South Bend, May 7, 1968
Robert Kennedy in the Indiana Primary
Today’s Primary in Indiana has inasmuch drawn national attention as it was the first confrontation between Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy in an open election. Robert Kennedy won the election with 42% of the Democratic votes, vs. 31% for Roger D. Branigin, the Governor of Indiana who stood in as proxy for Vice President Hubert Humphrey. 27% of the Democratic votes went to McCarthy. Kennedy regarded the Indiana Primary as a decisive test for his chances to win the presidential election. He used all means at his disposition, put in every effort, and spared no trouble or the strains, which crisscrossing Indiana demanded. The name Kennedy exerted a magic attraction. Wherever he stopped on the campaign trail, a crowd of people gathered around him among whom he mingled fearlessly shaking hands. In this campaign, Robert Kennedy brought his own personality to the fore. He won the strongest votes, at times up to 60%, in the industrial centers, in the big cities, and among the colored population who stood solidly behind him. Academics and college students were divided between Kennedy and McCarthy. The McCarthy campaign attracted large numbers of volunteers from among high school and college students. They saw in him the first candidate who had the courage to stand up against Johnson and the War in Vietnam.
Robert Kennedy had started his campaign in Indiana on April 4 in South Bend with a rally on the Notre Dame campus. Upon his arrival at noon at the St. Joseph County Regional Airport, a large crowd of his supporters had assembled. His convoy drove through the city to Notre Dame where a campaign rally had been scheduled for 2 p.m. As my wife and I drove through the Notre Dame campus that afternoon, we almost collided with the car of Robert Kennedy. We were driving slowly on the winding road along the small St. Joseph Lake, when in a curve suddenly the car of Robert Kennedy was coming toward us. Ethel Kennedy, who sat behind her husband in the car, flinched instantly, and we also were momentarily shocked, but Robert Kennedy did not turn a hair. Despite a light snow flurry, he stood upright in the open cabriolet and showed his typical friendly smile. Kennedy was on his way to Stepan Center, where about 5,000 students who had been waiting for him gave him a rousing welcome. That was the beginning of a brilliant campaign in Indiana from which Robert Kennedy emerged as a credible candidate for the American presidency.
[The University of Notre Dame Archives hold extensive records and news reports of this campaign rally, see UDIS Box 97, File 18, 1968-73.]
South Bend, [Beginning of May] 1968
The General Strike in France
The irony of Charles de Gaulle’s political fortunes has it that at the very moment, when he was triumphantly welcomed on his state visit to Communist Romania, he was attacked from behind by the Communists at home. Set off by the student unrests at the Sorbonne, France has been thrown into the most serious strike crisis since World War II. After the unions had called a general strike, about 10 million people walked out of their jobs. Thereby, the entire public service has practically been paralyzed. In extreme cases, workers have occupied factories. This radical confrontation of the entire French work force with the government may well signal the end of Gaullism, even if the present crisis will be temporarily averted. The dilemma of Gaullist politics could not have been more drastically exposed. De Gaulle used Europe as an effective slogan. Pursuing national self-interests, he has been playing great power politics, although the prerequisites for doing so have been missing.
[Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), general, first President of the Fifth Republic, 1959-69. After he had lost the referendum of April 27, 1969, he resigned. Charles de Gaulle died on November 9, 1970.]
South Bend, May 10, 1968
The Student Unrests in Europe
The student unrests at the Sorbonne were not just demonstrations but an outright revolution. The system of higher education in Europe has been shaken to its foundations. Regrettably, the justified demands for reforms have been misused by agitators and led into a direction not compatible with universities. The unfortunate combination of student organizations with political parties is taking its toll, for every student demonstration can be used for political purposes and provoke a state crisis. What happened this spring at the Universities of Paris, Rome, Torino, Milan , Brussels, Vienna, London, and Stockholm was outrageous. Those were the most destructive student unrests in the history of European universities. It was common practice to seize university buildings and to hold them like fortresses. It was a revolt against any kind of civil order, and for that reason difficult to control. To compare the student unrests in Europe with those in America would be an obvious thing to do. However, the unrests in Europe are based on very different assumptions.
Student Unrests in America
Starting in Berkeley, California, student unrests in America have become a daily occurrence. But in contrast to Europe, these revolts are not so much directed against overcrowded lecture halls, the form of instruction and study facilities as against the War in Vietnam and the draft. It has already become a routine that radical student groups occupy administration buildings on college and university campuses, whereby the entire institution comes to a stand still. If, under these circumstances, the president calls in the police because the security forces on campus are not capable to cope with the situation, violent confrontations erupt. The most spectacular riot happened toward the end of April at Columbia University in New York. A group of radical students seized the office of the president and destroyed everything they could get their hands on.