"I don't say that lightly. This country was up for grabs in many ways. We had this war going on, with kids in the street, marching in Washington. National Guardsmen in gas masks, facing them down. That we came out of (the Democratic Convention in) Chicago, where there was a breakdown in the streets, and that we were able to have elections. And that people were able to accept the results of those elections."

"For me, at the time, there were two big lessons. One was how quickly it can change — the fundamental assumptions that we have about society and our government. And then, two, the resilience of the American people — '68 was the beginning of profound distress of the American government, and we're still working our way through that."

On the History Channel

The two-hour documentary "1968 with Tom Brokaw" debuts Sunday at 10 p.m. on the History Channel and repeats Sunday/early Monday at 2 a.m.; Wednesday at 9 p.m.; Thursday/early Friday at 1 a.m.; and Saturday, Dec. 16, at 6 p.m.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com