Miami and the Siege of Chicago (3 page)

Rockefeller came in at Opa Locka Airport next day, and again it rained. The skies over Miami were at their best when rain was near, for cumulus clouds piled high on themselves, making towers, pyramids, turrets, and heavenly Miami Beach hotels two miles up in the air while dark horizontal tides of oncoming tropical storm washed through the sky, crossed the sun, gave gildings of gold and black to the towers of cumulus.

The schedule for arrival was Rockefeller on Saturday, Reagan later that evening, and Nixon on Monday. They were all of course coming in on charter flights, and the Rockefeller plane, an American Airlines 727 jet which had carried the candidate 65,000 miles into forty-five states during the campaign, was landing, for security reasons, at the Coast Guard Airport, Opa Locka, out to the west of Miami, almost in red-neck country, the town of Opa Locka still another sad sweet real estate failure of Southern Florida for it had been built to recapitulate a piece of North Africa. Residential streets with names like Ali Baba Avenue, Sesame Street, Sharazad Boulevard, Arabia Avenue, Sultan Avenue, Caliph Street, and Salim Street wound around the center of Opa Locka in complicated ovals and ellipses all planned thirty-plus or forty years ago by a real estate genius, now a town all but deserted in the afternoon sun with the storm coming on, just occasional palmettoes and the crumbling white stucco center where a small old hotel and bar stood like the molderings of a Foreign Legion fort, holding the crossroads before the Coast Guard pushed onto the airport.

Perhaps a hundred or a hundred-fifty newsmen, TV cameras, and still photographers were out at the main hangar with the Press bus, way out in the quiet empty reaches of the all but deserted airdrome, and overhead, light planes and helicopters patrolled the near sky, and four or five police cars were parked in uneasy relation to the crowd. The reporter had to show no identification to enter the gate, and needed none now; a potential assassin, tipped to Rockefeller's entrance at Opa Locka, could have packed a piece to within a yard of him—of course, afterward, he could never have escaped. If he managed to shoot past the twenty-odd cops in the direct vicinity, the helicopters would have followed his car all the way to Miami, maybe nailed him on Arthur Godfrey Causeway from the sky. Like pieces of flesh fragmented from the explosion of a grenade, echoes of the horror of Kennedy's assassination were thus everywhere: helicopters riding overhead like roller coasters, state troopers with magnums on their hip and crash helmets, squad cars, motorcycles, yet no real security, just powers of retaliation. It forced one to cherish major politicians—no matter how colorless, they all had hints of charisma now that they were obviously more vulnerable to sudden death than bullfighters, and so they were surrounded with a suggestion of the awe peasants reserve for the visit of the bishop—some rushed to touch them, others looked ready to drop to their knees. Thus, at least, for Rockefeller and the Press. He was surrounded almost immediately after he came down the landing ramp, and never left alone, surrounded by Press and cameramen five deep, the photographers by long practice holding their cameras and even their movie cameras up over their heads, aiming down by skillful guess, so that from a distance one could always tell exactly where the candidate was situated, for a semicircle of cameras crooned in from above like bulbs of seaweed breaking surface at high tide, or were they more like praying mantises on the heads of tall grass?—a bazaar of metaphor was obviously offered.

Rocky had come off the plane with his entourage and his wife. She was surprisingly attractive, with a marvelous high color which made her vastly better-looking than her photographs, and Rocky looked like much less than his photographs, gray beyond gray in the flesh, gray as New York City pavements, gray as an old con—the sun could not have touched him in a month or else all the fighting blood of the heart was somewhere deep inside the brain, working through the anxiety-ridden calculations with which he must have come to Miami, for Nixon with his six-hundred-plus votes now almost secure was a handful or a score or at best not fifty votes from the first ballot nomination. Anxiety had to be stirred by every omen: the weather, the first unfamiliar face to greet you off the plane, the sudden flight of a bird, the warmth of the policeman's salutation, or the enthusiasm of the Press corps.

But if it were for that, he was elected already. Rockefeller was obviously the near-unanimous choice of the Press, and above all, the television—a mating of high chemical potentials existed between the media and the man as if they had been each conceived for the other. Except for his complexion, Rocky had an all but perfect face for President, virile, friendly, rough-hewn, of the common man, yet uncommon—Spencer Tracy's younger brother gone into politics. He had only one flaw—an odd and unpleasant mouth, a catfish mouth, wide, unnaturally wide with very thin lips. In the center of the mouth there seemed almost another mouth which did the speaking, somewhat thicker lips which pursed, opened, deliberated—all the while the slit-thin corners of the mouth seemed off on their own, not really moving with the center. So he gave the impression of a man to whom expert instruction had disclosed what he might be expected to say—therefore only the middle of the mouth would be on call.

The rain which had begun to come down and then providentially stopped, was coming on again. So he was able to slip out of the tight ring of interviewers locked about him after answering fifty more of the million political questions he would reply to in his life, and now the press bus and the private cars were off in a race across Miami to the 72nd Street public beach in Miami Beach maybe ten miles away where a big rally was scheduled. The helicopters rode lead and flank cowhand overhead, the cavalcade sped from Opa Locka; not thirty minutes later, band playing, cymbals smashing, Rocky walked a half-block through a crowd on 72nd Street and Collins Avenue, accepting the mob, walking through them to partial deliriums of excitement, a crazy mob for politicking, dressed in bathing suits, bikinis, bathrobes, surfers' trunks, paper dresses, terry cloth shirts, they jammed the pavement in bare feet, sandals, clod-hoppers, bathers screaming, calling out, falling in line around the free Pepsi-Cola wagon, good-natured but never super-excited—the rally was on the edge of the beach after all, and a leaden milky-green sea was pounding an erratic, nervous foam of surf onto the water's-edge of the beach not fifty yards away.

As Rocky moved forward in his brown-gray business suit, murmurs went up everywhere—“There goes the next President of the United States.” But the crowd was somehow not huge enough to amplify this sentiment—they looked more like tourists than Republicans—all those votes he would get some day if ever he would capture the nomination. And as he moved forward through the crowd, shaking hands, saying “Hiya, hiya,” big grin on his face at the shouts of, “We want Rocky,” so also at that instant a tall skinny Negro maybe thirty years old leaped in front to shake hands and with the other hand looking for a souvenir, he flipped Rocky's purple handkerchief out of his breast pocket. But Rockefeller showed true Republican blood. A look of consternation for one stricken gap of an instant—
was this an attempt?
—until seeing the handkerchief in the man's hand, the situation was recovered: Rocky strode forward, pulled the handkerchief back, gave an admonishing look, as if to say, “Come on, fellow!” and immediately had some cardboard sunglasses pilfered from the same breast pocket by a heated happy hysterical lady tourist with whom he could not wrestle. Kerchief recovered, sunglasses offered up in tribute, he made the speaker's stand—the flat bed of a truck—and the meeting began.
The New York Times
was to report 3,000 people there, perhaps it was half; they cheered everything he said, those who could hear him. The acoustics varied from punko to atrocious, and the reporter circling the crowd heard one plain buxom girl with long brown hair—hippie hints of trinket and dungarees, girl formed out of the very mold of Rockefeller supporters— turn nonetheless sadly to her friend and say, “I can't hear a thing—bye bye.” Next step, a sixty-year-old blonde in a bikini with half of a good figure left (breast and buttocks) the flesh around her navel unhappily equal to the flesh around her neck, wearing orange plastic bracelets, gold charm necklace, rings, rhinestone sunglasses, wedgies, painted toes, red hot momma kisser lips, a transistor radio giving rock, and she—whatever she was hearing—out to yell, “Rocky, we want Rocky,” beating out the rhythm on one of her two consorts, the one younger than herself; the older, a husband? had a cigar, a paunch, and that benign cool which speaks of holding property in Flatbush in Brooklyn, and putting up with a live-wire wife.

But indeed it must have been reminiscent to Rocky of campaigning on beaches in Brooklyn and Queens, not Coney Island so much as Brighton or Manhattan Beach or Jacob Riis Park: the crowd had the same propinquity, same raucous cheery wise hard middle-class New York smarts— take the measure of everything and still give your cheer because you are there, Murray. Even the smells were the same—orgiastic onions in red hot dog and knish grease, dirty yellow sand—Rocky had to recognize it all, for when he introduced Claude Kirk, “the young alive Governor of Florida” (sole vote for him in the Florida delegation) a smattering of applause came up, a spattering of comment, and one or two spit-spraying lip blats—it was obvious the crowd didn't know Kirk from a Mafia dance-contest winner. So Rocky shifted gears. “It's a thrill for us from New York to be here, in Florida,” he said, “and half of you must be here from New York.” The laugh told him he was right. A delicate gloom began to come in equal to the first tendrils of mist over a full moon; God would know what his advisers had been telling him about the possible power of this open street rally on the 72nd Street beach—with luck and a mass turnout massive enough to break all records in category, he could be on his way—a people's candidate must ride a tidal wave. This was not even a bona fide breaker. Half of his audience was from New York. Well, he was no weak campaigner. He kept it going, hitting the hard spots, “The Republican Party must become again a national party, the voice of the poor and the oppressed.” Great cheers for the size of the crowd. “The Republican Party cannot afford parochialism any longer.” Smaller cheer, slight confusion in his audience. “Parochialism” had vague connotations of Roman Catholic schools. Rocky had a good voice, man-to-man voice, Tracy, Bogart, hints of Gable. When the very rich desert their patrician holdings on the larynx (invariably because they have gone into politics) and would come over as regular grips, mill-hands and populists, they lean dependably into the imitation of movie stars they have loved. One could psych a big bet that Spencer Tracy was Rocky's own Number One and would be on the ticket as Vice President if the election were held in heaven. It was an honest voice, sincere, masculine, vibrant, reedy, slightly hoarse, full of honest range-rider muscle, with injections from the honest throatiness of New York. It was a near-perfect voice for a campaigner; it was just a question of whether it was entirely his own or had gravitated to its function, much as the center of his mouth had concentrated itself away from the corners of his lips.

“And 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.

“Eight years,” shouted someone from the crowd.

“I 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.

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.