Nation: DALEY CITY UNDER SIEGE

• Share

ON the expressway leading to Chicago's International Amphitheatre, workmen slapped a new coat of silver over the mud-spattered dividing rail. On streets surrounding the hall—many of them barred to all but VIP vehicles-lampposts were painted kelly green. Even fire hydrants were touched up by the painter's brush. Redwood fences, in a rainbow of pastels, hid junkyards and trash-strewn lots from the eyes of passing drivers and their passengers.

However, no amount of cosmetics camouflaged breakdowns of the city's essential services. Nor could paint and rhetoric mollify the acrid atmosphere of a city mobilized for combat.

Afraid that antiwar demonstrators might paralyze the Democratic National Convention, Mayor Richard Daley, author of last April's notorious shoot-tokill edict, prepared for full-scale insurrection. "No one," he vowed, "is going to take over the streets." The entire police force, nearly 12,000 men, was ordered onto twelve-hour shifts; 5,650 Illinois National Guardsmen were called up for possible reinforcement, and 5,000 more Guardsmen have been put on alert; 7,000 Army troops were preparing to move in. Logistical units were already in place.

No Pictures, Please. Downtown in the Loop, cops were stationed on every corner and in the middle of every block. Federal agents were assigned to the roof, main corridors, kitchen and service areas of the Conrad Hilton Hotel, headquarters of the convention, where three candidates—Vice President Hum phrey, Eugene McCarthy and Georgia's Lester Maddox—and three of the del egations were staying. Other agents were on round-the-clock duty outside the candidates' suites, checking passengers debarking from elevators. The Sheraton-Blackstone across the street, where Senator George McGovern was billeted, got equal protection. Press photographers were warned not to shoot pictures through open windows lest they be mistaken for snipers.

The shabby old convention hall was turned into a bastion, secure from ground, air, and even subterranean attack. All entrances were sealed on the Halsted Street side of the building. Owners of buildings near by were ordered to keep windows closed for the duration of the convention—a consider able inconvenience in a Chicago August. Policemen with guns, walkie-talkies and binoculars were posted atop the amphitheatre. Protected by barbed wire screens, National Guard jeeps looked as if they were heading for jungle combat.

One unspoken fear was that black militants in dingy, high-rise public housing off the Dan Ryan Expressway might fire on delegates traveling to and from the hall. Two police helicopters patrolled the route. President Johnson, if he attends at all, will avoid this danger, zipping in and out by helicopter. As an added precaution, a dummy portico, modeled after the entrance to the White House, was erected in front of the amphitheatre's main door to block the aim of any rifleman. Even the airspace up to an altitude of 2,500 ft. above the convention site was banned to all traffic ex cept official planes and helicopters.