Lulu of a Fight

Under oath, the mayor of New York City made an extraordinary charge. His political opponents within his own Dem ocratic Party, said Robert Wagner, had tried to buy off some of his supporters.

The accusation grew out of the paralysis that has gripped the state legislature in Albany for three weeks while the Democrats, divided between pro-and anti-Wagnerians, have been unable to fill the leadership posts. Wagner charged that Democratic State Chairman Wil liam McKeon, originally appointed with his blessing, had offered an "inducement"--including a "double lulu"--to two Wagner men if they would switch their votes away from the mayor's candidates.

In the arcane parlance of the Albany legislature, a lulu is a tax-free $1,000 allowance that each legislator draws "in lieu of" expense funds, in addition to his $10,000 annual salary. A double lulu presumably would be $2,000. But a committee chairmanship had also been offered, Wagner said, and as every New York legislator knows, some chairmanships entitle the holder to extra lulus. In this case, according to Wagner, the double lulu amounted to $10,000.

Gleeful Republicans pounced on Wagner's words, demanded a full investigation before the State Commission of Investigation, where Wagner detailed the offer, which he had indignantly described as "tantamount to a bribe."

McKeon, for his part, replied, also under oath, that Wagner's charge was tantamount to a lie, or at the very least was gross misinformation. He "absolutely, categorically and without any reservation" denied Wagner's accusation. Obviously, someone was open for a perjury rap.

Puppets. The mayor admitted that his knowledge of the double-lulu offer was secondhand, but said, "I verified the facts to the best of my ability and certainly to my satisfaction." According to Wagner, the offer was made in Room 939 at Albany's DeWitt Clinton Hotel to Manhattan Leader J. Raymond Jones, a Wagner supporter and the first Negro to head Tammany Hall. The Democratic chairman of Schenectady County, George Palmer, recalled the scene: "Jones comes in and looks around at me, McKeon and the others and says, 'Boys, I'm old enough to be your father.'" But, Palmer insisted, "there was never a mention of lulus." Jones insisted that there was.

While the investigation proceeded, the state legislature remained out of action, going through the motions of voting on candidates for the leadership. Taunted Republican Assemblyman George Ingalls: "All this is but a maneuvering of puppets. A little man comes out and blows his horn. Nobody listens. A little while later another little man comes out and blows his horn. Nobody listens, so he goes back in. Why don't you straighten out your political strings so some little man can come out and blow his horn and stay here?"

That "maneuvering of puppets" involved control of the New York Demo cratic Party and Bob Wagner's political future in a state newly charged with the presence of Freshman U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy.

War Lords. The anti-Wagner coalition is composed of city and county Democratic bosses whom Wagner antagonized in 1961 by his celebrated and rather sudden stance of fighting for reform and against boss rule. These war lords include Charles Buckley of The Bronx, Peter Crotty of Buffalo and Stanley Steingut of Brooklyn. Last fall this coalition forced Wagner to accept Bobby Kennedy's candidacy for the Senate.

Now Wagner is fighting for his political future. If he loses this fight, he will still have a chance to serve a fourth term as mayor, but he would have little or no chance should he want the nomi nation for Governor in 1966, the only other office potentially open to him since Kennedy won the Senate seat. Nelson Rockefeller will probably run again, but the Democrats think he is distinctly beatable, and so the gubernatorial nomination looks worthwhile.

Bobby assured one and all that he was not involved in the fight, and as a U.S. Senator couldn't "really do very much directly." Of course he did not have to do very much--directly. But it was Kennedy nevertheless who gave the anti-Wagner forces their determination and their purpose.

Best Friends. Two weeks ago, declaring himself pained by the disarray in the party, Kennedy proposed that the leadership issue be taken up by the legislators in a secret ballot; voting in secret, they would presumably be free of their various overlords' control and break the deadlock. Wagner was pressured into accepting the plan publicly, and even signed a statement calling for such a vote. But when he thought it over, he realized that--secrecy or no secrecy--he simply didn't have the votes to win.

That is when he fired off his bribery charges, in effect bolting the agreement with Kennedy.

Wagner was widely accused of hypocrisy; as mayor of New York, in charge of one of the largest patronage domains in the U.S., he has indulged in his share of political deals and purposeful appointments. But while Wagner's air of outraged purity might strike a lot of people as ludicrous, there was a remarkable degree of cynicism and complacency in the widespread notion that this is the way things are in politics. Reported the New York Times: "Even the mayor's best friends here concede that, if the charges are true, he broke one of the inviolable laws of politics--the law that politicians, like small boys, must never, never squeal."

Asked by one reporter if he had not "broken the rules," Wagner looked incredulous. "Broken the rules! What! Disclosing something that I think is morally wrong?" He continued: "It may be suggested that the offer I have brought to light is part of a pattern accepted by usage. I can neither believe that, nor do I think that it is pertinent. Such a pattern, if it exists, would itself be abhorrent to public policy."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.