McGoverning

The recent death of Paul Volcker brought up some discussion of the effects his inflation hawkery had on the Latin American debt crisis. Galbraith and Volcker’s Treasury seems to be taking a not dissimilar tack to Volcker’s Federal Reserve on inflation - with the different conditions of 1973 from 1979, is the debt crisis as aggravated as it was OTL?
EDIT: Ah, gosh, just remembered Allende. That could be another wrinkle.
 
The recent death of Paul Volcker brought up some discussion of the effects his inflation hawkery had on the Latin American debt crisis. Galbraith and Volcker’s Treasury seems to be taking a not dissimilar tack to Volcker’s Federal Reserve on inflation - with the different conditions of 1973 from 1979, is the debt crisis as aggravated as it was OTL?
EDIT: Ah, gosh, just remembered Allende. That could be another wrinkle.

No new Pinochet-influenced Chilean constitution for starters. Any new chapters ready for New Year's?
 
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As part of the much older discussion on prepared headlines and what could ensue in terms of the ATL effects, @Yes, I think you would find some interest from this prepared one for Apollo 8 if the crew had been lost in flight:

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As part of the much older discussion on prepared headlines and what could ensue in terms of the ATL effects, @Yes, I think you would find some interest from this prepared one for Apollo 8 if the crew had been lost in flight:

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Man, that is the bummer version of "Dewey Defeats Truman."
 
Hey, thanks for the link to our site! When I saw we were getting some visits from alternatehistory.com and the name of the thread was "McGoverning," I rushed to check this thread out and yeah, it was an understatement to say I was not disappointed.

I've been a long-time lurker here for years but I finally decided to create an account to tell @Yes that I absolutely binged this AH the other night and I can't wait to see more. Also definitely interested, as someone who's pretty obsessed with 1970s OTL pop culture, in more glimpses at the American cultural landscape in McGovern's first term.
 
Still waiting to hear about Rinka.

@THE OBSERVER,

No dogs were harmed in the making of this Brit-fix. Can't say for sure about anyone - or anything - else, though...

Any new chapters ready for New Year's?

Yes, as a matter of fact (the affirmative, not my nom de forum.) Should have the first one up very soon. Besides the inevitable family time over the holidays (a good thing) and pressures of work (a... thing, definitely a thing...) I've spent much of the last three weeks engaged in a major effort to storyboard the granular details through the remainder of this volume, sort out how everything fits together, what I present and what lies in the background, etc., in hopes that a concerted effort to do that now will make things run smoother with chapter production this year as compared to 2019. It's been a project, but a good one, and should bear fruit for the Careful Readers shortly.

Man, that is the bummer version of "Dewey Defeats Truman."
Indeed. Sooooooper downer. Fascinating to see, though.

The recent death of Paul Volcker brought up some discussion of the effects his inflation hawkery had on the Latin American debt crisis. Galbraith and Volcker’s Treasury seems to be taking a not dissimilar tack to Volcker’s Federal Reserve on inflation - with the different conditions of 1973 from 1979, is the debt crisis as aggravated as it was OTL?
EDIT: Ah, gosh, just remembered Allende. That could be another wrinkle.

It's a complex process. Galbraith's scoobies have definitely done some "inflation targeting" especially as skewed towards specific markets and industries (think LGBs rather than carpet bombing) that involves manipulation of rates. But a lot of what they prefer to do is through controls - on costs, prices, and mechanisms of trade/speculative exchange like riding herd more aggressively on the Eurodollar market - and through targeted progressive taxation, efforts to "squeeze out loose money" from commercial/private circulation. The crucial difference for potential debt issues south of the Rio Grande is that with the particular influence of Fed chairman (and developing-economies specialist) Andrew Brimmer in the mix, the specially aggregated lending facilities the West has worked to set up, on behalf of both Western bankers themselves and also the oil-enriched economies, have been directed to lend in local currencies, rather than the dollar, pound sterling, etc. The big bankers (look, it's David Rockefeller! Hi, David Rockefeller!) don't especially like that this means debtor nations can devalue their currencies and thereby restructure their debt, but it does mean that at least payments can continue at all if there's trouble. As for "freeing the markets" of these developing nations, (1) the McGoverners are deeply wary of doctrinaire asset-capturing capitalism because it would disrupt the effort to build better relations with the Global South, and (2) Galbraith et al. try very hard to persuade the big bankers and would be free-trade raiders that they'll catch more flies with honey (favorable/bearable loan terms) than with vinegar (austerity).

Chugging along I expect - love that article. As a Seventies kid who grew up on English-language copies of Asterix & Obelix it was a real kick to see less-subtly editorializing cartoonists of the same generation (operating inside some of the same artistic conventions/traditions) do what they're doing.

There are a few interesting wrinkles there, the biggest of which is hardly just a "wrinkle." In the words of a recent blockbuster (let's not get derailed on that one, I bring it up as a witticism) this is one of those great AH cases in which THE DEAD SPEAK! Because you really, genuinely have Chilean leftists in the arts, media, politics, everyday life running around in The World McGoverning Built who are not alive IOTL, victims of the first bloody wave of Pinochet's purges, the Caravan of Death, all the obscene rest of it. Here there may be occasional, individual casualties in continued gangland-style tit-for-tat between hard-right and hard-left heavies (though not remotely on the scale of, say, Argentina next door) but there are legitimately a few thousand interesting, creative souls kickin' it in TTL!Chile with whose presence the TL will need to find ways to reckon.

On another note of Pure Uncut Seventies A E S T H E T I C, there will surely be an issue of La Firme about this:
1579039722265.png

Because with a relatively benign Christian Democratic succession to control of the center-left coalition that's still trucking along and with less revolutionary zeal overlaid on the purely structural/programming/engineering aspects, more and more corporate types have taken an interest in this kind of Souped-Up Cyber-Fordism...

Also I can't recommend enough getting a look at Eden Medina's Cybernetic Revolutionaries, the so-far-only English-language history of the OTL project, available from MIT Press (including a PDF copy someone's kindly put up, but those who are able should chip in where they can find it at a decent price.) Great stuff.

Hey, thanks for the link to our site! When I saw we were getting some visits from alternatehistory.com and the name of the thread was "McGoverning," I rushed to check this thread out and yeah, it was an understatement to say I was not disappointed.

I've been a long-time lurker here for years but I finally decided to create an account to tell @Yes that I absolutely binged this AH the other night and I can't wait to see more. Also definitely interested, as someone who's pretty obsessed with 1970s OTL pop culture, in more glimpses at the American cultural landscape in McGovern's first term.

Thank you! So very much. It's very, very kind of you to say and really does keep the gears turning, that people find interest and satisfaction in the story so far (no worries, there's more to come :).) We'll start to get into more elements of the culture and more elements too of what constitutes both politics and alternate-historical change as this TLverse, through and (Lord willin' and the creeks don't rise) even on beyond the years of the McGovern administration. I enjoy We Are The Mutants a whole bunch myself: in an effort to rein in my tangential nature (it really is Tangents All The Way Down around here, folks) I'll highlight two particular favorites that actually happen to be products of yours directly. First a shout-out to a nerd soul brother for your piece some while back on the "Eighties American cult of Doctor Who" I was a fully paid-up member (actually "paid up," I still own my 1983 Doctor Who America Fan Club coffee mug which is in excellent shape considering a generation's worth of dishwashers between then and now), the companion books, the FASA-produced RPG, the whole shamozzle (#TeamPertwee) so that was a fascinating pleasure to read from the combination of distance and a really primal remembrance. Also for the Careful Readers hereabouts I'd like to highlight @museummichael's latest (I think?) on NASA's graphics standards manual for public communications from 1975 and links to several other agencies' and one leading light's prior work with a top New York advertising/design firm that created the Pan Am logo, the modern NBC Peacock, and other fun stuff. Nothing like the crunchy, crunchy textures of other eras' lived realities. You can find that piece here and I advise readers to strap in because it's Helvetica as far as the eye can see.,,
 
Also for the Careful Readers hereabouts I'd like to highlight @museummichael's latest (I think?) on NASA's graphics standards manual for public communications from 1975 and links to several other agencies' and one leading light's prior work with a top New York advertising/design firm that created the Pan Am logo, the modern NBC Peacock, and other fun stuff. Nothing like the crunchy, crunchy textures of other eras' lived realities. You can find that piece here and I advise readers to strap in because it's Helvetica as far as the eye can see.,,

Thanks for all the kind words! I definitely like to look at a lot of my pieces at Mutants as tiny little glimpses into alternate histories, or at least maybe forgotten ones in OTL. The confluence of themes last week as my NASA piece went up and was hipdeep in this thread (especially when that McGovern poster that also used Helvetica popped up) was positively eerie. I definitely don't want to give Nixon too too much credit but when it comes to stuff like the federal government encouraging (or at least paying lip service to) the arts (my piece about Documerica is another one that comes to mind here that I'm really proud of), Nixon really was of a different breed from Reagan and post-Reagan Republicans. But then again, his paranoia also kind of ended up strangling PBS in its crib, so maybe it's a bit of a wash.

Re: Cybersyn: I concur that Eden Medina's book is a must read.
 
Unintentional bump with an idea I had:

So I finished rereading this excellent timeline and saw some of the 1976 predictions people made. As such, I figured I'd have a go at it - assuming Ronaldius Caesar wins the primary (as he tends to do when he's not facing an incumbent), but has a long and difficult fight against some of our favorite creatures - Baker, Percy, Mathias, Buckley, Gurney, basically any Republican with a pulse and a buddy with deep pockets. He's got to play hard-right to win, a la 1976, and all of that gets placed around his neck for the upcoming general election. Seeing as he knows McGovern has a snowball's chance in the South (gehddam hippeh-lovah), Baker is going to get shunted in favor of Percy. Now that we have Reagan-Percy, let's have a look at the Democratic side of things.

There's no way around this - Phil Hart has cancer. He's not going to be able to run for re-election, and announces so in a deeply emotional press conference. As much as this is horrible, it helps one thing - McGovern, presumably on the advice of the Harts on his shoulders - Phil as the Angel and Gary as the Devil - can use the now-open VP slot to keep people from challenging him in the primary. Not necessarily making any one of his potential challengers his next running mate, but it's enough of a prize to consider that they're willing to forgo a primary if it means their own guaranteed shot in 4 years. I mean, there's not many people who want to run anyways (most of the Democratic McGovern haters are cranky old men who don't have the strength to run that kind of national campaign - hi McClellan! What's up Stennis! How're you doing, Eastland?), but for the few who see a shot, it works. Ultimately, though, he doesn't focus on them for the election. His goal is to win the damn thing, and he also sees that Ronnie is going to sweep the South no matter what he does. I'll say who I think would be a perfect choice for this in a minute, but I need to set the stage.

Time to analyze the shit out of the general.
- The economy is still suffering because of Arthur Burns, but it’s a lot better because Galbraith and Brimmer are catching stagflation and whatnot early. This means that, while the economy might not be a net benefit for McGovern, it’s not a drag on him either. Things are... fine. People aren’t amazed but aren’t upset.
- Taxpayer revolt is still happening. People are still having that extra fun conservative backlash. That all plays in Ronnie's favor. A LOT. No need to say more.
- Reagan had to run far right to win the primary. He has all of these things slung around his neck, and he has to answer for all of it with the general electorate. No more "gloomy Carter needs to go" platitudes, he has to actually answer for why he wants to slash X, Y, and a heap of Z. Meanwhile, McGovern can frame it as what he's done. He's no longer the insurgent radical. He's The Man, and he's done a hell of a lot for all of us. He can milk that for those skittish moderates all he wants. It'd be kind of like Reagan '84 or Obama '12 in that respect, honestly.
- The big one. Fort Wayne. Bad no matter what, but it's entirely about how McGovern handles it. This definitely lets ol' Ronnie go "family values" and get some scared southerners and midwesterners on board, though. If McGovern waffles and goes full Eagleton, then he's finished. If Jean Hart is back and decides to basically tell him off again and to get him to say he wasn't aware of this (you know, he had a girlfriend then, he didn't know she had a child or put his name down as the father), then he can probably maneuver it into the nebulous partisan space of political raunchiness known as The Lewinsky Zone. It'll hurt, but who knows what McGovern can really do with it, and if his honest nature comes into conflict with political reality again?

So basically, it's about what McGovern has done for us, who's the real radical here, are the taxpayers ready to revolt, and if George has kept his bits clean. Now to get more granular and focus on individual blocs, states, and whatnot.

- If his cancer goes as OTL, Phil Hart dies in the general election. This means that the upper Midwest is a bit more secure, seeing as there's mourning and all sorts of "for Phil!" stuff going on there. Michigan is secure, we can say that much at least. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, etc are weirder but this does help. I don't doubt that McGovern gives an EXCELLENT speech at Phil Hart's funeral.
- There's no weird labor dynamic this time. McGovern has their full backing, seeing as the choice is between him (who at least supports them, even if Meany is pretty annoyed by his other views) and the Gipper, who comes off as wanting to smash every union leader's skull in with a car door Kingpin-style. The choice is basically "do we get into the tent or not," not who's the highest bidder.
- What about the West Coast? Trying to take on Reagan in California is a bad idea. You don't fight him in his own backyard. However, what about Oregon and Washington? The Left Coast can still be mobilized for McGovern, chances are Mark Hatfield might help his friend out over a man he deeply disagrees with, and he might be able to drop a couple of Boeing contracts in Scoop Jackson's mailbox to get that aid (the Senator from Boeing is up in 1976, so he's willing to do even more). That makes them swing states, in my view.
- FARMERS! So McGovern is one of the few Presidents to truly focus on detailed farm policy. Obviously the Sacramento Cowboy is very strong in the Great Plains, but that doesn't mean McGovern can't snipe a state or two out there. I'm thinking of his South Dakota, his home state, as well as Montana, who has a weird miner's union and small farmer dynamic that lets them elect liberals once in a while so long as they help them. McGovern obviously aids both of them quite a lot, so Montana is certainly feasible.
- Illinois comes down to Percy's strength versus union/liberal strength. That'll be HARD, to say the least, but it's certainly very doable.
- Missouri could be weird. Very weird indeed. However, though last time Wallace hauled him across the edge, this time there's something different going on. Maybe I'm shilling my own favorites here, but a certain two-term Congressman from Missouri's Sixth District is running for Senate and is immensely popular in the state. Furthermore, he has Dialogues with Litton, a show that thousands of Missourians watch, and he might strategically invite McGovern on as his guest to boost him. Bring government to the people, you know. Association with Jerry Litton in 1976 Missouri is solid gold, and it's not like a plane crash will even happen here.
- There's one more hellish set of states out there: the Mid-Atlantic. Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and whatnot need some help, as the suburban voters there might end up considering Saint Ron. If McGovern isn't careful, this last bit needs to be considered heavily or they're gone and so is his job. This last point launches me into the running mate selection.

So, what does McGovern need? He needs a replacement for Phil Hart who ALSO helps in those wary Mid-Atlantic states. Phil Hart's death and a powerful funeral are enough to haul him across the finish line in the upper Midwest, but everything slightly east of that is rougher. So, George needs a few things. He needs to make sure Catholic ethnics are still pleased with him. He needs another moral backbone made of pure titanium. And, most importantly, he needs someone ideally from the NJ-PA-DE-MD region. So, who could this be? If I could make an ideal form for this: an Irish-American Catholic from New Jersey, a fellow WWII veteran, a Princeton graduate, a canny politician who rose from nothing to the governorship, and a competent manager of the almost-comical political machine in the state Gary Hart called "raw sewage." More importantly, he can't have passed a deeply-unpopular policy yet, such as a tax increase. Most importantly, he needs to be so incorruptible that even the fucking mob complains about it. Oh wait, all of these exist! Allow me to introduce you to:
05byrne3-articleLarge.jpg

Elected in 1973, this is Governor Brendan Byrne of New Jersey. The most notable thing to use for him is that, in an FBI sting, NJ mob leaders called him "the man who couldn't be bought," due to how goddamn incorruptible he is. This made him incredibly popular in contrast with the corruption-fueled machinery of New Jersey, and doubtless he'd be a boon in the election. Plus, his most hated policy, the institution of the income tax, happened in 1976, so if he's picked he presumably delays the tax hike and maintains his popularity to aid the national ticket. Really, he could play the Mid-Atlantic Phil Hart, one who makes people feel like there's reform while also helping with Catholic voters. So now we have our tickets, and even if the southerners who wanted to topple the hippie are upset, they can't do too much that isn't already done.

Now that we've went through this, finally, here's how I see McGovern/Byrne vs Reagan/Percy going:
Screenshot 2020-01-30 at 11.27.57 AM.png

- GOP division and a mobilized Left Coast makes it possible for McGovern to win Oregon and Washington, the former especially with the implicit backing of Mark Hatfield.
- Missouri is a Biden situation, apparently, as the popular Senatorial candidate Jerry Litton gets a fair amount of straight-ticket from the rural Missourians who vote for him.
- Illinois is a skin-of-the-teeth win, as Percy loses a bit of his shine to Illinoisans when he's playing second-fiddle to the arch-conservative. They like the moderate Chuck, not the one who seems like Reagan's newest pet chimpanzee. Either way, Byrne helping to assuage suburbanites (who are the real worrying bloc here, unlike union voters with Nixon/Wallace in play) and McGovern playing to his strengths keeps Illinois for the Democrats.
- New Jersey and Delaware are super fucking narrow too, as in good God Brendan Byrne really worked his magic with the machinery (as shown by his OTL income tax passage, he's amazing at twisting arms and making the precursors to the Norcross family do what he wants them to do). Pennsylvania is a little bit better but still, youch that was too close for comfort.
- Fort Wayne + muh states rights help Reagan sweep the South, where he takes a simply gigantic margin.
- Enough small farmers in Montana, Iowa, and South Dakota walk into that voting booth and realize how much better things have gotten for them with McGovern McGoverning. Nobody else really cares about them, right?
- Better union support plus likely incoming Senate Majority Leader and definition of a transactional politician Robert Byrd wanting to have more of that sweet, sweet quid ready to extract porky quo from the White House gets McGovern over the edge in Mountain Mama.

Of course, this is just a very in-depth prediction, but I wanted to actually truly consider HOW McGovern could win against the political force of nature known as Ronald Wilson Reagan. Who knows what Yes is up to, but doubtless it’ll be excellent.
 
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Where will the parties hold their conventions in 1976? Will it still be Kansas City for the RNC and New York for the DNC or will they go somewhere else?
 
This is a very interesting prediction. Happy to see you've selected Brendan Byrne as a potential running mate in this scenario.

Thanks! I’ve been researching the mid to late 70s a lot for my own Reagan ‘76 TL, and after taking a break to go back through this because I wanted to unwind and read a personal favorite I had some ideas, and next thing you know McGovern is getting re-elected by the skin of his teeth because godDAMN is beating Reagan when he’s the challenger hard.

Where will the parties hold their conventions in 1976? Will it still be Kansas City for the RNC and New York for the DNC or will they go somewhere else?

Dunno. I suspect the GOP still uses Kansas City, because they want to get enough voters to swing back the regions that they honestly have Phil Hart to thank for losing. DNC might stay in NYC, or they might go elsewhere, maybe Detroit or something. Considering the nature of a McGovern-Reagan race, the Midwest is the one for all of the marbles. Again, though, I’m just estimating at the end of the day, only Yes truly knows.
 
Dunno. I suspect the GOP still uses Kansas City, because they want to get enough voters to swing back the regions that they honestly have Phil Hart to thank for losing. DNC might stay in NYC, or they might go elsewhere, maybe Detroit or something. Considering the nature of a McGovern-Reagan race, the Midwest is the one for all of the marbles. Again, though, I’m just estimating at the end of the day, only Yes truly knows.

Maybe Detroit, for Hart's sake.
 
@Enigma-Conundrum,

That was entirely goddamn delightful. Always, always love to see work product from the Careful Readers: people writing fanfic for nerds about my fanfic for nerds gives me a warm, true feeling, like community, a "these are my people" vibe as Da Yoof might say. Thanks so much.

There are here data points, nuggets in the stream if you will, that are correct, in terms of "can we suss out what @Yes might be doing with The Big One in '76?". There are many others that are not. There are yet others that, while not "factually" (fictually? Surely as good a word as the excellent "truthiness") correct, very definitely rhyme with things storyboarded for coming chapters. I will, of course, do my level best not to betray what any of those things actually are. But this is great stuff that deserves an engaged conversation.
  • I think it's very much a matter of Trend that the 1976 Republican Party presidential primaries will have clown car-like attendance figures. That seems likely for any opposition party in the messy, off-kilter, contested mid-Seventies of the United States in any timestream that remotely resembles our own. As of late 1975 IOTL there were thirteen Democratic candidates for the general primaries plus three more favorite-son bids. Many of the Boys on the Bus at that point figured Scoop Jackson as the front runner *pushes button repeatedly to up anti-convulsants and tamp down hysterical laughter*. So it's not amiss to think "with a pulse and a buddy with deep pockets" measures close to the sole entry requirements for The Show.
  • That of course means that there will be multiple contestants for each major (maybe even one apiece for some of the minor) tribes under the GOP's just-barely-still-big tent. They've had unity in opposition to this point but past it into the actual scrum for the nomination, out come the knives.
  • Likewise the factions in the Party of Ideas will be waving their organs of opinion (hee) at one another. The Hoover Institute, the Ripon Society, the bouncing baby Heritage Foundation, they'll all be jockeying for position. Most party-loyal Goopers will fall in line with whoever the nomination provides (as the vast majority of Reaganauts came home to Ford IOTL) but this is a real Gramscian moment for the factions to try and claim the party's commanding heights of platform planks and executive-branch positions.
  • So you're quite right on the dynamic that this multi-front civil war means there has to be ticket-balancing as a performative act of truce, whether that's a fully bold stroke or a more conservative (in the generic, not ideological, sense) match. The Republicans are caught in a vice between their own deep instinct to seek dominance within the party at nearly any cost and not fracturing a united front to overwhelm McGovernism.
  • Hart Phil's health is a live issue. We've started four years prior to the '76 presidential season so there is some real butterfly factor here. But late in life Phil had a propensity to health issues and, though his melanoma was not officially diagnosed and announced until the summer of '76, over the course of '75-'76 in news and hearings footage he takes on a sallowness that wasn't there before, his hair thins and, while he was always a wiry Irishman, his cheeks get pitted in an unhealthy way. Again, that's three years in to the Butterfly Field, but a propensity to health issues means any range of possibilities from (1) Republicans make the state of his health and McGovern's judgment about it a live issue in the fall campaign, (2) Phil decides to retire so he really can spend time with his beloved family thereby touching off a succession question, to straight-up (3) PHIL'S DEAD </OLAF>. All of those produce ripples and complications to say the least. Also interesting possibilities.
  • I love any opportunity to plug Brendan Byrne. Also, loving his fit in that shot, he goes on the list of Best Dressed Seventies Pols with Gerry Ford, John Connally, King Hussein of Jordan, and the like. Glen plaid with the tweed vest is especially choice. Also good tie. And I find the fact that he's one of those guys - HOLLA CY VANCE - who never wore scraggle-and-sideburns during the Seventies inherently trustworthy.
  • You've got some very interesting and plausibly clever map-building going on here. Though you've phrased the center of gravity in terms of the Mid-Atlantic one could also phrase it as a much broader Northern Strategy that runs all the way across the CONUS.
  • Watch the Littonspace. We'll dialogue.
  • There are deeper and even more profound things out there than "Fort Wayne." Whether anyone finds their way there, and who does - because that affects motive and intent - is the question. And not just on the Democratic side.
  • There are of course also exogenous shocks to consider too, butterflyable events that range from economic, to natural, to ideological, to unforeseen scandals, to foreign policy, to changes in personal circumstances, any number of things. Also we could consider what fierce energy there was in the Seventies, especially the first half, for "non-traditional" political solutions outside the norms of the two parties. Just the third- (or fourth- , or fifth- ) party possibilities alone, like for example this guy:
1580512431847.png


Or this guy:
1580512652480.png


Or this guy:
1580512764342.png


Or him:

1580512859773.png


Or even this guy:
1580512797264.png


Lots of delightful possibilities.


On convention sites, there's a lot of institutional and strategic inertia behind the planned locales (that ultimately turned up IOTL) but you're not wrong that the old Steel Belt is one of the cockpits of decision in the Bicentennial cycle.
 
So that we can dispense with any clarifying posts on the smattering of minor-party possibilities above (and they really are just a sampler from the larger pool of options), the images above are:

  • Your George Corley Wallace, Ladies and Gentlemen
  • Gene McCarthy
  • Jerry Rubin
  • Eldridge Cleaver
  • Tom McCall
 
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