European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 16, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse August drama in Chicago rivets America police Battle with demonstrators in Chicago s Grant Park during the 1968 democratic National convention. By James Litke associated Pressi t was the last week of August 1968. It was the democratic National convention. It was a mismatch of epic proportions and it was being televised live. Some five months earlier Lyndon Baines Johnson had announced he would not seek nor accept his party s nomination the president s plummeting popularity another casualty of the Vietnam War. Four Days later on april 4, Martin Luther King or. Was shot to death in Memphis igniting big City ghettos across America. A month after that Bobby Kennedy was shot in the head while walking through a California hotel hours after winning that state s primary. He died the next Day. And in the heat of late summer pacifists anarchists and hedonists hippies hippies poets and mystics delegates Dixie rats and bureaucrats swelled the streets of Chicago each Day each with designs on the convention and All certain they could cure what ailed America. Each night those who had Learned to live with the War hunkered in the luxurious hotels along Michigan Avenue where they might hear Dixie rat gov. Lester Maddox of Georgia espouse the dangers of letting misinformed socialists and Power mad politicians take Over the party. Those who opposed the War bivouacked in the City s lakefront Parks where they could listen to Yippie Leader Abbie Hoffman promote the politics of confrontation beat generation poet Allen Ginsberg chant hindu hymns or Folk Singer Phil Ochs remind them it s always the old who Lead us to War it s always the Young who and before the week was out each Camp would command Center stage in the drama that reached into living rooms across the nation. Twenty years later there Are still reminders of the democratic party s Brief flirtation with anarchy. The new York times commented in mid june this is a party that. Has been quite willing to destroy itself to thrash out the most divisive issues that the country faced among them civil rights and the War in and among consequences of 68 were far reaching reforms that in effect broke the Power of old line party Bosses devised in its nominating procedures and kept the White House in Republican hands in three of four elections. It was a tragic year for the democratic party and for responsible politics in a Way recalls former Minnesota sen. Eugene Mccarthy a presidential aspirant and principal in the events of 1968. There were already forces at work that might have torn the party apart anyway the growing women s movement the growing demands for greater racial Equality an inability to incorporate All the demands of a new generation. But in 1968, the party became a kind of unrelated bloc of factions. Each refusing accommodation with another each wanting control at the expense of All the others says Mccarthy who now lives in Virginia and is putting the finishing touches on his 12th Book of essays required nobody growled Richard j. Daley Chicago s Bull tempered mayor is going to take Over this but As darkness fell wednesday aug. 28, with three Days of skirmishing already behind them thousands of would be revolutionaries tried to take the streets in front of the Conrad Hilton hotel from who knows How Many c is wielding night Sticks. The hotel s aging facade reflected the eerie glow of television lights As line after line of helmeted police officers followed tear Gas canisters into the crowd a Day Blue scythe cutting a blood red Swath. I remember finding a room High up in the hotel so i could watch. Thinking Back recalled Mike Royko the pulitzer prize winning columnist of the Chicago Tribune it s hard to believe that spasm of Well silliness turned out to be a Pivotal Point in american history. That s not to minimize the goals of some of the people in the anti War movement. There were people in there with genuine social consciences and Many were Active in the civil rights movement. But because people saw this on to the fight for the democratic party came Down to a confrontation Between Bull headed cops and a Bunch of nervous tired kids following leaders who talked about revolutionary theory and suddenly had everybody paying attention. I remember the chant the whole world is watching.1 Well most of America was anyway and except for Jimmy Carter squeaking through they have put republicans in the White House Ever from a five room suite on the Hilton s 25th floor then vice president Hubert Humphrey watched the scene below his Fate already in the hands of men whose Job was to keep the chaos in the streets from reaching the convention site four Miles to the South. Humphrey had not won a single one of the 15 party primaries had not even entered the Campaign until two Days after lbs said he was getting out. Yet everyone who came to Chicago that week the supporters of the dovish Mccarthy the backers of Earnest South Dakota sen. George Mcgovern the idealists who had t recovered from Robert Kennedy s assassination knew Humphrey Likely would emerge the candidate. In 1968, delegates ran on primary ballots without a stated preference and the political professionals the governor the mayor the state party chairman exercised an inordinate amount of influence on How the entire delegation voted. That enabled Humphrey to court the local heavyweights and come away with All the delegates in states such As Pennsylvania which had Given 90 percent of its vote to Mccarthy in the Beauty it was As crude a display of Power As had been seen in Many years punctuated by the televised sequence of Daley drawing a Finger across his Broad neck in a signal to the podium to Cut the microphones As Connecticut sen. Abraham Ribicoff gave his nominating speech for Mcgovern and spoke of Gestapo tactics in the streets of soon afterwards those same party professionals delivered Humphrey s first ballot nomination with the same sanguine efficiency police displayed in their 20 minute downtown sweep of protesters. I recall seeing anti War protest Leader David Dellinger standing along the curb right in front of the Blackstone hotel said Deputy chief of patrol Carl Dobrich who served in the Chicago police task Force that night. He was standing there like a whipped Puppy. He was in this incredibly rumpled suit and was holding a Long stemmed Flower a Daisy or something. The Stem had been broken in the Middle and he looked pathetic. An hour or so before he d been a Leader. A guru or whatever. And he was going to Lead everybody to a new Charles sky King and wife Lois display their collection of 1968 democratic presidential convention Memorabilia. By Lindsey Tanner associated press they were left Wing activists whose courtroom antics and commitment to political change reflected a generation of angry youth disillusioned by a nation in undeclared War thousands of Miles away. The defendants who won National attention in the Chicago seven trial Are Middle aged and grayer now one the author of a Barbecue Cookbook another a professional party giver Many Are fathers and husbands. But most remain committed to a watered Down Brand of the activism that made them household names 20 years ago. A lot of people Tell me i m Selling out because i wrote a Cookbook says former Black Panther Leader Bobby Seale 51, whose Barbecue with Bobby was recently published. I say Why do you want to pigeonhole me " Seale says. I still believe in revolving political and economic Power Back to the hands of the Seale and seven others were charged with conspiracy to incite violence in August 1968 at the democratic National convention in Chicago. The 4v2-month trial featured wild haired defendants whose antics included wearing judicial Robes to court taking them off and stomping on them and a 74-year old judge who refused to allow Seale his own attorney and ordered him bound and gagged in the courtroom when he protested. I think it certainly was a microcosm of the times former defendant John Froines says but it was also theater so it was an exaggerated statement of the times As Well. When Abbie Hoffman said that the judge came right out of Central casting it was True. Instead of them picking a Liberal judge who was very restrained they picked a very harsh prejudiced Jurist who in a sense kind of reflected the kind of oppression that people were. Talking about As being the nature of America at the the Case opened in september 1969 and became known As the Chicago seven trial when . District judge Julius Hoffman severed Seale from the others convicted him of contempt of court and sentenced him to four years in prison. Five of the other seven defendants Rennie Davis David Dellinger Tom Hayden Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin also were charged with crossing state lines with intent to riot and were found guilty in february 1970. Froines and Lee Weiner were acquitted. None of the defendants was convicted of the conspiracy charge. The five convictions and Seale s contempt citation later were overturned by the 7th . Circuit court of appeals citing errors by judge Hoffman and criticizing his courtroom Demeanour. The seven defendants and their attorneys also were cited for contempt of court nearly 200 times but All but 15 of the citations were dismissed. In a 1982 interview a year before his death at age 87, judge Hoffman said the defendants had made a mockery of the nation s highest trial court. Most have no regrets about their behaviour during the trial. I was standing up for the sixth amendment of the Constitution Seale says that every citizen has the right to have Legal counsel of his Choice. I never disrupted the courtroom unless my name was mentioned. But judge i d say you re a racist racist dog you denied me my constitutional rights " Seale the father of three now works in minority recruitment at Temple University in Philadelphia where he is doing graduate work in political science and african american studies. He also works in a program aimed at getting students into Community service and social action. I be refined my perspective a lot says Seale. I stopped advocating overthrowing the government when the government stopped trying to overthrow our he plans to use proceeds from his Cookbook to fund scholarships for minority College students. Former Yippie Leader Abbie Hoffman one of the Brash est of the defendants during the trial remains one of the most politically involved. I m an american dissident says Hoffman now 51 and the father of three. He has made a career out of political protests and has been arrested numerous times in recent years in demonstrations against South african apartheid environmental hazards and other causes. I Don t think my goals have changed since i was 4 and i fought schoolyard bullies says Hoffman who rents a Home in new Hope a. Fellow Yippie Jerry Rubin now owns a new York company that produces parties for yuppies at Manhattan s posh est nightclubs. Twenty years ago Rubin called his indictment the Academy award of at age 50, with a wife and infant daughter he says my protest Days Are but he s proud of his actions in the Days of rebellion we Shook up the country we fought authority illegitimate authority. I woke up the country to immorality in authoritative places. When i think about it. I miss the sense of purpose i miss the sense of righteous anger. But i m much healthier than i was co defendant Lee Weiner says i was political then i m political then Weiner was a bearded 29-year-old Northwestern University research assistant and anti War activist who read books in the courtroom during the trial. Now he s a 48-year-old father of four and runs a direct mail firm in Washington for non profit organizations and political clients. I still consider myself utterly committed to the Pursuit of social Justice in the political context says Weiner who has taken part in recent protests for More aids research and soviet jews. Weiner says he and the other defendants weren t a Bunch of wild radicals but were dedicated to a belief that people can and should be Able to live better together. And to a ferocious refusal to accept injustice As simply a Given part of our Froines now a professor at Urcla s school of Public health was a Yale University graduate with a . In chemistry who decided to spend the summer of 1968 in Chicago with his in Laws before taking a faculty position in Oregon. Froines had done Community organizing work with torn Hayden and Rennie Davis and decided to get involved in the demonstrations. I m not an activist now which in t to say that i have turned away from activism says Froines 48, who served in the Carter administration As director of toxic substances at the Federal occupational safety and health administration. It s just that it s a different time and place. I still believe in progressive ideas and try to work that out in a different the father of two Froines champions environmental health issues at Urcla and has a 20-year-old daughter who has taken part in Campus activism. Davis is in his late 40s and lives in the Denver area where he sold life insurance for a while and dabbled in hinduism. Dellinger 72, a lifelong peace activist lives in Peacham vt., and has been Active in protests against . Involvement in Nicaragua. Hayden 48, is a three term California assemblyman who espouses Liberal causes and has been married to actress Jane Fonda for 15 years. The 60s were a decade of great achievement balanced by agony and tragedy Hayden says. It was a time that was very uplifting and focusing and we Haven t had a decade like that five of the Chicago seven during their lengthy trial. From left Abbie Hoffman John Froines Lee Weiner David Dellinger Rennie Davis and Tom Hayden. Jerry Rubin is seated next to Girlfriend Nancy Kurschat who was not involved in the trial. Page 14 the stars and stripes saturday july 16,1988 the stars and stripes Page 15
