The Nixon Convention

There were two conventions, just as there are two Miamis— first, Miami Beach, literal fiction, thing made; second, the city of Miami itself, reality from which the Beach escapes in dream. The Beach’s convention was a dazzle of noise and light; and so, in chattering flashes, was Miami’s. While the nominations went forward Thursday night, I ducked under a tree,, out of the play of spotlights and glisten of pop bottles. Branches and limbs went crazy at the helicopter buzzing over (almost in) them, giant mixmaster stirring the tree. Down the street, Claude Kirk was isolated, the lone white man, in a community center ringed with battle. The governor of Florida was, for a moment, a captive in his own state. The bottles, in the splintery light, spun with an unreal beauty. Back in the convention hall, Rockefeller demonstrators were throwing styrene-foam snowballs, which sped from the hand a few feet, then slowed to dream-tempo, like the speeches arcing out over the crowd, bravely launched but landing with no impact. The bottles, alas, are not dreamed. They land and leave a rainy litter under the helicopter’s thousand-watt gaze.

Balloons cascade to the floor and are punctured in a deafening machine-gun fire. Meanwhile, under the tree, I listen to police debate what kind of fire that was in the next block. The chopper’s lights, with each whirl of the blade, repeating, print and reprint leaf-patterns on the street. War is not beautiful; only its side products. It takes night and fear and a helicopter to make one notice leaves on 62nd Street. This Miami never reached the Beach, with its bristle of imported palm trees. There was a chasm between the two, wider than Biscayne Bay—between the bright leafetchings (bitten instantly into the street, dissolved, reassembled, design superimposed on design) and the mockery machine-gun fire of the balloons. The chasm was intended, of course: one of the Beach’s principal attractions as a convention site was its detachability from the mainland—pull up the bridges on the Causeways, and the slender ridge raised out of swamp is, for all purposes, adrift in the Atlantic. Never more adrift, despite its intact Causeways, than last week, with all its rollicking Republican passengers.

GW

About the Author

Garry Wills

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Presidential Election

Florida

Conservatives

There were two conventions, just as there are two Miamis— first, Miami Beach, literal fiction, thing made; second, the city of Miami itself, reality from which the Beach escapes in dream. The Beach’s convention was a dazzle of noise and light; and so, in chattering flashes, was Miami’s. While the nominations went forward Thursday night, I ducked under a tree,, out of the play of spotlights and glisten of pop bottles. Branches and limbs went crazy at the helicopter buzzing over (almost in) them, giant mixmaster stirring the tree. Down the street, Claude Kirk was isolated, the lone white man, in a community center ringed with battle. The governor of Florida was, for a moment, a captive in his own state. The bottles, in the splintery light, spun with an unreal beauty. Back in the convention hall, Rockefeller demonstrators were throwing styrene-foam snowballs, which sped from the hand a few feet, then slowed to dream-tempo, like the speeches arcing out over the crowd, bravely launched but landing with no impact. The bottles, alas, are not dreamed. They land and leave a rainy litter under the helicopter’s thousand-watt gaze.

Balloons cascade to the floor and are punctured in a deafening machine-gun fire. Meanwhile, under the tree, I listen to police debate what kind of fire that was in the next block. The chopper’s lights, with each whirl of the blade, repeating, print and reprint leaf-patterns on the street. War is not beautiful; only its side products. It takes night and fear and a helicopter to make one notice leaves on 62nd Street. This Miami never reached the Beach, with its bristle of imported palm trees. There was a chasm between the two, wider than Biscayne Bay—between the bright leafetchings (bitten instantly into the street, dissolved, reassembled, design superimposed on design) and the mockery machine-gun fire of the balloons. The chasm was intended, of course: one of the Beach’s principal attractions as a convention site was its detachability from the mainland—pull up the bridges on the Causeways, and the slender ridge raised out of swamp is, for all purposes, adrift in the Atlantic. Never more adrift, despite its intact Causeways, than last week, with all its rollicking Republican passengers.