Edward I. Koch 1924-2013: Some Remembrances
I was proud to consider myself a friend of Ed Koch. Despite obvious disagreements, Koch remained supportive of my work, and very often I would get a brief email indicating how he appreciated what I had written about the need to support Israel and to criticize its opponents. I heard from him regularly, the last time on January 2 when he wrote to compliment me for a recent PJ Media column criticizing the nomination of Chuck Hagel and another on the anti-Israel positions of Tom Friedman: “Your commentaries on Hagel and Friedman were superb.” I have no doubt that were he still with us he would have been a lone Democrat who would have commented negatively on Hagel’s testimony yesterday.
Last year when I was openly critical of him for supporting Obama’s re-election, he responded simply that he saw things differently than I did, and he particularly disagreed with my assessment that Democrats were not defending Israel as boldly as Republicans were. Koch argued that he was sure I would not like it if he had insinuated I was against Israel’s interest because I wasn’t a Democrat, and that he thought it important that support of Israel come from both sides of the aisle.
I never felt comfortably calling him Ed, and would address him as “Mr. Mayor” or “Mayor Koch.” I last talked with him personally during the presidency of George W. Bush, when he attended a speech by the president at a fundraising dinner for a Jewish organization in Washington, D.C. Koch walked up to me, addressing me, as he often did when I saw him, as “the bravest man in America.” His judgment, which he often repeated, was not sarcastic, although hardly deserved. I think he admired me because when I spent time with him in 1987 — which I will soon turn to – he appreciated my outspoken willingness to say what I thought about leftist demagogues when others were either silent or deferential in their presence. Koch, as we all know, always said what he thought, and more than often caught hell for doing so.
The last time I heard him speak publicly was during the counter-session (which Roger L. Simon also attended) at the United Nations to oppose growing anti-Israeli sentiment at the international body. It was there that Koch announced he had rescinded his critical editorial written a few days earlier in the New York Daily News on Barack Obama’s views towards the Jewish state. He had met with the president one day before, he told us, and Obama had assured him that he was a firm supporter of Israel. Koch believed, as he himself acknowledged a short while ago, that he always thought Obama would betray Israel, although as he put it, he didn’t think it would happen so quickly.
Back then, however, he seemed to really think his op-ed had convinced the president to change course, and he desperately wanted to believe that Obama was most sincere at his private meeting.
For those interested in a critical overview of Koch’s role as mayor of New York, so far the best assessments are by Benjamin Smith writing today on the website of the New York Sun and one by John Podhoretz today in Contentions. Also worthwhile is Matthew Cooper’s assessment of Koch’s new liberalism in the National Journal. You can, of course, all read the overview in the lengthy obituary in today’s New York Times.
What I want to mention, however, is an event that Koch sponsored while mayor that everyone seems to have forgotten about, although at the time the mayor was vigorously attacked for it. In 1987, at the time of escalating warfare in Central America, a growing revolutionary threat in El Salvador, and a civil war in Nicaragua between the Sandinistas and the contras (the armed opposition to the Sandinistas by peasants and business opponents of the country’s revolutionary junta), Ed Koch decided to see if he could contribute to the peace process introduced by Costa Rica’s President Oscar Arias by putting together a New York City mission to Central America.
So far, I have not seen it mentioned in any of the discussions of Koch’s mayoralty, and to a certain extent, it certainly was a footnote. But the very idea grated the New York liberals.
I recall editorials chastising the mayor for even implying that the city had its own foreign policy, and calling for him to disband the mission and to cancel his scheduled trip. Koch replied that he only was trying to work with President Arias and trying to see if he could in any way contribute to his effort. What really galled Koch, however, was his memory that years earlier he had welcomed Sandinista commandante Daniel Ortega (now president of Nicaragua) to New York City and, in a public ceremony at City Hall, given him the keys to the city. As a congressman, he had been a fierce opponent of the Somoza dictatorship and hence had welcomed its overthrow by the young revolutionaries, a decision he had come to deeply regret.
He, like other well-meaning liberals, had been conned by Ortega’s sweet talk, only to find he was a low-rent version of Fidel Castro.
A good politician, Koch was careful to include some obvious leftists in his delegation to Central America. One was a Hispanic Marxist who was president of Hostos Community College in the Puerto Rican district of the Bronx; another was an African American woman who was president of the New York Urban League. The remaining six members included an African American union officer, radio magnate R. Peter Straus; Richard Ravitch, then CEO of the Bowery Bank and a former head of the New York Transit Authority; a Hispanic who was head of a Hispanic Catholic center; and former Kennedy speechwriter and Democratic player Ted Sorensen. Koch appointed me to the mission as a result of the suggestion of my friend, the late Eric Breindel, who was then editorial page editor of the New York Post.
Before the mission left, Koch convened a meeting at Gracie Mansion with President Arias, who later would receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his suggested plan for bringing peace to Central America. Arias had critics on his left and his right, but he made it clear that he was a strong opponent of the Sandinistas, whom he rightfully regarded as enemies of democracy. As he told us, ”We may soon see the Communist government of Nicaragua using force against workers, students, peasants, and intellectuals.” The prediction was all too accurate, as their government organized mobs — called turbas (divine mobs) — which they regularly called out to beat up would-be opponents and protesters.
The press and media were hostile to Koch, but Arias was ecstatic, giving the mission his blessings, hoping that it would help lead to regional reconciliation. Although the mission would travel to Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Costa Rica, the New York Times did not cover it or issue one report — although its own correspondent, Stephen Kinzer, was permanently in Nicaragua. The New York Post, which favored the mission, sent its top reporter and covered the trip each day, as did the New York City TV news divisions of the major networks.
Arriving in Managua on November 5, Koch issued a statement of the mission’s goals, stressing our desire to help reach the goals of “reconciliation, amnesty, democratization, a negotiated ceasefire, and an end to the cross-border supplying of irregular forces.” This addressed in particular the supply of arms to the Marxist rebels in El Salvador and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua by the Cuban regime and the Soviets. Koch’s statement called as well for economic aid, refugee relief, and moving away from extremes towards “the democratic center.” It was intentionally ambiguous, and did not work to cease tensions within our group between the left and the right.
The most visible sign of this occurred at a giant Sandinista rally held in Managua where Ortega announced a new change in strategy. For months, he and his comrades argued that they would not negotiate with the contras, who were in fact gaining militarily and scoring defeats against the well-equipped Sandinista army. They would only negotiate, he had always said, with the United States, whom Ortega referred to as the “puppet-masters.” But at the rally, he abruptly shocked the audience by saying he would now negotiate directly with the armed opposition, through the offices of the archbishop of Nicaragua. As he said these words, Comandante Bayardo Arce, head of the party apparatus and a known hard-line Marxist-Leninist, visibly grimaced. At the same time, however, Ortega said that his ruling junta would continue to stamp upon the domestic civic opponents of the regime, and would continue to call out the government’s thugs to crack the heads of those who dared to publicly protest.
Our delegation noticed immediately upon arriving that eight seats had been put on stage, obviously meant for us to sit in. They were directly behind Ortega, who was scheduled to introduce us during his speech. Koch told us that he would inform the Sandinistas that we were not there to give Ortega or his regime its support, but to speak in favor of democratization and peace. To go on stage, he rightfully said, would make it appear to the world that New York’s mayor and his delegation were backing the Sandinistas.
At that moment, the two radical women in the delegation, Hostos President Isaura Santiago-Santiago and Harriet Richardson Michel, announced that they were not going to insult the Sandinistas, and would go on stage and offer them their support. Koch, madder than I have ever seen him, ordered them to stay put, or he would dismiss them from the delegation and send them home. They retreated immediately, and they later accused me of being responsible for Koch’s decision, since earlier I had openly challenged an assertion by a Sandinista official that they were not communists, and had denounced their private hidden agenda.
The rally, it turned out, had all the trappings of an orchestrated, fascist-style rally. Koch remarked at a press conference he called later in the evening that the rally, with its bevy of floodlights and screaming pronouncements by Comandante Ortega, made him think of Hitler’s famous Nuremberg rally captured in the film by Riefenstahl.
The leftists among our group blanched and held in their anger at Koch.
The last event of our trip was a meeting with Ortega in a middle-class suburb of Managua that Koch remarked made him think he was in Great Neck, Long Island. It had been scheduled for 11 p.m., rather late, but the comandante made us wait until 3 a.m. — a typical trick of leftist dictators meant to impress upon us how busy they were, and how much more important they were than those who have to idle away hours just to meet with them.
At that meeting, Ortega defended his regime’s use of the armed thugs who beat up would-be protesters, characterizing their actions as spontaneous outbursts of popular revolutionary enthusiasm, while everyone present knew and had seen evidence that they were carefully controlled shock troops of the state security apparatus, bused from one place to the other in government trucks to stage attacks on opponents of the regime.
In that little-remembered trip, Ed Koch revealed that he was, as he put it so often, a “liberal with sanity,” a man who had no truck with Marxist-Leninists and those of the hard Left.
He never lost his sense of humor. I recall a few comments he made during that trip that revealed his sarcastic wit. As he walked to the presidential palace in El Salvador, surrounded by armed Marines at a moment when rebel attacks were regularly taking place, we walked over some plants. Koch looked down and said: “Don’t step on the marijuana.” At another time, the morning Sandinista newspaper greeted the delegation’s arrival in Managua with a hostile editorial attacking Koch, whom they accused of wanting to foment a world war. Koch read it and turned to us, referring to his toughest U.S. critic among the journalists, Village Voice columnist and reporter Jack Newfield, and said, “I didn’t know Newfield was writing editorials for the Sandinista paper. When did he arrive in Managua?” At a morning press conference, he announced that the press would notice he was meeting with a member of the legislature who was a firm supporter of Ortega and the Marxists whose second name was Hooker. He said he could see the New York Daily News headline tomorrow: “Koch meets with hooker.”
There were many other examples of his constant good cheer, his seriousness about working against left-wing dictatorships, and his willingness to do this with the firm opposition to the trip from entire New York City editorial staffs of the major newspapers (with the exception of the Post) as well as the left-liberal intellectuals.
I am proud of having been selected to be on that trip with Mayor Koch, and to subsequently have had the opportunity to talk and reach out to him by email on Israel and other political questions. Today, when it seems that all centrist and liberal Democrats are abdicating their responsibility to even question the suitability of Chuck Hagel to be our next defense secretary, it is more apparent than ever how much our country needs the disappearing kind of liberal that Ed Koch represented so well.
He will be sorely missed. R.I.P.
” Koch believed, as he himself acknowledged a short while ago, that he always thought Obama would betray Israel, although as he put it, he didn’t think it would happen so quickly.”
So if he always thought Obama would betray Israel, then why did he endorse him for President again? He could have endorsed Romney or just kept quiet. The only thing that makes any sense is he put Obama’s reelection above Israel’s survival.
Ed Koch was a life-long Democrat.
Not a knee-jerk Democrat without an independent thought of his own, but still, a Loyal Democrat.
It can be difficult to turn your back on the party you have served all your life, even if it is lead by someone you have come to distrust and despise.
FeralCat, have you never taken longer to realize that a long-time friend could not be trusted that to condemn someone you never really liked or trusted anyhow?
I may not be a cheetah, but I ain’t that slow.
“Today, when it seems that all centrist and liberal Democrats are abdicating their responsibility to even question the suitability of Chuck Hagel to be our next defense secretary, it is more apparent than ever how much our country needs the disappearing kind of liberal that Ed Koch represented so well.”
To me his last act will always be his supporting Obama for reelection. maybe he thought he could have things both ways. Well you can’t.
In 1987…Ed Koch decided to see if he could contribute to the peace process introduced by Costa Rica’s President Oscar Arias by putting together a New York City mission to Central America.So far, I have not seen it mentioned in any of the discussions of Koch’s mayoralty, and to a certain extent, it certainly was a footnote. But the very idea grated the New York liberals.
What is interesting about the reaction of New York liberals to Mayor Koch’s going to Nicaragua is that many planeloads of Sandalistas made the pilgrimage from the US to Nicaragua during this time to pay their respects to the Sandinistas. Apparently the NY liberals suspected that Mayor Koch was not about to bow down to the Sandinistas.
Lefties from all over country went down there to go pick coffee beans like their parents had gone to Cuba to cut sugar cane.
Koch did not unceccesarily alienate people. We can internalize his good cheer and learn to draw people to our side.
He was a frequent companion of fomer Miss America, Bess Myerson. Something that I will never be able to claim.
Anybody with a brain larger than a pea knew that Daniel Ortega was a SOB, communist, Castro/Leninist wannabe dictator.
Only those self styled American “intellectuals,” “activists,” and “progressives” were stupid and dumb enough to believe otherwise. You know, the useful idiots.
Then again, many of the same sorts of useful idiots really , honestly believed that Lenin and Stalin had established heaven on earth, despite these brutes exterminating 20 to 50 million souls.
Despite 90 YEARS !!!! of experience observing communists destroy their own nations, impoverish their citizens, and deny basic liberties to their citizens, we have the Hollywood elites (all multi millionaires), academics, and other assorted useful idiots singing the praises of Castro and Chavez.
All you really need to do is read Mr. Radosh’s Commies and you will know that”Mistakes were made, this time we will get it right.” This is how they ignore all the desperate things they have to account for, oh yea they never account for any of their errors or anything.
I didn’t really pay that much attention to politics, or economics, or to a lot of things. I was kind of stupid, really.
But time has shown me that he was one of the better mayors we’d had in this city. He had spunk, was honest to the point of being brusque, and was smart enough to to be a straight-line anything.
He blundered and offended the Black community in New York, and they got as a result one of their own, and a milquetoast of their own.
New York is a city that is thought to be Liberal, and has a lot of them. But spend enough time here, and Conservatives will discover that they have more soul mates here than they realized. It is a place of commerce, and always has been. And Conservatism is about facilitating commerce.
It is also a place where, were a Conservative candidate to talk openly about the limits of what government can do, they would have to look no further than those half-dead and bloated London Plain trees that push up homeowners sidewalks, generating repairs bills the homeowners have to pay – homeowners who often would be happy to pay to have that tree that is costing them all this money removed, down to the stump and root ball. But they cannot. Because the city owns those trees and does not have the staff to manage its urban forest.
Conservatives could do very well in New York City. Come here, investigate which are the issues to highlight, and speak about them. People here would listen. And they would respect the guts and chutzpah it took to come into what you have considered for so long to be enemy territory.
It was another time. Koch made it possible for people to move to the right. Parodoxical, but true.
He was the only mayor to push back against the increasingly unhinged and outrageous demands of the AIDS activists and homeless activists — two groups who insisted that anything less than everything plus more was prejudice. And they pocketed extraordinary sums. You had to see it to believe the venality — perpetrated on the backs of other medically fragile and dying people with less politically resonant diseases.
He was less successful with the race hustlers. Forget Ortega — the real shame was seeing Koch pal up with Sharpton, who should be rotting in a jail cell somewhere.
Great human being. He was New York City.
THE MIRACULOUS DEATH OF ED KOCH
The great three term Jewish mayor of the world’s greatest city (victim of the deadliest Islamic terror attack in human history) died yesterday February 1st on the 11th anniversary of journalist Daniel Pearl’s death-a brutal anti-Semitic beheading ordered by al-Qaida thug Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of 9/11. That the timing of Hizzoner’s death was providentially arranged by a Higher Power to coincide with the date of Pearl’s death is proved by the miracle that Koch’s gravestone-erected years ago at Trinity Church Cemetery-is inscribed with Pearl’s last words: “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.” Ed Koch, a proud, fierce patriotic American and pro-Israeli Jew said in a recent interview: “Pearl’s statement is as important as the most holy of all statements in Jewish ritual; and every Saturday [at synagogue] we ought to say it.”
Let the miracle of Ed Koch dying on the date of Daniel Pearl’s death be a stern warning to all Islamic enemies of America and Israel: God and history are not on your side.
POSTSCRIPT
ED KOCH IN THE AFTERLIFE
Ed Koch to God: Lord, how’m I doing?
God to Ed Koch: I am making you Mayor of Heaven.
Thank you for this ‘there is no such thing as a coincidence’ re: Daniel Pearl.
I knew about Mayor Koch’s gravestone, but not that it has been eleven years…
Meaning no disrespectto anyone, I have a plot at historic Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, on the last polt to be open, and it is halfway between Duke Ellington next to Miles Davis, and to my west is the second least noted gravestone in Woodlawn: Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Am fairly certain he got Mayor of Heaven for all eternity
[the least noted grave in Woodlawn is that of Robert Moses, of Caro's "The Power Broker". For the man who most shaped the built geography of downstate New York, you need a map to find his spot]
I digress because I accidentally moved to the wild upper west side of Manhattan in 1978, gave up in 1991, and trying not to think about those years.
Thank you, Mr. Radosh, for the only piece I am reading about Mayor Koch. btw, NYC DOES have it’s own foreign policy.
I wonder if he had watched that Hagel hearing, and maybe broke his heart.
So this former NYC Mayor was Jewish, Jewish, and Jewish. As opposed to New Yorker, and since they named it twice, New Yorker, New Yorker. And totally tangential to American, American, and American.
There is your predicament in a nutshell.
‘Koch walked up to me, addressing me, as he often did when I saw him, as “the bravest man in America.” His judgment, which he often repeated, was not sarcastic, although hardly deserved.’
This is beyond mockery. I give up!
Good! Now don’t come back…
Koch sounds like a true New Yorker: Sensible in some ways, tribally ignorant in other ways. Why would Koch and most in NYC vote for Obama? Crazy.
Only a smiling visitant here to share the love (:, btw outstanding style and design. “Justice is always violent to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes.” by Daniel Defoe.