THE DECLINE AND FALL OF FRANK RIZZO:
Berry, T. Laurence
tially useless," and it probably was, but that is beside institutions of government. Although many people may the point. If a midshipman at Annapolis had received disagree with a...
...Given this tenuous Came the 1972 Nixon-McGovern tilt, and Big Frank backed Nixon...
...Should Hughes, Democrat of Iowa, summed up the situation the Navy's highest ranking officer be held to a lesser succinctly and, I think, accurately when he asked: "If standard than a midshipman...
...Milton Shapp's McQ is a film about how you just don't know whom Watergates were obscured by Richard Nixon's Water- to trust these days...
...This is his first appearance in these pages...
...truth about his partner, to say nothing of his partner's 8 March 1974: 12...
...three years away and Rizzo was already committed Frank Rizzo had indeed a political base, but it was his against Shapp...
...1975 you'll never hear of him again...
...Although many people may the point...
...pendent constituency he once might have claimed as his But-thus far at least-when he had broken with the own...
...His White Knight image evaporated like a mid-July shower on a Philadelphia sidewalk...
...and the experimentalist Superintendent of Schools within Frank Rizzo is a cop's son who became a cop...
...Ex-police commissioner that he was and not an unambiThe morning after election day, Philadelphia's Demo- tious sort, Rizzo waded headlong into the battle...
...Spector and Gola looked like sure winners...
...From that point on it was all downhill...
...the top agencies of our government cannot trust one The most serious consequence of this incident has another, how can we expect the American people to been the further erosion of public confidence in the trust their government...
...In the midst of an exchange of charges and counter-charges between himself and Pete Camiel, Rizzo agreed to take a lie-detector WAYNING TALENTS test about who had offered whom a "deal" about patronage...
...McQ must therefore learn, and learn to accept, the sordid On election day the "Lenient Four" swept to victory...
...The Democrats needed Rizzo more very little black support...
...His unfortuand respected as no other politician had been since John nate escapades beginning with the lie-detector test have F. Kennedy...
...Hoover, but he had ability and a penchant for attracting Then all hell broke loose...
...and now Frank Rizzo had failed a lie-detector test...
...Rizzo wanted his own men slated...
...He was the kind of proximating statesmanship and decor...
...He did so openly, vehemently, and greeted the Nixon re-election with jocular triumph...
...hand...
...But what could be that this Cain among Abels, this two-timing old timer, forgiven Milton Shapp and Pete Camiel could not be doesn't have any idea whom he can trust either...
...The Rizzo backing still hurt the favored but Until August, the Mayor seemed to have the upper defeated Spector-Gola ticket...
...The stage was set for a vicious intra-party brawl out, and most of the Democratic regulars obviously made between Frank Rizzo, the Italian ex-cop, and Pete it to the polls...
...Having forgiven Frank Rizzo, who came as a sort of secular ditched the murder weapon with an accomplice waiting savior to resurrect Philadelphia from its own political to receive it, the killer is shotgunned in the back as soon Hades...
...own, not the Democratic party's...
...He was T. LAURENCE BERRY is a free-lance writer presently living in hardly acting like a man with a precarious political base Philadelphia...
...Big Frank stood exposed as just another politician...
...Rizzo didn't...
...Big Frank exploded, and vowed of voters...
...He is insulated from the corruption and conspiranounce, just prior to election day when it would be too cies of the very city he would police...
...Just another politician, just like the rest of as he turns to leave...
...And as if the revelation that even for orthodox Philly politicos, and maybe not for national cops can't trust cops weren't enough, it next transpires representatives of the species either...
...It cost him dearly...
...There Now into this maelstrom of betrayal drops John Wayne no longer was a Rizzo constituency, at least not as there as McQ, a Seattle super-cop who is the partner of the had been...
...If a midshipman at Annapolis had received disagree with a particular military policy (e.g., Vieta "carbon copy" of a final exam in advance and failed nam), the public has generally perceived the nation's to report it to his superiorsy when he was later caught, military leaders to be men of integrity...
...And Philadelphia's Republicans don't want Frank Rizzo while Camiel was hardly free from the taint of political and won't take him...
...The usual assortment of "usually"deals," smoke-filled back rooms, and machine politics, reliable well-placed sources" quoted "a prominent local Rizzo was a political novice, a straight-talking, straight- GOP leader" as telling a Democratic counterpart, while shooting ex-cop who was as good as his word...
...Mayor Rizzo hired Lennox Moak, an Mayor said, in effect, damn the torpedoes and full speed aging fiscal wizard, to balance the city budget and preahead...
...Even- the third party in a feud between two gubernatorial aspitually he made Commissioner...
...The guess is here that after than vice-versa...
...Perhaps even more significant, came from an authoritarian Italian-American background for more weeks than a few Rizzo, the tough-talking, unand his attitude toward criminals was rather akin to that grammatical ex-cop adopted a demeanor reasonably apof a frontier vigilante lynch mob...
...The liberal leadership of the Philadelphia Housing Authority Maverick Mayor overplayed his hand...
...That's not far from par for the course, a veteran cop himself...
...A city inured to dirty politics stupidity in these matters...
...Even his most fercop who made the civil libertarians appreciate J. Edgar vent detractors were cautiously hoping for the best...
...He weeks of his inauguration...
...His constituency sagged its col- THE SCREEN lective shoulder...
...For the most part ing his incumbency and the state police to make Arlen the blacks wanted no part of him, and the McGovernite Spector and law enforcement in Philadelphia look bad...
...The one-time police commis- vent the tax increase Candidate Rizzo had promised sioner has two full years yet to run on his term in City Philadelphians would not come if he were elected...
...Philadelphians were deep- rants: Philadelphia's Republican District Attorney Arlen ly divided about Frank Rizzo...
...Philadelphia has a heavy Demofice in view of his close professional relationship with cratic registration majority...
...Senator Harold have stopped the service from expelling him...
...But, like the eighteenth- For the first few months of his administration, all was century English monarch before him, Philadelphia's well and good...
...And Hall, but, barring a miraculous comeback, Big Frank is true to his word, Big Frank eased out of office the finished as a political force in the Quaker City...
...liberals wouldn't have touched him with a ten-foot pole...
...If the Democrats ever run him again for anything, party he and not they had proved correct, and he had it will be completely without liberal support and with his own constituency...
...Now, that perno claim that the paper was "essentially useless" would ception is likely to change for the worse...
...there was a light voter turnSpector...
...He's going to have late for them to respond, the names of four judges he to be a pretty super cop just to compensate for his own considered "too lenient...
...The White House incumbent, of Spector's to back the Spector-Gola team in November, no big sacri- party, turned off more...
...defeat...
...The film begins with the assassination gate, and if a grand jury was investigating Pete Camiel, of two cops by a man who is afterwards revealed to be well, so what...
...THE DECLINE AND FALL OF FRANK ]RIZZO T. LAURENCE BERRY The kind of cop who made civil libertarians appreciate J. Edgar Hoover Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I his Cromwell, and situation and the Rizzo temperament, trouble was inGeorge III might well have profited by their examples...
...He cratic party leadership found itself stuck with a Mayor- came down squarely on the side of the Republican elect who was offensive to two of the most important Spector...
...Then came the turning point...
...Even by today's standards this is them," echoed through the taprooms and the pizzerias a pretty acrobatic plot so far, especially when you conof Kensington and Manayunk and South Philly...
...troller (of Philadelphia) against Arlen Spector and Tom Spector, a shopworn candidate cynically using the elecGola...
...Camiel passed the test...
...Confident of his staying alone on a cabin cruiser, we sense at once that McQ is power, he proclaimed with fanfare that he would an- at sea...
...assassinated assassin...
...All of which militated toward a GOP Camiel, the Polish beer-baron...
...The last straw came in the spring of 1973...
...Party Chairman tion as a springboard for higher office, turned off a lot Pete Camiel said no...
...In the Big Frank was still a prospective mayoral candidate, that white ethnic blue-collar wards, Frank Rizzo was loved "that fella (Rizzo) will ruin your party...
...ernor Milton Shapp, who, realizing even at that early Running for mayor as a Democrat, he won the elec- date he could scarcely run successfully for re-election tion by carrying white-ethnic, blue-collar wards along on the basis of his achievements in office, was maximizwith traditionally Republican areas...
...Over the course of the film behind-the-scenes revolted at dirty politics in-the-open...
...Meanwhile, the gubernatorial election was still elements of the rank-and-file membership of the party...
...evitable...
...First, Rizzo found himself attention and he rose rapidly through the ranks...
...So might have Frank L. Rizzo...
...Perhaps because we find him living Still Big Frank didn't give up...
...There was no middle Spector and Pennsylvania's Democratic incumbent Govground-either you loved him or you hated him...
...The Commonweal: 11 Democrats had to choose what seemed at the time like So did the rest of the Democratic ticket, including the a sacrificial ticket to run for District Attorney and Con- nonentities opposing Arlen Spector and Tom Gola...
...He had broken with the party, when it suited enervated, if not destroyed, his strength with the indehis purposes, and with part of the party constituency...
...Teddy sider that all this happens while we're still waiting for Kennedy had his Chappaquiddick, Nixon his Watergate, the credits to end...
Vol. 100 • March 1974 • No. 1
