Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (102 page)

The most fiery struggles badly burned the Democratic party. McCarthy, whom Allard Lowenstein and other liberal activists had persuaded to challenge Johnson in January, took an early lead among anti-war Americans, especially students.
²⁸
In New Hampshire and subsequent Democratic primaries thousands of young people, "Clean for Gene," canvassed energetically to help him. They respected his intelligence, his wit, his care in developing positions on the issues, his commitment to opening up party processes to new groups of people, and his refusal to pander to audiences. Above all, they admired his courage, rare among established politicians, in challenging an apparently invulnerable President of his own party.

McCarthy was indeed an unusual politician. As a young man he had spent a nine-month novitiate at a monastery before abandoning thoughts of becoming a monk. He had then taught at Catholic colleges, where he also wrote poetry. Among his friends was Robert Lowell, perhaps America's most distinguished poet. An ardent supporter of Adlai Stevenson in 1960, McCarthy had backed LBJ, not JFK, for the presidential nomination after Stevenson gave up. He then became known as a fairly liberal senator and as a reliable supporter of LBJ (who dangled the vice-presidential nomination before him in 1964) before revolting against the President's policies in Vietnam. His strong showing in the New Hampshire primary inspired his followers to hope that he might win the nomination.
²⁹

From the beginning, however, McCarthy left many people cold. He was often arrogant with supporters, including his own staff, and contemptuous about the glad-handing rituals of democratic political campaigning. He made few efforts to cultivate the press. When energized, he could be an inspiring public speaker, but more often than not he made no apparent effort to reach out to listeners. Some observers wondered if he really wanted to win. McCarthy seemed especially uncomfortable trying to cope with the passionate emotions aroused by race. He avoided speaking in ghettos and in other places where blacks were numerous. When King was murdered, he said nothing. Although liberal opponents of Johnson respected McCarthy, many yearned for someone who could excite the masses of blacks and working-class Democrats.
³⁰

That someone, of course, was Robert Kennedy. For a while after his brother's assassination in 1963, "Bobby" had seemed traumatized. He nursed deep and abiding resentments against Johnson, with whom he had clashed bitterly during the 1960 convention, and whose presence in the White House—in place of his brother—was a rankling reminder of what might have been. These bitter feelings never abated; if anything they intensified over time. But some of the old ruthlessness, for which opponents had both feared and hated him in the early 1960s, seemed to soften. Supporters said he had grown. Even enemies sensed that he had mellowed.
³¹

Liberal political organizers, led by Lowenstein, had worked hard in late 1967 to get Kennedy to challenge Johnson. They knew that he would be a charismatic campaigner and that he possessed a unique asset: the mystique and the magic of the Kennedy name. Kennedy was sorely tempted, both because he loathed Johnson and because he had grown increasingly critical of the war. But he had refrained from breaking openly with LBJ. Moreover, many of the political professionals to whom he turned for advice counseled him against running. They pointed out what seemed to be the obvious: Johnson, as President, could not be denied the Democratic nomination. Better to wait until 1972.

When Kennedy reluctantly agreed with this analysis, many people were both upset and angry. Lowenstein responded, "The people who think that the future and the honor of this country are at stake because of Vietnam don't give a shit what Mayor Daley [of Chicago] and Governor Y and Chairman Z think. We're going to do it, and we're going to win, and it's a shame you're not with us because you could have been President."
³²
Lowenstein then turned to McCarthy, who boldly took the plunge that Kennedy had shied away from. When Johnson's popularity dwindled in early 1968, especially after Tet, many liberals openly expressed their contempt of Kennedy. They carried placards,
BOBBY KENNEDY: HAWK, DOVE, OR CHICKEN
?
³³

When Kennedy finally jumped into the contest—after the New Hampshire primary exposed Johnson's vulnerability—he infuriated many liberals who had committed themselves to McCarthy earlier in the year. They complained, often bitterly, not only that Kennedy was "chicken" but also that his candidacy would split the liberal and anti-war camps that opposed Johnson's policies. The result, they predicted after LBJ's withdrawal on March 31, would be that Vice-President Humphrey, Johnson's surrogate, would win the Democratic presidential nomination. In 1960 or even in 1964 many liberals would have welcomed that outcome, for Humphrey had been a committed supporter of civil rights and other social programs. But as Vice-President he had swallowed doubts about the war and had supported Johnson's policies. He was anathema to many Democratic liberals in 1968.

Kennedy, despite these handicaps, gradually cut into the base of McCarthy's anti-war and liberal support. This was not because he was more fervently anti-war than McCarthy. On the contrary, while both candidates called for an end to American bombing and for allowing the National Liberation Front a role at the peace table and in the subsequent political life of South Vietnam, McCarthy was willing to endorse in advance a coalition government including the NLF, and Kennedy was not. Kennedy indicated that he would maintain America's commitment to South Vietnam and would support "retaliatory action" against the North if necessary. Nor was it because Kennedy had necessarily better answers for inner-city problems. He favored expansion of public and private spending to build up black areas in the cities. (He was himself contributing a great deal of his own money to such efforts in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of New York.) This approach commanded only lukewarm support from many people concerned with urban racial problems. A program of "gilding the ghettos," they said, ran counter to the goal of most people who lived there—to escape. If enriching the ghettos worked, which critics doubted, it would reinforce racial separation. McCarthy, emphasizing the goal of integration, denounced Kennedy's stance and called instead for the construction of "new towns" on the edge of cities, so blacks could move out and live where the jobs were.
³⁴

Kennedy's campaign caught fire, instead, because he seemed much more engaged and eloquent, especially on the subject of race relations, than McCarthy. When Kennedy heard that King had been killed, he ignored advisers who warned him to stay out of the exploding inner cities. Instead, he braved the black center of Indianapolis—he was then running in the Indiana primary—where he climbed on top of a car to speak movingly of his support for racial equality. He was so intense, so obviously shattered by the killing, that the once seething crowd grew attentive and respectful. Later he spoke in the impoverished black sections as well as the white working-class wards of Gary. He delivered the same candid and unpatronizing message wherever he went: assailing racial prejudice, denouncing riots, deploring the rise of welfare, celebrating the virtues of hard work. In particular he appealed to the idealism and consciences of people in the middle classes. He thereby forged coalitions of supporters that cut across race and class lines and that brought him victory in the primary. Thousands of liberals, recognizing McCarthy's weaknesses, swarmed to the Kennedy cause.

In the remaining few weeks of the primary season Kennedy solidified his appeal as a champion of poor and working-class Americans. In Oklahoma he deplored the poverty of Indians on the reservations; in California he befriended Chávez; in New York he identified with the plight of Puerto Ricans. Although he lost a primary to McCarthy in Oregon—the only time any Kennedy had failed to win an election—he attracted huge and sometimes frighteningly responsive crowds almost everywhere else he went. Throngs of people heaved against him and his worried bodyguards; women lunged to touch his hair. More than once he emerged from crowds with torn clothes and with hands bleeding from the hundreds of squeezes and slaps that besieged him. Veteran political observers were astonished and shaken by the powerful emotions that Kennedy aroused.

Kennedy capped his exciting run with a close but decisive victory over McCarthy in the key California primary in early June. In his moment of triumph, however, he was fatally shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a deranged Arab nationalist, in a hallway of a Los Angeles hotel. The killing and its aftermath unleashed vivid memories of JFK's murder more than four years earlier. When Bobby's body was carried on a train from New York to Washington, where he was to be buried near his brother, throngs of weeping and waving Americans stood alongside the tracks. In Baltimore thousands sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" even before the train appeared. The death of Robert Kennedy further smashed the already beleaguered forces of American liberalism and devastated people who had looked to him as the only remaining hope to heal a fragmented nation.

Could Kennedy have won the nomination if he had lived? That became one of the most frequently asked questions in the history of modern American politics. When he was killed, he needed 800-odd additional delegates to win the nomination. Some of them might have come from McCarthy—if McCarthy, an unpredictable man, proved willing to let them go. Others might have abandoned Humphrey, whose chances then seemed hopeless for November.
³⁵
Still, the Johnson-Humphrey forces maintained a firm hold on the party machinery, which they manipulated without qualm at the convention. Johnson hated Kennedy as much as Kennedy hated him. All these political realities would have worked strongly against Kennedy's chances for the nomination.

The Democratic convention that took place in Chicago in late August turned out to be such a wild and bloody affair that the first-ballot nomination of Humphrey, by then foreordained, was scarcely noticed.
³⁶
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley had long anticipated some sort of confrontation. The mayor, indeed, reflected the complex feelings of many who joined the backlash of the late 1960s. By then he had lost enthusiasm for the war effort, mainly because he had concluded that it could not succeed. But Daley, like many of the working-class people who were the source of his power, was revulsed by anti-war demonstrators, whom he regarded as elitist, pampered, sanctimonious, and unpatriotic. He was equally hostile to unruly blacks: in April, amid rioting in Chicago following the assassination of King he had ordered his police to "shoot to kill" arsonists and "shoot to maim or cripple" looters. By the time the convention opened Daley had barricaded the site and had amassed a formidable force of 12,000 police (plus 5,000 National Guardsmen and 6,000 federal troops in readiness nearby) to quell the slightest disturbance. When demonstrators arrived, he denied them permits to sleep in public parks, to march, and otherwise to engage in meaningful protest. He was eager for an excuse to put them down.

Many anti-war activists, forewarned that there would be serious trouble at Chicago, stayed home. The numbers who came from out of town were therefore relatively small; estimates placed them at around 5,000. Another 5,000 or so from the Chicago area joined them on occasion during the five days of protests that followed, but most demonstrations, scattered as they were over seven miles of Chicago shorefront, were small—police ordinarily outnumbered protestors by three or four to one. Many of those who journeyed to Chicago were pacifists and advocates of non-violence who belonged to the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, or Mobe, as it was called. Mobe, however, was a sprawling coalition of groups, some of which seemed ready and willing to provoke violence in order to advance their cause. Tom Hayden, a key leader, was one of these. By the summer of 1968, following the assassinations and rioting that had raised the level of turbulence in the country, it was clear that many of the activists who arrived in Chicago were anticipating a fight.
³⁷

A smaller though much more colorful group of demonstrators called themselves Yippies, or members of the Youth International Party. The Yippie phenomenon—one could hardly call it a movement—was largely the creation of two incredible characters, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Both were veterans of hippie and anti-war activities, including the march on the Pentagon in 1967. They had a wonderful affinity for the absurd, a gift for theatrics, and a keen awareness of the way in which the zaniest antics attract attention from the media. They expected and welcomed violent retaliation from Daley's police, and they very much wanted to be noticed.
³⁸
They announced that the Yippies would dress up as bellboys and seduce the wives of delegates, and give out free rice on the streets. They proposed to nominate a pig, Pigasus, for the presidency. The Yippie slogan declared, "They [the Democrats] nominate a president and he eats the people. We nominate a president and the people eat him."
³⁹

Some of the violence that disrupted Chicago erupted as early as Sunday August 25, the eve of the convention, when Yippies seeking to camp in Lincoln Park three miles north of the convention site taunted police. "Pig, pig, fascist pig," they chanted. "Pigs eat shit!" When the Yippies disobeyed an order to leave the park area at 10:30
P.M.
, police chased after them through the streets of the city, clubbing them as they fled. Those who refused to leave, perhaps 1,000 in all, suffered the same fate. The police also assaulted reporters and photographers from
Newsweek, Life
, and the Associated Press. The battle at Lincoln Park continued sporadically and violently for the next two nights. Confrontations also arose outside the convention hotel, the Hilton, where protestors chanted, "Fuck you, LBJ," "Dump the Hump," "Sieg Heil," and "Disarm the Pigs."