In September 1951, the United States Senate prepared an investigation into Chiang Kai-shek’s use of bribery to maintain congressional backing for his government in Taiwan. Herblock compares the Nationalist Chinese lobbying for economic aid with the reality that they had excellent resources to support their government. He depicts Chinese capitalists bloated with the dollars they had received from the United States.

On July 10, 1951, the United Nations opened peace talks with North Korean and Chinese representatives in Kaesong, North Korea. Ironically, the war did not stop for the negotiations—it entered a bloody phase that had devastating effects on communist troops. Herblock shows two Chinese soldiers, weary, cold, and poor, wondering at the news. Herblock’s caption takes a jab at the Chinese government’s fiction that “volunteers” filled the ranks of its army.

Chinese men, impoverished by World War II and the civil war that engulfed China in its aftermath, found themselves “volunteering” to participate in the Korean War. There, they became entrenched in a war that neither the East nor West could win. Seeing the stalemate, Stalin began advocating an end to the war. Here, Herblock depicts a man in tattered clothing balancing the knowledge of the Chinese casualties of war with the Soviet propaganda encouraging negotiations for peace.

General Douglas MacArthur, having been recalled from Korea by President Harry Truman, testified before the Senate on May 3, 1951, on his intention to involve China in a full-scale war. When asked if bombing China would start another world war, he deflected the question, saying that it was not in his area of expertise. Herblock uses the metaphor of a swamp to describe the mire in which Americans would find themselves if they went to war against China.

As Iran and India formed governments independent of colonial rule, the United States feared that nationalized industries equaled communism. Herblock depicts Uncle Sam focusing on Formosa, now called Taiwan, and the nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek who had fled there. At the same time, he portrays Soviet leader Joseph Stalin eagerly reaping benefits from Iran and India. Herblock felt that aid to Chiang Kai-shek prevented the United States from protecting other global interests.

As United Nations forces fought the Chinese for possession of Seoul, President Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) recalled General Douglas MacArthur to the United States. Fear of communism led many conservative senators, including Harry P. McCain (1906–1979) of Washington state to support MacArthur’s call for war against China. Herblock depicts a divided Republican Party by using the Republican elephant to repudiate Cain’s snarling Asian tiger, his symbol for war against China.

The Soviet Union supplied the Chinese People’s Liberation Army with weapons during the Korean War but did not send ground troops. Chinese soldiers occupied Seoul because the large army willingly pursued the United Nations troops southward despite the high rate of Chinese casualties. Herblock depicts Soviet leader Joseph Stalin looking over Mao Zedong’s shoulder as the Chinese leader shovels his soldiers into a cannon, an assessment of their Korean War roles.

As the South Korean city of Seoul changed hands for the third time in six months, General Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) advocated using nuclear weapons against China. Herblock uses the common visual metaphor of the Chinese dragon, a formidable foe from which Uncle Sam shrinks as Chiang Kai-shek eagerly pulls him forward. He depicts Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) with a bemused look, perhaps eager to watch the United States attempt to fight communism throughout the world.

In 1949 China plunged into civil war, as the communist forces of Mao Zedong (1893–1976) faced the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975). Chiang Kai-shek lost and fled to the island of Formosa, now known as Taiwan, where he demanded international aid. Herblock depicts Uncle Sam gingerly testing the murky swamp, symbolic of the proposed United States entry into the war. He accuses the Chinese leader of letting the United States do all the dirty work.

Conservative Republican senator Robert A. Taft (1889–1953) of Ohio felt that President Harry Truman’s foreign policy during the Korean War had failed and accepted General Douglas MacArthur’s argument that war with China was necessary. Here, Herblock accuses Taft of pushing an already wounded Uncle Sam into an abyss, his metaphor for war with China. Herblock truly feared that another world war would erupt if China were bombed.

The Gore campaign had dropped in the polls when the addition of Senator Joseph Lieberman as Gore's running mate garnered media attention and gave his campaign a boost.

On July 25, 2000, Republican presidential hopeful George W. Bush selected Richard "Dick" Cheney as his running mate for vice president because of Cheney's broad political experience ranging from White House chief of staff to Defense secretary. Cheney's expertise and maturity was sought to dispel questions about Bush's relative inexperience, particularly in foreign policy. But Bush's selection of Cheney revived questions about the younger Bush's independence from his father's legacy and whether he won the nomination on the basis of his own strengths.

Many voters had felt enthusiasm for such candidates as Democrat Bill Bradley and Republican John McCain. But by mid-summer, George W. Bush and Al Gore solidified their hold on the major party presidential nominations if not the voters themselves. In this cartoon, Herb Block shows two voters who are turned off by listening to a speech by their candidate.

On June 29, 2000, the Senate approved a House measure to force the disclosure of contributions and expenditures used by so-called "Section 527 Stealth Police Action Committees" to influence elections. The new law stipulated that Section 527 groups must register with the IRS, providing a modest measure of disclosure. Herb Block was not impressed by this limited effort to curb some secrecy in campaign finance and continued to believe that congressional big-money politics was not baring much of anything.

Aesop's fable about the tortoise and the hare became a metaphor for the 2000 pre-convention presidential campaign. Although faster, Al Gore, the hare, seemed to bounce around, while George W. Bush, the tortoise, wheeled steadily ahead. A Bush lead in the polls dropped after Gore's appearance at the midsummer Democratic Convention.

The unlimited "soft money" raised by national party organizations can be spent on advertisements that skirt the campaign finance reforms brought on by the excess of the Watergate era. Herb Block has consistently pointed out that the skyrocketing campaign contributions and expenditures threaten "government by the people and for the people." As for "free speech" arguments, he says "that there is nothing free about sales of public office to high bidders, who buy and pay for elections and influence."

Personal religion has become a central issue during the 2000 presidential campaign, as most candidates have announced their religion and their beliefs. In this cartoon, Herb Block contrasts today's candidates with Abraham Lincoln, a man who could quote the Bible, but who kept his religious preferences to himself.

In October 1999, presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan switched from the Republican Party to the Reform Party, creating divisiveness within the emerging third party as his political platform differed markedly from that of founder Ross Perot. In the meantime, real estate magnate Donald Trump had formally established his Reform Party candidacy. Trump was favored as the "Stop Buchanan" candidate, but in February 2000, he withdrew from the race. In August 2000, Patrick Buchanan accepted the presidential nomination from one wing of a decidedly split Reform Party. For Herb Block, the situation evoked one of Sir John Tenniel's famous illustrations for Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Presidential campaigns appear to begin earlier with each election, and the races for the 2000 election were in full swing by mid 1999. Long before the presidential primaries, candidates and both parties had amassed unprecedentedly large war chests. These consist largely of "soft money," contributions to political parties, which can be raised and used in any way that does not actually mention a candidate by name. The direct primaries, which were designed to eliminate nominations by "party bosses" in "smoke-filled rooms" did not anticipate the ever-increasing effects of money in determining national candidates before conventions. For decades, Herb Block has been a constant, uncompromising advocate for controlling campaign funds.

With the only superpower on earth enjoying record prosperity, Herb Block offers in this recent work some reminders of unfinished business and non-business.

By January 2000, the stock market had experienced twelve years of almost unprecedented growth, an extended "bull" market, leading many to forget that the law of gravity had not been repealed for stock purchases. New investors had taken advantage of the boom in Internet technology to trade on their own, and the lifetime experiences of many investors, which did not go back to days of financial recessions, left them unprepared for the steep sell-off of stocks in April 2000.

On March 29, 2000, the Supreme Court upheld an Erie, Pennsylvania, ordinance that required nude dancers to wear pasties and G-strings. The Court maintained that nude dancing did not fall within the free speech protection of the First Amendment.

Congress tried to make flag burning a crime while still refusing to pass legislation limiting the purchase of guns. In March 2000, the Senate once more considered a constitutional amendment, previously endorsed by President Bush, that would have banned "desecration of the flag," but once more fell just short of the necessary two-thirds vote.

In January 2000 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration advisory made companies responsible for the health and safety of employees working from home. On January 5, the day the cartoon appeared, Alexis Herman, the Department of Labor Secretary, rescinded the advisory that had caused confusion among employers about what oversight they would be expected to provide for their telecommuting employees.

Herblock exposes inadequacies in sentencing by comparing the lengthy prison term meted out to a criminal involved in a drug use charge, with the relatively short term for the prisoner convicted of murder. The War on Drugs in the late 1980s and early 1990s resulted in harsher terms for those involved in drug-related activities. By 1999, prison populations had swelled with those serving long mandatory sentences for non-violent offenses. The long sentences for the use of crack (cooked cocaine) compared to those for use of the more expensive cocaine powder illustrate another inequity. The American Bar Association reported that by far the majority of arrests were for possession rather than dealing, and that the stiffer sentences did not deter actual criminal activity.

This cartoon appeared shortly after the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado, in which two teenagers shot and killed twelve of their fellow students and a teacher before turning their weapons on themselves. This horrifying event followed other widely reported acts of violence with firearms in U.S. schools. Herb Block comments, "Many joined the gun lobby in seeking causes everywhere except in the easy availability of firearms."

On March 23, 1999, NATO and the United States ordered air strikes against the Yugoslav military after Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic refused to halt his campaign against Kosovo Albanians. The air attacks began on the night of March 24, hitting Yugoslav targets, including the capitol city of Belgrade. President Bill Clinton evoked images of Nazi atrocities during World War II to lend moral weight to the decision to attack Yugoslavia. The American people, in general, responded favorably to NATO's action.

Milosevic's attacks in Croatia and Bosnia, and his practice of "ethnic cleansing" were too long ignored by the U.S. and its allies. Later, despite warnings from the NATO nations, Milosevic persecuted ethnic Albanians in the province of Kosovo. On February 23, 1999, Serbian and ethnic Albanian leaders announced they had reached an accord, but NATO reserved the option to begin air strikes if the situation did not improve. Herb Block correctly figured that an intransigent Milosevic would not adhere to the agreement.

Despite the reluctance of many senators, the House vote for impeachment required them to proceed. The trial began January 7, 1999, and after heated exchanges on both sides, the Senate acquitted President Bill Clinton on February 12. On September 22, 2000, independent counsel Robert Ray, continuing an investigation begun six years earlier, dropped charges against Bill and Hillary Clinton concerning a Whitewater land deal going back to pre-presidential days. Herb Block comments, "The chief independent counsel in the more than $50 million investigations was Kenneth Starr, whose tactics were widely criticized. His performance contributed to Congress's failure to renew the independent counsel law."

In 1998, President Bill Clinton's sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and his alleged perjury in grand jury testimony and obstruction of justice was the big issue. After their election losses that year, many Republicans were wary of calling for impeachment and urged consideration of censure instead.

During his 1992 presidential campaign Bill Clinton admitted that, while out of the country as a young man, he had smoked marijuana, but said he had never inhaled. Later, during a Senate investigation into campaign fund-raising abuses, the White House reluctantly turned over video tapes of coffees held with potential donors. Although the tapes ultimately showed no illegal activity, the White House's hesitance to disclose them prompted Republican leaders to call for an independent counsel investigation.

On April 14, 1994, the Chief Executive Officers of the seven largest tobacco companies in the United States testified before the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment that they did not "believe" that nicotine was addictive. Indications that these CEOs were hardly being candid surfaced in the spring of 1996. Herb Block comments, "Internal documents showed a consistent pattern of knowledge and concealing of information on calculated efforts to promote and increase cigarette addiction." He portrays the CEOs with Pinocchio noses.

Within days of his inauguration, political pressure from the military and other sources forced newly-elected President Bill Clinton to delay his campaign pledge to lift the ban on gays in the armed forces. Gay and lesbian leaders subsequently announced their intention to hold Clinton to his election promise. Eventually a watered-down and largely ineffectual "Don't ask, don't tell," policy was announced and later questioned by Clinton himself. In this image, Herb Block lampoons earlier unsuccessful efforts by the military to avoid including African Americans and women.

President George Bush, running for re-election in 1992, portrayed himself as an agent of change by supporting the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and voucher programs for education and health-care. But the Savings-and-Loan scandal and the fact that Bush was held responsible for its ballooning costs to taxpayers was also costly politically. Bill Clinton benefitted from a campaign supporter's slogan, " It's the economy, stupid," to help him win the day on November 3.

On May 2, 1991, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that about 20 percent -- approximately $125 billion -- of medical spending is administrative in nature. Spiraling costs, the plight of uninsured patients and the need for universal health care coverage were among the concerns raised by Democratic candidate Bill Clinton during his successful 1992 presidential campaign.

George Bush ran against Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination during the 1980 presidential campaign, criticizing his opponent's economic program as "voodoo economics." Herb Block comments: "Later, on being considered for the vice presidency, he not only switched to supporting Reagan's economic policies but did 180-degree turns to change from a Planned Parenthood supporter to a ‘right-to-lifer' and a sudden convert to all of Reagan's social policies, including teaching of "creationism" with evolution, and a constitutional amendment to bring organized vocal prayer into the public schools. He was also for a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget. He got the job. And four years later The Big Job. But his 1988 pledge, ‘Read my lips. No new taxes' came back to bite him when he agreed to a budget plan to increase taxes."

On June 3 and 4, 1989, Chinese army troops and tanks rolled into the Tiananmen Square area in Beijing to crush student-led pro-democracy protests that had begun in mid-April. Residents of other cities in China and nations worldwide protested the bloody crackdown. Casualties were estimated at 5,000. Herb Block reprinted this cartoon ten years later as a reminder of the Chinese rulers with whom Americans were dealing.

Some televangelists exploited those who could least afford to give. Several of these preachers, who preyed on the guilt of their listeners, were revealed as imperfect role models. In April 1987, the Reverend Jim Bakker's television empire, Praise the Lord (PTL), crashed when Bakker's sexual misconduct was revealed and federal and state officials began investigating PTL's funding practices.

Self-serving TV evangelists made the news even as they broadcast their sermons on television. In Herblock at Large, the cartoonist wrote, "Also dealing in megabucks have been the TV evangelists who decry sin and who are up there in direct communication with God --- while at a more mundane level, they rake in millions a year to keep themselves on TV --- and sometimes to keep themselves living in the high style to which they have made themselves accustomed." A good example was Oral Roberts, who raised $8 million dollars after telling his television audience that God had warned him that he would die if he did not receive the money.

Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was a strong advocate of increased arms spending, including the proposed anti-missile missile program, known as "Star Wars." The $640 toilet seat collar on Weinberger became a Herb Block fixture after disclosures of Pentagon purchases of $435 hammers, $466 socket wrenches, $600 ashtrays and $2,043 wing nuts.

As the Iran-Contra scandals grew, a Reagan-appointed commission headed by former Senator John Tower held hearings. President Ronald Reagan told the Tower Commission that (A) He did not know the National Security Council staff had been helping the contras; (B) he had "no definite knowledge of military aid"; and (C) "I was very definitely involved in decisions about the freedom fighters. It was my idea to begin with." Secretary of State George Shultz contradicted Reagan's testimony on knowledge of arms-parts shipments. When continued disclosures became public, the bold Reagan administration lapsed into the passive: "Mistakes were made." The Tower Commission absolved Reagan of blame in the Iran-Contra scandals, attributing his part in them to memory lapses.

On November 2, 1986, an American hostage was released by an Iranian group that had held him captive for more than seventeen months. It was soon reported that his release was linked to a transfer of military spare parts to Iran. President Ronald Reagan commented that such a story "has no foundation" and "is making it more difficult to get the other hostages out." Herb Block comments, "But the story was true, and the trading of arms actually provided an incentive for the taking of more hostages. Appearing on television, Reagan said forcefully, ‘We did not, repeat not, trade weapons or anything else for hostages.' When this was proven to be untrue, he later made a carefully worded retraction. He left it to Attorney General Meese to disclose the diversion of arms-sales funds to Nicaraguan contra rebels, a violation of an act of Congress."

The Reagan administration made abortion a top issue. Acting Solicitor General Charles Fried filed a brief with the Supreme Court on July 15, asking that the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision be overturned. It was the first time since 1954 that the Justice Department had requested that a key decision be reversed. On July 10, the House of Representatives voted to deny foreign aid to international groups that funded abortions.

In this cartoon, Herb Block anticipated the super-giant, super-mergers that came later. In the 1980s, the deregulation of banking in the United States allowed financiers to use unprecedented and risky tactics. Financial innovations such as junk bonds encouraged corporate mergers, leveraged buyouts, and hostile takeovers at a phenomenal rate. By April 1985, the failure of many savings and loan institutions cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. It was described by former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh as the biggest white collar scandal in history. Herb Block says, "It was swept under a very large rug."

On August 21, 1982, President Ronald Reagan ordered eighty Marines to Lebanon, and one month later he sent 1200 more. At a press conference, correspondents familiar with the area had pointed out that U.S. troops barracked at an airport would be in an extremely vulnerable position. On April 18, 1983, a truck bomb destroyed the American Embassy in Beirut, killing seventeen U.S. Foreign Service and military personnel. On October 23, 1983, another truck bomb destroyed the Marine Barracks, killing 241 Marines and 19 U.S. civilians. Two days later, Reagan ordered an attack on the little Carribean island of Grenada, ostensibly to protect American students, who were unaware that they needed protection.

When President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he immediately pressed his program to cut taxes, reduce money spent on social programs and deregulate regulatory agencies. He named appointees to consumer protection and civil rights agencies who could be counted on to make them practically inoperative. Some Democrats went along with Reaganomics, but many felt it gave relief to the very rich and too little to the most urgent areas of need. Herb Block comments: "Reagan continued to call for balanced budgets without ever presenting one and tripled the national debt."

This cartoon appeared as the United States government filed suit against the Occidental Petroleum Corporation for dumping hazardous waste at Love Canal and other sites around Niagara Falls, New York. Pressed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Justice Department also sued for reimbursement to cover the costs of cleaning up the toxic waste sites and to relocate people whose homes had become contaminated.

Herb Block's commentary on the 1980 contest for the Democratic presidential nomination recalls a popular contemporary Gillette television commercial of a two-sided bathroom cabinet. On September 11, 1979, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts announced his intention to run for president against the Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter unless there was "improvement in the economy or at least a perception of improvement by the American people." Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill encouraged Kennedy to run, which he did unsuccessfully.

The Shah of Iran, Reza Shah Pahlavi, left his country on January 16, 1979 paving the way for a new government led by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. On April 1, 1979, Khomeini established an Islamic republic in Iran, calling it "the first day of the government of God." Revolutionary fervor ran high as armed vigilante bands and kangaroo courts made bloody work of the Shah's last partisans and what remained of the secular left. Under Khomeini's fanatic rule, firing squads summarily carried out death sentences. His followers seized the American embassy and numerous hostages on November 4, 1979.

On July 14, 1978, the Soviet government imprisoned Anatoly Shcharansky, a dissident accused of supplying secret material to a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. The trial began on July 10, just two days before the start of U.S.-Soviet strategic arms limitation talks in Geneva. The trial captured public attention because Shcharansky had been promoting the cause of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. In addition, Shcharansky's countryman Alexander Ginzburg, manager of a fund for political prisoners, received a sentence of hard labor on July 13. President Jimmy Carter spoke out against the trials but said that American athletes would not boycott the Moscow Olympics. He reversed this decision in 1980 after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

As a resident of Washington, DC since 1946, Herb Block has actively supported the political interests of the half million or so residents of the District of Columbia. Herb Block comments: "The residents of the District of Columbia pay the Federal income tax and a D.C. income tax that is higher than that of almost any state. And they are required to fulfill the same calls to duty including military service as other Americans. But they have no voting representation on the floor of either house of Congress."

As U.S. dependence on foreign oil grew, President Jimmy Carter focused on energy conservation. He called his energy campaign the "moral equivalent of war," which critics shortened to "MEOW." In his 1978 State of the Union message, Carter reiterated the need for an energy bill, but could not rally support. The Reagan Administration scuttled the policy, even removing the solar panels Carter had installed in the White House. A generation later, the U.S. imports half of its oil from abroad, and has requested OPEC members to lower prices by increasing exports.

In 1977, the U.S. District Court tried a former CIA head for failing to report accurately the extent to which the spy organization was active in Chile. The House Judiciary subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights probed the FBI. The chairman questioned whether it was "appropriate to keep thousands of Americans under surveillance, [involving] everything they do, interviewing their employers, just because two or three people say they're going to stage a demonstration." Herb Block comments, "Unwarranted secret operations and snooping in the interest of ‘security' have contributed to making Americans feel less secure."

In 1977, a severe fuel shortage caused by an OPEC decrease in production, along with increased pollution and growing fears of global warming, caused Americans to rethink energy use. Yet the government was slow to carry out the 1970 Clean Air Act, and the automobile industry pressured Congress to extend the deadline further. In 1977, the Act was amended to give both states and automakers still more time to reduce emissions. Gas-guzzling SUVs and light trucks were not held to the standards of ordinary cars and were later given till 2004 and beyond to reduce their polluting.

In Herblock on All Fronts, the cartoonist wrote: "Depreciation in dollars, in products, and in entertainment has also extended to education. Here it is not a case of the fast buck but of the fast bucking-the-kid-along-to-the-next-grade. It produces graduates who can hardly make their way through a phone book or figure the cost of four twenty-five-cent items in a grocery store."

On February 22, 1977, newly-elected President Jimmy Carter submitted his budget to Congress. It included an additional $350 million in school aid for poor children; extra millions in grants and work-study programs for college students; and sought a reduction in congressional funds for school districts with large numbers of federal employees. Herb Block's cartoon is a reminder of the divisions in one nation.

In a televised address on October 15, 1974, President Gerald Ford appealed to Americans to mobilize in the fight against inflation, suggesting a list of voluntary individual measures. His "Whip Inflation Now" campaign was called WIN but turned out to be a loser. Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Burns had announced that the nation was in a recession, despite Ford's insistence to the contrary. Ford campaigned for Republican congressmen and senators, urging support for candidates who supported his fight against inflation.

By July 14, 1974, President Richard Nixon stood almost alone. His vice-president Spiro Agnew, pleaded nolo contendere to a charge of tax evasion, and was forced to resign. Many of Nixon's closest aides had been convicted of illegal activities. Nixon himself was named an "un-indicted co-conspirator" by the Watergate grand jury. A few days later, the House Judiciary Committee recommended impeachment, and the Supreme Court required him to turn over all subpoenaed tapes. When even his closest friends, reviewing these tapes, agreed that the evidence against him was overwhelming, Nixon bowed to the inevitable, resigning on August 9.

Even more damning than President Richard Nixon's profiting from public office were the disclosures of his corruption and attempts at corruption of the government itself including the CIA, the FBI, the Pentagon and even the Secret Service. A taping system that had recorded most of President Nixon's conversations in the Oval Office provided the "smoking gun" that spoke of crime and corruption. Nixon refused to release the tapes until the Supreme Court ordered him to do so.

On November 17, 1973, President Richard Nixon told 400 Associated Press managing editors that he had not profited from public service. "I have earned every cent. And in all of my years in public life I have never obstructed justice. People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook," he declared. On April 3, 1974, the White House announced that Nixon would pay $432,787.13 in back taxes plus interest after an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service and a congressional committee. Among Nixon's benefits to himself were improvements in his properties, supposedly necessary for his protection. These included a security ice maker, a security swimming pool heater, security club chairs and table lamps, security sofa and security pillows.

Before the Watergate case, Herb Block had noted other Richard Nixon scandals. These concerned reports of improper influence by ITT Corp. on the location of the future Republican National Convention; Nixon's fluctuating decisions on milk price supports that amounted to a shakedown for campaign funds; and pressures on other businesses to meet quota "suggestions" on contributions. There were disclosures of taxpayer money spent to fix up Nixon's homes in Key Biscayne and San Clemente. Nixon also took large backdated tax deductions for the gift of his vice-presidential papers, which even included newspaper clippings.

By June 1973, the country had become transfixed by the investigation of Watergate via the televised hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. On June 25, former presidential counsel John Dean began his testimony, the first before the committee to directly accuse President Richard Nixon of involvement in the coverup.

As the 1972 presidential campaign progressed, reports surfaced of violations of campaign regulations and laws. On August 26, the General Accounting Office said that it had found irregularities in reports by the Republican Committee to Re-elect the President (known by the acronym CREEP). Democrats complained that an investigation by the Justice Department and the White House were insufficient and called for a special team to handle the matter.

In his 1968 bid for the presidency, Richard Nixon announced to the war-weary country that he had a secret plan to end the Vietnam War. When he ran for re-election four years later, American troops were still fighting in Indochina, with casualties continuing to climb.

Campaign finance spending soared in the 1960s. The cost of the 1968 presidential campaign was $300 million — almost double that of 1964. With Republican coffers in 1971 comfortably filled while the Democrats were some $9 million in debt, the Democratic-controlled Congress considered proposals to provide public financing. But President Richard Nixon threatened a veto. Eventually, they compromised on some public financing of presidential elections starting in 1976. Since then, loopholes in the laws have permitted almost unlimited political spending far in excess of the government's contributions and of all previous campaigns. In the year 2000 campaign, more than $300 million had already been spent on political ads alone before the end of September.

On June 13, 1971, the New York Times began publishing installments of the "Pentagon Papers," documents about American involvement in Indochina from the end of World War II to the mid 1960s. The Nixon administration moved to block further publication of the papers, and Attorney General John Mitchell obtained a temporary injunction against The New York Times. The Washington Post then released two installments before being similarly enjoined. Other papers picked up the series, until June 30, when the Supreme Court rejected the government's request for a permanent injunction. The "New Figure" cartoon was one of many depicting President Richard Nixon's attempts to curb public information, partly through government control of broadcast stations owned by newspapers.

Long before the Watergate scandals, Herb Block was pointing out excessive use of government power to wiretap or otherwise investigate the activities of citizens an administration felt were at odds with its policies. In 1970, the Civil Service Commission admitted to having a Security Investigations Index with over 10 million entries, and the armed forces revealed surveillance of Americans involved in anti-Vietnam war activities.

Despite Richard Nixon's election campaign promises to end the Vietnam War, each new step widened rather than reduced American involvement.

In January 1968, moderate communists came to power in Czechoslovakia, inaugurating a period of increasing democratization known as the "Prague Spring." The Soviet Union became increasingly concerned that the Czech experiment might spread to other countries in the Soviet Bloc. During the night of August 20-21, Soviet troops, joined by the forces of satellite countries, occupied the country by force.

Governor George Wallace of Alabama had achieved national notoriety when he defied federal orders to integrate the University of Alabama in 1963, and he continued to fan the fires of racial intolerance. In 1968, he tried to capitalize on continuing resentment over civil rights measures beyond the South by running for president on a third party ticket. In November, he received the electoral votes of only five Southern states.

Gun control became a hot issue when President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in 1963 by a man using a mail-order rifle. In the ensuing demand for legislation to curb gun sales, the National Rifle Association, under the guise of protecting the rights of legitimate hunters, opposed all efforts to prevent government regulation of firearms.

Herb Block has foreseen some issues, including the anti-smoking campaign that had barely begun in the United States in 1967, but in which he was personally involved. In 1959, he suffered a heart attack and after six weeks in the hospital, quit what had been a multi-pack-a-day habit. In his 1993 memoirs, Herblock: A Cartoonist's Life, he wrote: "For quite a while I resisted doing cartoons on the subject, not wanting to be a reformed smoker calling on others to conform. But with the health hazards increasingly obvious and tobacco companies showing a callous irresponsibility, it was clearly an issue worth working on."

In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson hailed the "good life" in the United States, as living conditions for many Americans reached high levels. However, inner city residents, especially blacks experiencing poverty and racial injustice, felt no share in it. During the summer of 1967, protests and riots broke out in several American cities, including Buffalo, Newark, Detroit, as well as many other cities across the United States. In response, the House passed a bill that made it a federal crime to cross state lines to incite a riot. This cartoon portrays Congress in the role of Nero, fiddling while U.S. cities burn.

Since his move to Washington, D.C., in 1946, Herb Block has been an impassioned advocate for the social, political, and economic welfare of the city's inhabitants. In early October 1966 members of Congress openly expressed their desire to end the current session and leave Washington to campaign for re-election in November. This cartoon depicts the poor who were unable to escape the dismal living conditions found in many of the city's neighborhoods.

After the State Department announced the possibility of a direct American combat role in Vietnam, the White House issued "clarifications," insisting that there had been no change in policy. On June 16, 1965, the Defense Department announced that 21,000 additional soldiers including 8,000 combat troops would go to Vietnam, bringing the total U.S. presence to more than 70,000 men. President Lyndon Johnson continued to obscure the extent of American involvement, contributing to a widespread perception of political untrustworthiness. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, based on a never-verified report of an attempted attack on an American ship, passed the Senate with only two dissenting votes, and gave Johnson all the authority he felt he needed to proceed with the escalation.

During the presidential campaign of 1964, President Lyndon Johnson suggested that Republican candidate Barry Goldwater could not be trusted to keep the U.S. out of war. But not long after his election, Johnson increased American involvement in the Vietnam war and moved ultimately to take over the war itself. In the same week that NASA sent the Gemini 4 space capsule into orbit, setting new records for a two-man flight, the State Department announced that Johnson had authorized a potential role for direct American military involvement in Vietnam if requested by the South Vietnamese authorities. Herb Block was prescient in his view that this constituted a major step in the involvement of U.S. forces in Indochina.

Herb Block compares the civil rights marches around the exclusionary walls of segregation to the Biblical march of the exiled ancient Israelites around the walled city of Jericho. The Israelites marched around Jericho seven times and the walls came tumbling down.

In 1965, Alabama became the focus of an intense effort to register blacks to vote. On March 7, 1965, over 600 marchers for voting rights left Brown's Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Selma on their way to Montgomery, fifty-four miles away. On this "Bloody Sunday," state troopers attacked the marchers as they reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge at the Alabama River. Nearly 100 of the marchers were hurt as they ran back toward the church. Television cameras captured the violence, making Selma an overnight symbol of racial oppression. It led President Lyndon Johnson to push for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

After being elected president in his own right, in his 1965 inaugural address President Lyndon B. Johnson called for the creation of a "Great Society," supporting new social programs, including anti-poverty projects. In his "guns and butter" policies, the butter projects at home did better than the gun policies in Vietnam. By the end of his term in office, his growing budget for "Health, Education, and Welfare" represented the greatest social advances since the New Deal.

Herb Block applauds the growing activism of the civil rights movement in this cartoon. Here he shows the Catch-22 situation of an African-American practically pushed into the street by a white man, while signs on all the buildings that line the street speak of restrictions on African Americans.