Death turned elder Daley against war

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-rjdaley21.html

Richard J. Daley never lived down the ugly image of police officers clashing with anti-war demonstrators on the streets of Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. But he had more in common with protesters than anyone could have imagined.

Moved by the death in Vietnam of the Harvard-educated son of a Bridgeport neighbor and close friend, Daley had privately turned against the war more than a year before the infamous Chicago convention.

"He said, 'What a waste. For what?' " recalled former Federal Communications Commission chairman and longtime Daley friend Newton Minow.

"The irony of 1968 is that Daley was perceived as hard-line, but he agreed with the protesters. History ought to know that he was against the war long before some of the protesters."

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[bemildred]

1. I think I'm going to puke.

:puke:

[htuttle]

2. Maybe he shouldn't have tried so hard to 'preserve the disorder'

" The police are not here to create disorder, they're here to
preserve disorder."
-- Richard J Daley, 1968

[Inland]

3. Daley would always crack down on ANY protest.

Disagreements, disputes were to be handled behind closed doors. That is as much true for the war as for street paving projects.

So if he disagreed with the war, he would tell Minow, but you wouldn't hear him say so in the open.

Everyone has a different line of where to go public, but the Mayor's idea was extreme. Politics was a behind the scenes operation.

[Inland]

4. "What's the Dan Ryan?" "Goddamn you, I don't know!"

Great story.

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. If Daley could have been honest about his position

then "we wouldn't have Gestapo tactics on the streets of Chicago..." (Booooo!....Yeeeaaahhh!...Fuck you!) ;-)

"With George McGovern as President of the United States we wouldn't have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago." - Abraham Ribicoff (D-MA), offering a nomination of George McGovern (the nomination failed), Chicago DNC, 1968

[ima_sinnic]

6. who cares what we "ought" to know?

what good are the private thoughts of somebody if their actions go completely contrary to them?

so he was a hypocrite and a coward. BFD, what else is new about hard-ass politicians?

[David__77]

7. Who the hell cares?

He acted like a fascist, therefore he was a fascist and should be remembered as one as well. This posthumous hand-wringing is over the top.