"Then came George H.W. Bush, father of the current president. We served together in Congress and when he was CIA director, he called me to tell me there was a contract out on my life by the security forces of the Condor – made up of Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. I asked if the CIA would protect me. He said no, we don’t provide personal protection. I asked, “George, what should I do?” He replied, “Ed, be very careful.”
---From Ed Koch's Commentary April 14, 2008
Ed Koch always had a rather inflated view of himself, and he is very mean to people in general. He was kind of politician who is very dirty himself, but surrounded himself with very good people.
There are politicians like Mario Cuomo in New York who were the opposite. Cuomo was a very good man himself, but surrounded himself with very bad people. Evidently, the Catholic Cuomo had a very dim view of politics, while the Jew Koch thought more highly of politics. It does not surprise me that Koch, however, felt that someone was out to get him.
He was the first mayor to install metal detectors in City Hall. So stupid. It seems to run in the office for some New York mayors. When that idiot Giuliani became mayor, he was so convinced that they were out to get him (that's before 9/11) that he made City Hall into a fortress, doing as much to limit access to the building as he could. City Hall, which was once the most open and inviting building in New York City was turned into Soviet Kremlin.
So, even if the story about Operation Condor was not true, it's something that Koch would believe. He was such an important man. Or as Koch's old friend, Councilmember Bobby Wagner Jr., alas now dead, used to say, "Even if you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you.”
More on Koch coming soon.
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