Imaging Nationalism in the Cold War: The Foundation of the American National Portrait Gallery

Abstract

In October 1968 the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London was under siege from students protesing against the continued American presence in Vietnam. In France the universities were in turmoil. The Washington Post for 6 October covered the Apollo Flight – the first step to the moon–, uprisings in Columbia university, Twiggy in person and a debate about when the Bikinians might return to their island. Nixon was edging his way towards the presidency in a year that had seen the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, a year in which Johnson decided not to stand for another term in order (allegedly) to devote himself to ending the Vietnam war, in which the Democratic convention took place in Chicago in the midst of violent clashes between police and demonstrators.