Nixonland. Part 21

A neck-and-neck campaign, a spoiler to break a tie: things started getting nasty in the Nixon camp. That was the Nixon way. In his last campaign, in 1962, running behind against Pat Brown, a circular was sent out from the "Committee for the Preservation of the Democratic Party in California," addressed to "Dear Fellow Democrats," alleging that Brown was under the thumb of "left-wing forces" who had adopted the "entire platform of the Communist Party." Another superimposed a picture of a bowing Pat Brown next to one of Nikita Khrushchev. b.u.mper stickers started appearing reading IS BROWN PINK? IS BROWN PINK?

Agnew started in on the dirty work, just as Nixon used to do for Ike. A heckler shouted, "Humphrey! Humphrey Humphrey!" Agnew retorted, "You can renounce your citizenship if you don't like it here," and said when Nixon was inaugurated, people like the heckler were going to "dry up and disappear." As for HHH himself, Agnew accused him of conciliating those who "condone violence and advocate overthrow of the government."

Then, Nixon joined Agnew, to the puzzlement of those who believed in a "New Nixon." He said Humphrey had a "personal att.i.tude of indulgence and permissiveness toward the lawless" and hated the military: "I am the one who stands for a stronger United States and Mr. Humphrey who stands for a weaker one." The campaign monitored crime figures in munic.i.p.alities around the country and cut last-minute radio commercials for the ones that were ticking upward. It fit the new slogan devised for those last few weeks, commanding thousands of billboards across the country: VOTE LIKE YOUR WHOLE LIFE DEPENDED ON IT. VOTE LIKE YOUR WHOLE LIFE DEPENDED ON IT. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson had campaigned telling bedtime stories: that the sixties were scary (because of nuclear weapons), Barry Goldwater was scary, and that a vote for Johnson banished the monster under the bed. The story Nixon told was identical, with the terms reversed: that if the Democrats won-apocalypse. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson had campaigned telling bedtime stories: that the sixties were scary (because of nuclear weapons), Barry Goldwater was scary, and that a vote for Johnson banished the monster under the bed. The story Nixon told was identical, with the terms reversed: that if the Democrats won-apocalypse.

He was convinced of it himself. He was also convinced his plane was bugged. He was convinced the work of a lifetime might go down the drain. He was convinced he had to do anything to win-before the bad guys did it first. So he had John Ehrlichman set up a paid goon squad to rough up demonstrators at his speeches. He was also convinced the Democrats would pull the rabbit of peace out of the hat in Vietnam, timed perfectly to destroy him. After all, his contact in Amba.s.sador-at-Large Averell Harriman's negotiating team in Paris told him so. That would be the killing blow. In an election season where the public didn't perceive many major differences between the candidates on the issues, Nixon had a strong advantage on Vietnam. Those who perceived a difference in the ability of the two parties to avoid an expanded war preferred Nixon to Humphrey two to one. The Republican, the man who'd dropped broad hints in New Hampshire of some secret plan to end the war, was the man the public trusted to make peace. He reinforced it with unsubtle digs: "Those who have had a chance for another four years and could not produce peace should not be given another chance."

But Nixon couldn't be elected to produce peace if peace had already been produced.

And in Paris, the chances of peace seemed to be receding every day. Every time the North Vietnamese appeared ready to agree to a condition, the South Vietnamese raised the bar.

The reason was that Nixon had sabotaged the negotiations. His agent was Anna Chennault, known to one and all as the Dragon Lady. She told the South Vietnamese not to agree to anything, because waiting to end the war would deliver her friend Richard Nixon the election, and he would give them a better deal.

The brazenness was breathtaking. The previous May, after the triumphant announcement by the lame-duck president that the United States would be negotiating with the North Vietnamese in Paris, Nixon said that this removed Vietnam from the table as an issue. In Evansville, Indiana, he said, "Let's not destroy the chances for peace with a mouthful of words from some irresponsible candidate for president of the United States. Put yourself in the position of the enemy. He is negotiating with Lyndon Johnson and Secretary Rusk and then he reads in the paper that, not a senator, not a congressman, not an editor, but a potential president of the United States president of the United States will give him a better deal than President Johnson is offering him. What's he going to do? It will torpedo those deliberations, it will destroy any chance for the negotiations to bring an honorable end to the war. The enemy will wait for the next man." To the American a.s.sociation of Editorial Cartoonists, when one of that hated tribe asked him sharply, "How could you stand up and ask us to vote for you when you don't want to be specific?" Nixon responded, in tones of wounded innocence, "If there is a will give him a better deal than President Johnson is offering him. What's he going to do? It will torpedo those deliberations, it will destroy any chance for the negotiations to bring an honorable end to the war. The enemy will wait for the next man." To the American a.s.sociation of Editorial Cartoonists, when one of that hated tribe asked him sharply, "How could you stand up and ask us to vote for you when you don't want to be specific?" Nixon responded, in tones of wounded innocence, "If there is a chance chance we can get the war over before this election, it is much more important than anything I might wish to say to get you to vote for me.... I will not make any we can get the war over before this election, it is much more important than anything I might wish to say to get you to vote for me.... I will not make any statement statement that might pull the rug out from under him and might destroy the possibility to bring the war to a conclusion." Which was true. He didn't make a statement. He had the Dragon Lady whisper it instead. that might pull the rug out from under him and might destroy the possibility to bring the war to a conclusion." Which was true. He didn't make a statement. He had the Dragon Lady whisper it instead.

This head-spinning stuff would be for future generations to find out about. For now, the bottom line was this: there was no chance of getting the war ended before the election. Because Richard Nixon had made it impossible.

Labor poured unprecedented resources into the Democratic campaign going into the home stretch, registering 4.6 million voters, sending out 115 million pamphlets, establishing 638 phone banks, fielding 72,000 house-to-house canva.s.sers and 94,000 Election Day volunteers. Humphrey nabbed fifteen last-minute points from Wallace among unionists. He also ran a lachrymose print ad: "Don't let him buy the White House," over a picture of a smiling Nixon. "No man has ever paid more trying to be President. Richard Nixon has spent more in the last month alone than Hubert Humphrey will spend in his six-month campaign.... If you don't do something about it, he will spend at least $5 for every $1 Mr. Humphrey spends.... It means we could pick a president, not on what he says, but on how much he spends to say it."

Nixon, panicking at the last minute, tried one last trick: he asked Humphrey to agree that if neither of them won the required majority in the electoral college, the winner of the popular vote would become president. Nice try, but not so fast: the Const.i.tution's provision was an election in the House of Representatives, which was overwhelmingly Democratic. Humphrey said he would "stand by the const.i.tutional process." Election Day.

Leonard Garment, watching Nixon preparing for this moment as far back as Lincoln Day season in 1966, had imagined that this was what a man training for an Olympic decathlon must live like-the staggeringly punishing schedules, the mastering of ten political disciplines at once, the planning, the pushing, the endurance, the pain. pain. And that had been a long, long thirty months in the past. It hadn't let up since-hadn't let up, really, since Nixon's political career began in college, organizing his Orthogonians, plotting his ascendance as student body president, the dour, plodding soul who astonished contemporaries later imagined must have practiced his handshake in the mirror, "the man least likely to succeed in politics." Maybe it hadn't let up since he was but a boy, the brother surviving the loss of two brothers-"trying," as his sainted mother told a journalist inquiring into what made Nixon Nixon, "to be three sons in one, striving even harder than before to make up to his father and me for our loss." And that had been a long, long thirty months in the past. It hadn't let up since-hadn't let up, really, since Nixon's political career began in college, organizing his Orthogonians, plotting his ascendance as student body president, the dour, plodding soul who astonished contemporaries later imagined must have practiced his handshake in the mirror, "the man least likely to succeed in politics." Maybe it hadn't let up since he was but a boy, the brother surviving the loss of two brothers-"trying," as his sainted mother told a journalist inquiring into what made Nixon Nixon, "to be three sons in one, striving even harder than before to make up to his father and me for our loss."

At thirty-four years old, when his law school cla.s.smates were making partner, he was a congressman; at thirty-five, with the Hiss case, he was a household name; at thirty-eight, a senator; by the time he was forty, vice president of the United States, the proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency (and the president, an old man, had a weak heart). By the time he was forty-five, he was standing toe-to-toe with Khrushchev in Moscow, the most fearsome dictator in the world. Then the soul-incinerating loss in 1960, the closest any any man had come to the presidency without winning. (And now, exactly eight years later, the early indications were that it would be no less close.) Then the second soul-incinerating loss but two years later, for governor of California-upon which, man had come to the presidency without winning. (And now, exactly eight years later, the early indications were that it would be no less close.) Then the second soul-incinerating loss but two years later, for governor of California-upon which, Time Time magazine reflected in its political eulogy, "Perhaps he had risen too far too fast." magazine reflected in its political eulogy, "Perhaps he had risen too far too fast."

Nothing to do after that but to strive ever harder than before. As he had told Pat Buchanan, also in 1966, "If I had to practice law and nothing else, I would be mentally dead in two years and physically dead in four." Well, then, what of it? What if he lost?

He climbed into his campaign plane bound for New York City that November Tuesday morning in 1968, decorated by some overzealous campaign worker with an AIR FORCE ONE AIR FORCE ONE sign that Nixon clearly found excruciating; he wasn't so confident. He drew close his family, who were shocked at his candor, and told them not to take his public confidence as anything but a show. "I want to tell you what's really going to happen," Teddy White recorded him telling them in sign that Nixon clearly found excruciating; he wasn't so confident. He drew close his family, who were shocked at his candor, and told them not to take his public confidence as anything but a show. "I want to tell you what's really going to happen," Teddy White recorded him telling them in Making of the President. Making of the President. "If people in this country are still really concerned about peace, we could win big. But if they've been rea.s.sured about peace and now they're concerned with their pocketbooks and welfare, we could lose." "If people in this country are still really concerned about peace, we could win big. But if they've been rea.s.sured about peace and now they're concerned with their pocketbooks and welfare, we could lose."

The self-righteousness, the self-pity of the formulation were fulsome: Richard Nixon Richard Nixon was offering the American people peace. If they rejected Richard Nixon, it would be because they were willing to accept...war. Their greed-"their pocketbooks and welfare"-would have gotten the better of them. Thus did he, psychically, prepare himself for a likely eventuality: that, once more, he would lose. That he would be known as a loser for the rest of his life. Something, anything, to redeem the dread: if he lost, he was telling his family, it would be because America had proven herself unworthy of his idealism. was offering the American people peace. If they rejected Richard Nixon, it would be because they were willing to accept...war. Their greed-"their pocketbooks and welfare"-would have gotten the better of them. Thus did he, psychically, prepare himself for a likely eventuality: that, once more, he would lose. That he would be known as a loser for the rest of his life. Something, anything, to redeem the dread: if he lost, he was telling his family, it would be because America had proven herself unworthy of his idealism.

He might lose. The previous night, on a two-hour Nixon telethon broadcast across the West Coast, a last-ditch attempt to guarantee his home state, he had made a gaffe: he swore.

Richard Nixon had been retailing his white-picket-fence piety to the voters since 1946. The only Nixon America's television audiences knew was the one who, in his third debate with Kennedy in 1960, had solemnly chided Harry Truman for a recent comment that the Republican Party could "go to h.e.l.l." "One thing I have noted as I have traveled around the country are the tremendous number of children who come out to see the presidential candidates" is what square old d.i.c.k Nixon had said then. "It makes you realize that whoever is president is going to be a man that all the children of America will either look up to or will look down to, and I can only say that I am very proud that President Eisenhower restored dignity and decency and-frankly-good language to the conduct of the presidency of the United States." Americans would have to wait another six years to learn that privately, Nixon cursed like a sailor. "c.o.c.ksucker!" was a favorite plosive burst. And that was the other Nixon revealed-just a brief glint-during the wearying, waning minutes of that telethon. "Now we get down to the nut-cutting," he disarmingly uttered.

How many votes might that shift? Enough, in the next twenty-four hours, to render him Job once again? Would the same torture of retrospection that had haunted him since November 8, 1960, be renewed for the rest of his life?

The plane pa.s.sed over Indiana, a toss-up state. "How can you have your mother be from Indiana and not be a fighting Republican?": his habitual line for Hoosiers. An observer recorded him still and forlorn, peering at the corn-fields from the window, as "if by looking down and concentrating he could pull in more votes."

Richard Nixon's evening: that biennial torture. First glimmers from Kansas: eight points ahead of Humphrey in the popular vote, with 19 percent for the spoiler George Wallace.

Eight o'clock: Humphrey picks up a little more steam.

Ohio: too close to call.

Missouri: Humphrey ahead in the vote tally; Nixon ahead in CBS's computer projection.

Ten twenty: a slew of Eastern states have gone for the Democrat.

The stroke of midnight: Hubert Humphrey was ahead by a point in the popular vote, with four of ten returns counted. In Nixon's familiar old suite at the Waldorf, the televisions were turned off by order of the decathlete, scribbling on yellow pads, working the phones, puzzling out the nation's precincts, the labyrinth he knew better than any other man alive, as the nation's will slowly, agonizingly revealed itself.

He knew it by 3:15 a.m.

The networks weren't sure until well into the 9 a.m. hour.

Humphrey didn't concede until eleven thirty. In fact, the victory wouldn't be certified for weeks. But the old gentleman's convention of the concession sealed this strangest American apotheosis: the boy who'd spent his childhood cloistered in a tower reading, who hated to ride the school bus because he thought the other children smelled bad, the feral junior debater, this founder of fraternal societies for the decidedly unfraternal, would, come January 20, be the leader of the free world.

Not only that, he did so with something no other Republican presidential candidate, with minor exceptions, had ever had before: electoral votes from the South. Wallace took Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana. But Nixon got Arkansas, Tennessee, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina-and Strom Thurmond's South Carolina.

George Wallace sent a congratulatory telegram. Nixon never acknowledged it. It spoke to the agony of victory. For it was barely a victory: 301 electoral votes for Nixon and 191 for Humphrey, 46 for George Wallace-and, in the popular vote, 43.42 percent, 42.72 percent, and 13.53 percent. Only five or so points more than Barry Goldwater's humiliating share in 1964. With George Wallace claiming that symbolically the victory belonged as much to him as to Nixon: "Mr. Nixon said the same thing we said," he declared. If he hadn't, was Wallace's point, Nixon wouldn't have won. And indeed, a few thousand more votes for Wallace in North Carolina and Tennessee, a shift of 1 percent of the vote in New Jersey or Ohio from Nixon to Humphrey, and the election would have been thrown into the House of Representatives, because Nixon wouldn't have won an electoral college majority. If Nixon didn't "carry out his commitments," Wallace said-lay off desegregation guidelines and appoint "const.i.tutionalists" to the federal bench-the Alabaman would run for president again in 1972. Nixon hadn't even been inaugurated, and his reelection was already imperiled.

Some victory: look at what happened with Congress. The Republicans gained but four seats in the House. They did a little better, percentage-wise, in the Senate. One heartbreaker: Max Rafferty's loss. At the last minute, the Long Beach Independent Long Beach Independent reported that he had dodged the draft during World War II, digging up the standing joke in the town where he had been teaching: "Max Rafferty celebrated V-J day by throwing his cane away." It was symbolic of a Pyrrhic-victory gloom astonished aides began noticing in the boss over the next few days. "I need Max in the Senate," Nixon had announced to California's voters. He needed him because he had dreamed not merely of victory, but reported that he had dodged the draft during World War II, digging up the standing joke in the town where he had been teaching: "Max Rafferty celebrated V-J day by throwing his cane away." It was symbolic of a Pyrrhic-victory gloom astonished aides began noticing in the boss over the next few days. "I need Max in the Senate," Nixon had announced to California's voters. He needed him because he had dreamed not merely of victory, but victory: victory: a mandate to remake the world. As he had told Len Garment in that pool-house slumber party in 1965, "He felt his life had to be dedicated to great foreign policy purposes. This man, fiercely determined to stay in the political life for which he was in many ways so ill suited, told me he felt driven to do so not by the rivalries or ideological commitments or domestic politics but by his pacifist mother's idealism and the profound importance of foreign affairs." a mandate to remake the world. As he had told Len Garment in that pool-house slumber party in 1965, "He felt his life had to be dedicated to great foreign policy purposes. This man, fiercely determined to stay in the political life for which he was in many ways so ill suited, told me he felt driven to do so not by the rivalries or ideological commitments or domestic politics but by his pacifist mother's idealism and the profound importance of foreign affairs."

At the very least, that would take a lukewarm, friendly Congress. But he would be the first president since Zachary Taylor in 1849 to start his term without a majority in either chamber.

Merely holding the Oval Office? It hardly seemed half enough.

He would just have to strive harder. Someday, he would finally win. win.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

The First One Hundred Days.

AFTER ALL R RICHARD N NIXON HAD BEEN THROUGH, HOW COULDN'T IT but rain on the biggest day of his life? but rain on the biggest day of his life?

It was less than two weeks after his fifty-sixth birthday. Kennedy, eight years earlier to the day, at the age of forty-two, had received a pure white blanket of snow for his inauguration, got to stand without an overcoat in the stinging cold and show the nation he was hail, young, stalwart, brave. Nixon, bundled up behind a thick scarf, got one of those muddy, awful January rains, and a bulletproof part.i.tion ahead of his lectern-"a reminder," the Washington Post Washington Post observed, "of the a.s.sa.s.sinations which so suddenly had altered the political fortunes of the leaders present." Rain was not salubrious for his appearance: it made his dark hair dye run, and risked showing the gray in his short sideburns. observed, "of the a.s.sa.s.sinations which so suddenly had altered the political fortunes of the leaders present." Rain was not salubrious for his appearance: it made his dark hair dye run, and risked showing the gray in his short sideburns. Public speaking Public speaking-a president's first task-was also not salubrious for his appearance. "The disjointedness," as Garry Wills described it, "seemed expressed in his face as he scowled (his only expression of thoughtfulness) or grinned (his only expression of pleasure). The features do not quite work together. The famous nose looks detachable.... The parts all seem to be worked by wires, a doomed attempt to contrive 'illusions of grandeur.'"

The audience, too, was not salubrious. He was sworn in by Justice Black with the defeated vice president by his side, before a crowd of but 250,000-and the Post Post just had to inform the world that this was "far smaller and at times less enthusiastic than the 1.2 million" that came out for Lyndon B. Johnson on January 20, 1965. just had to inform the world that this was "far smaller and at times less enthusiastic than the 1.2 million" that came out for Lyndon B. Johnson on January 20, 1965.

He was, though, a man used to overcoming hardship. That was what Richard Nixon did. did. He overcame these, and delivered a brilliant inaugural address-one fit, adjudged grateful pundits, to bind up a broken nation's wounds. He overcame these, and delivered a brilliant inaugural address-one fit, adjudged grateful pundits, to bind up a broken nation's wounds.

The speech was solemnly intoned. It was a paean to the glory of quiet: "To lower our voices would be a simple thing.

"In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words: from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading.

"We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another-until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

"For its part, government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways-to the voices of quiet anguish, the voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart-to the injured voices, the anxious voices, the voices that have despaired of being heard."

The speech included Johnsonesque stanzas on "rebuilding our cities and improving our rural areas...protecting our environment and enhancing the quality of life," and a call for racial transcendence-"What remains is to give life to what is in the law"-and Kennedyesque visions of reaching the moon; and Wilsonian ones of global harmony: "The greatest honor history can bestow is the t.i.tle of peacemaker. peacemaker. This honor now beckons America-the chance to help lead the world at last out of the valley of turmoil and onto that high ground of peace that man has dreamed of since the dawn of civilization." This honor now beckons America-the chance to help lead the world at last out of the valley of turmoil and onto that high ground of peace that man has dreamed of since the dawn of civilization."

The thirty-seventh president of the United States concluded, "To the crisis of the spirit we need an answer of the spirit. And to find that answer, we need only look within ourselves.... We have endured a long night of the American spirit. But as our eyes catch the dimness of the first rays of dawn, let us not curse the remaining dark. Let us gather the light. Let us gather the light."

Afterward, the Justice Department's Warren Christopher met with new White House counsel John Ehrlichman. Christopher handed over a packet of doc.u.ments and instructed the president to keep them on hand at all times: proclamations to declare martial law, with blanks to fill in the date and the name of the city.

Just then, it could have been San Francisco, where the state university was on strike and President S. I. Hayakawa had ordered police to clear the campus: "There are no more innocent bystanders." Or East St. Louis, Illinois, where a sniper, or snipers, was picking off what the black underground-newspaper columnist Julius Lester called "known enemies of the black community." Lester praised this "move from self-defense to aggressive action," citing the example of Vietnam's National Liberation Front. "What is happening in East St. Louis points up once again the advantage of medium-sized cities, leaving Saigon, Danang, and other large cities for the last," he wrote, like a military officer filing a field report. "That is not to say that the large cities should be ignored."

Or Washington, where thousands of antiwar activists were huddled in the freezing rain for a "counterinaugural" protest. The inaugural parade stepped off; a jug of wine was thrown at the marine commandant's convertible. George Romney, the new HUD secretary, pa.s.sed; a mob chanted, "Romney eats s.h.i.t!" Protesters braced themselves for the pa.s.sage of the presidential limousine. The problem was identifying which limousine it was. Decoys absorbed the brunt of the rocks, beer cans, and bottles, until they finally spotted the president and first lady waving through narrow slits in what one reporter described as a "hollowed-out cannonball on wheels." A phalanx of Secret Service men trotted alongside, swatting down the thrown objects. At Fifteenth Street a group almost halted the procession with a smoke bomb. Some burned tiny American flags pa.s.sed out along the parade route by Boy Scouts.

"Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh! Ho Chi Minh is going to win!"

"Four more years of death! Four more years of death!"

But the protest was smaller than expected. To a New Yorker New Yorker writer, "they seemed like voices from another era-disgruntled remnants out to ruin the new atmosphere of peace and conciliation." Journalists took Nixon at his word: this was a new day in Washington. They fell over themselves to take him at his word. writer, "they seemed like voices from another era-disgruntled remnants out to ruin the new atmosphere of peace and conciliation." Journalists took Nixon at his word: this was a new day in Washington. They fell over themselves to take him at his word.

They used such words as "cool," "efficient," and "confident"-and, of the first press conference, "great" and "tremendous." The New York Times New York Times education columnist said that only the winding down of the war-first, the implication went, on Nixon's agenda-stood "in the way of a dramatic escalation by President Nixon of the urban-and egalitarian-minded Johnson policies." "The incoming Nixon men seem relaxed and almost mellow," a columnist observed; Chalmers Johnson of the education columnist said that only the winding down of the war-first, the implication went, on Nixon's agenda-stood "in the way of a dramatic escalation by President Nixon of the urban-and egalitarian-minded Johnson policies." "The incoming Nixon men seem relaxed and almost mellow," a columnist observed; Chalmers Johnson of the Post Post wrote, "There is none of the moralistic sense of good guys replacing bad guys." Hugh Sidey, proprietor of the wrote, "There is none of the moralistic sense of good guys replacing bad guys." Hugh Sidey, proprietor of the Life Life magazine column "The Presidency," wrote of the new executive's "remarkable ease and sense of pleasure." Lyndon Johnson's former public-opinion expert, Benjamin Wattenberg, published a column ent.i.tled "Upbeat Auguries Belie the Alarmists." He lamented, "Incessantly, during the last year we heard from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike that 'America faces its greatest crisis of a hundred years.'" Thank G.o.d that was over. "The ground has been prepared for an era of better feeling," wrote Joseph Kraft. magazine column "The Presidency," wrote of the new executive's "remarkable ease and sense of pleasure." Lyndon Johnson's former public-opinion expert, Benjamin Wattenberg, published a column ent.i.tled "Upbeat Auguries Belie the Alarmists." He lamented, "Incessantly, during the last year we heard from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike that 'America faces its greatest crisis of a hundred years.'" Thank G.o.d that was over. "The ground has been prepared for an era of better feeling," wrote Joseph Kraft.

Nixon introduced his new cabinet at an unprecedented live television ceremony, modestly standing off to one side, pledging to them before the world that his door would always be open: "I don't want a cabinet of yes-men." Herb Klein, the new communications director, promised the press corps, "Truth will become the hallmark of the Nixon administration.... We will be able to eliminate any possibility of a credibility gap in this administration." And at the bureaucracies, the grown-ups were back in charge. Evans and Novak said Nixon would "change the whole character of the White House staff operation."

Nixon established something called the Urban Affairs Council, a domestic NSC, and named a Democrat, Daniel Patrick Moynihan of the Kennedy-Johnson Labor Department, to run it; the cup of bipartisanship, that Holy Grail of the pundit cla.s.s, runneth over. Moynihan helped prepare Nixon's first message to Congress, a conciliatory performance that endorsed Johnson's poverty program. The Senate majority leader, Mike Mansfield, predicted a stronger stronger role for the Senate than under LBJ. "He knows that if his administration is to succeed," the role for the Senate than under LBJ. "He knows that if his administration is to succeed," the Post Post observed, "he will have to have the cooperation of the Democratic Congress." In February, Nixon took his presidency's first overseas trip, to England, France, West Germany, and Italy-to "listen," Nixon said. The observed, "he will have to have the cooperation of the Democratic Congress." In February, Nixon took his presidency's first overseas trip, to England, France, West Germany, and Italy-to "listen," Nixon said. The New Republic New Republic found the March 4 press conference upon his return "dazzling"; the found the March 4 press conference upon his return "dazzling"; the New York Times New York Times called it a "tour de force." The editorial headlines ran "A National Good Deed," "Good Work, Mr. President," "Mission Accomplished." Franklin seals of approval were issuing from all over. called it a "tour de force." The editorial headlines ran "A National Good Deed," "Good Work, Mr. President," "Mission Accomplished." Franklin seals of approval were issuing from all over. Let us gather the light. Let us gather the light.

The presentation of Nixon as the Great Conciliator wasn't exactly a confidence game, because Richard Nixon on some level believed it. It showed in the personal exhortations he wrote to himself on yellow legal pads in the hideaway office he established in the Old Executive Office Building: Each day a chance to do something memorable for someone.... Need to be good to do good.... The nation must be better in spirit at the end of term. Need for joy, serenity, confidence, inspiration. Each day a chance to do something memorable for someone.... Need to be good to do good.... The nation must be better in spirit at the end of term. Need for joy, serenity, confidence, inspiration. But neither was any of it precisely true. It would be a mistake, for example, to say Nixon cherished domestic tranquillity. He welcomed conflict that served him politically. A briefing paper came to the president's desk in the middle of March instructing him to expect increased violence on college campuses that spring. "Good!" he wrote across the face. The lies had, in fact, started with his victory speech in November. He said, his eyes blinking quickly in the TV lights, his presidency would be inspired by a sign he saw on the campaign trail held up by a young girl in Ohio: But neither was any of it precisely true. It would be a mistake, for example, to say Nixon cherished domestic tranquillity. He welcomed conflict that served him politically. A briefing paper came to the president's desk in the middle of March instructing him to expect increased violence on college campuses that spring. "Good!" he wrote across the face. The lies had, in fact, started with his victory speech in November. He said, his eyes blinking quickly in the TV lights, his presidency would be inspired by a sign he saw on the campaign trail held up by a young girl in Ohio: BRING US TOGETHER. BRING US TOGETHER. A reporter tracked the girl down and learned her placard actually bore the rather more divisive words A reporter tracked the girl down and learned her placard actually bore the rather more divisive words LBJ TAUGHT US VOTE REPUBLICAN. LBJ TAUGHT US VOTE REPUBLICAN.

You could debunk the points one by one. An open door to cabinet members? Actually Nixon told his chief of staff, Bob Haldeman, "Keep them away from me." Remarkable ease? "I want everyone fired, I mean it this time" went a typical Nixon command, this one on the sixteenth day of his presidency. The people he wanted fired were holdover Johnsonites from the Office of Economic Opportunity: pace Chalmers Johnson, the Good Guys would replace the Bad Guys.

The credibility gap was inscribed in the job t.i.tle of the very man who said there wouldn't be a credibility gap. The traditional job of the "press secretary" was to smooth things over with newsmen. Nixon didn't want that. Herb Klein was a "communications director"-a kind of full-time public relations agent. PR was also handled by the dashing young Bill Safire. One of the president's first utterances at the meeting of his new Cabinet Committee on Economic Policy was that its chairman, economist Paul McCracken, should "work with Safire." Safire grasped their a.s.signment implicitly: point up what Nixon had called on the campaign trail "the economic straitjacket fashioned by the present administration," even though in 1968 the GNP grew 7 percent and the stock market swelled. At the same meeting, Nixon showed what he meant by not being surrounded by yes-men. His agriculture secretary, Clifford Hardin, started in on the problem of hunger. "Millions of Americans," he began, then the president interrupted him: "It is not constructive to say that people here are starving."

At his first press conference, Nixon reversed a campaign promise. He had said he'd pursue "clear-cut military superiority" over the Russians-it was in the telegram Strom Thurmond sent out to wavering Republican delegates. Now he said the goal was "sufficiency." At his first political meeting, former Nixon, Mudge colleague John Sears and anti-Wallace point man Fred LaRue recommended a year-round opinion-polling operation. The president eagerly agreed. When Klein made the mistake of telling a columnist, Nixon blew up, as he always did at any suggestion that he was what he actually was: obsessed with his image. Not concerned by Press, TV, or personal style, Not concerned by Press, TV, or personal style, went one of his legal pad musings. went one of his legal pad musings. Zest for job...Strong in-charge President. Aggressive. Anti-crime measures...On the ball. Honest. Zest for job...Strong in-charge President. Aggressive. Anti-crime measures...On the ball. Honest.

A better description was mercurial. mercurial. Every morning, staffers would study Herb Klein's face to know how to handle the boss that day. Another was Every morning, staffers would study Herb Klein's face to know how to handle the boss that day. Another was insecure. insecure. Hours were taken up after important meetings grilling Haldeman or his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, about whether he did well or bragging about how well he did. After entertaining the prime minister of Canada, he asked Haldeman whether the soup course might be eliminated from state dinners: "Men don't really like soup." Actually, Haldeman learned from the presidential valet, the president had spilled soup down his vest the night before. Hours were taken up after important meetings grilling Haldeman or his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, about whether he did well or bragging about how well he did. After entertaining the prime minister of Canada, he asked Haldeman whether the soup course might be eliminated from state dinners: "Men don't really like soup." Actually, Haldeman learned from the presidential valet, the president had spilled soup down his vest the night before.

Every meeting was political. At his first economics gathering, he suggested cutting federal aid to education (so much for the Times Times's "dramatic escalation") and housing construction loans. Spiro Agnew, who had made his bones as a politician placating suburban voters, shot down the second immediately: "You are thrusting against the young, white, middle-cla.s.s factor." The idea was never heard from again.

Nixon hired a press secretary after all, a twenty-nine-year-old who'd worked under Haldeman at J. Walter Thompson (and before that as a tour guide on the Jungle Ride at Disneyland). Watching young Ron Ziegler flounder, some hard-nosed boys in the press decided the hiring was meant to signal the president's contempt for them. Ziegler made an immediate and indelible contribution to American political culture: the phrase photo opportunity. photo opportunity. (Haldeman once ordered thousands of dollars of landscaping installed in Honolulu just to improve the pictures taken after a conference on Vietnam.) (Haldeman once ordered thousands of dollars of landscaping installed in Honolulu just to improve the pictures taken after a conference on Vietnam.) Nixon would lie about anything: spreading word that he took no naps though he took them almost daily, marked as "staff time" on his public schedule; claiming to the Council on Urban Affairs that his management philosophy was to stick to the big picture-"John Quincy Adams and Grover Cleveland read every bill and almost killed themselves"-even though precious hours of the Leader of the Free World's time were spent worrying over details such as the spray of the presidential shower, or the precise lighting angles in his TV appearances.

A memo on his first day as president: "To: Mrs. Nixon "From: The President"

It wasn't a love note. "With regard to RN's room, what would be the most desirable is an end table like the one on the right side of the bed which will accommodate TWO dictaphones as well as a telephone.... In addition, he needs a bigger table on which he can work at night. The table which is presently in the room does not allow enough room for him to get his knees under it."

In the middle of March, Nixon ordered the bombing of the sections of the Ho Chi Minh Trail that meandered through Cambodia, the beginning of a long-term plan called Operation Menu (its component parts were "Breakfast," "Lunch," "Snack," "Dinner," "Dessert," and "Supper"). This scaled new peaks of deception: the bombings were recorded on a secret ledger, which was later destroyed. A half million tons of ordnance were eventually dropped on this neutral country, 3,875 sorties without congressional knowledge. "State is to be notified only after the point of no return," he instructed on March 15. Then he called in his secretary of state, who opposed the bombing, and secretary of defense, who favored the bombing but opposed doing it secretly, and asked them to advise him on whether to bomb. Sixty B-52s were already on their way.

To the nation, on the inaugural platform on the Capitol steps, Nixon had said he would give life to the civil rights laws. Behind closed doors, he said, "Nothing should happen in the South without checking with Dent"-White House special counsel Harry Dent, Strom Thurmond's man. Five school districts in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Mississippi were scheduled to have their federal funding pulled the week after the inauguration. Dent arranged for a sixty-day delay. Just to make sure, Nixon met with his HEW secretary, Robert Finch, and told him to personally monitor that any action on school desegregation was "inoffensive to the people of South Carolina."

Harry Robbins "Bob" Haldeman was the linchpin of the White House system. He and his partner and UCLA college buddy John Ehrlichman, they of the twin militaristic brush cuts, were known as Nixon's "Berlin Wall." Federal Reserve chairman Arthur Burns came in for an Oval Office meeting one Wednesday. On the way out the door, he remembered something else he needed to discuss. Haldeman blocked him bodily: "Your appointment is over, Dr. Burns. Send a memo." Boasted Haldeman to an underling, "Even John Mitch.e.l.l has to come through me now." Mitch.e.l.l was the attorney general.

Haldeman was an isolated man's conduit to the outside world. Shovelfuls of reporting, a.n.a.lysis, warning, summary, advice, were delivered to the presidential desk every day. And every day, dozens of these texts floated to the top of the pile for a.s.sault by the presidential pen-which marginalia, along with sundry oral outbursts, it was the immediate responsibility of Haldeman to translate into "action memos" to distribute to relevant staff.

Such as, on Day 17: "I still have not had any progress report on what procedure has been set up to continue on some kind of basis the letters to the editor project and the calls to TV stations."

This project was a Nixon obsession. The RNC and state and local Republican parties put together lists of loyalists-the "Nixon Network"-willing to write on their own or lend their names to ghostwritten missives on items of presidential concern. Day 52, it was the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour: Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour: "They have a sequence in which one said to the other that he found it difficult to find anything to laugh about-Vietnam, the cities, etc., but 'Richard Nixon's solving those problems' and 'that's really funny.'" Nixon told aides he wanted letters to the producers, stipulating their argument: the gag was inaccurate "in view of the great public approval of RN's handling of foreign policy, etc., etc." The show was canceled one month later. "They have a sequence in which one said to the other that he found it difficult to find anything to laugh about-Vietnam, the cities, etc., but 'Richard Nixon's solving those problems' and 'that's really funny.'" Nixon told aides he wanted letters to the producers, stipulating their argument: the gag was inaccurate "in view of the great public approval of RN's handling of foreign policy, etc., etc." The show was canceled one month later.

A press aide, Jim Keogh, a former Time Time editor, pointed out on Day 29, "Media treatment of the President is almost uniformly excellent." The president answered, "You don't understand, they are waiting to destroy us." editor, pointed out on Day 29, "Media treatment of the President is almost uniformly excellent." The president answered, "You don't understand, they are waiting to destroy us."

The Nixon White House, a machine for manipulation: its story can only be told by observing two separate doc.u.mentary records. There was a public transcript: the inauguration address, the photo opportunity, the bill proposal. Then there was a private transcript, only to be revealed by historians in later generations from the traces a presidency leaves behind, even in the lies the president tells himself.

On the subjects of law and order, however, the public and private transcripts were not that far apart. The matter was just about the president's only domestic focus. It was his obsession.

The first news summary the president read included a front-page editorial from the Washington Star, Washington Star, the capital's right-leaning daily, on the eighty-one-year-old D.C. "mother of the year" who was mugged and thrown down a flight of stairs. Nixon wrote a note to himself: "We're going to make a major step to reduce crime in the nation-starting with D.C." He couldn't start anywhere else: that was the only place the federal government had street-level law-enforcement authority. His proposed District of Columbia Court Reorganization Bill allowed "no-knock" entry and sixty days "preventive detention." Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, a const.i.tutional obsessive, said it would "better be t.i.tled 'A Bill to Repeal Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the Const.i.tution.'" D.C.'s police chief said he didn't want or need it. That wasn't important to the White House, for whom it was a no-lose proposition: they didn't expect it to pa.s.s, but got points for proposing "bold" action all the same. the capital's right-leaning daily, on the eighty-one-year-old D.C. "mother of the year" who was mugged and thrown down a flight of stairs. Nixon wrote a note to himself: "We're going to make a major step to reduce crime in the nation-starting with D.C." He couldn't start anywhere else: that was the only place the federal government had street-level law-enforcement authority. His proposed District of Columbia Court Reorganization Bill allowed "no-knock" entry and sixty days "preventive detention." Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, a const.i.tutional obsessive, said it would "better be t.i.tled 'A Bill to Repeal Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the Const.i.tution.'" D.C.'s police chief said he didn't want or need it. That wasn't important to the White House, for whom it was a no-lose proposition: they didn't expect it to pa.s.s, but got points for proposing "bold" action all the same.

Two days later, President Nixon made his first major domestic policy statement in conjunction with a letter sent from his HEW secretary to college presidents, calling attention to laws allowing the federal government to withdraw funds from students found guilty of crimes in connection with campus disorders: "Freedom-intellectual freedom-is in danger in America.... Violence-physical violence, physical intimidation-is seemingly on its way to becoming an accepted, or, at all events, a normal and not-to-be-avoided element in the clash of opinion within university confines.... The process is altogether familiar to those who would survey the wreckage of history: a.s.sault and countera.s.sault, one extreme leading to the opposite extreme, the voices of reason and calm discredited." Nixon nodded in a Franklinesque direction, a moderating patina: "We have seen a depersonalization of the educational experience. Our inst.i.tutions must reshape themselves lest this turn to total alienation.... There must be university reform including new experimentation in curricula such as ethnic studies, student involvement in the decision-making process, and a new emphasis in faculty teaching." Then he delivered the sound bite: "It is not too strong a statement to declare that this is the way civilizations begin to die."

On March 19 the president had a photo opportunity in the Roosevelt Room with seventeen-year-old Perry Joseph Lundy of Oxnard, California, recipient of the Boys Club Boy of the Year award. Richard Nixon read the citation "...in recognition of superlative service to his home, church, school, community, and Boys Club. Perry typifies juvenile decency in action." Nixon awkwardly kibbitzed about Perry's college plans: "For the boys at the top of their cla.s.s with leadership abilities, this is a seller's market right now, isn't it?" The next day, the Justice Department announced a federal indictment: "Beginning on or about April 12, 1968, and continuing through on or about August 30, 1968, in the North District of Illinois, Eastern Division, and elsewhere, DAVID T. DELLINGER, RENNARD C. DAVIS, THOMAS E. HAYDEN, ABBOT H. HOFFMAN, JERRY C. RUBIN, LEE WEINER, JOHN R. FROINES, and BOBBY SEALE, defendants herein, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly did combine, conspire, confederate, and agree together...to travel in interstate commerce and use the facilities of interstate commerce with the intent to incite, organize, promote, encourage, partic.i.p.ate in, and carry on a riot." The indictment was the fruit of the antiriot amendment added to get the 1968 Civil Rights Bill pa.s.sed. Just as with the Boston 5, the Chicago 8 had neither ever communicated together nor sat in the same room.

Eight Chicago cops were also indicted for their activities during convention week. But that was only for show: Chicago juries did not convict Chicago cops. After one of them was acquitted after the prosecution had clearly proved he was merely beating hippies at random, the judge was so incredulous he asked the jury if they were sure. For his part, the cop told reporters his trial had proven that "most of the public wants this kind of justice in the streets." But when another of the Chicago officers was acquitted of beating a Chicago Daily News Chicago Daily News photographer named James Linstead, a more conservative judge p.r.o.nounced himself satisfied with the jury's verdict: "The language Linstead used was vile and degrading to the officers; language which I suggested would provoke in such a manner that any red-blooded American would flare up." photographer named James Linstead, a more conservative judge p.r.o.nounced himself satisfied with the jury's verdict: "The language Linstead used was vile and degrading to the officers; language which I suggested would provoke in such a manner that any red-blooded American would flare up."

These were the sort of actions that might once have set distinguished editorialists' tongues to clucking. Not now. The New York Times New York Times found the White House's "how civilizations begin to die" statement dead-on-"The crisis is nationwide. It stems from the adoption of terroristic methods as a subst.i.tute for rationality"-and his course of action one of "sound restraint." The Establishment was tacking right on law and order. That was why, on this subject, the White House's public and private transcripts were so similar. found the White House's "how civilizations begin to die" statement dead-on-"The crisis is nationwide. It stems from the adoption of terroristic methods as a subst.i.tute for rationality"-and his course of action one of "sound restraint." The Establishment was tacking right on law and order. That was why, on this subject, the White House's public and private transcripts were so similar.

When the battleship of Washington conventional wisdom pivots, it is often following the lead of some revered mandarin. In this case it was Joseph Kraft, who had filed an existential cri de coeur the week after the Democratic convention. The Chicago police, he admitted, deserved no prizes. But "what about those of us in the press and other media? Are we merely neutral observers, seekers after truth in the public interest? Or do we, as the supporters of Mayor Daley and his Chicago police have charged, have a prejudice of our own?...

"The answer, I think, is that Mayor Daley and his supporters have a point. Most of us in what is called the communication field are not rooted in the great ma.s.s of ordinary Americans-in Middle America. And the results show up not merely in occasional episodes such as the Chicago violence but more importantly in the systematic bias toward young people, minority groups, and the kind of presidential candidate who appeals to them.

"To get a feel of this bias it is first necessary to understand the antagonism that divides the middle cla.s.s of this country. On the one hand there are highly educated upper-income whites sure of themselves and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with ideas for doing things differently. On the other hand, there is Middle America, the large majority of low-income whites, traditional in their values and on the defensive against innovation."

Kraft was the syndicated columnist who had a year earlier celebrated Bobby Kennedy for uniting "Black Power and Backlash." Now he concluded, "Those of us in the media need to make a special effort to understand Middle America"-and be nicer to Richard Nixon.

His fellow pundit Stewart Alsop wrote that the American proletariat was now middle-cla.s.s and would defend their property "as ferociously as the cla.s.sic capitalists of Karl Marx's day." He had seen it with his own eyes when he visited a factory with Senator Ribicoff in Connecticut. Ribicoff was the one who'd accused Mayor Daley of "gestapo tactics" at the convention.

The factory worker: "We saw you on television, Senator, and it seemed like you were for those hippies. You're not getting our vote this time."

The senator: "Look, suppose your kid was beaten up by the cops, how would you feel?"

"Those hippies...were wearing beards, and anybody who wears a beard, he deserves to get beat up."

The next day, Ribicoff dedicated a high school in Waspy Litchfield County. There, he got a standing ovation.

Kraft and Alsop's fellow pundits had not thought much heretofore about being members of a social cla.s.s. They saw themselves as guardians of the general good. They had not thought much about their identification with the "toryhood of change"-Kevin Phillips's phrase for liberals "who make their money out of plans, ideas, communication, social upheaval, happenings, excitement," whose vision of the "general good" could come at the expense of other Americans' simple desire for stability. The pundits started thinking about it now. "The blue-and white-collar people who are in revolt now do have a cause for complaint about us," a media executive was quoted in TV Guide. TV Guide. "We've ignored their point of view." Said another, "We didn't know it was "We've ignored their point of view." Said another, "We didn't know it was there there!"

"It" was the white American majority.

To sit, as one of those executives, in one's sumptuously appointed office on Sixth Avenue or Forty-third Street or Columbus Avenue in Manhattan must now have been a traumatic thing. Before, it had been your command center: the place where you captained the consciousness of a nation. Now it was a bunker, where you looked out on a "Middle America" that suddenly seemed hostile and strange. The executives had come up in the McCarthy years. They wondered if that had made them fear fear these great sleeping ma.s.ses. They began stereotyping, and idealizing, this n.o.ble cipher. They became like the Jewish executives of early Hollywood who never, ever put Jewish heroes up on the screen, and overcompensated by inventing the "blond bombsh.e.l.l." They weren't kicking d.i.c.k Nixon around anymore. They started bending over backward to be accepted by him and his supporters instead. these great sleeping ma.s.ses. They began stereotyping, and idealizing, this n.o.ble cipher. They became like the Jewish executives of early Hollywood who never, ever put Jewish heroes up on the screen, and overcompensated by inventing the "blond bombsh.e.l.l." They weren't kicking d.i.c.k Nixon around anymore. They started bending over backward to be accepted by him and his supporters instead.

Pete Hamill, fresh from his overseas sojourn attempting to write a novel about Che Guevara, who'd begged Robert F. Kennedy to run because he was the white man whom black militants respected, now held up a new alienated, despised, voiceless subaltern in an article called "The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Cla.s.s" for the trendy weekly New York. New York. He "feels trapped and, even worse, in a society that purports to be democratic, ignored.... The working-cla.s.s white man is actually in revolt against taxes, joyless work, the double standards and short memories of professional politicians, hypocrisy and what he considers the debas.e.m.e.nt of the American dream." Richard Nixon loved Hamill's article. He pa.s.sed it around the White House. He "feels trapped and, even worse, in a society that purports to be democratic, ignored.... The working-cla.s.s white man is actually in revolt against taxes, joyless work, the double standards and short memories of professional politicians, hypocrisy and what he considers the debas.e.m.e.nt of the American dream." Richard Nixon loved Hamill's article. He pa.s.sed it around the White House.

Robert Shad Northshield, the Huntley-Brinkley Report Huntley-Brinkley Report's producer, had joked, on election night, how he could have got Nixon to concede just by having one of his anchors say that Humphrey had won. Now he seemed ashamed of this plenipotentiary power. During coverage of the Nixon inauguration, Northshield ordered that no protesters be shown on the air. When NBC held meetings to plan their new newsmagazine program, First Tuesday, First Tuesday, someone asked what the three biggest stories in the country were that they should cover. "The war, the blacks, and the economy," someone responded. Someone else shot back, "I don't want to see a single black face on someone asked what the three biggest stories in the country were that they should cover. "The war, the blacks, and the economy," someone responded. Someone else shot back, "I don't want to see a single black face on First Tuesday. First Tuesday."

If liberal media had ever been overfriendly to protesters, it was hard to say they were now. A University of Chicago sociology professor named Richard Flacks, one of the early members of SDS, appeared on local TV, defending a takeover of the administration building. A man who said he was from a St. Louis newspaper called up to ask for an interview. At the appointed day and time, Professor Flacks welcomed him into his office.

The man asked, "Just what is happening on American campuses? How do you explain it?"

It was the last thing Flacks remembered. He awoke in a hospital bed, having received a beating that left a permanent dent in his skull. The "reporter," actually a right-wing vigilante, left him for dead. Flacks's right hand, on which he wore a gift from the National Liberation Front-a ring fashioned from the metal of a downed U.S. aircraft-was almost severed clear off. No one was ever arrested. The Chicago Daily News, Chicago Daily News, which had editorialized sympathetically on the antiwar movement for a week the previous August, didn't denounce the attempted murder. The which had editorialized sympathetically on the antiwar movement for a week the previous August, didn't denounce the attempted murder. The New York Times New York Times gave it three small paragraphs in Chapter Two. On the president's one hundredth day in office, vigilantes in Cairo, Illinois, shot out the rectory of a civil rights priest, and the governor had to call out the National Guard to tamp down the ensuing tensions. That was relegated in the gave it three small paragraphs in Chapter Two. On the president's one hundredth day in office, vigilantes in Cairo, Illinois, shot out the rectory of a civil rights priest, and the governor had to call out the National Guard to tamp down the ensuing tensions. That was relegated in the Times Times to Chapter Two and didn't make the to Chapter Two and didn't make the Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune for a week. In a May editorial, the for a week. In a May editorial, the Times Times seemed to all but license vigilante responses to campus disturbances: "Either the administrators, faculty, and responsible student majority call the would-be professional revolutionaries to order, or the community at large will do so." seemed to all but license vigilante responses to campus disturbances: "Either the administrators, faculty, and responsible student majority call the would-be professional revolutionaries to order, or the community at large will do so."