Part 20 (1/2)

And on Monday, September 16, 1968, it featured Richard Milhous Nixon.

One of Laugh-In Laugh-In's writers was Nixon's old joke-man, Paul Keyes. One of their running gags enlisted random celebrities to utter the innuendo-laden non sequitur ”Sock it to me.”

A hippie girl, drenched by water, answered a telephone call, supposedly from Governor Nelson Rockefeller: ”Oh, no, I don't think we could get Mr. Nixon to stand still for a 'Sock it to me.'”

The screen filled with the famous ski-jump-nosed, fifty-five-year-old mug, intoning in cool self-mocking bafflement, ”Sock it to me me?!”

Paul Keyes was sure to nab the tape after they got the take before Nixon's dubious aides got to it first. Their doubts disappeared after the show ran. Humphrey was supposed to be the live wire, the happy warrior, selling the politics of joy. Not going on Laugh-In Laugh-In himself was one of the things Humphrey lamented cost him the election. himself was one of the things Humphrey lamented cost him the election.

Humphrey couldn't catch a break. Nixon won the hipness battle both ways: Stewart Alsop called him ”the quintessential square”; his celebrity surrogates were the likes of Bud Wilkinson and the saccharine pop singer Connie Francis. Hubert Humphrey's was Frank Sinatra. But Sinatra inspired contempt from the youth culture and was too much a swinger to comfort the squares.

Nixon's TV spots were groundbreaking. The man who made them, Gene Jones, was a former marine combat photographer who'd never directed a commercial. What attracted the campaign to pay him exorbitant fees nonetheless was A Face of War, A Face of War, a visually overwhelming, unnarrated doc.u.mentary that followed a marine company over ninety-seven days of combat in Vietnam. When it was screened for the Nixon media team, the only female in the audience walked out three minutes into the second reel, saying, ”I can't watch that.” It was the last thing anyone said for twenty minutes. a visually overwhelming, unnarrated doc.u.mentary that followed a marine company over ninety-seven days of combat in Vietnam. When it was screened for the Nixon media team, the only female in the audience walked out three minutes into the second reel, saying, ”I can't watch that.” It was the last thing anyone said for twenty minutes.

Nixon's commercials would run without narration as well. The sound would only be music and snippets from stump speeches. The images, rapid-fire collages of still photographs, told the story just as effectively with the sound off, a visual semaph.o.r.e. TV specialist Harry Treleaven was so proud of their aesthetic force that he screened them for curators at the Museum of Modern Art, hoping they might be added to the collection. The aesthetes were unimpressed: ”The good guys are either children, soldiers, or over fifty years old.” It was a telling moment: that was why Treleaven believed they belonged in the museum. He responded, ”Nixon has not only developed the use of the plat.i.tude, he's raised it to an art form”-a mirror of Americans' ”delightful misconceptions of themselves and their country.” (He meant it as a compliment.) Jones's a.s.sistant imagined staging the State of the Union this same way-intercut with heart-tugging stills.

To tripping, jarring music: ”It is time for an honest look at the problem of order in the United States.”

(Firefighters dousing a burning apartment building; white-helmeted Chicago cops; a banner at a march: INDEPENDENT SOCIALISM. INDEPENDENT SOCIALISM.) ”Dissent is a necessary agent of change, but in a system of government that provides for peaceful change, there is no cause for a resort to violence.”

(A sign, NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON: YAF DARES, NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON: YAF DARES, which was visually clever. The biggest, most noticeable word was which was visually clever. The biggest, most noticeable word was treason, treason, that old Nixon trick: that old Nixon trick: he he wasn't calling anything ”treason,” just reporting what others were saying; what's more, that he sign-posted Young Americans for Freedom signaled his outreach to Reagan and Thurmond conservatives; and for those for whom the light struck from another angle, it showed that he was against ”extremists on both sides.” Another sign: wasn't calling anything ”treason,” just reporting what others were saying; what's more, that he sign-posted Young Americans for Freedom signaled his outreach to Reagan and Thurmond conservatives; and for those for whom the light struck from another angle, it showed that he was against ”extremists on both sides.” Another sign: STAMP OUT VD. STAMP OUT VD. Perhaps the full acronym, not visible, was VDC, standing for Berkeley's most prominent antiwar group, the Vietnam Day Committee; either way, the anxiety over s.e.xual dissolution was tapped.) Perhaps the full acronym, not visible, was VDC, standing for Berkeley's most prominent antiwar group, the Vietnam Day Committee; either way, the anxiety over s.e.xual dissolution was tapped.) ”Let us recognize that the first civil right of every American is to be free from domestic violence.”

(More burning buildings, rubble; the naked torso of a female mannequin. No black men in these pictures, just depictions of the consequences of what black men did-and in that naked white female torso, a suggestion of the most awful thing black men did of all.) ”So I pledge to you we shall have order in the United States.”

Another group of American image-makers were aghast. The network news divisions and the men who ran them prided themselves as the oasis in the vast wasteland. The networks poured money into news after the quiz show scandals of the late 1950s, loss leaders to clean up their image and preserve their precious government licenses to use the public's airwaves. TV news styled itself a moral center of American civic life, independent and public-spirited. It was their their footage of Bull Connor's fire hoses in Birmingham that catalyzed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, footage of Bull Connor's fire hoses in Birmingham that catalyzed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, their their footage at the Edmund Pettus Bridge that brought about the Voting Rights Act of 1965. footage at the Edmund Pettus Bridge that brought about the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

NBC, with its flags.h.i.+p evening news show the Huntley-Brinkley Report, Huntley-Brinkley Report, was the most morally self-a.s.sured. They had a young producer out of Chicago named Lew Koch, whose specialty was covering the civil rights and antiwar movements. They'd turned to him the previous January when they wanted to know if there would be violence at the Democratic convention. Knowing the parties involved, he said, yes, absolutely. During convention week, Koch had led the teams that went into the streets and parks to capture the footage of that violence. was the most morally self-a.s.sured. They had a young producer out of Chicago named Lew Koch, whose specialty was covering the civil rights and antiwar movements. They'd turned to him the previous January when they wanted to know if there would be violence at the Democratic convention. Knowing the parties involved, he said, yes, absolutely. During convention week, Koch had led the teams that went into the streets and parks to capture the footage of that violence.

He was inordinately proud of what they'd produced-1968's version of Bull Connor's fire hoses: glorious moral theater, naked evil being visited upon innocents. He repaired to NBC headquarters at the Merchandise Mart after that first broadcast filled with self-satisfaction. A sympathizer with the antiwar movement, he thought he had advanced their cause considerably.

The a.s.signment editor asked him to help with the phones; the switchboard was overwhelmed.

The first call: ”I saw those cops beating the kids-right on for the cops!”

Another: ”You f.u.c.king commies!” He was referring to NBC-as if they they had instigated the riots. had instigated the riots.

The calls kept coming, dozens. They came to all the networks, for days upon days. Some people saw n.o.ble cops innocently defending themselves. Others accused the networks of hiring cops to beat up kids to spice up the show. Lew Koch was so shaken by the experience, he left for a soul-searching six-month leave of absence.

The media had left Chicago united in the conviction they were heroes, prophets, martyrs. ”The truth was, these were our children in the streets, and the Chicago police beat them up,” the New York Times New York Times's Tom Wicker wrote. ”In Chicago,” Stewart Alsop wrote, ”for the first time in my life it began to seem to me possible that some form of American fascism may really happen here.” Top executives at all the networks, New York Times New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Was.h.i.+ngton Post Was.h.i.+ngton Post and and Newsweek Newsweek publisher Katharine Graham, Time Inc. editor in chief Hedley Donovan, and publisher Katharine Graham, Time Inc. editor in chief Hedley Donovan, and Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times publisher Otis Chandler, posted an unprecedented telegram to Mayor Daley, excoriating the way newsmen ”were repeatedly singled out by policemen and deliberately beaten...to discourage or prevent reporting of an important confrontation between police and demonstrators which the American public as a whole has a right to know about.” publisher Otis Chandler, posted an unprecedented telegram to Mayor Daley, excoriating the way newsmen ”were repeatedly singled out by policemen and deliberately beaten...to discourage or prevent reporting of an important confrontation between police and demonstrators which the American public as a whole has a right to know about.”

Then they learned the American public thought differently.

The Chicago Daily News Chicago Daily News devoted an entire page on August 29 to a set of pictures doc.u.menting a circle of cops and an off-duty army paratrooper beating one of their photographers, James O. Linstead, even after he'd pulled out his press card. He was wearing a helmet; they pulled it off. They kept on going until they'd broken bones. The devoted an entire page on August 29 to a set of pictures doc.u.menting a circle of cops and an off-duty army paratrooper beating one of their photographers, James O. Linstead, even after he'd pulled out his press card. He was wearing a helmet; they pulled it off. They kept on going until they'd broken bones. The News News was a liberal paper, the kind that editorialized high-mindedly that ”the International Amphitheatre, dressed up and fortified, lies in the shadow of one of the worst slums in the nation,” that the National Rifle a.s.sociation should lose its tax exemption, that ”the closer one gets to the campus scene, the less black-and-white the picture becomes.” They turned their letters section over to the debate over the convention violence. Some supported the paper's position. They wrote things like ”When I was with the Marines, I thought I was fighting for democracy, but now I come home to find a police state as bad as the Communists'”; and ”We need to establish immediately a 'humane society' for the prevention of cruelty to our finest people, who are still human enough to protest the wholesale killing of a wonderful people in the name of patriotism by a nation of moral imbeciles.” was a liberal paper, the kind that editorialized high-mindedly that ”the International Amphitheatre, dressed up and fortified, lies in the shadow of one of the worst slums in the nation,” that the National Rifle a.s.sociation should lose its tax exemption, that ”the closer one gets to the campus scene, the less black-and-white the picture becomes.” They turned their letters section over to the debate over the convention violence. Some supported the paper's position. They wrote things like ”When I was with the Marines, I thought I was fighting for democracy, but now I come home to find a police state as bad as the Communists'”; and ”We need to establish immediately a 'humane society' for the prevention of cruelty to our finest people, who are still human enough to protest the wholesale killing of a wonderful people in the name of patriotism by a nation of moral imbeciles.”

Many more, however, converged upon another narrative.

”The major television networks have shown a completely one-sided story of what happened....”

”The Yippies and McCarthy people were not just throwing beer cans and ashtrays at the police and National Guard. They were throwing plastic bags of excrement and bricks from the 15th floor....”

”They insulted the police with words that can't be printed, and wrote these same words on their foreheads. The Chicago police reacted as any police force in the country would have....”

”I failed to see reports of the lewd activities, the vile provocations, or violence committed by the degenerates who invaded our city....”

”We are amazed and angry at the shameful las.h.i.+ng our city and our mayor have been subjected to because of the events of last week. Much of this undeserved criticism is the result of the distorted presentation of the events by television, newspapers, and radio....”

”My neighbor is a Chicago policeman, one of those a.s.signed to protect the Hilton Hotel from mob invasion. On Monday and Tuesday he worked sixteen hours straight. I met him coming home Thursday morning. He was covered with human excrement thrown on him by the mob.”

Hard-nosed Chicago newsmen pointed out these were obviously just-so stories. A cop has to return to the station house after his s.h.i.+ft; they let him inside covered with feces? He drives back home to his wife and children still covered with the same s.h.i.+t? And where, exactly, does one procure bricks bricks on the fifteenth floor of the Conrad Hilton Hotel? on the fifteenth floor of the Conrad Hilton Hotel?

The narrative came from Chicago city government. Mayor Daley proclaimed on August 29 in an appearance on the Today Today show, ”The television industry is part of the violence and creating it all over the country.... What would you do if someone was throwing human excrement in your face? Would you be the calm, collected people you think you are?” b.u.mper stickers proliferated nationwide: show, ”The television industry is part of the violence and creating it all over the country.... What would you do if someone was throwing human excrement in your face? Would you be the calm, collected people you think you are?” b.u.mper stickers proliferated nationwide: WE SUPPORT MAYOR DALEY AND HIS CHICAGO POLICE. WE SUPPORT MAYOR DALEY AND HIS CHICAGO POLICE. Sixty percent of Americans polled supported the sentiment, and 90 percent of the seventy-four thousand letters City Hall received in the mail in the two weeks after the convention. It wasn't, they said pace Tom Wicker, Sixty percent of Americans polled supported the sentiment, and 90 percent of the seventy-four thousand letters City Hall received in the mail in the two weeks after the convention. It wasn't, they said pace Tom Wicker, their their children being beaten in the streets of Chicago. And these media mandarins, they said, weren't their moral authorities. children being beaten in the streets of Chicago. And these media mandarins, they said, weren't their moral authorities.

And the public being their customers, it wasn't long before the media mandarins' interpretations changed.

Walter Cronkite had Mayor Daley on his program. ”Perhaps he had been called to heel by management,” a Tocqueville out of Great Britain, G.o.dfrey Hodgson, of the Times on Sunday, Times on Sunday, speculated. ”Perhaps he felt that he had erred and strayed from the path of strict professionalism. Whatever the reason, his manner with Daley was almost obsequious. He repeatedly addressed him as 'sir.' He introduced him with the ingratiating remark, 'Maybe this is a kiss-and-make-up session, but it's not intended that way.... I think we've always been friends.'” speculated. ”Perhaps he felt that he had erred and strayed from the path of strict professionalism. Whatever the reason, his manner with Daley was almost obsequious. He repeatedly addressed him as 'sir.' He introduced him with the ingratiating remark, 'Maybe this is a kiss-and-make-up session, but it's not intended that way.... I think we've always been friends.'”

Daley reeled off fantastic lies: ”They had maps locating the hotels and routes of buses for the guidance of terrorists from out of town.... How is it that you never showed on television, Walter, the crowd marching down the streets to confront the police?”

Cronkite gingerly pointed out that many of the victims were members of the press.

Daley retorted, ”Many of them are hippies themselves. They're part of this movement. Some of them are revolutionaries and they want these things to happen. There isn't any secret about this.” Then he shared with Cronkite something ”that I never said to anyone”: the miscreants had been planning a.s.sa.s.sinations. ”I didn't want what happened in Dallas or what happened in California to happen in Chicago.”

Cronkite sat and took it. The editor of the Chicago Daily News, Chicago Daily News, whose publisher had signed the telegram to Daley, abjectly apologized for one of his reporters who had shouted at policemen beating three women, ”For G.o.d's sake, stop that!”: ”He acted as a human being, but less than a professional, he was there as a reporter and not to involve himself.” whose publisher had signed the telegram to Daley, abjectly apologized for one of his reporters who had shouted at policemen beating three women, ”For G.o.d's sake, stop that!”: ”He acted as a human being, but less than a professional, he was there as a reporter and not to involve himself.”

Chicago's American was the conservative Hearst paper, and even their tough-guy, cop-loving columnist Jack Mabley had written about how ”a policeman went animal when a crippled man couldn't get away fast enough.” Shortly thereafter, Mabley climbed down from his short career as a cop critic in a moment of severe self-doubt: ”80 to 85 percent of the callers and letter writers cheering for Daley and the cops: You can't help that gnawing feeling-can all these people be right and I be wrong?” was the conservative Hearst paper, and even their tough-guy, cop-loving columnist Jack Mabley had written about how ”a policeman went animal when a crippled man couldn't get away fast enough.” Shortly thereafter, Mabley climbed down from his short career as a cop critic in a moment of severe self-doubt: ”80 to 85 percent of the callers and letter writers cheering for Daley and the cops: You can't help that gnawing feeling-can all these people be right and I be wrong?”

G.o.dfrey Hodgson wrote of the media about-face: ”They had been united, as rarely before, by their anger at Mayor Daley. Now they learned that the great majority of Americans sided with Daley, and against them. It was not only the humiliation of discovering that they had been wrong; there was also alarm at the discovery of their new unpopularity. Bosses and cops, everyone knew, were hated; it seemed that newspapers and television were hated even more.”

Nixon paid attention. The public was on his his side in his war against the media Franklins, in a way deeper than Nixon had ever dared dream. Again, he had it both ways: for actually the media was, if anything, accommodating him. Frank Shakespeare fantasized aloud to a reporter about calling in NBC's chairman of the board and telling him, ”We are going to monitor every minute of your broadcast news, and if this kind of bias continues, and if we are elected, then you just might find yourself in Was.h.i.+ngton next year answering a few questions. And you just might find yourself having a little trouble getting some of your licenses renewed.” Then Nixon gave a speech on his conception of the presidency (on the radio, so not too many people would hear it): ”It's time we once again had an open administration.... We should bring dissenters into policy discussions, not freeze them out.” The Johnson administration had been one of angry division; as president, he would be the guardian of ”intellectual ferment,” both a ”user of thought and a catalyst of thought,” for ”the lamps of enlightenment are lit by controversy.” The punditocracy swooned. Walter Lippmann (he had called the Checkers Speech ”the most demeaning experience my country has ever had to bear”) wrote, ”I believe that there really is a 'new Nixon,' a maturer and mellower man who is no longer clawing his way to the top, and it is, I think, fair to hope that his dominating ambition will be to become a two-term president.” Kenneth Crawford, side in his war against the media Franklins, in a way deeper than Nixon had ever dared dream. Again, he had it both ways: for actually the media was, if anything, accommodating him. Frank Shakespeare fantasized aloud to a reporter about calling in NBC's chairman of the board and telling him, ”We are going to monitor every minute of your broadcast news, and if this kind of bias continues, and if we are elected, then you just might find yourself in Was.h.i.+ngton next year answering a few questions. And you just might find yourself having a little trouble getting some of your licenses renewed.” Then Nixon gave a speech on his conception of the presidency (on the radio, so not too many people would hear it): ”It's time we once again had an open administration.... We should bring dissenters into policy discussions, not freeze them out.” The Johnson administration had been one of angry division; as president, he would be the guardian of ”intellectual ferment,” both a ”user of thought and a catalyst of thought,” for ”the lamps of enlightenment are lit by controversy.” The punditocracy swooned. Walter Lippmann (he had called the Checkers Speech ”the most demeaning experience my country has ever had to bear”) wrote, ”I believe that there really is a 'new Nixon,' a maturer and mellower man who is no longer clawing his way to the top, and it is, I think, fair to hope that his dominating ambition will be to become a two-term president.” Kenneth Crawford, Newsweek Newsweek's columnist, found him ready ”to steer a middle course, emulative of the Eisenhower Administration.” Joseph Kraft of the Post Post said that with the ”crisis in authority” brought on by the Democrats, ”It makes sense to vote for Richard Nixon and the Republicans.” Theodore White, who'd worn his Kennedy b.u.t.ton on the Nixon train in 1960, would later inscribe a copy of said that with the ”crisis in authority” brought on by the Democrats, ”It makes sense to vote for Richard Nixon and the Republicans.” Theodore White, who'd worn his Kennedy b.u.t.ton on the Nixon train in 1960, would later inscribe a copy of The Making of the President 1968 The Making of the President 1968 to the man he called its ”hero”: ”My previous reporting of Richard Nixon must I know have hurt. If I feel differently now it is not that there is a new Richard Nixon or a new Teddy White but that slowly truths force their way on all of us.... This book tries to describe the campaign of a man with courage and conscience.” Even Norman Mailer called Nixon ”less phony.” to the man he called its ”hero”: ”My previous reporting of Richard Nixon must I know have hurt. If I feel differently now it is not that there is a new Richard Nixon or a new Teddy White but that slowly truths force their way on all of us.... This book tries to describe the campaign of a man with courage and conscience.” Even Norman Mailer called Nixon ”less phony.”

A Nixon campaign commercial called ”Convention”: A bra.s.s band, like the bra.s.s band that played over the McCarthy delegates standing on their chairs singing peace songs, blares ”A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.” The familiar, old-fas.h.i.+oned convention scenes: standards, balloons, placards, Hubert at the podium, exuberant delegates.

The music distorts electronically into a hideous pulse. With each new picture, someone's mouth is open wider. Hubert's is the punctuation mark. It looks as if he is screaming.

A new set of photographs, cutting quicker: firemen and flames; bleeding protesters running from the police; a bearded, screaming peacenik; more flames; another bearded screamer.

(No black people were seen rioting in commercials like these; that would have been labeled ”racism.” Instead, only the aftereffects aftereffects of black rioting were shown: rubble and flames. Rioting white hippies in Chicago were thus a visual G.o.dsend.) of black rioting were shown: rubble and flames. Rioting white hippies in Chicago were thus a visual G.o.dsend.) The music returns to the proper track. A picture of Hubert with his jaw clenched, waving American flags, Hubert at the podium again-cue for the music to distort again, and pictures of soldiers dying in other soldiers' arms, all olive drab. Then the bra.s.s band again, then Hubert, smiling-as the sound track starts shrieking again for a set of photos of Appalachian poverty.

(This was incredibly brazen. Fighting poverty had been Hubert Humphrey's greatest contribution to American public life. They were attacking him at his greatest strength: strength: well, you said you were warring on poverty. And here was plain evidence: poverty still existed. The Johnson administration is a failure. The Democrats were failures. Hubert Humphrey is a failure.) well, you said you were warring on poverty. And here was plain evidence: poverty still existed. The Johnson administration is a failure. The Democrats were failures. Hubert Humphrey is a failure.) Bra.s.s band. Hubert. Hubert distorted in triplicate.

”This Time”

”NIXON.”

More chaos in the streets. Whenever a new Black Panthers chapter was founded, violent confrontations with police soon followed. New York's new Panthers threw a Molotov c.o.c.ktail at an empty police cruiser in July; patrolmen led into an ambush were wounded by a shotgun blast in August; and on September 4, after two Panthers left the Brooklyn criminal court for a preliminary hearing on an a.s.sault charge, off-duty cops in the gallery pummeled exiting spectators with the blackjacks and billy clubs they pulled out from under their jackets, crying, ”Wallace! Wallace! Wallace!” Four days later J. Edgar Hoover called the Panthers ”the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” On September 10, Huey Newton was convicted. The next day, Berkeley announced a new ”social a.n.a.lysis” course with guest teacher Eldridge Cleaver. Max Rafferty, whose boon chances for California's Senate seat were the subject of a September 1 New York Times Magazine New York Times Magazine profile, announced he was withholding Cleaver's paycheck and ordered the Board of Regents to cancel the course. In Mexico City, already rocked by a ma.s.sacre of student protesters, the Olympics reached their dramatic climax: two sprinters, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, lowered their heads and raised their fists in a Black Power salute on the medal stand rather than acknowledge the American flag. profile, announced he was withholding Cleaver's paycheck and ordered the Board of Regents to cancel the course. In Mexico City, already rocked by a ma.s.sacre of student protesters, the Olympics reached their dramatic climax: two sprinters, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, lowered their heads and raised their fists in a Black Power salute on the medal stand rather than acknowledge the American flag.

The old distinctions and gradations on the left-freak, pacifist, New Leftist, black militant-were breaking down into an undifferentiated, and paranoid, insurrectionism. In Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan, a New Left hotbed, a group calling itself the White Panthers pledged ”total a.s.sault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock and roll, dope, and f.u.c.king in the streets.” ”Get a gun, brother, learn how to use it,” one of their statements proclaimed. ”You'll need it, pretty soon.” There followed a wave of bombings in southern Michigan, including the burning of a clandestine CIA recruitment office. It was the first serious incidence of New Left violence. The White Panthers became a target of the FBI's COINTELPRO secret counterintelligence initiative.

If anyone was keeping score, right-wing vigilantes were far worse. In July and August, a group of right-wing Cuban exiles firebombed the publisher of the diary of Che Guevara-the thirteenth anti-Castro bombing in New York since April-along with the British consulate in Los Angeles, the Mexican government's tourist office in Chicago (twice), and a British cargo s.h.i.+p in Miami harbor. On August 13, state troopers uncovered a half ton of dynamite, automatic weapons, tear gas, and crates of ammunition in Johnsonburg, New Jersey, belonging to the group Cuban Power. Eleven days later, in Connecticut, Minutemen invaded the pacifist farm in Voluntown in an attempt to burn it down, then shot it out with state police, blinding one of their members. (”I think all of us would rather see our place burned down than to see a Minuteman blinded,” a pacifist told the New York Times. New York Times. A local, less conciliatory, said, ”I see them come to the post office. They're a cruddy bunch. They don't wash up and shave.”) A local, less conciliatory, said, ”I see them come to the post office. They're a cruddy bunch. They don't wash up and shave.”) But people weren't keeping score. Certain hegemonic narratives prevailed. A Harris poll offered several statements with which people could agree or disagree. The consensus: ”liberals, long-hairs, and intellectuals have been running the country too long.” Sixty-four percent of respondents cla.s.sified as ”low income whites” thought so. Eighty-one percent of the sample thought ”law and order has broken down in this country,” 84 percent that a ”strong president can make a big difference in directly preserving law and order.” Forty-two percent of Americans said blacks were ”more violent than whites.” But the poll didn't ask about the danger posed to law and order by right-wing Cubans, or white survivalist Minutemen.

Labor Day weekend in Atlantic City, a new kind of radical stormed a sacred citadel-parading a flock of sheep down the Atlantic City boardwalk at the Miss America pageant and crowning one, Yippie-style, ”Miss America.” Then they tossed ”instruments of torture to women”-typing manuals, girlie magazines, Ladies' Home Journal, Ladies' Home Journal, false eyelashes and high-heeled shoes, and most notoriously, bras-into a ”freedom trash can” that they had hoped to light aflame. (They couldn't get a fire permit.) During the pageant ceremony, as the outgoing queen bade farewell, sixteen radical feminists unfurled a banner and shouted, ”Freedom for women!” false eyelashes and high-heeled shoes, and most notoriously, bras-into a ”freedom trash can” that they had hoped to light aflame. (They couldn't get a fire permit.) During the pageant ceremony, as the outgoing queen bade farewell, sixteen radical feminists unfurled a banner and shouted, ”Freedom for women!”