American Pharaoh

by Adam Cohen

  The Democrats certainly were not coming to Chicago for its convention infrastructure. The McCormick Place fire had robbed the city of its best convention site. What Daley had to offer was the International Amphitheatre in the stockyard district, just a few blocks from his home. The Amphitheatre was built in 1934, after a massive fire destroyed an eight-block section of the stockyard district and razed the area’s exposition hall. It was a rush job: the exhibition hall had burned down in May, and contractors had a new one in place for the annual livestock show in December. The building that went up was far more modest than the old McCormick Place. The International Amphitheatre had been the site of the 1956 Democratic and 1960 Republican conventions, and of a 1964 Beatles concert. But it was also a popular site for cattle shows and rodeos. Two mountains of manure, seventy feet wide and ten feet high, were just a few blocks away. The Democrats would later decide, after assessing the situation more closely before the start of the convention, that speakers who appeared at the podium should be sprayed first with bug repellent. 34

  Daley called the selection of Chicago a “great honor,” but not an unexpected one, since Chicago was the “number one convention city.” Reporters asked if Daley had gotten the convention because of his promise to keep control over events inside and outside the Amphitheatre. “Let someone else say it,” Daley said. “We talk about our location, our accommodations, our great newspapers and radio and TV stations. We talk of our experience in handling conventions.” But in fact, others were saying that Daley had won over Johnson by his promise to keep order. The unrest in Newark, Detroit, and other cities over the summer had raised fears that the convention would be held in the middle of another long, hot, and riot-filled summer. Chicago, on the other hand, had remained peaceful all summer. Johnson also had to be worried about disruptions aimed at him. The peace movement was gaining force across the country, especially on college campuses, and it was likely that thousands of anti-war demonstrators would make an appearance wherever the Democratic convention was held. “Daley and Johnson are close politically,” Cook County Republican chairman Timothy Sheehan reasoned in explaining the choice of Chicago. “And the Democratic organization is well-versed in controlling crowds. They’ll make sure that no strange outsiders... pack the gallery. They’ll pack them themselves.” 35

  Daley assured the Democratic Party and the nation that Chicago would provide a peaceful and hospitable setting for the convention. “Our people realize that we are working in a positive direction to solve their problems,” he said. But 1967 ended on an ominous note. In the last few days of December, two aldermen were attacked and a charity worker was killed. Independent 5th Ward alderman Leon Despres was shot twice in the leg while walking home from his office, and 14th Ward alderman Joseph Burke foiled burglars in his home. Mary Virginia Tunney, a forty-two-year-old bookkeeper for Goodwill Industries, was found shot to death on the sidewalk outside her South Side apartment building. Daley vowed to put five thousand more police on the street if necessary. “There is no excuse for violence anywhere,” he said. 36

  As the Democratic primaries began, it was clear that President Johnson was in trouble. Four years earlier, when he won the White House in a landslide, a second term seemed almost inevitable. But the Vietnam War had changed everything. In early 1968, Johnson’s chances of being reelected were looking increasingly remote. The Tet Offensive in late January had driven even more Americans into the anti-war camp. The Viet Cong’s bloody assault on South Vietnam, waged by some 60,000 troops, was the most persuasive evidence yet that, despite the optimistic assessments emanating from Washington, the Vietnam quagmire was nowhere near an end. In the six weeks after the start of the Tet Offensive, Johnson’s approval ratings sank from 48 percent to 36 percent, and approval of his handling of Vietnam plunged from 40 percent to 26 percent. Anti-war activists had transformed themselves into a political force — the “Dump Johnson” movement — that initially coalesced around Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy. But with McCarthy’s once quixotic-seeming anti-war candidacy gaining strength, Robert Kennedy was considering launching his own anti-war candidacy. Kennedy had early support from California Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh. To become a candidate, Kennedy said, he would need to be urged to run by “one more politician of the national stature of Unruh.” It was widely interpreted as a direct appeal for Daley’s support. 37

  But Daley was not rushing to jump on board. He was still a Johnson loyalist, and was uncomfortable with the idea of McCarthy and Kennedy seeking to depose an incumbent Democratic president. Daley was also close to organized labor, an important component of the machine, and would not lightly break with the major unions, which had started out in Johnson’s camp and then, after he withdrew, moved on to Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Daley also had specific reservations about Kennedy. He had not shown himself to be an organization man so far in his political career. Daley had been put off during the 1960 presidential election when, after the Chicago machine came through for John Kennedy and helped him win the Democratic nomination, Bobby showed up in Illinois to set up a campaign organization for his brother, independent of the machine. Nor could Daley rely on Bobby’s political instincts. As attorney general, he had been unduly eager to investigate corruption and take on organized crime. As a candidate, he seemed too sympathetic toward black militants. With someone like Johnson or Humphrey, Daley knew exactly what he was getting. Bobby Kennedy was complex and constantly evolving, two qualities Daley did not particularly admire in a politician. 38

  Still torn about whether to run, Kennedy came to Chicago for a breakfast meeting with Daley on February 8. The more Kennedy talked about his differences with President Johnson over the Vietnam War, the more his candidacy appeared to Daley to be just another variant of the municipal conflicts that ended up in his office on a regular basis. Daley, ever the believer in working out compromises among competing constituencies, then presented Kennedy with a truly bizarre proposal. Rather than go through the divisiveness of a primary challenge to a sitting president, Kennedy should get Johnson to agree to submit the future of the Vietnam War to binding arbitration. It must have seemed odd to Kennedy that his presidential candidacy, viewed by his supporters as a moral crusade, was being reduced to the level of a truckers’ strike. But Kennedy promised to think it over, and Daley said he would mention arbitration to President Johnson, which he did by telephone not long afterward. 39

  With Daley still resolutely on the sidelines, Kennedy announced his candidacy on March 16. He continued to see Daley’s support as critical, and Daley received a steady stream of phone calls from the Kennedy camp lobbying him to come around. In late March, New York Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin asked Kennedy where Daley stood in the race. “He’s been very nice to me and doesn’t like the war,” Kennedy said. “You see, there are so many dead starting to come back it bothers him.” But at the same time, Kennedy said, Daley was a party loyalist, which pulled him toward Johnson. When Breslin asked where he stood if Daley endorsed him, Kennedy responded, “Daley means the ballgame.” These were flattering words, but Daley liked to make his slating decisions behind closed doors, not in the newspapers. He remained cool toward Kennedy’s candidacy. Asked about Kennedy’s “ballgame” comment, Daley responded: “He means I’m a great White Sox fan.” Daley spoke with Johnson by phone in March, and Johnson asked what chance he had of carrying Chicago if he ran again. “Well, Mr. President, there are good years and bad years and I don’t think this will be a good year for the national ticket in Chicago,” Daley said. “But I’m backing you all the way, Mr. President. It doesn’t matter that you can’t win here.” 40

  Not long after he delivered his gloomy assessment of Johnson’s prospects, Daley got a phone call from White House aide Marvin Watson. The March 31 call, which Daley took at home on a private line upstairs, was to give him advance word that Johnson was withdrawing from the race. When he came down and joined his family in the den, they saw Johnson on television announcing that he was not seeking reelection
. Daley’s was the first call Johnson accepted at the Executive Mansion. Daley called to offer to draft Johnson at the convention if he wanted to be drafted, but Johnson said he did not. Johnson told Daley he was flying to Chicago the next morning to give a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters. Daley met Johnson at the airport, with Rostenkowski and Chicago’s new U.S. attorney in tow. Daley spent the day, including the ride back to the airport, trying to persuade Johnson to reconsider his decision. With Daley now truly uncommitted in the presidential race, he had no shortage of suitors. Johnson made a pitch for Humphrey. Daley also began talking with mayors Joseph Barr of Pittsburgh, James Tate of Philadelphia, and Jerome Cavanaugh of Detroit about sitting on the sidelines rather than rushing to endorse a presidential candidate. It appeared to be an attempt to slow the momentum that was building around Robert Kennedy’s candidacy. 41

  On March 2, 1968, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders — widely known as the Kerner Commission — issued its report on the riots of the summer of 1967. President Johnson had appointed a blue-ribbon panel on July 27, 1967, with Democratic governor Otto Kerner as chairman and liberal Republican New York City mayor John Lindsay as vice chairman, to investigate the causes of the riots and to explore “the conditions that breed despair and violence.” Johnson’s commission was moderate in composition — he was criticized for not appointing more progressive voices like Martin Luther King, Tom Hayden, or even Stokely Carmichael — but its report was far from restrained. The Kerner Commission’s arresting conclusion was that the urban unrest had been caused by the fact that “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.” The commission’s dense report backed up that assertion with a wealth of detail, and called for a substantial new round of social programs to address ghetto conditions. The commission found that there was a great need for additional public housing, but that it was critical that the State Street Corridor model be abandoned once and for all. “[W]e believe that the emphasis of the program should be changed from the traditional publicly-built, slum-based high-rise project to smaller units on scattered sites,” it said. “Where traditional high-rise projects are constructed, facilities for social services should be included in the design, and a broad range of such services provided for tenants.” Johnson declared the commission’s work a “good report by good men of good will,” but he also complained that “they always print that we don’t do enough. They don’t print what we do.” He showed no interest in following up on its extensive policy recommendations. 42

  Daley was at home eating with his sons John and Bill on Thursday, April 4, 1968, when his aide Jack Reilly called to say that Martin Luther King had been shot by a sniper on the balcony of a motel in Memphis. Daley ordered the flags at City Hall lowered to half staff. Now that King was dead, Daley spoke of him as a fallen comrade. “Chicago joins in mourning the tragic death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.,” Daley said in a prepared statement. “Dr. King was a dedicated and courageous American who commanded the respect of the people of the world.” Jesse Jackson, who was still heading up Operation Breadbasket in Chicago, was among those who would not let Daley off so easily. “The blood is on the chest and hands of those that would not have welcomed him here yesterday,” Jackson said. 43

  President Johnson appeared on television and appealed for calm and order. “I ask every American to reject the blind violence that has struck down Dr. King, who lived by nonviolence,” Johnson implored. Nevertheless, black America erupted in a spasm of sorrow and rage. In the wake of King’s assassination, 168 cities and towns were struck by rioting, arson, and looting. The national statistics were staggering: before it was over, there were 2,600 fires, and 21,270 injuries. This time, it was Washington, D.C., that got the worst of it. Arsonists set 711 fires, including some just blocks from the White House. Black Power leaders took advantage of the situation to incite the sort of violent actions that it would have pained King to watch. “Go home and get your guns,” Stokely Carmichael advised young people. “When the white man comes, he is coming to kill you.” It was, of course, a minority view in the black community. But the press was filled with Black Power rhetoric and vivid accounts of the violence. Whatever force of man or nature had prevented Chicago from becoming embroiled in the 1967 riots did not work this time. By mid-morning on Friday, the day after King’s murder, black students were walking out of class, and by the afternoon schools in black neighborhoods had emptied. Young people gathered in Garfield Park, where speakers exhorted them to direct their frustration toward local businesses. The disorder began with smashed store windows and looting; arson and sniper attacks came soon afterward. By 2:00 P.M., Daley asked Acting Governor Samuel Shapiro, who was filling in for Governor Kerner, to send in the National Guard. Daley addressed the city on radio and television at 4:20 P.M. “Stand up tonight and protect the city,” he urged. “I ask this very sincerely, very personally. Let’s show the United States and the world what Chicago’s citizens are made of.” 44

  Shapiro sent 600 National Guardsmen while Daley dispatched the entire Chicago fire department, and the borrowed departments of eight suburbs, to put out the fires that were engulfing black neighborhoods. Daley spent Friday night at City Hall, with a radio tuned to police calls and a television set broadcasting the spreading unrest. He went to the Sherman House for a seventy-five-minute break, to eat and take a short nap, and then returned to City Hall. Power lines on the West Side were now dead, leaving much of that part of the city in darkness, and giving encouragement and cover to the looters. As the looting entered its second day, 1,500 more National Guards-men were deployed on the Chicago streets. On Saturday afternoon, Daley imposed a curfew from 7:00 P.M. to 6:00 A.M. for all youth under twenty-one. He directed James Conlisk, the police commissioner who had taken over when O. W. Wilson retired a year earlier, to ban liquor sales in areas where there was “serious disorder.” With military deployments guarding every intersection on the West Side, Saturday night was quieter but far from tranquil. Molotov cocktails were still being tossed, buildings were being torched, and firemen were being shot at by snipers. Troops patrolled the West and Near Northwest sides in jeeps. After two nights of rioting, black neighborhoods lay in ruins and at least eleven people were dead. Stores along West Madison Street, a modest boulevard of small shops with simple apartments in the upper floors, were charred for a twenty-eight-block stretch. By early Saturday, 300 people had been arrested for looting and scores were jammed into the lockup at police headquarters at 11th and State streets. Thousands were homeless. In many parts of the city, power and phone lines were dead. 45

  The following morning, Palm Sunday, Daley and fire commissioner Robert Quinn spent forty-five minutes surveying the West Side by helicopter. They hovered over the smoldering wreckage of buildings on West Madison and saw devastation spreading down two miles south to Roosevelt Road. Daley was visibly shaken when he exited the helicopter. “It was a shocking and tragic picture of the city,” he said afterward. “I never believed that this would happen here. I hope it will not happen again.” After the tour, Daley returned to City Hall, where he met with school superintendent James Redmond, health commissioner Samuel Adelman, and streets and sanitation commissioner James Fitzpatrick. On Monday, April 8, Daley appointed a committee to investigate the riot and named federal judge Richard Austin to head it. 46

  That same day, Daley attempted to explain the devastation that had struck the city. He had looked haggard and depressed since the riots broke out, and his unrehearsed comments turned into a bizarre rant. Thrashing around to make sense of the disorder, Daley insisted that the riots had been caused by the violent conditions that prevailed in Chicago’s public schools. “The conditions of April 5 in the schools were indescribable,” he said. “The beating of girls, the slashing of teachers and the general turmoil and the payoffs and the extortions. We have to face up to this situation with discipline. Principals tell us what’s happening and they are told to forget it.” 47 School su
perintendent James Redmond expressed puzzlement the next day over the charges leveled by Daley. “I do not know of any beatings of girls,” Redmond said. Nor could he understand Daley’s reference to April 5. He knew of no incident in which a teacher had been slashed that day — the only school day during the riots — and he was not aware of anyone giving principals instructions to “forget it.” But Redmond nevertheless launched an investigation. “We are concerned and we are reviewing all activities which led up to Friday,” he said. Daley’s anger over the rioting seemed to have pushed him over the edge. 48

  Daley’s reaction to the rioting became more coherent, but no less inflammatory, as the days passed. The police bore some of the blame as well, he said on April 15, because of the restraint they showed. “I have conferred with the Superintendent of Police this morning and I gave him the following instructions,” Daley said, “which I thought were instructions on the night of the fifth that were not carried out: I said to him very emphatically and very definitely that [he should issue an order] immediately and under his signature to shoot to kill any arsonist or anyone with a Molotov cocktail in his hand in Chicago because they’re potential murderers, and to issue a police order to shoot to maim or cripple any arsonists and looters — arson-ists to kill and looters to maim and detain.” Daley said he had thought these instructions would not even need to be conveyed. “I assumed any superintendent would issue instructions to shoot arson-ists on sight and to maim the looters, but I found out this morning this wasn’t so and therefore gave him specific instructions,” he said. 49