DALEY CITY UNDER SIEGE

ON the expressway leading to Chicago's International Amphitheatre, workmen slapped a new coat of silver over the mud-spattered dividing rail. On streets surrounding the hall--many of them barred to all but VIP vehicles-lampposts were painted kelly green. Even fire hydrants were touched up by the painter's brush. Redwood fences, in a rainbow of pastels, hid junkyards and trash-strewn lots from the eyes of passing drivers and their passengers.

However, no amount of cosmetics camouflaged breakdowns of the city's essential services. Nor could paint and rhetoric mollify the acrid atmosphere of a city mobilized for combat.

Afraid that antiwar demonstrators might paralyze the Democratic National Convention, Mayor Richard Daley, author of last April's notorious shoot-tokill edict, prepared for full-scale insurrection. "No one," he vowed, "is going to take over the streets." The entire police force, nearly 12,000 men, was ordered onto twelve-hour shifts; 5,650 Illinois National Guardsmen were called up for possible reinforcement, and 5,000 more Guardsmen have been put on alert; 7,000 Army troops were preparing to move in. Logistical units were already in place.

No Pictures, Please. Downtown in the Loop, cops were stationed on every corner and in the middle of every block. Federal agents were assigned to the roof, main corridors, kitchen and service areas of the Conrad Hilton Hotel, headquarters of the convention, where three candidates--Vice President Hum phrey, Eugene McCarthy and Georgia's Lester Maddox--and three of the del egations were staying. Other agents were on round-the-clock duty outside the candidates' suites, checking passengers debarking from elevators. The Sheraton-Blackstone across the street, where Senator George McGovern was billeted, got equal protection. Press photographers were warned not to shoot pictures through open windows lest they be mistaken for snipers.

The shabby old convention hall was turned into a bastion, secure from ground, air, and even subterranean attack. All entrances were sealed on the Halsted Street side of the building. Owners of buildings near by were ordered to keep windows closed for the duration of the convention--a consider able inconvenience in a Chicago August. Policemen with guns, walkie-talkies and binoculars were posted atop the amphitheatre. Protected by barbed wire screens, National Guard jeeps looked as if they were heading for jungle combat.

One unspoken fear was that black militants in dingy, high-rise public housing off the Dan Ryan Expressway might fire on delegates traveling to and from the hall. Two police helicopters patrolled the route. President Johnson, if he attends at all, will avoid this danger, zipping in and out by helicopter. As an added precaution, a dummy portico, modeled after the entrance to the White House, was erected in front of the amphitheatre's main door to block the aim of any rifleman. Even the airspace up to an altitude of 2,500 ft. above the convention site was banned to all traffic ex cept official planes and helicopters.

Vomit on Joy. Inside, several hundred security men were assigned to mingle with delegates and spectators while others stood vigil on catwalks overseeing the entire arena. There was even talk of putting men in subterranean service areas. Employees of the amphitheatre, the neighboring Stock Yard Inn and major hotels were all checked for security. Police from coast to coast were asked to inform the FBI as lead ing protesters left for Chicago.

Following its tough line all the way, the city prohibited the Coalition for an Open Convention, the relatively tame stop-Humphrey group, from holding a rally at Soldier Field. It also refused to give the yippies permission to camp in Lincoln Park, and told demonstrators that they could march nowhere near the amphitheatre itself. Appeals of the bans were rejected by Federal District Judge William Lynch--Mayor Daley's former law partner.

All that did not deter demonstrators.

Led by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Viet Nam, the protesters planned a march of 100,000 or more on the amphitheatre. A special 20-page convention issue of Rat, a New York underground newspaper, prescribed the minimal do-it-yourself demonstrator's kit: Vaseline for the skin to protect against Chemical Mace, two pieces of canvas for sleeping in the parks, and at least $200 in bail money.

One contingent was trained in Lincoln Park to control crowds, administer first aid and break through police lines. Using a technique perfected by Japanese students, they locked arms and snake-danced around baseball dia monds, chanting ''Wash-air (a Japanese expression urging enthusiasm). They also practiced karate. "To remain passive in the face of escalating police brutality is foolish and degrading," said David Baker, a Committee leader from Detroit, who was leading the practice. "The advice used to be that you should give police a flower and say 'Hello, brother.' But it didn't stop the brutality, and people continued to get hurt."

Allied in their opposition to the war, the demonstrators are still divided on goals and methods. Tom Hayden, who traveled to North Viet Nam last year to obtain the release of three U.S. prisoners and who is now a chief organizer of the mobilization committee, said that "we are coming to Chicago to vomit on the politics of joy, to expose the secret decisions, upset the nightclub orgies, and face the Democratic Party with its illegitimacy and criminality." Members of Students for a Democratic Society, on the other hand, are only reluctantly joining the demonstrations. Their purpose in coming to Chicago is to convert young McCarthyites to radicalism when, as they believe is inevitable, Hubert Humphrey is nominated.

This Little Piggy. The yippies want merely to mock the system. During a five day "Festival of Life," they plan to nominate a pig named Pigasus for President. The Chicago police department did not see much humor in the idea. The cops threw seven yippies and their candidate into a paddy wagon when they appeared in Civic Center Plaza. Pigasus was carted, squealing all the way, to the Humane Society.

Against this pacific array of dissidents, Daley's security forces seemed ludicrously out of proportion. While no one in the mayor's office talked openly, his main fear was the ever-present possibility of rioting in the ghettos. Chicago is the most segregated big city in the U.S., and Daley has been stubbornly insensitive to the needs of the city's blacks--who form nearly one-third of his constituency. Some black militants claimed to be ready to retaliate the first time police moved into black areas in force. "If there is vi olence," said one, "it will be worse, much worse, than anything you've seen --worse than Watts, Detroit or Newark. The brothers are ready."

Conceivably, the mayor's tactics have increased chances of violence. In an at mosphere of tension, with hundreds of policemen drawn from regular beats, the ghettos on the south and west will be ripe for riot. "Anything could happen," says one worried city official who does not sympathize with Daley's orders. "The only thing that would surprise me is if nothing happens."

Purgatory. Even if the protesters suddenly vanished, Chicago would still be a kind of purgatory for conventioneers this week. A week-old strike had stopped 75% of the city's cabs, and drivers were threatening to walk out of city buses. Though a special agreement enabled 200 volunteer electricians to connect phones and television cables in the amphitheatre itself, a strike against Illinois Bell prevented candidates from setting up their own switchboards in hotel headquarters and balked plans by the networks to place live cameras at strategic spots around the city.

At the Conrad Hilton, which calls itself the largest hotel in the world, there were only 75 lines to handle incoming calls for 3,000 guests. Even last week, when only a few delegates had registered, calls were delayed.

A Strong Presence. For all its new paint and bunting--and the $500,000 the city is spending to beautify the area around it--the amphitheatre is inadequate for a party convention. Built in seven hurried months in 1934, the main hall is far smaller than the con vention center the Republicans had in Miami Beach (12,000 seats v. 18,000). Right next to the stockyards the odor can be overpowering. Two mountains of manure, 70 ft. wide and 10 ft. high, are only a few blocks away. Worried that flies might cluster around speakers, creating an unfortunate picture of Dogpatch decay for home viewers, party officials decreed that before any speaker mounts the podium, he must be sprayed with a bug repellent.

It may take more than bug-spray or billy clubs to keep order in Chicago this week. Not since 1864, when the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln in the Southern-leaning city of Baltimore--while federal cannon glared down from the highest point in town--has a national convention met in a city so nervously braced for disruption and violence. Even if the guns and helicopters manage to keep the peace, it seems unlikely that the Democrats will lightly consider holding another convention in Daley City.

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