A Washington Post Washington Post article turned unexpectedly pensive: "The 1972 political year began with hopes that it would be unlike the bitter, divisive past.... But in less than a week all that has pa.s.sed. The shooting of George Wallace of Alabama came exactly a week after President Nixon somberly announced the mining of North Vietnamese ports and increased bombing raids which raised the specter of a direct confrontation with the Soviet Union." article turned unexpectedly pensive: "The 1972 political year began with hopes that it would be unlike the bitter, divisive past.... But in less than a week all that has pa.s.sed. The shooting of George Wallace of Alabama came exactly a week after President Nixon somberly announced the mining of North Vietnamese ports and increased bombing raids which raised the specter of a direct confrontation with the Soviet Union."
Wallace"s shocked opponents suspended their campaigns. "Say a prayer for our own country," said George McGovern. A story that might any other day have made the front pages-a Republican congressman"s district office in Royal Oak, Michigan, was destroyed by a firebomb-was relegated in the Post Post to a tiny item Chapter One. Newspapers and newsmagazines had begun every year since 1968 with earnest, hopeful predictions that this might be the year all the bitterness and division finally pa.s.sed. They hadn"t been right once. to a tiny item Chapter One. Newspapers and newsmagazines had begun every year since 1968 with earnest, hopeful predictions that this might be the year all the bitterness and division finally pa.s.sed. They hadn"t been right once.
Richard Nixon"s reaction to the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination was different from that of his gentle-hearted compet.i.tor. Bob Haldeman waited an hour before interrupting an important meeting-the CEO of Pepsi, Don Kendall, was reporting on his progress in recruiting executives from every state for a business branch of the Committee to Re-Elect the President-to tell the president Wallace had been shot but was alive. Nixon"s immediate response was panic. He must have had the fleeting thought it could be someone tied to him: they had a lot of loose cannons in the field. A vision of November 22, 1963, flashed before him-when the immediate presumption out of Dallas was that the shooter must have been a right-winger, and Barry Goldwater"s decent chance to win the presidency disappeared.
Nixon uttered his political a.s.sessment: the issue was not "the legalities or specifics. Don"t worry about doing it all by the book, the problem is who wins the public opinion....
"What matters for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours is trying to get the right posture set before the press immediately leaps on exactly the wrong thing and starts making a big point of how the guy is a right-wing radical."
The big news story the morning of the shooting was the exceedingly delicate question of whether the Kremlin, as mines floated in Haiphong Harbor, would cancel the late-May summit. The Wallace shooting now spiraled the political situation similarly beyond control, and Nixon was stricken with a rage to control. He called for Chuck Colson: "He"ll do anything." The president smiled. "I mean, anything!"
Colson was ordered to contact the FBI"s number two man, Mark Felt, to draw a bead on the state of the investigation. Felt told him Secret Service agents had entered the suspect"s apartment in Milwaukee and confiscated political paraphernalia of every description, but that the FBI was waiting for a warrant to search it further. Colson relayed that report in the Oval Office, and together he and Nixon waited for the FBI to call back.
The president, sucking down c.o.c.ktails, started woolgathering: "left-wing propaganda" was what he hoped they"d find. "Too bad we couldn"t get somebody down there to plant it." At which Colson realized that there was no reason they couldn"t.
The next time he spoke to the FBI, it was with Nixon listening in. Colson told Felt they had heard rumors that Bremer was a left-winger. Colson wasn"t reporting intelligence but inventing it, the better to cover his tracks for what he was about to do. Then Colson excused himself: certain operations it was better the president didn"t know about.
When he came back, the president asked him, "Is he a left-winger, right-winger?"
"Well, he"s going to be a left-winger by the time we get through, I think."
"Good. Keep at that, keep at that."
"Yeah. I just wish that, G.o.d, I"d thought sooner about planting literature out there," Colson said. The president laughed, as Colson, perhaps a bit too boastfully, noted, "It may be a little late, although I"ve got one source that maybe-"
"Good."
Colson grew vague, drawing back into pa.s.sive voice: "I mean, if they found it near his apartment, that would be helpful."
What he was simultaneously revealing and obscuring was that Howard Hunt was on his way to Milwaukee. While the FBI waited fastidiously for their search warrant, he was going to try to sneak McGovern and Kennedy literature into Arthur Bremer"s quarantined apartment. It looked, however, that he wouldn"t be able to do it. Thus Colson"s frustration that he hadn"t thought of it earlier.
Another mission that night fared better. Nixon met with his secretary of the treasury, who was scheduled the next day to resign-like all Nixon"s most trusted confidants, to take on a job in his campaign, in this case heading Democrats for Nixon. At Nixon"s instigation, one of Connally"s last official acts was to officially bestow Secret Service protection on two more Democrats whose status as presidential contenders Nixon wanted to boost: Ted Kennedy and Shirley Chisholm. Life Life happened to have a photographer and reporter with Kennedy-one more will-he-or-won"t-he? feature-when his detail arrived. They ran a story on what it was like to be a Kennedy when an a.s.sa.s.sination occurred, how the "harmless, disturbed" hangers-on Senate staffers called "our regulars" suddenly took on a more menacing aspect; how Kennedy had to explain to his children-and later that night, Robert Kennedy"s children-what they were seeing on TV. happened to have a photographer and reporter with Kennedy-one more will-he-or-won"t-he? feature-when his detail arrived. They ran a story on what it was like to be a Kennedy when an a.s.sa.s.sination occurred, how the "harmless, disturbed" hangers-on Senate staffers called "our regulars" suddenly took on a more menacing aspect; how Kennedy had to explain to his children-and later that night, Robert Kennedy"s children-what they were seeing on TV.
From then on, hungover newsmen made the extra effort to get to the morning events for the candidates they were covering. None wanted to miss the one where he got shot.
Within a week the world learned that George Wallace, having won sympathy landslides in Maryland and Michigan, would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Humphrey had to win California in June to hope to stop the South Dakotan on the first ballot; yet McGovern, underdog no more, was spending four times as much money there as Humphrey and looked likely to pull out a landslide. That raised the awkward possibility that the labor chieftains, Dixie courthouse bosses, and Mayor Daleys would read the writing on the wall and fall in behind McGovern, holding their noses against the radical"s stench-uniting the Democrats, much to the president"s chagrin.
Nixon flew halfway across the world for his triumphant summit in Russia as an article ran in the Post Post with George Gallup"s byline: "McGovern and HHH Abreast vs. Nixon." The point was not merely that Nixon"s lead-estimated to be between eight and twelve points, depending on whether Wallace was included-was too close for comfort. It was that Humphrey and McGovern each did approximately with George Gallup"s byline: "McGovern and HHH Abreast vs. Nixon." The point was not merely that Nixon"s lead-estimated to be between eight and twelve points, depending on whether Wallace was included-was too close for comfort. It was that Humphrey and McGovern each did approximately the same the same against him. That meant the theory behind his dirty-tricks strategy-McGovern was the least electable candidate-wasn"t being borne out by the facts. against him. That meant the theory behind his dirty-tricks strategy-McGovern was the least electable candidate-wasn"t being borne out by the facts.
But who would he face in November? Democratic county chairmen predicted Humphrey would be the nominee. But McGovern appeared to be far ahead on delegates. With the Wallace shooting, the situation became yet more confused. What would happen at the Democratic convention, opening July 10, with Wallace"s delegates? If he was incapacitated, would they still be allowed to vote for him? If not, how would they be disposed of? What kind of deals would Wallace be able or prepared to make: on the nomination, on delegate credentials, on the traveling platform hearings set to get under way in eleven cities at the end of May? If things didn"t work out to his satisfaction, could he still threaten a third-party bid?
A behind-the-scenes figure was now thrust to the forefront: DNC chair Larry O"Brien, who would be responsible for these delicate and unprecedented decisions. Would he decide in the interests of Humphrey, a longtime close a.s.sociate? Or McGovern, who won nearly four times as many votes as Humphrey in the May 23 Oregon primary? Or kowtow to the Wallace const.i.tuency in the face of the vociferous antibusing sentiment?
Nixon could formulate no coherent strategic plan for the general election until he knew which which Democratic Party he might be running against. Hopefully, he would soon have the intelligence he needed. The same team that had broken into the office of Daniel Ellsberg"s shrink had established a beachhead at the Howard Johnson"s across from DNC chair O"Brien"s office at the Watergate complex, ready to effectuate the revised CRYSTAL phase of Gordon Liddy"s Operation GEMSTONE. Democratic Party he might be running against. Hopefully, he would soon have the intelligence he needed. The same team that had broken into the office of Daniel Ellsberg"s shrink had established a beachhead at the Howard Johnson"s across from DNC chair O"Brien"s office at the Watergate complex, ready to effectuate the revised CRYSTAL phase of Gordon Liddy"s Operation GEMSTONE.
There had already, on May 16, been a mysterious break-in at the offices of a Washington law firm close to Humphrey. On May 22, as the president toasted the chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow, Bernard Barker"s Cubans flew to D.C. A sixth-floor Howard Johnson"s room had been transformed into a listening post, manned by a former FBI agent named Al Baldwin. D-day for cracking Larry O"Brien"s office was May 26, the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. But already things were awry. They were smoother criminals than Arthur Bremer, but not by much.
Six Cubans checked into the Watergate"s hotel Friday afternoon. But since the Committee to Re-Elect"s security chief James McCord arrived with only four walkie-talkies, two men had to be struck from the team. They were supposed to refer to each other by aliases. But McCord got fl.u.s.tered and used real names.
Hunt and the Cubans were disguised as businessmen attending a banquet in the Watergate"s Continental Room, which Hunt had booked for its convenient access to a service corridor. Apparently they decided neither inebriation nor torpor would hinder their mission: the epicurean Hunt catered an extravagant meal and libations (nursing a bleeding ulcer, he took his whiskey mixed with milk).
He chased off the waiter with a large tip and ran a movie to m.u.f.fle the sound of their final consultation. Then, at ten thirty, a security guard poked his head in to tell them their rental time was up. So they turned off the lights and hid in a closet until midnight. But the team"s locksmith-proprietor of the Missing Link Key Shop in Miami-couldn"t open the door to the service corridor.
A second group, led by Liddy, simultaneously cased McGovern campaign headquarters across town, the first of several abortive break-in attempts there. The problem: d.a.m.ned idealistic McGovern volunteers never left the office, even in the middle of the night.
The Cubans tried the Watergate again the next night. This time their only cover was signing the registry that they were visiting the Federal Reserve Board offices on the eighth floor-and this time, the door to the DNC office wouldn"t fall to the locksmith. "He says he doesn"t have the right tools," Barker reported to Hunt and Liddy"s listening post. Though thanks to Maurice Stans, they had the means to fly the locksmith all the way back to Miami, to return the next day with his full set of picks and pries.
Liddy"s team moved out for another, more predawn run at the McGovern offices. Liddy positioned himself in the back alley. In front, they stationed an operative who worked undercover in the McGovern campaign to tell them the lay of the office. A policeman spotted him loitering nervously on this crime-ridden street and ordered him to move along. The men John Mitch.e.l.l paid for "security" had just barely avoided getting the chief counsel of the president of the United States"s campaign staff caught casing a burglary.
It was Sunday, May 28. The locksmith, early in the evening, pried open a door on the B-2 level of the Watergate parking garage. Alongside a Hunt-Liddy operative named Frank Sturgis-he was born Frank Angelo Fiorini, but used a cover name from one of Howard Hunt"s novels-he taped the latch open. They continued picking and taping locks all the way up to the threshold. The strike team would enter later, removing the tape and locking the doors behind them.
It worked. Cubans rifled DNC files, removing doc.u.ments to photograph. James McCord installed taps on two phones. He tested them with a small pocket receiver and decided they worked to his satisfaction. Across the street Hunt and Liddy spied the darting flashlight beams across the way and embraced: "The horse is in the house."
As G. Gordon Liddy wrote in his memoirs, "The experience of the past ten years left no doubt in my mind that the United States was at war internally as well as externally." Finally, the good guys had a leg up. His boss was, indeed, harvesting another triumph. In Moscow, Nixon and Brezhnev had signed their historic Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty two days earlier. On the twenty-eighth, the president made a historic radio and television address to the people of the Soviet Union-"a message of friendship from all the people of the United States and to share with you some of my thoughts about the relations between two countries and about the way to peace and progress in the world.... As great powers, we shall sometimes be compet.i.tors, but we need never be enemies."
To a nation well sick of Cold War tensions and the rotten jungle war it had brought, this proved catnip. In the next Gallup Poll Nixon"s approval rating, 49 percent at the beginning of the year, was now 61 percent. The last six months had been his most successful as president. Inflation was down from 4.4 percent to 3.2 percent. It all threw into disarray the best-laid plans of the Democratic presidential contenders, whose a.s.sumption as they had planned their campaigns had been that the primary would be where all the action was, because beating this snore of an unpopular president would be easy.
In California two Democratic senators, next-door neighbors in Washington, once close friends, whose children left their handprints together in the wet cement of the Humphreys" patio, were scratching each other"s eyeb.a.l.l.s out. Or rather Hubert Humphrey was scratching out George McGovern"s. The candidate of reform and openness simply sighed his dismay. "Dirty politics," Hunter S. Thompson wrote, "confused him."
The burbling happy warrior from Minnesota had been carrying out his third presidential campaign as a cla.s.sic glad-handing, backslapping, ward-heeling, something-for-everyone Democrat; young McGovernites were convinced he was on uppers. Now, Humphrey shifted to dirty pool. His adviser the old Kennedy hand Kenny O"Donnell lied to the press that Humphrey didn"t even need California to win the nomination. Actually, if he lost California, he was through. Every little const.i.tuency counted. Pamphlets circulated signed by Lorne Greene (ne Lorne Hyman Greene): "Senator McGovern, now you claim to support the state of Israel, but why, before this primary campaign, have you acted and voted against her?" In actuality on the crucial litmus tests-the sale of F-4 Phantom jets and moving America"s emba.s.sy to Jerusalem-their supports were pretty much identical, the same as Scoop Jackson"s. But the Field poll showed McGovern 20 points ahead, and Humphrey was desperate.
The May 26 morning papers handed Humphrey an a.s.sist. Amnesty, abortion, and the legalization of pot Amnesty, abortion, and the legalization of pot simply didn"t scan, but tart-tongued Senator Hugh Scott (R-Pa.) came to the rescue by declaring McGovern "the acid, abortion, and amnesty-the triple-A-candidate." McGovern responded that Scott himself was one of "these entrenched Establishment figures at the top of both political parties" who were "afraid" of his war against political privilege. Then he prepared to debate his opponent, glad for a change to fight this thing out on the issues, honestly and in the open. simply didn"t scan, but tart-tongued Senator Hugh Scott (R-Pa.) came to the rescue by declaring McGovern "the acid, abortion, and amnesty-the triple-A-candidate." McGovern responded that Scott himself was one of "these entrenched Establishment figures at the top of both political parties" who were "afraid" of his war against political privilege. Then he prepared to debate his opponent, glad for a change to fight this thing out on the issues, honestly and in the open.
ABC"s Issues and Answers Issues and Answers had asked McGovern earlier if he would join Humphrey in a one-hour joint appearance on national TV. Way ahead, McGovern should have turned down the debate-especially since Humphrey was $700,000 in debt and couldn"t air TV commercials. Instead McGovern jumped at the chance. NBC and CBS extended the same invitation. McGovern eagerly accepted those, too. had asked McGovern earlier if he would join Humphrey in a one-hour joint appearance on national TV. Way ahead, McGovern should have turned down the debate-especially since Humphrey was $700,000 in debt and couldn"t air TV commercials. Instead McGovern jumped at the chance. NBC and CBS extended the same invitation. McGovern eagerly accepted those, too.
The CBS show came first, on Sunday, May 28. The opening question was to Humphrey: George Herman asked if California was do-or-die for him. Humphrey gave a brief denial before borrowing a trick from Jack Kennedy in 1960: he changed the subject, in order to attack. Humphrey said, "We were both wrong on Vietnam," because both had voted for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. McGovern always distinguished himself from the compet.i.tion on Vietnam with the slogan "right from the start." Here, Humphrey was calling him a flip-flopper-and added, "In taxation, he is contradictory and inconsistent."
Humphrey then spoke to a Nixonite anxiety: that America would become weak. "On defense cuts...I believe they cut into the muscle to the very fiber of our national security." McGovern would turn America "into a second-cla.s.s power."
When it came time for McGovern to speak, he spluttered, "I find it almost impossible to believe that the senator from Minnesota would attack my record on Vietnam."
He was truly taken aback that his old friend would insult the intelligence of knowledgeable voters with the claim that somehow their Vietnam records were equivalent. But most voters, of course, are not knowledgeable. A show like this might be their first introduction to the candidates. McGovern, calling his opponent "the senator from Minnesota," was following a strategy of courtesy in the hopes of mending fences with Humphrey forces for the general election. But thrown on the defensive, he he looked like the mean-spirited one-testily recalling October of 1967, when "Senator Humphrey was saying Vietnam is "our greatest adventure and a wonderful one it is."" looked like the mean-spirited one-testily recalling October of 1967, when "Senator Humphrey was saying Vietnam is "our greatest adventure and a wonderful one it is.""
Humphrey got dirtier. One of the panelists asked a Vietnam question. Humphrey, close-lipped, somehow changed the subject to...welfare: "When it comes to other aspects, such as in welfare legislation he calls a horrible mess, let me say that a seventy-two-billion-dollar welfare proposal that Senator McGovern makes today is not only a horrible mess, it would be an unbelievable burden upon the taxpayer."
When Humphrey finished, it was McGovern"s turn to answer the question about Vietnam. So he answered the question about Vietnam. Then the show went on commercial break, leaving Humphrey"s welfare smear hanging.
What had just happened? Basically, McGovern had become attracted, late in 1971, to a "demogrant" proposal to counter the Nixon administration"s stalemated Family a.s.sistance Program legislation. It differed from Nixon"s not in kind but in detail and degree. Like FAP, the more money a family earned, the less the federal benefit-the benefit adjusted so that additional money earned would give a family a bigger total income. At least theoretically, the program as it had been presented to McGovern would be paid for by reducing income-tax loopholes for the rich. Humphrey"s "$72 billion"-the defense budget was then about $80 billion-was the cost of an unrelated proposal from the National Welfare Rights Organization for a $6,500 guaranteed income for every American. The actual figure McGovern used as a concrete example when discussing his own welfare-and-taxation proposal was $1,000 per family member.
CBS came back from commercial, Humphrey"s underhanded blow hanging in the air. The moderator, responsibly enough, asked Humphrey where he got the $72 billion figure; he said from a Senate Finance Committee bill McGovern had submitted. McGovern angrily shot back that he had indeed submitted the NWRO"s bill as a courtesy but that he did not support it.
Responsibly enough, the moderator followed up: how much would would his own proposal cost? his own proposal cost?
"I honestly don"t know. I don"t have the figures," he responded.
"Oh, G.o.d," McGovern staffers moaned. "There it goes."
McGovern wanted to campaign on issues. But he was bored by their details. Richard Nixon was bored by them, too. But Richard Nixon was willing to bulls.h.i.t. Nixon"s introduced the FAP on TV in 1969 by noting, "What the nation needs is not more welfare, but more "workfare""-fudging the fact that he was proposing a minimum income for even those who didn"t work. That was what people remembered. What people remembered from this debate was Humphrey"s scowling line "Senator McGovern has concocted a fantastic welfare scheme which will give everyone, even Nelson Rockefeller, $1,000, and it will cost the taxpayers sixty or seventy billion dollars," and Humphrey"s claim that to pay for it "a secretary working in San Francisco, making $8,000...would have an increase in his or her taxes under Senator McGovern"s welfare proposal of $567."
The helpless splutter of the prairie populist, unwilling to bulls.h.i.t in return: "That simply is not true."
"Well, it is true, and a family that has $12,000 a year, a family of four, would have a $409 increase."
"And that"s not true."
"Now the senator can say it"s not true; he doesn"t even know know what the price tag to his bill is." what the price tag to his bill is."
The McGovern dynamo started crumbling. Humphrey got a $300,000 cash infusion from a mysterious Texas billionaire. The debate on NBC became a chance for Robert Novak, now a confirmed enemy of the doyen of "the Democratic Party"s left fringe," to confront McGovern with the Humphrey campaign"s claim that his spending proposals would cost $100 to $160 billion. ABC"s debate was memorable for the inclusion of the clownish Sam Yorty ("I"m the only one here wearing a POW bracelet"), the novelty Shirley Chisholm, and, to cap off the irrelevance, a surrogate for George Wallace.
Another factor that may well have influenced voters was the conclusion of the last great conspiracy trial of the era. Once more a jury of ordinary Americans had decided a prosecution was trying to make them complicit in a politically motivated witch hunt: right before the election, a judge in San Jose announced the acquittal of Angela Davis, the celebrity black militant, for allegedly providing the rifles with which the "Soledad Brothers" raided the Marin County Courthouse in August of 1970 in their attempt to free Black Panther George Jackson by kidnapping, then killing, the judge.
Witnesses" accounts of the gruesome courtroom slaughter from two years earlier became a staple on the evening news. One deputy district attorney testified from a wheelchair, the Soledad Brothers having shot away portions of his spinal cord. "I saw Judge Haley"s face alive-and an instant later I saw the right side of his face slowly pull away from his skull," he said. "It was as if in slow motion-the outward appearance of his face moving away from his head." Angela Davis had had nothing to do with that. But she also, representing herself, constantly p.r.o.nounced her solidarity with the Soledad Brothers. She was acquitted on Election Day-news rather unhelpful to any presidential candidate a.s.sociated with the left.
McGovern"s predicted twenty-point landslide in California ended up a win of approximately five points. His spokesmen lied Wednesday morning that McGovern"s victory had been "very convincing," "absolutely decisive," making the candidate of reform sound just like another Washington snake-oil salesman.
The California primary was decisive in the respect that mattered most: unique among the states, it was "winner take all"-the candidate receiving a plurality of the primary votes got all 271 of California"s delegates. The tradition gave the Golden State awesome power in attracting the pandering attentions of presidential candidates. It also, however, seemed to fall afoul of the stipulation of the McGovern Commission"s Mandate for Change Mandate for Change section B-6, providing for "Adequate Representation of Minority Views on Presidential Candidates at Each Stage in the Delegate Selection Process." California"s tradition had survived thanks to the single-minded efforts of the McGovern Commission"s most prominent Californian, Fred Dutton. He cleverly argued that winner-take-all primaries, precisely because they forced such high stakes, were harmonious with the spirit of reform because they increased popular partic.i.p.ation, attracted serious campaigners, reduced the pull of power brokers, and forced candidates to field demographically balanced delegate slates. section B-6, providing for "Adequate Representation of Minority Views on Presidential Candidates at Each Stage in the Delegate Selection Process." California"s tradition had survived thanks to the single-minded efforts of the McGovern Commission"s most prominent Californian, Fred Dutton. He cleverly argued that winner-take-all primaries, precisely because they forced such high stakes, were harmonious with the spirit of reform because they increased popular partic.i.p.ation, attracted serious campaigners, reduced the pull of power brokers, and forced candidates to field demographically balanced delegate slates.
Now California had apparently clinched George McGovern a first-ballot nomination. A week before the primary, Hubert Humphrey had been asked by Walter Cronkite, "So even if you lose out here-if you lose all 271 delegates-you wouldn"t challenge the winner-take-all rule?" He answered, "Oh, my goodness, no. That would make me sort of a spoilsport, wouldn"t it?...I don"t believe in that kind of politics."
That sealed it: the candidate the Nixon ratf.u.c.kers had concertedly avoided touching up all spring was the Democrats" heir apparent. That made it time, Nixon decided, to make it impossible for the regulars to fall in behind McGovern. "One of the factors that brought Goldwater down to such a shattering defeat in 1964 was the success of the media in tying him to ultra-right-wing supporters like H. L. Hunt, the John Birch Society, etc.," Nixon wrote his campaign manager, John Mitch.e.l.l. "The fact that Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Angela Davis, among others, support McGovern, should be widely publicized and used at every point. Keep calling on him to repudiate them daily."
The strategy paid immediate dividends. The McGovern camp celebrated the good news that Edmund Muskie"s former campaign manager, Berl Bernhard, had promised Muskie would endorse McGovern in a speech at the National Press Club in exchange for McGovern"s absorbing some of Muskie"s campaign debts.
Hours later, Berl Bernard called back: Muskie was getting heavy pressure not to endorse and had not yet made a "final" decision.
The Maine senator decided to back away from McGovern as if he were gangrenous. Armed with his 176 delegates, Muskie announced he was still an "inactive" candidate. The old salts of the press saw what was happening: the regulars would be working behind the scenes to pool Muskie, Humphrey, and George Wallace delegates in a "stop McGovern" bloc being organized by Southern governors such as Jimmy Carter of Georgia. It didn"t seem possible-McGovern"s 271 delegates from California ensured that. The consequences would, it seemed, be in the general election: the Democrats would leave Miami Beach divided.
Muskie said he would only release his delegates if McGovern would "reexamine and refine his own position with respect to critical issues." It happened as Hubert Humphrey announced he would campaign for the New York primary June 20, whose outcome wasn"t supposed to matter, and where he hadn"t even filed a slate of delegate candidates. "I"m not dropping out," he burbled exuberantly. "I"m about to take off." The Lorne Greene flyer about McGovern"s supposed sins against Israel started reappearing in Brooklyn Jewish neighborhoods; McGovern forces printed 3 million of their own pamphlets in response. McGovern confronted his old friend personally about the scurrilous literature that in California Humphrey had said he had nothing to do with. This time, Humphrey responded: "If you think it was rough in California, wait until Nixon comes at you."
The New York Times New York Times and Daniel Yankelovich came out with poll numbers showing that 40 percent of Humphrey"s voters in California would, if McGovern was nominated, either vote for Nixon or stay home. On June 14 Ted Kennedy announced to reporters, "I am not a candidate for president nor would I accept a draft, nor am I a candidate for vice president, nor would I accept a draft." That same day Edmund Muskie announced a tour via chartered jet of ten states with uncommitted and not-yet-selected delegates. He was banking on an eventuality that had seemed fantastical nine days earlier: a convention deadlocked between McGovern and Humphrey, Muskie as the compromise choice between politics Old and New-backing it up by traveling with Harold Hughes, the initiator of McGovernite party reform in 1968. "A viable alternative," Endors.e.m.e.nt Ed now called himself. and Daniel Yankelovich came out with poll numbers showing that 40 percent of Humphrey"s voters in California would, if McGovern was nominated, either vote for Nixon or stay home. On June 14 Ted Kennedy announced to reporters, "I am not a candidate for president nor would I accept a draft, nor am I a candidate for vice president, nor would I accept a draft." That same day Edmund Muskie announced a tour via chartered jet of ten states with uncommitted and not-yet-selected delegates. He was banking on an eventuality that had seemed fantastical nine days earlier: a convention deadlocked between McGovern and Humphrey, Muskie as the compromise choice between politics Old and New-backing it up by traveling with Harold Hughes, the initiator of McGovernite party reform in 1968. "A viable alternative," Endors.e.m.e.nt Ed now called himself.
McGovern battled back with Warren Beatty in the vanguard. The fifth of his celebrity fund-raising concerts sold out Madison Square Garden on June 14. A cordon of "celebrity ushers" showed people to the most expensive seats: Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Candice Bergen, James Earl Jones, Jack Nicholson, Marlo Thomas, Goldie Hawn, Ryan O"Neal (star of the blockbuster Love Story, Love Story, whose good-old-fashioned virtues Nixon adored). Paul Newman came surrounded by six policemen to protect him from screaming admirers. The theme was "together with McGovern": he can "bring us together again," the outlaw star of whose good-old-fashioned virtues Nixon adored). Paul Newman came surrounded by six policemen to protect him from screaming admirers. The theme was "together with McGovern": he can "bring us together again," the outlaw star of Bonnie and Clyde Bonnie and Clyde p.r.o.nounced-"in those tight blue pants, and the brown curls that spill over his neck, and those movie star teeth, all even and strong-looking and white as a row of brand-new refrigerators," a weak-kneed female feature writer for the p.r.o.nounced-"in those tight blue pants, and the brown curls that spill over his neck, and those movie star teeth, all even and strong-looking and white as a row of brand-new refrigerators," a weak-kneed female feature writer for the New York Times New York Times wrote. McGovern would lead the nation, the program promised, with "the a.s.surance that we care very deeply about each other." wrote. McGovern would lead the nation, the program promised, with "the a.s.surance that we care very deeply about each other."
The unity theme was vouchsafed by reuniting acts riven by breakups. Peter, Paul, and Mary opened the show; Mary Travers invited the crowd to "take your place on the great mandala" and offered a Peter, Paul, and Mary lesson in geopolitics: "Nixon keeps saying the war will end when the prisoners are released by North Vietnam, which is insane. You never get the prisoners back before the war is over. Nixon has his own rules. What kind of crazy war is that?" Elaine May and Mike Nichols hadn"t spoken to one another for twelve years, but still had chemistry. May"s caricature of absurd liberal moral one-upmanship slayed them: "I"ve always always wanted to get out of Vietnam-even before we got in!" wanted to get out of Vietnam-even before we got in!"
"I just love love his economic program," she told Nichols, who parodied a McGovern economics expert who had recently become infamous for trying and failing to explain the "demogrant." "But what is it?" his economic program," she told Nichols, who parodied a McGovern economics expert who had recently become infamous for trying and failing to explain the "demogrant." "But what is it?"
t.i.tters.
"Well, in broad outline-"
"No, I know it in broad outline. What is it specifically?"
"I can only give it to you in broad outline."
Roars.
The headliners, Simon and Garfunkel, gestured to the balcony: tie-dyed T-shirts, raggedy army jackets, wild hair, scraggly beards, curious aromas.
"These people paid eight dollars!" Paul Simon cried.
Raucous cheers from the nosebleed seats.
He gestured to the front: Pucci and Gucci; Brooks Brothers and the latest leisure suits; Hermes scarfs. "These people paid one hundred dollars!"
Resounding boos.
"I think we should do something for the eight-dollar people," Paul Simon said, breaking into "Bridge Over Troubled Water," craning his neck to the sky.
The candidate and his wife, Eleanor, took the stage. Eighteen thousand rose to their feet. "A few months ago," McGovern said, "you would have represented my entire national const.i.tuency!" Then it was off to the Four Seasons, partying until the wee hours with three hundred of Manhattan"s most glamorous.
Future generations of political observers, better attuned to the rhythms of right-wing populism, might wonder if this was the most effective use of the candidate"s time. He had traveled so far, invested so much, since January of 1971. But he still had an enormous wall to surmount. Millions of people didn"t see him as a uniter, or as a prairie populist. They saw him as a man who"d chosen to come down on the wrong side of the polarization-a hippie-coddling Franklin, not a hard-work-honoring Orthogonian. The hobn.o.bbing with celebrities didn"t help. But the way the McGovern people saw it, as Warren Beatty put it, was that "a great deal of the leadership of this generation comes from music and film people, whether people like that fact or not."
It was partially a Camelot thing, this notion that having liberal Hollywood celebrities ever at his elbow helped a candidate. The 1960 Democratic convention, the first held in Los Angeles, was a riot of celebrities, from Marlon Brando to Harry Belafonte to Frank Sinatra. Beatty and his sister, Shirley MacLaine, had been at the outskirts of that circle then. Now they were at its center-and the circle kept expanding. Celebrities hungered for meaning in their lives. "Why does McCarthy need you?" someone heckled Paul Newman in New Hampshire in 1968. "He doesn"t need me," Cool Hand Luke replied. "I need him."
Celebrities filled politicians" hunger, too. Even modest McGovern was bitten by the bug; it showed in how he tied his tie. It also seemed to solve a political problem. Everyone had a story about the first time they entered a room George McGovern occupied without realizing they were in the presence of a senator (Hunter S. Thompson"s version of the story took place in a lavatory). For a politician who blended into the woodwork, a little glamour seemed only a plus. The proximity to stars, after all, had never hurt Jack Kennedy.
But things had changed since 1960. It was the age, for one thing, of Nixon. The resentments Orthogonians harbored for Franklins were much closer to the surface; stars weren"t the simple objects of aspiration they used to be. They were also what they were for Arthur Bremer: objects of resentment. For some in the Silent Majority they were the Loudest Minority: preachy, condescending, out of touch-enemies of people like you and me.
Shirley MacLaine"s alienation from her audiences was never plainer than when she addressed a black women"s luncheon and fashion show in Pittsburgh during the Pennsylvania primary. She spoke extemporaneously, as she always did, and said underprivileged women like them understood, as she and McGovern understood, that material things didn"t matter, that too many Americans cared about the wrong things. The response was stony silence. The wealthy movie star was baffled. A young black man had to explain it to her: "You can"t tell those women that stuff. You can"t tell them they don"t have much. They"re proud people." They "want the things-those very things-you think are useless." Her brother Warren was politically undisciplined enough to tell a reporter that he favored the legalization of pot. Perhaps that"s how people got the idea that was his candidate"s position. the things-those very things-you think are useless." Her brother Warren was politically undisciplined enough to tell a reporter that he favored the legalization of pot. Perhaps that"s how people got the idea that was his candidate"s position.
Chris Mitchum, the liberal son of Robert, plumped for McGovern on a talk show. His Chisum Chisum costar John Wayne showed up and asked Mitchum for a thousand dollars. When the young man asked him why, the Duke drawled, "McGovern promised everybody in the United States a thousand dollars, and I want mine." Republicans had their superstars, too, but they sold themselves as ordinary people. costar John Wayne showed up and asked Mitchum for a thousand dollars. When the young man asked him why, the Duke drawled, "McGovern promised everybody in the United States a thousand dollars, and I want mine." Republicans had their superstars, too, but they sold themselves as ordinary people.
The moment would have been a good time for McGovern aides to imitate the advice of a cynical but wise campaign manager who told his Senate candidate that summer, after he won the primary, "You"re just reaching the people who agree with you already. Now we have to go for the rest."
Unfortunately, the consultant was fictional. In The Candidate, The Candidate, Robert Redford played a tireless and idealistic public-interest lawyer, Bill McKay, the son of a retired Old Politics governor played by Melvyn Douglas. The casting announced the movie"s themes: Douglas was husband to Helen Gahagan Douglas, the idealistic liberal that Richard Nixon rolled over on his way to a California Senate seat in 1950. And there really was, of course, a disillusioned Old Politics former governor of California, Pat Brown, who also had an idealistic public-interest lawyer son. The movie also featured a Reagan doppelganger: the inc.u.mbent Crocker Jarmo (a crock, and charming), a master of looking right into the camera and making whatever bromide he p.r.o.nounced sound straight from the shoulder. The campaign manager, played by Peter Boyle, spots Robert Redford as a promising piece of political horseflesh and recruits him to run for Senate by telling him he has no chance, so he can say whatever he likes. The McGovern resonances were unmistakable. "What about busing?" a reporter asks. "What about it?" "What"s your stand on it?" "I"m for it." "That"s a first," the hack says under his breath, incredulous. Abortion? "Every woman has a right to an abortion." (His aides suggest he change his position to "I"m studying it.") Robert Redford played a tireless and idealistic public-interest lawyer, Bill McKay, the son of a retired Old Politics governor played by Melvyn Douglas. The casting announced the movie"s themes: Douglas was husband to Helen Gahagan Douglas, the idealistic liberal that Richard Nixon rolled over on his way to a California Senate seat in 1950. And there really was, of course, a disillusioned Old Politics former governor of California, Pat Brown, who also had an idealistic public-interest lawyer son. The movie also featured a Reagan doppelganger: the inc.u.mbent Crocker Jarmo (a crock, and charming), a master of looking right into the camera and making whatever bromide he p.r.o.nounced sound straight from the shoulder. The campaign manager, played by Peter Boyle, spots Robert Redford as a promising piece of political horseflesh and recruits him to run for Senate by telling him he has no chance, so he can say whatever he likes. The McGovern resonances were unmistakable. "What about busing?" a reporter asks. "What about it?" "What"s your stand on it?" "I"m for it." "That"s a first," the hack says under his breath, incredulous. Abortion? "Every woman has a right to an abortion." (His aides suggest he change his position to "I"m studying it.") The moral was complex. Redford trims his hair and trims his sails. At the big candidate debate, asked about abortion, he responds, "It certainly deserves a lot more study than it"s been given." But he also drives his handlers around the bend by veering off script with a closing peroration about his frustration that the problems of poverty and alienation, "fear, hatred, and violence," were never discussed. His settles into a stock campaign speech that, while sometimes cliche, is also sincere and inspiring. As he delivers it, the cinematography bathes him in a halo of light that makes him look like Robert F. Kennedy on the cover of To Seek a Newer World. To Seek a Newer World. He pulls off an endors.e.m.e.nt from a corrupt old labor boss even after insulting him to his face. He wins the race. Because he sold out? Because he maintained a saving margin of integrity? Because of his Kennedyesque charisma? Because the people finally saw through Crocker Jarmon? The movie"s answers were ambiguous, like real life. He pulls off an endors.e.m.e.nt from a corrupt old labor boss even after insulting him to his face. He wins the race. Because he sold out? Because he maintained a saving margin of integrity? Because of his Kennedyesque charisma? Because the people finally saw through Crocker Jarmon? The movie"s answers were ambiguous, like real life.
The people around McGovern had a harder time allowing for this complexity. In place of cynics, McGovern had Fred Dutton, who had just filed a memo for the general election, "The Determining Margin of Difference," arguing that the royal road to victory was registering three-quarters of the 25 million voters newly eligible in 1972. McGovern"s appeal to insurgent youth, Dutton wrote, "indicates very tangibly how much more he can do for the party than any of the other candidates-or than it can really do for him.... The input of these young people makes clear how the real center is moving, and can be moved even more. McGovern will maximize this input by standing firm on his (and most of these young people"s) convictions, not moving to where the center has been in the past."
The easy confidence, the disdain for any effort to study the mysterious persistence of Nixon"s appeal, was redoubled by political director Frank Mankiewicz, who told the Times Times in an article June 20 that his man would win because he was "the only alternative to the supreme politician, Richard Nixon." Mankiewicz said, "If this were England, the government would"ve fallen by now"-though Nixon"s Gallup approval rating was then 60 percent, the highest in two years. in an article June 20 that his man would win because he was "the only alternative to the supreme politician, Richard Nixon." Mankiewicz said, "If this were England, the government would"ve fallen by now"-though Nixon"s Gallup approval rating was then 60 percent, the highest in two years.
While McGovern"s men were figuratively measuring the Oval Office for draperies, one of Nixon"s was literally measuring the DNC office. The first break-in had been a failure. So Al Baldwin cased it for another go by asking for a tour of the office, posing as a nephew of a former DNC chair.
The need for a second burglary was revealed when McCord, at the Howard Johnson"s, tried to monitor the two phone taps. Just as in the operation at Dr. Fielding"s office, the volume had been turned down too low. One bug, on the phone of Larry O"Brien"s secretary, yielded nothing. The other, on the phone of Spencer Oliver, the executive director of the a.s.sociation of State Democratic Chairman-the best place to gather intelligence on convention delegations-worked, and Al Baldwin started producing transcripts of the conversations, typed up by Liddy"s secretary on stationery headed GEMSTONE, GEMSTONE, mined for relevant data by Jeb Magruder at the campaign headquarters and Gordon Strachan in the White House. mined for relevant data by Jeb Magruder at the campaign headquarters and Gordon Strachan in the White House.
They discovered the same thing the FBI had in 1969, tapping NSC staffers on Kissinger"s behalf: you found out most about the target"s personal life. Spencer Oliver, it turned out, was quite the ladies" man: he spent a lot of time on the phone lining up cross-country trysts. Oliver"s phone, in the most secluded part of the DNC offices, was also used by secretaries to call their boyfriends. John Mitch.e.l.l called Liddy into his office: "This stuff isn"t worth the paper it"s printed on." Liddy defended himself: "One of the bugs isn"t working. And they put one of them on O"Brien"s second phone instead of O"Brien"s phone. But I"ll get everything straightened out right away."
Baldwin took special note of the location of O"Brien"s office. He almost blew his own cover when his tour guide turned out to be the secretary most explicit with her boyfriend in their conversations over Mr. Oliver"s phone.
Hunt and Liddy rushed plans for one more bugging job-this time with a room microphone soldered inside a smoke detector. It was Sat.u.r.day, June 16, and about to be Sat.u.r.day, June 17. Once more torpor was no object: the Cubans tucked into a lobster dinner at the Terrace Restaurant overlooking the Potomac (Bernard Barker ate until he felt sick). McCord simply strode into the Watergate not long after business hours, took the elevator up, and started taping locks all the way down to the subbas.e.m.e.nt garage. Only he taped them horizontally instead of vertically.
One of those d.a.m.ned tireless idealists was working in the DNC office past midnight. The burglars had to wait for 12:45 a.m. for the lights to go out. By the time they forced the DNC"s front door-the lock was rusty so, ever discreet, they removed the door from its hinges-the night watchman was on his rounds. He noticed the horizontally taped latches and called the police. The first squad car the police dispatcher radioed was too lazy to respond. At 1:52 a.m. the dispatcher put out an APB. An undercover car answered. Al Baldwin, looking out from the Howard Johnson"s balcony, spotted three men, one in a raggedy army jacket-the kind of garb undercover cops affected to blend in with drug dealers.
Baldwin radioed Hunt in his car, "Are our people dressed casually or are they in suits?"
"What?" Hunt cried, astonished.
"Are our people dressed casually, or are they in suits?"