FROM his bedroom window on the 23rd floor of the Conrad Hilton, Eugene McCarthy viewed the carnage on Michigan Avenue, turning now and again to the TV screen to watch the dissolution of his own hopes at the convention hall. Only once, when California's Jesse Unruh, a holdout supporter of Teddy Kennedy, appeared on the screen, did he show anger. And even that was relatively subdued. "That doublecrossing son of a bitch," he growled.
His main concern was with the young people below. "Oh, Dad," pleaded his daughter Mary, "help them!" That evening he went down to his staff headquarters on the 15th floor, where his doctor, William Davidson, had opened a makeshift hospital. McCarthy comforted the bruised and bleeding. A girl who had been injured wept hysterically, and photographers crowded around her. Only then did McCarthy show the emotion reporters had looked for during nine long months of arduous campaigning. "Get out of the way, fellows. You don't have to see anything. Get the hell out of the way!"
Keeping Cool. Shaken, he returned to his suite. In one final gesture, which even he probably knew would be useless, he sought to end the violence, telephoning his campaign manager at the International Amphitheatre to tell him to withdraw the name of Eugene McCarthy from the balloting. "It looked," he remarked later, "like the convention might break up in chaos. I thought this might stabilize it." By then it was too late. The balloting in the convention hall had already started, and the count—and the violence below—went on.
Next day, a few hours before Humphrey's acceptance speech, McCarthy crossed the street—still lined with troops and cops—to speak to a rally of the disaffected in Grant Park. "I am happy," he said, "to be here to address the government in exile." When he said farewell to a group of cheering campaign workers, he added: "I may be visibly moved. I have been very careful not to be visibly moved throughout my campaign. If you people keep on this way, I may, as we say, lose my cool." Already, some of his followers were wearing black arm bands and a new campaign button. It was blank.
In the end, as at the beginning, the Senator from Minnesota was a mystery —a nearly unfathomable blend of intellect, humor, humility and arrogance. Always he was his own man. When he was asked whether he would make a good President, he answered: "I am willing to be President. I think I would be an adequate President. I really don't want to let you believe that I'm carrying the whole burden for the country. I'm kind of an accidental instrument, really."