including a blind-chance killer, a meaningless motive, and national grief for a dramatic young leader cut down at the threshold of his powers.
Meantime, assorted student protests roiled Belgium, Britain, Egypt, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Spain and West Germany. Out went the U.S. tradition of universities policing adolescents in loco parentis. At Columbia, student rebels captured the campus, destroyed a tottering adult empire (last week President Grayson Kirk resigned), and inspired more demonstrations in France, where once-passive students turned anarchist and incited a nationwide general strike that nearly toppled
Charles de Gaulle from power. Though a nervous majority later gave De Gaulie more power than ever, his government may soon soothe the students with widespread educational reforms.
The rush of action seemed headlong and haphazard, but there was a rationale behind it. Everywhere, a vast yearning for new freedoms and fulfillments is sweeping Communist, capitalist and ex-colonial nations alike. In spired by mass communications, tutored by the pioneering young, millions want more—and feel more frustrated when affluence, equality and education are too slowly achieved. In this heated situation, old institutions are too often archaic and unresponsive to change. Instead of plunging forward with history, the Kremlin fears the Czech disease of freedom. The Vatican is impelled to ban the pill. Congress rejects effective gun regulation. Whatever the issue or nation, something loosely called the "establishment" resists aspiration and innovation. The global result is growing impatience with old political processes; a desire for direct action is inflaming minds and causing almost daily clashes that defy law and logic.