Johnson did not. In April of 1965 he explained the escalation at Johns Hopkins University: "We must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny." Sixty million Americans watched it on TV. But according to a memo filed by a.s.sistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton a month earlier, 70 percent of the reason we were fighting was "to avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat." Helping the people of South Vietnam shape their own destiny he listed at 10 percent.

And by the time of the fuel-depot bombings, the horror of those who found the lies too monstrous to abide reached a new dramatic pitch. On June 30, three soldiers, a Puerto Rican, a Negro, and an Italian-American-the "Fort Hood Three"-gave a press conference: "We speak as American soldiers. We have been in the army long enough to know we are not the only GIs who feel as we do. Large numbers of men in the service either do not understand this war or are against it....

"Our man or men in Saigon have always been brutal dictators....

"No one uses the word 'winning' anymore because in Vietnam it has no more meaning. Our officers just talk about five and ten more years of war with at least a half million of our boys into the grinder....

"We have made our decision. We will not be a part of this unjust, immoral, and illegal war. We want no part of a war of extermination. We oppose the criminal waste of American lives and resources.

"We refuse to go to Vietnam!"

That was a Thursday. Monday was the Fourth of July. And in Southern California, everyone knew that there would be a riot over the holiday-and that when the fires came this time, they would immolate white suburbs.

Los Angeles Times columnist Paul Coates once again reported the calls he was receiving: columnist Paul Coates once again reported the calls he was receiving: "Have you heard there's going to be a race riot in Torrance?"

"My mother-in-law goes to a beautician whose boyfriend is a cop, and he told her that the talk is that there's going to be an attack on Woodland Hills. What can we do?"

"There was a car full of them cruising around Santa Monica at two o'clock this morning.... Why would they be doing that if they weren't planning some kind of trouble?"

Chief Parker was in Sacramento demanding an antiriot law, claiming holiday intelligence of "urban guerrilla warfare-an absolute plan to burn and sack a city." Paul Coates concluded his column quoting a La Brea shopkeeper: "I'm not a nut, but this may be something. I just saw a skywriting plane and it was making the Greek letter omega. You know what that means? The last letter in the Greek alphabet. It means the end."

Independence Day came and went. Los Angeles didn't blow. Riots broke out in places like Des Moines and Omaha instead. In New York City, Mayor Lindsay walked the streets of Harlem night and day, begging for peace in the ninety-eight-degree heat, personally opening hydrants, getting himself photographed for the papers cavorting with squealing kids. In Miami, two factions in a beachside knife fight joined forces and attacked the police.

Other disturbances broke out in air-conditioned comfort. In Baltimore, the Congress for Racial Equality, which used to be 50 percent white, hosted as its annual convention's keynote speaker one "Lonnie X," who spoke surrounded by twenty Fruit of Islam guards. A white nun stalked out: "This is the Congress for Racial Superiority." (The next week the worst prison riot in Maryland history broke out. A spokesman blamed CORE: "If they don't stop telling these prisoners about their rights, it's going to get worse.") The NAACP met in tense L.A. Roy Wilkins pleaded that in a white-run society Black Power "can mean in the end only black death," for NAACP "moderates" as much as SNCC "militants." "Many white persons," he pointed out to the press, "distinguish very little between groups." American n.a.z.i Party thugs soon made his point by rushing the stage during the proceedings.

That was Tuesday. On Wednesday, July 6, at another Los Angeles hotel, the National Governors' Conference opened with the traditional gala parade of the states. The New York Times New York Times had predicted the conclave would help Pat Brown, as host, "receive some helpful l.u.s.ter." It didn't work out that way. A thousand antiwar picketers disrupted his address. The scuttleb.u.t.t between sessions was whether Ronald Reagan was presidential timber, and tips on the best time to mobilize the National Guard when one of your cities was going up in flames. had predicted the conclave would help Pat Brown, as host, "receive some helpful l.u.s.ter." It didn't work out that way. A thousand antiwar picketers disrupted his address. The scuttleb.u.t.t between sessions was whether Ronald Reagan was presidential timber, and tips on the best time to mobilize the National Guard when one of your cities was going up in flames.

Nebraska's Democratic governor, Frank Morrison, downplayed the significance of the riot he had left behind in his own state. He flew back to Omaha when it didn't go away, calling up six companies of the National Guard, pledging that the violence would have no effect on policymaking. Then he toured Omaha's Near North Side ghetto, which he had never before seen. Sh.e.l.l-shocked, he p.r.o.nounced the neighborhood "unfit for human habitation" and announced he would open a state employment office in the inner city as soon as possible, then returned to Los Angeles and attended every conference session on economic opportunity he could find.

At the LBJ Ranch, a president whose approval rating was inching down toward 50 percent, and who newspapers were reporting was only half as popular as Senator Robert Kennedy among California Democrats, fought off a ravenous press corps.

"Mr. President, regarding racial incidents, sir, in various cities, what is your estimate of the immediate hazards in the situation, and do you have any advice for Americans in this connection?" Johnson's reply almost pleaded: "We believe that every citizen ought to have the right to have a decent home. We are doing everything we can, as quickly as we can, under our voter's rights bill, under our civil rights bills, under our housing bills, under proposals we have made in cooperation with the mayors under the able leadership of the vice president, to improve these terrible conditions that exist in the ghettos of this country."

The president had staked his political future on a nation's sympathy with the black freedom movement. But the black freedom movement was now defined by language like this, from a leaked SNCC position paper: "When we view the ma.s.ses of white people...we view in reality 180 million racists." Johnson refused to back down: "We are going to continue as long as I am president to do everything we can to see that all citizens are treated equally and have equal opportunities." Others made a show of refusing to be intimidated by black rage. An item in the July 6, 1966, New York Times: New York Times: "Montpelier-The Board of State Library Trustees voted 4 to 1 tonight to retain the name of n.i.g.g.e.rhead Pond and n.i.g.g.e.rhead Mountain in Groton State Forest." Those opposed to the name change had argued that "Montpelier-The Board of State Library Trustees voted 4 to 1 tonight to retain the name of n.i.g.g.e.rhead Pond and n.i.g.g.e.rhead Mountain in Groton State Forest." Those opposed to the name change had argued that n.i.g.g.e.rhead n.i.g.g.e.rhead was only a logging term for a burrlike pa.s.sage in a river. was only a logging term for a burrlike pa.s.sage in a river.

A tiny piece appeared in the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times that same morning datelined Sacramento: "Shots from one or two cars filled with whites killed two Negro men in a downtown waterfront slum area Tuesday night." You would think something like that might make the front page. Instead, it was tucked deep inside the paper. Page one was monopolized by events at the state capitol: the debate over the antiriot law. Chief Parker testified, "We're talking about putting moats around our new buildings." A black witness was asked, if unemployment was 40 percent in Watts, why didn't people just move? The witness was incredulous: "The California Real Estate a.s.sociation took care of that with Proposition 14." Watts a.s.semblyman Melvin Dymally said the legislation would "be the first step in inciting riots in Los Angeles" and endorsed the call to incorporate Watts as an independent "Freedom City" with its own police force. that same morning datelined Sacramento: "Shots from one or two cars filled with whites killed two Negro men in a downtown waterfront slum area Tuesday night." You would think something like that might make the front page. Instead, it was tucked deep inside the paper. Page one was monopolized by events at the state capitol: the debate over the antiriot law. Chief Parker testified, "We're talking about putting moats around our new buildings." A black witness was asked, if unemployment was 40 percent in Watts, why didn't people just move? The witness was incredulous: "The California Real Estate a.s.sociation took care of that with Proposition 14." Watts a.s.semblyman Melvin Dymally said the legislation would "be the first step in inciting riots in Los Angeles" and endorsed the call to incorporate Watts as an independent "Freedom City" with its own police force.

The legislative session was set by law to end at 5 p.m. It was now 4:38.

Then the explosion went off.

"Frightened senators and spectators glanced bewilderedly at the old gas lamps and high marble pillars and then laughed when they realized that merely a Fourth of July leftover had exploded," the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times reported, claiming, unconvincingly, that it relieved the room's tensions. reported, claiming, unconvincingly, that it relieved the room's tensions.

At 4:50 the solons availed themselves of an old parliamentary trick by stopping the clock on the wall. They worked through dinner, and the antiriot bill pa.s.sed 30-0. Governor Brown congratulated them on "a most productive legislative session." Actually, besides the LSD ban and this semi-const.i.tutional bit of grandstanding, they had hardly pa.s.sed anything substantial at all.

The Fort Hood Three were abducted on July 7 at a church meeting by military police and held incommunicado. In the South Vietnamese coastal city of Hue, Buddhists protesting the strong-arm rule of the American-backed prime minister Nguyen Cao Ky-he had just issued an edict prescribing summary execution as a penalty for advocating peace-rampaged through the streets overturning cars, smashing shop windows, and burning down the U.S. Information Service building. It was, all told, one of the scariest weeks since President Kennedy had been shot down in Dallas. U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam hit 4,129; 115 died that week alone. In his 1966 State of the Union address in January, the president had laid out grandiose plans: a minimum wage increase, new mine and highway safety laws, child nutrition initiatives, rent supplements, federal reform of the bail system, a Model Cities program announced with the promise "that the city is not beyond the reach of redemption by men of goodwill." Just not now, Johnson told presidential a.s.sistant Joseph Califano, just not now. "We're going to have to take our time on everything except Vietnam."

In Chicago, Martin Luther King's activists inaugurated their new strategy. Chicago had an open-housing ordinance, pa.s.sed in 1963-that was what let Mayor Daley say there was no segregation in Chicago. So married black couples began visiting real estate offices in bucolic white neighborhoods and asking to be shown a home. They would be told there were none available. A similarly situated white couple would make the same request and would be given the red-carpet treatment. On July 8 alone, in the neighborhood of Gage Park, the testers recorded thirty prima facie violations of the law. Chicago's power structure wasn't about to do anything about that. Doing something about it would be to torch the entire moral economy of the city as Mayor Daley and his core const.i.tuency understood it.

Chicago's white ethnics cherished their neighborhoods as they cherished their families and faith. The three seemed identical. Their parents and grandparents, summoned from Catholic Europe to work in Chicago's stockyards and factories at the turn of the century, settled in sordid tenements. Southern blacks were similarly called North to work during World War I. They worked the same factories and stockyards-last hired, first fired, and always in the dirtiest jobs-and lived in yet more dilapidated tenements. With the 1920s economic boom, white workers had the wherewithal to get the h.e.l.l out of the tenements. Black workers did not.

Through no agency of their own, Chicago's white ethnics were the beneficiaries of an urban-planning miracle. The National a.s.sociation of Real Estate Boards-the same group that turned itself into a political machine to lobby against open occupancy in 1966-launched an "Own Your Own Home" crusade in the 1920s to coax families into putting down payments on single-family houses of their very own; simultaneously, idealistic reformers coming out of England's Arts and Crafts movement devised a new form of cheap and felicitous housing unmatched in the history of the industrial working cla.s.s: the urban "bungalow." Squat, handsome, one-and-a-half-story single-family homes in st.u.r.dy brick, garden plots out front, each a happy marriage of community-building uniformity and dignity-enhancing individuality (families could choose their own geometrically patterned brickwork, limestone trim, colorful awnings, artistic leaded gla.s.s, even custom-toned mortar); plentiful sunlight; minimal traffic (garages were in the back alley); endless ribbons of common greensward out front for children to play; each neighborhood anch.o.r.ed by parish church and school; all manner of citizens' bunds to join; lively neighborhood newspapers; attentive block captains under the discipline of Daley's Democratic machine attuned to their every munic.i.p.al need.

When another wave of Negroes migrated to Chicago during and after World War II, however, not-so-enlightened reformers boxed them into soulless "housing projects." You could draw a map of the boundary within which the city's seven hundred thousand Negroes were allowed to live by marking an X X wherever a white mob attacked a Negro. Move beyond it, and a family had to face down a mob of one thousand, five thousand, or even (in the Englewood riot of 1949, when the presence of blacks at a union meeting sparked a rumor the house was to be "sold to n.i.g.g.e.rs") ten thousand b.l.o.o.d.y-minded whites. In the late 1940s, when the postwar housing shortage was at its peak, you could find ten black families living in a bas.e.m.e.nt, sharing a single stove but not a single flush toilet, in "apartments" subdivided by cardboard. One racial bombing or arson happened every three weeks. The job of the mayor's Commission on Human Relations was to see that none of these incidents made it into one of the city's six daily papers. Because officially, there was no segregation in Chicago. wherever a white mob attacked a Negro. Move beyond it, and a family had to face down a mob of one thousand, five thousand, or even (in the Englewood riot of 1949, when the presence of blacks at a union meeting sparked a rumor the house was to be "sold to n.i.g.g.e.rs") ten thousand b.l.o.o.d.y-minded whites. In the late 1940s, when the postwar housing shortage was at its peak, you could find ten black families living in a bas.e.m.e.nt, sharing a single stove but not a single flush toilet, in "apartments" subdivided by cardboard. One racial bombing or arson happened every three weeks. The job of the mayor's Commission on Human Relations was to see that none of these incidents made it into one of the city's six daily papers. Because officially, there was no segregation in Chicago.

In the neighborhoods where they were allowed to "buy" houses, they couldn't actually buy them at all: banks would not write them mortgages, so unscrupulous businessmen sold them contracts that gave them no equity or t.i.tle to the property, from which they could be evicted the first time they were late with a payment. Or they crowded into the same dilapidated tenements the white ethnics had abandoned. Some were right across the street from the bungalows-making a thoroughfare like Ashland Avenue about as risky to cross as no-man's-land in World War I. White ethnics felt themselves defending an urban middle-cla.s.s paradise against Martin Luther King. And Illinois's junior senator, seventy-four-year-old Democrat Paul Douglas, up for reelection that fall, began getting letters like these: "As a citizen and a taxpayer I was very upset to hear about 't.i.tle IV' of the so-called civil rights Bill S. 3296. This is not Civil Rights. This takes away a person's rights. We too are people and need someone to protect us."

"We designed and built our own home and I would hate to think of being forced to sell my lovely home to anyone just because they had the money."

"Do you or any of your friends live next door to a negro-why should we have them pushed down our throats?"

On July 10, Martin Luther King led a rally at Soldier Field. He followed it with a march to City Hall-where, like his namesake, Martin Luther, he tacked the movement's open-housing and slum-clearing demands on the mayor's doorposts. Daley shrugged, saying, "They have no programs." "What he meant," retorted Mike Royko, the cantankerous Daley-baiting columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Sun-Times, "was, they had no program that didn't include blacks moving into white neighborhoods." "was, they had no program that didn't include blacks moving into white neighborhoods."

It was the third straight day of ninety-degree heat in Chicago. On the fifth day of the heat wave, Martin Luther King was enjoying dinner with his wife, Coretta, at the home of Mahalia Jackson. He noticed something out the window: a shrieking, angry crowd careening down the streets. "Those people," he said distractedly, "I wonder if there's a riot starting."

He rushed to Shiloh Baptist Church, site of a previously scheduled ma.s.s meeting, muttering to himself, "I told told Mayor Daley, I Mayor Daley, I told told Mayor Daley, something like this would happen if something wasn't done." He pleaded for nonviolence from the pulpit; angry young men walked out. He persuaded a police commander to sit down with and hear the grievances of those who stayed-as, unbeknownst to the cops or to King, kids outside a.s.sembled Molotov c.o.c.ktails. Mayor Daley, something like this would happen if something wasn't done." He pleaded for nonviolence from the pulpit; angry young men walked out. He persuaded a police commander to sit down with and hear the grievances of those who stayed-as, unbeknownst to the cops or to King, kids outside a.s.sembled Molotov c.o.c.ktails.

The Washington papers-the ones read by legislators debating the civil rights bill-reported the spreading Chicago violence as if it were local news: "Youths crashed through the windows of a currency exchange, setting baskets of waste paper on fire. Firemen were stoned as they fought the flames." "Hundreds of persons were hurling objects from windows and roofs. Police communications and officers in the area called for more ammunition." "A policeman, Donald Ingraham, about 31, was shot a few hours earlier as officers attempted to find a sniper in a building." Forty-two hundred National Guardsmen were called out. Ten thousand police officers worked twelve-hour shifts. The White House sent two Justice Department officials in an air force jet. By then commuters were lying on the floor on the Lake Street el while pa.s.sing the projects, afraid they'd get shot by snipers. The public-housing high-rises seemed a brilliant solution to the overcrowding crisis in the 1950s. Now they looked like fortifications for guerrilla warfare.

On the third day eight young nurses were murdered by a slow-witted white drifter named Richard Speck. The Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune connected the dots: the riots, the murders, both were "symptomatic of a deep sickness in society." Chicago's police superintendent connected the dots, too: he said the time would soon come when "law-abiding citizens will have to live in walled communities." A Bungalow Belt dweller connected the dots, too, in a letter to Senator Douglas: "Last night there was a show of appreciation for all that has been done to help the colored people.... How much longer are we going to be the suckers, giving away taxpayer money and in return see what it has got us." connected the dots: the riots, the murders, both were "symptomatic of a deep sickness in society." Chicago's police superintendent connected the dots, too: he said the time would soon come when "law-abiding citizens will have to live in walled communities." A Bungalow Belt dweller connected the dots, too, in a letter to Senator Douglas: "Last night there was a show of appreciation for all that has been done to help the colored people.... How much longer are we going to be the suckers, giving away taxpayer money and in return see what it has got us."

And at his next press conference Mayor Daley connected the dots: "I think you can't charge it directly to Martin Luther King. But surely some of the people that came in here have been talking for the last year of violence, and showing pictures and instructing people how to conduct violence, there on his staff, and they're responsible.... Who makes a Molotov c.o.c.ktail? Someone has to train the youngsters."

There were smaller riots in Philadelphia and Brooklyn. At the Capitol, Manny Celler, the House floor director of the president's civil rights bill, attempted a parliamentary maneuver to get it to the floor by bypa.s.sing the right-wing Rules Committee. Its chairman, Howard "Judge" Smith of Virginia, raged that Celler would have Congress "surrender further to the so-called revolution of the Negro race."

No one was surprised by that; Judge Smith was a notorious primitive. What was shocking was the response of the genial minority leader, Gerald Ford, the sort of moderate industrial-state Republican who voted for civil rights bills as a matter of course. He also charged to his feet and angrily challenged Celler's maneuver. When it came time to vote, two of Celler's opponents turned out to be liberals voted in on Lyndon Johnson's coattails in 1964.

Something, here, was changing. On July 18 Evans and Novak reported the opening of Watts's first movie theater. Governor Brown, who had arranged it, skipped the opening. "Nor, indeed, was he in any way publicly connected with the project." In his "uphill bid for a third term...to be publicly sympathetic to the Negroes of Watts is suicide."

That night in Cleveland a tavern owner put out a sign reading NO WATER FOR n.i.g.g.e.rS. NO WATER FOR n.i.g.g.e.rS. Bar employees patrolled outside with shotguns, a menacing crowd gathered, cops fired shots overhead to disperse them, the mob torched a supermarket, then cut the hoses of the arriving fire trucks; cops shooting into a suspected snipers' nest killed a mother leaning her head out the window screaming at them to hold their fire so she could check for her children. In Jacksonville, after a demonstration was broken up, "roving bands of Negroes"-a new journalistic cliche-began firebombing buildings. ("A white youth was pulled from a telephone booth and struck by Negroes," the Bar employees patrolled outside with shotguns, a menacing crowd gathered, cops fired shots overhead to disperse them, the mob torched a supermarket, then cut the hoses of the arriving fire trucks; cops shooting into a suspected snipers' nest killed a mother leaning her head out the window screaming at them to hold their fire so she could check for her children. In Jacksonville, after a demonstration was broken up, "roving bands of Negroes"-a new journalistic cliche-began firebombing buildings. ("A white youth was pulled from a telephone booth and struck by Negroes," the Washington Star Washington Star reported.) Vice President Hubert Humphrey, a happy warrior for civil rights since 1948, told the National a.s.sociation of Counties that "the National Guard is no answer to the problems of the slums," and that if conditions didn't improve, there would be "open violence in every major city and county in America," and, indeed, if he lived in a slum, "I think you'd have more trouble than you have had already because I've got enough spark left in me to lead a mighty good revolt." The next day a thousand members of the Ohio National Guard were called out to Cleveland, and two thousand more Illinois Guardsmen were called out to Chicago, and Jake Javits gave a speech at the Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearings on the civil rights bill: "It really is almost impossible to understand the explosive character of what we are dealing with, except when you plunge in and see the conditions under which these people live. It is just beyond belief. Whatever else we may disagree on, upon this I do not see there can be disagreement." reported.) Vice President Hubert Humphrey, a happy warrior for civil rights since 1948, told the National a.s.sociation of Counties that "the National Guard is no answer to the problems of the slums," and that if conditions didn't improve, there would be "open violence in every major city and county in America," and, indeed, if he lived in a slum, "I think you'd have more trouble than you have had already because I've got enough spark left in me to lead a mighty good revolt." The next day a thousand members of the Ohio National Guard were called out to Cleveland, and two thousand more Illinois Guardsmen were called out to Chicago, and Jake Javits gave a speech at the Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearings on the civil rights bill: "It really is almost impossible to understand the explosive character of what we are dealing with, except when you plunge in and see the conditions under which these people live. It is just beyond belief. Whatever else we may disagree on, upon this I do not see there can be disagreement."

He was answered by Judiciary chairman Sam Ervin of North Carolina, a segregationist of the old school who said that was a good reason why they shouldn't pa.s.s open housing: if conditions really were as bad as Javits said, "saying that the rioters and looters have the right to live in somebody else's house against their will" would hardly help, "because I do not think they are financially able to move."

Javits said, exasperated, "This is not a problem which is capable of some single unitary solution."

Ervin replied, "Yes. And yet the record shows that the more laws that are pa.s.sed in this nation on the national, state, and local levels, the more rioting and looting we have."

The next day a roller-skating rink went up in flames in Cleveland and police riddled with bullets a car containing three children. The day after that, armed white vigilantes began cruising the Cleveland ghetto. Mayor Lindsay traveled to East New York, Brooklyn, where poor Italians, Negroes, and Puerto Ricans were on the brink of a race war. "We don't want you here, n.i.g.g.e.r-lover!" the Italian kids organized into a gang called SPONGE-the Society for the Prevention of Negroes Getting Everything-shouted. Lindsay pulled them into a pizza parlor for a rap session. (That was John Lindsay: possessed of a near-religious faith in the power of dialogue, reason, goodwill, and his own considerable charm to settle even the most festering grievances.) He returned to Manhattan convinced the situation was under control. Word came over the shortwave: an eleven-year-old Negro boy had been shot. Fifteen thousand officers flooded the streets, under orders from the commissioner to "keep their billies on their belts and their guns in their holsters"; bricks and tire jacks rained down on them from rooftops.

At the Sherman House Hotel in Chicago, Cook County Democratic headquarters, Martin Luther King warned in a press conference, "We are in for darker nights of social disruption," and that "the power elite seems to prefer sporadic outbreaks of violence to the rightful recognition of an organized nonviolence movement," and to whites who saw King as the riot's ringleader it sounded like a threat. He then announced he had brokered a truce among Chicago's street gangs. (The next day a gang member shot three rivals.) In an ornate reception room in New York's City Hall, fifty-nine East New York youths screamed about "our turf" and "their turf" and nearly broke into a fistfight. (Mayor Lindsay sent out his youth board director and a rabbi to convince the local G.o.dfather, Don Alberto Gallo, to broker a peace.) A nightclub in the Bohemian district of the North Side of Chicago was raided for obscenity ("Included in the skits," the papers reported, "were love-making scenes...and the tearing of clothing"). In Cleveland white vigilantes shot dead a twenty-nine-year-old black man; a black sniper shot out the rearview mirror of an Ohio National Guard jeep.

These bizarre outbreaks of black people burning down their own neighborhoods, what did they mean mean? Was it some kind of political blackmail, a gun pressed to the head of a Congress debating a civil rights bill? The opportunism of greedy criminals? The mania of a people losing its collective mind? The natural expression of people who were savages to begin with? A Communist plot? How was it related to bearded picketers against the Vietnam War, the orgies so vile, or singer John Lennon, who had blasphemously called his rock band "bigger than Jesus" and had to apologize that August to the pope? Was this the whirlwind a civilization reaped once the seeds of moral relativism were sown?

And, most of all: what next? When might they move out into the bourgeois utopias: the bungalow belts, the white-picket-fenced suburbs of the Midwest, the white stucco of the Southwest, your own backyard? Were there even enough peace officers in existence to respond?

The political season approached. What pundits referred to by the shorthand as "the cities" defined the battlefield.

Conservatives looked for ways to blame it all on the liberals. A 54 Supreme Court decision had been handed down in June requiring police to warn arrestees of their const.i.tutional right against self-incrimination and to an attorney. Justice John Marshall Harlan pounded the table in dissent: Miranda v. State of Arizona Miranda v. State of Arizona meant "a gradual disappearance of confessions as a legitimate tool of law enforcement." Justice Byron White said it "will return a killer, rapist, or other criminal to the streets to repeat his crime whenever it pleased him." Even the meant "a gradual disappearance of confessions as a legitimate tool of law enforcement." Justice Byron White said it "will return a killer, rapist, or other criminal to the streets to repeat his crime whenever it pleased him." Even the New York Times New York Times found the decision "lacking either const.i.tutional warrant or constructive effect." Truman Capote, author of the new true-crime thriller found the decision "lacking either const.i.tutional warrant or constructive effect." Truman Capote, author of the new true-crime thriller In Cold Blood, In Cold Blood, testified at a Senate hearing, "This is almost like testified at a Senate hearing, "This is almost like Alice in Wonderland. Alice in Wonderland....While many in our society today are wailing about the rights of the criminal suspect, why do they seem to totally ignore the rights of the victims and potential victims?" Robert Byrd entered an editorial into the Congressional Record Congressional Record on Martin Luther King, "whose organization is studying the Buddhist use of street gangs in Saigon demonstrations, has put the Reverend A. Sampson in charge of enlisting gang leaders in SCLC's new militant youth movement," and was preparing to "trigger a Watts-like eruption in the nation's second-largest city." Judge Smith, involuntarily retired by a liberal in a recent primary, gave a valedictory address to the House of Representatives, in which he had served since 1931: "I was distressed a few days ago to see in the press, and not refuted, the statement by the vice president of the United States that if he lived in a tenement, in the ghettos of the cities, on the second floor, he would have the spirit to 'lead a revolt.'...The vice president will bear a grave responsibility in blood and lives if he tries to provoke minority group members to riot for rent supplements." on Martin Luther King, "whose organization is studying the Buddhist use of street gangs in Saigon demonstrations, has put the Reverend A. Sampson in charge of enlisting gang leaders in SCLC's new militant youth movement," and was preparing to "trigger a Watts-like eruption in the nation's second-largest city." Judge Smith, involuntarily retired by a liberal in a recent primary, gave a valedictory address to the House of Representatives, in which he had served since 1931: "I was distressed a few days ago to see in the press, and not refuted, the statement by the vice president of the United States that if he lived in a tenement, in the ghettos of the cities, on the second floor, he would have the spirit to 'lead a revolt.'...The vice president will bear a grave responsibility in blood and lives if he tries to provoke minority group members to riot for rent supplements."

Liberals steadied their grip and harnessed their reason: "The housing program is too small," ran one editorial. "The poverty program is too small. It is not the riots in the slums, but these lame and inadequate programs that are the real disgrace of the richest society on earth." The Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal responded to those words in an editorial ent.i.tled "A Time for Candor": "We submit that att.i.tudes of that sort are an unmerited rebuke to America and the millions whose hard work and hard thinking have made it the most abundant and just nation on earth.... Neither the society at large nor the Federal Government is responsible for the violence. Those responsible are the rioters and the teachers of casual disregard for law and order." responded to those words in an editorial ent.i.tled "A Time for Candor": "We submit that att.i.tudes of that sort are an unmerited rebuke to America and the millions whose hard work and hard thinking have made it the most abundant and just nation on earth.... Neither the society at large nor the Federal Government is responsible for the violence. Those responsible are the rioters and the teachers of casual disregard for law and order."

And Richard Nixon was off touring the world, unwilling to comment on the matter at all.

A Cuyahoga County grand jury convened to investigate the Cleveland riot, which claimed a total of four lives, on July 29-the same day when, in the town of North Amityville in the middle of Long Island, a mob of four hundred Negroes chanting "Kill those cops!" pelted police with rocks and Molotov c.o.c.ktails after a meeting intended to improve community-police relations-handed down eight indictments charging "a relatively small group of trained and disciplined professionals at this business" with responsibility, "some of whom also are either members or officers in the Communist Party."

Would that it were so simple. "They didn't need any Communists to tell them they were suffering," a city official reflected after the riot. Indeed, while the Cleveland indictments led every newscast, another panel's report languished in obscurity. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights had convened hearings on the Cleveland slums the previous spring and exposed a "law enforcement" apparatus lubricated to hara.s.s Negro innocents at every turn. A minister testified on how cops were collaborating with the pimps: "It has got to the place whereby a man's wife or daughter is not safe to walk the street." The police chief was quoted calling for capital punishment "to keep the Negroes in line." Witnesses told the story of a judge who convicted civil rights demonstrators without a trial, proclaiming, "They are all guilty because I saw it on TV," of ministers who showed up at city hall to demand an audience with the mayor after their written requests were ignored for three years and were thrown in jail, of black applicants to the police force turned down if they belonged to civil rights groups. The psychologist Robert Coles testified that black children in Cleveland were more traumatized than the ones he'd studied in Mississippi. He displayed the drawing one created when asked for a picture of his neighborhood: a series of concentric squares the young artist ent.i.tled "The Death House." A widow recounted the days she spent in jail after after police confirmed that the car they'd insisted she'd stolen was borrowed from her sister. A bus-station porter described his arrest for sitting on the floor after a tiring shift, then the beatings that ensued over four days by cops who ordered him to bark like a dog. Cleveland police routinely kept suspects for seventy-two hours without charge and without access to a lawyer. A study was entered into the record: the average response time to a burglary in a white police district was 8.52 minutes, compared with 20.1 minutes in a black one. police confirmed that the car they'd insisted she'd stolen was borrowed from her sister. A bus-station porter described his arrest for sitting on the floor after a tiring shift, then the beatings that ensued over four days by cops who ordered him to bark like a dog. Cleveland police routinely kept suspects for seventy-two hours without charge and without access to a lawyer. A study was entered into the record: the average response time to a burglary in a white police district was 8.52 minutes, compared with 20.1 minutes in a black one.

The debate spread to the floor of the U.S. Senate. Frank Lausche, Ohio's senior senator, rose to "bow and express my grat.i.tude as a citizen of Cleveland to the police, the firemen, and the National Guard who brought order to Cleveland." He said their response was flawless.

His junior colleague, the liberal Stephen Young, rose in incredulity, displaying from the August 1 issue of Newsweek Newsweek a picture of an innocent housewife riddled with police bullets: "Surely that is evidence of irresponsible action by police." He recalled his own experience long ago in the Ohio National Guard, how poorly he had been trained, how inept the young weekend warriors were at handling their weapons. He related the story of a young guardsman during the riot who "thought he heard prowlers. Firing several rounds from a machine gun in a heavily populated neighborhood appears to me to have been the act of a trigger-happy guardsman." He concluded, "While there may have been extremist groups who grasped the opportunity to exploit the violence...to state that the riots were Communist or otherwise inspired appears to me to be a lame excuse to salve the consciences of those who do not want to, or refuse to, face the conditions that precipitated this disaster and similar ones in other great cities of our nation: rat-infested slums, unemployment, poverty, hopelessness, frustration, and despair." a picture of an innocent housewife riddled with police bullets: "Surely that is evidence of irresponsible action by police." He recalled his own experience long ago in the Ohio National Guard, how poorly he had been trained, how inept the young weekend warriors were at handling their weapons. He related the story of a young guardsman during the riot who "thought he heard prowlers. Firing several rounds from a machine gun in a heavily populated neighborhood appears to me to have been the act of a trigger-happy guardsman." He concluded, "While there may have been extremist groups who grasped the opportunity to exploit the violence...to state that the riots were Communist or otherwise inspired appears to me to be a lame excuse to salve the consciences of those who do not want to, or refuse to, face the conditions that precipitated this disaster and similar ones in other great cities of our nation: rat-infested slums, unemployment, poverty, hopelessness, frustration, and despair."

Young's was the harder sell. Senator Lausche keynoted the annual convention of the Independent Growers Alliance at the Arie Crown Theater in Chicago: "The current campaign of the worst lawlessness in the history of America," he told the four thousand farmers, had been "brought to the boiling point by those who are living in luxury by conducting so-called nonviolent crusades." He got a standing ovation.

The August 8 issue of U.S. News & World Report U.S. News & World Report featured a city-by-city chart: "Five Serious Crimes Every Minute Now...A murder every hour...a rape every 23 minutes...a burglary every 27 seconds...a car stolen every minute." The magazine quoted the FBI: "Too much foolish sentimentalism on the part of judges, probation officers, and others is bringing injurious results." featured a city-by-city chart: "Five Serious Crimes Every Minute Now...A murder every hour...a rape every 23 minutes...a burglary every 27 seconds...a car stolen every minute." The magazine quoted the FBI: "Too much foolish sentimentalism on the part of judges, probation officers, and others is bringing injurious results."

The issue was on the newsstands when a twenty-five-year-old former marine sharpshooter climbed to the top of the University of Texas's ceremonial tower and started blowing away pa.s.sersby at random. Texas governor John Connally-a shooting victim himself-blamed the courts: "We've reached a point in this country where we tend to coddle criminals." Initial reports were that Charles Whitman was just another "all-American boy." U.S. News U.S. News set their readers straight. They noted the account of an Austin merchant that "Whitman attempted to sell him 'a nice supply of p.o.r.nography.'" set their readers straight. They noted the account of an Austin merchant that "Whitman attempted to sell him 'a nice supply of p.o.r.nography.'"

All this moral anarchy: all of it felt linked. A chaplain of the Maryland American Legion testified to a Senate subcommittee that open housing's supporters were "the same advocates of the new morality of situation ethics, and of liberation from the moral laws governing s.e.x and marriage," and the "whole syndrome of unpatriotic pallor and moral disintegration." The president grasped to save the remnants of his Great Society. b.u.mper stickers campaigned against him: JOIN THE GREAT SOCIETY-GO ON WELFARE JOIN THE GREAT SOCIETY-GO ON WELFARE; I FIGHT POVERTY. I WORK. I FIGHT POVERTY. I WORK. He begged Senate Appropriations chair Robert Byrd not to let his meager $20 million rent-subsidy pilot program die: "All I'm trying to do is help these people get out of the rat holes and let them see a little sunlight," he pleaded. Senator Byrd just shrugged and collected proxy votes to kill it. He begged Senate Appropriations chair Robert Byrd not to let his meager $20 million rent-subsidy pilot program die: "All I'm trying to do is help these people get out of the rat holes and let them see a little sunlight," he pleaded. Senator Byrd just shrugged and collected proxy votes to kill it.

What would it mean in November? What would it mean for 1968?

Governor Brown's reelection was in shambles. His campaign put out an attack pamphlet, "Ronald Reagan, Extremist Collaborator-An Expose," charging Reagan's campaign was riddled with John Birch Society members. Reagan had long ago wriggled free of the charge with quicksilver one-liners: "If anyone chooses to vote for me, they are buying my views. I am not buying theirs." Birchers no longer seemed so frightening at any rate. "The Bircher isn't identifiable," a frank Reagan strategist reflected to a reporter after the state Republican convention voted down a renunciation of the Birch Society but voted in a proclamation against open housing, "but the Negro is."

The hit piece unearthed supposedly embarra.s.sing Reagan quotes, such as this one on juvenile delinquents: "I'd like to harness their youthful energy with a strap." Liberals in the Brown camp were oblivious that lines like this were why so many middle-cla.s.s Californians were turning to Reagan in the first place.

Brown opened his general-election campaign at a Catholic trade-union breakfast on Labor Day with a stumbling attempt to chip at Reagan's strengths, proposing an antip.o.r.nography law. It would, he said, "cla.s.s some materials as obscene for children which are not obscene for adults." Reagan, on the other hand, was backing Proposition 16, an initiative to simply ban obscene materials, which Brown considered unconst.i.tutional. Pat once again had the grays. Reagan snapped back in black and white: "In Paris they no longer buy French postcards. They buy California postcards."

Brown also proposed fighting juvenile delinquency by reforming the family court system to better merge "the techniques of science with law enforcement" and address "the tragic aftereffects of broken homes."

Reagan's position? Black and white: "Harness their youthful energy with a strap."

Brown spoke at the Los Angeles Fairgrounds, preaching his accomplishments: "six new state colleges, three university campuses, the greatest freeway system in the world, and only one tax increase." The amphitheater was only half-full. St.u.r.dy proletarians now spent Labor Day at lakeside vacation cabins. At the L.A. County Fair he examined an apiary exhibit. "There's no welfare in the beehive," the beekeeper pointed out.

"What happens if the bees don't work?" the governor asked.

"They die."

Is this what voters wanted? The death penalty for indolence? According to Reagan, in his January kickoff speech, "Working men and women should not be asked to carry the additional burden of a segment of society capable of caring for itself but which prefers making welfare a way of life, freeloading at the expense of more conscientious citizens." To Brown, it made no sense. If California's welfare system was overburdened, it was because of elderly people moving into the state for its generous old-age pensions. But the elderly were sympathetic. So Reagan went after supposed abuses of Aid to Dependent Children. Freeloaders on welfare by choice? Pat Brown would never forget what he had learned canva.s.sing the riot zone in 1965. Women told him they were desperate to work but couldn't find child care; one told him what it was like to scrounge for food to keep her baby from starving the week before her monthly relief check arrived. He remembered, too, that the chairman of his commission convened to study the riot-the conservative former CIA director John McCone-had learned it took a five-hour round-trip by bus from Watts just to file the papers to get on relief-for a stipend that hadn't been adjusted for a decade, despite the inflation Ronald Reagan was always carping about ("The $5 you saved twenty years ago will only buy you $1.85 in groceries today"). The Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times did an investigation: they could only find abuses in four-tenths of 1 percent of relief cases and editorialized that for the sins of these 180 families, and $31,960 lost from the state treasury, "innocent children whose birthright was poverty" were being put at risk of starvation. "If there is a better answer, it won't come from demagogic moralizing." did an investigation: they could only find abuses in four-tenths of 1 percent of relief cases and editorialized that for the sins of these 180 families, and $31,960 lost from the state treasury, "innocent children whose birthright was poverty" were being put at risk of starvation. "If there is a better answer, it won't come from demagogic moralizing."

Reagan was the preeminent demagogic moralizer-and the Times Times endorsed him in the general election nonetheless. In the agricultural San Joaquin Valley, speaking atop a mammoth harvesting machine, after loosening up the crowd with quips ("They say G.o.d is dead. endorsed him in the general election nonetheless. In the agricultural San Joaquin Valley, speaking atop a mammoth harvesting machine, after loosening up the crowd with quips ("They say G.o.d is dead. Wel-l-l-l, Wel-l-l-l, he isn't. We just can't talk about him in a schoolroom"), he started talking about what his handlers had told him to talk about, farm policy. His audience shifted in their seats, bored. He started talking about how anyone coming to California could start drawing a welfare check within twenty-one days. That was false: only those who could prove five years of California residence in the last nine could get welfare, and he isn't. We just can't talk about him in a schoolroom"), he started talking about what his handlers had told him to talk about, farm policy. His audience shifted in their seats, bored. He started talking about how anyone coming to California could start drawing a welfare check within twenty-one days. That was false: only those who could prove five years of California residence in the last nine could get welfare, and then then only after twenty-one days. It delivered him the crowd nonetheless. "Everything he says is America," a young woman told a reporter. An old lady chimed in, "Brown has practically ruined the state. He has a nice home but he lets the Negroes come right next to you." only after twenty-one days. It delivered him the crowd nonetheless. "Everything he says is America," a young woman told a reporter. An old lady chimed in, "Brown has practically ruined the state. He has a nice home but he lets the Negroes come right next to you."

Reagan shuttled down to L.A. to speak to a.s.sembly-line workers at Hughes Aircraft: "Able-bodied men should no longer receive a check for sitting on the front porch," he said to what columnists Evans and Novak called "an animal roar of approval." They observed how white California was "somehow frustrated in the midst of affluence," and that their rage was "encapsulated in the welfare issue."

Brown was now down six points in the polls. The a.s.sociated Press was reporting that 3 percent of GOP state chairs and national committeemen were predicting that Reagan would be their next nominee for president.

Richard Nixon pa.s.sed through Los Angeles for Ronald Reagan late in June, rousing nine thousand Republican donors to their feet at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Then came the more important conclave: with two dozen members of his informal campaign team. The meeting was captained by Maurice Stans; they combed through lists of possible contributors to raise $100,000 to get through the fall. Then Nixon took off for nine cities in seven days to reintroduce himself to the Republican faithful. The airplane problem had been taken care of when jet magnate William Lear loaned him a six-seater. Although he really needed only two seats. He traveled with a single aide, who literally held his coat. The national press paid scant attention. To sophisticated observers the notion that Nixon was positioning himself for a presidential run was still not quite credible. In the New York Times, New York Times, items on Nixon speeches made for handy two-or three-line squibs to fill in s.p.a.ce between the end of real articles and the department store ads. items on Nixon speeches made for handy two-or three-line squibs to fill in s.p.a.ce between the end of real articles and the department store ads.

The Baltimore Sun Baltimore Sun's Jules Witcover took a chance that there was a story in Nixon's perambulations. Tagging along, he found Nixon's sheer willpower astonishing, nearly religious. In Detroit, as the cameramen set up their equipment, reporters warmed up with gag questions: "Mr. Nixon, are you going to run forever?" Their laughs turned to deferential smiles as he swept into the room. He was nice to them. The press was now a const.i.tuency to be courted. They asked their usual questions; he gave his usual answers. It suddenly struck Jules Witcover that "this man never seemed, even in a crowded room, to really be be with anybody-and that he much preferred it that way." with anybody-and that he much preferred it that way."

Nixon was speaking at the annual convention of the Jaycees, the bright-eyed future executives of America, playing it light. The emcee, he said, in his gracious introduction, neglected to mention "that I was a dropout from the electoral college."

An old joke-new to them. Laughter. Flashbulbs popped.

"I want to make sure these people get their pictures. I've had trouble with pictures." There was a pause. Paul Keyes had apparently written timing into Nixon's jokes as well.

"I've had trouble with television, too." They roared.

"I got stoned in Caracas. I'll tell you one thing, it's a lot different from getting stoned at a Jaycees convention."

Pandemonium.

There were still pockets of innocence in America-where getting stoned getting stoned meant just "getting drunk," and where getting drunk was a guilty pleasure. It was the week of his twenty-sixth wedding anniversary. Perhaps Pat thought of the time d.i.c.k forgot their twentieth, in 1960. They had been appearing at the Jaycees convention then, too. "d.i.c.k didn't give me a thing," she had said that year, "but the Jaycees gave me a spray of roses." meant just "getting drunk," and where getting drunk was a guilty pleasure. It was the week of his twenty-sixth wedding anniversary. Perhaps Pat thought of the time d.i.c.k forgot their twentieth, in 1960. They had been appearing at the Jaycees convention then, too. "d.i.c.k didn't give me a thing," she had said that year, "but the Jaycees gave me a spray of roses."

Not recognizing his own wife's anniversary on the campaign trail was a PR mistake, and he wasn't making mistakes now. In L.A. it was near to his mother's birthday, so he invited a slew of reporters to record the moment on her front porch. "Happy birthday, Mum," he said, and shook her hand.

After Detroit it was off to a fund-raiser in little Bay City for Don Riegle, a twenty-eight-year-old businessman running against one of LBJ's forty-seven coattail-freshmen. On the way out Nixon had an aide stop in a shopping center for a razor, to give himself his third shave of the day.

Another part of the routine was the intimate gathering with the big money. In Tulsa, the Republican mayor's front lawn became a parking lot for twenty luxury sedans; the women, Jules Witcover observed, sported "more and bigger diamond rings than I had seen in one place in years"; and the oilman who footed the bill made an unsubtle appeal to buy in early on Oval Office shares: "As you go in, you'll see some blank checkbooks. Just think of what you want to give and then write it right out, while you still have the chance. You might not get the chance again." Nixon spoke from atop a patio chair, noting that Tulsa had given him 63 percent of its vote in 1960 and that they would make it "seventy percent next time." When it came time to raise big money, the fiction that he wasn't running for anything went by the wayside.

Then it was to the ultramodern Tulsa a.s.sembly Center to address the Republican hoi polloi, the great Sooner football coach and NFL commentator Bud Wilkinson beside him on the dais. The congressman who introduced him reminded the crowd of the Hiss case, that pink poltroon Helen Gahagan Douglas, the Checkers Speech: "Here was a young man with his back to the wall." (You, too, know what it feels like to have your back to the wall.) "America faces a storm, and I only regret we don't have him at the helm."

Witcover was startled at the standing ovation at the sound of Nixon's name. He was supposed to be a loser. "One would have thought he had just received the party's presidential nomination."

Then he gave the same old speech, touching up Lyndon on inflation and Vietnam.

The latter was an awkward issue to bring up in any partisan context. Each party had its hawks and doves, even each ideological wing of each party. Atlantic Monthly Atlantic Monthly called Vietnam "the most complex of all political issues." Polls showed 38 percent wanted a negotiated settlement, 33 percent wanted to "expand the war to win, no matter what it costs," and a strong majority, encompa.s.sing both groups, doubted Vietnam affected America's national security in any event. And yet Nixon strafed LBJ on Vietnam in every speech, as if there were some obvious political upside. It certainly wasn't on principle: the line by which he strafed changed from week to week. For months he'd said only Democratic "appeasers" doubted that holding the line in Vietnam was what it took "to prevent World War III." By late June, however, he said Republicans believed "that we should not continue to commit thousands of young Americans to the bottomless pit of a land war in Asia." called Vietnam "the most complex of all political issues." Polls showed 38 percent wanted a negotiated settlement, 33 percent wanted to "expand the war to win, no matter what it costs," and a strong majority, encompa.s.sing both groups, doubted Vietnam affected America's national security in any event. And yet Nixon strafed LBJ on Vietnam in every speech, as if there were some obvious political upside. It certainly wasn't on principle: the line by which he strafed changed from week to week. For months he'd said only Democratic "appeasers" doubted that holding the line in Vietnam was what it took "to prevent World War III." By late June, however, he said Republicans believed "that we should not continue to commit thousands of young Americans to the bottomless pit of a land war in Asia."

Then he jetted off for a monthlong stature-enhancing trip to Europe and Asia, his family photogenically in tow.

In Chicago on July 29, Martin Luther King led what was supposed to be an all-night vigil in front of F. H. Halvorsen Realty in the Bungalow Belt neighborhood of Gage Park. The police rescued his group from an advancing mob. They returned to the same spot the next morning and were met by a hail of rocks.

Senator Paul Douglas received a raft of letters dated July 30. One was from a self-described "staunch Democrat" who "cannot help but wholeheartedly agree with Barry Goldwater.... I feel Mr. Johnson is much responsible for the present riot by his constant encouragement for the Negro to take any measure to a.s.sert himself & DEMAND his rights-Rights, and respect are earned!" Douglas, a beloved senator since 1954, a sage former University of Chicago economics professor, architect of many New Deal policies, a civil rights champion, was up for reelection. His opponent, a dashing, moderate-Republican CEO twenty-seven years his junior, Charles Percy, was also known as a liberal on civil rights: he funded his own private war on poverty in the Chicago slums, complete with a hotline tenants could call to report recalcitrant slumlords, and came out for the Civil Rights Act of 1966, open housing included, in June. The issue seemed to have been taken off the table, and the race would be fought over Vietnam: Douglas was a die-hard hawk and Percy was a dove who had recently proposed an "all-Asian peace conference" to settle the Vietnam War.

Then came Martin Luther King.

"As a Gage Park resident & that of my in-laws & my parents, & their families we are living as decent hard-working people, you should consider martial law to prevent a peaceful community from being hara.s.sed, that you should consider re-establishing law & order & change laws to protect the people and not criminals & people who openly voice their opinions against the majority as well as the government," an Eleanor M. Gavion wrote her senator on July 29. "I have 3 sons & I will gladly have them defend this country here." Soon, Mrs. Gavion's three sons got the chance to do just that, from their very own Gage Park front yards.

Five hundred marchers first moved out into the Bungalow Belt on Sunday, July 31, daring the mob of four thousand to attack as if it were Selma, to offer the spur to a nation's conscience that might deliver up transcendence.

A fusillade of rocks, bottles, and cherry bombs came. Priests and nuns ("Wh.o.r.es!") were singled out. A first-grade teacher, Sister Mary Angelica, was pummeled to the ground. A cheer went up: "We've got another one!"

"White Power! White Power!"

"Polish Power! Polish Power!"

"Burn them like Jews!"

Marchers returning to their cars found them torched, overturned, or rolled into the muddy Marquette Park lagoon. Dante's inferno, right there in the Bungalow Belt.