Following Kennedy's assassination, Steinbeck became a friend of Lyndon Johnson. During the Viet Nam War, Steinbeck reported for Newsday, a Long Island newspaper, from the jungles of southeast Asia. His war dispatches were very militant, and he was deeply moved by the deaths of young American soldiers. (Both of his sons were in the army, and one was serving in Viet Nam.) Often a guest at the White House, Steinbeck supported American involvement in Viet Nam, and he lost friends who supported the anti-war movement. These years led to his last publications — testimonies to his thoughts and feelings about America.
Steinbeck's last two books were nonfiction. Travels with Charley in Search of America was an account of his trip from Maine to California. This journey was a pilgrimage of sorts in search of America, and he named his truck Rocinante, after the horse that carried the idealistic Don Quixote. Steinbeck's love for America is evident throughout this book, and he felt he had found the modern American character. His last book, America and the Americans, was about his faith that the country would come together despite the pains it suffered in the 1960s.
Steinbeck died on December 20, 1968, at his apartment in New York City. He was 66 years old. His wife took him home to Salinas, and he was buried not far from the many towns and ranches that sprang from his imagination and grace the pages of his books. A controversial writer during much of his life, Steinbeck is often remembered with the phrase used in the awarding of his Nobel Prize: "… he holds his position as an independent expounder of the truth with an unbiased instinct for what is genuinely American, be it good or bad."
