8/7/2019 Geraldine Ferraro: A Letter to the Editors of TNR

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FERRARO vs .BLUMENTHAL:A N EXCHANGETo the editors:I have just finished rea ding S idney Blu-menthal 's review of my book, Ferraro:My Story ("Once Up on a Time in Ameri -ca , " Janu ary 6&13). I think w e can safelysay Sidney (a) doesn't l ike me and (b)doesn ' t l ike my book even more.But nei ther that nor the half-t ruths,d i s tor ted t ru ths , and unt ru ths through-out the art icle move me to wri te this let-ter. They merely prove that as an inves-t igat ive reporter Sidney wri tes readablefiction.

The reason I am wri t ing is to onceand for all set the record straightwith reference to my father. He didnot l ive in Newburgh in the 1920sand did not work for Michael DeVasto.My father came to the United Statesaround 1920. He l ived in Astoria,Qu een s , wi th h i s aun t upon arr ivalan d wo rk ed d r iv i n g a h o r s e -an d -wag o nfor a wet -wash laundry in Manhat tan .In 1926 wh en his bro the r m arrie d,my father went to l ive with him andhis s is ter-in-law in their house inAstoria. He married by mother in1927. They al so bought a house inAstor ia , and my bro ther Car l wasbom in Boulevard HospiUl in Queensin 1929. My bro ther Ge rard w as b omtwo years l a ter , a l so in Queens butat home. My parents moved to New-burgh in late 1933/early 1934. I wasbom in Newburgh in 1935. Most of theabove can be verified th rou gh publicrecords .I 've picked probably the most i rrele-vant i t em, among the many i r re levan-cies, to respo nd to , bu t I do so b ecause

l ies abou t my father hu rt the mos t . H ewas k)St too young to a little girl whoadored h im. Innuendos about orga-r ti zed cr ime connec t ions are noth ingnew. There i sn ' t an e thnic who i s no taware of how he/she i s s tereo typed in-cluding, I 'm sure , Sidn ey. I gu ess I 'm re-lying on the intel l igence of your readersto see through i t .GERALDINE A. FERRAROforest Hills, Neu> YorkP.S. Since one good tum deserves an-ot he r, will THE NEW REPUBLIC allo w m eto rev iew S idney 's upcoming book onthe New Right?

To the editors:Under the guise of a book review, Sid-ney Blumenthal ' s ar t i c le on Gerald ineFerraro defames the ent ire Ital ian-American communi ty . Mr. B lumen-thal 's piece is a vicious rehash of allega-t ionsgui l t by supposed associat ionsand innuendos a imed at the former v icepres ident ia l candidate .To equate the Ferraro family story,as Mr. Blumenthal does, with the fic-t ional Corleone family of the "Godfa-ther" books rev ives the sent iment thatan Ital ian-American, no matter howtalen ted , mus t somewhere a long theway have been a ided by "you knoww h a t . "Nowhere does Mr. B lumenthal men-t ion that Ms. Ferraro has neverbeen charged with any crime. If Mr.Bl um en tha l an d THE NEW REPUBLIC be -l ieve that Geraldine Ferraro has orga-n ized cr ime connect ions , they shouldsay so direct ly rather than resort ingto the suggest ive and indirect tech-n iques employed in Mr. B lumenthal ' sart icle, such as his quest ion: "Does shehave to be guil ty for us to know whosh e i s?"

WILLIAM DENIS FUGAZYPresident, Coalition ofItalo-American Associations Inc.Nexv Rochelle, New YorkTo the editors:It would be one thing if GeraldineFerraro had announced that she wasa candidate for the Senate, but that wasno t t h e c as e w h e n THE NEW REPUBLICran i ts recent s tory on her. And i two uld be on e thing if TNR had som e-thing new to say about Ferraro. But Sid-ney Blumenthal mus t have wri t t en h i sart icle with the Neu> York Post and thePhiladelphia Inquirer spread out beforeh i m .

But the gratu i tous and redundant na-ture of the article is not its worstpar t . B lumenthal has done a smear job .He quest ions the origin of the familyweal th eve n wh i le he adm i t s that Ferra-ro may be a "paragon of legal i ty." Hesays that Ferraro can only be under-stood in the context of the organizedcrime figures who crossed her family 'spath. But he offers no evidence thatGerry Ferraro or John Zaccaro ever par-t idpated in the act ivi t ies of organizedcr ime. That ' s what a smear means : a l laccusat ion , no proof.

The heart of Blumenthal 's case isthe l is t of unsavory characters whowere tenants of Zaccaro , cont r ibutors

to Ferraro 's campaign, or associatesthe parents of Ferraro and ZaccaroOn the basis of a jumbled list of ret ionships , some of which ended mthan 40 years ago , B lumenthal presumes to t e l l us , in h i s words , "wshe is ," as i f a person were the sumsome of the people he (or his pareonce knew. Ferraro is , in his wordsproduct of a "Mob mi l ieu" : "Despi tpersonal a t t ract iveness , her supporworthy causes , and her admirable pass ion , her s tory can be unders toonly by taking the Mob mil ieu intoacco u n t . "

The ques t ion i s , what in the wod o es "M o b m i l i eu " m ean ? Ap p arei t 's a kind of disease, which youcan catch through no faul t of youro w n .B l u m en t h a l ' s wo rd s a re i n cau t i oloose, impreci se . Anyone who compares Geraldine Ferraro to a characTh e Godfather is not bein g carefulmindful that this comparison is ofs ive , nor that th i s compar i son shemore l ight on Blumenthal than i t pbly does on Ferraro. (There are plenstories about the ""aspiration to legmate pow er , " which is how Blumeinvokes th i s movie , and they don 'concem I ta l i an mobs ters . ) And anwh o ra i s es q u es t i o n s w i t h o u t g rofor susp ido n ab out the or ig in of anman's wealthas if i t were not pofor anyone named Zaccaro to makmoney by legal meansis recklesThere's so much in this piece thatreckless an d unfair tha t I can not sw hy THE NEW REPUBLIC de d d e d tolish it.

JOHN F R E D E R I C K MWashington

To the editors:I w as appa lled at the unfair art icleGerry Ferraro by S idney Blume ntha former journa l is t , I can reco gnizunfair, s lanted, and irresponsible First of all, using the format of areview to make al l kinds of chargabout Gerry i s ou t rageous . A booview should be about a book. I f tthor chose to go in another d i rectthe least he could ha ve d on e wa ssome of Gerry 's former col leaguesa balanced p ic ture .Having had the privi lege of serwi th Gerry in Cong ress , I can telabo ut G err y 's cha racter, f irsthandis a hum an being w ho i s car ing , cos ionate , smart , and dr iven by a sdesire to keep this country a land

8/7/2019 Geraldine Ferraro: A Letter to the Editors of TNR

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ity. Sh e was a respe cted leader in

BARBARA BOXERHouse of RepresentativesWashington, D.C.editors:er reading S idne y Blum enthal's arti-, after view ing

Vint Lawrence "for THE NEW REPUB-and after being subjected to the

: (1) There wa sn't one bit of in-

ticle wa s (is) a dead issue.This was jour nalism at its worst be-e character assassination and guiltassodation we re a substitu te for cred-in that McCarthyism is alive an d

BETTY J. HO NE YWilliamston, Michiganeditors:

rict attomey, a superb m ember ofocra tic Platform Com mittee, and ana ticket doom ed to defeat. N ot oncee as a candidate or her value as a

y-nine million of us o w e a debt of

^rtV ''^'* ^ N^^ REPUBLIC review-of Blumenthal's forthcoming bookfk"/ '""^^^ '*' ' him, on the basishe lives allegedly led by his ' 'Pouse or any of their

N O R M A N S . G A I N E SMcLean, Virginia'^'replies:

chal lenges only on e' ^ h i h

connection to Mi-and th e exact time he first

^ , N e w York.

of Michael DeVasto, who directed acriminal syndicate in Newburgh, Ferra-ro began operating there in the late1920s, probably after his Long Island ar-rest. "My father gave him protection,"Francis DeVasto recalled. T his interviewwas reported in 1984 by the New YorkPost. After my review appeared, GuyHawtin, the Post's reporter, sent me hisunpublished notes , which read: "Domi-nic Ferraro arrived in Newburgh in themid-1920s and he brought his new wife,Anto netta, to the city in 1926, accordingto a leading Newburgh attomey, nowretired. 'He'd started off as a driver forDeVasto's rum-running operations.Then Mike gave him the Roxy to run,'said the 72-year-old lawyer. The lawyeris a former assodate of Newburgh attor-ney Michael Moses, Ferraro's lawyer.We cannot mention his name. He ismost definite about the time of Ferraro'sarrival."

Though it was unreported during the1984 campaign, there is another inddentinvolving Dominic Ferraro that cannotbe questioned because of the source ofits reportage. This incident is a matter ofpublic record, doc um ente d in the files ofthe New York State Liquor Authority.On May 21, 1941, Dominic Ferraro hadhis liquor license for the Roxy Bar andGrill in Newburgh revoked. The reasonfor the revocation was that he was ap-prehen ded in the act of using wom en inhis club to induce m en to purchasedrinks for them. These women werecalled ""B-girls,"' and they were on hispayroll. (Often "B-girls" en ga ge d inprostitution, but there is no record ofthat at the Roxy.) As a result of the Li-quor Authority's action, Ferraro wasforced to sell his stock and close his clubon June 3, 1941.Geraldine Ferraro clearly refuses toacknowledge such facts about her fa-ther. Perhaps she has no idea of what

busine ss her father engaged in. Perhapsshe has no idea who her husband's fa-ther was. Perhaps she has no idea whosome of her husband's associates havebeen . Perhaps she has no idea that som eof the people she has associated with,even in her own pol i t ical campaigns,have criminal records and ties.Is raising the se qu estion s a way of tar-ring her through guilt by assodation?The issue here is not necessarily anycriminal guilt on her part, but the exist-ence of these associations. W hat's

wrong with inquiring into the Ferrarobackground? Her history, after all, is ofmore than personal interest. Just be-

cause she steadfastly refuses to come toterms with it doesn't mean that othersare forbidden to investigate or question.Ferraro has written a best-selling bookto tel l her own story, which providedthe occasion for my piece. This lucrativebook intended to explain more than herpolitical viewp oint . It inten ded to offerher family background as a prindpalsource of her political appeal. But therewas a lot missing from and apparentlymisleading in her official version. Myaim was to deal with her book and herlife on the terms she had set herself.

Ferraro gathers that I don't like her.But anyone who reads my coverage ofthe 1984 cam paign in THE NEW REPUBLICwill see that every reference to her wasgenerally favorable. In app roach ing herbook, I had no m alice aforethought. T hebook itselfso very bad, so lacking indignity, so spotty on her personal sto-ryled me to read all the clippings onher that appeared during the cam paign.And that led me to write the kind of re-view I did.I am still baffled by aspects of the Fer-raro story. Does she really not knowwhat people closest to her have donewith their lives? If she has even a glim-mer of perception about this aspect ofher background, did sh e actually bel ievethat it was extraneous to her running forthe vice presidency, one heartbeataway? Did she think i t would never bereported? That it would have no bearingon how she would be seen? That sheshould not bother to tell Walter Mon-dale about it? That should it come out,in whatever form, i t would not be usedto discredit her, the M ondale candidacy,the Democrats , the women's move-ment? Or did these questions not occurto her at all?In All the King's Men, Robert PennWarren's novel about Huey Long, thecentral question is whe ther a s inful m an

can do worldly goo d. In the most favor-able reading of Ferraro's situation, thequest ion may be whether a good wom-an, by her protective devotion to family,may have done larger harm. Private vir-tue may not always be public good. Theletter Ferraro write s on this subjectshou ld not be se nt to m e, iMJt mo reproperly to Walter Mondale.My apo logy to Ge orge SantangeU o fcM-identifying him as both John Zaccaro'sand M ichael LaRosa's attome y. He is infact only LaRosa's.Finally, I have ask ed m y puM isher tosend Ferraro a review co py of m ybook. D

8/7/2019 Geraldine Ferraro: A Letter to the Editors of TNR

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