CHAPTER SEVEN
CONFRONTING CRISIS
At forty-seven, Charles Percy was a self-made millionaire. From poor beginnings, he became a successful business and community leader through a combination of hard work and savvy. He had a deep, almost perfect, politician’s voice. Former President Eisenhower urged him to run for public office and predicted that one day Percy could be elected president.
In 1966, Percy challenged the longtime Democratic incumbent, Paul Douglas, for a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois. Percy had once been a student of Douglas’s at the University of Chicago. The race between professor and student was hard-fought. The polls were tight. Then, six weeks before Election Day, something horrific occurred.
In the early morning hours of September ...
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