Six events in January 1973 changed American politics forever.  Read about these events and their interconnections.  These events marked a major turning point and explain much about the current state of deadlock in the government of the United States.

Harry Truman died the day after Christmas 1972.  His memorial service in Washington, D. C., would take place on January 5, 1973.  

His death was a marker and had connections to the other great stories of January 1973.

Dean Francis B. Sayre of the Washington National Cathedral.  Sayre was Woodrow Wilson's grandson, the last child born in the White House.  Bess Truman selected Sayre to deliver Truman's eulogy.  Nixon referred to Sayre as "an ass" and obsessed over how he could avoid the memorial service even though he would be in Washington on January 5.  Nixon's animus for Sayre arose from two things: (1) Sayre was a vocal opponent to the Vietnam War and led protests outside the White House; and (2) Nixon and his attorney general, John Mitchell, had been called out at the memorial service for Justice Hugo Black in September 1971 (Sayre was presiding but did not deliver the eulogy).  Nixon had no intention of giving Sayre a free shot at Truman's memorial.

Connections to the other great stories of January 1973:

1.  Truman's actions in Korea started the policy of containment of communism in the Far East, which led eventually to America's involvement in Vietnam.  With Truman's passing and the coincident end of the Vietnam War for the US in January 1973, a particular brand of American hubris--the belief that American military power could always favorably change the outcome in foreign wars--fell into disrepute.  The Gulf War and the events of 9/11 resurrected the belief in American military power, but the lessons of its limitations continue to be seen in Iraq and elsewhere.

2.  On the day the Korean conflict started, Truman dedicated the courthouse that would be the site of the Watergate burglars' trial.  The symbolism is striking.  Truman, known for his blunt honesty, stood in contrast to Nixon, who Truman considered to be a congenital lier.  That Truman would dedicate the courthouse where, years later, a burglars' trial would start the chain of events that resulted in Nixon's downfall is noteworthy and ironic.  That he would do so on the day the Korean conflict began--which became the activating cause for Vietnam--makes it doubly symbolic.  

3.  The New Deal and its extension through the programs of LBJ's Great Society (Medicare, food stamps, welfare, Head Start, Corporation for Public Broadcasting) hit the wall in January 1973 with the rise of the Nixon counterrevolution.  The Nixon forces (later Reagan forces) pushed back against the idea of governmental paternalism.  Nixon's second inaugural, delivered on January 20, 1973, was a call to arms.  "Government must learn to take less from people so that people can do more for themselves," Nixon declared.  Truman's and Johnson's passing were corporeal manifestations of the political break with the spirit of the New Deal and the Great Society.  America was to be defined not by a government that would look out for the common good, but as a collection of individuals who would take responsibility for their own lives and thereby transform society.  "From this day forward," Nixon said in his second inaugural, "let each of us make a solemn commitment in his own heart: to bear his responsibility, to do his part, to live his ideals--so that together, we can see the dawn of a new age of progress for America."

4.  Justice Tom Clark.  Truman appointed Tom Clark to the United States Supreme Court.  LBJ would later engineer Clark's resignation by appointing his son, Ramsey Clark, as his attorney general, thereby raising the appearance of a conflict of interest in cases that would be argued by the United States. The move allowed LBJ to nominate the first African-American, Thurgood Marshall, to the Supreme Court.  Clark, freed from the bonds of being a justice, authored an important law review article on abortion, which was cited by Justice Blackmun in Roe v. Wade.    

Where to begin.  The Vietnam War had such a monumental impact on America and its politics it is difficult to summarize.  

The Great Society foundered under the financial weight of the war; the Civil Rights movement was severely crippled; Johnson's presidency was wrecked; Nixon's political rebirth came about because of the war; America redefined its role in the world and President Nixon attempted to apply the Nixon Doctrine of "self-reliance" to the domestic sphere, starting what would become known as the "Reagan Revolution"; and Watergate would preclude Nixon from enforcing the agreement Kissinger negotiated.  The impact and ramifications are almost endless.  

But here is just a sampling, showing the deep interconnections with the other great events of January 1973.

Connections to the other great events of January 1973

1.  Impact on Great Society and Civil Rights movement.  Vietnam churned up society, activated a younger generation whose members were subject to the draft, and drove a wedge between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Johnson at the very time LBJ was overseeing historic change in race relations. In the process, the foot soldiers of the counterrevolution--Nixon's "Silent Majority"--exercised political muscle and instituted changes that would transform the solidly Democratic South to the solidly Republican South of today.  Civil Rights stalled, the war on poverty was all but abandoned. 

2.  Dr. King spoke at the National Cathedral at the request of Dean Francis Sayre (see the Truman memorial) on Sunday, March 31, 1968.  Here in part his comments about the war:

Click here for the entire text of the sermon. 

3.  That same evening, March 31, 1968, Lyndon Johnson went on national television to say he would not run for president in 1968, as he wanted to concentrate all his energies on his peace initiative in Vietnam.

In 1966, it was hard to imagine a popular LBJ not running for and easily winning re-election in 1968.  The Vietnam War reversed everything.  The war's end would come the same week that LBJ died.

Four days after his sermon in the National Cathedral and LBJ's withdrawal from the race, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis.  The rights movement was severely crippled. 

4.  Johnson's withdrawal, the chaos of the times, all contributed to Richard Nixon's ability to rehabilitate himself and run again for the presidency.  His victories in 1968 and 1972 both hinged on how to end the war in Vietnam.

5.  With the presidency comes the right to nominate Supreme Court justices.  Nixon would appoint three justices who would have defining influences on the Supreme Court's decisions on abortion.  Chief Justice Burger, Justice Blackmun and Justice Powell each played unique and decisive roles in the outcomes in Roe v. Wade and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton, decided in January 1973.

In the second week of January 1973, the trial of the seven men indicted for the Watergate break-in started in Judge John S. Sirica's courtroom.  The trial will start the chain of events that will eventually bring down the president--the only resignation of a president in American history.

The trial has connections to the other great events of January 1973. 

Howard Hunt's wife Dorothy was on this plane.  Hunt who was to go on trial in January 1973 lost his will to fight.  He asked the man who had brought him into the White House, Charles Colson, for help.

Colson drew Nixon further into the conspiracy to cover-up when he spoke with Nixon on January 8, 1973 about clemency for Hunt if he pled guilty.  The conversation was in Nixon's office in the Executive Office Building.  The tape of this meeting is difficult to hear because of the poor placement of the microphones in that office.

The trial will result in guilty verdicts.  One defendant, James McCord, will eventually break and start the undoing of the conspiracy.  But this trial and Nixon's silence about the Christmas bombing will lead to the Senate vote in the first week of February 1973 to investigate the Watergate break-in.

One of the real surprises of this surprising month.  Nixon in the early morning hours of January 20, 1973--the day he will be inaugurated for a second time--has a long phone call with Chuck Colson, describing his intentions for a second term. 

Link to the tape here. 

Nixon takes the "Nixon Doctrine" in foreign policy and applies it to domestic politics.  His intent is to dismantle the excesses of the Great Society and reduce the power of the federal government.  This is a game-changer.  Though Nixon will lose the battle with his resignation, he will win the war, starting a conservative movement that would take hold during Reagan's presidency.

COMPARE TO NIXON'S VERSION BELOW 

Roe v. Wade.  Decided two days after Nixon's second inaugural.  Little needs to be said of the impact of this decision on American politics.  With the rise of the Religious Right, "compromise" became a thing of the past.

What is little known is how this decision was made.  The idea of "viability" was not part of Justice Blackmun's first or even second drafts of the abortion cases.

January 1973 explains for the first time, based on exclusive interviews with Larry Hammond, Justice Powell's law clerk, the central role of Justice Powell and his law clerk in the fashioning of the opinion.

AFTER THE COURT AGREED TO THE "VIABILITY" STANDARD, JUSTICE POWELL WROTE A PRIVATE NOTE TO HIS LAW CLERK ON WHO SHOULD GET CREDIT FOR THE COURT'S OPINION AS IT WAS FINALLY CONFIGURED

On the same day that Kissinger flew back to Paris to initial the peace agreement and that the Supreme Court issued its opinions in the abortion cases, Lyndon Johnson collapsed at his ranch in Texas and died as he was being airlifted to a nearby medical center.

The supreme irony is that his death took place just as the war that no doubt hastened his demise was ending for the United States.  And as noted elsewhere in this website, the woman who swore-in Johnson on the day of the Kennedy assassination, Judge Sarah Hughes, became one of the judges who decided Roe v. Wade in the trial court.