These are only a few of the specific horrors that we will have to come to grips with between now and September. There will, of course, be others -- less tangible and far more sensitive -- such as Subversion of Key Personnel. As always, there will be a few brainless scumbags going under -- succumbing, as it were -- to the lure of this latest cult. We expect this, and when these organizational blow-holes appear, they will be plugged with extreme speed & savagery.
It is the view of the Sports Desk that a generation of failed dingbats and closet-junkies should under no circumstances be allowed to foul our lines of communication at a time when anybody with access to a thinking/nationwide audience has an almost desperate obligation to speak coherently. This is not the year for a mass reversion to atavistic bullshit -- and particularly not in the pages of Rolling Stone.
We expect the pressure to mount in geometric progressions from now until December, & then to peak around Christmas. Meanwhile, it is well to remember the words of Dr. Heem, one of the few modern-day wizards who has never been wrong. Dr. Heem was cursed by Eisenhower, mocked by Kennedy, jeered by Tim Leary and threatened by Eldridge Cleaver. But he is still on the stump. . . still hustling.
"The future of Christianity is far too fragile," he said recently, "to be left in the hands of the Christians -- especially pros."
The Sports Desk feels very strongly about this. Further warnings will issue, as special problems arise. Which they will. We are absolutely certain of this, if nothing else. What we are faced with today is the same old Rising Tide that's been coming for the past five years or more. . . the same old evil, menacing, frog-eyed trip of a whole generation run amok from too many failures.
Which is fine. It was long overdue. And once again in the words of Dr. Heem, "Sometimes the old walls are so cockeyed that you can't even fit a new window." But the trouble with the Jesus Freak outburst is that it is less, a window than a gigantic Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, the Rape of the Congo and the Conquest of the Incas, the Mayans, and the Aztecs. Entire civilizations have been done in by vengeful monsters claiming a special relationship with "God."
What we are dealing with now is nothing less than another Empire on the brink of collapse -- more than likely of its own bad weight & twisted priorities. This process is already well underway. Everything Nixon stands for is doomed, now or later.
But it will sure as hell be later if the best alternative we can mount is a generation of loonies who've given up on everything except a revival of the same old primitive bullshit that caused all our troubles from the start. What a horror to think that all the fine, high action of the Sixties would somehow come down -- ten years later -- to a gross & mindless echo of Billy Sunday.
This is why the Sports Desk insists that these waterheads must be kept out of the building at all costs. We have serious business to deal with, and these fuckers will only be in the way.
Sincerely,
Raoul Duke
Rolling Stone, #90, September 2, 1971
Memoirs of a Wretched Weekend
in Washington
One of my clearest memories of that wretched weekend is the sight of Jerry Rubin standing forlornly on the steps of a marble building near the Capitol, watching a gang fight at the base of a flagpole. The "counter-inaugural" parade had just ended and some of the marchers had decided to finish the show by raping the American flag. Other marchers protested, and soon the two factions were slugging it out.
The flag slipped down the pole a few feet, then went back up as a group of anti-war patriots formed a sort of human anchor on the main pulley-rope. These defenders of the flag were part of the Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), organizers of the "counter-inaugural". . . the liberal, pacifist collegiate wing of the protest. The attackers, screaming "Tear the damn thing down," were a wild and disorganized hellbroth of young streetfighters, ranging from local SDS militants to a motorcycle gang called the "Huns." There were blacks on both sides of the argument, but most of the fist-action involved young whites.
As I backed away from the brawl, two dogs began fighting behind me and a march leader shouting "Peace!" into his bullhorn was attacked by a freak wearing a Prussian helmet. The anti-war parade had turned savagely on itself.
Rubin, a Yippie organizer and veteran of every major protest since the first Berkeley uprising in 1964, was staring at the chaos around the flag-pole. "Awful," he muttered: "This whole thing is depressing. . . no life, no direction. . . this may be the last demonstration."
His words echoed a notion I'd just scribbled in my notebook: "No more singing, no more speeches, farewell to all that. . ." I understood what Rubin meant; our paths had crossed constantly in the past four years, from the Bay Area to Chicago. . . always on different levels of involvement, he as a central figure and I as a journalist. . . but now, in 1969, it was obvious to both of us that the scene had changed drastically.
Violence and confrontation are the themes now. The whole concept of "peaceful protest" died in Chicago, at the Democratic Convention. Nobody invited Joan Baez to Washington; nobody sang "We Shall Overcome." There were other, newer slogans here, like "Kill the Pigs!" "---- the War," and "Two-Four-Six-Eight. . . Organize to Smash the State!"
Vicious dissidence is the style. Nobody goes limp. They throw rocks at the cops, then run. . . and two minutes later they pop up somewhere else and throw more rocks. We have come a long way from Berkeley and the Free peech Movement. There is a new meanness on both sides. . . and no more humor.
For Rubin, the change is bitterly personal. As a result of the police riot in Chicago, he is now free on $25,000 bail, charged with solicitation to commit mob action, a felony carrying a possible five-year prison sentence. In the good old days, three months in jail was considered harsh punishment for a protest leader. Now, in the Nixon era, people like Rubin are candidates for the bastinado.
As for me. . . well, the change is not yet physical. With press credentials, I usually manage to avoid arrest. . . although I suspect that, too, will change in the new era. A press badge or even a notebook is coming to be a liability in the increasingly polarized atmosphere of these civil conflicts. Neutrality is obsolete. The question now, even for a journalist, is "Which side are you on?" In Chicago I was clubbed by police: In Washington I was menanced by demonstrators.
The Inauguration weekend was a king-hell bummer in almost every way. The sight of Nixon taking the oath, the doomed and vicious tone of the protest, constant rain, rivers of mud, an army of rich swineherds jamming the hotel bars, old ladies with blue hair clogging the restaurants. . . a horror-show, for sure. Very late one night, listening to the radio in my room I heard a song by The Byrds, with a refrain that went: "Nobody knows. . . what trouble they're in; Nobody thinks. . . it might happen again." It echoed in my head all weekend, like a theme song for a bad movie. . . the Nixon movie.
My first idea was to load up on LSD and cover the Inauguration that way, but the possibilities were ominous: a scene that bad could only be compounded to the realm of mega-horrors by something as powerful as acid. No. . . it had to be done straight, or at least with a few joints in calm moments. . . like fast-stepping across the Mall, bearing down on the Smithsonian Institution with a frenzied crowd chanting obscenities about Spiro Agnew. . . mounted police shouting "Back! Back!". . . and the man next to me, an accredited New York journalist, hands me a weird cigarette, saying, "Why not? It's all over anyway. . ."
Indeed. He was right. From my point of view -- and presumably from his -- it was all over. Richard Nixon had finally become President. All around us these 18 and 19 year old loonies were throwing firecrackers and garbage at the mounted police. From inside the Smithsonian, Agnew's people were looking out, crowded against the doorway glass, watching the mob as it menaced late-arriving guests. A cop lost his temper and rushed into the crowd to seize an agitator. . . and that was the last we saw of him for about three minutes. When he emerged, after a dozen others had rushed in to save him, he look
ed like some ragged hippie. . . the mob had stripped him of everything except his pants, one boot, and part of his coat. His hat was gone, his gun and gunbelt, all his badges and police decorations. . . he was a beaten man and his name was Lennox. I know this because I was standing beside the big plainclothes police boss who was shouting, "Get Lennox in the van!"
Lennox was not in full control of himself; he was screaming around like a guinea hen just worked over by a pack of wild dogs. The supervisor bore down on him, raging at the spectacle of a chewed-up cop running around in full view of the press and the mob. . . adding insult to injury. They put Lennox in the van and we never saw him again.
How could this happen? With Spiro Agnew and his guests looking out from the elegant museum on the eve of his inauguration as Vice-President of the U.S., a mob of dissident "pacifists" mauls a cop assigned to protect the party. This man Lennox had read too many old newspapers, too many reports about "cowardly, non-violent demonstrators." So he rushed in to grab one of them -- to enforce The Law -- and they nearly did him in. A man standing next to the action said: "They took turns kicking him in the head. They tore everything off of him -- thirty more seconds and they'd have stripped him completely naked."
Rotten behavior, no doubt about it. Several hours later, riding in a cab in another part of Washington, I told the black cabbie what had happened. "Beautiful, beautiful," he said. "I used to be on The Force and I was ready to go back. . . but not now; hell, I don't want to be a public enemy."
I went to the Inauguration for several reasons, but mainly to be sure it wasn't a TV trick. It seemed impossible that it could actually happen: President Nixon. Enroute to Washington, crossing the Rockies in a big jet with a drink in my hand I wrote in my notebook: "One year later, flying east again to cover Nixon. . . last time it was to New York and then on the Yellowbird Special to Manchester, New Hampshire. . . to Nixon headquarters at the Holiday Inn, greeted by speechwriter Pat Buchanan who didn't approve of my garb. . . Mistah Nixon, he doan like ski jackets, boy -- and Where's yore tie? Buchanan, a rude suspicious geek, Liberty Lobby type. . . but now he's in Washington, and so is "The Boss."
All the staffers called him "the boss." His speeches and campaign appearances were called "drills." I'm not sure what they called me, but it must have been ugly. Here is an excerpt from the article I wrote after following him around New Hampshire for ten days:
Richard Nixon has never been one of my favorite people. He was. . . a man with no soul, no inner convictions. . . The "old Nixon" didn't make it. Neither did earlier models of the "new Nixon." So now we have "Nixon Mark IV," and as a journalist I suppose it's only fair to say that this latest model might be different and maybe even better in some ways. But as a customer, I wouldn't touch it -- except with a long cattle prod.
At the Baltimore airport I ran into Bob Gover, arriving from New Orleans with a new wife and a big movie camera. Gover is a writer (One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding, among others), but he's into a film gig now, making a movie of the impending revolution that he thinks will be out in the open before 1970. Not everyone involved in "The Movement" is that optimistic; the timetable varies from six months to four years, but there is near-unanimous agreement that some kind of shattering upheaval will occur before 1972. . . not just riots, or closing down universities, but a violent revolution.
This ominous prospect has already cracked the fragile solidarity of the "new left." Until now, the war in Vietnam has been a sort of umbrella-issue, providing a semblance of unity to a mixed bag of anti-war groups with little else in common. The "counter-inaugural" in Washington showed, very clearly, that this alliance is breaking down.
Indeed, the whole scene is polarizing. Wtih Nixon and John Mitchell on the Right, drumming for Law and Order. . . and with the Blacks and the Student Left gearing down for Revolution. . . the Center is almost up for grabs. The only centrist-style heavyweight these days is Senator Ted Kennedy, who seems to be playing the same kind of Build and Consolidate game that Richard Nixon perfected in 1966.
Kennedy began to haunt Nixon even before he was sworn in. On Saturday, two days before the Inauguration, Teddy dominated local newscasts by unveiling a bust of his murdered brother, Robert, in the courtyard of the Justice Department. Then, two days after the Inaugural, Teddy was the star of a big-name fund raising rally at the Washington Hilton. The idea was to pay off Robert's campaign debts, but a local newspaper columnist said it "looked like the kickoff of Teddy's campaign." The senator, ever-cautious, was quoted in the Washington Post as saying he hadn't picked a Vice President yet, for 1972. Nixon's reaction to this boffo was not reported in the press. The only public comment came from Raoul Duke, a visiting dignitary, who said: "Well. . . nobody laughed when Banquo's ghost came to the party. . . and remember the Baltimore Colts."
In any case, the battle is joined. . . Revolution versus the Wave of the Past. Rumors persist that Mr. Nixon remains confident -- for reasons not apparent to anyone under 50, except cops, evangelists and members of the Liberty Lobby. The rest of us will have to start reading fiction again, or maybe build boats. The demands of this growing polarization -- this banshee screaming "Which side are you on?" -- are going to make the Johnson years seem like a Peace Festival. Anybody who thinks Nixon wrote that soothing inaugural speech should remember the name, Ray Price. He is Nixon's Bill Moyers, and -- like Moyers -- a good man to watch for signs of a sinking ship. Price is Nixon's house liberal, and when he quits we can look for that era of bloody chaos and streetfighting. . . and perhaps even that Revolution the wild turks on the New Left are waiting for. President Nixon has moved into a vacuum that neither he nor his creatures understand. They are setting up, right now, in the calm eye of a hurricane. . . and if they think the winds have died, they are in for a bad shock.
And so are the rest of us, for we are all in that eye -- even the young militants of the New Left, who are now more disorganized than even the liberal Democrats, who at least have a figurehead. The Washington protest was a bust, despite the claims of the organizers. . . and for reasons beyond mud and rain. Jerry Rubin was right: it was probably "the last demonstration" -- or at least the last one in that older, gentler and once-hopeful context.
On Monday night, around dusk, I went back to the big circus tent that had been the scene, just 20 hours earlier, of MOBE's Counter-Inaugural Ball. On Sunday night the tent had been a mob scene, with thousands of laughing young dissidents smoking grass and bouncing balloons around in the flashing glare of strobe-lights and rock-music. Phil Ochs was there and Paul Krassner. . . and Judy Collins sent a telegram saying she couldn't make it but "keep up the fight.". . . the crowd dug it all, and passed the hat for a lot of dollars to pay for the tent rental. A casual observer might have thought it was a victory party.
Then, after Nixon's parade, I went back to the tent to see what was happening. . . and it was gone, or at least going. A six-man crew from the Norfolk Tent Co. had taken down everything but the poles and cables. Thick rolls of blue and white canvas lay around in the mud, waiting to be put on a truck and taken back to the warehouse.
As the tent disappeared, piece by piece, young girls with long hair and boys carrying rucksacks drifted by and stopped to watch. They had come back, like me, half-expecting to find something happening. We stood there for a while, next to the Washington Monument. . . nobody talking, not even the tent-company crew. . . and then we drifted off in different directions. It was cold, and getting colder. I zipped up my ski jacket and walked fast across the Mall. To my left, at the base of the monument, a group of hippies was passing a joint around. . . and off to the right a mile or so away, I could see the bright dome of the Capitol. . . Mr. Nixon's Capitol.
Suddenly I felt cold, and vaguely defeated. More than eight years ago, in San Francisco, I had stayed up all night to watch the election returns. . . and when Nixon went down I felt like a winner.
Now, on this Monday night in 1969, President Nixon was being honored with no less than six Inaugural Balls. I bro
oded on this for a while, then decided I would go over to the Hilton, later on, and punch somebody. Almost anybody would do. . . but hopefully I could find a police chief from Nashville or some other mean geek. In the meantime, there was nothing to do but go back to the hotel and watch the news on TV. . . maybe something funny, like film clips of the bastinado.
The (Boston) Globe, February 23, 1969
PART 2
Presenting: The Richard Nixon Doll
(Overhauled 1968 Model)
No interview with Richard Nixon will end until he refers to himself, at least once, as a "political man." His opponents, by implication, are mere "politicians." Especially the man Nixon plans to defeat this November. . . for the Presidency of the United States. Selah.
The major polls and surveys in the country suggest that Nixon may be right, despite the outraged howls of all those voters who insist that a choice between Nixon and Johnson is no choice at all. Sen. Eugene McCarthy has called it "a choice between obscenity and vulgarity." Yet McCarthy is the political heir of Adlai Stevenson, who said that "People get the kind of government they deserve." If this is true, then 1968 is probably the year in which the great American chicken will come home to roost. . . either for good or for ill.
The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales From a Strange Time Page 25