Rick Perlstein: Excerpt from his new book, Nixonland
[Mr. Perlstein is the author of Before the Storm. Nixonland, the sequel, will be published in May.]
Democrats started straggling into Miami Beach the second week in July, 1972. One of them was Robert Redford, arriving by train, promoting ‘The Candidate’ on 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 documentary that rumor had it 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 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 spaced-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. Prostitutes 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 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 brass band; Hubert Humphrey, who responded when asked whether 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 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 excerpt goes on.]
Read entire article at Excerpt published by BookForum.com
Democrats started straggling into Miami Beach the second week in July, 1972. One of them was Robert Redford, arriving by train, promoting ‘The Candidate’ on 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 documentary that rumor had it 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 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 spaced-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. Prostitutes 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 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 brass band; Hubert Humphrey, who responded when asked whether 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 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 excerpt goes on.]