Posted by Dan Greenfield on Mar 13, 2024
RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1972!
Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 52 years ago… This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott Tipton and I are selecting comics that came out the week of March 13, 1972. Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of March 6, 1989. Click here to check it out. (Keep in mind that comics came out on multiple days, so these are technically the comics that went on sale between March 10 and March 16.) So, let’s set the scene: Fighting remained intense in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos as U.S. and North Vietnamese leaders negotiated a peace deal. A drawdown of American forces had been under way and on March 10, the storied U.S. 101st Airborne Division left South Vietnam. Republican Richard Nixon was up for re-election and enjoying broad support. In late February, the noted red-baiter made an unprecedented visit to the People’s Republic of China and met with Mao Zedong, giving rise to the famous adage, “Only Nixon could go to China.” On March 16, he addressed the nation to propose a moratorium on forced busing to achieve desegregation in American schools, a conservative stance on a hot-button topic that became part of his re-election campaign. While Nixon was dealing from a position of strength, the Democrats were eating themselves. Earlier in the month, Maine U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie’s campaign had begun to implode because of the infamous “Canuck Letter,” which alleged that he harbored prejudice toward French-Canadians (a sizeable portion of the New Hampshire electorate shared such ancestry). Turned out it was a dirty trick masterminded by Nixon’s Committee for the Re-Election of the President (derisively nicknamed CREEP). That wouldn’t come out until later but in the moment, it damaged Muskie’s performance in the New Hampshire primary and gave a boost to South Dakota U.S. Sen. George McGovern. On March 14, however, segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace won big in the Florida primary, legitimizing his campaign for the Democratic nomination. Meanwhile, both sides were particularly focused on the younger vote — for the first time 18-to-20-year-olds would be allowed to cast ballots for president. Conventional wisdom held that this would help the Democrats, so the GOP was looking for boogeymen, especially the notoriously paranoid Nixon. Racist South Carolina U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond urged the White House to target ex-Beatle John Lennon, who was living...
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