BoomerGirl Diary

In his new book, "Boom: Voices of the Sixties," Tom Brokaw writes that the revolution that started in 1963, happened literally - BOOM! - overnight.

"A friend of mine went to Harvard as a Goldwater Republican in 1967 and, by 1968, he's saying 'ban ROTC on campus'," said Brokaw. "I mean it did happen, like that. Overnight."

The former reporter, then news anchor, was on the scene for most of the pivotal events of the time but said it was President John F. Kennedy's assassination that, in effect, started the 60s.

"I think it stripped away the kind of romantic idealism that he symbolized for this country," said Brokaw. "He was a whole new generation of politician. He was so dashing looking. His lifestyle raised the sites of all of us as well, and it was quite vicarious for those of us living out in the heartland. And then he was gone."

The Summer of Love in '67 was a culture shock to the young buttoned-up reporter from South Dakota.

"I looked like an FBI agent or a narc. I had a white button-down shirt and a narrow tie and a trench coat as I remember that night," said Brokaw. "I had just come from Berkeley covering a demonstration. And the cab driver said, "Mister, what do you do?" And I said, 'I'm a journalist.' And he said, "Do you know about this neighborhood called Haight-Ashbury?" And I said, 'No'. So, I went there and it was like stepping out of the cab into the bar scene of "Star Wars". I'd never seen anything quite like it."

Brokaw says if he had to choose an adjective that best-described the sixties generation, at the time, he'd pick 'hell-raising'.

But will they raise hell once again?

"I think hell has to be raised for an effect and not just in a mindless way. And a lot of the hell that was raised in the 60s turned out to be quite mindless. Nihilistic and destructive," said Brokaw. "You have to remember that Mark Rudd went from being a radical leader at Columbia to a founder of the Weatherman. And when they blew themselves up, three of them, they were preparing a bomb to put in the officer's club at Ft. Dix in New Jersey. Think about that."