The Streets Were Paved with Gold - Ken Auletta [74]
“I’ll tell you who’s really at fault,” blurted Bernard Nussbaum, the city’s SEC attorney. “It’s the media. They treated the people who created the gimmicks as if they were geniuses. If the press treats you like a genius it increases your chances of reelection, and so it encourages more gimmickry. The problem with the press is, one, it’s incompetent. Two, it doesn’t work hard. And three, it’s sensationalist.”
Ultimately, all the excuses fit quite nicely with the city’s official defense. Underlying that defense is the unspoken assumption that no one is responsible. We are all victims. Leaders are not supposed to lead. Telling the truth can be harmful. The political system won’t allow it. A variation of the no one-is-responsible thesis was expounded by Lindsay’s former corporation counsel, Norman Redlich, now dean of NYU’s School of Law. “The fiscal crisis was not created by Robert Wagner, John Lindsay or Abe Beame, either individually or collectively,” he wrote on the Op-Ed page of the Times, “and it is grossly unfair to our former Mayors to make them the villains of our urban tragedy.” The “tragedy” was caused, he said, not by city officials but by such historical forces as the movement of poor people into New York and the exodus of middleincome residents; other levels of government were to blame for not picking up more city costs. Could the budget have been cut? No, he implied, because New York had “hallowed institutions (such as the City University and the municipal hospital system) that imposed financial burdens vastly greater than those faced by any other city.” And what about high taxes? Not so, implies Redlich: “Every year, the body politic of this city, led by some state and local elected officials, insisted that the taxes were not needed.…” Redlich ends Lindsay’s defense (and his own) with a familiar refrain: “It is time, however, that we cast a true light on his past. And by doing so, we might be better able to deal with the problems of the present.”
It is unfair to make Lindsay the culprit; to ignore the many good things he did as mayor, including keeping the streets cool during a very difficult period, bringing zest and idealism to City Hall, introducing the concept of “productivity” and management reform, renewing interests in our parks and architecture. But, like a lot of other city and state officials, he made some dreadful mistakes, told some whopping lies. And, like a lot of other people, he and his mulish apologists should at least exhibit the grace of contrition.
Looking back, one sees that the reality gap almost equaled the budget gap. Redlich, I think, suffers it now, as does his pouting former boss who refuses interviews. And Abe Beame suffered it in 1974–75. One reason Beame failed to make the tough decisions is that he and others honestly did not believe the market would close, honestly did not believe this crisis couldn’t be handled just as previous ones had been. “Beame was warned of the fiscal dangers,” says one of his attorneys, Marty Lipton. “I don’t think he understood it.” Beame treated the fiscal crisis as if it were a public relations crisis. The city’s “failure to make meaningful disclosure,” said the SEC report, “prolonged the agony of the City’s fiscal crisis, and delayed major necessary corrective efforts.”
It was a swindle. To date, no one has been punished. Perhaps no one should be. Perhaps Beame’s loss in the primary is a sufficient punishment.