|
photo by Jerry Bauer
Vincent Cannato
author of
The
Ungovernable City:
John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York
______________________________________
When liberal Republican John Lindsay was elected mayor of New York in
1965, political observers described him as a White Knight, the best hope
for a stagnant and troubled city. A reformer with movie-star looks,
Lindsay brought glamour and hope to City Hall. At the height of his
appeal, leading politicians from both parties, including Nelson Rockefeller
and Robert Kennedy, feared Lindsay's growing popularity. Some even
pegged him for the White House.
After defeating incumbent Robert Wagner, Lindsay vowed to wrestle control
of the city from its "power brokers" and revitalize New York into "Fun City."
Lindsay's idealistic agenda and charismatic presence made him the toast of
New York.
But from his first day in office, Lindsay faced one battle after another.
Throughout his tenure, New York experienced an upheaval that reflected
the state of the nation during this turbulent era. Civil rights, community
control of schools, student unrest at Columbia University, urban development,
and antiwar rallies all posed major political dilemmas.
By the end of his second term as mayor, Lindsay was fatigued and
disillusioned, his political career devoid of its early promise, a man rendered
as one pundit described an "exile" in his own city.*
Vincent Cannato, author of The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and his Struggle
to Save New York, talks with us about Lindsay and how his ideas impacted
New York and his own political fortunes.
Interview Topics
America's
fascination with JFK and its impact on Lindsay
Lindsay's characteristics
The basis for Lindsay
being a Republican
Lindsay's
role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Conditions
that existed in New York leading to Lindsay's election
Lindsay's
view of what the biggest problem in New York was
Lindsay's
objectives clashing with those of the police
Dissensus politics
Lindsay
and the findings of the Kerner Commission Report
Triggering
the city's disillusionment with Lindsay
Connecting with the 1969
New York Mets
The effect
of Lindsay's activism on the Republican Party
A more successful
alternative to Lindsay?
Lindsay's undoing
About Vincent Cannato
photo NYT Pictures
The city's inadequate response to the snowstorm of February, 1969, damaged
John Lindsay's reputation more than any event during his two terms as mayor
of New York Two days following the storm that crippled the city, Lindsay
dejectedly walks along the streets of a clogged Queens neighborhood.
*
Saxophonist Sonny Stitt plays
Autumn
in New York
______________________________________
JJM How did America's fascination with John Kennedy open
the door for John Lindsay?
VC The great Camelot mystique of the early
sixties that was about youth and fresh ideas invigorated American politics
-- especially after the Eisenhower years -- and captured the imagination
of the country. Lindsay really tapped into that. He was a congressman during
the Kennedy years and didn't run for mayor until after Kennedy's assassination,
but there was still a lingering aura of Camelot that Lindsay successfully
tapped into. During this era, idealism was prevalent. Cynicism had not yet
set in, the quagmire of Vietnam was still in the distance, the Civil Rights
Act was signed, and we had not quite got into black power and other radical
ideas. There was a window of opportunity for idealism and for reviving Camelot
that Lindsay tried to grab hold of.
| JJM So, Lindsay's charismatic appeal connected
him to Kennedy in some way.
VC Yes. There were not a lot of similarities
but there are some. They both had strong, assertive and smart wives, with
big families and young children. They were energetic World War II veterans,
who in the sixties were the young generation who had just won the war and
were now reaching the age where they are taking power in the country. They
each used the rhetoric of grand idealism, speaking of a better future.
JJM Was he annoyed by these comparisons?
VC He would sometimes publicly be annoyed,
but I think deep down he probably wasn't because overall it was a positive
for him. As often as he might have rolled his eyes or sighed about the Kennedy
comparison, it made for good politics. |
photo Library of Congress
Mary and John Lindsay |
JJM
A former Lindsay aide said, "I don't think John has ever really been
close to anyone in his life except his brothers and his wife. No one knows
what really goes on in that mind." What were his characteristics?
VC Lindsay was somewhat aloof. Someone once
said of him that he was attracted to older mentor types like U.S. attorney
general Herb Brownell, as well as to younger acolytes, especially his young
twenty-something aides who looked up to and worshipped him. But he always
had problems with people his own age. In some ways he was sort of like Al
Gore, whose closest aides are his wife and daughters. Lindsay's closest aides
were his wife and brothers. The circle of trust did not go much beyond family.
So, he looked up to his older mentors, and with admiration at his younger
aides. He didn't have many people his own age that he could rely on for advice.
JJM What was the basis for his being a member of the
Republican Party?
VC It was quite natural for someone with
his background and social class -- and being from Manhattan -- to be a
Republican. This was the era of liberal Republicanism, when the Republican
Party was the domain of people like Nelson Rockefeller, and other wealthy
"Northeastern types." So, it was quite natural for him to be a Republican.
In New York, it also meant that you were opposed to the Tammany Hall machine
and the corrupt Democratic machine politics that dominated the city. Clearly
one of Lindsay's idols was Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, whom Lindsay had gone
to meet as a very young child. LaGuardia was a liberal New-Dealer but who
was Republican, fighting against the machine of Tammany Hall.
LaGuardia became an elected Republican in a Democratic city by running as
a fusion candidate. This idea of fusion was picked up by Lindsay in 1965.
It was possible to get elected as a Republican by fusing together different
groups of people in a non-partisan way, who were all angry at the Democratic
machine. Lindsay didn't run as a partisan Republican, nor did LaGuardia.
They ran as non-partisans. A famous line of LaGuardia's, "There is no Republican
or Democratic way to pick up the garbage," is a great example of how you
run as a Republican in a city that is dominated by the Democratic Party. |
Fiorello LaGuardia
LaGuardia
imposes curfew |
JJM As a congressman, what role did Lindsay play in the
passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act?
VC In many ways, Lindsay was a real outcast
in Congress. He was a minority within a minority. He was a Republican in
a Congress dominated by the Democrats, and he was a liberal Republican in
a party that was growing increasingly conservative. As a Republican member
of the Judiciary Committee, he played a big role in writing the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, which most Republicans in Congress voted for. He was sitting
in the first or second row when Lyndon Johnson signed the bill, and was seen
as a leading voice in the Republican Party in favor of civil rights.
photo by Katrina Thomas
Lindsay "dives" into the '65 mayoral campaign
*
Lindsay and Rockefeller
|
JJM In 1966, US News and World Report
argued that life in New York "had tended to become more and more unsettled,
uncomfortable and downright dangerous, less and less pleasant." What conditions
existed in New York that led to Lindsay's election?
VC Yes, how does a Republican get elected
in a Democratic city? It has got to be as a result of anger and resentment
against the Democratic Party and the status quo. There was a Democrat in
City Hall for twenty years, and there was an increasing feeling that by 1964,
many things had gone awry. Crime was going up, there were fiscal shenanigans
by Mayor Robert Wagner toward the end of his career, a sense that the city
was dirtier and that poverty was increasing. There was a general unease with
the way things were going in the city. The city had also been losing population
in the fifties and sixties. You can now look back and really see the great
demographic shift that was taking place. During the fifties, the city lost
close to one million middle- class whites. They were replaced by a large
influx of mostly poor minorities. This really changed the demographics of
the city, in terms of ethnicity and race as well as the city's socio-economic
status. The city grew darker and it grew poorer. There was an unease settling
in the city about these great changes.
JJM And these changes set into motion the
"northern civil rights movement," which included the issues of police treatment
of minorities, open housing laws and busing of school children.
VC Yes, the big issues in New York were education
reform and police brutality.
JJM Did he decide to run for mayor because
he wanted to address these challenges, or did he run because he couldn't
run for the Senate or the Governor's office at the time?
VC I don't think there was any kind of deep
political calculation going on. While there was really no other office for
him to run for since the Senate seats were out of reach and because Rockefeller
was entrenched as Governor, he ran for mayor in 1965 really and truly to
save the city. He was sort of dragged into running in some ways, because
people were asking him to come and save the city, that the city needs you,
that the city can't afford four more years of Democratic rule. So, he ran
as a candidate who was going to completely reform and improve the city.
|
JJM What did he believe New York's biggest problem to
be at that point?
VC Everything. In 1965, the New York Herald
Tribune ran a series called "City in Crisis," which was designed to look
at the problems of the city. They reported on problems found in every aspect
of society, from air pollution to crime to discrimination to fiscal problems,
to potholes -- you name it. Today, we are much more cynical, and we know
how hard it is to fix these problems and to change society. Back then, however,
Lindsay took all these challenges on.
JJM How did the objectives of the northern civil rights
movement, which Lindsay was so strongly in favor of, clash with those of
the police?
VC That comes down to the issue of the Civilian
Review Board, which would have instituted an independent board to monitor
cases of police brutality. This had become an issue in the late fifties and
early sixties, and Lindsay grabbed on to it. If he was going to be mayor,
he was going to have an independent civilian review board that would judge
cases of police misconduct. It was largely a civil rights issue, because
when you talk about police mistreatment of civilians you are primarily talking
about the mistreatment of blacks. So, he runs for mayor on this. It was a
perfectly natural civil rights issue, but what it gets translated into, at
a time when crime rates are rising, is an "anti police" issue. It was interpreted
that Lindsay was more concerned about issues of police brutality than he
was about crime. There was a polarization among people who saw this as a
continuation of the civil rights movement, and those who felt the concern
should be about the rising crime rate and not about cases of police brutality.
| JJM And Lindsay was concerned about preventing
the sort of rioting that was occurring in Los Angeles, Detroit, and other
cities. Perhaps he erred on the side of appeasing minorities, which cost
him with the police. As the journalist Jack Newfield wrote concerning this,
"What it all comes down to in the here and now is that Lindsay gets cheered
in Harlem and Berkeley and cursed by taxi drivers and cops."
VC Yes, that is the division right there.
When the civil rights movement goes north, it is no longer this crystal clear
"black versus white," "good versus evil," clear-cut moral issue of going
after Jim Crow. As it moves north it gets so much more complicated, and I
don't think Lindsay ever saw how complex these other issues were. There was
the issue of crime, but also of class, where people like taxi drivers, plumbers,
electricians, construction workers -- themselves only barely in the middle
class -- didn't really have solid footing economically. These were the people
who stood to lose out on the Civilian Review Board, because they felt that
their safety was being put into jeopardy. Also, it was feared that open housing
laws would hurt property values for homeowners who had only a token hold
on the middle class. So, the issue cut across racial lines, but also economic
lines. Wealthy Manhattan-ites, who were more insulated from some of these
social issues, were very much supportive of civil rights, and were very much
in favor the Civilian Review Board and education reform as long as they were
not affected adversely by them. It created a resentment among many of those
people who felt they were on the front lines of these issues, and it further
divided the races, in a way. |
1967 riots |
JJM
Describe what "dissensus politics" is?
VC This was a popular idea of the mid to
late sixties, that in order to affect radical change in society, things needed
to be stirred up. You needed to have protest and you needed to have people
speaking out -- not quite violently -- but you needed to highlight and make
clear the divisions. So, you get groups like the National Welfare Rights
Organization having sit-ins at welfare department offices to put a spotlight
on the issue of welfare, and to get society to deal with it. Unfortunately,
these protests drove a wedge in society.
Columbia University demonstration, 1968
Broadcast
of Columbia unrest
*
Vietnam War supporters march, 1970
|
JJM The white counterculture added to
the mix of this dissensus politics, didn't it?
VC Yes, although they were different
organizations and different groups of people, they were interwoven together.
When you combine the effects of all of them, it added to the polarization
of society. We used to think of the sixties as being a radical decade, but
in reality it was an era of polarization where two sides were pushed apart.
Everything from the war in Vietnam to the counterculture, to civil rights
and black power were pushing each side further apart, and Lindsay was the
guy attempting to straddle both sides. As the division between them got wider,
he finally had to decide which side to support. At this point he began speaking
out against the war in Vietnam and outwardly sympathized with the counterculture,
even though he himself is a pretty square, clean cut Yale graduate with a
wife and kids. There was nothing countercultural about Lindsay, but he
sympathized with the student protestors and felt they were saying something
that needed to be listened to.
JJM He embraced the country's youth rebellion,
and you could say that he blamed the white middle class for blocking school
reform as well.
VC The issue of Ocean Hill-Brownsville and
school reform became a huge question. How does one integrate a northern
urban school system? The terrible irony is that in 2003 we are still
talking about the same issue. There weren't laws that said blacks should
attend this school or that school, it was in residential patterns, where
blacks and whites lived. At the same time, more and more whites were leaving
the public school system for either the suburbs or for a private parochial
school. These factors made the integration of the races even harder. So,
from the time of the Brown v. Board of Education decision in the mid
fifties, New York tried to deal with the issue of how to better integrate
their schools. None of their plans were working. By the early sixties, there
was a feeling among some in the black community that integration was not
going to happen, and that they needed to take control of their own schools.
Thus, there was the rise of a community control movement. |
JJM And black militants came in and influenced
education reform.
VC Yes. That was an unfortunate side-effect,
that their interest in having control over the curriculum coincided with
a greater trend toward Afrocentricity. While part of that is good --
to teach people about their heritage and their culture -- there was a down
side to some of that as well. In the Brownsville area especially, some teachers
were criticized for being anti-white or anti- Semitic, and it dissolved into
a kind of anarchy. As the militants ratcheted up the rhetoric, more and more
whites were saying that, while they support the civil rights movement, this
is where I draw the line. It caused a sort of polarization. You still see
it today. Al Sharpton, a child of this era, is a great example. Most of his
politics were learned from this time, and his actions are perfect examples
of dissensus politics. He thrives on dividing, and learned that you get ahead
through confrontation.
| JJM Lindsay wrote the famous Kerner Report's conclusion,
in which it reads, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black,
one white -- separate and unequal." Did he use the Kerner Commission to embarrass
LBJ?
VC LBJ was deathly scared that the Kerner
Report would be used to embarrass himself, and to embarrass the war effort
in Vietnam. He didn't want anything to criticize the efforts in Vietnam.
But, I believe Lindsay wrote it because he firmly believed in it. The famous
introduction to the Kerner Report has his fingerprints all over it. It is
how he thought, with that morality-driven, good versus evil, black versus
white, dark versus light rhetoric, with a call for vast changes in American
society to prevent what he viewed as certain disaster. He really believed
in what was written, and I don't think he wrote it to embarrass anyone.
JJM There was speculation about his having
his eye on the presidency, and it was his desire to separate himself from
LBJ as much as possible at that time.
VC Yes, there was some of that, but I would
say that was trumped by the fact that he really did believe in the Report. |
photo Library of Congress
Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner and John Lindsay |
November 1, 1968
Headline reads, "NEW YORK: The Breakdown of a City"
Lindsay
announces end of transit strike
*
photo NY Daily News
The Mets -- and Lindsay -- celebrate victory in the '69 World
Series |
JJM Early on as mayor, the citizens of New York
were willing to overlook Lindsay's early mistakes. For example, following
a transit strike that clearly came out in favor of the union, 75% of the
city still approved of his work. Was there a particular event or did a
combination of events trigger the city's disillusionment with Lindsay?
VC I would say it was a slow combination
of events. The Civilian Review Board controversy reached the end of its first
year at the end of 1966. Lindsay had run on creating such a board, and the
issue was put on the ballot in November of 1966. The voters overwhelmingly
defeated it by a 2 - 1 margin, which was a personal repudiation of Lindsay.
From there he begins to hemorrhage at the core. Depending on who you were
and what you believed in, there was always something to complain about, and
it got to be the point where if there was a pothole in the street, it was
Lindsay's fault. If there was a light out, it was Lindsay's fault. There
are certain other sign posts along the way. During the snowstorm in Queens,
people complained that Lindsay couldn't even get the street cleaned. The
Ocean Hill -Brownsville issue also damaged his reputation, especially among
moderate to liberal Jews -- either those who were teachers or who had friends
or family who were -- who saw the largely Jewish teachers union as not at
all at fault during the crisis, and blamed Lindsay for it.
JJM
His popularity was at a low point when, during his run for reelection
in 1969, the New York Mets won the World Series and provided him with quite
a political lift.
VC Lindsay's 1969 bid for reelection was
one of the great political campaigns. By 1969, he was incredibly unpopular.
The city's inability to deal with the big snowstorm had just happened, Ocean
Hill-Brownsville had just happened, and crime and all social indicators were
getting worse. Yet, he ran for reelection and ends up winning. He lost the
Republican nomination -- in fact, he didn't even run as one, he had to run
as an independent. The Mets' championship was one of those psychological
things. They were lovable underdogs, a relatively new team whom no one gave
a chance to, and Lindsay tied his fortune to the Mets when they
won the World Series. Just as no one gave the Mets a chance, no one gave
Lindsay a chance either. They were both underdogs. The truth of the matter
is that Lindsay was a man who knew nothing about baseball, and didn't care
about the Mets. He was a tennis fan. During the World Series, one of his
aides began to drag him to the Mets games, and then at the end when the Mets
won, he is in the locker room celebrating with them. The players decide to
douse him with champagne and the photograph rejuvenates him. One of the other
problems with Lindsay is that he was not seen as a humble man. He was seen
as being pretty arrogant. But the act of him being covered in champagne was
a sort of humbling act, and it made Lindsay look human to the city. |
JJM It's a great photograph, and one I recall
seeing as a kid on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle.
I remember thinking that Lindsay was a pretty cool guy as a result.
VC Even in our day, look at how former Mayor
Giulliani connected himself to the Yankees. Although he has been a longtime
Yankee fan and goes because he loves the game and the team, his presence
at the games tied himself to the community, and it helped his popularity.
| JJM How instrumental was Lindsay's
liberal activism in moving the Republican Party to the right?
VC Had there been no John Lindsay, the Republican
Party would have still moved to the right. As it moved to the right, he felt
more and more uncomfortable with the Party, and more like a fish out of water.
He had little in common with the new conservative Barry Goldwater Republicans.
Goldwater was from Arizona, others were also from the West, and many were
coming from the South. The new Republicans were not coming from the Northeast,
and they were not coming from big cities. They were generally ambivalent
about civil rights, supported the military, and supported the war in Vietnam.
Lindsay had very little in common with these groups. And as the party moved
to the right, in reaction to that, Lindsay moved further to the left. He
became a more vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, and more sympathetic to
college protestors. He became an incredibly popular speaker on college campuses.
He is making the more radical criticism of American society with the Kerner
Report and in his speeches. A lot of his speeches are incredibly radical
when you listen to them -- radical in the sense of getting to the root of
what he sees as the deep, systemic problems in American society. In 1971,
he became a Democrat, and in 1972 ran for President to the left of George
McGovern, which a lot of people forget about. So, he himself is having this
movement, where he finally gives up on the Republican Party and sees that
his future is in creating a coalition with young people, African Americans,
women and liberals.
JJM
Let's face it, it was a pretty exciting position to take in
those days. There were so many baby boomers who held similar views. In fact,
given all that was going in the United States at the time concerning civil
rights, Vietnam, the women's movement, could anyone have been more successful
than Lindsay in New York at that time?
VC I don't know. I tend to think that someone
who was a mayor more in the mold of Robert Wagner, but who was not Robert
Wagner. Wagner had been mayor for twelve years, and he just ran out of steam
and got tired. Perhaps a Wagner Democrat firmly rooted in the New Deal tradition
yet able to stay apart from these new radical changes and from some
of the movements would have had more success. A successful mayor would have
been someone who could have spoken to working class whites as well as African
Americans, and shown them their commonalties, and someone who could have
spoken to moderate liberals and would not have been as sympathetic to radical
liberals. |
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
Barry Goldwater, 1964
*
Robert Wagner
|
JJM Perhaps it would have helped if Lindsay
had a more compromising nature?
VC That is the other problem. Lindsay is
often criticized as having been a bad administrator and a good politician,
but it was really the other way around. He was an adequate administrator
but a lousy politician in a profession where compromise is essential, where
you need to have some give and take, and where you have good people person
skills. He did not like criticism, and didn't take it well. He would be visibly
shaken, his back and jaw would stiffen. Bella Abzug, herself not a particularly
compromising person, would often talk about how he didn't like the give and
take of politics.
JJM He once told New Yorkers, "I believe we
can end bigotry and discrimination. I believe we can bring safety to our
neighborhoods and harmony to our city. I believe we can end the disgrace
of deprivation and poverty. I believe all of us can live together in mutual
respect." Did he set the bar for success unrealistically high?
VC Yes, and that is also part of why the
Great Society and the War on Poverty failed, because expectations were
unrealistically high. In 1965, New Yorkers were willing to believe that Lindsay
could change the city, that just one man coming in could change the culture
of New York politics and improve life. But when the city didn't improve,
and in fact when it got worse, he fell hard. Since then, most politicians
are careful to limit people's expectations. Part of it is due to our cynicism
for politics -- we no longer believe that politicians can cure the ills of
the world. We are more realistic today than we were then. We now understand
that no one politician can end discrimination or poverty. Now, we are happy
with adequate garbage collection.
JJM I suppose you can make the argument that
an individual politician's actions can contribute to helping people, and
perhaps the best ones bring people hope.
VC This idea of providing hope is so important.
Whether you agree with either of them or not, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton
were both generally optimistic spirits. Lindsay, on the other hand, by the
late sixties, was much more pessimistic. The Kerner Commission Report is
an incredibly pessimistic document. Many of his initiatives have a dark sort
of tone to them, and people fed off of that. By the late sixties, he was
not giving people hope that things were going to get better. Instead he was
saying that things were getting worse, and unless radical changes are made,
things will continue to get worse.
photo NY Daily News
Bob Dylan sings
All
I Really Want to Do |
JJM You
write, "Vintage Lindsay is the certainty of the correctness of his position,
the unwillingness to compromise, the moralizing against his enemies, and
the belief that America's fate was tied to that of its cities." Was this
his undoing?
VC Yes. In many ways the problem of Lindsay
were the problems of his personality, of this moral righteousness he possessed
that led him to overlook the legitimate arguments of his opponents. Instead,
he saw his opponents as the problem. This added to an already bad political
situation, and the effect of his unyielding personality was that it made
New York's political atmosphere a little worse. |
Another thing that led to his undoing was his idea that without the city,
America would die. I love cities, I live in cities, I study cities, but the
truth of the matter is that cities have become more irrelevant. He was on
the downside of many trends, including this one that demonstrates how cities
were becoming more irrelevant. But he was not alone. Hardly anyone at the
time came up with the answer to the questions of "What is the city's place
with a more suburban country? As more people flock to the suburbs, how are
we going to make cities important? Are we going to have fewer people living
in them? What is the role of cities in this environment? How do we make cities
more competitive? We have industry moving out of certain cities, so what
do we do about that? What do we do to replace that?" Lindsay, nor anyone
else for that matter, had answers to these questions.
______________________________________
The
Ungovernable City:
John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York
by
Vincent Cannato
About Vincent Cannato
JJM Who was your childhood hero?
VC Oh, that question…I was never good at questions like these. Quite
honestly, I can't say that I really had any heroes. I suppose the easiest
answer is probably my parents, my grandfather and family around me.
JJM What is your next project?
VC I am at the early stages of writing a book about Ellis Island and the
great immigration of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
*
Vincent Cannato is an assistant professor of history at the University of
Massachusetts, Boston. He received his Ph.D. in American history from Columbia
University. He has contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post,
The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, and The Weekly Standard.
________________________________
John Lindsay products at Amazon.com
Vincent Cannato products at Amazon.com
_______________________________
Interview took place on May 10, 2003
*
If you enjoyed this interview, you may want to read our interview with free speech movement historian Robert Cohen.
*
Other
Jerry Jazz Musician interviews
* From the publisher
|
