Miami and the Siege of Chicago Read Online Free PDF Page A

had concentrated itself away from the corners of his lips.
    â€œAnd while we’re on it,” said Rocky, powers of transition not notably his true preserve, “Senator McCarthy deserves a vote of commendation for getting the eighteen-year-olds back into politics again,” (was this the Rockefeller who had once tried to shove fallout shelters into every suburban back yard?) “and when I’m President, I want to pass a bill letting the eighteen-year-olds vote.” Big cheers for this. The kids were out—everybody was enjoying Rocky—and those with him on the flatbed truck. Kirk, Rocky’s brother, and several former Republican National Committee Chairmen, came in on the noise machine. In the background, Miami Mummers wearing pink and orange and yellow and white and sky-blue satin outfits with net wings and white feathers, Miami Beach angels playing triangles and glockenspiels piped up tinklings and cracklings of sweet sound. Oompah went the oompah drum. “I offer,” said Rocky, “a choice. It is ... victory in November ... victory for four years.” He held up both hands in V for Victory signs.
    â€œEight years,” shouted someone from the crowd.
    â€œI won’t quibble,” said Rocky with a grin. But then, defeat licking at the center of this projected huge turnout which was finally not half huge enough, he added drily, “The gentleman who just spoke must be from New York.”
    The rally ended, and a black sky mopped out the sun for ten minutes, hid the cumulus. Rain came in tropical force, water trying to work through that asphalt, reach the jungle beneath. Everyone scattered, those who were dressed not quite in time. The rain hit with a squall. And the luminaries on the flatbed truck went off with Rocky—Leonard Hall, Bill Miller, and Meade Alcorn. It may be worthwhile to take a look at them.

5
    The former Republican National Committee Chairmen who were committed to Rockefeller and had been out at Opa Locka were on display earlier in a press conference in the French Room of the Fountainebleau.
    A yellow drape hung behind a long table covered in kelly green. On the walls were wall paintings of pink ribbons and pink trumpets in heraldic hearts ten feet high; dirty blue drapes contested dingy wallpaper. A small piece of plaster was off the ceiling in a corner. It was not a room equal to the talent present.
    Meade Alcorn first, his presentation hard, driving, full of Wasp authority—his voice had a ring, “I like to articulate it in terms of the greater electibility of Governor Rockefeller”—he had answered in response to a question whether he thought Richard Nixon, if nominated, might lose the election. By all agreement one of the few superb professionals in the Republican party, Alcorn had a friendly freckled face and sandy hair, black horn-rims, a jaw which could probably crack a lobster claw in one bite, his voice drilled its authority. He was the kind of man who could look you in the eye while turning down your bid for a mortgage. “We don’t name the ballot where Rockefeller is going to take it. Could be the fourth, the fifth. Wendell Willkie took it on the sixth. We expect a convention not unlike the one in 1940.” He hadn’t been National Committee Chairman for nothing; whatever political stand he might be obliged to support came out with the crackling conviction of personal truth.
    Then Senator Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania was on. Scott had modest but impeccable aplomb as he explained that since only 12 per cent of the delegates had been in San Francisco in 1964, he did not expect bitterness from old Goldwater followers to hurt Rockefeller’s chances now. A fine character actor had been lost when Hugh Scott went to politics—he could have played the spectrum from butler to count.
    Leonard Hall, heavy, imperturbable, was there with figures—he counted 535 for Nixon, 350 for Rockefeller. He was a man noted for