CHICAGO, 1968 : P OLICY AND P RO T E S T AT T HE DEMOCR AT IC N AT ION AL CONV EN T ION ROLE SHEET: Walter Trohan, Mainstream Journalist M AINS T R E AM JOUR N ALIS T Walter Trohan Chicago Tribune columnist orn in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, in 1903, your family moved to the South Side of Chicago in 1910, so you grew up and went to school in Chicago. You know the city well. This is your town. In high school, you worked as a reporter for a small newspaper, The Daily Calumet. After graduating, you attended the University of Notre Dame with the specific idea of becoming a newspaperman. Consequently, you took many courses in English and history. After graduating, you worked in New York City, but you did not like it, so you came back to Chicago, where you got a job with the City News Bureau in 1927. This gave you the opportunity to cover the infamous 1929 St. Valentine’s Day massacre when Al Capone’s gang gunned down seven members of a rival organization. Even though you had to take a streetcar, you were the first reporter on the scene. Your crack reporting earned you a job with the Chicago Tribune covering courts. In 1934, they offered you a job working in Washington, D.C. After accepting, you ironically observed, “From the lofty beginnings of police reporting, I descended into politics. My progress has been steadily downward ever since.”1 When you first arrived, Washington seemed more like a small town than the nation’s capital. You had free run of the White House and had the telephone numbers of everyone on the cabinet. Your stories were often critical of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, but you always maintained a cordial relationship with the president. He had charisma in spades, but he was also the worst snob you ever encountered. You also cultivated a relationship with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Over the years, your connections and experience as a Washington insider gave you a number of scoops. For example, in 1951, you were the first to learn that President Truman planned to fire General Douglas MacArthur over their differences regarding Korean War strategy. You eventually became a senior reporter and served as the executive director of the Tribune’s Wash- ington Bureau; you built it from four reporters to about fourteen. You have worked in Washington for more than thirty-five years and are contemplating retirement, but you have at least one Convention left in you—particularly one in your old hometown. OBJECTIVES The Tribune is the best of Chicago’s newspapers. You are a political reporter, well versed in the ins and outs of Washington, so your research needs to be thorough, accurate, and rich in facts. Get the scoop! If you are the only journalist to release a call for a big event like a protest, walkout, or vice presidential pick, it will confirm your reputation as one of America’s leading journalists. Get someone to go on the record about an important upcoming event. 1. Glen Elsasser, ...

1. CHICAGO, 1968 : P OLICY AND P RO T E S T AT T HE
DEMOCR AT IC N AT ION AL CONV EN T ION
ROLE SHEET: Walter Trohan, Mainstream Journalist
M AINS T R E AM JOUR N ALIS T
Walter Trohan
Chicago Tribune columnist
orn in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, in 1903, your family moved
to the South Side of
Chicago in 1910, so you grew up and went to school in Chicago.
You know the city well.
This is your town.
In high school, you worked as a reporter for a small newspaper,
The Daily Calumet.
After graduating, you attended the University of Notre Dame
with the specific idea of becoming a
newspaperman. Consequently, you took many courses in English
and history.
After graduating, you worked in New York City, but you did not
like it, so you came back to
Chicago, where you got a job with the City News Bureau in
1927. This gave you the opportunity to
cover the infamous 1929 St. Valentine’s Day massacre when Al
Capone’s gang gunned down seven
members of a rival organization. Even though you had to take a
streetcar, you were the first reporter
on the scene.

2. Your crack reporting earned you a job with the Chicago Tribune
covering courts. In 1934, they
offered you a job working in Washington, D.C. After accepting,
you ironically observed, “From the
lofty beginnings of police reporting, I descended into politics.
My progress has been steadily downward
ever since.”1
When you first arrived, Washington seemed more like a small
town than the nation’s capital. You
had free run of the White House and had the telephone numbers
of everyone on the cabinet. Your
stories were often critical of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs,
but you always maintained a cordial
relationship with the president. He had charisma in spades, but
he was also the worst snob you ever
encountered. You also cultivated a relationship with FBI
director J. Edgar Hoover.
Over the years, your connections and experience as a
Washington insider gave you a number of
scoops. For example, in 1951, you were the first to learn that
President Truman planned to fire General
Douglas MacArthur over their differences regarding Korean
War strategy.
You eventually became a senior reporter and served as the
executive director of the Tribune’s Wash-
ington Bureau; you built it from four reporters to about
fourteen. You have worked in Washington for
more than thirty-five years and are contemplating retirement,
but you have at least one Convention left
in you—particularly one in your old hometown.
OBJECTIVES

3. The Tribune is the best of Chicago’s newspapers. You are a
political reporter, well versed in the ins and
outs of Washington, so your research needs to be thorough,
accurate, and rich in facts.
Get the scoop!
If you are the only journalist to release a call for a big event
like a protest, walkout, or vice presidential
pick, it will confirm your reputation as one of America’s
leading journalists. Get someone to go on the
record about an important upcoming event.
1. Glen Elsasser, “Walter Trohan, 100: Tribune Voice in
Washington,” Chicago Tribune, October 31, 2003.
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B
CHICAGO, 1968 : P OLICY AND P RO T E S T AT T HE
DEMOCR AT IC N AT ION AL CONV EN T ION
ROLE SHEET: Walter Trohan, Mainstream Journalist
Win a Pulitzer
After the end of the game, the Pulitzer Prize committee (the
GM) will make awards.
Profile the victor
If, during the Convention, you publish a story focusing on
whoever goes on to get the presidential nom-

4. ination, you will have shown excellent journalistic instincts.
Avoid serious injury
Reporters are willing to put themselves in harm’s way in order
to get a good story, but you draw the line
at serious injury. It will be impossible to cover the story if you
are sent to the hospital.
Adhere to journalistic ethics
Do not disseminate demonstrably false statements that are
damaging to a person’s reputation. This is
defamation. Players who believe journalists have libeled them
may bring suit. Consult the description
of journalistic ethics in the game book for details.
POWERS
Power of the Press
If you release a story that clearly focuses on a single delegate,
the GM will award that player a Vote Bonus
Certificate worth 100 additional votes. You may use this power
once each game session. Similarly, if you
release a story featuring a protester, it increases that player’s
chances of becoming Media Darling.
Political Wisdom
You have been reporting on politics for years. As a result, once
each session,
you may ask the GM to describe the objectives of one of the
delegates. The
GM will disclose information as a confidential source, which
means that you
must verify it with at least one player in order to use it in a
story.

5. RESPONSIBILITIES
Adhere to journalistic ethics. As a mainstream journalist, you
must follow the guidelines for behavior
described in the journalistic ethics section of the game book.
Work hard. You are a big believer in “shoe-leather reporting.”
The story is not going to come to you.
A good reporter needs to go out and find it, so if other players
call press conferences, you must attend
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T I P
You may need to remind the GM
that you have this special power.
CHICAGO, 1968 : P OLICY AND P RO T E S T AT T HE
DEMOCR AT IC N AT ION AL CONV EN T ION
ROLE SHEET: Walter Trohan, Mainstream Journalist
at least two of them. Disparaging the work ethic of President
John F. Kennedy, you said, “I envy guys
that can be lazy; I never could be, I had to work for a living.”2
ASSIGNMENTS
1: First Column
Write a 500–600-word column in time to distribute it during
Part 1 of the
game. Use this to set the scene for the Convention. Read the
opening vignette
and the historical context essay with care. What do they suggest
will be

6. the most controversial issues? Take care to reassure your
readers that Mayor
Daley has everything well in hand because of his commitment
to maintaining
law and order. There may be some scruffy kids in the park, but
you are con-
fident that the Convention will come off without a hitch.
This means that you need to start working on this story before
the game
even begins. Get cracking! You are on deadline!
2: Second Column
Publish a second 500–600-word column for the beginning of
the Part 6 of the game. Reflect on the
debates over domestic policy and Vietnam. Review the stances
of the potential presidential nominees.
Which positions did they support? Do their views align with
those expressed in the Party platform?
Were they lucid and knowledgeable? Were they, in a word,
presidential?
3: Commentary
After the Convention ends, produce a 1000–1200-word opinion
column. Sum up your thoughts on
the Convention as a whole. Was the Convention a success or a
failure? Did the Democrats pick a good
candidate? How does he compare to Nixon? Is he likely to be
able to win back white Democrats who
are likely to support Wallace? Did the protesters change things
for good or ill? This piece will influence
the ability of the Democrats to defeat Nixon in November.
When you submit your final story to the GM, also submit the
author and title of two other pieces
of journalism that you found especially compelling. You cannot

7. vote for yourself. These nominations
will determine the winners of the Pulitzer Prize.
RELATIONSHIPS
With the big ideas
Journalism is about telling the truth, but the truth rarely reveals
itself. As you wrote, “Politicians are
the same around the world, and we should never forget it. They
make a very good living, wherever
they are, out of promises.” You are concerned that journalists
too often fall into commentary and the
manipulation of facts to fit their preconceptions. Again, as you
put it, “They are engaged in comment-
ing on what has happened or what will happen, so that naturally
what is written is often a compound
of myth, propaganda, guesswork, pretense and mumbo
jumbo.”3
T I P
If a delegate is the focus on this
story, that player can earn a Vote
Bonus Certificate from the GM.
Use this as an incentive to talk
to you.
2. Jerry N. Hess, “Oral History Interview with Walter Trohan,”
October 7, 1970. Archived at the Harry S. Truman
Library and Museum. Accessed on November 25, 2016 from
www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/trohan.htm.
3. Walter Trohan, Political Animals: Memoirs of a Sentimental
Cynic (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975), 391.
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8. CHICAGO, 1968 : P OLICY AND P RO T E S T AT T HE
DEMOCR AT IC N AT ION AL CONV EN T ION
ROLE SHEET: Walter Trohan, Mainstream Journalist
You do not have time for that foolishness. After meeting you,
President Johnson described you as
“a tough fellow. He tells exactly what he thinks and [does] not
pull any punches.” You consider this high
praise. Some of this toughness comes from being a
conservative in a liberal line of work. Be a conscious
counterbalance to the liberalism of the Democratic Party and
the new breed of professional journalists
that tends to support their policies and worldview. You are not a
howling conservative, but you certainly
believe in “learning from the lessons of the past and applying
the past today.”4
To close, you believe that “[u]ntil we see both sides of any
issue we cannot understand it, but also
we cannot be free. . . . A good reporter must ever bear in mind
the opposite side.”5
To the texts
Read the following speeches by the important political leaders
that appear in the game book. Pay close
attention to the ways in which Nixon and Wallace might appeal
to the white working class.
• Lyndon B. Johnson, “Peace without Conquest”
• Robert Kennedy, “Book and Author Luncheon”

9. • Richard Nixon, “Address Accepting the Presidential
Nomination”
• George Wallace, “Inaugural Address”
• Dwight D. Eisenhower, “The Domino Theory”
You may also want to look at Martin Luther King Jr.’s April 4,
1967, antiwar speech, “Beyond
Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” which is sometimes
referred to as the “Riverside Church speech.”
You can find it online. Is he a communist? It seems likely.
With other players
You generally respect the other mainstream journalists. You are
in competition for stories and ratings,
but you are also collegial professionals, so work closely with
them in order to make sure that the Con-
vention is well covered.
Richard M. Nixon is not in the game, but he is a friend.
Remember this as you interact with his
political opponents and write about him in your column.
Hubert Humphrey is the candidate for the Democratic
nomination that you most respect. You
once remarked, “Every conservative has got to have his favorite
liberal and Hubert happens
to be mine. I like his sense of humor and I like everything
about him pretty much except his
ideas, and we argue about that in a pleasant way.”6
Ed Muskie, John Connally, and Fred Harris all have vice
presidential ambitions. They are not
raving leftists.

10. Richard J. Daley is not the cleanest politician in America, but
Chicago is a tough town. He is
comfortable with you and you with him.
4. Hess.
5. Trohan, 410.
6. Hess.
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CHICAGO, 1968 : P OLICY AND P RO T E S T AT T HE
DEMOCR AT IC N AT ION AL CONV EN T ION
ROLE SHEET: Walter Trohan, Mainstream Journalist
STRATEGY ADVICE
Do not wait for the newsmakers to find you; find them! Go out
and get the news! Attend press confer-
ences. Encourage newsmakers to give you an interview or at
least something off the record.
S U M M A R Y O F Y O U R V I C T O R Y O B J E C T I
V E S
You share objectives with most other mainstream journalists.
Achieve
all of the following objectives:
1. Scoop the competition.
2. Win a Pulitzer.
3. Anticipate the victor.
4. Avoid serious injury.

11. 5. Avoid accusations of slander or libel.
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