Chicago 1968 Memories

A month after I attended the 1968 GOP Convention in Miami, I was in Chicago for the Democratic Convention.  Before the convention, my now deceased friend Fred Faust and I were in Valparaiso, Indiana for the Student Press Convention.  I have several memories of it including meeting Kurt Vonnegut, Staughton Lynd, and welcoming George McGovern along with the other attendees at the Valparaiso Airport, who flew in on his chartered Lockheed Electra.  Like the other events of that weekend, there was no security! 

 Then, in my 1960 Comet station wagon, it was off to Chicago where I drove some students from the Loop to Midway Airport for the arrival of Gene McCarthy.  I quickly got a press pass with virtually no evidence of who I was, and was able to walk onto the tarmac when McCarthy arrived and stood within a few feet of him.  I have tried to find the press pass, but it seems to have disappeared. 

Later, I got stuck in my car with people jumping on top of it outside the Conrad Hilton, prior to the “police riot” the next night.  I never got into the Convention Hall, but I still remember watching it on TV and hearing Senator Ribicoff’s nomination of McGovern, saying, “If George McGovern was president, we would have to have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago!”   Mayor Daley, in the front row, could be seen screaming, “Fuck you, Jew!”  Ribicoff responded, “How hard it is to accept the truth!” 

Julian Bond was nominated for vice president, but stepped to the microphone on gthe floor and announced that he wasn’t 35 years old yet!  I met Bond several years before his death in St. Louis. 

It was quite a week for me, which would continue the following year in October when I returned to Chicago to cover the Weatherman Days of Rage demonstration—and was arrested myself.  More about that next year!