Here are some anecdotes from Jane Byrne`s new book about her tumultuous years as mayor:
During Jimmy Carter`s visit to Chicago in 1979, while they were riding in the presidential limousine, the president told Byrne that two of his aides, Jody Powell and Hamilton Jordan, had been accused of using cocaine.
” `Jane, I love those boys. Those boys have been with me from early on. Why, next to Rosalynn and Amy, I love those boys the most. I know those boys weren`t about to do anything to hurt me. As soon as I could get to the phone, I called (U.S. Atty. Gen.) Ben Civiletti. I told him, ”Ben, I haven`t talked to the boys about this cocaine sniffing, but what should I do?” Ben said,
”You did the right thing, Mr. President, coming to me. Don`t talk to the boys. I`ll just turn the whole matter over to the FBI.” ` ”
Byrne found the story unsettling.
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”I thought we`d never get back to Chicago. Carter`s phrase, `I love those boys,` kept ringing in my ears. He loved them, trusted them, and yet turned them over to the FBI without so much as hearing their side. . . .”
– – –
Byrne was sick with the flu and exhausted from a weekend of non-stop negotiations with the school board when she was told President Ronald Reagan would be in town that evening. The news didn`t thrill her.
” `Damn it,` I said to my bodyguard, `there`s no way I can cover this puffiness and the deep circles under my eyes. You watch television tonight. The man`s practically 30 years older than I am, but I`m going to look his age, and he`ll look mine.`
”Well, this could not be avoided. Off I went to the Palmer House again for the photo ops the White House wanted. The suite was Hollywood perfection. . . . Suddenly an aide announced that it was time for the press to come in, and I felt like a sheep about to be shorn. The suite was large, but I knew the hot TV lights would come right up to us, revealing every sign of fatigue. The President, heavily made up and rouged, would look fine. Then I noticed a red velvet rope quickly being stretched across the room about 10 or 12 feet away. ”As the photographers and videographers came in, an aide standing by a drape in the corner ordered, `No lights.` This is Chicago, I thought: They`re going to do what they want to do. Every light went off. As each succeeding wave of photographers came in, we were filmed only in the soft lighting that had been carefully set up by the White House staff. . . . That night, I was to appreciate anew the theatrical genius of the Reaganites. On the evening news, we both looked as if we were glowing with good health and vigor, ready to take on Richie Daley and Mikhail Gorbachev and all the rest.”
– – –
Byrne`s first year in office was marked by a series of disasters, including a firefighters strike. After three weeks of negotiations, and just as a compromise had been reached, Jesse Jackson, ”with his entourage of eight or ten advisers and admirers,” arrived at City Hall.
”Jesse had materialized to save us. . . . He had enough sources within the (fire) department to know that the strike was settled, but he had hit the target perfectly. Had I refused his offer, would many blacks feel slighted and angered? Yes, indeed. And the firemen would suspect me of stonewalling, refusing help because I didn`t really want to give a contract. At any rate, Jesse knew what media buttons to push. He set up an elaborate press conference outside my door-lights, cameras, reporters-then visited the firemen`s union leaders. I don`t know what they discussed, but at the rank-and-file ratification meeting that night at McCormick Place, Jesse walked onstage to a cheering Fire Department-the same Fire Department judged by a federal court to be the most racist department in city government! Jesse took over the union meeting, phoning us to ask if he could send over the document for my signature. . . .
”I signed the agreement, sent it back with one of my guards, and watched Jesse Jackson announce the settlement of the firemen`s strike. I was so tired after three weeks of sleepless nights and so happy the strike was over I didn`t care who grandstanded.”