The Riots & Rockets Book Launch At The Cliff Dwellers
On March 22, 2024, family and friends, and a host of Members of The Cliff Dwellers, gathered at the Club to celebrate the publication on Amazon of Riots & Rockets, William J. Bowe's memoir of his Army days during the riotous 1960s and '70s, Chicago politics in the 1970s, and his lawyering life dealing with collectors' plates and foundations, the newswire service United Press International, and Encyclopaedia Britannica in the Digital Age.
Bill Bowe on the origins of Riots & Rockets:
“In early 2020, I feared my increased irritability during the ensuing lockdown could be a telltale sign I was descending rapidly into curmudgeonhood. Thinking this would be unfair to the dogs, not to mention my wife, Cathy, I decided I needed a project to keep my head straight. I started thinking and writing about several of the strange periods I had lived through in the years since my graduation from law school in 1967."
Tony Bowe Interviews Bill Bowe on Bill Bowe
Tony Bowe Interviews Bill Bowe on Bill Bowe In this follow on to his earlier interview of Bill regarding his grandparents, Gus and Julia Bowe, Tony Bowe interviews Bill about his early years, family [...]
Higher Education and Encyclopedias
Bill Bowe Editor’s Note: Joshua Kim is Dartmouth College’s Director of Online Programs and Strategy and a Senior Fellow for Academic Transformation, Learning, and Design at the Center for New Designs in Learning [...]
Law School to Army Intelligence Training (1967-1968)
Law School to Army Intelligence Training (1967-1968) In talking about his post college years with Tony Bowe, Bill Bowe recalls how the Vietnam War and the draft began to change the student environment in both colleges and law schools. [...]
Settling Down after the Army
Tony Bowe Asks Bill Bowe about Settling Down after the Army Editor's Note: In this series of interviews by my cousin Tony Bowe, Tony asked me about what I was up to after my three-year Army Intelligence Branch enlistment [...]
Tony Bowe Asks Bill Bowe about His Career as a General Counsel
Becoming a General Counsel Editor's Note: In this last of the series of interviews by my cousin Tony Bowe, he asked me how and when I shifted my career as a lawyer from private practice to serving in successive [...]
Tony Bowe Asks about Bill Bowe’s Time with United Press International
Tony Bowe Asks about Bill Bowe's Time with United Press International In this segment of his conversation with his cousin, Tony Bowe asks Bill about his rollercoaster ride after organizing the first internal law department of the newswire service [...]
Introduction
The month after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination in 1968, I enlisted in the Army’s Intelligence Branch for three years. President Lyndon Johnson had just sent the Regular Army simultaneously to Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Chicago to help control the ensuing violence and riots that had overwhelmed police and National Guard. This was a very strange and violent time. We’ve been lucky the country has largely been free of this kind of large-scale mayhem and destruction until the recent looting and riots we saw during the pandemic in the summer of 2020.
