Recalling the battle of Chicago

Ashimmering, sunny Sunday afternoon in Chicago. It's August,1968. I walk north along Lake Michigan to Lincoln Park. The wateris bright blue, and a brisk breeze makes it choppy. The small boatsalong the shore bob up and down. Already, there are more than athousand protesters in the park. Most have hair down to theirshoulders. They wear weird getups. They are preparing fordemonstrations at the Democratic National Convention.

This convention is a personal tribute to Chicago Mayor RichardJ. Daley, known as King Richard. Daley is the most powerful ofbig-city political bosses. He is also a ruthless politician and anenemy of the English language. Defending the eagerness of his copsto swing their nightsticks, Daley says: "The police are not here tocreate disorder. They are here to preserve disorder."

Holding the convention in Daley's town is pure payback. Daleywon the presidency for John F. Kennedy and the Democrats in 1960. OnElection Night, thousands of Kennedy ballots appeared at asuspiciously late hour in Chicago. There were just enough, it turnedout, to beat Richard Nixon in Illinois and put Kennedy in the WhiteHouse.

For weeks, Chicago's four daily newspapers trumpeted storiesabout the Yippies, their leaders Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, andtheir plans to disrupt the convention. Hoping to stop the VietnamWar, they and other peace-movement groups have descended on Chicagofrom all over the country. The peace movement has already forcedPresident Lyndon Johnson to announce he won't seek re-election.

Now the Yippies vow to take over Lincoln Park for theconvention's duration. They promise to let the lions, tigers andelephants out of their cages in the Lincoln Park Zoo. They will putLSD in the city's water supply and turn on the entire populace.Daley reacts: He puts his 12,000-member police force on 12-hourshifts. He is reinforced by 5,000 Illinois National Guardsmen andanother 6,000 U.S. Army troops. One columnist writes that the mayorhas an army bigger than George Washington's.

I drank a few beers the night before with police Sgt. BillMaloney, who fought in World War II. "I'd like to go to the parkmyself and give a couple of them a crack," Maloney said. He isn'tkidding. Most Chicago cops have fought in either World War II orKorea. To them, the Yippies are college punks. Draft dodgers.

I walk into the park. There is the sound of bongo drums, lotsof them. There is the smell of marijuana. Hundreds of kids are onthe softball fields. Their arms are locked. They are practicing aJapanese student technique designed to frustrate riot police. First,they all step together to the right. Next, they step to the left.At each step, they shout, "Wa-shoi! Wa-shoi!" The televisioncameramen love it. Blue-helmeted cops sit on their motorcycles andwatch. They smile and chew gum. One cop says softly: "Have your funnow. After dark, you'll belong to us."

Abbie Hoffman wears a pith helmet. Rubin is nearby. Abbie isthe one holding the bullhorn. "Welcome to Che Guevara Park," Abbiesays in his grating Eastern accent. He was born in 1936 and went toBrandeis University and then to grad school at Cal Berkeley. Rubinwas born in Cincinnati in 1938. He also took graduate work at CalBerkeley and once even ran for mayor of that city. "What you areseeing," Abbie says to the crowd, "is Japanese martial dancing.We'll use this to break the police lines and storm the convention."

The trouble starts around midnight when the police ordereveryone out of the park. A bearded guy throws rocks at the cops andcurses them. Everyone joins in to help him. The police charge.They begin whacking everyone. It wasn't until the Conspiracy Seventrial in federal court, more than a year later, that the guy whothrew the rocks told his story under oath. He was actually anundercover Chicago cop. Once the battle started, the cops didn'tstop with the demonstrators. They went after the photographers andreporters, too.

The city was up for grabs. Each night, cops would charge in andbegin pummeling people. But most of it happened inside the parkwhere it was dark. So nobody got the full picture. Then the policecharged into demonstrators in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel atMichigan and Balbo. They pushed them up against the big glasswindows of the hotel's Haymarket Lounge. The windows shattered.Trying to escape, the demonstrators ran through the broken windowsand into the lobby bar. The cops chased them. In the confusion, thecops even started beating up the patrons at the bar.

It was later called a police riot. All through it the crowdkept chanting: "The whole world's watching!"

Tom Foran, then the U.S. attorney for northern Illinois, triedto explain: "The cops were just fed up. All week, these kids hadbeen spitting at them and throwing bags of human excrement in theirfaces. What happened at the Hilton was like a wonderful moment ofrelease for these overworked police officers."

Mayor Daley was pilloried. Sen. Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticutpointed to Daley on the convention floor and spoke of "the gestapo inthe streets of Chicago." The cameras were on Daley. Red-faced, hewaved his fist at Ribicoff, cursing him. Daley's friends later saidthe mayor shouted "Faker."

It is an oversimplification to view the 1968 convention as abattle between the forces of Daley against Hoffman and Rubin. Butthat's how it sticks in my mind.

There was only one time they came face to face. Daley wascalled as a witness in the Conspiracy Seven trial. The mayor camethrough a rear door of the courtroom and was seated in the witnessstand as Hoffman and Rubin came back into the courtroom after arecess.

Hoffman and Rubin broke into broad smiles. Daley stared at themwith a glum expression. Finally, Hoffman put up his hands like theold-time heavyweight champ, John L. Sullivan. "Why don't you and Ijust go outside and settle this thing between ourselves?" Hoffmansaid.

All three are dead now. Daley was still mayor and 74 when hesuffered a heart attack in his doctor's office on North MichiganAvenue in 1976. Hoffman went underground for a time to avoid drugcharges. He died at 52 in 1989 in what a coroner ruled a suicide.Rubin became a wealthy businessman who made $60,000 a month selling ahealth product called "Wow." In 1994, at age 56, he died of a heartattack, two weeks after he was hit by a car in Los Angeles.

Tom Fitzpatrick, a former Chicago Sun-Times columnist, won aPulitzer Prize in 1970 for his reporting on the Weathermen rampage ofOctober, 1969.