Richard Nixon was President in 1969, having won the election of 1968 over Hubert Humphrey by only a half million votes out of 73 million cast. He won by .7%. But since Humphrey was part of the democratic party platform in support of the Vietnam war, neither party was against it.

This is why there were riots against both parties' conventions in 1968. As now, the entire country was against the war, but both parties were nonetheless for it. The press, being run by the CIA, was of course for the war, so what the people thought didn't really matter.

The press wasn't there to follow opinion, but to create it. Nixon and Humphrey had seen what had happened to [Republican contender] George Romney—Mitt Romney's dad—when he came out against the war. The press had crucified him.

After that, all of the candidates kept quiet about the war, although it was topic number one in 1968, or should have been.

Nixon took office in January of 1969. Hoover was head of the FBI then, as he had been since its founding in
1935. Both Nixon and Hoover hated the hippies with a passion and wished to destroy them. This is now part of
the public record, and we know it from declassified documents.