After Detroit

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.

"Mad Dogs." As for the riots' effects on the elections of 1968, it might seem at first glance that all Governors and mayors would be hurt by major violence in their own territories. So many officeholders have had trouble, however, that the effects may be canceled out. Alabama's third-party candidate George Wallace may win further support from people who think that the Johnson Administration has been coddling Negroes. California's Republican Governor Ronald Reagan, who had been shifting slowly from a conservative position toward the center of his party's spectrum, probably solidified his standing on the right by denouncing the rioters as "mad dogs," but it is doubtful that he increased his appeal to moderates in the process.

In what was perhaps the most striking congressional statement of the week, Kentucky Republican Senator Thruston Morton lashed out at the G.O.P. Coordinating Committee as well as President Johnson, and urged them to forget political advantage while the cities burned. "For the love of heaven," said Morton, "let's get this out of the political arena and into the national arena, where it belongs."

It could be, of course, that good politics and good policy will actually coincide. The voters might think very highly of officials who come up with fresh approaches to the race crisis.

Large Questions. The President made a dramatic move in a prime-time television address to the nation at midweek. Again he deplored the breakdown of law and order, warning rioters that "explanations may be offered, but nothing can excuse what they have done. The violence must be stopped: quickly, finally, and permanently." But he also pleaded for "an attack--mounted at every level--upon the conditions that breed despair and violence." There is no other way, he said, to achieve a "decent and orderly society."

To lead the attack, President Johnson created a high-powered eleven-member presidential commission, with Illinois' Democratic Governor Otto Kerner as chairman and New York's Republican Mayor John Lindsay as vice chairman. The whole membership was equally carefully balanced, economically, geographically and politically.

Addressing the group at week's end around the blacktopped Cabinet table in the White House, the President emphasized that he wanted advice on "short-term measures that can prevent riots, better measures to contain riots once they begin, and long-term measures that will make them only a sordid page in our history." Above all, he continued, "this matter is far, far too important for politics. It goes to the heart of our society in a time of swift change and great stress."

And Governor Kerner asked "why one American assaults another American, why violence is inflicted on people of our cities, why the march to an ideal America has been interrupted by bloodshed and destruction." Trying to answer these questions, he said, would be his "saddest mission." Not to try, as Chairman Kerner and his commission of course knew, would be still sadder.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.