Chicago, watching from afar, knew that discord stoked by war and rebellion would hit the city with tornadic force. City officials didn’t know what to make of yippies’ outrageous or maybe just outlandish threats — to kidnap delegates, to poison food, to torch explosions in storm sewers — but as city Corporation Counsel Richard Elrod later would reflect, “If you wrote it all off, you’d be remiss. When you have blowhards like (Jerry) Rubin and (Abbie) Hoffman, who can tell what’s truth and fiction? So we determined to have a show of strength.” The whole world watched protesters and police. Astonishingly, nobody fired a shot, nobody died.