THE MAJOR & THE MAYOR

“It’s Beth,” Mabel, my very trusted and very large Puerto Rican secretary, bellowed. She was letting me know that Mayor Giuliani’s executive assistant and my friend, Beth Petrone, was on the phone. “Yes M’am,” I answered. “I loved your briefing,” she purred. I chuckled. “You say that about all my briefings,” I said. “I always enjoy reading yours, they’re my favorites. But this one for John Major, might be your best,” she complimented. “Well, he never travels and I love foreign policy and never get to use my talents so this is as close as I’m getting. I’m really looking forward to this meeting and the photo-op.  Is he going to be on-time today?”  I asked. “I’ll do my best. But we should be OK. It’s a light morning,” Beth answered. “OK, thanks. Alistair is supposed is to call me later and update me on their end,” I informed her.

This was a big morning for me. I was going to meet the Prime Minister of Great Britain, John Major. Alistair was Alistair Hunter, the British Consul General in New York with whom I had become friendly in a prior job and arranged this meeting. Alistair had told me many times what a Rudy fan P.M. Major was and how he looked forward to discussing NYC’s crime reduction and workfare program initiatives with Giuliani should the opportunity present itself either on their side of the Atlantic or ours.

It was really surprising to me in the weeks preceding the meeting in what emphatic tones Alistair would speak when talking of P.M. Major’s eagerness to sit down with Rudy. At one point I said in a very New York way, “Hey Alistair, the meeting’s scheduled, you don’t have to sell this.” “No, no,” he said, “he really is extremely anxious for this meeting to take place; the Foreign Office mentions it repeatedly.” OK, I guess Major really wants to meet Giuliani.

Part of my job required that when the Mayor met with any major elected official, national leader, business tycoon, or foreign leader I was the one in the Mayor’s Office who wrote the briefing. Sometimes I was not made aware of this until the briefing book was being put together; minutes before he left for the evening. But Beth knew she could always count on me to produce something at least sensibly informative off the top of my head with little notice on some disparate topic. Bear in mind this was before Google and the internet.  I had written his briefings for his first meetings with Clinton, McCain, Forbes, Dole, even Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle.

 
I hadn’t written a long briefing. This really was going to be mostly Rudy doing what Rudy loved doing which was talking about the City’s rebirth: Compstat, his plans for Times Square, his ideas on workfare and welfare reform, quality of life initiatives. P.M. Major seemed by all accounts just happy to drink it all in.

 
Although mayors regularly meet with foreign leaders in their hotel suites, Major had offered to come to City Hall. At around 10:00 AM Alistair called to say that the Prime Minister had gotten very backed up.  He had four back to back meetings and had more planned that afternoon. Would it be possible for the mayor to meet with him in his suite at the Waldorf?  I then made what would be a disastrous mistake and become a life-learning moment. “I don’t see why not,” I said.  I had my copy of Rudy’s schedule. I knew he could easily go uptown. We were talking about the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Alistair was profusely apologetic, “I don’t know how the day got this bad. He is very upset about this; I want you to know that Russell. I want the Mayor to know that, too. The Prime Minister wants this meeting to happen very much. He is anxious to meet Mayor Giuliani.”

I responded, “I’ll call you back, Alistair, after I call City Hall.” I dialed Beth and explained what had transpired. She said she’d talk to him. I had a bad feeling. “It’s Beth,” Mabel hollered. “He say’s they have to come here, he’s not going to the Waldorf,” Beth informed me. “This can’t be a scheduling thing, he’s free, I have the schedule in front of me.  Is it a protocol matter? He’s visited foreign dignitaries in hotels before.” “He didn’t say,” she replied. I then asked, “Is he free? I’m coming over.” “Come on over,” she said.

I was pissed, nervous and embarrassed all at the same time. He was being bad, petulant, Rudy - I knew that. That pissed me off. I was nervous because I was pissed off and confronting him at the same time he was pissed - a bad mix. I had to calm down. And I was embarrassed because I had made it sound to Alistair like this could be easily worked out.

When I went into his office he was in his easy chair next to his couch reading a folder. “Mayor, I need to talk to you about this John Major meeting,” I said. “Yea, he needs to come here,” Rudy said. “Mayor, did you read my briefing? He is a huge Giuliani fan. The British Consul General is a friend and tells me that the Foreign Office sends him cables on your crime reduction program and workfare and he has been looking forward to this meeting for weeks. He just got really jammed up this morning and is apparently pissed off at his staff that they fucked up this meeting so it has to move uptown. He wants you to know how anxious he is to meet you. His staff mishandled this,” I said trying to appeal to his managerial side.

“The meeting was scheduled for City Hall, I’m not going to the Waldorf,” Rudy replied. I tried one more tack - applying my own love and interest of foreign policy hopefully to him. “Mayor, the Prime Minister has just spent the last few weeks meeting with Chancellor Kohl, President Mitterrand, Clinton, the President of China, and a dozen other world leaders. Wouldn’t you be interested to pick this guy’s brain as to what’s happening on the world stage in real time with a major player and someone who’s a fan of yours? Someone you could strike up a friendship with. Someone you could bounce ideas off of in the years to come if we ever get a foreign travel schedule together? I really don’t think he can get down here today.” 

I had given it my best shot. Rudy looked up. He was pissed and exasperated. “I am not going to this meeting. That’s my last word on this.” I started walking out and said, as always, “Thank you, Mayor.” As I exited to the outer office Beth asked what he had said. I informed her and told her to do nothing until she heard from me.

 
I skulked back to my office thinking all the while, “Was I being a disloyal aide?” Should I have told Major’s people “Hey, get your limey asses down here and stop with your lame excuses!” My days are filled with being 100% true blue to Rudy Giuliani; telling the rest of the world to buzz off if they don’t like what he’s done or how we’re handling something.

And moreover I’m one of the chief enforcers of keeping the agencies on-agenda doctrine wise. Everyone knows my reputation is that of a total prick in defense of the Mayor at all times. But this just doesn’t feel like that. The Prime Minister screwed up his schedule, is pissed about it, and is essentially asking Rudy for a favor. We portray ourselves as the Capitol City of the World and were telling a world leader to “Fuck Off.”

Yea, I wish it were Margaret Thatcher instead of John Major. But I really didn’t think that was the point of the argument and I did not think that was what was in Rudy’s head about this whole matter.

 
Wouldn’t he want to sit down with him regardless of the inconvenience or the perceived snub? Jesus, I would. How can you in any civil way say no to a man of Major’s stature who is asking you for a favor? They weren’t playing us. For Christ’s sake, I know the difference.

As I got back to my office the immediate issue became could I really make the call and tell them that Giuliani would not go to his hotel? I lit a cigarette, told Mabel to order me an early lunch, and started to pick up the phone to call the Consulate. It was 11am.

At just that moment someone rushed in and told me to put on the TV in my conference room. There had been a shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge. I immediately put on NY 1, the local all news channel. They were reporting that someone had gunned down a van full of young Orthodox Jews on the Bridge. It was being reported that one might already be dead. “YES!!” I screamed.

Knowing Rudy Giuliani, I immediately called over to the Mayor’s Office and got Beth. “Where is he?”  I asked. “He ran out to St. Vincent’s where they took the survivors from the bridge shooting,” Beth informed me. I knew it. “We’re in agreement he can’t go to the Waldorf and I’m telling Alistair that?” I asked her. “No way is he going anywhere,” she agreed.  “Thank you, Beth.”

I called Alistair immediately, but he was out. His executive assistant, Pauline Weppler picked up. I began to explain about the emergency but she was watching NY 1 and cut me off. “Of course, of course, Mr. Harding, this is terrible. The Prime Minister will be terribly disappointed but we’re watching this tragedy right now. Naturally the Mayor had to go to this.” “Thank you for understanding,” I said.

 
We would learn that the dead boy on the Brooklyn Bridge that day was Ari Halberstam. He was the victim of a madman named Rashid Baz who claimed to be acting out against Jews due to an incident that had happened a week prior on the West Bank.

After my very inappropriate first reaction, where I was thinking exclusively of my own predicament, I would be reminded of Ari Halberstam’s death and the grave events of that day, every day, for the next eight years. The exit I took every morning to work was the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall exit, off of the FDR Drive.  It was subsequently renamed for Ari Halberstam.

 
The larger lesson for me that day was one I would come to learn again and again over the next eight years. Amidst the tremendous triumphs and the remarkable accomplishments, I worked for a man who could be petty, parochial and churlish. Given the chance to sit down and survey the world landscape with someone currently shaping it, not to mention gain insight from his meetings with every other major world leader, wouldn’t a serious, well rounded, person leap at such a chance?

It’s just typical Rudy Giuliani.  The one no one ever sees.  He would rather hang out with his gang, go to a Yankee game, a cigar bar, or in later years, take off one day a week of work as Mayor (Fridays) to play golf. And his favorite; sit on the porch of Gracie and smoke cigars. He will never have any interest in the foreign affairs of this country. In eight years in and around the man I never heard of him having a serious discussion on foreign policy. And no, I do not consider throwing Arafat out of Lincoln Center a serious foreign policy engagement. It was Giuliani petulance, first and last. It had nothing to do with foreign policy. He was an uninvited guest and a terrorist.  I supported that decision then and now.  But it’s not dispositive of some great vision. 

Just as he has no interest in foreign policy he also has no energy policy, farm policy, fiscal policy, environmental policy, or monetary policy. During the presidential campaign look at any survey sent out by a newspaper or an interest group and look at the Giuliani answers. There either were none or were as vague and nondescript as to be pabulum. He has no views on most issues and doesn’t care to. The national press gave him a completely free ride on this because of 9/11. In ‘93’ we would have been crucified by the NY press had we filled out surveys like this. It would have generated news stories in and of itself.

It was the meeting with John Major in microcosm. It did not rise to any level of importance to him. He would have rather sat in that club chair, done paperwork, eaten lunch at his desk with Cristyne Lategano and handle another day as Mayor. Same as every day.  Meeting an ideological kindred spirit, bonding with another leader, possibly making a friend for the city - and for himself down the road - never occurred to him. And most importantly, expanding his world view meant nothing. The point is not what became of John Major - it might have been Tony Blair or Nicholas Sarkozy - the point is a closed mind and few interests beyond the self interest. Incidents like this go a long way towards explaining all that money spent and just a single delegate.