European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 03, 1968, Darmstadt, Hesse Tuesday Strtt Mytr 3, the stars and stripes William p. Buckley m. Now hear this f t. T Page 9 late vow Las of night while the orators droned on about this or that Triumph or Ignominy of the credentials com Mittee a cd reporter on the prowl spotted Richard Daley of Chicago and thought to while away a minute of two by questioning him. Hoho Hoh sold and How Are you mayor Daley Grunt. Or. Mayor would you Tell us Why it is that you covered up some of the City s eyesores just for the Sake of the convention testily Why did t you people Aikem that in Miami a moment s pause. Politician s Don t hardly speak that Way to ic8sj. Weller or. Mayor. Was t talking about Miami i a talking about Here Chicago. Silence. Namely. Well Tell me this some of the criticism that 50 million to listeners cautions Here at this Point mayor Daley engages someone else in Conversa Tion As though can you imagine lbs did t exist. Merci fully Walter Cronkite pans him self in smiles Urban Ely and says something about How he guesses the mayor is in an irritated mood tonight and maybe he has t appreciated All the criticism the visitors Here have made of him. The episode throw Light on several aspects of the convention in Chicago some of them applicable to other conventions and indeed other situations. There is the matter of the re Porter with microphone in hand. There you Are minding your own or even the Public a Busi Ness and suddenly a microphone is thrust two inches away from your Mouth a question if asked of you and you Are unhappily aware that 50 million people Are listening for your answer. There Are several appropriate responses. If you Are say Harold Stassen you grab the Mike and embark on a speech on any thing at All until and it will be very Toon Walter Cronkite gently vaporizes you from the screen. Then there it the gentleman who does t want to say any thing at this Point to anybody let alone to 50 million people but he is genial by nature and perhaps wary of antagonizing the Media As we Are called so he answers the question Eva sively and cheerfully exchanging a Little repartee. By the Way very important he must Call the reporter by his first name else hell be thought aloof bador so unimportant As not to have been sufficiently interesting to the press in the past As to have got into first name terms very sad. Then there Are those politicians who feel either that they Are sex offi Cio big enough to write their own rules concerning press conferences mayor Daley or those lesser ones who believe that they have that right irrespective of How big they Are Gene Mccarthy. They run grave risks but they cause at least this heart to flutter with Pride at occasional assertions of privacy. Nothing is better calculated to destroy a carefully constructed impression than careless submissions to redundant interrogation. C Watha Niton Star Syndicate inc. An awful but real convention Cruz Csc like the republicans in Miami the Democrat left Chicago with what they expected. The prediction there was for vice president Humphrey and trouble both in the streets and in the Hall. It came completely True. But unlike Miami it was never a sure thing and each prediction came True by a series of bad calculations. However awful Chicago wot a real convention about real issues Flora Lewis in both the Large Public sense and the narrow personal sense. The moment of suspense weren t synthetic neither about president Johnson s involvement nor sen. Edward m. Kennedy s chances nor the possibility of violence in the streets nor the de lighted Relief when Humphrey Tould finally accept the Nomina Tion and everybody could go Home. The first moment came at the end of the previous week when gov. Connolly of Texas threat ened to Lead a Southern revolt which would have Cost Humphrey his first ballot Victory and possibly worse. To prove he meant business Connolly arranged the open suggestion once More of drafting president Johnson. The lbs part was never real but it put enough Edge on the threat of a Southern holdout to Mako Humphrey Stop trying for a Compromise platform Plank on Vietnam and go with the tougher Plank Johnson wanted. The Effort to launch a draft of Teddy Kennedy were also Genu Ine. But they were not at All spontaneous they had been planned for a Good two months of carefully that when the draft try reached its Peak the Day be fore Humphrey won a Book went on Al in the convention hotel called Ink heir to it a a Campaign biography in three tone color on lick paper. Not an overnight Job � traced i lift up to his to turn rom Europe to Hyan Liport in � a no occident that the talk of drafting Kennedy burst suddenly at the last minute. Prom he beginning timing Hajj been on wired crucial the first port not inspired by Kennedy was to find a Way to keep the ant but still onh Mccarthy votes from wandering off a null they could to delivered. Hot a Dacy of sen George Mcgovern came up. Mcgovern was completely honest in saying he was t just standing in for Teddy. It was wild Gamble then. But when Theodore Sorensen the aide of president Kennedy first brought it up Mcgovern was cautious and wanted to know first whether he was being tricked or really being invited to run. He did t mind the double ploy of either trying to hold the convention for Teddy or trying the very Long shot Chance of be ing the one Mccarthy and Ken Nedy forces could agree on if Humphrey failed. But he wanted to know where he stood from someone who really spoke for the Kennedy and that meant either Teddy himself or brother in Law Stephen Smith. Smith eventually did Call my Golem and give the signal. Then Mcgovern announced. Then the Kennedy operations team turned up and gave the Mcgovern Campaign a professional staff free of charge. There wore three important reasons Why the Kennedy Effort was held off or camouflaged until the last minute. One was that it depended on including Mccarthy s support and both in conscience and practicality Mccarthy ites who were prepared to switch Felt that they had to wait until their Man saw clearly that he had no Chance. A Stab in the Back cry from Mccarthy would have killed the plan. The second reason was that while there was no doubt Teddy Kennedy had inherited a lot of i brother Robert s ardent Back ing he has perhaps also inherited Many of Bobby s enemies. Exposing him too soon would have been a risk. And the third crucial reason was that the Teddy draft Campaign was really mounted by what has been called the Ken Nedy clique without any decisive word on Teddy s personal wishes. As the group had feared the minute a Kennedy looked Possi ble for the presidency the opposition coalesced. That was when the Southern favorite sons de dared in unison that they would release their first ballot votes assuring a Humphrey Victory after All. C 1468, new Day inc. Backers of National primary increase in the aftermath of the demo cratic National convention the sentiment of Many if not most of the delegates seem to have been Best summed up by a prominent party Leader who refuted to attend the Mammoth gathering because it was a remnant of 19th-Cen Tury horse and buggy politics. This judgment voiced by sen. Frank Church of Idaho no doubt will seem a Little extreme after seme of the irritations and frustrations of the Long wrangling week subs do but it surely h a fact that the events of 1968 have raised Erlou questions about to i entire convention system and have inspired fresh demands for Radical Reform. This has happened before but not to that degree. Church with a number of oth ers. Intend to press for a constitutional amendment to abolish conventions in favor of a Pri Mary in All the stot to choose the party nominees. This would operate pretty much along the lines of the presidential preferential primaries that Are now held in 15 states except that it would be National and simultaneous probably in july or August. There is High interest in it at the moment because of the wide spread feeling generated at both conventions that the popular will i no match for the entrenched politicians under the existing sys tem. This i not altogether the Case but the feeling prevails. Actually there is method As Well As madness in the Conven Tion method and while it is awk Ward if not archaic in Tome particulars it i not wholly unsuited to the Peculiar requirements of a nation a Large and diverse a America. Finally a National primary which sounds More pm pm than it is is full of trap As will to Toon when Congress Start to hold hearings on it. The opinion apr a in the column and cartoon on thl Par print Siom of hit author and a in a Way to to con Jar a Rwy nil a the Vuvra of the Star t4 strip a
