Ribicoff nailed Chicago street mayhem…just 57 years before it arrived

 Ribicoff nailed Chicago street mayhem…just 57 years before it arrived

August 26, 1968 is a date seared in my political junky memory. As a Vietnam war opponent supporting George McGovern for president, I settled in to watch Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff nominate my hero.


This was an astonishing convention as over 8,000 protesters descended on Chicago to disrupt the certain nomination of Hubert Humphrey, committed to following his boss LBJ going down the rabbit hole of endless war in Vietnam.


Half way into his 9 minute speech extolling McGovern's character that endeared him to peace progressives, Ribicoff got a tad carried away. Mindful of the chaos engulfing Chicago’s streets as those protesters tangled with 12,000 Chicago cops working 12 hour shifts. Ribicoff adlibbed on his long litany of McGovern’s qualifications. “And with George McGovern as President of the United States we wouldn't have to have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago!


Of course, Ribicoff’s description was hyperbolic nonsense. The overworked cops, like every police force in the land, had neither experienced nor trained for a huge, organized protest designed to incite police overreaction to disrupt a convention. 


But 57 years on, watching Trump’ s trained, masked thugs slamming hapless Chicagoans, mostly of color, to the ground day after day, simply to keep Trump’s MAGA crowd screaming with glee, sure looks like Gestapo tactics to me.


Prescient Abe lived for nearly 30 years after his famous (or infamous to Dick Daley) 22 words that will forever be remembered in ’68 Convention history. But if he could come back for just a day to watch local Chicago news, he’d smile and say…’Told ya so.’


Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL