Beware of Limbo Dancers: A Correspondent’s Adventures with the New York Times

24. George Wallace Again

CHAPTER 24 George Wallace Again The Times shuffled its coverage after the convention.Max Frankel took over the main story of the Humphrey campaign. The editors assigned me to George Wallace,the volatile third-party candidate,who was running as the self-selected candidate of his new wholly owned American Independent Party. I was familiar with his tactics from my days traveling Alabama, and I relished the chance to follow him around the country. The governor ’s announced aim was to get enough votes from the two main parties to throw the election into the House of Representatives. That would presumably make him a power broker,with the expectation that the Southern states might use their clout and his new influence to thwart federal efforts to desegregate schools and other institutions. That had been Strom Thurmond’s hope in the  election. His “law and order” campaign worried both parties. Nixon, the Republican nominee, fretted that Wallace might attract enough conservative votes to make Humphrey president. He responded with a “Southern strategy,” a not-too-subtle appeal to white racism that would come back to haunt him when he became president.Humphrey and his advisers worried that Wallace would drain off enough bluecollar voters in all parts of the country to weaken his party and put the Republican in the White House. Thurmond’s strategy of forcing the election into the House didn’t work in , but Wallace seemed to have a better chance. The nation was in turmoil because of the civil rights movement,theVietnam War, a growing unrest among young people, and the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King. Wallace, still known in  Alabama as “the fighting little judge,” was well positioned to exploit the discontent. He aimed his message at Americans who were mad at somebody —the government, the faceless institutions, the Establishment, just about anyone in a position of authority.He appealed especially to restless young white men. Robert Kennedy had appealed to that group as well as to black voters. Wallace had amply demonstrated in Alabama that he had no use for black folks,and they returned the favor,but that still left a large voting bloc that was open to mischief. He had been a boxer in his youth and still had the bearing of a little guy with a chip on his shoulder.“Pugnacious” was probably the adjective most used to describe him during his middle years. That was before a gunman nearly killed him during the next presidential campaign in . He was a hard man to like. He always treated me with respect in our personal encounters, but I never warmed to him. I did develop some sympathy for him the last time I interviewed him.That was after he had been shot and was confined to a wheelchair. He confirmed news reports that he had become a convert to racial integration.“I was wrong,” he said, and I think he meant it. Whether he did or not, he got a majority of the black vote in his last campaign for governor. His rallies in both the North and the South were disturbing to a lot of people, including us reporters. For one thing, he liked to point out members of the national press in the audience,apparently to invite the rowdies to take their anger out on us.No one did,beyond jibes and insults, but I think he wanted us to feel the threat. He probably would have stepped in and had his security forces stop any attack before it got too serious. But he might have enjoyed seeing one or two of his favorite enemies take a few punches. More disturbing, though, was an air of threat and violence that he stirred among large numbers of his supporters.I sometimes feel a similar tightening in the air when I watch a hard black cloud march up the valley toward my house on the hill.In one story,an analytical article,I referred to the atmosphere in the rallies as“a spasm of mass passion.”There were indeed occasional eruptions of minor violence at the rallies. Richard Stout,an influential columnist for the New Republic,used stronger language. He had covered politics for more than forty years. He devoted one of his columns to the scene in Madison Square Garden  GEORGE WALLACE AGAIN when twenty thousand loud supporters gathered to hear Wallace.Stout said nothing had...