The Unmaking of a Mayor

The birds and beasts were there—reporters, several dozen of them; television cameras from all the networks; newscasters from all the radio stations.

The meeting was at the Overseas Press Club. Neal Freeman, a young man (twenty-four) of enormous talent and savvy who had worked at National Review during the preceding two years, was in charge of the arrangements. It had been decided that the Conservative Party would not officially participate in the press conference because to do so would be to anticipate the Conservative Party’s ratification of my candidacy, which would have been improper. So that it was, formally speaking, just myself and Freeman.

A half-hour before the thing began, looking over one of the hundred copies of my prepared announcement, I suddenly noticed that by error the stenographer had reproduced an early rather than my finished draft. Everyone in the office of National Review was transformed, during the ensuing minutes, into typists, stencil-cutters, mimeographers, Xeroxers, as we rushed to put together at least a half-dozen copies to give out to those at the press conference with the most pressing deadlines. The few minutes that were to be given over to a hasty conference to attempt to anticipate the most embarrassing questions the press might ask (“What exactly did Senator Goldwater say to you when you spoke to him?” “Why didn’t you oppose John Lindsay in the Republican primary?” “Who will compose the balance of your ticket?”) were spent typing copy, in some cases hunt-and-peck, stapling, collating.

It was a terribly hot day. The large room was without air-conditioning. Twice I began, twice the television crews stopped me as they made adjustments. Finally, “Okay, go ahead.”

I began again:

I propose to run for Mayor of New York.

I am a Republican. And I intend, for so long as I find it possible to do so—which is into the visible future—to remain a Republican. I seek the honorable designation of the Conservative Party, because the Republican designation is not, in New York, available nowadays to anyone in the mainstream of Republican opinion. As witness the behavior of the Republican Party’s candidate, Mr. John Lindsay, who, having got hold of the Republican Party, now disdains the association; and spends his days, instead, stressing his acceptability to the leftwardmost party in New York, the Liberal Party.