Monique Luiz as she appeared in the “Daisy Ad” in 1964. (Lyndon B Johnson’s 1964 Presidential campaign, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
By Norman Solomon
Common Dreams
One evening in early September 1964, a frightening commercial jolted 50 million Americans who were partway through watching “Monday Night at the Movies” on NBC.
The ad began with an adorable three-year-old girl counting petals as she pulled them from a daisy. Then came a man’s somber voiceover, counting down from ten to zero. Then an ominous roar and a mushroom cloud from a nuclear bomb explosion.
The one-minute TV spot reached its climax with audio from President Lyndon Johnson, concluding that “we must love each other, or we must die.” The ad did not mention his opponent in the upcoming election, Sen. Barry Goldwater, but it didn’t need to. By then, his cavalier attitude toward nuclear weapons was well established.
Goldwater’s bestseller The Conscience of a Conservative, published at the start of the decade, was unnervingly open to the idea of launching a nuclear war, while the book exuded disdain for leaders who “would rather crawl on knees to Moscow than die under an Atom bomb.”
Closing in on the Republican nomination for president, the Arizona senator suggested that “low-yield” nuclear bombs could be useful to defoliate forests in Vietnam.
His own words gave plenty of fodder to others seeking the GOP nomination. Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton called Goldwater “a trigger-happy dreamer” and said that he “too often casually prescribed nuclear war as a solution to a troubled world.”
New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller unloaded with a rhetorical question: “How can there be sanity when he wants to give area commanders the authority to make decisions on the use of nuclear weapons?”
So, the stage was set for the “daisy ad,” which packed an emotional wallop — and provoked a fierce backlash.
Critics cried foul, deploring an attempt to use the specter of nuclear annihilation for political gain. Having accomplished the goal of putting the Goldwater camp on the defensive, the commercial never aired again as a paid ad. But national newscasts showed it while reporting on the controversy.
Today, a campaign ad akin to the daisy spot is hard to imagine from the Democratic or Republican nominee to be commander in chief, who seem content to bypass the subject of nuclear-war dangers.
Yet those dangers are actually much higher now than they were 60 years ago. In 1964, the Doomsday Clock maintained by experts at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was set at 12 minutes to apocalyptic midnight. The ominous hands are now just 90 seconds away.
Yet, in their convention speeches this summer, both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were silent on the need to engage in genuine diplomacy for nuclear arms control, let alone take steps toward disarmament.
Trump offered standard warnings about Russian and Chinese arsenals and Iran’s nuclear program, and boasted of his rapport with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
Left unmentioned was Trump’s presidential statement in 2017 that if North Korea made “any more threats to the United States,” that country “will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
Nor did he refer to his highly irresponsible tweet that Kim should be informed, “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
When Harris delivered her acceptance speech, it did not include the words “atomic” or “nuclear” at all.
Now in high gear, the 2024 presidential campaign is completely lacking in the kind of wisdom about nuclear weapons and relations between the nuclear superpowers that Lyndon Johnson and, eventually, Ronald Reagan attained during their presidencies.
Goldwater with Johnson in January 1964. (Yoichi Okamoto – LBJ Library, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Johnson privately acknowledged that the daisy commercial scared voters about Goldwater, which “we goddamned set out to do.”
But the president was engaged in more than an electoral tactic. At the same time that he methodically deceived the American people while escalating the horrific war on Vietnam, Johnson pursued efforts to defuse the nuclear time bomb.
“We have made further progress in an effort to improve our understanding of each other’s thinking on a number of questions,” Johnson said at the conclusion of his extensive summit meeting with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey, on June 25, 1967.
But 57 years later, there is scant evidence the current or next president of the United States is genuinely interested in improving such understanding between leaders of the biggest nuclear states.
Two decades after the summit that defrosted the Cold War and gave rise to what was dubbed “the spirit of Glassboro,” President Reagan stood next to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and said:
“We decided to talk to each other instead of about each other.” But such an attitude would be heresy in the 2024 presidential campaign.
“These are the stakes,” Johnson said in the daisy ad as the mushroom cloud rose on screen, “to make a world in which all God’s children can live, or to go into the dark.”
Those are still the stakes. But you wouldn’t know it from either of the candidates vying to be the next president of the United States.
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His new book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in June 2023 by The New Press.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Trump ,during the debate (so called), precisely did bring up the threat of WWIII, and tried, however clumsily, to make the point that the Ukraine war could get out of hand, and therefore should be ended. Odd that no one is mentioning it. Meanwhile, the moderators and Harris only seemed to be concerned about Ukraine ‘winning’, apparently at any and all cost, including nuclear war.
This silence is thanks to those who are eagerly waiting for and anticipating ‘end of days’ and their fabled prophecies to hold true.
These religious & ideological monsters are behind the censorship of dissenting voices against what is happening in occupied Palestine and the US proxy war in Ukraine.
In reality, Goldwater’s awful views about nuclear weapons were actually widely-held although usually more discreetly expressed.
Nelson Rockefeller privately urged President Kennedy to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam. According to various biographies of President Johnson and President Nixon, both were similarly urged to use nuclear weapons by John Connally.
Goldwater gradually moderated his views. He supported President Nixon’s negotiations with the USSR when he had opposed efforts by earlier presidents. I think he may have even advocated nuclear abolition at one time.
And abolition needs to be our goal. We need to communicate to our politicians that we will not settle for anything less. But we also need to ask ourselves where we hold our money and to refuse to invest in banks and other financial institutions that finance the nuclear armaments industry.
For more information, please visit the Don’t Bank on the Bomb Website.
Thank you.
The “Daisy Ad” is in a Library of Congress collection.
Wouldn’t it just be great if Jill Stein was to run that ad along with a a voice over before the “Daisy Ad” “In 1964, 60 years ago President Lyndon B. Johnson ran this “Daisy Ad” against Barry Goldwater in the Presidential race.
Today Jill Stein runs it against “Harris-Trump” who are as much of a threat of starting a nuclear was as in 1964 Barry Goldwater was.
US / Ukronazi / Zionazi Neoconartist Belligerents: “keep escalating the conflicts, don’t worry about nuclear war”
Prof Jeffrey Sachs: “GODDAMMIT! We have children and grandchildren! Of course we must worry about nuclear war! Stop the damn wars!”
hxxps://podtail.com/en/podcast/judging-freedom/prof-jeffrey-sachs-neocons-and-world-dominance/
How can we counteract the LIES of execrable weasels like Denis the P*nis, a racist pro-Zionazi pro-Genocidal psychopath I had a previous “conversation” with?
Speak the TRUTH to anyone and everyone you meet:
The legendary, still razor sharp Ralph Nader, summarises the situation:
hxxps://podtail.com/en/podcast/judging-freedom/ralph-nader-slaughter-in-gaza/
Prof Ilan Pappe, a Jew who was born in Israel:
hxxps://youtu.be/Bu1_OFUcd0g?feature=shared.
I Remember Daisy Girl
Then in high school, I was along with my brother and working class parents, tuned in that night. My mom and dad had lived through the Depression and World War II. Not quite a year before this program we’d been through the shock of the JFK assassination. None of which meant we were inured to violence; frequent mass shootings weren’t a thing then.
We were still living with the legacy of the New Deal, central for the Dem party. There were also a number of progressive Republicans in office, some of whom are mentioned in this CN piece. Although people had differing ideas about now the common good is best achieved, the idea itself was widely held.
That was the mind set hit by this ad. To say it was stunning doesn’t capture the overwhelming feeling of horror. We sat there open mouthed, unable to speak. Eventually we did discuss it–consensus being that Goldwater was an extremist at best, a crazed death weapon fanatic at worst. Same for classmates and the D party rank and file I was active with.
It’s also a horror to have seen how the Ds became neolib economic determinists and then with this administration, brought in neocons to run the Dept. of State. They’ve learned to love the bomb. I suspect the reason Dick Cheney, mentor of the aforementioned neocons, endorsed Harris is not about how bad Trump is. Rather that Trump and his uncivilized cadres are not easy to control. Whereas the D elite is quite reliable–Best and Brightest 2.0. Well able to plan and carry out endless wars to preserve empire.
This site and its readers and similar off the mainline left leaning, plus some right wing libertarians, are the only places to object to the real source of terror. We won’t see “Daisy Girl” on today’s MSM.
He had lied to bomb North Vietnam without the tactical nukes just lots of B-52s because the civil right era was almost ready to flip the South.
But now the democrats are in on tactical u=nukes at commander discretion like in Pakistan and perhaps others.
Even worse is the Bush preemptive strike logic that could suggest a stealth attack on 3 powers simultaneously to take out their deterrence. That is the real risky business we have ushered in as an era of permanent preemptive paranoia on all sides.
Meanwhile the oil embargoes in the Middle East turned us from Vietnam B-52 fuel to where we are today nothing to do with peaceniks they pretend to blame with the reactionary Reagan culture war on the 60’s. Plus retaliation to the Shah and an assassination of a Saudi King. then teaming up against Russia in Afghanistan as the Brzezinski war with Carter for Iraq against Iran when the Ayatollah stung our assistance but helped Reagan by stalling on secret Embassy negotiations assisted by Bill Casey in Spain so Reagans CIA point man that helped him win the New Hampshire 1980 primary knocking the Bush CIA out until they kissed and made up. The Rockingteller gambit taking out Nixon and a Ford VP didn’t take either but eventually paid off anyway.
In light of subsequent developments outlined in Norman Solomon’s article under two recent administrations, one wonders what Monique M. Luiz (the “Daisy Girl” herself) feels about the outcome of her contributions to public discourse in the post-2016 era:
“The ‘Daisy Girl,’ now all grown up, returns with a similar warning that Donald Trump, the 2016 Republican nominee, does not have the temperament to serve as commander-in-chief.
‘This was me in 1964,’ Luiz says as the vintage footage appears onscreen. ‘The fear of nuclear war that we had as children — I never thought our children would ever have to deal with that again. And to see that coming forward in this election is really scary.’
[…]
In 2014, to mark the 50th anniversary of the ‘Daisy’ ad’s broadcast, Luiz spoke at length to The Arizona Republic about her role in the LBJ commercial. At the time, she said she regretted that the groundbreaking commercial helped usher in an era of political negativity.”
Source:
Dan Nowicki, “The Original ‘Daisy Girl’ Returns for Hillary Clinton,” The Arizona Republic, October 31, 2016
MI-6 and US CIA Director attending a London public event this past weekend, said that Ukraine’s military invasion of Russia was good as Russian civilians endured some pain. Tells you all we need to know about the current state of the world today.
Call me crazy, but I think the Kursk incursion is going to end in tears, even if there are no nuclear consequences.
Ukraine tried to open a second front and Putin basically ignored them and redoubled his efforts in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukraine is stuck with a bunch of territory they don’t want that is tying down resources badly needed on the home front. If they aren’t careful, Russia is going to take more territory in Ukraine, then cut off their line of retreat from Kursk and encircle and destroy the Ukrainian forces in Russia.
After the Cuban Missile Crisis, a “hotline’ was installed so the White House and the Kremlin could talk to each other during a crisis to avoid misunderstandings. This was after a crisis where both sides were looking for hidden meanings in speeches and using back-channels to try to find out what the other side was thinking as the world was then on the brink of nuclear war.
And the last is not a Hollywood exaggeration, as it was during this crisis that General LeMay wanted a First Strike on the USSR, and a Communist Political Officer on a submarine overruled a captain who wanted to sink an American carrier. Thus, in the mid-1960’s, almost everyone (besides people like LeMay and that Soviet navy captain) was happy there was a ‘hotline’.
Today’s Democrats make it a point of pride to say that they do not talk to the Evil Russians. That they are working day and night to ‘diplomatically isolate’ Russia apparently with the Dream that nobody ever talks to the nuclear power. Opposing politicians who say we should talk to Russia are implied to the public to be traitors.
Am I wrong to wish that a Lessor Evil like Barry Goldwater could be on the ballot?
Listen closely to the modern Left.
The modern Left does not see war, nuclear war, cluster bombs or any of the stuff that the old Left used to oppose as a threat.
The modern Left sees “populism” as the big threat. The existential threat.
A few seconds with an online dictionary found this definition of ‘populism’ : “political ideas and activities that are intended to get the support of ordinary people by giving them what they want: ”
That is what the modern Left now fears, the big Threat!!!!! It is Populism!!. They are scared to death of the political ideas and activities intended to get the support of ordinary people by giving them what they want.
The modern Left is apparently willing to nuke the world to make sure that does not occur.
The Democratic Party is not the modern left, or any kind of left. They use liberal social values to promote a police state, wars from Vietnam to the proxy war with Russia and now genocide. They do soin the same way that the right uses Old Testament religious ideas, and fear of nonwhites to promote the same wars and police state. There is no party that even supports the bill of Rights or the constitutional balance of powers. These right /left terms have been rendered meaningless by corporate, MIC and deep state corruption.
Yep. We working class types understood the implication all of us were included in that ‘basket of deplorables.’ In the late ’60s-early ’70s, as a blue collar union rank and file activist, I was trained by people who’d been labor organizers in the ’30s. They told me: “liberals are the ones who leave the room when the fight starts.” After the neolib unfriendly takeover of the Dem party in the late ’70s, they purged the New Deal and abandoned labor. Elsewhere? {*crickets*}
Not that what remains of the old left is necessarily better. I’ve repeatedly read posts on sites like this how BIPOC and LGBTQ are distractions from class solidarity. Declarations by white male armchair theorists who’ve never had to fight for their identity. Nor have ever used a tool in their lives, for that matter. It’s not either/or but both/and–I’m also in both sets of letters.
My grandfather was a Wobbly (I.W.W.) and I lean the same way. We recognize that highly educated allies can provide expert advice. But we don’t need some self-appointed elitist vanguard telling us what to do. In the words of Eugene V. Debs about distrusting leaders–“if someone can lead you into the promised land, someone else can lead you right back out.”
If the daisy ad doesn’t help, how about a Stanley Kubrick movie: “Dr. Strangelove.”
.. and “Phantom”. In the “Extras” is a Naval Historian giving more accurate info regarding the K129, Glomar Explorer and the hole blown in the sail missile silo.
I think both dingbats running for president with the bought and paid for cults should be forced to sit and watch “Dr. Strangelove” over and over until their eyes bleed. In fact, every member of congress should as well. This decrepit empire has strayed so far from reality, when someone attempts to reconnect people to it, they call you a conspiracy theorist.
Perhaps some well-informed and seriously brave rational people will decide to take matters into their own hands and get rid of national leadership which has been hell bent for decades on exposing us to such dangers. If nominal democracy isn’t getting that job done I certainly would not criticize them for placing survival above ideology.
I’ve posted the link on here before but the film Threads has no equal when it comes to telling the post bomb story, it is engrained in my mind forever.
hxxps:/archive.org/details/threads_201712