Politics: After Detroit

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From the outset, the race crisis crackled with electoral electricity. The Detroit riot brought the first confrontation between Lyndon Johnson and Michigan's Governor George Romney, who, despite some slippage in recent months, is still a formidable possibility for the next Republican presidential nomination. Both men were sensitive to the big—and unpredictable—implications for 1968 in everything they did.

Aware that the combined efforts of the Detroit police and Michigan's National Guard would probably not be enough to contain Detroit's rioters, Romney telephoned Attorney General Ramsey Clark at 3:30 a.m. Monday to let him know that he might have to ask for reinforcements in the form of federal troops. The President, who had been alerted before midnight by Clark that things might fall apart, dispatched Cyrus Vance, the recently retired Deputy Defense Secretary and a longtime friend, to size up the situation in Detroit.

By 10 a.m., Romney and Detroit's Mayor Jerome Cavanagh were convinced that they would need Army aid: a wire went off to the White House saying that there was "reasonable doubt" that the situation could be contained. The President turned to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and, at 11:02 a.m., ordered up the paratroops—but sent them only as far as Selfridge Air Force Base outside Detroit, not into the riot area itself.

"We Gotta Move, Man." Simultaneously, the Republican Coordinating Committee rushed into the act. Twenty-six members of the 36-man policymaking panel had been at work on a riot paper, drafted by two-time G.O.P. Presidential Candidate Thomas E. Dewey, Florida Representative William Cramer (author of the House-passed antiriot bill) and Colorado Governor John Love. Accusing Lyndon Johnson of a good share of responsibility for the state of anarchy that prevailed in the nation's riot-torn cities, it also hinted that a conspiracy was behind the disorder.

Meanwhile, Detroit deteriorated. Romney, anxious to move the waiting paratroopers into the city, told Cy Vance: "We gotta move, man, we gotta move." Finally, at midnight, the President went on national television to explain the state of emergency and the ordering of troops into Detroit. He also made no fewer than seven references to Romney's inability to control his own state.

"Touch of Red?" In Congress, Senators and Representatives of both parties began demanding separate investigations into the lawlessness of the slums.

Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen wondered if there were not "a touch of red" in the riot scene. Said New Hampshire's Republican Repre sentative Louis Wyman: "Congress should take away federal benefits from any person convicted in any court of rioting."

More concerned with the causes and deeper meanings of the riots, Massachusetts Negro Senator Edward Brooke proposed an in-depth study. Illinois Senator Charles Percy pushed his bill to give more low-income families a chance at private home ownership. New York's Robert Kennedy once again called for involvement of the private sector in slum rehabilitation. Ten Senate Republicans, whose House colleagues had helped to virtually scuttle L.B.J.'s rent-supplements and model-cities program, called for their enactment.