Chapter 11 (1968 In America) by Charles Kaiser

EUGENE McCarthy's behavior during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago crippled the movement for peace; Blair Clark, Jeremy Larner, and a great many others would never forgive him for what he failed to do there.5 The last chance to get the Democrats formally to repudiate Lyndon Johnson's war disappeared as McCarthy's will to lead dwindled away. Largely because of McCarthy's personal idiosyncrasies, the people who had worked so hard and so long to get him elected were left with nothing at the end of August but a feeling of bitter, empty failure.

That Chicago tragedy may have been avoidable; the other one was inevitable. To the left of McCarthy's kids was another group of Americans whose actions were unrelated to the Minnesotan's persistent acedia. These men and women sought a violent confrontation in Chicago as a means of proving that America had become a "police state." Goaded by Mayor Richard Daley's notorious shoot-to-kill order, the Chicago police force was more than willing to play the exaggerated role the radicals had selected for them. The behavior of the police was so egregious that by the end of the convention week, respected Democratic senator from Connecticut was comparing Daley's henchmen with Nazis--and the radicals in the streets had attracted the sympathy of most of the liberals who had struggled to make the system more responsive.6



There was nothing very welcoming about Chicago in August. An electrical workers' strike, a telephone installers'strike, a bus strike, and a taxicab strike had practically paralyzed the city even before the convention began. The convention hall was ringed with barbed wire that could be electrified at the flick of a switch. Outside, the city's entire police force of twelve thousand was put on twelve-hour shifts, and they were bolstered by six thousand Illinois National Guardsmen, as well as six thousand regular troops, who were equipped with rifles, flamethrowers, and bazookas.7 Chicago became the setting for the first great battle between American counterculture and American reaction; less than two years later, the killing of four students at Kent State University would bring this war to its peak.8

Mayor Daley's refusal to grant permits for anyone to camp out in his city's parks was a crucial first step toward ensuring a violent confrontation. Late Sunday evening, the day before the convention began, the pattern for the week was established when the police decided to clear Lincoln Park. As they had at Columbia, the protesters taunted the police with chants of "Pigs!" and "Oink, oink, shithead," to which the cops responded with shouts of "Kill the Commies !" before wading into the crowds with their billy clubs. When a Newsweek reporter flashed his credentials on an adjacent street, a policeman shouted at him, "Newsweek fuckers!" and clubbed him on his head and then over the rest of his body. Order wasn't restored in the streets until 2 A.M. By then, ten newsmen had been beaten.9