1968 Democratic Convention

>1) Does anyone here have any memories or comments about what happened during this time? 2) What do you think really happened?

A cousin of mine was a cop back then. He was on duty in Grant Park when the riots occurred. (I don't remember if the riots occurred over more than one day, or if one day the riots were particularly bad.) My cousin is and was one of the most honorable people I've ever known. After he was promoted out of uniform, he would serve many years as a plain clothes cop before retiring. He currently lives in retirement...

Anyway, a few months after the riots, my family had lunch with my cousin and his family and we got to talking about the riots. We asked him what it was really like.

He said it was horrible. He said that the "hippies" were presented as peaceful and non-violent in the media, but that throughout the crowds there were people throwing whatever they could at the cops, attacking the cops anyway they could, and that _all_ the hippies would spit on any policeman who came near them... He said the police did everything they could to keep the situation peaceful and orderly. It was only when the hippies went crazy that the police used what force they felt was appropriate.

[shrugs]

Believe me, my cousin had no reason to lie. Our families are pretty diverse, and did not pressure him to tell his side in one way or another.

Take it for what it's worth. It's just one brief memory, of one policeman's recollection. I believe it.

Mark W.

Now, being a native Chicagoan, I realize that Mike Royko is a tad on the liberal side. So, I asked my dad about his experience at that time. He laughed at Royko's description of the peaceful hippies being attacked while sleeping. Apparently these peace-lovers were pulling people out of cars and beating them. They were also taking balls of human excrement, filling them with nails, and throwing them and cops. These love-filled events caused my dad to drive around with a .45 in his car. He insists that Daley was perfectly right to crack down on these people -- as did most Chicagoans at the time.

From what I've read about that time, it sounds like both Royko and your father are at least partially correct. There were some bad-apple hippies in the crowd, but there were also some bad-apple cops in the crowd as well. Some delegates and journalists, who had nothing to do with the protests, were beaten by the police.

During this time I was an Air Force wife in West Berlin. Amazingly, there were student riots in Germany and France as well. I remember seeing one from my fourth-floor apartment window looking down on Martin Luther Strasse.

Thousands of demonstrators, marching in lock step, wearing helmets. They expected a confrontation. The polizei warned them, and then let loose with water cannons. They scattered pretty quickly, although there were some rocks and bottles thrown. German police are far stricter than Chicago.

I will always believe those demonstrations were coordinated world-wide. I also believe the media were accomplices.

Not to excuse the actions of the entire crowd, but it was common practice of Police Departments (and the FBI) in the 60's to "plant" instigators among protestors. These instigators would deliberately act in a way to justify a Police/FBI crackdown.

Consider the actions of J Edgar Hoover wiretapping Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement, and the COINTELPRO program against anti-war organizations in the late 60's. Consider the decision by Daley to wait for months (and then deny) permits for legally-compatible political rallies in Chicago parks. More than a fair case could be made that these decisions reflected an official political bias.

This would explain the apparent provocations against the Police and would also explain the angry reaction among the non-violent protestors -- many of whom were most interested in getting stoned, listening to music, sleeping in the park at night, and making their point in front of the cameras.

Royko was far from being a liberal.

Quite possibly, he is the greatest columnist of all time....

I loved Mike Royko. Ever been to Billy Goat Tavern?

I did have some reservations about calling him a liberal, but I've always gotten the feeling that he's more left than right. I enjoyed his columns either way. I would recommend this book highly.

but it would be wrong to say that protestors *at the convention* were dragging people out of cars and beating them. This may have occured later on during the SDS's so called "days of rage."

Well, that is probably true. Since I was only one year old at the time, I have no recollection of the events.

I am actually surprised by the responses here; I thought I'd find more anti-hippie sentiment than I did. I think it shows the thoughtfulness and fairness with which people here want to think issues over.

What bothered me was that thought I think Royko wrote a fine piece of literature, he failed to mention any mitigating circumstances whatsoever; he dismissed the Walker Report as fictitious propaganda. So, I got curious as to whether there were any mitigating circumstances or not.

Thanks for replying!

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