Nixonland. Part 11

The next day broke ninety degrees. "I'm gonna shoot at anything that moves and that is black," an arriving National Guardsman declared. Looters mocked the ducklike armored cars carrying chubby accountants and farmers-"Quack! Quack!" Night fell; guardmsen shot out streetlights for cover. That took them several shots per light; troops the next street over would think they were under sniper attack, squeezing triggers until they ran out of ammo. (One victim was a fireman.) Others wandered like lost boys, crouching, darting, shooting every little thing that moved, or didn't; one cop laughed as a young guardsman took out a store's electric sign one lightbulb at a time until the barrel of his .50-caliber machine gun burned out. The city editor of the Milwaukee Journal Milwaukee Journal came upon a hysterical woman in a stalled car holding a crying baby in one arm, waving a hospital outpatient form with another. Fifteen cops approached on foot, crouched, and took aim. "Press! Press!" he cried. A cop commanded him to back up his car and get the h.e.l.l out. At which other cops, seeing a car lurch, raised their own rifles. came upon a hysterical woman in a stalled car holding a crying baby in one arm, waving a hospital outpatient form with another. Fifteen cops approached on foot, crouched, and took aim. "Press! Press!" he cried. A cop commanded him to back up his car and get the h.e.l.l out. At which other cops, seeing a car lurch, raised their own rifles.

On TV screens, it looked to much of white America like our boys crouching in the jungle, fighting unseen Vietcong. Which was how it looked to white radicals, too. Many called themselves "revolutionaries" now. They watched The Battle of Algiers The Battle of Algiers and cheered when the insurrectionists' bombs went off in crowded cafes, thrilled to Che Guevara's "Message to the Tricontinental" and its call for "two, three, many Vietnams." They thought of the Vietcong as surrogates in their own anti-imperial war against "Amerika." They thought of black men stealing cases of beer in Detroit in exactly the same way. "We live in a society which trains its sons to be killers and which channels its immense wealth into the business of suppressing courageous men from Vietnam to Detroit who struggle for the simple human right to control their own lives and destinies," read a statement to the press from the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. and cheered when the insurrectionists' bombs went off in crowded cafes, thrilled to Che Guevara's "Message to the Tricontinental" and its call for "two, three, many Vietnams." They thought of the Vietcong as surrogates in their own anti-imperial war against "Amerika." They thought of black men stealing cases of beer in Detroit in exactly the same way. "We live in a society which trains its sons to be killers and which channels its immense wealth into the business of suppressing courageous men from Vietnam to Detroit who struggle for the simple human right to control their own lives and destinies," read a statement to the press from the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam.

Fire departments from forty Michigan towns raced to help. But what if riots broke out in Lansing, Jackson, Flint, Saginaw, Grand Rapids? In the state capital, office workers refused to drive home. In Chicago, where rumors reported carloads heading their way from Detroit, Mayor Daley went on TV to warn that lawlessness would not be tolerated and sent out a helmeted police task force on continual alert. A rural Michigan county sheriff bragged to Esquire Esquire's Garry Wills, "I can deputize anyone over eighteen years of age who will carry a gun. If I had to, I would swear out a posse." Wills emerged convinced that it was only a matter of time before the nation broke out into a second civil war. The official death toll was forty-three. "We got the forty-fourth," a National Guardsman bragged to Garry Wills-a sniper, he claimed, who kept shooting after they raked his building with machine-gun fire. "So on the second night the building 'accidentally' caught fire," the guardsman owned up-though just as likely, of course, they were shooting at another guardsman. The Michigan National Guard didn't have enough field radios, so they'd been reduced to communicating via pay phones.

There followed an early skirmish in the 1968 presidential race. The two executives ultimately responsible for keeping the peace were the two parties' presumptive nominees: President Johnson and Governor Romney. Both suspected it would require the United States Army. But neither wanted to take responsibility for installing martial law in an American city-though both wanted credit should the decision prove right. A dance began. Const.i.tutionally, the governor had to make the request by avowing that Detroit was under a state of insurrection and that the resources at his control were exhausted. Practically, it was a president's duty, honoring his pledge to defend the Const.i.tution against enemies foreign and domestic, to volunteer the army.

Since 1964, when riots wracked Harlem, Lyndon Johnson had been agonizing about riots, how to stop them, what they meant, how to keep them from wrecking his war on poverty-and why his war on poverty wasn't preventing preventing the riots. Asked at his July 18 news conference for his "views on what happened in New Jersey in the last couple of days," he launched into his standard peroration about the healing power of antipoverty programs-prefacing his remarks with the absurd claim "I don't think I have any more information on it than you have." Attorney General Ramsey Clark got his back, saying, "There are few activities that are more local" than law enforcement, so there was little the federal government could do-an unsatisfying answer to those who pointed out that the response of liberals to every other problem was to call for the riots. Asked at his July 18 news conference for his "views on what happened in New Jersey in the last couple of days," he launched into his standard peroration about the healing power of antipoverty programs-prefacing his remarks with the absurd claim "I don't think I have any more information on it than you have." Attorney General Ramsey Clark got his back, saying, "There are few activities that are more local" than law enforcement, so there was little the federal government could do-an unsatisfying answer to those who pointed out that the response of liberals to every other problem was to call for federal federal action. Then came the second conflagration, Detroit. Johnson could, of course, call out the army-but that would set a dangerous precedent: the nation would start looking to the White House to tamp down every riot, make each one his own responsibility, each one his action. Then came the second conflagration, Detroit. Johnson could, of course, call out the army-but that would set a dangerous precedent: the nation would start looking to the White House to tamp down every riot, make each one his own responsibility, each one his fault. fault. Would he find himself commander in chief of an army occupying American cities, shooting American citizens? But if he didn't call out the army, would his rivals for the presidency in 1968 tell white America he couldn't protect them? Would he find himself commander in chief of an army occupying American cities, shooting American citizens? But if he didn't call out the army, would his rivals for the presidency in 1968 tell white America he couldn't protect them?

One of those rivals had a problem of his own: he could ask ask the president for troops. But wouldn't that be to admit he couldn't keep order in his own state-and what kind of audition for commander in chief would the president for troops. But wouldn't that be to admit he couldn't keep order in his own state-and what kind of audition for commander in chief would that that be? be?

Politicians fiddled. Detroit burned. Once the ninety-six hundred paratroopers from the One Hundred and First and Eighty-second Airborne finally arrived, it took only hours for them to restore order with hardly a further shot fired. And at the White House, the debate turned to whether the president should address the nation. Harry McPherson said he should stay quiet, lest he be saddled with the blame for turning a great American city into a garrison. The pollster Benjamin Wattenberg said the president had no choice: "Wallace, for sure, and probably Nixon and Reagan" would be pinning responsibility on Johnson whether he went on the air or not, so he might as well get out in front of the story. He ended up taking the advice of Wattenberg, the White House's specialist on the tender political sensitivities of angry middle-cla.s.s whites, and a voice LBJ was listening to more and more. The president went on TV close to midnight, J. Edgar Hoover, Robert McNamara, and Ramsey Clark by his side, speaking in bland legalese, a bold man become timid in the face of cities out of control.

The same hot week in New York, a drunken mob of two thousand smashed and looted in Harlem after cops broke up a c.r.a.ps game, then hundreds smashed and looted their way to Saks Fifth Avenue after a Smokey Robinson concert in Central Park. Mayor Lindsay called it "a demonstration, not a riot." The commander of New York's National Guard announced they were ready to fight back with hand grenades and bazookas.

Stokely Carmichael had abdicated the leaders.h.i.+p of SNCC, traveled to Hanoi and Havana, and was replaced by a kid out of Baton Rouge named H. Rap Brown, who visited the racially tense town of Cambridge on Maryland's Eastern Sh.o.r.e. "Detroit exploded, Newark exploded, Harlem exploded! It is time for Cambridge to explode," he cried, and pointed down the street to a rickety all-black elementary school: "You should have burned it down a long time ago!" A few hours later, they did.

In Philadelphia cops got garbage cans thrown down on them from the roofs. The police chief, Frank Rizzo, bought up all his men's vacation time and had them patrol in air-conditioned buses in s.h.i.+fts, twenty-four hours a day. A rumor flashed that Was.h.i.+ngton would be set ablaze July 31. The thirty-first pa.s.sed unscathed. Violence flared instead eight days later-on, of all places, Capitol Hill, when seventy-five demonstrators pushed their way into the House gallery chanting "Rats cause riots!" and "We want a rat bill!" and got in a brawl with police.

It was the sound of a presidency breaking.

Back in March, President Johnson had proposed $40 million in matching funds for munic.i.p.al extermination programs to control rodents. "The knowledge that many children in the world's most affluent nation are attacked, maimed, and even killed by rats should fill every American with shame," he said. The proposal pa.s.sed the Banking and Currency Committee in June by a margin of 226. Then, Newark-and on July 20, the House debate on the rat bill, when what had been uncontroversial a month earlier became a subject for hooting derision.

"Let's buy a lot of cats and turn them loose," Jim Haley of Florida howled. An Iowa Republican proposed a "high commissioner of rats." Another solon joked about proliferating "rat patronage" and "rat bureaucracies." "Civil rats!" "Civil rats!" someone cried. The chamber rocked with guffaws. someone cried. The chamber rocked with guffaws.

Then Representative Martha Griffiths of Michigan stood up to speak-trembled, in fact, with rage. Rats, she said, had killed more people "than all the generals in history." They "carry the most deadly of diseases. Do you think that's funny?"

She talked about the fancy expense-account restaurants where the congressmen took their lobbyist friends: "Rats swish their tails through sewers and brush across the food you eat." Griffiths drove the message home: "If you're going to spend seventy-nine billion dollars to kill off a few Vietcong, I'd spend forty million dollars to kill off the most devastating enemy that man has ever had."

To no avail. The House slapped down the civil rats bill by a vote of 207176. Only twenty-two Republicans voted in favor. The anguished cries of liberals masked the magnitude of their retreat: that their dreams of warring on poverty had once been so much grander than $40 million for rats.

Johnson had never seen the political squeeze coming. "Push ahead full tilt," he had said on one of his first days as president, when his new economic adviser told him President Kennedy had been considering a poverty initiative-a program on which President Kennedy was proceeding exceedingly cautiously, for fear of offending middle-cla.s.s whites. Now, middle-cla.s.s whites were indeed sorely offended by the War on Poverty.

Lyndon Johnson's poverty programs were doing, after all, what they were supposed to be doing: redistributing wealth, and thus redistributing power. When polled in 1961, 59 percent of the electorate said the federal government bore responsibility to make sure every American had an adequate job and income. Then the government started making modest steps toward that goal, and by 1969, only 31 percent still thought that. The income of nonwhites had started rising faster than the income of whites, and though the gap was not nearly closed, many whites' incomes were beginning to stagnate, even, in real terms, to fall. The War on Poverty came out of their hard-earned tax dollars-draining money, some whites thought, toward ungrateful rioters. Who still demanded their welfare checks. A White House study found that three-fourths of white Bostonians thought most welfare cases were fraudulent. Backlash against the War on Poverty had always been latent. Civil rats showed that backlash to now be mature-as, in places such as Detroit, the races made ready for war.

A local black nationalist minister, Albert Cleage, observed to a reporter that the shooting ranges were packed and the city was way behind in processing gun registrations. "So, naturally, any black man who can get hold of a gun is getting hold of it." A flyer circulated in white neighborhoods: "Are YOU READY NOW to PREPARE YOURSELF for the NEXT ONE? Or will you be forced to stand helplessly by because you were UN-prepared to defend your home or neighborhood against bands of armed terrorists who will murder the men and rape the women?" An outfit called Breakthrough offered a $10,000 reward for the "arrest and conviction" of Detroit's mayor on the charge of criminal negligence and organized workshops in VFW and Knights of Columbus meeting halls with representatives of the National Rifle a.s.sociation, who suggested each family stockpile two hundred rounds of ammunition.

The NRA, once a hobby club for sportsmen, was becoming a new kind of organization altogether. Its magazine, American Rifleman, American Rifleman, had a new column, "The Armed Citizen," which ran glowing accounts of vigilantes. Connecticut senator Thomas Dodd, a conservative, had a bill pending to limit the sale of firearms through the mail. It had once seemed uncontroversial. Now white and black would-be vigilantes agreed the Dodd bill was a prelude to the confiscation of all firearms. had a new column, "The Armed Citizen," which ran glowing accounts of vigilantes. Connecticut senator Thomas Dodd, a conservative, had a bill pending to limit the sale of firearms through the mail. It had once seemed uncontroversial. Now white and black would-be vigilantes agreed the Dodd bill was a prelude to the confiscation of all firearms. Guns & Ammo Guns & Ammo called the bill's supporters "criminal-coddling do-gooders, borderline psychotics, as well as Communists and leftists who want to lead us into the one-world welfare state." One of those supporters was Ma.s.sachusetts' junior senator, Edward Moore Kennedy-whom called the bill's supporters "criminal-coddling do-gooders, borderline psychotics, as well as Communists and leftists who want to lead us into the one-world welfare state." One of those supporters was Ma.s.sachusetts' junior senator, Edward Moore Kennedy-whom American Rifleman American Rifleman said was following the "Communist line" for trying to outlaw the method by which his brother's a.s.sa.s.sin had obtained the murder weapon. said was following the "Communist line" for trying to outlaw the method by which his brother's a.s.sa.s.sin had obtained the murder weapon.

The president called a cabinet meeting, demanding to know whether the Communists were behind the riots. His new attorney general, Ramsey Clark, was a Texas boy, a marine, the son of Truman's law-and-order attorney general, Tom Clark, a Supreme Court justice who had dissented from the Miranda Miranda decision. But this Clark said there simply wasn't evidence for blaming Communists. decision. But this Clark said there simply wasn't evidence for blaming Communists.

"It is incredible to think you can't make a case," Treasury Secretary Henry Fowler responded.

The vice president said evidence or no, better safe than sorry: "There are fifty-two cities potentially about to explode."

The secretary of state, incredulous, said that Stokely Carmichael had personally threatened his life.

The secretary of health, education, and welfare complained that the Communists could be planning to hit the next city as they spoke.

They read their president's mind. He ordered the search for the conspiracy to continue: "I have a very deep feeling that there is more to that than we see at the moment." America had enemies. They had had to be responsible. Subsequently, he murmured a judgment about civil-liberties-minded Ramsey Clark to White House aide Joseph Califano: "If I had ever known that he didn't measure to his daddy, I'd never have made him attorney general." to be responsible. Subsequently, he murmured a judgment about civil-liberties-minded Ramsey Clark to White House aide Joseph Califano: "If I had ever known that he didn't measure to his daddy, I'd never have made him attorney general."

A Justice Department memo listed the summer's lesser riots alphabetically: "...South Bend, Indiana...Springfield, Ma.s.sachusetts...Spring Valley, New York..." And whatever pretensions the Black Panthers had to a mere self-defense ideology dissolved with a Bobby Seale quote in the August 6 New York Times Magazine New York Times Magazine on what to do if you spied a cop on his coffee break: "shoot him down-boom, boom-with a 12-gauge shotgun." And by this time politicians and pundits were learning to call this inchoate, ambiguous knot-riots and street crime, flag burning and antiwar marches, children leaving home to drop acid in San Francisco, all of it, whatever the causes and whatever the complexities-by a disambiguating name: the law-and-order issue. And soon Richard Nixon, once reluctant, would move all in on the game. on what to do if you spied a cop on his coffee break: "shoot him down-boom, boom-with a 12-gauge shotgun." And by this time politicians and pundits were learning to call this inchoate, ambiguous knot-riots and street crime, flag burning and antiwar marches, children leaving home to drop acid in San Francisco, all of it, whatever the causes and whatever the complexities-by a disambiguating name: the law-and-order issue. And soon Richard Nixon, once reluctant, would move all in on the game.

CHAPTER TEN.

In Which a Cruise s.h.i.+p Full of Governors Inspires Considerations on the Nature of Old and New Politics.

RICHARD N NIXON'S SUMMER OF LOVE WAS SPENT ABROAD.

There were triumphs: a face-to-face interview with Romanian president Nicolae Ceauescu (who intrigued Nixon with his suggestion of serving as a go-between between Vietnam and China); brilliant toasts at diplomatic banquets; a warm reception on a crowded street in Lima, where he had once feared for his life. There were also, as ever, humiliations. The Polish government denied him a visa. The Kremlin refused his interview requests. In Tashkent, Uzbekistan, two hundred factory hands surrounded him and demanded America withdraw from Vietnam. "We, too, want peace," Nixon said, "but it takes two to make peace." "Yes," one shot back, "the two are North Vietnam and South Vietnam." Nixon was now one for two in the Soviet Debating League.

While he was on the plane from Paris to Rabat, war broke out between Israel and an Arab alliance of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. He offered sagacities to waiting reporters on the tarmac: "I do not believe that either side has the capacity...of winning a quick victory." Unfortunately for his reputation as a foreign policy sage, it turned out to be a six-day war. Nixon dispatched Pat Buchanan to convince the press he'd been right anyway.

Nixon flew from India to Pakistan, two countries nearly at war. His Piper Apache was cleared to cross the border at 4 p.m. If it crossed it an hour later, it might have been shot down. He landed in Pakistan to a mob carrying the usual signs: NIXON GO HOME, DOWN WITH THE U.S. NIXON GO HOME, DOWN WITH THE U.S. A teenager flung himself in front of the limousine. The crises made him feel alive. Diplomacy: the greatest game of all. A teenager flung himself in front of the limousine. The crises made him feel alive. Diplomacy: the greatest game of all.

Amba.s.sadors tried to get local American VIPs an audience with the visiting celebrity. These Nixon courteously avoided. He barely held any press conferences. This trip was not about running for president. This trip was preparing to be be president. president.

Quietly, between trip legs, he put out political fires. g.a.y.l.o.r.d Parkinson had proven a disappointment. He had devised a jazzy logo for his Nixon for President headquarters in D.C., a lightning bolt in the shape of an N. N. In New Hamps.h.i.+re, "Parky" peppered granite-faced old Republicans with California pizzazz. It was the last thing Nixon needed in the stealth stage of the game: a used-car salesman. Parkys wife came down with cancer, so Nixon was able to ease him out quietly, by transoceanic phone calls, in favor of former Oklahoma governor Henry Bellmon. Then it was back to his pashas, his premiers, and the Taiwanese society doyenne and anticommunist intriguer Anna Chennault-his back-channel contact with the South Vietnamese leaders.h.i.+p. In New Hamps.h.i.+re, "Parky" peppered granite-faced old Republicans with California pizzazz. It was the last thing Nixon needed in the stealth stage of the game: a used-car salesman. Parkys wife came down with cancer, so Nixon was able to ease him out quietly, by transoceanic phone calls, in favor of former Oklahoma governor Henry Bellmon. Then it was back to his pashas, his premiers, and the Taiwanese society doyenne and anticommunist intriguer Anna Chennault-his back-channel contact with the South Vietnamese leaders.h.i.+p.

He also made time for something else. Before leaving each emba.s.sy residence, he met with the household help, giving each laundress and butler and cook a thoughtful word and a handshake. "They don't vote," he told a companion, "but it means a lot to them." His mother, that summer, was dying. She pa.s.sed away in September.

For each trip, he brought along a single retainer; literally, each held his coat. In Europe, it was former Kansas congressman Bob Ellsworth. In South America, it was his mysterious Cuban-American friend Bebe Rebozo. In the Middle East, it was Buchanan. In Asia, it was a new member of the cast. Raymond Price had been head of the editorial page at the New York Herald Tribune, New York Herald Tribune, the house organ of liberal Republicanism. When his beloved newspaper closed down, he started working on a novel. Then he got the call to become Nixon's second speechwriter, the Franklin counterbalance to Pat Buchanan. In Asia, Price watched the Old Man size up the sultans and shahs and foreign ministers, gauging their sense of the Chinese and Soviet threats. Price learned something his aerie at the the house organ of liberal Republicanism. When his beloved newspaper closed down, he started working on a novel. Then he got the call to become Nixon's second speechwriter, the Franklin counterbalance to Pat Buchanan. In Asia, Price watched the Old Man size up the sultans and shahs and foreign ministers, gauging their sense of the Chinese and Soviet threats. Price learned something his aerie at the Herald Tribune, Herald Tribune, from whence he'd told America's Establishment how to think, had apparently not prepared him for: "Often, what the leaders told him in private was very different from what they were saying in public." from whence he'd told America's Establishment how to think, had apparently not prepared him for: "Often, what the leaders told him in private was very different from what they were saying in public."

Together they drafted an article for the October issue of the prestigious quarterly Foreign Affairs, Foreign Affairs, the review of the Council on Foreign Relations. "Asia After Viet Nam" was scholarly, sweeping, and high-minded, couched in the chessboard abstractions of strategic studies (the government ma.s.sacre of hundreds of thousands of Communists, family members of Communists, ethnic Chinese, and alleged Communist sympathizers and their family members in Indonesia was referred to as its "turnaround" from "the Chinese orbit"). It argued for the diplomatic "long view" toward China, the nation that had descended into a sanguinary revolutionary madness, against which Nixon had spoken of in tones of Red-baiting demagoguery for decades: "We simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations." The USSR had softened its hard line, the essay argued; so, with the proper "dynamic detoxification" and "creative counterpressure," might the Middle Kingdom. the review of the Council on Foreign Relations. "Asia After Viet Nam" was scholarly, sweeping, and high-minded, couched in the chessboard abstractions of strategic studies (the government ma.s.sacre of hundreds of thousands of Communists, family members of Communists, ethnic Chinese, and alleged Communist sympathizers and their family members in Indonesia was referred to as its "turnaround" from "the Chinese orbit"). It argued for the diplomatic "long view" toward China, the nation that had descended into a sanguinary revolutionary madness, against which Nixon had spoken of in tones of Red-baiting demagoguery for decades: "We simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations." The USSR had softened its hard line, the essay argued; so, with the proper "dynamic detoxification" and "creative counterpressure," might the Middle Kingdom.

The paper was an audition before the Franklins. But Nixon didn't neglect the Orthogonians. Another article, drafted by Pat Buchanan, came out simultaneously in Reader's Digest Reader's Digest for the ma.s.ses behind their white picket fences called "What Has Happened to America?" Now that Nixon's two '68 opponents, Johnson and Romney, were tangled up in a post-riot battle of legalistic recrimination, the strategic conditions were finally propitious: he introduced himself as a crusader for law and order. for the ma.s.ses behind their white picket fences called "What Has Happened to America?" Now that Nixon's two '68 opponents, Johnson and Romney, were tangled up in a post-riot battle of legalistic recrimination, the strategic conditions were finally propitious: he introduced himself as a crusader for law and order.

"Just three years ago this nation seemed to be completing its greatest decade of racial progress," the article began. Now the country was "among the most lawless and violent in the history of free peoples." Racial animosity was only the "most visible" cause. The riots were "the most virulent symptoms to date of another, and in some ways graver, national disorder-the decline in respect for public authority and the rule of law in America.... The symptoms are everywhere manifest: in the public att.i.tude toward police, in the mounting traffic in illicit drugs, in the volume of teenage-arrests, in campus disorders and the growth of white collar crime.... Far from becoming a great society, ours is becoming a lawless society."

The linkages were now familiar. What made it original was the deflection of the blame onto the Franklins.

"Our opinion-makers have gone too far in promoting the doctrine that when a law is broken, society, not the criminal, is to blame.

"Our teachers, preachers, and politicians have gone too far in advocating the idea that each individual should determine what laws are good and what laws are bad, and that he then should obey the law he likes and disobey the law he dislikes.

"Thus we find that many who oppose the war in Vietnam excuse or ignore or even applaud those who protest that war by disrupting parades, invading government offices, burning draft cards, blocking troop trains, or desecrating the American flag."

When George Wallace made similar points, he drawled, "It's gettin' nowadays that a policeman gets. .h.i.t over the head and before they can get him to the hospital, the judge is orderin' that the man who hit him be turned out of the jailhouse and back on the street to hit somebody else." Nixon said it as a statesman: "Our judges have gone too far in weakening the peace forces as against the criminal forces."

But not too too statesmanlike. In statesmanlike. In Foreign Affairs, Foreign Affairs, for the Franklins, he wrote, "Dealing with Red China is something like trying to cope with the more explosive ghetto elements in our country...in each case dialogues have to be opened." There was no call for such "dialogue" in for the Franklins, he wrote, "Dealing with Red China is something like trying to cope with the more explosive ghetto elements in our country...in each case dialogues have to be opened." There was no call for such "dialogue" in Reader's Digest: Reader's Digest: "This country cannot temporize or equivocate in this showdown with anarchy.... Immediate and decisive force must be the first response." Then Nixon introduced a refrain for his 1968 stump speeches: the "primary civil right" was "to be protected from domestic violence." "This country cannot temporize or equivocate in this showdown with anarchy.... Immediate and decisive force must be the first response." Then Nixon introduced a refrain for his 1968 stump speeches: the "primary civil right" was "to be protected from domestic violence."

He had laid down his policy markers. It was time now to move on the presidential nomination machinery.

Time told Nixon they'd be publis.h.i.+ng a cover story on him in August. They withdrew it on the judgment of editors that Nixon was still yesterday's news. A mole at told Nixon they'd be publis.h.i.+ng a cover story on him in August. They withdrew it on the judgment of editors that Nixon was still yesterday's news. A mole at Time Time pa.s.sed Nixon the interview notes, so he was able to learn what others had planned to say about him without attribution-more useful than any cover of pa.s.sed Nixon the interview notes, so he was able to learn what others had planned to say about him without attribution-more useful than any cover of Time, Time, like seeing the other fellows' poker cards. Colorado senator Peter Dominick, a Goldwaterite whose loyalty Nixon desperately wanted, was the "conservative Western GOP senator" who said, "He's the most qualified man, but can we win with a man who's lost twice?" A "high-ranking liberal Northeast Republican" (Senator Ed Brooke of Ma.s.sachusetts) was blunter: if Nixon was the presidential candidate, "it wouldn't be a contest in '68-it would be a giveaway." The off-the-record opinions made the political lay of the land plain as day: Nixon couldn't bluff his way past the problem of the "loser image." (Former Eisenhower aide Bryce Harlow was the exception: he said that Nixon deserved to be rewarded for his party loyalty with the nomination. Nixon thus offered Harlow a job in his camp.) like seeing the other fellows' poker cards. Colorado senator Peter Dominick, a Goldwaterite whose loyalty Nixon desperately wanted, was the "conservative Western GOP senator" who said, "He's the most qualified man, but can we win with a man who's lost twice?" A "high-ranking liberal Northeast Republican" (Senator Ed Brooke of Ma.s.sachusetts) was blunter: if Nixon was the presidential candidate, "it wouldn't be a contest in '68-it would be a giveaway." The off-the-record opinions made the political lay of the land plain as day: Nixon couldn't bluff his way past the problem of the "loser image." (Former Eisenhower aide Bryce Harlow was the exception: he said that Nixon deserved to be rewarded for his party loyalty with the nomination. Nixon thus offered Harlow a job in his camp.) Delegates to national conventions were chosen in several ways. Binding primaries-where rank-and-file voters chose delegates pledged to a certain candidate (or unpledged to any of them)-were operative in only a handful of states. Most delegates were chosen in party caucuses or conventions, or through a series of ballots so labyrinthine that the delegates may as well have been chosen in smoke-filled rooms. Mastering this painstaking, one-dish-at-a-time work was how F. Clifton White had won the nomination for Barry Goldwater. It required a.s.sembling file cabinets full of information-economic, ideological, familial, social, biographical-on the players in every precinct: To what clubs did Mr. X belong? To whom did he owe money? What letters to the editor had he written? And who in town might sell him out? This information was how delegate-hunters locked in adherents, then ensured their loyalty.

Goldwater had an ace in the hole in '64: the ideological loyalty of his supporters. Nixon couldn't hope for that-he couldn't compete with Reagan for conservative loyalties. He had to sate Republicans' hunger for a winner. Which meant that that other, minor exigency by which delegates got chosen-the primaries, often called "beauty pageants"-took on outsize importance. Goldwater had won but one major contested primary in 1964 and dominated the convention nonetheless. Nixon, those Time Time quotes made unblinkingly clear, had to crush the compet.i.tion in the two big early pageants, in New Hamps.h.i.+re and Wisconsin, to kill any doubts that his loser image remained. quotes made unblinkingly clear, had to crush the compet.i.tion in the two big early pageants, in New Hamps.h.i.+re and Wisconsin, to kill any doubts that his loser image remained.

This task was delegated to agents like John Mitch.e.l.l. In the 1950s, Mitch.e.l.l had helped set up Wisconsin's new bond-offering agency. The Republican state senator who oversaw it, Jarris Leonard, was planning to run for Senate and needed Nixon. Mitch.e.l.l directed Leonard to put together Nixon's organization. By the end of July, they had a full-time staff of forty-two in Wisconsin, plans for chairmen in all the Badger State's one hundred congressional districts, counties, and major towns, and the services of a top advertising agency. Wisconsin thus wired, Mitch.e.l.l moved on to the next states. Others took care of the file-cabinet operation. Nixon began giving frank interviews with major papers about his plans for the campaign. Romney was, meanwhile, wounded by the riots. Then he all but finished himself off with a gaffe.

On September 4, a TV interviewer asked the Michigan governor about Vietnam: "Isn't your position a bit inconsistent with what it was, and what do you propose we do now?" The Mormon bishop, wearied by months of duck-and-weave, decided to lay it on the line: "When I came back from Vietnam in 1965, I just had the greatest brainwas.h.i.+ng that anybody can get when you go over to Vietnam. Not only the generals but also the diplomatic corps over there, and they do a very thorough job."

He was improvising, the way meticulous Nixon never would.

"And since returning from Vietnam I have gone into the history of Vietnam all the way back into World War II and before that, and as a result I have changed my mind in that particularly I no longer believe it was necessary for us to get involved in South Vietnam to stop aggression in Southeast Asia and to prevent Chinese Communist domination of Southeast Asia."

Any intelligent observer studying America's history in Vietnam since World War II might come to the same conclusion: the war was not doing, could not do, what the government said it was doing and could do. But that was too complex to hear. What people heard was the word brainwas.h.i.+ng. brainwas.h.i.+ng.

The term brainwas.h.i.+ng brainwas.h.i.+ng had come into use after the Korean War to explain why some prisoners of war, supposedly insufficiently st.u.r.dy in their patriotism to resist, chose to stay behind in enemy territory and denounce the United States-what the ruthless did to the soft-minded. Neither side of the a.s.sociation appealed to the voters: the notion that the architects of the Vietnam War were ruthless, and the notion of a soft-minded president. Henry Bellmon knew better what to say. He had been on the same trip in 1965, and now piped up at an RNC press conference, "I believe we were fully and factually informed. There was no indication we were misled or brainwashed in any way." had come into use after the Korean War to explain why some prisoners of war, supposedly insufficiently st.u.r.dy in their patriotism to resist, chose to stay behind in enemy territory and denounce the United States-what the ruthless did to the soft-minded. Neither side of the a.s.sociation appealed to the voters: the notion that the architects of the Vietnam War were ruthless, and the notion of a soft-minded president. Henry Bellmon knew better what to say. He had been on the same trip in 1965, and now piped up at an RNC press conference, "I believe we were fully and factually informed. There was no indication we were misled or brainwashed in any way."

As Romney attempted to "clarify," digging himself in deeper and deeper, the hometown Detroit News Detroit News demanded he step aside so his financial backer Nelson Rockefeller could enter the race in his stead. The paper pointed out Romney had supported the war publicly for two years after his trip: "How long does a brainwas.h.i.+ng linger?" In the next Harris poll, Romney dropped sixteen points. Nixon hadn't seen anything like it in twenty years in politics: "One moment he's the front-runner, the next he's down. Words are so very, very important." demanded he step aside so his financial backer Nelson Rockefeller could enter the race in his stead. The paper pointed out Romney had supported the war publicly for two years after his trip: "How long does a brainwas.h.i.+ng linger?" In the next Harris poll, Romney dropped sixteen points. Nixon hadn't seen anything like it in twenty years in politics: "One moment he's the front-runner, the next he's down. Words are so very, very important."

A national brainwas.h.i.+ng continued apace.

In March of 1967, U.S. commanders had reviewed the statistics and concluded there had been even more enemy attacks in the previous year than they'd realized. In April, General Westmoreland came to D.C. and begged for at least one hundred thousand more troops "as soon as possible"-better yet, two hundred thousand; that is, if the president wanted the war to end in two years instead of five. LBJ was skeptical: we would add troops, they would add troops; "Where does it all end?" He worried the Joint Chiefs of Staff still wouldn't be satisfied. They'd beg to bomb the locks, the dikes, mine the harbors, starve the peasants. They'd call for invasions of Laos and Cambodia. They'd ask for biological warfare, for nuclear weapons. He knew how the generals thought.

His thinking was also political. Meeting Westmoreland's request would mean calling up reserves and National Guard. Those units came from specific localities-places such as Tip O'Neill's Eighth District, where, the congressman wrote to the president July 18, protesters "were mainly from a solid middle cla.s.s social and economic status and there was no evidence of youth agitators." Communities losing fathers and brothers in bulk would make the war immeasurably more unpopular. The fact that only 1.5 percent of reservists ever made it to Vietnam was part of what helped sell it as not really a war at all.

Vietnam was obviously stalemated to all but administration apologists. In late July, for the first time, a poll majority disapproved of the president's Vietnam performance. A New York Times New York Times front-page story based on a leak of the Westmoreland request reported that "American officers talk somberly about fighting here for decades." Houston's congressman, George H. W. Bush, a Republican ideological weather vane (he lost as a Goldwater conservative in '64, then won as a smiling centrist in '66), wrote his const.i.tuents, "I frankly am lukewarm on sending more American boys to Viet Nam. I want more involvement by Asians." Chuck Percy wondered why we had to spend "$66 million a day trying to 'save' the 16 million people of South Vietnam while leaving the plight of the 20 million urban poor in our own country unresolved." And Kentucky's Republican senator Thruston Morton, the former RNC chair, said the president had been "brainwashed by the military-industrial complex" into believing in the possibility of a military victory. He told a group of businessmen, "I am convinced that unless we gradually and, if necessary, unilaterally reduce the scope of our military involvement, we may well destroy the very society we sought to save." Businessmen were open to the argument. The fiscal year ended with the worst deficit since 1959, and a congressional committee said the administration had deliberately underestimated the cost of the war by $10 billion. front-page story based on a leak of the Westmoreland request reported that "American officers talk somberly about fighting here for decades." Houston's congressman, George H. W. Bush, a Republican ideological weather vane (he lost as a Goldwater conservative in '64, then won as a smiling centrist in '66), wrote his const.i.tuents, "I frankly am lukewarm on sending more American boys to Viet Nam. I want more involvement by Asians." Chuck Percy wondered why we had to spend "$66 million a day trying to 'save' the 16 million people of South Vietnam while leaving the plight of the 20 million urban poor in our own country unresolved." And Kentucky's Republican senator Thruston Morton, the former RNC chair, said the president had been "brainwashed by the military-industrial complex" into believing in the possibility of a military victory. He told a group of businessmen, "I am convinced that unless we gradually and, if necessary, unilaterally reduce the scope of our military involvement, we may well destroy the very society we sought to save." Businessmen were open to the argument. The fiscal year ended with the worst deficit since 1959, and a congressional committee said the administration had deliberately underestimated the cost of the war by $10 billion.

Defense Secretary McNamara wrote to the president that General Westmoreland's l.u.s.t for cannon fodder "could lead to a major national disaster." McNamara had already commissioned a ma.s.sive historical study by Pentagon staffers and consultants to come up with an explanation of the Vietnam mess. On the third anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, the president announced the authorization of forty-seven thousand more soldiers and made William Westmoreland stand on his hind legs and tell the press that that was all he'd asked for. We'd rain more bombs instead. The public overwhelmingly approved of that.

On September 3, the South Vietnamese would go to the polls to elect a government for the first time since Ngo Dinh Diem won the fishy balloting of 1961, then was overthrown by the first of several military juntas. That an election was planned was proactively proactively used to declare South Vietnamese democracy a reality. The vice-presidential candidate Nguyen Cao Ky had deployed the South Vietnamese air force to smuggle opium and gold; asked who his political heroes were, he replied, "I have only one-Hitler." He was running for vice president virtually unchallenged and won-and had fixed the const.i.tution to give the real power to a military council run by the vice president. Meanwhile, back in America, that an election had just taken place was used to declare South Vietnamese democracy a reality. The vice-presidential candidate Nguyen Cao Ky had deployed the South Vietnamese air force to smuggle opium and gold; asked who his political heroes were, he replied, "I have only one-Hitler." He was running for vice president virtually unchallenged and won-and had fixed the const.i.tution to give the real power to a military council run by the vice president. Meanwhile, back in America, that an election had just taken place was retroactively retroactively used to declare South Vietnamese democracy a reality. used to declare South Vietnamese democracy a reality.

For the achievement, 6,721 American soldiers had died in 1967. "Rising Doubt About the War," ran the cover of Time Time (accompanied by a spine-stiffening essay insisting that such doubts were no different from those in any war). (accompanied by a spine-stiffening essay insisting that such doubts were no different from those in any war). Reader's Digest Reader's Digest's Vietnam was a nonstop procession of school reconstructions and orphanage visits by American doughboys; a typical story was about the beloved mess cook who caught a VC grenade while planning a Christmas feast for the local children. The magazine ran an editorial from the conservative Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis Star: "Let us not forget the only thing the Communists are aiming at with their stand in Vietnam": a United States "under Communist influence and control." "Let us not forget the only thing the Communists are aiming at with their stand in Vietnam": a United States "under Communist influence and control."

Readers of the prestige press received a different view. Harrison Salisbury's Behind the Lines: Hanoi, December 23, 1966January 7, 1967 Behind the Lines: Hanoi, December 23, 1966January 7, 1967 described a North Vietnam indifferent to submitting the United States to "Communist influence and control"-the country was just interested in defending their civilians from slaughter by American F-111s. described a North Vietnam indifferent to submitting the United States to "Communist influence and control"-the country was just interested in defending their civilians from slaughter by American F-111s. The Village of Ben Suc, The Village of Ben Suc, by a twenty-four-year-old Harvard graduate named Jonathan Sch.e.l.l, described what it looked like when American personnel "pacified" a once-prosperous South Vietnamese hamlet: first it was bombed and sh.e.l.led; then a joint U.S.South Vietnamese army a.s.sault killed forty-one people on its first day; then, the traces were bulldozed, then bombed, its farmers transferred to a barren "strategic hamlet" behind barbed wire. ( by a twenty-four-year-old Harvard graduate named Jonathan Sch.e.l.l, described what it looked like when American personnel "pacified" a once-prosperous South Vietnamese hamlet: first it was bombed and sh.e.l.led; then a joint U.S.South Vietnamese army a.s.sault killed forty-one people on its first day; then, the traces were bulldozed, then bombed, its farmers transferred to a barren "strategic hamlet" behind barbed wire. (Time, in its negative review, savaged him for not pointing this out as an act of charity.) Sch.e.l.l quoted the rea.s.surance of an American commander: "What does it matter? They're all Vietnamese." in its negative review, savaged him for not pointing this out as an act of charity.) Sch.e.l.l quoted the rea.s.surance of an American commander: "What does it matter? They're all Vietnamese."

What was it all for? It was confusing, even for Reader's Digest Reader's Digest readers. In the same issue as Nixon's "What Has Happened to America?" jeremiad, an article allowed, "Despite rosy progress reports from Was.h.i.+ngton, the fighting is not going too well." The next issue ran the memoir of a Vietcong defector who said that most of his colleagues readers. In the same issue as Nixon's "What Has Happened to America?" jeremiad, an article allowed, "Despite rosy progress reports from Was.h.i.+ngton, the fighting is not going too well." The next issue ran the memoir of a Vietcong defector who said that most of his colleagues weren't weren't Communists. Support for the war fell from 72 to 61 percent. Over a quarter found the war, simply, "immoral." Lyndon Johnson invited a covey of Senate doves to the White House for a stag dinner. George McGovern subsequently wrote in his diary, "The President is a tortured and confused man-literally tortured by the mess he has gotten into in Vietnam." Communists. Support for the war fell from 72 to 61 percent. Over a quarter found the war, simply, "immoral." Lyndon Johnson invited a covey of Senate doves to the White House for a stag dinner. George McGovern subsequently wrote in his diary, "The President is a tortured and confused man-literally tortured by the mess he has gotten into in Vietnam."

In October the formation of an anti-antiwar group was announced by World War II hero General Omar Bradley and former senator Paul Douglas. "Voices of dissent have received attention far out of proportion to their actual numbers," they stated at the National Press Club in inaugurating their Citizens' Committee for Peace with Freedom in Vietnam. "Our objective is to make sure that the majority voice of America is heard-loud and clear-so that Peking and Hanoi will not mistake the strident voices of some dissenters for American discouragement and a weakening of will." Their members included Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower. They said they were speaking "for the great 'silent center' of American life." Douglas said he'd come up with the idea himself and emphasized, "We are not supporters of a president or of an administration."

He lied. The committee had been invented by a White House aide, John Roche, who promised in an "EYES ONLY" memo to the president, "I will leave no tracks." If press secretary George Christian was asked, Roche urged, he should say, "Up to now, everything the President knows about the committee he has read in the newspapers." The ruse succeeded. The media reported the group as spontaneous. Letters to the editor gushed, "The riffraff have held center stage long enough and their performances grow more sickeningly disgusting with each added publicity stunt. It is heartening indeed that some of our forthright and knowledgeable leaders have taken the initiative in speaking for the vast majority." One letter to Time Time was signed, "Yours in LSD-Let's Save Democracy." Maybe the letters had been manufactured at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Roche had promised the president "letter-writing squads." was signed, "Yours in LSD-Let's Save Democracy." Maybe the letters had been manufactured at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Roche had promised the president "letter-writing squads."

It hadn't been easy. Roche had been working on the project since May. Signing up the promised "Great Names" had proven backbreaking labor. An undersecretary of agriculture who visited Kansas State University to do some recruiting reported, "no one with whom I talked would admit that any significant element in the University community would support present policies." The wider public in the Sunflower State, he added, was "beginning to turn the same corner on this subject that intellectuals turned some months ago."

School was in session, and insurgent youth felt themselves a nation, instantly at home wherever they alighted-same dope, same struggle, same music. (Jimi Hendrix called it "electric church music, a new kind of Bible you carry in your heart...to create a buffer between young and old.") One bestseller at Ivy League bookstores, Revolution in the Revolution?, Revolution in the Revolution?, instructed how to organize urban guerrilla combat cells (for which activity its author, Regis Debray, was serving a thirty-year jail sentence in Bolivia). The White House considered ending student draft deferments, then demurred when presented an estimate that a quarter would simply refuse to serve. Even high school kids published "underground" newspapers-advocating the legalizing of marijuana, labeling football games n.a.z.i Youth rallies, leading strikes over the expulsion of students who wore beards to school. instructed how to organize urban guerrilla combat cells (for which activity its author, Regis Debray, was serving a thirty-year jail sentence in Bolivia). The White House considered ending student draft deferments, then demurred when presented an estimate that a quarter would simply refuse to serve. Even high school kids published "underground" newspapers-advocating the legalizing of marijuana, labeling football games n.a.z.i Youth rallies, leading strikes over the expulsion of students who wore beards to school.

The semester coincided with the opening of a gangster picture, but a gangster picture of a new sort. The old Hollywood moguls were conservative men, kowtowing to the country's loud and well-organized moralists via a strict "production code." "One basic plot only has appeared daily in their fifteen thousand theaters," the greatest screenwriter of old Hollywood, Ben Hecht, wrote in his 1953 memoir-"the triumph of virtue and the overthrow of wickedness." Hecht was also the inventor of the gangster genre, and wrote of the frustrating constraints under which he was forced to work: Two generations of Americans have been informed nightly that a woman who betrayed her husband (or a husband his wife) could never find happiness; that s.e.x was no fun without a mother-in-law and a rubber plant around; that women who fornicated just for pleasure ended up as harlots or washerwomen; that any man who was s.e.xually active in his youth later lost the one girl he truly loved; that a man who indulged in sharp practices to get ahead in the world ended in poverty and with even his own children turning on him; that any man who broke the laws, man's or G.o.d's, must always die, or go to jail, or become a monk, or restore the money he stole before wandering off into the desert; that anyone who didn't believe in G.o.d (and said so out loud) was set right by seeing either an angel or witnessing some feat of levitation by one of the characters; that an honest heart must always recover from a train wreck or a score of bullets and win the girl it loved; that the most potent and brilliant of villains are powerless before little children, parish priests or young virgins with large b.o.o.bies; that injustice could cause a heap of trouble but it must always slink out of town in Reel Nine; that there are no problems of labor, politics, domestic life or s.e.xual abnormality but can be solved happily by a simple Christian phrase or a fine American motto.

Bonnie and Clyde sounded the death knell for all that. sounded the death knell for all that.

The action opened with a close-up of the siren lips of Faye Dunaway as the young Bonnie Parker, all flouncing s.e.xuality, imprisoned in a respectable Christian home. She stares languidly out her bedroom window, Rapunzel-like, spies the radiant Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) stealing her mama's car. Rather than save her family's property, she chooses to join him. He explains that he has just got out of prison for armed robbery. He lets her stroke his gun.

The setting was 1932. But the scenarios were anachronistic-Faye in makeup like Twiggy and a beret like a Black Panther, Warren (who, they said, had been one of JFK's favorite actors) with a mop of Bobby Kennedy hair. The police ride in riot tanks like the ones in Detroit and Newark. The abiding sin of the bad guys, cops, and ordinary townfolk-who in any previous movie would have been the good good guys-is their bourgeois inauthenticity. When the Barrow Gang holes up at the farm of a young member's father, the old man ends up selling out his son: not because he is a murderer, but because his tattoo (a 1932 stand-in for long hair) makes him look like "trash." "Don't shoot, the kids are in the cross fire," you hear at one point above the cacophony. The cops shoot anyway. The Barrow Gang would never put kids in the cross fire. They guys-is their bourgeois inauthenticity. When the Barrow Gang holes up at the farm of a young member's father, the old man ends up selling out his son: not because he is a murderer, but because his tattoo (a 1932 stand-in for long hair) makes him look like "trash." "Don't shoot, the kids are in the cross fire," you hear at one point above the cacophony. The cops shoot anyway. The Barrow Gang would never put kids in the cross fire. They were were the kids. the kids.

They weren't bad folks, went the movie's moral logic, until an evil system forced them to extremity: robbing banks that repossessed farms, killing only when the System began closing in all around them ("You oughtta be protectin' the rights of poor folks instead of chasin' after the likes of us," Clyde tells a Texas ranger, that embodiment heretofore of everything upright and true.) Bonnie and Clyde made those around them feel alive-all except the squares who were chasing them, who were already more or less dead anyway, with their sucker obsession with honest toil. Defiant indolence (Beatty's Clyde Barrow walked with a limp from cutting off two of his own toes to avoid a prison work detail) made Bonnie and Clyde honest in a world of lies. They also were McLuhanite outlaws. They lived to get their pictures in the paper. The first time it happened, in fact, it cured Clyde Barrow's unfortunate impotence.

Clyde held up a grocery store. The grocer attacked this charmed youth who pilfered the fruit of his honest sacrifice. Barrow replied incredulously, "What does he have against me me?"

Life and freedom versus living death and toil: this was the movie's structuring antinomy-a generation-gap Rorschach. Everyone watching had to choose a side: was this new immorality that Hollywood was offering actually a higher higher morality? Or just a new name for evil? "Not in a generation has a single Hollywood movie had such a decisive and worldwide impact," the morality? Or just a new name for evil? "Not in a generation has a single Hollywood movie had such a decisive and worldwide impact," the Hollywood Reporter Hollywood Reporter concluded of the furor that ensued-a public symposium over the meaning of the present. concluded of the furor that ensued-a public symposium over the meaning of the present.

The producers-Warren Beatty was one, and later claimed he preferred Bob Dylan for his role-let there be no mistake: forcing this debate was their intention. They advertised it with the slogan "They're young...they're in love...and they kill people." Clyde's proudly insouciant self-introduction-"We rob banks"-was a dream-factory counterpart to the words of the SNCC militant who complained about Urban League types around the time the picture opened: "We're trying to get jobs in a bank we ought to destroy."

Director Arthur Penn also broke the old production code's most ironclad rule: show all the shooting you like, but never show what happens on the receiving end. In Bonnie and Clyde, Bonnie and Clyde, the bullets were shown from first to last-not least in the final shot, Bonnie and Clyde riddled from law enforcement tommy guns in a low-down and dirty ambush. The the bullets were shown from first to last-not least in the final shot, Bonnie and Clyde riddled from law enforcement tommy guns in a low-down and dirty ambush. The New York Times New York Times's schoolmarmish film critic Bosley Crowther, aghast that "so callous and callow a film should represent [the] country in these critical times," led the party of the outraged with not one but three attacks in the Paper of Record. Newsweek Newsweek called it "reprehensible." called it "reprehensible." Film in Review Film in Review tagged it "dementia praec.o.x of the most pointless sort." Others recollected a generational primal scene. If "you want to see a real killer," Jimmy Breslin wrote in disgust, "then you should have been around to see Lee Harvey Oswald." Tom Wolfe compared its "p.o.r.noviolence" to the Zapruder film of JFK's a.s.sa.s.sination. Arthur Penn led his own defense by, more or less, agreeing. He boasted of the black man who emerged from a preview screening and said, "That's the way to go, baby. Those cats were all right." Pauline Kael published nine thousand words saying much the same thing: that " tagged it "dementia praec.o.x of the most pointless sort." Others recollected a generational primal scene. If "you want to see a real killer," Jimmy Breslin wrote in disgust, "then you should have been around to see Lee Harvey Oswald." Tom Wolfe compared its "p.o.r.noviolence" to the Zapruder film of JFK's a.s.sa.s.sination. Arthur Penn led his own defense by, more or less, agreeing. He boasted of the black man who emerged from a preview screening and said, "That's the way to go, baby. Those cats were all right." Pauline Kael published nine thousand words saying much the same thing: that "Bonnie and Clyde brings into the almost frighteningly public world of movies what people have been feeling and saying and writing about." Afraid of brings into the almost frighteningly public world of movies what people have been feeling and saying and writing about." Afraid of Bonnie and Clyde Bonnie and Clyde? Then you were afraid of the abundance of life.

New Left Notes, the theoretical journal of Students for a Democratic Society, devoted a quarter of an issue to the film's meaning for the struggle ("We are not potential Bonnies and Clydes, we are Bonnies and Clydes"). A college girl from Peoria wrote the theoretical journal of Students for a Democratic Society, devoted a quarter of an issue to the film's meaning for the struggle ("We are not potential Bonnies and Clydes, we are Bonnies and Clydes"). A college girl from Peoria wrote Time: Time: "Sir: "Sir: Bonnie and Clyde Bonnie and Clyde is not a film for adults, and I believe much of its degradation has come from that fact. Adults are used to being entertained in theaters-coming out smiling and humming the t.i.tle song.... The reason it was so silent, so horribly silent in the theater at the end of the film was because we liked Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, we identified with them, and their deaths made us realize that newspaper headlines are not so far removed from our quiet dorm rooms." is not a film for adults, and I believe much of its degradation has come from that fact. Adults are used to being entertained in theaters-coming out smiling and humming the t.i.tle song.... The reason it was so silent, so horribly silent in the theater at the end of the film was because we liked Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, we identified with them, and their deaths made us realize that newspaper headlines are not so far removed from our quiet dorm rooms."

The insurgent youth nation, like any other nation, had its tensions, even civil wars. With more and more young militants subscribing to competing Marxist dogmatisms, clashes between New Left factions took on the apocalypticism of doomsday cultists. The National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (the Mobe) was the umbrella group that tried to forge some kind of operational consensus out of the cacophony. Their meetings often ended up devolving into party-line screechings of dueling revolutionists.

This wasn't even to mention two entire, contrary, radical const.i.tuencies: politicized freaks and the nonwhite. The freaks, led by Abbie Hoffman, held the earnest dialecticians in hardly less contempt than they did men in gray flannel suits. They loved nothing more than to invade SDS strategy conclaves with whooping Marx Brothersstyle disruptions (they agreed with Timothy Leary: the New Left were "young men with menopausal minds"). The minorities-they called themselves "internal colonists," or the "Third World" community-were wors.h.i.+pped by every self-respecting white radical as repositories of an authenticity they could only pretend to, who in turn condescended to white leftists as annoyances, pretenders, or marks for guilt-tripping entertainment.

The factions were supposed to come together Labor Day weekend in the most dramatic attempt so far to make of these strands something unified. The National Conference for a New Politics was held at Chicago's sumptuous Palmer House hotel (shared that week with a bridge tournament and a wedding reception in the Red Lacquer Ballroom). The aim was to influence the 1968 presidential election. The s.h.i.+mmering dream was for the thousands of delegates to emerge unified behind a radical pr