American Pharaoh (82 page)

With the national press streaming in, Daley tried to project an image of a busy city executive calmly leading a world-class
metropolis. John Swearingen, chairman of Standard Oil of Indiana, came to City Hall to announce plans to build a $100 million
office building downtown. Daley also found time on August 20 to appear in person at the dedication of the first eight low-cost
prefabricated homes being built for Chicago’s poor. The new homes were, he said, “symbolic of the spirit of Chicago.” He urged
his audience to “build, not burn,” and to “construct, not riot.” But the first violence of the convention came from the Chicago
police. On August 22, just four days before the convention opened, Dean Johnson of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, one of the young
people who had thronged to Chicago for the excitement, was shot to death by the police. They said they shot him after he fired
a .32 caliber revolver at them. Of more concern to Daley, several Blackstone Rangers were arrested after appearing as witnesses
in an investigation of an alleged plot to disrupt the convention. Their plan, according to a jailed gang member, was to assassinate
Vice President Humphrey and Senator McCarthy, the leading contenders for the nomination. Thomas Foran, the U.S. attorney for
Chicago installed by Daley, launched a secret probe of the charges. Evidence of the “plot” was extremely thin. Initially,
Foran called the story “completely unverified,” but a few days later he ordered a grand jury investigation, citing “new information.”
Nothing ever came of the inquiries, which seemed designed to justify oppressive levels of convention security. In the days
leading up to the convention, Warsaw Pact troops were marching into Czechoslovakia to crush the liberal reforms that had been
ushered in by Prague Spring. Daley denounced the invasion as a “dastardly act of suppression of freedom and liberty.” To Daley,
it was a Cold War lesson in the evils of communism. He failed to see any parallels between how the Soviets had used force
to crush liberal young Czechs, and how he was planning to unleash the Chicago police and Daley dozers on liberal young Americans.
Asked by a reporter what effect the events in Prague would have on the convention, Daley said, “I think it will affect a lot
of doves that are flying around here.”
²⁰

In addition to serving as host of the convention, Daley would also be playing his traditional role of kingmaker. His ability
to deliver 118 Illinois delegates made him one of the few individuals who could actually affect the outcome. There was considerable
speculation about which way Daley was leaning. It seemed unlikely he would back either McCarthy or McGovern, but he did not
seem to be in a rush to endorse Humphrey. Daley was convinced a Democratic ticket headed by Humphrey would lose Illinois badly.
He had been talking to politicians from around the country, and they shared his concerns about Humphrey’s electability. There
were rumors Daley was trying to draft Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, perhaps working with Jesse Unruh, the California
party boss who controlled the lion’s share of his state’s 174 delegates. Daley had been hatching a plan to draft Kennedy for
some time. John Criswell, an aide to President Johnson, was at a press conference Daley held in July about the status of the
convention preparations. In a report to Johnson, Criswell recounted: “We were finished and a reporter asked him if he agreed
with Bailey that Ted Kennedy would be a help to the ticket. He said he agreed and then, almost under his breath, added, ‘I
hope the convention drafts him.’”

On the Saturday before the convention began, Daley called Kennedy at Hyannis Port and urged him to run. Daley told Kennedy
that the politicians he was speaking with were not enthusiastic about Humphrey. The thing for Kennedy to do, Daley said, was
to come out to Chicago for the convention, or at least to make it known that he would accept a draft. The only problem with
Daley’s plan was that Kennedy did not want to run. He was only thirty-six, a freshman U.S. senator, and he was still grieving
for the second of his brothers to be taken by an assassin’s bullet. Kennedy told Daley he would not be attending the convention,
and that he would not be available for a draft. But if there was any need to get in contact with him, his brother-in-law Stephen
Smith, who was a delegate from New York, would be on hand to represent his interests. At the same time as the Kennedy draft
rumors were circulating, there were also reports that Daley had not given up hope of convincing President Johnson to accept
a draft to run for reelection. Johnson’s birthday fell on the second day of the convention, and Daley continued to make birthday
plans for the president. He was ready with a Texas-sized birthday cake, and a reservation at the Stockyard Inn, near the Amphitheatre,
for a party. Daley had also hidden a cache of signs in the convention hall with the inscriptions “Birthday Greetings” and
“We Love You LBJ.” But Johnson’s mind was made up. He remained in Texas, and on August 24 he assured a college audience that
he was “not a candidate for anything except maybe a rocking chair.”
²¹

On Sunday, August 25, Daley was scheduled to announce his presidential choice at a 3:00
P.M.
meeting of the Illinois delegation in a ballroom at the Sherman House. Humphrey, McCarthy, and McGovern all addressed the
delegates, many of whom wore blue-and-white “Daley for President” buttons. Humphrey spoke for thirty-seven minutes. McCarthy
and McGovern each spoke for seventeen minutes. Lester Maddox, Georgia’s segregationist governor, was sent away the first time
he showed up, but when he returned he was allowed to address the delegates. After twenty-five minutes, Daley put an arm around
Maddox’s shoulder and said: “Governor, I know you’ll understand when I tell you our wives have been waiting for us at the
reception for some time.” There was no great enthusiasm in the room for any of the candidates. Some delegates could be heard
grumbling out loud that Humphrey, the front-runner, was a weak candidate. Though Daley had said repeatedly he would announce
his decision at this meeting, he had already told Stephen Smith that “the boys might decide to hold off for forty-eight hours.”
In other words, he was going to put off his decision by two days to allow more time for a groundswell to develop around Edward
Kennedy. Bill Daley says that, at least at one point during convention week, his father seemed to be working to draft Kennedy.
“When I got home [one night of the convention], I was planning to go out. There were lots of parties. My dad said, ‘Why don’t
you stick around?’ I asked ‘Why?’ He said, ‘I think we’re going to endorse Teddy Kennedy tomorrow morning.’”
²²

Out on the streets, tensions were rising between protesters and the police. The anti-war movement was by now divided into
two separate camps: the Yippies were still up in Lincoln Park on the North Side, while the more political MOBE was using Grant
Park, located down the lakeshore closer to the Loop, as a base of operations. On Saturday night, the police had cleared Lincoln
Park of demonstrators. The 200 who were ejected formed a line along Clark Street, on the west side of the park, and taunted
the police: “Red Rover, Red Rover, Send Daley right over.” On Sunday afternoon, August 25 — the last day before the convention
started — about 100 anti-war demonstrators marched through downtown chanting “Peace now” and “Dump the Hump.” Delegates checking
in at the Hilton Hotel, headquarters for out-of-town delegates, were greeted by 800 protesters, more than half of whom had
made the two-and-a-half-mile march from Lincoln Park. The first major clash between police and demonstrators occurred later
that night in Lincoln Park. The police charged in at 11:00
P.M.
and, invoking the rarely enforced curfew, began clearing out the park. The Yippies and other demonstrators who had settled
in for the evening were taken by surprise. “I honestly believed that nothing was going to happen in Lincoln Park — that people
who stayed in Lincoln Park would be relatively safe,” Abbie Hoffman said later. “It was inconceivable to me, up until that
Sunday night at six o’clock, when the police first charged into the park, that they were not going to let us sleep in the
park that night.”
²³
For the next three hours, police beat unarmed protesters and reporters until the park was finally empty. During the attacks,
two policemen told a reporter that “the word is out to get newsmen.” Daley insisted later that journalists had not been singled
out, but added: “We ask the men of the news media to follow the instructions of the police as other citizens should.” The
Sunday night skirmish in Lincoln Park was the first time convention reporters were roughed up, and it helped turn press coverage
against Daley. Mike Royko, in a column entitled “Cops Threaten Law and Order,” took it upon himself to explain Daley to his
national colleagues. “He’s been conning people so easily, I’m sorry to say about my fellow Chicagoans, that he thought he
could keep it up this week,” Royko wrote. “But sorry, Mayor, when your trained musclemen slapped around the nation’s press
I was listening. They think you are nothing but a less articulate version of Governor George Wallace. That’s not much, after
13 years in office.”
²⁴

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