him the authority to whatever was needed to deal with the communists in Vietnam Public support for the war effort fell as the United States suffered huge casualties By 1967 there were large demonstrations, and by 1968 Johnson had become increasingly unpopular On January 23, 1968, the USS Pueblo, an American intelligence-gathering ship, was seized by North Korea after ending up in their waters The crew of 80 were all captured and held for 11 months until the U.S government apologized and obtained their release, later retracting their apology Johnson had ordered the USS Enterprise into the region, but acted with caution In the week after the seizing of the Pueblo, the Vietcong launched the Tet Offensive, with television coverage of Vietcong capturing the U.S embassy General William Westmoreland had promised that the war was nearly over three months earlier The United States and South Vietnam quickly managed to defeat the Vietcong attacks, but most people refused to believe the administration’s protestations that victory was close Johnson decided not to contest the election and on March 31, 1968, in a national address on television, stated that he would neither seek nor accept the Democrat Party’s renomination The 1968 election campaign saw the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the African-American civil rights leader, on April 4, leading to rioting in Washington, D.C., and many other cities The assassination of presidential candidate and former attorney general Robert F Kennedy in Los Angeles on June resulted in widespread political unease Vice President Hubert Humphrey was guaranteed the Democrat Party nomination when the party convention was held in Chicago, but antiwar protestors converged on the city intent on making their opposition to the war heard Johnson tried to help Humphrey, who called for an unconditional U.S halt to the bombing of North Vietnam, and in October, a week before the election, Johnson announced the end of all U.S bombing to open the way for peace talks It was too late for many people, and they voted for Richard Nixon In January 1969 Johnson retired to his L.B.J Ranch near Johnson City, Texas Johnson suffered a heart attack, and died on January 22, 1973, in San Antonio, Texas, only five days before the Paris Peace Accords stopped the fighting in Vietnam Lyndon Johnson was buried at his ranch Further reading: Barrett, David M Uncertain Warriors: Lyndon Johnson and His Vietnam Advisers Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993; Brands, H W The Wages of Glo- Jordan, Hashemite monarchy in 233 balism: Lyndon Johnson and the Limits of American Power New York: Oxford University Press, 1995; Goldsmith, John A Colleagues: Richard B Russell and His Apprentice, Lyndon B Johnson Washington D.C.: Seven Locks Press, 1993; Henggeler, Paul R In His Steps: Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedy Mystique Chicago: Ivan R Dee, 1991; Herring, George C L.B.J and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994 Justin Corfield Jordan, Hashemite monarchy in For most of Jordan’s modern history, Jordanians knew only one king as architect of the kingdom’s domestic development and of its foreign policy King Hussein consolidated the Hashemite regime in Jordan and defended it against internal and external challenges, neither of which were in short supply From the foundation of the Hashemite state onward, Jordan maintained close strategic ties to Britain and later the United States After World War II, and with the onset of the cold war, Jordan also established stronger links with the United States Western powers came to view Jordan as a conservative bulwark against communism and radical forms of Pan-Arabism, and as a moderating element in the Arab-Israeli conflict From the beginning, then, Jordan had close ties to powerful Western states and depended heavily on foreign aid from these countries to keep the kingdom afloat Jordan’s centrality in Middle East politics and geography also carried with it a strategic vulnerability In the 1950s, when the kingdom was still young and viewed by many Pan-Arab nationalists as an artificial “paper tiger,” some Jordanian officials feared that another regional conflict might eliminate the Hashemite state entirely In 1957 Hussein headed off an attempted coup d’état by pro-Nasserist military officers and used the opportunity to solidify Hashemite royal control By the late 1960s the regime was forced to focus outward once again as regional tensions escalated especially between Israel and Gamal Abdel Nasser’s regime in Egypt In the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israeli forces launched what they viewed as a preemptive strike on Arab forces in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, inflicting a devastating defeat on all three countries The complete failure of the Arab war effort led to Israeli occupation of the Sinai from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan In less than six days, Jordan lost some of its most prized territory, including the agriculturally rich West