#1968 primaries

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Robert F. Kennedy photographed in Life at a New Jersey campaign rally.

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 1968

Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey was nominated for President on the first ballot by the Democratic National Convention early this morning after a day of bandwagon shifts to his candidacy, a disavowal of a draft movement by Edward M. Kennedy, and a night of turmoil in convention hall. Mr. Humphrey received a total of 1,761 votes. Senator Eugene J. McCarthy got 601. and Senator George McGovern got 146. IPage 1, Columns 1-8.1 After a climactic floor crash between Administration supporters and critics, a deeply divided convention adopted a White House-dictated Vietnam plank supporting Administration policy by a vote of 1,567 to 1,0414. 

National Guardsmen and the police used clubs, rifle butts, tear gas and Chemicat Mace as they battled young protesters in downtown Chicago. About 100 persons were injured and at least 178 were arrested in the violent climax to the week-long demonstrations against the convention. The clashes between demonstrators and the police in Chicago's streets were viewed as deeply hurting the Democratic party, politically. The convention presented to a vast nationwide audience a picture of division, olf old-fashioned city bossism. of events out of control and of a party unable even to govern itself or maintain order. The main hope for a Democratic victory in November was seen as a cease-fire in Vietnam in the next two months or some other major development. 

Senator Eugene J. McCarthy indicated he would not campaign for Mr. Humphrey if the Vice President was the Democratic candidate because of his “total defense" of the Administration's Vietnam policy. 

Soviet commentators in Moscow warned that the reform leaders of Czechoslovakia were on a short leash under the vigilant eyes of the Kremlin, which had doubts they could or would cope with what was viewed as a counterrevolutionary threat.

North Vietnam, at the 19th negotiating session in Paris, scorned the Democratic party’s platform plank on Vietnam as a renewal of unacceptable demands for reciprocity and an indication that the Humphrey forces Intended to “continue neo-colonialist policies.” 

Federal enforcement officials are beginning to shift some of their concern from the South to Northern cities as school integration in the South is expected to increase steadily, if not spectacularly. 

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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1968

Shouting, jeering and worn out delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, virtually forced Representative Carl Albert of Oklahoma, the convention chairman, to adjourn the convention early this morning until noon today. The second session broke up in anger and confusion just after the start of the debate on the Vietnam plank of the 1968 platform. Many delegates believed that if a minority report critical of President Johnson’s Vietnam policy could be adopted, it would lead to a “draft of Senator Edward M. Kennedy for President and possibly stop the nomination of Vice President Humphrey. Mr. Kennedy, however, let advisers know last right that he would not be available for such a draft. 

Mr. Humphrey and Senators Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern, the three leading Democratic Presidential candidates, met face to face before the California delegation for the first such encounter of the campaign.

 The Democrats, amid the chaos and passion that is their fashion, are drumming out the bigots, beckoning to the young and imposing some profound changes on the party’s future processes more rapidly than most had ever thought possible

The Czechoslovaks seemed to conclude that the agreement her leaders reached with the Soviet Union was a compromise bordering on capitulation. The Moscow accord, in effect, gave the Russians the right to station troops indefinitely in Czechoslovakia in exchange for the maintenance of the Dubček regime and a slightly restricted continuation of the liberalization process.

Well placed European Communists still loyal to the Soviet Union described the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact forces as a “bad mistake.” 

The Administration has advised the Hanoi delegation in Paris “to stop miscalculating or trying to interfere in internal American affairs and get down to the serious business of making peace.” 

A nationwide survey by Louis Harris made Saturday put Richard M. Nixon 6 points ahead of Mr. Humphrey, or Senator McCarthy, or President Johnson in public support for the Presidency.

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POLICE BATTLE DEMONSTRATORS IN STREETS

Anthony Lukas, The New York Times, 29 August 1968

CHICAGO — The police and National Guardsmen battled young protesters in downtown Chicago last night as the week-long demonstrations against the Democratic National Convention reached a violent and tumultuous climax.

About 100 persons, including 25 policemen, were injured and at least 178 were arrested as the security forces chased down the demonstrators. The protesting young people had broken out of Grant Park on the shore of Lake Michigan in an attempt to reach the International Amphitheatre where the Democrats were meeting, four miles away.

The police and Guardsmen used clubs, rifle butts, tear gas and Chemical Mace on virtually anything moving along Michigan Avenue and the narrow streets of the Loop area.

Uneasy Calm Shortly after midnight, an uneasy calm ruled the city. However, 1,000 National Guardsmen were moved back in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel to guard it against more than 5.000 demonstrators who had drifted back into Grant Park.

The crowd in front of the hotel was growing, booing vociferously every time new votes for Vice President Humphrey were broadcast from the convention hall.

The events in the streets stirred anger among some delegates at the convention. In a nominating speech Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff of Connecticut told the delegates that if Senator George S. McGovern were President, “we would not have these Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago."

When Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago and other Illinois delegates rose shouting angrily, Mr. Ribicoff said, “How hard it is to accept the truth."] Crushed Against Windows Even elderly bystanders were caught in the police onslaught. At one point, the police turned I on several dozen persons standing quietly behind police barriers in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel watching the demonstrators across the street.

For no reason that could be immediately determined, the blue-helmeted policemen charged the barriers, crushing the spectators against the windows of the Haymarket Inn, a restaurant in the hotel. Finally the window gave way. sending screaming middle-aged women and children backward through the broken shards of glass.

The police then ran into the restaurant and beat some of the victims who had fallen through the windows and arrested them.

At the same time, other policemen outside on the broad, tree-lined avenue were clubbing the young demonstrators repeatedly under television lights and in full view of delegates’ wives looking out the hotel’s windows.

Afterward, newsmen saw 30 shoes, women’s purses and torn pieces of clothing lying with shattered glass on the sidewalk and street outside the hotel and for two blocks in each direction.

It was difficult for newsmen to estimate how many demonstrators were in the streets of midtown Chicago last night. Although 10.000 to 15.000 young people gathered in Grant Park for a rally in the afternoon, same of them had apparently drifted home before the violence broke out in the evening.

Estimates of those involved in the action in the night ranged between 2,000 and 5,000.

Although some youths threw bottles, rocks, stones and even loaves of bread at the police, most of them simply marched and countermarched, trying to avoid the flying police squads.1

Some of them carried flags the black anarchist flag, the red flag, the Viet Cong flag and the red and blue flags with a yellow peace symbol.

Stayed Defiant Although clearly outnumbered and outclassed by the well armed security forces, the thousands of antiwar demonstrators. supporters of Senator Eugene J. McCarthy and Yippies maintained an air of defiance throughout the evening.

They shouted “The streets! belong to the people,” “This land is our land" and “Hell no, we won’t go," as they skirmished along the avenue and among the side streets.

When arrested youths raised their hands in the V for victory sign that has become a symbol of the peace movement, other demonstrators shouted "seig heil or "Pigs” at the policemen making the arrests.

Frank Sullivan, the Police Department’s public information1 director, said the police had reacted only after "50 hard-core leaders" had staged a charge into a police line across Michigan Avenue.

Mr. Sullivan said that among those in the charge were Prof. Sidney Peck, cochairman of the Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the group that is spearheading the demonstration. He said Professor Peck had struck James M. Rochford. Deputy Superintendent of Police, with hi* fist. Mr. Peck was arrested and charged with aggravated assault.

As the night wore on. the police dragnet spread from Michigan Avenue and the area around the Hilton throughout downtown Chicago.

On the comer of Monroe Street and Michigan Avenue, policemen chased demonstrators up the steps of the Chicago Art Institute, a neoclassical Greek temple, and arrested one of them.

As in previous nights of unrest here, newsmen found themselves special targets of the police action. At Michigan Avenue and Van Buren Street, a young photographer ran into the street, terrified, his hands clasped over his head and shrieking, "Press, press."

As the police arrested him. he shouted. "What did I do? What did I do?"

The policeman said. "If you don’t know you shouldn’t be a photographer."

Barton Silverman, a photographer for the New York Times, was briefly arrested near the Hilton Hotel.

Bob Kieckhefer, a reporter for United Press International, was hit in the head by a policeman during the melee in front of the Hilton. He staggered into the UPI office on Michigan Avenue and was taken for treatment to Wesley Memorial Hospital.

Reporters Hampered Reporters and photographers were repeatedly hampered by the police last night while trying to cover the violence. They were herded into small areas where they could not sec the action. On Jackson Street, police forced a mobile television truck to turn off its lights.

Among those arrested was the Rev. John Boyles. Presbyterian chaplain at Yale and a McCarthy staff worker, who was charged with breach of the peace.

“It's an unfounded charge," Mr. Boyles said. “I was protesting the clubbing of a girl I knew from the McCarthy staff. They were beating her on her head with clubs and I yelled at them 'Don’t hit a woman,’ At that point I was slugged in the stomach and grabbed by a cop who arrested me.’’

Last night’s violence broke out when hundreds of demonstrators tried to leave Grant Park after a rally and enter the Loop area.

At the Congress Street bridge leading from the park onto Michigan Avenue. National Guardsmen fired and .sprayed tear gas at the demonstrators five or six times around 7 P.M. to hold them inside the park.

However, one group moved, north inside the park and managed to find a way out over another bridge. There they met a contingent of the Poor People's Campaign march led by their symbol, three mule wagons.

Chase Youths The march was headed south along Michigan Avenue and the police did not disrupt it, apparently because it had a permit. But they began chasing the youths along Michigan Avenue and into side streets.

The demonstrators were then joined by several thousand others who had originally set out from the park in a "non- violent" march to the amphi-1 theatre led by David Dellinger, national chairman of the Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, and Allen Ginsberg, the poet.

The climactic day of protests began with a mass rally sponsored by the mobilization commiitee in the band shell in Grant Park.

The rally was intended both as a mass expression of anger at the proceedings across town in the convention and as a "staging ground” for the smaller, more militant march on the amphitheatre.

However, before the rally was an hour old, it, too, was! interrupted by violence. Fighting broke out when three demonstrators started hauling down an American flag from a pole by the park’s band shell where speakers were denouncing the Chicago authorities, the Johnson Administration and the war in Vietnam.

Four blue-helmeted policemen moved in to stop them and were met by a group of angry demonstrators who pushed them back against a cluster of trees by the side of the band shell. Then the demonstrators, shouting “Pig, pig,” pelted the isolated group of 14 policemen with stones, bricks and sticks.

Grenade Hurled Back Snapping their Plexiglass shields down over their faces, the police moved toward the crowd. One policeman threw  or fired a tear-gas grenade into the throng. But a demonstrator picked up the smoking grenade and heaved it back among the police. The crowd cheered with surprise and delight.

But then, from the Inner Drive west of the park, a phalanx of policemen moved into the crowd, using their billy clubs as prods and then swinging them.The demonstrators, who replied with more stones and sticks were pushed back against rows of flaking green benches and trapped there.

Among those injured was Rennie Davis, one of the coordinators for the Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which has been spearheading the demonstrations in Chicago.

As the police and demonstrators skirmished on the huge grassy field, mobilization committee leaders on the stage of the baby-blue band shell urged the crowd to sit down and remain calm.

The worst of the fighting was over in 10 minutes, but the two sides were still jostling each other all over the field when Mr. Ginsberg approached the microphone.

Speaking in a cracked and choking voice, Mr. Ginsberg said: “I lost my voice chanting i in the park the last few nights. The best strategy for you in cases of hysteria, overexcitement or fear is still to chant 'Om' together. It helps to quell flutterings of butterflies in the belly. Join me now as I try to lead you.”

So, as the policemen looked out in astonishment through I their Plexiglass face shields, the huge throng chanted the Hindu "Om, om,” sending deep mystic reverberations off the glass office towers along Michigan Avenue.

Following Mr. Ginsberg to the microphone was Jean Genet, the French author. His bald head glistening in the glare of television lights, Mr. Genet said through a translator:

”It took an awful lot of deaths in Hanoi for a happening such as is taking place here to occur.”

Next on the platform was William Burroughs, author of The Naked Lunch. A gray fedora on his head. Mr. Burroughs said in a dry, almost distant voice:

"I've just returned from London, England, where there is no effective resistance at all. It's really amazing to see people willing to do something about an unworkable system. It’s not evil or immoral, just unworkable. And they're trying to make it work by force. But they can’t do it.”

Mailer Apologizes Mr. Burroughs was followed by Norman Mailer, the author who is here to write an article on the convention. Mr. Mailer, who was arrested during the i march on the Pentagon last' October, apologized to the 'crowd for not marching in; Chicago.

Thrusting his jaw into the! microphone, he said: "I’m a little sick about all this and also a little mad. but I've got a deadline on a long piece and I'm not going to go out and march and get arrested. I just came here to salute all of you.” 

Then Dick Gregory, the comedian and Negro militant leader, took the platform. Dressed in a tan sport shirt and matching trousers with a khaki rain hat on his head. Mr. Gregory said: "You just have to look around you at all the police and soldiers to know you must be doing something right.”

Many of the demonstrators in Grant Park had drifted down in small groups from Lincoln Park, where 300 policemen had moved in at 12:15 A.M. yesterday and laid down a barrage of tear gas to clear the area. About 2.000 young protesters had attempted to stay in the park despite an 11 P.M. curfew.

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TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 1968

North Vietnam’s chief negotiator at the Paris negotiations, Xuan Thuy, yesterday brushed aside Vice President Humphrey's suggestion that Washington and Hanoi seek an immediate cease-fire to create a positive atmosphere for successful talks on the war. Mr. Thuy reiterated the position Hanoi has held since the talks began May 13. 

The leadership of Communist China has undergone the most extensive purge in the 19-year history of the regime, but the power struggle remains unresolved. Factional rivalries, which have paralyzed local governments in many provinces, seem to be continuing. The warning of a possible “new civil war" appeared in the Shanghai press last week. 

The second round of the French general-election campaign opened with the Gaullists fighting complacency and the opposition fighting discouragement. Tens of thousands of workers began trooping back to work after examining election returns that favored the Gaullist Government and policies of Premier Georges Pompidou.

Sensing an aroused public opinion, President Johnson asked Congress to require the national registration of every firearm and a license for every gun owner whoso state did not enforce Federal license standards. The new proposals were outlined in a message to Congress yesterday and will be submitted ua a bill today.

Federal and National Guard troops were ordered into the nation’s capital as vandalism and looting broke out in the midlown Negro section. Mayor Washington declared a 9 P.M. to 5:30 A.M. curfew. Earlier In the day the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy and more than 300 of his followers from the Poor People’s Campaign were arrested without violence in a climax to the closing of the rain-plagued 16-acre campsite known as Resurrection City, U.S.A.

An “emergency” conference to help try to assure the nomination of Senator Eugene J. McCarthy or some other antiwar candidate has been called in Chicago this weekend by antiwar leaders, including members of a “dump Johnson” movement a year ago, workers for the late Senator Kennedy’s campaign and leaders of civil rights, peace and labor movements who have not been deeply involved in the Presidential contest. 

Governor Rockefeller indicated that he had all but abandoned the idea of an alliance with Governor Reagan of California. The Governor said he thought President Johnson had the “duty and responsibility” to appoint a successor to Chief Justice Earl Warren as soon as Mr. Warren’s resignation officially takes effect.

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Tuesday, August 13, 1968

In a departure from the practice of not commenting on the American political campaign, Nguyen Thanh Le, the North Vietnamese spokesman in Paris, accused Richard M. Nixon of “impudence” toward Vietnam and said the Republican party platform was “not at all realistic.”

Senator George S. McGovern of South Dakota, the new Presidential candidate, suid he would work for a platform at the Democratic National Convention that would pledge a stop to the bombing of North Vietnam nnd an effort to broaden the base of the South Vietnamese government.

The [Democratic] convention will face a record number of disputes over the seating of its delegates. Dissident groups from at least 18 states have already filed briefs or declarations of intent to challenge credentials, for reasons ranging from racial imbalance to improper selection. 

At the end of the third annual Watts summer festival, marking the riots of 1965, a three-hour clash between the police and several thousand Negroes erupted in the Los Angeles district. During the outburst of gunfire, looting and vandalism, three Negroes died, five policemen were wounded and 35 persons were arrested.

The [New York City] Patrolmen's Benevolent Association directed its 29.000 members to disregard any orders from superior officers to refrain from arresting looters, vandals, unruly demonstrators or other law violators. John J. Casscse. president of the organization, said the new policy would bring him into "direct conflict” with City Hall, which he asserted had issued orders restraining policemen on several occasions.

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THURSDAY, JUNE 6,1968

Senator Robert F. Kennedy, felled by an assassin’s bullets moments after he claimed victory early yesterday morning in the California Democratic Presidential primary, died at 4:44 this morning in the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. His alleged assailant, seized moments after the shooting, doggedly refused to give the police any information about himself, but was finally identified as Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a 24-year-old Arab immigrant from the Jordanian section of Jerusalem. The suspect injured five other persons in the shooting in which he fired eight shots from a .22-caliber Iver Johnson revolver.

The murder of Senator Kennedy shattered the 1968 Presidential campaign and lowered a pall of uncertainty over American politics in the future.  The major Presidential candidates of both parties canceled their campaign activity within hours of the shooting.

President Johnson appointed a commission of distinguished citizens to investigate the “tragic phenomenon” of physical violence in the country. In his first reaction to the shooting of Senator Kennedy, he said “there are no words equal to the horror.” The President placed all announced Presidential candidates and their immediate families under full-time protection by Federal law enforcement agencies.

The House moved quickly toward adoption of broad anti-crime legislation, including controls over interstate sales of handguns. The legislation, which was passed by the Senate last month, is expected to be approved by the House today and sent to the White House.

North Vietnamese negotiators at the seventh session of the peace talks with the United States in Paris maintained that Hanoi had responded to President Johnson’s restriction of American air attacks on the North by entering into the talks and asserted that the next move, a total halt in bombing, was up to the United States.

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Friday, August 9, 1968

Richard M. Nixon stepped onto the baby-blue platform in Miami Beach Convention Hall last night and accepted the nomination of a Republican party to a large extent unhappy over his choice of Gov. Spiro T. Agnew of Maryland as his running mate. Mr. Agnew was approved by the delegates on a roll-call vote in which Gov. George Romney of Michigan received 186 votes. But the delegates cheered wildly when Mr. Nixon said, "Let's win this one for Ike." 

Mr. Nixon’s surprise nod to Mr. Agnew, shocked moderate Republicans but brought applause from the conservatives, who like his strong stand on street violence. 

Basking in the Minnesota sun, Vice President Humphrey could barely conceal his pleasure at the thought of running against the newly chosen ticket. "I have a feeling the choice represented a rather significant compromise” with the South, the Vice President said. In his dark, book-strewn Washington office, Senator McCarthy said he was “rather surprised” at the choice. "I thought he’d pick Steve Derounian,” he said, referring to the Goldwaterite. 

Racial violence in Miami provided a lurid backdrop for the convention’s closing session. Three Negroes were shot and killed in gun battles between policemen and Negroes. 

East Berlin sources said yesterday that the Soviet Union and East Germany seriously considered invading Czechoslovakia in mid-July and that there had been a partial—but unpubllcizcd—mobilization of 650,000 East German reservists. The thesis for action, the sources said, “was that the Czechoslovak party was like a rotten fish that begins stinking at the head.” The plan was to eliminate "the head,” meaning the reform leader, Alexander Dubček. At the same time, informed sources in Poland said that fresh Soviet administrative, support and communications troops were"swarming over Poland.” They interpreted the action as a reminder that.no departure from orthodox Communism would be tolerated there.