Framing the Sixties by Bernard von Bothmer

Review by W.J. Rayment / Conservative Bookstore -- There has long been a political battle raging in American politics about the meaning and effect of the 1960s. But when people refer to the decade there is a segmentation of those years. In the early sixties there was - "Camelot" - the Kennedy years. In the latter sixties we had riots in the streets, Viet Nam, and the corrupting influence of the Great Society. We generally think of the latter when we speak of the "Sixties". The right and left dispute these years because they are so vivid in the minds of the Baby-Boomers that came of age during that time. The battle is intense because this time was the beginning of great changes in the country that some wish to accelerate and others wish to reverse.

I was merely a boy in the Sixties, I turned ten at the end of the decade. Yet I have vivid and burning memories: My mother bursting into tears when Kennedy was shot (one of my first memories). Watching Oswald gunned down on live television. Watching the evening news with Walter Cronkite and seeing the daily body count. Watching election coverage in 1968 and the moon landing in 1969. Making a speech in grade school supporting the candidacy of Scoop Jackson. There are many more.

Since that time, I have read much on the history and politics of the period. The latest book on the subject is Bernard von Bothmer's, Framing the Sixties. This is a book about how our perceptions of this decade have been formed by the presidential politics every decade since. Like the decade itself, this book is good and bad - perceptive and inane - thoughtful and utterly ignorant of economics. Bothmer begins well. However, the form his work takes is to set up straw men and then to knock them down. His intention here is not strictly to tell us how our view is affected by politics, but to rehabilitate the decade making our view conform to the liberal view that the Great Society of President Johnson and the leftward swing of society of the time was a step in the right direction, and that all the views from the right are disingenuous and selfish, a mere attempt to protect the property of the rich and to perpetrate racism.

Bothmer does not come right out in the text and say which side he is on. Rather he slyly makes his points in this manner:

Despite his professed long-standing support of African-Americans, when Bush became president he opposed increasing the role of the federal government to achieve social justice. He often referred to the civil rights movement in a way that implied America's improved racial climate had made such activism unnecessary.

As if since GHWB did not support a liberal "solution" that he must obviously be against black people. I find the logic rather tortuous as well as fallacious. My personal belief is that all people should be treated equally without regard to race, creed, gender, ethnic group, sexual orientation, or nose size. It is ever the leftist tactic to attempt to smear principled men for not agreeing with leftist prescriptions. On this issue, as well as with the Great Society, as well as other political issues that have their roots in the 1960s, I like to look at programs through a pragmatic lens. Did it work? Did it make life better or did it make life worse? Anyone with a modicum of economic common sense (which does not count many liberals) should be able to see that simply giving people money only causes problems. Even a child understands the story of Captain John Smith in Jamestown colony when he insisted that the people work or they would not eat. Or the even more telling story of governor Bradford in Massachusetts where the colonists starved until the leaders decided that everyone would have to fend for themselves. Social engineering does not work for two very good reasons: first, it takes away incentive and self-assurance. Second, the best decisions are made on the lowest level, and that is by the individual. Bush was right when he said that if racism was to be solved it had to be done within the homes of individuals and not imposed from above. The government's responsibility is to insist on equality in the application of law, not regulate the way people think.

Okay, this whole thing set me off on a huge tangent. This book has a way of doing that. For all its faults it is thought provoking and well-researched. Bothmer obviously put in a huge amount of time on this project browsing libraries and interviewing the people involved. In the introduction of the book he seems surprised that so many conservatives were so forthcoming with information. It does not surprise me at all. Conservatives are very sure that the 1960s were a time of excessive government growth that was bad for both society and the economy.

Bothmer, for all his research always leans toward the statements by a few leftists whose credibility is in question, including Ellsburg, Halberstam, and Perlstein. Interestingly, from these sources he speaks of the "myth" of the spit-upon veteran of Viet Nam. My father was in the military at the time, and I was in the military in the 1980s. I can say with reasonable assurance that there was a prejudice among liberals against military people and they did not hesitate to demonstrate their disdain and hatred. I myself was shouted at while wearing my Navy uniform on the streets of South Omaha, of all places, by a small crowd of rowdies right about the time of the Lebanon crisis. I was personally accosted more than once by self-righteous leftists at social occasions, even while not in uniform.

There I go again. Yes, the sixties are a time that provokes a visceral response. One of the themes of Framing the Sixties is that the right deliberately denigrated the decade for political ends...simply as a means to gain power, using the decade as a bludgeon to beat the left, rather in the manner the left uses racism as a bludgeon to batter the right. I don't think Bothmer adequately made that case. Yes, the right sees the late 1960s as an era of excess, and will point the fact out. However, this is merely in line with logic. The Sixties are so full of lessons on why big government does not work, or how liberal government unduly restraining the military brings military disaster, or why most social programs create a glass ceiling, that it is natural they would be referred to negatively. I view the 1930s of FDR in a similar light.

I must say that Framing the Sixties is well worth reading. I enjoyed the extensive use of interviews of major players in presidential politics which included Caspar Weinberger, David Horowitz, Lou Cannon, James Baker, et al. It was interesting reading what these people had to say. Their perceptive comments made the book. I was only surprised that they did not have a positive effect on Bothmer himself.

I thought the chapter on Bill Clinton to be slightly warped. I was amused that there was an effort to paint the President as almost a conservative - with his triangulation strategy. Bothmer seems to have forgotten the first two years of the Clinton administration when health care reform was attempted and the electorate threw out the Dems for their failed efforts. Clinton only came to be perceived as not so leftist because he knew socialism was not going to fly in the 90s. If ever there was a political calculator it was this president. Although, in support of Bothmer's contention, I should add that I would rather have Clinton as president than Obama any day of the week.

Many readers will not draw the same conclusions regarding Bothmer's analysis as I have. He is rather sparing in his leftist comments. Although not even-handed, his comments give rise to thought, and not all commentary has to be viewed as left or right. His conclusions regarding the 1960s in the final chapter make some telling points. I review a fair number of books written by leftist academics, and normally I find them pedantic and labored. I must admit that Framing the Sixties is a riveting read and well worth adding to your library shelf. Recommended.

Framing the Sixties by Bernard von Bothmer is available at Amazon.