- The Twin Towers Fund has enough money in it, tens of
millions of donations that were decently given and are being handled with
motives so miserable as to cause suspicion, that it now becomes a mirror
as big as a wall that shows the character of this Rudolph Giuliani.
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- This time, he imposes on widows.
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- The Twin Towers Fund is for the families of firefighters
and cops. It has $70 million and suddenly in December it stopped sending
any money to widows. Giuliani announced he wanted to transfer the money
from a city-run nonprofit organization to a private organization, headed
by I, Giuliani.
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- I am told that the new mayor, Michael Bloomberg, said,
"You're not going to embarrass me on this."
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- And Giuliani answered, "Never!"
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- Of course he will. The first thing he does is put his
girlfriend, Judi Nathan, on the payroll at $100,000 or so. She arrives
with two friends. The cost of administrating the fund goes to $2 million
a year. If the fund remains with the city, the cost of running it will
be zero.
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- Bloomberg has opposed Giuliani so often, particularly
on Giuliani's proposed new baseball stadiums, that he might let the funds
be transferred. He sure shouldn't.
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- Giuliani wants this fund so much that he seems crazier
than usual. He says he must control it because friends of his made donations
and said that they trusted nobody but him. In the whole world.
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- He obviously neither understands nor cares about what
it looks like to put your girlfriend and her friends on the payroll.
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- Once before, we've seen something like this. Joe Pledge,
a bookmaker who owned a bowling alley in Astoria, fell in love with a
beautiful young woman who wanted to be a singer. Joe Pledge then tore
down the bowling alley and turned the place into a nightclub. Nobody came
to the place. Pledge didn't even notice. He was the lighting director
for his girl's act. Each night he would be behind these great spotlights
that he turned on her as she sang out into the empty club.
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- A friend said to him one night, "Joe, she can't
sing."
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- "Isn't she beautiful?" Pledge said, turning
so much light on her that she was a blaze with a bad voice.
-
- Of course the nightclub busted out and the girl left
and Pledge went off into the mists of the penniless and heartbroken.
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- Giuliani can't see anything happening to him out of
Sept. 11. Even Ms. Nathan and friends, instead of being on the pad, could
provide a real service. Giuliani walked out of City Hall with half the
city's records. Now he has the Twin Towers money. Ms. Nathan could stand
between the paper shredder and the Twin Towers money and prevent any unfortunate
mixing.
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- Mention the World Trade Center to Giuliani and to him
that means I, me, my catastrophe, my site, my workers, my fund, my all
of it. As Mayor of New York, with, as he always boasted and threatened,
41,000 cops, he became the latest tough guy who never had a fight.
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- He had a marvelous, secret command center built for
$13 million and 27 stories up at Seven World Trade Center. That center
was high enough in the sky to fly when the attack hit. Giuliani staggered
around looking for a place to become the boss. He called on fire commissioner
Von Essen to leave the firefighters and come walking with him. High over
the buildings a police helicopter was calling down that the towers were
going to collapse as sure as the smoke coming out of them. Their calls
fell on no ears. The firefighters were not equipped with radios for an
emergency such as this. In fact, their communications were poor nearly
everywhere. The fault was with Giuliani and Von Essen. Three hundred and
forty three firefighters died. Most of them died because they didn't get
out of the building because they couldn't hear anybody signal them in
time.
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- The huge blame goes to Giuliani first and then Von Essen.
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- I don't know how Giuliani did what he did next. Instead
of being doubled up with remorse, he went on television. He went on television
morning, noon, afternoon, night, late night. He went to church and to
baseball games. He prayed all over the place. The camera turned him into
a hero. The further from New York he got, the more adulation from the
television announcers.
-
- He stood on a stage with his magnificent assistants.
Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik was in the throes of finishing a book
about his mother being a prostitute. Von Essen's record shows that while
he was commissioner 343 firefighters died. The last towering figure on
the stage was Richie Sheirer, who was a radio clerk in the Fire Department
and then the liaison to the Hasidic community in Brooklyn. Giuliani hailed
these people as heroes of the city. All kept serious faces for the cameras.
The people believed in them.
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- Giuliani made it into his personal site. No visitors
were allowed except his own. He flew four helicopters a day from midtown
to the site, each time bringing Oprah or somebody like that. The famous
begged for the chance to visit the scene with Giuliani. Some have great
houses with which to impress people. Giuliani used a private catastrophe
site known all over the world.
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- The more admiration and applause, the crazier he got.
First, he didn't want to leave office at all. Then he wanted to stay for
three months longer. And now he wants to take money of decent citizens
and bring it with him to his new private business.
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- He and his people have not sent a $10 bill to a widow
since December. But that's all right. He knows he is not doing anything
wrong. This has to do with the World Trade Center and that is his, it
is his entire life. Talk all you want about the dead firefighters being
his. He's unconscious and nobody else will believe you. That is the true
power of a television camera.
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- Copyright © 2002, http://www.newsday.com/ Newsday,
Inc. Originally published 2-10-2
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