Nixonland. Part 40

"Our people are dressed in suits."

"Well, we've got a problem."

Later, Howard Hunt decided McCord must have got caught on purpose, a double agent for the Democrats. The president said much the same thing four days later to Colson: "It doesn't sound like a skillful job. If we didn't know better, we would have thought it was deliberately botched."

Sunday morning Richard Nixon learned that his new secretary of the treasury, George Shultz, had learned from George Meany on the golf course that under no circ.u.mstances could he support George McGovern. Meany also said that he was working on a plan to deliver the nomination to Humphrey. This was, indeed, delightful news: Americans who didn't pay attention to politics would be introduced to the Democratic message for 1972 via a convention that resembled a train wreck.

The bad news was the appearance in the papers of the first stories on the five guys caught burglarizing the Democratic National Committee. It was in the New York Times New York Times way back in Chapter Two, and without any hint of Nixonite involvement: "Two of the men, born in Cuba, were said to have claimed past ties with the Central Intelligence Agency. A third was described as an adventurer who once tried to sell his services to an anti-Castro organization called Alpha 66." James McCord was identified as a retired CIA employee. Haldeman and Ehrlichman took immediate evasive action. They prepared a statement for John Mitch.e.l.l to release as soon as the truth came out-which it did that same day-that McCord was on the payroll of the Committee to Re-Elect the President. way back in Chapter Two, and without any hint of Nixonite involvement: "Two of the men, born in Cuba, were said to have claimed past ties with the Central Intelligence Agency. A third was described as an adventurer who once tried to sell his services to an anti-Castro organization called Alpha 66." James McCord was identified as a retired CIA employee. Haldeman and Ehrlichman took immediate evasive action. They prepared a statement for John Mitch.e.l.l to release as soon as the truth came out-which it did that same day-that McCord was on the payroll of the Committee to Re-Elect the President.

Haldeman prepared for the worst: the possibility that the press would learn of the mastermind role of Liddy and Hunt-the first a top staffer of the Committee to Re-Elect, with an office right by Mitch.e.l.l's, the second a recent occupant of an office in the White House. Fortunately Haldeman had only good news to write in his diary for Monday. The president had enjoyed a long talk with his old friend Billy Graham. The reverend was working on a political errand: keeping George Wallace out of the general election. He had a line to the governor through Mrs. Wallace, who had just become a born-again Christian. "We talked to Mitch.e.l.l about who's going to talk to Wallace," Haldeman recorded, "and how we're going to handle what his price is."

The opening Watergate public relations gambit was working. McCord, Mitch.e.l.l's statement announced, was "the proprietor of a private security agency who was employed by our committee months ago to a.s.sist with the installation of our security system. He has, as we understand it, a number of business clients and interests and we have no knowledge of those relationships." (He installed our security system: it was a nasty business, politics, and Republicans needed burglar alarms just as badly as Democrats.) "We want to emphasize that this man and the other people involved were not operating either on our behalf or with our consent," Mitch.e.l.l's press release continued. "I am surprised and dismayed at these reports." it was a nasty business, politics, and Republicans needed burglar alarms just as badly as Democrats.) "We want to emphasize that this man and the other people involved were not operating either on our behalf or with our consent," Mitch.e.l.l's press release continued. "I am surprised and dismayed at these reports."

And then, the old Nixonian jujitsu. "We have our own security problems," Mitch.e.l.l said, hinting darkly, positioning Nixon as the one attacked, the victim of false and hasty charges.

Larry O'Brien played right into their hands: making more apparently hasty charges. "Continuing disclosures in the wake of Sat.u.r.day's bugging incident at the DNC raise the ugliest questions about the integrity of the political process that I have encountered in a quarter century of political activity," his press release read. "No mere statement of innocence by Mr. Nixon's campaign manager, John Mitch.e.l.l, former attorney general, will dispel these questions, especially as the individual allegedly involved remains on the payroll of the Nixon organization.... Only the most searching professional investigation can determine to what extent, if any, the Committee for the Re-Election of the President is involved in this attempt to spy on Democratic headquarters."

Now that it was an issue of dueling partisan countercharges, political reporters yawned. That morning's Washington Post Washington Post story, under the byline of two police reporters, was the exception. It led, "One of the five men arrested early Sat.u.r.day...is the salaried security coordinator for President Nixon's reelection committee." More responsible reports, such as the story, under the byline of two police reporters, was the exception. It led, "One of the five men arrested early Sat.u.r.day...is the salaried security coordinator for President Nixon's reelection committee." More responsible reports, such as the New York Times New York Times's, focused on the burglars' ties to the Bay of Pigs: the same kind of crazy Cubans who had been bombing the offices of left-wingers in New York for years; the same kind who, when Abbie Hoffman had recently spoken at the University of Miami, stormed the stage hurling sacks of flour and garbage.

None outside the Beltway, and not too many inside it, were paying attention to this burglary. The Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune didn't run an article on the DNC break-in on the front page until the end of August. didn't run an article on the DNC break-in on the front page until the end of August.

The men directly party to the crime did the things criminals who don't want to get convicted do. McCord buried and burned his equipment. Hunt hid his wiretapping gear in his safe at the Executive Office Building, removing $10,000 in emergency cash to hire attorneys. The Central Intelligence Agency dispatched an agent who either destroyed or watched McCord's wife destroy incriminating CIA property at McCord's house. Liddy ran a shredder at Committee to Re-Elect headquarters, mulching doc.u.ments and $100 bills. (The burglars had been caught with two C-notes each; they were to be used in case bribery became advisable.) Jeb Magruder burned the GEMSTONE files, including the s.e.xy wiretap transcripts, in his fireplace.

Among the top-drawer journalists, Georgetown hostesses, lobbyists, lawyers, pols, and factotums who comprised the muscle and sinew of the Washington gossip corps, rumors started circulating. The mischievous wondered what the gruff and enigmatic pipe-smoking former attorney general might have to do with the burglary, or the CIA or FBI; more responsible voices, such as American Bar a.s.sociation president Leon Jaworski, pooh-poohed the very notion that men of such stature would be involved. Maybe it was a Jack Anderson operation, was the scuttleb.u.t.t around Republican congressional offices: he was always going too far, and how did did he always manage to get all those secret memos, anway? Other Republicans wondered if it was some ill-advised investigation of Democratic bugging of the Nixon campaign. he always manage to get all those secret memos, anway? Other Republicans wondered if it was some ill-advised investigation of Democratic bugging of the Nixon campaign.

The most popular theory was the most plausible. From the army of Cuban exiles who had trained in Guatemalan jungles in the early sixties to overthrow Fidel Castro, to the dozens of firebombings nationwide against leftist publishers and consulates in 1968, right-wing Cuban nationalists seemed capable of any madness. The Scripps Howard newspaper chain soon quoted unnamed sources in Miami that the five men acted out of fear that a President McGovern would forge an alliance with Castro.

The Cubans had been coached to say that by White House operatives. And Haldeman reported to the president, "we've started moving on the Hill, letting it come from there, which is that this whole thing is a Jack Anderson thing, that Jack Anderson did it." The D.C. gossip corps proved easy to sucker.

The White House was doing things criminal bosses bosses who don't want to get convicted do: fouling the chain of evidence, putting detectives off the scent, lying, inventing alibis- who don't want to get convicted do: fouling the chain of evidence, putting detectives off the scent, lying, inventing alibis-obstructing justice. Their first alibi was the burglary's incompetence: "I'm not going to comment from the White House on a third-rate burglary attempt," Ron Ziegler said from the pressroom in Key Biscayne on Monday. (In that he had the cooperation of Washington police officials, who, according to the Their first alibi was the burglary's incompetence: "I'm not going to comment from the White House on a third-rate burglary attempt," Ron Ziegler said from the pressroom in Key Biscayne on Monday. (In that he had the cooperation of Washington police officials, who, according to the Times Times Wednesday morning, said the consensus was that "the break-in was not a well-financed operation planned from 'up high,' because it was 'bungled too badly to have been the case.'") Wednesday morning, said the consensus was that "the break-in was not a well-financed operation planned from 'up high,' because it was 'bungled too badly to have been the case.'") Ziegler practiced the old jujitsu: "This is something that should not fall into the political process," he whined about O'Brien's ongoing accusations. And Haldeman and the president took charge of the obstruction. "Hunt disappeared or is in the process of disappearing," Haldeman a.s.sured the president. "He can un-disappear if we want him to. He can disappear to a Latin American country." They found that if Liddy's overexuberance had helped get them into this mess, he was a comically eager coconspirator to get them out of it. "If you want to put me before the firing squad and shoot me, that's fine," he said. "I'd kind of like to be like Nathan Hale."

That was the plan-not a firing squad, but for the burglars to take the fall. These crazy Cubans and their right-wing confreres could throw themselves on the mercy of the D.C. criminal courts, apologizing for their excess of patriotism and partisanship, insisting they'd acted on their own. Haldeman suggested a script: "We went in there to get this because we were scared to death that this crazy man was going to become President and sell the U.S. out to the Communists." As "first offenders," he supposed-thank G.o.d for liberal justice-they might end up with only a fine and a suspended sentence. That might, in turn, get rid of another headache: the million-dollar lawsuit the DNC had filed against the Committee to Re-Elect the President, the burglars, James McCord's private security firm, John Doe, and "other conspirators whose names are now unknown." Mitch.e.l.l labeled that "another example of sheer demagoguery on the part of Mr. O'Brien." Mitch.e.l.l knew it was anything but. In a civil suit, Democratic lawyers would get to take depositions. These, Haldeman pointed out, might expose "all kinds of other involvements." Convince the criminal judge that this was just right-wing wackos going off half-c.o.c.ked, and the judge in the civil suit might give the defendants summary judgment. Howard Hunt wouldn't have to risk perjuring himself in a deposition-if, say, some Democratic lawyer took a wild-swinging guess and asked him if he had anything to do with Dita Beard's recanting the memo she wrote about the ITT bribe; or if he'd ever met this Chuck Colson character. "Jesus Christ, it's a rough deal on Colson, isn't it?" the president rued. Colson was the conduit through whom nearly every dirty trick ran.

The problem was the Federal Bureau of Investigation: they were working too hard. The man the president had appointed as acting FBI director upon the pa.s.sing of Edgar Hoover owed his career to Nixon. L. Patrick Gray had worked for Nixon's presidential campaigns in 1960 and 1968. Then he worked his way up to deputy attorney general. A former submarine commander, a military man through and through-he wore a brush cut even shorter than Haldeman's-he revered the commander in chief: as acting FBI director he went on the road about once a week to sing his praises. Gray saw no reason not to impress his boss with a conscientious investigation that got to the bottom of the rogue burglary so unfairly embarra.s.sing the White House; had no inkling that if he kept on following the scent, it would lead lead to the White House. to the White House.

His agents' first score was tracing $4,500 in $100 bills stashed in the burglars' hotel rooms back to an unsuspecting donor to the Nixon reelection campaign. Their first frustration was the disappearance of the man, Howard Hunt, who appeared in two of the burglars' address books. They interviewed Hunt's boss, Robert Bennett, the son of Utah senator Wallace F. Bennett, at the old-line Washington public relations firm the Robert R. Mullen Company, where Hunt had gone to work as a "writer" after his short career as a White House consultant. What the FBI did not know was that the Mullen Company was both a CIA front and, independently, a supplier of all manner of black-op services to the Committee to Re-Elect the President-among them providing a cover job for Nixon spook E. Howard Hunt.

Thanks to the FBI's diligence the idea of directing the burglars to throw themselves on the mercy of the D.C. criminal courts had to be discarded, and a much more portentous obstruction of justice was devised. Haldeman and Ehrlichman doped out the plan. "Both of us having been trying to think with one step away from it," Haldeman explained Wednesday morning, June 21, "see whether there's something that we can do other than just sitting here and watch it drop on us bit by bit as it goes along.... The problem there is, that's why it's important to get to the FBI. As of now, there's nothing that puts Hunt into the case except his name in their notebooks with a lot of other things."

Thursday morning, the Post, Post, back in Chapter One, ran a story by one of their intrepid police reporters, Carl Bernstein, headlined, "Employer of 2 Tied to Bugging Raised Money for Nixon." The two were Hunt and Douglas Caddy, the cofounder of Young Americans for Freedom, whom Hunt had called to represent the burglars as their criminal lawyer, and who handled the Mullen Company's account with General Foods. Their boss, Robert Bennett, the article explained, was tied to the Nixon reelection campaign as chairman of some of its seventy-five dummy "committees" (such as "Supporters of the American Dream") through which organizations such as the a.s.sociated Milk Producers had donated $325,000, which, Bernstein reported, "led to a suit filed by Ralph Nader's Public Citizens, Inc., which charged that the Nixon administration raise[d] government milk support prices as a pay-off for the donations." back in Chapter One, ran a story by one of their intrepid police reporters, Carl Bernstein, headlined, "Employer of 2 Tied to Bugging Raised Money for Nixon." The two were Hunt and Douglas Caddy, the cofounder of Young Americans for Freedom, whom Hunt had called to represent the burglars as their criminal lawyer, and who handled the Mullen Company's account with General Foods. Their boss, Robert Bennett, the article explained, was tied to the Nixon reelection campaign as chairman of some of its seventy-five dummy "committees" (such as "Supporters of the American Dream") through which organizations such as the a.s.sociated Milk Producers had donated $325,000, which, Bernstein reported, "led to a suit filed by Ralph Nader's Public Citizens, Inc., which charged that the Nixon administration raise[d] government milk support prices as a pay-off for the donations."

That afternoon the president held his twenty-fourth news conference. It had been postponed from Monday so it wouldn't look as if he was responding to the break-in. But the first question was on what some were calling "Watergate": "Mr. O'Brien has said that the people who bugged his headquarters had a direct link to the White House. Have you had any sort of investigation made to determine whether this is true?" Nixon wriggled free by referring to Ziegler's statements, that the FBI and D.C. police were investigating, and that he couldn't comment on a case where "possible criminal charges were involved." Meanwhile Robert Mardian, the healthy right-wing exuberant in the Justice Department who'd been the point man in efforts to get rid of Hoover, cried to John Dean with alarm, "For G.o.d's sake, John, somebody's got to slow Pat Gray down. He's going like a crazy man."

The flames were licking closer. Luckily the eureka moment was nigh.

Nixon had a loyalist in J. Edgar Hoover's old chair. It was time to make him pay dividends. Right after the president's press conference, diligent Pat Gray called Richard Helms, the director of the CIA, to point out how many of the figures they were investigating had Agency ties, and to ask him if this was a CIA black op. Helms denied it-just the sort of thing the CIA would would deny-and Gray briefed John Mitch.e.l.l on the theories they were pursuing: "That the episode was either a CIA covert operation of some sort...or a CIA money chain, or a political money chain, or a pure political operation, or a Cuban right-wing operation, or a combination of any of these." deny-and Gray briefed John Mitch.e.l.l on the theories they were pursuing: "That the episode was either a CIA covert operation of some sort...or a CIA money chain, or a political money chain, or a pure political operation, or a Cuban right-wing operation, or a combination of any of these."

And there it was: the trick to shut the FBI down. Mitch.e.l.l came up with it that night, chatting with the eager-beaver White House counsel, John Dean, who'd been brought in to help with the scheming. They could simply tell the FBI that, yes, this whole break-in was was part of a CIA operation. A secret CIA operation part of a CIA operation. A secret CIA operation that the FBI had no business looking into. that the FBI had no business looking into.

Haldeman explained the plot to the boss the next morning. Telling a government agency to cease and desist an operation that might blow CIA cover was "not an unusual development," he noted-blowing CIA cover could mean the death of agents in the field. "Mitch.e.l.l's recommendation that the only way to solve this, and we're set up beautifully to do it," would be for the CIA's deputy director Vernon Walters to do the dirty deed-"have Walters call Pat Gray and just say, 'Stay the h.e.l.l out of this...this is, ah, business here we don't want you to go any further on.'"

The president loved the idea. He even helped embroider the script. What was the CIA mission whose operational secrets were still most relevant? The 1961 attempt to overthrow Castro-the CIA operation that Howard Hunt Howard Hunt had led. "Say, 'Look, the problem is that this will open the whole, the whole Bay of Pigs thing.'" had led. "Say, 'Look, the problem is that this will open the whole, the whole Bay of Pigs thing.'"

Nixon riffed it out, thinking aloud: "Just say this is a comedy of errors, without getting into it: 'The president believes that it's going to open the whole Bay of Pigs things again.'"

They could keep it vague, hinting at some ongoing operation to overthrow Castro-that was always plausible, given the princ.i.p.als involved-or that Larry O'Brien, the old Kennedy hand, possessed in his files information on just how embarra.s.sing that 1961 operation was (no need to unduly embarra.s.s fellow bureaucrats).

Bottom line: "Call the FBI...'don't go any further into this case period!'"

Another problem, as formidable in its way as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was John Mitch.e.l.l's wife.

On Watergate weekend the top officers of the Committee to Re-Elect the President were out in California for a fund-raiser with Nixon's slate of Hollywood celebrities, including John Wayne, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jack Benny, and Charlton Heston. Gathered poolside at a favorite Nixon Orange County beach resort, the officers were preparing to fly en ma.s.se back to Washington to help put out Watergate fires when Robert Mardian brought them the morning's papers.

Every copy he could find of the morning's papers.

They contained pictures of James McCord, and John Mitch.e.l.l's statement that McCord was merely "the proprietor of a private security agency who was employed by our committee months ago." Mrs. John Mitch.e.l.l, the woman who had yelled at a white-tie White House reception to tear the miscreant Ray Conniff singer "limb from limb," was known to be a loose cannon, fond of dialing her friend Helen Thomas of United Press International with embarra.s.sing tidbits about the Nixon circle. She knew James McCord wasn't just a guy who installed burglar alarms. She knew he was one of the top guys. A drunk, a harridan, a shrew, a troublesome woman, this Martha Mitch.e.l.l. Mardian was making sure she didn't see a newspaper that morning. Then they locked her in the proverbial attic.

Mr. Mitch.e.l.l told Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l he had to head back to Washington to attend "a very important meeting." He pointed out, "You're tired. Stay out here for a few days, get some sun and swim."

The campaign officials jetted off on a Gulf Oil corporate jet, leaving behind Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l to sulk in a bungalow amid the swaying palms, her bodyguard armed with instructions to, for G.o.d's sake, keep her away from newspapers and telephones. He failed at both. Feigning sleep, Martha Mitch.e.l.l snuck the phone under the covers and got Helen Thomas on the line. She poured out her misery: she hated the turn her family's life had taken and was suspicious about all these furtive huddles and whispers about the Watergate that broke up whenever she came near. "I've given John an ultimatum. I'm going to leave him unless he gets out of the campaign. I'm sick and tired of politics. Politics is a dirty business-"

Thomas heard a m.u.f.fled shriek: "You just get-get away!" "You just get-get away!"

In Washington the phone went dead. Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l's bodyguard had ripped it out of the bungalow wall, like a scene in some Barbara Stanwyck noir.

"She's great," John Mitch.e.l.l told UPI's Helen Thomas when she called asking for comment. "That little sweetheart. I love her so much. She gets a little upset about politics, but she loves me and I love her and that's what counts."

This was a nice bit of quick thinking. It fit into a favorite emerging narrative of the Georgetown chattering cla.s.ses: the frightful pressure politics put on Washington marriages. (RNC chair Bob Dole had recently been divorced from his wife of twenty-four years; on the prowl, he had started sporting chocolate brown bell-bottom suits and, a Chicago reporter observed, "one of those all-year tans that celebrities manage.") Billy Graham called the president and offered to help counsel John and Martha Mitch.e.l.l through their difficult patch. Another successful public relations score.

The Post Post kept on coming up with annoying little scoops: on the twenty-fifth, under Bernstein's byline, that a Miami architect said Bernard Barker had approached him the previous year asking for a blueprint of the Miami Beach convention hall's air-conditioning system. Bob Dole said what the White House told him to say, "For the last week, the Republican Party has been the victim of a barrage of unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations by George McGovern and his partner-in-mudslinging, the kept on coming up with annoying little scoops: on the twenty-fifth, under Bernstein's byline, that a Miami architect said Bernard Barker had approached him the previous year asking for a blueprint of the Miami Beach convention hall's air-conditioning system. Bob Dole said what the White House told him to say, "For the last week, the Republican Party has been the victim of a barrage of unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations by George McGovern and his partner-in-mudslinging, the Washington Post. Washington Post....McGovern appears to have turned over the franchise for his media attack campaign to the editors...who have shown themselves every bit as surefooted along the low road...as McGovern." That skillfully played into another emerging popular narrative-the G.o.dfather G.o.dfather narrative. "They think that political parties do this all the time," Colson pointed out. "They think that companies do this. You know, there have been marvelous stories written about industrial espionage. How Ford agents go into General Motors to get the designs. People sort of expect this." narrative. "They think that political parties do this all the time," Colson pointed out. "They think that companies do this. You know, there have been marvelous stories written about industrial espionage. How Ford agents go into General Motors to get the designs. People sort of expect this."

The president: "Governments do it. We all know that."

Bob Haldeman: "Sure."

The president: "Companies do it. Political parties do it. The point is that we-as I said, the main concern is to keep the White House out of it."

In that they were succeeding famously. A typical Watergate story, by June 29, was Nick Thimmesch's column lamenting that the Republicans, understandably paranoid about security, had gone overboard by hiring a spook like McCord in the first place to do their burglar alarms: "The Watergate break-in looks more and more like a job performed for a right-wing anti-Castro group.... Naturally, O'Brien grabs on to this astonishing episode for political gain, and makes all sorts of outlandish charges such as the one that there is 'a developing clear line to the White House' in the case. Humor is blessed relief in a messy episode like this one."

No one even asked about the story that afternoon at the president's first televised press conference in thirteen months. Instead, the most awkward moment was when Dan Rather of CBS, a Texas bulldog, asked about reports from Agence France-Presse and the Swedish amba.s.sador in Hanoi that eyewitnesses had seen American planes. .h.i.t the dikes in North Vietnam. That was easily flicked away: "Mr. Rather, we have checked out those reporters. They have proved to be inaccurate.... We have had orders out not to hit dikes because the result in terms of civilian casualties would be extraordinary."

The hot story, in the wake of McGovern's final victory in New York, was not the break-in at the Democrats' headquarters but the Democrats' disarray. Reported David Broder, "With the clinching votes that would a.s.sure him the Democratic presidential nomination still narrowly beyond his reach, Sen. George McGovern's forces yesterday set the stage for convention floor fights to obtain a platform reflecting his views on busing and other controversial issues." Evans and Novak reported Humphrey was planning to challenge the legality of California's winner-take-all primary as a violation of "the spirit of one-man, one-vote reform.... The challenge will likely be rejected by the McGovern-controlled Credentials Committee, setting up a showdown on the convention floor. With McGovern's own count now 100 delegates short of the 1,509 needed for nomination, he would seemingly be able to beat back the California challenge."

But that, then, would make him a hypocrite and an enemy of the spirit of reform, wouldn't it?

"Therefore, Humphrey might maneuver a convention vote splitting the California delegation if he could combine all non-McGovern delegates. In that credentials test, he probably will have the aid of Gov. George Wallace's delegates. Humphrey's campaign believes it also has backing from Rep. Shirley Chisholm. Several uncommitted leaders, such as Gov. Jimmy Carter, support the challenge."

Evans and Novak summarized, "That, in turn, could conceivably stop McGovern, and herein lies the internal anguish. Much as they fear McGovern's nomination would bring catastrophe in November, many thoughtful party regulars dread even more the holocaust if they deny him the nomination at this point." Warren Weaver of the New York Times New York Times quoted an anonymous Democratic leader: "In Chicago in 1968, the riots were outside the convention hall. In Miami in 1972, they're going to be inside, and the reformers are responsible for the change of scene." quoted an anonymous Democratic leader: "In Chicago in 1968, the riots were outside the convention hall. In Miami in 1972, they're going to be inside, and the reformers are responsible for the change of scene."

Anguish, holocaust, riot inside the convention hall: words for Richard Nixon to savor. Harris was out with a new poll. Nixon ran 45 percent to 33 against McGovern with Wallace in the race and 5438 without Wallace; he did no worse against Humphrey. "Mainstream" Democrat, "extremist" Democrat, it didn't matter: all fared poorly against Nixon. words for Richard Nixon to savor. Harris was out with a new poll. Nixon ran 45 percent to 33 against McGovern with Wallace in the race and 5438 without Wallace; he did no worse against Humphrey. "Mainstream" Democrat, "extremist" Democrat, it didn't matter: all fared poorly against Nixon.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE.

In Which Playboy Bunnies, and Barbarella, and Tanya Inspire Theoretical Considerations upon the Nature of Democracy DEMOCRATS STARTED STRAGGLING INTO M MIAMI B BEACH THE SECOND week in July 1972. One of them was Robert Redford, arriving by train, promoting week in July 1972. One of them was Robert Redford, arriving by train, promoting The Candidate The Candidate in a mock whistle-stop tour. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin set up housekeeping at the run-down Albion Hotel, where Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles once honeymooned. Everywhere Hoffman and Rubin were mobbed by cops hoping to make it into the doc.u.mentary rumor had it that Warner's had paid them millions to shoot. They wouldn't be doing much in the way of protesting, they promised, so long as the nomination wasn't stolen from McGovern. "McGovern Backer No Longer Thinks Sons, Daughters, Should Kill Parents," the RNC magazine in a mock whistle-stop tour. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin set up housekeeping at the run-down Albion Hotel, where Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles once honeymooned. Everywhere Hoffman and Rubin were mobbed by cops hoping to make it into the doc.u.mentary rumor had it that Warner's had paid them millions to shoot. They wouldn't be doing much in the way of protesting, they promised, so long as the nomination wasn't stolen from McGovern. "McGovern Backer No Longer Thinks Sons, Daughters, Should Kill Parents," the RNC magazine First Monday First Monday headlined an interview with Rubin. Only tiny left-wing splinter groups considered McGovern the enemy. headlined an interview with Rubin. Only tiny left-wing splinter groups considered McGovern the enemy.

Yippies met with Miami Beach's glad-handing liberal police chief, who laid out the ground rules: "Fellas, I don't believe in trying to enforce laws that can't be enforced. If you guys smoke a little pot, I'm not going to send my men in after you." They got the same welcome from Mayor Charles Hall. "Call me Chuck," he said, before showing off his print of John and Yoko's wedding day-"It's the original, you know"-and offering them the city's golf courses as campsites. When the Yippies staged their first march to the convention center, "Chuck" arrived to try to lead it. Abbie and Jerry were celebrities. Celebrity was power in 1972. Abbie and Jerry were all about the new youth vote. Youth was power, too.

At McGovern headquarters at the famous Doral resort, the usual haunt of golfing Shriners, hordes of kids awaited their hero's arrival "wearing," Norman Mailer wrote, "copper bangles and s.p.a.ced-out heavy eyes." He imagined the reaction of the Democratic regulars: "Where were the bourbon and broads of yesteryear?"

Not at the Doral's rooftop restaurant-bar; it was one of the few rooms left in town that still required a suit and tie. That meant this week it was empty. Prost.i.tutes were lonely, too. The New Politics, this movement of acid and abortion for all, had a Calvinist work ethic. Many McGovern delegates had won their spots by outlasting the flabby old regulars in caucuses, just as they'd outlasted rival left factionistas factionistas at endless antiwar meetings. They were not in Miami to party. Germaine Greer, the women's liberationist, complained she "couldn't find anyone to ball." at endless antiwar meetings. They were not in Miami to party. Germaine Greer, the women's liberationist, complained she "couldn't find anyone to ball."

Presidential candidates arrived at Miami International Airport, one by one: Wilbur Mills, still rumored to be fronting a Ted Kennedy draft; George Wallace, who touched down in a plane provided him by the White House and was honored by the DNC with a bra.s.s band; Hubert Humphrey, who responded when asked if he thought he could win, "I didn't come down for a vacation." John Lindsay landed to rumors that he was so unpopular that the New York caucus would be avoiding him. The front-runner touched down one hour late due to a tropical storm, after an airport press conference from George Meany in which the labor boss intoned, "We've made it quite plain we don't like McGovern."

But could he stop stop McGovern? That was the question. Any kind of chaos seemed possible. Meany called it "the craziest convention I've seen." And he'd seen a few. McGovern? That was the question. Any kind of chaos seemed possible. Meany called it "the craziest convention I've seen." And he'd seen a few.

The grand lobby of the Fontainebleau was legendary: eight-tiered crystal chandeliers, pillars trimmed with gold gla.s.s, bosomy marble nymphs, a panoramic mural of Rome. Sunday morning it started to stink. It wasn't from hippies. The air-conditioning had given out. Sunday night at the Playboy Club the stink was of cigars as lumpy old fat cats arrived for a $1,000-a-ticket Humphrey reception. This time hippies were were the problem: a faction arrived to heckle, hara.s.s, and barricade the entrance. Then, fire engines clanged their way up the driveway, answering a fire alarm in the Playboy bunnies' dressing room. It had been set ablaze by commando feminists. the problem: a faction arrived to heckle, hara.s.s, and barricade the entrance. Then, fire engines clanged their way up the driveway, answering a fire alarm in the Playboy bunnies' dressing room. It had been set ablaze by commando feminists.

The Playboy party dispersed before the guest of honor arrived: Hubert Humphrey, droopy and fatigued, having just lost his best chance at victory in a backroom decision. The man who had told Walter Cronkite he wouldn't be a spoilsport-"goodness, no"-had decided he would challenge California's winner-take-all primary after all. McGovern said he saw "hate and vehemence in Hubert's eyes" when he announced it. Before the Credentials Committee late in June, Humphrey's people argued that the spirit of the newly reformed rules demanded they change the rules-that Humphrey deserved "Adequate Representation of Minority Views on Presidential Candidates at Each Stage in the Delegate Selection Process." The committee agreed and awarded California's convention votes in proportion to its primary vote. Thus a winner-take-all result in California was transformed by a winner-take-all vote of the Credentials Committee into a proportional result, to decide an inherently winner-take-all proposition: who would get to be the Democratic presidential nominee. The McGovern people took the decision to court-arguing that the spirit of the McGovern reforms was an abhorrence of regulars changing a democratic result after the fact to hold on to power, that the letter of the reforms preserved the winner-take-all primary, and that only a judge, deciding undemocratically, could make sure democracy prevailed.

The reformed Democratic Party was in chaos, the determination of its legitimate representatives seemingly as complex as probate hearings for a billionaire who died intestate. Forty percent of the delegates chosen to go to Miami Beach were under some sort of challenge or another.

The first judge ruled for Humphrey. The second reversed for McGovern. Humphrey appealed to the Supreme Court-which ruled on July 7 that the Democrats would have to sort out credentials challenges themselves. Which might have seemed to have thrown the victory back to the anyone-but-McGovern forces-if the Democratic Party didn't also also have a rule that it only took the votes of 10 percent of the Credentials Committee members to bring the issue to the floor for a full debate and the vote of the entire convention. have a rule that it only took the votes of 10 percent of the Credentials Committee members to bring the issue to the floor for a full debate and the vote of the entire convention.

That debate was set for the opening convention session Monday. But a crucial procedural matter had to be decided first. If the 151 delegates under dispute were included included in the tally of the "entire convention," the McGovern side would win the vote. If they were in the tally of the "entire convention," the McGovern side would win the vote. If they were excluded excluded from voting on their own challenge, McGovern would be denied the nomination on the first ballot and the convention would be thrown up for grabs. The candidate of openness required a decision for a de facto closed convention to win. from voting on their own challenge, McGovern would be denied the nomination on the first ballot and the convention would be thrown up for grabs. The candidate of openness required a decision for a de facto closed convention to win.

Any political scientist could have told you that creating fair and legitimate representative inst.i.tutions can be monstrously complex and paradoxical. It took the Founding Fathers twelve years to sort the problem out. This decision fell upon the shoulders of a single man: Lawrence O'Brien. He had only a couple of days to decide who would get to vote on the California challenge, a bevy of reporters breathing down his neck asking, "Will there be another Chicago?"

The Happy Warrior gave a press conference Sunday morning at his headquarters hotel, where the sign outside read WELCOME FUTURE PRESIDENT HUMPHREY. WELCOME FUTURE PRESIDENT HUMPHREY. He cast McGovern as the Mayor Daley of Miami Beach, a usurping political boss. McGovern, pious as ever, said he'd never thought California's winner-take-all primary was fair in the first place. Frank Mankiewicz cast He cast McGovern as the Mayor Daley of Miami Beach, a usurping political boss. McGovern, pious as ever, said he'd never thought California's winner-take-all primary was fair in the first place. Frank Mankiewicz cast Humphrey Humphrey as Mayor Daley: "If we lose California, half the delegates will think something was stolen. We're not sure Larry understands the fury that the situation might unleash." as Mayor Daley: "If we lose California, half the delegates will think something was stolen. We're not sure Larry understands the fury that the situation might unleash."

O'Brien ruled for McGovern just as Humphrey was dressing for the Playboy party. Was it fair? What was fair? Whatever the case, mighty Hubert had struck out. The message in front of Humphrey's hotel was replaced by one advertising a girlie show.

Then there was the matter of the actual Mayor Daley, whose Chicago machine would be facing their own floor fight the next evening. It wasn't like the old days, recalled Chicago congressman Dan Rostenkowski. "Daley used to call us together and say, 'Well, look, we've got one hundred slots to fill. Let's get some labor people, some blacks...say, four for the newspapers'-usually it would be their wives who wanted to go." Now, Mayor Daley was hiding away at his vacation cottage in Michigan, negotiating for a chance to serve as a delegate at all.

This melodrama had been building since 1969, when the McGovern Commission came to Chicago, Daley offered his own reform plan, and McGovern responded that Daley's most useful contribution would be to dismiss the Chicago 8 indictments. The mayor had proposed that every delegate in the nation be decided in primary elections, which sounded democratic. It actually was a machine-lubricating hustle. If there was one skill bosses like Daley possessed, it was fixing low-turnout elections.

The Illinois primary had been on March 21. Daley ran a slate of fifty-nine delegates from Cook County uncommitted to any presidential candidate. Forty were Daley's township and ward committeemen. This all fell afoul of reform. But to the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization, there was no personage so monstrous as a reformer.

Ward healers and precinct captains had gone door-to-door with sample ballots, making clear as usual that the elaborate latticework of patronage and munic.i.p.al services relied on neighborhoods voting "right." A former officer of the Chicago League of Women Voters testified about her own encounter with one of these door-knockers: she said the sample ballot violated the democratic reform guidelines; the mook responded he'd never heard of these "guidelines" of which she spoke; she replied that they demanded slates balanced by s.e.x; he responded, "Women don't belong in politics."

Daley's delegates swept the March primary. A reform alderman later testified to the Credentials Committee that it took so much money to challenge a machine candidate that few ever bothered. One who was naive enough to try was a twenty-four-year-old from the South Side of Chicago, Maureen Bremer, who had been trampled in 1968 on Michigan Avenue. Her friends got the six hundred signatures required to get her on the ballot, outhustled the machine with volunteers, and won-only to find her victory legally overturned. Daley controlled the judges, too.

But the machine was no longer almighty. That same primary, Daley's candidate for governor lost to reformer Daniel Walker, who had chaired the federal commission on the '68 convention that accused the mayor of fomenting a "police riot." In 1971, Chicago Sun Times Chicago Sun Times columnist Mike Royko had come out with a scathing expose of Richard J. Daley, ent.i.tled columnist Mike Royko had come out with a scathing expose of Richard J. Daley, ent.i.tled Boss. Boss. Two hundred Chicago bookstores were pressured into not stocking it, but the demand proved too great and Two hundred Chicago bookstores were pressured into not stocking it, but the demand proved too great and Boss Boss was returned to the shelves; Eleanor "Sis" Daley, the mayor's wife, was spotted vandalizing copies. Then, also in 1971, a reform attorney named Michael Shakman began tying up the machine in court with a case charging the patronage system violated the Fourteenth Amendment. That same year Daley promoted one of his "Silent Six" Negro aldermen, Ralph Metcalfe, star of the 1936 Olympics, to Congress; Metcalfe turned on the machine with the zeal of the convert, proclaiming, "It's never too late to be black." Daley's state's attorney Ed Hanrahan was under indictment for obstruction of justice in the cold-blooded murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton. Daley was losing his grip on the ghetto. He was losing his grip on patronage. He began, simply, losing his grip, making bizarre outbursts at city council meetings. was returned to the shelves; Eleanor "Sis" Daley, the mayor's wife, was spotted vandalizing copies. Then, also in 1971, a reform attorney named Michael Shakman began tying up the machine in court with a case charging the patronage system violated the Fourteenth Amendment. That same year Daley promoted one of his "Silent Six" Negro aldermen, Ralph Metcalfe, star of the 1936 Olympics, to Congress; Metcalfe turned on the machine with the zeal of the convert, proclaiming, "It's never too late to be black." Daley's state's attorney Ed Hanrahan was under indictment for obstruction of justice in the cold-blooded murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton. Daley was losing his grip on the ghetto. He was losing his grip on patronage. He began, simply, losing his grip, making bizarre outbursts at city council meetings.

At least he could still comfort himself that he commanded Svengali-like leverage over the Democratic presidential selection process.

Then he started losing that, too.

A white reformer, Alderman William Singer, and a black minister and civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson, filed a formal challenge of the March 21 primary results. In June the Democratic Credentials Committee sent a hearings officer to Chicago to take evidence. (McGovern, pious as ever, announced he neither favored nor opposed the challenge.) The regulars tried to sabotage the challengers, accusing the reformers of a conspiracy "to weaken the Democratic Party and enhance their ability to take it over." The reformers presented a methodical statistical case for how the machine had been subverting gra.s.sroots democracy for generations. The hearings officer returned to Washington with thousands of pages of testimony. Then, at the Illinois State Democratic convention in the middle of June, the machine whooped through a motion to increase the size of the delegation, diluting the power of the challengers should they win. The regulars insisted it was only fair. "What are we, for G.o.d's sake-lepers in the colony?" Congressman Dan Rostenkowski pleaded. "We're the ones who do the work, day in, day out."

At the end of June, the reformers held meetings in all eight of Cook County's congressional districts to choose the fifty-nine people who would travel to Miami Beach as the Jackson-Singer delegation. That was the final straw. The machine did what machines do.

At St. Thomas Lutheran Church busloads of machine musclemen arrived, wrestled the chairman to the floor, and scattered his records as Alderman Ed Vrdolyak cheered them on through a megaphone. At the downtown YWCA the session chairman was manhandled and announced the meeting would reconvene elsewhere, then a mob of several hundred Daley supporters blocked the elevators, roughing up anyone who tried to leave. In the Third District at Hometown Christian Church, one of the mob leaders wore a sheriff's department patch; in the Ninth the mob included the machine candidate for governor; in the Fifth, in a Catholic parish church, the mob was led by the mayor's son Richard Daley Jr. Two days later, Daley Jr. orchestrated the disruption of the election of the Jackson-Singer delegation's at-large delegates, then convened a press conference to say, "They would seek to disenfranchise the nine hundred thousand voters who went to the polls and cast their votes for the delegates of their choice.... This could hardly take place in a dictatorship." At the mayor's next city hall press conference he denied having anything to do with it. Then he denied there had been any disruptions: just good Chicago Democrats battling the "Singer machine." "What divine authority do these people think they have? What about all their agitation in the streets and in the City Council?"

Daley traveled to Washington to try to win over the Credentials Committee. His pretext for the trip was testimony to a congressional panel on a pet subject, gun control. "Take the guns away from every private citizen," he pleaded, and found time to tell reporters he still hoped Ted Kennedy would win the nomination. ("Every mother wants her boy to be president, and every boy wants to be president," he blathered, oblivious that Rose Kennedy, having seen two sons murdered for that ambition, might be the exception.) Daley also denounced the continued mining of Haiphong Harbor. The ideological ironies were plentiful in the battle between the regulars and the reformers.

The Credentials Committee ruled for the reformers. The mayor issued threats through channels to throw Illinois to Nixon. The next day Supreme Court justice William Rehnquist granted Daley the right to take his case to Cook County circuit court. The day after that, a federal district court judge refused what Daley asked for: an injunction barring the reformers from being seated in Miami. Daley appealed. Mediators cast about for compromises. Both sides hardened their positions. "This is like Soviet Russia," a Daley delegate said of the reformers. Jesse Jackson said of the regulars, "The mayor has to understand that this is a new day." The full U.S. Supreme Court mooted the judicial wrangling with its July 7 decision that Democrats would have to iron out their difficulties among themselves. In Chicago, circuit court judge Daniel A. Covelli issued an injunction barring the Jackson-Singer challengers from taking their seats in Miami. The power play was naked. Covelli was a machine judge famous for jailing anyone who defied him. Reporters asked him if he would do it this time. "I take the position," he answered, "that if people are permitted to violate injunctions issued by the court, we should close up shop and let everyone carry a six-shooter." One reform alderman said she would gladly go to jail to keep her seat. It was, she said, like facing down a Southern sheriff: "By running to Covelli Mayor Daley has informed the world that he, Mayor Daley, is higher than the Supreme Court."

Mayor Daley's cigar-chompers arrived at George McGovern's convention not knowing whether they'd get to be delegates or not. They had a hard time enjoying themselves at Playboy Plaza Sunday night, and that was even before they were set upon by torch-bearing women's libbers. They visited the hospitality suite at the Doral that the McGovern team had set up to woo "uncommitted" delegates such as themselves; there were twelve different kinds of whiskey and Scotch. And a twenty-three-year-old host, wearing sandals and a psychedelic tie.

Jesse Jackson suggested a compromise. White reformers called him a sellout. McGovern suggested a compromise. The cochair of the reformers responded, "If he needs Mayor Daley's support more than he needs us, we don't need him."

There were to be no compromises. This was the New Politics.

Monday, the convention's opening day, the two sides scurried from hotel to hotel, lobbying delegations, each stressing the justice of its cause, each threatening dire consequences in November should its side lose. Some reformers were able to show off the scars Mayor Daley's police had given them in 1968. A New Mexico delegate recalled the tearga.s.sing he had received: "I hate Daley's guts!" Meanwhile, Daley's most fierce hometown scourge-columnist Mike Royko-spoke of the metaphorical scars of the people Daley represented. "I just don't see where your delegation is representative of Chicago's Democrats," he wrote in a column addressed personally to Singer. "As I looked over the names of your delegates, I saw something peculiar.... There's only one Italian there. Are you saying that only one out of every 59 Democratic votes cast in a Chicago election is cast by an Italian? And only three of your 59 have Polish names.... Your reforms have disenfranchised Chicago's white ethnic Democrats, which is a strange reform."

The convention's first evening would also see challenges to delegations from Alabama, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Kentucky, Georgia, Washington, Virginia, Hawaii, Michigan, Texas, Connecticut, and Oklahoma. Each side was supposed to get twenty minutes, but the rules said the convention could vote additional time. Then there would be roll-call votes. The convention secretary reported that she believed she could call the names of the 3,016 voting delegates in approximately fifty-two minutes. All of it would play out on television.

As the convention made ready to convene, a shouting match broke out in the Illinois section. Jesse Jackson showed a ticket that ent.i.tled him to a seat behind the delegation chairman. A congressman from a rural district had arrogated the spot for himself: "When you've been elected to Congress for eighteen years," he bellowed, "then I'll respect you." The reverend was wearing a dashiki, the flowing African-style robe favored by black nationalists, as the TV cameras recorded, and as history recalled. The cameras did not record, nor did history recall, the reverend's ambivalent feelings about his victory over Daley-"What kind of pleasure can you get by throwing a man that old out of something that's so important to him?"-nor his tireless and risky efforts to effect a last-minute compromise between the reformers and the regulars. Instead he became a visual symbol of the reformers' theft of "regular" Democrats' birthright, and a great political party's civil war. I'll respect you." The reverend was wearing a dashiki, the flowing African-style robe favored by black nationalists, as the TV cameras recorded, and as history recalled. The cameras did not record, nor did history recall, the reverend's ambivalent feelings about his victory over Daley-"What kind of pleasure can you get by throwing a man that old out of something that's so important to him?"-nor his tireless and risky efforts to effect a last-minute compromise between the reformers and the regulars. Instead he became a visual symbol of the reformers' theft of "regular" Democrats' birthright, and a great political party's civil war.

Somewhere, Richard Nixon was smiling.

It had to be close to midnight Monday when the hippie from Arizona grabbed Abbie Hoffman around the waist and hollered, "I'm the first, man!"

"The first what?"

"The first f.u.c.ker ever to cast a vote on acid." ("There goes the Polish vote," Abbie thought.) That was during the roll call on California, the second vote of the evening. Other insurgents weren't so happy. The first roll call had been on a challenge to the regular South Carolina delegation. And thanks to a parliamentary calculation so fantastically complex and paradoxical it resembled subatomic physics, the McGovern side had decided they had to lose it on purpose to show their strength.

The people they were selling out were feminists. The South Carolina challenge was the culmination of almost a year's labor by a new organization, the National Women's Political Caucus, which had formed in the summer of 1971 to pressure the parties for 40 percent representation of women at their conventions. At one time such a demand would not have seemed particularly controversial-only a few months earlier, in fact, the Equal Rights Amendment had pa.s.sed both houses of Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support. One of the NWPC's most aggressive activists was George Romney's wife, Lenore; indeed, since time immemorial, both Democratic and Republican national committees had required membership balance by gender. The NWPC had no trouble, late in 1971, convincing Democratic officials to count a paucity of women in a delegation as prima facie evidence of violation of the McGovern Commission's requirement of "affirmative steps" toward "reasonable representation." The resentment came later, as the "women's libbers" came to be considered and came to consider themselves vanguardists in pushing the boundaries of liberal consciousness.

Abortion politics was one catalyst; women were beginning to claim "abortion on demand" as a right. Gay rights was another cutting-edge issue. Some feminists still considered both outrageous; Betty Friedan labeled the lesbians organizing within the National Organization for Women the "lavender menace." It came to a head at Democratic platform committee meetings in March. Shirley MacLaine confronted Gloria Steinem at the elevators: "If you people had your way, you'd have George support everyone's right to f.u.c.k goats."

Here was another development to warm the c.o.c.kles of Richard Nixon's heart: wedge issues within the New Politics coalition itself.

The National Women's Political Caucus came to Miami wearing defiant b.u.t.tons: WE'RE HERE TO MAKE POLICY, NOT COFFEE. WE'RE HERE TO MAKE POLICY, NOT COFFEE. Their intention was to unseat the overwhelmingly male South Carolina delegation as an opening show of strength. They had the votes to do it, and just as important, George McGovern's "unequivocal" endors.e.m.e.nt. Then suddenly, during the first roll call of the 1972 Democratic National Convention, their sure votes started going the other way. Larry O'Brien's decision about who would get to vote on the California challenge couldn't be shown to be the McGovern coalition's determining margin of victory-or else the anyone-but-McGovern forces would appeal O'Brien's decision to the full convention. So McGovern deputies were racing up and down the aisles begging McGovern delegates to vote against the feminists. " Their intention was to unseat the overwhelmingly male South Carolina delegation as an opening show of strength. They had the votes to do it, and just as important, George McGovern's "unequivocal" endors.e.m.e.nt. Then suddenly, during the first roll call of the 1972 Democratic National Convention, their sure votes started going the other way. Larry O'Brien's decision about who would get to vote on the California challenge couldn't be shown to be the McGovern coalition's determining margin of victory-or else the anyone-but-McGovern forces would appeal O'Brien's decision to the full convention. So McGovern deputies were racing up and down the aisles begging McGovern delegates to vote against the feminists. "Unequivocal does not mean at the expense of the nomination," one of them said. The feminists, and their cigar-chomping strange bedfellows, lost the vote: the next roll call, on California, moved forward without objection. California's winner-take-all rule prevailed. The word shot across the convention hall that McGovern had clinched the nomination-and also that he had done it by selling out reform. does not mean at the expense of the nomination," one of them said. The feminists, and their cigar-chomping strange bedfellows, lost the vote: the next roll call, on California, moved forward without objection. California's winner-take-all rule prevailed. The word shot across the convention hall that McGovern had clinched the nomination-and also that he had done it by selling out reform.

Openness was proving a d.a.m.ned slow way to run a convention. It was close to 3 a.m. when the roll-call vote on the Illinois challenge was finally called. It was close to dawn when the reformers finally won. They started screaming, jumping on their seats, singing "We Shall Overcome," taking pictures, incredulous they really owned the seats of the old men they despised.

"The streets of '68 are the aisles of '72!"

"The aisles belong to the people! The aisles belong to the people!"

The losers repaired with their cigars to watch the rest of the show on TV, insisting a Democrat obviously couldn't become president without the Cook County machine. Wrote the Chicago Daily News Chicago Daily News's youth columnist Bob Greene, on the other hand, "This is America, and someday Richard Daley may be able to earn a place inside the Convention Hall, just like Jerry Rubin. If the Mayor is willing to be patient and to work within the system."