City Talk; Seymour Lachman, Robert Polner, authors, "The Man Who Saved New York: Hugh Carey"

How I'm Doug Musio, this is City Talk. He was the man who saved New York. It was a time when Albany got things done, but when the days in wine and roses were over. He was a genial genius, war hero, odds defier. He was governor for hard winters, the Harry Truman of New York State. He is the subject of a new and widely noticed and praised book by Simo Lachman and Rob Poma. Simo Lachman is the director of the UL Carry Institute for Government Reform at Wagon

College and a distinguished professor there. He served as president of the New York City Board of Education and University Dean at CUNY before being elected to five terms in the New York State Senate. Simo Lachman is the co-author of two books, one nation under God with Barry Cosman and three men in the room, the inside story of Powell and Betrayal and an American State House with Rob Pona. Robert Pona is a former award-winning reporter for Newsday, is public affairs officer for NYU and its Wagner School. He is editor of America's Mayor, America's president, the strange career of Rudy Giuliani, and co-author with Simo Lachman of three men in the room, and he co-wrote New York Notorious, a borough by borough tour of the city's most infamous crime scenes, you gotta read it.

Welcome, both of you, great book, great read, one review. The story how we averted the disaster in the fiscal crisis is grippingly told in a new biography of Governor Eukary by Simo Lachman and Robert Pona. The reviewer goes on to talk about the book's poignant relevance. The reviewer is Andrew Cuomo. Rob Eukary wrote a piece in a Tobitense Newsday about the lessons of the fiscal crisis in Eukary in the 51st Governor. What are some of those lessons? Well, one is that you don't have to necessarily be to honor the people who helped you get in. I mean, there was a certain amount of a maverick quality with Eukary. And in fact, when he was elected in 1974, he ran without four of the five county bosses, Democratic bosses, or county leaders, helping him. And so when he overcame the nominee, Howard Samuels, and won the primary, and then won the election against Governor Rockefeller's handpicked replacement, who was then Governor

Malcolm Wilson, he was in a unique position. He could hire people not based on patronage, but based on merit. And he did. He surrounded himself. He was a secure and a very proud guy. He surrounded himself with highly talented staff who are really important when the city crisis hit. That's one lesson that the next governor should learn. The other is that you have to go up against the entrenched sometimes, and Governor Kerry was willing to do that. Now I would also answer that, Governor Cuomo has an important job ahead of him. And when you mentioned him, I was surprised, and thank the Governor's staff and the Governor, when he was running, that he had his Labor Day up at peace in the New York Daily News, in which he laid out basically a formula for governance, and what he's going

to do. And he said he's going to do what the Lachman and Paulner have said. Kerry did. Nice endorsement. Yes. It was a fantastic announcement. I hope it's on your advertisement. Yes, it is, and his father said, Mario Cuomo, the following day that you Kerry was one of the greatest governors in the 20th century in New York State, and it was correct. Not only do you guys correctly suggest and point down in this really wonderful book, that not only was he an exceptional character, but he's really underappreciated. Well, this really significant achievement versus nobody really gets it and appreciates a Y. Why? Why is he so under? Well, Rob will go into one. Another one is that when I called the New York State Archives, the head of the New York State Archives, the individual said to me, he said, thank goodness, someone is now going to

do a volume about you Kerry. We have a lot of books about Nelson Rockefeller and about Mario Cuomo, and yet the manner was sound, sound which between them was able to take New York from the brink of bankruptcy and bring it back to solvency, and at the same time he was handed a plate by Nelson Rockefeller that he wasn't even told about during the campaign or even the interregnum before the election and the inauguration. So the people at the New York State Archives that I spoke to and the State Librarian said, thank goodness that the two of you will be writing something about you Kerry. That was three years ago. Why the attention now? I mean, the times headline put it, when Albany got things done, what is it about the story that seems to be a track?

I mean, you guys are all over you being interviewed, reviewed. I think it's a story about when Albany worked and made a progress in an effective way. It wasn't about grandiose reforms, it wasn't about tapping into the anger of the electorate, which was, this was just after Watergate, there was a huge recession, unemployment was double-digit, inflation also was skyrocketing, so the public anger was there. Kerry did not break that way, he had served seven terms in Washington, he was a good congressman with some significant legislation under his belt. And a member of the House Ways and Means. Very powerful. But when he ran in 74, I think there was a poll that showed only 5% of the voters at the state even knew who he was, Howard Samuels, who was an industrialist from Rochester, who was a much better known figure and heavily favored to win in that idiosyncratic way, Hugh Kerry said, I can beat him, and he did on his own pretty much.

Now, it's true, I would say, with the help, and with the local Kerry, to talk a lot about the way. Remember, he was a father of 14 children for a big campaign, and Nancy Kerry told me the only county he didn't carry was the county with the children in campaigning. Well, come on. Let's go back to school. Okay. You mentioned Truman and E.J. McMahon, and I've reviewed of the book called, Carry the Truman of New York State, Justice Truman was in a sense unappreciated in his mind. The book stops here. Okay. And our Kerry never blamed Rockefeller for anything, or Malcolm Wilson, who succeeded Rockefeller when Rockefeller became vice president. They must have known something. It could not all have all developed between November, when he won, and January 75 when he took office.

He never, ever blamed any of his predecessors. He said, this is my responsibility. I am the governor of New York State, and regardless of what they did, I have to repair it and change it. I want to go back, as I can, to what Rob just said, and the question in terms of your question, that the legislature worked. Now I served in the state legislature for a decade, and it was very dysfunctional. Our previous book together in collaboration was Three Men in a Room. I said to the Brennan Center people, it's not the most dysfunctional state. I mean, there's the great state of Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, that was this is a good gun, I agree. But today, almost four years since we wrote Three Men in a Room, it's even gone down further. I would say the state legislature today is the most dysfunctional. Describe the nature of dysfunction.

We always hear that it's dysfunctional. What is the nature of the dysfunction and what's the cause of the dysfunction? In involved, Rob, you want to go on or should I? It involves the power structure in the state legislature. As a group, they don't have the class and the knowledge and the wherewithal of the legislators who served 25, 30 years ago. I really mean the individual legislature and the leadership. And they do nothing without the leadership telling them what to do. In the decade that I was in the state Senate, no bill ever went through without the okay of Senator Joe Bruno, who is a majority leader, and his deputy at that time, Dean Scallows, who is very powerful man today as we know. But a no bill went through, there was no, I mean the whole process, I mean stunk, there was no process even.

You couldn't debate certain things. You couldn't have amendments. The chairs of committees were not selected by the committee members. They were appointed by the leaders as perks for money. All you had to do while they put the glue on your seat and you is vote the way they wanted you to vote. Now Andrew Cuomo in that op-ed piece in Daily News, I mentioned our book, signaled that he would not only ask for sacrifices from labor as Kerry did during the fiscal crisis and labor was so critical to the rescue of New York City because the pension funds of labor bought the state special bombs that were backed by city revenue, the Mac bombs, to create revenue to keep New York City afloat when it didn't have money to pay its bills because the banks, the big banks had just simply turned cold shoulder on the city and refused to lend it any more money.

This was in the spring of 75 and that was the crisis. The second big crisis that Kerry was met with the first being within a few weeks of his office, something that Malcolm Wilson must have known about I think, but never mentioned it to him that the urban development corporations was also sliding into default, which was a big blow to the state's credit, credit, credit, worthiness, but getting back to that point, Cuomo signaled that he was willing, he will not only ask a lot more of labor to help solve the state's intractable budget problems that are only getting worse and are going to cause huge trade-offs, but he would also work with the legislature. You had a figure in Kerry's day in Warren Anderson, the Senate and Republican Senate majority leader from Binghamton, who recognized the centrality of the city as an engine of revenue for the entire state. You don't see that kind of, I guess you'd call it, Seymour calls it, class, but just awareness, a political awareness, a political maturity that recognized it. Now, Anderson made trade-offs.

He wanted education money for upstate and in return he would give the city approval to raise its taxes in Beams Day and so forth like that. He hoarse traded like any legislation, but you got it, but he also recognized the importance of the city and accepted the Kerry administration's argument, which was very widely disbelieved that if the city went down, the whole state was going to go down. Now, I would go a step further and say that not only was a legislative issue, and I spoke to the Senate, the Anderson, just before he died, he was a man in his 90s, when he told me that the legislators at that time, the politics was important, majority control was important, but the survival of the state was also important, and Kerry was believed. He was a figure. He was a governor who was believed, unlike the most recent governors, and respected, and what Kerry asked, the governor-elect, has also asked in the op-ed piece that he wrote on Labor Day and in speeches afterwards.

It's not just labor that has to give up a little bit, it's not just the working people, but business has to give up. The bankers have to give up, and Kerry was able to convince them in his day that it was for the common good. If they didn't do that, then they would all suffer. There are a couple of things that just came out of that. One is that not only is the legislature dysfunctional, but at least the last two governors have been themselves dysfunctional or nonfunctional. Number one, and number two, the second thing I'm hearing is that there was more sense of public interest than if you will, and it's much more naked, immediate self-interest now, or am I being naive here? No, I think you're not being naive, I think that's true. I think there's also just a huge amount of business lobby influence in Albany that in 1975 had not yet ballooned, mushroomed, or what it is today, money played a brawl, but not as huge a role as it does today in Albany as I think a kind of debasing corrupting role

when it comes to the interests of the estate as a whole, so the governor has to fight against those kind of recurrence in a way that maybe Kerry didn't. He had a chamber of commerce, he had bankers who lived or worked in the New York area who were who personified the interests of their bank, who weren't like computer cartels, you know, it's financial leaking on the screen. One of the interesting things that YouTube bring up in the book is that the globalization of banking and finance removed those folks who either lived in New York City or lived in the suburbs and worked, they were New Yorkers, they disliked unions, they thought government was corrupt, you know, but they lived here and they were arguing those points I think from the point of view that they're watching the city civic fabric become more and more afraid in the 70s in this heavy recession, they were watching the spending of the city budget and the state budget continuing to rise in spite of it, so they were in

a way justifiably upset, but they were ideologically conservative about government and labor. Kerry had to work, found a way to work with him and interestingly about who Kerry came from a business-oriented family, his father had sold petroleum that came in on- And his brother's head is a very wealthy man in New York. And he wasn't the lifelong politician, he was a lawyer, he was a businessman and when he entered politics he entered on the national scene, as you said a respected member of the House Ways and Means Committee, and he went across the aisle to establish relationships with someone like the minority leader, Gerald Ford, who later became president of the United States. And we don't see that by partisanship either matter of state level, nor of the non-shoe. It's totally different in that sense. Okay. One question about the appreciation, why was it so long delayed, why did it take so long

for the type of work that you guys wrote to actually be prejudiced? Okay. When he, first of all, in the second, the first term, okay, he saves the city from bankruptcy, he takes up the very recalcitrant Congress and Ford, Ford to City dropped it, which was the, not the exact words, but at the end, Ford came through. Right. And Ford came through. Because of his real personal relationship, he knew his way around Washington, there's stories where he would walk into these down the corridor this way and his aides would go that way because he knew exactly where the senators would be at that time of day and they were going to the place where they were supposed to meet. He really knew his way around Washington and he had friends there, including Gerald Ford. So he brings home federal help, which were loans at a 1% interest rate above the treasuries, the basic rate, and the city pays it off and balances its budget over time.

Now, but the second term is different. Now in the second term, he fights with the legislature because having raised taxes at one of the measures and slashed the city budget through the emergency financial control board. And he looks to essentially initiate a personal income tax rate cut, which he does do, the largest in the history of the state. But to do that, what he consistently did with vis-a-vis the legislature was he underestimated the amount of revenues expected would come in in that, come in the budget year. And then he would veto the ads that the legislature had seen the interest. And there were about 160 overrides of his veto. There had maybe been one override in the past century and 160 in a couple of years under Kerry. So the relationship with the legislature really turns sour. At the same time, though, what I find impressive looking back, that's one reason he ends in dispute. But looking back, you have the personal income tax rate cut and you have a slowing of Medicaid

expenditure, which hasn't happened since. The whole series of, you have you have a reduction, a new pension tier, which means that future employees retirement benefits. That's of savings of billions dollars over the years in the future that Kerry initiated. But what about he ended very badly? And the press was all over again. But in addition, it was not only his relationship with the legislature, it was sort of his personal age. Yeah. He's second marriage to a very glamorous woman became confident in the press host of Envary Tired, who had fiscal crisis fatigue at that point, plus people magazine was coming in for that kind of reporting, as I said, to say, I guess was coming into the fore. So his personal life became griss for the press. So he has his new love, I can't remember how many ex-marriages she had or was there alive or dead? Rather, those spouses, when they turn up in the press, it's a great story, hey, I'm alive.

He had that story, he had Jimmy Brisbane calling him society, Kerry, you had this fight with the legislature. But all this stuff really come on. Does he matter? Does he matter? Does he matter? Does he matter? No, he just let me go on that point. I think that you carry greatness. Good. And I would say greatness. A rose after his wife's death during the campaign. She was like the pillar of his life. And she, he would not have run for governor unless she gave him permission. And she said to him, look, if you win the governorship, we'll all be together in the executive mansion. If you lose the governorship, at least you will come home in the evening to see the children and not like, as a congressman, go back to your fourth, et cetera. Maybe in my opinion, after this loss, needed challenges. And he received those challenges when he came into office and he saw the financial situation

and the danger that New York City and New York State, and many people, including Robin, I believe, would have a donor effect throughout the country. Harry's greatness rose with the challenges that he faced, the so-called impossible challenges to rectify. And he needed those to go to the top and he went to the very top. Now there is something in the second term, the major challenges were gone. And the second term, he, I mean, had defeated his lieutenant governor in a primary and he had defeated the chairman of the finance committee to gain a democratic victory in the second primary for governor that people said he could never win. And then he went on to defeat Perry Duryay, former speaker of the assembly, who was way ahead in the polls and it's comparable to what Rob said before.

He defied the polls. I mean, he said this is not going to happen and it didn't happen. So he was really fighting and doing things that people, other people could not, that he were in their position. And the second term was sort of a lull. And that created some problems as well. So with Sir McStem when I read this book, it was, it's a case study of political leadership and in both of you have touched on it. What is the essence? What are the elements of his leadership that particularly stand down? I think he was a principal guy, for example, his position on the death penalty, which came out of experiences in World War II. That's a part of that. That's a part of that. No one has in concentration time, right? It's true. It's true. And he really stuck to his principles and when he ran for second term against Duryay, who was pro death penalty, he took a hit in the, and his aides were telling him, are he crazy?

And he had to moderate that mitigate that, and he said, no, I'm not going to do that. And that was a part. And I think a lot of people applauded him for his willingness to stand up for principle, even if they might have disagreed with his position. They think with his success in Mario Cuomo, he had a succession of eight years of carry in 12 years of Cuomo, we're in the face of public outcries for the death penalty. And they vetoed it. And they vetoed it. I think he was willing to adapt to changing circumstances, which is important. He wasn't an ideologically rigid figure. He was a practical liberal, but he also was very strong willed when he figured out what he wanted to do. And sometimes it took a little time. He stuck with it, and he made it clear, and he stood by his guns, and the government, the people he brought on, who were very excellent people, understood the direction the ship was going and worked. And he also made the, he raised the ante, he asked the entire state across sectors to work with him, or maybe pay a price.

And he stuck with guns, he was a tough man. One thing that I discovered in this, and Rob discovered as well, in all our interviews, and we had almost 50 interviews with different people, and we're fortunate that entire entourage were composed of the best and the brightest, of the next generation. Guys in their 20s and 30s, I mean Dick Ravich was 40, and he was one of the older ones there. And all of them, whether they were Peter Goldmark or John Dyson or Felix Rohitman or Stephen Berger or Dick Ravich, I mean we were amazed at a consistency of opinion, almost a veneration of this man. But you haven't had this in the list, you know why, because I think as Rob said, he stood with his principles. When he saw problems, he didn't jerk his responsibilities, but at the same time, he gave

it to his key deputies, and he said to them, this is the problem, this is how I wanted to be resolved, this is the ball, you run with it. And I'm going to support you regardless of what the media and the public says until you reach the goal. Okay, I've got a minute, but I've got two questions and let's do it quick. Has Albany gotten so bad that it's really ripe for change? Yes. Number two, will sweet men in a room work? Is there the quality of leadership there that would allow a meeting of the legislative and executive members? As of now, no. Three men in a room will still be a process, but it will not work as it did before. But it will be the process of the assembly speaker, the majority leader and the governor meeting on the budget, but it's an introducing what?

And producing very, very little. Okay, we're going to stop right there. My thanks to Seymour Lachman and Rob Polna, co-authors of the Man Who's Same New York, new carry in the great fiscal crisis of 1975. So I'm good music. Let us know what you think about this show. You can reach us at cuny.tv. When you get there, click on the board that says contact us and send your email. Whatever it is. Thanks. No thanks. I'm not just do it. I've been there for you.