The Last Days of The Late, Great State of California

,
Klamath
Mountains
V.
Of^
^^^-^^^
SacramentO(
Stockton
San
Francisco
Fresno*
San Joaquin Valley
PACIFIC OCEAN
LEGEND:
^^H^Known
Course
San Andreas Fault
.New Break 1969
NEVADA
San Bernardino
Mountains
Bakersfield
A
Call
y!^
I"
Mountains
-x^j^^st
-^X^v^-
yv.
Ynez Mountains
Riverside
2 Long Beach
Santa Barbara
Los Angeles
San
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^^
THE LAST DAYS OF THE LATE,

GREAT STATE OF CALIFORNIA
The Last Days

of the Late^
Great State of
California
by
CURT GENTRY
G. P. Putnam's Sons
NEW YORK
CopjTight
1968 by Curt Gentry
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must
not be reproduced in any form without permission. PubHshed
simultaneously in the Dominion of Canada by

Limited, Toronto.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Longmans Canada
To
Jane and Charles Stivers, with thanks for Baxter and apolo-
gies for Claremont; to
ing
the
definition
of
Maxine and Ralph Davidson,

friendship;
Chapman, Vic "Brushmush"
and
to
Gretzinger,
for extend-
Duff "Stonehead"
Guy
"Puckerhrush"
Reynolds, "Elegant Albert" Victor, and "Eloquent Alan" Rohello, for the
Jackson plaque
Governor
California:
Edmund
"This
is
G. Brown, on a flood in
Northern
the worst disaster since I was elected
governor."
Ronald Wilson Reagan, from

is
nothing more beautiful
especially
when
it's all
than
his
autobiography:
"There
the
spring,
California
in
covered with horses."
Los Angeles Mayor Samuel Yorty, 1964:
"I
think
we have
the best race relations in our city of any large city in the
United
States."
Watts
rioter,
1965: "Everywhere they say 'Go to Cali-
fornia! California's the great pot
rainbow.' Well,
no place
peddle
now
gold at the end of the
and the only pot

and Avalon."
else to go,
at Sixtieth
0'
we're here in California, and there ain't
Famsworth Crowder:
with accents, in itaUcs."
I seen's
"What America
is,
the kind they
California
is,
PROLOGUE
MOST ALL OF THESE

came out
Arena just
It
of the Pacific at the

as
on April
mouth
Creek hy Point
of Alder
much
i8, 1906, only this time
stronger-
ripped south at the steady, crunching speed of two w,iles per
and Gualala
second, causing the Garcia
hanks, splitting giant trees right

directly
Pirst
down
jump
rivers to
their
the middle, then passing
under the small town of Plantation.

killed was a painter catapulted from a house
roof, next 8
students departing from their last class at Port Ross School.
continued south, within a mile of the old Russian trading
It
post,
snapping the
historic buildings like mâtchsticks, trapping
9 in the
Head.
debris, nosing
At
moment
this
underwater again,
buildings were
to resurface at
toppling
Petaluma, Napa, and even Sacramento a

the
San Andreas
cracks appeared in
It split
At
the dam.
Pault.
full
Bodega
Santa Rosa,
in
y$ miles east of
ominous
Oroville, 1^0 miles away,
south through the waters of Tomales Bay, capsizing
Olema and
small craft and drowning 12 before passing under

Bolinas, to return to the ocean.
In Marin County alone there were 83
As
moved through
known
dead.
Golden Gate
was a "sympathy" break in the Hayward Pault, running
alongside the Berkeley Hills. San Prancisco, caught in between,
it
the waters outside the
there
shuddered convulsively.
Bridge buckled and
The
south tower of the Golden Gate
tilted crazily
toward the
city.
The
lo
One day
rr
Last Days of the Late, Great State of California
was there,
The
next
It is
now 1 97 1. Two
it
of California.
The
for
first
the most populous state in the Union.
was gone, and with
nearly
But the horror remains
left
5%
million people.
vivid.
earthquake tremor to the
which the accumulated data
seismology
it
years have passed since the destruction
final
terrible holocaust,
of geology, oceanography,
and
us bewilderingly unprepared, required only
hour and 57 minutes. Yet never before in recorded history was

there a disaster of such magnitude. It
to
not surprising that the
compound
passage of time has served only to
even today people are unable
is
comprehend
the shock, so that

its
full impact.
what followed was unexpected (although most will now

deny it, few in the Eastern United States took California seriously in its lifetime), at least one aftereffect was predictable.
Though two years have passed, the flood of memoirs shows no
If
sign of ebbing.
finis
More words have been devoted
to California's
than to any single event in the history of man.
Reader's Digest
Inc., has
cities.
is
without
produced a
its
series of
The manufacture
issue of
California article; Jim Bishop,
books on the
last
days of
its
major
of "authentic California souvenirs"
multi-million-dollar business. Every
day has been documented on

Francisco, Sunset Strip,
No
film.
minute of that
is
fateful Fri-
Old California movies San
The Big Kwife dominate
television's
prime evening viewing time, vying with reruns of Love on a

Rooftop, San Francisco Beat, and Dragnet, while at
all
hours of
the day and night, transistor radios blare forth ghoulishly "I
Left
My
Sweetheart in San Francisco."
Re-creation of California has
become the
great
American
pastime.
Why, then, another book on California?

The main reason is the simplest. Since the destruction, so
much has been vratten about California, with total emphasis on
its golden aspect, that in the tinsel glare we are becoming
blinded to what California was and what
glittering
myth, more impenetrable than
it
its
was becoming.
smog ever was,
is
obscuring the California scene, distorting even our memories.
Today everyone knows
that California
was the superlative
PROLOGUE
''
contained the most people (21 miHion in 1969,
State, that it
in turn enjoyed the most
who
out of every 11 Americans),
income, leisure, public beaches and parks, pleasure boats (in

excess of 400,000), automobiles (more than most foreign countries),
most
miles of freeway, dogs and cats (50 million, or to put
2^
cruelly,
it
per resident), houses with bathrooms (the
exceeding the bedrooms), swimming pools, back-
latter often
yard patios, barbecues, electrical appliances, color telephones,

color television sets, plus almost all other accouterments of the
"good
life."
Measured
the national
against
average,
younger, healthier and better educated.
Califomians were
(In the
rest
of the
went on to college;
numbered more
were
them
Among
in California, 81 percent.)
doctors, scientists, and Nobel Prize winners than in any other
nation, 52 percent of high school graduates
state.
No other state was so vital
to the rest of the nation. California
produced 25 percent of U.S. table foods, 42 percent of

fruits
its
and
wine.
nuts,
It
43 percent of
its
vegetables,
its
tree
and 75 percent of
led the nation in government contracts: defense, 29
and development, 32 percent; space agency,

manufactured most of the world's jet planes. It
percent; research
44 percent.
It
led the nation in economic development, agricultural develop-
ment, and world trade ($4 billion worth of imports and exports
passed through its ports annually). Its economy was larger than
that of
any foreign country except Russia, West Germany,
Britain,
and France.
More than
a dozen major crops
minerals could be found nowhere

It
was the only
state
with
grew there only; over 40
else.
sufficient
diversity
to
be inde-
pendent.
Technologically and
parallel.
Its
pioneering
scientifically,
firsts
California
was without
ranged from almost every major
breakthrough in atomic research to almost every major innovation in the computer.
Through motion
entire world.
pictures
and
television,
it
influenced the
The
From hemlines
Last Days of the Late, Great State of CalifOTTiia
to hips to hairdos, the
Cahfomia look
affected
every aspect of women's fashion.
became national folkways,
California traits
envy of the
style the
Of
rest of the world.
the good things, those which
all
adopted, usually
California's life
first,
didn't originate
it
the balance of the nation belatedly
it
fol-
Whatever the fad from rock 'n' roll to the new

sound, from mini-skirts to mod, from sky to scuba diving, from
lowing
suit.
the sensual to the psychedelic chances are
it first
caught on big
in California.
Its state elections
on the American
Its state
were a sneak preview of coming
attractions
political scene.
primary was the ultimate hurdle on the long run for
the Presidency.
And
in the final stretch,
it
was California which often pushed
the winning candidate over the line.
For many, California was the

In
fact, it
dream
had become
we
fulfilled that
ignoring these,
we
so
New
much
Frontier personified.
the image of the American
tend to forget
its
other
firsts.
And
in
are seeing only a part of the California that
was.
California led the nation in divorce, crime, automobile fatali-
and alcoholism. Califomians first concocted the Bloody Mary, the screwdriver, the
Mai Tai, the gimlet, the Moscow Mule, the Margarita, and
(though others claim it) the martini; with 9 percent of the
ties,
homosexuality,
nation's population,
venereal
it
disease,
claimed 12 percent of
more
its
alcoholics.
wane (2.2 gallons per person as

against the national average of .979), and hard liquor (of vodka
alone, Californians drank 6.3 million gallons annually, against
Californians drank
1.7
million
cigarettes
imbibed by
beer,
New
Yorkers).
(142.7 packs per year per man,
They smoked more
woman and
child),
used more drugs, and committed suicide at a rate second only to
Nevada (whose statistics included Caligamble and lost).

California contained some of the most spectacular natural
scenery in the world and destroyed it at an unprecedented rate.
that of neighboring
fornians
who
crossed the border to
PROLOGUE
tallest trees
and cut down
native sons included Adlai Stevenson, Earl
Warren, John
contained the world's oldest and
It
the
13
latter.
Its
Steinbeck and Richard Nixon. But
made names
many
of
its
adopted sons
was while living in California that George Lincoln Rockwell became exposed to the
anti-Semitic teachings that led to his embracing Nazism, while
for themselves, too. It
W.
D. Fard was so embittered by his treatment there that he

founded the Black Muslims. It was not always first: Los Angeles,
June
1968, followed Jackson, Mississippi, June
4,
Dallas, Texas,
November
22, 1963;
12,
1963;
Memphis, Tennessee, April
4, 1968.
California provided the founding site for the United Nations,
and gave the John Birch Society the strength

oppose
It
numbers
of
to
it.
gave the world an image of Western hospitality but was for
the unattached an incredibly lonely place.

It
paid lip service to equality for the Negro and voted 2 to
deny him equal housing.
to
more civil rights workers into the South than any

other state and left uncorrected conditions in its own backyards
Watts, Hunter's Point, Richmond.
It raised the personal income of the majority of its residents
over that of the rest of the nation and kept its agricultural
It
sent
workers in virtual peonage.

It
housed the world's
largest
commercial bank and led
all
other states in bank stickups and personal and commercial bank-
ruptcy
filings.
Its cost
Its
of living
was
close to the highest in the world.
mild climate spawned more bizarre religions and Utopian
schemes than the

yard for
lost
rest of
the states put together.
was a grave-
causes moral rearmament, technocracy, the Town-
send Plan only in California they refused
to expire.
employed more chiropractors, naturopaths and

than any other state.
It
ers
It
It
faith heal-
pioneered the topless and the bottomless, the Hell's Angels
and the
hippies.
The
14
It
created the nation's finest system of higher education
methodically
It
state
It
set
about destroying
and
it.
counted more mentally disturbed people than any other
and
drastically cut
contained so
appropriations for mental health.
its
many anti-Communist
were never Communists enough

extremist right
Its
to
wing became
dustrial corporations such as the
crusaders that there
go around.
so acceptable that large in-
Schick Safety Razor
Com-
pany, Coast Federal Savings, Richfield Oil and Holiday Magic
Cosmetics openly contributed
financial support.
was a state of great dreams that had a way of turning out

badly: from the hydrogen bomb to the Kaiser-Fraser.
It gave America the freeway, smog, and the sonic boom.
It
It
prided
itself
dents were very
on being progressive,
much
in
and of and
farsighted.
for the
the warnings of the experts, building their
known earthquake
imity to
And
states,
to lead
it,
this
whose smallest
But
its resi-
moment ignoring
cities in close
prox-
faults.
most populous and most important of
all
decisions affected the lives of people in
every nation of the world,
it
chose in
its
last state election
an
"acting governor."
Though
may be
heresy even to think it, it must also be said

was often a ridiculous state.
Then why not remember the best things about it, and forget
it
that California
the rest?
For a simple reason. California was America tomorrow.

problems were larger than
life,
If its
they were also prototypes for the
of the nation. California was the direction in which

America was heading. If we don't separate the myth from the
reality now, we shall have to face the same failures again and
rest
again elsewhere, for in history as in education,
not learned
Long
it
when
a lesson
is
has to be repeated.
it was said that if California did

someone would have had to invent it. The process is
now underway. At last count there were no less than eight cities
calling themselves San Francisco, and even one (outside Phoenix) named Los Angeles, while the move to form a New Call-
not
before the destruction,
exist,
PROLOGUE
fornia
'5
out of the
remaining counties, plus portions of
still
Washington, Oregon and Nevada,
is
gathering surprisingly
widespread support.
At such
fornia as
a time
it
ing, shared
it
is
doubly important
to look
back on Cali-
examine the growing
really was, especially to
by an increasing number of
its
feel-
inhabitants during
was not what it could have

the dream or the dreamers had
those last years, that California
been, that at some point either
gone
astray.
It is
sadly ironic, but not until California
could one
wrrite
about
it
had ceased
to exist
with any degree of accuracy or objec-
was too many things happening too fast, most of them

simultaneously. Its single constant was change. Of all states, it
was the most relative. This was true not only in timeyesterday's truth becoming today s fictionbut also in space, for what
tivity. It
was meaningful in its north often bore no validity in its south.

It was a state of contrasts. And contradictions. It was most
often described by cliches which on close examination were
rarely true. At a combined rally of the Ku Klux Klan, the
American Nazi Party, and the Minutemen, an electric cross was
used in order to conform wdth the fire laws. This same "mammoth" demonstration, held
in the heart of "crackpot country,"
whom
Southern California, drew only 250 persons, most of
were
At about the same time, in "sophisticated" San Francisco, more than 1,000 members of the respectable Commonwealth Club heartily applauded a pseudoscientist who called the
Negro biologically inferior.
reporters.
In such contradictions most often ignored lay
and weaknesses.
These are a few of the reasons
one other, quite selfish. For all
this
its
its
strengths
book was written. There
apparent
faults, the
is
author
was fond enough of California to live there. He would like to

remember it as he knew it.
This book does not attempt to be a definitive history of the
Golden Stateno volume could ever contain it. Nor is it a full
account of the
it still is,
final hours,
of necessity has
though that great tragedy, painful
its
place here. Rather
it is
as
an attempt
The
to
bring together a few perhaps not unrelated ghmpses of Cali-
fornia as
it
seemed
to at least
one observerbefore
it
is
totally
obscured by myth.
Critics will inevitably charge that this
is
an insensitive book;
that to recall such manifestations of California life as the
coned cleavage of Miss Carol Doda

exceedingly
Reagan
morbid;
that
it
is
not only in bad taste but
better
remember Ronald
to
Row
and forget
that there is no place
for his role in King's
play "citizen-politician";
is
sili-
his attempt to
for levity in a
book on California.
To
the author can only reply that California
this
phenomenon often
humorous and that
was a
beautiful, sometimes grotesque, quite often

to
deny
it its
fullness
is
to
deny
it its
due.
No book on the great disaster would be complete without

some mention of the "California predictions." With only slight
exaggeration,
it
every astrologer,
would appear
soothsayer and
that prior to the actual event,

self -proclaimed
ica foresaw the destruction of the
Surprisingly this
phenomenon
Golden
is
mystic in Amer-
State.
neither totally retrospective
nor comparatively recent. California's
first cultist,
the not inap-
named Reverend William Money who in 1840

the sleepy pueblo of Nuestra Sefiora La Reina de Los
propriately
arrived in
Angeles de Porciuncula
to found the first of California's bizarre

Reformed New Testament Church of the Faith of
Jesus Christ and Moneyan Institute made such a forecast.
Shordy before his death in 1880 long after his followers had
deserted him for more modem, if less imaginative, leaders the
pioneer cultist drew a strange map entitled "Wm. Money's
Discovery of the Ocean," which showed the city of San Fran-
religions, the
cisco toppling into the Pacific.
When
local
newspapers refused to publish
it.
Money
invoked
damning it to the same fate.

Almost yearly thereafter, some small group deserted the
populated cities of the Golden State to seek sanctuary in such
remote places as Box Canyon, Virginia City, or the Superstition
Mountains. While the leadership ranged from a retired aide of
a curse on Los Angeles,
PROLOGUE
'7
General MacArthur's to the barefooted Krishna Venta (dispatched with a charge of dynamite,
who
lowers
set off
by disgruntled
manner by which he
objected to the
fol-
instilled his
teachings into their wives), and while the causes of the antici-
pated disaster ranged from earthquakes to

to
atomic bombs, nearly
Which came and
all
Communist invasions
common: a date.
had one thing in
passed.*
A few came close.
Missionary
Mary McDermitt,
of the Flying
House of David, predicted early in 1906 that San

Francisco would shortly come to an end. She was very nearly
right. Of course, like many another prophet, she said too much,
predicting the end of the world in 19 16.
ZadkieVs Almanac for 1906 was even closer, only two
months off, when it observed, "In San Francisco, Mars and
Rollers of the
Saturn are on the fourth angle, or lower meridian. In the vicin-
underground troubles probably a serious

earthquake will be destructive about Christmas day or the latter
ity of that great city
half of February."
But mosdy they missed.
Much more
number
sent a
of letters to people in the Santa Barbara area,
warning them that
quake and
One
tidal
their city
wave
would be destroyed by an
earth-
early in the afternoon of July 21, 1965.
of the letters reached a receptive audience, the local civil
defense chief, a retired

alerted
fire
an amateur prophet in Athens, Ohio,
recently,
all city
Army
colonel,
who, taking no chances,
department heads. As the
trucks were rolled out
fatal
hour approached,
and placed on the ready; the harbor
master kept his eyes glued to his binoculars, watching for the
wave; and
many
people refused to enter high-rise buildings. Yet
surprisingly, there
hundreds flocked
came
was no mass exodus from the city. Instead

beach to see the tidal wave when it
to the
in.
Fortunately this day, too,
though
*
An
it
exception was Sister
Aimee Semple McPherson, who, though she often

was most carefvd not to pinpoint it too firmly
talked of Catfomia's destruction,
in time.
came and passed. Yet, humorous

it had tragic portents.
appeared at the time,
The
Such
had never been uncommon, but during the
predictions
1960's they suddenly increased in number. Careful examination

reveals that nearly all
were refinements or borrovidngs from an
earlier series of prophecies
made by
California, the somnambulist prophet
This American mystic was
man who
never set foot in
Edgar Cayce.
bom March
18,
1877, on a farm
near Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Although as a youth he
dis-
covered that he possessed certain unusual powers keeping a
book under
that he
his pillow while
had absorbed
he
slept,
he would find on waking
contents it was not until he was well
its
became apparent.
Cayce could answer any question
into his twenties that his particular "gift"
While
in a state of deep sleep,
asked him,
whcher
about the present, past or future.
Many
of
would become known, concerned the

health of individuals, and it was here, it must be admitted, that
Cayce's record for accuracy was less than perfect. It has been
these "readings," as they
noted by his followers, however, that each of these failures

occurred
when
the beneficiary of the reading declined to follow
Cayce's exact homeopathic remedies. Yet even in this area,

Cayce's accuracy was astonishing. In one documented case after
Caycewho had litde schooling

and no medical training resulted in a cure. In other areas, his
accuracy was simply fantastic. Among other things, he predicted
the beginning and end of World Wars I and II, the splitting of
the atom and the discovery of the laser.
It was in August of 1941, less than four years before his own
death, that Cayce made the most important of his California
another, the advice given by
predictions.
Steam, one of Cayce's biographers, describes the scene

Edgar Cayce: The Sleeping Prophet:
Jess
in
"A
New
York businessman, concerned not only by the conlife, but the threat of wartime bomb-
tinuing strain of big city

ing,
had
said to Cayce,
should move out of

"'This
'There
is
is
too
'I
New
have for many months
well, as indicated,' the slumbering
much
felt that I
York.'
Cayce observed.
unrest; there will continue to be the character
of vibrations that to the
body
will
be disturbing, and eventually
"
PROLOGUE
^9
those destructive forces, though these will he in the next generation.'
"The businessman asked, Will Los Angeles be safe?'

"The answer came clearly, directly, without equivocation.
*Los Angeles, San Francisco, most all of these will be among
those that will be destroyed before New York even.'
Questioned on another occasion as to what warnings would
precede this destruction, Cayce said, "If there are greater activithe Vesuvius or Pelee, then the southern coast of Cali-
ties in
and the areas between Salt Lake and the southern

portions of Nevada may expect vdthin the three months following same an inundation by the earthquakes. But these are to be
fornia
more
in the southern than in the northern hemisphere."
had been in
eruption by Mount Pelee had begun in 1929 and
Prior to 1969, the last major activity by Vesuvius
1944; the
last
lasted three years.
Much
Cayce had predicted
earlier,
that the greatest period of
"earth changes" occasioned, he said, by the gradual tilting of
the polar axis would be between 1958 and 1998.

will
be broken up in
many
places,"
he
said.
"The
"The
earth
early portion
1958-98 period] will see a change in the physical aspect

of the west coast of America. There will appear open waters in
the northern portion of Greenland. There will be seen new
[of the
lands off the Caribbean Sea, and dry land will appear.
be shaken from the uppermost portion to

the end; and in the Antarctic off Tierra del Fuego will be land,
South America
will
and a strait wdth rushing waters."

That all these changes either preceded or occurred simultaneously with the destruction of California may well have been
coincidence, of course.
The
dates of these events were, perhaps needless to say, of
great interest to Cayce's followers.
On
one occasion Cayce was
bluntly asked, regarding these and related earth changes,
"When
will this be?"
"In this period [1958-98], as to just
At
this point,
voice trailed
off.**
when
.**
.
according to one of his biographers, "Cayce's
The
20
There are some among Cayce's followers who not only bebut that his reply
lieve that the mystic finished the sentence
contained the date of the California destruction exact to the
month and day.

Here one encounters
year,
difficulties
of
Long
documentation.
before Cayce's death, the more devoted of his associates felt
important to assemble in one place
all
Thus
vdth whatever supporting documentation was available.
was the Association

formed
for Research
it
of his readings, together
and Enlightenment (ARE)
Beach, Virginia (one of the few places, ac-
at Virginia
cording to Cayce, which would be relatively unaffected by the
coming earth changes). In the
library there
Cayce's California predictions; nowhere in

destruction given. Neither does
ings of
it
is
it is
a special
file
on
the date of the
appear in the collected read-
Cayce (Earth Changes, loo Questions and Answers, loo
More Questions and Answers^, nor in his two major biographies (There Is a River, by Thomas Sugrue, and Edgar
Cayce: The Sleeping Prophet, by Jess Steam).
Yet, long before 1969, many ARE members claimed to know
the date, which was passed from member to member and, in
some
it
in
instances, to trusted outsiders (the author
Oklahoma
City,
was
first
Oklahoma, in September, 1966).
early as the mid-1960's, a
number
told
And
as
of California cults, individual
psychics and spiritualists, as well as several not unrelated paramilitary groups,
began moving out of California
considered safer regions (the largest
which they
felt offered
Yet, either this date
saw a
possible out in
what they
number choosing Arizona,
the most sympathetic climate).
was not generally known, or else some

Cayce's rather careful wording ("Los
Angeles, San Francisco, most

curious fact that
to
all
of these
."),
when the destruction occurred,

among those killed.
for
it
is
number
a
of
Cayce's followers were
There
is
probably no greater evidence of the power of the
California mystique.
The
reader
may
elect to grant, withhold, or
keep in abeyance
his belief in the accuracy of Cayce's prediction. It should be
PROLOGUE
21
mentioned that numerous other events he predicted for

general period have not yet transpired.
For example,
As
New
this is written.
York City
still
stands.
this
PART ONE
CALIFORNIA
*We
did that because
NORTH
we
didn't like the idea of grass going
patchy on us."
Shirley
Temple
Black, explaining
why
had dug up 3,000 feet of grass around

and replaced it with green cement.
"A San Francisco

contacted by a
to
journalist
man from one
she and her husband

their
who knew
of the
home
Atherton
the Angels
TV networks
was
who wanted
be on hand with a camera crew the next time the outlaws
ripped
up
a town. But the deal
ofiFered, for
$100 apiece,
fell
to terrorize
through
when
any town the
the Angels
TV
people
selected."
Hunter Thompson,
A
bill:
Hell's Angels
California state senator, arguing against an open spaces

"Pretty soon they'll be trying to beautify the
whole damn
state."
Seismology
is
a young science, full of unknowns.
It is
only in recent years that most scientists have agreed that earth-
quakes are probably the result of
"elastic
rebound" disturb-
ances deep within the earth causing the great crustal blocks near
the surface gradually to
shift, this in turn mounting such tremendous pressure and strain along the "faults" or fractures be
tween them that they suddenly snap apart, wreaking havoc in
man's world above. But at what rate does this stress and strain
accumulate? And how much is too much? To date, no one
knows.
CALIFORNIA NORTH
2,3
major step toward discovering the answers was made in
the mid-sixties,
when
the U.S. Geological Survey established a
National Center for Earthquake Research at Menlo Park, California.
Budget
however, necessitated by the Vietnam War,
cuts,
some
severely curtailed
of
the
new
center's
most promising
investigations.
It is
known
that
some places
more "earthquake prone"
are
than others; that 80 percent of the world's earthquakes occur in

the Circle of Fire or circum-Pacific seismic belt, a group of
from
faults surrounding the Pacific Basin, extending
land to the Philippines through Japan,

Islands,
down
along
the
New
Zea-
Aleutian
the coastlines of Alaska, California, Mexico and
South America; and that of the 50 states, California, interlaced

with hundreds of earthquake faults, was the most susceptible to
quakes, thousands occurring there annually,
as to
all
but 500 so small
be unfelt by man, though recorded by his more sensitive
instruments.
And
it
disaster, seismologists
under the
soil
is
that a large
of California, in
Andreas California's
some years preceding the
true that for
warned
all
largest fault,
quake was building
probability along the
San
which ran from north and
west of San Francisco some 650 miles downstate south and east
of Los Angelesbut this was, as they were quick to admit,
nothing more than a safe guess. From their study of past quakes,
the scientists were unable to discover a meaningful pattern that
would enable them to answer the great questionWhen?

They could and did theorize, however.
Some believed that a major quake occurred approximately
every 50 years; others, every century. In the
northern half of the San Andreas,

Francisco,
last great
case,
the
upheaval San
1906, was "due" in 1956. In either case, the omi-
nously quiescent southern portion,

Pass, 1857,
its
first
its
last
major quake Tejon
was "long overdue."
Despite private conjectures, few experts were willing to
make
public predictions. Dr. Peter A. Franken, one of the nation's
top physicists, was an exception. In
Michigan professor
stated,
"There
is
1968 the University of
at least a
50-50 chance that
California will be hit by a bone-shattering earthquake in the
Tfee Last Days of the Late, Great State of California
24
next ten to twenty years.

geophysicist
would
disagree."
seriously doubt that
Such a quake, he
any national
predicted,
would
probably be the greatest disaster in world history, potentially
knocking out both San Francisco and Los Angeles,

with Hiroshima. "Every major sign that
at a par
its
damage
we know
points to the fact that a jnajor earthquake in California
is
about
over-
due."
Still
another theory,
but even more frightening,
less specific
was the possibility that even such major quakes as 1857 and
1906 had not entirely relieved strain, that the earth under
California was building an earthquake of magnitude heretofore
unknown, which might well be accompanied by record horizontal and/or vertical displacement.
There can be
zontal (as
when
several earth motions during a quake:
or south); vertical
tion.
20
(when one
side rises or falls); or a combina-
In 1906, horizontal displacement in one spot
feet.
hori-
the earth on one side of the fault moves north
offset fences
In the relatively few years seismologists have been
studying California quakes, vertical displacement has rarely
exceeded several
In Earthquake
feet. This may not have always been the case.

Country (Lane Books, Menlo Park, 1964)
Robert lacopi notes: "The San Andreas Fault apparently has
gone through long periods of both

ing.
The
great,
and horizontal
vertical
shift-
eroded escarpments along the fault in Southern
California including the steep faces of the San Jacinto and San
Bernardino
mountains clearly
indicate
that
geologic times vertical displacements totaled
during
ancient
some 10,000
to
was presumably implying, however, that

had occurred over millions of years, a few feet
a time. Prior to 1969, few scientists would have publicly
15,000
feet." lacopi
this displacement
at
hinted otherwise. Yet the possibility of sudden large-scale ver-
movement always existed.

Someday it may be possible to predict earthquakes. It may be
that from the tremendous amount of data accumulated as a
tical
result of the California disaster, there will
that will in time save as
remains in the future.
many
lives as
emerge information
were
lost.
But that day
CALIFORNIA NORTH
Some
^5
things are known.
There
are
earthquake warnings.
an earthquake sound, variously described but most

often heard as a low-pitched moan or the rumble of many
There
is
But since this occurs only moments before the

more often than not, simultaneously with it, its use as
a predictor is limited. More important is the knowledge that
freight trains.
quake
or,
every major earthquake
is
preceded by a number of small fore-
But these can occur hours or months in advance. And

as yet no way to distinguishexcept in retrospect
whether a tremor is in itself a small quake, the aftershock of an
shocks.
there
is
earlier
to
quake, or really a foreshock, a warning of a larger quake
come.
Although seismology is a young science, man's awareness of

earthquakes goes far back in time, and over the centuries he has
built
up
a fantastically large earthquake mythology. (Aristotle,
for one, believed the cause of earthquakes to be
winds im-
Modem
prisoned in the bowels of the earth, seeking release.)

science has discounted most of these
myths there
ample, no such thing as earthquake weather, nor
is,
is
earthquake seasonbut some appear to have a basis in

tales of the strange
too
common and
While
science
is
for ex-
there an
fact.
The
behavior of animals just before a quake are
too well authenticated to be wholly discredited.
not yet willing to grant animals a "sixth sense"
or earthquake awareness,
it
does, in typically guarded fashion,
provide a conjectural explanation for the phenomenon, the pos-
some manner or means certain animals may on

occasion be able to feel and distinguish foreshocks too minute
to be sensed by man.
It has been further noted that the less an area is inhabited by
sibility that in
man, the
greater the apparent sensitivity of animals to these
foreshocks.
It is
not surprising, then, that most of the warnings which
preceded the disaster came from the northern third of the

state the area between San Francisco and the Oregon border
the least populated portion of California. Altogether some dozen
completely authenticated reports survive. Unfortunately none

received wide attention until after the tragedy occurred.
The
The
26
best
known, the "Smith
letter,"
Mount
In a ranger station near
named Gypsum
embodies several of these
Shasta a forestry supervisor
Smith added a few
P.
reports.
final lines to a letter to his
Baltimore:
sister in
"Curious things have been happening. Last night, just before

I
went
my
to bed,
dog Spot began whimpering and
camp, but saw nothing. Shordy

howling, as
at the
if
dawn
after
there
was a
into
terrible
every coyote in the area had decided to complain
same time. Then
fawns, does, big
number of deerbucks with tremendous antlers came running
through the camp,

I
shivering. I
thinking a bear might have wandered
looked outside,
as if
this
morning
a large
chased by something. Shortly after
this,
heard from Frank, that during the night the trout over in the
hatchery clustered in the eastern comer of the ponds so tightly

that
when
discovered this morning,
many had
suffocated.
"Another thing, perhaps unrelated. Yesterday a ranger near

Susanville reported the sky
ably been
much
was dark with
my
kidded, since, to
seagulls.
He's prob-
knowledge, gulls are rarely
seen this far inland.
"As
wrote the above. Spot
let
out the most mournful howl.
"Everything has a logical explanation, of course.

probably coming
reported
seeing
Times.
"Still,
ened
down with
the
gulls
cold.
And
had
probably
the
too
Spot
ranger
much
is
who
Early
why
should the familiar howl of the coyote, the fright-
flutter of birds,
and the unease
of
some of
my
forest friends
And why so often today have I caught myself

ing and listening. And for what?"
The letter was written seven days before the disaster.
bother m.e?
paus-
2.
They came
and
ship,
to
Northern California by horseback, wagon, foot
from every
state
They came because
and
there
territory
was
gold.
and every foreign
land.
CALIFORNIA NORTH
2,7
By the hundreds, then the thousands, they panned

dug the gullies, sluiced the streams.
And
every place they stopped at they named, as
permanence and identity.

Some places were named
if
the rivers,
to
bestow
after the nationalities of their resi-
dentsChinese Camp, Chili Gulch, Dutch
Flat.
Others denoted qualities essential to survival in the miner's
West Rough and

Some, such
as
Ready, Fairplay.
Hangtown and Cut Throat
Bar,
commemo-
rated incidents in their early history.
amusements Ladies' Creek, Brandy

Whiskeytown or with, their aftereffects Delirium Tremens and Puke Ravine.
Some
dealt with their
City, Poker Flat,
Some, such
as
Rich Bar, were measurements of their success.
was not always true of their opposites. Poverty Hill, for

example, was so designated to keep other miners away.
Some were named in jest Drytown had 26 saloons.
And other names were impolite terms to which they gave
polite spellings, once the wives, ministers and other "respectables" arrivedAsel, Putah Creek, and Guano Hill.
In time, as the color grew fainter, the strikes farther and
farther apart, the miners deserted Northern California, leaving
behind as their heritage abandoned mine shafts, a few thriving
towns, a hundred more already dead, and the names. Often the
But
this
names survived when the places did not.

This was the first great migration. It began
slightly more than a decade.
The
last great
migration began during
in
848 and lasted
World War
II
and
lasted a quarter of a century.
This time they came by automobile, over Donner Pass, on

Interstate 80,
do you have
five."
down
to
the slopes of the Sierra Nevadas. ("Honey,
go so
fast?
The
sign says the speed limit
is
sixty-
"Baby," he replied, "in California you can get a ticket for
observing the speed limit
They came
if
the rest of the
across the desert
children watching for the
first
traffic's
going faster.")
from Needles on Route #66, the

orange juice stand. ("Of course
it
28
TJie Last
Days
of the Late, Great State of California
doesn't taste like fresh orange juice, lady," the vendor explained
with tolerant exasperation.
concentrate.
"It's
We
ship
all
the
fresh oranges out of state.")
They came from
out of the sky, dropping into the smog, then
suddenly seeing the

first
time. ("God,
mammoth
it's
big!"
spread of Los Angeles for the
There were no other words
to de-
scribe it.)
They came from
almost every place.
For almost every reason.
They came out of loneliness and love and desire and hate.
They came because the company had diversified or Hughes
was hiring or Litton expanding or UC had a cyclotron or there
were crops to pick.
They came because it was a new beginning or a last chance or
because there was nowhere else left to go.
They came because
they could never forget the look of the
city as the troop ship sailed
They came because
under the Golden Gate.
the children were here or because the
schools were better or because the old neighborhood frightened
them
or because the wife nagged.
They came because

pis they could find
they believed that south of the Tehacha-
God,
or a part in a movie.
They came because they'd heard that in San Francisco there

were three single men for every single girl.
They came to sin or to soak old arthritic bones in the perpetual sun.
They came because
it
was
as far
away
as
you could get from
the South or because the niggers were taking over Chicago.
They came because
of a
movie or a song or an advertisement
or a book or a letter or a photograph.
They came because
in Frisco they paid
you good money
to
bare your boobs.
They came because people enjoyed themselves more

much to do and see, because it was the
because there was so

Frontier, because
place, because
They came
it
it
was the Old West, because
offered opportunity.
for a visit
and never went back.
it
here,
New
was a swinging
CALIFORNIANORTH
They came because
29
there
was more space or because they dug
the scene.
They came because they didn't hke the person they had been
and hoped to achieve some marvelous alchemy merely by crossing the state line.
They came because

because
it
was
as
the law was after
who might
were doctors here
be able
good a place
as
them
or because there
to cure their diseases or
any
to die or
because they'd
seen teenyboppers with their mini-skirts and cute
waggy
bot-
toms on TV.
They came because
of a good deal or because it was easier to

and save a little.
They came because it was more stimulating intellectually or
because Robert Welch praised it so much.
declare bankruptcy
They
They
They
They
came because the climate was mild.

came because the swami told them to.
came because people were friendlier or more tolerant.
came because all their lives they had been moving
West.
They came because
of surfing or skiing or sky diving or gay
bars.
They came because

they had
left
they hoped
it
would be
better than
what
behind.
They came because it was where things were happening.

They came because it was California.
From the end of World War II through that final year, 1969,
they came at the rate of 1,000 a day. Or so the statistics say. But
statistics
can be deceptive. Actually some 1,200 came, but only
1,000 stayed.
For one-sixth of those
up
to the
who
came, the
reality did
not measure
dream.
The Chicagoan found
there were niggers here, too, and the

Negro found the same discrimination and lack of opportunities.
The young secretary found that while there were more bachelors than bachelorettes in San Francisco, many of the former
were
less interested in
the latter than in each other.
The homosexual found
there was a
premium on youth.
The
The
farmer found there was no room for the small farm in
agribusiness.
The farm
laborer
found that wages promised bore no
rela-
wages paid.
tions to
The buxom
beauty found that the topless clubs didn't pay
all
that well.
The
old-age pensioner found that mild climate
day was
The
meant one
just like another.
job hunter found there were
more jobs for the highly
specialized.
Some found
became friendlier fastera minute

after meeting someone you were on a first-name basisbut that
deep, lasting friendships were rare.
Others found that they couldn't escape from themselves.
And all found that although wages were higher, so was the
that people
cost of living.
But most
stayed.
For them the prospects outweighed the
disappointments.
Unlike their predecessors, the
new immigrants
part ignored Northern California, passing through

at
all.
for the
it
most
quickly,
if
Instead of seeking out solitary places, where there was the
making a fresh strike, they headed straight for the

most crowded metropolitan areas, many settling in the San
Francisco Bay Area but even more heading for Southern California. And although time had wrought a thousand metamorpossibility of
phoses, large sections of Northern California, from the Sierra
Nevadas
ties
to the Pacific,
remained sparsely
settled, the
communi-
small and isolated, inbred, while the land stayed ruggedly

it once was. The natives were suspicious
anyone from Sacramento south. And they
beautiful, California as
of "foreigners,"
i.e.,
hated with a collective passion that greedy land and watergrabbing monster south of the Tehachapis
Periodically they threatened to secede
Oregon
known
as
"L.A."
from California to join
or Nevada, or to form another state entirely.
Yet although most of the

live here, their
new immigrants
needs extended
this far
and
did not choose to
farther.
It
was huge. From the shadowed
390
feet, its
surveyors
When
When
forest floor
it
extended upward
branches reaching far out of sight of the crew of
who had
set
up
their transits below.
Caesar marched on Britain,
it
was
a striphng.
Christ walked the shores of Galilee,
older than any living man.

in the Santa Maria,
when
It
it
was already
was here when Columbus
Sir Francis Drake, the Spanish
set sail
and the
made their exploratory voyages up this spectacular

coast, when the states of America united to become a nation.
In 1848, when James Marshall reached into the waters of the
Russians
millrace
for John Sutter and took out a

was already stretching not only
record heights but onward into its second millen-
he was constructing
piece of yellow mineral,
upward
to
it
nium.
It
was of the genus Sequoia sempervirens,
better
known
as
the coast redwood, a species of cone-bearing evergreen native
only to a small, rain-swept portion of the Pacific Coast of the
North American continent.

It was also the tallest living thing in the world. And it was
located on one of the most beautiful river flats in Northern
California, at the confluence of Redwood and Bond creeks well
within the 80 acres the lumber company had staked out for a
"total salvage" operation.
With
its
fellows,
it
had once composed a
vast forest, never less
than a mile wide, extending unbroken from north of San

Francisco Bay deep into Oregon.
With
the gold rush, however,
had come the need for lumber for sluice boxes, mine timbers,
houses, stores, wharves and like their relatives, the firs, spruces
and pines, the redwoods had been felled in great numbers. By
the time naturalist John Muir founded the Sierra Club in 1892
"to explore, enjoy
and protect America's scenic resources,"

some action were taken
was already apparent that unless
it
to
The
32
check the wholesale cutting, the coast redwood would become
Attempts
extinct.
before the combined forces
fell
in one of the great swindles of
nearly
all
redwood park, however,

of the lumber industry, which
to create a national
all
time succeeded in transferring
the redwood lands from public to private ownership.
Redwoods League was formed. Although its national park plans fared no better, it did succeed in
a compromise move. Enough private capital was raised to buy a
number of redwood groves. These were then donated to the
state for preservation and use as public parks. In time, these
and subsequent additions totaled 49,000 acres.
Compromises were also made by some (though not all) of the
more farsighted lumbermen. Realizing that their livelihood
depended on the continued presence of trees, they supported
the adoption of a number of conservation measures. Clear cutting, which totally denuded a piece of land, leaving it exposed
to the elements, was largely abandoned and sustained-yield
cutting introduced. Simplified, this meant that whenever trees
In
were
fires
19 1 8 the Save the
to replace them. Barring floods,
and other disasters natural and man-made this worked
well, but
trees.
were planted
cut, others
it
took time: 80 years to raise usable second-growth
However, when
aflFord to
it
came
to the giants,
wait 2,000 years to see a return on
no company could
its
investment.
For a time the two opposing forces maintained an uneasy
from inclination than from a decline in the demand

redwood and a boom in other building materials.
truce, less
for
But then, following World War II, the new migrants came
in a population surge of unprecedented dimensions. Workers
who had moved
to the coast to labor in defense plants for the
duration decided to stay. Servicemen, passing through on their
way
to the Pacific theater, liked
with their families.

siles,
what they saw and returned
Mammoth new
industries jet aircraft, mis-
electronics, data processingemerged,
of thousands.
To
up department
serve the
stores,
new
arrivals,
employing hundreds
other businesses sprang
supermarkets, banks (in 1945
Bank of
America had 493 California branches, in 1969 nearly 1,000)

these in turn hiring stiU more people. Soon many Eastern-
CALIFORNIA NORTH
33
based firms insurance companies, auto manufacturers, specialty
shops added California plants

California
jobs
wanted
it
golden dream.
arrived at the rate of 1,000 per day. Just to keep
with their needs, the state had

classrooms every week; 3
miles of
manufactur-
states in
was second. Few^ of the

long, however; it seemed everyone
were vacant for
to share the
They
Prior to
had ranked eighth among the
ing (trailing even Oregon); by 1958
new
moved
World War II,
or divisions. Still others
their entire operation to California.
highway every
to provide
new high
six
150
new
up
elementary
schools every month; 1,000
months; 300,000
new homes each
year.
And
one of their needs was lumber.
In Southern California, where most of the
new
arrivals settled,
orange groves were uprooted to make space for houses.
Redwood
marked the property lines in these tracts. Redwood provided beams for the ceilings, paneling for the walls. Redwood
was used for furniture outdoor as well as indoor as one of the
stakes
features attracting these people to California
mild climate. In thousands of backyard
fomians
sat
on redwood benches
barbecue cooked over redwood
at
was
its
patios, the
redwood picnic
year-round
new
Cali-
tables eating
logs.
Redwood had
other uses. Its odd-shaped burls were carved

and knickknacks to be sold to tourists, many of
joined the exodus to become new Califomians them-
into novelties
whom
selves.
Still
the people came, and the tracts grew, and one com-
modity became increasingly rare privacy.
some semblance of
it,
To
help preserve
fences were squeezed between the houses
in the tracts; for this the
handsome, sturdy, weather-resistant

redwood was much favored.
And finally, redwood was excellent coffin material.
To meet these needs, the lumber companies increased their
cutting. Sustained-yield methods having failed to provide adequate timber to meet the immediate demand, they returned to
clear cuttingbig trees
Yet the
new
and
small.
Califomians had
still
other needs. In
many ways
34
T'fc^
common only to
With more leisure time
these people were unique, possessing attributes

their time
and
place.
One was
mobility.
than any people before them and faster transportation, they

traveled
distances
greater
in
pursuit
of
pleasure.
In
ever-
increasing numbers, along wdth the tourists, they visited the
already existent state redwood parks: 4.5 million in 1965,
more
than the combined annual attendance at Yosemite, Yellowstone
and Sequoia national parks. There were so many, in fact, that

during the peak seasons hundreds of campers had to be turned
away every day.
In 1964 the National Park Service, working in conjunction
with the National Geographic Society, released the results of
its
was found
that of the estimated 2,000,000 acres of original redwood forest,
only 750,000 acres remained, of which only 300,000 were virgin
growth. Of these, only 49,000 acres were preserved in state
long-range study of California's unique redwoods.
parks.
It
quick calculation of these figures against the present
redwood trees would

more than two decades.
In the 1920's California had boasted four large redwood
forests of national park caliber. By the 1 960's only two remained.
Again a national redwood park was proposed, with the Sierra
Club in the forefront of the fight. After additional studies, the
rate of cutting revealed that the balance of
disappear in
little
club drafted a
bill
Redwood Creek
in
proposing the purchase of 90,000 acres along
Humboldt County, north
This was one of the two remaining
of Eureka.
and
sites,
its
particular
advantages were numerous. Almost half the acreage consisted of

virgin redwoods, one of the last great stands
on
earth, contain-
many of the tallest trees known, while the balance of the

land, much of which was in second-growth timber, provided
ing
enough watersheds and drainage to

flood, windthrow and erosion. This
protect the large trees from

site also
contained unparal-
leled scenic vistas, such as the wild beach at
the
home
Gold
Bluffs;
of one of the last great herds of Roosevelt elk;
was
and
offered broad recreational possibilities, including miles of usable
beaches and river frontage.
Yet even
this
was a compromise. The other siteMill Creek
CALIFORNIA NORTH
35
Del Norte County, 50 miles to the north was also weU worth
saving. This, however, was a much smaller area, 43,000 acres, of
which less than 8,000 were virgin growth, and contained no
in
record trees.
were more limited, with

by the loggers, leaving ugly,
Its recreational potentials
large sections already laid bare
perceptible scars on the landscape.
Yet
it
for about
at least
had one feature

$60
$150
The Save
to
commend it. It could be purchased

Redwood Creek site would cost
million, while the

million.
the
Redwoods League, apparently
feeling that the
Mill Creek plan had a better chance of passage, adopted
it.
In typical California fashion, the conservationists went into

battle neatly divided.
The lumber
industry had no such problem. All seven of the
major companies (most of which in recent years had been
bought up by
out-of-state
interests
as
diversified
holdings)
joined forces behind three front groups the California Red-
wood
Association, the Redwood Park and Recreation Commisand the remarkably named Redwood Region Conservation
Association. Antipark articles began to appear in national
magazines (one of the largest being printed by a subsidiary of
one of the concerned companies). Newspapers were barraged
sion,
with prewritten
editorials
and
letters to
the editor, a sample of
the latter noting that even conservationists "use toilet paper,
photographic film, book paper, newsprint and presto logs" but

neglecting to mention that none of these were redwood products.
Such long-unheard phrases
yield cutting"
as "tree
farms" and "sustained-
again echoed through the land.
On
denuded
Redwood Highway, U.S. 10 1, signs sprang

overmature timber harvested
HERE IN FULL COMPLIANCE WITH CALIFORNIA FOREST PRACTICE
LAWS AND REGULATIONS. HELICOPTER SOWED 21 MILLION SEEDS
TO START A NEW FOREST JANUARY 1 965.
The date was significant. The park fight had begun one
month earlier.
In Humboldt County, whose single sizable industry was
hillsides along the
up with
the announcement
lumbering, whole communities were organized in angry protest.
The
36
Lumbermen wore
buttons reading don't park
my
job.
At mass
meetings, industry spokesmen warned that the county would
become another poverty pocket due to loss of tax revenues (the

Sierra Club bill provided for compensatory payments to the
county); that the California lumber industry would be damaged beyond repair (91 percent of redwood acreage would still
remain in private ownership); that thousands would be jobless
(an independent survey estimated the number
I
percent of the work force of
that ultimately
at 394, less
Humboldt County,
many more would be employed by
than
also noting
the park and
adjacent tourist industry).
The Northerners were not unreceptive to these arguments.

To them lumbering, one of America's oldest and greatest induswas a way of life, a proud one, surrounded by heroic
lore. Given the choice between Paul Bunyan and
playing vendor to a bunch of tourists with snot-nosed brats, they
had no trouble deciding where they stood.
What the lumber company spokesmen neglected to tell them
tries,
legends and
was that according
to their
own
rate of cutting continued, in

trees,
hence no more
to
if
the present
20 years there would be no more
jobs.
This was only the frontal
worked
private estimates,
assault. Lobbyists in
Sacramento
persuade the state legislature not to accept the park
it. Similar efforts in Washington

would never happen. Eyeing the
division between the Sierra Club, with its Redwood Creek plan,
and the Save the Redwoods League, with its Mill Creek site, the
even
if
U.S. Congress approved
sought to ensure that the
latter
industry conceived a brilliant tactic: suddenly a half dozen
new
park proposals sprang up, among them an industry-supported
Redwood Park and Recreation
Sensible
some
Plan, basically a linking
of the already existing state parks via a narrow
redwood
corridor. In rebuttal, the Sierra Club labeled it a Hollywood
false front hiding the destruction behind. It would leave the
landscape looking, one club ad claimed, like "the places on
your face you missed when you shaved." But the confusion
created by circulation of the many park plans proved extremely
of
effective.
CALIFORNIA NORTH
To
further complicate matters, the National Park Service,
which had
to the
37
initially
Redwood Creek
endorsed the
now became
Mill Creek plan, which
site,
switched
the Johnson Ad-
ministrations choice, backed by Secretary of the Interior Stewart
Udall,
who
admitted that he wanted "to pick a park, not a
But time was the
greatest
industry's
ally.
To
national park through the shoals of the U.S. Congress
taken
less
than
five years.
And
as
fight."
navigate a
had never
one lumber company execuwouldn't be any-
tive injudiciously admitted, in five years there
thing left worth fighting about.
The companies were
seeing to this, for as the fight
moved
onto the stage of cormnittee hearings, the cutting continued in
both proposed
It
was
sites.
at this time, in the
summer
of 1965, that the 390-foot
giant taller by 23 feet than the previous record holderwas

discovered in the heart of the Sierra Club's
Redwood Creek
site.
No
announcement
of the find
was made
to the public.
Shortly afterward, the forest stillness at the junction of
Bond
and Redwood creeks was broken by unfamiliar sounds the

rumbling of the giant cats which would clear the ground; the
ripping of the chain saws of the
ers
who would
fallers;
the voices of the buck-
cut the fallen trees into 20-foot lengths; and the
grinding of the gears of the
mammoth lumber
would transport the sections to the mills.

It was a total salvage operation. Not a
tree
was
trucks
which
left standing.
Conservationists learned of the record-breaking tree by rumor,

it had been felled.
had been the tallest living thing
only after
It
in the world.
During the summer of 1966, forester Rudolf W. Becking,

working on a grant from the National Science Foundation, was
exploring a deep canyon in the area along Redwood Creek
when he
discovered a grove of magnificent redwoods. One, a
double-trunked redwood, dwarfed
all
the others. Taking a pre-
liminary measurement with a relascope, he determined that
was 385
feet tall not so tall as the tree that
it
had been cut down
The
38
summer
the
before, but
still
18 feet higher than the previous
record holder. Becking also discovered three more redwoods of

record height; a Douglas
yi^
fir
of 285 feet; a grand
fir
of
250
feet,
feet taller than the largest previously discovered; a 217-foot
western hemlock,
this too bettering the previous record holder
by 92
in the species
feet;
and
a 126-foot red alder, 34 feet taller
than any previously known. Writer Harold Gilliam summarized

the importance of these finds in the San Francisco Chronicle:
measurements are
"If Becking's
ten
tallest trees,
verified,
seven of the world's
plus record holders of three other species, are
found on Redwood Creek."

Becking was never given a chance
When
to verify his
he returned shortly afterward, hoping
findings.
to confirm
his
measurements with more precise instruments, the lumber com-
pany denied him admission to the area.

Meanwhile, the battle continued. Canvassing conservation
groups throughout the country, the Sierra Club managed to
obtain almost total endorsement for the
while advocates of the Mill Creek
was an
that theirs
argued,
it
was
Changing
its
inferior choice.
possible,
whereas the larger
site
site
because
would
Redwood Creek
site,
admitted in the hearings
But more important, they
would cost only $60 million,

two and one-half times that.
the Sierra Club argued that if
it
cost
position slightly,
only $60 million could be spent,
let it
be spent on Redwood
Creek, which in terms of redwoods would bring a far greater

return on the money.
In
the
midst of the bickering,
columnist George Dusheck asked

choice.
"We
San Francisco Examiner

it was necessary to make a
he wrote. "There is nothing
why
are not buying a wife,"
immoral about two redwood national parks."
And
"It
the cost?
might
cost
two hundred million
dollars to
sheds," he admitted. "Perhaps you think that
Well, maybe
five
it is. It's
of
it
as
wad
of dough.
about eighty-eight miles of highway.
supersonic jet transports.
Think
is
buy both water-
It's
It's
four days of war in Vietnam.*
an investment, Dusheck suggested. "Even
if
we
CALIFORNIANORTH
eventually decide
we
price of prime-grade
But by
39
don't want both areas, we

redwood will not go down."
can't lose; the
time everyone was so firmly committed to his
this
own
plan that the advice went unheeded.
Not
fighting
all
was among the propark
Thomas Kuchel,
senior Senator,
companies with accelerated or

park areas.
The companies
partisans. California's
publicly charged the lumber
"spite" cutting in the
proposed
hotly denied the charge, asserting
the cutting had been long planned. Yet
everyone concerned that the two
sites
was apparent to
were daily becoming less
it
desirable as national parks. Finally, in September, 1966, a threat
by President Johnson to introduce emergency legislation in

Congress forced the companies to adopt a one-year moratorium
on cutting.
It
was a
at the time.
clear victory for the conservationists.
The companies
Or
so
it
seemed
agreed to suspend for a full year any
What was generally overlooked

was that the companies themselves were left with the task of
cutting of trees of park quality.
defining "park quality."
While
the hearings continued and
many
of the park advocates relaxed their efforts, feeling the fight
had been won,

both
at least temporarily, trees
continued to
fall
within
sites.
The
battle
was
still
raging and the trees
1966 election campaign California's
last
still
falling as the
gubernatorial race-
began.
Two
months
after
announcing
his candidacy for the gover-
norship of California, Hollywood movie actor Ronald Reagan,
appearing before a convention of the Western

Association, stated his position
issue:
"A
tree's a tree.
one, you've seen
them
Products
on the National Redwood Park

do you need to look at? See
How many
all."
Wood
Motto;
**Eureka I Have Found
Admission:
31st (Presumptuous from the start, California
It"
was
the only Western state to skip entirely the step of
being a territory.)
Song:
"I
Love You, California" (A year after its official

members of the state legislature were
adoption,
how many could recall both tune and

One member passed.)
Gold (No longer mined in any appreciable quan-
polled to see
lyrics.
Mineral:
tity.)
California poppy
Flower:
(Once
its
golden blossoms could
be seen along almost any roadside. By the 1960's

find
one
Bear Flag (The emblem was the California
griz-
considerable
looking was
required
to
field.)
Flag:
zly,
which bore the marvelous Latin name Ursus
horrihilis californicus.
the species
was
The redwood
Tree:
The
last
known member
of
killed in 1927.)
.
As could be expected, the rumor reached Sacramento first.

"Ronald who?" the prominent Democratic legislator asked,
sipping his second prelunch martini in Posey's Cottage.
"Reagan," repeated his pretty young secretary. "You know,

the movie actor."
"You don't mean
that
picture he's in? Christ,
That
night, in
"Who
asked.
Frank
guy who always
we
loses the girl in every
should be so lucky!"
Fat's,
it
was common
the hell's Ronald Reagan?"
gossip.
more than one
politician
CALIFORNIA NORTH
4'
Yet while the Democrats refused
to take the
rumor
seriously,
Republicans were seen to pause musingly over their drinks,

perhaps remembering that
MC'd
Goldwater
last
by Reagan, which brought in
the
telecast,
much money,
so
or
one
maybe
it was rare, the recollecMurphy's

landslide
victory over portly
of hoofer George
savoring, with a satisfaction as full as

tion
carpetbagger Pierre Salinger.
Who
was Ronald Reagan?
The answer was
easily found.
For his
life
was an open book,
Reagan having just penned his autobiography. Titled

Where's the Rest of Me?* and coauthored with Richard Hubler, it remains one of the most incredible of all documents to
literally,
survive the California disaster.
With
a kind of frightening honesty,
opens:
it
"The story begins with the closeup of a bottom in a small

town called Tampico in IKinois, on February 6, 19 ii. My face
was blue from screaming, my bottom was red from whacking,
Ever
and my father claimed afterward that he was white.
.
since
my
birth I
have been particularly fond of the
were exhibited red, white, and blue.
whelming impulse
to
brandish them.
one psychiatrist say that

milk.
Then,
must
say,
any time
thumb
his
my
breast feeding
only got chubby
was the home of the
was the hungriest person in
when
wasn't gnawing on the bars,
my mouth habits which

my life."
own
have had an over-
imbibe our ideals from our mother's
in
through
By
have heard more than
we
brave baby and the free bosom.

the house but
I
I
exercised in the crib;
was worrying with
my
have symbolically persisted
admission, Reagan's mother was a saint, his father
a lovable Irish drunk, the family poor but honest.
how
have not been uncom-
on the various occasions when
fortable
colors that
No
matter
hard the times, they never considered going on welfare.
Although he had
"lovely,
wholesome
relationships" with a
* Ronald Reagan and Richard G. Hubler, Where's the Rest of Me? Duell,
Sloan and Pearce, New York, 1965. The author gratefully acknowledges the
publisher's permission to quote from the work.
"
Tfce Last Days of the Late, Great State of California
41
number of hometown girls, young Reagan's main interest was

sports. Summers he worked as a lifeguard; by his own count, he
saved yy persons from drowning. Did they appreciate this?
Hardly.
"I got to
recognize that people hate to be saved: almost
every one of them later sought
me
for dragging
let
me
alone,'
me
out and angrily denounced
them to shore. 1 would have been fine if you'd

was their theme. 'You made a fool out of me
make a hero out of yourself.'

Thanks to a sports scholarship which paid half his tuition
(the other half he earned waiting table), Reagan went to Eureka
College, in Eureka, Illinois, where he won letters in football,
swimming and track, was elected head of the student body, and
trying to
conducted his
first
strike
(more about
this
in due course).
Graduating in 1932 with a B.A. degree, his majors sociology

and economics, he found a job as a radio announcer for station
woe
(World
of
Chiropractic)
at
die
Palmer College of
Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa. This was followed by a stint

as a sports
announcer for
station
WHO in Des Moines.
In 1937, while in Southern California covering spring training of the Chicago Cubs, Reagan was "discovered" by a perceptive
at
Hollywood agent. "Max," the agent
Warner
office."
Brothers, "I have another Robert Taylor sitting in
Warner's took one look
at the screen test
to a seven-year contract, starting at
Over the next three

epics,
called a casting director
$200 per week.
years he appeared in two dozen
sometimes as the juvenile lead but usually
loses the girl.
my
and signed him
Several were excellent
as the
Warner
boy
who
Glms Brother Rat and
Dark Victory among thembut most of the otherswhich included Girls on Probation and Tugboat Annie Sails Again
were B grade at best. Although the public seemed to like him
and Louella Parsons had adopted him as one of her proteges, it
wasn't until the early 1940's that he achieved stardom with two
films: Knute Rockne, in which he played the Gipp, who, dying,
urges the Fighting Irish on to victory, and King's
In the
Row.
he delivered a single line of five words that stole

the picture and later provided the title for his autobiography.
The
latter,
scene
is
as follows:
Young Drake McHugh (Reagan)
CALIFORNIA NORTH
43
has been injured in a railroad yard accident. Unconscious, he
is
rushed to the town doctor, a sadist whose incestuous relationship with his daughter
threatened by
is
Although McHugh's injury
her.
McHugh's
actually minor, the doctor
is
The
moment
down
amputates both his legs
at the hip.
when McHugh wakes
in a hospital bed, to look
flat
sheets
It
interest in
and scream, "Where's the
climactic
rest of
occurs
at the
me?"
was, the actor later recalled, his most challenging part to
that time,
and rendered even more demanding by the
deep within, the
whole man,
"A whole
Ronald Reagan
real
felt
himself less than a
an
his destiny only half-fulfilled as
actor
would
fact that
actor.
find such a scene difficult; giving
it
necessary dramatic impact as half an actor was murderous.

I
had neither the experience nor the
had
"I
to find
how
out
talent to fake
it.
the
I felt
simply
really felt, short of actual amputation.
it
rehearsed the scene before mirrors, in comers of the studio,
while driving home, in the men's room of restaurants, before

selected friends."
Although
it
won no
Oscar,
it
before he could capitalize on his
did make Reagan a star. But

new eminence, World War II
intruded.
Because of his fondness for horses ("There
is
beautiful than California in the spring, especially
nothing more
when
all
it's
covered with horses"), Reagan had joined the Cavalry Reserve.
Called to active duty in 1942, he first served with a cavalry unit

near San Francisco, then later was transferred to an Air Corps
group making training
one commercial picture.
Murphy
(During the war he made only

This Is the Army, in which George
films.
played his father.)
captain but,
"When
He
rose
was proposed
from second lieutenant
to
for Major, I asked that the
I know the
who was I to be
recommendation be canceled.
fortunes of
distributed unevenly, but
Major
war
are
for serving
in California, without ever hearing a shot fired in anger?"
Returning
to
Hollywood
of himself in politics.
He
in 1946,
he found a part of the
joined the United
was a charter member of Americans
for
World
rest
Federalists,
Democratic Action, and
T'fce
44
became active on committees of the Screen Actors Guild. In

1947 he was elected president of the guild.
While holding this position, Reagan became aware of what
he conceived to be a Communist attempt to infiltrate the union,
and in October of 1947 he went to Washington, together with
Adolph Menjou, George Murphy, Robert Montgomery and
Robert Taylor, to testify as a "friendly witness" before the House
Un-American Activities Committee in its hearings on Communist subversion in Hollywood.
According to Reagan, on his return home his wife,
Jane
Wyman,
actress
asked him for a divorce. Their marriage, which
had taken place
in 1940 with the blessings of Louella,
ended in
1948.
Reagan had been "a near-hopeless hemohad voted Democratic in

every election. I had followed FDR blindly, though with some
misgivings I was to continue voting Democratic through the
1948 election Harry S Truman can credit me with at least one
Previous to
this,
philic liberal. I l^led for causes'; I
assistbut never thereafter."
Although the initial cause of his "disillusionment with big

government" and the Democratic party was never made entirely
clear in his autobiography,
it
appeared to stem pardy from his
disapproval of the graduated income tax (at this time
was paying him $3,500 a week) and partly from

he had been "used" by the left wing. ("I was
would
Warner s
his feeling that
their boy!"
he
recall bitterly years later.)
Apparently the disillusionment was more gradual than he

remembered, however, for although Reagan said he never
later
voted Democratic after
1948, he did campaign actively for
Helen Gahagan Douglas
in her race against Richard
Nixon
1950. (Mrs. Douglas* advisers chose not to use Reagan's
on campaign
literature
in
name
because of his well-known "leftish"
connections.)
By
1952, however,
when he campaigned
as a
Democrat
for
Eisenhower, the transition was well underway.
That same year he remarried. Ironically enough, it was due

Hollywood blacklist that he met his second wife. Bit
to the
CALIFORNIANORTH
45
Nancy Davis complained
actress
Mervyn LeRoy that

Communist mail. LeRoy
to director
she had been receiving unwanted
asked Reagan to investigate her background and connections.
He
did, finding
Miss Davis a Smith graduate and the daughter
of a wealthy, extremely conservative Chicago neurosurgeon
loo percent American.
As
for the acting part of his life,
his career
Reagan was faring
having gone into a decline during the
less well,
late forties,
due
to his
having been cast in a number of incredibly bad pictures.
Some
of his followers
would later charge that he was offered

nothing but poor roles due to his uncompromising antiCommunist stand. Having seen the films, which ranged from
That Hagen Girl (in which he played opposite the "new,
mature Shirley Temple") to Bedtime for Bonzo (in which he
played opposite a chimpanzee), one
is
tempted
to sub-
was hired
as host
sorely
scribe to the conspiracy theory.
In 1954 Reagan
made
fiscal
comeback.
He
for the television series General Electric Theatre, at

year, plus expenses.
sive,
he
rarely
addition to his
for
its
GE,
made
TV
(Inasmuch
less
role,
as the contract
$156,000 a
was nonexclu-
than $100,000 a year on the side.) In
he spent several weeks each year touring
company's 135 plants and speaking before

250,000 employees. "The trips were murderously difiBcult,"
visiting the
he recalled. "But I enjoyed every whizzing minute of it. ... I

had an awesome, shivering feeling that America was making a
personal appearance for me, and
it
made me
the biggest fan in
the world."
The
times
trips
were hard not only because of
14 appearances a
his
schedule some-
day but because he had
"a lifelong
tendency toward claustrophobia," coupled with a fear of
flying,
which meant all travel had to be on the ground.

When Reagan first began touring for GE, he delivered a more
or less set speech on the blessings of the free enterprise system,
liberally larded with Hollywood anecdotes. (The men wanted
to know how the stunts were done, the women what actors did
on Saturday nights.) "The most dramatic part of my pitch, however, was the account of the attempted takeover of the industry
The
46
my speeches
my changing
by the Communists. ... As the years went on,

underwent a kind of evolution, reflecting not only
philosophy but also the swiftly rising tide of collectivism that

threatens to inundate
The Hollywood
what remains
of our free economy.
portion of the talk shortened and disappeared."
its place, Reagan lectured on the evils of Communism, government ownership, TV A, and socialized medicine, and on the
unfairness of the graduated income tax, where those with the
In
and initiative were forced to pay the largest tax.

In 1962 Ronald Reagan and General Electric parted company. In his autobiography Reagan gives not one but two posgreatest talent
sible reasons for his firing:
and
(i) that his remarks about Socialism
TVA had so irritated the government that
General
Electric, threatening to take
it
put pressure on
some $50 million in de-
fense contracts elsewhere; or (2) that his dismissal
been part of an alleged
antitrust settlement
may have
with the Justice
Department. General Electric denied both versions, attributing

the cancellation of General Electric Theatre to a single reason:
poor ratings.
Reagan quickly found a new job as host of another TV show,

Death Valley Days. Nor did he have any trouble finding opportunities to speak his mind. Almost immediately, he plunged into
the curious world of right-wing politics, with a high dive and
breast stroke that surpassed even the lifeguarding of his "liberal
daze."
The
following,
incidentally,
go unmentioned in Reagan's
autobiography:
To
help the American Medical Association in
its
fight against
Medicare, he made a Ronald Reagan Record Kit, to be played
by
Cup. "One of the tradimethods of imposing statism or Socialism on a people has

been by way of medicine," he began, ending with a plea for his
doctors* wives at Operation CoflFee
tional
listeners to write letters,

this,"
hundreds of them.
"If
he warned, "one of these days you and
spend our sunset years

children
what
He made
it
telling
once was
you don't do
are going to
our children and our children's
like in
America when men were
free."
film recordings attacking state welfarism for the
CALIFORNIA NORTH
Church League
47
of America, a Chicago-based group
which main-
tained 850,000 cross-indexed reference cards on organizations
and individuals "suspected"
of subversion.
He
joined 17 John Birch Society leaders in a fund-raising

drive to save the ultraconservative magazine Human Events.
He
served on the national advisory board of the right-wing
Young Americans
for
Freedom (planks
in the group's platform
included state right-to-work laws, student loyalty oaths, continued nuclear testing, and an end to federal aid to education).
He
appeared on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl as one of
the main stars of Dr. Fred Schwarz' Christian Anti-Communist
Crusade.
He
Communist
also
lent
endorsement
his
to
Schwarz'
Anti-
Literature for Latin America project, as well as to
Project Prayer, an attempt to overthrow the
U.S. Supreme
Court's school prayer decision.
He
was a speaker
at the
planning sessions of the violently
(another speaker, a retired Marine coloimpeachment was much too good for Earl Warren; he
urged hanging him instead).
He appeared as main speaker at the Town Meeting for
Freedom, Inc., at which Dan Smoot, the Manion Forum and
D. B. Lewis, Dr. Ross Dog Food manufacturer and right-wing
angel for the John Birch Society, were given awards.
Reagan himself accepted awards from governors Ross Barnett
and Orville Faubus, and from the Citizens for Constitutional
Government.
He went to Louisiana to campaign for the GOP segregationist
candidate for governor, oilman Charlton H. Lyons.
In his speeches he relied heavily on, and acknowledged his
indebtedness to, materials supplied him by the Liberty Amendment Lobby, a group which called for repeal of the income tax
and demanded that the Post Office Department, the Atomic
Energy Commission, the Social Security Administration, the
Federal Communications Commission, and a dozen other fedrightist Project Alert
nel, felt
eral agencies
be transferred to private ownership.
In 1962 he gave up his Democratic guise, switched his registration to Republican,
and campaigned
actively for the election
The
48
"warm
of his
Rousselot,
ber.
personal friend," California Congressman John
who was running
as
an admitted Birch Society mem-
In the same election, he also served as
man
for
state
campaign
chair-
Loyd Wright. In Wright's campaign, which Reagan
personally directed, the candidate called for an all-out endorse-
ment
John Birch Society and preventive war with the

Union ("If we have to blow up Moscow, that's too bad").
In 1964 Reagan backed his old friend and former hoofer,
George Murphy, for U.S. Senator and his new idol, Barry Goldof the
Soviet
water, for President, branding moderate Republicans in particular California's Senator

to
Thomas Kuchel "traitors"
for failing
back the Arizonan.
Once
the fair-haired boy of the liberal
left, from 1961 on

Ronald Reagan became the darling of the radical right.
Yet, until October 27, 1964, most of Reagan's political
speeches had reached limited audiences. That night he spoke on
nationwide
TV,
would dub
Only
it)
pleading for funds with which to conduct the

Goldwater campaign. His speech ("The Speech," his associates
years.
was the same one he had been delivering
this
time
it
An
struck a responsive chord.
dented $250,000 poured into Goldwater campaign
Even
for
unprece-
coffers.
Reagan might not have merited more than passing attention had the vote gone differently. Goldwater, of course,
lost, but, far more important to Reagan's own future, actor
George Murphy defeated Pierre Salinger in their race for the
at that,
U.S. Senate
seat.
California's gubernatorial
mansion would be up
1966, Republican campaign strategists recalled.
another actor?
who
What
for grabs in
"What about
about what's-his-nameyou know, the one
played opposite Ginger Rogers in Storm Warning. Yes,
that's
it Ronald Reagan."
The men who
asked the question were the men who financed

and controlled the Republican party in California. There was
nary a moderate
among them.
delegation called and carefully sounded him.
him not only ready but
They found
waiting.
Across the country, in the American Opinion reading rooms
CALIFORNIA NORTH
of the
49
John Birch Society, in the Poor Richard Bookshops and
other outlets of the radical right,
among
bumper
the
strips that
Earl Warren should be impeached; free men are not

FREE; THIS IS A REPUBLICNOT A
NEVER; REGISTER COMMUFOREVER
U.N.
democracy; U.S.
NISTS NOT FIREARMS; GIVE ReD ChINA OUR UnITED NaTIONS
read
EQUALEQUAL MEN ARE NOT
new bumper strips appeared.

Reagan for governor.
other read simply Ronald Reagan
SEAT, two
One
The
read
Democratic campaign
than a
little
Here was
strategists
'68.
observed
all
this
with more
incredulity.
man
with no experience whatsoever in govern-
ment, not a conservative by any definition but an out-and-out

extremist, a front
actor and,
become
man
more than
for the fronts of the radical right;
that,
one
who
typecast as the Great Loser,
batde, the
girl,
an
some 50 movies had

always managing to lose the
in his
his legs, his life or something.
Litde wonder the Democrats refused to take Ronald Reagan

seriously in his
Even
his
new
role as candidate.
former boss found
it
difficult.
Hearing that some
Republicans were talking about running Reagan for Governor

of
California,
movie
Jimmy Stewart
mogul Jack Warner

Ronald Reagan
for governor.
protested:
"No,
for best friend.*'
6.
Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, never

campaign biography. Had he done so, it is probable
California's
penned
3 2d
governor,
that only his family
He
was
would have read
it.
a good-natured, likable sort of
he appeared wooden.
Had he
He
was only
manup
close.
On TV
six years senior to "that actor
he could have played his

father. He was exactly the same weight as Ronald Reagan, 185
pounds. Being a couple of inches shorter, he looked much fatter.
fellow."
He
too
been able
to act,
was an extremely capable administrator. Yet, due to his

frequent and well-publicized gaffes, he often appeared a bum-
The
50
There was,
bier.
for example,
the time he visited a flood-
ravaged area in Northern California and told a reporter, "This

the worst disaster since
is
was elected governor."
His was a homespun image. Somehow one always pictured
him not
in the clothes
he wore but
in a comfortable, slightly
frayed bathrobe. There was a reason for
this.
The
governor's
mansion in Sacramento was a charming old Victorian
condemned
for use
by anyone except the
Located on the comer of Sixteenth and
rounded by a tiny lawn, constant
and
flashy neons. Early risers
man
in
worn robe and
swimming
Califomian,
He
visitors
was
sur-
on
Inter-
middle-aged
around his neck, waiting
cross the street
pool a nearby motel had so graciously
Edmund
before the
streets, it
to the sight of a
slippers, a towel
change so he could
for the light to
long
chief executive.
service stations, motels
and California
80 were frequently treated
state
traffic,
state's
relic,
and use the
made
available.
Gerald Brown was of that rare breed, a native
bom
first
got his
San Francisco April 21, 1905, one year

great earthquake and fire.
nickname during World War I while selling
in
Liberty bonds. Perhaps aspiring to emulate his relative and
namesake, orator
Edmund
Burke, he ended his impassioned
speeches with the ringing declaration "Give
me
me
liberty or give
dubbed him "Patrick Henry"

along with the easy informality. Even
death!" His classmates promptly
Brown. The "Pat"

later,
when
stuck,
addressed as "Governor,"
it
seemed
less a title
than a
nickname.
As
a youth.
Brown
delivered newspapers, graduated from
Lowell High, and worked his way through law school by serving
as assistant to a blind lawyer.
and opened
state
his
own
In 1927 he passed the bar exam
practice. Politically ambitious,
he ran
assembly the following year as a Republican, but
During the
early 1930's
natus, a group of
for
lost.
he helped form the Order of Cincin-
young nonpartisan
voters dedicated to clean
municipal government. In 1934 he switched his registration to

Democrat. Although he served on the party's county central
committee and campaigned in various
local contests,
he did not
CALIFORNIA NORTH
5^
when he ran
San Francisco.
seek political office again until 1939,

attorney of the city
He
lost
If, at
the
his
time but
first
it
of
won
for district
election in 1943.
Brown impressed
the time,
ing reformer,
and county
the newspapers as a crusad-
was mostly because of the contrasting images of
immediate predecessors: Matthew Brady,
when
who
hated to
make
was proven that a not inconsiderable portion of the San Francisco Police Department was on the take;
and Charles M. Fickert, the man who framed the Mooneywaves even
it
Billings case.
There was another reason. Pat Brown's father, Edmund J.

Brown, was then operating several "social clubs" in the city. Less
politely put. Brown senior was a gambler. One of the new DA's
first acts was to crack down on gambling, thereby forcing his
own
father into retirement.
Although some of the crusader image remained through his

two four-year terms. District Attorney Brown was less a reformer than a practical idealist given to doing things one at a
time.
He
broke up a particularly vicious abortion ring that en-
joyed strong political and police connections; closed the

the
city's
grand maisons de
madam
joie,
Sally Stanford's
last
of
famed
1144 Pine; launched an effective juvenile

crime-prevention program; and, probably his major accomplishestablishment at
ment, brought together a trained
young men more con-
staff of
cerned with justice than with winning convictions.

both
still
men were by now dead,
the
memory
Though
and Mooney
rankled.
In short,
Brown
built a record of solid accomplishments,
excellent stepping stone for higher office
His
of Fickert
political
if
and
it.
He
an
did.
ambitions had long been evident; he wanted to be
attorney general of the State of California.

in 1946
he desired
lost;
he
He
entered the race
tried again in 1950, this time
only Democrat to win a major state
becoming the
office.
Occupying the governor's chair, serving an unprecedented

was a man Brown greatly admired Earl Warren,
himself a former DA and attorney general. Though of opposite
political parties, the two worked closely together until 1953,
third term,
The
52
when Warren
of the U.S.
resigned to accept appointment as Chief Justice
Supreme Court.
Prominent Democrats, eyeing Brown's record and

getting ability, urged
against
him
to
his vote-
run for governor the following year
Goodwin Knight, who had moved up from
lieutenant
governor after Warren's resignation. But Brownn demurred; he
was happy being attorney general.

Four years later, the question came up again. This time
Brown gave the matter more thought, for in the interim a
strange political situation had developed.
U.S.
Knowland (a Califomian, though

"The Senator from Formosa") returned home
governor. It was rumored that Knowland wanted con-
Senator William
often referred to as
to
run for
the California Republican delegation as a springboard to
trol of
the Presidency. There was a slight problem:
Goodwin Knight
liked being governor. Since Republican party finances were controlled by the conservative wing, which backed Knowland, the
problem proved surmountable. Knight was persuaded to trade
places vdth
at all
Knowland and run
happy about
it,
for the U.S. Senate.
however, the net result being a
He
wasn't
split
down
the middle of the Republican party.

Still,
precedent
seemed
to
Knowland.
favor
twentieth century California had
known
governor Culbert Olson, who had

and it hadn't elected a Democratic
failed to
During the
only one Democratic
win
a second
term
legislature since 1888.
For years Democratic registrants had held a 3-to-2 numerical

edge over Republicans in California and still lost most of the
elections.
Democratic
tidal
crash against the eastern
waves in the
slopes
of
rest of the nation
the
Sierras,
would
leaving
the
Golden State unaffected. There were three good reasons. One

was cross-filing, a system whereby a candidate could run for
office
without disclosing his
political
Progressive measure, intended to
affiliation.
end one-party
Originally a
it had inon the state.
rule,
stead given the Republicans a near-permanent lease
Second was the weakness of the state Democratic party organUnlike the Republicans, with their California Republican Assembly, the Democrats lacked a volunteer organization
ization.
CALIFORNIA NORTH
53
Warren
capable of getting out the vote. Third was Earl
who, though nominally

nonpartisan course.
a Republican,
had followed
By advocating such
social reforms,
Warren
a generally
legislation as
sory health insurance, higher old-age pensions
himself,
compul-
and other
liberal
had stolen most of the platform out from
under the Democrats.
By
1958,
ernor.
all this
had changed. Warren was no longer gov-
made
revision in the cross-filing laws
candidate to identify himself politically.
now
The
it
And
necessary for a
the Democrats
presided over a strong organization of dedicated volunteers.

latter
was the legacy of one man, himself a native
Califor-
nian, though long resident in Illinois.
In 1952 the candidacy of Adlai Ewing Stevenson brought

thousands of Californians into active political life for the first
time. Stevenson clubs sprang
up
all
over the state, their
mem-
bers young, vital, quite often politically naive, and wholly de-
voted to
their
"egghead" candidate.
With enthusiasm
they
addressed envelopes, canvassed precincts, rang doorbells, and

swore, "If Eisenhower wins, I'm going to Mexico or Europe."
Despite the polls and the

son's defeat
came
telltale signs, to
as a traumatic shock.
most of them Steven-
Few
left
the country,
however. Instead, in early 1953 they united the clubs to form

the California Democratic Council (CDC), which assumed control of
the Democratic party in California almost by default.
Again in 1956 they backed Adlai, with similar results, although President Eisenhower's California margin of victory
diminished. By this time, however, they had begun to learn the
political facts of life the
Brown decided to run

him its endorsement.
hard way.
against
Knowland, and the
CDC
gave
In the campaign that followed, there was something quite

noble about Knowland's steadfast refusal to compromise his
principles for political expediency.
Even though
endorsement of such Republican papers
as the
it
cost
him
the
San Francisco
Chronicle (which accused him of trying "to take California back

into the nineteenth century"),
Knowland made no
over party moderates. There was also on
effort to
win
the ballot a so-called
T'he Last Days of the Late, Great State of California
54
Knowland backed it wholeheartedly,

though doing so meant losing the labor vote both Warren and
Knight had so carefully cultivated.
right-to-work proposition.
Labor and the
CDC
Knowland with an
the Democrats
turned out the vote, and Brown beat
astonishing million-vote plurality. Moreover,
filled all
but one of the major
state offices (their
candidate for that one was a Mexican- American), captured control of
both houses of the
state legislature,
right-to-work
amendment and
former Senate
seat.
In
Still
bid
and defeated the

for
Knowland's
1962 Governor Brown's opponent was Richard Nixon.

smarting from his close
California hoping to
had
Knight's
make
carried the state in
The
loss to
Kennedy, Nixon returned
a political comeback. After
to
he
were
all,
i960, once the absentee ballots
was another Brown win, by 300,000 votes

this time, and the famous Nixon "crybaby" concession speech.
Observed Newsweek, "Somehow in Pat Brown's campaigns,
counted.
result
the issue always becomes the other guy."
Faced with a population boom of unprecedented dimensions,

plus a host of related problems greater than ever confronted any
other state executive ("Indeed, any headache that
afflicts
any
other state throbs even harder in California," noted Time, "and
many
of its quandaries have not even been invented elsewhere"), Pat Brown managed during his two terms as governor
to rack
up
a series of remarkable accomplishments.
sampling:
For years California had had a serious water problem.

70 percent of the people lived in the southern portion
state. Northern California had 70 percent of the water.
most politicians had preferred to ignore the issue because
intense North-South factionalism
did consider
it
quite often
on the nonsensical (one

ing icebergs
down from
it
While
of the
While
of the
engendered, and those
came up with
legislator, for
who
solutions that verged
example, suggested
float-
the Arctic and melting them, while a
highway commissioner advanced the possibility of planting

plastic trees and flowers alongside the freeways to conserve the
state
precious fluid).
Brown chose
the only sane solution, though
CALIFORNIA NORTH
many
said to do so
was
55
political suicide.
With
his prodding,
California approved the bonds for a statewide water plan, the
$1.75 billion Feather River Project, which when completed

would channel surplus water from the northern portion of the
(which every spring suffered
state
killer floods)
to the south
(semiarid, population-swollen) through a series of aqueducts
and canals.
During Brown's administration, three new university campuses and six new state colleges were added to the state's educational system, and a revolutionary Master Plan for Higher
Education was drawn up which anticipated the
tional needs through 1975.
Only
state's
educa-
in California could a
young
person go from kindergarten through graduate school without
paying one cent of tuition; the only condition ability.
Of
the
state's
pleted while
1,650 miles of freeway, over i>ooo were com-
Brown was
in office.
At the same
time, California
led the nation in requiring installation of exhaust-control devices
on automobiles
Under
first
as a smog-control
measure.
his leadership, the executive
branch underwent
its
major overhaul in 30 years. Previously, to handle existing
had been 360 separate boards, agencies and

overlapping functions, each was jealous
its
authority,
all
were
often unaware of what the others
of
and
were doing. Brown devised a plan whereby these would be
grouped together under eight state agencies, the head of each to
state needs, there
commissions.
Many had
be a member of the governor's cabinet. This not only defined

areas of authority,
state
it
was instrumental in reducing the
cost of
government.
Under
Brov^m, cross-filing
In the area of
civil rights.
was
finally abolished.
Brown
created the state's
first fair
employment practices commission; issued an executive order

whose purpose was to eliminate discrimination in all operations
of state government; and backed the Rumford Fair Housing Act,
which permitted those discriminated against to have their case
heard by a state fact-finding board.
In the area of social reforms.
aged; raised
Brown
increased aid to the needy
unemployment insurance from $40
to
$55 a week;
The
56
and created an office of consumer counsel to deal with such

problems as short weight, deceptive packaging, and bogus repair
charges.
In the area of crime control and prevention, he was the
first
California governor to submit a comprehensive antinarcotics
program
making
He
to the legislature.
also revised the parole system,
tougher for the habitual criminal
it
to obtain parole,
while relatively nondangerous prisoners were allowed
to
pre-
pare for release by working in forestry and fire-fighting camps.
Under
his
employment reached 7
administration,
million,
personal income $62.8 billion, corporate profits $6.0 billion,
farm income $3.8 billion all record highs.
And
yet, as the
near, there
end of Brown's second term in
was probably not
was not unhappy with him
The
office
a single person in the state
for
drew
who
one or more reasons.
minorities felt he hadn't done
enough
to
help them;
and they were clearly in the majority, as a vote would

tell, felt he had done entirely too much. In 1964 California
voters, by a margin of 2 to i, voted to repeal the Rumford Fair
Housing Act. Although the ballot proposition was later ruled
others,
unconstitutional by both the California and the U.S. supreme

courts,
Cahfornia had
the realtors,
Many
it
was
its
white backlash, and, whipped up by
strong.
Califomians
felt
Brown had waited
too long to step
into the "Berkeley mess"; most of the students
the university couldn't forgive
The New
Left branded
dent Johnson's Vietnam
him
and faculty at
what he had done.
coward for not opposing Presi-
him
a
for
policies.
The Republicans labeled his agency plan "supergovemment.*

To some (particularly San Franciscans) there were altogether
too many freeways; to others (mosdy Angelenos) there were not
enough.
The
growers hated him for favoring the end of the hracero
program and
for
coming
workers; the farm workers
to
the defense of the migrant farm
damned him for waiting so long.

The lumbermen thought him insensitive to their needs; most
CALIFORNIA NORTH
blamed him
of the conservationists
Mill Creek
Some
site for
57
backing the compromise
Redwood Park.
many planners, others
the National
the state had too
felt
for
not enough,
bemoaned the lack of a comprehensive master

plan which foresaw and dealt with all the state's anticipated
and
still
others
needs.
Brown was
punishmenthe had
personally opposed to capital
called an extraordinary session of the legislature in
end itbut
cessful attempt to
many he was
the
an unsuc-
man who
Chessman.
killed Caryl
When
to
he did something for the North,
it
displeased the
South, and vice versa.
In truth, California had so

thing
Brown
Then,
many
divergent interests that any-
did was sure to alienate some of them.
too,
none
of his victories
was
No
clear-cut.
remained permanently, conclusively solved. There was
and
problem
still
smog
congestion and slums and discrimination and crime
traffic
and spiraling welfare costs. Although

managed to stay ahead of some of the
just barely,
and often seemed
less
his
administration
had
problems,
was
state's
it
the result of foresight than of
fortuitous bumbling.
And
compounding
all
number one
several
months.)
And
finally,
he had been in
Still,
on change.
He
he had managed
land and Nixon.
to proclaim California
state in population that
gun by
that thrives
to California,
the problems. (It wasn't easy to forget that
back in 1963 Brown had been so anxious

the
moved
every day another i,ooo persons
And
office eight
was chokingly
to beat
he had jumped the

long years in a state
familiar.
two tough candidates. Know-
this time, all
he had facing him on the
Republican side were a milkman, George Christopher, former
mayor
of
San Francisco, and an actor with no experience in
government.
Early in the campaign, long before any of the candidates was
officially
announced,
their preprimary fire
Brovôi's
advisers decided to concentrate
on Christopher, who
like
Brown was
The
58
moderate middle-of-the-roader, the type of
man
Cahfornians
most often elected governor.
By knocking
would be
left
off his toughest
opponent in the primary, Brown
with the weakest possible candidate to face in the
general election.
Ronald Reagan was simply not
to
be believed.
Not all the new Califomians moved into metropolitan

Some sought the small towns, perhaps hoping to find
resembling (though, of course, better than) those
And
maybe, in the marvelous
diversity of California,
among
pelgangers existed. But not
left
Lode highly individual, like no

ing World War II, they grew in
behind.
such Dop-
the towns of the
others.
areas.
places
Mother
Yet in the years follow-
population
also,
along with the
rest of the state.
Many new
arrivals liked
what they found, adjusting
easily to
one forgot they weren't
natives.
their surroundings; in time,
But there were
others.
Who
wanted
to
change things. They
thought the ramshackle old buildings the assay
office,
the Wells
Fargo stage station quaint, but what the town really needed
was
industry. Admittedly the legendary gold country figures-
Hank Monk, the fabulous

Thompson, who winter after win-
Black Bart, the poet-highwayman;

stagecoach driver; Snowshoe
ter,
in howling blizzards, carried the mail across the Sierras-
were picturesque, but what had they
to
do with the price of
anything? Long dead, they were best forgotten.
Thus
past
the conflict began, the tug of war between California
and California
potential.
Mostly subtle, unspectacular,
in-
tercommunity, rarely seen by outsiders until the battle of the
whorehouse plaque
split
the town of Jackson apart.
In the early days of the gold rush, freighters hauling cargo
between Drytown and Mokelumne Hill often camped beside a

spring en route. Being freighters, when they moved on they left
CALIFORNIA NORTH
behind empty
With
many
bottles, so
nearby river christened
59
it
that the Chileanos
panning the
Botilleas, place of the bottles.
name
the inevitable
the arrival of the respectables,
changes occurred. Pokerville became Plymouth; lone tried to

forget that
way
it
had once been
called
Bedbug; and Botilleas gave
to Jackson.
But Jackson never took too well to respectability. When its

and not Double Springs, should
residents decided that Jackson,
be the county
seat,
they didn't bother with the formality of
petitioning the legislature.
They went
Double Springs, got
to
the county clerk drunk, then stole the county seal and records.
In time, most of the gold rush towns died. Jackson was very
much an
exception. Its two deep, hard-rock mines, the Kennedy

and the Argonaut, continued producing gold until 1942, while
the town itself retained more than a few traces of its rambunctious frontier past.
Some
tables, a
of
the
older
restaurants
still
maintained
boarders*
custom dating from mining days, where promptly
at
noon or 6 p.m., anyone who sat down would be served as much

food as he could eat for a minimum price. Over the years, however, even Jackson suffered from inflation. At Buscaglia's, in the
1960's, a
lunch consisting of minestrone,
pette, pasta, salami, Italian tongue,
salad,
polenta, pol-
garbanzo beans with dress-
ing, frittata, spaghetti, ravioli, Italian lima beans,
mixed
Italian
and a refiUable pitcher

mixed with water cost $1.75.
There were in Jackson and its environs a number of well-
vegetables, spareribs, chicken cacciatore,
of red wine
frequented drinking establishments.
By
California law,
such
places were prohibited from calling themselves "saloons,"
which
came to describing Jackson's bars,
that appellation was infinitely more suitable than the effete
term "cocktail lounge." But this was just about the only dictum
was unfortunate,
for
when
it
of Prohibition that affected Jackson, the nearby hills having
produced
much
of California's bootleg whiskey.
There was, too, a heritage of lusty, often bawdy, humor, a

legacy from the days of Bret Harte and Mark Twain. Among its
manifestations was the Ancient and Honorable Order of E
The
6o
Clampus
Vitus.
belongers.
No
Uprooted and
groups, lacked members.
who queued up
to join.
had been great
lonely, the miners
fraternal or social organization,
The more
E Clampus
even temperance
selective a club, the
Vitus was
bom
ribald ritual mimicked, in uproarious fashion, the
Its
pretensions of the Masons;

benefit of
its
widows and orphans,
hortatory
especially
Fellows
its
were in sharp contrast

Pioneers,
fornia
Odd
membership requirements any male with a

humor and the price of a round of drinks could join-
Elks; while
sense of
solemn
watchword"For the
the widows"was an
obvious spoof on the professed benevolence of the
and
more
of reaction.
to the selectivity of the Society of Cali-
which excluded from
first-class
anyone whose ancestors had reached California
membership
later
than mid-
December 31, 1849. Pseudopretensions to the contrary,

E Clampus Vitus was essentially a drinking and fun-making society. Though in decline for a time, it had enjoyed a spirited
resurgence in recent years, especially in the Mother Lode, and
Jackson claimed more than its share of kinetically active
night,
members.
Jackson possessed further notable features.
It
had entered the

its virtues and
second half of the twentieth century with most of

all
of
its
vices intact.
There was wide-open gambling.

And there were the houses.
But in time
respectability
came even
to Jackson.
was received with utmost reluctance.

slots went first, then everything except draw poker, kept
legal by county option. Although the big games lasting four
days and nights faded into memory, there were still occasionally
memorable encounterssuch as the time John Wayne lost
$25,000 to a local Ford dealer in the National Hotel. But these
were few and far between.
It
The
Finally, in 1956, they closed the houses.
For as far back as anyone could remember (farther, actually;

Botilleas'
first
bordello opened in
1850), there had been a
group of vine-covered cottages in the center of town.
The num-
CALIFORNIA NORTH
6i
ber of such establishments varied, but

or four. Every so often a
on Highway 49, but
for
was never
less
new house would open
than three
outside
some reason always had bad
luck.
town
One,
called the Slaughterhouse, promised to offer strong competition
because of reduced rates and greater variety. But one night
it
and burned to the ground. No one

was so unchivalrous as to accuse the town madams; for weeks,
however, their expressions were more than smug.
mysteriously caught on
The
cottages
fire
were never as fancy
in Frisco. Being bungalows, there
young
ladies to parade
girls!"
There was
down,
Tessie Wall's place
as, say,
were no long
staircases for the
to the traditional call,
"Company,
a modestly decorated reception room and bar
rooms
at the front of
each house; a long hallway, with the
on either
and, at the back of the house, a kitchen, which
side;
local residents, preferring not to
entry and
be seen, were wont
Grand champagne
exit.
full dress just didn't
happen
girls'
to use as
receptions with everyone in
in Jackson, although the miners
sometimes took the trouble of bathing and slicking down their

hair before a
When
visit.
the mines closed, the houses might have closed also,
except for two things. During the forties a nearby tunnel job
brought 2,000 construction workers into Jackson every weekend.
And
in the
fornia were
fifties,
as
one by one the other houses in Cali-
padlocked giving way
to streetwalking
operationsJackson became, by default, the
last
and
call-girl
bastion of or-
Golden State. Customers

came from as far away as San Francisco. While on weekdays the
number of girls per house averaged five or six, on weekends the
number climbed to eight or ten. Walking into Dixie's place one
ganized, house-type prostitution in the
Saturday night, a Berkeley student discovered one source of this

part-time help.
Among
the offered talent was his
girl
friend's
roommate, a University of California coed.

It was also the last locally tolerated operation in the state. In
more than forty years the Jackson City Council had never re-
ceived a single complaint about the houses.
One
reason for this
tolerance was, of course, financial. Because of the houses, the
town's bars took in an estimated additional $4,000 per week.
The
62
Auxiliary businesses, from landlords to doctors to laundrymen,

also profited.
And when
madams were
it
inevitably the
came
to charitable donations, the
first
touched and often the most
generous contributors. In retrospect, of course,
endow them with
proverbial hearts of gold.
memory would
The truth was,
Dixie, Big Lena, French Rosarita, Pat, Blondie, Doris,
Tugboat
Annie and their sisters were businesswomen first, last, and always; to them a donation to the building fund of the Methodist
Church was cumshaw no different from the Friday night collections of the constabulary. They were simply paying for the
privilege of staying in business.
But money was not the only reason the houses remained.
Jacksonians believed they
filled
a need.
And
prided themselves
on being broad-minded.
Not everyone
One who
felt
the same.
was the new state attorney general, Edmund

G. "Pat" Brown. To Brown, a stickler for strict law enforcement, Jackson was a blot on the map of his fair state, a town
didn't
openly flouting the law. Shortly after taking
office in
sent plainclothes agents to Jackson to investigate.
trouble finding the action.

tions.
The
police.
state
He
local
policeman gave them direc-
made formal complaint
to
Jackson's chief of
closed the houses.
And was
When
1951, he
They had no
promptly
fired
by the Jackson City Council.
a reporter inquired
if
the two events the closing and
the firingwere related, he was told, "Hell no, the chief was
fired for
one reason and one reason only he gave one of the
councilmen a parking
A new
ticket."
was appointed; the houses reopened. Brown sent

more investigators and made more complaints. The new chief
was accommodating. Each time a complaint was received, he
chief
raided the houses.
And
surprisingly, each time
he found them
empty.
This situation continued until the night of March 24, 1956,

state agents, together with officers from the Amador
when
County
sheriff's
netting 15
girls,
department, raided four Jackson establishments,

3 alleged
madams and 38 male
customers. This
CALIFORNIA NORTH
raid also provided
63
an explanation for the previous vanishing
acts.
In each closet was a trapdoor leading to the basement of the

respective house; a tunnel connected
all
the basements.
For some reason, Jackson's chief of police, Guido Tofanelli,

wasn't informed of the raid until after
reporters as to
why he
Tofanelli insisted he hadn't

Jackson. "I
it
occurred. Queried by
hadn't closed the houses himself long ago,
known
there were any houses in
work daytimes," he explained, "and have
lots to do,
with parking meters and everything."
Mayor Robert
going on,
"The whole town is

he says he didn't know what was
know I didn't know what was going
Smallfield backed him.
behind Tofanelli," he
I believe
said. "If
him.
on.
John Begovich was the
local magistrate. Later
a rather spectacular state senator (the

Posey's Cottage,
first
he would make
to ride a horse into
Sacramento bar where
legislators
congre-
become U.S. Marshal for Northern California. At this time, however, he was a young neophyte judge
with exactly one week's experience on the bench. He was also a
resident of Jackson and close personal friend of Pat Brown. The
first girl was brought into the courtroom for arraignment. Her
face was downcast until she looked up at the bench and saw
Begovich. "Hi ya, Johnny!" she beamed.
The Amador County grand jury held hearings on the vice
charges. They were unprecedented in both their subject matter
and that they were open to the public. The whole town atgated) and
still
later
tended.
Some
madams refused to testify. Others were less

One, asked her profession, replied, "Wholesaler," a
remark which brought thoughtful silence, then gales of laughof the
reticent.
ter.
Another, defending her business, complained, "What's a
man going to do if he can't afford a wife?"

Three former Jackson madams went further. They stated that
while operating their houses, they had each paid local police
about $250 per month, plus special assessments from time to
working
time.
When
Chief Tofanelli took the stand to deny accepting
The
64
knowledge that the houses existed the Jack-
bribes, as well as
sonians couldn't restrain their applause.
Mayor
Smallfield also got a big hand.
ing about the houses.
The deputy
He
again denied know-
attorney general
who
ques-
him found this somewhat hard to believe. By occupation,

the mayor was a plumber. Wasn't it true that as a plumber he
had done work in the houses? The mayor granted that on occasion he had "fixed a few leaky faucets" but stoudy maintained
he had never inquired as to what was going on in the other
tioned
rooms.
The
giant,
two deputies were questioned. One, a 300-pound
chief's
was asked
he
replied. "I
for
no one."
if
he had ever checked on the houses. "Oh, no,"
wouldn't walk through those dark alleys at night
The grand jury most

Jacksonvoted
of
whose members did not
to indict the chief
on a charge of
live
in
and
willful
corrupt misconduct, and charged his two constables with perjury and accepting bribes.
Jackson was aghast. As one bar owner put

scandal would discourage married
men from
it,
the prostitution
taking fishing trips
to Jackson.
The town s
first
for
attitude revealed itself in other ways.
When
the
accused madam, Lucille "French Peggy" Peterson, came up

trial,
there were only
1 1
jurors.
The
court, after exhausting
three jury panels, had been unable to find 12 local citizens
had not already made up their minds.

an hour to acquit French Peggy.
It
who
took the one-short jury
just
The
city council took
ofiGcers for three
to
Tried
suspend
later,
less time. It
months without pay but
causing Attorney General
ought
even
Brown
suspended the two
left
the chief in
office,
to suggest that the city council
itself.
the policemen were acquitted on
But in the end,
respectability
all
charges.
won. The houses did not
re-
open. After fivescore and six years of continuous operation,

the bordellos of Botilleas-Jackson passed into history.
They
did not rest in peace, however.
CALIFORNIA NORTH
A decade passed.
It
65
was a Fourth of July weekend in Jackson,
and the invasion was in typical progress. Mammoth crowds of

tourists overflowed narrow Main Street into Court Street, so
preoccupied with milling around that they failed to notice
three men with oddly contrasting faces watching them from a
second-story
DuflF
window.
Chapman, Highland Scotch and Delaware
Indian, with
and more than a few assorted scars

from his days as a Marine raider on Guadalcanal, looked like
nothing so much as a Barbary Coast pirate. Actually he was a
stockbroker, and the trio were watching from his penthousea black patch over one eye
office-apartment.
Vic Gretzinger, proud owner of a large black handlebar that

earned him the nickname "Brushmush," looked like a cross
between a miner and a lumberjack.
Guy
Reynolds looked
He
like exactly
was a civil engineer.

what he was: a young
lawyer trying hard to appear sufficiently serious for the people

of Jackson to think he
he had a problem:
his
would make a good district attorney. But

grin, which made him look more boyish
than ever.
None of the men was grinning now, however.

"What are they looking for?" Guy asked, watching
ists lugging their children and cameras up the hill.
the tour-
"Plaques," Duff replied morosely.
"Ah, plaques." Brushmush sighed.
was a familiar complaint. All over the Mother Lode

there were plaques, plaques to the first churches, plaques to the
It
first
temperance
plaques to the
halls,
first
ladies'-aid societies,
plaques to the hanging trees where the Vigilantes hoisted lawbreakers, plaques laid
by the Native Daughters of the Golden
DAR and similar groups.

was as if there were a conspiracy to emasculate the West.
"They have no idea what they're missing," Duff remarked,
West, the
It
indicating the tourists.
"If
they stick to the plaques, they'll
never get the slightest hint that the miners laughed, drank,
gambled"
"Jumped each other's
cursed,
claims,"
Brushmush added.
The
66
"And fornicated," concluded Guy.

As partial compensation for the imbalance, the group had
taken to making its own historical explorations into areas disdained by the
purists.
Guy was busy arguing a murder case,

Duff and Brushmush had embarked on a study of the outhouse
architecture of the Mother Lode. One of their prime discoveriesowned, believe it or not, by the Wild Ass Mining ComFor example, while
panywas
They
a privy with a 3,000-foot free
provided excellent comfort
shafts
fall.
facilities,
Abandoned mine
they
discovered.
not only rendered unnecessary the labor of digging, they
contained a unique feature especially appreciated on cold nights,

it
being a well-established fact that a few feet below the surface
of the earth the temperature remains at approximately 50 de-
grees Fahrenheit the year round, while for each additional 70

feet of depth the temperature increases approximately
Net
result:
mine
the deeper the
shaft,
the
degree.
warmer the
air
currents.
This discovery was soon bettered when an object dismissed

earlier as scatalogical
rumor turned out
to
be
real.
two-story
accommodation in Nevada!
Guy
joined
them
in another project the organization of the
Society for the Recognition of Lucinda Jane Saunders.
The men were admittedly somewhat obsessed with Lucinda,

and had been from the day Duff discovered her in the diary of
one Heinrich Lienhard, an 1846 pioneer. She was, as far as they
could determine, the
first
nymphomaniac
to migrate to Cali-
fornia.
Lucinda was a serving
girl
Hoppe
on the
trek
West, riding in the
She was, however, "manLienhard although

Mrs. Hoppe probably stated them very well to Mr. Hoppe
soon dropped from the Hoppe wagon. Another family temporarily adopted her, but soon they too were having trouble vidth
wagon
of the Jacob
crazy,"
and
family.
for reasons unstated
by
diarist
"the flirtatious laundrymaid."
Wagon
trains
were small,
close-knit communities.
single
troublemaker could cause a disproportionate amount of dissen-
CALIFORNIA NORTH
sion; the
6?
amorous Lucinda was doing
and emerged with the proper Puritan
just that.
council
met
solution. If they couldn't
suppress Lucinda's appetites, they could at least direct them. It
was the common consensus that she be married immediately.

The chosen candidate was a poor but good-natured eighteen-
named Alfred. Following the ceremony, the couple was

allowed a wagon to themselves for their nuptial night. Early the
following morning Alfred moved out, swearing he would have
year-old
nothing further to do with his bride. "The reason for their

quarrel
and
their
mutual decision
to
break their solemn vows,"
Lienhard records, "was not openly discussed but was whispered
round about."
According to legend supported only by veiled and cryptic
references in the diary the group
now
decided extreme meas-
ures were called for and left Lucinda with a tribe of Indians.
Twenty-four hours
later, or so
the legend says, the weary and
completely debilitated band overtook the
wagon
train to give
her back.
She next
set
her sights on one of the wagon drivers, a youth
named Mike, whom she
so
overwhelmed that
to escape her
clutches he requested duty as a scout.
There remained only one solution to get

fast as possible, before the train
was
to California
totally demoralized.
as
Pushing
their animals to the limits of endurance, they rushed the re-
maining distance with
all
possible speed,
en route passing the
Donner party, which had also got a late start.

Once in Sutter's Fort, Lucinda quickly married another
husky young fellow. Shortly thereafter he sickened and died.
She next pursued a dried-up Irishman named Bray. Soon, however, Bray,
who "seemed
to entertain
some doubts about
ability to fulfill satisfactorily the duties of a
husband
his
to her
should she become his vdfe," began avoiding her. She then
drifted to
San
where she married a sailor. As Lienhard

mention of her, she found this so exhilarating
Jose,
notes in his last
"she repeated the experiment three times in six weeks."
Lucinda, as even Chapman, Gretzinger and Reynolds were
The
68
forced to admit,
had been no
her as a "husky servant
girl,"
great beauty. Lienhard described
contributions to the great
be forgotten. She had,
young
a "stout, blonde
"a strong, two-legged animal."
Western movement
first,
lady,"
and
But the group considered her

too important to
taken the minds of the emigrants off
the rigors of the journey. Second, she had by herself tamed a
would have
w^hole Indian tribe, which, legend
came anywhere near
Donner
the
new
But
never again
the pioneers. Third, in causing the
train to rush over the Sierras, she

fate of the
it,
had saved
party. Fourth, she
it
wagon
from the
tragic
had courageously heralded
sexual morality decades ahead of her time.
their historical yearnings
had yet
to
be
satisfied.
Then Duff had an idea: "Let's put up our own plaques!"

The response was immediate and wildly enthusiastic.
'What shall we memorialize first?" Guy asked.
In chorus, the
trio
shouted: "The whorehouses of Jackson!"
After a busy two hours at his drawing board, Brushmush held
up a sample plaque. Though cardboard, it looked authentic,

and the threesome soon had it mounted on a Broadway telephone pole, some 50 yards east of the three survivingbut now
quite respectablevine-covered cottages.
It
and
being
it fell
'We
off the
down
need a
"And an
An
main
after
real,
street,
however,
fevi^
tourists spotted
it,
about a week.
honest-to-God plaque of solid bronze."
appropriate dedication, with attendant fanfare."
organizational meeting
was held
in
Mamie's
bar,
the
Mamie was the group's favorite

would crack china and a spectacular
49" figure. When one night someone disputed her statistics,
Mamie got out a tape measure and dared him to check for
himself. He did. She was a perfect 49-49-49.
Azure Club. Next
to
Lucinda,
female, with a laugh that
Two
other mischief-makers Elegant Albert Victor, a fellow
Clamper, and Dr. Alan Robello, a Sutter Creek dentist joined

the trio in officially establishing the Environmental Resources
Enabhng Committee
to Investigate
Our Necessary
Services.
CALIFORNIA NORTH
^9
"Don't you think some people might object to those
Guy
initials?"
wondered.
"We'll pretend you never said that," Duff replied.
Each weekday morning
met
a group of Jackson businessmen
in a local restaurant for coffee. Included was Pete Cassinelli,
and mayor of Jackson.
used-car salesman
"What do you
"I'm for
ashamed
we
"If
it,"
he
replied. "It's
our history.
It's
nothing to be
of."
did have a dedication, Pete, would you do the unveil-
Brushmush
ing?"
think of the idea, Pete?" Duff queried.
asked.
"Hell, yes," the bespectacled litde
mayor answered.
"I
might
even bring along a couple of ex-madams."

"I
can see
it
now," the doctor
recalled.
"That parade every
when Big Lena dressed her girls in all

and marched them down Main Street to my office."
Saturday morning
finery
"I
was a
printer then," the
one day Dixie called
to ask
me
newspaper editor
to print
some
their
recalled,
"and
trick tickets"
'What?"
tickets. They were sort of like commute books. Each
was given one, and each time she entertained a customer
the madam would punch out the amount of her services. Something about that transaction bothered me, only I was too embarrassed to ask about it at the time. The amounts she had me
print on the tickets: $i, $3, $5, $10, $25, 50 cents. I could
imagine what each was for, except that 50 cents."
"Trick
girl
"Drinks?"
"Nope, highballs were a
dollar."
we apt to have opposition?" Guy asked the group.

They considered the question. Jackson had always prided
"Are
on being broad-minded. After the houses closed, two of

madams had married and setded down in Jackson.
No one shunned them for their pasts, just as no one criticized a
number of wealthy local Italian families whose money had been
made in bootlegging. And more than one Jackson fortune owed
itself
the former
its
comfortable proportions less to salaries paid by the mining
The
70
company than
to a little quiet high-grading (a fancy
just plain stealing) of the
company's
No, the men decided, they couldn't
The
tee
for
foresee
any opposition.
mayor's permission having been obtained, the commit-
approached Jackson's chief of
The
name
ore.
chief's permission
police.
was deemed
plaque would be located across the
Would he
essential,
street
object to their putting
inasmuch
from the police
down
a plaque
as the
station.
commemo-
rating the historic bordellos of Botilleas-Jackson?
No, he had no
fine
objection; anything to preserve history
was
with him.
"Hey," he added as they were leaving, "what's a bordello?"
The planning took time.

After much discussion and more
drinks, the plaque design
would be heart-shaped, about i6 by i6

inches, of soHd bronze, with a red lantern on the left-hand
comer, a dollar sign on the right, and below that the inscription.
"You're never going to be able to match the sign someone
put up the night the houses closed," the editor said.
"What was that?" Duff asked.
"'no girls, beat it.*"
Much time was spent deciding which of the ex-madams
should be asked to speak. Dixie was now a prosperous restaurateur; another was active in San Francisco Peninsula society;
was
finally
approved.
It
others were married, or, like Jeanette, resting beneath impres-
tombstones in the local cemetery.
sive
It
was
possible
some
might be offended by the suggestion, while, being competitive

by nature, others might feel slighted if they were not selected. It
was finally decided reluctandy to invite none while hoping all
would appear.
St.
Valentine's
after tearing
ting
up
Day dawned
down new cement,

made a tour
mittee had
blearily.
The
previous night,
the sidewalk adjacent to the cottages and putinto
which the plaque was
set,
the com-
of the area bars, spreading the word.
As
CALIFORNIA NORTH
7*
no one was ready for the early arrival of the reporters.

There had been no advance publicity in Jackson papers, but
the news media outside Jackson had been informed, and although the San Francisco papers were on strike, the Los Angeles
Times considered the occasion momentous enough to charter a
plane to fly a reporter and photographer to the scene. The
Sacramento and Stockton papers were all represented, as was
Sacramento TV station KCRA, which sent a camera crew.
a result,
By lo A.M.
a crowd of about loo people lined Broadway.

had blocked off the street and were directing traffic
around it. The decision of the committee had been that the
Police
dedication be conducted with
humor but good
in the
taste,
event children wandered by. But Elegant Albert apparently

hadn't been informed, for he circulated
among
"Whorehouse plaque programs, two
ing,
the crowd, shout-
bits."
The Environmental Resources Enabling Committee to Investigate Our Necessary Services, Vice-Chairman Guy Reynolds
told the crowd,
for
some
had been formed
bootlegging and gold
ample of
concern
to express "a reverent
facets of our irreverent past:
prostitution, gambling,
mining especially
that most perfect ex-
free enterprise, high-grading."
With due
solemnity, Vice-Chairman Vic "Brushmush" Gret-
which Vice-Chairman
Duff Chapman delivered the dedicatory address.
Perhaps fearing his audience might be bored with all the
exhortation, the TV cameraman began panning the crowd. He
suddenly stopped on an impressive sight: Mamie, laughing so
zinger pronounced the invocation, after
were streaming down her cheeks. When the film clip

appeared on TV that night to be picked up by stations the
length and breadth of California next day it was apparent
hard
tears
Mamie had
stolen the show.
She looked
like
nothing so
much
as
a former proprietress weeping over days long gone.
The camera zoomed back

nelli
just as Jackson
Mayor Pete
Cassi-
leaned forward, screwdriver in hand.
Since the plaque was set in the sidewalk, an unveiling had

seemed inappropriate. Instead a wooden cover had been fas-
tened into place over the plaque and, while the two-piece
band
The
72
drums and tuba discordantly played "California, Here

the mayor proceeded with the unscrewing ceremony.
**You know,"
lacks
is
one of the reporters remarked,
Come,"
this story
"all
opposition."
When
the
mayor returned
The Los
about two that
to his office
noon, his telephone was ringing.
It
was the
New
after-
York Times.
Angeles Times had just sent the most incredible story
out over the wire, the caller explained.
He
realized California
was an oddball state, but was this plaque business truly for real?
The mayor, somewhat defensively, assured him it was.
After that, the calls were near-continuous from newspapers,
radio and TV stations, all wanting interviews. At three there
was a call from the London Daily News. The mayor beamed.
Jackson was again on the map.
Then
the other calls began.
"You've got to take out the plaque!"
from climbing the
stairs to
Duff's
thing before those
women
drive
office.
me
The mayor was

"You Ve got
to
panting
do some-
crazy!"
"How many
calls were there?" Brushmush asked. "And exwhat did they say?"
"My phone was busy, so I only got a couple," the mayor
explained. "But the police must have received a dozen all
women, all mad some, according to the chief, so mad they were
positively obscene." Some of the city councilmen had also been
calling him, he went on. They were unhappy about not having
been consulted. To placate them, he had arranged for the council
to meet with the committee, informally and off the record, in
actly
Brushmush's
As soon
ofl&ce
as the
was unvarying.
the following morning.
sun
set,
the cars began arriving.
A lone car would drive up
alongside the sidewalk;
its
procedure
Broadway and pull up
occupant or occupants, after glancing
up and down the street to make

would then furtively get out and
nated by the streedight.
The
sure no one was watching,
look at the plaque, illumi-
CALIFORNIA NORTH
73
As they climbed back
and drove away, some
in their cars
were laughing.
Some
weren't.
Day had been
Wednesday. Thursday morning the story hit newspapers across the country. Most accounts,
following the lead of the Los Angeles Times, were written with
tongue-in-cheek hilarity. But there was one discordant note,
St. Valentine's
hint of things to come. In
all
photos of the plaque the
initials
of
the committee had been airbrushed out.
'g
BOimEAS BORDELLOS K^
S WORLDS OLDEST PROFESSION 7

FLOURISHED 50 YDS. EAST OF
ilTHlS PLAQUE FOR MANY YEARS
UNTIL THIS MOST PERFECT.
'.
EXAMPLE OF FREE ENTERPRISE

-^...
WAS PADLOCKED
BY
UNSYMPATHETIC
POLITICIANS
..
The
.'.>:;
-^
E.R.E.C.T.LO.NvS.
was mixed. Questioning
council's reaction
local busi-
nessmen, they had found them overwhelmingly in favor of the

plaque.
"Then who's
against it?"
The councilmen
Brushmush
looked puzzled.
asked.
They
really didn't
know.
All calls had been anonymous.
"Then we
really haven't
much
to talk about,
have we, gentle-
menr*" Duff suggested.
The
council decided to wait a week, hoping the storm
would
subside.
But they had miscalculated
its
velocity.
The
calls
not only
The
74
Some
they became more explicit.
increased in number,
manded
a grand jury investigation, others that the
impeached. Succumbing
to pressure, the
City Council meeting for the following
The mayor
mayor
de-
mayor be
called a public
Monday
night.
of Jackson rarely received mail. Saturday morn-
ing there were stacks of
"You've invaded
my
it,
living
over the United States.
from
all
room
twice," read
one hysterical
communique, apparently referring to the TV news programs.

"I forbid you to come into my living room again. If you do, I'll
call
the police." Another
letter,
from a
Mormon
lady in Utah,
concluded, "Your grandmother probably worked in one of those
from a prostitute in San Francisco, said

business was bad there, what with all the amateur competition,
places." Still another,
and she'd be arriving on the next bus. And

marked Holy City, California, was from a
Now
Bamum of
heyday second only

said simply, "I
letters into
two
wish
to his
I'd
the
famous in
William Riker,
state's bizarre religions
(in his
female counterpart. Sister Aimee),
thought of
stacks, the
another, post-
figure
in his nineties. Father
California cultdom.
once the male
still
it first."
mayor estimated
After separating the

that 95 percent
were
proplaque.
That night Sacramento's KCRA-TV conducted a Vote-APhone on the question, "Should prostitution be legalized?" The
response was interesting: a record 5,000 calls, yy percent of
which voted Yes.
"Now they'll accuse

Guy sighed.
us of advocating bringing back prostitu-
tion,"
They
did,
Reverend
Sunday morning.
Wayne
Jackson's Methodist minister, the
Long, delivered a
the plaque as "a crack in the door."
fiery
sermon denouncing
Nor was he
alone. Similar
sentiments rang from several other pulpits.
The
harsh
TV
lights blinded the 5
members
of the commit-
tee as they stood, backs to the wall, facing their inquisitors.
In front of them, at a long table,
and
city attorney.
sat Jackson's 5
councilmen
CALIFORNIA NORTH
And
75
in front of them, in the
first
rows, were the earhest
women, all wearing PTA expressions.

Behind them were another dozen rows of people, and behind
arrivals, all
them, on the
HEART
truck or standing around
fire
Many waved
students.
IS
high school
it,
have a heart, save history, a

BETTER THAN A HOUSE. NO HEART TRANSPLANT FOR
signs,
JACKSON.
There were
300 overflow
200 people in the
easily
outside.
firehouse, plus another
They had banged
so loudly
on the doors
mayor had been forced to open them in order that the

crowd could hear what was going on.
that the
Reverend Long had been talking

the plaque ("This
the committee
is
not the sort of thing for our children"),
("Have we sunk
with signs ("What a
"Who
gave them permission
in the front
the meeting,
this
and Valley of the

to
to
attract
town?"), the students
There were
lot of baloney!").
to indecent movies, marijuana,
low we need
so
by embarrassing the people of
tourists
damning
for 10 minutes,
also references
Dolls.
put that plaque in?" a
woman
row demanded. "I did," replied the mayor. (Before

Brushmush had told him, "If you'll remember you
gave us permission, Pete, we'll forget you promised to bring a

couple of ex-madams.")
Reverend Long.
"I
"Who
gave you that right?" interrupted
presume the mayor has such
authority,"
he
said.
teen-age boy: "Does the plaque
make Jackson
dirty again
after twelve years?"

"It's
a crack in the door," the minister intoned.
There was considerable discussion about "that word." Someone protested that it was not a word but initials, the initials of
the committee, and that there were dots between them.
"I say the
"If
it
plaque should come out.
comes
out,"
one
plaque should come out
woman
said,
disgraceful!"
"then the hanging-tree
also."
"That's different," another
memorated punishing men

hung."
It's
woman
replied.
for their
sins.
"That plaque com-
Those men were
The
76
This was more than the until-now-silent Mamie could stand.

'Without a trial or a jury," she bellowed.
"I say, take it out!"
"Everyone
is
going to
know
was there whether
it
taken
it's
out or not," suggested a youth.
"Now,
mayor
"I do,"
give the committee a chance to answer," the
let's
"You have
said.
Guy
said,
a statement,
"and
I'll
be
Mr. Reynolds?"
brief.
This committee
is
dedi-
cated to a reverent concern for some facets of a somewhat

reverent past history.
by choice.
of this area
we
Members
We enjoy living in
are particularly fascinated
area.
However,
we do
ir-
of this committee are citizens
the
Mother Lode and
by the background
history of this
not feel that parts of our history should
be ignored or swept under the rug of time.

"History should be accepted in
risy to ignore
that
is
its
entirety. It
is
pure hypoc-
one part of our history and accept only that part
carefully tailored to a fastidious morality.
Gold mining,
side, and
with liquor, gambling and prostitution, existed side by
The
any attempt
to
of mining
the full-throated roar of a mass of lusty young
is
who worked
and played
deny
this fact is patently ridiculous.
long, hard hours at a harsh
just as hard.
local history that
is
The
history
men
and dangerous business
We have here emphasized a part of the
only too well
known
to
many
generations of
was a major part of

the social and economic scene in this region and in this community. Those who would deny these facts deny their history."
"Now that you've dirtied the town of Jackson," someone said,
Califomians.
world's oldest profession
"does your committee plan to have similar plaque dedications

in Angels
Camp,
Placerville
and Sonora, pointing out the past
sins of those places?"
'We've been asked

self his first
to,"
Brushmush
replied, permitting
him-
smile of the evening.
"I just can't
understand why," one
woman
said.
'We
had
scandals back home, to be sure, but those skeletons stayed in our

closets.
Here you dedicate plaques
to them!"
By now the identity of the opposition was no longer in

question. With few exceptions, they were newcomers to Jack-
CALIFORNIA NORTH
77
son, arrivals of recent years in the great migration to the
Golden
was not the California they

had envisioned. Oh, the sunshine was here, and the schools, and
State. It
was
also apparent that this
the recreational opportunities, plus most of the other things

that
into their particular version of the California
had coalesced
dream. But there were other things no one had told them
about: the high cost of living, the tax bite, the crude humor, the
clannishness of older residents, the disdain of Westerners for
name
Eastern propriety, to
their choice of
just a few. Part of the fault lay in
place a rough and raw piece of frontier refusing
was an anachronism in the twentieth

century. But it went beyond that. For these were the disappointed Califomians, those for whom the reality had failed to
equal the dream. Instead of gold, they had found bronze. A
to accept the fact that
it
had its uses and was certainly better than brass,

but not what they had expected. The plaque was a symbol of
good material,
wrong not
everything
itself.
it
In denouncing
just
with Jackson but with California
they had for the
it,
first
time an oppor-
tunity to strike back, just as in Reverend Long,
in Jackson
all
of
two and
a half years, they
who had
lived
had a perfect spokes-
man.
The mayor
turned to the city attorney, Angelo
De
Paoli,
and
asked, "Angelo, what's your opinion?"
Legally the sidewalk was a public thoroughfare,

stated.
was
asked, the plaque

ally
it
De
Paoli
Since permission of the city of Jackson had not been
was
his
installed
feeling that
without
the
official
sanction. Person-
council should
approve
all
plaques, not just to decide whether they should be put in but

also to
determine
particular plaque,
if
it
the wording was acceptable.
was
his opinion
it
As
for this
should be taken out and
returned to the owners.
"Nol" cried Reverend Long.
"It
should be taken out and
destroyed!"
"Let's vote," the
mayor
said. "All in
favor"
on the shoulder.
"For the benefit of the foreign press, could you announce the
names of the councilmen before each one votes?"
"Mr. Mayor."
reporter tapped Cassinelli
The
78
The mayor nodded.
Several councilmen blanched noticeably.
Joe Scheiber, an employee of the telephone company, cast the

first
vote.
He
was neither
for nor against the plaque,
but he Mâs going to vote to leave
you haven't seen any publicity

Les Garibaldi, a
not for or against.
gift
I
it
in because "if
we
he
take
it
said,
out,
yet."
and photography shop owner,

wasn't consulted. Therefore
said,
I
feel
"Im
the
plaque should come out."
Marvin Vicini, a Shell Oil distributor, found himself offended by the initials of the committee. If these were removed,
he would have no objection to leaving the plaque in.
The committee had already decided privately that it would
yield this much but no more.
Without comment, Earl Gabarini, a former police chief, voted
to remove the plaque.
The vote was 2 to 2. The fifth and deciding vote belonged to
Mayor Pete
He
Cassinelli.
didn't prolong the suspense.
removing the offending
letters,
He,
was in favor of
itself, "The
too,
but as for the plaque
damage is done the milk is spilled leave it in."

There was a roar from the audience.
Amid the pandemonium, Reverend Long jumped up with
livid face to shout, "If you think all the milk's been spilled,
brother,
moved from one bar to another. They were in

Wells Fargo when someone came in to report trouble at the
The
the
you have another think coming!"
celebrants
plaque.
Arriving, the committee discovered
it
had been doused with
a bucket of red paint.

"I
think
it
rather enhances the appearance,"
mented thoughtfully.
"They could have done worse," Duff
Brushmush com-
said.
"And probably
will."
Back in the bar they hstened as the Sacramento TV stations

described their "victory." But no one felt very victorious. A
town had been
split
in two
and
left
with
its
raw nerves showing.
CALIFORNIA NORTH
And
79
would remain, no matter what
the breach, they knew,
happened.
They took out the plaque the next night.

The day after the council meeting, Duff was met by an
unsmiling Brushmush.
The
telephone
calls
had
started again,
The mildest were

home would be set afire
only this time they were to the mayor's wife.

obscene. Others promised the mayor's
with everyone in
it.
She was near
hysteria.
The committee met in Brushmush's office shortly after nine.

The vote was unanimous. With the aid of crowbars and sledgehammers,
Some
it
was out in ten minutes.
citizens of Jackson
It
had been in
had objected
for six days.
to a single heart-shaped
plaque.
Before the plaque was removed, however, someone had taken
wax
Within days a gift shop was selling exact replicas for

Soon they were in most of the bars in the Mother
Lode. Key chains, charm bracelets, lockets, sweatshirts and
bumper strips followed. And then, mysteriously, there began
appearing on sidewalks, fences and the buildings of Jackson an
a
cast.
$12.50 apiece.
exceedingly odd symbol. All
It
was
just
one
over California.
ever.
There was
it
lacked was cupid's arrow.
battle in a continuing series
It differed in
less
humor
two
being fought
all
significant particulars,
how-
And
their
in most of the others.
outcomes usually meant permanent, irrevocable change.
Choose
sides.
Sierras i.e., a
Are you
for a faster
new freeway or
means
for leaving
of access over the
one of America's
last
great natural wilderness areas undefiled?
Make up
your mind.
Do you
believe in stealing Northern
California water to irrigate Southern California deserts?

is more important saving San Francisco's oldand the view from Telegraph Hill, or erecting a
Decide which
est buildings
mammoth new
multi-million-dollar
waterfront
merchandise
mart?
Sometimes those advocating preservation of the past were
The
8o
clearly in die right; other times this distinction
advocates of progress. Sometimes
who
it
was the new Califomians
broached the worthy ideas, the native
ing was
Most
belonged to the
bom whose
think-
stultified.
often, however, California being a highly relative state,
the dividing lines were less clear. Unlike the traditional West-
em,
was not always easy
it
to tell the
good guys from the bad.
People on a particular side of one issue were apt to find themselves
grouped with their opponents on the next.
Yet basic
to
highly personal:
from
it?
And
And
all
these conflicts were three questions, each
What
what,
if
is
California to
anything, do
owe
me? What do
it
want
in return?
often, for better or for worse, the answers
and resolution
of the conflicts lay in politics.
8.
summer of 1965 a group calling itself "The Friends

Ronald Reagan" engaged the firm of Spencer-Roberts &
Early in the
of
manage the gubematorial campaign of their as-yet

unannounced candidate.
Spencer-Roberts was the oflFspring of another California phenomenon.
In 1933 the husband-and-wife team of Clem Whitaker and
Leone Baxter had introduced something new onto the American scene: a public relations firm which specialized in politics.
It was their contention that politics was nothing more or less
than the merchandising of men and issues. To them, the oldfashioned techniques of lobbying were both passe and wasteful.
Associates to
Not
only did a
bought,
all
legislator, for
repetitive expenditures.
Make
example, sometimes
too often he failed to
win
fail
to stay
reelection, necessitating
Their approach was deceptively simple.
each campaign a public
issue.
In this way, the public
became the pressure group. It was also extremely effêctive.

Through such techniques as supplying newspapers with readymade copy and locating and emphasizing the one issue in each
CALIFORNIA NORTH
8i
campaign whose emotional appeal was stronger than party lines,

Whitaker & Baxter changed American politics. In 1942 they
taught Earl Warren how to smile and won him election as
AM
A, they
Governor of California. In 1945, employed by the
successfully defeated Warren's compulsory health insurance
bill.
By the end
of the forties, they
and had moved onto the national

Success has
that
it
however, not the
its liabilities,
spawns
imitators.
had won 55 out of 60 times
scene.
number
least of
which
is
of other political public
relations firms sprang up, these in turn giving birth to others

still
more
specialized. Spencer-Roberts
men who had
In the early days, Whitaker
winning a
rules for
remained
more
modem
One was
in
Com
it
&
10,
officials in
Baxter had formulated 50
many
of these
example, was "More
for
than Caviar"), Spencer-Roberts turned
techniques.
the computer. Properly programmed,
moments who were the
it
could reveal
voters in a given district, their ages,
and their ethnic,

and economic backgrounds. Another was television;
places of origin, past voting records,
their candidate
the
handled only Republican
campaign. Although
political
(Rule No.
effective
Americans Like
to
a firm. Created
gained their political know-how as
Los Angeles Young Republicans,

clients.
was such
by Stuart Spencer and William R. Roberts, two young
in i960
needed
training. Still another
little
modity in which California led
major preparatory
step, they
all
religious
for
this
was a com-
other states scientists. For a
commissioned a behavioral-science
firm in west Los Angeles to find those issues
which
carried the
greatest emotional or "gut" appeal.
As prepackagers
of
successful
campaigns and candidates,
Spencer-Roberts had already proven themselves expert; their

record: 34 wins, 6 losses.
With Ronald Reagan, however,

as they frankly admitted in
there were special problems,
an interview with Newsweek
spondent Karl Fleming. "Our toughest

going to be proving that he
intellectual capacity to
isn't a right
do the
job.
corre-
job," Roberts said, "is
winger and proving his
We've
got to prove symboli-
The
82
for that at the
They were
We
good administrator.
cally that he's a
answer
also disarmingly candid
intended to pursue.
don't have any ready
moment."
To
about the course they
reshape Reagan's image, they planned
to
put him under wraps for two months of intensive schooling.
number
of
UCLA
state problems.
know enough
professors
When
to talk
to tutor him on
was completed, he would
had been hired
the cram course
knowledgeably about such topics as educa-
and water. At the

same time, Roberts added, they would work on a "new speech."
As for their finished product, "We hope he'll present a reasontion, welfare, health, transportation, labor,
able picture of a candidate
who
tremists, a sensible, reasonable
who
doesn't spout
ment and
For
all
all this
is
not the darling of the ex-
guy who leans
to the right
nonsense about the Liberty
but
Amend-
fluoridation.**
few things neither

One was embarIn 1964 Spencer-Roberts had managed Nelcampaign against Barry Goldwater in the
their frankness,
there were a
Spencer nor Roberts mentioned to Fleming.

rassingly personal.
son Rockefeller's
California Presidential primary (it accounted for

losses).
of their 6
In the course of that campaign, they had put out a fact
Wing
sheet identifying the major California "Right
Number 22 on the list was

Amendment stalwart."
behind Goldwater.
Another Liberty
Another matter they neglected
to
Extremists'*
"Ronald Reagan:
mention Fleming found
out about anyway. While he had been busy interviewing the
campaign managers, the candidate was on

to accept
an award from the reactionary
his
way
to
Burbank
Town Meeting
Freedom, for "supporting conservative causes
for
as speaker, adviser
and patriot."
Ronald Reagan, candidate, had not yet been properly
grammed.
pro-
But then, neither was Pat Brown quite ready
for another elec-
tion campaign.
As
leader of the nation's largest state,
He
unique.
had no
Brown was
practically
machine and almost no patronage
political
(back in 1934 the Republicans had been so fearful of radical

Upton Sinclair's possible election as governor that they had
hurriedly put most state jobs under civil service).
his favor proved
Almost every plus in
on
close examination to
be a minus.
Brown had
damned
the support of President Johnson. But was
by the "doves" in his own

against the war in Vietnam.
party for his refusal to speak out
For party machinery. Brown was dependent on the California

Democratic Council. Yet the
CDC
own
it
organization.
tion, a
group of
Although
CDC
had never been Pat Brown s
twice endorsed
members had
foiled his
deliver the entire California delegation to

to their old hero, Adlai.
And
Brown
for elec-
i960 attempt to
Kennedy by
bolting
in recent years the moderates
gradually been eased out of positions of leadership in the
by a
far
more militant group composed
had
CDC
largely of persons active
in civil rights organizations such as the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee
Equality
(SNCC)
(CORE). These were
and the Congress of Racial
far less cooperative
with Brown
than their predecessors had been.

Moreover, he was not entering the primary uncontested. Although a number of gubernatorial candidates were listed on
the Democratic ticket, it was clearly evident that Brown's leading opponent would be Los Angeles
Mayor Samuel
Yorty.
An erstwhile liberal of thirties vintage (radical enough to

win Tom Mooney's support when he ran for the state assembly
in 1938), Yorty
had undergone a
conservative, so
political
metamorphosis in the
As Southern California had grown more

had Sam Yorty. In i960 he had bolted the
intervening years.
The
84
Democratic party to support Richard Nixon and to author a
pamphlet entitled
Why
Cannot Take Kennedy, a
diatribe
which did not leave the issue of Kennedy's religion unmentioned. There were some who thought it appropriate that Yorty
had literally slid into office on the issue of garbage. In 1961 a
key plank in his platform as candidate for mayor of Los Angeles
was the promise
to repeal a city
from
to separate tin cans
ordinance requiring housewives
their other refuse.
As mayor, Yorty had been
colorful, bombastic,
and
largely
ineffectual in dealing with the problems of the nation's fastest-
growing
Seemingly more interested in scapegoats than
city.
he labeled any
Department "Communist
solutions,
due
Los Angeles Police
criticism of the
inspired";
racial
unrest was always
to "outside agitators"; failures of his administration
caused by "meddling Easterners."
crisis
in city
were
government
almost invariably sent Yorty on a long, expenses-paid junket out

of the country. Returning from one such
trip,
Yorty called a
announce that he favored using nuclear

Vietnam, inspiring one Southern California Con-
press conference to
weapons
in
gressman
to remark,
"Los Angeles
is
the only city in America
with a foreign policy."
But he had a mean

And a following. Although no one knew exactly how
large it was, it meant a decline of support in the area where
Brown needed it most.
Thus, in the summer of 1965 the California Democratic party
had everything but unity.
In short, Yorty was a
political gadfly.
sting.
The
fault was partly Brown's. As Look astutely pointed out,

was a flaw in his character. "Brown lacks meanness. And
that is a fundamental lack for a political leader. Without mean-
there
ness,
he
is
unable
to crack the
whip when the
tigers get
out
of line."
It
promised to be a most curious campaign.
Some
could be
can, for
changed
issues
were canceled even prior
made
Brown
of Reagan's switch
his
to the outset.
from Democrat
Little
to Republi-
himself had started as a Republican and then
registration.
Nor could
the
Democrats portray
CALIFORNIA NORTH
85
Spencer-Roberts as opportunistic kingmakers, effortlessly switching their loyalties from Rockefeller to Reagan; Brown's
firm,
Baus
&
Ross
Company (which
own
bettered Spencer-Roberts
with an impressive record of 80 wins, 9 losses) had handled

Goldwater's California campaign in 1964.
And
there were decisions peculiar to the situation. For ex-
ample, what about the old Reagan movies on the Late, Late
Showweie
they a plus or a minus? Did they
posure to the voters
or,
"He
Bonzo, would the voter automatically think,
monkey out
A few
It
of
mean more
ex-
seeing the candidate in Bedtime for

can't
make
me"?
were predictable, however.
issues
did not take a prophet to forecast that
ioral scientists finished their
when
the behav-
probing into the gut issues bother-
ing most Californians, one of them would be "the mess at

Berkeley."
And no
matter
how
that issue
was handled. Brown stood
to
lose.
10.
It started
From
over a 26
early in
its
60-foot strip of brick sidewalk.
history, the University of California
had a
tradition: political activities took place off
campus. From about
19 10 on, the traditional free speech, or
Hyde
Park, area at
Berkeley was just outside Sather Gate.
As
California's population grew, however, so did the Berkeley
campus, until
it
too extended outside Sather Gate.
ministration oflBces were located
opposite them, a
in
between was
free-speech area
a
new
there
in
It
ad-
and
student union was built. In 1959 the area
officially
moved
designated Sproul Hall Plaza and the
still
farther south, to the Bancroft Strip,
narrow piece of sidewalk facing Bancroft
Avenue.
The
Sproul Hall,
was commonly believed that
this
Way
at
Telegraph
was not the prop-
erty of the University of California but rather of the city of
The
86
Berkeley, and to set
up
obtain permits from the
tables here the student groups
had
to
city.
Here, on any mild-weathered day during the mid-sixties one
manned by
could find at least a half dozen card tables
arguing the
latest ballot propositions,
students
collecting funds for the
various civil rights groups, or selling a multitude of buttons.
That
made
sity
it
it
was such
a small area
appear that most of the
could be contained in a 26
was
in a sense deceptive. It
political activity at the univer-
60-foot
lot.
The
tide of students
passing through, sometimes stopping but more often not, seemed

to
confirm this assumption.
Located where
university, along
it
it
was, however, at the south entrance to the
one of the
gave another image to
radicalism
was
city's
most traveled thoroughfares,
many townspeople who
so prevalent at the university that
drove
by that
spilled over
it
onto the sidewalks. For at Berkeley, as with most college communities, there was a
its
town-gown
division.
near-permanent detractors: some of the
of the
local
The
city
university
had
councilmen; one
assemblymen; and former Senator William F.
Knowland, publisher of the Oakland Tribune, the leading paper

in Alameda County, in which Berkeley was located, who seemed
unable
to
view the university
as anything
more than
mass of
seething anarchy.
There was some truth

in the minority
among
in both images. Activists
the students.
On
were always
the other hand, in
recent years there had been an increasing involvement of Berkeley students in off-campus political
and social causes. For example, the university sent forth more Peace Corps volunteers
than any other campus in the nation, while over 10 percent of
the student body had taken part in some phase of the
struggle, a large
number
civil rights
in the South.
This was not the Silent Generation of the fifties. More and
more, students were becoming "involved." And as they did so,
many came
to sense and resent the dichotomy between the

academic community and the world outside. Many university
courses appeared to exist in a vacuimi, bearing no relation to
contemporary
realities.
CALIFORNIA NORTH
More than
link
87
symbolically, the Bancroft Strip functioned as a
between the world of ideas and the world of
action.
Late in 1963, the students helped bring the struggle closer to
home when members
of
Campus
Area merchants in an attempt

Beginning with a chain of
hotel,
On
CORE picketed various Bay

win fair-housing agreements.
drive-ins, they later
several auto agencies,
number
to
included a major
the world's largest bank, and a
of supermarkets.
September
1964, they
4,
came much
too close to
home,
picketing the Oakland Tribune.

It
may have been
coincidence that on that same day the
university administration began to reexamine the question of
on-campus organization of off-campus activities. Or it may have

been the result of a telephone call from the Tribune's owner,
conservative William Knowland. University
oflBcials
imply as much, admitting they had been subjected
would
later
to "outside
pressures."
Ten
days
later,
on September
Towle announced
14,
Dean
of Students Katherine
that henceforth the Bancroft Strip
longer be available for the organization of off-campus
would no
activities.
fund
membership recruitment, and "the planning and implementing of off-campus political and social action." Although
it was announced at the same time that it had been discovered
that the Bancroft Strip was indeed university, rather than city,
property, the reason given for the new edict was "interference
Specifically, tables
were banned, together
vvdth speeches,
raising,
with the flow of
traffic."
The
link
The
following day. University of California President Clark
had been broken.
Kerr returned
home from
a trip abroad to learn of the decision.
Kerr was considered one of the nation's top college administrators.
Educated
at
Swarthmore, Stanford and U.C., his spe-
cialty labor economics,
Kerr had served as mediator in labor
disputes under every President since
Truman.
He
had joined
the U.C. faculty in 1945; in 1952, largely in recognition of his
leading role as mediator in the loyalty oath controversy, he had
The
88
been appointed chancellor of the Berkeley campus; in 1958 he

became president of the entire university. Although the student
population had more than doubled during his term of office
(from 40,000 to 87,000 students), he had managed to maintain
the university's traditionally high academic rating.
many
honors,
Among
his
he had received the American Association of
University Professors' Alexander Meiklejohn
Award
for con-
spicuous contributions to academic freedom.
would
later
admit, "that the decision was a mistake, both in the action
itself
"It
and
was
in the
Yet
perfectly apparent," the soft-spoken Kerr
way
at the
it
time Kerr did nothing to rectify the
he was reluctant
chancellor,
Or
it
was done."
to
Edward
override
Strong, from
may have been
response. If so,
it
error.
the authority of the
that he
Perhaps
Berkeley
whose office the order came.

was waiting to learn student
was soon forthcoming.
On
September 17 representatives of some 20 off-campus clubs

met to discuss the ban. Politically they ranged from far left (the
pro-Communist W. E. B. DuBois Club) to far right (Youth for
Goldwater, whose members were fond of wearing a button
wing extremist). In between were other

such as the Young Democrats, the Young Re-
reading i'm a right

political groups,
publicans, and the Independent Socialist Club; various religious
and peace groups; and the civil rights organizations, Campus

CORE and Friends of SNCC.
Feeling was heated. The students resented being lied to. Inasmuch as both students and teachers had for five years been
making their way through the Bancroft Strip area to classes, the
was obviously spurious.* They resented also
the arbitrary manner in which the edict had been handed down,
with no consultation of the student government. But most of
all, they resented the ban, which they saw as a classic example of
traffic
regulation
the denial of academic freedom.
Some even went
ing that the tradition of excluding political
campus was
activities
in itself unconstitutional, the First
* Later the students ofiFered to

the offer.
make a
traffic
study.
further, argu-
The
from the
and Fourteenth
university rejected
CALIFORNIA NORTH
89
amendments placing no such

and assembly.
Political differences aside,
restriction
on freedom of speech
everyone agreed on one point: that
new
the groups form a United Front to protest the
regulations.
On
September 21, Dean Towle, following a conference with

President Kerr and Chancellor Strong, met with spokesmen of
the United Front and agreed to modify the
Some
new
ruling slightly.
would be allowed, but fund raising, membership

and the advocacy of partisan politics were still
tables
solicitation,
forbidden. Finding these conditions less than satisfactory
and
the administration unwilling to engage in further negotiations,

the group decided to resort to direct action.
was
a massive rally
on the
That noon there

which
steps of Sproul Hall, during
were set up in defiance of the ban.

Over the next several days there were more demonstrations.
Meanwhile, the deans were gathering names of the table
"manners"; on September 30, 5 were ordered to report to the
several tables
dean's office at 3 p.m. to face disciplinary action.
more than 400 appeared, together with a petistating that each was equally guilty of violating the university rules. Although the deans at first agreed
to meet with them, they later changed their minds. Instead,
Instead of
tion signed
5,
by
all,
who
surveying the ranks, they picked out the 3 students
peared to be the leaders and added their names to the
ap-
list
There were two ironies here.

One was that Kerr, who had served so often as mediator in
disputes between labor and management, now adopted, or at
least sanctioned through silence, the old management tactic of
trying to break a strike by picking off its leaders. Of such are
martyrs made.
The second was that in picking out the three students, the
officials helped select and in effect give de facto recognition to
the new leader of the movement. For one of the three was a tall,
frizzy-headed,
twenty-one-year-old
philosophy
major
named
Mario Savio. Savio, who had attended Manhattan College and

Queens College before moving to Berkeley and changing his
major from mathematics and physics, had spent the past sum-
The
90
mer working
and
SNCC voter-registration
as a
felt strongly
worker in Mississippi
about the principle involved.
Following cancellation of the meeting, the students in protest

staged their
first
sleep-in,
several
hundred remaining in the
corridors of Sproul Hall until the following morning.
During the night, shortly before midnight, Chancellor Strong

announced the "indefinite suspension" of the eight students.
This action was not only contrary to regular procedures, occurring as it did without any sort of hearing; there was also no such
punishment as indefinite suspension in the university rules.
It was apparent that the administration had decided to take a
hard
line.
Next morning the
tables
went up
again, this time at the foot
two assistant deans

and asked Jack Weinberg, one of
those manning it, "Are you prepared to remove yourself and
the table from university property?" Weinberg wasn't. The
of Sproul Hall's steps. Just before noon,
approached the
CORE
table
deans then ordered his arrest for trespassing; shortly afterward a
and Weinberg was placed inside.

Another martyr had been made.
What then happened was neither premeditated nor spontaneous. It was more of a conditioned reflex, the result of parpolice car arrived,
The
ticipation in dozens of civil rights demonstrations.
surrounding the police car
sat
down, making
it
students
impossible for
the car to move.
Using the top of the
Mario Savio
police car for a platform,
called for a sit-in at Sproul Hall.
Other speakers followed. Although the
issue of
freedom of
speech was the paramount topic, a multitude of other complaints
came
To many
out.
outside the state, Berkeley and the University of
California were synonymous. In reality, Berkeley
was
just
one
of nine University of California campuses throughout the state.
As the
university
grew largerbecame a highly bureaucratized
"multiversity," as President Kerr
termed it the individual
stu-
dent often
felt a
sense of alienation. Classes were huge and
impersonal.
With
the use of teaching assistants for consultation,
CALIFORNIA NORTH
9^
was actually possible for a student to attend college for four

and receive his B.A. degree without once talking to a
professor. More and more, emphasis seemed to be placed on
it
years
and graduate
research
with the undergraduate always
studies,
At times
appearing to get the short end.

university
was more
interested in
seemed that the
it
accumulating Nobel Prize
winners and government grants than in education.
Such was the

extremely
being a
is
no
had
many
of the speeches.
It is
thus
one is ever on trial,

what one does today is
far, in
Not
few were
one of the quixotic marks of
liberal that
credential;
And
stuff of
critical of Kerr.
the estimation of
that yesterday's heroism

all
many
that counts.
of the speakers, Kerr
failed to earn a passing grade.
Several times during the afternoon
and evening, while the
speeches droned on, Savio and others attempted to present the
student demands to the administration, only to be told that

the issues were "not negotiable."
It was to become a familiar refrain.
There were three demands: freeing Weinberg, restoring
dom of speech, and the right to conduct political activity
free-
that
"did not interfere with the normal functioning of the university."
The
latter qualification
the newspapers saw
fit
was extremely important, yet few of
to report
it.
more deliberate distortion was also underway. A

cameraman for the Oakland Tribune photographed a girl watching the demonstration. Under her arm was a book on which
the word "Marxism" appeared in huge print. The book was
actually Essentials of Marxism, a textbook for the freshman
course Social Studies lA. But the photo had been retouched so
Other,
that only the inflammatory
word showed. The implication was
clear.
As darkness came on, the police car remained immobilized.

At about eleven o'clock some hundred "Greeks," or fraternity
boys, tried to disperse the crowd by tossing eggs and lighted
cigarettes on the demonstrators, but, failing to elicit the expected response, eventually tired of the sport.
Through
the night
and foUowdng day, the
protest continued.
The
92
Time was on
the side of the demonstrators, however, as their
leaders reaHzed.
The
next day, Saturday, was Parents* Day, and
Kerr had, by some manner or means,
to clear the
campus before
the visitors arrived. Finally, late that afternoon, the administra-
meet with a negotiating committee.

During the meeting an agreement, which became known as
the Pact of October 2, was reached. Its most important points
tion capitulated, agreeing to
were: (i) the students would end the present demonstration;
(2) a committee composed of students, faculty and administration would be set up to conduct discussions and hearings into
on campus; and (3) Weinberg

on his own recognizance, the
aspects of political behavior
all
would be booked and

university
released
agreeing not to press separate charges.
President
Kerr also expressed his willingness to deed the Bancroft Strip to

the city of Berkeley, with the understanding that
it
could be used
for off-campus demonstrations.
At 7:30 P.M. Savio read the agreement to the students, and

the sit-in around the police car ended. It had lasted 32 hours.
Over the weekend, the United Front met again and changed
to the Free Speech Movement (FSM).
was conceived as a temporary organization, one which
would disband in a few days, as soon as negotiations were
its
name
It
concluded.
During the next
several
days there was an orgy of
Red
baiting. President Kerr either did or did not say, "Forty-nine
percent of the hard-core group are followers of the Castro-Mao

line."
Kerr
later
denied having
San Francisco papers printed

ing
made such
it,
a statement, but
two
others across the nation follow-
suit.
FSM would receive close scrutiny

Byrne Report, an independent study commissioned by
the university regents. It found "no evidence that the Free
Speech Movement was organized by the Communist Party, the
Later the leadership of the
in the
Progressive Labor
did find in the
Movement,
FSM
any other outside group." It

some individuals "of a revolu-
or
leadership
tionary Marxist persuasion" but "our evidence indicates that
CALIFORNIA NORTH
they
events.
succeed
not
did
.
that those
93
in
any kind of control of
gaining
was agreed, even by the conservatives present,

leaders who were pro-Communist were
/* It
FSM
few
generally a moderating influence. Moreover, often on crucial

votes they failed to agree even
"What many
Draper, one of the

nists
among
themselves.
students resented particularly,"
FSM
partisans,
commented Hal
"was the idea the
Commu-
should be given the credit for what they themselves had
accomplished.
It
was another example
munists could depend on the
Red
of the fact that the

baiters
for
their
Com-
biggest
boosts."*
More meetings
followed, more concessions, more comproBut again and again, when it came to key issues, the
administration declared them "not negotiable."
mises.
this in itself was an education.

As Michael Miller summarized it, "From the time they began
trying to negotiate the administration ban on politics, students
came up against constant buck-passing of responsibility for decision. They were shuttled back and forth between a battery
of deans and obscure committees. What the students found
behind all this were not corrupt villains who wished them ill,
but rather nervous modern liberals dressed out as bureaucrats."
On November 9, feeling they were getting nowhere, the FSM
Yet
leaders lifted their self-imposed moratorium
up
again set
tables.
on direct action and

There followed more meetings and more
demonstrations, the latter drawing increasingly smaller crowds.
On
the 23d there was another
sit-in. It
lasted only three hours.
was clear that the FSM was in its death throes, its
force blunted and stifled by evasions.
It might well have ended then, had not the administration
By now
it
decided to nail
down
On November
the coffin
lid.
28, the Saturday of the
Thanksgiving vacation
weekend, the administration announced that disciplinary action
* Later Draper authored a book on the events at Berkeley, as seen from the
viewpoint of the FSM: Berkeley: The New Student Revolt, Grove Press, 1965.
Another excellent volume, which considers the controversy from all sides, is
Revolution at Berkeley: The Crisis in American Education, edited by Michael
V. Miller and Susan Gilmore, Dell, 1965.
The
94
Mario Savio and three others for their

activities during the pohce car blockade of October i and 2.
The news traveled across campus like an electric shock. Since
the October 2 Pact had not mentioned the possibility of further
would be taken
against
punitive action and had specifically outlawed
it
in Weinberg's
case, the students considered the belated charges "arbitrary
and
vengeful," as well as a betrayal of faith.
Following the vacation,
FSM
two days
leaders tried for
reopen negotiations with the administration, but
failed.
to
On
Wednesday, December 2, there was a massive demonstration in

the plaza, during which Mario Savio called for a general strike
of classes, to begin Friday, December 4.
''There's a time," Savio said, "when the operation of the
machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you
can't take part, you can't even tacitly take part. And you've got
to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon
the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it
stop.
And you've
who own
people
got to indicate to the people

it,
who run
that unless you're free, the
prevented from working at
it,
machine
to the
be
will
all."
In conclusion, Savio called for another sleep-in protest. About

1,000 persons followed
But
this
him
into Sproul Hall.
time was to be different.
Since the police car episode. Governor

pressure to use his authority to end the
had
Brown had been under

crisis at
hesitated, in part because President Kerr
Berkeley.
He
had asked him
not to intervene. This time, however, he chose another course.
At 3:05 A.M. Chancellor Strong urged the students to leave

the building. A few did so, but the majority remained. At 3:45
A.M., declaring, "As long as I am governor, there will be no
anarchy, and that is what has developed at the University of
California," Brown ordered state police to move the students
out.
What
followed was long and, at times, bloody.
policemen state highway patrolmen,

ley
and Oakland police responded
civil rights tactic of
sheriff's
to the call.
going limp, the students
Some 700
deputies, Berke-
let
Adopting the
themselves be
CALIFORNIA NORTH
dragged
down
95
the stairs one by one.
conversation recorded by
Among
newsmen was
the fragments of
that of a deputy
who
instructed one of his fellows:
"Hey, don't drag em down so fastthey ride on their heels.

Take em down a litde slower they bounce more that way."
It was 12 hours before the 814th, and last, demonstrator had
been
arrested.
The
following day a
charge that the

students,"
i.e.,
otherwise.
Of
number
majority
of
of the newspapers
the
were
to
were "non-
demonstrators
"outside agitators." University records indicated
those arrested, 83.6 percent were students, teach-
ing and research assistants or university employees; the remaining 16.4 percent were husbands and wives of students or other
nonstudent sympathizers.
Papers would also charge that the majority were "radicals."
Fact Finding Committee of Graduate Political Scientists, which
interviewed the arrestees, found that more were

religious groups than radical organizations.
1.2 percent
were
affiliated v\dth
affiliated
with
The breakdown
was:
conservative groups; 4.5 per-
cent belonged to radical groups; 7.3 percent belonged to religious

organizations;
the
18.2 percent belonged to liberal groups such as
Young Democrats;
25.6 percent were
organizations such as
members
of civil rights
CORE, SNCC and NAACP; and
percent had no political
57
affiliations.
Another newspaper charge, that these were not

dents, was, however, true. According to the
same
typical stu-
report, of the
undergraduates arrested, 47 percent had better than B averages;

71 percent of the graduate students had averages between B and
A; 20 were Phi Beta Kappa; 8 were
20 had published
Woodrow Wilson
articles in scholarly journals;
Merit Scholarship winners or
finalists;
Fellows;
53 were National
and 260 had received
other academic awards.
The
arrests did
what
the demonstrations thus far had
all
failed to do: they gave the
FSM
the overwhelming support of a
majority of the student body.
There was soon proof of
this.
The
general strike, called for
The
^6
Friday,
still
was moved up two days and began while the
80 percent
arrests
were
It
was, according to reliable estimates, 60 to
effective.
In single departments, hundreds of classes
taking place.
were canceled.
The FSM
had another important ally. But before most of

this, there was played out one more piece
of pure drama, appropriately set in the Greek Theater, where
on the morning of December 7 President Kerr called an "extraordinary convocation" of students and faculty.
also
the students learned
Shortly before the meeting
was scheduled
to begin,
Savio
requested permission to announce a rally following the con-
When
vocation.
permission was refused, he told reporters that
he would make the announcement anyway, following
Kerr's
speech.
More than 18,000 watched and waited as Kerr took the

microphone. Many, remembering his past successes, expected
him not only to rise to the occasion but to dominate it and
bring the conflict to an end.
"We came
expecting leadership," one student later recalled.
"Instead there were platitudes.
We
Instead, generalities. It was,"
he
expected a definite proposal.

said bitterly, "nothing
more
than a warmed-over commencement address."
Many who
listened felt similarly.
When
Kerr had finished, Savio entered from the left side of

the stage. Just as he reached the microphone, two policemen
grabbed him, one, with his arm locked around Savio's neck,
choking
off his
words. Savio went limp and was dragged into
the wings.
The
incident, according to Draper,
that could only be felt
on the
spot.
had "a dramatic impact

One moment, Kerr's
soothing phrases about the 'powers of persuasion against those

of force,'
opposition to passion and hate,' 'decent
means
to
decent ends' were lolled on the breeze; and the next minute,
men of the state had darted out from behind the

show what the 'powers of persuasion' concealed and
."
what the 'passion and hate' were opposed to.
the armed
scenery to
It
was, Draper added,
"modem
education, with visual aids."
CALIFORNIA NORTH
While the
97
students thundered
'We want
Mariol" a hurried
consultation took place backstage between Kerr and several

members of the faculty. Warned that a riot might result unless
Savio was released, Kerr finally gave permission for him to
speak. He returned to the microphone and made his brief
announcement.
At the mass meeting
that followed,
it
was agreed that since
the Academic Senate was meeting the following day to consider

the whole controversy, the strike would be ended forthwith to
allow the group to deliberate in calmer surroundings.
The Academic
Senate consisted of
all
faculty
members from
assistant professor up.
This meeting was by no means the

faculty in the dispute. Faculty
appearance of the
first
members had served on
num-
ber of negotiating committees and had been responsible for

raising bail for those arrested in Sproul Hall.
Many
sympathy with the students' demands had canceled

during the
strike,
and 361 had sent
teachers in
their classes
a signed telegram to Gover-
nor Brown strongly condemning his use of the highway patrol
on the campus.
Yet, though aware of the position of a few individual teachers
who had made no effort to conceal their sympathies, the students were unsure as to whether the majority of the faculty
supported or condemned them. Nor were the faculty members
themselves quite sure
one had bothered
how
to poll
they stood as a group, for thus far no
them.
For several days the Senate's Committee on Academic Free-
dom had been working on a resolution for the meeting. As it

was read, it is probable that more than a few present were
reminded of a previous occasion when they had been called on
to declare
themselves the California loyalty oath controversy of
1949-50, which had ended with a majority of the teachers

signing the oath.
The
resolution consisted of four major motions: (i) that the
content of speech and advocacy should not be restricted by the

university, nor should off-campus political activities be subject
to
university
regulations;
(2)
that
rules
regarding
political
The
pS
on campus should regulate only the questions of time,

place and manner; (3) that the university should not take
activity
punitive action against students for their previous activities in
the Free Speech
Movement; and (4)
that in the future the
faculty should have responsibility for disciplinary measures in
the area of political activity.
Every one of the student demands was incorporated into the

motions.
who had
press
told
the
that
who
had
and
opposed the FSM from the
political and social activity on the campus was "a melange of
narcotics, sexual perversion, collegiate Castroism, and campus
Maoism," this time chose a more subtle tactic an amendment
which would have emasculated some of the most important
Professor Lewis Feuer led the opposition. Feuer,
start
provisions of the motions.
The Feuer amendment was
A vote was then
called
defeated 737-284.
on the motions. They passed by a vote
of 824-115.
There would be more meetings and much more

with the 7 to
battle of the Free
On
January
talk,
but
faculty vote in support of the students the major
2,
Speech Movement was won.

1965, Chancellor
Edward
Strong, throughout
the controversy the leading advocate of repressive measures

against the students,
was allowed
to take "a leave of absence" for
who had voted with the

was appointed acting chancellor to replace him. In his first address Meyerson set down a
number of provisional rules for political activity on the Berkeley campus. Among them: the Sproul Hall steps would be made
available for student meetings; areas on campus would be designated for club tables; and the ban on fund raising, recruiting,
"reasons of health." Martin Meyerson,
majority of the Academic Senate,
was
etc.
dissolved.
victory for free speech
had been won
at the University of
California at Berkeley.
It
would prove
costly.
In a sense, what happened
at
than the way outsiders interpreted
Berkeley was
it.
less
important
CALIFORNIA NORTH
And
it
99
most outsiders inteqjreted
it
as the
news media showed
them.
to
Who
could blame the
TV
cameramen
for focusing
on beards,
long hair and bare feet? So they were in the minority; more
important, they were colorful.
And who
word
the
could blame the newspapers for repeatedly using
riot
instead of demonstration? It
was a
shorter word,
requiring less space.
Too, the issues involved in the Berkeley revolt were complex

and, unless one had close contact with the academic community,
not easily understood. Easier to
call it a "civil rights
panty raid"
or to define student complaints against the administration as a
"generation gap" or a "proxy-parent fight."
And
then, also,
were further
On March
make
it
did not remain a simple victory. There
incidents.
3,
1965, a young
man from New
York, deciding to
the Berkeley scene dramatically, appeared on the steps of
the Student
lettered the
Union Building with

Word.
a large sign on
which was
Wasn't
He
this freedom of speech, too?

was promptly arrested.
The
next day a protest rally was launched on the steps of
Sproul Hall.
The
demonstrators also used the word, loudly and
often.
Nine were subsequently arrested. Only three were students.

Thus was the Dirty Word Movement launched.
As a crusade it began to falter almost immediately. Leaders of
the
FSM refused
to take
To
it
to take
any part in
it.
And
the students refused
seriously.
Another student was

arrested for reading a section of Lady Chatterley's Lover in
which the word appeared.
One noon U.C. Professor Mark Schorer, who had written
save
itself,
it
tried to
be
literary.
the introduction to the Lawrence novel

edition
was
first
when
the unexpurgated
openly published in the United States, ap-
peared on the steps of Sproul Hall.
He
said in part, "If this
language appears in a book, one can choose to read

read
it.
This seems
to
me
it
or not to
quite diflferent from having that
The
loo
language or a single word from that language thrust upon one's

attention in a public place. I do think the
whole business
is
unworthy of serious students and that it is going to make it

more diflBcult for the faculty to protect what are your serious
interests.
."
.
When
Schorer finished, the
campus. But not in the
press,
new movement was dead on
nor in the public consciousness,
where it became just another example of "the mess at Berkeley."

There followed the formation of the Vietnam Day Committee (VDC). Again there were rallies, peace marches, sit-ins, this
time in front of troop trains and napalm factories. Again the
issue was real, and one about which many of the students felt
strongly their right to speak up against the war in Vietnam. In
time it would become evident that they were not just a small,
crackpot minority, that a great number of Americans had come
over to their way of thinking. But this was much later. Again
there were distortions, as well as incidents irrelevant to the
major
One
issue,
of the
which nevertheless would
VDC
color public thinking.
Communist
admitted to being a
leaders
Another was exposed as a child killer wanted in New York

State. And one march was stopped by the Hell's Angels.
Yet, even before any of these things occurred, even before the
Dirty Vlôrd Movement, the California public had
collective
On
mind
February
as to
2,
what
it
thought of the events
1965, just one
month
after the
made up
its
at Berkeley.
FSM
the results of a special California Poll were released.
victory,
Of
those
adult Califomians polled, 92 percent had heard of the demon-
and 74 percent disapproved of them.

"The mess at Berkeley" would be one of Ronald Reagan's
strations,
key
issues.
II.
Morality would be another.
True, there had been no notable scandals during Brown's two

terms in ofl&ce: no Bobby Baker, no assistant caught lurking in a
public men's room, no
ofl&cial vidth his
hand
in the
till.
CALIFORNIA NORTH
loi
There was that old matter of Brown's gambler father. But it

had been used and reused in previous campaigns, with no effect.
There was a bit of nepotism. Brown had appointed his
brother to a judgeship. But he was a Repubhcan, not a Democrat, and there was no denying his quahfications for the bench.
Yet it was clear for anyone with eyes to see and $2.50 for the
cover charge, plus another $4.00 for the two-drink
minimum
had been a decline

The evidence was openly
that during Brown's administration there
in sexual
flouted.
morality
It
had
over the borders of

ever there was
When
in
California.
San Francisco and quickly spread

the state. It was known by a misnomer if
started in
one as
the "topless."
he invented the topless swimsuit, Palo Alto designer
Rudi Gemreich later admitted, he had no idea any female

would be reckless enough to wear it in public.
One young lady did, her picture appearing on the front page
of the San Francisco Chronicle. Of course she was only four
years old.
Legend has
it
that "Big
Davy" Rosenberg was
sitting at the
bar of the Condor, a North Beach nightclub, musing on the
Broadway scene, when he spotted the item.

360-pound press agent is said to have yelled
to Condor owner Gino del Prete, "how'd you like to pack your
club tomorrow night? Let the Doda wear this!"
The "Doda" was Carol Doda, a blond, twenty-five-year-old
former prune picker from the Napa Valley, who was currently
slov\mess of the
"Hey,
boss," the
injecting a certain blatant sex appeal into the swim, frug, pony,
watusi and jerk atop a Baldwin piano lowered from the ceiling.
The next night (the historic date was June

Doda wiggled into the suit and descended via
16,
1964) Miss
the piano.
The
following night, bosoms were out at Big Al's and Off Broadway.
The
police looked
on and did nothing.
The
city attorney
had
advised them and the mayor that there was nothing in the
statutes to quite cover the situation.
By week's end, bras were off up and down the West Coast.
The Condor's lead did not go uncontested. The Off Broadway went one better uncovering its waitresses also. In addition,
The
I02
the club had a natural advantage,

twenty-one-year-old
star,
the
Doda only
To
Yvonne
its
sumptuous French-Persian
d' Angers,
being a 44-21-36,
a 34B-24-36.
Doda had to do something drastic. She did.

She discovered silicone.
In due time, with appropriate press uncoverage, Rosenberg
revealed that his protege was now 44D-24-36.
This fad spread almost as fast as the topless and was not restricted to entertainers. It appeared that any woman, whatever
compete. Miss
her original endowments, could
now make
the Playhoy center-
fold.
There were
certain
liabilities.
The
treatments were
both
painful and expensive: 20 or more injections of liquid silicone

into each breast, at
$25 per
shot, after
be bound in hot towels and

day and night. Also, in the
thought
the
initial
breasts
had
to
garments worn
rush to expansion, no one
was safe. Somewhat belatedly,

announced that the drug was only in the experimental
to ask if the treatment
FDA
stage
which the
special supporting
and
while medical experts
restricted its use to animals,
revealed that other
liabilities
had come
to light.
Because
impossible to X-ray through the silicone, there was no
it
was
way
to
detect breast cancer (since the breasts often remained sore most
of the time, this warning sign
was
also useless).
Too, the sub-
stance had a tendency to travel to other parts of the body.

its
effect varied.
The
breasts of
colored; others sagged horribly.
woman
breasts
And
some women became badly disAccording to one physician, any
taking the injections was sure to have ugly, pendulous
by age
forty.
According
to another, in
time the breasts
would become nothing more than "bags of oil."

Miss Doda showed no signs of sag, however, and to meet the
competition the Off Broadway introduced a businessman's
luncheon with
topless fashion models. It
proved so popular that
was made continuous, providing San Francisco with live

from noon to 2 a.m. A Mason Street establishment
quickly went one better, opening at 6 a.m.
it
toplessness
Thanks
headlines.
to
Rosenberg, however, the
She was kicked out
Doda remained
in the
of a restaurant because of her low-
CALIFORNIA NORTH
103
cut cleavage. She chased the mayor
down
the street.
She
enter-
tained the students at Cal from the infamous steps of Sproul
During the Republican National Convention, while Barry
Hall.
Goldwater called
for a return to the old morality, Barry
Gold-
Jr., and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., went to see the Doda.
Yvonne countered by marching out to meet the Salvation
Army when it arrived to clean up Broadway.
water,
Meanwhile, the opposition girded
The San
itself.
Francisco Examiner, in one of
periodic cam-
its
paigns for the family audience ("As a newspaper

obligation to reflect life as
vdll, therefore,
sordid
it is,
not as
continue to print
and tawdry we
all
it
ideally
we have an
might be.
We
the news. That which
will treat in a
manner
is
suitable for a
family publication") declared war on the topless. Calling for a
wholesale cleansing of vice-ridden North Beach, the paper even
went so far as to refuse some of the club ads, including one

which bragged, "Two of San Francisco's three most famous
landmarks belong to Yvonne d' Angers."
Its chief competitor rose to the defense, "The trouble with
San Francisco is not topless bathing suits," observed the San
Francisco Chronicle in surely the shortest editorial in
tory; "it is topless
The
its
his-
newspapers."
Chronicle's iconoclastic Charles
McCabe
interjected a
what bothered him was not the nudity but the

emphasis on mammoth mammaries.
In a style that often caused Easterners, on first encountering
mild
dissent;
the Chronicle, to read each paragraph several times in disbelief,
McCabe
wrote, "I need hardly point out to you intelligent
and
worldly readers that this is because most American men were
never quite gotten off the teat early enough by their loving
mothers and as a result regard anything which produces milk,
including superannuated Jerseys, as sex symbols."
The
topless waitresses agreed
them with
often,"
wore
with McCabe.
The men
treated
was pinched more

of wistfulness, "when I
a kind of embarrassed awe. "I
one remarked, with not a trace
clothes,"
The church now
entered the arena, in the person of the
The
I04
Reverend Larry Byrne. The padre, ever
vigilant in protecting
his North Beach ItaHan parishioners against scandalous maga-
and immoral beatniks, called on Mayor

John F. Shelley. Claiming to represent 17 community groups,
he demanded an end to the topless. His committee had conducted a thorough survey, he said, and had found the worst
zines, salacious movies,
offenders to be the
Hot Dog
Palace, Mike's Pool Hall,
and the
Jazz Workshop.
This came
as
something of a surprise.
hot dog stand; the second a
semi-jet-set
The
first
named was
sandwich emporium and
bar, vdth the additional feature of pool tables for
men and
women; the third one of the best jazz clubs in the city.
Not one of the three had ever featured the topless.
he
Police Captain Charles Barca of Central Station admitted
was
by Byrne's charge that North Beach was
also puzzled
midst of a crime wave. North Beach was, he

incidence crime area,"
Workshop,
to his
its
major problem
traffic.
said,
As
in the
"a low-
for the Jazz
knowledge there had never been a
single
police complaint.
Jazz columnist Ralph Gleason interviewed Reverend Byrne.

"Father, have
you ever been in the Jazz Workshop?" Gleason
asked.
"I don't
know
just passing
to enter a
a thing about
on the evidence
of
it,"
my
the reverend replied. "I
committee."
He
house of prostitution, he added, in order
was
did not have
to
condemn
it
Gleason, trying to discover what the three places could possibly
have in
that, unlike
common other
some of the
than no topless finally concluded
Italian bars
and restaurants
in the area,
these establishments did not frown on the patronage of Bohe-
mian interracial couples.

Caught between the Church and the
clared,
at the
State, the
mayor
de-
with a wonderful mixing of metaphors, "The topless
bottom of
Less than a
is
it all."
month
later,
on the night
of April 22, 1965,
San
Francisco police raided the topless clubs, arresting owners and
them with "conduct outraging public decency" and sponsoring "lewd and obscene exhibitions." After
performers, charging
CALIFORNIA NORTH
I05
giving both Examiner and Chronicle readers several weeks of
highly
coverage,
titillating
ruled
courts
the
otherwise,
with
directed verdicts of acquittal.
The mayor
surrendered on behalf of the
city.
spoken; San Francisco could have the topless.
Larry Byrne promised to mount a
citizens'
The courts had

The Reverend
crusade but was not
heard from again.
bevy of other clubs
became
Mammary
now
switched to topless. Broadway
Lane. San Francisco had seen nothing like
since the days before the 1906
fire,
leaned out their crib windows to
when
Morton
girls in
it
Street
passersby fondle: one for a
let
dime, fifteen cents the pair.
Apparently fearing a return
to
the old morality, the state
Alcoholic Beverage Commission stepped in and attempted to
revoke the Off Broadway's liquor license, charging that bare

breasts
cited
to
were probably unsanitary and,
men
to excessive drinking.
if
not, they at least in-
Attorney Melvin
defend the club, had no trouble rebutting such
Having emerged
noses, the clubs
victorious
now
from
their battles
Belli,
hired
logic.
with the blue-
returned to their natural opponents: each
other.
The Peppermint Tree premiered Tosha,

ture (a natural
real
32-19-30)
of Chinese-Korean descent,
name was Pat McDonald. Big
siliconed
40-23-36),
who was
Al's countered
alleged to be
Apache-French. Tosha changed her

the Glo Girl and
Her Glo Worms,
three slithering boa constrictors.

earlier, or later
a wiggling minia-
act.
whose
with Tara (a
German-Cherokee-
Now
billed as
Tosha
she appeared topless with
At about the same
time, or
(the issue was disputed in court, but the judge
threw the case out, leaving the point unsettled), Tara added
snakes to her
act.
The Peppermint Tree in turn pioneered the amateur topless.

Young secretaries, salesgirls and college students could now air
their exhibitionist tendencies nightly. Objecting to the
competition, the professional topless girls

place.
But the idea caught on, spreading
amateur
prompdy picketed
to a half
the
dozen other
The
io6
clubs, each of
which would eventually claim
to
be the
home
of
the original amateur topless.
Gold
Street introduced strip poker.
With
a certain inevitability, Vami's Roaring Twenties intro-
duced the bottomless.
Its
performer was arrested the second
night she climbed onto her red plush swing.
missed the case almost as promptly.
The
The
judge
dis-
statutes, written for
another day and age, were so vague as to be meaningless. Be-
way
Then came
sides, the
she
sat,
you couldn't
see anything.
The Condor and Off Broadway

had concentrated on mammoth servings, the Peppermint Tree
on petite hors d'oeuvres. Now there was an entirely new innovation, with strong psychological overtones. From the Condor
the bombshell.
across Columbus Avenue and read the huge

on the marquee of the El Cid Gaye Spiegelman
TOPLESS MOTHER OF EIGHT.
you could look

lettering
It
was a tough
act to follow.
One
press agent briefly con-
sidered premiering a nursing mother but
of the club owners that though
was persuaded by some
McCabe was
probably right,
immature American males should be allowed their illusions.

But it wasn't hard to lampoon. The Old Spaghetti Factory, in
"unwed topless mother of

was canine.
The Interlude switched from nude art models to Joy the
Living Brush. Big Al's added Gina the Bat Girl, then topless
gang molls. Pussy Cat A Go-Go (the neon reduced the second
word to almost microscopic print) went French topless high
heels, hose, garter belt, black panties. To complement the Doda,
the Condor added a male and female topless dance pair. Coke's
momentarily abandoned the topless for the Baroness Monique
satirical
its
revue,
featured
an
twelve," neglecting to mention that she
Von
Cleef, described as a "disciplinarian for submissive males,"
whose props included whips, leather

lecture on the joys of sadomasochism.
The
hat.
latter act
was
short-lived,
cuffs, hairbrushes
perhaps because
it
and a
was so old
For years the motorcycling habitues of the Tool Box, a

"S" or
"M" on
their jackets to indicate their preference, while the
Presidio
south of Market bar, had stenciled the
letters
CALIFORNIA NORTH
I07
Whip,
Theater, in running the old serial Zorro's Black

tised
"A
Little
S-M
for
Our Leather-Loving
loo" Busty
Pierre's introduced the
(minus only an accordion
One
Sisters (52''
Tipsy 's followed with the world's only
adver-
Friends."
all-girl
48").
topless
band
player, observed one wit).
club specialized in anatomical disparities; another had a
waitress v^dth hair on her chest.

Pierre's
added
topless college coeds, El
Cid a
topless school-
teacher,
gay bar introduced topless waiters.
Down
Columbus,
just
oflF
Broadway, a topless shoeshine
parlor
opened the only shoeshine shop
an ID
card.
The Red
in
America
to require
Balloon introduced topless rassling.
Big Al's premiered a mother-and-daughter topless team.
In 1965 San Franciscans went to the polls to pass on a culture
bond
issue to permit renovation of the city's
Municipal Opera House. They voted
Not long
it
famed but decrepit
down.
afterward, the highly acclaimed Actor's
Workshop
folded from lack of support.
In droves
artists
deserted the city for
and yes Houston,
New
York, Los Angeles,
Texas, where their work sold.
This was "sophisticated, culture-conscious" San Francisco during the decade of the
Looking back
retrospective of
at
its
sixties.
the whole topless
third year,
Chronicle writer, remarked:

to realize that this city's
our national culture
phenomenon from the
William Gilkerson, San Francisco

"It's
kind of unnerving somehow
prime contribution for the decade
may be
limited to hippies
and
to
teats."
12.
It
was a curious
have deserted
it
city.
Had
its
in April, 1906.
citizens
been smart they would
But no, they stayed and
rebuilt,
The
io8
knowing
perfectly well
...
maybe
or
just
hoping
wouldn't,
it
at least not in their lifetimes.

It
was never a planned
And
city. It just
grew.
almost every kind of architectural
thing was that
it
With
style.
little
The
foresight.
incredible
turned out so beautiful and managed
to stay
that way.
"Only San Francisco could survive what you people are doing
to it," Frank Lloyd Wright once chastised.
They tore down fine old buildings. And more often than not
erected monstrosities in their place.
Over and over
again, they
committed the cardinal sin blocking the viewyet miraculously, in time even the high-rises seemed to blend in. For years,
residents had complained about an outsized Southern Pacific
skyscape. But when it was reand coming over the bridge from the
East Bay, someone was bound to ask, "Remember that old S.P.
neon
that jarred the
moved they missed
downtown
it,
sign?
When
they did try to salvage a bit of their heritage, they were
apt to flub
it.
They
spent a sizable fortune restoring the Palace
of Fine Arts in concrete, only to discover that part of

lay in
its
crumbling-ruin aspect. Yet
when
its
charm
they did succeed as
with Jackson Square, Hotaling Place, Ghirardelli Square their

mistakes seemed as nothing.
was a young city, as world cities go, its history tragically

brief. But lusty and full-packed. With its effect on the present.
It
Unlike the Angelenos, most of
whom
couldn't care less
who
or
what had preceded them, San Franciscans were traditionalists.

At times they carried this to the point of ridiculousness. As
Charles McCabe once cynically remarked, the first time you did
something in San Francisco
the second time
it
it was "a great pioneering effôrt,"

became "an old San Francisco tradition."
Too, they had a habit of enshrining their eccentrics, those

larger-than-life-size individuals
who somehow managed
petuate the San Francisco legend from Norton
but
to
mad Emperor
I,
to per-
the gentle
United States and Protector of Mexico,

Vincent Hallinan, who, suing the Catholic Church, de-
manded
that
it
of the
pinpoint the exact locations of heaven, hell and
CALIFORNIA NORTH
109
At the same time they had a tendency, as in the case

of sculptor Beniamino Bufano, to honor the eccentricities and
purgatory.
forget the
to
accomphshments,
imbue with
or, as in
the case of Lucius Beebe,
lovable qualities after death a neurotic
been insufferable in
life.
And some were
so
who had
immersed
in the
was
changeresenting newcomers, young men, younger
ideasone major industry after another moved to Los Angeles
until that city gradually began to become the hub of West Coast
commerce and finance. But for others the city's past was part of
the present. They cared about San Francisco what had happened to it, what was happening, what was still to happen and
past they lost sight of the future. Because the Establishment
resistant to
bond between them. Strangers they might

be, but they were San Franciscans.
For all that, it was also a lonely place. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Merla Zellerbach once attended a meeting of the
Organization, a group of single people banded together to escape
their common isolation. "It makes my day when the bus driver
recognizes me," one young divorcee confessed to her. "I buy
groceries one at a time so I can stop by more often and chat
this created a subtle
with the
"I
clerk," a secretary admitted.
Observed a lonely widower,
even love the rush hour."
Maybe
all cities
seemed more
so.
sibly, intensified
are
by
definition lonely.
Perhaps something in the

such emotions.
Maybe
But San Francisco

air, its clarity
because the city
positself
human relationships often appeared, by

and impersonal.
It made for odd mating habits.
For the single heterosexual male in his twenties or thirties it
meant elbowing your way through the crowd to the bar at
Paolis (or any of a dozen similar establishments), spotting
potential quarries on the way. You talked a little, bought a drink,
asked for name and phone number.
Then you drifted away.
A night or two later you called.
It was cool, casual. Yet, like all rituals, it had its reasons, most
of which benefited the females. It helped to distinguish single
seemed
so romantic,
contrast, cold
no
The
males from married
men
out for a night on the town.
It
removed
the stigma of being a pickup, as well as the even stricter dictum

against putting out on the
first
date.
was not an ironclad procedure. On Friday night, score

night, anything went. No one wanted to spend the weekend
It
alone.
It
was roughest on those
girls
who had been
reared gently.
Yet, outside of the office, sports, a night class, or the solicitations
matchmaking friends, there was scant opportunity to meet

men in San Francisco.
It was a city where people were often solitary, whether or not
they wanted to be, whether or not they were in a crowd.
There was always the fog, the beautiful fog, ever-changing,
rearranging the city's moods. Next time would be better.
Oddly enough, it was males, not females, who committed
of
eligible
suicide at the greater rate. After a time, the girls
moved
else-
where.
As a
But in
city,
San Francisco had
its
problems.
Few were
unique.
this unconventional setting they often assumed magni-
fied proportions.
Black Fillmore Street seemed to be waiting for
its
own
long,
hot summer.
Chinatown were sweatshop garment factories where old women worked up to 70 hours per
week for as little as 50 cents an hour; crowded apartments that
were litde more than warrens, where poverty was real, cockroaches ever-present and rats not unknown.
Beautiful San Francisco had its slums.
.^
And there were automobiles, always more automobiles, and
never enough space in which to put them. ("Pick a posy in a
San Francisco park and you will probably expose the roof of an
underground garage," remarked TV's Mel Wax, commenting on
another San Francisco first the practice of digging up parks to
Behind the
exotic facade of
plant parking spaces.)
And
was the steady exodus from the city to the suburban "bedroom communities" of Marin, the Peninsula, Contra
Costaof those who could afford to live in San Francisco and
there
I"
CALIFORNIA NORTH
Hong Kong, Mexico of
the steady influx from the South,
California's
who
the
Between 1950 and i960, while

population increased by half again its size, San
minority groups,
couldn't.
Francisco lost residents.
Many became
part-time
San Franciscans, some 130,000 per
day commuting from outside the

paid no taxes to maintain
it.
And
spent them elsewhere.
city.
They
They used
the city but
took their salaries from
it
but
during the rush hours, they brought
on the Golden Gate and Bay bridges and

the Bayshore Freeway, for less than one-fourth of them rode
buses or trains. They preferred to drive. And by so doing added
trafBc to a standstill
to congestion
and smog.
more decks on the

maybe even a return to the more leisurely
ferries. (One thing most San Franciscans agreed they didn't
need was more freeways; they wanted to remove those they
already had.) Rapid transit was certainly a part of the answer;
after much talk and squabbling, work on a Bay Area Rapid
Transit System was started. It would have been completed
Planners, belatedly as always, suggested
bridges,
more
bridges,
sometime in the
envision
it
1970's.
solving
all
But even the most optimistic did not
the area's transportation
ills.
In Northern California, as in Southern, the auto was more
than a mode of conveyance.
was akin
to asking
him
to
To
ask a
man
to limit his use of
submit to partial castration.
It
it
was
painfully unthinkable.
Urban renewal,
racial unrest, the
move
to suburbia, rising
property taxes, congested streets and avenues, air pollution-
problems
common
to all of America's "core" cities, not to
San
Francisco alone. Except that here their urgency accelerated.
Perhaps because other
cities
were watching
to see
how San
Francisco coped.
Life in this city engendered a special tension, a pace no less
frenetic
sixties,
its
and driving in that
it
was
self-directed.
During the
a national car rental company, in fierce competition with
leading
rival,
adopted the slogan
ciscans unconsciously adopted
considered themselves No.
2.
it
"We
try harder."
San Fran-
long before Avis, but they never
Their
city was, they
immodestly
The
112
best. It was as if they were trying

San Francisco dream. This dream had many
faces, with everybody's interpretation his very own. Simply put,
it was that here one could do things he couldn't do elsewhere.
A few succeeded.
Many more failed.
Remarked one observer: "It is not San Francisco's fault that
the dream never really comes true; it is the dreamer's fault for
being so immature in the first place."
This was partly true. But it missed the point. Any dream
worth having seems greater than our capacity to realize it at
first. The important thing was that the dream existed, and be-
proclaimed to the world, the

to live
cause
it
up
to the
did, so
But some
many tried to achieve it.

Some didn't even come
didn't.
Failure here bespoke finality, as
if,
close.
having tried the conti-
was no turning back.

San Franciscans divorced each other at an incredible rate.
While in the whole state one out of two marriages ended in
divorce, in San Mateo County, one of the more affluent bedroom suburbs of San Francisco, y6 percent of the marriages
went bad.
Of all communities in the Western Hemisphere, San Francisco had a suicide rate second only to that of Las Vegas. To say
that they jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge at the rate of one
per month is only highlighting the dramatic. Each day many
others, perhaps afraid of heights, chose more mundane finales.
In an attempt to curb the problem, a group of concerned citizens
set up an office San Francisco Suicide Prevention, Inc. where
nent's farthest reach, there
ministers, and social workers manned 24-hour

phones in hopes of dissuading would-be suicides.
psychiatrists,
But many didn't call.

There was another way
had the same
result,
but was
out. It took longer
much
preferred.
and sometimes
They drank them-
selves to death.
San Franciscans drank for the same reasons people elsewhere

drink as a social custom, to relax, to escape, out of sheer enjoyment. Only here again they tried harder. There were so many
CALIFORNIA NORTH
113
marvelous bars, the two-hour businessman's lunch, the three-
hour "happy hour" when doubles

parties.
One magazine
turned East
same
as singles, the
unable to maintain the pace,
writer,
to write that
cost the
San Francisco was "a
sort of
re-
Disneyland
for drunks."
was also the undisputed

United States. Not only did
It
cirrhosis of the liver capital of the

its
residents have the highest per
capita alcohol consumption rate of any U.S. city two
and a
half times that of the rest of California their death rate from
this
one disease was
five
times that of the whole of California
and six times that of the rest of the country.

These were some of the problems.
It was a many-faceted city, full of contrasts and contradictions. It was best described by cliches which rarely held up on
close examination.
"San Francisco
women were
better dressed than
women
else-
where." If you stayed west of the Mississippi. If you confined
your observations
to
Union Square and never once saw buttocks
decolletage on Market.
"San Franciscans were more urbane."

cans?
The winos
of
Which San
Francis-
Howard? The whores on Turk? The
loud-
mouthed, electronically amplified lady evangeHst at the Powell

cable car turntable?
"San Franciscans were

hippies,
and
tolerant."
Except when
it
came
to
especially the young. In the sixties, dancing per-
mits for teen-age clubs were
ment on the ground
still
opposed by the police depart-
that dancing tended to corrupt.
"San Francisco was cosmopolitan;

rants-Chinese,
Armenian,
Japaneseproved
this."
Russian,
its
many
Jewish,
Unless you happened
foreign restauItalian,
Greek,
to recall that
none
was originally welcomed, and all had to weather

and prejudice.
"San Francisco was artistic." Yet as one visiting curator remarked somewhat patronizingly, "If you took the city's three
museums and combined them, San Francisco would then have
one bad museum."
Yet, all exceptions considered, it remained an incredibly
of these peoples
years of hatred
^^ ^'^ Days of the Late,
114
beautiful place, an exciting place to
Great State of California
visit,
a wonderful place to
live.
Why,
then, emphasize
Because
it
problems,
its
much
hurts too
its
to talk of its
failings, its flaws?
charms.
had a magic, an elan. You could credit the hills, the bay,
the view, the fog, and though all were essential, they were still
It
only parts.
was not one world but a conclave of worlds, each

still smaller, until you reached the individual.
It
containing worlds
It
was cable
cars.
Telegraph
Golden Gate Park,
Hill,
Fountain, Haight-Ashbury, Ocean Beach,
Lotta's
Kortum, Leonard Martin, Jack Jew, Melvin
nese, Karl
Chi-
the Italians, the
Belli,
Herb Caen, Lloyd Quock.

Yet, even with
pinpoint
component
all its
Bring them
it.
all
together,
be able to reconstruct another
This
king's
the tragedy.
is
men
parts separated,
That
and you would
city like
all
you couldn't
never
still
it.
the king's horses and
all
the
13-
1906 should have taught California some
That although,
lessons.
as seismological expert Dr. Charles F. Richter
is no locality in California which

exempt from earthquake risk," some areas those adjacent
known active faultswere more dangerous than others.
once noted, "there simply
That no matter how
sound a building,
and the earth beneath it
structurally
erected directly over a fault
wrenched the two halves 10
to
20
is
to
if it
was
split
and
feet apart, the building
would
collapse.
That
to build
on
fill
land near an earthquake fault was to risk
committing murder. As those portions of downtown San Francisco built
on bay
fill
showed, sands, gravels and
silts
were
least
able to withstand earthquake shock.
That
to build partly
hazardous.
on rock, partly on loose
soil
was doubly
"5
CALIFORNIA NORTH
That no matter how
far
from a fault
line, to
build on hillsides
with a history of earth slippages was extremely dangerous.
That during a quake, as many lives might be lost to falling

cornices and shattered windows as to actual collapse of buildings.
That tall buildings were particularly susceptible to the gentle
rocking motion of distant earthquakes as many as 200 miles
away.
where sizable numbers of

people congregated should meet more than minimum safety re-
That large-occupancy
structures
quirements.
was learned, and that only in

part, and this did not come about until 1933 and another disaster. As a result of the Long Beach quake of that year, during
But of
all
these lessons only one
which nearly
all
schools collapsed,
city
the state legislature
passed the Field Act, assigning to the State Division of Architecture responsibility for approval of public school design
and con-
struction.*
In succeeding years, most California communities adopted

the
Uniform Building Code. Revised every three
contained lengthy earthquake provisions.

"shall
be designed and constructed
dicated in detail
exactly
how
signer
was
this
what
was
be done.
It
professional engineer,
code
noted that buildings
to resist stresses"
those stresses
to
It
years, the
were but
it
and
it
in-
didn't specify
was presumed that the decapable of making such
judgments. Moreover, the code was not retroactive;
it
made no
provision for the thousands of buildings predating the code but
Even more important, it set only minimum standand in 1967 there was disturbingly graphic evidence that
these might not be enough.
still
in use.
ards,
That July an earthquake hit Caracas, Venezuela, killing 275

Of these, 200 were occupants of new, expensive, highrise condominium apartments whose slab floors simply collapsed
and pancaked. The chilling thing about this, observed California geologists when they returned from inspecting the dam-
people.
* But even this

legislature
Field Act.
was not sacrosanct. In 1968 a bill was introduced in the state

which sought to remove junior colleges from the provisions of the
The
ii6
age in Venezuela, was that nearly identical conditions prevailed
and San
The
and rocks were similar.

Engineering and construction design of the condominiums, of which San Francisco
had an even larger number, were almost the same. And all of
these buildings up to that time had been believed to be "earthquake proof."
The most frightening thing about the Caracas quake was that
it was rated only "moderate" in intensity.
in Caracas
Francisco.
Both were located near two active
They came
soil
faults.
from almost every place and
to California
for
almost every reason. But 90 percent of them settled in nine

metropolitan regions which covered
than 5 percent of the

each of these nine regions was in close
And
state's total land.
less
proximity to one or more active faults.
Land
As
in these areas
this
became increasingly
precious.
happened, builders began forgetting the lessons of
1906.
San Francisco rebuilt its business district on the same filled

it had suffered so much damage in '06. Down the
peninsula, each year more of the bay was filled in to support
new housing developments, as well as commercial and industrial structures. (San Francisco Bay once covered 700 square
miles; by the sixties, filling and diking had reduced its area to
land where
about 400.)
Some
builders
were careful
to erect only
tures direcdy over the fault line.
included parks, parking
lots,
course, cemeteries.) Others
(Examples of
soil so that
no
fairly safe
usage
storage sheds, golf courses and, of
were markedly
peninsula developer went to great pains to
with
low-occupancy struc-
less cautious.
fill
trace of the fault itself
One
in a fault valley
was showing, then
with hundreds of homes direcdy above it. In

San Mateo County, a school was built directly
astride a trace line of the San Andreas.
Some architects insisted on safety standards that exceeded the
minimum requirements and followed closely the suggestions of
built a
model
city
Portola Valley,
the Structural Engineers Association of California, the Ameri-
H?
CALIFORNIA NORTH
can Society of Civil Engineers and the Seismological Society of

America. Others didn't.
People wanted views, and the best
on
to build
hillsides.
And
if
brought in more earth, so that

rock, partly
on
provide them was
on
rested partly
fill.
them the
office
much view
as
possible;
architects utilized large plate glass
Because land was expensive,

houses and
to
many homes
People also wanted to have as

oblige
way
the hillsides were too steep, they
they
often
built
to
windows.
apartment
buildings as high as local height limitations
permitted, despite Richter's 1958 warning that "few of the larger
buildings have been designed to be earthquake-resistant."
And
because people wanted and needed public auditoriums,
motion picture theaters, supermarkets, department
stores
and
other large-occupancy structures, they built them, complying to

all of these were
Uniform Building Code, that more than a few
had large loopholes which could be further widened by
the letter with local building codes. That not

as strict as the
actually
the application of funds to strategically placed individuals,
not have been good architecture, but
it
may
was considered good
business.
Any
building in the planning stage was apt to precipitate a
between engineers and comptrollers. All too often the

result was not one but a series of compromises. Reducing costs
could mean the difference between winning or losing a contract, between profits by the mite or million.
battle
Along the length of the San Andreas, each of the lessons of

1906, reiterated in every major quake since, was ignored hundreds of times.
They
did
it
because there was no law that told them they
couldn't.
Nor were the architects, builders and contractors alone

guilty. The course of the San Andreas was well established and
long known. Maps charting every mile of its length were plentiful.
Excellent, detailed books such as Robert lacopi's Earth-
quake Country (Lane Books, Menlo Park, 1964) and William

Bronson's The Earth Shook, The Sky Burned (Doubleday, New
The
ii8
York, 1959)
made
many
clear the exact location of the fault. In
had wrought in the countryside sag ponds,

escarpments, offset stream beds, etc. could be easily seen by the
naked eye. The newspapers knew. Yet, given as they were to
places the changes
it
topless, prostitution, the hippieswhen a

new housing development was announced, its
crusading against the

larger-than-large
no word of protest appeared in

the editorial columns. The realtors were advertisers of consequence. Nor were chambers of commerce inclined to object to
location clearly over the fault,
smacking of prosperity for their respective
activities
did the public
With one
itself
seem
When
Gas
in 1963 Pacific
an atomic power plant
at
to
change
its
plans.
But
it
&
Bodega
had forced
was the exception
directly over the fault, public protest
company
Nor
to care.
notable exception.
Electric proposed building
Head,
areas.
that
that
proved the rulesolitary, unique. People could visualize and
become concerned about an atomic blast nothing smaller.

If on occasion some consciences were actually bothered, there
was a simple justification the recollection that only 450 people
had been killed in the 1906 quake and that of this number
many had died not from the quake itself but from the fires
which followed.
They
conveniently forgot several things.
In 1906 there were fewer than 2 million people in California.
In 1969 there were more than 21 million.

In 1906 most of the earth rupture ran through uninhabited
areasbeaches,
fields, valleys,
mountains.
In 1969 most of these same areas were densely populated,
with millions of people above or in close proximity to the

living in
row on row
of tract houses,
fault,
working in skyscrapers,
shopping in supermarkets, driving on freeways, crossing suspension bridges none of
which had been
tested
by a
truly
major
earthquake, none of which had even been built in 1906.
And
the 1906 earthquake had rocked only the northern por-
tion of the
California.
San Andreas.
It
had not reached
into Southern
14.
Officially, the
campaign would not begin
until the candidates
announced, early in 1966. Unofficially, by late summer of 1965,

Brown, Yorty, Reagan and Christopher had all escalated their
speaking schedules.
Brown
In August, Governor
took time out for a vacation to
Greece.
It
was
brief.
On
Wednesday, August
11,
Watts exploded in
violence.
Brown
hurriedly flew home.
The campaign had

unknown. But
it
new
was a
issue.
Exactly
how
potent was
safe guess that since the riots
curred during his administration, they did nothing to
still
had ocimprove
Brown's chances.
While
their candidate
was going back
to school,
Spencer and
Roberts were busy remolding his image.

It
was a multifaceted
To
ment,
job.
counteract Reagan's total lack of experience in govern-
Roberts
coined
"The founding
politicians,"
an inspired phrase:
citizen-politician.
were not professional

in the new speech. "They were
fathers of this country
read one line
citizen-politicians."
To
counterbalance Reagan's extremist connections, promi-
nent moderate Republicans, such as Leonard Firestone, were

persuaded to endorse him over Christopher, while those too
closely identified
their
with the radical right were urged
enthusiasm publicly. Goldwater,
for example,
to stay outside California for the duration of the
to
dampen
was asked
campaign.
Reagan's remarkable autobiography, Where's the Rest of

Me?, had been written and scheduled for publication before
Spencer and Roberts came into the picture. There were indications they were less than happy with it, since it provided, albeit
certainly unconsciously, amazing cannon fodder for the opposi-
The
I20
As an
tion.
"official version'*
own
they issued their
biographical
which mentioned such distinctions as Hollywood

Father of the Year and Reagan's honorary membership in the
Navajo clan but apparently forgot his numerous awards from
groups of the Town Meeting for Freedom ilk.
Still, the book was there. Spencer-Roberts met this challenge
fact sheet,
with real
flair.
Purchasing several thousand copies, they passed
them out to newsmen, urging that they quote from

As a result the press accorded it scarcely a glance.
The new Reagan, equipped with

in early
the
new
it
generously.
speech, premiered
1965.
fall,
Eastern journalists, observing with wry detachment the latest

California
phenomenon, found man and speech
less
than hyp-
notizing.
They
discovered that Ronald Reagan was no longer
Drake McHugh,
young
he wore makeup to hide his wrinkles and

only half succeeded. "What is Reagan today?" asked the New
York Times and answered itself in a style more than a little
reminiscent of the old Time: "He's handsome, of course a little
prissy at the
that
mouth, and unsmiling
at the eyes,
but with a strong
physique, good teeth and a full head of hair. He's

looks forty, in a state that admires good health
As
fifty-five
and good
and
looks,"
one national magazine described it as

heavily dosed with "Goldwater bromides"; another found its
"pious platitude content high"; while the Times was quick to
for the speech,
Nixon segue: "Now, none of us would

way the principle of academic freedom,
spot the presence of the

care to abridge in any
but"
"All of us agree that California
for the welfare of

like
everyone
else,
its
must take
responsibility
genuinely needy citizens, but" "Teachers,
have the inalienable right
Reporters ferreted out the background
to strike,
but"
mechanics of the
speech. It consisted of an "erector set of phrases, figures and
gags" which were lettered in block capitals with a nylon-tip pen
on 3" X
some
5''
cards.
By merely
speech for any occasion.

of
shuffling the cards or substituting
for others, the candidate
predominandy
When
had a more or less tailor-made

he was to speak before a group
elderly persons, the card describing welfare
CALIFORNIA NORTH
recipients as "a faceless
121
mass waiting for handouts" could be
jerked and replaced by one which read, "I strongly support welfare
programs designed
to provide the
permanently disabled, the
aged and the infirm, with not only the necessities of
some
but-"
also
of the comforts
which can make
life
In his autobiography, Reagan had said of the
knew
life,
worth
GE
but
living,
tours:
"I
had to avoid a set routine or a canned speech which,

although it would have been easier, could have ruined the whole
wonderful reaction we were getting. I was sure that one group
exchanged notes with the others about what took place in these
twenty-minute sessions, and it wouldn't do to have them discover
I had one twenty-minute pitch which was turned on and off like
I
day
a record. Besides, at fourteen times a
I'd get pretty sick of
it
myself."
The
speech in fact became so familiar that most reporters
Which was unfortunate, as it was, in its way,

a minor masterpiece. Among other things, it revealed what the
behavioral scientists had discovered. The "gut issues" bothering
ignored
its
content.
Califomians most were: crime, taxes
and expensive government,
public welfare costs, the population explosion, and education

(i.e.,
"the mess at Berkeley").
One
was conspicuously absent, yet curiously omnipresfires were still smoldering in Watts, there
was no mention of civil rights. But when Reagan complained,
"Our city streets are jungle paths after dark," the image lurking
in the shadows was black. When he referred to "a segment of
ent.
issue
Although the
who make welfare a profession," his audience had

no trouble identifying the group. The "population influx" became a dark horde moving relentlessly on white neighborhoods.
our citizens
And when he damned
the "beatniks, sexniks and other creeps"
demonstrating at the University of California, the mind of the

listenermuch as the eyes of the
TV
cameras had often done-
focused on the interracial couples in the crowd.
The
result
was a curious suh
rosa dialogue which, intentional
or not, persisted throughout the campaign
white backlash.
and warmed the
The
122
The
less.
speech was well rehearsed, the candidate's delivery flaw-
To
appearances, Ronald Reagan had been perfectly
all
programmed.
Yet even the computer has a margin of error.
Behind the facade was a real man, with real feelings and
strong beliefs. In the spontaneous question-and-answer periods
following the speeches, one caught glimpses.
At Coalinga Junior College, questioned about the Far Eastern

Reagan advocated declaring war on North Vietnam.
"We could pave the whole country and put parking strips on it
and still be home for Christmas." Declaring war would have
another benefit, he added: it would end the peace marches. "If
situation,
we
are officially at war, the anti-Vietnam demonstrations
and
the act of burning draft cards would be treasonable."

At Claremont College he opined that yes, indeed, there
should be limits on free speech.

killed, free
to the
"When Americans
are being
speech has to stop short of lending aid and comfort
enemy."
Asked on another occasion what he thought of the emerging

African nations, he was reminded of a joke. When those countries "have a man to lunch," he quipped, "they really have him
to lunch."
Elsewhere he called federal aid to education "a tool of tyranny," stated, "There can be no moral justification for the
progressive income tax," called
unemployment insurance
"a pre-
paid vacation plan for freeloaders." Addressing the Comstock

Club in Sacramento and asked his qualifications for governor,
he paused, then admitted, "Gee,
I don't
know.
I've
never played
a governor before."
But there were indications
it
didn't matter
what he
said.
speaking at Berkeley, he described the federal govern-
While
ment as being "like a baby an alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. If you
keep feeding it, we'll be up to our necks in something oh, yes,
debt."
"He's just
He
yummy," enthused one woman
might wear makeup, have
wnrinkles,
in the audience.
and look a
little
CALIFORNIA NORTH
123
mouth, but wherever he appeared, people turned
prissy at the
Newsweek described him best when it called him

"the man who brings out the lonely crowds."
The immediate questions, so far as the politicians were concerned, were: How large were the crowds, and how lonely the
out.
Perhaps
people?
But there were other
questions, too.
At night, after filing their stories, the reporters sat around

and drank. And talked.
Did it ever occur to you, a Los Angeles reporter asked, that
the California dream might not be so unique after all, that it
might in reality be nothing more and nothing less than an extension of the American dream, a feeler into the future?
Several drinks and much discussion later, they agreed that the
idea made sense.
Let
me
Could
for what
it
carry that a step farther, remarked the
be that California
to act as a
is
produces, but because
it
huge
first
speaker.
important not just for its size, or

its
most important function
is
American experience?
observed a San Francisco re-
testing laboratory for the
That's certainly true in science,
porter, signaling for another round.
They're doing things in
those Southern California "think tanks"with lasers, molecular

structure, cyberneticsso revolutionary
the average
It's
man
to
it
will take a century for
understand them.
true in education, too, noted a visiting
New
York
cor-
What happened
at Berkeley has already had a

on every university in the country, and will for
years to come. Why, in curriculum changes alone
There's only one fallacy to such logic, interrupted the profes-
respondent.
profound
effect
sional cynic in the group, a
Are you willing
politics.
California
is
to
young Hearst man. And
that's
argue that what's happening here in
truly relevant to the rest of the nation?
In a sense.
Oh, come
telling
me
nificant.
on. California politics are different.
that
Upton
Sinclair
was somehow
Next
you'll
be
typical or sig-
The
124
Okay,
sonified;
use Sinclair as an example. Admittedly his 1934
let's
campaign
Governor of California seemed
for
FDR
even
revolutionary things he proposed.
gave him the
to
be madness per-
thought him demented. Yet just look at the
His basic platformwhich
campaign slogan vâs "End Poverty
initials for his
In California." Sinclair had the insane notion that

could be eliminated,
many
if
poverty
of man's other problems, such as
But some of his other ideas were even

more heretical: graduated income and inheritance taxes, state
income taxes, public works projects, old-age pensions
racism,
would
disappear.
You mean, as California goes, so goes the nation? Need

remind you that in i960 California went for Nixon, and that
I
it
was because of the California primary of 1964 that Barry Goldwater grabbed top spot on the Republican ticket? Were these
accurate reflections of America's feeling?
But California rejected Goldwater in the general
election.
Actually, despite the saying, California has a hell of a lot better

track record than Maine.
During the past 50 years there have
been 13 Presidential elections. How many times has Maine

been right? Six. Not even 50 percent. If the United States had
followed Maine, we'd have elected Hughes over Wilson, given
Hoover a second term, had Presidents named Landon, Willkie,
Dewey (this one not once but twice), and Nixon. And no FDR.
And
It's
California?
missed only once:
in
i960, the year you mentioned,
picking Nixon over Kennedy, by only 35,000 votes. If you go

the
way back
election,
it's
Are you
to 1852,
when
California
first
all
voted in a national
been wrong only three times.
seriously saying that the candidacy of a
movie actor
in California a well-known thespian, no less might have some

relevance to what is happening and might happen on the national political scene?
It
on
was such a ridiculous idea the
New
York reporter choked
his drink.
In terms of practical
ways only the
was the
frosting
activity in the
politics,
on
Ronald Reagan was in many
the cake.
background.
What was
really important
CALIFORNIA NORTH
125
many
Following the 1964 election,
Goldwater volun-
of the
under such names as Citizens

for Constitutional Action. These were now organized into
teer groups
had remained
active
Reagan support groups, providing him with
a cadre of dedicated
grass roots workers.
Republican
Long-established
state
It
were
was
major
the
To
GOP
Democrats intended
clear the
hoping
issue,
middle.
organizations
throughout
the
also assiduously courted.
to
split
such a move and
forestall
State Central
to
make extremism a
down the
the Republican party
Committee
to preserve party unity,
killed a resolution
denounc-
ing the John Birch Society.
During one
secret strategy meeting,
John Rousselot, national
public relations director of the John Birch Society, approached

Stuart Spencer with a coldly pragmatic offer: the society
be glad
to
would
endorse Reagan or denounce him, whichever would
help most.
Instead a middle course was adopted.
do nothing
on
their
As
officially,
but
its
The
members were
society itself
would
free to participate
own.
for the candidate himself,
it
was agreed in advance that no
matter what might happen, Reagan was to declare himself with

neither the moderates nor the rightists, but to pursue a neutral
course.
This
tactic
soon had a baptism by
fire,
when Los Angeles
Times columnist Paul Coates revealed (i) that the president of

the Long Beach Young Republicans was a former member of a
right-wing extremist army, the California Rangers, with a con-
machine guns; and (2) that

the corresponding secretary of the same group frequently attended meetings of the American Nazi Party and marched in
viction for attempted sale of illegal
their demonstrations in a storm trooper's uniform.
comment. The two young men were

quickly drummed out of the YR's, and the scandal was soon
Reagan refused
to
forgotten.
Spencer-Roberts'
They
preparations
were
minute
and
detailed.
anticipated every possible issue that might be raised
and
prepared answers. In setting up Reagan's itinerary, they not only
The
126
decided which groups he should address, but to the best of their

abihty timed his arrival to the most advantageous psychological
moment. They knew
that
Brown was
strongest in face-to-face
and that
Reagan was weakest here, freezing up in a crowd, while Brown
rarely came over well on TV, in which medium Reagan excelled.
So they emphasized the latter and tried whenever possible to
avoid the former. It was agreed that Reagan would call his
program "The Creative Society." It was also agreed that in order
confrontations, the handshaking of old-time politics,
avoid
to
anyone,
alienating
he would never define
too
it
specifically.
Whatever the
pared for
it
Spencer-Roberts seemed to have pre-
detail,
in advance.
Baus and Ross, on the other hand, was employed by Brown

only in an advisory capacity. Details of campaign operations
were
the hands of party regulars, while no effort at
left in
was made
to
all
enhance Brown's image.
There was a crackling
fire
in the fireplace. Books lined the
study wall. Ronald Reagan stood to welcome the television
audience as
In
these
if
they were guests in his home.
informal,
cozy
he delivered "the
surroundings,
speech."
Most
it
of the viewers, not having heard
as such.
Nor were
they aware that the
announcement wasn't
it
before, did not
fire
wasn't
the
but had been filmed some days
live
nor that what they saw wasn't Reagan's
earlier,
specially built set
know
real, that
on the Death Valley Days
home but
stage.
All 39 California television stations carried Ronald Reagan's
January
mated
4,
1966,
announcement
of his
candidacy at an
esti-
cost of about $50,000.
At a press conference following the announcement, Reagan

was asked whether he would disavow the support of the John
Birch Society.
He
oath to everybody
for
me, they
replied:
who
[sic] are
"I'm not going to submit a loyalty
votes for me. If
buying
my
views. I
anyone chooses
am
to vote
not buying theirs."
CALIFORNIA NORTH
He would
1^7
repeat this, almost verbatim, for the next ten
months.
The day
announcement, Brown headquarters
after Reagan's
issued a 15-page rebuttal. In his speech
newcomer
to the state
programs the moment

this
to
was true only
have
is
Reagan had
said that "a
automatically eligible for our
many
aid
Brown noted
that
for state aid to the blind; elderly persons
had
he crosses the border."
five years' residence; aid to
available until after
dependent families was not
one year, except in cases of extreme emer-
gency. Reagan had said that more than 15 percent of
fomians were on welfare. Brown called
this
come up with such a
times too large," adding that to
Cali-
all
estimate "three
figure
Reagan would have had to include Social Security and state pensions. Apparently Reagan considered Social Security welfare.
Reagan, holding
what
it
catsup botde (but never explaining
aloft a
was doing
in his study),
sponsibility for the layoflF of
had charged Brown with
re-
200 Oakland bottling employees
because of his stand against importing hracero labor during the
tomato harvest. Brown pointed out that tomato production was

up, not down, a record 2 1
company had
laid off the
tons per acre,
and that the Oakland
200 employees
to
reduce carry-over
inventories from the record crop of the year before.
Yet
it
was hard
for
Brown
to
answer many of Reagan's
charges. California did lead the nation in crime,
which was
had
gone up because there were more people; and unemployment
had increased, but then so had employment. And he didn't even
understandable, as
try to
it
also led
it
in population; welfare costs
answer Reagan's charge that
his administration
ing the university "to be brought to
its
sident minority" exhibiting "neurotic vulgarities."
what he
said about Berkeley,
it
No
dis-
matter
lost votes.
With Brown's announcement one month

was
was allow-
knees by a noisy,
later,
the campaign
officially on.
During the primary campaign, Reaganobeying what the

Republican chairman had dubbed the Eleventh Command-
state
The
128
ment: "Thou shalt not speak

if
his party
opponent didn't
ill
of any Republican" acted as
Reagan ("The smile
is
there.
few
irresistible potshots at
But where's the substance?") but
directed most
of his fire at Christopher.
gunReagan's
extremist connectionsbut
after the primary.
was Brown. Brown,
exist; his target
in turn, defended his record, took a
Brown had one

was saving
it
big
for use
Meanwhile, the Democrats accumulated am-
munition.
Christopher, muzzled by the Eleventh
generally ignored by Reagan,
Commandment and
mosdy fumed.
Yorty repeated, over and over, "I have been to Vietnam. Pat
Brown
has not**
Something curious was happening in Southern

Brown campaign strategists were at a loss to explain
it.
In some
most staunchly conservative counties Riverside,
of the
Diego,
California;
Orange a
sizable
number
of Republicans
San
was switching
registration to Democratic.
Was
this the portent of a
visers decided to
Democratic landslide? Brown's ad-
keep a close watch.
Were Reagan's Late,

one knew for sure, but
Late Shows subliminal advertising?
of having to supply equal time to other candidates, most

stations stopped
Reagan
as
Some
TV
running them, while Robert Taylor replaced
Death Valley Days host on
felt this
No
to play safe and to avoid the possibility
its
California broadcasts.
was the lowest blow suffered by the Democrats
during the whole campaign.
Meanwhile, Christopher was encountering the careful preparations of Spencer-Roberts. Addressing the annual convention
of California
is
in
my
We must
nists,
the
Young Republicans, he
heart,
even
said, "I
at the risk of incurring
not tolerate the extremist, and
Minutemen and
His voice was
must
lost in
tell
include the
the John Birch Society."
a sea of boos.
you what
your displeasure.
Commu-
CALIFORNIA NORTH
129
Reagan, by contrast, received a standing ovation.
Brown was having convention

President Johnson,
his
Vietnam
the
CDC
who
policies.
to oust
Brown
its
troubles himself. Pressured by
reacted not at
finally
all
kindly to criticisms of
cracked the whip and forced
controversial president,
Simon Casady.
Casady, a former El Cajon newspaper publisher, was spokesman

for a group of liberal
Democrats highly
critical of
U.S. policy in
Vietnam. Casady *s resignation, submitted after he failed

a vote of confidence at the
ary, left the
CDC's annual convention
win
to
in Febru-
50,000-member volunteer organization badly
split.
Though
the convention did endorse Brown's reelection bid,
elected a
new
president with views the same as Casady 's,
and
it
it
passed a resolution calling for military de-escalation, an end to

the bombing of both North and South Vietnam, a cease-fire and
peace negotiations.
However
summoning
unintentionally, wdth the ouster of Casady

of the police at Berkeley,
helped give birth to the
Brown
strategists
New
and the
Governor Brown had
Left.
were not long in discovering what was hap-
pening in Southern California.

Conservative Republicans, led by a core group of Birchers,
were making the supreme
sacrifice for their favorite candidate,
switching registration to Democratic in order to vote for Yorty

in the hope he
would knock out Brown,
or at the least, diminish
his lead considerably.

It
was
indicative of their complete confidence in Reagan's
victory over Christopher.
Odd
things were happening
all
over the
state.
Contributions
Brown campaign headquarters mysteriously vanished.

People who phoned in for Brown bumper strips or window
signs found they had to make the same request three or four
times, their earlier requests somehow having been mislaid.
sent to
Mailings were sent to nonexistent addresses; precinct
lists
dis-
appeared.
Who was responsible? No second guess necessary.

cratic party
had been
infiltrated.
The Demo-
The
130
The campaign was
not
all
serious.
There were the
gaflFes.
Only, for a change, most of them were not made by Brown.
Speaking
at Lakeport,
Eel River "Is
Reagan was asked
his opinion
on the
coming through Clear Lake?"

"is the Eel River coming through is
it
"Oh," he replied,
this
part of the Feather River project you're talking about?"
Someone
yelled, "You're a
"Well," said Reagan,

of Clear Lake, "I
tell
hundred miles
who was
off!"
standing 10 feet from the shore
you, you've asked
me
about one here that
I'm going to have to bone up and find out what
"Dwaght D. Eisenhower
finer phrase than that,"
this is."
in his golden prime never turned a
Herb Caen cooed
in
mock
admiration.
Later Reagan also managed to misplace the Marysville
Dam.
Reagan's primary opponent, George Christopher, vowed:
promise
if I
am
"I
elected I will restore moral turpitude."
Obviously out of his intellectual element on the Stanford
campus and uncomfortable as usual at being in alien Northern

California, Sam Yorty was asked what he thought of the striking
grape pickers at Delano. His reply: "I was reading an article by
a man named Steinberg, I think his name is, called The Grapes
of Wrath. Conditions, I guess, can be pretty terrible out there
in the grape fields."
Chuck Connors,
told a picnic
crowd
star of a one-time
at
TV
search every state, from the coasts of

California,
A voice
show,
The
Rifleman,
Westgate Park in San Diego that "one can
and not find another man
Maine
like
to the coasts of
Reagan."
from the crowd suggested, "Try Arizona."
There were some
less
humorous things
that did not appear in
print.
One was the not so subtle rumor that Ronald Reagan was in
no mental condition to hold elective office.
It may have been a vicious slander planted by Democrats. But
as the campaign progressed, reporters in the Reagan entourage
became uncomfortably aware of an embarrassing number of odd
litde things.
Reagan would make a statement
to reporters. Later
it
would
CALIFORNIA NORTH
be proven
false.
131
Confronted with the
hotly deny having
made
disparity,
the statement in the
Reagan would
first
even
place,
though there might have been a dozen vidtnesses to it. This

happened not once but often.
Equally disturbing was one of his habits. Each time a reporter
put out a cigarette, nonsmoker Reagan would quickly grab the
ashtray and empty it. When it became evident the newsmen had
noticed the habit and were testing him, Reagan's aides began a
concerted rush to grab the ashtray
thereby emphasizing the
first,
grotesquerie.
On premiering the new Ronald Reagan in the fall of 1965,

Spencer-Roberts had announced to reporters that Reagan no
(Which was fortunate, since in campaigning there was no other way to cover a state the size of
California.) But when reporters asked in turn whether Reagan
longer objected to flying.
still
suffered from claustrophobia, as admitted in his autobiog-
raphy, the reply was vague and evasive.
Odd
little
things. In themselves almost insignificant except
perhaps as indications the candidate was a
man under
stress, as
anyone making more than a dozen daily appearances had every

right to be. But together with another rumor, concerning
periodic "blowups," they gave rise to worried discussion in the
party hierarchy.
were no leaks
On March
It
was kept
tightly
under wraps, however; there
to the press.
5,
1966, Christopher and Reagan were invited to a
meeting of Negro Republicans in Santa Monica, where each was

asked for comments on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Christo-
pher remarked that in his opinion the position taken by Barry
Goldwater had done more than any other single thing

the Republican party.
"We re
still
paying the
bill for
to
harm
that de-
feat."
A suddenly visibly angry Ronald Reagan stood

to
make
"I
resent the implication that there
nature,"
and demanded
"a point of personal privilege."
he brisded,
ever imply that

the palm of his
is
any bigotry in
flashing tears in his eyes. "Don't
lack integrity!"
hand and,
still
He
crying,
then slammed his
stomped
my
anyone
fist
in
off the platform.
Tfce Last Days of the Late, Great State of California
132
muttering what someone nearby quoted as
The
"I'll
get that s.o.b."
audience sat stunned. Neither Christopher nor any of
the preceding speakers had

Later,
still
angry,
made such
Reagan
a charge against Reagan.
told reporters
"demogogic inferences" that he was "a
he deeply resented
racist or a bigot";
he
also
hotly denied having resorted to profanity.
The rumors were now
out in the open. Sydney Kossen, of the
San Francisco Examiner, spoke
for a
number
of
newsmen when
he found Reagan's outburst "not just absurd but frightening."

But newsmen were not the only people disturbed by it.
GOP
leaders hurriedly called a strategy conference.
utes of the meeting were never
were
leaks.
At
least
made
The min-
public, but this time there
one prominent Republican was said
urged dumping Reagan then and there;
if
he blew up
to
have
this early
what about the remaining eight months, when

the pressure mounted? However, it was decided to ignore the
incident, at least for the time being. All it proved, Reagan supporters argued, was that their candidate had a temper (he was
Irish, wasn't he?) and that he was a fighter.
in the campaign,
Christopher, less chivalrously inclined, forgot the Eleventh
Commandment
long enough to call Reagan a "temperamental

and emotionally upset candidate whose sole escape from prob-
lems
is
to
dash hysterically
$5,000 to charity
if
Ronald Reagan was a
to his dressing
He
room."
offered
anyone could prove he had stated or implied

racist or bigot.
State Poll, taken a
few
There were no
days after the incident,
takers.
showed that
Reagan's lead over Christopher had dropped from 13 to 8 percentage points.
some nursed doubts, members of the California Reamong them. At its meeting in
early April that volunteer organization, long under the thumb
of right-wing members of the California Republican party, gave
Reagan a thunderous standing ovation. Christopher, declaring
the party's nominee could not win unless he rejected the radical
left and right, was soundly booed. When he persisted "or if we
insist on America's withdrawal from the United Nations" the
But
if
publican Assembly were not
boos swelled to a
roar.
The
convention voted overwhelmingly
CALIFORNIA NORTH
to
endorse Reagan.
133
They
also passed
one resolution urging that
anti-Vietnam demonstrations be declared an act of treason, another proclaiming the contention of any difference between
Russian and Chinese
Communism
favoring a constitutional
to
amendment
be
false,
and
still
another
to return prayer to public
schools.
The
Democrats, meantime, were gathering ammunition.
On
April 25 Reagan backers committed a major error: they ran a

"Friends of Ronald Reagan" ad in the Los Angeles Times.
Democratic strategists already had some idea as to the identity
of the sponsors of this informal organization originally propos-
Now,
ing Reagan's candidacy.
Combined with
in print.
list
for the
of
first
Southern California Finance Committee,

markable
to
Included were: Philip
roster.
time, there
announced
it
M.
was proof
leaders of Reagan's
proved
to
be a
re-
Virtue, contributor
Gerald L. K. Smith's anti-Semitic Christian Nationalist Cru-
sade and financial backer of Dr. Wesley Swift, former
Ku
Klux Klan organizer and leader of the paramilitary California

Rangers; Patrick J. Frawley, head of the Schick Safety Razor
Corporation and heavy contributor to numerous extremist organizations, from Dr. Fred Schwarz' Christian Anti-Communist
Crusade to the American Security Council of Chicago; Henry
Salvatori,
Los Angeles
oil
explorations millionaire,
member
of
the Project Alert faculty and president of the Anti-Communist
Voters League; A. C. Rubel, president of the
pany of
member
California,
Union Oil Com-
of the ultraconservative
Freedoms
Foundation; Walter Knott, of famed Knott's Berry Farm, national treasurer of the Liberty
board
sade,
member
and contributor
Joseph Lonergan,
on
Amendment Committee,
advisory
of extremist Billy James Hargis* Christian Cruto
innumerable right-wing organizations;
member
of the John Birch Society
Committee
Judicial Re-Education, director of construction of Southern
California billboards for the impeachment of Earl Warren;

William Coberly, Birch Society leader and sponsor of the
Manion Forum
^^* Days
"^^^
134
Altogether, the Democrats gleaned the
names
of 25 highly
prominent backers of right-wing causes in America.
They
filed
On May
another right-wing
2,
Republicans
and waited.
it
most delegates
GOP
Reagan.
being present, those remaining were powerless

lutions calling for
quorum not
on
to vote
UN;
(i) U.S. withdrawal from the
modem math and
abandonment of
Unfortunately
immediately after the vote.
left
United
organization, the
endorsed
California,
of
reso-
(2) the
a return to "practical, under-
standable arithmetic."
As the primary campaign entered

predictable course it
Yorty led
Brown had
grew
its
final
weeks,
Edmund G.
with the charge that Governor
oflF
took a
it
dirtier.
"the support of the
Communist
party."
Pressed for evidence, he brandished a copy of Intelligence
which none of the
Digest,
some checking,
it
reporters
was found
to
had ever heard
After
of.
be an anti-Semitic British hate
sheet.
(Why
not use the local product? some wondered, fearing
Yorty might be turning into an intemationahst.)
"He
has the support of the
Communist
party against
me
in
the primary because I'm anti-Communist," the mayor of the City

of Angels explained.
Considering that Brown could not even hold
own
in his
Brown
party, the charge
didn't think so. "This
was not without

little
man
replied angrily. "Yorty thinks everyone
papers, the radio, television, the
Guard. There
and
is
is
all
its
the liberals
humor. But
has flipped his

against
Highway
lid,"
him the
he
news-
Patrol, the National
a psychiatric term for this known as paranoia
think this
is
the best
way
to describe the
mayor
of Los
Angeles."
Brown's hands did not remain exactly clean.
One
of his
cam-
paign aides slipped the documentation on George Christopher's
CALIFORNIA NORTH
"criminal past" to
had been
Drew
cited for a
135
Pearson. In the early 1940's Christopher
number
of illegal acts connected with his
on one, forcing dairymen to make rebates, he

had pled guilty, been fined $5,000 and given a two-year suspended jail sentence. The "scandal" was not exactly new. It had
dairy business;
been brought up and fully aired while Christopher was mayor

of San Francisco, one local magazine even carrying a police
mug
shot of Christopher on
its
cover.
But many California voters
were unfamiliar with either the charge or Christopher's belated

defense that he had been fighting a state milk price-fixing law
and that the money collected had been used for this purpose.
About half of the 35 California newspapers which ordinarily
carried Pearson refused to print the
columns with the Christo-
pher accusations.* But they gave the story coverage on their
and
front pages
Pearson
libel
filed a
in their editorial columns. In the aftermath,
$2.6 million suit against Christopher, charging
and interference
vidth his business relationships; the
candidate answered with his

Pearson; and
information.
people,
The
we
Brown admitted
"Any way we can
will certainly use
suits
own
were
later
that his staff
it,"
GOP
$6.0 million libel suit against
had supplied the
rightly get the truth before the
he
said.
dropped. But the story remained in the
headlines until the day of the primary election.
When
showed a dramatic swing toward Reagan

(45 percent to Christopher's 32), the milkman decided to join
the party. He publicly asked Reagan, was it true that he had
once helped the Communists by participating in such fronts as
the
last polls
Mobilization for Democracy, and had he ever belonged to such

suspiciously liberal organizations as Americans for Democratic
Action and the United World Federalists?
He
was not trying
to
smear Reagan, he explained, but only
citing these matters for clarification before the
Democrats did
so.
* Most of the California Republican papers, such as the San Francisco

Chronicle, heavily edited Pearson's daily columns anyway. Although 'lack of
space" was the reason given, their poHtical selectivity in

not to run was interesting.
what they ran or chose
The
136
On
June 7 nearly 8 million Califomians waded through the
mud to vote for

And the rest
the candidate of their choice.

of the nation watched with
more than a little

amusement the latest antics in that crazy Far Western state.
It was at best a momentary distraction. Few were actually
concerned with the outcome. After all, what happened in California did not affect them.
So they reasoned.
PART
TWO
THE CENTRAL VALLEY

where I can pick me an
want it. Or grapes. There's a thing I ain't
never had enough of. Gonna get me a whole big bunch a
grapes oflF a bush, or whatever, an' I'm gonna squash 'em
on my face an' let 'em run oflFen my chin."
"Jus' let
orange
me
when
get out to California
Grampa Joad
in
The Grapes
of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
Driving south down U.S. 99 through the San Joaquin,

southern half of California's great Central Valley, it was difficult
to believe that only a hundred miles to the west was the rugged,
wave-swept Monterey peninsula, and half that distance east, the
many-splendored wonders of Yosemite. For at first glance the
valley was sameness personified landscape flat and unchanging,
towns small and indistinguishable, weather hot and dry. Everything appeared to have been cast in the same suffocating mold
one day monotonously
like the next,
one place drably
like
another.
It
hardly seemed the spot for a revolution. Yet here, in
Delano, one of those small valley towns, there occurred in the

fall
of 1965 a revolution eventually to
sweep the length and
breadth of the United States.
Things are not always what they seem. The sameness of the
was an illusion. Few places in the world were more
valley
diverse.
There were a hundred worlds
here,
had one taken the
The
138
trouble to distinguish them. For the diversity of the valley lay

in
crops.
its
Cotton, grapes (table, raisin, wine), alfalfa, safflower, sugar

beets,
peaches, apricots, plums, oranges, nectarines,
potatoes,
melons,
cantaloupes,
figs,
walnuts,
olives all
quantity. In this valley 4 counties alone
grew here
grew more
in
agricultural
produce than 43 states; one of them, Kern, led all counties in

the United States, yielding 23 major crops. This was the heart
of
California's
agriculture
$3.8
billion
(annually)
on such an immense
coined to describe
it:
scale a
agriculture
industry,
new name had
to
be
"agribusiness."
There were other worlds
here, too, those of the people
who
inhabited the valley. Economically and socially, their status was
more
rigid,
fomians.
more
It
clearly defined than that of
divided three ways:
ranchers and growers; a middle
most other Cali-
the world of the farmers,
class,
composed mostly of mer-
chants to supply their needs; and a scarcely considered third

world, that of the migrants
who
harvested the crops.
They were Mexican-Americans
mostly, plus a
few
Filipinos.
Sometimes, from the highway, you caught glimpses of them

working in the fields. But most travelers were spared too close a
look.
For one of the blessings of the multilaned Cahfornia
free-
way system was that it made unnecessary too deep an involvement with the surrounding countryside.
From the highway you couldn't see the women squatting
between the rows because the growers refused to provide field
toilets, even though the law required it. Nor, in an air-conditioned auto, could you imagine how it felt to do stoop labor in
loo-degree heat. Nor, with
was
it
all
the roadside orange juice stands,
easy to imagine real thirst, doing without water because
you couldn't afford
it,
not at the nickel per cup charged by the
field boss.
But mostly you couldn't

as they lived.
And
feel like they felt,
never having lived
without some basic empathy, there can be no
sympathy or concern.
THE CENTRAL VALLEY

It
was not easy
to identify
139
with these people.
They were
too
poor, their lot too foreign to the understanding.
TTie average Mexican-American farm worker in California
made $1,378
this, if
a year, far
he was
himself, a wife
typical,
below the federal poverty
he had
to provide
and seven children. The
level.
Out
of
food and clothing for
rest
went
for rent, pay-
ments on the automobile (necessary transportation when you

followed the crops), payments on furniture and payments on
debts.
Home
was some place
like
work camp outside Delano,
where two- or three-room shacks rented for $30 to $45 per

month, and where a large family had to rent two. The shacks
were constructed of tin, with no insulationbroiling hot or
freezing cold, always in the wrong season. Many lacked windows. There was a gas stove for cooking, but no running water,
no
toilet,
the
no garbage
thirties,
human
collection. Built as
they had long ago been
habitation.
No
temporary housing in
condemned
as unfit for
other cheap housing being available,
however, they had remained in use.
The company store was nearby. Though it often charged twice

what regular stores might, and the meat and vegetables were not
always fresh, it offered two advantages: it was close (to drive to
town required gasoline, and gasoline cost money), and it gave
credit.
To compound
They would
difficulties,
the growers had a bag of
advertise pay at $1.40
tricks.
an hour, only, when the
it to $1.10. There were always sufficient

numbers needing the money too desperately to move on.
They would hire more workers than were needed, on a perbox or per-row basis.
While they might promise a 25-cent incentive bonus for every
box picked, they would withhold 10 cents of this to be paid at
the end of the season. During the last few weeks they would
make working conditions so unbearable flooding the fields was
workers arrived, to cut
one of
their tricks that the workers
forfeit their pay.
would be driven
to quit
and
The
14
Sometimes they charged
for transportation
from one
field to
another on company-owned trucks, or rent on tools used by the

pickers.
Before deductions, workers rarely earned more than $i.io
an hour. Sometimes,
after deductions, their
take-home pay was
30 cents an hour. And when work was scarce, out of

they might have to kick back a percentage to the labor
as little as
this
contractor
who found them
the job.
Not all farmers and growers treated their workers so poorly.

Some tried to be considerate and fair. But the pressure of other
growers being what
going
rate.
And
it
was, they rarely dared pay more than the
openings in such
The Grapes
page from
accurate picture of migrant
fields
of Wrath?'^
life in
were quickly
On
filled.
the contrary, an
the San Joaquin Valley of
California in the year 1965.
Although one would rather not remember,

ciscan padres
verts
who
it
was the Fran-
by keeping
their Indian con-
in virtual slavery. After the mission
era most of the
started
it
all,
Indians having by this time died of white men* s diseases other
workers had to be found to harvest the crops.
When
the Central Pacific Railroad was completed
and the
thousands of imported Chinese laborers were no longer needed

to dig the roads
and
lay the track, they
had
their turn.
Then came the Japanese.

Thus was the pattern established. Carey McWilliams,
one-
time California Commissioner of Housing and Immigration,
saw
it
as follows:
"to bring in successive minority groups; to
them until the advantages of exploitation have been

exhausted; and then to expel them in favor of more readily exexploit
ploitable material."
The
Japanese,
who had
the disquieting habit of forming
to-
gether into "associations," were followed by the "wetbacks,"

starving
*
Mexican peasants who,
after the revolution of
19 10,
book, incidentally, that as late as the 1960's was absent from nearly all
valley libraries and banned in most valley schools, together with the rest of
John Steinbeck's vjrorks.
THE CENTRAL VALLEY

waded
Grande by the thousands
across the Rio
United
M^
to
work
in the
States.
During the 1920's the growers began importing Fihpinos.

From these last two groups Mexicans and Fihpinos many
stayed in the United States and acquired citizenship. This did
httle to improve their lot, however, since there was always another group willing to work for whatever wages the growers
offered.
During the 1930's
it
was the turn of the
dust-dirty Okies
and
Arkies.
Then came World War

work force. To correct this
II,
which
greatly depleted the local
deficiency, in 1942 the hracero pro-
gram was created. It permitted the importation of hraceros, or

Mexican nationals, and was operated on the assumption that
there were insufficient local workers available to harvest crops.
While the war lasted, this was true. At war's end, however, the
Mexican-Americans and Filipinos returned. Although there was
talk of
ending the hracero program, growers' lobbies, such
the Associated Farmers, exerted ample pressure to have
it
as
con-
These grower lobbies

more ways than one. Farm workers were speexcluded from minimum wage laws and from much
tinued, thereby keeping wages depressed.
were successful
cifically
in
other labor legislation, including collective bargaining.
But in
1964 Congress, in a surprise move, ended the
late
hracero program. Growers were forced to hire local workers exclusively.
And
for the
worker had the power
The
change
his lot.
time was ripe for a revolution in California agriculture.
Needed was
He
time in California history, the farm
first
to
was
man
bom
Yuma, Arizona, in 1927 and christened Cesar

As a child, one of five in the family, he had it
than most Mexican-Americans, since his father
owned his own

when Cesar was
was forced
it.
in
Estrada Chavez.
slightly better
to lead
farm. But this meager distinction disappeared

ten, for that year the
to take to the
crops through Arizona
farm failed and the family
road as migrant laborers, following the
and
California. Like
most of their
fel-
The
142
Many
lows, they were less than successful.
days they didn't earn
enough to pay their transportation to the fields; often home

was the back seat of their automobile. Since they moved from
one farm community to another, rarely spending more than a
few weeks in each, Cesar's formal schooling was irregular at
best.
Attending several dozen schools, mostly segregated, he did
manage to finish the seventh grade before having to drop out to

work full-time in the fields. This, too, was an education of sorts.
He
learned about the lying promises of growers, about cheating
and about subhuman working
contractors,
During
conditions.
the next dozen years he followed the crops, married, and began
raising a family.
Thus
far there
seemed
little
him from most
to distinguish
He
other Mexican-Americans. Yet there were differences.
an avid reader, fascinated by biography and
And
the history of the Mexican people.
Once, while
was
history, especially
there were incidents.
visiting his wife's family in
Delano, he attended
the local movie theater, where he mistakenly sat in the Anglo
Asked
section.
police.
And
to
move, he refused, and had
spoke back to the
field boss
on behalf
If a single characteristic set
others.
the
He
human
to
be evicted by
there were times, increasing in number,
him
apart,
it
was
his concern for
cherished a deeply religious belief in the dignity of

being.
In 1952, while working in the apricots near San
was introduced
zation, a
when he
of the other workers.
to
Jose,
Chavez
Fred Ross of the Community Service Organi-
new group
organized to help needy Mexican-Americans
help themselves.
Ross was one of the

soft-spoken,
first
to sense
dark-skinned Chavez.
mined, energeticyet
many men
something unusual in the
He
was thoughtful,
deter-
possessed these attributes. It
was something less easily defined, a charisma his very own.

When Chavez spoke of the plight of the farm worker, there was
an almost messianic quality about him; his words reflected such
deep feeling one was impelled
to listen.
He
was that
rare breed,
a natural leader.
Ross put Chavez to work organizing
CSO
chapters in the
M3
THE CENTRAL VALLEY

So successful
State.
in this
was he that within
six years
he was
director general of the organization.
While the
CSO
many
dealt with
groups,
Chavez was
still
primarily interested in one; in 1961 he resigned his position to
devote full time to organizing farm workers. His
abilities in
the
CSO had not gone unnoticed; he was immediately offered a

$2i,ooo-a-year job as Peace Corps director of four Latin American countries. Instead he went back
work
to
in the grapes, at
$1.25 per hour.
Over the next year Chavez talked and listened to his fellow
workers. What were their problems? (As a father of eight,
Chavez knew most of them.) Did they want a union? If so, what
kind of union did they want?
In September, 1962, Chavez organized the National Farm
Workers Association
common
union.
(NFWA).
Among
its first
was, from the outset, an un-
It
projects
were an insurance plan,
a cooperative, a farm workers* newspaper (_El MalcriadoX and a
union (the
credit
first
ever organized for farm workers).
When
a worker needed help in securing a driver's license, translating
Spanish into English, applying for welfare,
come
tax form, or getting a relative out of
there.
Through
tories,
including several pay
the
fall
of 1965
negotiations,
won
he
raises.
membership in the
filling
jail,
number
out an in-
Chavez was
of small vic-
But mostly he organized. By

had grown to 2,200
NFWA
families.
To
Chavez,
this initial
and again he had seen

tion.
According
phase was extremely important. Again
strikes fail
to his plan,
years, or 1968, before the
it
from lack of proper organiza-
would be at least three more

was sufficiently organized to
NFWA
consider calling a strike.
Then, on September
8,
1965, 1,000 Filipinos walked out of
the grape fields near Delano.
The
had been called by the Agricultural Workers'

Organizing Committee, an up-to-this-time largely ineffectual
AFL-CIO group. Demands were $1.40 an hour year-round
wages, plus a 25-cent-per-box bonus during harvest season.
strike
The
144
The
growers refused to negotiate.
water, electricity
began evicting
The
and gas
in the
They
simply turned
oflF
the
company-owned houses and
families.
next day Chavez offered the strikers the unconditional
help of the
NFWA. He
told his
membership:
"Now
is
when
every worker, without regard to race, color or nationality, should
support the
should
strike.
Under no
."
circumstances, he added,
NFWA members work on those ranches which had been
struck.
This unity came
as a
shock to the growers,
who had
often
played Filipinos against Mexican-Americans.

Secretly
Chavez began gathering support.
He went
the San Francisco Bay Area, where he called on
north to
civil rights
and Stanford. If the farm workers voted to

would volunteers come to Delano to organize picketing
and to teach strikers the principles of nonviolent protest? Chavez
was convinced the strike must be nonviolent. SNCC and CORE
leaders readily agreed. He then called on Catholic priests, Jewish rabbis and the Protestant Migrant Ministry, with which he
had worked closely during his CSO days. Would they be willleaders at Berkeley
strike,
ing to help? Long aware of conditions

they agreed not only to
for the strikers,
On
solicit food,
but also
September
i6,
among
to walk the picket lines if necessary.

Mexican Independence Day, Chavez
scheduled a mass meeting of his association.
tended voted unanimously
Next day the
first
it
Some 890 who
at-
to join the huelga, or strike.
huelga and viva la causa
1,200 Mexican-Americans walked off the
Already
the farm workers,
clothing and other donations
had become the
signs appeared;
fields.
largest agricultural strike in Cali-
fornia since the thirties.
Although the
strike
had come
at the worst possible
season-
harvest time the growers weren't worried. Over the years they
had seen many strikes, all of which had one thing in common:
they were short-lived. Give them a few days, the novelty would
wear off.
THE CENTRAL VALLEY

But the
strike
began
to grow.
'45
By
the end of the
first
week 400
square miles of vineyards were affected.
Another week, and whatever httle savings they might have

accumulated would be gone. Once without tortillas and beans,
they'd come back, only too willing to accept the old $1.20 rate.
But Chavez's union, together with that of the Filipinos, organized a strike kitchen and began soliciting donations. One
union sent 40 pounds of hamburger each week, another 100
dozen eggs, while a bakery in Los Angeles supplied 100 loaves
of day-old bread. And the workers continued to walk out.
was undergoing its own evolution

and counterattacks.
Before dawn, pickets would form at the entrances to the
fields; when the workers arrived, they would persuade them to
Meanwhile, the
through a
strike itself
series of attacks
turn back and join the
The
During the day,
When
far too
side rows rot
would form along county roads next

the workers, urging them to leave.
pickets
to the fields, yelling at
fields,
strike.
growers found other entrances.
many
did, the growers decided to let the out-
and moved the pickers
into the middle of the
where they couldn't hear the Huelgaists.
The
The
The
strikers
used bullhorns.
growers obtained injunctions against their use.

strikers used balloons with the word huelga painted on
them.
By
the
first
week
where there should

than 500; grapes were
in October, in fields
have been 5,000 workers, there were
less
was now apparent to the

growers that the strike was going to continue. They began recruiting workers from as far away as Bakersfield, Fresno, Tulare,
neglecting to mention that a strike was in progress.
Chavez sent pickets to each of these places, apprising people
of the strike. Before long, the scab buses were returning empty.
More desperate, the growers began hiring aged men and
women, along with children of six and seven years. When even
beginning to rot on the vines.
It
these walked out, the growers were forced

Texas for scabs.
to
send
all
the
way
to
The
146
"Why
won't they negotiate?" the
are rotting
"Why
on the
strikers asked.
won't they come back to work?" asked the growers.
"They're hurting, you can
"What
reporter,
tell."
they don't understand," Chavez told a San Francisco

we're committed, you see.
"is,
When
then lose your home, you don't become
None
more.
As
of us
now have
the strike entered
ugher,
"Their grapes
vines."
face-to-face
its
anything to
you
less
your
car,
committed but
lose."
second month, the
confrontations
lose
with
the
mood became
more
growers
frequent
At
first
What
the nonviolence policy mystified them.
men were these who wouldn't reply when you

women putas; who, when you stomped on their toes
kind of
called their
or elbowed
them
in the ribs, only
winced
in pain
and kept
walking the picket lines?

Failing to
grower
as a
elicit
a response,
tried to strangle a picket captain.
weapon, trying
to
Nothing about this

you brought
When
result.
strike.
they became infuriated.
Scabs
To
Another used
One
his car
run them down, not once but repeatedly.

strike
was predictable.
and scabs together there was one
strikers
Strikers
Violence. Inevitably. Except in this
the astonishment of the growers, the strikers actually
helped the scabs, furnishing them transportation 60 miles north
work in the unstruck olive fields.

were introduced. While the ever-present deputies
looked the other way, spray rigs were driven alongside the road
and blinding clouds of sulphur sprayed on pickets, ministers,
and workers alike.
so they could
New tactics
Yet, as soon as the doctors released
them from the
hospitals,
back they came.
And
the grapes continued to
Unable
rot.
enough experienced farm workers willing

to scab, the growers were now forced to scour the skid rows of
San Francisco and Los Angeles, dredging up winos and derelicts. The result showed in the grapes, so badly packed they
to obtain
THE CENTRAL VALLEY
147
spoiled, leaving thousands of boxes to
be sold
at rock
bottom
price to the wineries.
Meanwhile, the
fingers of the strike
the Delano area, tentatively at
were reaching
far
beyond
then with increasing
first,
self-
assurance.
When
grapes were trucked out under cover of night, Chavez
sent cars to follow them.
By telephoning ahead, giving
numbers of the trucks and

possible
to
their probable destinations,
when
have pickets in the markets
license
it
was
they arrived.
Truckers often could find no one willing to buy, or even unload, their cargoes.
In San Francisco, a huge shipment of grapes destined for the

Orient was delivered to the pier alongside the President Wilson.
were scab grapes, members of Harry

Bridges* International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's
Learning
they
that
Union refused
Daily, growers
rains
less
were
them.
to load
and
rotted
on the docks.
looked to the
strikers alike
warm day meant more
Every
late.
chance of the
They
The
The
Huelgaists had
strike
tactical
now
won
the
entered a
decisions.
One was
and on one
reasoning that
grapes picked and
first
to
Delano, ending
round. For the
first
time in
strikers slept late.
new
phase.
Early in the strike Chavez had
grapes,
The
strike succeeding.
Finally, in mid-November, the rains came

most of the picking.
two months the
skies.
if
made
'
number
of important
on a single crop,
and Kern counties,
here, then in time-
to concentrate
particular area, Tulare
the strike was successful
should the growers refuse to negotiate it could be moved north
and south
into other crops.
He now
trate
they broke,
It
set
on the
was
it
an even more limited
valley's
goal, deciding to concen-
two giants Schenley and Di Giorgio.
If
seemed probable the small growers would go along.
a bold plan, with one major drawback.
The two com-
panies were enormous and, because of their size and diversi-
The
148
hurt by the strike
fied holdings, the least
itself.
They could
afford to absorb their losses.
new weapon was
needed.
To
his slingshot,
Chavez added
the boycott.
Though slow
in starting,
across the country, don't

listing all
it
soon spread, aided by unions
buy scab products,
Di Giorgio brands
of
canned
LIQUORS, read the Schenley circular,
foods,
the leaflets read,
don't buy scab
listing that
company's 19
brands.
Picket crews circularized the small grocery and liquor stores

in the valley,
Los Angeles, San Francisco.
One by
one, owners
agreed to remove the struck brands from their shelves. After
exposure to some picketing, several large grocery chains Safe-
way, Ralphs, Alexanders agreed
to
drop the products
also.
Aided by sympathetic unions, the boycott spread
to
other
states.
The companies
of negotiation.
lines.
A spy
tried every conceivable tactic to beat
Di Giorgio changed the brand name
in the cannery leaked the
was boycotted before
A local
to
it
of the
it,
short
one of
new
its
label; it
ever reached the grocery shelves.
group. Citizens for Facts from Delano, was organized
counter strike propaganda.
One
of their "fact sheets"
managing
interesting distinction of
in
name
of
one paragraph that there was a
to contradict itself,
strike,
had the
denying
while stoutly maintain-
ing in another that Chavez was personally pocketing a fortune
from
it.
The
strikers
day the
laughed
strike began,
at
such charges; they knew that from the
Chavez had not received
his $5o-per-week
salary as director of the union.
American Opinion,
ciety,
To
was
official
magazine of the John Birch So-
charged that the strike was led by Communists.

the strikers, this was even fimnier; they
knew
that
Chavez
a devout Catholic.
Not
all
the opposition
was
so open. Strikers, caught alone
on
the streets of Delano at night, were badly beaten by armed

gangs. Cars were sabotaged, nails thrown in parking
lots.
The
THE CENTRAL VALLEY

the
offices of
NFWA
and
'49
its
newspaper, El Malcnado, were
burglarized on several occasions, set afire on

It
many
others.
was a long, hard winter in Delano, but with numerous
victories to cheer the Huelgaists.
In early December the
AFL-CIO
voted to support the boy-
which now spread nationwide. On December i6, the

hundredth day of the strike, Walter Reuther visited Delano,
where he announced that the United Auto Workers had pledged
$5,000 per month for the duration of the strike.
Groups of clergymen visited Delano and, after talking to both
sides, issued statements declaring the cause of the strikers to be
cott,
just.
Concerned people in the San Francisco Bay Area sent clothing

and food, including enough turkeys for all striking families to
have Christmas dinner.
American labor was now aware that contrary to all precedentChavez might win a victory for the farm workers in
California.
While
the longshoremen, auto workers,
and members
of most
other unions followed the progress of the strike sympathetically,

at least
one union viewed
making plans
of
Although the
newspapers,
its
it
less unselfishly
and
secretly
began
own.
strike
TV, and
had received some coverage from the

the news magazines, Chavez
most of the American people were
still
unaware of
it.
knew
that
Although
he never admitted it publicly, he must have known that the

boycott itself was more sound than substance. Boycotts are rarely
effective economically; they are, however, bad public relations,
a sensitive spot with most companies. What was needed was
something
to further publicize the boycott
and focus national
on the plight of the farm workers.

was as old as Mexican history,
with deep religious and political significance.
Chavez proposed that the farm workers make a pilgrimage
from Delano to Sacramento, the state capital, where they would
attention
The
solution finally chosen
ask Governor
Brown
to call a special session of the legislature to
The
150
Last
Days
give to the farm workers the
same
minimum wage, unemployment
rights other workers had: a
insurance, the right to collec-
tive bargaining.
It would be a long march 300 miles. No cars would be
They would walk every step of the way.
Some frankly thought it couldn't be done.
They
started
on
St.
Day, heading north. They
Patrick's
ranged in age from pretty Rachel Forman,

father,
used.
Cesar Chavez's
six, to
Librado Chavez, eighty-two, and at the
start
they
num-
bered fewer than 50.
They walked
At the head
single
on the hot
file
of the procession
was
asphalt, facing the
a gold-embroidered
traffic.
banner
Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico, a large

and the Star of David, as the march was to be nonsectarian. Flanking them were the flags of the United States and
depicting
cross,
Mexico, and, behind them, a dozen brilliant red pennants, each

with a black eagle, symbol of the National Farm Workers Association.
They were farm workers

other groups
who wanted
all.
Although petitioned by various
to participate,
including the
W.
E. B.
DuBois Club and assorted campus groups, Chavez had turned

them down, perhaps fearing that elements among them might
try to use the march for their own ends, perhaps apprehensive
that press photographers and TV cameramen would find the
bearded hippies more colorful than the peons. Yet their costumes covered a wide range, from
Sunday
field clothes to
best to
the traditional dress of the Mexican charro. Chavez himself

sported a cane, having pulled a muscle in his leg.
"We
are conscious of the historical significance of our Pil-
grimage," read the Plan of Delano, the

tion of Independence.
known
to all
"Our path
Farm Workers'
travels
Mexican farm workers.
Declara-
through a valley well
We
know
all
of these
towns, because along this very same road, in this very same
valley, the Mexican race has sacrificed itself for the last hundred
years.
Our
sweat and our blood have fallen on this land to make
THE CENTRAL VALLEY

men
Other
rich.
^51
This Pilgrimage
is
a wdtness to the suffering
we
have seen for generations."
Each dawn they would arise and begin walking. After two
hours they would stop for water, then march two hours more,
before stopping for lunch bologna sandwiches, hot peppers,
fruit, coffee
and orange
soda.
Reaching a town, they would stop long enough
and
hold a
rally
the people of their struggle.
tell
"This
is
movement
the beginning of a social
in pronouncements.
human
to
We
beings. Because
seek our basic,
in fact
and not
God-given rights
as
we have suffered and are not afraid to

we are ready to give up everything,
suffer in order to survive,
even our
lives,
without violence because that
and
to all those
who
Juarez, 'respect
At night
there
is
oppose us,
our destiny.
we
To
say, in the
for another's rights
is
shall
do
it
the ranchers,
words of Benito
the meaning of
would be another town, dinner prepared by
the local Mexican-American
communityusually
and tamalesSLnd another
tillas
We
in our fight for social justice.
Campesino, the farm workers'
rally,
own
with
skits
jrijoles,
tor-
by El Teatro
theater, after
which Luis
Valdez, the troupe's brilliant director, would read the Plan of
Delano.
Later they would go to the homes of local residents to sleep.
But before
feet,
that, often there
was music and, despite the
blistered
dancing.
"We
seek the support of
the government, which
Some
is
all political
days they marched lo miles, others 20, depending on
the distance between towns.

lotted
25
groups and protection of
also our government, in our struggle."
To make
days, in order to arrive
average 12 to 13 miles per day.
Sacramento in the alon Easter Sunday, they had to

-
TTie Last
152
few dropped
out.
town, working their
Days of the
But
Late, Great State of California
as they passed
way up
through town after
the valley, even more joined them.
many years we have been treated like the lowest of

Our wages and working conditions have been determined from above, because irresponsible legislators who could
"For too
the low.
have helped us have supported the ranchers' argument that the
was a 'special case.' They saw the

eflFects of an unjust system starvation wages, contractors, day hauls, forced migration, sickness, illiteracy, camps and
subhuman living conditions and acted as if they were irreme-
plight of the farm worker
obvious
diable causes."
Delano, Porterville, Lindsay, Farmersville, Visalia, Cutler,
Dinuba, Reedley,
They knew
They were double
clearly defined lines separating

itself,
towns, each and
Anglo, part Mexican-American and
part
all,
Parlier.
these towns.
Filipino,
with
them, most often the highway
or a railroad track.
And
they
knew
the fields surrounding them, better than
even their owners did, row by row.
And now these towns were knowing them, too, becoming

aware of things they never knew and of others too long ignored.
"The farm worker has been abandoned to his own fatewithpower subject to mercy and caprice
out representation, without

of the rancher.
ference.
To
We
are tired of words, of betrayals, of indif-
the politicans
we
say that the years are gone
when
the farm worker said nothing and did nothing to help himself.
From
this
us, lead us,

us.
WE
movement
be faithful
who
shall
understand
shall elect
them
to represent
shall spring leaders

to us,
and we
SHALL BE HEARD."
As they marched north along Highway 99, the cement backbone of California, cars and trucks rushed by. Sometimes their
occupants waved or honked their horns. But most often they
went
past as if unseeing, although occasionally there
would be
THE CENTRAL VALLEY

framed for
just
person behind
an instant
it
153
a startled, astonished face, as if the
could not believe that there were in this day
and age people in California
still
using this primitive means of
locomotion.
"We
We have suffered, and we are not afraid to

order to win our cause. We have suffered unnumbered
are suffering.
suffer in
ills
and crimes
women, and
in the
name
of the
Law
of the Land.
Our men,
children have suffered not only the basic brutality
of stoop labor,
and the most obvious
injustices of the system;
they have also suffered the desperation of knowing that that
system caters to the greed of callous
Now we
will suffer for the
and the
misery,
injustice,
not be exploited as
men and
not to our needs.
purpose of ending the poverty, the
with the hope that our children will
we have
been."
Occasionally there were jeers and sometimes eggs, and almost
would drive straight at them, only to turn away at

possible moment. But mostly there was the steady, re-
daily a car
the
last
petitive tap of foot after foot touching the ground.
Shoes wore out,
blisters broke, feet bled.
Sometimes they sang songs, mostly of the Mexican revolution,

with
tales of
the exploits of Villa, Juarez and Zapata. But some
were more current and
told of a
man named
And
Chavez.
some-
times they sang a song with which they especially identified,
"Nosotros
Venceremos" the Spanish version
of
"We
Shall
Overcome."
"They have imposed hungers on us, and now we hunger for

We draw our strength from the very despair in which we
have been forced to live, v^ shall endure."
justice.
No,
it
was not a march of
protest, they told those
way, but one of afl&rmation, of commitment

"All
say to
men are
men
all
brothers, sons of the
of
good
will, in the
along the
to the cause.
same God; that
is
why we
words of Pope Leo XIII,
'^^^ ^'^^ Days of the Late, Great State of California
154
'Everyone's
first
duty
speculators
who
use
to protect the
is
human
themselves with money.
men
It is
with excessive work
workers from the greed of
beings as instruments to provide

neither just nor
to the point
enfeebled and their bodies worn
out.'
where
human
to oppress
minds become
their
God shall not abandon
us."
The
farther north they traveled, the
more
comes became. In Delano, where they had

been allowed
to
march through town;
cordial the wel-
they had not
started,
in Fresno, the
mayor came
out to greet them.
Madera, Chowchilla, Merced, Atwater, Turlock, Modesto,

Manteca, Stockton. In each town a few more joined them. Soon
they numbered loo, then twice, then three times that.
Andvia
the television sets they could not themselves afford the world
watched.
Not
grape
all
sympathetically.
strike,
Asked what he thought
of the
Delano
former union president and gubernatorial candi-
date Ronald Reagan replied, "I do not challenge there are those
who have
not obtained their fair share. That
farming industry here and there.
am
is
true in the
not in sjrmpathy with the
demonstrators in Delano. Five thousand workers have elected
not to go on
strike.
In Delano, outside organizers are attempt-
ing to impose industrial unionism."
"The ranchers want

weak.
Many
of us
to
keep us divided in order
to
keep us
have signed individual work contracts' with
the ranchers or contractors, contracts in which they had
all
the
power. These contracts were farces, one more cynical joke at

is why we must get together and bargain
must use the only strength that we have, the
our impotence. That

collectively.
We
force of our numbers.
On
The
ranchers are few;
we
are many."
April 6, as they walked the 13 miles from Stockton to
Lodi, one figure was conspicuously absent from their ranks the
limping Cesar Chavez.
THE CENTRAL VALLEY

It
was
he had
said
left
155
the march to
fly to
Los Angeles for an
important meeting.
The
purpose of the meeting? There was a rumor. But too
fantastic to believe.
*We
shall unite.
know why
these
We
United States are
strength of the poor

of the
Mexican
have learned the meaning of unity.
is
also in union.
just
We
The
that united.
know
We
that the poverty
or Filipino worker in California
the same as
Negroes and
is
that of all farm workers across the country, the
poor whites, the Puerto Flicans, Japanese, and Arabians; in

short, all of the races that comprise the oppressed minorities of
the United States.
The
majority of the people on our Pil-
grimage are of Mexican descent, but the triumph of our race
depends on a national association of
WE
all
farm workers, united
SHALL STAND."
It
was
Some
true!
cried.
Others jubilantly tore up their boycott
signs.
Schenley had capitulated!
Next day Chavez was still absent. Rumor this time placed
him in San Francisco.
The news reached them that same day. Di Giorgio was willing to
let
the field workers hold
whether they wanted
On Good
to
an election
to
determine
be represented by a union!
Friday, they
marched from Courdand
to Freeport,
West Sacramento.
These days brought disappointment. Governor Brown would
not be able to see them; he had long ago made plans to spend
Easter with his family in Palm Springs, at the home of Frank
the following day from Freeport to
Sinatra.
And
there were already indications
attaching impossible conditions to
its
guarantee the workers would end the

Despite
this,
they were jubilant.
Di Giorgio was
election offer including a

strike,
They had
whatever the vote.

already
won
a vic-
tory unparalleled in the history of California agriculture.
Yet
it
was by no means the end of the huelga. Of those
The
156
ranches originally struck, more than 30
held out, refusing
still
to negotiate.
*We
We
shall strike.
proposed.
We
shall
be armed, but
want a new
only choice
we want
justice.
Our
revolution will not
We are poor,
we
are
we
humble, and our
where we are not treated

working men, where our rights
to strike in those ranches
with the respect

as free
and
the existing social order to dissolve;
social order.
is
Mexican Revolution, a revolution
are sons of the
of the poor seeking bread
we have
pursue the revolution
we
deserve as
and sovereign men
are not recognized.
we do
the paternalism of the rancher;
We
do not want
not want the contractor;
we do not want charity at the price of our dignity. We want to be

equal with all the working men in the nation; we want a just
wage, better working conditions, a decent future for our
To
dren.
those
who
oppose us, be they ranchers, police,
cians, or speculators,
fighting until
On
we
chil-
politi-
we say that we are going to continue

we win. we shall overcome."
die, or
Easter Sunday, after a sunrise service, they began the last
part of the march, across the Sacramento River bridge.
On
this
day Chavez had said anyone could join them, and they numbered 3,500. Arriving at the steps of the
voicing their demands.
three-hour
rally,
extremely
critical
summed up
of
Governor
their feelings in
an
Brov^nn.
capitol,
Many
El
editorial: "If
they held a
speakers were
Malcriado
you want
to
later
keep
your job, Pat, you better not take us for granted. You better
prove to us that you care about our problems. Because
if
we're
going to have another four years with one enemy in Sacra-
we would rather have an honest enemy

we would know where we stand."
mento,
least
Following the
tries
rally,
there
was
Reagan. At
a fiesta, with Schenley Indus-
supplying free beer and tequila.
mood was
optimistic.
election turned out,
no matter
Regardless of the disappointments, the
No
like
matter
how
the
Di Giorgio
whether the governor acted or
not, the
march had been a
great
THE CENTRAL VALLEY
157
success. It had dramatized the plight of the farm workers to a

whole nation.
The march was not an end but a beginning. The Plan of
Delano concluded:
"Across the San Joaquin Valley, across California, across the
Southwest of the United
entire
States,
wherever there are Mex-
ican people, wherever there are farm workers, our
spreading like flames across a dry plain.
Our
movement
Pilgrimage
is
is
the
match that will light our cause for all farm workers to see what
happening here, so that they may do as we have done. The
time has come for the liberation of the poor farm worker.
"History is on our side.
"may the strhoe go on! viva la causa!"
is
2.
With few
exceptions, most California polls closed at 8 p.m.
As the San Francisco vote started coming in, Los Angeles

Mayor Sam Yorty was asked why he was doing so poorly in
Northern California. He replied, "Well, I guess the people up
there are more provincial."
Yorty had reason to be jaunty. In early statewide totals he
was leading Brown.
Within two hours the results were clearly evident; at 10:24
P.M. Christopher conceded to Reagan, announcing at the same
time that he would not run again for political
ofiBce.
Reagan's victory was stunning. Only in the San Francisco Bay
Area did Christopher manage
to lead,
narrower than anticipated. Of the
and then by
margin
far
58 counties, Reagan
But most of these he didn't even need. So
heavily populated was Southern California that his lead in just
captured
all
but
state's
5.
three counties Los Angeles,
Orange and San Diego was
sufiB-
cient to assure victory.
The
But
prise.
Reagan 1,419,623; Christopher 675,683.

was the Democratic race that presented the real surRunning a minimal campaign, consisting chiefly of a few
final tally:
it
The
158
personal appearances and
TV
spots in the
Yorty managed to register a remarkable
Brown
beat
himwith
Los Angeles
total of
1,355,262 but just barely, while in the
Brown, with a 3 to 2 Democratic majority on

Reagan by some 64,000 votes.
overall totals
side, trailed
How important was the race

there were clues.
ures,
area,
981,088 votes.
By
No one knew for sure. But

Rumford Act and other meas-
issue?
signing the
Brown had proven
his
himself sympathetic to the plight of
minority groups, while Yorty had adopted a "get tough" policy
with Negroes. Yorty's vote followed almost
to the precinct the
Rumford
Act. In one Southwas defeated in his
Proposition 14 vote nullifying the
em
California county, a popular legislator
race for nomination to the state senate by a relative
unknown
whose sole campaign activity was to remind voters their legislator had supported the Rumford Act. And on the same ballot,
Los Angeles voters had withheld the two-thirds majority necessary to build a hospital in Watts.
Several facts were crystal clear:
There was a
definite conservative trend
throughout the
state.
The Democratic party was badly divided.

The major battles of the ensuing campaign would be fought
in Southern California, where the votes were. Of the state's 58
counties, the 8 south of the Tehachapis now contained 58 percent of the total vote. Northern California's longtime political
dominance was
And
at
an end.
Pat Brown was in for the fight of his
Less than 24 hours after Reagan's
life.
mammoth
primary victory,
one San Francisco paper headlined: Reagan for President
RUMORS.
Causing Charles McCabe to comment: "It's notable how
easily one can become accustomed to the preposterous."
was a
It
far too
tempting
most basic in the world,

ers
still
prize.
still
whole industry, one of the
unorganized. Thousands of work-
unrepresented.
In June the Teamsters Union announced
had decided to
conduct its own organizing drive among the California farm
workers. In fact, it had already signed contracts with eight
major California growers and would participate in the Di
it
Giorgio election.
If victorious, the
trol of
Teamsters would then have complete con-
California agriculture, from field workers to packers in
canneries and processing plants to truck drivers delivering the
produce.
Chavez, infuriated by the "betrayal," charged the Teamsters

with being a "company union," which had "entered into a
partnership with Di Giorgio in a
common
plot against the
farm
workers."
"Those bastards," Chavez
ano covering the
shook the tree and

That's
how
told
strike for the
John Gregory Dunne, in DelSaturday Evening Post. "We
now they're trying to pick up the

And if they get away with it this
they operate.
fruit.
time,
them oflF our back."

Dunne, who later wrote a book on the farm workers' struggle,* was in the strike-ridden town when the Teamster organ-
we'll never get
izers arrived.
"Delano welcomed the Teamsters with open arms," he
said.
had reluctantly begun to accept the inevitability of a union and now saw in the Teamsters
a way finally to take revenge on Chavez. If the only way we can
get that son of a bitch is by falling in bed with Hoffa, then we'll
fall in bed wdth Hoffa,' one grower told me. *It was almost
"After months of siege, the town
* Delano: The Story of the California Grafe Strike, New York, Farrar,
1967. Another excellent account, dealing with the first hundred days of the
strike, is Huelga, by Eugene Nelson, Farm Workers Press, Delano, 1966. Nelson,
a grower's son, later led the farm workers' strike in Texas.
The
i6o
embarrassing/ a Teamster
official said,
It was like the town was
being shot up for months by a gunsHnger and was just waiting

for
someone
to
come along and
save
it.
They knew we were
gunslingers too, but they put a badge on us anyway, hoping

that
when we'd meet up with Chavez, we'd bump each
One
of the key points in
Chavez's negotiations with Di
who had
Giorgio was that former Di Giorgio employees those
worked
for the
be allowed
company
at least 15 days
to return to vote.
other
during the past year-
This was important because
at this
minimum. To
Chavez's surprise, Di Giorgio finally consented. But on June 22
they suddenly announced that the election would be held in
two days. In this time it would be impossible for Chavez to
season the
number
of regular employees
contact former employees, most of
even in other
crops,
vote.
states, in
whom
was
at a
were working in other
time for them to come back to
Charging that the election was rigged, Chavez asked
NFWA members not to vote, but to boycott the election.

The
election took place as scheduled, the Teamsters
winning
a majority of the votes.
The trick was too obvious, and coupled with charges that the
company had used undue influence, including threatening the
workers with
firing if
they didn't vote for the Teamsters, several
ministerial groups, as well as the
Association,
demanded
Finally
election.
that
Mexican-American
obtaining the agreement of
Brown appointed an
impartial investigator
not to declare the truth or
falsity of
all
concerned,
who, while careful
the charges of either side,
new vote to guarantee "a fair and equitable

The new election was scheduled for late August.
urged a
While
Political
Governor Brown investigate the
the drama of the California general election
solution.**
was being
played out, a smaller election drama was being enacted in California's
Central Valley.
It
was much rougher. The
NFWA
charged the Teamsters with being criminals and gangsters.
Teamsters reprinted the John Birch Society
and in
article in
The
Spanish,
their leaflets claimed that a vote for the Teamsters
was a
vote "against revolution, hatred of one race against another, the
THE CENTRAL VALLEY
New
Left, riots, beatniks,
l6l
and destruction of the
crops that
field
feed the nation."
There was
sters
were frequent.
up by
between the pickets and Team-
violence. Clashes
A number of NFWA organizers were beaten
"persons unknown." One, a fifty-five-year-old organizer,
was kidnapped by two unidentified thugs and ordered

at gunpoint; a broomstick,
up
to strip
with a nail in the end, was shoved
his rectum.
Chavez's union did win one major advantage.

agreed to merge Chavez's National
with the
AFL-CIO
The AFL-CIO
Farm Workers
Association
Workers Organizing Commit-
Agricultural
Farm Workers Organizing Committee. This merger

not only put the full support of the AFL-CIO's vast organizatee as the
tion
behind Chavez's drive
farm workers,
to organize the
it
also
provided much-needed financial support.
Moreover, some details of the Teamsters' "deal" with Di

Giorgio came to
light.
One was
harvest time. Another was a

its
flat
a promise of
no
during
strikes
pay scale of $1.40 per hour. In
contract with Schenley, Chavez's union
had already won a
guaranteed starting wage of $1.75 per hour, plus incentive

bonuses for harvesting and pruning, insurance, health benefits,
vacations,
and
sick leave
The outcome
tremendous
with pay.
of the election
effort,
was not
Through
predictable.
former Di Giorgio employees
all
over the
Southwest had been located. Yet Chavez had no way of knowing
how many would
actually undertake the expense
and trouble of
returning to Delano just to vote. Then, several days prior to the
Di Giorgio
election,
layoff,
said the
those fired were
laid off
190 workers.
Among
many
number
of his sympathizers (including a
of spies). In addition to his other problems,
persuade
this
routine seasonal
company. Chavez thought otherwise.
group
to stay in the
Delano
he now had
area,
to
without work,
until the election.
At the
last
moment, Di Giorgio abandoned
impartiality, urging
The
election
its
employees
to vote for the
took place on August 30.
all
pretext of
Teamsters.
The
vote:
Farm
The
62
Workers Organizing Committee,
530;
Teamsters,
no
331;
union, 12.
They had come from
all
over the Southwest
had traveled 2,000 miles from

Other
One
man
old
Mexico.
Jalisco,
victories follov^êd. Christian Brothers,
Almaden Vine-
yards and Perelli-Minetti eventually signed contracts with the
number
union, as did a
of smaller growers. It
was not a com-
plete victory many of the growers continued to hold out, even

after the giants fellbut
While
finally
it
was a beginning.
there was some subsequent conflict, the Teamsters
accepted their defeat and signed a formal peace treaty,
up
up workers
granting Chavez's union the sole right to sign
field
and Teamsters the
in processing
sole right to sign
workers
plants.
And Governor Brown

bill to
promised
to ask the legislature for a
ensure farm workers the right of collective bargaining.
During the
first
legislative session in
was
1967. Provided he
reelected.
It was just a beginning. Yet, just as the revolution at Berkeley
had ramifications reaching far beyond the borders of the Golden
Statesparking discussions, opening
new
inquiries
into
aca-
demic freedom, precipitating changes in methods of undergraduate teaching so did the Delano revolution spread. First to
Texas, later to Colorado, the Pacific Northwest, western Michigan, southern Florida,
New
strawberries, the sugar beets
York
State, into the apples,
and a dozen other
would be a long batde; many are
still
continuing.
crops.
Nor
the
Each
are there
same rights as other

coming. Because of what happened in
yet federal laws according farm workers the
workers, but that day

California,
it is
now
is
inevitable.
From the start, the growers failed to

when he said, "The thing we're trying
take
to
Chavez
seriously
accomplish here
is
and recognition of the worth of the

human being." They thought they were dealing v^dth a mere
strike or the personal ambitions of a mere man. Instead they
were witnessing the birth of a movement.
recognition of the union
THE CENTRAL VALLEY

"What
asked.
movement?"
is
And
answered:
one idea so that
"It is
163
Asher, El Malcriado editor,
Bill
when
their actions are
water which nothing can stop.
enough people with

together like a huge wave of
there are
It is
when
a group of people
make sacrifices.
"The movement of the Negro began in the hot summer of
Alabama when a Negro woman refused to be pushed to the
back of the bus. Thus began a gigantic wave of protest throughout the South. The Negro is willing to fight for what is his: an
begin to care enough so that they are willing to
equal place under the sun.
"Sometime
in the future they will say that in the hot
of California in 1965 the

It
began with a small
first it
"This
is
how
movement begins
California and
it
movement
is
it
will be
must organize
"What
is
summer
farm workers began.
then one hundred.
more than
why
the farm
a 'union.*
It will
Once
sweep through
to fight for
what
movement?
It is
It is
is
And the only

The farm worker
treatment.
through organization.
worker will be respected.
is
be over until the farm worker has the
wage and decent

is
This
begins.
impossible to stop.
will not
done
five,
a 'movement'
it is
equality of a living
of the
series of strikes. It started so slowly that at
was only one man, then
workers association
way
movement
his.
the idea that someday the farm

the idea that someday he will
earn a living wage.

"It is
when
a real part of
the silent hopes of

life."
many
people begin to become
PART THREE
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jokers.
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Very
call
serious.
job.
in the Los Angeles Free Press
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
They were two
165
dififerent
worlds, California north
and
south.
But with at least one thing in common: the San Andreas.

That great fault did not stop at San Juan Bautista, southernmost point of the 1906 rupture, but continued for more than
400 miles on down California, all the way into the Gulf of
Mexico, which at some time in the dim past it had helped form.
In recent years. Southern California had bettered Northern
California in
number
of major earthquakes.
The
Santa Bar-
bara quake of 1925 did more than $6 million worth of damage;

the
Long Beach quake
of 1933 killed 120 people
and destroyed
property worth $50 million; seven were killed in the 1940 Imperial Valley
quake and 80 percent of the buildings
at Imperial
destroyed; while the Bakersfield quake of 1952 caused 12 deaths,
an earth rupture 17 miles long, and millions in property damage.

Yet, except for the 1940 quake, all of these occurred on faults
other than the San
Andreas the San
Jacinto,
Newport-Inglewood, and White Wolf
Not
Mesa, Santa Ynez,
faults.
San Andreas seen

San Francisco quake of
1906. That had occurred in Tejon Pass, but since the area was
sparsely settled at the time, there had been only one known
fatality, a woman trapped under a fallen adobe.
For more than a century the southern half of the San Andreas
had been strangely quiescent.
since 1857
had the southern half
of the
a quake comparable in intensity to the
Not
so the earth
above
it.
Here again the pattern was repeated, only more so. While in
Northern California the memory of 1906 caused at least some
builders to avoid the
San Andreas and its environs, in Southern

no such reins on the enthusiasm of de-
California there were

velopers.
Housing developments, in some cases whole communities,

built on or near the fault. Churches, supermarkets, banks,
were
dams, waterways, bridges, processing plants,
oil refineries, free-
ways, airports name them and you could find them somewhere
The
66
along the line of the San Andreas.
No
spot in Los Angeles
County was more than 60 miles away from it, while several
major cities San Bernardino, Riverside and Palm Springs had
grown up right alongside it.
It had been quiet so long, no one thought much about it.
Except the seismologists.
Periodically they
warned
that a major earthquake could oc-
cur at any moment. But the Califomians hadn't time to
listen;
they were too preoccupied v^dth living the Super Life, too busy
pursuing the Golden Dream.
2.
There was no border

even necessary
patrol,
no customs
it
wasn't
speed of the
trafi&c,
declaration;
to stop (and, considering the
highly inadvisable), but as you drove through the Tehachapi
Mountains you passed from one country into another. If not

geographically the exact center of California, the Tehachapis
were, at least symbolically, the border between Cahfomia north
and south.
According
mythology, north of
to
this dividing line
people
read the San Francisco Chronicle; dressed better; had impeccable taste; were sophisticated, cosmopolitan,
cared about the
arts;
slightly
liberal;
were concerned with preserving the best
of the past; observed rigid social protocol.
Again according
to the
mythmakers, south of
read the Los Angeles Times
(when they read
this line
at all);
people
were con-
verted to strange and bizarre religions; lived on health foods;
enough money to
be interred in Perpetual Repose in Forest Lawn; worshiped newness, but were politically conservative; had no discernible taste
played hard yet
whatever;
men
somehow managed
to save
spent their spare time in the
ing, in preparation for the invasion of the
hills, target practic-
200,000 Chinese-
Maoist-Communists massing on the Mexican

Grande;
shorts
women
side of the
Rio
did their supermarketing in too-tight short
and curlered
hair;
high school
girls sported,
under
skin-
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
167
fitting sweaters, brassieres
with cut-out points (only $1.98 from
Fredericks of Hollywood, or $3.98 with the matching crotchless

panties); while Los Angeles society, as Ethel Barrymore once
put
It
consisted of people
it,
who had gone
to
high school.
wasn't true, of course. Well, not always, not of everyone.
The
truth was. Southern California
entiated,
so oddity-packed
said about
The
it
was
so complex, so differ-
sensation-filled,
that anything
struck a responsive chord.
one came
Somewhere out
closer
were.
and
Like giant assembly
to
Los Angeles, the more of them there
there,
lines,
you
felt,
they were breeding them.
the on-ramps disgorged them onto
the freeway at 65 miles per hour and up.
The
thing the
first
new
arrival to
Southern California noticed
was not the scenery, the smog, or the sprawl but the incredible
number
The
of automobiles.
impression that Southern California spawned them was
not quite erroneous. Since 11 percent of the nation's new-car
buyers lived in California, and the largest number in the south-
em
part of the state, most of the
tested there.
fifties
and
The
sixties
owed
taste of their designers
fomians
to
new
auto designs were
first
chrome-plated, finnish monstrosities of the

their adoption to two things: the bad
and the willingness of Southern Cali-
purchase them.
In recent years, the automobile population of California had
grown
at a rate
In 1965
it
even
faster
than that of
its
human
population.
passed the 10 million mark, giving California more
automobiles than any other
state, or most foreign countries for

was one automobile per 1.7 residents.)
The impression that they were all in Southern California and
on the same freeway at the same time was, of course, mistaken;
it only seemed that way.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Art Hoppe once made the
that matter.
(The
ratio
dangerous pilgrimage south of the Tehachapis in quest of the
The
68
typical
Los Angeles resident.
He
found him
to
be "a well-
preserved, middle-aged, middle-class, two-door Chevrolet sedan,"
who had
serious fears about the conduct of the area's leading
minority grouppeople.
"The population
of Southern California
is
by
odds the
all
most automobile conscious in the world," John Gunther observed; "most people, if they had to choose between a house and
a car, would probably choose the car.
."
.
In the summer of 1966 William Bronson, editor of the conservationist quarterly
the
California, ran a pictorial essay
experiences
day-to-day
Angelenos
Cry
of
who had become
so
on
Frank and Merilee Farrier,

immersed in credit-installment
it cheaper to give up their house and

on the freeways in a mobile home. There were definite advantages to this, Frank Farrier noted: "For one thing, you don't
debt that they had found
live
have any neighbors, but since
we
we
both have friends at work,
we had a
Tujunga we were happy to leave behind." For
another thing, "we've really begun to feel that the freeways,
particularly the Hollywood Freeway, which is a beautiful road,
belong to us. It's not the same feeling you get about a house and
really don't miss
few neighbors
lot,
having them too much. Actually,
in
of course, but
it's
Reporters for Time,
definitely a sense of ownership."
Newsweek and
the Southern California
papers were so fascinated with the Farriers that they tried to

intercept
son,
them en
route.
Much
who bemusedly and
the Farriers didn't
exist. "I
roll along.' Farrier
means
thought that was a
em
California
chagrin of editor Bron-
named her Merilee
a blacksmith
Besides,"
tip-off.
and
to the
patiently kept trying to explain that
who
for 'merrily
we
shoes horses, and
he added, "I'm from North-
had no idea people would take
that se-
riously."
Reporters reacted with unanimity. Quoting Bronson's explanation of the hoax, San Diego Tribune columnist Neil
wrote: "Of course
I didn't believe
convinced people like the
Angeles right now, and
if
have got the right names."
Bronson, and
Farriers
are
still
driving
Morgan
don't. I'm
around Los
he'd been more enterprising he'd
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
"My
bet
is
169
that there really
such a family, eating and
is
bathing and meshing gears and staying one ramp in front of the
Art Seidenbaum said in the Los Angeles Times.

"The only reason we haven't met them is their love of privacy.
Making endless circles in the system, wheels provide illusion,
bill collectors,"
distance, getting
ahead of the game." With a trace of sadness,
Seidenbaum concluded,
"I don't feel as foolish as I
The
for learning the truth.
Farriers
do cheated
would have been
interest-
ing prototypes to meet."
In Southern California,
hoax from the
it
was often
difficult to separate
the
reality.
In Southern California, one needn't leave his car to eat, be

entertained, cash a check, or worship, that area having pio-
neered drive-in restaurants, movies, banks, and churches.
Men shaved, telephoned, and dictated letters in their autos.

Some, who traveled long distances from home to work, carried
portable urinals.
Two
enterprising
young
ladies rented a
camper
and, with one driving, the other servicing the customers in

back, created a whorehouse on wheels.
Had
it
been glass-enclosed,
it
probably would have drawn
hardly a second glance from other freeway habitues, as one of
game was to pretend to be

unaware the other vehicles were inhabited by people. The California freeway was one of the safest places in the world to commit murder; though hundreds might witness it, none would
the rules of the California driving
ever admit to
To
the
it.
new
arrival, California's driving
ing as they were frightening.
It
was
laws were as confus-
illegal to drive
while under
the influence of alcohol or glue. Cars could pass on either the

left or
the right. However,
if
they did pass you on the right, this
probably meant you were driving not only too slowly but in the
wrong
lane. If
you wanted
right-hand lane. But

just as
was
much
safe,
vehicles,
if
to drive slowly,
you had
to use the
you drove too slowly, you could be fined
was illegal to drive faster than

was also important to keep pace v^dth other
even though they were exceeding the speed limit.
but
as for speeding. It
it
The
170
In time, one caught on. Learning the unwritten driving cus-
toms took longer.
The commuters (and
because of the distance between places,
nearly everyone was a commuter) had their
own
set of rules.
and foremost was impersonality. Smiles had been known

mammoth pileups. As Remi Nadeau, one of the foremost commentators on California driving habits, observed in
California: The New Society, there were occasionally vendettas
on the freeway, in which one car might crowd out another for
some real or imagined slight. "But this is frowned upon as unFirst
to cause
professional, since
The
it
tends to personalize the highway."
second rule was, never show weakness,
never extend to another driver a courtesy unless
advantage
to
do
so.
The
driver
or,
it
who slowed down
rephrased,
was
to let
to
your
another
was adjudged not conthough rare, instances of

courtesy were not unknown. Some years ago, in an attempt to
eradicate the bad impression made by the outlaw motorcycle
groups, some other motorcycle clubs made it a policy to stop
and help any driver with car trouble. The practice was discontinued when one little old lady, positive her rescuer was a Hell's
Angel intent on rape, ran right into the freeway traflSc.
Other rules included never using your horn unless absolutely
vehicle enter the
traffic
or change lanes
siderate but cowardly. Nevertheless,
necessary (again, this threatened impersonality); never admitting with a glance that
you found another car good-looking;
never telling other drivers, even your best friends and working
when you found a short cut; and never parking in

one space when you could straddle two.
associates,
But even impersonality has its limits. The ultimate violation

was the smashup, which, considering the number of
vehicles involved and the number of deaths resulting, became
something of an art form in Southern California.
Much has been written of the auto as sex symbol, status
of this code
badge, part of the
human
anatomy,
alter ego, projection of the
individual's personality. In Southern California
and more.
Basically it was the only way
it
was
all
these
things
to get
from one place
to another.
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
The
municipal
transit
only those too poor to
system in Los Angeles was so bad that
own an
to drive
one took the bus:
drove
work
As
to
in their
I?!
']']
own
automobile or too incapacitated
percent of
to voting
whether
an
to
on
it.
To
get
Los Angeles workers
never caught on there.
1968 did Los Angeles even get
for rapid transit, not until
around
all
cars; car pools
anywhere
in Southern California
work, the nearest supermarket, the closest store
auto was needed. In some areas, such as parts of Beverly
was no such thing as sidewalks, and the casual

was so rare he was likely to be stopped and questioned
by police. As Los Angeles Times writer William Wilson put it,
"People in Los Angeles go for walks around the block in the
Hills,
there
stroller
car.
Second, the auto was an escape device. If people in Southern

California had
more
leisure time
than people elsewhere, they
used a proportionately larger amount of
it
traveling.
They were
the most mobile people in the world. Friday was "getaway day."
From midaftemoon
bumper as residents
on, traffic
fled to
on the freeways was bumper
to
beaches and mountains.
Third, the auto was an oasis of privacy in a world that daily
grew more crowded.

This did not mean, however, that
There was always radio.
it
was
a solitary world.
In Northern California, odds were strong that the early
morning commuters were tuned
to the
same
station, or,
more
same personality Don Sherwood. (On the Baytold a joke one could see people
laughing in all lanes.) It was emblematic of Southern California and its varied tastes that no one person could command
the loyalty of a preponderance of listeners. Most popular were
specifically, the
shore Freeway,
when Sherwood
those stations which gave the most comprehensive
formation.
traffic
in-
There were other differences.

In San Francisco, the police department put their loudest
mouths in patrol cars to heckle, over loudspeakers reverberating
two blocks away, poor drivers and jaywalkers. In Los Angeles,
they rode in helicopters.
The
172
Bumper strips, common in Northern California, were decidedly uncommon here. It may have been, as one reporter sugwould be
gested, that "It

sticker
like defiling a cathedral to paste a
on a hallowed auto in L.A.," or
it
may have been
that
such a mark of assertion violated the impersonal isolation. Those
few which did appear were apt to be rabid. A popular one in

Orange County during the 1966 campaign read, if it's brown,
FLUSH IT.
In Northern California the freeways were like varicose veins,
ugly, unsightly. In Southern California,
and
particularly in
Los
Angeles, they were major arteries without which the city would
die. No spot in Los Angeles County, an official once
was more than two miles from a freeway. In Northern
wither and
boasted,
California they
wanted
to
do away with those already in use; in
Southern California, with the exceptions of a few nonconformist
communities such as Santa Barbara, they wanted more.
The
life
importance of the automobile in Southern California
could be measured
statistically.
Over ^^ percent
Angeles land surface was dedicated
to the auto.
freeways, streets, driveways, parking
rooms, and
made
of
Los Angeles one
lots,
of the Los
This included
gas stations, show-
mammoth
garage.
Considering the importance of the motor vehicle and the
esteem in which
it
was
held, the most astonishing thing about
Southern California was that there was no Forest
Lawn
for
automobiles.
Long
before the Spanish christened
it
City of the Angels, the
Indians were aware of a peculiarity about this area. Frequently

the smoke from signal
fires
didn't rise into the air
and
disap-
pear, but lingered overhead, sometimes for several days.
In time scientists advanced an explanation. Because Los Angeles
was located in a basin surrounded by
was sometimes created that
is,
hills,
an "inversion"
a blanket of hot air
would
trap
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
below
173
a layer of cooler
it
air,
plus whatever else was in the
atmosphere.
The problem
air was
and the sun bright, the movie industry
grew up here, rather than on Long Island; Mount Palomar was
chosen as site for the nation's most modem observatory; and
usually fresh
wasn't major, however. Because the
and
clear
great chunks of the aircraft industry
were concentrated through
the area.
But there were days when the eyes smarted a
little.
And
they
occurred with increasing frequency.
Some blamed
on the smoke from factory chimneys; others

thought it might be the smudge pots burning all night along
the citrus belt to protect the orange trees from frost. But no one
worried too
Not
it
much
until the
about
it.
1940's,
when
the situation really began to
worsen. Eyes were irritated more often and more seriously;

building surfaces dirtied faster and were harder to clean;
visi-
(on some days you could no longer

see the mountains); while the leaves of orange and avocado
bility
was
trees
began
By
this
greatly reduced
to turn gray, to develop curious splotches.
time the condition had a
name smog. But
as scientists
were already becoming aware, this was pretty much a misnomer.

For when smoke and fog were brought together, the result was
completely different from the gunmetal haze that overhung the
City of the Angels.
Thus began
the great detective story.
What was
smog?
No one
knew, but a score of research teams were assigned the task of

finding out. As leads were followed and rejected, it became apparent smog was something more than merely what was put
Once there, something happened to it.

The Sherlock Holmes of smog turned out to be A. J. Haagen-
into the atmosphere.
Smit, a professor of biochemistry at the California Institute of
Technology. In 1950 Dr. Haagen-Smit demonstrated that smog

was the result of a chemical reaction in the atmosphere itself,
which occurred when hydrocarbons were brought together with

oxides of nitrogen in the presence of sunlight.
Who,
then, were the villains?
T^^ ^'^ Days
174
Frank
M.
Stead, one of the nation's top environmental en-
put
gineers,
it
this
way: "Any combination of petroleum or
other fuel results in production of oxides of nitrogen which are
discharged into the air along with smoke, carbon monoxide,
carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and other pollutants. These
home, factory, public building,

and motor vehicle in the state. From the dilemma of having no
culprit, we found ourselves in the absurd predicament in which
everyone was a culprit."
During the next decade a phenomenal eflfort was made, both
at state and local level, to trap the villains. Los Angeles, which
had pioneered the development of smog, now led attempts to
eradicate it. One by one, controls were placed on the chief
smoke producers, such as rubbish burning and industrial plant
facts pointed the finger at every
waste. For the most part, industry cooperated;
when
it
didn't,
charges were brought, the Los Angeles County Air Pollution
Control District taking more than 30,000 cases of pollution

violation to court
and winning 95 percent.
Despite these measures, the smog not only remained, day by
day
it
For
seemed
left
to
be growing worse.
untouched had been the chief villain the automo-
In Los Angeles County motor vehicles were
bile.
ble for 90 percent of
all air
now
responsi-
pollution.
In the mid-sixties, after a bitter fight largely lacking in public

support, the
Brown
administration had succeeded in passing
two exhaust-control deon each new automobile. While adding about $50 to the
legislation to require the installation of
vices
cost of the car, the devices would,
it
was beheved, reduce averThe law became
age hydrocarbon emission by about 80 percent.

eflFective in
But
it
at that.
1966.
was, at best, a stopgap measure, and not very effective
The law
did not require installation of exhaust-control
devices on the several million used cars traveling California

roads,
years'
Nor
many of which were presumed to have another five to ten

use and the older cars emitted progressively more fumes.
did
it
installed, to
provide for periodic checking of the devices, once
ensure their proper functioning.
Initial tests indi-
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
175
cated that at about 50,000 miles half the lifetime of most cars
the devices would
cent of emissions
below
fall
still
went
into the
Looking ahead only a few

automobiles,
20 per-
air.
became disturbingly
it
at least
years, realizing that as the popula-
would the number
tion of California continued to grow, so

its
And
set standards.
much
percent would add up to as
clear that just this
of
20
pollution as already clogged
the atmosphere.
"We
have reached the point," observed writer Raymond F.
Dassman
in 1965,
"where
we no
pollution, but only to keep
longer even hope to eliminate
within
it
'tolerable' limits
We
does not cause acute discomfort or danger.

that pure air or clean water
is
our natural
right.
where
it
no longer think
We
accept our
daily portion of poison as a price for civilization."
By
smog was no longer a

You could find it over San
the time the devices were installed,
native Southern California product.
Francisco, mile-high Denver, or the Eastern seaboard. In 1966
the U.S. Health Service reported no less than 7,300 communities afflicted
with
air pollution in
Other evidence was

dioxide, a major
tributing cause of
also
varying degrees.
That same year nitrogen

smog, was identified as a con-
coming
component
of
in.
emphysema; a study
of guinea pigs exposed to
L.A. smog revealed that not only did they show signs of pre-
mature aging but that they began to behave

city folk, particularly
when
it
came
to sex;
as neurotically as
smog was
listed as a
contributing factor to a sudden 30 percent increase in tuberculosis in
Los Angeles County; California agriculture estimated
annual
loss
lion.
from smog damage
In some parts of the
at
an
state,
all-time high of
its
$132 mil-
the production of lettuce,
spinach and other leafy vegetables and such cut flowers as
and carnations all but ceased.

few doom sayers were heard from. One L.A. official predicted imminent gasoline rationing and the wearing of gas
orchids, roses, snapdragons
masks by
all citizens.
Morris Neiburger, a
meteorology and international expert on

that in another
100 years
all
UCLA
professor of
air pollution,
predicted
humanity might well become
The
176
Unless some way was found
extinct.
to eliminate the poisons
given off by the automobile, Neiburger maintained, "All

ilization will pass
away, not from a sudden cataclysm
nuclear war, but from gradual suffocation in
"Did you read what that professor
who
"Yeah, but
Say,
where
this
"Somewhere there's fresh

150 miles up the coast."
Some were
century
It
left,
it
wastes."
smog?"
now?
weekend?"
The
air.
wife heard of a spot about
humanity might have a

would go much sooner.
someone to state the obvious, unpleasant
This Frank M. Stead did in Cry California,
of the opinion that while
California
remained for
though
said about
own
intends to be around 100 years from
you driving
are
its
civ-
like a
might
be.
winter 1966-67. Stead, chief of environmental sanitation for the

State Department of Health, warned that unless drastic action
was taken immediately, air pollution would reach the "disaster
level" in little
more than a decade. Anticipatory
of the general
reaction to his suggestion, Stead nevertheless bluntly stated that
the only
way
to forestall
such a catastrophe was
to forbid the use
of gasoline-powered motor vehicles in California after 1980.
To
accomplish
this,
however, Detroit would have to be
will-
ing to launch a crash program to develop an automobile with a

different
power source possibly
fuel cell used in the
New Repuhlic
oil
Gemini
electricity or the
high-energy
project.
noted of the proposal
"The thought
of the big
companies gamely closing up their gas stations in the
of public service
And,
too, the
is
too
much
for
spirit
most people's imaginations."
people of California would have to vote ap-
proval of this revolutionary step.
"Ban the automobile? Are they crazy?

kids!
And come
to think of
it,
wasn't for smog, just imagine
ing to Cahfomia!"
what's
I'd rather give
up my
wrong with smog? If it

people would be mov-
how many
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
''ll
During the Los Angeles riots of 1965, a white youth trapped

by a gang of Negroes on 103rd Street in Watts pleaded, "Do
anything you want
One
to
me, but please don't hurt
of the rioters obligingly clouted
my new
him over
car."
the head with
a brick.
was, in a way, a
It
humane
act.
No
one knows what psychic
damage the lad might have suffered had he been forced to watch
as the windows were smashed and the vehicle overturned and
ignited.
According to the
by 15 percentage
first
postprimary poll.
Brown
points, a sizable margin.
trailed
Reagan
Reagan drew 52
per-
Brown 37, with 1 1 percent undecided.

Brown always started as the underdog. Democrats reminded
cent,
themselves. But never before had he been so far behind his
opponent so
As the
He
late in the
first
campaign.
order of business, he tried to rebuild his bridges.
publicly apologized to Christopher for the smear tactics.
Christopher accepted the apology but declined to give
Yorty,
now
mates that
Sam
being courted by both candidates. Yorty told
inti-
as
him
Brown
successful with
his endorsement.
Nor was Brown any more
long as he lived he would never forgive
Brown
for
Chances were, he said, he would support neither candidate. But he met frequently with Reagan for
well-publicized breakfasts. He was clearly enjoying his reluctantbride status. As for the split in the CDC, it remained, the New
calling
a "paranoid."
Left refusing to support
Brown
in the general election.
Mosdy
the bridges remained burned.

There were other problems. Even his chief advisers couldn't
agree on tactics. One week Brown would emphasize the accom-
plishments of his two administrations, the next attack Reagan's

one-dimensional proclamations, the week after that unveil plans
But in a sense it didn't matter, for whatever

was invariably the same people looked bored.
for his third term.
he
did, the result
The
178
And
was that most telltale of all signs: every time he

kissed a baby, it would cry.
Pat Brown, it appeared, could do nothing right.
there
Reagan had no such problems. Rarely in the history of California politics had the Republican party shown such unity following a primary fight On June 16, Eisenhower gave Reagan
his endorsement. Not long afterward, Goldwater spoke on Reagan's behalf at Anaheim, home of Disneyland. During the primary Barry had been considered poHtically dangerous; now it
was obvious he could help, at least in Southern California.
On the Fourth of July, 300 national extremist leaders met in
conclave in Kansas City. Kenneth Goff, leader of the neoFascist Soldiers of the Cross, branch of the Minutemen, told the
press his organization's 2,000 California members would back
Reagan.
A far broader endorsement

anti-Semites,
Gerald L.
K.
came from the dean

Smith.
"America needs Ronald
Reagan," Smith wrote in his hate sheet
"He should be governor
of a state.
He
The
Cross and the Flag.
member of
White House.
should be a
the United States Senate, or he should be in the
He
of California
has the attributes of greatness."
Reagan refused to be baited. He was not out to denounce

anyone except Brown. "It never occurred to me to give saliva
tests to my supporters," he now quipped in a new variation on
his basic theme.
had taken awhile, but Reagan was developing political

He was having less trouble with his off-the-cuff remarks
and was better versed in state problems. Spencer-Roberts had
seen to this, with more cram courses. These, and weekly conferences with the behavioral scientists, gave him a facade of
knowledgeability. Not impregnable, but fortified by some clever
little tricks to thwart the slings and arrows. He spoke in generalities. If elected he would reduce taxes, trim the budget, reduce the number of people on welfare, do something about the
spiraling crime ratebut he neglected to say how. He was
seldom pressed for details. But once, questioned persistendy as
It
savvy.
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
to
how he
^79
intended to handle a key problem, he blandly
posed of the issue: "Let's not get bogged
An
down
dis-
in specifics."
incredible statement for a political candidate to make,
but, delivered with flashing smile, effective.

It seemed Ronald Reagan could do no wrong.
Then, in mid-August, the Democrats fired their big gun.
At simultaneous
press conferences in
Angeles, Democratic leaders

connections.
made
The documentation
the candidate
right-wing
San Francisco and Los
public Reagan's extremist
ran to 29 pages; it listed all of

plus those of many of his
afiBliations,
chief backers.
They waited two weeks
before adding, as an extra
fillip,
the
1964 document in which Reagan's own campaign counselors,

him an extremist.
Spencer-Roberts, branded
In speech after speech, Brown hammered
On
home
the charges.
Reagan was alarmingly specific.

he would investigate the University of California.
Also he would cut the costs of state prisons and mental hospitals. These institutions, according to the candidate, were nothing more than a "vast hotel chain" which could be run far more
a
few
issues,
If elected,
and economically by someone vvdth background in

hotel management.
There was, he noted, not a state office that couldn't be better
run by businessmen. If elected, he promised to solicit business
and industry for help in running the state. (It was with some
difl&culty that one recalled Reagan's onetime presidency of a
efficiendy
union.)
As
for federal aid, in
activities
of the federal
effectively at the local
most instances he was against it. Any

government could be practiced more
level. Take disaster relief. "Suppose a
happened next year," he mused. "What do you think

would happen if a Governor of California, instead of calling
Washington, would get on the radio and television and say to
disaster
the people of California, 'These are our neighbors, our fellow
Califomians. This
is
what's happened to them, this
is
what they
The
i8o
need'?" He had participated in many Hollywood benefits and

was sure the same technique could be applied on a statewide
basis.
On
one issue he pulled a complete about-face.

Addressing the San Francisco Republican Assembly on Oc-
had declared, "I favor the Civil Rights Act of

it
must
be
enforced at gunpoint, if necessary."
and
1964
However, following the primary, with the strength of the
white backlash made manifest, Reagan told the Los Angeles
Times, "I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of
tober 20, 1965, he
1964."
During the primary campaign he had fence-straddled the fairhousing issue; the Rumford Act "set a very dangerous precedent," while Proposition 14, which repealed it, "was not a wise
measure."
Now
he came out firmly against the Rumford Act, while
sisting that those
who
voted for Proposition
through bigotry or prejudice.
They
in-
14 did so "not
are right-thinking
and
fair-minded people."
Again he walked the narrow line of implication.

"There is a limit as to how far you can go through the law,"
he said. "You cannot benefit one person by taking away the
freedom of others. I believe that the right to dispose of and
control one's own property is a basic human right, and as governor
I will fight to
uphold that
Brown diligendy sought

Reagan's
efiForts
in this area
right."
the
support of minority
were halfhearted
personally addressed the convention of
American
he talked
Political Association.
to
MAPA,
Reagan was
at best.
groups.
Brown
the Mexican-
too busy to attend;
them by telephone.
Some groups committed themselves

Reagan. Cruise News & World Report,
to
neither
Brown nor
San Francisco homo-
phile publication, urged the state's two million homosexuals to
conduct a write-in campaign for Walter Hart, old-time female

impersonator.
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
By
late
l8l
August there was
mood
a brighter
in
Brown head-
quarters. Reagan's 15 percentage point lead had been narrowed

to only 4, according to the latest polls.
The
tioned
extremist issue appeared

it
in every speech, daring
to
be scoring. Brown men-
Reagan
to
denounce the John
Birch Society. Reagan not only refused, he ignored Brown's

charges.
The
em
size of his
primary victory notwithstanding,
Califomians were
still
many North-
having trouble taking Ronald Reagan
Observed Herb Caen: "He hasn't even had an outand he wants to be the star. Shouldn't he have
seriously.
of-State tryout,
broken in as governor of a smaller state Rhode Island, say?"

Perhaps significantly, there were few such comments in newspapers south of the Tehachapis.
6.
John Gunther called it "Iowa with palms." To Willard Huntington Wright it was "a collection of suburbs in search of a
city."
Raymond
any good reason
F.
Dassman concluded:
why
"It is difficult to find
the city of Los Angeles should have
come
Frank Lloyd Wright remarked: "If you tilt the

whole country sideways, Los Angeles is the place where everything loose vidll fall." Westbrook Pegler proposed that "the
U.S.A. would be much better off if that big, sprawling, incoherent, shapeless, slobbering civic idiot in the family of Ameriinto existence."
can communities, the City of Los Angeles, could be declared
incompetent and placed in charge of a guardian

vidual mental defective."
Doomed,"
With
Time
to
To H.
L.
Mencken
like
it
any indiwas "The
"the prototype of the city of the future."
the exception of Pegler,
verbosity, outsiders tended to
who was
given to diarrhetic
sum up Los Angeles
in a
few
words, a pat phrase.
Angelenos,
Had you
who knew
it
better,
found
it
less
easy to define.
brought together a dozen of them, chances are no
The
i8a
two would have pronounced
its
name
alike.
And
half wouldn't
even have been talking about the same place.

By Los Angeles some meant the city, a modest 469 square
miles in the Los Angeles Basin with a population of about 3
compact piece of land,

however; parts of it surrounded other cities, such as San Fernando, as well as unincorporated communities and pieces of the
county. It was thus possible to drive into the city of Los Angeles
million people. This
was not a
while driving away from
(Contrary
single,
it.
to the impression of
most of the world, there was
no such city as Hollywood, California; it was only a part of the

city of Los Angeles.)
Others meant Los Angeles County, which covered an area of
4,260 square miles (largest county in the United States), contained a population of well over 7 million, and included within
its
boundaries the city of Los Angeles and some y^ others. Plus
pieces that belonged to neither the city nor the county, such as
federal enclaves
and the state-owned University of California
at
Los Angeles.
(To give only one tiny example of how this evolved, Dr.
Hubert Eaton, founder of Forest Lawn, built for himself a
palatial mansion. But status-wise it was in a nowhere location,
the city of Los Angeles. To make their noted citizen happy, the
Los Angeles City Council deeded the block he lived in to the
city of Beverly Hills, thus enabling Dr.
Eaton
to
use the more
prestigious address.)
There was
also the
Los Angeles Basin, which took in
much-
hut not all of Los Angeles County, plus about half of Orange
County, housed a population of more than 8 million, and

included some 180 cities (including, of course, the city of Los
Angeles).
This was just about but not exactly the same as Greater Los
Angeles, which took in
all
of the above, plus sections of
Ven-
Los
and San Bernardino
Angeles covered an area of about 40 miles by 40 miles, from San
Fernando on the north to San Pedro on the south, and from
Santa Monica on the west to Pomona on the east. Yet this was
tura,
Riverside
counties.
Greater
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
Still
183
which was about
smaller than Los Angeles County,
'j'^
miles
north to south and 70 miles east to west.
Something
else
again
was the Los Angeles Long Beach
metropolitan area.
All this
would have been very confusing except
no one admitted
They
for
one thing:
Los Angeles.
to living in
Burbank, Pasadena, Monrovia, Long Beach,
lived in
Torrance, Venice, Palos Verdes Estates, Lawndale, or any one of

a thousand neighborhoods, but with the whole they felt
kinship and for
many
it
they had no civic pride.
things, not all of
them
Sam
was too
no
big, too
pleasant.
Only one person pretended

sidered a part of
It
to like
Los Angeles;
it
was con-
Yorty's job.
was not that they had nothing to boast about. There was
the sun, the sky, the sea. There were recreational opportunities
unequaled. Few places in the world were more beautiful than
Coldwater Canyon, few views more magnificent than that from
Mulholland Drive on a clear night, few residential areas more
It
When
came to restaurants, Chasen's and Perino's matched anything in San Francisco.

As for education, UCLA measured up to Berkeley in almost
every way, bettered it in some. And in science there was no
match anywhere for the 130-mile coastal strip with its research
laboratories, "think tanks," electronics and aerospace industries.
While the new County Art Museum and Los Angeles Music
Center formed a cultural complex to make any community
tastefully elegant than
Hancock
Park.
it
writhe with envy.
For each, the
composed of
It
bits
may be
was individual and often lengthy. But
list
and
pieces.
that Angelenos
were more
selective
than San
Franciscans, less willing to accept unquestioningly the whole
package. In a way,
it
was
narcissism of the city by the
a refreshing contrast to the
blanket hiding a multitude of
But
For
it
was
smug
Golden Gate, whose mystique was a

sins.
also sad.
all its flaws,
San Francisco had
identity, of
which the new
The
184
became a part. Reminiscing on the past of

confronted with a host of images:
were
you
San Francisco,
the gold rush; the Vigilance Committees; the Big Four of the
Central Pacific and the Silver Kings of the Comstock Lode;
resident immediately
the Barbary Coast; the earthquake and

bridges.
And
in a curious way,
when you moved
it
all
fire;
the building of the
became
a part of your
San Francisco it didn't matter

that most residents were originally from elsewhere. Moving to
the city, they put down new roots, were linked to a continuing
history
there. In
process.
San Franciscans cared about

part of
were
their city because they
it.
Los Angeles was
as old as
San Francisco. And
as
much had
But somehow things never stuck, never made

an impression. Looking back on the past of Los Angeles, you
saw a series of real estate booms. As a city it had no clear-cut
identity, and having none, was impossible to identify with. Its
fantastic size was, of course, partly responsible, as was the
happened
there.
fluidity of
Southern California
life.
People changed jobs often.
More than half moved every four years. In other U.S. cities a
new telephone book was issued yearly; in L.A. they (there were
eight just for the basin) were issued every several months.
Angelenos were from elsewhere,
too.
And put down
Most
But
roots.
kept them shallow, ready for transplanting.

It
was hard
to
become concerned about a place that was just a

It was also hard to identify with something
temporary abode.
that kept changing as fast as Los Angeles.
Nothing was permanent.

For longer than
most people could
remember,
Angeles Times had been a bastion of reaction.
the
Los
If it didn't like
some news, it didn't bother to print it. If an item happened to

show a Democrat in a favorable light, the paper twisted it.
Isolationist, it considered foreign news so unimportant that it
retained only one part-time staffer outside the continental limits.
But in recent years, under the able direction of publisher Otis
Chandler, it had changed. Even its longtime critics reluctantly
admitted it was on its way to becoming a great newspaper.
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
185
There were no constants. Nothing was sacred anymore.

George Hamihon occupied Pickfair, once the home of Mary
Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. John and Michelle Phillips
of the
Mamas and
the Papas lived in the erstwhile
home
of
MacDonald, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys in that of

Edgar Rice Burroughs. Sonny and Cher occupied a former
Jeanette
mansion of Tony Curtis, while the
estate
once presided over by
Mickey Rooney was tenanted by Sam Yorty.

There were other changes.
One week there were orange groves, the air sweet with the
smell of blossoms. One week later the bulldozers arrived. The
week after that tract houses were going up.
Below the hill was a secluded valley, lush with vegetation,
alive with the sound of birds an oasis of calm worth an hour's
drive to find. It seemed like a mirage. Perhaps it was. For when
one returned, it had disappeared. Earthmovers had used the hill
to
fill
in the valley to
make
a level plain ideal for a
Nor, agriculturally important

farms immune. Each day, as
as
cities
new
California was,
factory.
were the
spread outward, 375 acres of
prime farmland were "urbanized."

If
Southern California had a symbol,
If
it
it was the bulldozer.

was change.
It was a process so commonplace, so accepted, so immune to
criticism that the Los Angeles Times could write sanguinely of
a piece of scenic coastline, "What was a seemingly useless 200foot palisade on the Pacific Coast Highway has been transformed in five months to the site of a handsome Gulf Oil service
had a
single constant,
it
station."
They worshiped
different gods.
another, but the greatest god of
all
Newness was one, bigness

was change. If the houses in
a tract were ugly or poorly constructed,
long they would be torn
Not everyone
cessfully
felt this
resisted
the
Friends of the Santa
down and
it
didn't matter. Before
replaced.
way. Residents of Santa Barbara sucof freeways and billboards.
intrusion
Monica Mountains, the Committee
to
Save
Elysian Park, the Sierra Club, and a dozen other groups put
valiant fights to preserve part of
what they
felt to
be their
up
herit-
The
86
age. But they were holding actions and piecemeal. Behind the
whole there seemed to be no overall planning, no one who cared
enough to say that a new housing development might not be as
important as a natural stream; that for a certain number of

houses there should be a certain amount of open space; that
bigness and newness were not in themselves necessarily virtues.
It was not so much that the Angelenos did not care what
happened to Los Angeles as that they did not care enough to do
something about it themselves. It was easier to ignore that
which did not directly concern them, to leave the problems for
others elected
projects
ments
oflBcials,
drew few
newspapers,
volunteers.
Bond
do-gooders.
Community
issues for vital improve-
failed to receive requisite majorities for passage.
There was also a feeling the problems were so immense that

nothing would solve them, so why bother to try?
Unfortunately, frequently those on whom they shouldered
the burden disclaimed responsibility also.
Witness Mayor Samuel Yorty, appearing before the Senate
Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization, at hearings on
problems of U.S.
cities:
Abraham
Senator
Ribicoff:
"This morning you have really
waived authority and responsibility in the follov^ng areas of

Los Angeles: schools, welfare, transportation, employment,
health and housing, which leaves you as the head of the city
basically with a ceremonial function, police
Mayor
Yorty: "That
Ribicoff
is
and
and
recreation."
fire."
"Collecting of sewage?"
Yorty: "Sanitation, that

Ribicoff:
right,
right."
is
"In other words, basically you lack jurisdiction,
authority, responsibility for
Yorty: "That
is
exactly
what makes
a city
move?"
it."
There was a tendency in Southern California to compartmentalize. Old people were hidden away in small retirement
communities where the younger wouldn't be reminded of them.
Academic communities huddled together as if for mutual protection against the PhiHstines: in and around Claremont were
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
187
six colleges. In reaction to the impossible
many
than-life problems, constant change,
urban sprawl,
larger-
drew
residents
their
worlds in tighter about them, attempting to shut out everything

unpleasant.
They
clearly
around
built fences
establishing
their yards, often tall ones, thus
boundaries of their worlds, creating
the
permanence, certainty, comfortable familiarity amidst
islands of
a sea of change. After driving the freeways,
it
was
a relief to
return to something orderly, compact.
Privacy was a factor, but whether for isolation or insulation
was
a matter of individual determination.
More often than not, they had nothing against their neighThey simply did not know them. Los Angeles was com-
bors.
posed of "communities of strangers" people
same
but
streets,
the same
who
shared the
mailman and the same garbage
collector,
little else.
make friends but hard to maintain friendships. People moved too often. After a time one learned not to
care too much, not to become too deeply involved. Easier to
was easy
It
to
remain behind a fence and

barbecue and swimming pool.
restrict social life to
With
the backyard
occasional trips to the beach
and Disneyland.
Not everyone had

enough
a sv^dmming pool, of course, but there
that tax collectors
found
it
airplanes spotting them, since they
necessary to
fly
were improvements and
such taxable. Those without pools didn't intend

deprived.
They were not
status symbols
(though the
as
as
be long
to
size
the shape of the pool were), but a part of the good
Southern California, "As essential
were
overhead in
and
life
of
a second car," one ad
noted.
As time
still
passed,
and they grew
older,
and the world outside
continued to change, some became more conservative, more
resistant to innovations,
more
might
more defensive of
fearful of anything that
to shut out the rest of the world,
altogether successful.
They
their private worlds,
might threaten them. Try
as they
however, they were not
couldn't escape
mounting
taxes
and
The
i88
higher prices.
Brown
And
night after night on
talking about
did their best to supplement
In Every
there
was Governor
more problems and further change.
Others managed to escape the good
Some
TV
Woman's
Village in
life
before this happened.
it.
Van Nuys,
"an experiment in
the rehabilitation of bored middle-aged housevdves," some 900
women were
given a chance to choose from a curriculum of 100
courses such subjects for study as Yoga, Ruggery,
Advanced
Papier-Mache, and the Beyond Within.
Some
joined cults. Others engaged in politics. But contrary to
the typical outsider image of Southern California, these were

the exceptions. This
Some committed
much involvement was anathema
ratio of 10 divorces for every 12
new
County was anyone's guess, but

boredom was undisputed.
And
to
many.
adultery. Its significance as a cause in the
others, particularly the
its
marriages in Los Angeles
value as an antidote to
young, rejected such
lives en-
During the
tirely, surrendering privacy with a vengeance.
sixties a new fad swept Southern California, and as was true of
all such, quickly spread to other states. These were apartments
for swinging singles. Ordinarily grouped around one or more
swimming
pools,
they were
expensive
(a
one-bedroom pad
$175 per month, though a

less), but offering nightly
and transient sex. Sometimes
costing a bachelor an average of

pretty girl
might pay considerably
cocktail parties, various
such relationships led
sports,
to marriage;
being an unspoken understanding
more often they

it
didn't, there
wasn't to be serious.
"Happy hedonism" promised the brochure from one such

complex.
In matters of morals. Southern California was, by and large,
permissive. You could do pretty much what you liked, so long as
it
wasn't in Pershing Square or on a public beach.
a matter of broad-mindedness as that
no one
Not
so
cared. It has
much
been
moving to Southern California, people left

their morals behind; far more likely, they learned they had to
tolerate the more relaxed codes at least or be miserable.
During 1964 a national magazine commissioned a vmter to
suggested that in
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
189
survey the effect of the current sexual revolution on Southern

California.
His conclusion: a big
fat nothing.
Everything newly
happening elsewhere had already been accepted here.

For adults, there were miles of hot-sheet motels, bearing such
names
as Tonight's the
Night or the
No
Tell Motel, their neons
prominently advertising "Hourly Rates." In others the time was
20 minutes and, in the best space age
tradition, a loudspeaker
room counted down "ten minutes," "five minutes," "Now!"

For the young, there were the beach, the automobile and
in the
party pads along Sunset Strip.
This permissiveness sometimes even affected parents. San

Diego journalist Neil Morgan recalled one aspect of the phe-
nomenon
for Esquire:
"Newspapers
in
Los Angeles noted that one sixteen-year-old
boy was infected by a prostitute and in turn infected a fifteengirl. In two nights, she had intercourse with nineteen
year-old
youths and infected nine of them.
"The
reaction of
many
parental readers,"
Morgan
observed,
"was to express surprise that a sixteen-year-old boy had resorted

to a prostitute."
It
was a body-conscious
youth and good
Since tastes varied,
em
California
society,
which put a premium on
looks.
it
was a matter of opinion whether South-
women were more
beautiful than others.
But
it
was part of the legend.

Although possibly not representative,
a recent year ten of the dozen
young
it is
ladies
interesting that in
who unadornedly
displayed themselves in the centerfold of Playhoy were not only
from California, but without exception from Los Angeles and

On the basis of such evidence one might conclude that
Southern California led the nation in opulently endowed fe-
environs.
males.
Or
it
could
more inclined
It
mean
to take
oflF
that Southern California girls
were
their clothes in front of photographers.
did lend credence to the contention that Northern Cali-
fornia females
It
was
were better dressed.
in Southern California,
Playmate of the
Month was
too,
that the
first
arrested for prostitution.
Playhoy
The
90
Of
course such permissiveness was not universal. There were
some people who not only had never in their lives been to a hotsheet motel but were horrified by the mere idea of such places;
people who not only had managed to retain the old values but
who, since moving to California, had become more firmly
entrenched in them; people
to
whom
moral issues were not
experiments in relativity but black and white certainties; people
who were
not afraid to attack anyone so foolish as to believe
otherwise.
It
was not true that
Some dwelt
all
such people lived in Orange County.
and San Diego counties
in Los Angeles, Riverside
also.
There were other people who waited
for
change which never
came.
Marquette
Frye,
twenty-one,
and
his
stepbrother
Ronald,
twenty-two, had been celebrating. Ronald had arrived in Los
Angeles several days
earlier,
following his discharge from the
Air Force; this afternoon Marquette had driven him around the
to introduce him to a few girls. It was a hot day,
and in the course of their wanderings, the pair had
consumed a number of screwdrivers, a potent California concoction of vodka and orange juice. About seven that evening, as
they headed home in his mother's 1955 Buick, driver Marquette
was feeling no pain.
He was drunk. At least a truck driver who passed him driving
erratically down Avalon Boulevard thought so. Pulling up alongside a state highway patrolman at the next stop sign, he re-
neighborhood
90-plus,
ported the incident.
The
patrolman, Lee Minikus, gunned
up
his motorcycle
and
took off in pursuit. Flashing his red light and sounding his
siren,
he pulled the Buick over
the intersection of
Frye home.
11 6th
to the
Street,
curb just before
less
it
reached
than a block from the
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
^9^
Marquette was out of the car even before Minikus could

climb off his cycle, asking what he had done wrong. As openers,
Minikus
him he had been doing 50
told
in a 35-mile zone
and
asked to see his license.
"Aw,
officer,"
Marquette
replied, "that old car wouldn't
you shoved
more than
Marquette was in a good humor,
thirty-five if
officer
out of giving
him
a ticket.
it
do
cliflF!"
hopeful of talking the
still
He had
that he was without a license, having

Filling out
off a
lost
it
to admit,
however,
few days
ago.
the ticket, Minikus asked Marquette his age,
weight, height, color of hair

"It's
black,
man!" Marquette giggled. "I'm black
all
over, can't
you see?"
In hopes of catching a slight breeze,
totally
Negro neighborhood were
few ambled over

plying to the
sitting
to listen to the
officer's
many
on
residents of the
their front steps.
exchange. Marquette, in
questions, began clowning
it
up
A
re-
a httle,
playing to his audience.
Had he been
drinking? He'd had a few screwdrivers, Mar-
quette admitted, but he wasn't drunk. Dubious, Minikus put
him through
the testwalk a straight hne, close your eyes and
touch your nose.
When
this
was done, Minikus radioed
several blocks away, reporting that
He
also called for a
squad car
his partner,
Bob
he had a 502 drunk
to transport
Frye to the
Levsds,
driver.
station.
them was good-natured.

By this time the crowd had grown to a couple of dozen. One
of the women recognized Marquette. Learning that he was
being arrested, she went for his mother, Mrs. Rena Frye, who
arrived a few minutes after Minikus' partner. Discovering that
they were planning to haul the car away, she identified herself
as its owner and received permission to take it home. She then
turned on Marquette, whom she began scolding for driving
Still
the banter between
while drunk.
Screwdrivers are lethal drinks.
as they build
you up.
It
They can
was now apparent
let
to
you down
as fast
Marquette that he
The
192
wasn't going to be able to talk himself out of
arrest.
high
had managed
to stay out of trouble for more than two years. Now he was up
against it again and he wasn't in the mood for a lecture from his
school dropout with a minor juvenile record, he
mother, especially not in front of
"Mamma," he
said, pulling
and I'm not going to jail."

By now the crowd had grown
Whitey up
to?" the
on those kids
for?"
new
all
these people.
away from
to
her, "I'm not
drunk
about one hundred. "What's
arrivals asked.
"What
are they picking
As the crowd mushroomed, spreading down
from the immediate scene, the answers became exaggerated. Those on the outside pushed in closer to see.
Unable to make them move back and sensing the changing
the
street, farther
mood, Levvds broadcast a Code 1 199 Officer needs help.

"Marquette, you go with the officers," Mrs. Frye urged.
"G^me on, Marquette," Minikus said, starting to take his arm.
"I'm
not
going
to
no
sonofabitching
jail!"
He
slapped
Minikus' hand away. "You motherfucking white cops, you're

not taking
When
me
anywhere!"
Minikus
Marquette grabbed
tried again to get
his riot baton
him
into the squad car,
and held onto
Ronald, trying to come to his stepbrother's
it.
aid,
Meanwhile,
shoved past
Lewis.
Such was the scene when highway patrolman Wayne Wilson

Code 1199. Spotting Ronald apparendy tussling vdth Lewis, he jabbed him hard in the stomach,
twice, with his baton. Ronald slid to the ground. Turning,
Wilson then swung on Marquette, who he thought was fighting
with Minikus. A sharp blow across the forehead with the stick, a
jab in the stomach, and Marquette too folded up. He was
quickly pushed into the front seat of the car, Minikus cuffing his
hands behind him. Rena Frye, unable to see what Minikus was
doing but sure he was hurting her son, threw herself on the
officer's back. Another newly arrived officer pulled her off, handcuffed her also, and placed her in the back seat.
"What's happening?" There were now between 150 and 200
people. "They're beating up an old lady!" "It's just like Selma!"
arrived in response to the
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
193
People began picking up rocks. Others already brandished

botdes and beer cans.
on the scene. Four blocks down the

Lady Beauty Salon, Joyce Ann Gaines and a
Joan Nash, heard the sirens and decided to investigate
More
police converged
the Pink
street, in
friend,
the commotion.
Twenty-two-year-old Joyce Ann, like most of her brothers
and
sisters,
work
was
a barber.
About an hour
earlier she
had finished
and had gone next door to the beauty

have her hair done, without bothering to change clothes.
in her father's shop
shop
to
Her loosely fitting barber's smock resembled a maternity

By the time the two girls arrived at the scene, all the
were handcuffed and in the police
selves nothing
Fryes
Having assured them-
car.
was happening, they
dress.
started
back through the
crowd toward the beauty shop.
At
moment one
this
wet
of the officers felt something
hit his
neck.
He
turned, to see Joyce
Ann
walking away. "You
he shouted, angrily grabbing her arm.
When
away, protesting her innocence, another
spit at
me!"
she tried to pull
officer
threw his arm
round her neck, choking her, then dragging her toward one of
the cars.*
"Look
at
what
they're doing to that pregnant girl!" a
woman
screamed.
Putting Joyce
area,
Ann
in the car, the officers decided to leave the
hoping that once the prisoners were gone the crowd would
disperse.
By now
it
numbered
close to
i,ooo.
As the
last car
pulled away, a youth tossed a pop bottle, which shattered on the

fender. Other missiles flew from a dozen hands.
now
The
police cars
out of range, they threw rocks and bottles at buses and cars
driven by whites.
It
was Wednesday, August
The Los
Angeles
riots
ii, 1965,
7:45 p.m.
had begun.
* Charges against Joyce Ann Gaines were later dropped. Marquette Frye was
given 90 days in jail, 180 days suspended and 3 years probation. Ronald Frye
was given 120 days suspended, fined $250 and 3 years probation. Mrs. Rena
Frye was given 30 days suspended and a $250 fine.
^^
194
To an
^^^ Days
Easterner, familiar with the moldering tenements of
Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant, the Negro section of

central Los Angeles seemed the very antithesis of a slum.
The
houses were nearly
south-
one-story bungalows or two-story
all
apartments, mostly stucco, in shades of pink, green or white.
There were lawns and palm
trees
and
TV
antennas on almost
every roof.
Yet
to its residents, the
area which covered some 40 miles in
and included the communities of Watts, Willowbrook and part of Compton was a ghetto
as real as any in Chicago or New York. The difference was, like
the rest of L.A. it had sprawled not upward but outward.
Before World War II the Negro population of Los Angeles
County was 75,000. By 1965, it had multiplied to 650,000
the heart of the city of Los Angeles
increasewith
nearly
tenfold
month.
The war had brought
another
2,000
arriving
virtually unlimited
each
employment
and aircraft plants. With

boom in employment ended, but the migration
Like many white Americans, Negroes were captivated by
on assembly
lines in the shipyards
war's end, the

didn't.
the California dream. Things
They
would be
better there.
were.
But not enough.

Other areas being denied
them, most
to
new
arrivals
moved
into the already black neighborhoods such as Watts-Willow-
brook. Despite
its
spacious appearance,
it
was crowded. In the
Los Angeles County, there were 7.4 persons per acre;

here, 27.3. The houses were old, 87 percent of them built prior
rest of
to
1939.
lords
Up
close the stucco
were not much on
The
was peeling.
Inside,
well slum
repairs.
worst problem was unemployment. Nationally, Negro
unemployment was 9 percent; here, 31 percent. The situation

was rendered static by the fact that when a Negro did achieve
some affluence or possessed skill in demand on the labor market,
the first thing he did was to move to a better neighborhood,
such
as
West Adams
he wanted
every
to
or
Baldwin
Hills.
Once
there, the last thing
do was look back. Only the poor remained.
month another 2,000
arrived.
And
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
^95
was
common, with even most of the unions placing restrictions on
Negro membershipbut also lack of education and skills. Twonot discrimination alone though
The problem was
thirds of the adults
had
it
than a high school education; one-
less
eighth were illiterate; many had come to California directly

from the South and knew no work other than "cropping."
In Watts there were 150 churches but not one employment
The
office.
nearest
was one and one-half hours away,
via three
separate bus lines.
you found work, reaching it was something else again. A

trip to the Douglas Aircraft Plant in Santa Monica took
If
round
five buses, three fares,
hours and
fifty
two
transfers, a total of $1.46, plus three
minutes.
Few welfare agencies had branches in the immediate area.

Due to the crazy-quilt jurisdictional pattern of Los Angelesone side of the
street
might be the
city of
Los Angeles, the other
side the county, and the next block another city public offices
of
all
kinds were scattered over a wide area.
spent finding a particular
wrong
office,
A half
day might be
only to discover
it
was the
one.
Sixty percent of the residents received welfare of some kind.
None, no matter how

siderably
more than the

Most received con-
large the family, received
"poverty level" allotment $3,000 per year.

less.
Thirty percent of the children came from broken families.
One
Due
out of four was illegitimate.

to the opposition of the Catholic
birth control
program in the
Schools were crowded and in every

schools elsewhere in California,
program.
was
Demand
Church, there was no
area.
way
inadequate. Unlike
few here had a
free
lunch
for mechanical training classes, such as shop,
so great that only a fraction of those applying for
them could
be enrolled.
The
dropout rate was the highest in Los Angeles County (40

girls left school because of pregnancy), as was the
percent of the
crime
rate.
Relations with
the
Los Angeles Police Department were
The
196
tense, to
put
it
Most
mildly.
hatred of police much of
well-nourished on California
Though
residents harbored a deep-seated
carried
it
from elsewhere, some of
it
soil.
the Negro-Mexican areas of Los Angeles contained
only 18 percent of the
city's
population, they suflFered 28 per-
cent of the tuberculosis, 40 percent of the epilepsy, 42 percent

of the rheumatic fever,
42 percent of the food poisoning, 44

percent of the dysentery, 46 percent of the venereal diseases,
and 100 percent of the polio, brucellosis and diphtheria.
To General Hospital from Watts took two hours by bus if
connections were good.
As in any poverty area, prices were higher than elsewhere and
the food not always fresh. In Beverly Hills day-old bread sold
for 10 cents a loaf; in
Watts
it
was 23
cents.
On
the day welfare
checks arrived, food prices rose throughout the area. Merchants
claimed their inflated prices were necessary to compensate for
heavy shoplifting and theft
High
losses.
and installment buying, with hidden

charges often exceeding the cost of the item, kept most
credit
interest
loans
families in perpetual debt.
These were some
many ways
of the tangibles.
The
intangibles were in
worse, and included a legacy of frustration
and
despair dating back to the days of slavery.
The
ghetto Negroes were bitter because their self-appointed
leaders did not truly represent them.
cians
and ministers
efiFort to
discover
Most
how
Negro politiand made litde
of the
didn't even live in the area
their people really felt, while the civil
on the South, leaving conditions elsewhere untouched.

They were angered by the vote on Proposition 14, which
proved that the majority of Californians did not want the Negro
to have an equal chance.
They were resentful at the cavalier way in which politicians
ignored them. Mayor Yorty hadn't visited Watts since taking
rights leaders concentrated
office.
They were hostile because even when help was available, it

was denied them. A total of $22 million in federal antipoverty
funds had been appropriated for Los Angeles, a large portion of
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
which was earmarked
^91
Negro ghettos, to improve schools,

and provide training. But the federal
for the
create job opportunities
government required that the committee administering the

funds be representative, that it include members of the impov-
Mayor Yorty would have none
erished groups being aided.
he wanted the money handled by
this;
a result, the funds
They were
his
own
were withheld.
full of hate.
The
Black Muslims and the anti-
Semitic Los Angeles Herald-Dispatch helped to propagate
But few needed

skin was black,
to
it
of
committee. As
be taught.
If
you
lived long
it.
enough and your
accumulated.
May
Deputy Attorney General Howard

Jewel had wnritten a report in which he warned that the racial
situation in Los Angeles was tense and could easily explode into
a "long hot summer" of violence. But Governor Brown never
saw the report; an aide apparently felt it wasn't sufficiently im-
As
early as
of 1964,
portant to merit the governor's attention.
Granted, conditions in the Negro ghettos were deplorable.
some
Still,
liberals argued,
Negroes had realized
stellar
gains
in the past 25 years.
remonstrated
Still,
many white
officials,
they were better off
than in Detroit, Chicago, Selma or Bogalusa.
The
trouble was, the people in question were not measuring
their situation against that of their parents, nor their surround-
ings against the slums of the East
and South. They were com-
paring their lot to that of the residents of the posh white
communities of Southern California Beverly

Bel Air.
It
was
vision.
door.
And
a difference they
To
Hills,
Brentwood,
the diflFerence was appalling.
Negroes
Through
it
TV
were reminded of every day
was, as Robert Conot put
it,
via tele-
"a glass
they can see white America, but for them the
door will never open. Every day they are tantalized. Every day
they become more frustrated.'"^
* There are two excellent accounts of the Los Angeles riot: Rivers
of Blood,
Years of Darkness, by Robert Conot, New York, Bantam Books, 1967; and
Burn, Bahy, Burn, by Jerry Cohen and William S. Murphy, Dutton, New
York, 1966. Los Angeles Times reporters Cohen and Murphy were given a
1966 PuHtzer Prize for their coverage of the riot. Conot's work incorporates
police records and much other material not previously available.
The
198
When
(They were not without humor.
the white knight in
the Ajax commercial touched something with his lance and
turned
pure white, they yelled, "Hit me! Hit me!"
it
announcer asked, "Aunt Jemima, what took you so

chorused the question
too.
But you
can't live
When
long:""
the
they
on humor alone.)
Yet none of the conditions from which they
sufiPered
was
unique. Inadequate education, unemployment, crime, broken
substandard living conditions they were
prejudice,
families,
prevalent in every other slum in every major city in the United

States.
Everywhere in America the Negro was in some sense a
second-class citizen.
The
to
be
trouble was, that
damn myth:
California was supposed
better.
was the best
If California
what hope was
place,
there?
Contrary to expectations of the police, the crowd didn't
dis-
the police
As rumors spread, inflating in the telling

beat up and choked this girl; they kicked a pregnant
girl until
she lost her child; they killed an old lady by beating
perse. It
grew
larger.
her with their clubs more and more Negroes congregated

site of
at the
the arrests.
Many came
armed, with
Others
bottles, rocks, two-by-fours.
improvised, even tearing up chunks of pavement with their bare
hands. "There that car get the man!"

First targets
were passing automobiles.
first,
throwing rocks
said.
'We
least,
didn't
not at
at
aim
Whitey's big
to hurt
new
"It
seemed
cars,"
like
fun
at
one of the youths
anybody, just mess up the
cars.
At
first."
But the same bricks that smashed windshields
also broke
noses and jaws.
"They're going crazy in there!"
driver pulled
a police car parked outside the area. His face
"They
tried
to
kill
me!
Why?"
up
alongside
was dripping blood.
asked another driver, the
sanctity of his private litde world having
been suddenly and
inexplicably violated.
Not
all
the cars
made
it
through.
When
an auto stopped or
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
^99
crashed, the rioters seized
occupants and beat them, then
its
down
By 9 P.M. some 2,000 Negroes were
chased them
the
street.
participating mosdy
youths, the older people clinging to the safety of their homes.
By
time the Los Angeles Police Department had rushed
this
men
about 100
Though many more were needed,
to the area.
Police Chief William Parker
was reluctant
to leave other parts
of the city unguarded.
Their
tactics
were haphazard, improvised on the
made an attempt
to
off the area.
cordon
As a
spot.
result,
No
one
unsuspect-
ing whites continued to drive straight into the maelstrom of

hate.
As one
was trapped,
driver after another
the site with
crowd vdth
all
on
police converged
the force they could muster, pushing back the
their riot batons
and the
threat of their guns.
But
in
minutes they would not only be outnumbered, but the primary

targets of the
If
mob.
they did succeed in breaking
up one group, another would
form half a block away.

It
was, one policeman later recalled, like a cancer.
it, hoping to destroy

hundred spreading cells.
into
it,
only to find you had
"Bum, baby, burn!"

By II P.M. the rioting covered an
developed some
new
features.
Now,
scaring off their occupants, they set
You
cut
let loose a
and had
stopping the cars and
eight-block area
after
them
afire.
When
the
fire
trucks arrived to douse the flames, they stoned the firemen.
Long used to considering firemen public saviors, the white

community was more puzzled by this tactic than any other. One
of the rioters indicated the reason when he yelled: "I wish I was
white so
They
could be a fireman!"
equipment and
TV
cameramen, smashing
their
setting fire to their cars. If they couldn't
walk
stoned the press and
through the glass door, they could
At midnight the
entirely, in the
return.
at least
police decided to
break
it.
withdraw from the area
hope that once they were gone, calm would
The
aoo
It
was a calculated gamble. But
consideration.
The swing
failing to take
shift at the factories
one thing into
had
just let out.
During the next hour dozens more cars drove down Imperial, to
be caught at the Avalon intersection. Casualties mounted.
Gradually, however, the rioters tired and went home. By i
A.M. there were only a few roving gangs. By 2, only individual
Though
stragglers.
isolated
clashes
occurred throughout the
by dawn it appeared to have ended.

There had been no looting and, amazingly, no one had been
night,
killed. If the rioters carried
guns, they hadn't used them, and
the police had been under orders not to use theirs unless fired
on. However, 35 persons
damaged
The
vehicles
or burned.
rioters
Of
target.
had been injured and 50
had directed the worst of their wrath

had been policemen.
at a specific
those injured, 19
For a time, during the reign of Mayor Joe Shaw, the Los
Angeles Police Department had been one of the most corrupt in
the nation. Promotions were purchased.
Many
policemen, from
were on the take. Anyone could

And, in some instances, a murder charge.
patrolmen to captains,
ticket.
fix
Reform came in 1940 with the election of Fletcher Bowron

William H. Parker, a veteran of the force since 1927,
was one of the few to survive the purge. In 1950, he was named
chief. As for his administration, it was best described by one of
as mayor.
his critics, Paul Jacobs: "Today,
most Los Angelenos know that
they cannot bribe one of the Vigilantes,* as the motorcycle
policemen are known inside the department, out of giving them

a ticket for speeding on the freeway; and they know, too, that
graft in
In
his
its
other forms
fifteen-year
converted
it
into
an
is
virtually nonexistent inside the
LAPD.
LAPD,
Parker
tenure
as
chief
of
the
efficient, technologically
advanced, and in-
model emulated by other police departments and police chiefs across the nation."
However, Chief Parker had his blind spots.
Like many other police chiefs, he strongly resented recent
corruptible operation, a
Supreme Court
decisions that spelled out the civil rights of
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
2,oi
made
suspects, feeling they
it
more
difi&cult for
the pohce to
carry out their duties.
of
Unhke most
other chiefs, Parker had a wholly one-sided view
what those
duties were; a fanatic for effective law enforce-
ment, he considered crime prevention a waste of time and manpower. "I'm a policeman," he said in one interview, "not a social
worker." For some years, the
Deputy Auxiliary
as the
LAPD
Police.
had had a program known
Nearly every major
has a
city
similar program, patterned after the Police Athletic League in
New
York
visited
City.
officers
and talked
schools
citizenship
The
and
took youths for rides in police cars,
traffic safety,
and outings. Parker disapproved of the
sponsored athletic events
program and
to
working in it, some 30 in all,

students, conducted classes in
in the mid-fifties ordered
it
discontinued. In 1963
he also tried to kill the Group Guidance Program of the Los

Angeles County Probation Department. Under this program,
then in its i8th year, probation officers worked closely with
gang members in the Negro and Mexican
channel their energies into constructive
areas, attempting to
Parker not
activities.
only thought they were "coddling" the youths, he also wanted

the probation officers to act as police informants.
When
they
refused, he exerted pressure to have the program temporarily
discontinued.
so
many
He had
"I'm
When
it
was
restrictions as to
even
less
reinstated,
be patently
use for the
critical of this
whole
was hamstrung with
it
ineffective.
civil rights
movement
social revolution;
cleavage between the races" and some of

particular,
remarking of the
they are trying to
sell is
NAACP,
its
it
The
has created a
organizations in
"The type
represented by
in general
of democracy
People's World."
Part of this was undoubtedly a reaction to frequent
complaints of "police brutality." But even more basic,
outgrowth of Parker's
own
comparatively simple terms.
To
him,
civil
rigid philosophy. Parker
You obeyed
life
in
the law or you didnt.
disobedience was simply a fancy
There were those who

ment and those who opposed it. In
were no fence sitters.
breaking.
it
saw
Negro
was an
name
for law-
supported the police departParker's cosmology, there
"
The
202
Assistant Attorney General Jewel caught this, in his contro-
1964 report, when he compared the attitudes of the police

departments of California's two leading cities. Chief Thomas
versial
Cahill of San Francisco, he noted, tried to convince the public
was not between the demonstrators

was a third and
neutral force. "Chief Parker, by contrast, has made it clear that
the struggle is between the police department and the demonthat the civil rights struggle
and the
police but that the police department
strators."
Jewel was also struck by the similarity between the
civil rights
and Chief Parker:

"Each is intelligent and strong willed. Each regards himself as
a champion of a beleaguered minority. Each has almost Oriental
regard for loss of face.' Each is determined to prevail, no matter
what the cost to the community generally. Each is currently
embarked upon a course of conflict which is designed not to
avoid violence but to place the blame for violence upon the
leaders
opposing party. Neither
is
willing to take any steps to reduce
the possibilities for violence. Each has his motto: 'not one step
backward.'
Was
Parker anti-Negro, as some charged? Jewel thought not.
"Chief Parker does not deserve the reputation for bigotry which
clings to him. Chief Parker does not dislike
Negroes because
they are Negroes, but because they dislike the police depart-
ment. This, in Parker's book,
is
the only unforgivable sin."
was to be averted. Jewel was convinced, Parker

would have to do a better job of selling the LAPD to the Negro
community. "Parker thinks his department is unprejudiced and
eflBciently administered. I agree with him. But Parker must
convey this fact to the Negroes of Los Angeles. Somehow he
must be convinced that to show his department in its true light
If violence
to the
Negroes
is
not demeaning, not submitting to the enemy.'*
rigid, dogma-bound, could not do. He

was not a man given to compromise in any form. Negroes committed 60 percent of the violent crimes in Los Angeles. Why
should he have to justify himself and his men to them?
And
this
Chief Parker,
Parker's attitude naturally
had
its
effect
on the department.
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
Of
2,03
the 529 hours of instruction given to
were devoted
How
It
and human
to race
new
recruits,
only two
relations.
well founded were the charges of police brutality?
was impossible
fault of Parker,
one with
to say,
who
and
that this
was true was
chiefly the
could have dispelled the myth if
just a little frankness
and some good public
was
it
relations.
Instead, he branded such charges "the big-lie technique of the
he was seconded by Mayor Yorty,

who observed, "The cry of police brutality' has been shouted in
cities all over the world by Communists, dupes and demagogues
And
Communists."
in this
irrespective of the facts."
(Yorty stood firmly behind the chief on everything he did or
There were some who suggested that

LAPD was one of the few things under his
said.
this
was because the

which
jurisdiction in
the mayor could take pride.)
Nor
did Parker's other actions help to clarify matters.
He
opposed a
review board for the
civilian
LAPD
on the
ground that the department was capable of administering its

own affairs. To his critics, this simply meant the department
was determined no matter what the charge to protect

When a complaint was filed with the Los Angeles
Office, the
complainant was routinely informed of the
its
own.
Sheriff's
final dis-
This was not done by the Los Angeles

Police Department. A Negro who claimed to have been beaten
by a policeman was never told whether the officer had been
position of the case.
cleared,
suspended or given a commendation. Inevitably
this
lead to the accusation that complaints were ignored.
When
make the papers,

earlier, a Los
month
results were not always reassuring. A
Angeles police officer had been accused of raping a Negro girl.
on
rare occasions the charges did
The department
miss
him from
placed enough credence in the charge to
the force.
The grand
the word of the officerthat the

to the
act and refused to
jury,
girl
however, chose
had
dis-
to take
voluntarily consented
indict.
There were other complicating factors.

Brutality complaints
were
rarely easy to sustain. Offenses of
The
204
the
minimum
of wit-
was the complainant's word against
that of
occurred
this sort usually
and often
nesses,
it
when
there
was
the complainant had a record, his
officer. If
word was worth
little.
What
constituted
ways open
"undue
force" in
but psychological
just the right inflection, could
"boy."
But proving
And
making an
was
arrest
al-
And many charges dealt not with physical

brutality. The word "sir," if pronounced with
to debate.
it is
it
be as derogatory
as "nigger" or
was another matter.
probable that only a fraction of the brutality cases
were ever reported. For years Los Angeles had an ordinance
making
it
Although
a crime to
file
a false report against a police officer.
was ruled unconstitutional
this
many Negroes were unaware
early in the sixties,
was the
of this. In addition, there
not unnatural feeling that to complain was to invite further

trouble.
As
remained
silent, bottling his
All the Negroes
What
as
Negro with
a result, a
a legitimate complaint often
anger inside, festering hate.
knew was what
they saw and heard.
they heard was often exaggerated, sometimes
fictitious
in the case of the Fr^'e arrests.
But sometimes
They heard
it
was
that in
true.
one of the
LAPD
substations there
was a
photograph of Eleanor Roosevelt with the words "nigger lover"

scrawled across
it;
that
among themselves many
of the officers
referred to their riot clubs as "nigger knockers"; that

in the black areas they
a
on patrol
had a slogan: "L.S.M.F.T."-"Let's shoot
motherfucker tonight."
All these things were true.
They heard
that in the police
and
fire
a small but quite vocal organization
departments there was
known
as
the Fire
Police Research Association, dedicated to combating "the
munist conspiracy operating within the borders of

Also
known
as
the Fi-Po, or Little John Birch
and
Com-
this state."
Society,
the
organization disseminated anti-Negro literature that charged the

civil rights
movement with being
This was also
true.
Commie
plot.
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
205
LAPD
They heard that 80 percent of the members of the

were Southern whites, many of them recent arrivals.
Since Chief Parker considered such information confidential,
no one knew whether this was true or not. The important thing
was, the Negroes believed it.
They heard that the police had a quota system for arrests, and
that on a slow day the easiest way to fill it was to go into the
up niggers.
was no such thing
black ghettos and pick

Officially, there
number of
And since Negro
sizable
arrests
areas
helped
had
as a quota. Unofficially, a
when promotion
time neared.
and
where
a high-incidence crime rate
Negroes committed 60 percent of the violent crimes,
could you find better suspects? That the charge often wasn't
sustained by the courts and that the arrest remained on the
suspect's record, a barrier to
cern. After
What
employment, was not
their con-
they were policemen, not social workers.
all,
the Negroes saw was something else.
They saw
police drive into the ghettos like
an occupying
army, stopping people seemingly at random and spread-eagling
them
against the sides of buildings while they searched them.
This was, in
in
moments
fact,
about the only time they did see the police-
of conflict. Because of the physical size of Los
Angeles, the two-man squad car had almost replaced the beat
cop.
As
a result, the police never got to
know
the Negroes on a
and the Negroes in turn never

human. To the Negroes, they remained what they had been in the South a symbol of white
daily, person-to-person
basis,
learned that policemen can be
supremacy.
They saw prejudice.
It
whether nine police were

was the tenth who was remembered
didn't matter
and one wasn't. It

and talked about.
Sometimes they saw actual brutality, enough of it
them believe all the other tales they heard.
There was police brutality. The question was, was
polite
to
make
it
infre-
quent or common?
The Negroes
to
change
thought the
their minds.
latter,
and Chief Parker did nothing
The
2o6
Thursday dawned hot.

There was a general
feeling
among
previous night's disturbance had
Mayor Yorty
city
been an
oflBcials
that the
isolated
incident.
flew to San Diego to deliver a speech. Chief Parker
told the press, "The magnitude of the affair is not as great as

some are prepared to make it."
But not all agreed. One who didn't was John Buggs, executive
director of the Los Angeles
Human
County
Relations
Commis-
Buggs was convinced, from all he had heard, that rioting

would break out again that night if something was not done to
avert it. Buggs and the other members of the commission desion.
cided to hold a public meeting at 2 p.m. in Athens Park, not far
from the
Negroes could air their

was hoped, tension could be reduced
and the Negro community itself come up with some construcseat of the trouble, so the
grievances. In this way,
tive
it
plan for prevention of further violence.
One of the speakers was Mrs. Rena Frye, released on bail,

who asked the crowd, "Help me and others calm this situation
down so that we will not have a riot tonight."
Other speakers were less controlled. One sixteen-year-old
grabbed the microphone
to say that there would be more rioting

no matter what was said or done. And he predicted
that this time it would occur in the white neighborhoods. *We
the Negro people have got completely fed up. They are not
going to fight down here no more. You know where they going?
that night,
They're after the Whiteys!
Rey, and everywhere
They going to Inglewood, Playa del

white man supposed to stay. They
else the
man in tonight!"
The youth was hooted down. But TV cameramen had caught
the moment on film.
Worried, Buggs and several others asked TV newsmen not to
going to do the white
show the
film of the boy. It
of the majority present.
was an
isolated opinion, not that
The newsmen
said they couldn't
make
any promises, that since every network and station had the film
some would surely use it, and no one wanted to be scooped.
One
of the proposals to
come out
of the meeting
was that
all
white policemen be removed from the area that night and
re-
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
^07
Negro plainclothesmen. Following the meeting, Buggs

and the Negro leaders presented that suggestion to one of the
deputy police chiefs. He rejected it. The way in which he did it
placed by
didn't help assuage
Negro
any
police officers
He
feelings.
said that the idea of using
had some merit "because they don't make a
conspicuous target at night."

It
was
a facetious remark, intended as jest.
And,
at
any other
time, might have been taken as such.
From
the police point of view, there were two good reasons
for rejecting the proposal.
The
One was
was that
other, ironically,
that the idea
civil rights
was untested.
made
groups had
it
impossible.
Of
the 5,000
percent,
members
of the
LAPD,
only 200, or some 4
were Negroes. Under Parker, the
barriers against
gro enlistment on the force had been removed.
who
Most
Ne-
of those
could meet the qualifications, however, could also find
better jobs elsewhere,
where there was
less
resentment and more
opportunity for advancement (no Negro had risen above

geant). For a time,
stations.
ser-
the Negroes had been assigned to two
all
At the demand
of the civil rights leaders that the de-
partment be truly integrated, Parker assigned the Negroes to

different areas throughout the city. Since their records did not
indicate race, there

left
was no way
to determine, in the
few hours
before nightfall, just where they were stationed.
Another thoughtless remark made that afternoon offended

even more people. Holding a press conference, Chief Parker
claimed the rioting in the Negro section started
when
"one
person threw a rock and then like monkeys in a zoo, others

started throwing rocks."
Negroes
who heard
Parker's remarks
on
TV
deeply resented
the parallel.
On an
he had said of the Mexican-Americans that
"some of these people are not too far removed from the wild
tribes of the district of the inner mountains of Mexico. I don't
Parker, however, apparently thought in such terms.
earlier occasion
think you can throw the genes out of the question

discuss future behavior patterns of people.'^
when you
The
2o8
On
another occasion he had remarked,
predatory of the animal kingdom.
When
He
"Man
must have
is
the most
restraints."
the news programs came on that evening, virtually
every station in the area, as well as the networks, used the clip
of the youth promising that white areas
On many
targets.
other stations,
Athens Park meeting
"They going
to
to
it
that night's
was the only portion of the
be broadcast.
do the white
In white Anglo-Saxon homes
man
all
in tonight!"
over Southern California the
black face glared at them from their
many
would be
TV
sets.
For the
first
time
how it felt to be hated solely because of the

color of their skin. The awareness shocked and frightened them.
For some the emotion was reciprocal. Some hated the Negro
discovered
and always had. In recent
years.
Southern California had seen a
heavy immigration from the South, the new residents bringing

with them not only their conservative politics, but their prejudices as well.
sitting
What
next to white
they saw in Southern California coloreds
women on
buses, black
and white children
sharing their lunches at school tended to reinforce their beliefs.
was an abundant number who felt similarly. Many, curiously, though never having
actually known a Negro, had by some manner or means inherited or acquired their hate. With others it was bom of a deepseated fear that the Negroes were after their women or their
jobs. And with still others it was simply that the Negro was the
next person down on the economic totem pole. Hatred came
Yet, even without the Southerners, there
easier than understanding.
Some had had
painful experiences.
ton or the Crenshaw district
when
They had
lived in
Comp-
the "blockbusters" arrived.
Or they had seen the caliber of teaching reduced as the schools

were integrated the Negro children, with their inferior grade
school educations, pulling classroom standards down. Or their
had been chased by Negro gangs.
For others, such as the residents of Lynwood, which advertised itself as "the friendly Caucasian city," the fear itself was
children
enough. Located just southeast of Watts, Lynwood had success-
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
209
fully repulsed the black invasion.
and
to
the whites on the other,
To
the Berlin Wall. In such places as
tended
to
be larger than
life,
the Negroes on one side
Alameda
Street
Lynwood
was known
the black
as
menace
a constant topic of conversation,
the major obsession of otherwise dull
lives.
Most who watched their TV's that evening didn't hate the
Negro. To hate you had to be concerned, and they just didn't
care that much. They didn't know how the Negro lived. Nor
did they want to know. They had problems of their own. They
were not against the Negro forging ahead, so long as it was done
at his
own
expense.
They were vaguely
rights demonstrations, not
knowing
disturbed by the civil
exactly
why.
What more
They were far more bothered that so

many Negroes were sponging off welfare, because it was money
did colored people want?
out of their pockets. Yet, though troubled, they could

the
Negro problem, convincing themselves
cern them.
it
still
ignore
didn't really con-
suddenly, with the threat to their lives and
Now,
property, they could ignore the black
man no
longer.
Others were sympathetic to the plight of the Negro in varying degrees. But suddenly
gave once to the
it
didn't matter that they liked jazz or
NAACP.
Whitey was all-inclusive.

And Whitey was the enemy.
Conservative or
liberal, if
your face was white, you were the
target.
who watched TV that night there

came on glimpsing the undisguised
For those white Angelenos
were two shocks. The
first
hatred, the second while watching helicopter shots of the loot-
ing and burning of buildings.
"Where's Watts, honey?"
"How should I know? Look it up on the map."

"Oh, my God! Look!" She pointed her finger. There
They'd passed
it
Wherever you
it
was.
dozens of times on the Harbor Freeway.

lived in Los Angeles,
it
was
just
minutes away
by freeway.
With
this
awareness came panic. Despite the fences, their
The
210
little
worlds were in danger.
became
And
suddenly the white backlash
respectable.
During the day, dozens of people

avert further trouble. Social workers
mothers on their welfare

dren
home
at
like
had
Buggs had worked
to
tried to contact all the
asking them to keep their chil-
lists,
that night. Probation officers of the
Group Guid-
ance Program had beseeched gang leaders to use their influence
more
against
through the
It
Members
rioting.
streets,
was too
little,
of
CORE
and
SNCC
circulated
begging, cajoling, threatening.
too late.
By 6 P.M. more than 2,000 people were massed
at the
scene of
last night's arrest.
"Hey, kid!" a bored
"Throw
a rock!
TV
Throw
cameraman
yelled at one of the boys.
one! I haven't seen you do anything
yet!"
The youth
Within moments the air was alive with

new and far more deadly.
Many youths had spent the day filling bottles and beer cans
obliged.
missiles bricks, rocks, plus something
with gasoline.
A white-owned
scene was the
first
to
succumb
store only a block
to the
Molotov
from the
In the beginning they were selective. "Skip that
owns
it"
or
"Not
that one. He's fair."
As
arrest
cocktails.
store.
Blood
the evening progressed,
however, gangs came in from Willowbrook and Watts and, unfamiliar with the merchants, set those stores aflame, too.
ers hastily
put up signs reading "Blood brother"
of one Chinese, "I
am
colored."
Sometimes these helped. Some-
times they didn't. There was no logic.
employed Negroes
Own-
in the case
or,
They burned
as well as those that didn't.
Highway and Avalon Boulevard, hundreds
stores that
Along Imperial
of jobs
went up
in
flames.
Soon a
Smash
pattern,
in the
nothing
left
missing the previous evening, developed.
window
worth
of a store, loot
stealing,
it,
then,
throw in a Molotov
when
there was
cocktail. It
was
not just kids now. People of every age helped with the looting.
Liquor, cigarettes, groceries, clothing,
TV
sets,
furniture, even
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
211
washing machines anything and everything that could be
moved was
taken.
There were countless instances of heroismpolicemen who

lives, Negroes who the night before had remained in the cloistered seclusion of their homes but
faced impossible odds to save
who now came
out and risked injury or worse to rescue white
people from the mobs. Negro comedian Dick Gregory walked
through the most troubled area with a bullhorn, urging

take their
efforts,
was
women and
children
home
for safety's sake.
he was shot by a Negro sniper. As soon
treated,
as the
men
to
For his
wound
Gregory returned and resumed his work.
Later he recalled some of the crazy incongruities of the scene.
He had
seen one looter, running with a stolen couch, pause at a
trafficless
comer and wait
Again police
tactics
for the light to change.
appeared disorganized. There were
in the area, in addition to the
LAPD,
sheriff's
now
deputies from the
county, state highway patrolmen, representatives from the offices
and the Los Angeles district atand FBIbut there was no coordination between them.
of the state attorney general

torney,
Perpetuating an old feud,
Parker hadn't been on speaking
terms with the FBI for several years, while his relations with
the sheriff's office were definitely strained. Again, for the sec-
ond
straight night,
no one thought
to seal off the area,
cars drove in, more than a few filled with

saw more than they had bargained for.
Any
and
and again
curiosity seekers
who
time a large crowd formed, police charged in in force
tried to
break
it
up, using their
riot sticks freely,
often ar-
resting spectators as well as participants.
That night furnished graphic proof that there was police

Negro plainclothesmen, before given a chance
to identify themselves, were badly beaten up by white policemen.
By I A.M. rioting had spread three miles to the northeast, and
looting had started along 103rd Street in Watts.
brutality. Several
Not
until 2:30 did police declare the riot
The
day's toll included 18 cars overturned
under
control.
and burned and
The
212
76 buildings looted or destroyed by fire. Miraculously, although

injured, no one had yet been killed.
many were
At 6:45 A.M. on
Friday, Lieutenant Governor
son, substituting for
Greece, placed a
was
told,
"The
Governor Brown during
call to
Glenn Ander-
his vacation
in
the Los Angeles Police Department and
riot area is
contained.
We do not anticipate need
for the National Guard."
By 8 A.M. there were

Negro districts.
milling crowds on the streets in the
In other parts of Los Angeles the streets were crowded also.

But with whites, waiting for the pawnshops, sporting goods
stores, and gun shops to open. Frightened by the previous
night's threat, they were purchasing protection. Observed an
Inglewood merchant of the long line outside his shop, "They're
buying every kind of weapon guns, knives, bows and arrows,
even
slingshots!"
At 10 A.M. Mayor Yorty flew to San Francisco to fill a speaking engagement with the Commonwealth Club. As if anticipating that this might be considered an odd time for him to leave
his troubled city for a
have
to decide
whether
campaign
I
am
"I
going to disappoint an audience in
San Francisco, and maybe make

if
pitch, Yorty pontificated:
my
city look rather ridiculous
the rioting doesn't start again, and the mayor has disappointed
the crowd."
That day the
rioters didn't
mayor's plane was

ent spots.
face,
Though
wait for nightfall. Even before the
aloft, looting
was underway
much
like Yorty very
in a
dozen
differ-
concerned with saving
LAPD could no
At 10:50 a.m. Parker
Sacramento to make a formal
Chief Parker was forced to admit that the
longer control the situation by

called the governor's secretary in
itself.
request for troops.
The message was
relayed to Lieutenant Governor Anderson
ten minutes later. It puzzled him.
had been assured by the

that the National
LAPD
Only four hours earlier, he

had been contained,
that the riot
Guard wouldn't be needed.
All too conscious
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
that
he had
it
in his
to await further
power
2.13
to create
another Selma, he decided
developments.
It was
where buildings were
burning on both sides of that business district street. So complete was the ultimate destruction, it was dubbed "Charcoal
At
P.M. the temperature in Los Angeles reached 92.
even hotter along 103rd Street in Watts,
Alley."
By
daylight the scene acquired a carnival or
VJ Day
aspect.
People gregariously shared bottles or exchanged looted mer-
Teen gangs long mortal enemies roamed the streets

"The greatest thing you felt was the unity," said one
youth. There were no leaders. The mob seemed to act as one.
By early afternoon the "unofficial word" was passed around
LAPD substations. Police could use their guns on anyone apchandise.
together.
prehended in commission of a felony.

Shortly after 2 o'clock, an aide
Brown
in Greece to inform
return flight on the
first
him
The wraps were
managed
to reach
off.
Governor
of the situation. Scheduling a
available plane, the governor instructed
his office to tell Lieutenant
Governor Anderson
to call
out the
guard immediately.
Anderson, flying from Berkeley
rarily
out of contact, however;
it
to
Los Angeles, was tempo-
was not
until his plane landed
he received the governor's message. At 3:35 p.m. the

lieutenant governor called out the National Guard. Although
some preliminary arrangements had been made pending such a
that
many guardsmen were still at work, and would be until

There was the additional delay of outfitting them and
transporting them to the area. And some units had to be transported from Northern California.
"This is not a race riot," Mayor Yorty told the press on his
request,
five.
return from San Francisco, "because Negroes and Caucasians

alike
have been attacked."
Apparently Yorty was referring to some light-skinned Negroes stoned the previous night.
Shordy after 6 p.m., twenty-year-old Leon Posey, Jr., a Negro,

was sitting in a barbershop on 88th Street, waiting for a friend
who was having his hair cut, when he heard a commotion out-
T^^
214
^^ Days
side.
Stepping into the doorway, he looked out just as the police,
now
using guns, attempted to disperse a crowd by firing above
their heads.
A ricocheting
Leon Posey,
The
Jr.,
bullet
plowed into
his skull.
innocent bystander, was the
first to die.
second was twenty-six-year-old Ronald Ernest Ludlow, a
deputy
and father of two. Ludlow and his partner, who

had stopped a car, whose occupants were
alighting when the gun accidently fired, blasting Ludlow in the
sheriff
carried a shotgun,
He
was dead on arrival at the hospital. His favorite

spare-time activity had been working with underprivileged
stomach.
youths.
The third and fourth were looters.

The fifth, George Adams, together with two
companions, had
unknowingly driven into the midst of a gun batde. Though the
companions escaped, Adams was riddled with bullets. A Negro,
he had 15 children, four from his wife's previous marriage, 11
from
their
was
own.
Guard reached the area.

had encountered trouble en route. Several had become lost on the freeways; one, from Northern California, was
fated to wander over them until the next afternoon. Another
unit was halted at a toll bridge whose guard refused to let them
pass without paying the toll. No one had authority to pay it.
Even arrived at the scene, it was some time before they went
into action. Even though Parker had requested the guard 12
hours earlier, no one had considered where they were to be
stationed or how they were to be used. After some hurried consultations, guard officers decided to set up roadblocks and cordon
off the area. Units then began "sweep and clear" operations on
It
Many
each
As
II P.M. before the National
units
street.
if
mounted.
compensating for
A woman
lost
time,
the death
toll
rapidly
trapped in an apartment above a burning
building was the seventh.
Warren
Tilson, a fireman crushed
under a collapsed wall, the eighth. Andrew Houston, a Negro

shot by a nervous National Guardsman who saw him standing
in a doorway and thought him armed (he wasn't) was the
fourteenth.
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
2,15
Friday night there was isolated looting in Venice, suburban
Pasadena, and Pacoima the only spot of color in the 99 percent
white San Fernando Valley.
About 5:15 A.M., just as the sky was beginning to lighten,

police shot and killed Fentroy Morrison George, whom they saw
carrying furniture out of a burning building. George, it was
later learned,
was not a
looter.
move from an apartment
He had
been helping a family

He was
located above a gutted store.
the seventeenth and last that night.
At Berkeley they sang "We Shall Overcome."

the road from Delano to Sacramento they sang "Nosotros
On
Venceremos."
There was no singing in Watts. Only the sounds of breaking

burglar alarms, and the chants "Get Whitey!"
and "Burn, baby, bum!"
glass, fire sirens,
By dawn Saturday
looter
who had
it
had
and at 9:45 a.m. a

gun became the eighteenth.
they were put to work manning
started again,
refused to drop his
As more guardsmen
arrived,
roadblocks, providing cover for firemen or guarding stores. For
many, who had never been in a Negro area before, it was an

education. Holding up a maggoty piece of meat in a supermarket, one young guardsman asked, "Lieutenant, you mean
people eat this stuff?"
That afternoon Lieutenant Governor Anderson imposed an

8 p.M.-to-dawn curfew on a 50-square-mile area of the city;
Mayor Yorty
inspected Watts by helicopter his
first visit
to the
area since his election, and one he wouldn't bother to repeat for
another year; and Governor
how he viewed
gun
sales in the
Brown
arrived in
New
York. Asked
the spectacle of the people arming themselves
L.A. area were up 800 percent Brown replied
he adjudged it "a very dangerous thing to do." Chief Parker,

in Los Angeles, felt differently. "It is their right if they want to
arm themselves. After all, the looters have guns."
that
That evening Joe Pyne had as guest on his TV discussion

program a militant Negro. Pyne was another Southern Cali-
The
2i6
An
fomia phenomenon.
made
it
night radio and

attack.
ex-used-car salesman
who had
never
he had become an oversensation in L.A. His technique was simple
in anything tried elsewhere,
When
every effort to
TV
he wasn't insulting
his guests,
he was exerting
make them appear
ridiculous.
The
bigger the
name, the more Pyne and his audience enjoyed seeing him
brought down. There hadn't been anything like it since the
Christians and the lions. Listing
somewhat pudgily toward the
were Commies (real or

and the civil rights movement. While interviewing the Negro and commenting on the riots, Pyne pulled
open his coat and revealed a Beretta, "in case they start coming."
(Although there was talk of suspending Pyne, he was syndicated nationally instead another gift from the Golden State.)
right, the ex-Marine's favorite targets
suspected), the
With
began
UN
the imposition of the curfew, the area for the
to revert to order.
However,
the Civic Center and west toward the integrated

ness district.
dawn
The
death
toll
first
rioting spread north
time
toward
Crenshaw
busi-
continued to mount, just before
reaching twenty-nine.
man, opposed to violence. An Italian immigrant, tile setter by trade, he wanted people to know how he
felt about his adopted country, which he loved devotedly and
wholeheartedly; so on his several acres in the heart of Watts,
Simon Rodia undertook to build a monument to the United
States and to peace.
It assumed the form of a cluster of tall towers, constructed of
heavy pipe, coated with cement, into which Rodia pressed bits
and pieces of anything that caught his fancycolored glass, mir-
He
was a shy
little
rors, seashells.
Work was begun
in 1921.
He
when
The Los Angeles
labored alone until 1954,
the last of the graceful spires was completed.
Department of Building and Safety promptly ordered them

destroyed. A citizens' group, including prominent American
architects and artists, protested that the Watts Towers were
Varum called them "a monument

some day may rank with the greatest
great folk art Ârchitectural

to a
man whom
historians
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
American
artists
2,17
of the century").
No
matter, the officials were
obdurate; the towers were unsafe; Rodia had never obtained a

construction permit; they
would have
to
come down. As
desperate last measure, the committee proposed a
could
test. If it
be proven the towers were structurally sound, could they remain? The city relented. Chains were wrapped around the
tallest
tower and 5,000 pounds of pull exerted. Nothing hap-
pened. 8,000. Nothing. 10,000.
It
hadn't budged an inch.
crowd cheered. The towers had won

Less than a stone's throw away,
flames. But throughout the
inviolate.
They were
The
their right to endure.
a liquor store
went up
in
the towers themselves remained
riot,
the one part of Watts in which
its resi-
dents could take pride.
knowm for one thing, its monument

became a synonym for violence.
name
its
to
Simon Rodia was spared this knowledge. Only a month
For years Watts had been
peace. Overnight
earlier,
he had
died, almost forgotten, in a
Martinez nursing
home.
It
was
still
Sundaypeaking at 89but there was the

Though it cooled tempers somewhat, it
the firemen, who had to fight some 200 new
hot
beginning of a breeze.
was no help
to
blazes.
Violence was sporadic. Having arrived in the city late the

previous night. Governor
driven out by sniper
Brown now toured
the area, until
fire.
The governor was obviously shocked by what he saw. Like

many other Califomians, he had believed it couldn't happen
here.
That evening Chief Parker appeared on

with typical tact he proclaimed,
on the
"Now
television,
where
we're on top and they're
bottom.'^
Many
Negroes
felt that this
represented no change.
Parker was premature; in addition to continued incidents

within the curfew area, there were isolated flare-ups
all
over
Southern California that night. In San Diego there was a rockthrowing episode in which 72 Negroes were arrested. In San
The
21
Bernardino, 60 miles east of Los Angeles,
window
and
fire
bombings and
smashings. Molotov cocktails were hurled in Pasadena
San Fernando Valley, two blocks were

At Long Beach, Richard Raymond Lefebre became the
second law officer to die, and from the same cause as the first, an
accidental shotgun blast. He was the thirtieth.
Bakersfield. In the
set afire.
In each of these areas, however, police profited from mistakes
made by
LAPD; by
the
cordoning
off trouble spots
they quickly
brought the rioting under control.

Violence continued through the night.
At a roadblock
at
Avalon and 51st
Street,
Nita Love, a
seven-year-old Negro, panicked
on seeing guns, hit her

instead of her brake. She became the thirty-first.
ator
Shortly after
this, police fired into
sixty-
acceler-
a house they thought they
had seen a sniper enter. They were mistaken; no gun was found.
Negro Aubrey Griffin was the thirty-second.
The thirty-third was Joseph Maiman, a milkman. Maiman
was starting his round shortly after 4 a.m. when ordered by a
guardsman to halt. Failing to do so, he was shot down in a burst
of .30-caliber machine gun fire. Maiman, hard of hearing, apparently hadn't heard the order.
Monday
On
Brown announced, "The RiotTuesday the curfew was lifted.

the first National Guard units be-
afternoon Governor
ing and looting has ended."
Wednesday, August
gan pulling
18,
On
out.
That day there were reports of sniper fire from a Black

Muslim mosque. It was prompdy raided by a force from the
LAPD, who
through
its
several hundred rounds of ammunition

and windows, only to discover no weapons
shot
doors
inside.
That same day Dr. Martin Luther King flew

scene of the
was not
riots.
alone.
soundly jeered.
Avalon
It
Mayor Yorty
in to tour the
strongly opposed the
visit.
He
When
King walked the streets of Watts he was

"Martin Luther King ain't my leader!" a man on
yelled.
was a sample
of things to come.
The
civil rights
movement
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
in the
2,19
United States had changed
violence giving
way
to a
new
direction, the era of non-
mihtancy.
That night an eighteen-year-old

fourth and last to die.
looter
became the
thirty-
In addition to 34 knowm dead, there were 1,032 reported

many more, it can be presumed, probably went un-
injuries (as
and 600 buildings damaged or destroyed, with

damage estimated at $40 million (in many cases a total
loss, since a number of insurance companies invoked their "insurrection clause" and refused to honor claims).
The greatest damage was not measurable in statistics.
reported)
property
rumor spread
that police planned to conduct a house-to-
house search for stolen merchandise. Washing machines, TV's,

beds,
and tons of other items suddenly appeared on curbstones

area. Of course no one put the merchandise
through the Negro

in front of his
moved
it
own
house; as quickly as
it
appeared, residents
elsewhere.
Later, goods unclaimed
by merchants were sold
at auction.
Proceeds went to the policemen's benefit fund.
In the aftermath came the accusations and explanations.
Governor Brown appointed a fact-finding commission to inand make recommendations. It
vestigate the causes of the riot
was headed by John A. McCone, former chairman of the

Atomic Energy Commission and chief of the CIA.
No one waited for the verdict of the commission, however.
American Opinion charged that the Communists had "definitely instituted the violence."
Mayor Yorty was inclined to agree, when he wasn't blaming

Governor Brown or the state highway patrol. Of the latter,
Yorty charged that in their handling of the
initial arrests
"the
bad judgment, which could be the result of

inadequate training." This was interesting, inasmuch as the
patrol officers used
patrol received appreciably
than die
LAPD.
more
riot
and race
relations training
The
220
Chief Parker blamed the highway patrol and the
civil rights
groups.
Some Negro
leaders
wondered why the police responsible

non-Caucasian deaths had relied
for all but three of the 31
on guns, without resorting to such conventional riotequipment as tear and nausea gases and fire hoses.
Most Republicans and more than a few Democrats blamed
Governor Brown.
When in December the McCone Commission Report finally
appeared, it blamed no one, although it did mildly chastise
Lieutenant Governor Anderson, who it said had "hesitated when
he should have acted."
There was no criticism of Mayor Yorty for his handling of
solely
control
the poverty funds, nor of the
LAPD
for
its
failure to cordon off
the area. In the closest thing to actual rebuke of Chief Parker,
recommended that the police department inmore intensive human relations training programs, new
youth programs, and periodic forums and workshops in which
the police and residents of minority areas could communicate.
"Such programs are a basic responsibility of the police department," the report noted. "They serve to prevent crime, and in
the commission
stitute
the opinion of this commission, crime prevention

bility of the
is
pohce department, equal in importance
a responsito
law en-
forcement."
Chief Parker ignored the suggestions.
At the height
of the rioting, according to the commission,
there were perhaps 10,000 Negroes involved, or less than 2 per-
cent of the Negro population of the area.
As
for solutions, the report cited the
obviousbut no
less
valid need for employment, better housing and better education.
One year after the riot, few of the report's recommendations

had been implemented. Conditions in Watts and other black
ghettos remained largely unchanged.
There were a few improvements.

Working closely with business and industry, a Los Angeles
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
Chamber
of
Commerce
2,21
work
for
more than 5,000
ously unemployed. However, this did not even keep
number
new
Mc-
group, headed by H. C. "Chad"
Clellan, succeeded in finding
previ-
up with
the
had been written and broadcast about conditions in south-central Los Angeles, another
2,000 Negroes moved into the area each month. Watts might
bum but the California mystique was indestructible.
A signal improvement instituted by Governor Brown was the
of
establishment
For
arrivals.
of
one-stop
that
all
service
Here
centers
in
minority
areas
one convenient location were

housed health, employment, welfare and other social service
throughout the
state.
offices of the city,
Some
county,
in
and federal governments.
state,
antipoverty funds did eventually
make
their
way
into
the ghetto areas.
And
such
number
of
community
action projects
were launched,
the Westminister youth training program and
as
Budd
Schulberg's Watts Writers Workshop.
was still no hospital, no day nursery, no

recreational center, no motion picture theater, no adequate
transportation, and no real improvement in living conditions.
But a year
As
later there
for the committee's
recommendations on aiding the Negro
consumer, Robert Conot observed: "One of the

tically
in
first,
and prac-
the only, burned-out business to reopen on 103d Street
Watts was a pawnshop."

crime rate remained high,
The
as did the
dropout rate and
the birth rate. (Apparently considering the issue too touchy,

the
McCone Commission had
said nothing about the
need
for
birth control information.)
The
despair continued, as did the apathy, the hopelessness
and the hostility.
The recommendations
received
little
for
improved educational
facilities
popular support, in part because of fear of in-
creased taxes, in part because of a growing attitudewhy reward
the rioters?
Many
felt
enough, so
Others
that whatever
why
was done obviously wouldn't be
bother?
felt too
much had been done
already.
The
222
As columnist George Crocker put

give against the hypothesis that
and snipers
looters, arsonists
it,
"What odds
will
you
they could take the marauders,
if
of Watts, install
them
in a posh
and give each a job, within five years

most of them would have ceased to work, would be lappers at
the public trough, and the area transformed into a slum and
ghetto, in which a lady would tremble to walk alone?"
Crocker's was an extreme view. Yet, slightly diluted, it was
shared by a great many people.
section of Los Angeles
Others would point out
putting
that,
all
human
considera-
tions aside, the people of California could not afiFord not to clean
up
their ghettos; that
than
to
send him
it
cost
more
to college; that
to
it
maintain a youth in prison
was
possible to waste people
had to be
But these voices were few and far
as well as other resources; that the blight in the cities
eradicated before
it
spread.
between.
If nearly
everyone involved in the Los Angeles
something of a
villain, at least
one
image of a hero. In the eyes of

Parker was the
sible,"
man who
riots
emerged
man came through wdth the

many of its residents, Chief
saved Los Angeles.
"It's
most plau-
remarked Otis Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles
Times, "that Chief Parker

Angeles.
security."
He
is
And Mayor
single week,
he
is
the most powerful
man
in Los
the white community's savior, their symbol of
Yorty basked in the reflected glory. In a
told the press,
he had received 12,000
supporting his defense of Chief Parker and the
letters
LAPD.
In July, 1966, while attending a testimonial dinner, Chief

Parker collapsed and died of a heart attack. "God
dead,"
Mayor Yorty
said,
may
not be
"but his finest representative on earth
has passed away."
Chief Parker was replaced by a

limited view of the functions
of
man who
did not share his
the police department.
gradual but obvious improvement of relations between the police
and the Negro community manifested itself.

It was one of the few positive changes. Youths wore sweat
shirts emblazoned "Participant First Annual Los Angeles Riot."
Yet, for those in the rest of the country, what had happened
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
223
was little more than a momentary flicker on their TV screens, a

few days of black headlines, some easily skipped columns of
newsprint.
After
known
all, it
had happened in
California, the state
Watts could
militancy a
easily
which was
need not happen elsewhere.
as "the great exception." It
be an isolated
flare-up,
its
sudden black
temporary departure from the steady, plodding
progress of the nonviolence
movement.
Those consoling themselves with such thoughts were not
left
long to their daydreams.
The McCone Commission had tided its report "Violence in

the City An End or a Beginning?"
By summer of 1966 the answer had been heard from a dozen
cities across
the United States.
Again California had taken the
lead, setting the pattern for
the rest of the nation.
They came from
almost every place, but the majority were up-
rooted Bible Belters, restless, uncomfortable, lonely, in search of

their
own
kind. Often they tried several locales seeking the
benefits of California
life,
plus the certainties of their condi-
tioningbefore finding Orange County. But once found,
home. Not exactly the home they had
left,
their kind arriving every day,
to
it
began
it
was
but with more of
approximate
it.
And
underneath there was a basic sameness with which they could

identify.
There were fundamentalist churches
offering such inspiring
guest speakers as Billy Hargis, General

until his
more.
The
statistics
Edwin Walker and,
most untimely demise, the Reverend Dallas Roquereverend had obtained, from spies in the Kremlin,
proving that the Communists were attempting to cor-
ner the world horse market, preparatory

against the
West
to
a Cossack attack
Coast. Unfortunately Reverend
Roquemore
"^^ ^^* Days
224
had been
fatally shot
while testing the alertness of a Minuteman
recruit.
Here they refound their lost

and a wrong; there were
right
certainties.
Each
absolutes; there
swers even to the most complicated problems.
issue did
have a
were simple an-
They knew
this
them so.
was true because the Santa Ana
Here there was no Negro problem. Orange County was not
lily white. Over the years 12,000 Negroes had somehow manRegister told
aged
but in view of the
to slip in,
fact that the total
population exceeded 1,500,000, blanched
county
faces clearly predomi-
NAACP chapter had long ago gone inactive.

was something lacking in much of the rest of
Southern California; not simply a sense of community purpose,
nated.
One
Here
lonely
also
something
greater an
far
awe-inspiring
national
patriotism.
Here even the liquor stores were draped with American flags.
Here was the forefront of the fight, whatever aspect it might
take. Back home, in Iowa, Arkansas, Kansas, it had been hard to
believe in the reality of the Communist menace. Though they
would never admit it, they could find no good reason why the
Communists would desire their states. They could easily picture
them coveting California, from the few remaining orange groves
to their
own
parcels of land.
Here the big
battles
were being fought against revised
ver-
on school library
shelves. The people of Garden Grove cared enough about the
future of their country to pass an ordinance prohibiting the sale
of UNICEF Christmas cards. At PTA and school board meet-
sions of the Bible, fluoridation, dirty books
women had the courage to

how Democrats were building barbed-wire
ings in a dozen communities,
stand
up and
stock-
reveal
all conservatives (never dreaming

Watts were disseminating the same
major variation: conservatives were building the
ades in Alaska to imprison

that black-faced people in
rumor, with a
stockades for Negroes).
Here they found

spirited citizens
leaders
such
as
who
Walter Knott and Raymond Hoiles; no-
nonsense representatives such
("Government
is
truly represented them. Public-
as
U.S. Congressman James Utt
like a child molester
who
offers
candy before
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
his evil act");
and State Senator John Schmitz, the only ad-
mitted Birch Society
canism
2*5
member
in the California senate ("Ameri-
not trusting your leaders").
is
Most important, here they could helong. Even participate.

Some joined the John Birch Society. There were an estimated
3,000 active members in Orange County, or about one-fifth of
the Golden State's total membership. But even more sympa-
And there were other ways to help.

woman could become a revivalist, preach-
thized without joining.
Here any man
or
ing the gospel of Americanism without even leaving home.
And
required only a telephone.
patience.
hours for just one minute on the
chance
where
But
it
in the nation
had the radio
was worth
stations in the
clock.
Some
No-
shows received such a
Los Angeles Basin, they lasted round the
called in to grasp their
me on
the
it:
Southern California. Broadcast by a
frenetic reception as in
dozen
talk
It
could wait three
influence thousands, even millions of people.
to
you hear
air.
One
one chance
fame ("Did
to
radio last night?"). Others were lonely voices,
to communicate with someone, anyone.

"The people from Orange County are different," one Los
Angeles talk-show host commented. "I can recognize them every
time. Their minds are already made up. Nothing that is said
desperately
will
anxious
change them.
someone
is
going
And
they have an accent;
away what
to take
acquire. For a while,
when
der what their lives were

frightened
calling
me
too
much.
like.
it's
fear, fear that
they've
started this job, I
But
managed to
to won-
used
soon stopped that;
it
got the crazy feeling that they were
from some other world."
Often they registered

for the
I first
little
as
Democrats so
as to vote in primaries
most conservative Democrats on the
liberals in
Orange County often
ballot.
And
the
few
registered as Republicans, with
the inverse logic that they could shift Republican choice to the
moderates.
The
liberals
were naive; sheer weight of numbers
precluded their success.
This frenzied emotional climate was not unique
County, of course.
abundance of
To
to
Orange
the south, in San Diego County, with
its
retired servicemen, paramilitary groups flourished.
The
226
And
to the north, in
Valley
man who,
Los Angeles County, there was the Sun
after
Watts, decided to solve the Negro prob-
lem in the United States by himself. His scheme was simple. It

was an established fact that Negroes, being shiftless and lazy,
were always looking for handouts. Well, he would accommodate
them and, in the process, take them off the welfare lists for good.
First he purchased mass mailing lists with thousands of Negro
names and addresses. Using the letterhead of a bogus company,
he prepared for each Negro on the hst a mailing of foodstuflFs,
accompanied by an explanatory note that they were sample
products from a firm newly entering the market.
second mail-
ing was to follow containing food laced with deadly poison. But
he was so proud of his scheme he couldn't resist bragging about

it, and postal inspectors arrested him before either shipment was
made. The magnitude of his potential crime notwithstanding,
he had not committed murder, not yet, so after being judged
legally sane, he was sentenced to one year in prison and fined
$500.
But he was an
extremist.
fearing, 100 percent
They
American
weren't.
They were God-
And
in the election of
patriots.
1966 they had a candidate they could support. Contrary to

public opinion, their backing was not altogether wholehearted.
There was the matter of Ronald Wilson Reagan's onetime
and that suspicious middle name. Most of them

would have preferred voting for Marion Michael Morrison. But
liberalism,
since Morrison, alias John
Wayne, wasn't running, they
settled
for second best.
Like Watts, Orange County was not typical of Southern
But then it was not the median or the average that

Golden State apart from the rest of the nation. Hollywood, the RAND Corporation at Santa Monica (which plotted
the U SAP's military future, and hence, quite possibly, the future of the world), the Center for the Study of Democratic
California.
set the
Institutions at Santa Barbara (where the alternatives to peace

were sometimes discussed), the provocative paintings of James
Strombotne, the bizarre assemblages of Edward Kienholz none
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
227
of these was representative. In Southern
Cahfomia
it
was the
it
was the
extremes, good and bad, which were important.
Orange County was quite
atypical.
For one thing,
fastest-growing county in the United States its population hav-
ing doubled three times in two decades and as such was viewed
by some commentators on the American scene as possibly indicative of the future of the United States.
It
was a sobering thought.
Located south of Los Angeles and north of San Diego,
Orange was Southern
among
the most varied. Included within
slums so ugly as to
in
its
California's smallest county. It
life;
also
boundaries were
scenery awesome
where Walt Disney brought
rival all others in the state;
magnificence; Anaheim,
fantasy to
its
was
Orange,
home
of the world-renowned Lionettes,
mountains (the
tallest man-made,
Matterhom in Disneyland); Mission San Juan Capistrano,
from which the swallows departed on St. John's Day (October
23) to return on St. Joseph's Day (March 19) with an unchang-
ladies' softball
team;
oil wells;
the
ing regularity that contrasted sharply with the rest of Southern

California life; a few surviving groves of the
which the county derived its name; Slaughter
Coast Highway which, in a

fatalities,
had managed
dustries, including
tion's
Autonetics
own
Aircraft
Division;
from
Alley, a strip of
state that led all others in traffic
to set its
Hughes
citrus trees
records;
some 1,200
in-
and North American Avia-
Cypress
and
Dairyland,
towns
incorporated for a single purpose: to protect the rights of their
most important citizens cows; and more than a half dozen

singularly beautiful beaches,
each with
its
own
personality:
Corona del Mar, for the beachniks;

Huntington, where surfers came to await the big waves and
where on certain summer nights millions of grunions wiggled
up on the sand to spawn; and Laguna, second only to Carmel as
an artists' colony. (Laguna Beach was not without distinctive
Newport,
firsts.
for the affluent;
In early 1966 the issue of homosexuality
made
the local
one candidate for the city council, Mrs. Muri Ottmer,

campaigning solely on the platform of turning back the "rising
ballot,
tide of homosexuality."
Mrs. Ottmer, a Bircher and administra-
The
228
tive assistant to State Senator Schmitz,
had a
point. It
was a
long-standing local joke probably apocryphal, but, then again,
maybe not that a
asked why, had replied, "Because

poll, in reply to
had once substiand when his teacher
reciting grade school student
tuted "Jack and Bill" for "Jack and
Jill,"
in Laguna."
it's
And
the usually noncontroversial question
in a 1958
"What
is
your sex?" 37 percent had answered "male," 56 percent "female," 6 percent "both male and female," and with the typical
independence of California
voters,
However, Laguna Beach
state."
percent had "declined to
voters decided they liked their
homosexuals better than Mrs. Ottmer and voted against giving

her a council seat.)
Orange was a county of infinite variety.

Walter Knott and Raymond Hoiles, too.
It
had
all this,
and
men who operated rides in Disneyland,

Walter Knott and Raymond Hoiles were the most influential
personages in Orange County. The surprising thing about them
Excepting only the
was that neither was a conservative.

Walter Knott preferred to think
tive."
that
major contributor
some
rightist
of himself as a "construc-
to right-wing causes (it
was rumored
groups had been organized for no other pur-
pose than to exact a donation from generous, kindly Walter
Knott) as well as a member of Ronald Reagan's Southern

California Finance Committee, the seventy-six-year-old founder
famed Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park was something of a

Although inexplicably unlisted in either Who's
Who in America or Who's Who in the West, Knott was of the
stature to warrant a full biography, aptly titled Walter Knott:
Twentieth Century Pioneer, his being a great American success
of
living legend.
story in the Horatio Alger tradition.
Son
of a Texas fundamentalist preacher-farmer, Knott
had
entered business with a roadside berry stand; branched into

sales of his wife's berry pies, jellies
and jams;
restaurant to market her chicken dinners.
later
From
opened a
these modest
beginnings he had built a large complex of restaurants which,

together with his accurate reconstruction of a Western ghost
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
town, had
made
attraction.
His
229
Farm
Knott's Berry
world-renowned
tourist
i,6oo busy employees served over 2 million
dinners each year.

It
was
to these employees,
his family," that
he
first
whom
he considered "members of
confided his fears in a series of periodic
Over the years he had observed America's freedoms

eroding one by one as government grew bigger. There was, for
example, the matter of the income tax. Like Reagan, Knott was
disturbed by it, but for practical reasons. As he vvrrote his
employees: "Every morning when we come to work we have to
newsletters.
earn three thousand dollars for the government in taxes.
hundred and
this three
sixty-five
days a year.
takes sixty-eight percent of our earnings in taxes. If
half that
much we would grow
Knott's chatty, paternal
who
employers,
look.
To make
number
more
Knott built on
restaurants,
these
where he assembled
his
it
do
took only
faster."
comments caught the fancy
of other
reprint them. Knott oblig-
asked permission to
ingly published a
We
The government
of pamphlets
expounding
his out-
readily available to patrons of his

his Berry
Farm
Freedom Center,
pamphlets and other collected writings,
Welch and inspiring messages

Commie Line." (Although Knott
such as the speeches of Robert
Songs Push the
like "Folk
had participated
not a
member
respect for
its
in secret seminars
conducted by Welch, he was
John Birch Society. He had nothing but

members, however, whom he called "fine and
of the
What's more," he added, "they borrow lots of

Freedom Center.") His repository of patri-
able people.
material from our

otic writings
expanded
so
Knott's time that he found
head the
rapidly
it
and required
so
much
of
necessary to employ someone to
center.
His choice for the post was
fateful.
Dr. William E. Fort,
Jr.,
a onetime college president, not only shared Walter Knott's
views but soon convinced Knott that he had a God-given mission

to
expand
his crusade nationwide. Dr. Fort assembled a staff.
To
the accelerated publishing program he added tape recordings
and motion
pictures
on Americanism.
He
also organized study
The
230
groups
all
over the countr}', set
up
a speaker's bureau,
taught the basically shy, extremely humble Knott
and even
how
to
make
public speeches so adeptly that the superpatriot t}'coon was
soon in great
However,
as
government.
life,
demand on
the rightist lecture circuit.
Walter Knott often noted, you cannot escape the
Its tentacles
usurping man's
reach into every corner of American
1962 bureaucracy reared
In
liberties.
its
head in the form of the Internal Revenue Service, questioning

Knott's deduction of
Freedom Center expenses
as part of his
employee education program. Though he fought valiandy, he
was required
to
pay some $60,000 in back
taxes.
To
forestall
future misunderstandings, Knott donated his Freedom Center

to the
American Educational League,
foundation dedicated
to
combating
American youth. In
sion of
this
a Los Angeles nonprofit
Communism and
way
its
his contributions
subver-
became
legally deductible.
dedicated
less
man might have
stopped there, secure in the
assurance he had done his part. But not Walter Knott.
continued
to contribute
He
generously to other worthwhile causes,
such as Billy James Hargis' Christian Crusade, the Liberty
Amendment Committee, and the American Committee to Free

Cuba, Inc. And in addition to the Freedom Center and Ghost
Town (where visitors could see for themselves how simple and
beautiful
life
was before government began "chipping away
at
the American idea of freedom"), in 1965 he fulfilled a lifelong
dream, erecting on his Berry Farm a replica of Independence

Hall, exact to the most minute detail and complete with electronic reenactment of the signing of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence. As his biographer,
put
it,
he
original
built "an edifice
cradle of
way
that
it
up
liberty."
this
outlast
monument
off against
him
to capitalize
Of such was Walter
enthusiastically
by centuries the
Nygaard
could be charged
conscience will not permit
resident of
which should
American
"Possibly he could set
Norman Nygaard,
also
observed,
to liberty in
such a
advertising but his
on patriotism."
Knott, patriot, twentieth-century pioneer,
Orange County.
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
231
Raymond Cyrus Hoiles did not consider himself a conservative either. The eighty-seven-year-old publisher of the Santa
Ana Register and 14 other papers in the Freedom Newspapers
chain called himself "a radical for freedom."
For those
who
missed the old Los Angeles Times, the Regis-
compensated, and then some.
ter
Compared
to
Mr. Hoiles, Walter Knott was
Hoiles was against
Mr.
a liberal.
the things militant rightists were usually
all
against income taxes ("just plain stealing"), the United Na-
and the minimum wage. But

Hoiles was more imaginative than most conservatives; he believed in carrying his philosophy, which he called "voluntions,
Social Security, welfare,
taryism," to
logical extreme.
its
He
supported institutions, such as post
("A house
against compulsory education
untary, a grade school
pick and shovel and
is
let
not only opposed
and
offices
of prostitution
appendix
if
he so
is
not"); child labor laws ("Give
him
tax-
vol-
him
get started"); state medical boards
("Every individual has a right to hire a blacksmith

his
all
he was
parks,
and the
desires,
to
cut out
should not inter-
state
fere"); and, pursuing his convictions yet further, to the horror
of most of his fellows
on the
right,
he
also
supporting police via taxes, and outlawing
There was
politics.
And
a consistency to
the
Santa
Ana
Mr.
opposed the
Hoiles'
Register,
the
thinking rare in
major paper in
Orange County, reflected it.

"Every now and then, I get a queer, ghostly
marked a reader of one of the Freedom papers.
seems that Hoiles
is
arguing not with
draft,
Communism.
me
feeling," re"It
but with
suddenly
my
great-
grandparents."
Raymond
Hoiles and Walter Knottthe future direction of
America?
During the sixties, a wind of change could be felt in Orange

It was not as strong as in Santa Ana in reality it was
litde more than a gentle breezebut it was a foreshadowing
County.
of storms to come.
The
232
There was nothing
about the Irvine ranch either.
typical
Located 50 miles south of Los Angeles, it rambled across the

center of Orange County from the Santa Ana Mountains to the
ocean between Newport and Laguna, a vast 93,000
times the size of Manhattan.
urban
and
tract in the nation,
it
setdement, in the conviction

titled it to
Burt,
was the
largest
for years subdividers
its
acres, six
undeveloped
But the owners of the ranch had resisted

intact, as it had been since the days
covetously.
holding
It
had eyed
it
their offers,
Spanish
of
long and colorful history en-
something better than slurbanization. Joan Irvine
young
heiress to the property, especially felt this. In the
early 1960's, fearing the land
might be chopped into
pieces, she fought a three-year battle
board of directors for the right
To
development.
to
with the Irvine
and
bits
Company
adopt a master plan for
and
her, the ranch offered "an unparalleled
golden opportunity" to create a model
city.
Winning her
its
fight,
she engaged architect William Pereira to develop and supervise

the plan.
As
first
step,
,000 acres were deeded to the state for
an Irvine campus of the University of California. Around
this
center, the imaginative plan called for homes, hotels, shopping

centers, businesses
and limited
industries for a city with a future
population of 300,000. Every detail was considered in advance
from the architecture of the buildings
to
ample parks and open
spaces merging into a green-belt system to connect the city with
the surrounding countryside. Beach and mountain areas were

available for recreation.
mained
Miraculously, some 20,000 acres
re-
in orange groves.
was one of the few totally planned communities in the

United States. In providing a solution to the specters of slurbs
It
and congested
cities, it
suggested another possible aspect of the
country's future direction.
Needless to say, Orange County conservatives opposed

the
start.
large
from
Universities are notoriously free-thinking places.
community
attract
it
built
around a university could not help but
young, educated, progressive people the kind most apt
to question the status quo.
From
the
moment
the university
first
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
convened for
^33
classes in the fall of 1965, attacks against
it
were
near-continuous.
At the time of the 1966 election, any threat to the Orange

County Establishment was more potential than real. But Knott
was seventy-six, Hoiles eighty-seven, and other members of the
Orange County hierarchy getting on in years.
The
conservatives were farsighted.
had been planted.

remained with
us,
The
seeds of revolution
was not inconceivable that had California

in time change might have come even to
It
Orange County.
Not
all
Southern California extremists were Republicans.
Democrats had
theirs, too. First
the almost legendary Dick Tuck,
The
and foremost among them was

who constandy committed the
unpardonable sin of finding humor in
politics.
Dick Tuck specialized in bedeviling Republicans.

Tuck's most publicized feat was to put a pretty female spy
aboard the Goldwater train during the 1964 Presidential cam-
Each morning, waking reporters found under their compartment doors a mimeographed newssheet, Whistlestop. A
typical issue reported the panic occasioned the previous day by
paign.
a vicious rumor, one happily proven
false.
Sanctimoniously the
paper announced, "Fluoride has not been added
to the
water on
Other items kidded the candidate's every pronouncement. When Republicans finally apprehended the culprit and tossed her off the train, Tuck flew on ahead in a
this
train."
chartered plane, meeting the train in each town, imperturbably

distributing the latest edition of Whistlestop.
Hoppe of the San

Francisco Chronicle, considered this a lesser Tuck feat. Although every reporter had his own favorite Tuck story, it was
True connoisseurs
of Tuckiana, such as Art
generally agreed that the puckish bedeviler
was
at his best pitted
against the perennial candidate, Richard Nixon.
The morning
after the first televised
Nixon-Kennedy debate,
234
T'/ie
Nixon flew
into
Memphis
Airport.
Dick Tuck was waiting.
Democratic matron had been pinned with a Nixon button and

given careful instructions. As Nixon ahghted from the plane,
she embraced the candidate and, with a consoling pat on the
"Kennedy got the
back, purred loudly,
best of
it last
night.
But
don't worry, son. You'll do better next time."
According
Nixon was
to reporters,
"visibly shaken."
In 1962, while running for Governor of California against
Pat Brown, Nixon appeared at a
One
town.
better. Translated
When
Obispo,
Los Angeles' China-
of the spectators held aloft a large sign with Chinese
was a greeting. The Chinese knew

"What about the Hughes loan?"
Nixon assumed
lettering.
rally in
it
it
read:
Nixon campaign
the
Tuck was
standing alongside the track.
he signaled the crew

the candidate began his speech.
engineer's cap,
At Republican
radio announcer,
rallies
to
move
to
obtain advance copies of the speeches.
often while the speakers were
still
ridiculously
Although
he
low
"official
especially
to the audience,
on the platform.
other occasions he put on a
newsmen
the train just as
he carried a microphone, posing as a
Democratic rebuttals would then be delivered
On
San Luis
Donning an
pulled into
train
marshal's hat
fire
crowd
enjoyed
and gave
estimates."
Republicans,
pestering
Tuck's humor was on occasion nonpartisan. There was the time

he was aboard the same plane as Governor Brown and the wings
began shimmying.
The
miles from any airport.

aisle,
governor was visibly nervous; they were
Tuck donned
a parachute,
tapped Brown on the shoulder and
said,
walked up the
"Don't worry.
Governor, I'm going for help."
In 1966 Tuck, to the dismay of his followers, moved out of

the wings onto the stage, announcing his candidacy for the state
senate from Los Angeles' Twenty-seventh District.
Richard Nixon, hearing of Tuck's decision, displayed a rare

flash of
humor, wiring Tuck that he and his wife Pat would
return to California as soon as possible to campaign in his

behalf.
The Twenty-seventh was
heavily Democratic.
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
^35
Tuck challenged Nixon to a nationwide television

"And to make it even," he added, "I won't shave."
Hoppe traveled south to attend the official opening of Tuck's
In reply,
debate.
campaign in Forest Lawn.

locations,
considering that
When
all
he questioned the choice of

residents of the area were de-
Tuck, ever conscious of the minority vote, snorted indignantly, "Just because a man is dead doesn't mean he loses his
ceased.
civil rights!"
He then announced his campaign slogan: "We need to be

reminded of the absurdity of pomposity, the honesty of delight,
and, above
all,
of the all-importance of living."
On his return to San Francisco, Hoppe, assuming that Southem Califomians never read northern California newspapers,
revealed some of Tuck's secret campaign strategy.
One problem
every candidate faced was "sniping" the mutilation of his
boards and signs by his opponents.
Tuck
avoided
this
bill-
by doing
There were two words on his signs: on the top line,

"Tuck"; on the bottom line, "Tuck." The night after the signs
were posted. Tuck traveled around with a grease pencil, adding
a crossbar to one of the letters of the word on the first line. It
was Tuck's logic that voters would see the signs and think,
"What a dirty thing for that nice Mr. Tuck's opponents to do!"
As the campaign entered its final weeks, one of Tuck's aides
suggested that perhaps he should get to know his district by
it
himself.
going out on the
streets
candidate agreed, "but
Hoppe
and meeting people.
might get
running far behind. But he refused
he
told
Hoppe
optimistically,
was obvious Tuck was
it
to
be discouraged. "Just
"until
the Forest
vote comes in."
lo.
Not
all
would," the
again went south on the day of the primary. That
night, as the votes slowly trickled in,
wait,"
"I
lost."
of California's extremes
Religion provided
its
share.
were in
politics.
Lawn
The
236
San Francisco Chronicle
The Reverend
Lester Kinsolving, Religion Correspondent:
"Sandra Lane
who
forties
is
an
attractive red-haired
The Reverend
affairs of
Lester Kinsolving,
should like to correct
morning's Chronicle.
should have read:
woman
was
cross-eyed.
KCBS
who
Agency
Radio:
remarks which appeared in
'Sandra Lane
in her mid-forties
ments of nine male
my
nine male evangelists."
The opening
Christian Advertising
He
in her mid-
recently established the United Christian Advertis-
ing Agency to handle the
woman
paragraph of
an
is
this
my column
attractive
red-haired
recently established the United

to
handle the business arrange-
evangelists."
some accounts,
more important, William Money was an
short, bandy-legged, and, according to
But
far
archetype. Being
first,
he
the pattern for generations of
set
California cult leaders.
He
was from elsewhere:
bom
the United States at seventeen,
he was
in Glasgow,
made
his
he had migrated
way West by
to
the time
Los Angeles in the year 1840. His was

was the true church, the Reformed New
Testament Church of the Faith of Jesus Christ, reestablished on
earth by Christ himself, encountered by Money on a New York
City street comer. And Money had a mission, the inauguration
of a new dispensation: Christ had told him to go West, in
particular to Los Angeles, to announce the beginning of the
thirty, arriving in
not a
new
New
Age.
On
church.
arrival,
an ordinary
less receptive
village of
mud
It
man might have doubted

new religion than the
climate for a
huts comprising the City of the
would have been
difficult to
Queen
his vision.
somnolent
of Angels
imagine. Counting those on outly-
ing ranchos, there were fewer than 300 residents, three-quarters

of
them
illiterate,
nearly
all
unerring instinct of the tme
of
them
cultist,
Catholic. Yet with the
Money
sought out and
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
appealed
^37
to the discontented, largely the
Mexicans and Indians
of the local mission.
Erudite, part quack doctor, part economic theorist,
them something
different:
he offered
from a blend of Catholic
ritual,
Greek philosophy, herbology, astrolhe provided simple answers to

economics,
Utopian
ogy, and
extreme questions, gave them a cosmology permitting them to
see the world in a new way (the earth was hollow, ice water
flowed in at both poles to be heated by the fires of hell and
Protestant
prohibitions,
and established a frame of

reference to make the unknown known and the knov^m understandable. His theology was instructive. Far more important, it
was also interesting. He gave them an enemy, someone to hate,
a scapegoat for all misfortunes: the Catholic Church and its
priests. And finally, he offered something positive which his
emerge warm
the equator),
at
competitors didn't: faith healing.
And by
so doing
managed
alienate the established orthodoxy (the mission padres')
to
and the
medical profession (Dr. John Marsh, the only doctor in California).

all successful cultists. Reverend Money initially asked
and eventually received more. Dr. Marsh charged 25 cows
per house call (50 if he had to stay overnight), a price few of
the widely scattered landowners could afford to pay. Reverend
Like
less
Money would
cure anyone of anything, asking nothing but a
love offering in return but gradually obtaining from his converts a servitude
more binding even than
that imposed
by the
padres.
He was
man
of endless contradictions,
bothered his followers
little
if
at all.
As
his
which apparently
church grew,
its
theology underwent modifications, latter preachments contradicting former.
He
advocated chastity (for a short time only, as
the Mexicans weren't overly receptive to this old doctrine) but
himself kept a Mexican common-law wife. He preached sacrifice

and communal ownership of property but retained and augmented his own personal property, which included 45 packhorses and other tangibles. He prophesied the capsizing into the
ocean of that sinkhole of iniquity, Yerba Buena (San Fran-
The
238
Cisco) but explained,
when
this failed to
been speaking metaphorically.
He
happen, that he had
despised Catholicism but was
himself baptized into that church in Mexico, since only Catho-
could
lics
myth
own
land in California.
He
up a
Though
gradually conjured
to replace several mysterious gaps in his past.
abounded with contradictions of dates and places, it

was consistent in that as time passed it grew at both ends, giving
this, too,
ever stronger hints of his preordained divinity, until signs and

portents were manifest at birth ("I
damned
and the
teeth
was born with four Godlikeness of a rainbow in me eye!"), and
bestowing on him a constantly lengthening collection of tides:

Professor, Doctor, Reverend,
Deacon, Bishop, Christ's Aposde,
and Lone Defender of the Faith.

He fulfilled the two most important
prerequisites to the es-
tablishment of a successful church or sect: he wrote and pub-
Reform of the New Testament Church, said to

book published in Los Angeles, and he made money.
lished a book,
be the
Just
first
how much
is
not known. Historian Hubert
guessed the amount to be "considerable."
It
own community at San Gabriel and to

Moneyan Institute, first
his
headquarters, the
Howe
Bancroft
was enough to found

build a unique cultic
octagonal house west
of the Rockies.
Even
in his trials
and
tribulations
he
set the pattern for those
to follow.
He was
what
exposed by the local press,
i.e.,
the California Star, in
in retrospect appeared almost a dress rehearsal for Los
Angeles Times publisher General Harrison Gray Otis's latterday attempt to clear California of crackpot religious groups.
He became
arrested
He
States
involved in
Siding with Fremont, he was
fought the U.S. government. Preaching that the United
had no
territorial rights in California,
the American forces in

trial
politics.
by Kearny.
847 and
foreshadowed the "treason
he was arrested by
his possessions
trials"
were
seized.
His
of the California cult
leaders during the 1940's, while his unsuccessful suit against the
government
the
for recovery of his possessions offered a foretaste of
many bankruptcy and
receivership battles to come.
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
There was scandal
2,39
in his personal
fully aired before the
life,
public in the courts. As was often to be the case, with the

passing of time, heresy evolved into conformity, with
yielding to convention
and legitimizing
his
Money
informal union.
Later he divorced his wife, after sensationally charging her
with adultery.
And
became acceptable
and comfortable, no longer presenting challenge, no longer pacing the times, he lost favor with all but a remnant of his
eventually, as his theology solidified,
followers.
he exited vdth mystery. Living alone during his last

years, rarely visited, he died in 1880. When his body was found,
he was estimated to have been dead for several weeks. But
Finally,
lighted candelabra surrounded his bed. Ordinarily this
have been enough for a resurgence of the
cult, for
Angelenos had a thing about death, but
would
even then the
Money had
failed to
provide for this contingency. His ego was such that he could
never do the one thing essential to perpetuate his church he
had never been able to bring himself to name a successor.

But, though forgotten by most, he left a legacy. In years to
come, an incredible number of incredible people would follow
the path he had charted.
There was Thomas Lake Harris,

proclaimed Messiah, founder of the
California's
ill-fated
first
self-
Utopian colony
Fountain Grove; Hiram Butler, whose bible was Solar Biology;
Anne
made
Besant and the Purple Mother, Katherine Tingley,

California
the major battleground in
their
who
intercultic
Theosophy; Horace Leadbeater, disavowed

by the Theosophists after his arrest on a morals chargehe
masturbated young boys only to satisfy their sexual desires, he
fight for control of
them to concentrate solely on matters

and Krishnamurti, who disavowed both the Theosophists and their claim that he was the Saviour reincarnate.
There was Edgar Holloway, last survivor of the Lost Continent
of Mu, who arrived in Ojai aboard a flying fish; Yogananda,
who, 20 days after death, showed no sign of decay, as attested to
claimed, thereby enabling
spiritual;
The
240
in a notarized
document from Forest Lawn; and Albert Powell
Warrington, whose 15-acre Krotana colony wasn't notably suc-
became immensely valuable,

being located in the center of what was to become Beverly Hills.
There was Sister Aimee Semple McPherson, "not so much a
woman as a scintillant assault"; and her male counterpart, Father
William Riker, who with his sideshow Holy City proved that
Southern California exercised no exclusive claim on interesting
religions. There were the poison preachers, among them Gerald
L. K. Smith of the Christian Nationalist Crusade and Guy
Ballard of the Mighty I Am; the intellectual cultists, such as
cessful religiously but eventually
Gerald Heard; the rhythmic dancers, such as Ruth

the traditionalists, such as
Satanic
people
Church proved
who
that even in the
worshiped the
St.
Anton LaVey, who with

devil;
Denis;
his First
1960's there
were
and others with names now

more controversial than
forgotten because they preached nothing

love.
There were the

self-deluded; the
Each had
sincere
damned
and the
sick;
the Self Realized and the
and, quite possibly, the divine.
his version of the California
dream. Each found, on
the extreme edge of the continent, a land of unparalleled opportunity.
California
made
it
easy for them.
you had two friends and $15, you could start your own
church. Under California law, all that was required was the
signature of three persons on the articles of incorporation and
the payment of a $15 filing fee.
If
Your background was unimportant. You could have been

newly arrived on a
flying saucer from Orion. It didn't matter. If you were sensitive
about your past, however, or had personal reasons for remaining
behind the scenes, there was a clause in the law which permitreleased from prison the preceding day, or
ted
"dummy
directors" to sign the articles of incorporation.
Or
you could use an alias, a religious name. When the barefooted

mystic Krishna Venta incorporated his Fountain of the World
cult in 1949 and led his followers into the wilds of Box Canyon
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
San Fernando Valley, the
in the
his
241
files
state attorney general
had
in
the following information:
"Case B 1610 Krishna Venta,
H. Pencovic, alias Ben Covic,

on left forearm; born March
alias
Frank Jessen,
6' 1V2'',
180
29, 1911,
lbs.,
alias
Francis
blue eyes, tattoo
San Francisco;
arrested
El Paso 1930, burglary; Little Rock 1931, petty larceny; Los
Angeles 1932, petty theft; San Francisco 1934, vagrancy; Miami

1935, Mann Act; Phoenix 1936, writing threatening letters to
President U.S.; Santa Paula 1942, fictitious checks; Stockton
1942, psycho observation; also indication of trouble 1943-49 in
Nicaragua, New York, London, Sweden, Italy . . ." But there
was nothing the attorney general could do except

formation for possible future reference.
The
state
file
the in-
could only
on a court order, backed with a signed complaint, and then

only under strictly limited circumstances. It couldn't stop a
act
church from being organized, for according
ment
to the Constitution,
to the First
Amend-
"Congress shall make no law respect-
ing an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise

thereof.
."
.
Incorporation wasn't absolutely necessary.

it
was
to
One way
to avoid
be ordained by an already existing church. Since the
California legislature outlawed diploma mills in the 1940's, you
could no longer buy a Doctor of Airbodiness Degree from an
Oakland chiropractor for $32, but if you didn't mind benefiting

Florida's economy, you could take mail order seminary training
from a St. Petersburg firm, becoming a Metaphysical Counselor
or Spiritual Healer for $20, an Ordained Minister for $80, a
Religious
Teacher,
Missionary-At-Large,
or
Psychic
Science
Practitioner for $100, a Doctor of Spiritual Science for $180, or
a Doctor of Divinity for $210. Completing your lessons required

time, but
if
send a $5 enrollment fee and

agreement promising to complete (and
you were willing
sign a conditional sales
to
pay for) your course, the appropriate diploma would be sent to

you by return mail. Lest the thought of failing your tests worry
you, the foundation promised, "If you can read and understand
the daily newspaper, you will be able to succeed in
seminary courses."
all
your
The
242
Or, even
you could simply add "Reverend" to your

you couldn't) and, for about $5, run an ad
in Chimes, "World's Largest Psychic Monthly," or Cosmic Star,
easier,
name (no law
said
"A Monthly Newspaper Reporting News and Events from

Around the World, Related to Psychic Phenomena, E.S.P.,
Metaphysics, the New Age Philosophies, and Allied Subjects,"
offering "Three questions answered for $1" or "Etheric surgery
performed by 28
list
"etheric
spirit
physicians
."
AMA did not
Since the
among its accredited cancer cures or

among its membership, the latter ad might
surgery"
"spirit physicians"
cause some trouble. Far safer was "Absent healing for animals.
Send $5 and name

as the
you wanted
If
of pet," the veterinarians not being as touchy
AMA.
incorporate.
to
To make
do things
right,
however,
was
it
sure you got off to a proper
best to
start, a
Los
Angeles public relations counselorwith a proven record of

having helped found 48 "financially successful" churches-
would provide an organization
plan, a charter
and papers of
incorporation, fund-raising devices, publicity, investment, real

estate
and tax
advice, plus various other services specifically
adapted to the type of cult desired for a minimum of $25,000

(one third down, the balance payable from future collections,
through arrangements with a finance company or bank).

If
your personal religious views were vague or
if
honest to plagiarize, there was no need to despair.
you were too
Gardena,
would ghostwrite a cult biblefor $1,500. For

more
they
would
throw in a dozen pamphlets, while a mail
$500
order correspondence course would cost from $3,000 up, depending on the number of lessons.
When it came to contacting potential members, a firm in
Soquel could guarantee a mailing to reach one and a quarter
California, firm
million people interested in matters cultic. It wasn't necessary

to use the
mass mailing, however, for the firm
reference system that
made
also
had a
cross-
possible "specialized contact":
for
example, a mailing to Los Angeles County residents alone, or to

those interested primarily in yoga, or reincarnation, or Delphic
mysteries, or Egyptology, or astrology, or spiritualism, or occult
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
243
psychology, or flying saucers, or hermetics, or E.S.P., or Zen.
Competition in
this
phase of the
God
churches were never trusted with

directly
business was spirited.
name
hsts; Hterature
from the company. This particular firm had

field to pick and choose its clients.
eminence in the
not, for example, send
to either of these,
were other firms quite accommodating.

While these preparatory steps might appear
them investments. For not
consider
was sent
sufficient
It
would
racist literature or charity fund-raising
Should you be inclined
pleas.
The
however, there
costly,
you could
rewards were in the
all
meeting certain requirements, the fedgovernment would confer on a church a special state of
grace, one many Americans would consider heaven on earth:
hereafter. In return for

eral
tax exemption.
Mere
make
make formal
incorporation did not
qualify, a
church had
to
a church tax-exempt.
To
application to the govern-
Codes for Tax Exemption.

was a complicated procedure requiring, as a show
of faith, the submission of a charter and articles of incorporation which defined the church's primary function as public
service it could be handled routinely by a good attorney.
Though the government, through the Justice Department, was
ment, pursuant to the Federal
Though
this
number
said to investigate each application, a
of cult leaders
vdth highly questionable backgrounds including Krishna Venta
found
worth
this obstacle
all efforts.
tion in terms,
it
surmountable.
For despite the fact
was quite
And
it
once granted,
sounded
it
was
like a contradic-
possible to maintain a highly profitable
nonprofit, tax-exempt foundation.
What
It
did tax exemption
meant
mean
to a
church?
that the church wasn't taxed
or donations received,
on any contributions
whether in the forms of cash,
stock,
bonds, property, or inheritances.

It
meant
that a church could buy, hold, use, or sell property
without being subject to property taxes and wdthout having to
pay taxes on
It
meant
investments.
profits
accrued from such
sales.
church wasn't taxed on
interest received
from
'^^^^
244
It
meant
that in
^"^'
Days of the Late, Great Slate
of California
buying an automobile or building supplies
or any other commodities for church use, a church did not have
pay federal or
to
It
meant
state taxes.
that a
church could operate one or more businesses
and, so long as the profits were used to maintain the work of the
church, would not be taxed on those
profits.
This gave
a defi-
it
nite competitive advantage over other businesses less privileged
doubly
so
if
church members ran the business on a nonsalary
cooperative basis.
(Matching the businesses and the churches

not
always easy.
The
hall.
was
operated
mushroomburgers. Another Los
drive-in restaurants featuring
Angeles cult ran a pool
Fellowship
Realization
Self
in California
Com-
In 1963 the Federal Trade
mission began investigating a Los Angeles mail order corre-
spondence school which offered courses
in automotive, television
and
refrigeration repairs, eventually issuing a complaint charg-
ing
it
with
false advertising, use of coercive
lecting delinquent accounts,
claims for
its
graduates.
learned the school was
methods in
col-
and making fraudulent employment
To
their surprise,
owned by
the
FTC
Church
investigators
of
Religious
Science.'^)
In theory, a clergyman had to pay taxes on his income like
any other man. In
practice,
however,
accorded a church carried over to

"Rental value of a
utilities
home
many
its
tax-exempt benefits
ministers.
For example,
furnished a clergyman, and cost of
paid for him, as part of his compensation for carrying
out his duties as a clergyman, are not income to him," while "If
a
clergyman owns or
ance
is
is
buying
down payment on
a house, as
for interest, taxes, repairs, etc.
The
his
laity
Which
his
home
it
as a
."
.
had no exclusive claim on expense-account
living.
for a cult leader to elect to
signed a consent order, in effect agreeing not to continue these

same time not admitting that they had done
practices in the future, while at the
so in
his rental allow-
mortgage installment payments,
on
was often more advantageous
It
own home,
excludable from income to the extent he spends
the past.
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
^45
and no
salary than to receive a high salary
receive expenses
subject to taxes.
There were other fringe benefits worth noting. As a clergyman, you could be excused from the draft; obtain a discount on
most purchases;
reduced
travel at a
need not suffer endlessly
for
it.
fare;
vaded Krishna Venta's Box Canyon
Adam
reincarnation of
and,
In 1949
arrested the
Supreme Court,
had signed over
all
of
of
nonpayment of
round but won
lost
to the State
many
first
on charge
the
love,
and
retreat
(the prophet had no navel, as
his female followers could attest)
since he
unlucky in
deputies in-
alimony and child support. Venta
on appeal
if
sheriff's
that court ruling that
personal property to the cultic
community and received no salary other than expenses, he

make payments. Though one justice
couldn't be required to
filed
arguing that this set a dangerous precedent
a dissent,
whereby "Any father can enter a religious cult where property

is owned communally and escape payment for support of children," the ruling
was upheld.
Problems of finance loomed large in the California
cultic
picture.
commandment
that you can't buy

must be freely given to anyone
ready to receive them. Yet cults, more than orthodox churches,
demanded sometimes subtly, sometimes not a greater financial participation on the part of their members. From the point
of view of the cult, this was essential. A small Protestant congregation might be partly supported by its parent church; the
cults, being totalitarian, had no such ties. Until they reached
the point where their investments were sustaining, or unless
they were singularly adept at outside fund raising, they had to
draw complete financial sustenance from their membership.
Basic to
all religions is
the
or sell spiritual teachings; they
And few were
as fortunate as the Self Realization Fellowship
which found in James J. Lynn, a

Kansas City insurance executive, a true believer willing to con-
of Paramahansa Yogananda,
more than $3 million to further the teachings.

From the point of view of the cult members, this
tribute
participa-
The
246
tion often
became an ever more burdensome obligation. While

thirties, Hollywood actor-evangelist Joe Jeffers
back in the
wôuld not begin preaching until the collection reached a cer-
amount, by the
tain
sixties
the passed plate was largely pass6,
advertisements for services often stating,
While
this
encouraged
of the hard-core
new inquirers,
member. In most
it
"No
also
collection taken."
added
to the
cults the pattern
burden
was from
love oflFerings to part tithes (i to 9 percent of gross income),

to full tithing (lo percent), to grossing (25 percent), to re-
nunciation of
all
There were, in addition,

from $5 per week to
material possessions.
special pledges for special needs, ranging
keep
altar candles perpetually
building. In
many
lit
to the
donation of a
cults the requests for
new church
funds were, by necessity,
near-continuous.
was
It
this
matter of finance not scandal concerning the cult
leader, not doubts about the teachings that
cause of members breaking with a cult. In
was the primary

was usually
fact, this
the seed from which grew most other doubts, since the average
was not a skeptic but a person who wanted or often

believe. In most cults the financial hurdle became,
both literally and symbolically, the central struggle in the memcultist
needed to
bers
own
nature, the
war between the
desires opposing his spiritual yearnings.
dualities, his material

It
was an emotional
experience, whichever side won. For the renunciate, the reaction
was an unconveyable
feeling of liberation from earthly cares.

For the believer "possessed by his possessions," there was a
traumatic parting, a going on to search for "purer truth'* (where

the same conflict usually awaited) and often, whatever the conscious justification, the subconscious guilt of having failed a
spiritual test.
This was one difference between membership in an ordinary

church and a cult. Another was that church finances were usually
handled by
trustees, a
board of governors, or similar body,
accountable both to the church's parent organization and to
its
membership. Most established churches released a semiannual

or quarterly financial statement to their members.
Methodist, for example,
Jackson
knew how much Reverend Long was
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
By
paid.
247
were customarily handled by
contrast, cult finances
the intercultic hierarchy, most often the cult leader and perhaps
one or two of
accounting to
make an
his leading disciples. Rarely did a cult
members.*
its
In brief, most California cults were financially accountable

only to God.
Though few
would have put it so

Holy City, who once said,
we do if we take him in on the
cult leaders
bluntly as Father William Riker of
"God winks
his eye at
deal," obviously
this
any act
absence of
fiscal
accountability left the
door wide open to the possibility of misappropriation, mis-
management
often, in his
Much
or fraud, particularly since the cult leader
own domain,
attention has been given to the Horatio Alger stories of
California cultdom.
crackpot groups
is
"The fabulous economic power
of their congregations, the
the
number
amount
of contributors
on
of real estate they
whom
they
call,
Mankind United went into

Arthur Bell organized Christ's Church
Rule. In three years the
new church whose
publicly branded a Fascist, a philanderer
accumulated $3,400,000 in
assets,
and
including
apartment houses, beach clubs, mountain
hotels,
Not
and 100,000
fish
size
accumu-
can become
receivership in
of the
Golden
had been
religious fraud-
leader
office
buildings,
resorts, sawmills,
can-
an
iron-
neries, ranches, farms, bakeries, dairies, a haberdashery,
works, a cheese factory, a
Gun-
U.S.A. "The
staggering." After
1942,
of the chief
not always appreciated," observed John
ther, discussing the California cults in Inside
late,
was
akin to God.
hatcher}^ five laundries, eight
acres.
too surprising, almost nothing has
been written about
the hundreds of California cults which barely subsisted, whose
were scrupulously honest if financially unimaginative.

But then in extremist land, few are interested in the mean. The
minister who had to scrounge for enough money to maintain a
leaders
weekly ad in the
for
*
some reason,
On
religious section of the local

infinitely less
newspaper was,
compelling than the evangelist
the other hand, the cult leader quite often kept himself fully informed
members, many of the cults, particularly in
as to the financial situation of his
Southern CaUfomia, having membership in the local
retail credit associations.
The
248
who
paid $50,000 monthly just for
TV
and radio time,
as
one
did in 1968.
For sound psychological reasons,

defensive.
Few were
paralyzed his
Bell
many
cults operated
on the
without enemies, real or imaginary. Arthur
Mankind United members with
hidden rulers planning

such fiendish gadgets
of
world through use of
to take over the
as gigantic
tales
machines which vibrated eye-
To Guy Ballard of the Mighty I Am the

was the international Jewish conspiracy, and the remedy
balls out of sockets.
threat
Minutemen
the organization of a Christian army, the
Germain, patterned
Shirts,
closely after
William Dudley
who, with the constantly
of St.
Pelley's Silver
reiterated batde cry "Annihi-
went out to defile synagogues, smash

pawnshop windows, and waylay and castrate suspected Jews.
late!"
ringing in their ears,
Common
the
AMA,
to
the
many cults were the three

FDA, and the POD.
greatest villains of all:
This was humorous in a way, for none of the three the

American Medical Association, the Food and Drug Administration or the Post Office Departmentwas particularly anxious to
do battle with the cults; when they did, they almost invariably
lost.
According
to
an ancient Southern California
Angelenos met for the
first
time, the
joke,
when two
question they asked
first
"Where are you from?", the second, "How do you feel?"

There were few California cults which did not practice some
form of health faddism. It might be as simple as vegetarianism,
was,
as ritualistic as
Hatha Yoga,
as strict as the
Zen macrobiotic
diet,
or as specialized as vasectomy, a sterility operation required of
male members of one Hollywood
cult.
harmless, dangerous. Quite often,
was
someone. According
to the
FDA,
it
and bogus
pure-water bottlers,
communities where the antifluoridation

California cults) raged. According to the
more
might be helpful,
cults supported
dealers in health food supplements

vices, plus, of course, the
It
financially lucrative to
hundreds of
diagnostical de-
who
flourished in
fight (a creation of the
AMA,
California listed
chiropractors, allopaths, naturopaths, faith healers, herb
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
2,49
and acupuncturists than any other state (almost more

than all other states), most of whom had links with the cults.
According to the POD, religious racketeering was a multidoctors,
million-dollar business.
But there was
POD
The
enough
to
litde they could
could
and prosecute those simpleminded

through the mails, but most
arrest
conduct holy
types of religious fraud
do about any of these things.
lotteries
fell
outside their jurisdiction.
FDA
The
could warn about worthless dietary products but could do
little
about health food companies which would underwrite the cost

of a large cult mailing in exchange for inclusion of
making
it
appear that the cult
itself
its
literature,
endorsed the product.
The
AMA could issue countless pamphlets and bulletins on the relationship between cultism
be he
religious
might nevertheless
and quackery,
or otherwise rarely
kill
stressing that the
quack
hurt his patients but
them, by diverting them from competent
medical attention. But in the long history of California cultism

only three cultists were convicted of practicing medicine without
was in the twenties.

members the AMA, FDA, and POD
more insidious even than the Cominfiltrate the cults and suppress their
a license; the last such conviction
Although
to
many
were ever-present
munists in their
cult
threats,
efforts to
secret cures, this
was pure myth, perpetuated in part by those
agencies as discouragement, but mostly by the cult leaders themIt
gave the membership a scapegoat, someone to hate
fear,
thereby keeping their minds off other matters. Such
selves.
and
as cult finances.
and exaggerated villains aside, the cult leadWho were extremely dangerous. And
almost always, they were within their own memberships.
There were the perpetual seekers, individuals who moved
from cult to cult, sampling the teachings, comparing philosophies, and fomenting dissension. "Do you know what Yogananda said about Walt Baptiste?" "Are you aware that X cult
Yet, imaginary
ers often
had
real enemies.
gives all the teachings to first-year
you
as
odd that our leader and
unmarried?"
members?" "Doesn't
all his
it
strike
chosen male disciples are
The
250
The
structure of the cult afforded
Many
them.
some protection against
of the cults, particularly those of the mystical or
occult variety, were double, consisting of a circle within a circle.
The
public saw the outer shell; only the initiates penetrated the
inner. Acceptance to the "within" of the cult
granted;
it
had
to
be earned. There were duties
to pass, a series of initiations.
purpose.
member
It
perform,
tests
This double structure was multi-
kept out the idly curious, gave the accepted cult
and served
cult leader's
as a shield.
most dangerous enemies, however, were
those who, safeguards notwithstanding,
The
to
lightly
a sense of true belonging, protected the deeper or sacred
teachings,
The
was never
managed
to penetrate.
Judases.
There were the
thieves, often favored disciples,
who
stole
both the secret teachings and part of the membership and
founded
And
their
own
churches.
even religion had
its
Serge Rubensteins. Like an ordi-
nary business, a thriving cult could be taken over by an outsider

and its finances drained. This is what happened to Father
William Riker's Church of the Perfect Christian Divine Way.
Facing San Francisco grand jury indictments for grand larceny,
embezzlement and acts injurious to public morals, Riker decided
to depart from the city by the Golden Gate and purchased a
i8o-acre tract in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where he founded
Holy City, headquarters for the World's Perfect Government.
Like Sister Aimee, Father Riker, also
known
as the
Comforter
Man
on All the Earth, was a master showman.

Deciding that if the devil's tools were so effective in attracting
sinners they would be even more so used by a man of God,
Riker purposely emphasized the "love cult" nature of his com-
and the Wisest
munity and made Holy City a sort of sexual Disneyland, drawing thousands of weekend tourists. On every block of the garish
were two large red loudspeakers blaring the latest
popular songs. There were stands selling alcoholic soda pop;
signs advising "If you are contemplating marriage, suicide, or
crime, see us first"; and more than 50 peepshow booths with
main
street
such
titillating titles as
"Temptations of the Flesh" and "The
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
251
Legs of Queen Elizabeth." In
main
its
heyday, during the
920's, the
Holy City contributed $100,000 annually.

Though Riker spent much of this on lavish living (he had six
Cadillacs) and a number of unsuccessful campaigns for Governor of California (not only actors caught the virus), there was
still enough left to tempt a Hollywood adventurer who, playing
on Riker's ego, became his chief disciple, took the financial
burdens off the Comforter's shoulders, and eventually maneuvered his way into legal custody of Holy City, evicting Riker and
his followers. After several changes of ownership and many
court batdes, they moved back, but by this time all that was left
was the shell.
And there were the discontents, true believers who, for varistreet
of
ous reasons, sometimes fantastic, wavered in their faith.
They
and often
did, cause untold damage. In the case of

was irreparable.
On the morning of December 5, 1958, two unhappy male
members of Venta's Box Canyon retreat called on J. H. Mulvey,
could,
Krishna Venta,
it
special investigator for California Attorney
ing him to investigate the
General Brown, ask-
activities of their prophet.
Mulvey
had trouble suppressing a wry smile. He had been investigating

Venta and his Fountain of the World cult for over nine years,
had listened to the strange stories of more than a dozen exfollowers. But this meeting was different, as the two men were
not only willing but anxious to sign a complaint.
stenographer took
they
his
still
down
As the
their depositions, the pair stressed that
believed Venta was the Messiah; nor did they object to
communal
sleeping arrangements.
What
bothered them was
Venta's instructing their wives to cleave unto
him
In short, they were being denied their connubial
exclusively.
rights.
There wasn't a Cahfomia law that exactly covered this, but

one remark, casually dropped, caused Mulvey to ask questions.
During the past year, according to the men, two children in the
colony had died because Venta refused to let their parents seek
medical aid. If this could be proven, Mulvey knew, the State of
California finally had the basis for a case against Venta. Though
Mulvey had learned patience, the two men hadn't. They left his
The
252
he later recalled, vaguely unhappy because he couldn't

Venta immediately but had to go through the process of
obtaining a court order. Bureaucracy appeared to be moving too
slowly for the pair. Two days later they confronted Venta outofl&ce,
arrest
main building
side the
be known, for anyone

not live to relate
it.
What was
of the colony.
close
One
enough
of the
to
said will never
hear the conversation did
men had
a package
under
his
arm, apparently containing a timing device and 20 sticks of

high-potency dynamite.
The
explosion
gutted
the
building,
started a fire that raged through adjoining forests for three days,
and
obliterated all but a
seven other
(But
few
traces of Venta, the
didn't obliterate the cult
it
two men, and
cultists.
prevailed, led
itself.
As
by the prophet's wife Ruth,
late as the sixties it
who
privately main-
tained in her secret teachings that Venta was not killed in the
blast, that
forewarned, he had gone into hiding, leaving behind
to deceive his executioners the false teeth
by which he was
ten-
tatively identified.)
As
to
if
his
enemies weren't bad enough, the cult leader also had
overcome the Temptations.
High on the
was the Utopian colony. The temptation to

own, far from the maddening strife,
could be rigidly imposed and all phases of life
list
create a world of one's
where
discipline
perfecdy regulated, was for

spite the
nia
cult leaders irresistible, de-
knowledge that in the more than 125 years of Califorhad been totally
cultdom none of these communities
successful, all
sion.
many
The
succumbing
to the
same malady internal
dissen-
length of California was dotted with God's ghost
tov^ms, places
such
as
Point Lomas, the theosophical colony of
the Purple Mother near San Diego, which, even in

the vandalized buildings, the toppled
domes retained an awesome

the rise and
fall
pillars,
its
ruins
the shattered glass
majesty. Representing as they did
of once-great dreams, there
was something
haunting and very sad about Fountain Grove, Halcyon, Kaweah, the Happy Valley Foundation at Ojai, and the Esoteric
Fraternity at Applegate. Saddest of
all
were those places
inhabited by a few surviving true believers.
When
still
a reporter
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
last visited
2,53
Holy City in 1965, the
members, the youngest
cult
numbered
six resident
in his late seventies, the oldest Father
Riker himself, then ninety-two (but

angrily complaining that
still
someone had
full of the old fire,
stolen the portrait of
Hider from its place beside the picture of Lincoln).'^ Only one
of the six was a woman. Miss Winifred Allington, eighty-five,
who
men
associated with the
as little as possible, preferring the
company of her 15 cats.

Running a close second was the temptation to conform, to
become acceptable, to be known not as a cult but as a church.
This was nearly always a
fatal temptation, for in
attempting to
make the transition, the cult usually lost that which attracted its
members in the first place. When the dogma became rigid, the
tenets
no longer
when
the newness was gone and the differences disappeared, so
sufficiently flexible to
adapt to changing times,
did the followers. Yet the desire to belong afflicted some cult
leaders
as
strongly
as
cult
members.
When
Robert Welch
charged that the National Council of Churches was Communistdominated, many of the California cults seized on this "fact"
and disseminated it widely in their publications, though several
were at the same time trying hard to be accepted into the NCC.
The
greatest temptation of all was politics.

was not inappropriate that when Dr. Fred Schwarz first
arrived in the United States, nearly penniless but carrying the
grand dream of his Christian Anti-Communist Crusade, the first
money he earned was a $50 fee for delivering a lecture on the
evils of Communism in Angelus Temple, the church of the late
Aimee Semple McPherson. In California, there appeared to be
a natural affinity between the extremes in religion and politics.
It
In their political leanings, the cults covered a wide spectrum,

from the Utopian colonies, most of which endeavored to practice
some form of Socialism, to the fundamentalist cults of the right.
The
first,
latter
as noted,
had
way
of destroying themselves; the
proved remarkably durable.
* Father Riker personified the schism
between the spiritual and the temporal.

Riker predicted that with the coming of Armageddon, California would be destroyed by earthquakes.
And built Holy City squarely atop the San Andreas Fault.
Like
many
another
cultist,
^^^ ^^^ Days
254
The
role of the cult in politics
insignificant,
appeared, at
glance,
first
even ludicrous, as in the case of Father Riker's
Each cult was a world unto itself,

was also, politically considered, a small world,
with neither enough votes nor legally allottable funds to influence an election, while its very exclusiveness and one-cell
nature kept it from uniting in common cause with other cults.
This was the appearance; the reality was different, however, for
gubernatorial campaigns.
totalitarian.
It
often the cults lent considerable grass roots support to political
movements or groups advocating compatible principles, whether

pro-Townsend Plan or anti-UN. More than 30 cults were active
in the campaign of one Southern California congressional candidate. Cults, working with right-wing political groups, played an
important part in the 1968 Senatorial campaign of California's
reactionary superintendent of schools. Dr.
that
Max
RaflFerty.
And
same year they were credited with a significant role in
number of signatures necessary to place George

American Independence Party on the California
obtaining the
Wallace's
ballot.
With
all
the fervor of a religious crusade, such support was
often fanatic, occasionally rabid, as in the case of that most
hardy bigot, Gerald L. K. Smith. As a minister, Smith had a

small following, composed mostly of old-age pensioners.
lisher of
The
Cross and
the Flag,
scribers thousands of cultists
with
at least
some of
who
he numbered among
As pubhis sub-
can be presumed agreed
it
(The
his anti-Semitic, anti-Negro views.
publication tables of a
number
of California cults bore copies
not only of the magazine but also of The Protocols of the

Learned Elders of Zion, distributed by Smith.) In state elections,
those candidates so favored were usually content to let Smith's
endorsement go uncommented upon,
as often
ponents, since no one was quite sure
how
be. It
is
to the credit of
vowed Smith
recalling,
important
their opit
might
Richard Nixon that he publicly
in the campaigns of '52
and
'56.
One
disa-
cannot help
however, that these were both national elections, and
no such disclaimer was made in

audiences to "Help Richard Nixon get
that
were
'50,
when Smith urged

Jew-Commu-
rid of the
"
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
nists."
was
^55
(Though Nixon's opponent, Helen Gahagan Douglas,
GO percent
by her marriage
Irish,
to
she became a Jew, in Smith's genealogy,
the half-Jewish actor
Melvyn Douglas.)
Nixon's ingratitude hurt Smith greatly; he wrote in his magazine in 1962,

is
"When
the
name
of former Vice-President
Nixon
to me, I am tempted to weep inside my heart.

and natively he is our kind of people. He was raised
way and got started the right way. In fact, he was the
mentioned
Basically
the right
*Joe
McCarthy
of California.'
In his study of Smith in
God
Is
a Millionaire, Richard Mathi-
son observed, "For practical purposes, Smith's followers
make up
neither a political party nor religious cult. Rather, they are a
blend of both,
own
their
who
fifth
columnists
who
carry the
Smith
thesis to
churches, spreading the lore of the anti-Christians
are taking over the
United
States.
They
years ago, good, old, go-to-meeting folk,
are, as
happy
to
Smith
said
know
that
others are responsible for their failures, not themselves."
He was a begetter.
them the Reverends Kenneth
Goff, Connie Lynch and Wesley Albert Swiftwent on to
found their own groups, not all of which were cults. Svidft, for
example, a onetime Ku Klux Klan organizer as well as active
Smith was important
Many
for another reason.
of his disciples among
promoter of the National States Rights Party, founded half a
dozen organizations, including the Church of Jesus ChristChristian (a chain of churches that stretched from Southern
California to Oakland); the Christian Defense League; and the
The
was a Minuteman-type secret

army, formed in conjunction with Colonel William P. Gale,
U.S. Army (ret.), who in World War II had served under
General MacArthur organizing guerrilla forces in the Philippines. Gale was also a minister of Christ's Church. In a 1965
report on paramilitary organizations in California, State Attorney General Thomas Lynch took a close look at the activities of
Swift and Gale, noting, "It has been reported that the politicallyoriented Christian Defense League and the religious Church of
California Rangers.
latter
Jesus Christ-Christian serve secondary functions of providing a
screening process for militant-minded
members
of both to be
The
256
graduated to the Rangers. Assertedly, the whole complex of

organizations can be looked
an inner
circle,
upon
as consisting of
and a center hard
The
core.
be considered in studying the
an outer
circle,
network must
and the influence
entire
activities
wielded by these leaders."

In California, even churches could be front groups.
was the greatest of the temptations because it tended

become all-consuming. The ex-serviceman who spent his free
time at bayonet practice against pink dummies and the couple
Politics
to
whose home served
as
meeting place for the
local chapter of the
John Birch Society were usually lost to the cause.

If the cult leader had a basic dictum, it was. Thou
shalt
have
no other Cult than mine.
Why
did California spawn so
many
unconventional, even
bizarre religions?
There were
a
moving
several theories. According to one, in
California people
wanted a new
start;
to
they shopped not only for
new house, new furniture, new auto, new friends,

new religion. If true, some certainly spent a long
shopping; a survey of Mankind United members showed
new
job,
but also for a

time
an average California residence of 22 years. Yet there was at

least a germ of truth in the statement. Coping with California
did require a new frame of reference. And some did find it in
religion.
Another explanation had

so lacking
ratized,
in
it
that
clearly
craved something ultraexclusive.
Cahfomia was
defined society,
Thus
for
so
democ-
that
people
some the
cults
were
the most "in" of "in groups."

Still
another thesis claimed there were so
sensational,
different.
In
other distrac-
to compete,
tions in California life that religion,

startling,
many
discussing
had
Los
to
be
Angeles,
Bishop Stevens of the Episcopal Church lent credence
to this
theory. "Traditional habits do not reach the people in this com-
munity," he
said.
"Even the older-type churches have been adopt-
ing measures unsanctioned in other parts of the country for a
more
effective hold
upon
their people."
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
Part of the answer lay in
Who
were the
2,57
another question.
still
cultists?
Outsiders pictured them as wild-eyed fanatics, mostly middleaged, Middle Western, and lower middle class (if that) and, of
course,
poorly educated,
also
incredibly
gullible,
remarkably
unsophisticated, unbelievably bigoted.

Insiders
knew
better.
They knew
that the
memberships were
as diverse as the cults themselves.
There were the middle-aged. There were

the young. In the years since
cults in
to
World War
and
had joined
also the elderly
II the latter
such increasingly large numbers that cult leaders referred

"new-age beings" or "old souls in young bodies."
them
as
More
often than not, there were, in any one cult, people from
every part of the country and every economic grouping.
There were the unquestioning. In 1963 Stockton police

who required that all female members of
rested a cult leader

flock
submit
to virginal sacrifice.
ar-
his
Included were a divorcee and
her sixteen-, eleven-, and eight-year-old daughters. Questioned
by the
press,
one
cultist
remarked, "Sure
thing going on between the reverend and
knew
my
there
was some-
wife, but
liked
what the man had to say."

There were also those who questioned everything, accepting
nothing that could not be proven to their
cult leaders
who
There were
encouraged them
semiliterate cultists
to
do
and
own
satisfaction.
And
so.
cults, particularly of the
fundamentalist variety, so rabidly anti-intellectual as to trans-
form their educational
failings
into virtues.
By
contrast,
the
Subramuniya Yoga Order (whose outer shell was the Christian

Yoga Church) required that each disciple obtain a college degreeit was considered an essential part of his training while
the
first
disciple of the order to attain Self Realization
thirty-two-year-old son of a
nent Boston
socialite,
well-known novelist and
was the
a promi-
an honors graduate of Yale who, among
other things, had studied Lieder with Lotte Lenya.
There were bigoted cultists and cults to accommodate them,

however specialized their prejudices. Father Riker, for example,
predicted that when California was destroyed, only the two
The
258
and Jewswould survive, while the inferior races Negroes and Orientals would perish. And there
were cults which, long before the traditional churches, were
great "races' Christians
wholly integrated.
Why
did they join? Their reasons were often as varied as the
reasons they or their forebears
came
to California in the first
place.
the ultimate experience; others were willing to
Some wanted
settle for
something
less,
but no
less
necessary to them, a mean-
ing unobservable in the hectic confusion of daily
sought
to escape the world; others to
to transcend
it.
Some, uprooted and
ship, friendship.
ble,
at least in
understand
it
life.
Some
better; others
lonely, sought
companion-
Some, finding the old values no longer applicaCalifornia, sought
new
ones;
some sought
world of permanence where nothing changed. Some wanted

revert to simpler times;
some wanted
to
be a part of the
a
to
new
Some sought their own salvation; others that of the

whole human race. Some sought purity; some justification for
modes of sexual conduct frowned on by society. Some suffered
guilt but found no one cared enough to condemn them. Some
were afraid. Some insecure. And some just liked to be considered
millennium.
heretics.
they
people,
and they were ever-conscious
of that fact. In joining a cult they
had distinguished themselves
diflFering
as
they
had
were,
Yet,
common.
They were not ordinary
from conventional
society.
certain
Whether they were
of the evangelical cults, drilled
and
carried
things
in
"saved" by one
arms and held the
rank of lieutenant colonel in the California Rangers, or were
members
recognized as
of a
new
race of highly evolved spiritual
beings in a metaphysical cult, they were set apart from the

average, the mean.
They belonged
not because their parents had,
was the only church in town, nor because it was

the one attended by the best people, but because they had per-
nor because
sonally
it
made
a choice, taken a step, reached a decision. Ordinary
people did not devote the better parts of their Hves to the search
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
259
for truth. Cultists did. Ordinary churches
were not made up
al-
most wholly of converts. Cults were.
They had one more thing

They had been dissatisfied,
in
common, even more
disappointed, not so
important.
much
with
what they had found in the traditional religions as with what

they had failed to find. Something was lacking, something vital.
The
one reason and one reason only. They
cults existed for
filled this
gap.
As Richard Mathison
"unpaid
bills"
They were
so perfectly expressed
it,
cults
were the
of the orthodox churches.

also another manifestation of the dream.
Outsiders considered them extremists.
The
who remembered
cultists,
had been a
too
cult, as
that at one time Christianity
had most
of the other great religions,
considered themselves spiritual adventurers, religious pioneers,
God's vanguard.
It
may be
Was
the
that both were right.
phenomenon
of California cultism just another of
the excesses of the Golden State, which will

its
now
disappear with
passing?
It takes
ment
no prophet
to predict that as the
spreads, eliminating
churches, ever seeking
more
common
ecumenical move-
of the differences
among
the
denominators, more and more
people will find themselves religiously disenfranchised, unsatisfied,
wanting something more.
It is also safe to
assume
that, in response to their needs,
new
cult leaders will arise.
Some
possibly,
charlatans.
some
Some
lunatics.
Some
Luthers, And, just
Christs.
II.
The dream had

was more than
its
epitome, the extreme
suitable that the place
was a municipal
its
highest plateau.
which most personified
fiction, a spot legally nonexistent.
It
it
Yet to mil-
26o
The
lions of people
around the world Hollywood was the most

real
part of California.
They paused
outside
found her signature
Grauman's Chinese Theater
and
footprints in the cement.
until they
They
didn't
try to stand in her footprints, as they did in most of the others.
Just looked
and wondered.
Hollywood Boulevard Walk of

names embedded in the sidewalk
From
there they covered the
Fame, gazing down at the star

Highland Avenue, on the south side of the
the
stars of Edward Arnold and Ginger Rogers,
between
street,
imtil, just east of
they found hers.
But
didn't help.
it
The
question remained.
Why?
In every way but one she was actually
bom
in California-
she had personified the dream realized, living proof that
it
could
and did happen.
Bom
out of wedlock, she had grown up in foster homes, un-
wanted, unloved.
And had become
the most desired female in
the world.
Bmnette
to blonde.
One name
to another.
She had never had even one year

movies had grossed over $200 million.
Two
days before the night
it
of high school.
happened, the
But her
latest issue of
Life had featured a six-page interview, complete with photographs.
She had never looked more
beautiful.
She had been
at
her ideal weight, 1 1 7 pounds, and the whole world knew how it
was distributed. Once, jocularly, she had told a reporter that
her epitaph would consist simply of her name, and "38-23-36."
Of
had
is
had sounded somewhat moody. She

Richard Meryman, "Fame to me certainly
course, the interview
told Life editor
only a temporary and a partial happiness.
for a daily diet, that's not
but the warming
is
what
temporary.
fulfills
It's
you.
Hke
Fame is not really

It warms you a bit
caviar,
you know,
it's
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
261
good to have caviar but not when you have to have it every meal
and every day."
But she had always said things like that. She had also told
him, with her characteristic
little-girl
delight,
"Sometimes wear-
ing a scarf and a polo coat and no make-up and with a certain
attitude of walking, I go shopping or just looking at people
living. But then you know, there will be a few teen-agers, who
are kind of sharp and they'll say, 'Hey, just a minuteyou know
who I think that is?* And then they'll start tailing me. And I
don't mind. I realize some people want to see if you're real. The
teen-agers, the little kids, their faces light up they say 'Gee' and
they can't wait to tell their friends. And old people come up
and say, 'Wait till I tell my wife.' You've changed their whole
day ... In their fantasies they feel 'Gee, it can happen to
me!
She was thirty-six years old, which in Hollywood was no
longer young, and female gossip columnists were snorting with
typical bitchiness that she was past her prime and undermining
the industry by being impossible to work with. Still, there was no
one like her. She stood alone, on her own Mount Olympus.
After asking half a dozen people for directions and missing
the turn off the freeway they'd seen the ramp, only couldn't
time they located 1218 Glendon in

West Los Angeles. Once inside Westwood Memorial Park, they
had no trouble finding her crypt. It was impressive. But enigget over to the right lane in
matic.
The
question remained.
Her last picture had bombed at the box oflSce and in tinsel
town the last was the only one that countedbut a few critics
had said it was her best, some even going so far as to grant her
the one thing she had always wanted from them, the reluctant
admission that just possibly she could
act.
She was on the outs with her studio. But that had happened
before and she had won.
And, of course, they realized she was sometimes unhappy the
The
262
it was a special kind of unUnhappy, yes, but every girl

unhappy! Unsuccessful in marriage, sure, but what
fan magazines told them thatbut

happiness, unique to the famous.
should be so
way
to
be unsuccessful wife of a world-famous
of a stellar playwright.
And
lovers!
She'd
left
athlete, later
the playwright for
the French actor, the French actor for the famous singer, and
was
strictly gossip, but who could doubt the old saying about smoke
and fire? And who could say how many others there had been?
Unhappy? Not bloody likely. And that vicious rumor (that she
the singer for the married politician. That
last,
of course,
had never experienced orgasm) was obviously a lie.

No one believed it. Too ridiculous. Wasn't she the world's
number one sex symbol?
With more
directions, they
made
the
pilgrimage and the most important, they
felt,
station
on
their
because here was
12305 Fifth Helena

the pictures, California Span-
where
it
had happened to Brentwood,
Drive.
It
looked pretty
ish. It
was smaller than they had
much
last
like
to
though not at all

Nothing grand about
anticipated,
the kind of place she should have lived in.

it.
The ovmers were
uncooperative, refusing to let
and look around. So they parked
them come
in
in the driveway to eat their
lunch, then threw the sandwich wnrappers and orange peels on

the lawn. There was really no need to see
so clear in
The
noon.
it,
anyhow.
It
was
all
mind.
backyard, where she had played with her dog that after-
They remembered
lamb and the
tiger,
They could
the picture.
The two
rag dolls, the
lying there abandoned.
visualize every detail of the
bedroomsparsely
And on
had contained 50
furnished, with a nightstand beside the bed.

of bottles,
including one
Nembutal only two days
They knew
that
it all
kinds
tablets
of
earlier.
well the chronology of that
she had gone into the bedroom
summer
night.
How
about nine, carrying the phone,
last words to the housekeeper "Good night, honey"; and how

about midnight, the housekeeper had noticed the light was still
her
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
2,63
shining under her door and thought
unusual, but not really
it
and how she had awakened about

three, noticed the light still shining even then, and, getting no
answer to her knock, called the psychiatrist, who smashed the
odd, and had gone
French windows
to bed;
to enter
and
find her, champagne-colored sheet
clutched in one hand, telephone in the other.
Who
would ever
wheeled
beneath
Why
the
photo?
The
being
stretcher
with only a shape
it.
had she done
They'd loved
The
forget
out, a blue blanket securely fastened,
it?
her!
telephone seemed to offer a clue. Various theories were
centered on
it.
Some thought she had been
help, but could not reach anyone.
home on Saturday
cian, only to
Who
in
trying to call for
Hollywood
night? Others said she had called the
be told by him
it
was
over, finis,
it
politi-
and that he
couldn't jeopardize his career by rushing to her. After
could have been crying wolf;
stays
was common knowledge
all,
she
she had
threatened suicide before, though always as a theatrical gesture,
making sure there was someone nearby to help her.

But they couldn't accept the politician theory, though it did
explain everything. It had one big weakness. How could anyone
be positive she had called him? Obviously he would never tell.
first
And
It
she couldn't.
was unfair
After
all,
of her to leave
no
note.
she was a movie star because they had
made her
one.
Someone, an Englishman probably, had said that motion picture stars were America's substitute for royalty. But that wasn't
true. It
was more democratic, a kind of
had elected
her.
And
politics really.
box
do the things they would
in a sense they had, the
As
if
they
office their
and
So she was promiscuous. So she drank too much. So she
did things to excess. That was a part of her role as a star, to live
ballot box. Elected her to
like to
couldn't.
life fully, vicariously, for
what she
And
them.
It
did not include the right to do
did.
so,
because they couldn't find the answer, they drove
away with a vague
feeling of dissatisfaction, disappointment
The
264
They would never

feel quite the
TV,
movies reappeared on
same about
she wouldn't
stir
her.
When
her
them nearly
so
much.
She had let them down. No, worse than that. By doing as she
did, she had attacked the dream, pointed out chinks in the fabulous superstructure, tarnishes on the shining facade.
And
they could never forgive her for that.
12.
Was
that an earthquake?
What?
I didn't feel
anything.
was an earthquake!
It was probably a truck on the freeway.
Ralph, it was an earthquake. I know it was!
So? It didn't hurt anything, did it? You know, Maxine,
I felt
times
it.
I'm sure
it
at
worry about you. All the time earthquakes, earthquakes.
Maybe you
should go to one of those head doctors.
Ralph!
I'm not saying you're crazy, honey. But you have got some
sort of thing
about earthquakes.
else in California thinks
I can't
understand
about earthquakes.
Why
it.
Nobody
should you?
13-
Brown decided
to fight
Reagan on
his
own
ground.
Early in September, 1966, the Democrats held a fund-raising

"gala" in the San Francisco Civic Auditorium. Among the stars
appearing on behalf of the governor were Frank Sinatra,
Dean
Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Joey Bishop, Trini Lopez and Rowan

and Martin. There was similar entertainment later in the Los
Angeles Sports Arena. Additional show business personalities

working for Brown included Danny Kaye, Jo Stafford, Janet
Gene Kelly, Dan Blocker, Gene Barry, Danny Thomas,

Nancy Wilson, Sammy Davis, Jr., Gregory Peck, Nancy Sinatra,
Leigh,
"
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
2,65
Don Adams,
Eddie Fisher, Milton Berle,
Steve Allen, Polly
Bergen, Dorothy Provine, Bob Newhart and Peter Falk.

a televised "roundup"
Reagan hosted
business supporters consisted of
on
his ranch.
His show
Andy Devine, Chuck Connors,
John Wayne, Irene Dunne, Pat Boone, Buddy Ebsen, Walter

Brennan,
Cesar Romero,
Robert Taylor,
Roy
Rogers,
Ray
Bolger and Clint Walker.

Clearly
Brown
more
artful.
more glamorous
attracted the
But some practiced cynics
insisted that
Sharing billing with
personalities.
Reagan had been much
such
spectacular
names,
BrowTi appeared even more pedestrian.
On
the other hand, surrounded by his largely second-rate cast,
Ronnie was indisputably the
star.
Since the primary, Democrats had been waiting impatiendy

for another
It
came
Reagan blowup.
in September. Visiting
an Oakland job
skills
center,
the candidate was picketed by a group of union members. This

so irritated
is,
him
that
he charged, "The reason they're against
they tried to buy me, and
official told
me.
wouldn't go for
it.
me
top union
We don't trust anyone we can't buy.'
He refused to name the union leader who had tried to bribe

him. When reporters insisted that he substantiate his charge, he
asserted that his earlier remarks
had been
"distorted," that
he
was merely quoting from a newspaper story, which in turn had

quoted an unnamed labor ofl&cial. "I am not aware of who tried
to buy me," he huffed. Nor could he recall the name of the paper
in
which the charge

It
was not the
allegedly appeared.
first
time Ronald Reagan had been caught in
an ostensible departure from the
Nor would
Brown's
polls
still
it
be the
truth.
last.
waxed more optimistic. Although the California

gave Reagan a 2-to-3 percentage point lead, on
staff
September 20 Las Vegas bookies were giving 9-to-5 odds that
Brown would be reelected.

A week later a riot erupted
in
Hunter s
Point,
San
Francisco.
The
266
Like Watts,
it
sixteen-year-old
started
with a police incident, the shooting of a
boy suspected of automobile
theft.
Like Watts,
was a hot day, the temperature 90, and nerves were on edge.
Like Watts, Hunter s Point was a ghetto. Before World War II
there had been 4,000 Negroes in San Francisco; in 1966 there
were 80,000, congregated mostly in two areas. Hunter's Point
and the Fillmore district. Each was an isolated world, completely
it
divorced from the tourist's San Francisco.
Many
of their youths
had never seen Chinatown, never ridden a cable car. Like Watts,
poverty, large-scale unemployment, illiteracy, broken families,
and a profound feeling of despair were pervasive.
Unlike Watts, the mayor of San Francisco, John F. Shelley,
acted quickly and eflBciendy, calling in the National Guard a
few hours after the rioting began and imposing an immediate
curfew on the city. Unlike Watts, though a number were
wounded, there were, after the initial shooting, no deaths. Unlike Watts, no buildings were fired. Unlike Watts, lines of communication between the Negro community and police and city
officials were kept open. Unlike Watts, police brutality was not
a major issue (in November, residents of Negro districts would
vote overwhelmingly for a pay raise for policemen). Unlike
Watts, there was no public panic in the city at large, and, on

their
own
initiative,
San Francisco gun
stores
suspended
sales
until the rioting ended.
But the
similarities
outweighed the differences. Like Watts,
Hunter's Point was another battle in the continuing Negro revolution, another area in
If
it
which California was leading the nation.
could happen in cosmopolitan San Francisco,
it
could
happen anywhere.
Reagan and Brovim agreed that the
campaign issue.
riots
were not
to
be a
For a time, both kept their word.
But Reagan was unable to resist the temptation.

The riots were not a campaign issue, he stated, but they did
"reveal how little leadership has been exerted in Sacramento to
head
off
such violence."
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
The
riots
267
were not a campaign
Brown would not "reward"
issue,
but Reagan hoped
the rioters.
Sidney Kossen, en route with the Repubhcan candidate:
"Ronald Reagan hedge-hopped across California yesterday and
Negro unrest but denied that the 'white

any significance in his campaign for governor."
at every stop deplored
backlash'
is
of
As the campaign entered
its
final
month, newspapers gave
their endorsements.
Brown won
the support of the
Examiner, the Santa Barbara
San Francisco Chronicle and

Press, the San Luis Obispo
News
Telegram-Tribune, the Sacramento, Modesto and Fresno Bees,

the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner.
Reagan was endorsed by the Santa Ana Register, the Hayward Press, the San Jose Mercury and News, the San Mateo
Times, the Oakland Tribune. He also won the nod of the Los
Angeles Times, although later, on election eve, publisher Otis
Chandler admitted, "I would not like to see Reagan in the
national picture. Nor would I like to see him win big because
that would mean the presence of a strong white backlash."
Brown picked up some unsolicited out-of-state support.
"On November 8, Califomians will, we trust, understand
where reality ends and fantasy begins," read the New York
Times editorial.
Life
too
decided to counsel
the
provincials,
noting that
Reagan was "inexperienced except as a movie star."

Other non-Califomians felt it their duty to lecture the
Golden Staters. In a widely reprinted column titled "ReaganAdman's Dream," Joseph Alsop observed: "Ronald Reagan, in
fact,
resembles a carefully designed, elaborately customerized
supermarket package, complete with the

the slickest sort of eye appeal.
that
is
The
glossiest
wrapping and
Los Angeles advertising firm
handling Reagan has brilliantly provided everything that
can make their package sellwith the possible exception of any

contents."
The
patronizing tone of the Easterners did not
the Far Westerners, of whatever persuasion.
sit
well vdth
The
268
By mid-October
it
was apparent
that the extremism issue
was
a bust.
It
seemed
to bore
crowds even more than the
recital of
Brown's
accomphshments.
There were two reasons, both simple.

Ronald Reagan did not look like an
Spencer-Roberts, he appeared so
much
Thanks
extremist.
to
the bland, personable
moderate that following a speech in Anaheim, one litde old

lady
jumped up and
yelled,
fluoridated water? That's
And
many
to a great
what
"But where does he stand on

I
want
to
know!"
Califomians of both
ism" was not a dirty word. Having
parties, "extrem-
left their families
and homes
pursue a shining dream, the forty-niners had been extremists,
to
no
less so
than the
scientists at
Vandenberg trying
moon. The year-round sunshine was an extreme,
to reach the
as
were the
"perfect swell" at Malibu, the fantastically fertile fields,

ite's
incredible majesty.
itself existed
of
its
Compared
life,"
California
what were the components

other than the same ingredients sought
in extremis. After
fabled "good
to other states,
Yosem-
all,
elsewhere, enlarged and intensified?
Brown dropped the extremism issue. During the last three

weeks of the campaign he concentrated on Reagan's inexperience: "I can't act and he can't govern."
Proof of Brown's inability to act was evident. Although he
he obviously was worried. More

than that, he was hurt and puzzled at the apathy engendered by
any mention of the achievements of his two terms. He had been
tried to present a bold front,
a good governor; for eight years he had worked hard to solve the
problems of his
different? "This
he admitted
to
state.
is
Were
a reporter.
strongest. He's the weakest.
frustrated over the
his fellow Califomians really in-
the toughest election batde I've ever been in,"
war
"Not
that
my
But people are
opponent
frustrated.
in Vietnam, over inflation
the
is
They
and over
are
civil
rights."
had become the United States in microcosm. Its

had become a token national recapitulation. Brown was
California
election
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
269
bearing the brunt of blame
for
things
not primarily
state
problems.
people are tired of Brown," remarked one of the
"It isn't that
"They just wish

would go away."
governor's aides.
talking about
Addressing a Ladies'
Club
least
Day gathering
Brown admitted
San Francisco,
one area. He had managed
in
at the
that
to lose
bought a new wardrobe. But, shaking

elusive sex
these problems
all
he keeps
Commonwealth
he had
failed in at
10 pounds and
had
he added, "That
going to do about
his head,
appeal I don't know what
am
it."
Even his most ardent supporters had to admit that his

"glamor quotient" was low. But, they reasoned, which was more
important: glamor or competence?
Yet,
people entered voting booths, would they be rea-
when
sonable?
The most
recent poll, two weeks before election,
Reagan's lead narrowed
news brought
to
showed
only two percentage points. But this
litde jubilation to the
Brovm camp. There were
other signs of the times.

Several of Brown's big
stretch contributions to
And
it
was
Brown had
rank and
past.
clear,
Reagan's
traditionally
made
sizable lastbets.
simply from the small crowds, that although
official
Brown wasn't alone
arranged
backers had
endorsement of most of the unions, the

were not giving him the support enjoyed in the
the
file
money
Reagan. They were hedging their
in noticing this: Spencer-Roberts re-
schedule
Democratic "blue
factory workers
and
to
allow
more appearances in
was here, among
the white backlash was
collar" areas. It
their families, that
most evident.
Marianne Means accurately pinpointed Brown's dilemma

is not much the governor can do
to counteract this, except to make the idea of Reagan in the
statehouse a more frightening prospect than the possibility of a
Negro living next door."
Brown had tried. From all indications it wasn't working.
And just eleven days before the election, two issues merged.
over these defections: "There
The
270
Stokely Carmichael appeared on the Berkeley campus for a
black power
new.
And
rally.
The term
"black power" was
Reagan urged Brown to exert his authority

Brown refused, with comment, "Mr. Reagan
on
still
relatively
frightening.
theme
his original
to cancel the rally.

is
once again back
run
of asserting the right of politicians to
the university something the constitution forbids."
Setbacks aside,
had promised
vember.
paign
And
money
Browm held two
hole cards. President Johnson
to visit California in his behalf
to a last-minute
Johnson never came
TV
blitz.
to California.
Though
reasons for the cancellation were oflFered,

real reason
come early Nochunk of cam-
the party had allocated a healthy
number
of good
some adjudged the
unstated the President did not want to
risk a test of
his popularity at this time.
Brovm's last-minute
TV
commercials were superb, easily the
most professional endeavor of
One opened
his
campaign.
with a shot of a handsome Georgian building,
fronted by pedestal statues of Jefferson and Lincoln. "Integrity,"
intoned the narrator,

it
"still
a good word. Ronald Reagan has
the foundation of his campaign. But
The camera
how
appropriate
made
is it?"
then panned to the back of the building, reveal-
ing a Hollywood false front. In the middle was a giant Reagan

poster.
The
Republicans televised their commercials,
too, plus a
two-
hour election eve telethon blanketing the whole state. Civil

rights was not an issue, Reagan insisted, but he promised if
elected to take firm steps against race
riots.
The campaigning ended v^dth a bit

that synthesized in its ovm odd way
of unintentional
humor
the major issue of the
campaign. In San Francisco, leading a Union Square
rally
with
Willie Brovm, the governor lifted the
Negro Assemblyman
semblyman's young son onto
his shoulders. "Vote for
the boy said loudly. "Vote for Pat Brown."
my
as-
daddy,"
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
The
2,71
showed Reagan
final polls
still
leading by two points.
But 22 percent remained undecided.
Would Brown
If the polls
pull a Truman-like upset?
were
correct, the
answer lay with those undecided
voters.
Were
Or merely
they really undecided?
unwilling to declare
themselves?
If the latter
was
true,
why?
On
at
Tuesday evening, November 8, scattered precincts closed

7 P.M. Based on these returns, fed into a computer pro-
grammed with
the results of past California elections, at 7:30
had closed,
declared Ronald Wilson Reagan the next Governor of
P.M., half an hour before most of the polls
NBC
Cali-
fornia.
Within the next hour ABC and CBS followed suit.

At 10:15 Brown appeared at his Ambassador Hotel headquarters in Los Angeles. Slowly he made his way through the
crowd, shaking hands, remembering first names, old habits hard
to break.
"It
appears that Ronald Reagan has
told his supporters,
He waved them
"I don't
hke
offering the
it
new
who booed
won
this
campaign," he
loudly.
down.
either,"
he admitted, grinning painfully but
governor his complete cooperation.
Reagan announced his victory at eight minutes to eleven.

"The administration moved faster and farther than the people
wanted it to do," he said. "People want a pause."
Reagan supporters held a victory breakfast in Brown's headquarters hotel. One of the guests of honor was Los Angeles
Mayor Sam Yorty. The mood was jubilant. "Hi ya, losers," they
yelled at passersby with Brown buttons. "You're all losers, you
never had a chance," one
woman
screamed happily.
"Wait and see," a Brown supporter retorted. "In four years

run Lassie and sweep back to power."
we'll
In the
final
count Reagan
won by
nearly a million votes
3,127,289 to 2,282,303gathering 58 percent of the
total
and
The
272
carrying
all
but three counties. Brown had the satisfaction of
knowing he had
was about it.
hometown, San Francisco. But that
carried his
was a Republican sweep. The

Tom Lynch. That Lynch won
when no other Democrat did and with crime supposedly a key
Except for one
state office,
it
holdout was Attorney General

issuegave
mood
the chilling thought that, gauging the
rise to
him because
the voters, they might have voted for
of his
Surprisingly, a right-wing antiobscenity measure reported
ballot propositions held a clue.
The
by
Why?
the polls to be sure of passage was soundly defeated.
Other
of
name.
people voted no on
just about everything.
Including their two-term governor.
What defeated Brown?

The answer: Pat Brown, a majority of California
Spencer-Roberts. Nor is this assessment flippant.
During Brown's eight years
gone a
series of
impact of the
in office, California
major revolutions.
first,
He had
the population explosion.
He had waited
on the
And no
third,
Delano.
responsible for
had under-
He had
in,
failed to
the second,
too long to declare himself
matter what he did, he was held
somehow not preventing
the fourth, and most

had he acted differently
probable the results would have been little
frightening: the race

in each case,
and
underestimated the
understand what was behind, and acted hastily

the revolt at Berkeley.
voters,
it is
riots.
Yet, even
changed.
White backlash was unquestionably

defeat. Dissension within his
own
a key factor in Brovm's
party certainly helped, as did
a badly mismanaged campaign. But most important was the
mood
of the California voter.
curately
The
when he
said,
The
governor-elect gauged
it
ac-
"People want a pause."
California voter was tired: tired of constant change; tired
of racial unrest; tired of youthful rebellion; tired of responsibility

for the problems of other people; tired of seeing
one
after an-
other of the old certainties disintegrate; tired of being
wdth the dubious distinctions thereby entailed;
tired of
"first,"
having
to set examples; tired of being in the forefront of every battle;
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
^73
on the edge of tomorrow; tired of ceaseless movement; tired of having so much demanded.
What good was realizing the golden dream without pauses to
tired of living
enjoy
it?
The 1966 outcome was

Even
essentially a negative protest vote.
business-oriented Fortune
would observe: "Reaganism
almost completely negative in character.
It
is
promises to keep
things from happening: not to free the world from
Communism
or to alter the course of history, but to keep the forces of govern-
ment, whether an increase in the property tax or an openhousing law, away from the patio
steps."
California wanted a pause. But this was

tainly
was
no accurate
its
own mood,
reflection of the national state of
cer-
mind. Or
it?
Was
the California election of 1966 a unique phenomenon,
manifestation of the kooky politics of the Far West, or was
it
harbinger of the national scene?
In retrospect, 1966 was clearly a dress rehearsal for the Presidential election of 1968.
Every issue which had appeared in the microcosmVietnam,

race riots, crime, taxes, poverty, urban unrest reappeared,
and multiplied,
There were further
nified
mag-
in the macrocosm.
parallels.
The
badly fragmented
badly fragmented country. Schisms in the
left
state;
the
giving power to
the right. Dissolution of labor's vote by the divisive white backlash.
Splintering of the major political parties into dissident
factions.
The
accelerating strength of independent voters with
no compunctions over crossing party lines.

That the national significance of these trends was not
gether clear in 1966 is no cause for surprise.
alto-
In 1964 the University of California's Free Speech Movement

appeared to be a local aberration. It took San Francisco State,
Howard, Stanford and Columbia to prove otherwise.

Some, in 1965, considered Watts a freak happening. Harlem,
Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, Baltimore followed.
As
late as 1966, if
one believed many of the newspapers, the
^^s
274
^^ Days
only people disturbed over this country's involvement in Viet-
nam were Reds and

At
unvvâshed hippies
on the Berkeley campus.
that time the notion that President
Johnson would dramati-
cally
announce
his decision not to seek reelection because of
was inconceivable.
and deceptive. The most fascinating
national effect of the 1966 California election is one which still
cannot be fully assessed, but which is certain to be felt in the
elections of 1972, 1976 and beyond.
In California in 1966 a candidate was created, packaged, and
sold to the electorate. It was not the first time such a thing had
happened. Its significance lay in the innovative techniques and
that particular issue
But hindsight
easy,
is
services utilized, each suggesting patterns for the future.
When
firm,
Whitaker-Baxter, the pioneer campaign management
began operation, they proceeded from the tenet that

was nothing more and nothing less than the merchan-
politics
men and
dising of
this:
Spencer-Roberts didn't depart from
ideas.
they enlarged on and updated
modem
the most
But they
also
through employment of
it,
and sophisticated techniques of marketing.

first time in Amer-
added something new. For the
ican politics, they tapped the vast resources of a discipline tradi-
arenascience.
stage occurred even before the announcement of
from the
tionally separated
The
initial
political
Reagan's candidacy, with the hiring of Behavior Science Cor-
BASICO.
poration,
campaign
political
Prior to this time,
counseling
chological
BASICO
scientists
Roberts* opposite
set
to
up
and
industry.
had given psythe Reagan
handle
a staff of 3 1 psychologists, sociologists,
statisticians.
number
BASICO
To
Baus and Ross, Spencer-
in the campaign,
would
later observe,
in unfeigned admiration, "TTiis group contributed to the election
of
Reagan a package including
clinical psychology, practical be-
havioral analysis, creative interpretation of public opinion research, plain but inspired fact finding,
and other neo-modem
trappings with historic impact."
To
start,
covered the
via ultra-sophisticated polling methods,

*'gut issues"
they
dis-
bothering most Califomians. But their
contributions didn't stop there.
They
also
determined which of
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
275
these issues exerted the most voter impact,

kind.
while
Y issue,
it
might be important, but
issue
though actually
hurt most. But
when
it
less
came
and exactly what
wasn't a "grabber,"
it
important, hit the voter where
to Z, best to avoid
entirely,
it
no
matter what the opposition did, for taking either side would
alienate too
many
to be stressed
people.
They determined not only
by the candidate, but the timing
tion of each issue.
the issues
for the introduc-
And, bringing the techniques of the "think
tanks" into politics, they posed hypothetical questions, covering
every conceivable eventuality. Then, through use of specialized

public opinion polls, applied psychology, and knowledge of past
voter behavioral
patterns,
attempted,
eliminate the "surprise element."
The
insofar
result
as
possible,
was not an
to
inflexible
blueprint for victory but a basic approach allowing for adaptation to changing situations.
date
week
met with
for briefings
BASICO
Throughout the campaign the candi-
representatives of
and
BASICO
at least
once each
reevaluation.
also supervised the candidate's intensive schooling
saw that he was given refresher courses

whenever necessary; and assigned researchers to compile "fact
books." These ringbound volumes, eventually seven in number,
contained 4" X 8" cards on every state issue, indexed by subject
The cards listed the basic facts on the issue, together with discussion pro and con, plus the candidate's own stand. Wherever
early in the campaign;
the candidate went, the books went, in the custody of a special

security officer.
With them
"the speech" could be tailored to
fit
any occasion.
The method
itself
was tailor-made to fit the candidate. Many

would have spent most of their
speakers in similar circumstances
time fumbling with cards, to the delight of reporters.
Not
Reagan. Throughout the campaign. Democrats charged that
Reagan was inexperienced. This was not true. He was experienced as an actor. With a memory trained for retention, coupled
with the ability to ad-lib. While the fact-card technique could
have meant disaster to many another candidate, it was right for
Reagan. Which was why Spencer-Roberts selected it.
One result was that on many issues Reagan seemed better
The
276
informed than Brown. Another was that his pronouncements
had
a consistency rarely encountered in pohtical hfe.
More than
in
on the computer.
as (i) the data
any previous campaign, Spencer-Roberts rehed

It is
proverbial that a computer
is
only as good
and (2) the men who operate it.

fact, they created a whole
subsidiary, Datamatics, Inc., to devise ways of adapting data processing techniques to political purpose, under the supervision of
Vincent Barabba, a bright young man with a master's degree in
marketing from the University of California. With the computer
properly programmed with demographic and voter information
they were able to determine which precincts held the greatest
potential vote yield, and to allot the candidate's time and camit
is
fed,
Spencer-Roberts stinted on neither. In
paign expenditures accordingly.
How many
type of campaign literature were needed,
pieces of a specific
how many
buttons,
Ask the machine. Who were the

swing voters in a particular area and what was most likely to
motivate their crossing party lines? What night of the week
would yield the greatest crowd for a mass rally? How many
volunteers would be required in Orange County? The computer
had the answers. Although the computer had been used in earlier
campaigns, it had been mostly on a limited basis, due in large
how many bumper
strips?
part to the attitude of party pros.

Yes, expensive, the
new managers
Too
expensive, they argued.
agreed, but so
was
overprint-
ing campaign literature, or wasting a day of the candidate's time
an area which would not go for him no matter what he said.

Having lost this argument, the pros broached another that
seemed irrefutable: how could a machine know what a voter
would do inside the privacy of the voting booth? This they conin
tinued
to
repeat,
even while watching network computers
predict an election outcome minutes after the
first
returns were
received.
Real proof of the computer's effectiveness became apparent

before the polls closed on election day. In the past, the standard
practice
had been
for
Democratic volunteers
to turn
out as
many
Democratic voters as possible. Republican volunteers as many

Republicans. And in 1966 this is what the California Democrats
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
did.
277
But not the Republicans. Concentrating on key precincts
the computer had determined to be decisive, precincts where
advance and frequently repeated polHng indicated strong Reagan

support, they skipped
tionally
many
of the others entirely. In
Democratic precincts so-called "blue
some
collar" areas,
tradi-
where
the white backlash was most evident Republican volunteers
worked to turn out Democrats.

After the Kennedy-Nixon debates of i960 there was no longer
any doubt that television had revolutionized American politics.
actually
Its
use in the California campaign of 1966 provided another
milestone of
sorts.
Although throughout the campaign each candidate had
re-
peatedly challenged his opponent to debate, no debate was held,

for a
good reason neither of the candidates' campaign managers

knew only too well how he
:
relished the idea. Brown's advisers
would
fare against
an experienced
Spencer-Roberts was afraid
underdog
as to elicit
TV
pro like Reagan, while
Brovm would appear
so
much
There were few innovations
in
TV
technique in the Reagan
campaign, only refinements. For example, in arranging

commercials,
Spencer-Roberts followed the
successful
hower-Kennedy-Johnson formula, limiting each
and one key
issue,
the
sympathy.
so
they
to five
TV
Eisen-
minutes
could be sandwiched between
programs without miffing viewers. Christopher, by contrast, delivered fifteen-minute speeches, pre-empting such popular pro-
grams
as Johnny Carson.
TV's importance in the 1966 California contest lay in the way
it was used to change Reagan's image.
Ronald Reagan's extremist connections were thoroughly
documented. He had championed causes and organizations so
far right as to be avoided even by Barry Goldwater. His past
remarks on various issues were a matter of record. The radical
right was strongly represented in his financial backing. The
Democrats could and did prove all this beyond doubt.
Had they been less astute, Stuart Spencer and Bill Roberts
might have said: That's the old Ronald Reagan. He's changed.
Our man no longer believes these things.
The
Z78
And
would have further publicized the
in so doing they
charges.
Instead they
They
He
He
got
let
the
medium be
Reagan on
TV
the message.
as often as possible.
did not talk like an extremist.
did not look like an extremist.
The
picture
was worth more than

from the
Political pros
study the
all
the words.
entire country visited California to
new phenomenon.
The real phenomenon, in their estimation, was not Ronald

Reagan but Spencer-Roberts.
By 1968 their techniques were being copied by several dozen
firms, a number of which hadn't even been in business two
years earlier, causing Congressional Quarterly to issue a special
fact sheet entitled
"Campaign Management Grows
into
Na-
Apparently Spencer-Roberts was not unduly
tional Industry."
Reagan
campaign was $150,000. More important, in 1968 they had
more than 30 new clients, including such lucrative plums as the
Political Action Committee of the American Medical Association.* They were feeling so magnanimous, in fact, that when
they could spare the time, they conducted seminars on how to
distressed
win
by the competition. Their reported fee
for the
elections.
One
such, attended by about 50 campaign managers and
sponsored by the Republican Congressional Campaign

mittee,
was held
On
Airport.
Barabba,
who
of
who
Sun Times and wrote

of
that
computer subsidiary,
way
covered the seminar for the Chicago
a revealing series of articles on the
politics,"
matics devised a
same way
Spencer-Roberts'
introduced the group to "political war games."
Littlewood,
technicians
O'Hare
the faculty of the four-day school was Vincent
president
Datamatics,
Tom
early in 1968 at a motel near Chicago's
Com-
observed,
"Using computers,
of simulating a
"new
Data-
campaign in much the
Pentagon consultants practice waging wars in the
Which had $4
million to spend
Spencer-Roberts to determine where
on campaign contributions and wanted

could be used most effectively.
it
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
gaming
room
and
279
economists
the
project
national
gross
product."
However,
it
was one thing
to
conduct a "mock campaign,"
another to stage a real election.
Or was
it?
"For about $250,000," the pros assured Litdewood, "a party

or candidate could
voting public.
information,
program* a computer to respond like the
The machine would be

voting and other
past
fed sociodemographic
statistics,
and a polling
sample of the current attitudes of various segments of the pop-
Then, options could be Tiounced' at groups of voters."

would farm wives in Iowa or steelworkers
in Pittsburgh respond if one month before the election the
Presidential incumbent announced a new plan for cutting taxes?
How would the white electorate react to a candidate who, one
week before the election, advocated a hard stand against rioters?
Ask the machine.
ulation.
How,
for example,
Not
all
tion could
experts, Littlewood discovered, agreed that
be fully programmed. Not
yet.
David K. Hardin, president of Market

research
company
Facts,
an
elec-
some, such as
Inc.,
a survey
for corporations, entertained serious doubts
as to the advisability of
possible.
And
such a course of action, even
if it
"Systems analysis in political campaigns worries
were
me
Hardin admitted. "Do we want to fully program an

election? Opinion polling puts some real pressure on the candi-
litde,"
date to adjust. We're getting close to the

in
some
He
He
programmed candidate
instances."
didn't
mention names.
It
was hardly necessary.
wasn't alone in his doubts. Others had reservations not
only about the use to which the
new
technology was being put
but about the whole campaign management phenomenon.
During the 1966 campaign Brown had charged Reagan's adwith "exploiting the fears of the people." Yet where were
visers
the fine lines between nurturing fears and discovering valid

issues,
One
between use and exploitation?

of the strongest criticisms
lican party itself,
from the
came from within the Repub-
liberal
Ripon
Society, which, after
The
28o
observing the Reagan-Brown contest, saw cause for alarm in the
campaign management
role of the
firms. "In radically
changing
the 'image' of a candidate," the Ripon Society warned, "they

are beginning to
assume
responsibility for the candidate's pro-
gram. Approaching the point where they will be able
to
'sell'
prospect a 'campaign package' for Congress or the Assembly or
whatever, they will be dictating candidate selection, with the

party only able to protest weakly and attempt to pick
up
the
pieces afterwards."
They had
valid reasons for concern. It could be argued that
management phenomenon
the campaign
originated
fornia because conditions were different there.

political
machines, no patronage to speak
was
major
political parties
many
years' duration to "vote the
by
year, all this
also.
Even
And
strong.
With municipal
a tendency of
party." Yet, year
rest of the
country
machines were dying.
job patronage
civil service,
There were no
was
man, not the
was becoming true of the
Cali-
Neither of the two
of.
there
in the major cities, old political
in
was disappearing.
Ward
heelers were on their way out. Few could promise, with

any assurance of success, to "deliver" a sizable portion of the
electorate, since there were schisms even in the minority groups.
gap
existed.
No
crystal ball
was required
to predict that
it
would soon be filled by the new breed of political pros those

bright young men who talked about "massaging data" and who
referred to the 1966 California
campaign not
as
Reagan's victory
but McLuhan's.
Campaign
Ross put
it
consultants
Herbert
M. Baus and William
B.
bluntly in their book Politics Battle Plan: "Political
campaigns are too important
to leave to the politicians," they
observed; "too rich the prize, too complex and costly the process
to
entrust the struggle for political
chieftains, political bosses,

dates, ambitious insiders
power
entirely
to
party
committee chairmen, hopeful candi-
and
political 'volunteers'
."
.
Yet even they had doubts. Hardin, of Market Facts, had

expressed concern to Littlewood about the use of the computer
to reach specialized voting groups.
"They
find out just
what
to
say to each precinct," Hardin noted. "Specialized messages aimed
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
2l
at separate groups of people
Ross, on
are quasi-dangerous."
Baus and
the other hand, expressed their concern not about the
speciahzed but the mass approach television.
'"What might have been' had
television arrived generations
earlier?" they asked. "Television might have elected as Presi-
dent Aaron Burr, a debonair
ladies'
man, con man, and scoundrel
in preference to the comparably shy
and dry Thomas
Jefferson.
It might have cost history the greatness of the ungainly Abra-
ham
Lincoln.
."
.
Sticking to the past was fairly safe. But

future?
interesting questions, not the least of
What
but
if
which involved
morality.
a firm was offered a candidate eminently electable,
totally unfit for office?
What
for
what about the

posed some
The campaign management phenomenon
if
they were offered the opportunity to work covertly
two opposing candidates? The question was not
hypothetical;
there
entirely
were rumors, implied the Congressional
Quarterly report, that one California firm had already done just
that.
What
about other possible conflicts of interest? For example,
one Washington, D.C., firm handled campaign management;

conducted research for federal agencies; and acted
as lobbyist for
private interests. Littlewood expressed concern that

this
company, or one
working
to
elect
same individuals
similar,
members
"may
some day
find itself in the position of
of Congress,
in a lobbying capacity
later
pressuring
and using
the
their congres-
sional influence to help obtain contracts."
Spencer-Roberts, in contrast, avoided this problem by doing
no lobbying.
Bill
"It's
influence peddling as far as we're concerned,"
Roberts told Littlewood.
"We know
these people. It
would
put them in a spot."
By handling only one
party Republican Spencer-
political
Roberts also avoided some other conflict-of-interest
But even in
this limited sphere,
possibilities.
there were problems.
about conflicts of ideology? Asked
by one reporter
What
how
they
could work for candidates with such disparate philosophies as
The
282
Rockefeller and Reagan, Roberts candidly replied,
"We
are
mercenaries."
In 1968 a number of the nation's public opinion pollsters

met in Santa Barbara, California, to draw up ethical guidelines
and standards for their profession before the government did it
for them. To date, the campaign management firms are bound
only by the old rules (such as reporting a candidate's receipts
and expenses) and

Still
their
own
consciences.
more fascinating, thanks to

where you could purchase a
other questions arise, even
that remarkable state, California,
packaged church, complete with dogma, or a
political candidate,
complete with platform.
Does television mean a new era of "government by personality"? Will the perfect candidate of tomorrow be not the best
qualified but the most photogenic, not the most experienced but
the most malleable? Ridiculous questions? Apparendy the
campaign management firms don't think so. Congressional
Quarterly, after surveying the major firms in the field, concluded, "From the viewpoint of a professional campaign manager, the ideal candidate
is
an
attractive
Democrat who has accumulated no
young Republican or
political 'record' of possible
habihties."
Will image making, candidate merchandising, and campaign

packaging make it increasingly difficult to distinguish between
advertising
and product
reality?
Or, as the techniques of specialized and mass manipulation
grow ever more
sophisticated, will the voter
grow more
sophisti-
cated, too?
There
is
nothing Orwellian in such conjecture. Those who

programming as futuristic nonsense
dismiss computer election
might pause
By 1968
to reconsider their position.
the Republican committees of three states Dela-
ware, Colorado and Arkansas had the names of virtually all

state voters in computer storage, while at least one campaign
had computerized records on every delegate

the Republican and Democratic national conventions of that
management
to
firm
year, including information concerning the delegate's friends,
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
283
bank
and mortgages, drinking habits and
past political alliances, present business associates, current
balance, investments, notes
sexual tastes.
How
long will
it
the day
when banks
records
and
be before the "mating of the computers,"

of computers begin to
credit histories,
combine the voting
the police and employment and
educational records, and other assorted data on every adult in

the United States?
According
Was
to
one computer expert, "Long before 1975."
California the
Only time
This
is
will
new
look in American politics?
tell.
a part of the California legacy.
Golden State continues

But one
act
Even
in absentia, the
to influence the rest of the nation.
remained in the California drama before the
final
curtain.
The
people of California had bought the "carefully designed,
elaborately customerized supermarket package,
complete with
the glossiest wrapping and the slickest sort of eye appeal."

It
remained for them
to
open
it
to see
what
it
contained.
14.
Once they
Now
Who's Ronald Reagan?
asked:
the question was:
Once
Which was
he?
a liberal, next an extreme right-vdnger, finally a
Which was the real Ronald Reagan?

With the announcement of his appointments,
mod-
erate.
coming
For
the clues started
in.
state
commissioner he appointed an antiand past president of the California Real
estate
real
fair-housing crusader
Estate Association.
As
state public utilities
commissioner he appointed a former
consultant to the utility companies.
For
state labor
ment man ever
to
commissioner he appointed the
first
manage-
hold that post, the general manager of a firm
TJie Last Days of the Late, Great State of California
284
had been charged
which in the past
five years
with violating laws
he was now supposed
To
thirteen times
to enforce.
the state board of education he appointed a pro-school-
prayer advocate on record as having declared the Pilgrims
Communistic. (Even the
Reagan was forced
As
his
sity of
own
to
and
legislature couldn't take this one,
withdraw the appointment.)
education adviser, he appointed a former Univer-
California professor
who had
helped
start "the
mess
at
Berkeley" by advocating taking the free-speech area away from

the students.
As head
of the State Resources
Commission (whose charges
included state parks, recreation and, incidentally, redwoods) he
appointed a lumberman.
As new welfare
chief he appointed a lawyer opposed to
welfare.
For clemency secretary he selected an ex-DA favoring capital
punishment.
November
Shortly after the
election
it
was announced
that
Ronald Reagan would take his oath of office as California's

thirty-third governor on January 2, 1967, at 12:10 a.m.
The
extraordinary hour occasioned talk.
Governor Brown, finishing his

only guess
is
that
it's
last
days in
office,
opined,
because he believes in astrology.
"My
under-
stand he does."
"He
does not believe in astrology,'* replied Reagan's execu-
tive secretary.
"He
guided by the
stars,
does not consult wdth astrologers.
nor do
we
He
is
not
intend to have stargazers in the
administration."
Reagan,
too, later
denied the charge.
Apparendy everyone, Reagan included, had

first
forgotten
the
paragraph on page 249 of his autobiography:
"One
of our good friends
is
turn to
see what he has
birth signs."
who has
Nancy and
Carroll Righter,
syndicated column on astrology. Every morning
a
I
to say about people of our respective
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
285
Visiting California for the
time since the election, Robert
first
Welch, founder-leader of the John Birch Society, proudly announced that his members deserved credit "in large part" for
the election of Ronald Reagan.
Noting that while the
society itself took
no part or position in
the campaign, "a preponderant majority of our
members un-
doubtedly worked for Reagan."
The
sharp change in the political climate of California in
recent years, he added, could also be credited to the society and

"untiring educational work."
its
"We had
practically
chosen California as a state in which
from the beginning," Welch
we
fifteen percent of the total field staff
our
at least fifteen percent of
said.
to concentrate
"As a
rule,
about
could afford, and hence
membership, has been in
total
California."
On November
31,
1966, three
Navy
recruitment table inside the Student
officers set up their

Union Building on the
Berkeley campus. University of California.

Earlier,
up
an antidraft group had been refused permission to
tables in the
same general
In protest they
Nine were
who had
now
did
it
set
area.
anyway.
arrested, including
former student Mario Savio,
reappeared in Berkeley several months previous, un-
successfully seeking readmission.
Next day
a general strike
was
called.
The issue was real. But the timing couldn't have been worse.
And this time the activists were without major faculty support,
many members now having become extremely critical of the
students' tendency to skip negotiations
confrontation.
to the
FSM
activists
One
teacher
and revert
who had been
complained that from the time of the
had been trying
to
immediate
wholly sympathetic
FSM
victory,
to "create incidents."
In Sacramento, Governor
Brown announced he was keeping
informed on developments but that he would have no
ment
unless state intervention
state-
was requested.
Governor-elect Reagan was less reticent; as far as he was
The
286
concerned, students could "accept and obey proscribed rules or

get out."
The
week, recessing for
strike lasted a
final
examinations
(it
was never resumed).

Throughout the campaign Reagan had talked of cutting
government spending, but had not been specific. Now he was.
He announced
"He wants
an across-the-board budget cut of lo percent.

turn California into a B picture run on a
to
B-picture budget!" roared Eric Hoffer.
He
also
announced
that
he anticipated additional cuts in the
budgets of the 9 University of California campuses and 18 state
The
colleges.
curiosity,"
To
he
state
had no business "subsidizing
said.
stage the inaugural festivities, with their
Cahfomia," a
intellectual
special-effects
man was
hired, the
theme
"Fiesta
same man who
had staged the opening of Disneyland.

Ronald Wilson Reagan took office as scheduled, a few minutes past midnight on January 2. He was sworn in by Associate
Supreme Court Justice Marshall F. McComb the

only member of that bench to dissent in the court decision
which invalidated Proposition 14.
It was a most impressive ceremony, the midnight hour intensifying the drama. In his inaugural address, Reagan said,
California
"For
many
years now,
you and
have been shushed
like chil-
dren and told that there are no simple answers to the complex
problems which are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth
is,
there are simple answers there just are not easy ones."
The
fiscal
policy of his administration
would be
to "squeeze,
cut and trim."
As
for
its
moral policy, Reagan referred several times to the
necessity of bringing Christian principles into government.
"Someone back
in our history,"
he
said, "I
wasn't too good a
was Benjamin Franklin, said. If ever

office and bring to public office the
teachings and precepts of the Prince of Peace, he would revolu-
student, but I think
it
someone could take pubhc
"
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
and men would be remembering him
tionize the world
thousand
287
Reagan vowed
to try.
His references
to Christianity did
not
sit
well with the
non-Christians in California, nor with those
And
State.
quotation
who
felt
many
the au-
had some reason for separating Church

were at a loss to track down the
Franklinwho was an atheist. But
thors of the Constitution
and
for a
years.'
historians
attributed
to
Reagan's sincerity was unquestionable.
The
thirty-third
Gov-
ernor of the State of California promised to "try very hard."
He
did.
One
of
Governor Reagan's
first
acts
was
to
ground the
state
plane, the Grizzly.
One
budget
was to annoimce that in addition to the

he would propose to the Board of Regents that
of the next
cuts,
tuition be charged at the University of California.
The
outcry was immediate and loud. In the 99-year history of
the university, President Kerr said proudly,
no
qualified stu-
dent had ever been turned away. Governor Reagan's action,

adopted, would end this tradition, preventing
many
if
qualified
students from attending while causing others to drop out.
It
would also severely limit educational opportunities of lowerand middle-income families.''"

Apparently Governor Reagan felt it was from these groups
that most of the protestors were coming.
A new button appeared on the Berkeley campus: Chicken
Little was right.
On his
seventh day in
Fresno State College
Faced wath
office,
Reagan was hung
campus a new
large-scale
record for a
in effigy
new
on the
governor.
budget cuts (of the $278 million
re-
quested by the University of California, Reagan proposed eliminating $82 million, or

all
new
fall
more than 25 percent), Kerr suspended
admissions.
* Even without tuition, the per student cost of studying at Berkeley averaged
$1,850 for three quarters, including $243 in incidental fees.
The
288
Reagan, infuriated, began mustering support for Kerr's ouster.

Since the Board of Regents was composed largely of conservative
businessmen and women, there was
little
trouble gathering the
necessary votes.
On
January 20, 1967, the board met and voted 14 to 8 to
fire
Kerr.
Following the meeting, Governor Reagan told reporters he
He said of
the firing, "It's all a big surprise to me." It wasn't. He said that
Kerr had called for a vote of confidence. He hadn't. He said that
he personally hadn't voted. He had. Apparently he was unhad not been behind the move
He
to oust Kerr.
had.
aware that the proceedings of regents' meetings were made

public.
(Still,
newspapers hesitated
to
use the word.
One
veteran
statehouse reporter offered a simple explanation for these fre-
quent departures from the truth: "Maybe he thinks
he's
still
campaigning.")
Kerr accepted the news with dignity. "The president of a

university takes a final examination every month.
Up
to
now
had always passed."
"Good riddance
this
to
bad rubbish," remarked Mario Savio. But
time he obviously wasn't speaking for a majority of stu-
dents.
Most
of
them were
the end,
when he was
the time. Flags on
all
As
in a state of shock.
watching a Western and hissing the
villain,
shot down, that he
if
they had been
only to discover at
had been the hero
university campuses
were flown
all
at half-
mast.
"The
far right
and the
far left
can rejoice in the action taken
lamented regent William Coblentz,
today,"
who had
voted
against the dismissal.
The
shock of Kerr's firing resounded through every academic
community
editorial
in the country.
The New York Times headed
its
"Twilight of a Great University." "In the end the
students are the big losers,"
commented
Eric Sevareid.
There was one slight note of levity. Ex-governor Brown, informed of the regents' decision, reverted to malapropism: "To
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
fire
Dr. Kerr
is
289
probably the greatest blow to higher education
in our state since the founding of the university."
Otherwise humor was absent.
The effect on the university was tragic and far-reaching. Nine

months elapsed before the regents could find anyone willing to
accept the presidency. During this period and afterward, a
number of highly esteemed faculty members accepted employment
number
elsewhere, while an even greater
of prospective
faculty,
discouraged by the prospect of reduced salaries and
alarmed
at the intrusion of politics into
academic administra-
decided against coming to Cahfornia. Similar doldrums
tion,
beset the state colleges.
There was something vaguely familiar about it all.

Back in young Ronnie Reagan's days at Eureka College. But
then, he tells it best in Where's the Rest of Me?:
"The new president
of
Eureka tripped over the panic button
and announced a plan for saving the college. He favored a plan

which called for such a drastic cutback academically that many
juniors
and
needed
for graduation in their
the faculty
lost its
seniors
would have been cut
off
without the courses
chosen majors. Needless to say,
would have been decimated and Eureka would have
high academic rating.
I realize now that he sincerely felt

was proper. However, he had persuaded the board of
"Looking back,
his course
trustees to
go along without any thought of consulting students or faculty.
They, knovdng
this
was equivalent
to cutting out the heart of
the college, responded with a roar of fury.

to participate in
To
my
That was how
came
first strike."
and the firing of Dr.

and students marched on Sacramento. Rea-
protest the proposed tuition charge
Kerr, 500 teachers

gan's distaste
was
readily discernible.
his remarks, "Ladies
and gentlemen,
if
He
sarcastically prefaced
there are any."
People standing close by were amazed to note that three
months
still
after the
campaign, in an open-air gathering, he was
wearing makeup. But of course the
TV
cameras were
290
The
grinding away.
new
batch of buttons soon flooded the mar-
"Ronald Reagan wears rouge," "Ronald Reagan

Ayn Rand in drag," and "reduce Reagan by io%."
ket:
is
Like all Califomians, Ronald Reagan had a dream. As he told

an interviewer for the San Diego Union: "There's nobody quite
like us,
that
we
with a thousand different viewpoints.
If
we can prove
we can
can take care of our problems here in California,
say to a lot of people back in the tired East, It works, this
system of ours.'"
At almost every news conference Governor Reagan denied

any Presidential ambitionsbeyond serving as a "favorite son"
candidate in 1968.
But immediately
state
after taking office,
speaking engagements.
And
he escalated his
out-of-
a carefully edited, two-and-a-
half-minute videotape (in color) featuring "highlights" of each

of his press conferences
was supplied,
gratis, to
any
TV
station
in the nation expressing interest. This generous service, pri-
vately financed
by anonymous friends of the governor, did
litde
to decrease Presidential speculation.
For eight years Pat Brown had made bloopers.
Now
it
was
Ronald Reagan's turn.
With
a script,
he looked the image of a governor. Without
one, he stumbled repeatedly.
Questioned about the status of one appointment, he replied:

"I
don't
know
the route after
once say 'OK* on the piece of
paper. I've been sick."
Asked about another, he

I'm trying to
fidgeted: "Let's
remember no,
well,
see this hasn'tyes,
now, wait a minute, when
say no, I'm sayingI shouldn't have prefaced with that word,
because
it
sounds like an answer to your question.
We
haven't
gotten around to that yet."
Needless to
say,
such immortal moments were edited from the
film clips.
There were
early indications
he had no idea what he was
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
doing not surprising
291
for a totally inexperienced citizen-politi-
cian endeavoring to run the largest and most complex of 50

states.
He
vehemently denied scheduling cuts in the University
of California budget, only to reveal a
would be
substantial cuts. "I goofed,"
add good."
He
week
he admitted.
"I just don't
replied to one correspondent that
favor of tuition for public schools!
that there
later
he was in
Confronted with an enraged
howl from educators, who reminded him that public school attendance was compulsory and that the United States had a
tradition of free education, he backtracked and took refuge
once again in his old "misinterpreted" alibi. But the letter, which
was abundantly clear, bore his signature.

Even in his most inspired moments, Brown had never played
the part of the humbler so well.
But the new governor was trying, or so the people said, and
that apparently was all they expected of him. Polls showed him
to
be even more popular than on election day.
And he could be
new simplicity.
government
credited with bringing to state
There was no problem, he
insisted, in the best
Santa
Ana
Register tradition, that could not be reduced to a single page.
Accordingly,
when
was pending on an
a decision
issue
such
as
water, transportation, mental health or farm labor, his aides
furnished
him with
a one-page
memo,
consisting of four para-
graphs: the issue; the facts; discussion pro and con; and recom-
mendations.
If
he agreed with the recommendations of his brain trust in

same conservative Southern California business-
large part the
men who had

initial "OK RR"
Thus
originally
at the
proposed his candidacyhe would
bottom of the page.
did state policy evolve in California, during the
half of the decade of the sixties,
last
by mini-memo.
Following his defeat, Pat Brovra returned to private law
One day, while he was walking

women thought they recognized
practice in Southern California.
through a hotel lobby, several

him.
One
asked, "Aren't
you a motion picture
actor?"
The
292
But there were advantages to his new freedom. He could say

what he thought, and did. He wrote the editors of The California Farmer, organ of one of the state's biggest pressure groups:
"Someone very thoughtlessly has continued
to
thought one of
zine
is
come
into
something
send
me The
and
them was not having your abominable maga-
California Varmer. Being out of public office has
my
office.
To
do not have
have
it
follow
me
some
joys
into private life
to suffer.
Edmund
Governor Reagan did not
restrict his
G. Brown."
budget cuts
to
10 per-
cent.
His cuts in the
state education
budget were several times
that.
campus of the University of

Cuts for Southern California cam-
Interestingly enough, the Berkeley
California was hardest
hit.
puses were minimal.
Eight of the thirteen
new
one-stop ghetto service centers one
few major improvements since the Watts riotswere

ordered closed by the governor.
Funds for the office of State Consumer Counsel were chopped
so mercilessly that the office was forced to announce that it
of the
would no longer be able to help the public in matters of consumer fraud.

The number of planners in every field was sharply reduced.
A total of $33.6 million had been recommended for the state
park program. The governor's budget trimmed this to litde more
than $1 million, a reduction of more than 90 percent
(There was a consistency to his attitude toward parks. He
vetoed a bill which would have prohibited freeways from going
through local and state parks, and cut back such "nonessentiar
features of the State
Water
Project as recreational developments
and scenery enhancement.)

The Medi-Cal program, which had provided health services
for 1,500,000 needy Calif omians, was cut $210 million. Hardest hit were the aged and the young. Chronically ill elderly
people were moved from private to county hospitals. Unprepared
for the onslaught and operating on limited budgets themselves,
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
2,93
the county units could offer only minimal services in over-
crowded conditions, while the dispensing of medicine, eyeglasses, hearing aids, crutches, artificial limbs and similar
was discontinued. Because of cutbacks in the program of the California Bureau of Crippled Children Services,
more than 5,000 crippled children were denied medical care. Excluded from treatment were all whose conditions were not con"incidentals"
sidered "chronic," for example, children with hearing defects,
bone
abscesses, facial paralysis,
One
and webbed
fingers or toes.
cutback aroused more concern than
all
others.
During the last three years of the Brown administration, Calihad made fantastic strides in the field of mental health; as
a result of experimental therapy and the use of outpatient
clinics, the population of state mental hospitals had declined
fornia
40 percent.
Because of the outpatient
clinics,
or day treatment centers,
thousands of people previously confined to institutions were

able to receive medical help yet live at
home, remaining
a part
of society.
Reagan, stunned by the furor, was forced to postpone closing

of
some 14 (or nearly
2,632
state
chiatrists), plus
mentally
The
ill
little
all)
the firing of
outpatient clinics,
mental hospital employees (from attendants
to psy-
budget cuts of $15.7 million in facilities for the

for the mentally retarded.
and $2 million
old lady in
Anaheim must have been
greatly cheered
radical rightists had long contended that mental health was a
Commie
plot
Picking on the group least able to defend
apparendy anticipated no
resistance.
He
itself,
the governor
couldn't have been
more wrong. Hospital administrators protested vigorously, warning that such drastic reductions meant regression to the "snake
pit" era. To halt such criticism, Reagan imposed censorship,
requiring any public statements by state employees to be cleared
through his
before release.
oflBce
But he couldn't
mously deemed
inhuman.
silence the newspapers,
this
which almost unaniall,

and the most
the maddest cut of
"^^^ ^'^'^ Days of the Late, Great State of California
294
morale at
StafiE
Meals for
state hospitals deteriorated badly.
patients at several of the larger hospitals
had
to
be restricted to
two per day. Some of the most promising therapy programs had
to be abandoned because of lack of personnel. Several patients,
hearing that they would no longer receive adequate care, committed suicide.
A
this
second exodus from the Golden State was soon underway,

time of psychiatrists, doctors, and qualified
Pat Brown
tion influx. Bit
own
personnel.
staff
hadn't been able to do anything about the popula-
by
bit,
new
the
governor was solving
it
in his
way.
Cars sprouted "impeach Ronald Reagan" bumper

not only in Northern
strips.
And
California.
Reagan now proposed

"pending further study."
as a part of his
He
economy
encountered similar
drive the cuts
difficulties
with
few did not make it past the legislature;

others were set aside by the courts. California was too enormous
a state, with too many wheels already in motion, for one man
other economies.
Despite a complete lack of support
to bring
about a
from the
state capital, the various conservation
full halt.
groups did even-
tually unite on a Redwood Park plan, which, after numerous

delays, while the trees continued to fall, was ultimately approved
by Congress. This final plan was a compromise, a very small

two-unit park, pardy on Redwood Creek in Humboldt County,
partly on Mill Creek in Del Norte County.
The
governor's promise to "do something" about the topless
was another fizzle. The phenomenon played and paid right

along, though when the clubs reached the saturation point on
gimmicks, boredom set in and audiences dwindled.
He made
his influence felt in other ways, however.
would rather have an avowed

Reagan in Sacramento than Brown; they now had
him. The farm workers had said the same thing; when a labor
shortage developed in the fig and tomato crops, due to the growers' refusal to pay an adequate wage, Reagan supplied convicts
The
enemy
from
He
students had said they
like
state prisons to pick
them.
was absent from the last-minute clemency hearing of a
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
2,95
convicted murderer scheduled for imminent execution.
ernor was being made up

Awards presentation.
For
all
for the
The
gov-
Motion Picture Academy
the ado about cutting, trimming and squeezing, the
budget submitted totaled $5.93 billion not only considerably

higher than Pat Brown's farewell effort but the highest ever
proposed in any
To
state.
Governor Reagan increased the sales tax to

liquor and cigarettes,
5 percent, imposed additional stiff taxes on
and raised state income taxes, in many cases from 100 to 200
help cover
it,
percent.
He
was
trying.
In the heat of the controversy over major budget cuts, some
minor cuts passed almost unnoticed. The budget of the State

Disaster Agency was cut. And 25 percent was lopped from the
$100,000 normally allotted to the University of California's seismographic laboratory, bringing to an end several promising
and the manner of propa-
studies into the origins of earthquakes
gation of seismic waves.
He had promised to decrease the

had increased it. He had promised
He
He had
cost of state government.

to
lower
state taxes.
doubled and tripled them.
grew more and more disenchanted. The Los Anwhich had endorsed him as a candidate, broke with
him over the tuition issue and thereafter remained one of his
most vocal opponents. And he complained of the major Sacramento paper, in a most telling aside, "Y'know, every time the
Sacramento Bee takes my picture, they wait till I'm picking my
The
press
geles Times,
nose.
But the people loved him. Each successive
poll
showed
his
popularity undiminished.
Then came
the
first
of the scandals.
In a detailed, fully documented column (which, of course,
The
296
was suppressed by most California papers), Drew Pearson revealed that a homosexual ring had until recently been operating
within the highest levels of the Reagan administration. Included
were two members of the governor's personal staff, one of them
a major aide and close adviser. The group, Pearson noted, had
staged "orgies" in a Lake Tahoe cabin, with minors in attendance.
Evidence, in the form of tape recordings, had been obtained by
one of the governor's bodyguards, an ex-private detective. Confronted with the report, Reagan had asked the men for their
resignations. All this, Pearson said, had been admitted by Lyn
Nofziger, Reagan's press chief, in "off the record" talks to
reporters.
at a press conference,
Questioned about the charge

angrily
liar.
pounded
his
fist
on the
podium and
Reagan
called Pearson a
"I'm prepared to say that nothing like that ever happened,"
he fumed. As
porters,
it
for Nofziger discussing
hadn't happened.
'Want
any such matter with
to confirm
it,
re-
Lyn?" he asked.
"Confirmed," his press chief replied.
Reagan was lying. As was Nofziger. This time the press

showed no hesitancy in using the word.
There had been a homosexual group. The two staff members,
plus more than a dozen lesser officials, had been asked to resign,
and Nofziger had admitted this to the press to reporters of the
New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Evening Star, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek and an L.A.
broadcaster for CBS, among others.
Newspapers now brought to light other occasions on which
Reagan had lied. A Southern governor had commented on
Reagan's discussion of Presidential plans with him; Reagan not
only denied the statement, he claimed never to have met the
man. A photograph had been taken of the two together. During
a governors' cruise, Reagan had come into possession of a cable-
gram from President Johnson

fidant.
He
to a
then gleefully released
it
Democratic governor conto the press, purporting to
have received it through a mistake in delivery. But evidence

indicated a Reagan staff member had bribed a radio operator
for a copy.
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
The
list,
"^91
which was lengthy, stretched back
to
precampaign
days.
It
was
consistent, leading to
one inescapable conclusion. Un-
der pressure, Reagan had a tendency to blow
up
or lie or both.'*'
was not that he had employed homosexuals or

that he had been slow in firing them. It was whether the United
States should consider as Chief Executive the man whose finger
The
real issue
hovered over the atomic button a person so easily rattled.

For by now there was no question that Ronald Reagan was
running for President.
seriously
Nixon's
classic
He
mistake on the eve of
did not
his
make Richard
1962 election battle
with Pat Brown, Nixon had made a gaffe that surpassed Brown s
best efforts, saying that he was "running for Governor of the
United States"but there were other unmistakable signs. Hair

freshly tinted, he set out on a cross-country speaking tour, ostensibly to raise funds for the Republican party. He was not
running for President, but wherever he spoke "Reagan for
President" banners mushroomed. Crowds grew hoarse with enthusiasm as the former movie actor told them
how he had
slashed
expenditures in the Golden State. What the new speech neglected to mention was that he had also submitted the highest
budget in state history and that to support it, he had raised taxes.
New
England they wrote a folk song about the "modem

Paul Revere." At Yale he charmed an initially hostile student
body. In the South he drew more sustained applause than the
local segregationists. In Albany, Governor Rockefeller said he
In
would have no objection
to
occupying the same ticket
as
Gov-
ernor Reagan, with the Califomian in second place, of course.
Spencer-Roberts must have been exceedingly proud.
As the rest of the country appeared to catch the California

madness so much so that at the start of the balloting in Miami
he was
seriously considered a leading
contender California
it-
self entertained second thoughts. Percentage point by percentage
point, Reagan's popularity at
home
diminished.
* Governor Reagan was not without his defenders. One Southern California
Congressman stated, "Our governor has never lied, and what's more, he never
will again."
The
298
But he must have known
it
was bound
to
happen. As a young
hfeguard he had reahzed that people aren't appreciative of

being saved.
That he
failed to
make
the Presidency on his
first try
was not
too surprising. It always took awhile for California fads to catch
on elsewhere.
Not
all
California Democrats were pleased that their acting
governor had failed to win nomination for the nation's highest

ofl&ce.
we
As one
wistfully daydreamed: "It
would have been nice
could have shared him with the rest of the country."
if
PART FOUR
PARADISE LOST
The
Civil Defense in California, from

tion
California Informa-
Almanac:
"The chain
of
command
in non-military defense
the federal government to the state
government; however, the key

structure
is
the individual.
The
to
government
is
from
to the local
the success of the entire
individual must recognize his
personal responsibilities to mitigate disaster of any type and

should psychologically as well as physically prepare himself
an unthinkable situation which might occur. Total dependence on the various levels of government to solve all of
the problems of disaster is impossible due to financial limifor
and the ever present unknown

California Disaster Office can only do
tations
factor.'
so
In essence, the
much
to assist the
private citizen in a disaster situation.
"In the final analysis he must be prepared to help himself."
Friday 3: 12 p.m.
For more than
week the unseasonally warm
rain
had
been melting snow in the high mountains of Northern California, sending torrents of
hundreds of
water downhill
tributaries in turn
to the streams, these
adding their flow to the already
Mad, Eel, Feather, Yuba, American and Sacramentoto back up behind dams in the north state. Behind
Oroville, the world's highest earth-filled dam, swirled nearly 3.5
swollen rivers the
million acre-feet of water.
The
300
Some 70
miles south,
down
the trough of the great Central
Valley, in the state capitol at Sacramento, the Governor of California
had
just entered the executive
men's room.
In Petaluma, egg capital of the world, the hens inexplicably

stopped laying.
In Colfax, merchants were marking up their prices for the

influx of
The
weekend tourists.
Donner Pass was open but
road over
slippery.
In an office-apartment in Jackson, a group of

patiently
unwrapping
new
In schools throughout the

the minute
hand
men were
im-
bronze plaque.
state,
students stared at the clock as
crept with unbearable slowness toward the start
of vacation.
In a thousand communities, mothers were converging on
up their offspring. Most of

them dreaded the coming days.
In San Francisco, Gump's, the City of Paris, I. Magnin's and
other fashionable shoppers' havens were ringing up record sales.
In Roos-Atkins a customer wrote a large check, knowing that
when it reached the bank on Monday, it would bounce. But
knowing that by then he would be out of the state.
Montgomery Street was already a darkening canyon. The
descending elevators were filled with stockbrokers. Having come
to work at 7 a.m. to catch the opening of the New York Exchange, their day had ended, their weekend already begun.
Two secretaries, whose departing boss had told them to close
schools in family second cars to pick
the
office,
jump on
entered the semilit recesses of Paoli's, hoping to get a

the competition.
They were thinking
like
thoughts-
net whether there would be an invitation to dinner, nor even

the whole weekend, but if this time she might meet "him." They
had not lived in San Francisco long.
The Hyde
Street cable car
began
its
laborious climb
up hiUy
Powell Street.
In the Yankee Doodle Bar, a businessman
turned to his
of
office
who had
from lunch counted the eight
not
re-
olives in front
him and tried to remember what it was he had been trying to

came back: last night's argument vdth his wife and her
forget. It
PARADISE LOST
use of "that word."
"alcohohc."
3!
He
ordered another. Ridiculous.
Never would
be.
He
He
was no
could stop anytime he wanted
to.
Down
young Chronicle
the bar a
reporter also ordered an-
other, a double, trying to forget the mother's face
when he had
told her of her son's death from an overdose of narcotics.
At
Fifth
and Mission
newspaper was being put
to bed.
In the Tenderloin, prostitutes, just waking up, were wondering where their pimps had gone.
In the Fillmore, Friday afternoon meant another week had
gone by without a job.

In the Haight-Ashbury an aging flower child one of the lingering survivors of a brief but fabled era embarked on a trip.
In his
girl friend's
apartment on Stockton Street a long-hunted
Nazi henchman, now an automobile salesman with a nonTeutonic name, was celebrating 24 years of successfully eluding
his pursuers.
On
Sacramento Street a sign in front of the Christian Yoga

Church beckoned: Charge-a-tithe. your Bankamericard
V^LCOME
On
gels
HERE.
Warren Freeway outside Oakland, a dozen

and their "moms" were headed south, getting an
the
toward the meet

It
was
at
An-
early start
Monterey.
Friday, getaway day; the traffic
the Bayshore Freeway and the bridges.
was
Hell's
was already heavy on

the Golden Gate
On
two outgoing lanes, while a

on an east-side beam (they always
jumped facing the city). The highway patrolman trying to talk
him back was in agony. He itched miserably in an embarrassing
spot but couldn't scratch with TV cameras focused on him.
At San Francisco International Airport it was the busiest day
of the week. Although the rush hours four to ninewere still
ahead, more than 6,000 people were already in the terminalBridge
it
at a standstill in
"leaper" balanced himself
arriving, departing, saying good-byes or greeting people.
Two
San Francisco detectives, were too late. As they rushed

into the terminal, Trans World Airlines Flight 78 had already
begun taxiing down the runway, with the embezzler aboard. It
of them,
The
302
didn't really matter.
They could
teletype L.A.
and have him
taken off the plane there, but they resented not making the
capture themselves.
In a motel in Redwôod City an attractive young Palo Alto
housewife fastened her stockings
to
her garter
belt,
checked her
the dozenth time, and looked again at the sleeping
viâtch for
She would have to hurry and do some shopping to establish an excuse for the day. Yet she was reluctant to
face of her lover.
awaken him,
the
first
reluctant to bring the afternoon to an end. It was
time she had committed adultery.
In his secretary's apartment on Telegraph Hill, the husband
was checking his watch, wondering if there was time for one
more before he caught the peninsula train. There was.
At the National Center for Earthquake Research in Menlo
too
Park seismologists checked their instruments almost mechanically, their
thoughts on the weekend.
In Carmel,
gift
shop owners prepared for the Saturday
in-
vasion.
In the wilds of Big Sur, deer stopped munching greenery and

stood
as
still,
if
scenting danger. Yet the hunting season had
ended weeks before.

In the
last of
the still-struck vineyards of the San Joaquin
Valley, grapes were rotting
Outside Bakersfield, the

traffic fatality.
Once
to start the count.
on the
state
vines.
had
weekend highway
its first
the highway patrol had waited until 5 p.m.
In recent years, however, wdth daily
traffic so
had been moved ahead to 3.

It was Friday, getaway day, in Southern California, too, or
would have been, had not trafl&c been so congested on the freeheavy,
it
ways. In
downtown
L.A., one car rear-ended another,
and 26
others followed suit.
Driving
whether
along
the
Ventura
Freeway,
dentist
to leave California entirely or just look for
debated
another
spot
Two
and a dozen cars behind him, a woman suddenly

had missed her tumoflF and began screaming. If the
other drivers heard her, they gave no indication.
lanes
realized she
PARADISE LOST
3^3
In a Canoga Park supermarket, three shopping carts colhded;

the divorcees guiding them were all intently eyeing the same
handsome young man.
He
didn't notice.
He was
worried as to whether his roommate
would think the chops were thick enough.

Inside a Holmby Hills mansion a prowler was methodically
separating the jewels from the junk.
The
latter
predominated.
redheaded beautician
slipped into her Friday blue panties, wondering who would be
In a pad overlooking the Sunset
taking
them
Strip, a
off tonight.
Tourists, strolling along
Hollywood Boulevard and reading
embedded in the cement, searched

memories for "Rod La Rocque" and "Vilma Banky."
In Schwab's, young would-be actors and actresses waited
the
names
discovered. Cynically they
reminded each other that
happened, or hadn't in decades. But

In the
still
to
be
never
they waited.
of a Los Angeles church. Mother Miller, ProphSecond Coming and High Priestess of the Afterlife
Here and Now, in the eighth day of her

fast, suddenly saw the face of God.
In a San Fernando Valley subdivision,
vdndow
for the
fresh vegetable juice
woman
hundredth time that day,
looked out
to see the big
black Negro watering the lawn of the house across the
had
it
pew
etess of the
her
their
of stars
been there since nine o'clock that morning,
received the
first
of the calls
street.
when
He
she had
from incensed neighbors. Thanks

had gained several dozen
to the blockbusters, the white backlash
converts.
In Pershing Square a homosexual

ing at a
member
of the
LAPD
In thousands of homes,
Edge
made
the mistake of wink-
vice squad.
women were
worrying about
The
of Night, For them every weekend was long, as they
awaited Monday's installment.
Hundreds more were under

tally
reviewing their shopping
vited too
many
menthey had in-
dryers in beauty parlors,

lists,
wondering
if
people to the barbecue or whether those invited
would "mix."
While it was wet in Northern
California,
it
was dry in
The
304
Southern. For the second day,

the Santa
fires
Ana Mountains and
were raging out of control
Mahbu
in the
in
area. Portions of
both the Riverside Freeway and the Pacific Coast Highway
were
closed,
and
leaped the roads.
down
Due
to 5 percent
smoke made
its
backed up for miles as curtains of flame
traffic
Ana wind, humidity was

to loo degrees. The
Santa
to a hot
and the temperature up
contribution to the smog,
which blanketed the
Los Angeles Basin.
An
utes."
intercom in the No Tell Motel announced, "Five minBut the couple had already gone.
In a coffee shop on Wilshire Boulevard, a
man
quietly tried
whether he was losing his mind. He had been in Calimore than a month but still couldn't adjust to it. Outside
there was bright sunshine and those gaudy decorations. Not
only were there no seasons here, there was really no day or
night. All around him people were eating breakfast at he
to decide
fornia
checked his watch 3: 12 in the afternoon!

In the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn, Glendale, the tour
guide told his audience that this would be the

the Crucifixion mural that day, that
hour, and that while
it
was
mitted to leave the building.

exit they
The
would have
to pass
it
in progress
He
didn't
last
showing of
would last exactly one

no one would be per-
mention that in order
through the
to
gift shop.
Crucifixion mural was the world's largest religious paint-
ing 195
feet long,
45
feet
high and
a "totally accurate re-
creation" of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece.
At
Knott's
tourists
Berry
marveled
A few
miles
Farm
in
Buena Park, Orange County,
at the "exact facsimile" of
down
Independence Hall.
the road, at the Movieland
Wax Museum,
they oohed and aahed at the "perfect replica" chiseled in Italy
from the same Carrara marble
Rome of
The
as the original at St. Peter's in
Michelangelo's "Pieta."
bulldozer operator guessed this just might
make
the ten
thousandth orange tree he personally had uprooted.

In the circular Capitol Records Building on Vine Street
bers of a
disc they
mem-
new singing group were listening to the playback of a

were sure would make them the newest teen sensation.
PARADISE LOST
305
At a research laboratory near Santa Monica, a biochemist

examined his test results again and concluded that no, he had
not isolated the cause of cancer.
At the
their
RAND
bowling
Not
yet.
Corporation two scientists were discussing
scores.
In a hospital in Escondido a young
girl
worried about neither
the day, the smog, the season, school, her boyfriends, her family
nor anything
On
She had been
else.
coma
in a
for three months.
the University of California Irvine
campus a group of
practical jokers were busily dialing the Santa
Ana
Register to re-
port an imaginary draft-card-buming ceremony on
campus
that
night.
On
cup.
first
a green near
The
Palm Springs
a ball rolled slowly toward a
driver held his breath. If
it
went
in, it
would be
his
hole in one.
a caretaker thought
At Mission San Juan Capistrano,
how
was when those damn birds were gone.

In San Diego a slum child was crying. It was the first time she
had ever visited a zoo, and it was too marvelous to comprehend.
According to social scientists, although it was only 3: 12 in the
much
easier his job
afternoon, approximately a quarter of a million of the state's
more than 21 million people were indulging in some form of

sexual activity.
In hospitals throughout the
an even greater
On
all
rate,
state,
people were dying and, at
being bom.
highways leading into the
state,
other
new
Califor-
nians were arriving, each in pursuit of his version of the dream.

It
state
was
a typical
Friday or
as typical as
any day in that atypical
could be.
Far to the north, at Point Arena, the seagulls stirred
rest-
lessly.
Friday 3
3-3 20 p.m.
:
came out of the Pacific at the mouth of Alder Creek by

Arenajust as on April 18, 1906, only this time much
stronger ripped south at the steady, crunching speed of two
It
Point
The
3o6
miles per second, causing the Garcia and Gualala rivers to

their banks, spHtting giant trees right
down
jump
the middle, then
passing directly under the small town of Plantation.
was a painter catapulted from a house roof, next 8

students departing from their last class at Fort Ross School.
First killed
It
continued south, within a mile of the old Russian trading
post,
snapping the historic buildings like matchsticks, trapping
9 in the debris, nosing underwater again, to resurface
at
Bodega
Head.
At
this
moment
buildings were
toppling in
Santa Rosa,
Petaluma, Napa, and even Sacramento a full j^ miles east of

the San Andreas Fault. At Oroville, 150 miles away, ominous
cracks appeared in the dam.
It split
south through the waters of Tomales Bay, capsizing
small craft and drowning 12 before passing under
Olema and
Bolinas, to return to the ocean.
In Marin County alone there were 83
As
it
moved through
there was a "sympathy" break in the
alongside the Berkeley Hills.
shuddered convulsively.
Bridge buckled and
known
dead.
the waters outside the Golden Gate
The
Hayward
Fault, running
San Francisco, caught in between,

south tower of the Golden Gate
tilted crazily
toward the
city,
tossing the
highway patrolman watched the small puff of white foam as the body hit the
water below. Above him was a noise the like of which he had
never before heard, as eight lanes of moving traflBc suddenly
merged. Pulling himself back onto the bridge, he gasped in
horror at the grotesque scene before him. For some reason it
struck him as incredibly sexual. Some automobiles were obleaper free. Clinging desperately to a beam, the
scenely
humping
others.
Others lay on their backs with wheels
Their blaring horns almost

drowned out the screams. In the city itself, the gargantuan highspinning,
as
if
in
anticipation.
rise condominiums went first, their multistoried slab floors

coming together like quickly shuffled playing cards. Along Van
Ness, windows in the auto showrooms shattered. In Chinatown
and the Mission, the old brick buildings with wooden floors
collapsed. Atop Telegraph Hill, Coit Tower swayed as if per-
PARADISE LOST
forming a religious
307
ritual,
bowing
first
to the east,
then west,
then to the north and south. Along the north waterfront, on the
flats
on
surrounding the bay, perfectly constructed buildings erected
fill
jumped
their foundations; seen
from the
piers,
looked
it
hand had swatted them aside. In

North Beach a flour plant exploded, the roar and resultant
white cloud giving rise to a rumor that the city had been atombombed. In the bay off^ Fisherman's Wharf, the Harbor Queen
rose bodily from the water, hung for an instant suspended in
air, then dropped back down, leaving its passengers drenched
but undrowned. On the wharf, a lady tourist was scalded by a
as
though
a huge, invisible
caldron of hot crabs.
On
and began
lost its cable
Powell above Pine, the

rolling
Hyde
Street car
backward downhill. In the Sun-
set district a
water main erupted, hurling automobiles and people
into the
In the downtowTi business
air.
jammed. In
building, elevators
shelves
It
district, in
almost every
oxygen
hospitals bottled
fell off
and exploded.
came inland again
at
Mussel Rock on the North San
Francisco Peninsula.
As the shock waves reverberated through the mud flats, a

huge crack appeared under the runways of San Francisco International Airport. Trans
edge of the rip as
it
World
Airlines Flight 78 brushed the
opened, bounced, then was
North Alaska Airways Flight 210 was not

it
half dozen other flights
managed
to
Arriving
so lucky. Hitting the
touched down, the Boeing 727

forward and slid along the runway, a mammoth
crack just as
aloft.
jetliner
nosed
ball of fire.
swerve aside in time, suffer-
ing only minor damage. Less fortunate were several dozen

people watching the
field
from the terminal when the waU-sized
window shattered.
Moving down the San Francisco
observation
Peninsula,
it
passed under or
within a few miles of Daly City, South San Francisco, Pacifica,
San Bruno, Westlake, Millbrae, Burlingame, San Mateo, San

Carlos, Foster City,
Redwood
City,
Menlo
Park, Woodside,
Palo Alto, Portola Valley, Los Altos, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara,
San
Jose, Saratoga.
The
3o8
Some heard
a warning sound, variously described as thunder,
Most didn't.
would be remembered. The reservoirs
the rumble of a freight train or distant gunfire.

Later, freak things
which supplied San
Francisco's water unbroken,
though the
The mummies jumping out

San Jose Rosicrucian Museum and
dancing eerily across the room. Rambling Winchester House,
built by a dozen different architects, with no thought of earthquake constructionits only plans the whims of the mad Sarah
fault passed direcdy beneath them.
of their sarcophagi in the
who
Winchester,
believed she
was placating the
of the
spirits
victims of Winchester rifles escaping with only cracked mirrors
The
Hoover Tower and

other buildings on the Stanford campus, three and one-half
miles from the fault, and the lack of damage to the university's
and no
structural
damage.
collapse of
much
two-mile-long linear accelerator, located
closer to the
rift.
had been
built on bedrock.) The backing up of sewers in San Jose,
Milpitas and Alviso, precipitating unpleasant explosions in hun(For
this there
was a simple explanation: the
latter
dreds of homes.
But the norm, the mean, was

than a million
row
row
after
destruction, injury, death:
many
suddenly interrupted,
lives
of collapsed tract houses,
more
permanently;
and from beneath the
rubble, people screaming for help from others preoccupied with
saving themselves; killer landslides in Westlake and Millbrae; a
San Jose
intersection littered with rag doll bodies, limbs twisted
in impossible directions; the smell of sizzling flesh under a
toppled power line in Woodside.

glass;
And
broken
everywhere:
bloody faces; white bones sticking through pink
people running, but senselessly,
first
flesh;
in one direction, then
another; streets, sidewalks, trees, lawns, cement, blacktop, utility lines
uprooted as
inside out;
if
someone had
tried to turn the earth
and automobiles, smashing into telephone
walls, people
poles,
and other automobiles.
Later they would
dub
it
"the corridor of death."
On
the San
Francisco Peninsula alone, more than 9,000 were killed.*

* Because of
approximate.
what followed,
all figures relating to
deaths and injuries are
PARADISE LOST
39
Simultaneously, similar scenes were being enacted the length
Hayward
of the
From
Fault.
Berkeley, where the fault clipped
western rim of the University of California's football
off the
stadium and
Cerrito and
Richmond
to the south, the
apart the team's
split
formation, through El
Hayward
north and Oakland and
to the
shock waves moved out. Hillside homes
The
slid
Campanile rang discordantly. An elevated portion of the Warren Freeway, under

which the fault passed, settled; the band of Hell's Angels, vidth
ample room to stop, first slowed their Harleys, then with uninto the valleys below.
bells of the
spoken unanimity gunned them, sailing
And
off into space.
San Francisco shook. In 1906 the motion had lasted

less than a minute. More than that had already passed. Everywhere people grabbed something solid, held on, and waited for
the shaking to cease. But it didn't. There was not one shock but
still
an overlapping
pite.
In
not one motion but many, without
series,
canned goods were thrown
supermarkets,
shelves, then the shelves themselves
then the plate glass windows.

tures
Whole
apartment houses and

noticed.
They were
doors had
its
wake
1 1
poses.
dodge the
homes found they
The Hyde
toll.
the
streets
below
falling debris.
couldn't; the
dead pedestrians, crashed into the corner of the Sir
downtown
before the days of earthquake bracing,
store, built
collapsed, injuring
death
down
Street cable, after leaving in
Francis Drake Hotel, killing another 8 passengers.
department
struc-
occupants exposed to
But few in the
too busy trying to
shut.
frame
often pulling
hotels, leaving their
tried to flee their
jammed
hills
the
fixtures,
walls fell from poorly constructed
view in a thousand different
Many who
then the light
Many masonry and
were now collapsing, those on
ones beside them.
fell,
res-
off
more than 500 and adding nearly 100
In the Potrero
below them turned
to
district,
mud
to the
dozens of homes, the
by long
rains, slid
down onto
hills
the
freeway. At almost the same time there were cave-ins at both the
San Francisco and Oakland entrances
to the
Bay Area Rapid
Transit Tunnel, trapping some 200 workers in the tube under
the bay.
The Embarcadero Freeway,
never wanted because
it
the freeway the city had
eclipsed the view of the Ferry Building
The
3IO
tower, collapsed in a pile of concrete rubble. But
it no longer
whipped back
and forth by the conflicting forces, had fallen moments ago.
Twelve miles outside the Gate, the lightship San Francisco
broke its moorings. Her 17-man crew, used to 22-day stretches
of duty in the worst weather, to whom the Pacific had rarely
been that, became so seasick that radio transcription had to be
mattered. For the tower of the Ferry Building,
broken
off.
Dam
Far to the north, the cracks in the Oroville
From
fornia
widened.
the rubble of Holy City, once the cultic capital of Cali-
and domain of Father William Riker,
it
ripped
its
way
southeast, past Santa Cruz, Watsonville, skirting the edges of
Mission San Juan Bautista, to inflict some of its most extensive

damage yet at Hollister, near which the San Andreas and
Hayward faults met, but not stopping there, continuing steadily along the San Benito into Steinbeck country.
Behind it lay spectacular evidence of its passage. For this
earthquake differed from that of 1906 in more than duration
and intensity. In 1906 the earth along the fault had opened
momentarily, then snapped shut. (An unfortunate cow was said
to
have been standing over the fault when
her
tail
remained aboveground.) But
this
it
happened; only
time the
split
re-
mained openin some places leaving a gap of only a few inches,

in others more than 100 feet. Along the beaches to the north,
shifting sand and earth slides covered the break. But on the
peninsula, in more than a few homes, occupants could walk into
their living rooms and gaze straight down into the gaping
chasm. At some points whole houses fell into the rift.
It veered inland now, farther from the ocean. But the coast
felt the shock. In Carmel, homes and shops collapsed, while
cliffs crashed into the surf off Big Sur. Salinas and Monterey
suffered extensive damage (though curiously, the wooden buildings of Cannery Row withstood the shock well). Yet to the
north and east, in the San Joaquin Valley, damage was slight,
the only reported fatality a Merced woman who was killed when
her porch blew off during a freak tornado.
All over the state there was freak weather: a luminous dis-
PARADISE LOST
S"
play of flashing, pulsing lights over Baxter; a lightning storm

over the Stanford shopping center and no other place; a wind-
storm in Marin, where rain-laden 85-mile-per-hour gusts tossed
Volkswagens
Much
Waldo Grade.
off the
of the country
through which
sparsely settled. It displaced fences,

bridges, caused cattle to stampede
earth
split.
But only
and
now moved was
it
made
behind
left
it
Hills,
it
seemed
at
Morro Bay the
PG&E's steam-generating
be losing
to
tured the water line at Cholame, but
was minimal, and
the long
few small towns adjacent
in the
fault Lonoak, Parkfieldwere homes damaged. As
from the Cholame
wooden
kindling of
damage
to the
emerged
it
force. It rup-
in Paso Robles
three towering stacks of
When
plant swayed only slightly.
it
reached Taft, a small Central California town of about 5,000 in

population, located less than 2 miles from the fault, dishes
rattled, doors slammed and window shades snapped up, but that
was it for about five seconds. Then "the whole town seemed to
disintegrate, as if hit with
an atomic
blast
world had been turned over and shaken.

In
still
its
epicenter near Taft, the
all directions.
this
first
it
was
as if the
."
.
earthquake had triggered
another.*
From
in
dying extremities, the
its
...
time the
To
PG&E
new
shock waves moved out
up the
the base and fell
the north and west, back

stacks split at
fault line:
gracelessly
San Luis Obispo, Atascadero, Paso Robles,

hit from one direction were now rocked from
into the bay. In

structures
marbled
first
many were unable
another;
halls of
to withstand
the strain.
San Simeon, statuary toppled and
north: in Fresno's
downtown
fountains into geysers.

Bakersfield suffered
To
fell.
In the
To
the
mall, broken water mains turned
the northeast: only 30 miles away,
more damage than
in the
1952
disaster.
* All early news reports referred to "the earthquake." Not xmtil the U.S.
Geological Survey's reports were assembled was it clear that there had been not
one but three quakes: the first, beginning at 3:13 p.m., on the San Andreas
Fault, with its epicenter a few miles off Point Arena; the second, occurring
about 55 seconds later, on the Hayward Fault, with its epicenter at Berkeley;
and the third, again on the San Andreas, with its epicenter near Taft, com-
mencing
at
3:16 P.M.
The
312
Only 12 had died

that.
To
would be ten times

plowed up the flower fields at Lom-
then. This time the total
the southwest:
it
poc, scuttled pleasure boats at their moorings off Santa Barbara.
And
it
moved
through Tejon Passinto heavily
southeast:
populated Southern California.
Meanwhile, San Francisco was literally shaking to death. Few

masonry or frame structures remained standing. In the tall office
buildings, where earlier damage had been largely nonstructural
in originfalling light fixtures, sliding desks, overturned filing
cabinets hairline cracks covered the reinforced concrete and

steel,
brought into the yield range just once too often, snapped.
These buildings had been
built to
meet
all
standards of the
building codes: the standards were not high enough.
known
They had
was the unknown,

the unexpected, the unforeseen sustained, damaging motion
lasting longer than in any previous California quake, always
possible, especially after the Alaska quake of 1964, when the
been designed
to resist all
stresses: this
duration of the damaging intensity was three minutes, yet, be-
cause
it
hadn't happened before, here, discounted as improbable,
unlikely.
And
as
began behaving
it
continued, panic became general and people
irrationally.
In downtown department stores
they ran through plate glass doors. In the Russ Building a

shipping magnate, infuriated because he didn't get a dial tone,
screamed obscenities into the telephone mouthpiece.

apartment on
Nob
Hill a
man
In
an
shot his wife, three children
and himself. In a medical building on Sutter a young dental

technician, finding the elevators inoperative and the stairs
blocked, opened a wdndow and jumped out from the 17th floor.
Many
litter
it
of those in cars tried to leave the city. Because of the
in the streets, they rarely got
didn't matter.
The Golden Gate
more than a few
blocks.
But
Bridge remained impassable.
Wrecks littered Skyline Drive, the Bayshore Freeway and the

Coast Highway. And on the lower deck of the San FranciscoOakland Bay Bridge a semitrailer jackknifed across all five lanes,
closing the last vehicular exit from San Francisco.
Above the city a curious thing happened. The rain turned
into hail, sleet, and finally large white flakes. To the children
PARADISE LOST
this
was
3^3
one wonder piled atop
as exciting as the earthquake,
them had never seen snow.

Three hundred miles to the southeast, the earthquake crippled the great megalopolis even before the first shock waves
reached the city limits, by rupturing the Elizabeth Lake Tunanother, since most of
nel and severing the connection with the
Owens
duct. In less than a second, Los Angeles lost
percent of
its
Valley Aquemore than 60
water supply.
Like a giant knife,
it
ripped
Bernardino, leaving behind
it
its
way from Palmdale
to
San
the long, ugly, gaping scar. Al-
though the actual earth rupture occurred only along the fault
waves knew no such boundaries. Nothing natural

man-made stopping them, they radiated to the southeast
through the Mojave Desert and to the southwest past the Channel Islands and Santa Catalina far into the Pacific.
En route, they passed through Ventura, Los Angeles and San
line, the force
or
Bernardino counties, rudely interrupting the
activities
of 8.5
million people.
They behaved
variously.
In Hollywood, a London screenwriter and his wife, veterans
and moved
of the blitz, carefully stubbed out their cigarettes
the tea things to the middle of the table.
In Glendale, in the Great Mausoleum, sightseers panicked,

trampling under foot the Forest
sisted they
Lawn
remain until the end of the
tour guide
who
still
in-
lecture. In their rush to
get out, they knocked over the display cases in the gift shop,
smashing the Last Supper ashtrays and other
curios.
wake could be found evidence to prove any theory: that

God was just, cruel, capricious, insane or dead; that man was
noble, heroic, selfish, mean, mad; that all things mechanical had
finally turned on their makers elevators crashed; escalators
went berserk, throwing oflF their passengers; in Huntington
Park a bank vault slammed shut, trapping the bank's president
and head cashier behind a time lock that wouldn't open until
In
its
nine o'clock
odd
Monday morning;
the computer directing the forty-
stoplights along Sunset Boulevard shorted, the lights chang-
T^s ^'^ Days
314
ing from green to yellow to red so rapidly they became other

colors; all
over the Los Angeles Basin burglar alarms rang.
Near Cabazon
it
ruptured the Colorado River Aqueduct,
cutting off most of the rest of Los Angeles' water, as well as the
supply of numerous other Southern California communities.
The
now
City of the Angels was
moisture to supply
its
left
with
less
dripping faucets. But
than enough
when
it
ripped
through Palm Springs there was, for a moment, water aplenty:

giant waves leaped out of the
And now
counties, felt
To some
In reality
drowning
3.
was an impertinence,
to others
an inconvenience,
pure horror.
it
was wholly impersonal.
had no prejudices:
It
pools,
it.
it
to still others
and
swimming
another 2 million people, in Orange and Riverside
killed whites
it
and blacks and yellows
reds.
It
it leveled the Bradbury Building

and nervous neons.
cared nothing for beauty:
as well as slurbs, billboards
It was unimpressed by size: in the aftermath of the Long

Beach earthquake of 1933, Los Angeles had imposed a 13-story
height limitation on new buildings. But as memory of the quake
grew dimmer, pressure was applied, money changed hands, and

the restriction was relaxed. Los Angeles now had buildings that
soared 50 stories and upward. And in the top stories of some
of these concrete sarcophagi, people were beaten to death.
It had no concern for reputations: husbands, wives, were
trapped in clandestine "arrangements."
It
was no
respecter of age:
hospital nurseries
and the
it
shook equally hard the babies in
elderly in retirement communities. It
more of the latter, but for this man, and not the earthquake, was responsible, as many of these havens for the golden
years were jerry-built.
killed
it remained quite independent: it did about equal

Reagan's home in Pacific Palisades and Pat
Ronald
damage to
Brown's in Beverly Hills. It wrecked a helicopter, killing all 5
members of a Russian trade delegation, and in Santa Ana
In
politics
smothered a Bircher in the folds of a
mammoth American
flag
PARADISE LOST
315
world's largest, the sign over his service station proudly pro-
claimed.
Nor
did
it
seem
to favor the religious: in the front
pew
of her
Los Angeles church, Mother Miller was describing the face of
God
her followers
to
statue of herself.
homo massage
when
vêcked
It
parlors
much
as the
was
It
cocktail lounges
the old Spanish missions suffered
all:
newest model homes.
oblivious
man's definition of what should or
to
shouldn't be earthquake proof:
Universal Studios and
left
fine
and the
it
cracked the walls around
the prop sets on
Concerning culture and the
tween the
and churches,
and synagogues.
History mattered not at

as
clouted over the head by a huge gold
its
back
made no
arts, it
lots standing.
distinction be-
gross: disturbing equally visitors to the
Los Angeles County Art
Museum and
patrons of the eager-
beaver nudie movies.
on occasion it seemed considerate for the first time in four

days the smog broke atop Mount Baldy, giving nearby residents
a brilliantly clear view of the summitmore than ample eviIf
dence could be gathered
to
Long Beach ii,ooo died
as subsidencefrom draining the un-
derground
oil
prove
reserves of the
it
was
just the opposite. In
Wilmington field caused an area
of almost 20 square miles to collapse into the earth.
sank straight down, occupants of the fourth
One
hotel
floor stepping
out
of their vvdndows direcdy onto the street

If there
to
man.
broke
was a pattern
On
the side of a
ofiF
to
its selectivity, it
handsome new building and
sidewalk below, killing a financier
and
was not
discernible
Wilshire Boulevard the ornamental marble facade
known
fell to
the
for his philanthropies
sparing, except for a coating of gore, his companion, the
architect
who
designed the building.
Yet, for all this, the earthquake did have

personality. It differed
part not so
shorter:
it
much
from
in kind as
lasted less than
two minutes.
stead of a long series of shocks
pounding.
It
some facets of a
Northern California counterin quahty and quantity. It was
its
it
It
was
less intense: in-
consisted of a steady, rhythmic
was, in a way, both gentler and more deadly. Less
The
3i6
great in
its
force,
it
caused
less actual structural
damage. Be-
cause the area aflFected was so densely populated, however,
number
resulted in a far larger
it
of deaths. It was, like most
things Southern Californian, something of a contradiction.

It
was
also unpredictable.
From Palm Springs
moved through Indio south along
it
the
edge of the Salton Sea. But then, instead of continuing into
Mexico, inexplicably for previously there had been no known

fault line
here it turned sharply
the southwest
to
across the Anza-Borrego Desert 95 miles
back
and
tore
to the Pacific, to
enter the ocean just below San Diego between Coronado and
Imperial Beach. But not before
it
was
felt
by 2 million more, in
San Diego and Imperial counties, plus coundess others in Mexico,

It
is
Nevada and Arizona.
man
has been said that the one thing in nature
an earthquake. Some managed. The
mained
oblivious to
girl
can't ignore
in the
coma
re-
while in Las Vegas, where the shock
it,
windows in casinos along Fremont Street and the

Strip, the play went on without a pause.
It ended at 3: 18:50 p.m.
Northern California was less fortunate. Another full minute
passed before the shaking stopped there, and when it finally did,
few San Francisco buildings were left standing.
shattered
Friday4
.
5-5
o p.m.
lieutenant governor has declared the entire state a disas-
ter area
and has asked
for federal help.
jams everywhere. Police are
...
now pushing
stalled cars off
the freeways, in hopes of opening a few lanes for emergency

vehicles. Some drivers have resisted fiercely and been placed
under
arrest.
patrol. If
Here's another warning from the state highway
your automobile
your windows or shut
off
is
stalled in traffic, either roll
down
your motor. Several cases of carbon
monoxide poisoning have been reported. For further

.
stay tuned to X-TRA, your all-news station.
.
bulletins
PARADISE LOST
.
has declared martial law.
3^7
be shot on
the nearest armory immediately.

training
and
trafEc
urged
person found looting will
to
go
will
to report to
Anyone with medical
to the nearest hospital.
Los Angeles International Airport
is
Any
National Guardsmen are ordered
sight.
is
or nurse's
closed to
all
remain so until the El Segundo tank-farm
air
fire is
brought under control. Flames from the blaze, reaching upward
thousand
to a
Los Angeles.
feet, are
The
West
spreading a thick black pall over
oil refinery,
one of the
largest in the country,
owned by Standard Oil of California, is located just south of the

airport. As of this moment, the terminal itself appears to be in
no immediate danger, but the smoke has made it impossible for
planes to take off or land. Incoming flights are being routed to
other fields or out of state.
this blaze
is
One
of the
most curious features of
the burning of the submarine
oil
below El Segundo: the flames are coming straight

ocean.
from
pipeline just
up out
of the
The
statewide death toU
now
stands at 81,000.
Here's another bulletin. Large sections of ocean
Dume
Point, north of Santa Monica, south to
cliffy,
San Diego
have fallen into the ocean or onto the Pacific Coast Highway. As
no report on the number of homes or people involved. As

you earlier, earth slides have been reported all over
Southern California, vidth particularly severe damage in Hollywood, Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Palos
Verdes. It would now appear that, in Southern California at
least, there has been more damage to hillside homes than to
steel-frame skyscrapers. Also badly hit are those valley communities built on soft soil or reclaimed farmland. The worst
yet,
we
told
disaster of
all,
sidence
...
so
many
however, occurred
reports
we
particulars.
Long Beach, where
are having trouble keeping
them. Eyewitnesses say two
we have no
at
The
jets collided
over Barstow.
air is full of
sub-
up with
As yet,
planes trying to find
3i8
The
places to land.
The napalm
on the
fire
railroad siding at Tor-
jellied
now claimed 32 lives

who fear the fire may spread to the factory where the
gasoline is made, are now endeavoring to clear and
cordon
off
and remains out of control.
rance has
Firemen,
em
an eight-block
South-
area. Fires are raging all over
California, the worst in Las Padres National Forest and the
Ana Mountains. The
Santa
latter
blaze has completely de-
Toro Marine Base. Portions of the Pacific Coast

Highway have been closed as flames jumped the highway in the
Malibu area, and a fourteen-mile stretch of the Riverside Free-
stroyed El
way has
also
been closed because of the Santa Ana Canyon
Fire storms of fantastic velocity have
The
near San Diego.
flattened trees
Angeles County has
now
blown
reached the
and
water shortage in Los

critical stage, as supplies
in the reservoirs have fallen below the danger level.
downtown
fire.
roofs off houses
tornado
There are freak

storms all over the state. It is snowing over San Francisco. Still
no word from that isolated city. All communications telephone,
telegraph, radio, TV remain out. Beyond that last frightening
report, received a few minutes after the quake ended, there has
has been reported in
been only
silence.
The
last
Bakersfield.
word from Oroville
now 4:25
is
that
The
time
The
estimated death
No
further information on the governor's injuries, be-
yond the
is
p.m.
toll
now
stands at 95,000.
earlier statement of his press secretary that they are
"incapacitating but not serious."
taken over his duties and

offices
from Sacramento.
is
An
The
lieutenant governor has
directing the evacuation of state
earlier report that the
governor was
trapped in the collapse of the Capitol Building men's room has
been vigorously denied.
Nor have we been

who,
foster
mayor of Los Angeles

on a goodwill mission to Thailand, to
amicable relations between that country and the City of
as
you know,
the Angels.
is
able to reach the
PARADISE LOST
3^9
The whole
watching Oroville. This small Northern California
gold rush town, whose usual population is just under 10,000, is
.
has ordered the evacuation of these towns.
world
is
almost completely deserted now, and there

ing as you drive
You
north.
down
can't see
it
the empty streets.
The dam
from where we are
we're conscious of nothing
an ominous
is
lies to
much
above sea
else.
dam
of the
level. It is
Sacramento Valley
To
the
all
just a
is
few
feet
much what would happen
not so
alone were to go but the realization that
knock out
the
moment, but
at the
Authorities are not attempting to hide their concern.
south of here,
feel-
it
if this
would probably
the dams, reservoirs and levees below
it.
and towns ordered evacuated

Rich vale, ThermaHto,
Wyandotte, Palermo, Alton, Biggs, Gridley, Bangor, Live Oak,
Again, here
is
the
list
of cities
because of the flood threat:
Colusa, Marysville,
Yuba
Oroville,
City, Linda, Olivehurst,
Beale Air
Force Base, Grimes, Arbuckle, Wheatland, Trowbridge, Pleasant Grove, Roseville, North Highlands, Woodland, McClelland
Air Force Base, Fair Oaks, Mather Air Force Base, Sacramento,
Davis, Dixon, Clay, Vacaville, Fairfield, Travis Air Force Base,
Walnut Grove,
Courtland,
Lodi, Rio Vista, Pittsburg, Stockton,
Manteca, Modesto, Tracy, Vallejo, Crockett, Benicia, Port Chi-
San Pablo, Richmond, El Cerrito, Berkeley, Oakland,

San Rafael, San Quentin, Tiburon, Sausalito, San Francisco.
cago,
This
is
not a complete
list.
If
you
live
anywhere
in this area,
turn your radio dial to 840 or 1040 for specific information,
including evacuation routes.
Although hundreds of small craft, from fishing boats to

been commandeered to help evacuate San Fran-
yachts, have
cisco,
high tides and strong winds, coupled with the destruction
San Francisco
of the
any of the
vessels to
this rescue effort

rarily.
piers,
have thus far made
approach the
may have
to
city.
is
impossible for
some
be discontinued, at
talk that
least
tempo-
the latest count on the death
have no
There
it
ofiicial
toll is
101,000.
As
yet
we
reading on the earthquake's Richter scale rating,
The
320
but the
moment we have
to bring
it,
Dan Deaver
is
There
is,
we
Tm
as
programming
will interrupt our
In the meantime, stay tuned
to you.
it
This
nology.
at the California Institute of
Tech-
sure you can see, an air of excitement
here, as the seismologists go about their business of compiling
the
which
statistics
will
become the
official history
of the
quake
and, just possibly, provide clues for predicting further disasters

of this
ever,
There
sort.
is
Tech, how-
a special urgency here at Cal
because three of the four major Northern
earthquake-reporting
stations the
California
Mechanism
Earthquake
Laboratory in San Francisco and the seismographic laboratories

at
Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley were
destroyed in the quake.
mographs here,
tinues.
Of
too,
special
The
needles were thrown off the
but the work of accumulating the data coninterest
to
the scientists are two unusual
One is that fantastic

way down the state. The
features of this earthquake.
earth
which
other
stretches
seis-
most of the
split,
is
the
absence of any aftershocks. Following a major earthquake there

is
almost always a series of aftershocks, as the earth's crust
changed
adjusts to
its
since the
first
see
no cause
position,
re-
but in the more than an hour
tremor, there have been none.
The
seismologists
for concern, but they are admittedly puzzled.
This is a Sigalert. The following freeways are closed to

due to accidents or congestion: the Ventura Freeway between Tarzana and Woodland Hills; the Hollywood Freeway at
Cahuenga Pass; the San Diego Freeway between Inglewood and
.
traffic
Redondo Beach, between Wilmington Avenue and Bellflower,

between Westminster and the Newport Freeway; the Long
Beach Freeway between Atlantic Boulevard and the Santa Ana
Freeway; the Santa Ana Freeway between
Oh, hell. It would be easier to tell you where you can drive
than where you can't. ...
This has been Lifeline Broadcast number
PARADISE LOST
.
3^1
have nearly completed the evacuation of Lodi, follow-
ing the derailment of a train carrying deadly chlorine gas.
Tanks
of
ammonia
the fumes.
... an
The
an
are being released in
death
in this disaster
toll
effort to neutralize
now
stands
you are here to see it, you

There must be hundreds of thousands of
them, all walking! It's safe to say that since moving to Southern
California many of these people haven't walked a whole block a
incredible sight. Unless
just can't believe
it.
But now, vvdthout automobiles or any other transportation,
day.
many
are trying to walk ten, twenty, even fifty miles from their
work
to their
homes. Although for some
it
must mean going
miles out of their way, most seem to be staying within sight of

the
jammed
freeways.
quite possible that this
It's
is
the only
route they know.
But the most
fantastic thing here
been anything like

ried, of course.
been able
it
in
With many
But there
There's never
is
all
wor-
few have
an amazing
spirit of
common
camaraderie.
plight.
Neighbors
never spoken across their redwood fences greet each
You
other as long-lost friends.

this is over there
whose
spirit.
and are naturally concerned
Strangers laugh and joke at their
who have
the
of the telephone lines out,
to reach their families
for their safety.
is
Los Angeles. They're nearly
bound
is
to
when
all
emerge a bigger, better Los Angeles,
be proud
citizens will
can't help feeling that
to call
themselves Angelenos.
now to the studio.

Thank you. Bob. We'd like to report that this attitude is
common to the whole Los Angeles Basin, but unfortunately it
isn't. There have been a number of local panics. Apparently
return you
frightened by a rumor of food shortages, the rich and affluent

residents of Beverly
Hills are
now
looting dozens of stores.
Local police have been reluctant to use force against them, but
National Guard units are

Scattered looting
appointed
is
citizens'
now
being dispatched to the scene.
also occurring in Farmer's
committee in Lynwood
shooting at any Negroes
who
cross
is
Market.
self-
reported to be
Alameda. Although several
The
322
have been wounded, there have been no
Guardsmen have
also
been dispatched
fatahties.
National
to this area.
Here's another bulletin from the State Disaster Agency. Stay

oflF
the telephones. Stay off the
unless absolutely necessary.
home
Do
Do
streets.
Do
not attempt to travel
not turn on the gas in your
house has been checked for possible damage.
until your
not use water for any purpose other than
fire fighting.
To
repeat that earlier warning, anyone caught using water for any
purpose other than
need of medical
fires
fighting will be subject to arrest. If in
fire
.
raging out of control in
Huntington Beach. There must be 10,000 teen-agers
here, or perhaps I should say "surf bunnies," all waiting for the
same thing "the big one," the wave
And to explain this we

UCLA. You were telling me
is
name
all
Yes, Hal, the
fire,
is
called "convergence." For
studying,
still
flood or earthquake,
whenever there
many
while logic might
you and
fornia,
moment many
me
now
scale.
so.
For example,
to flee the scene of a disaster,
You would imagine
people would be trying to leave Cali-
we
could
the people in the state, we'd find that there are
more
but actually the opposite

all
some
a disaster
people converge on the
people just don't behave logically.
that at this
here
tell
is
put themselves in danger by doing
This happens on both a large and a small
count
Schmidt of
a minute ago, Professor, that there
phenomenon
area, although they often
many
waves.
Max
for this sort of thing?
reason which we're
such as a
end
to
have Professor
than
when
more are arriving

Huntington Beach
nomenon. Another
see the earth
is
true.
the earthquake
all
is
is
the
time.
Right now,
first
if
occurred,
and that
What's happening here
at
just a small manifestation of this phe-
the
way people
are driving miles just to
split.
As you heard a moment ago. Professor, the crowds are

in some spots that people have been pushed into the
so great
crevice.
PARADISE LOST
But about
this
3^3
phenomenon,
Professor, does this
happen every-
where or just in California?

It happens everywhere, Hal, though our research would
indi-
cate that Califomians are abnormally prone to this sort of thing.
We're unique, you mean?

Well, not exacdy unique, maybe just unusual. As
have
to say, Hal, I
findings are
me
bear
The
out.
tentative,
still
my
It's
my own
theory about
but
Of
this.
was trying
course
my
suspect later researches will
opinion that the weather
is
responsible.
weather?
Yes. In California the weather

just like every other,
summer
tracted
no
is
so uniformly bland, each
no winter
real seasons,
hot spells like back East, that the Califomian

to
monotony.
day
blizzards or
is
at-
anything sensational, any extreme, to relieve his

It's
my
theory that this
is
true in
also
religion,
politics
That's most interesting, Professor.
hear more, but
to
tral.
...
now we have
And
I'm sure we'd
all like
Earthquake Cen-
to return to
All those kids at the beach are probably going to be
know
disappointed. Science really doesn't
a great deal about
tsunamis, or seismic sea waves. According to the experts at Cal
Tech, sometimes they follow an underwater-originated earthquake, and sometimes they don't.
is
no tsunami within minutes

be one.
to
Still,
What
is
that
if
there
after the quake, there isn't likely
now undergoing
tions of their coastal communities.
known
because of the magnitude of the earthquake,
both Hawaii and Japan are
is
situation remains tense.
The
large-scale evacua-
evacuation of the Sacra-
mento Valley towns continues, hampered by traffic jams on

many of the roads. Offices of the state government have completed their move to the temporary capital at Auburn. From all
over the north state
we have
dikes and levees.
just like
all
the others.
It's
A good portion
reports of the collapse of dams,
dominos: one
of Sacramento
falls,
is
knocking over
now
underwater.
The
324
Because of blocked storm drains, some of the
come
rivers.
Automobiles trying
to cross
them
have be-
streets
delaying the
stall,
One wonders why the city of Sacramento was ever

where it is, located between two large rivers, the Sacramento and American, which have caused trouble from its earliest
history. Even less foresight was exhibited in the planning of the
Sacramento Airport, which is now underwater. As of this moevacuation.
built
ment, the Oroville
KPFA,
cisco are
still
Dam
appears to be holding.
San Fran-
Berkeley. All communications with
out, as they
have been since the earthquake. At-
tempts to reach the city by boat and helicopter were frustrated
and freak snowstorm. Up until a moment ago,

the city couldn't be seen even from the Berkeley Hills. The
clouds have now lifted, however, and San Francisco has never
looked more beautiful. For the first time in the memory of most
of us, the city is blanketed with snow. Yet, as you look at it you
gradually become aware of something horribly wrong. The
whole skyline has changed. You look in vain for some point of
reference, but all the familiar landmarks Coit Tower, the
by the high
tide
Hotel
Mark Hopkins,
ished.
the high-rise ofl&ce buildings have van-
long lines on the street in front of the Los Angeles
County Coroner's
Office as the grisly task of attempting to
identify the dead continues. It
may be
days before
cataclysmic, unquestionably the worst disaster in the
At present the death toll is 105,000,

who were killed in the earthquake in Shensi, China, on January 24, 1556, but the number
of deaths is still mounting and California may yet set a new
history of the
still
a long
record.
United
way from
States.
the 830,000
is Station Happy Talk, your 24-hour conversation

Our swdtchboard is jammed with people calling in, all
wanting to know the same thing. Well, stop calling, folks. Yes,
.
station.
This
PARADISE LOST
George Jeans
will
3^5
be here tonight to accept your calls and
we
can guarantee you he will be as witty, bombastic and controversial as ever.
He's not going
thing like an earth-
to let a litde
you have something on your chest,

other than a Maidenform bra, call in and get it off. There are a
dozen lines to take your calls, plus that special line for Orange
quake interrupt him. So
if
County. Those numbers again are
KPFA, Berkeley. One San Francisco radio station,

KCBS, is now operating on an emergency, limited-power basis.
From KCBS we bring you the following bulletins:
.
After more than an hour's work, rescuers succeeded in open-
ing the entrance to the Bay Area Rapid Transit Tunnel and
released nearly
According to
200 workers trapped inside by the earthquake.

reports, there were no fatalities.
first
Although the damage
to San Francisco is described as "near

few buildings are left standing the death toll is far
smaller than was at first assumed. It will be impossible to accumulate accurate statistics until the rubble has been cleared,
total" very
but the unofficial estimate, as of

killed
this
minute,
people in hospitals,
tall
office
houses and similar structures,
buildings,
than 12,000
is less
and about 50,000 injured. Most of the
fatalities
who were unable
to
were
apartment
high-rise
make
it to
the
streets before the buildings collapsed.
There
is
an urgent need for medical supplies and
It is difficult,
thankful
no
for.
doctors.
in this horrible holocaust, to find anything to be
But there
repetition of at least
is
one thing. There apparendy will be
one part of the 1906
water mains were ruptured
all
over the
city,
disaster.
Although
firemen have been
largely successfid in putting out the widely scattered blazes.

this
an
moment
At
only two fires one on Russian Hill, the other in
on the waterfront remain out of control.

damage in 1906, it will be recalled, was due to
overturned wood stoves and damaged chimneys. On the efforts
of the firemen, the mayor said: "They have behaved heroically,
in the finest San Francisco tradition."
oil
Much
storage tank
of the
fire
Because of the extremely high
tides,
up
to
4%
feet
above
The
326
normal, the attempt to evacuate San Francisco by boat has been
abandoned. Residents of the

their
is
homes and go
Twin
resolved.
to
city are
With
wide death
fights.
now
Many
Dam
Nob
crisis
hills are
of the children are
the addition of the
toll
being asked to leave
Peaks, Telegraph, Russian and
already crowded. Spirits are high.
having snowball
now
high ground until the Oroville
San Francisco
stands at 121,000.
figures, the state-
The chasm stretches from Mendocino County, north of

San Francisco, to south of San Diego. With the exception of
only a few communities Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland,
San Jose, Fresno and Bakersfield the most heavily populated
cities of California are all to the west of it, between it and the
.
ocean.
We hesitated to air this bulletin earlier, when

would occasion widespread
The warden of San Quentin has
received, for fear
now
oflficial.
it
it
was
panic, but
released
first
it is
all
in-
mates of the prison, including those on death row. Although,

due to the communications failure, we have been unable to
reach either the warden or the prison, from what fragmentary
reports are
following.
now
On
available
we have been
able to determine the
hearing of the threat from the Oroville
warden requested troops
Dam,
to escort the prisoners to safe
the
ground.
This request being refused, he opened the gates of the prison.
The
duties
are
warden of his
Groups of prisoners
lieutenant governor has ofiicially relieved the
and ordered
now roaming
find high ground.
with the
...
his
immediate
arrest.
the roads and hills of
As
Marin County, trying to

no reports of conflicts
yet there have been
local citizenry.
in the oddest of the freak accidents connected with the
disaster,
several
thousand residents of Stockton have broken
eardrums from that mysterious explosion about an hour ago. At

first the deafening roar was believed to be connected with the
PARADISE LOST
detonation of the
3^7
ammo dump
later
and an indignant
planation,
but
at Port Chicago,
We
determined to be incorrect.
denial.
now have
According to a
orders to get
Strategic Air
all aircraft oflF
Command
was
reliable
U.S. Air
high-level military sourcenot connected with the
Forcebases of the
this
a possible ex-
under standing
are
the ground in any emergency.
number
believed that the blast was caused by a large
It is
of jets
simultaneously crashing through the sound barrier. Officials of
SAC
heatedly deny the charge.
They do not
might have been a sonic boom but deny that

responsible.
number
of
If this
One suggested privately

Navy jets in the air.
was a sonic boom,
it
that
dispute that this
SAC
planes were
we check on
was probably the world's
greatest,
Un-
not only rupturing eardrums but disintegrating buildings.

less
another explanation
is
forthcoming, this
is
fuel to the current controversy over the Boeing
latest report
has 83
vicinity of Signal Hill
oil
certain to
SST.
the
add
and gas wells bumin|

ig in the
has announced an Earthquake Sale tomorrow at
all its
stores
...
In a disaster of this
sort,
we receive many
we don't bother
ated stories which are so ridiculous
on
to you.
By way
of example, here's one.
Anaheim
firmed report from
We
unsubstantito pass
them
have an uncon-
that a group of about 100
men,
armed with submachine
guns, bazookas, mortars, grenades, an antitank gun and an
armored car have taken over Disneyland and shot several guards.
To repeat, this is just one of the many fictitious reports we
have been receiving.
That napalm fire at Torrance is still out of control. New fires
dressed in semimilitary uniforms and
are reported in the

hills.
The highway
Pacific Coast
San Gabriel Mountains and the Malibu
patrol has asked all motorists to stay off the
Highway and
the Riverside Freeway. Portions of
The
3a8
these roads were earlier closed because of
but within the
fires,
few minutes a number of automobiles have crashed through

police barricades and driven into the flames. Here's a bulletin.
Shocks from the quake were felt as far away as Denver, Baja
last
California, Kodiak, Alaska,
and the Aleutian
Islands.
Here's
another bulletin: Oh, oh, Disneyland has been invaded! For a
on this, we take you to Howard Hansell at Anaheim.

Are we on? Oh. This is Howard Hansell at Disneyland. The
man you see coming through the door, surrounded by bodyguards, is Major General Tory MiflBin McPhew, formerly on
the staflF of General Douglas MacArthur and now West Coast
report
coordinator for the
McPhew
Minutemen. Major General
has
called this press conference to read a statement. He's approach-
ing the microphone now. Before he

is
now
in
starts,
no way connected with the
and doesn't speak for

This is Major General Tory Mifflin
ago, our magazine
Commie plot
What we did
On
we
ofi&cial
should say that he
U.S. military forces
McPhew
to simulate a disaster
and take over
stage of
first
which was
land for use as a base of operations.
To
California.
every
to capture Disney-
forestall the
this evil international conspiracy, strike
by units
Months
we knew
not reveal at that time was that
detail of the plan, the
III.
Target revealed that there was a secret
workings of
teams of the Minute-
of the California Rangers
and the Amer-
men,
assisted
ican
Nazi Party, have placed Disneyland under protective

number of Communists posing as
custody. I'm proud to say that a
Disneyland guards have been assassinated.

of all
trol
entrances and
exits,
We
are
now
in con-
have captured Frontierland,
Adventureland and Fantasyland, and anticipate seizing Tomor-
rowland by
Our
The
nightfall.
President of the United States:
hearts,
our prayers and
beloved California in
tions.
To you
this
Califomians
all
our thoughts go out to our
time of her great
we
say,
you can
trials
and
tribula-
rest assured that the
entire energies of this great country will be directed
PARADISE LOST
As promised, we
3^9
interrupt our regular
you the news you've

rating.
It
isn't
yet,
official
programming
to bring
been waiting for the Richter scale
all
we understand apparently
these
all reports have been evaluated, but

on good authority that the quake will be rated nine
things aren't decided until
we have
it
on the Richter
As
recorded!
scale!
This makes
yet the death
in 1556, but in
it
the biggest earthquake ever

great as that
toll isn't as
magnitude the quake
China quake
21 times stronger than
is
and more than 2,0,000

times stronger than the Long Beach quake of 1933! Now we
return you to the President of the United States. . . .
the one that hit San Francisco in 1906
That was the President of the United States. This is

Los Angeles. So far, for most people, the widespread
power failures have been more inconvenience than anything
else. (For example, we're operating on emergency generator
.
KSMOG,
and transmitter atop Mount Wilson.) The sun has now set,
however, and within less than an hour California will be dark
many
and, in
areas,
Agency has asked us

don't panic. Remain
without
electricity.
The
State
Disaster
the following announcements.

home. The lieutenant governor has
make
to
at
Be extremely
vdth candles. Do not light any type of fire if you smell
trace of gas. There is ample food for everyone, and dis-
declared a statewide curfew, to begin at 6 p.m.

careful
even a
tribution will begin early
PANIC.
the U.S.
Army Corps
believes the danger
passed. "If
it
was going
have done so before
at
still
from the Oroville
This
is
he
attempt will be
made
said, "it
especially
jammed and
homes tonight but emergency

at
been waiting
all
to break,"
this."
of the roads are
No
repeat,
don't
for.
spokes-
of Engineers has just told news-
least half of the residents of the
zone.
To
Here's the bulletin we've
man for
men he
many
tomorrow morning.
large
Dam
has
now
would probably
good news because
numbers
of people
area remain in the danger
to return the evacuees to their

facilities
are being established

'
Ths
33
The Oroville Dam
has broken!
What
is
described as "a
MOUNTAIN OF WATEr" HAS COMPLETELY OBLITERATED THE CITY

OF Oroville and is now moving on Gridley. For an eyev^^ttNESS REPORT WE TAKE YOU TO OUR AIRWATCH HELICOPTER
It's terrible, oh, it's terrible. It's picking up cars as though
they were toys. I can see a farmhouse down there, and people on
the roof.
and
The
Oh, God, now both the house and the people

crashing
it's
on Highway 70 jammed with
are
gone
stalled traffic.
it now. They're getting out of their cars and

Oh, my God. Gone, all gone. It must be ten
miles wide now and a hundred, no, two or three hundred feet
tall. Nothing stops it. It's moving on I'm not sure if I can con-
people see
starting to run.
tinue to transmit. I'm sorry. I'm going to be sick
thought the water would disperse, spreading over a large
as a giant funnel. As it came

down, picking up more water on the way, it seemed to go faster
and faster until, at the tip of the funnel, it shot through the
Suisun Straits into San Francisco Bay with the velocity of a
hurricane. To give you only a tiny example of its force and the
tremendous damage it has done not a trace of the Golden Gate
area,
but instead the valley acted
Bridge remains.
From
Oroville to Tracy, a hundred communities have been
many obliterated
knowjust how many
We
knowwe
inundated and
entirely.
may
people were killed. Hundreds,
never
possibly thousands,
ble that as
many
the earthquake
there.
It's
must have been swept out
itself.
time
is
Northern California
This
And
It's
possi-
thousands more remain stranded out
What
they must feel
5:05 p.m. For the

disaster
we
Las Vegas Tower. This

is
to sea.
people were killed in this single disaster as in
getting dark now.
The
don't
Las Vegas Tower.
take you
is
latest bulletins
.
on the
United 312.
We
Do
you read me?
read you, United 312.
Go
ahead.
We're cruising above San Bernardino,
California.
Something
PARADISE LOST
Strange
happening down
is
barely see
ing
331
it
there, along the earth split.
in the twilight,
looks like the earth
it
We
is
can
open-
along the crack. There's tremendous turbulence down-
all
drafts Yes,
it
looks like Oh, oh, we're in trouble-
Come in. United. This is

roar we heard? United 312,
read
but
me? United 312, come
Las Vegas Tower.
in.
What was that

Do you
Las Vegas Tower.
this is
.
Saturday
This
is
Eric
Morgan
at
Stead Air Force Base, outside Reno,
Nevada.
The
On
it's
long night
over.
is
the Adantic Coast the time
10:30 a.m.
is
On
the Pacific,
7:30 A.M., and just a few minutes ago the sun rose over
California.
Soon we hope
We're waiting
know what
now for the
to
it
revealed.
first
reports
from the U.S. Air
Force reconnaissance planes that took off from here and from
Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas shortly before dawn.
When
they come
these reports vdll be relayed
in,
neously to the President of the United States and
to
simulta-
our press
pool.
you hear is the sound of airplanes:

huge propeller-driven Globemasters. (I haven't seen one of those in years.) More than 2,000
are committed to the rescue effort, and before the day is through
That background
roar
helicopters, jets, bulky transports,
there should be
many
single operation of
crowded
its
times that. Already this
kind in history. This
away
as
Washington, D.C.,
all
fornia as soon as the planes can locate

there. It
the largest
vvdth professionals: doctors, nurses, geologists, seismol-
many from
move into Caliundamaged landing fields
ogists, sanitation experts, technicians of
as far
is
field, like Nellis, is
was hoped that
this operation
every kind,
waiting to
could be started
but freak storms over California grounded
all flights.
last night,
From
all
over the country, relief supplies are being flowoi in: those huge
crates are clothing, those medicine, those bedding,
and, over
The
332
there, tons of food
and water.
And
that's
only the beginning.
For most of us for most of the world this has been a sleepless
night, a night of
wondering and waiting. Though more

we still know very little about what
than 14 hours have passed,
happened in California at 5:10 yesterday evening.

Almost everything we do know comes to us from outside the
state.
We
know, from Tokyo, Honolulu, Denver, Phoenix, Albu-
querque and other widespread

California some sort of earth
points, that there occurred in
movement
so great that
it
delicate seismographic instruments in each of these places.
what
it
We
was, no one
know
is
upset
As
to
yet sure.
moments later a tsunami, or gigantic seismic

sea wave, was generated which caused terrible damage along the
Pacific Coast from Alaska to Chile and that when this wave hit
Hawaii 4^ hours later, and Japan still later in the night, it
that
many coastal communities. Had it not

Sea Warning System of ESSA, which re-
completely obliterated
been for the Seismic
sulted in the speedy evacuation of these areas, millions might
As it is, the death toll

Worst hit were the islands
Hawaii and Hokkaido in Japan.
have been
killed.
thousands.
We
know
that in
suddenly rose
7%
New
feet,
is
of
already well into the
Oahu and Kauai
in
Orleans the water in the Mississippi
causing vessels to break from their moor-
wave damage has been reported along the Gulf Coast

of Louisiana and Texas; that seiche action sank small craft as far
away as Key West, Florida; and that unusual meteorological
phenomena have been observed all over the United States and
even in some parts of Europe. That tremendous lightning storm
over New York City last night lasted three hours.
ings; that
We
have
reports, as yet
unconfirmed, of catastrophic earth
changes in Greenland, the Caribbean, the Antarctic.
But of what happened and

self,
we know
is
happening in California
it-
almost nothing. Attempts to enter the state by
automobile during the night were only partly successful. From
Auburn, in the north, to Barstow, in the south, highways are completely impassable. Beyond these points the roads
just past
PARADISE LOST
are
333
jammed with thousands
talked to
some of
of
abandoned automobiles. We've
and passengers, but their stories

and often contradictory. One man, an
chemical salesman from Fresno, who after an intheir drivers
are mostly confusing

agricultural
credible series of adventures succeeded in driving to Rhyolite,
claims that the San Joaquin Valley was inundated with giant
salt water. Inasmuch as the Coast Range and other
mountain ranges form a natural barrier between the valley and
the ocean, this report seems unlikely. It was first believed that
what he saw was the breaking of some freshwater dam. But an
waves of
examination of his automobile indicates that

crusted with
of force,
salt. Still
moving
it
is
heavily en-
others talk of landslides, fantastic
waves
mountains, or of being sucked out of their
automobiles by tornadoes.
Communications are not entirely out with California. There

now an emergency line to Auburn, the temporary state
capital, and from it we have learned that the governor, who
suffered minor but painful spine injuries during the earthquake,
is
A few minutes ago

and urgently requested all possible
has again taken charge of state government.
he talked
to the President
But apparently they know as little in Auburn as we

do here about what has happened farther west. There have
been, throughout the night, communications with a number of
ham radio operators in Yosemite Valley, Yreka, Redding, Chico
federal aid.
mosdy
reporting only minor
earthquake. But these points are

coast,
damage incurred during the

well inland. From along the
all
where most of the people of California
live,
we have
heard nothing.
During the
the country
night, worried
who
tried
to
and concerned people from

call
relatives
all
over
and friends in San
Francisco and Los Angeles received busy signals, taking these to
be hopeful
signs.
But we have been informed by
AT&T
that
these were a result of equipment malfunctions, that there has
been no contact whatsoever with these
areas.
The mind does not believe in vacuums, however. When one

exists, man instinctively attempts to fill it. Here, among the
scientists,
you can hear dozens of
theories,
each with
its
advo-
T/ie Last Days of the Late, Great State of California
334
cates.
few minutes ago there was a fistfight between two

whether or not it was possible for
geologists over the question of
the continental shelf to collapse. This indicates not only

tense everyone here has become, waiting for the
but also
how
far afield speculation over
first
how
reports,
what happened has
wandered.
The most
propounded from fallis, nobody knows.

In a few minutes, however, we should have
The first radio report is just now coming in.
It's from a U.S. Air Force jet from Nellis. According to the
pilot, the runways of Edwards Air Force Base near Mojave
appear undamaged. He was unable to reach the tower, but he
did spot personnel on the field, and there were no distress
fantastic theories are being
ing meteors to earth subsidencebut the truth
signals. It is
now move
to
probable that at least part of the Nellis force will
Edwards, which should provide a central base of
operations for most of Southern California.
The
pilot also reports that just
heavy layer of smog. He's going

trying to penetrate
it.
Palmdale,
beyond Palmdale there
how far it extends

you may recall from our
to see
is
before
broad-
casts yesterday afternoon, is located just to the northeast of the
San Andreas Fault and was one of the communities hardest

by the earthquake.
A number of reports are now coming

be having
to
difficulties
in.
hit
Several planes seem
with their navigational equipment. Ap-
parently they've overshot California and are over the Pacific, as
they report water where their instruments
tell
them
cities
should
be.
report from another plane indicates the
smog
barrier ex-
tends over the entire Los Angeles Basin and as far south as San
Diego. Neither this plane nor any of the others has yet suc-
ceeded in contacting Los Angeles International Airport, Ontario,
or any of the other airports in this area.
Another plane reports Anza-Borrego State Park covered with

water.
He
is
being asked to recheck his instruments, as this
desert country, miles
from any water.
He
replies that they
is
have
already been checked and rechecked and that the desert
is
PARADISE LOST
At
flooded.
335
least there
is
down
water
there where the desert
should be.
He now
east
tall
flooded also, that
is
Much
buildings.
sea level, but
it's
the Pacific, so
some
most of the Imperial Valley
reports that
of Brawley he can see are the tops of
hundred or more feet below

hundred miles inland from
probable that the flooding is occasioned by
of this area
also
it's
all
is
more than
local disaster, possibly the
Here's the
first
breaking of one of the canals.
report from Northern California, from one of
the jets that took
off^
from
tion
the area affected by the
is
However, the
collapse.
The Sacramento
pilot reports that destruc-
far greater than earlier estimates indicated,
is
ders
Dam
Stead.
this base,
Valley towns remain flooded. This

Oroville
perhaps something else happened
if
to the south-
and he won-
here, particularly at
the lower end of the valley.
He
also reports,
number
and
this is
good news, that there are a large

on mountain-
of survivors atop buildings, in boats,
tops and he
is
now
relaying precise information
on
their loca-
tions for the rescue teams.
Some
it
rescue planes are already in the
air.
Another plane has reached San Francisco. He's approaching

from the Golden Gate. Something, possibly that tsunami, has
fantastic damage here. The lowlands. Ocean Beach,

Golden Gate Park, the waterfront, the downtown business dis-
done
trict
come
are almost completely obliterated. He's swinging back to

in for another, closer look.
On
the inside bay, along the
north waterfront, from where the Golden Gate Bridge once

stood to Telegraph Hill, the area
is literally
swept clean of build-
There is, he says, no trace of Sea Cliff, the Marina, and

most of North Beach.
There are survivors on the hills, however, thousands of them.
They're waving at him. SOS markers are up in several places.
ings.
He's going to swing around the inside rim of the bay now.
The San
Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge
the part east of Yerba
Buena Island
the south. Treasure Island
mond,
all
the East Bay
is
cities
is
is still
twisted
standing, but
and
lists
toward
gone. Oakland, Berkeley, Rich-
appear to have been as hard hit
The
336
San
as
up
On
Francisco.
and no
standing,
Last Days of the Late, Great State of Califomia
the lowlands, there are few buildings left
signs of
life.
He
does report a few survivors far
in the Berkeley Hills, but there
is
practically nothing left of
the University of California.
That wave must have been
of fantastic height.
The Richmond-San
He's turning now.
down. San Rafael was obviously
hit,
pear quite so bad as across the bay.

to
have suffered much, but, and
damage
to
Nor
is
quote him direcdy now, "the
communities."
left of these
survivors atop
Mount
is
does San Quentin seem
Tiburon, Belvedere and Sausalito
most nothing
few
Bridge
Rafael
but damage does not ap-
Tamalpais. There's
is
He
appalling. Al-
does report a
static; it's
drown-
ing out the rest of his message.
We
have another report I'm not sure
this until
we have
we
You do have
verification.
should broadcast
verification,
from
three other planes?
According to
which we have preliminary conthe San Francisco Peninsula has
this report, for
firmation, a large portion of
entirely disappeared, while the remaining cities Daly City, San

Mateo, Palo Alto, San Josehave been reduced to rubble. It's
inconceivable, but apparently huge sections of the coastline
where there were once dozens

slid into
of suburban communities have
the ocean.
We have more reports from farther south. Where Santa Cruz,

Watsonville, Carmel, the whole Monterey Peninsula once were,
there
now
is
One
only water. This
is
unbelievable. But
it
has been
by several planes.
verified
pilot reports that the only
Coalinga and that
it is
now
town remaining
in this area
is
located less than 15 miles from the
ocean. We're checking this on our maps. This
is
Coalinga was located more than 60 miles inland. This
fantastic!
means-
Reports are coming in so fast we're having trouble keeping

up. San Simeon, Paso Robles, and San Luis Obispo are gone.
The San Joaquin

damage
in
Lompoc
all
is
Valley
is
flooded.
There
is
tremendous
valley towns, but there are survivors.
gone, as
is
Santa Barbara o/z, Santa Barbara,
that's
PARADISE LOST
337
where rm sony. As I'm

gone
is
happening
is
to everyone, this
tragedy has suddenly become personal.
terrible, terrible
Ventura
sure
also.
There's a horrible pattern beginning to emerge.
It
would
appear that everything to the west of
We
have reports from those
finally
Southern California smog
up
jets that
No, they
barrier.
penetrated the
are holding those
for additional confirmation.
There
is some sort of argument going on over there. Apparsome of the reporters are complaining. We were told we
would be given these transcriptions as soon as they came in.
ently
While this is being decided, we'll bring you up

some of the other developments.
It
looks like the
Northern California rescue
tinue to be directed from Stead.
As
enough
We
for such
efforts will con-
fields in
the north state
an operation.
did get the rest of the transcription from that pilot
flew over San Francisco, the one which

of
static.
He
on
yet the pilots have been
unable to spot any undamaged landing

large
to date
we
who
couldn't hear because
reported that large sections of
Marin County had
also slid into the ocean.
Other planes have reported a
Sonoma County
is
beginning
coastline
slight
change in the Mendocino-
from Point Arena south. That pattern
to take shape.
Another plane reports being unable
to locate the Farallon
Islands.
It
seems that some decision
is
about to be reached concerning
the release of those Southern California reports.
The
Air Force
Public Information OflBcer in charge of disseminating them

talking on the phone. There's a
true that he's talking
The
officer,
viewed on
rumorbut
to the President of the
Lieutenant Colonel Rubens,
this broadcast
from Inglewood,
is
doubt
United
if
is
this is
States.
whom we
inter-
during the night, a native Califomian
going to make an announcement. Tears are
running down his face and he's having trouble speaking.

Let's see if
we can
get in closer to pick
up
his words.
Quit
The
338
shoving! There must be a thousand
newsmen
here.
Let
me
through!
What
We missed
did he say?
I can't
beheve
it.
Are you sure?
that!
Oh, my God! Los Angeles has vanished! Planes have explored

the whole basin, and of all that vast region known as Los
Angeles County only two cities in the northeast portion Palmdale and Lancasterremain.
This is
Wait
And
a minute. There's more. Orange County
most of San Diego.
There
is
an
And
air of unreality
And
is
crying
then burst into
too.
probably not a person here or in the entire United
Stateswho has not
whole
stop, sob,
is
the people they're talking to pretend not to notice,
because they're crying,
There
gone, too.
here at Stead. Everyone
unashamedly. People begin talking,

tears.
is
families.
lost a relative,
friend or, in
many
cases,
Yet just a few miles away, in Reno, the play goes
and cherries and

down, the only interruption the
on, the lemons
bells spin, the levers
slight
go up and
pause necessary to insert
another coin.
It
tive.
should provide some sort of balance, put things in perspecInstead
it
makes you furious. The worst disaster in the

and some manage to be indifferent to it.
history of the world,
Maybe
this is their
them the
way
of forgetting.
benefit of the doubt.
feeling they aren't really
But
human
One would like to give

easy. One gets the
it isn't
beings, that they are as
chanical as the slot machines they're operating.
you wish
You
me-
get so angry
it were they, not the Califomians

But that's a terrible thing to think.
Today the mind is filled with terrible thoughts.
It's now four hours since the first reports came in, and if
anything, they remain even more unbelievable. We now know
what happened, but the mind refuses to accept it.
Yet it's no longer possible to dispute the evidence. We've
flown over and seen it with our own eyes. We've talked to eye-
PARADISE LOST
witnesses
who were
339
near the earth spHt
when
it
occurred.
We've
interviewed the scientists here most of them say they didn't
beheve such a thing could happen. But
it
has.
At approximately 5:10 last night a huge part of the North

American continent all of California west of the San Andreas
Fault sank into the ocean. At the same time, there was tremendous earth subsidence under most of the San Joaquin Valley, in
some places as much as several hundred feet, lowering much of
the valley below sea level.
mated
in places to be
stroying cities
which
up
Moments
later, a
gigantic wave, esti-
to 1,000 feet high, hit the coast, de-
earlier
had been miles inland, rushing
through the gaps in the coastal ranges to inundate the San

Joaquin Valley, in the south even reaching as far as the Imperial
Valley, most of the
As
yet
way
no one has
to Arizona.
tried to estimate the
number
of people
But in the backs of our minds we sudNo

denly remember long-forgotten statistics, which all at once become immensely important and incredibly terrifying. There
one wants
killed.
to.
were more than 7 million people in Los Angeles County alone.

There were at least 1.5 million more in Orange County. And in
San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside

And names keep coming back, of places. Many we'd
visited;
had heard about so often we seemed

to know them. Hollywood, where the movies were made. Disneyland, California's version of a perpetual Christmas. Those
magnificent beaches Seal, Redondo. Pasadenawhat would
others we'd never seen, but
New
Day be vwthout the Rose Bowl Parade? Palm

where Ike golfed and Frank Sinatra lived and
And then the memories become even more specific, the mind
zeroes in. That crazy bar in Santa Barbara. That marvelous seafood restaurant on Cannery Row in Montereywhat was it
called? Neil DeVaughan's. A warm night at Big Sur and a cold
Year's
Springs,
glass of
wine.
But worse,
is
names that go with faces. Once it

becomes unbearable. And so, to
far worse, are the
personalized, the tragedy
escape the pain, the
Califomians you
mind makes
know and
exceptions.
You
pray that at the time
think of the
it
happened
The
340
they were in the East, or Vegas, someplace, anyplace, so long as

it
was outside the Golden

There's
admitting
State.
another pain.
still
some measure
there can be
it,
comes from
It
Maybe by
guilt.
some
of purgation,
relief.
We
Easterners used to laugh at California.
We
called
it
"the
fruits and nuts." Its life style was as foreign to us as

had been another country backyard barbecues, swimming
pools, skiing, surfing, sky diving incredible! Its kooky politics,
land of the
if it
its
bizarre religions,
and amuse.
It
was
seriously even
its
difficult to take
when
Ted Maiman made
rioted demonstrated,
America,
we knew,
anything that happened there
a Stanford scientist created
how
Dederich discovered
or
crazy enthusiasms never failed to amaze
to cure thousands of
the
first
workable
rather at
life,
laser, or
Berkeley.
It
or
Chuck
drug addiction,
the students
was a part of
but a part that hadn't grown up, that
re-
down. The rough edge of the continent always

rambunctious, often crude. It lacked or so we thought Eastern
fused to
settle
virtues.
Out
sumed
to call
introduced.
there,
way out
you by your
And
five
there in the Far West, people prefirst
minutes
name
later
a minute after
you were
they invited you to their next
cocktail party. Remarkable!
The
truth
is,
we
never really understood California.
didn't understand because
we
never really
tried.
And
We
because of
we were
always a little astonished when one of our acquaintsomeone we thought we knew, decided to move there.
What was wrong with him? Thinking about it, we'd find answers. He'd always been a little restless. He had never really fit.
He'd never settled down to things as they were. Always that
this
ances,
tendency
to look for the impossible.
And when he
returned for a
visit,
he was changed.
A stranger.
Impossible to establish rapport.
You asked him, what is there about California that you like so
much? And he sat back, sipped his martini, and thought a minute. Then came out with a list of reasons the weather; the vast
:
spacesyou feel you can expand and grow, that there are no
limits to
your horizons; the incredible beauty of the landnot
PARADISE LOST
34^
Los Angeles, of course, but
yes,
even there in
spots; the oppor-
place where things aren't stereotyped, pre-
young
people of course, California has all kinds, but
that's part of it, you can find the kind you like. But when he
finally finished or ran down, you knew he hadn't defined it,
even to himself. There was always something left unsaid, as if
tunities of a
destined; the
there were
It
no words
may be
hold
to
it.
that the Califomians didn't understand
either.
it
Something in them responded to it, so much

that they were drawn there in unprecedented numbers.
But they
We
felt
it.
used to laugh
understand
Maybe
it.
And
that's
at California. It
was
easier
so
than trying to
dangerous.
less
the clue.
Could it possibly be
tion and were trying
that we, too, felt something of this attrac-
That deep down
to suppress it?
inside
ourselves we, too, sensed the pull, recognized the errant urge to
chuck everything,
If so,
afraid.
to
we managed
run
to
off
and
start
overcome
California always
made
it.
us
anew?
Maybe we were a little bit

feel uneasy. Somehow it
threatened the security of our carefully fashioned

It
was too
alive, too vital, too unpredictable.
Out
little
worlds.
there a
man
couldn't be content with what he had accomplished; he had to

keep proving himself. Maybe we were frightened by the
challenge.
And maybe one
of the reasons
it
now
hurts so
much
is
that
we
muffed our chance.
Though millions of acres

knew is no more. The mind
ble to imagine
what
remain, the California most of us

refuses to accept this. It
life will
be
like
is
impossi-
without California.
EPILOGUE
THE CALIFORNIA LEGACY

Realization seeped dully through the waves of shock.
Saturday evening in
was
New
York City, an emergency meeting

whose ornate facade faced on
called in a large building
Broad Street south of Wall. At noon the following day it

recessed just long enough for a spokesman to emerge with a
terse statement for release:
"The governors
of the
New
York
Stock Exchange today announced that they had suspended

trading until such
all
time as the effect of the California disaster
can be assessed."
announcement there were a million quesand industries were affected, and how
badly? It could be presumed that most California-based corporations had been wiped out, but what of the others? How many
Behind
tions.
this brief
Which
businesses
retained diversified holdings or special interests in California?
What
about the insurance companies? (The ramifications of
were staggering.) Exactly how important was Calithe rest of the world, the rest of the nation, each com-
this alone
fornia to
pany? Califomians, for example, had purchased ii percent of

all
new
automobiles. This fact by
itself
affected every auto-
mobile manufacturer in the United States and Europe, fore-
shadowing
profit
loss,
production
vanishing growth potential.
The
shutdown, unemployment,
"big three"
American auto
makers operated California assembly plants, representing multimillion-dollar
investments in buildings and equipment.
Los
Angeles was West Coast port of entry and base of operations

for imported-car makers.
But
it
didn't stop there.
Behind each

new
343
auto stood dozens of other industries:
panies, tire
steel, electrical
com-
manufacturers, auto parts distributors, auto financ-
ing companies, banks and lending institutions, auto insurance
companies, automobile associations, the gasoline and petroleum

industries.
Each would be hard
hit.
How
hard? (Such questions
had a way of engendering more; interrelationships multiplied.

California, for example, also produced ii percent of the U.S.
petroleum supply.)
economy?
On
On
What would
the dollar?
world trade?
none
be the immediate effect on the
balance of payments?
On
defense?
was not only a consumer and

New York in manufacturing, second
California
producer (second only to

to
On
in agriculture) but also a conduit, a link with half the
Without California ports, which businesses would be

affected and how? How soon would the economy recover? Or
and the question was not merely rhetoricalwould it? Nothing
remotely similar had happened before. There were no parallels
against which to measure it. And, to many of the questions, no
world.
immediate answers.
Within a few hours the other U.S. national exchanges, the

London Stock Exchange, the Bourse in Paris, and the Tokyo
Stock Exchange made similar announcements. All were waiting
to see what action the New York exchange would take. Bewilderment was international.
Only one national exchange did not follow
New
York's lead.
No announcement came from the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange.

It had ceased to exist.
Sunday evening the President announced that all U.S. banks
would remain closed for one week.
That weekend all over the United States, Europe and Asia,
groups of worried
men
gathered together for worried confer-
ences.
In Seattle, directors of Boeing met to discuss the future of the

SST, or rather, to determine whether it had one.
London financiers studied geology textbooks, attempting to
trace the course of the San Andreas Fault, trying to learn
whether their extensive mine holdings lay east or west of it.
Lloyds of London frantically cabled, telephoned, and searched
^^^
344
^^'^ Days of the Late, Great State of California
maps, trying to pinpoint the
its
last
known
location of ships
insured by the firm.
In the Vatican the Pope was told
Church's
losses
might be weeks before the
it
could be determined. In souls, the
number ran
to the millions; in property, to the billions.
Sperry and Hutchinson
officials tried to
unredeemed Green Stamps at large

the amount of paper and coin.
of
compute the number
in California, Treasury
officials
men fed data and questions into comthat many short-circuited. Weeks would
All over the country,

puters with such haste
pass before
the
last
some of them could be
repaired. Friday
had been
day of the data processing and computer software con-
vention in San Francisco.
The
previous
Wednesday
a major
banking group had mailed a check
New
York investment
for $3.5
million to Los
payment toward purchase of an electronics

firm. Had the check arrived? Had it been cashed? Was the deal
consummated?
A new $250 million bond issue by Southern California Edison had just been successfully marketed by an investment underwriting group. What the hell should they do with the money?
Angeles, as
initial
In Detroit, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler halted
all
de-
and began an immediate inventory of new

cars and trucks by model and parts. Thousands of autos had
been in transit from California assembly plants via truck and
piggyback rail. Which had got through and which hadn't?
Under absolute secrecy, auto engineering and research departments went to work at drawing boards and computers to realign
production schedules and design to reflect the drastically
changed mass market. Only one thing was sure: the small hardtop American sports car so popular in California would be
phased out. No longer would California determine what sold.
In the Pentagon, pandemonium. Over 350,000 military personnel had been stationed in California, nearly all within areas
ajffected by one or more of the disasters. Hamilton Air Force
Base, in Marin County, headquarters for the 28th North American Air Defense Region (NORAD), which coordinated all
liveries to dealers
345
Army, Navy and Air Force defense
activities in California,
survived, but with appalhng loss of life

vital
communications
had
and with most of its

was gone, as were
out. Treasure Island
Alameda Naval Air Station, the

Oakland Army Terminal, Fort Ord, Casde AFB, Vandenberg
Air Force Base ("Cape Kennedy of the Pacific"), Fort MacArthur, the Navy bases of San Francisco, Long Beach and San
Diego, Camp Pendleton, El Toro, and destroyers, carriers,
nuclear submarines, bombers, missile sites, and tracking stations,
the Presidio of San Francisco,
huge gaps in the defense network of the Pacific Coast

and leaving the United States vulnerable.
To the Joint Chiefs of Staff the war in Asia suddenly became
of secondary importance. One question dwarfed all others. Was
creating
China
in shape to take advantage of the catastrophe
and launch
One man knew the answer: the Secretary of

who had been preparing a top-priority, top-secret
a nuclear attack?
the Air Force,
report to be delivered to the President
on Monday. But
Thursday night the Secretary had flown
to California to attend
briefings
by
The war
fornia
scientists at
late
RAND.
did not go undiscussed, however. Here, too, Cali-
had been the conduit, the major depot
for troops
and
Without it, the supply line was broken.

At the Bureau of Internal Revenue, statisticians were given
the task of establishing an expected personal income tax reve-
supplies.
nue
total
which allowed
for elimination of all federal
from and ouday into the nation's
Within the
facilities of
income
largest state.
the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration there was only one question. But the answer
was
no one asked it, for fear someone else might

what he already knew was true. The United States
so obvious that
reply with
had dropped out of the space race.

Some questions were coldly pragmatic. In Washington and
elsewhere, men asked: What effect will this have on the offyear elections of 1970?
On
the Presidential election of 1972?
Might not public sympathy almost automatically

tion of a Califomian?
assure the elec-
The
346
To many
questions there could be
no answers, since the an-
swers lay in records stored in California.
For a few individuals the records*
were suddenly without criminal

first
time in their
For
most,
and loan
was a
loss
pasts, others
blessing.
Some
out of debt for the
lives.
however banks, insurance companies,
institutions, businesses, realtors, brokers,
agencies, foreign investors
savings
government
and millions of individuals it was
the beginning of an almost unbelievably confused nightmare.
And
over
it all,
each question, every discussion, lay a heavy
palimpsest of grief. Immediate decisions had to be made; people
foimd themselves incapable of making them. They

in front of their television sets.
ing for
calls that
never came.
ate
and
slept
Or beside their telephones, waitMonday morning, millions did
not bother to go to work. Those
who
did talked of nothing but
California.
Yet some decisions were reached. For some, the answers and
their future course of direction
The
were quite
clear.
Rothschilds secredy sent an emissary to the President of
the United States with an offer of carte blanche assistance.
In
New
York the board of
directors of a leading
drug com-
pany, fighting the threat of liquidation at the hands of a

financial pirate
few
ballots were
in a
and faced with a mammoth
days, finished reckoning

still
stockholders* battle
how many
valid; they realized that
of their proxy
without the California
was lost.
In a sleepy Mexican community a bartender poured tequila
and thought of what might have been. A month ago, when the
California socialites had "discovered** his little town, he had
been so happy he had cried. In time, he knew, for he had seen it
happen in Puerta Vallarta and elsewhere, it would become the
"in** place and tourists would arrive in the thousands. But now?
On an estate near Providence, Rhode Island, a vote was taken.
For years the Cosa Nostra had been investing its hot moneyskim from Vegas, profits from the numbers, bookmaking, prostitution, narcotics in California businesses and property. The
vote of the representatives of each family was unanimous and
stockholders their fight
347
affirmative. Intensification of activity to
recoup their
losses
was
in order. TTie current crime wave, the worst since the 1930's,
is
a direct outcome of this meeting. Yet, according to rehable reports of
what occurred
at that
destruction of California they

biggest
and most
Sunday night conclave,
one of these
their astuteness not
for all
realized that with the
been handed one of the

rackets since Prohibition. But
had
lucrative of all
men
also
they realized soon enough, the following night, watching
In Hartford and
New
York City,
at offices of
nation's largest insurance companies, there
was
TV.
some of the
far less panic
than the general public would have suspected. Even though
many
of the companies
California and
mood was
now
had
large blocks of capital invested in
faced the prospect of billions in claims, the
almost calm, for two important decisions had been
damage and destruction, the

would be invoked. As for life insurance,
what proof was there the millions of people were actually dead?
By law, courts had to wait seven years before declaring a missing
person deceased. A lot could happen in that time. Many claims
could probably be settled for a few cents on the dollar.
At Dallas they met in a large suite of a leading hotel. A guard
was stationed at the door; the rooms had been searched for bugs.
There were a dozen men in all; had it been possible to compute
reached. For claims of property

"act of
God"
clause
combined worth, it would have been a staggering sum, far

But it was impossible to compute, for each was
so wealthy he did not know from one minute to the next how
much money he had. Some of the men hadn't spoken for years,
nursing grudges that dated back to the days when they had
worked together under the derricks, but they were together on
this. If they didn't act now, the government would act for them.
their
into the billions.
They agreed
to pool their interestssupplies, refineries, tankers,
trucks, storage facilities "to avoid unfair competition during the
duration of the national emergency."
maintain their
own
price controls.
They would
And
also set
and
the federal government
could say nothing, because what they were doing was in the
national interest.
Of
course,
it
would
also eliminate
most small
producers and, incidentally, serve as a powerful tool for use
The
348
against overseas competition.
But then, wasn't the government
anxious to check the gold drain, and didn't a large portion of
it,
and
was agreed
in ever-increasing royalty payments, go to foreign sheikhs
potentates?
They were Good Samaritans
that to start, the retail price of gasoline
New
In Connecticut and
York,
really. It
would be $1 per
gallon.
account executives were
bed and plans launched for the biggest advertising

campaign in American history. Within the week every newspaper and newsmagazine in the United States would carry large
ads by such firms as McDonnell-Douglas, Litton Industries,
called out of
Transamerica, the Bell System,
all
Remember, we do business through
And
with the same basic theme:

all
of America.
"where the buck
in the oval office
stops,"
one
man made
decisions because they had to be made, because no one else
could
make them. The same night he
ordered the closing of the
banks, he announced an "extraordinary session of Congress" to
begin the following Wednesday. Despite the admonitions of his
he held back
advisers,
necessary to use
day.
He
it,
his bombshell,
hoping
it
wouldn't be
waiting to see what happened the following
waited just one day too long.
At dawn on Monday the
lines stretched for blocks.
The
and businessmen might not have known exactly why

California was important, but the public did. By noon there was
not an orange to be had at any price. Some bought hundreds of
dozens, nearly all of which rotted and most of which were from
financiers
Florida in the
The
real
first
place.
panic did not begin until that afternoon. Every-
where the pattern was the same. One housewife would spot
another whose grocery cart was loaded vdth a particular item.
In minutes she and a dozen others would have cleared the
shelves. As the mobs grew larger, storekeepers closed shop and
locked the doors. Hoarders broke them down. By dusk there was
looting in every city in the United States. That night the President declared martial law and announced the imposition of
rationing.
Many
Americans had been unaware that in
civil
defense
349
headquarters across the country, there were millions of ration

books, surplus from
And
World War
the Cosa Nostra discovered
Tuesday,
stores
They
II.
it
learned
had a new
it
now.
business.
remained closed so that inventories could be
Wednesday, while the President was addressing Conand their prices was released and
books
issued.
the first ration
By late afternoon there was rioting
in half a dozen Negro ghettos. To many of the Negro poor the
taken.
gress, a list of rationed items
ration books represented the ultimate indignity; they couldn't
afford nine out of ten items listed. In Chicago, St. Louis
Harlem the
riots lasted
and
a fuU week, the death toll in each case
surpassing Watts.
For the American housewife, each
became
trip to
a lesson in California economics. It
the supermarket
was
rarely pleasant.
Despite rationing, within a few weeks, as supplies on hand
were exhausted, the following items disappeared from U.S.

markets: almonds (California had produced loo percent of the
U.S. crop); apricots (94.9); artichokes (loo); avocados (94.7);
Crenshaw and Persian melons (100);
Brussels sprouts (91.4);
dates (98.5); figs C99.1); garlic (100); grapes (89.9); lemons
(95); nectarines (99.8); olives (99.8); plums (92.4); raisins

(the San Joaquin Valley alone had produced 85 percent of the
world crop); prunes (93.6); walnuts (97.1).

When these items were available on the syndicate-controlled
black market, they were apt to be astronomically priced: garlic
50^ a bud; lemons 40^ apiece; plums 25^ each; nectarines

50^ each; almonds $5 a quarter pound. Artichokes and avocados
were unavailable
at
any
price.
Some
California wines once
popular only on the skid rows of America sold for $5 a fifth.

Premium vintages from Louis Martini, Charles Krug, Inglenook
and other quality California vintners commanded $25
to
$50 a
bottle.
The economy
Numerous
of France boomed.
other items,
when
available,
a shipment selling out minutes after
it
were in short supply,
reached the bins
aspara-
gus (California had produced 51.7 percent of the U.S. crop);
The
350
broccoli (67.2); cantaloupes (54.9); cauliflower (53.7); celery
honeydew melons (83.7);
(57.1);
lettuce
Many
(51.3); pears (56.6); tomatoes (52).
C57.8);
peaches
housewives soon
Because of California's unique
learned something else new.
year-roimd growing seasons, they had been able to purchase
some
items, such as lettuce
and tomatoes, whenever they wanted
them. This was no longer true.
On
the black market, lettuce averaged 75?^ per head; tomatoes
50^ apiece; celery 75^ a bunch; asparagus 15^ a stalk; peaches

35^ apiece; honeydew melons $1.50 each. When available.
At the time
of the disaster virtually every
canned peach,
all
the fruit cocktail (an invention of University of California

scientists),
most of the canned apricots and two-thirds of the
canned pears came from California. Although other
now
endeavoring
packing
field,
apricots
is
to
assume California's
the day a housewife spots a
memorable.
On
states are
role in the canning-
#2
can of peaches or
the black market they bring
$2
apiece.
Lima beans
(California had produced 38.7 percent of the
U.S. crop); carrots (36.9); spinach (32.7); and strawberries

(33.4) are just a few more of the items affected.
Coffee, bananas, pineapple and sugar were, for a time, exceedingly scarce because, although produced in Mexico, South
America, Hawaii and the Philippines, they entered the United

States through California ports.
With
the completion of the
new
port and railroad facilities at Seattle, they have become

more common but still remain on the rationed list. As do
dozens of other items never produced in California, or produced

in quantities sufl&cient only for state needs.
That
this is true
item that
hoarders
isn't
remains inexplicable
in short supply:*
made no
distinction
Why
some.
The answer
is
if left
removed from the
ration
simple.
an
The
number
own devices,
new scarcities.
to their
they would in their frightened greed have created
In recent months, however, a
ration
between what was and what
And
wasn't California originated.
to
of these items
hstamong the fresh
have been
fruits
and
351
com and
vegetables, apples, grapefruit, beans, beets,
potatoes.
Price controls remain, however.
Poultry
is still
every kind of
meat and
rationed, as are eggs, all varieties of
In each of these areas, California produced
fish.
not only enough to satisfy
its
own
made
needs but
a significant
contribution to the U.S. market.
The
the 700,000,000 pounds of fish California caught
loss of
annually (representing over 60 species) would in
been catastrophic, but unfortunately it

cause of the tsunami, the change in the
great
oil slicks
of fish of
fornia. It
all
which
to say that
for a 6V2-ounce can
tidal currents,
Be-
and the
numbers
tuna (nearly
all
now imported)
on the black market, that king
$3
Alaska salmon, northern anchovy and
is
that.
coat the Pacific shores, great
still
have
itself
exceeded
kinds were destroyed from Alaska to Baja Cali-
one thing
is
far
all
crab,
kinds of sole are
absurdly expensive, while abalone, the Dungeness crab, California halibut. Pacific sardine,
any price.* All
oyster are unavailable at
cance
when one
Pismo clam, and giant
Pacific
this pales in signifi-
that the tsunami almost completely
realizes
destroyed the Japanese fishing industry.
Had
it
not been for
quick action on the part of the World Health Organization,
which had on hand tons
of the recently developed cheap, basic,
high-protein diet pending such an emergency, starvation
have been even more widespread than

It
was
for a time felt that
produced in other
states.
many
it
would
was.
crops in short supply could be
This was true of some. Idaho and
Colorado increased their sugar beet acreage enough

sate for the California loss (California
to
compen-
had produced 25.3 per-
cent of the U.S. crop). Arizona and several other states did the
same with
rice (24.9),
alfalfa seed
while others took over the production of
(39-5) and Ladino clover seed (97),
etc.
But unex-
pected climatic changes, definitely the result of the California

disaster,
have resulted in heavy crop
loss
throughout the country.
Last year's killer frosts in Florida and Georgia were particularly

*
Some warn
that
quantities of the past
if
the Atlantic states continue to take out fish in the

years, other species may soon face extinction.
two
The
35^
And it would appear that some fruits and vegetables

grow outside California.
Foreign imports have helped. But not much.
The decision to restrict rationing to foodstuflFs has been criticized by some, though to most people the controls have grown
increasingly odious. There was, however, no need to ration
hquor or cigarettes. Without the hard-drinking, chain-smoking
Califomian, these items remain a glut on the market
Many items not on the ration list have increased in price.
damaging.
will not
Fresh flowers, once fairly high-priced everywhere except in
become even more a luxury item. With Caliwent not only its huge cut-flower industry but the source
of most seeds. Prices of clothing and bedding are up, owing to
the disappearance of California's cotton (among the states it
ranked third in production) and petroleum (third here, too),
California, have
fornia
many synthetic fabrics. 1971 automobiles

than
average $500 more
1970 models because, or so we are told,
the latter a source of
now produced in smaller quantities. The price of

down from $1 per gallon to about twice its 1969
One would like to think public criticism of the oil industry
they are
gasoline
price.
is
was primarily
responsible, but the truth probably lies closer to
the concerted threats of several powerful Eastern Senators about

abolition
of
the
oil-depletion
allowance.
Despite
the
New
Repuhlic expose, any likelihood of a congressional investigation

of the
oil
It is
monopoly now seems remote.
impossible to set a price tag on some losses. During the
several post-disaster weeks, there
first
was no absence of
TV
fare.
Regular programming was preempted for coverage of the fantastic
rescue operations, the mass memorial services, and the
extraordinary session of Congress. Although few

casts
news broad-
were without the names of popular motion picture and
few so named
was some time before
television stars believed lost in the disaster (a

later
showed up
in the East or abroad),
the United States and
much
it
of the rest of the world realized the
degree of their dependence on a single state for entertainment.
Not
work
only did a large part of American motion picture and net-
TV
programming
originate in California, plus a great

portion of
353
pop music recording; most of the technicians, artists,

and other speciaHsts with the skills
designers, musicians, writers,
responsible for the intricate processing of that entertainment
consumption lived there.

There was one saving grace. As a network president allegedly
put it, "Thank God for California taxes."
for public
Because inventory taxes were so high in the Golden State,
most of the old movie and
had been
television prints
stored out-
side California.
They remain, although often they are painful reminders,

many of their stars were not so fortunate. As for the cur-
since
rent situation, despite actors and actresses from the

stage
and Europe, the picture
serials,
one
is less
New
York
than bright. As nighttime
game shows and reruns dominate prime viewing hours,

with more than a little nostalgia the "good old days"
recalls
of the sixties
when we complained
of
TV's limited
fare.
The extraordinary session of Congress was indeed that.

Backed by a bipartisan committee headed by leaders of both
houses of Congress, the President proposed a legislative package
unequaled since early
program
for
New
Deal days.
emergency housing;
It
provided a crash
special tax benefits for busi-
nesses adversely hit by the California disaster;
rehabilitation
mammoth
public works
and resettlement loans

programs
to
to clear the
rebuild dams,
facilities,
for survivors;
roads,
including
cities and
and other needed
rubble of California's remaining

hospitals,
schools
offices of the state
to bolster the California
Bureau of California
government; federal aid
economy; and the establishment of a
Services.
The
latter,
one of the most
lauded parts of the program, has helped millions of friends and
and has aided hundreds of

thousands of Californians seeking to recover money from accounts in California banks and/or savings and loan institurelatives locate California survivors,
tions.*
* Despite the leniency of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which
has accepted bank statements and passbooks as proof of deposit, many still have
no means of proving they ever had bank accounts. Or owned property. Or were
insiired.
^^s
354
And
Lsf Days of the Late, Great State of California
the response was remarkable.
To
the cheers of crowds
and House balconies, the legislators passed virtuby the President without major change.
submitted
bill
ally every
Even, despite screams from the insurance lobby, a bill reducing
the length of time a person must be missing to be declared dead
in the Senate
from seven
to
two
years.
The New York Stock Exchange remained closed for two

many companies there was no need to await its opening to know their futures. Despite tax benefits and other special
weeks. For
promised by the President, more than a thousand

firms initiated preliminary bankruptcy proceedings. For a giant
legislation
East Coast combine which exported canned fruits and vegetables

to
Europe, there was no business without California. For an
Oregon sportswear manufacturer, disappearance of the California market meant the percentage points' difference between
healthy profit and disaster. Two of the nation's three largest
credit card
companies folded;
loss of their California
accounts
was second only to

and records was
New York in number of corporate headquarters. No company
was entirely unaffected. For many the tragedy meant abandonment of plans for a new factory, cutbacks, layoffs. For Murine
the absence of Los Angeles meant a tremendous drop in sales.
There were a record number of heart attacks and suicides.
When the New York Exchange reopened, it was without
Standard Oil of California, Transamerica, Del Monte, McDonnell-Douglas, IBM, Pacific Lighting, Pacific Gas & Electric,
insurmountable. California
Pacific
way,
Telephone, Southern California Edison, Rexall, Safe-
May
Pictures,
Department
Warner
Stores, Continental Airlines,
Columbia
M-G-M, Twentieth CenSteel, Kaiser Aluminum and
Brothers-Seven Arts,
tury-Fox, Litton Industries, Kaiser
Chemical, North American Rockwell, El Paso Natural Gas,
Broadway Hale, Southern Pacific,

Topeka
& Santa Fe, Times Mirror.
Union Pacific, Atchison,
These and dozens of others had been "withheld from trading,"
each to be investigated by a committee composed of representatives of the exchange, management (or, when the latter no
First
Charter
Financial,
355
longer existed, by controlling stockholders), and the public.
number have since come back onto the market, and

made amazing recoveries. But they are exceptions.
Politics
few have
saved some. In order to obtain government contracts,
many had had
to scatter their
production
over several
facilities
Lockheed, North American Rockwell, and McDonnell-
states.
Douglas, for example, had
But in each
fornia.
many
of their plants outside Cali-
case, at least half their technical, scientific
and design know-how was centered
The
dollar
dropped
to a
new
in
one place.
low, followed by the
pound and
the franc.
Because a good portion of federal income
derived from
is
corporate taxes, the cash inflow so necessary for the day-to-day
functioning of government dwindled almost to nothing.

preliminary estimate,
ability
was
obliterated.
corporate shells will
15
percent of the nation's productive
Many
show
There's one hopeful
By
major companies that are not mere
loss carry-overs for years to
sign:
heretofore
come.
fast-disappearing
making a comeback on the American business scene.

The small businessman, aided by the Small Business Adminisentity
is
tration,
fill
but even more so by Yankee ingenuity,
is
beginning to
the gap left by the major corporations.
Despite the President's success with the emergency

tion, cracks
soon appeared in the unanimity.
after the disaster,
legisla-
When, two months
during a heated debate in the lower house, a
Representative from South Carolina challenged the votes of
some California Congressmen on the ground
that
"They no
longer represent anyone," public feeling was so strong he was

nearly lynched. But six months
critical of portions of
later,
some
citizens
the legislationsuch as
were openly
"The Great Wall
of California" to the point of urging cutbacks in California
measures. For by then a significant change on the American
scene had become apparent, a change so startling that some
months were required

fornia
was no longer
for
even the observant
politically important.
to digest
No
it.
Cali-
more could
it
The
356
control legislation, influence policy,
sway Presidential
elections,
indicate the direction o the rest of the nation.
In 1969 California had 38 members in the U.S. House of

Representatives.* Reapportionment following the 1970 census
has reduced the
number
to
10.
Moreover, committee
fights in
both the Democratic and Republican conventions next

are anticipated, to determine
how many
summer
California delegates
will be seated.
must be noted
It
that
it is
to the benefit of
numerous
states
not to restore California.
must
It
some
also
states
be noted, with no implication of intent, that
have profited handsomely from the California
dis-
aster.
Redistribution of defense
fited several,
and
and space contracts
number now
annual
California's former $1.25 billion

ical
of California, even in dying
it
greatly bene-
vie for a healthy share of

tourist revenue.
managed
to
(Typ-
launch a
new
industry the morbidity business. "L.A.before and after"

read the ads of the Arizona-based airline which provides a view
of the
now calm
Pacific,
plus synchronized in-flight motion
pictures of the onetime great metropolis, complete with simulated destruction.)
Some Texas oil millionaires have become billionaires.

The New York garment industry has attempted to absorb
the
California sportswear business but has encountered two major

obstacles:
it
lacks the design talent that
Angeles; and production
is
necessarily
ing been the chief users of their
own
had gathered in Los
down, Califomians hav-
products.
Arizona has more Colorado River water than
it
will ever
need.
Many
states
now produce and manufacture
products previ-
ously from California, while other Western states have
some degree,
benefited, picking
up population and
* Had California existed one more year, until after the

would probably have been increased to 44, giving it a 3- or
New
York.
all,
to
industries.
census, the
number
4-delegate lead over

Hawaii, brought almost
from the
loss of
and economic chaos
starvation
to
mainland shipping channels,
mecca of the
international
357
Pacific,
is
emerging
as the
with the newly opened
European
air
route tourist trade.
Seatde,
its
harbor protected from the tsunami by the peculiar
shape of Puget Sound, has become the metropolis of
West Coast
The
shipping and financial headquarters of the entire West.
Exchange
Pacific Coast Stock
been reestablished
(its prior listings
shattered) has
Seaborne commerce once shared by
there.
San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego
is
now
almost exclu-
sively the province of Seattle.
(There was,
for a time, talk of developing a
Humboldt Bay,
major port along
and other
of leveling the redwoods
trees
and
building a supercity. But because of the weather for months on
end the
rain
is
nearly continuous it was evident that even were
few would choose
a city there,
to live in
And
it.
the task of
removing debris and dredging new channels in the bay posed

the same problem, although on a smaller scale, as that facing
San Francisco Bay.)
One
state
has benefited more than any.
Some maintain
that
Howard Hughes
learned of the Cayce
prophecy in autumn of 1966 and that his belief in
Nevada property
a few months, made him
the fantastic
just
Silver State.
There
is
no
will neither affirm nor
that
when
acquisitions,
the
number one landowner of the

him at the time
deny the
But the
report.
fact
remains
California was destroyed there was, in neighboring
take over as communications center of the
Today Las Vegas
the Far East.
United States jet
And
triggered
proof; those closest to
Nevada, a ready-made empire complete with every
tion.
it
which, in a period of
the
aircraft,
is
West and
facility
to
air link to
the fastest-growing city in the
SST and VTOL
Hughes Tool Company
is
capital of the na-
one of the
largest
and
most powerful corporations in the world.

If
he didn't know, he was phenomenally lucky.
While
it
is
possible
Hughes never heard
interesting questions lead to conjecture.
of Cayce,
some
The
3)8
Why
did he gradually shift his companies from California to
Nevada? Were
Why
ings,
taxes the major reason?
did he buy, in addition to his southern
Nevada
hold-
thousands of acres of arid land in northern Nevada, land
seemingly unsuitable for anything, on which nothing would

grow, until the California catastrophe changed weather patterns
of the Pacific Coast, brought rain over the Sierras,
and caused
the desert to blossom?
The
Hughes
clincher for most remains the Spruce Goose.
always had a special, defensive fondness for
this great
lumbering
which he built early in World War II at a cost of

and which flew only once, with Hughes himself at
the controls, for a total distance of exacdy one mile. For years the
aircraft had been stored in a special hangar at Long Beach.
sea monster,
millions
Why,
ian
was the eight-engine amphibNevada, which contained no body of water suffi-
shortly before the disaster,
moved
to
ciendy large on which to
fly it?
Shock waves from the California
and
disaster reverberated,
continue to reverberate, around the world.
Some
aftereffêcts
were foreseeable, some unexpected. Some,
such as the sweeping religious revival predicted after the hysteria at the
Two
mass memorial
months
services,
never materialized.
after the disaster, the President
announced the
complete military withdrawal of the United States from Asia.

is
a decision
still
much
noted that the United States

It
It
Without taking sides, it can be

had little choice but to wdthdraw.
debated.
was, in the final analysis, not because most Americans
United States had no business being there in the
first
felt
the
place, or
even a matter of logistics the disappearance of West Coast

supply bases and ships but simple economics and
politics.
Suffering as he was from other economic hardships, the Ameri-
can taxpayer was unwilling
to finance foreign wars, along
with
the rehabilitation of California and the United States.
And
so
it
ended.
With
neither a bang nor a
with a United Nations peace-keeping
Red China,
of course,
whimper but
force.
was not yet ready,
at least not for

nuclear war.
leadership was
Its
359
make
tinues to
And
trouble in Asia
particularly in Japan.
and
was quite ready,

was worth and con-
divided. It
still
however, to exploit the situation for
all it
in the
UN.
The government
of that
country-
economy still a shambles from the loss of California markets

and the destruction of its fishing industry has fallen three times
its
since the California disaster, the last election sending a heavy
Communist
majority to the Diet.
was predictable. As a fine humaniUnited States international standby
Russia's initial reaction

tarian gesture,
while
credits,
offered the
it
filling its
Americans
tures of
ingexamples
of
newspapers and
TV
screens vdth pic-
rioting, pillaging, hoarding, black
decadent
disaster.
In the
change.
The new amity
last year,
capitalistic
market-
economy meeting
however, there has been a noticeable

of Russia toward the United States-
announcement
reciprocal to the extent of the recent
that the
two countries will coordinate future space ventures is
still
some quarters. The motive is clearly less a growing

the
United States, and vice versa, than a mutual fear of
love for
what each conceives to be the common enemy.
suspect in
As
can
for
overall effect
its
political
on foreign
policy, the
commentators expressed
the destruction of
it
best
dean of Ameri-
when he
Cahfomia marked the beginning
said that
of the
Tense
Age.
The
effect
on the cause of the farm workers has been mixed.
In some areas, such as Texas, where the threat of strike has been
made tantamount
to treason, they
have
lost
ground. Elsewhere,
such as the Pacific Northwest, growers unwilling to
risk
any
interruption of their fantastic profits have signed union contracts
without so
The
There
much
as a
token grumble.
cause of the Negro has met with

is
less
equivocal effect.
a direct economic link between the California disaster
and the race

the people
riots of
first
the past two years. In Detroit, for example,
laid off in the auto industry
least seniority; these
were nearly
hired following the 1967
Hundreds
all
were those with
minority-group members
riots.
of thousands of suits against the insurance com-
The
360
panics clog the courts. Several companies,

are paying
all
their investments are liquidated.
tion
is
scheduled to
The
it
should be noted,
on a prorated
legitimate provable claims
basis, as
congressional investiga-
next session.
start
Meteorological conditions remain unpredictable. During the

past
two years the United
ticipated,
"There
some
States has experienced
worst floods and longest droughts in
history.
its
of the
Because unan-
death and property loss has been abnormally high.
is,"
as a
spokesman for the U.S. Weather Bureau suc-
it,
"no longer any such thing as unseasonable
cinctly put
weather.'*
As
still
for the great questionwhen will rationing
no answer. There
the next year
all
talk in
list.
widespread criticism of the Administra-
to ease
November
new Vietnam. Many
is
Washington, however, that over
perishable foods will be removed from the
This would help

tion before the
is
end? there
fear
elections.
Rationing has become the
what would happen
if
we were
to stop,
but even more find the present situation intolerable. As one
man
recently put
it,
"Damn
California.
No
state
has a right to
be that important."
The
varied,
aftereffects of the California disaster are so
have so profoundly influenced the
that to begin to
It will
list
lives of
many and
each of us,
them would require volumes.
never be possible to determine the
full extent of the
loss.
It is sadly
ironicno, cruel
is
the only
word that
tragedy can be expressed only in inhuman terms,

that even these must be approximations. No life
cant that
it
the
human
statistics,
is
and
so insignifi-
merits forgetting.
Yet no one will ever know
how many
died on the second
month because no one knows
exactly
how many people were in California at the time.

Nor is it known how many survived. The 1970 census
gave us
Friday of that ill-fated
some clues. But they are only that. As in any census, there were
many, transients and others, not coimted. Too, the census did
not take into consideration those former Califomians no longer

living in the
United
critical areas
when
States,
3^1
nor those tourists and
visitors in
the destruction occurred. Special questions
many U.S.
1970 census did seek to ascertain how

residents claimed to have been living in California
added
to the
of the disaster.
But even
on other documents,
at the
this is subject to error, since
one knows what number may have

as
the
falsified their
to qualify for resettlement
time
some no
answers, just
and
rehabili-
tation loans.
We
can only estimate.
There were approximately 21,001,000 people living in California that Friday. Approximately 5,622,075 saw the sun rise
15,378,925or nearly
the following morning. Approximately
three-quarters of the residents of the state did not.
In
human
terms, the tragedy
is
smaller units, individuals, people
There were other losses.

A volume could be devoted
just to listing the art that
Gainsborough's "Blue Boy,"
destroyed:
Millet's
comprehensible to us only in
we knew.
"Man
vidth the
Lawrence's
was
"Pinkie,"
Hoe," Reynolds' "Mrs. Siddons on the
Tragic Muse," Bufano's "Saint Francis," Rivera murals, Picassos,
Rembrandts,
Van Goghs,
Pollocks,
Wyeths, Cezannes, Re-
Shahans,
noirs,
Miros,
Many
private collections, such as those of
Klines,
Levines,
William Goetz, rivaled the offerings
Soulages,
Rothkos.
Norton Simon and

in most museums.
was a treasure chest of historical documents. Early

Chaucer and Shakespeare; a Gutenberg Bible; handwritten manuscripts of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Jack London;
the fantastic Western history collections of the Bancroft and
California
editions of
Huntington
(Many
libraries
libraries
only preface the
list.
of the historical records in the various California
were microfilmed. Unfortunately,
all
too
often
the
microfilms were stored with the originals.)
Among
California were
American architecture; works
of Frank Lloyd Wright, Bernard Maybeck, Willis Polk, George
some
the buildings that perished with
of the noblest examples of
The
362
Wamecke,
Rockrise and John Carl
along with outstanding
examples of the landscaping genius of Lawrence Halprin and
Thomas Church.
Another
list,
also
book length, could be made of the great
from the Balclutha
ships:
submarine
to the Lurline to the
Others could be devoted to the plant
and animal
newest atomic
Queen Mary.
to the
life
species that ceased to exist with
and
to the
marine
Cahfomia.
Others to the symphony orchestras, opera associations, and

theater groups.
Or
sports.
Perhaps because these groups had been so newly
transplanted to California, the
homa
titles
Denver Giants and Okla-
City Dodgers no longer sound strange.
however, are
Many
sports fans,
still
unable to dismiss the irony that the San Fran-
cisco Forty-niners
were touring outside California the day of the

Oakland Raiders were at home.
destruction, while the
Biographies in great numbers have been devoted to the show

business personalities
who met
death in California. But equally
deserving of mention are the great scientists,
and educators, and
Any
this list
would be even
such attempt, however, invariably
men
of medicine,
longer.
fails.
There
is
so
much
that cannot be categorized: the sound of foghorns outside the
Golden Gate; clamming
Pismo Beach; the funky drumming

Manne-Hole on Cahuenga; Turk
Murphy's smooth trombone at Earthquake McGoon's on Clay;
kissing a girl on Sutter's Pier; opening a newspaper to be daily
Manne
of Shelley
astonished at the
Golden
at
at Shelley's
latest,
always unexpected, zaniness of the
State.
It is difficult to categorize that
which
is
unique.
And
so
many
things in California were.
It is in
a sense deceptive to speak of the destruction of Cali-
fornia, for
many more
acres remain than
great Sierra Nevadas, nearly
ing the Sacramento Valley,
all
the coastal portions, and the

forniaall these
still
exist.
all
were destroyed. The
of Northern California includ-
of Central California except for
Mojave Desert of Southern CaliRedwood, Yosemite, Kings Canyon
3^3
and Sequoia national parks are still in operation and still draw
tourists, though in greatly decreased numbers without the former
accompanying attractions (Hollywood, Disneyland, Carmel,
etc.).
The San
underwater.
doned
Joaquin and Imperial valleys remain
The
Not
known
as hopeless.
derisively
rier,
task of restoring the latter has
continues.
When
so the former.
as
Work on
the coastal bar-
"The Great Wall
completed, sometime in
but
also,
been aban-
of
California,"
1975, this cement
monolith will stretch some 200 miles downstate, separating the
an increasing numexperts are now stating publicly, there is still no
San Joaquin Valley from the ocean.

ber of
soil
assurance that after the wall

out,
is
Yet, as
completed and the water
any means of overcoming the
pumped
salinity of the soil will
found. Despite the expenditure of millions of dollars, the
hood that anything
will ever
be
likeli-
grow here again remains extremely
remote.
Last year some crops were successfully harvested in the Sacra-
mento
Valley, but on a limited basis, most of the valley's rich
now
topsoil
survived
clogging San Francisco Bay.
all disasters,
but not an
aftereffect.
The Napa Valley

The slight change
in temperature, part of the widespread climatic change, killed

all
the grape vines.
The
search for a variety sturdy enough to
adapt goes on.
Sacramento has been rebuilt and, except for a brief reevacuation during the typhoid epidemic, remains the state capital.
Older Northern Califomians fear that Sacramento has been

afflcted with a virus far worse than typhoid: the Los Angeles
germ.
Now the largest city in
the Golden State,
it
stretches
most
way to Auburn.
Even with L.A. gone. Northern Califomians continue
of the
knock
to
it.
Ironically
it
was the south, and not the north, that
finally
now
Davis,
succeeded.
Main campus
of the University of California
is
formerly the agricultural division of the university.
The
rebuilding of San Francisco was delayed somewhat by
The
3^4
which for several months occurred at the rate of loo

to 500 per day. Although there was talk of redesigning San
Francisco as a truly planned city, San Franciscans were in a
hurry. Most construction has been on the hills, not in the lowlands. The first skyscraper, a condominium apartment complex,
aftershocks,
scheduled for completion this year. Until the bonds for the
is
new
bridges are passed (and public feeling seems to be strongly
against them), ferryboats
the chief
its
mode
tradition of
and
helicopters will continue to
of trans-bay transportation.
The
be
city continues
mixing the old and the new. The Powell Street
cable car line has been restored, but the board of supervisors has
also
taken the revolutionary step of prohibiting the use of
private motor vehicles within the city limits.

greatly changed, but
The view
need no longer be seen through
has
smoggy
haze.
(It
was a
full
month
after the destruction before the last gray
vdsp of cloud vanished from over what had been Los Angeles.)
The
question as to whether San Francisco Bay will ever again
be a major port remains in doubt. Since the destruction, thousands of specialists have converged on California, assembling a
and complex array of oceanographic, hydrographic and

seismological data and conducting topographic, photogrammetric and geodetic surveysincluding gravity, leveling and trivast
angulation investigations.
and synthesized next
When
year,
it
these studies are completed
may be
learned whether this
portion of the Pacific Coast can ever again be used for seaborne
commerce and a final decision reached on the feasibility of

dredging up San Francisco Bay. At present, any but small craft
avoid
it,
because the devastation has rendered
all
nautical charts
unreliable.
Reconstruction
is
well along in the East Bay.
On
the San
Francisco Peninsula, however, continuing earth slippage has
discouraged rehabilitation
There would
be,
it
efforts.
can be presumed, a great deal more
building in California, were

ords,
which has
number
left so
much
it
property ownership in doubt.
of fair-sized cities
re-
not for the destruction of recStill,
have grown up around existing
3^5
communities, such as Bakersfield and Barstow, as well as in areas
Owens
heretofore sparsely settled. In the

erecting a
mammoth new
Valley, builders are
city directly over the
Owens
Valley
Fault.
California as
left
we
once knew
it is
gone, and in
its
passing has
all
airborne at
us a host of mysteries.
What happened
to the three
SAC
bombers,
the time of the destruction, each carrying a nuclear payload?
What
San Quentin prisoners? Fewer than 200 have
of the
been recaptured.
What
of the Italian fisherman
whose crab
boat, part of the
Wharf, was found

wrecked on the beach at Waikiki? What a tale he could have
told, had he not been utterly mad.
But the greatest mystery of all continues to be exactly what
fleet
anchored
off
San
Francisco's Fisherman's
happened that Friday. Next year, vvdth the publication of the

U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey's 38-volume study. The 1969
California Disaster, we may have the answer. But whether we'll
believe
It
is
it is
another matter.
unlikely any report, however detailed, carefully pre-
pared, long in progress, can dispel

It is
that
now
all
doubts.
generally agreed that at approximately 5:10 p.m.
movement occurred
downward displacement
Friday a tremendous subterranean
along the San Andreas Fault, causing
on such an
few high peaks now protrude above
of the great crustal blocks to the west, subsidence
immense
scale that only a
the ocean.
Beyond this,
Today most
quake such
sometime.
as
there
is
scant agreement.
earth scientists admit a record-breaking earthCalifornia experienced
What
was almost
inevitable
followed was unexpected. But not unprece-
dented. Portions of continents had broken off before (Baja
Landmasses had sunk into the ocean.

Within the realm of geological knowledge, however, only over
California for one).
millions of years, with tectonic slowness.
presumed.
Or
so geologists
had
The
366
Many
are
now
revising their thinking. Others remain obdu-
denying
rate (in a sense
it really happened), insisting a displacement of such magnitude, in energy release alone, should
have precipitated far more v^ôrldwide damage than was the

actual case.
Albeit unintentionally, this division of scientific opinion has
helped beget a whole
new
California mystique. In death, as in
hfe, California has engendered
One
manifestation
is
its
own
apocrypha.
the claim of the John Birch Society and
others of their ilk that California
was actually destroyed by

Red China) by an incredible laser
of the Governor of California either to confirm
Russia (in some accounts

ray.
The
refusal
or to deny his subscription to this view has helped

httle to perpetuate
more than a
it.
Another manifestation
is
the Califomia-Adantis legend.
With
almost predictable regularity, there are reports of mountain
peaks sighted in the
Pacific.
Or
of a trio of bejeweled columns,
which sparkle brighdy in the sun, and are identified as the

Watts Towers. The likelihood that they or anything else west
of the San Andreas survived intact is extremely remote. Crudest
of these hoaxes to call it exactly what it is is the Phoenixbased Church of California Resurrected, said now to number in
excess of 100,000 members, desperately committed to the doctrine of
still
date
its
founder (a former California
lives, Adantis-like,
it
under the
will rise purified,
its
cultist) that California
Pacific, that at
some future
inhabitants not only alive but pos-
sessed of superior wisdom.
This myth was fostered in part by the

Succeeding months should have dispelled
initial lack of debris.
however,
this,
when
graphic evidence of California's destruction littered beaches and

clogged boat basins around the world.
Yet
it
must be granted that such a myth
easier to live
with than the
Although two years have passed,

it
is,
in every way,
reality.
it is still
impossible to avoid
in conversation.
Where were you and what were you
doing
when
California
3^7
was destroyed? Did you stay up all through the Long Night?
Did you see Eric Morgan's face on the TV screen when he
learned Los Angeles was gone?
From some of the answers, it would appear that half of the
residents of the
United States
just missed a flight to California
that Friday, while the other half luckily caught the last plane
out.
Youngsters ask:
Was
really like?
Had you ever been
there really
and
to California?
truly
What was
it
such a place as Disney-
land?
And
The
ley
then there are the reminders.

scrawled motto on the walls of Eastern colleges: Berke-
lives!
The newspaper photo of the dead-letter office

Christmas, when postmen were stamping millions
and packages unable to locate.
The incident on St. Joseph's Day, March
U.S. Air Force
pilot reported large flocks of
later,
when
first
1970,
when
swallows circling
the waves.
And
he had returned to his base and told the
tale,
over the Pacific until, exhausted, they
only
19,
that
of letters
did someone consult
maps
fell into
to discover that the spot over
which
the birds were sighted would have been just about where Mis-
San Juan Capistrano once stood.

The 1970 and lastAcademy Awards presentation, in New
York City, where, one after another, almost all the Oscars were
awarded posthumously.
sion
Not long after the disaster, a famous Protestant minister, well

known for his advocacy of positivism, joined the growing ranks
of post-California authors with a decidedly negative
entided
Why
California
volume
Was Doomed.
was simple: California was destroyed for its sins.

Yet even in this the Golden State remained unique. It
differed from its predecessors Sodom and Gomorrah, Babylon,
Pompeii, the Roman Empire in that its sins were greater in
quantity, quality and kind. For with its emphasis on "the good
life" and attendant creature comforts, it had carried the maIts thesis
The
368
terialistic society
to its
most flagrant extreme, with no
corre-
sponding balance of moral and religious values.
The
go-go
the
evidence was abundant (and recounted in great detail):

dancers, sexual promiscuity, wife swapping,
girls, topless
pill,
salacious literature, youth in rebellion, drugs, alcohol-
abandonment
ism, crime in the streets,
of the "true religion"
for heretical substitutes. All signs of a permissive society
and
this
was the
which
even the grace of
greatest sin of all lacked
guilt.
and brimstone conclusion, the minister sounded

to California was no isolated phenomenon, he cautioned, but a warning to the rest of the United
In his
hellfire
the alarm.
States to
in 1906
What happened
mend
was
ways, just as the destruction of San Francisco
its
California's warning,
which
it
failed to heed.
Obviously, for the book sold well, the message struck a

sponsive chord. For
many Americans,
roots
in the Protestant ethic, California with
weighted vines, bulging
fig
trees,
still
re-
deep and firm
perpetual sunshine,
its
swimming
pools,
backyard
barbecues, three-car garages and opulent paychecks was always
much
too
much, a Utopia bound
to sour.
was too good to last.

Although the minister s argument is
depends ultimately on one's concept of
defend California
is
In short, California
really
unanswerable it
God the
temptation to
strong. Virtues, such as advances in medi-
cine and science, could be cited to match each of the aforemen-
tioned "sins."
And when
it
comes
to
help recalling Charles Field's famous
San Francisco, one cannot

ditty.
Following the 1906
Field, viewing the undamaged Hotaling

whiskey warehouse on Jackson Street and the blackened ruins
surrounding it, impishly penned the lines:
earthquake and
fire.
they say,
"If, as
God spanked
the
town
For being over-frisky
Why
And
did
Yet even while one
good man's book,
He bum
His churches down
spare Hotaling's whiskey?"
it
may
raises
disagree with the central thesis of the
some bothersomely pertinent thoughts.

California
was
3^9
guilty of sins, both of commission and, often
far worse, of omission.
phenomenon. It was not a

country of and by itself. It was America in excess, in extremis,
carried to the nth degree. Nothing happening there was totally
alien to the American experience. And, though often some time
California was not an isolated
had
to pass before the rest of the
that
happened
in California
country realized
it,
everything
was important elsewhere,
if
for
no
other reason than as examples not to be emulated.
Was
California
doomed?
great state,
one
recognize certain portents, some so ominous
that
Looking back on the

cannot
fail to
last
days of the
late,
one might conclude that even had there been no earthquake,

even had that Friday come and passed
any other, the
would have taken much the same
California
Some
like
fate of
turn.
earth scientists maintain that California
was slipping
away from the rest of the continent, had been for millions of
years, and in time would have broken away entirely. The difference was that instead of taking millennium on millennium, it
took minutes; instead of slow drift, it was quick.
But well before this, in the lifetime of many now living,
California, had it continued in its present direction unchecked,
would have become unlivable, thanks to man.
He polluted its streams and rivers with sticky detergents and
industrial wastes, destroying the
poisoning
its
spawning grounds of
crops, upsetting the balance of nature.
He
its
fish,
filled its
bays with garbage and other refuse, and in the process obliterated the breeding grounds of
birds.
Due
its
waterfowl, shore and marsh
to his stupidity, the Pacific sardine, the
bay shrimp,
the California salmon and the Dungeness crab were already
vanishing species, while a dozen animals and birds among them

the
pronghom
antelope, Roosevelt
and
tule elk,
mountain
lion,
pine marten, ruffed grouse. Sierra and Peninsular bighorn sheep
were
following the path of Ursus horrihilis californicus. There
were in the mountains behind Santa Barbara fewer than forty
The
37
giant condors
hundred sea
Its
in the waters below
left,
otter.
farmland was being urbanized
to render
it
San Francisco only a few
at
such an incredible rate as
conceivable that one day in the not too distant
future California would no longer be agriculturally important.
and open spaces were vanishing fast. Beend of the century Southern California might well have
consisted of one giant slurb stretching from Santa Barbara to
the Mexican border, its own reclaimed sewage its primary
Its
natural resources
fore the
source of water.
The day was
all
too foreseeable
when
mammoth
trafl&c
jam
could paralyze whole communities not just for hours but for
days and weeks.
California s leading cities were afflicted with problems that,
doomed them not
unless corrected,
thing in
many ways
to destruction but to some-
worse, living death. In time the major
claims to distinction of San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles,
San Diego might have been that they were the battlegrounds
where the great war between whites and blacks was fought.
Had California continued on its latter-day political course of
attempting to solve problems by denying responsibility for them,
those problems might very well have multiplied at such a rate
as to become insoluble. For this Ronald Reagan was no more
to blame than any actor who stepped onstage during the final
act to deliver the closing hnes. California's
during the
ing
sixties
World War
meet the
were
II. It
crises it
most serious problems
of the population explosion follow-
was phenomenal, unprecedented, and
to
engendered required imaginative even rev-
olutionaryleadership.
Reagan supplied
bom
Neither Warren, Knight, Brown, nor
There were planners, but with no overall

plan behind them. There was creativity, but not enough. There
was concern, but usually when it was too late. All too often it
was a matter of plugging the leaks in the dike. Ronald Reagan's
contribution, albeit a negative one, could have been significant.
He raised issues that needed examining. What was man's responsibihty to his fellow men, to his environment and, ultimately, to himself? For with dreams go responsibilities.
it.

It
37^
was one of the ironies of California's last state administrahad it continued as it began, it might in the process
tion that
have helped solve California's great dilemma increased population.
For as California grew
which
to live,
less
and
less a desirable
place in
people inevitably would have chosen the course
resorted to following the destruction: discovering the virtues of
other Western statesWashington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana,
Wyoming,
Colorado,
New
which, while not offering

their
tures
own
now
Mexico, Utah, Arizona,

all
special attractions
Nevada
the Golden State once did,
and
still
retained
some
lacking or in short supply in California.
had
of the fea-
And
with
them would have gone the businesses and industries, the schools
and teachers, the dreamers and implementers.
Had the smog continued to increase at its present rate, the
day would have come, possibly in the 1990's, maybe even in the
1980's, and perhaps still earlier, when the air over California
was no longer fit to breathe.
And there was the ever-present specter of a major earthquake.
California was a state with a built-in liability. Its residents chose
to ignore it much the same way the citizens of Pompeii chose to
ignore Mount Vesuvius. It was typical of the Califomians that
they prided themselves on living in the future but often ignored the lessons of the
past, refusing to take, in the present, the
steps necessary to reduce the future's hazards.
earthquake
death
toll
The
may have been
greatest irony of all
was not
really
that
When
a major
wasn't.
was necessary
was managing
What
Though
unavoidable, a fantastically high
it
it
is
that
no earthquake or
to destroy California.
to
do
it all
Man, with
act of
God
his ingenuity,
by himself.
shocked us so grievously about California's end
happened, but
its
suddenness.
took place in one hour and fifty-seven minutes,
became an unprecedented
the course of years,
we
tragedy.
ignored
When
it
it
was occurring over
it.
^^
But was California doomed?
To admit this would be to ignore one of the most vital of all
facts about the Golden State. California was becoming. It was
The
372
unfinished, not complete, not static, not set immutably on any

of
its
was unrealized.
courses. Its full potential
It
could well
have been that before any of these disasters occurred, a Cahfomia engineer might have devised a means of transportation
which did not pollute the atmosphere or congest the land sur-
A California
face or slaughter his fellow men.
have proven by example that the races can

California legislature, for once not
first,
means
eliminate
One
its
natural
and scenic
The
to preserve the state's
A cure for cancer,
resources.
for predicting earthquakes, a
slumswere these
live together.
following the lead of
Hawaii, might have passed a zoning law
farmland and
community might
model
city that
would
in California's future?
of the saddest things in life and the California storyis
what might have been.

It
would be easy
to write off California, to assign
class statehood, to note that
economic
force, to
mark
it
second-
no longer has political power or

to its colorful saga except for one
it
finis
thing. California remains, as
it
always was, a state of change,
totally unpredictable.
On May i8, 1971, a mining engineer, accompanied by two

amateur spelunkers, decided to explore the abandoned Argonaut mine near Jackson, in Amador County, Northern California, to see
how much
suffered. Jackson,
earthquake damage,
some 120 miles
if any, had been

San Andreas Fault,
affected by the great
east of the
had been badly shaken but otherwise
little
disaster.
The
Argonaut,
nearby Kennedy, had been one of the

Mother Lode, continuing to produce gold
until 1942. Its shaft extended downward more than 6,600 feet.
The trio found, however, after lowering themselves only a few
hundred feet, that over the years seepage had filled the mine
like the
great mines of the
with water.
As they began the return
climb, their lamps converged on a
caved-in portion of the wall.
The
vein was wider than the
When
tallest
of the
men.
they emerged from the shaft an hour
later,
pockets
373
bulging with ore samples, they shared a
vow
engineer couldn't
and she
By
nightfall the
resist telling his wife,
news had been telephoned
the President of France, hearing
it
of secrecy. But the

told her sister.
East. It
is
said that
the following morning,
immediately returned to his bed.
Once
it
was
i,ooo.
As
this is
being written,
New Califomians
are arriving at the rate of 10,000 per day.
California as
fornia
dream
is
we once knew
indestructible.
it
may be
gone. But the Cali-
INDEX
Barbary Coast, San Francisco, 184
Barca, Charles, 104
Adams, Don, 265

Adams, George, 214
AFL-CIO,
Agricultural
143, 149, 161

industry, 138,
Barnett, Ross,
144-57,
159-63
Workers'
Committee, 143-44
Agricultiural
Air pollution,
Organizing
172-76
Aircraft industry, 173
Alaska earthquake (1964), 312

Commission,
Beverage
Cahfomia, 105
Allen, Steve, 265
Allington, Winifred, 253
Almaden Vineyards, 162
Alcoholic
Alsop, Joseph, 267

American Educational League, 230
Association
Medical
American
(AMA),
47, 81, 242, 248, 249,
278
American O'pinion, 148
American Society of Civil Engineers,
117
Anaheim, Cahfomia, 227, 268
Anderson, Gleim, 212, 215, 220
and
hghtenment (ARE), 20
Automobiles,
167-72,
En-
174-75, 176-
BaUard, Guy, 248

Strip,
fomia
92
at
Howe, 238
University of CahBerkeley, 85-87, 88,
Barabba, Vincent, 276, 278
Corporation
(BASICO), 274-75
Bell, Arthur,
247
Belh, Melvin, 105, 114

Bergen, Polly, 265
Berkeley, Cahfomia, 215
Berle, Milton, 265
Besant,
Aime, 239
Beverly Hills, Cahfomia, 182

Big Lena, 62, 69
Birch Society, John, 13, 47, 48, 49,
125, 126, 128,
181, 285
Bishop, Joey, 264
129,
148,
22,
160,
45
Dan, 264
Bolger, Ray, 265
Cahfomia, 218
Bancroft, Hubert
Beebe, Lucius, 1 09
Begovich, John, 63
Behavior
Science
Blocker,
Bakersfield earthquake (1952-), 165
Bancroft
Baus, Herbert M., 281

& Ross Company, 85, 126
Baxter, Leone, 80
Becking, Rudolf W., 38-39
Bee newspapers, 267, 295
Baus
Black Bart, 58
Black Muslims, 197, 218
77
Bakersfield,
47
264
Black, Shirley Temple,
Antinarcotics program, 56
Architectural Forum, 216
Aristotle, 25
Arnold, Edward, 260
Asher, Bill, 163
Association for Research
Barry, Gene,
Boone, Pa^ 265

BordeUos of Jackson, California, 6064, 68-79
Bowron, Fletcher, 200
Boycott, 148, 149
Bracero program, 56, 127, 141

Brady, Matthew, 51
Brennan, Walter, 265
Bridges, Harry, 147
Bronson, Wilham, 117, 168
Brown,
Edmund
G. "Pat,"
7,
49-57,
62, 63, 64, 83, 84-85, 94, 100,

119, 126, 127-30, 134, 135,
The
376
Brown,
Edmund G.
156,
149,
180,
179,
Chinese
Qcont'd)
158, 160, 177-78,

181, 188, 197, 212,
217, 219, 220, 234,
laborers,
Christian
140
Anti-Communist
Crusade,
47
Brothers
Wine Company,
213, 215,
265, 266-72, 269, 276, 279,
284, 285, 288, 290, 291, 293,
294, 297
Brown, Edmund J., 51, loi
Christian
Brown,
Chiuch, Thomas, 362

Church League of America, 47
Circle of Fire, 23
Citizens for Facts from Delano, 148
Civil Defense in CaHfomia, 299
Civil Rights Act (1964), 131, 180
Civil rights movement, 55, 88, 218
Coates, Paul, 125
Coberly, William, 133
Coblentz, William, 288
Willie,
270
Bufano, Benjamino, 109

Buggs, John, 206, 207, 210
Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 185
Burt, Joan Irvine, 232
Buder, Hiram, 239
Byrne, Larry, 104, 105
Byrne Report, 92
Caen, Herb, 114, 130, iSi
Thomas, 202
Cahill,
287-89
Berkeley, 85-100, 285, 287, 292
Irvine, 232
Los Angeles, 183
California, University of,

at
at
at
New
The
California:
Society
162
Christopher,
Information
California
Almanac,
The, 299
California
Redwood
California Star,
Association, 35
238
Capital pimishment, 57
Caracas, Venezuela, 115
Carmichael, Stokely, 270

Carson, Johnny, 277
Casady, Simon, 129
77,
Cry
News & World
Report,
180
Service
Or-
California, 168, 176
ganization
Democratic
Cults and
Society
cultists,
16, 20, 188,
236-
59
Central Pacific Railroad, 140, 184

Central Valley, 137-63
Chandler, Otis, 184, 222, 267
DuflF,
144,
Equahty
Cosmic Star, 242
Crenshaw, California, 208
Crime control and prevention, 56
Crocker, George, 222
Cross and the Flag, The, 178, 254
Crowder, Famsworth, 7
CSO. See Community
78
Cayce, Edgar, 18-21

CDC. See Cahfomia
Chapman,
83, 87, 88, 95,
Congressional Quarterly, 278, 281

Connors, Chuck, 130, 265
Conot, Robert, 197
CORE. See Congress of Racial
Cruise
CassineUi, Pete, 69, 71, 74-75, 76,
128,
210
Council
(CDC), 53, 54, 83, 129, 177

California Disaster Agency, 295, 299
California Farmer, The, 292
119,
Comstock Lode, 184

Condor, San Francisco, loi, 106
Equality
Congress
Racial
of
(CORE),
Democratic
57,
Organization
Commimity
Service
(CSO), 142-43
Compton area, Los Angeles, 194, 208
(Nadeau), 170
California
George,
129, 130, 131, 132, 134-35, 157.

177, 277
65-79
Chavez, Cesar Estrada, 141-56, 15960, 161, 162

Chavez, Librado, 150
Chessman, Caryl, 57
Chimes, 242
Yvoime, loi, 103

Dassman, Raymond F., 175, 181
Datamatics, Inc., 276, 278
Davis, Nancy, 45
Davis, Sammy, Jr., 264
D'Angers,
De
PaoH, Angelo, 77
Death Valley Days, 47, 126, 128
Del Prete, Gino, loi
INDEX
Delano,
377
California,
143,
137,
148,
147,
142,
161,
139,
154,
159,
162
Plan of, 151, 157
Democratic party, California,
84,
158, 177, 179
Devine, Andy, 265
Di Giorgio food products, 147-48,
155, 156, 159-60
Dirty Word Movement, 99, 100
299-373
Disaster,
prophecies of, 16-21

Disney, Walt, 227
Doda, Carol,
Donner
102, 103, 106
16,
party, 67,
68
Douglas, Helen Gatagan, 44, 255

Douglas, Melvyn, 255
Drake, Sir Francis, 31
Draper, Hal, 93, 96
Dunne, Irene, 265

Dunne, John Gregory, 159
Dusheck, George, 38
Clampus
Ancient and
Honorable Order of, 60
Earth Shook, The Sky Burned, The
CBronson), 117
Earthquake Country (lacopi), 24,
117
Earthquakes, 22-26, 1 14-18, 165Vitus,
66, 264, 305-41
Eaton, Hubert, 182

Ebsen, Buddy, 265
Edgar Cayce: The Sleeping Prophet
(Steam), 18
Education, 55
Eisenhower, Dwight D., 44, 53, 130,
Field, Charles,
368
Field Act, 115
FiHpino laborers, 138, 141, 143, 144,

145, 152
Fire and Police Research Association,
Los Angeles, 204
Firestone, Leonard, 119
Fisher, Eddie,
265
264
Fleming, Karl, 81, 82
Drug Administration
and
Food
(FDA), 248, 249
Forest Lawn, Los Angeles, 166, 235
Forman, Rachel, 150
Fort, William E., Jr., 229
Fortune, 273
Franken, Peter A., 23-24
Fitzgerald, Ella,
Frawley, Patrick J., 133

Free Speech Movement (FSM), 92,
93, 95, 98, 99, 100, 273, 285
Freedom Center, 229
Freeways, 55, 138, 167, 168, 169-70,
171, 172, 185, 292
Fremont, John Charles, 238
Frye, Marquette, 190-93, 193 n.
Frye, Rena, 191, 192, 193 n., 206
Frye, Ronald, 190, 192, 193 n.
FSM. See Free Speech Movement
Gabarini, Earl, 78
Gaines, Joyce Arm, 193
Gale, William P., 255
Garibaldi, Les, 78
General Electric Theatre, 45-46
Geological Survey, U.S., 23
George, Fentroy Morrison, 215
Gilkerson, WilHam, 108
178
El Cid, San Francisco, 107
Gilliam, Harold, 38
Esquire, 189
God
Fair
employment
practices,
Gleason, Ralph, 104

Is a Millionaire
55
Falk, Peter, 265

Fard,
D., 13
W.
Farm
Workers Orgaruzing
161-62
Com-
mittee,
Faubus, Orville, 47
Bureau
(FBI), 211
Federal
of
Investigation
Federal Trade Commission
244
Feuer,
Lewis, 98
Fickert, Charles
M., 51
(FTC),
(Mathison),
255
GoflF, Kermeth, 178, 255
Goldwater, Barry M., 41, 48, 82, 85,
103, 119, 131, 178, 233, 277
Goldwater, Barry M., Jr., 103
Grapes of Wrath, The (Steinbeck),
130, 137, 140
Gretzinger, Vic, 65-79
Grifl&n, Aubrey, 218
Gubernatorial campaign and election
of 1 965-1 966, 157-58, 177-81,
264, 266-83
Gunther, John, 168, 181, 247
The
378

Kaye, Daimy, 264
Kearny, Phihp, 238
Kelly, Gene, 264
Haagen-Smit, A. J., 173

Hallman, Vincent, 108
Halprin, Lawrence, 362
Hamilton, George, 185
Hardin, David K., 279, 280
Hargis, Billy James, 223, 230
Harris, Thomas Lake, 239
Harte, Bret, 59
Hayward Fault, 309, 311 n.
Hayward Press, 167
Heard, Gerald, 240
Hoffa, Jimmy, 159
Hoffer, Eric, 286
Rajmiond,
Hoiles,
224,
228,
Kennedy, John F., 83, 124

Kerr, Clark, 87-89, 90, 91, 92,
97, 287, 288, 289
Kienholz, Edward, 226

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 218
Kinsolving, Lester, 236
Knight, Goodwin, 52, 54
Knott, Walter, 133, 224, 228-31,
233
231,
233
Holloway, Edgar, 239
Hollywood, California, 182, 260
Homosexuals, 180, 227, 296
Hoppe, Art, 167, 233, 235

Hoppe, Jacob, 66
House Un-American Activities Committee, 44
Houston, Andrew, 214
Hubler, Richard G., 41
Human
Events,
47
Hunter's Point (San Francisco)
riot
(1966), 265-66
lacopi, Robert, 24,
117
165
Intelligence Digest, 134
Internal Revenue Service,
230
Longshoremen's
and
Warehousemen's Union, 147
International
Irvine
Company, 232
ranch, 232
Jackson, California, 58-65, 68-79

bordellos of, 60-64,
Jacobs, Paul,
68-79
200
Jeffers,
Joe,
Jew, Jack,
Jewel,
San
229
Knowland, William,
87
Kortum, Karl, 114
52, 53, 57, 86,
Kossen, Sydney, 132, 267

Krishnamurti, 239
Kuchel, Thomas, 39, 48
Laguna Beach,
California,
227
Lane, Sandra, 236

LAPD. See Los Angeles Police Department
LaVey, Anton, 240
Leadbeater, Horace, 239
Lefebre, Richard Raymond, 218
Lenya, Lotte, 257

Leo XIII, Pope, 153
LeRoy, Mervyn, 45
Lewis, Bob, 191
Levds, D. B., 47
Lienhard, Heiirrich, 66, 67
Life,
260
Tom, 278, 279, 280, 281

Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr., 103
London Daily News, 72
Lonergan, Joseph, 133
Long, Wayne, 74, 75. 77> 78
Long Beadb, CaHfomia, 115, 218
Long Beach earthquake Ci933)> ii5
Littlewood,
165, 314
Japanese laborers, 140

Jazz Workshop,
Knott's Berry Farm,
Leigh, Janet, 264
Imperial Valley earthquake (1940),
Irvine
96-
Francisco, 104
246
114
Howard, 197, 202
John Birch Society. See Birch Society, John

Johnson, Lyndon B., 39, 56, 83, 129,
270. 274, 296
Juarez, Benito, 151
Look, 84
Lopez, Trini, 264
Los Angeles, California, 16, 24, 84,
109, 158, 166, 171, 172-74.
181-89
Los Angeles Basin, 182, 225
Los Angeles Coimty, 182
Los Angeles Coimty Air Pollution
Control District, 174
Los Angeles Free Press, 164
INDEX
379
Los Angeles Herald-Dispatch, 197

Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, 267
Los Angeles-Long Beach metropolitan area, 183
Angeles
Department
Police
Los
(LAPD), 200-6, 207-8, 211,
218, 219, 220, 222
Los Angeles
riots
(1965). See Watts
riots
Los Angeles Times, 71, 72, 73, 125,
Plan of Delano, 151, 157

Mexican-American Political Association (MAPA), 160, 180
Meyerson, Martin, 98
Migrant laborers, 56, 138-40, 14142, 144, 207. See also Bracero
program
Migration to Northern California,
26-30, 32-33, 57, 58
to Southern California, 223-27
Ludlow, Ronald Ernest, 214
Mill Creek, 34, 38, 56, 294

Miller, Michael, 93
Mirukus, Lee, 191-92
Money, William, 16, 236-39
Lumber
Monk, Hank, 58
133, 166, 169,

238, 295
Love, Nita, 218
171,
180,
184,
industry, 32, 33, 35-36, 37,
Monroe, Marilyn, 260-64

MontgomCTv, Robert, 44
Mooney, Tom, 83
39, 56
Lynch, Connie, 255

Lynch, Thomas, 255, 272
Lynn, James J., 245
Lynwood, California, 208
Lyons, Charlton H., 47
Mooney-Billings case, 51
Morgan, Neil, 168, 189
Mother Lode, 65, 79
Moimt Palomar observatory, 173

Muir, John, 31
Mulvey, J. H., 251
Murphy, George, 43, 44, 48
Maiman,
Joseph, 218
Malcriado, El, 143, 149, 163
Mamie, 68, 71, 76
Market
Facts, Inc.,
279
Marsh, John, 237

Marshall, James, 31
Martin, Dean, 264
Martin, Leonard, 114
Mathison, Richard, 255, 259
Maybeck, Bernard, 361
McCabe, Charles, 103, 108, 158
McComb,
Marshall
McCone, John
A.,
F.,
286
219
Commission, 220, 221, 223

McDermitt, Mary, 17
McPherson, Aimee Semple, 17 n.,
240, 253
McWilliams, Carey, 140
Means, Marianne, 269
Medi-Cal program, 292
Mencken, H. L., i8i

Menjou, Adolph, 44
Meryman, Ridiard, 260
Fault,
165
Mexican-American
laborers,
138-40,
141-42, 144, 207

agricultural strike of 1965,
boycott organized by, 148,
144-57
149
organization of, 159-63

pilgrimage to Sacramento by, 149-
57
National
Association
for
the
vancement
of
(NAACP),
95, 201, 209,
Colored
Ad-
People
224
National
Center
for
Earthquake
Research, Menlo Park, 23
National Farm Workers Association
(NFWA),
McCone
Mesa
Nadeau, Remi, 170

Nash, Joan, 193
143, 144, 149, 150,
160-61, 162, 163

National Geographic Society, 34
National Guard, California, 214-15,
218, 266
National Park Service, 34, 37

National Redv^ôod Park, 39, 57
National Science Foimdation, 37
Neiburger, Morris, 175-76
New Republic, 176
New York Times, 72, 120, 267, 288,
296
Newhart, Bob, 265
Nevvport-Inglevpood Fault, 165
Newsweek magazine,
54,
81,
123,
168, 296
NFWA.
See National Farm Workers
Association
The
38o
Nixon, Richard M.,
13, 44, 54,
84, 124, 233, 254,
57,
297
Nofziger, Lyn, 296

Northern California, 22-136,
172
Norton I, Emperor, 108
Nygaard, Norman, 230
171,
Oakland Tribune, 86, 91, 267

OfiE Broadway, San Francisco, loi,
102, 106
Old Spaghetti
Factory,
San
Francisco,
106
Provine, Dorothy, 265

Pyne, Joe, 215
Quock, Lloyd, 114

RaflFerty,
Max, 254
Reagan, Ronald Wilson, 7, 16, 39,

40-49, 58, 81-82, 84, 100, 11922,
124-33, 135, 154, 156,
157-58, 177, 178-80, 181, 226,
265, 266-71, 274, 275, 277,
279, 282, 283-85, 286-98, 370
Redwood Creek, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38,
294
Olson, Culbert, 52
Orange County, 223-33

Otis, Harrison Gray, 238
Ottmer, Muri, 227
Redwood forests, 31-32, 33> 34-39

Redwood Park and Recreation Commission, 35
Redwood Region Conservation

Pacific
Gas &
Electric
Company, 118
Pacoima, California, 215

Pact of October 2, 1964, 92, 94
Palm Springs, California, 166
Parker, William H., 199, 200-3, 205,
Asso-
ciation,
35
Rehgion. See Cults and
RepubUcan
cultists
party, California, 178
Reuther, Walter, 149

Reynolds, Guy, 65-79
Abraham, 186
207, 211, 212, 215, 217, 220,
Ribicoff,
222
Charles F., 114, 117

Righter, CarroU, 284
Riker, William, 74, 240, 247, 25051, 253, 254, 257
Parsons, Louella, 42,
Richter,
44
Pasadena, California, 215, 218

Peace Corps, U.S., 86, 143
Pearson, Drew, 135, 296
Peck, Gregory, 264
Pegler, Westbrook, 181
Pelley, WiUiam Dudley, 248
People's World, The, 201
Peppermint Tree, San Francisco, 106
Pereira, William, 232
Perelli-Minetti Wine Company, 162
Peterson, Ludlle "French Peggy," 64
PhilHps, John and Michelle, 185
Pilgrimage to Sacramento C1965)
280
CaHfomia, 166
Robello, Alan, 68, 69
Roberts, William R., 81-82, 277, 281
Rockefeller, Nelson, 82, 85, 282, 297
Rockrise, George, 361-62
Rockwell, George Lincoln, 13
Rodia, Simon, 216
Rogers, Ginger, 260
Rogers, Roy, 265
Romero, Cesar, 265
Ripon
Society,
Riverside,
of migrant agricultural laborers,
Roosevelt, Franklin D.,
149-57
Roquemore, Dallas, 223

Rosenberg, "Big Davy," loi, 102
Ross, Fred, 142-43
Ross, Wilham B., 280
Place-names of Northern California,
27
Plan of Delano, 151, 157
Playhoy, 189
Point Lomas, California, 252
Politics Battle Plan (Baus and Ross),
280
Polk, Willis, 361
Posey, Leon, Jr., 214
Post Ofl&ce Department, U.S., 248,
249
Prophecies of disaster, 16-21
44
Rousselot, John, 48, 125
Rubel, A. C, 133
Riunford Fair Housing Act, 55, 56,
158, 180
Sacramento, CaHfomia, 156
Sahnger, Pierre, 48
Salvatori, Henry, 133
San Andreas Fault, 23, 24, 117, 118,
165, 253 n., 311 n.
INDEX
San
San
San
San
San
San
381
Bernardino, California, i66, 218

Diego, California, 217
Diego Tribune, 168
Sinatra,
Diego Union, 290
Sinclair,
Fernando, California,
182
38, 53, loi,

103, 105, 107, 109, 135 n., 166,
167, 236, 267
Francisco earthquake (1906),
115, 116, 118, 165, 309,

310, 368
San Francisco Examiner, 38, 103, 105
San Francisco Suicide Prevention,
23,
112
San Jadnto Fault, 165
San Jose Mercury, 267
Santa Ana Register, 224, 231, 267,

291
Santa Barbara, California, 17, 172,
185, 282
Santa Barbara earthquake (1925),

165
Santa Barbara News Press, 267
Santa Ynez Fault, 165
Saturday Evening Post, 159
Saunders, Lucinda Jane, 66-68
Save the Redwoods League, 32, 35,
Smog
control, 55
Smoot, Dan, 47
SNCC. See Student Nonviolent Co-
ordinating Committee
Society of Caufomia Pioneers, 60
Southern California, 33, 164-298
179, 268, 269, 274, 275,

78, 281,
St.
277-
297
Denis, Ruth, 240
Stafford, Jo, 264

Stanford, Sally, 51
Stead, Frank M., 174, 176
Steam,
Jess,
18,
20
Steinbeck, John, 13, 130, 137, 140 n.

Stevens, Bishop, 256
Stevenson, Adlai E., 13, 53, 83
Stewart, Jimmy, 49
Strombotne, James, 226

Strong, Edward, 88, 89, 90, 94, 98
Structural Engineers Association of
Cahfomia, 116
Nonviolent
Coordinating
Committee (SNCC), 83, 88,
95. 144, 210
Sugrue, Thomas, 20
Student
36
Savio, Mario, 89, 90, 92, 94, 96, 285,
288
Scheiber, Joe, 78
Schenley
Lidustries,
147-48,
155,
156, 161
John, 225
Schorer, Mark, 99
Schulberg, Budd, 221
Schwarz, Fred, 47, 253

Seidenbaum, Art, 169
Seismological Society of America, 117
Sensible Redwood Park and Recreation Plan,
36
Sexual morality, 10 1-7
200
John F., 104, 266
Sherwood, Don, 171
Sierra Club, 31, 34, 36, 38
Joe,
Shelley,
"Smith letter," 26
Smog, 172-76
85, 119, 125-26, 128, 131, 178,
San Jose News, 267

San Luis Obispo Telegram-Trihune,
267
San Mateo Times, 267
Shaw,
Smith, Gerald L. K., 178, 240, 25455

Smith, Gypsum P., 26
Spencer, Stuart, 81, 82, 125, 277

Spencer-Roberts & Associates, 80-82,
Inc.,
Schmitz,
Nancy, 264
Upton, 83, 123
Smallfield, Robert, 63
Francisco, California, 16, 17, 24,

101-15, 116, 157, 171, 175,
184, 265-66, 270

San Francisco Chronicle,
San
Silicone treatment, 102

Sinatra, Frank, 155, 264
Sutter, John, 31
Sutter's Fort, California,
Svidft,
Wesley
Albert,
67
255
Tara, 105
Taylor, Robert, 44, 128, 265
Teamsters Union, 159-61, 162
Tehachapi Mountains, 166

Tejon Pass earthquake C1857), 165
Thomas, Danny, 264
Thompson, Hunter, 22
Tidal waves, 17, 323, 332, 339
Tilson, Warren,
214
Time, 54, 168, 181
Tingley, Katherine, 239
The
382
Tofanelli, Giiido, 63,
64
Topless phenomenon, 10 1-7

Tosha (Pat McDonald), 105
Tourists, 34, 65
Towle, Katherine, 87, 89

Truman, Harry S, 44
Tuck, Dick, 233-35
Twain, Mark, 59
Udall, Stewart, 37
Uniform Building Code, CaHfomia,
"5
United Auto Workers, 149
United Nations, 13
United States Health Service, 175
Utt, James, 224
Watts area, Los Angeles, 194-98,

220-21
Watts riots C1965), 119, 121, 177,
194-200, 205-23
Watts Towers, 216
Wax, Mel, 110
Wayne, John, 60, 226, 265
Weinberg, Jack, 90, 91, 94
Welch, Robert, 29, 229, 253, 285
Western Wood Products Association,
39
See
Mexican-American
Wetbacks.
laborers
Vami's Roaring Twenties, San Francisco, 106

Venice, Cahfomia, 215
Where's the Rest of Me?

and Hubler), 41, 119,
Whistlestof, 233
Whitaker, Qem, 80
Whitaker & Baxter, 80-81,
White Wolf Fault, 165
Why I Cannot Take
(Yorty), 84
Venta, Krishna,
Wild Ass Mining Company, 66
Valdez, Luis, 151
17,
241, 243, 245,
251-52
Vicini, Marvin,
78
Victor, Elegant Albert, 68, 71
Vietnam
Day Committee CVDC),
100
Vietnam War,
83, 122, 129
Vigilance Committees, 184

Virginia Beach, Virginia, 20
Virtue,
Von
Phihp M., 133

Monique, 106
Cleef, Baroness
Walker, Clint, 265

Walker, Edwin, 223
Wall, Tessie, 61
Wallace, George, 254
Wamecke, John Carl, 36a
Warner, Jack, 49
Warren, Earl, 13, 47, 49, 5i. 53 37
Warrington, Albert Powell, 240
Washington Evening Star, 296
Washington Post, 296
Wilson,
Wilson,
Wilson,
Wilson,
(Reagan
289
274
Kennedy
Brian, 185
Nancy, 264
Wajme, 192
WilHam, 171
World War
World War
50
I,
II,
43, 141
Wright, Frank Lloyd, 108, 181, 361

Wright, Loyd, 48
Wright, Willard Huntington, 181
Wyman,
Jane,
44
Yogananda, 239
Yorty, Samuel, 7, 83-84,
134,
186,
119,
130,
177, 183,
203, 206, 212,
185,
213,
157-58,
196,
215, 218, 219, 222, 271
Yosemite National Park, 137
Young Americans
Zadkiel's
Almanac
for
Freedom, 47
for 1906, 17
Zellerbach, Merla, 109
Klamath
Mountains
''^$%
-^
Sacramento
Stockton
Oakland
Modesto^
San
VSan
Jose
Francisco
Fresno
San Joaquin Valley
PACIFIC OCEAN
LEGEND:
^HaKnown Course
San Andreas Fault
Break 1969
New
San Bernardino
Mountains
Bakersfield
\y\
^^ ^
Call
Mountains
XV
HT
Ynez Mountains
v,
yV^
Riverside
f Long Beach
jnta
Barbara
Los Angeles
San
Diego

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San Andreas Fault

.New Break 1969

THE LAST DAYS OF THE LATE,

The Last Days

1968 by Curt Gentry

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must

not be reproduced in any form without permission. PubHshed

simultaneously in the Dominion of Canada by

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

gies for Claremont; to

Maxine and Ralph Davidson,

Chapman, Vic "Brushmush"

the worst disaster since I was elected

Ronald Wilson Reagan, from

nothing more beautiful

covered with horses."

Los Angeles Mayor Samuel Yorty, 1964:

1965: "Everywhere they say 'Go to Cali-

fornia! California's the great pot

gold at the end of the

and the only pot

we're here in California, and there ain't

the kind they

MOST ALL OF THESE

of the Pacific at the

i8, 1906, only this time

ripped south at the steady, crunching speed of two w,iles per

second, causing the Garcia

hanks, splitting giant trees right

the middle, then passing

under the small town of Plantation.

students departing from their last class at Port Ross School.

continued south, within a mile of the old Russian trading

historic buildings like m^atchsticks, trapping

Petaluma, Napa, and even Sacramento a

Oroville, 1^0 miles away,

south through the waters of Tomales Bay, capsizing

small craft and drowning 12 before passing under

In Marin County alone there were 83

the waters outside the

south tower of the Golden Gate

Last Days of the Late, Great State of California

the most populous state in the Union.

was gone, and with

But the horror remains

earthquake tremor to the

which the accumulated data

years have passed since the destruction

us bewilderingly unprepared, required only

hour and 57 minutes. Yet never before in recorded history was

not surprising that the

passage of time has served only to

even today people are unable

the shock, so that

what followed was unexpected (although most will now

More words have been devoted

than to any single event in the history of man.