One October day in 1970, I sat atop a truck in the parking lot behind the Municipal Auditorium in San Jose, California, as President Richard Nixon, inside the auditorium, gave a speech to Republican loyalists, condemning the cowardice and irresponsibility of me and about one thousand others who were there to protest the war in Vietnam. Outdoor loudspeakers had been provided so that we could hear his speech clearly.

The arrangements for security had crammed anybody who looked like a protester into the parking lot, which was full of Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs and other cars of the prosperous establishment folks inside. A line of limousines waited in the street alongside the building, ready to sweep past after the speech. The crowd in the parking lot might well have been the children of those inside and was peaceable enough, wanting only to yell things like “No more war” as the President left the building. Uniformed police officers and Secret Service types clustered at the head of the column of limos and at the exit from the parking lot onto the street. The back of the building was screened by a line of large buses.

Immediately after Nixon’s speech the buses roared to life and shifted position just enough to reveal a second line of limos next to the building, facing an exit to the side of the lot. Suddenly, next to one of them, just fifty yards away, stood Nixon himself! With a grin that struck me as diabolical he flashed at the crowd the outstretched fingers of the peace sign.

We reacted in exactly the way we were meant to—with a roar of frustration and rage at this man who had appropriated our sign of peace as his own symbol of victory and triumph.

In a flash Nixon was gone. The buses moved in a curious choreography, shielding the exit of the limos out onto the street—but no, here came the line of limos out away from the building and through the crowd, which had absolutely nowhere to move.

As the cars rolled the whole length of the parking lot, big men in short haircuts and suits, hanging on to the sides of the limos, flailed away with brass knuckles at anyone within reach. Rage turned to panic, blood spurted, engines roared, people screamed and yelled. In the minute that it took to plow through that lot, at least twenty people were left bleeding on the asphalt.

The next ten minutes turned into chaos as the crowd went after the only symbol of Nixon they could see—the cars iA the wealthy there in the lot. The Cadillacs and Oldsmobiles lost their windshields and the smoothness of their fenders in flashes and shards of sound and glass. It ended as quickly as it had begun. The crowd, abashed and bewildered by its own unplanned action, melted away. It was soon replaced by the audience from inside the building, which had been delayed by the concluding speeches and rituals.

I’ll never forget the bewilderment and injured innocence of those poor California Republicans, coming out to find their trashed cars, wondering what in hell the country had come to, astonished that our President had managed to escape safely, hoping to restore the peace, sanity, and dignity of the Eisenhower era. And where were the journalists in San Jose? Inside the auditorium, where the official story was, listening to the speeches and interviewing officials. When they came out, the only people they could think to talk to were the car owners.

Ever since that afternoon and evening in San Jose, I have looked for journalists who thought to cover the back door. It is easier and ever so much more professional-looking to stay with the suits in the building than to find the story out back. One can only hope that the grindstones of history knock away enough of the chaff to find the kernels of truth as people lived them.

—David K. Porter, a writer, lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

It was October 1944, and the pundits were busy analyzing Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s bid for a fourth term. His opponent was Thomas E. Dewey, the former crime-busting district attorney of New York County and now governor of the state. FDR had lined up an impressive array of big names to support him in the state. My brush with history involves one of these.

I’m talking about Fiorello H. La Guardia, the mayor of New York City, the Little Flower. While ostensibly a Reform Republican, he was strongly proRoosevelt. In fact, the President had just appointed him director of the U.S. Office of Civilian Defense.

I met Hizzoner on a number of occasions. My father was assistant manager of the New York Philharmonic, and one of his duties was to oversee the summer concerts that took place in Lewisohn Stadium. La Guardia opened the Stadium Summer Series every year by conducting the Philharmonic in “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I had attended many of these opening concerts and had met La Guardia at the receptions that always followed. But now I was to meet him one on one—in a CBS radio studio.

Just out of school, I had managed to get a job as an apprentice assistant director in July of 1944. By September I was a full-fledged assistant director. Among other things, the assistant director was assigned to all the noncommercial programs such as Sundaymorning religious shows and political addresses. Such an address was to be given by Mayor La Guardia. The Democratic party had bought time on the entire CBS radio network and had asked the mayor of New York to address the nation on behalf of the President. He was to speak from 6:15 to 6:30 P.M.—live. There was no tape in those days.

La Guardia arrived at 5:30. I introduced myself and was gratified when he said he remembered me and asked about my father. Then I introduced him to our technician and to our organist, Abe Goldman. I explained that if his speech did not fill the fourteen minutes and thirty seconds required for a fifteen-minute program, the organist would fill the remaining time with music.

The mayor smiled enigmatically. He sat down at the table, took out his speech, and read it out loud. I timed it. It was thirteen minutes long and, with the opening and closing remarks by the announcer, would time out perfectly. I told the mayor that everything was fine, and asked if I could do anything for him. He said, “No, thanks.” And then, reaching up to put his hand on my shoulder, he said, “But tell me again what happens if my speech runs short.” I explained again that the organist would fill the time until the next program went on the air.

Imagine my total surprise during the broadcast when, following along with my copy of the speech, I noticed that the mayor had made huge deletions. I could not for the life of me figure out why. It had timed out perfectly. When he came to the end, we were very, very short. The announcer read his closing remarks, and I cued the organist to start playing. Abe must have played for three interminable minutes. I was probably going to catch hell for not having timed La Guardia’s speech accurately.

His face wreathed in smiles, La Guardia burst into the control room. I said, “Your Honor, what happened? The speech was perfect for time. Why did you make all those cuts? My boss is going to think I don’t know how to use a stopwatch!”

“Not your fault at all, young man,” squeaked the mayor. “On the way over to the studio, I was looking at the radio listings in the evening paper and noticed that Dewey is scheduled to speak right after me, from six-thirty till quarter to seven. I figured if I finished early and the only thing going out on the air was organ music, people would either tune to another station or turn off the set entirely. I just wanted to do everything I could to reduce the size of Dewey’s audience. I hope it worked. You just tell your boss that. Tell him all’s fair in love, war—and politics.”

— Bruno Zirato, a communications consultant, lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.