Chicago 1968: The Calm Before the Storm

In the late summer of 1968, writers Terry Southern, William S. Burroughs, and Jean Genet were deployed by Esquire magazine to cover the Democratic Convention in Chicago. With photographer Michael Cooper and poet Allen Ginsberg inseparable parts of their coterie, the “fab 5” (as Michael Simmons dubbed them) were unflappable, capturing the calm and riding out the storm. These were turbulent times, as growing opposition to the Vietnam War inspired the Yippies to organize one of the biggest youth demonstrations of all time. Pot-smoking peaceniks descended upon Chicago from all over the country to protest the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the anticipated coronation of the Establishment candidate, Hubert Humphrey. Chicago was a Republican stronghold, and Mayor Richard J. Daley wanted to present a peaceful “law and order” city that wouldn’t tolerate any “outside agitators” or “unpatriotic” long-hairs. No one could have foreseen the unprecedented mobilization of tens of thousands of