In 1968 the world was still talking about the decision of President Lyndon Johnson not to run for office a second time. The war in Vietnam was at its height, and the protests against the war had probably been a key reason for Johnson to decide not to run again. He had been criticized for his handling of the war for some time, and his War on Poverty was suffering because of the drain the war made on the people and the economy. The world was also still talking about the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 3 in Memphis, Tennessee, and in another month almost to the day, Robert Kennedy would be shot and killed in Los Angeles. In Vietnam, the Tet offensive had been waged in March and April, at a terrible cost to both sides in the war. It was just after the Tet offensive when Johnson announced his decision. It was a time of political and social turmoil. It had been so all year,, and it would continue to be so for the remainder of 1968 (Neary 186-187).
Lyndon Baines Johnson was President of the United States, having become so upon the death of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and then having won the office for himself in the 1964 election against Barry Goldwater. Queen Elizabeth II was the monarch of England and had been since 1952, as she indeed still is. Harold Wilson was then the Prime Minister, a post he had held since 1964 and would hold until 1970. Kurt Georg Kiesinger was the chancellor of Germany and Willy Brandt was foreign minister; Brandt would become chancellor in 1970. Gamel Abdel Nasser was the leader of Egypt. In the Soviet Union, Leonid I. Brezhnev was the first secretary of the Communist Party and Aleksei Kosygin was premier. They had succeeded Nikita Kruschev after his ouster in 1964, and he had held both posts. China was ruled by Chairman Mao Zedong, who was supporting the northern forces in Vietnam and sending supplies down the Ho Chi Minh trail. Thailand was under the leadership of premier Thanom Kittak...