BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Library of Congress -- Exhibit: Herblock Gallery (2021)

DC -- Library of Congress -- Exhibit: Herblock Gallery (2021):

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Description of Pictures: Herblock Looks at 1970: Fifty Years Ago in Editorial Cartoons, Part I
During the second year of President Richard Milhous Nixon’s (1913–1994) term, his handling of both international and domestic issues led Herblock to pick up his ink pen and brush and express his opinion. Anti-crime legislation led him to imagine unwarranted investigations into people’s private lives, while he imagined consumers trapped by import quotas and trade restrictions. Herblock focused on the partisan nature of proposed Nixon administration welfare changes. With the famine in the Biafra region of Nigeria, Herblock fell back on the trope of death with its scythe. He used the capture of Angela Davis as an opportunity to opine about the gun lobby.
One of the leading issues of 1970 was the Vietnam War. The Nixon administration justified the invasion of Cambodia as a means to prevent further communist incursion into South Vietnam. Herblock, like many cartoonists, used the swamp as a metaphor for the mire in which not only the soldiers fighting the war but the politicians who controlled it found themselves.
These ten cartoons—with new drawings introduced into the exhibition every six months—have been selected from the Library’s extensive Herbert L. Block Collection in the Prints and Photographs Division.
Exhibition dates: March 20, 2020–September 5, 2020

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[1] LOCHER_210925_001.JPG	[2] LOCHER_210925_005.JPG	[3] LOCHER_210925_012.JPG
[4] LOCHER_210925_015.JPG	[5] LOCHER_210925_021.JPG	[6] LOCHER_210925_024.JPG
[7] LOCHER_210925_027.JPG	[8] LOCHER_210925_033.JPG	[9] LOCHER_210925_037.JPG
[10] LOCHER_210925_044.JPG	[11] LOCHER_210925_048.JPG	[12] LOCHER_210925_054.JPG
[13] LOCHER_210925_057.JPG	[14] LOCHER_210925_066.JPG	[15] LOCHER_210925_069.JPG
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[22] LOCHER_210925_098.JPG	[23] LOCHER_210925_101.JPG	[24] LOCHER_210925_103.JPG
[25] LOCHER_210925_108.JPG	[26] LOCHER_210925_111.JPG	[27] LOCHER_210925_115.JPG
[28] LOCHER_210925_118.JPG	[29] LOCHER_210925_125.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. LOCHER_210925_001.JPG: Herblock Looks at 1970: Fifty Years Ago in Editorial Cartoons, Part I During the second year of President Richard Milhous Nixon's (1913–1994) term, his handling of domestic issues led Herblock to pick up his ink pen and brush and express his opinion. He focused on the impact of inflation on the economy, the decline in school funding, and likened the oil industry's stranglehold on the nation's power supply to an octopus. The cartoonist derided the nation's antiquated missile system. Finally, he reacted to an early report about pollution and global warming. Mid-term elections led Herblock to address the irritation of negative television advertising and its effect on the political climate in the United States. He celebrated the inclusion of teenagers -- some of whom were eligible to serve in the Vietnam -- in the election process. He noted the increasing role computers played in assessing public opinion. Finally, even though it was a mid-term election season, he felt that the Electoral College prevented the people from truly electing their president. These ten cartoons -- with new drawings introduced into the exhibition every six months -- have been selected from the Library's extensive Herbert L. Block Collection in the Prints and Photographs Division.
2. LOCHER_210925_005.JPG: OPERATION WILL-O’-THE-WISP Herblock depicted President Richard Nixon wading through a swamp, which had become a cartoonist allusion to wars in Vietnam and Cambodia, lured by a will-o’-the-wisp beckoning him to victory. Herblock may have had the poetry of John Gay in mind, “How Will-a-wisp misleads night-faring clowns / O’er hills, and sinking bogs, and pathless downs. . . .” Nixon pursued war in Cambodia in the belief that by attacking communists there, he would end the Vietnam War faster, a belief that few journalists shared. Operation Will-O’-The-Wisp, 1970. Published in the Washington Post, May 14, 1970.
3. LOCHER_210925_015.JPG: “YOU SEE, THE REASON WE'RE IN INDOCHINA IS TO PROTECT US BOYS IN INDOCHINA” Pairing a white and an African American soldier in Indochina in the immediate aftermath of U.S. troops’ entry into Cambodia, Herblock satirized the Nixon administration’s explanation that the invasion was necessary to protect troops in Vietnam. The presence of the African American soldier in this cartoon signals a change in American armed forces policy. During the Vietnam War, nearly 13 percent of the U.S. Army was comprised of African Americans serving voluntarily, who were fully integrated into the forces. “You See, The Reason We're in Indochina Is to Protect Us Boys in Indochina,” 1970. Published in the Washington Post, May 5, 1970.
4. LOCHER_210925_027.JPG: THE TUNNEL AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL As President Nixon announced that he feared that North Vietnam was pushing into Laos and Cambodia to further undermine American troops in South Vietnam, Herblock portrayed the personification of the United States plunging into an abyss. Although President Nixon gave a schedule for troop withdrawal from Vietnam during the same address to the nation on April 20, 1970, he threatened reprisals in Cambodia and Laos. Eight days after this cartoon was published, President Nixon announced that American troops had invaded Cambodia. The Tunnel at the End of the Tunnel, 1970. Published in the Washington Post, April 22, 1970.
5. LOCHER_210925_037.JPG: “IS IT TRUE ABOUT YOUR KEEPING POLITICAL PRISONERS CAGED UP?” Herblock compared the report of the entrapment of Vietnamese political prisoners in “Tiger cages” to the inability of the United States to extricate itself from the Vietnam War. After a congressional inquiry exposed the inhumane treatment of prisoners on Con Son Island off the east coast of Vietnam, the government of President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu (1923–2001) transferred the prisoners, but the main prison did not close until 1975 when United States troops withdrew from Vietnam. “Is It True About Your Keeping Political Prisoners Caged Up?” 1970. Published in the Washington Post, July 8, 1970.
6. LOCHER_210925_048.JPG: “IT'S THE NIXON DOMINO DOCTRINE—YOU KEEP ADDING PIECES” As Vice President Spiro Agnew (1918–1996) traveled to Southeast Asia to renew the United States’ commitments to Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam, President Nixon refined his doctrine of providing monetary aid and military training to help countries defend themselves. As the United States struggled to secure Vietnam, it turned its attention to neighboring countries, Laos, Thailand, and especially Cambodia. The fear that if Cambodia fell to communist control, so would Vietnam, led to the use of the domino theory as a metaphor, here expressed visually by Herblock. “It’s the Nixon Domino Doctrine—You Keep Adding Pieces,” 1970. Published in the Washington Post, August 27, 1970.
7. LOCHER_210925_057.JPG: “DON’T JUST STAND THERE—DO SOMETHING!” As President Nixon’s Family Assistance Program (FAP) legislation stalled in the Senate, Presidential Counselor Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003) publicly blamed Senate Democrats for failing to act. Herblock, without pointing a finger at one individual, showed the burden of the Republican elephant overwhelming the flimsy platform on which Nixon established his program. Unhappy with the bureaucracy and expense of the existing welfare program, Nixon sought to streamline the process, and found a sympathetic House and a reluctant Senate. In the end, FAP failed to pass. “Don’t Just Stand There—Do Something!” 1970. Published in the Washington Post, September 1, 1970.
8. LOCHER_210925_069.JPG: “THE BETTER TO PROTECT US FROM INTRUDERS, MY DEAR” Herblock showed his preference for free trade by comparing the proposed presidential and congressional import quota legislation as a lock on the door that trapped consumers, here represented by Little Red Riding Hood, with the wolf. President Nixon and Congress reacted to the increase in American unemployment and the shift in market dominance away from the United States by proposing import quotas. The trade bill failed in 1970, and with pressure both from Japan and the European Economic Community, Congress backed away. “The Better to Protect Us from Intruders, My Dear,” 1970. Published in the Washington Post, December 30, 1970.
9. LOCHER_210925_085.JPG: “BEAT IT, FELLA” After the FBI captured Angela Davis (born 1944) in a Manhattan hotel on October 13, 1970, Herblock cynically examined the gun lobby. Davis, a UCLA philosophy professor, fled California after a gun she had purchased was used by her bodyguard to commit murder. Due to the Gun Control Act of 1968, the California gun registration system was useful in determining that Davis had purchased the weapons the Soledad brothers had used in the crime. The Gun Lobby, which actively sought to strip that element of the law, gives the FBI the limelight. “Beat It, Fella—All We Want Is the Final Scene,” 1970. Published in the Washington Post, October 18, 1970.
10. LOCHER_210925_098.JPG: “OPEN ADMINISTRATION” As the House and the Senate considered anti-crime legislation for Washington, D.C., that permitted “no-knock” entry and wiretapping, Herblock imagined a world in which honest citizens had reason to fear personal intrusion. Critics argued that the law violated rights introduced in the Constitution to counter similar British actions. However, as crime had become a political issue, the Nixon administration decided to make the District its test case. President Richard Nixon signed the legislation as the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970. “Open Administration,” 1970. Published in the Washington Post, March 19, 1970.
11. LOCHER_210925_115.JPG: “I HAVEN’T AGREED TO ANY ARMISTICE” Igbo Christians in Biafra attempted to form a separate country in 1967 and were almost immediately cut off from food and supplies by Nigerian troops. When the break-away Republic of Biafra surrendered on January 15, 1970, ending the two-and-a-half-year civil war in Nigeria, Herblock greeted the news by depicting starvation as the victor. Within a decade of gaining independence from its European colonizers, Nigeria struggled to build a stable government. The international community was horrified by the enormity of the starvation. Enlarge “I Haven’t Agreed to Any Armistice,” 1970. Published in the Washington Post, January 13, 1970.
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Description of Subject Matter: Herblock Gallery
March 18, 2011–Ongoing
The Herblock Gallery celebrates the work of editorial cartoonist Herbert L. Block—better known as "Herblock"—with an ongoing display of ten original drawings, to change every six months, drawn from the Library's extensive Herbert L. Block Collection.
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