for reelection, apparently
believing among other things that he could not be reelected. A bitter
fight went on within the Democratic party as to who would be nominated.
Shortly after the issuance of Humanae Vitae the Democratic
Convention met in Chicago and the students, so called, pitted
themselves against the police. They were beaten and arrested and
scattered and it left the Democratic party in shambles, and the
idealism of John F. Kennedy a bitter taste in the mouths of many
people.

It is not just that there was a coincidence in timing between the
reaction to Humanae Vitae and the reaction to the Viet Nam war.
There is a sort of common thread, a common psychological thread, that
runs through them. The New Left ended abruptly, and it has often been
pointed out that it ended as soon as thedraft ended, which to some
extent calls into question the idealism of some of the New Left people.
They said they were opposing the war on the grounds that it was
immoral, but on the other hand once they became assured that they
themselves would not be drafted their opposition ceased. Nonetheless,
the New Left more or less came to an end. There had been another prong
to it, the Civil Rights Movement, and that had been equally volatile --
it also led to riots. But that had become increasingly a Black movement
in which white leftists like students were no longer welcome.

The opposition of the New Left to the Viet Nam war was
like a magician who holds up his left hand and he has got something in
his left hand that he wants you to look