University of Virginia Library

John Lindsay: Alienated Politician

Reprinted From The Village Voice

By Jack Newfield

At the start of every long, hot
summer, people begin thinking
about John Lindsay running for
President. In the collective American
fantasy of "High Noon" updated,
tall, grim Lindsay strides
down Lenox Avenue, into a subsiding
storm of bricks. It is a
comforting fantasy Lindsay has
earned because he is the only white
Mayor in America, and a Republican
mayor at that, to have the
grudging trust of the black underclass.

As a congressman from an affluent,
white district, Lindsay
fought against the Kennedy and
Johnson administrations to strengthen
the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
As a fusion candidate for mayor,
he spend the last exhausting hours
of his campaign on a Negro radio
station, talking to the ghetto. As
a leader of the Republican Party,
Lindsay deserves most of the credit
for the humane final version of the
riot commission report. On the
night of Martin Luther King's
assassination, Lindsay and Kennedy
were the only two white
politicians in the land who could
—or would—go into the ghetto.

But now, time is finally running
out, even for John Lindsay.
The racism of the suburbs, the indifference
of the Congress, and the
anti-city bias of the state legislature,
are converging to threaten
the city's poverty program, and
even its economy. Soon white
America will have to surrender its
Lindsay fantasy. Soon not even
Lindsay will be able to walk the
ghetto, because community service
and anti-poverty projects will begin
to close for lack of funds.

Alienated Mayor

The effect of all this has been
to make Lindsay the most alienated
of our conventional politicians this
season. It may be just a transient
mood, but the Mayor seems liberated
these days. He acts the way
Robert Kennedy acted in his angry
autumn of 1966. Future events will
probably trap Lindsay into compromises,
like endorsing Richard
Nixon, but right now he is swinging
free.

He attacks GOP leader Gerald
Ford, Speaker Travia, anyone he
things is screwing the ghettos. He
breaks protocol and goes after
America's senior mayor, Richard
Daley, for urging his policemen to
shoot looters. Two weeks ago he
tried to push cautious Otto Kerner
into re-convening the riot commission.
Last week he criticized
Governor Rockefeller's timid urban
program. He spoke to the big
anti-war march in the park, something
McCarthy and Kennedy refused
to do.

Several weeks ago Lindsay flew
to Boston to speak at a $50-a-plate
Republican fund-raising dinner,
and at Harvard the next day.
As the press waited for the 4 p.m.
shuttle to start boarding, they
raided the airport newsstand, which
happened to be loaded with Lindsay
propaganda. A New York
Post columnist praised him for his
sensitive handling of the ghettos.
The Nation nominated him for
President. And New York
published a cover story re-creation
of Lindsay's actions in the
hours following Martin Luther
King's assassination. The Boston
papers were full of Lindsay.

No Advance

There were no visible symbols of
a national campaign. Lindsay was
traveling with only two aides and
his wife, Mary. There was no
manufactured crowd to greet him
at Boston's Logan Airport. The
Lindsay staff did not even advance
the trip; Sid Davidoff arrived
in Boston only two hours
before the Mayor. But the idea
of the Presidency, nevertheless,
hung over Lindsay every minute
he was in Boston.

At two abbreviated press conferences
he was asked if he planned
to run this year. At the Republican
dinner, Representative Margaret
Keckler called Lindsay "my
favorite dark horse candidate for
President." And Senator Edward
Brooke, in his remarks, sounded
like he was nominating Lindsay
for President on the spot.

In his speech to 3500
white, upper-class, mostly suburban
Republicans, Lindsay chose
to speak about the value of the
black youth in the ghetto.

"In the center cities," he said,
"there are young men—mostly
black—living their own special kind
of street life. They miss something
and they wish for something that
has not yet been discovered on
the streets.

"These young men are not a
resource to be feared. There is
no warmer, sounder, or firmer
ally to have. These young men
have lost contact with most of
the institutions of our society, including
the Republican and Democratic
parties. They are not a
politically captive group. The regular
politicians, behind the drawn
curtains of the old clubhouses,
are just beginning to discover the
power of this force."

Harvard Speech

At Harvard, at Saturday noon,
Lindsay gave one of his best
speeches in months. A half hour
before he was scheduled to arrive,
Sanders Theatre was filled with
1200 students, while another
several hundred milled outside trying
to get in. An editor of the
Crimson and an activist from Students
for a Democratic Society
both estimated that next to Eugene
McCarthy, Lindsay was the most
popular politician among the Cambridge
undergraduates. When he
arrived, 20 minutes late because
he spoke briefly to those students
who couldn't get in, Lindsay was
applauded for almost two minutes.

The mayor began by speaking
about "honesty in politics." "How
many of the government officials,"
he asked, "who issued proclamations
in city halls and state capitals
across the nation on the death
of Dr. King ever bothered to meet
with him during his life, to talk
with him, speak out for him, or
walk with him? How many of the
corporations that sponsored public
memorials after his death had
been willing to contribute those
funds during his life to his organization,
or to the cause he
championed?"

But Lindsay, whose public
speaking style remains tight and
preachy, did not evoke spontaneous
applause from his audience,
that so plainly came to applaud
him, until 25 minutes into his
speech, until he began to speak
of Vietnam.

"America has been guilty of
deception and blindness in our
involvement in Vietnam," he said,
"in our refusal to acknowledge
civilian casualties from the bombing
of the North, in our unwillingness
to admit the existence of
the National Liberation Front...
We cannot spend more than $24
billion a year in Vietnam and still
rebuild our cities. We cannot speak
of non-violence at home, when we
are displacing, maiming, and
killing thousands of Asians..."

Poetic Prose

Then he closed with two paragraphs
that came close to the
nuance and music of poetry:

"The President talks of peace,
but the war and the draft go on.
Commitments have been renewed,
but a man, and perhaps a movement,
lie dead in Atlanta. And in
our cities it is almost summer
again.

"So I think you had better
keep moving. I think you had
better demand more than what you
have gotten so far, until America
comes home again."

The students stood and clapped
for 90 seconds, just clapped, without
stomping or screaming,
or doing anything contrived. Then
they followed the Mayor out to
his car. Boys with green and blue
McCarthy buttons and Radcliffe
girls in mini-skirts shouted out embarrassed
pleas that he run for
President as his car began to pull
away.

***

During some distant summer,
John Lindsay will probably be
running for President. But right
now he is trapped between the
fantasy he can personally cool
the ghetto indefinitely, and the
reality of projects and services
being cut in Albany and Washington.

Lindsay's staff and family say
that he sometimes wakes up in
the middle of the night, and half
awake, calls police headquarters
to be reassured that all is tranquil.
Some hot night he may be
told that the fire has come to
New York this time. But if that
night ever comes, Lindsay will
understand that it is Earl Brydges
and Anthony Travia who should
be indicted for inciting that riot,
and not Stokely or Rap.