Word: romneys
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Governor Romney was even more to the point. "We knew we couldn't depend on the National Guard," he admitted. "That's why we asked for the Army." The paratroopers, some 40% of them Viet Nam veterans and more than one-fourth of them Negroes, displayed stern fire discipline and did an excellent job. "Our policy is to use an absolute minimum of force," explained a paratroop colonel. "I'd rather miss 100 snipers than hit a single innocent person...
From the outset, the race crisis crackled with electoral electricity. The Detroit riot brought the first confrontation between Lyndon Johnson and Michigan's Governor George Romney, who, despite some slippage in recent months, is still a formidable possibility for the next Republican presidential nomination. Both men were sensitive to the big-and unpredictable-implications for 1968 in everything they...
Aware that the combined efforts of the Detroit police and Michigan's National Guard would probably not be enough to contain Detroit's rioters, Romney telephoned Attorney General Ramsey Clark at 3:30 a.m. Monday to let him know that he might have to ask for reinforcements in the form of federal troops. The President, who had been alerted before midnight by Clark that things might fall apart, dispatched Cyrus Vance, the recently retired Deputy Defense Secretary and a longtime friend, to size up the situation in Detroit...
...Romney and Detroit's Mayor Jerome Cavanagh were convinced that they would need Army aid: a wire went off to the White House saying that there was "reasonable doubt" that the situation could be contained. The President turned to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and, at 11:02 a.m., ordered up the paratroops-but sent them only as far as Selfridge Air Force Base outside Detroit, not into the riot area itself...
Meanwhile, Detroit deteriorated. Romney, anxious to move the waiting paratroopers into the city, told Cy Vance: "We gotta move, man, we gotta move." Finally, at midnight, the President went on national television to explain the state of emergency and the ordering of troops into Detroit. He also made no fewer than seven references to Romney's inability to control his own state...