Miami and the Siege of Chicago (32 page)

“I'm going to catch a plane and see my family,” he told her, smiling into the proud disapproval of her eyes. “Dear Miss,” he could have told her, “we will be fighting for forty years.”

And had no second thoughts about anything all the while he was writing the piece—except for Spiro Agnew. The Greek was conducting himself like a Turk. There was a day when he accused Hubert Humphrey of being soft on Communism. Everyone knew that Communism was the only belief Hubert Humphrey had ever been hard on. Nixon had obviously gotten himself an ignoramus or a liar.

So while the writer thought that the Republic might survive a little longer with old Tricky Dick and New Nixon than Triple Hips, Norman Mailer would probably not vote—not unless it was for Eldridge Cleaver.

Eldridge at least was there to know that the barricades were building across the street from the camps of barbed wire where the conscience of the world might yet be canned. Poor all of us. The fat is in the fire, and the corn is being popped. Mayor Daley, looking suspiciously like a fat and aged version of tough Truman Capote on ugly pills, describe the shame outsiders visited on Chicago. He was a strong and protective mother of a man, but for his jowl which hung now beneath his neck in that lament of the bull frog which goes:

Perhaps good Mayor Daley's jowl was the soft underbelly of the new American axis. Put your fingers in V for victory and give a wink. We yet may win, the others are so stupid. Heaven help us when we do.

THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

www.nyrb.com

Copyright © 1968 by Norman Mailer

Introduction copyright © 2008 by Frank Rich

All rights reserved.

Cover image: Chicago, August 28, 1968; © Bettmann/Corbis

Cover design: Katy Homans

The Library of Congress has cataloged the earlier printing as follows:

Mailer, Norman.

 Miami and the siege of Chicago: an informal history of the Republican and Democratic

conventions of 1968/by Norman Mailer; introduction by Frank Rich.

p. cm. — (New York Review Books classics)

 Reprint. Originally published: New York: D. I. Fine, © 1968. With new introd.

 ISBN 978-1-59017-296-4 (alk. paper)

 1. Republican National Convention (1968 : Miami, Fla.) 2. Democratic National

Convention (1968 : Chicago, Ill.) I. Title.

 JK23531968 .M34 2008

 324.273'15609046—dc22

2008005743

435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

www.nyrb.com

eISBN 978-1-59017-553-8
v1.0

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