J. Samuel Walker recounts the dramatic standoff between a populist Republican president and protesting college students-and what the crisis of higher education under President Nixon can teach us today. College students frustrated with the state of American society and foreign policy under a Republican president, rising up in protest across the country. Sound familiar? With new sources and fresh perspective, esteemed historian J. Samuel Walker studies the campus crisis of the late 1960s and early 1970s under President Richard Nixon, during the protracted conflict in Vietnam and roiling racial tensions in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. Walker tells how Nixon's administration responded to the intense, and sometimes violent, unrest on college campuses across the United States, which became a prominent policy issue during the first four years of his presidency. A Gallup poll taken in May 1970 showed that campus unrest was rated as the "country's leading problem," outranking the war, other international questions, racial conflict, crime, and inflation. Nixon was so concerned that he created a presidential commission to study the problem, identify its origins, and recommend ways to restore calm to the nation's colleges that had erupted in disorder. But Nixon was of two minds when it came to campus turmoil. On the one hand, he saw it as a problem that needed to be fixed because it threatened the ability of institutions of higher learning to educate their students and to sponsor vital research. On the other hand, it was an irresistible opportunity to take advantage of the popular outrage with student protests. He hoped that attacking dissidents would appeal to the "silent majority" and build a new political coalition that would support his reelection campaign and the fortunes of the Republican Party going forward. Opting for political gain, Nixon dismissed and privately denounced the findings of his own presidential commission before he had even read its report. Drawing on many unused or littleknown sources, Nixon's War with Students is the first book to examine campus disturbances as a national political issue-one that is as relevant and important today as it was then.
J. Samuel Walker is a professional historian who lives in the Washington, DC area. He is the author of many books, including The Day That Shook America: A Concise History of 9/11, also from Kansas.
"Did Richard Nixon write the playbook for the current regime's assault on higher education? J. Samuel Walker's lucid and balanced account of Nixon's response to the student unrest of the 1960s shows how a politically astute, if unprincipled, president took advantage of the campus troubles to further his own career and that of the Republican party. It is a must-read for anyone concerned about the fate of America's colleges and universities today."-Ellen Schrecker, author of The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s "A thorough and thoughtful study of a subject-campus unrest-with sobering resonances today. Walker particularly excels at tracing the baleful impact of presidential leadership that furthered bitterness and division rather than understanding and reconciliation in a deeply divided America."-Brian VanDeMark, author of Kent State: An American Tragedy "J. Samuel Walker's Nixon's War with Students is an eye-opening account of campus activism during the Vietnam era. Focusing not on the radicals but the moderates, the book is essential to understanding not only that time but also the origins of more recent protest movements."-Luke A. Nichter, author of The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968 "Walker has given us an insightful and even-handed history of the most turbulent era on American college campuses. A valuable companion for anyone following today's clashes between politics and higher education."-Lawrence Roberts, author of Mayday 1971: A White House at War, a Revolt in the Streets, and the Untold History of America's Biggest Mass Arrest "J. Samuel Walker has provided an insightful contribution to the historiography of academic political activity, an emerging area in studies of postwar America. Much has been written about the role of the Left in politicizing the campuses, some, more recently, about the role of the Right, but Walker takes a unique and crucial view at the role moderates played in academic political uprisings in the 1960s and 70s. Deeply researched and carefully argued, this monograph will interest anyone who is curious about the influence of American higher education on the culture at large in the last quarter of the twentieth century."-Elizabeth Kalbfleisch, Professor of English at Southern Connecticut State University and author of Making the Radical University: Identity and Politics on the American College Campus, 1966-1991 "Walker, a highly respected historian, has uncovered new information about how Richard Nixon dealt with anti-Vietnam War protests during his first term. We can learn lessons for our own time from Walker's revelations about the way a president used nationwide protests for his own political advantage."-Melvin Small, author of Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves "Nixon's War with Students is a timely reminder that there are no easy responses to student demonstrations, and that whatever choices university administrators make can be subject to backlash. The protests from 1969 to 1973 and their political fallout are well worth historical analysis in an era of renewed disruption. This book belongs on the shelf of every college president-and anyone else who cares about the freedom of dissent."-Donald A. Ritchie, Senate Historian Emeritus and author of Electing FDR: The New Deal Campaign of 1932 "Making prodigious use of college polls, surveys, and archival documents, J. Samuel Walker explains with great clarity how and why university students revolted against racism, in loco parentis, and especially the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He also elucidates how the Nixon administration responded to-and tried to capitalize on-campus unrest. Walker's detailed examination of the pivotal role that moderate students played in demonstrations constitutes a valuable contribution to the scholarly literature on the Sixties."-Damon R. Bach, author of The American Counterculture: A History of Hippies and Cultural Dissidents "Samuel Walker, for the first time, without any political agenda, describes clearly and cogently the period of campus unrest from the early 1960s through the Nixon presidency, presenting how the warring factions crusaded to win supporters to their cause and how they failed or succeeded."-Irwin F. Gellman, author of Campaign of the Century: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960
