American Pharaoh

by Adam Cohen

  When the convention began on Monday morning, August 26, Daley still had not made an endorsement. As volunteers handed out white stickers with red letters reading “Draft Ted,” rumors swept the convention that Daley had endorsed Kennedy. The “Draft Kennedy” headquarters was being besieged with phone calls indicating that delegates from across the country — New York, Pennsylvania, Alabama — were lining up behind a Kennedy draft. The only trouble was, Kennedy had never agreed to be drafted, and after repeatedly saying he would not allow himself to be nominated, he finally sent a telegram that removed all doubt. With Kennedy out of the running, Daley began looking to Johnson. In response to a question from a reporter, Daley said that he was trying to keep the option open for President Johnson to enter the race. It was telling that Daley was vacillating between President Johnson, the anti-war movement’s devil incarnate, and Ted Kennedy, its great hope. The Democratic Party was being split down the middle over Vietnam, the great moral issue of the day. But Daley’s concerns were much more practical: finding a candidate who would run strongly in Cook County. 25

  Daley spoke to the convention’s opening session Monday night. The Illinois delegation, ignoring the rule against demonstrations on the floor, interrupted the proceedings by holding a small pro-Daley parade in front of the podium, complete with “Daley for President” signs. In his address, Daley made no apologies for bringing the convention to Chicago. “I greet you as Mayor,” Daley told the packed Amphitheatre and a national audience watching at home. “But, if I can have a moment of politics, I would say it is an important sign of faith to the American people for this national political convention to be held here — not in some resort center, but in the very heart of a great city where people live and work and raise their families.” Daley made a point of clarifying what kind of person he was welcoming and what kind he was not:

  I do not refer to the extremists . . . who seek to destroy instead of to build — to those who would make a mockery of our institutions and values — nor do I refer to those who have been successful in convincing some people that theatrical protest is rational dissent. I speak of those who came conscientiously because they know at this political gathering there is hope and opportunity. I speak of those who came because the instinct that brings them here is right.

  Daley insisted, as he always did, that he would be firm with the protesters who were gathered in the parks and on the streets. “As long as I am mayor of this city,” he said, “there is going to be law and order in Chicago.” 26

  Outside the convention hall, law and order was in fact already breaking down. But it was once again the police who had become lawless. The same night that Daley addressed the convention, the Chicago police got into some skirmishes in Grant Park and engaged in what would later be called a “police riot” in Lincoln Park. Policemen charged through crowds, firing tear gas and swinging clubs and yelling “Kill, Kill, Kill.” Some removed their badges and nameplates to avoid being identified. Setting a pattern for the week, the police attacked bystanders as eagerly as demonstrators, and those who did not resist as much as those who did. Once again the police seemed to be singling out news reporters — who were marked with distinctive white armbands — for harsh treatment. One Chicago Tribune reporter was told he would have his “head busted” if he did not leave. Twenty reporters ended up with injuries that required hospitalization. “Chicago police are going out of their way to injure newsmen, and prevent them from filming or gathering information on what is going on,” NBC News commentator Chet Huntley complained. “The news profession in this city is now under assault by the Chicago police.” The morning after the clash in Lincoln Park, Police Superintendent Conlisk met with representatives of the four Chicago newspapers, and other media organizations. He promised to launch an investigation of police conduct toward reporters, and announced the formation of a special police unit to protect reporters and photographers. Still, Daley was not particularly impressed by the reporters’ complaints about the violence that was directed at them. “We ask their cooperation and help and that they not join in the running and rushing which is part of these disorders,” he said. If the police responsible for the violence could be identified, Daley said, “the least that can be expected is a reprimand.” 27

  As the convention entered its second day, Daley was still giving no clue about which way he intended to swing the Illinois delegation. He appeared to be stalling for time in the hope that some alternative would emerge to a Humphrey candidacy. After a speech to the Illinois delegation on Tuesday, August 27, he told reporters he did not think Kennedy was likely to run. But it was possible Kennedy in-law Sargent Shriver could be the vice presidential nominee. In a break from national politics, Daley spoke to the Cook County ward committeemen, who had assembled to nominate candidates for eight judicial vacancies. He did not share his thoughts about the presidential race, but these machine functionaries understood their place. “You lead—we’ll follow,” Cook County clerk Eddie Barrett said. Despite his private worries that his party was about to nominate an unelectable candidate, Humphrey, Daley challenged the “doubting Thomases” and “apostles of despair” who were saying the Democrats were doomed to defeat. “We’re going to come out of this convention with the next President of the United States!” he insisted. 28

  Tuesday evening, the convention delegates argued about Vietnam late into the night. After 1:00 A.M., while a contentious battle was looming over whether to add a peace plank to the platform, Daley repeatedly drew a finger across his neck to signal to convention chair Carl Albert to end the proceedings for the evening. That image, of a mean-faced Daley stage-managing the convention from his perch in the Illinois delegation, became one of the most enduring of the convention and of his career. It confirmed the suspicions of anti-war delegates: that despite all the democratic procedures built into the party structure, a single party boss was calling all the shots. As the hall erupted in shouts and catcalls, Albert called on “the great mayor of Chicago” to offer up a motion to adjourn. Daley’s motion to recess until noon the next day was adopted by a chorus of “ayes.” On the way out, Daley took a swipe at the incivility of the peace activists who had been causing an uproar over the issue of Vietnam. “The convention was not out of order,” Daley said. “It was the people in the galleries. They were our guests but they did not act like guests in this building, the home of our party while the convention is going on.” The disorder continued on the streets that night. Several peace groups organized an “un-birthday party” at the Coliseum, one block from Michigan Avenue, to mark President Johnson’s sixtieth birthday. The police once again clashed with demonstrators in Lincoln Park. This time, the police were more aggressive, and the demonstrators held their ground more firmly. More than sixty protesters received injuries that required medical treatment, and more than one hundred were arrested. 29

  Wednesday, August 28, was the day the delegates would be voting for president, and Daley had promised to announce the Illinois delegation’s choice in advance. Kennedy had by now taken himself firmly out of the running for “personal and family reasons.” After meeting with the Illinois delegation at the Sherman House on Wednesday morning, Daley informed reporters that “after a long session in the typical spirit of Illinois democracy” the delegation would cast 112 of its 118 convention votes for Humphrey. Daley’s machine allies — including William Lee, Matt Danaher, George Dunne, and Dan Rostenkowski — petitioned Humphrey to consider nominating Daley for vice president. Daley had not expressed interest in the job, they said, but they thought he could be convinced. Daley himself was, at least publicly, backing Maine senator Edmund Muskie. 30

  The only permit issued to MOBE, after all the negotiations, was for a rally in Grant Park on Wednesday afternoon. In the hot sun, about 10,000 people assembled in front of the oyster-shaped band shell. As the young people handed out peace buttons and anti-war literature, the Chicago police passed out a stern leaflet from Superintendent Conlisk stating that the demonstrators were limited to holdin
g a stationary rally and that any attempts to conduct a march would subject the participants to arrest. Thirty people were injured when a skirmish broke out between police with nightsticks and protesters throwing debris. Other clashes involved National Guardsmen, who fired tear gas directly into the faces of demonstrators. One assistant U.S attorney told investigators he saw “hundreds of people running, crying, coughing, vomiting, screaming.” But the worst fighting that day occurred on Michigan Avenue. The Conrad Hilton Hotel, at Michigan and Balbo, had become a rallying point for demonstrators in nearby Grant Park. Five thousand protesters were gathered outside the hotel, and Daley had called out 800 members of the National Guard to face them down. When Brigadier General Richard Dunn shouted at the demonstrators through a bullhorn, he was drowned out by “This Land Is Your Land” played over a sound system. As the evening wore on, the situation deteriorated. Just before 8:00 P.M., deputy police superintendent James Rochford ordered the crowd to leave the area. Getting no response, the police charged the crowd. 31

  The fighting that followed would later be known as the Battle of Michigan Avenue. In a twenty-minute orgy of violence, police beat up demonstrators and bystanders, fired off tear gas canisters, and shoved people through restaurant windows. Demonstrators were knocked to the ground and then kicked repeatedly. Heads were bloodied by swinging billy clubs. “I was hit for the first time on the head from behind by what must have been a billy club,” one secretary who was in the crowd recalled later. “I was then knocked down and while on my hands and knees, I was hit around the shoulders. I got up again, stumbling, and was hit again. . . . After my second fall, I remember being kicked in the back, and I looked up and noticed that many policemen around me had no badges on. The police kept hitting me on the head.” She eventually made it to a hospital, “bleeding badly from my head wound,” and received twelve stitches. Journalist Shana Alexander observed the scene in an impromptu first aid station on the fifteenth floor of the Hilton, where a surgeon treated bleeding young people as “Happy Days Are Here Again” played in the background on a TV set broadcasting live from the convention. “One boy ha[d] a severed artery in his leg,” Alexander recalled later. “He and his girl were in the street, there as spectators, not demonstrators, when the cops shoved people back against the Hilton with such force that a shop window shattered and the boy and girl were pushed backward through the glass. Police leaped in shouting surrealistically, ‘Clear the Room! Clear the Room!’ and clubbed and Maced the boy as he lay on the floor. The surgeon’s wife, a nurse, had found the young couple hiding under a back stairs, terrified the blue [uniformed] police would come again.” On another bed Alexander saw a wounded young man wearing a Red Cross armband indicating that he was on the scene as a medic. His head had been beaten in by a police club. “See those stellate-type wounds,” the surgeon said as he examined the young medic. “The way the scalp is split like a pumpkin, these are all full-force blows.” 32

  The rallying cry on Michigan Avenue that night was “the whole world is watching,” and the protesters were not far off. Unlike the earlier melees, this police riot was captured by the television cameras set up outside the Hilton Hotel. The footage was quickly edited and broadcast to a national audience who had gathered around their televisions expecting to see the Democratic Party nominate a presidential candidate. The networks did an ingenious job of cutting back and forth between shots of the bloody police attacks and of a laughing Daley on the convention floor, giving viewers the impression Daley was celebrating the violence. The network switchboards immediately lit up with phone calls, most expressing outrage at the police actions. Daley’s supporters would later point to the Wednesday night broadcasts as evidence that the media were out to get Daley. It was part of the national media’s “colossal propaganda campaign” against Chicago and its police department, police spokesman Frank Sullivan charged. “The intellectuals of America hate Richard J. Daley because he was elected by the people — unlike Walter Cronkite.” 33

  The news from Michigan Avenue was slow to reach the Amphitheatre. The delegates were engaged in their own squabbles until 9:30 P.M., when the television monitors scattered around the hall carried the same television footage the rest of the country was seeing. The riot scenes intensified the divisions in the convention hall. Robert Maytag, chairman of the Colorado delegation, interrupted the proceedings with a point of order and asked, “Is there any rule under which Mayor Daley can be compelled to suspend the police state terror being perpetrated at this minute on kids in front of the Conrad Hilton?” Daley reacted with red-faced anger while his supporters booed Maytag until the chair ruled him out of order. Connecticut senator Abraham Ribicoff took to the podium to nominate George McGovern. Departing from his text, Ribicoff declared, “With George McGovern we wouldn’t have Gestapo tactics on the streets in Chicago.” There was a moment of silence, as Daley flushed purple before a national television audience, shook his fist, and screamed an epithet toward the stage. To many, it seemed clear that Daley had just called Ribicoff a “fucker,” but Daley’s defenders would insist that the word he used was “faker.” Either way, his fury was evident. Four Daley loyalists — county commissioner George Dunne, Alderman Thomas Keane, Democratic state chairman James Ronan, and Francis Lorenz — jumped up from their seats and gestured for Ribicoff to get off the platform. Looking down at Daley, who was just twenty feet away, Ribicoff said: “How hard it is to accept the truth. How hard it is.” Daley tried to look calm, as a tight ring of security officers gathered around to protect him, though the source of the threat was not clear. Daley joked with Dunne, well aware that television cameras were focused on him and that they had already captured him looking irate and possibly profane. Before long, Daley stalked off the floor. He was not there to see 103¾ votes from the Pennsylvania delegation put Humphrey over the top. 34

  After the Battle of Michigan Avenue, the national media became more outspoken in their disgust at the scene in Chicago. “I want to pack my bags and get out of this city,” Walter Cronkite declared. Roger Mudd wondered on CBS whether anyone had ever “done so much damage to a great political party” as Daley. But Daley steadfastly defended law enforcement’s handling of the protests. “Our police department is a great police department,” he said. “They are all good and decent men and they don’t respond with undue violence.” 35 The fault, Daley insisted, lay with the hippies, who “aren’t the youth of this country.” 36 Thursday morning, Daley went on a public relations offensive. At a City Hall press conference, he read a statement and asked for it to be “given the same kind of distribution on press, radio and television as the mob of rioters was given yesterday.” The demonstrators were “terrorists” who had come to Chicago determined to “assault, harass, and taunt the police into reacting before television cameras,” Daley said. And he charged that the media had “distorted and twisted” the truth about the city and the police. In a departure from his usual practice, this time Daley refused to take questions. 37

  Thursday night, August 29, Daley took his public relations campaign to the convention hall. Copies of his press conference statement, accompanied by sympathetic newspaper stories, were placed on the buses that took delegates to the Amphitheatre that night. A fresh run of “We Love Mayor Daley” posters, ordered from the printer at 4:00 P.M. and delivered by 8:00 P.M., were plastered around the Amphitheatre. The rafters were packed with enthusiastic machine loyalists — Daley’s “Ruly Crowd,” in David Halberstam’s phrase — who broke into regular shouts of “We Love Daley” throughout the evening. The acrimony of the previous day was replaced by reverent silence when a thirty-two-minute film tribute called Robert Kennedy Remembered was shown, and when it ended the delegates rose in unison for a five-minute standing ovation. But after the applause ended, the delegates were once again divided. When Carl Albert tried to bring the convention to order, peace delegates — mostly from the New York and California delegations — launched into a rendition of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The Illinois and Texas dele
gations, the heart of the party’s old guard, made a point of sitting down and waiting for the interruption to end, as the peace delegates continued their demonstration. After almost twenty minutes, an organized contingent from the Illinois delegation marched in from the Amphitheatre’s south gallery chanting “We love Daley! We love Daley!” That did not stop the anti-war forces, but Daley then came up with a shrewd ploy that did: he sent Ralph Metcalfe up to the podium to offer an unscheduled tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. The peace delegates had no choice but to stop and listen. 38