On this day

1885 — Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckle-berry Finn” is published. 1909 — Boston Red Sox trade Cy Young, at 41, to the Cleveland Naps.1929 — The first Academy Awards are announced.1960 — Eighth Winter Olympic games open in Squaw Valley, Colo.1972 — John Lennon and Yoko Ono end a week of co-hosting the Mike Douglas Show.1979 — Miniseries “Roots: Next Gener-ations” premieres on ABC TV.1988 — Anthony M. Kennedy is sworn in as Supreme Court Justice.

A once popular and respected Illinois politi-cal figure’s fate is in the hands of a federal court jury in Chicago. Perhaps you’ve heard this story before?

During his years as governor, 1961 to 1968, Gov. Otto Kerner was known as “Mr. Clean.” He was well educated and a decorated veteran of World War II. His father was an Illinois attorney general and a federal appeals court judge. His wife, Helena, was the daughter of a Chicago

ery, fraud and income tax evasion. Kerner was additionally charged with perjury.

The government case said Kerner and Isaacs spent $15,000 of their own money and netted $144,000 from the even-tual sale of their racing shares.

Kerner was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison but served only six months; he was released early to get treatment for lung cancer. He died in 1976, the same year his pros-ecutor, Jim Thompson, was elected governor.

n President Richard Nixon also made the front page when he named his longtime political associate, L. Patrick Gray III, to be

director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Gray had been serving as acting director of the FBI since the death of J. Ed-gar Hoover the previous May.

During his 10 months in that position, he led the bureau in the early stages of the investiga-tion into burglaries that led to the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to Nixon’s resigna-tion.

But Gray never won Senate confirmation; he resigned in April after he admitted destroying documents received June 28, 1972, 11 days after the Watergate burglary. The documents had come from Watergate conspir-ator E. Howard Hunt’s safe.

While Gray served as acting director, day-to-day operational com-mand of the Bureau remained with Associate Director Mark Felt. In 2005, Felt revealed him-self to be the Watergate scandal’s whistleblower known as “Deep Throat.”

n The Griffin High School boys basketball team was referred to as the “cardiac kids” after a jump shot by Dave Figueira with six seconds remaining gave the Cy-clones a 55-53 win over Breese Mater Dei in a non-conference match-up. It was the seventh time that season the Grif-fin boys had won by three or fewer points.

— Rich SaalDownload this page at

www.sj-r.com

A political figure’s fall is a familiar story

FLASHBACK SPRINGFIELD — Feb. 18, 1973

Monday, February 18, 2013 THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER PXX

mayor, Anton Cermak. After leaving office, Kerner himself served as a federal judge.

In 1969, Kerner and his long-time friend, Ted Isaa-cs, were accused of accepting bribes in the form of stock from Marge Everett, manager of Arlington Park and Washington Park race tracks. The charges in-cluded conspiracy, brib-

Kerner