From Chicago Sun-Times archives

50 years ago, a nation angry over the Vietnam War, racial tensions, and other social issues spilled out into the streets of Chicago. The 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago was just one more chapter in a tumultuous year that saw cities on fire, race riots and the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy played out on television news.

On this day in 1968, at the Democratic National Convention, tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters battled police in the Chicago streets, while the Democratic Party falls apart over an internal fight over its stance on Vietnam. Over the course of 24 hours, the predominant party line of thought on the Cold War with Russia was shattered.

After WW II, Soviet-style communism was marked by strong disapproval by the American people and its government. To stop the spread of dreaded communism, the USA developed a policy where we would intervene in the affairs of countries thought susceptible to communist influence. In the early 1960s, this policy led to American involvement in the controversial Vietnam War, with the USA attempting to keep South Vietnam from falling under the control of communist North Vietnam, at a cost of more than two million Vietnamese and 58,000 American lives.

The foreign policy consensus fractured during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Democratic delegates from across the country were split on the question of the Vietnam War. Eugene McCarthy, a committed anti-war candidate for president, began to challenge the long-held assumption that the USA should stay in the war. As the debate intensified, fights broke out on the convention floor, and delegates and reporters were badly beaten. Eventually, the delegates on the side of the status quo, championed by then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey, finally won out, but the events of the convention seriously weakened the party, which went on to lose the election.

Daley (Center) CBS News via YouTube

On the streets of Chicago, thousands of anti-war protesters gathered to show their support for McCarthy and the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley deployed 12,000 police officers and called in another 15,000 state and federal officers to contain the protesters. He ordered police to shoot any protester thought to be an arsonist. The situation rapidly spiraled out of control, with the policemen severely beating and gassing the demonstrators, as well as news crews and doctors who had come to help.

Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff used his nominating speech for George McGovern to report the violence going on outside the convention hall, declaring: “With George McGovern as President of the United States, we wouldn’t have to have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago!”

Daley told Ribicoff:

“Fuck you, you Jew son of a bitch, you lousy motherfucker, go home.”

The riot, known as The Battle of Michigan Avenue, was caught on television and watched by millions at home in their living rooms. It sparked a large-scale shift in American society. For the first time, most Americans came out in opposition to the Vietnam War, which they felt was pointless and wrong. Citizens did not want to give the federal government unrestrained power to pursue its war policies at the expense of the safety of American citizens any longer.

“The whole world is watching” was the chant by antiwar demonstrators outside the Conrad Hilton Hotel the evening of August 28. The fights in the convention hall and the riots in the streets were taped and broadcast on the nightly news. Demonstrators took up the chant as police were beating and pulling many of them into paddy wagons, “each with a superfluous whack of a nightstick”, after the demonstrators, being barricaded in the park by the police, began to come up Michigan Avenue to front of the hotel.

NPR via YouTube

The amount of tear gas used on the protesters was so great that it made its way several blocks to the Hilton Chicago hotel, where it disturbed Humphrey while he was taking a shower. The police sprayed demonstrators and bystanders with mace and were taunted by some protesters with chants of “kill, kill, kill”. The police assault in front of the Chicago Hilton became the most famous image of the Democratic Convention of 1968. The entire event took place on live television,

The Illinois State team that investigated the violent clashes between police and protesters at the convention stated that the police response was:

“…unrestrained and indiscriminate police violence on many occasions, particularly at night. That violence was made all the more shocking by the fact that it was often inflicted upon persons who had broken no law, disobeyed no order, made no threat. These included peaceful demonstrators, onlookers, and large numbers of residents who were simply passing through, or happened to live in, the areas where confrontations were occurring.”

CBS News via YouTube

At the convention, CBS News correspondent Dan Rather was grabbed by security guards and roughed up while trying to interview a Georgia delegate being escorted out of the building. CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite turned his attention towards the area where Rather was reporting from the convention floor. The security guards asked Rather: “what is your name, sir?” Rather was wearing a headset and was heard on national television repeatedly saying to the guards “don’t push me” and “take your hands off me unless you plan to arrest me”.

Rather told Cronkite:

“Walter … we tried to talk to the man and we got violently pushed out of the way. This is the kind of thing that has been going on outside the hall, this is the first time we’ve had it happen inside the hall. We … I’m sorry to be out of breath, but somebody belted me in the stomach during that. What happened is a Georgia delegate, at least he had a Georgia delegate sign on, was being hauled out of the hall. We tried to talk to him to see why, who he was, what the situation was, and at that instant the security people, well as you can see, put me on the deck. I didn’t do very well.”

An angry Cronkite tersely replied:

“I think we’ve got a bunch of thugs here, Dan.”

The spontaneous “The whole world is watching” chant quickly became famous. The following year, it served as the title of a television movie about student activism.