Giuliani as His Father’s Son (article)

My research of Rudolph (Rudy) Giuliani, a leading contender for the Republican nomination for president, has revealed him to be an extremely self-absorbed, opportunistic politician of questionable judgment, who has major personality issues. These characteristics make his election to the presidency problematic. In this essay I explore his childhood, family, psychology, and aspects of his personality

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that would influence his presidency. Considerable emphasis is on his relationship to his father, Harold, a convicted bank robber and tough loan-shark collector for his Mafia brother-in-law, who is an enormously important influence in the life of the former mayor of New York City who aspires to be America’s first Italian American, and forty-fourth, president. For example, in 2000 the Mayor said, “I miss my father every day of my life. And he’s a-very, very important reason for why I’m standing here as the mayor of New York City” (Andrew Kirtzman, Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City, 2000, p. 278). A postscript to this essay probes the countertransference of the psychohistorian, while a companion piece, “Election Free Associations on Giuliani,” examines the psychology of the fear of and acceptance of immigrants, the relationship of Giuliani to Christian fundamentalists and middle-America, and a variety of other subjects.

Rudy’s parents were both of Italian descent, with his mother’s family coming from the south of Italy and his father’s family from Tuscany in the north. His paternal grandfather was a tailor and his paternal grandmother, Evangelina (1889-1970), was a seamstress who made dresses for the entire family. His widowed maternal grandmother, Adelina (1882-1976), lived with the Giulianis for much of Rudy’s childhood. She is variously described as “affable” and “obstinate,” the latter in reference to not speaking for two years to a daughter-in-law who was neither Italian nor Catholic and had a child from a previous marriage (Wayne Barrett, Rudy: An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani, 2000, pp. 43-45). The family was Catholic, but not very observant.

Helen C. D’Avanzo, Rudy’s mother, was born on September 26, 1909 in Brooklyn, New York and died while suffering from dementia shortly before her ninety-third birthday on September 8, 2002. She was a dark-featured, shy, proper girl, who was such an excellent student that she skipped two grades and graduated at age sixteen as “first in her high school class” as reported by her son (Rudolph W. Giuliani with Ken Kurzson, Leadership, 2002, p. 285). Future formal education to become a teacher did not occur for reasons that are variously given by members of the family as the death of her father, asthma, a hoarse voice, pleurisy, and pneumonia. Her work history is cloudy. She stayed home with her son for many years even though her mother lived with the Giulianis—one relative said that his grandmother “practically brought him [Rudy] up” (Barrett, Giuliani, pp. 20, 33). Helen encouraged her son’s education (“she made me her special student”), wanting him to achieve something special in life and not just be “an animal,” which Helen associated with fighting (Giuliani, Leadership, pp. 268, 85). In her early years she loved to dance the Charleston and would dye her hair blonde for social occasions. Her five brothers were policemen, a fireman, and a gangster.

Rudy’s father, Harold Angelo Giuliani (1908-1981), an inch under six-foot tall with a solid build and fists he was eager to use, saw the world through Coke bottle-thick glasses as he grew up on the streets of East Harlem. Though trained as a plumber’s helper, he remained economically dependent on his parents into his twenties. After dropping out of high school at age fifteen, he was arrested for burglary and sentenced by New York City Children’s Court to probation. Apparently in response to frequent beatings at the hands of his father, Harold learned to box and was professionally taught by a local trainer. Though his poor eyesight kept him out of the ring professionally, he was a ferocious pugilist who pummeled anyone who dared to call him “four-eyes” or otherwise offended him.

The couple met at a party in 1929 or 1930. In this era of the Great Depression their dating involved dances and socials in homes, moonlight strolls, picnics, and an occasional movie in Times Square. The courtship lasted seven years, partly because of the doubts Helen and some of her five brothers had about the “terrible temper” of her suitor who signed his love letters “your savage” after an incident in which she called him a “savage” for pulling a driver out of his car when it stopped for a light and hitting him for calling out to the couple, “Ain’t love grand” (Barrett, Giuliani, p. 14).

Harold was inclined to be violent in reaction to slights to the honor of any woman. To the extent he did not depend on his parents, he apparently made his living as a plumber’s helper and as a criminal. Marriage was delayed by his arrest for a daring midday Manhattan robbery of a milkman at gunpoint. After the reported intimidation of the milkman by associates of “Joseph Starrett,” Giuliani’s alias, his role in the robbery was minimized, leading to a lighter punishment. After being sentenced to two to

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five years he ended up serving a year and four months in the New York State correctional facility at Ossining (Sing Sing Prison) and three and a half years on parole. A psychiatrist who examined Harold prior to his incarceration described him as a deviant “of the aggressive, egocentric type,” and found him to have “developed a sense of inferiority … accentuated on account of his prolonged idleness and dependence on his parents.” Because of the guilt (and perhaps self-pity) felt by the criminal, the psychiatrist thought Giuliani had a favorable prognosis for “social rehabilitation” but was “rather dubious as to the prognosis in regard to improvement in personality” (Barrett, Giuliani, p. 17).

A year after his release from Sing Sing in October 1936, the couple married despite Helen’s concern about her fiancé’s violent tendencies and limited economic opportunities. Since many of his jobs were off the books it is hard to trace his employment—his son says he was a salesman, which never appears to have been the case since he did not have the personality for this line of work. Harold clearly worked as a muscle-man collection agent for his brother-in-law Leo D’Avanzo, who ran a gambling and loansharking operation from a Brooklyn bar and restaurant. Later Harold became a partner in the restaurant—also referred to as a “tavern” and then without the criminal aspects of the business—with a policeman brother-in-law after Leo had to move upstate because of a dispute with another criminal family.

Rudolph William Louis (Rudy) Giuliani was born at one hour and forty-nine minutes on October 7, 1944 in Brooklyn, New York and grew up among related policemen, firemen, and criminals as well as their wives, mothers, and daughters. He was an only child who carried the dreams of his family for respectability and great success in America. Below I will briefly outline his educational and professional career prior to discussing his relationship with his father.

Rudy grew up mostly on Long Island away from the racially mixed city—his father did not like living around African Americans, who he thought were inferior (Barrett, Giuliani, p. 64). When he was age seven the family moved to Garden City, where he attended St. Anne’s Catholic School. Subsequently, he commuted back to Brooklyn to attend Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School from which he graduated in 1961 with a В average and many extracurricular activities, including president of the sophomore class. Also in 1961, the family moved to North Bellmore. In this period Rudy considered becoming a missionary priest, but decided against it partly because his father was ill at the time and partly because he discovered he liked girls too much. He majored in political philosophy at Manhattan College in Riverdale in the Bronx, graduating in 1965. He made Law Review at New York University where he graduated cum laude in 1968. After a legal clerkship he worked for the Department of Justice, spent some time in private practice, and then became U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he would come to public attention, making his political career possible and leading to his service as Mayor of New York City from 1994-2001. He did a good job of cleaning up crime (during a national period of falling urban crime rates) as well as the dirty streets of the City, despite a tendency to micromanage and to antagonize others with his confrontational manner. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 put him on the national stage at a time when his personal life was in disarray and his poll ratings had reached a low point.

Getting a clear picture of the childhood of Rudolph William Louis Giuliani, or of any politician amidst a presidential campaign, is a real challenge. Wayne Barrett, who has done extensive research including numerous interviews of family members and associates, has an extremely low opinion of Giuliani’s veracity in his numerous interviews and press releases (Barrett, Giuliani, pp. 466-467). Fortunately there are numerous books and articles on the former Mayor, most rather critical. His book Leadership I read and listened to as an audio recording. Ever since running for mayor in 1993 he has been closely observed, with reporters digging into his family background and life. The Mayor was usually uncooperative with reporters, as in 2000 when a Daily News writer brought forth evidence of his father’s record as a convicted armed robber and loan-shark collection agent. He responded that “My father died 19 years ago and the details of his life died with him” and then stressed how the senior Giuliani had emphasized the need for his son to be honest (Lisa L. Colangelo, “Rudy Mum on Dad’s Past,” Daily News online, July 5 2000). There is a tendency for him to exaggerate in telling stories, a trait Wayne Barrett reports that Giuliani learned from his maternal grandmother (Barrett, Giuliani, p. 23). An example of this

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exaggeration may be reflected in an aunt’s recollecting that his father bought little Rudy a Yankee hat, rather than a full Yankee pinstripe uniform, which is how he tells the story. Turning to his childhood and adolescence, I found adequate materials to start building a psychobiography.

Rudolph Giuliani was an eagerly awaited son. After years of trying to have a baby, including a miscarriage, his parents welcomed his birth. He was smothered with attention and called “the little prince” by some in the family. Helen’s mother Adelina spent the most time with the energetic child and was the financial bedrock of the family (Barrett, Giuliani, pp. 20-21). As a toddler he had a “nervous tic in one eye” and had some trouble sleeping then and later in life (Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober, Giuliani: Flawed or Flawless?, 2007, p. 21).

Harold Giuliani wanted his son Rudy to be tough, giving him boxing gloves at age two and teaching him to box as a toddler and then throughout his teenage years. He described fights to his son “in great detail” and “repeated endlessly” that in boxing “the most important skill was to remain calm” (Giuliani, Leadership, p. 265). When he was five years old a policeman-uncle encouraged him, with the promise of reward, to stand up to a bully two years older and twenty-five pounds heavier. This he did successfully, only to be slapped by his mother for fighting and then again for not wanting to apologize to the beaten bully whose mother was demanding satisfaction. She also promised that his father would give little Rudy a licking when he got home. She feared that “my father [was] turning me into an animal” by teaching him boxing. The “licking” never happened since Harold was too amazed and proud of his son to inflict punishment on this occasion.

There was also collusion between father and son. When Harold was supposed to “spank” or “whack” young Rudy in the basement, he gave him boxing lessons instead with Helen none the wiser—at least according to her son. Harold, “always unhappy about the move” to Brooklyn from Manhattan, “declared that he would exact revenge against my mother [Helen] and her entire family,” devout Dodger fans, by raising Rudy “as a Yankee fan” (Giuliani, Leadership, p. 208). Baseball cards, indoctrination in Yankee greatness, and a pinstripe uniform turned the boy into a rabid Yankee fan. But this came at a price, since he would be pushed in the mud and, he reports, nearly lynched on one occasion by Yankee-hating Dodger fans—until his grandmother chased the kids away. This toughening up of his son also reflected Harold’s recreating aspects of his own childhood—in this case fighting because the other children made fun of his thick glasses or failed to show the proper respect for a woman. Rudy learned to fight with his quick tongue and, to a much lesser extent, with his fists. In college with his first serious girlfriend, a “leggy, full-lipped blonde” named Kathy Livermore, Rudy punched someone for just saying “the wrong thing”—”dust decked him” was how Kathy put it (Paul Schwartzman, “Love and the Law,” Daily News online, May 13, 1997). Thus, much as his father had in earlier years, Rudy resorted to violence in defense of the honor of a woman he cared about.

Corporal punishment was a reality of Giuliani’s life, although most of the details are not known. As the newly elected mayor he told a reporter that the brothers and nuns who struck him at school were justified in striking him because he “often deserved it” (Todd S. Purdum, “The New Mayor,” New York Times online, January 3, 1994). His parents specifically thanked Brother Aloysius Kevin in high school for straightening out their son by disciplining him with a smack in the head in the previous year and providing weekly reports on his behavior (Barrett, Giuliani, p. 39).

In contrast, a reporter wrote, “he confesses that he cannot touch his own rambunctious 7-year-old son Andrew.” One of his newly appointed aides said in a tone described as “shock” and “fondness,” that “You want to smack him [Andrew] sometimes, because there’s no discipline at all. That kid owns him” (Purdum, “New Mayor”). When observing the two of them together on television news coverage, my wife and I often commented on the boy’s inappropriate behavior such as speaking to his father while the Mayor was giving a speech and otherwise drawing attention to himself. Marital discord seems to be a major factor in the son’s lack of discipline.

Harold Giuliani was and is, long after his death, an idealized father, even in the face of his criminal past becoming public. A small indication of this is his son, who is a few inches shorter, describing him as six-feet-tall when in fact he was an inch shorter than that. When confronted with his father’s criminal past by a Daily News reporter, Rudy stressed

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his paternal appreciation, declaring that this “very, very fine man,” this “complete man,” had an enormous influence on him. For example, “the influence my father had on me was to drill into my skull from the time I was a little boy that you had to be very honest and that you had to be honest with yourself first and honest with other people second” (Colangelo, “Rudy Mum on Dad’s Past”). He remembered Harold’s saying “over and over again” that “you can’t steal” confused his seven-year old son who had no thoughts of stealing (Eric Pooley, “Mayor of the World,” Time Magazine Man of the Year Special Issue, 2001, online).

In speaking of leadership, the former mayor turns again and again to the lessons his father taught him and their impact on him. Since his father loved the sport and had taught him boxing, as a successful prosecutor Rudy proudly sent a newspaper clipping to his father describing him cross-examining a witness in the style of a boxer. A lesson of boxing was to always “remain calm in a crisis,” which Rudy utilized in the courtroom. Harold’s belief that getting the respect of people was much more important than getting their love was imprinted on his son. He says that growing up as a Yankees fan in Brooklyn as a consequence of his father’s influence caused him to develop character. “My father had always told me to remain calm in a crisis” and to “Be your own man.” He remembers Harold as always helping people by taking them to the hospital or helping them to find a job. His death was a blow to his son. Alan Placa, a friend of forty years, reported in 1997 that he only saw Rudy cry twice, on November 22, 1963 when his hero John Kennedy died and when his father died of prostate cancer in 1981 (Paul Schwartzman, “Love and the Law,” Daily News online, May 13, 1997).

Behind the pugnacious loan-shark collector, baseball bat-wielding bartender, and idealized father was the man who struggled with the “inferiority complex” and personality issues identified by the psychiatrist when he was in his mid-twenties. Harold was a “born worrier,” a “hypochondriac” who would be “practically bed-ridden” at age fifty-three, spending his time in his backyard in a lawn chair “all pale and terrible-looking.” An emotional crisis occurred after he was arrested for “loitering” when he was caught in a men’s room doing knee bends with his pants down. The charges were dropped, but he could not let go of the humiliation. He was a man who had trouble getting along with others and holding a regular job, who had a “nervous breakdown” (Barrett, Giuliani, pp. 41, 7, 8). There is a disconnection between the reality of Harold’s life and Rudy’s remembrances of him, such as “My father was a very optimistic person and that lesson was built into my head, maybe into my emotions” (“Selling New York: A Vision of the Fifties,” Sunday Times, November 7, 1993).

Though he felt closer to his father (Strober, Giuliani, p. 22), naturally Rudy Giuliani learned a great deal from his mother. She lived into her nineties, in an apartment in the same building where he resided on East 86^th Street during much of his marriage to Donna Hanover. For example, he declared in 1994, “I make mistakes, but I try very hard to learn. It’s a lesson from my mother. She always said everyone makes mistakes, but it is a sign of intelligence not to make the same mistake twice” (Purdum, “New Mayor”). She “exerted tremendous influence on my education. She loved to teach.” Helen “adored books” teaching him a reverence for them and the worlds they opened up. Her son describes her as a natural teacher who loved history and would have been a teacher had she been able to continue her education beyond high school.

As mentioned earlier, Helen encouraged her son’s education, wanting him to achieve something special in life and not be a “bum” involved in fisticuffs. He reports that under her influence he “couldn’t wait to take a history course in school…. I treasured my textbooks, and would touch and smell them, fascinated by the worlds depicted inside.” Even when he grew bored by certain subjects (he discovered girls and skipped school to play baseball), he writes that he did not resist the discipline of his “mother’s strict schedule of homework first, play later,” because his mother had created in him “a great love of acquiring knowledge, an excitement about learning new things.” Helen also taught him “an educational strategy—whenever I wanted to learn something, I tried teaching it to myself.” He “developed the romantic notion that I [he] can find secret solutions in books,” enabling him to learn things about the subject “with the conviction that nobody else knows.” He still believes this. He begins Leadership with the words that “I have always loved to write” and quickly goes on to declare, “I have also always loved to research” (Giuliani, Leadership, pp. ix, 285-

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286). On the basis of his lack of knowledge in areas in which he claims expertise, his failure to publish prior to his book on leadership (written “with Ken Kurson”), and tendency to exaggerate, I seriously doubt the accuracy of these claims.

At Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School and Manhattan College, Rudy is remembered as a chubby, enthusiastic, smiling adolescent, and as a young man with a pronounced lisp. Perhaps in the light of his later success, some say he was an excellent student, though others describe him as pretty average, lacking in discipline, a very sociable student and a liberal Democrat who idealized JFK. He started an Opera Club (there is a three-generation Giuliani tradition of enthusiasm for opera) and revived a failing fraternity when he was blackballed by the one he had wanted to join. At one point in his childhood, he had a paper route and he was a hall monitor in his senior year when he was also voted “class politician” (Barrett, Giuliani, p. 30; Strober, Giuliani, pp. 25-27). As mentioned earlier, he had considered joining the priesthood in high school, and at other points had thought of going into medicine or even aeronautics. At Manhattan College he finally chose to become a lawyer.

Rudy grew up without sisters and went to all-male Catholic schools, so he had little contact with girls outside of his female cousins and perhaps various playmates. Some authors have commented on his comfort with cross-dressing as Marilyn Monroe and others for theatrical productions for charity. It has also been noted that he bought clothes for his second wife. Barrett’s biography shows pictures of these as well as Rudy kissing the Liberal Party of New York boss at a victory celebration (Barrett, Giuliani, no page numbers on pictures). When his marriage to Donna Hanover ended, he moved in with a gay couple. He very publicly marched with gays in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Overall, he appears more comfortable with homosexuals than most politicians, whether Democratic or Republican. One wonders if his father’s very conscious efforts to toughen up his son were related to a fear that his wife and mother-in-law were making him a sissy. Certainly there is a hyper-masculinity to Rudy Giuliani’s style.

In his book Leadership, Giuliani gives several examples of being set up or delegated by other people. One was when his godfather (a policeman uncle) set him up to fight the fat bully whose father the uncle disliked. Another is his father’s making him a Yankee fan among a fanatical bastion of Dodger fans. A third is his parents’ grooming him to achieve much as a respectable Italian American. In fact Rudy proved the respectability of the family by sending criminals, or “punks,” to jail. (The irony is that they were men much like his uncle and father.) He subsequently offered himself to the people of New York City as a tough cop, cleaning up the city. Currently, he hopes the country will accept his offer to be its delegate to lead the war on terrorism as our president. This would fulfill a dream of his father (Barrett, Giuliani, p. 63).

There were lots of comparisons in the Giuliani and D’Avanzo families of cousins. As was so commonplace in Italian American families of his generation, they were inclined to live in close proximity to each other. There were large Sunday dinners cooked by matriarchal grandmothers and vacationing together at the shore in a house rented by one of them. Harold’s sister Olga married one of Helen’s policemen brothers; they lived-downstairs with their daughter who was a constant playmate to Rudy in their early years. One comparison was with his cousin Lewis—Uncle Leo’s son, who, despite a good educational beginning, followed in his father’s gangster footsteps, ending up shot dead in the street. (Another cousin was an addict who would die of a drug overdose.) Rudy was kept apart from Lewis despite their fathers working together on a daily basis (Barrett, Giuliani, pp. 56-59). The way of the Mafia was not to be Rudy’s way. He identified much more with his four uncles and four cousins who were policemen, one of whom lost his life in the line of duty. But some of the values of the gangster past of his father and family did impact him, even while putting Italian criminals behind bars.

Opportunism is a characteristic Rudy learned from his family. In terms of party affiliation they switched back and forth between Democrats and Republicans, according to the dominant party where they lived. In high school he was a Kennedy liberal who argued endlessly with a Goldwater-conservative classmate. However, he switched his own party registration and joined the Republicans when that proved to be more beneficial to his career (Bartlett, Giuliani, p. 103). When it seemed beneficial to him as mayor, he supported Democratic candidates for different offices.

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Harold Giuliani had lots of aggression and, especially as he aged, periods of depression and immobility. Violence was a crucial part of his life, whether collecting debts for his brother-in-law Leo, standing behind the bar with his baseball bat and gun at the ready, or in 1962 having a gun battle in the middle of the street in Coney Island when they went into the territory of another gangster (Barrett Giuliani, p. 46). Nobody appears to have been injured in the shooting incident (The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight comes to mind), but since this involved a “made man” protected by the Mafia, ultimately Leo had to move to upstate New York for this violation of territoriality. Since this occurred when Rudy was living at home in a three generational-Italian family, it is likely that he knew about it.

Aggression comes easily to Rudolph Giuliani, just as it did to his father. After 9/11 he told President Bush that he “would like to be the one to execute” bin Laden if he is caught (Giuliani, Leadership, p. 354). As a law clerk he told a colleague that he was so enraged at grid locked traffic that he swung his fist, cracking the windshield of his car (Schwartzman, “Love and the Law”). However, aggressive impulses did not lead to Giuliani’s serving in the Vietnam War, which he did not see as meeting the Catholic criteria for a “just war.” When classified 1A and having his request for a deferment turned down by his draft board, he was able to get his mentor, Judge Lloyd McMahon, for whom he clerked, to get him a deferment. To avert criticism as a Vietnam draft dodger, he says he served in the R.O.T.C. and had to leave because of a hearing defect—though this assertion does not hold up (Barrett, Giuliani, pp. 70-71). So, like his father, who was barred from service in World War II by his felony conviction, he would not serve his country militarily.

Giuliani endorses aggressive positions on law enforcement and the war on terrorism: he justifies the Bush Administration’s simulated drowning of suspected terrorists as not being torture (Michael Cooper and Marc Santora, “McCain Rebukes Giuliani on Waterboarding,” New York Times online, October 26, 2007). As a presidential candidate he consistently takes hawkish foreign policy positions, including on Iran, and has chosen foreign policy advisors, some of whom think in terms of a world war against “Islamofascism” (Michael Cooper and Marc Santora, “Mideast Hawks Help to Develop Giuliani Policy,” New York Times online, October 25, 2007). When Rudy wants the voters’ or any individual’s approval he can be quite charming and humorous (Michael Powell, “Giuliani Tempers Tough Image, Trading the Growl for a Smile,” New York Times, May 29, 2007, p. Al), but once he has power he is quite provocative. This is based upon a rather moralistic view of the world. To quote his sidekick Bernard (Bernie) Kerik, “Giuliani has no gray areas—good or bad, right or wrong, end of story. That’s the way he is. You don’t like it, f     you” (Pooley, “Mayor of the

World”). This confrontational approach tends to induce identification with the aggressor or fearful compliance, or to enrage people. It has much to do with why former Mayor Ed Koch called him a “horse’s ass” and Rudy became quite unpopular before 9/11.

Rudy Giuliani’s highly publicized personal life has been chaotic. He has had three wives and a number of affairs, including one with his public relations director, Christyne Lategano. His gangster uncle Leo had a mistress in the rather public manner of the Mafia; there is a secondhand report that Harold had one and that Rudy advised a groom at his wedding that having a woman on the side made for a better marriage (Michael Wolff, “Crazy for Rudy” Vanity Fair, June 2007, pp. 108-113). Donna Hanover discovered the Mayor was divorcing her by way of a public announcement he made and she saw on television (Strober, Giuliani, pp. 303-304). All three of his wives have been Catholic (Judith Nathan converted to Presbyterianism at one point in her life), and two are of Italian descent, as has been subject of his most publicized affair. On the presidential campaign trail his attempts at showing he is a good husband by taking cell phone calls from his current wife in the middle of speeches or saying that she would sit in on Cabinet meetings, have drawn ridicule (Julie Bosman, “Mrs. Giuliani, in Rare Solo Appearance, Campaigns Again,” New York Times, November 7, 2007, p. A26). His children are estranged from him and he is not on good terms with his Church.

A diagnosis of prostate cancer, the disease that killed his father after a long, difficult illness, brought forth a “kinder, gentler Rudy.” He even started using the language of feelings (could this be a reflection of some therapy?) partly under the influence of his new love, Judith Nathan (Eric Konigsberg, “Drawing Fire, Judith Giuliani Gives Her Side,” New York Times, August 5, 2007, pp. 1, 21).

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In a “Meet the Press” interview with Tim Russert, for the first and only time I am aware of, Rudy disagreed publicly with his idealized father: when asked if he still agreed with his father’s dictum that respect is more important than love, he answered, “My dad taught me a lot of really good things and he was a wonderful man, but no—as I have told, you know, my son and daughter, no father is perfect.” He goes on to say, “You know fathers—fathers make mistakes, and fathers are human beings, and I tend to think now that love is more important than I thought it was” (Barrett, Giuliani, p. 466). The public nature of his familial discord may have influenced this acknowledgement of failure, though he has certainly owned up to selective failures on other occasions.

Loyalty is proclaimed to be a core value by Rudy Giuliani (although clearly he is not referring to loyalty to his wives). According to a former Deputy Mayor Fran Reiter, “Rudy can fall for people big time … sometimes qualifications are secondary to loyalty” and “if he gets it in his head he trusts you, he is extremely loyal” (Michael Powell, et al., “Loyal to Kerik, Giuliani Missed Warning Signs,” New York Times, November 3, 2007, p. Al). He likes to keep many of the same people around him, such as Peter J. Powers, a high school friend who served as a top deputy during his mayoralty. His friend since age thirteen, Monsignor Alan Placa has a position in his campaign even while there are rumors that he is a child-abusing priest who has been suspended from his post (Alex Koppelman and Joe Strupp, “Giuliani’s Loyalty to an Accused Priest,” Slate.com).

Bernie Kerik, his mayoral campaign bodyguard and driver, was promoted by Giuliani to head the Corrections and Police departments, despite not even having a college degree. He said “entering Giuliani’s inner circle” is comparable to becoming “a made man in a Mafia family” (Pooley, “Mayor of the World”). In the process of the Corrections Department appointment, after a private session in a dimly light room in Grade Mansion during which the two men shared a bottle of wine (a gift from Nelson Mandela), the Mayor brought the new appointee downstairs where “one by one” the members of his inner circle “pulled Mr. Kerik close and kissed his cheek” (Powell, “Loyal to Kerik,” p. A16). The Mayor, best man at Kerik’s wedding, is godfather to two of his children. His sense of loyalty led Giuliani to nominate Kerik to President Bush to be U.S. Director of Homeland Security and “champion” him, according to President Bush’s Chief of Staff (Powell, “Loyal to Kerik,” p. A16). When a variety of reports of unethical and possibly illegal behavior (some involving mob figures) by Kerik came to the fore, the nominee withdrew his name and has plead guilty to some of the charges against him. For his part, Giuliani apologized to President Bush on the grounds of ignorance of these behaviors, though the records of his administration reveal that he had been briefed about some of the ethical issues (Powell, “Loyal to Kerik,” p. Al). Though there are limits to loyalty among all groups who value it, even the Mafia, on the campaign trail the Mayor defended his friend’s accomplishments (Michael Cooper, “Giuliani Says Successes Surpass Kerik’s Mistakes,” New York Times, November 6, 2007, p. B1, B5). The well-publicized charges brought against the former police commissioner have already brought condemnation of Giuliani from John McCain (Russ Buttner and William Rashbaum, “A Defiant Kerik Vows to Fight U.S. Indictment,” New York Times, November 11, 2007, pp. A1, A11).

The Mafia fascinated Bernard Kerik, who reports seeing the Godfather movie about fifty times. He claims the police in New York spoke the language of the Godfather (Bernard B. Kerik, The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice, 2001, pp. 82-83). His career was a product of Rudy Giuliani’s sponsorship and is reflective of Giuliani’s style as a leader. Kerik volunteered his own services (as he would in Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign) and got other police to do the same during the 1993 campaign. While working as Giuliani’s driver, he fascinated the future mayor with stories of being a bodyguard in Saudi Arabia, a military policeman, a warden, a policeman, and a martial arts instructor. Though Kerik only had a high school equivalency degree, gaining Rudy’s confidence led him to be appointed as Commissioner of Corrections, chief of the largest police force in the United States, and subsequently a partner of Giuliani Associates—a lucrative security consultation firm. It pleased the former Mayor to make the unconventional choice of promoting Kerik while claiming it was on the basis of merit and justified by results (Giuliani, Leadership, pp. 101-107). Others have seen him as an inadequate police commissioner and his boss as unwilling to stand up to entrenched police and fire department interests which would have saved many lives on 9/11 had Giuliani insisted that their

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radios be compatible and that they have a unified command structure (Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins, Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11, 2006, pp. 161-165).

Giuliani first learned about the Mafia as a small boy from his grandmother who told stories about how it hurt her family, driving one relative to suicide when he could not meet its demands for money. He uses some of the same mafioso language as Kerik when he titles one of the chapters of his Leadership book, “Bribe Only Those Who Will Stay Bribed”—explaining that he only means bribery as a metaphor. Within the “Giuliani camp” the “Mafia lore” included referring to a particular aide as his “consigliere” (Michael Wolff, “Crazy for Rudy,” Vanity Fair, June 2007, pp. 108-113). He shows a certain respect for the La Cosa Nostra leader John Gotti, when he smiles at and waves to him, then using him as an example of a leader’s need to appear fearless. Peter Powers said that his boss, Rudy, “was born without a fear gene” (Pooley, “Mayor of the World”). He reports finding the gangster Joe Bonanno’s A Man of Honor, “a surprisingly good read,” to be the basis for successfully indicting the criminal and others (Giuliani, Leadership, pp. 215-216). As a prosecutor Giuliani made his name convicting the very type of men his father came from, while pleading ignorance of his father’s background. It would seem that the “code of silence”—whether based on suppression or repression of memories—within the large D’Avanzo and Giuliani families seems quite as strong as that of the Mafia. In his work as a prosecutor and politician, he has always had an “us versus them” mentality that is characteristic of these criminal families.

Virtually all politicians aspiring to the presidency make excessive claims, but “America’s Mayor” exceeds his competitors in claiming on a few occasions that after 9/11 “I spent as much time here [Ground Zero] as anyone…. I kind of thought of it as living here.” Consequently, he felt his health risks were as great as anyone else’s due to exposure. His mayoral schedule reveals that in a three-month period that is recorded from mid-September through mid-December he made forty-one trips, spending a total of twenty-nine hours, as compared to workers who put in twelve-hour shifts for weeks on end while sleeping on the floor of a nearby church (Russ Buettner, “For Giuliani, Ground Zero is Both Lynchpin and Thom,” New York Times, August 17, 2007, pp. A1.A17).

Another example of the same grandiose tendency is Giuliani’s claim to have been a terrorism expert prior to 9/11 and throughout his career. His own top advisor for emergency preparedness calls him a “9/12 expert” (with no real interest in foreign terrorism until then), reporting that the words ‘“Al Qaeda’ were never part of his vocabulary” (Matt Bai, “The Crusader,” New York Times Magazine, September 9, 2007, p. 50). Giuliani’s failure to recognize limits, his grandiosity, is one of the most troubling aspects of his personal history. This showed up most clearly in the period after 9/11 when he tried to pressure the Democratic candidate for mayor to agree to a three-month extension of Giuliani’s mayoralty since he saw himself as the indispensable man in New York City.

Furthermore, there does not appear to be a broad scope to the Mayor’s knowledge, which is reflected in his not being aware of things you would expect from an educated man in midlife. A striking example is his reaction to being told via telephone by the doctor in 2000 the results of his test for prostate cancer. “Positive, wow, positive is good, right?” His future wife, Judith, had to tell him “positive was definitely not good” (Bosman, “Mrs. Giuliani,” p. A26). Though one may argue that there is an element of denial in this response, it also reflects his not having thought of this issue prior to this frightening news. In my years I have taught a number of courses on leadership for which I have surveyed the literature on the subject. I found his book to be quite shallow in comparison with others of its genre.

The embrace of “America’s Mayor” Rudy Giuliani by red-state, small-town, suburban, Republican America has given his presidential dreams a firm basis in reality. There are, however, two Giulianis: that is, the Giuliani we in the metropolitan New York area know from close observation and the Giuliani who has been paid $100,000 a speech and who on the campaign trail is applauded by so many Republican voters in the red states. Former Mayor Edward I. Koch, who supported him for mayor in 1993, referred to the “good Giuliani” now on the campaign trail and the ‘“bad Giuliani’ … who insulted rivals, refused to meet with critics, was ruthless in attacking political enemies,” opinionated, and brashly swaggering (Adam Nagourney, “New York Label May Not Fit

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All in Giuliani Run,” New York Times, March 8, 2007, pp. Al, A16). Indeed, Koch titled a collection of his columns on the 107^th mayor of New York City, Giuliani: Nasty Man (1999). Giuliani preferred being called a “tough guy.” The one psychological study I am aware of is by our contributor, the psychologist Aubrey Immelman, who found Giuliani to be “a primarily dominant personality with secondary features of consciousness and suspiciousness. The aggressive dominant pattern appears to be Giuliani’s primary, preferred mode” (Aubrey Immelman, “Personality Profile: Rudolph Giuliani” online, April 22, 1999). His findings are in agreement with ours.

Rudolph Giuliani, who often has been called “a bully,” responds by saying he is just in a hurry to get things done. In Leadership, he goes out of his way to say how he hates bullies and has fought them his entire life. The “bullies” he describes standing up to are aggressive squeegee panhandlers, labor leaders, Legal Aid Society lawyers who went on strike, and the UN. When facing the charge of being a bully, one of his responses has been “I think I’m a pretty nice guy.” Thus, Rudy sees himself not only as a nice guy but also as a champion in the struggle against bullies. The Reverend Flake, a former congressman, told the Mayor to his face that he did not think he was racist since “you’ve got a mean streak in you … you are mean to everyone.” He also said, “Anyone who disagrees with him is treated almost as an enemy. He treats everything as if it’s a urinating contest, like he’s got to win” (Kirtzman, Emperor of the City, p. 248). Giuliani’s extreme competitiveness and judgmental character were apparent in his high school years (Paul Schwartzman, “Politics Over Priesthood,” Daily News online, May 12, 1997).

In thinking of the court-appointed psychiatrist’s poor prognosis for Harold Giuliani’s personality—a prediction with some merit as indicated by the course of the subject’s life—I wondered to what extent the characteristics of the father were transmitted to the son. Certainly, the pugnacious quality of Harold is present in Rudy, though in a much more acceptable form since the evidence only points to the Mayor physically hitting one man since childhood. As a public official he uses the law and political instruments, rather than a baseball bat or gun, to achieve his ends. But when not trying to court support he is confrontational with almost everyone outside of his inner circle and political allies. The son has education, polish, and opportunities that were not open to his father, but he also has bullying and grandiose tendencies, and questionable judgment in making major appointments. He is quite bright and glib, but relies much too much on his own judgment and that of his inner circle (Jack Newfield, The Full Rudy, the Man, the Myth, the Mania, 2002, p. 19). He is hawkish on foreign policy and much else. This pugnacious approach flows from his personality and is reminiscent of that of his father. But Harold had other sides to him, including a tendency to be more forgiving than his son, according to one of his aunts (Schwartzman, “Politics Over Priesthood”).

It is not yet clear to what extent the son was influenced by the father’s emotional collapse, especially since Rudy resolutely stands by his idealized view of Harold. Of course, as a psychoanalyst I know that underneath idealization are all sorts of other, less acceptable, feelings. While remaining loyal to an idealized version of his father before the world, he has not been loyal to his first two wives, nor has he been able to maintain a good relationship with his children. (One wonders what he would be saying and writing about these relationships if they had not been conducted before the media in his mayoralty.) Clearly, his infidelity has been a major cause of his familial difficulties, and politicians, besides those focused on “family values,” worry that a lack of fidelity in familial relations will carry over into political commitments.

As a citizen with the knowledge I have gained from my current research and doing psychobiographical studies of candidates for over three decades, I have grave doubts about Rudolph Giuliani’s ability to govern well should he be the Republican nominee and the forty-third president.

Postscript: The Countertransference Feelings of the Psychohistorian: The countertransference feelings of the biographer are something that s/he should be exquisitely aware of because it may greatly impact the research, selection of data, and writing. In my case I have eschewed publishing my opinion of presidents and presidential candidates with one other exception, to be discussed below. If you look at my lengthy well-footnoted articles on presidents and presidential candidates in the Journal of Psychohistory, Mentalities, and these pages, you will note that I work hard to be evenhanded. (The exception to this

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is a review essay focused on deceased President Richard Nixon for The Psychohistory Review on The Haldeman Diaries. I sent two versions of the article to the editors indicating that I preferred they publish the longer one with a lengthy section on my countertransference feeling to the thirty-seventh president, but unfortunately they chose the shorter version.) On these pages I have opted to break with my usual policy of studied political neutrality since I found it to be increasingly burdensome. In retrospect, I wish I had expressed my concerns about George W. Bush’s values and leadership before my worst fears were realized in attacks on civil liberties, a bloody war in Iraq, and fiscal irresponsibility. After all, this is my country and I profoundly care as to who leads it. I am tired of walking on eggs in writing and lecturing on our presidents.

I had strong feelings about Italian Americans long before I ever heard of Rudolph William Louis Giuliani. They were the largest single ethnic group in the communities in which I grew up in Connecticut. They were both my friends and the bullies who picked on me as a bookish Jewish boy who was an easy target in middle school. While doing graduate school research on immigration to the U.S., I was impressed by the hard work and skill of Italians, which resonated with the people I knew and observed. The common anti-Italian prejudices I would encounter among “nice” people disgusted me, as did the lynching of Italian immigrants in New Orleans that I read about. As a student of the American presidency I await an Italian American president—though not Giuliani.

Rudolph Giuliani first came to my attention in the 1980s as district attorney when, amidst many television cameras and newspaper flash bulbs, he arrested some Wall Street businessmen on white-collar criminal charges and hauled them off in handcuffs. These were clearly respectable businessmen who would have shown up at the police station with their lawyers had arrest warrants been issued for them. My sense that this was a cheap attention-grabbing stunt by an ambitious young attorney (DA) was verified by the lack of convictions. While I do not have great sympathy for Wall Street moguls, 1 have enormous concern for the civil rights of all American citizens. It was clear that this ambitious young district attorney did not share this concern. My appreciation of Mayor Giuliani’s positive achievements in reducing crime in New York City and cleaning up the streets soon gave way to frustration at his failure to reform the public school system, lack of regard for the law—judges found him in violation of the First Amendment over twenty-five times (Newfield, The Full Rudy, p. 16), need to dominate the media spotlight, and vindictiveness. Every time I drive by Bernard Kerik’s house on the way to my college, I am reminded of Giuliani’s poor judgment in sponsoring an unproven man of questionable ethics despite warnings from his own staff. Prior to his success in helping New Yorkers deal with the emotional trauma of the terrorism of 9/11, his popularity had decreased to the point that he abandoned his plans to run against Hillary Clinton for the Senate while distracted by prostate cancer and his “special friend Judith Nathan.”

Countertransference feelings are divided into two types: those induced by the analysand and those the psychoanalyst has based upon what is going on in their psyche and life independently of the patient. If one feels humorous or angry around a particular patient, and one did not have those feelings with the patients before or after, then it is an indication the feeling may be induced. Whatever the source of the feeling, induced or the projection of the analyst, it is theirs to deal with. If it is induced, it is an invaluable tool in understanding what the analysand induces in others. Should the individual inducing a humorous response complain that his boss does not take him seriously, further inquiries may enable the therapist to get a clearer picture of a disclaimed humorous quality, and what unconscious purposes this serves. Eventually, this can be used to help the individual have a choice as to whether or not to retain this behavior in the presence of his employer.

Rudolph Giuliani induced annoyance in me by arresting, amidst much publicity, businessmen never proven to be guilty, and at many other moments in the years I observed him. As I listened to his tape and read his book on leadership, it struck me that I had far fewer moments of empathy for him than I had ever had in researching a candidate or president before. On the contrary, I more often felt annoyed, angry, or frustrated by a sense that I was not dealing with the real man. The “preachy” quality of his lessons of leadership was a “turnoff.” His “in-your-face manner” also seemed to induce a similar response in others who studied him—some are quite derogatory. Rudy approached politics the way Harold seems to

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have approached loan-shark collections—in an intimidating manner. One expects a nasty, intimidating manner from a gambling loan-shark collector but not usually from a politician. Why did Giuliani have such a need to use the power of his offices so openly, rather than exercise it more subtlety? The question then became, what lies beneath this manner, what is it a defense against? I began to wonder if this confrontational manner related to the fear Rudy felt of being picked on by older boys when he commuted on public transportation to Loughlin High School with his head buried in a newspaper so as not to be noticed. Is his constant assertion of his strength a manifestation of his own self doubts? Was it not also an identification with his father, who struggled against the inferiority the psychiatrist had identified?

Why I chose Giuliani as my research subject needs to be explained. My primary reason is that he was and is (as I write this) the Republican frontrunner. At the time I made my decision, Mitt Romney, whose Mormonism and changing positions are major Republican Party negatives, did not appear to have enough support to gain the nomination and John McCain’s campaign was on the verge of collapse. I doubted that there were enough materials on Fred Thompson (then a candidate in waiting) or that he would be an energetic candidate. Among the Democrats, I thought that Hillary Clinton, whom I had been studying since 1992 in conjunction with my research on her husband, is not readily self-revealing and has worked quite hard to be less so after the character assassination she faced in the 1990s. It seemed to me that it would be easier to say something new about Giuliani than about Hillary. Barack Obama, while interesting, did not appear to have a broad enough base and enough political experience to win the nomination.

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