With talk of President-elect Donald Trump and his pick for FBI Director, Kash Patel, compiling an “enemies list” of people to target in their next administration, I can’t help but think about my own experience identifying and targeting names in a similar scenario. , back in the 1970s.
After working as an administrative assistant to New York City Mayor John Lindsay, she decided to switch lanes. I left the City Council and opened a restaurant called Jimmy’s on 52nd Street with Dick Aurelio, who had served with me in the Lindsey administration as first deputy mayor. (Journalist Jimmy Breslin was going to invest with us, but he had a TV contract at a local network and they didn’t want his name associated with a gin restaurant – but we kept the name anyway.)
Suddenly everyone in the bar started shouting at me: “Master! They are talking about you on TV!”
Located next to Club 21, Jimmy’s had a thriving scene with a politically connected crowd. Local elected officials were constantly in and out of the venue, including Tip O’Neill, Sen. Jacob Javits, and Mario Cuomo, the future governor. Other famous figures would hang around the pub when in town, including political commentator William Buckley. The TVs in the bar were always on, and we even had an Associated Press tape near the door.
In June 1973, the Watergate hearings were broadcast live. One day, suddenly everyone in the bar started yelling at me, “Mister! They’re talking about you on TV!” Then-White House counsel John Dean had just testified that President Richard Nixon kept a list of enemies, and I was number 12 on That list.
The phones lit up quickly. Every reporter in town was calling the restaurant trying to get in touch with me for an interview. All the TV reporters in New York and beyond, as well as my mother.
Breslin gets to me first. He told me he wanted an exclusive. That I had just become a “national figure.” I worked out some details, promised to talk to him first, then called my mother, who was in Florida, and immediately asked me: “What did you do?!” Everyone calls me saying the boss doesn’t like you! I calmed her down and went back to trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
Keep in mind that I was 32 years old at the time, and the son of a candy store owner from Queens. And here I am on the list of enemies of the President of the United States. It was surreal.
At first, we had a blast with it. That Saturday night, we hosted an “enemies party” in the basement of the restaurant that included those of us who opposed the president. But after some time, everything started to take a different turn. Suddenly, the IRS started investigating me, claiming I owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in FICA taxes for employee fees. Dealt with some late fees and fines and before you knew it, they were claiming I owed almost a million dollars. New York State also came after me. She was accused of embezzling funds by state Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz, who worked closely alongside Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller. My friends at the prosecutor’s office told me they had no other choice. Federal agents showed up at the apartment building where the young woman I was dating at the time lived. They questioned the doorman and wanted to know my comings and goings.
Although it remains my proudest moment in many ways, the fallout has been difficult to deal with. I became a target of the national government overnight. Having government power go after someone like that is not a fun place to be.
All my life I kept asking myself, how did all this happen? Why me? In a nation with a population of more than 200 million at the time, why did Nixon and Lindsay see me as such a threat? For whatever reason they couldn’t reach Lindsey, so they reached out to me. Next best thing, I guess.
In blog posts, I was described on an enemy list as “Lindsay’s best personal assistant: a first-class man, a wheeler-dealer, and a suspected bag man. Positive results would shake up Lindsay’s camp, and Lindsay’s plan to get the youth vote. Davidoff is in charge.”
It was an honor for me in the long run, but man, that period was tough. And finally, a judge He dropped the indictment. I have since gone on to live a very full and positive life, and I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything. I think it should definitely be carved on my tombstone: “He was lucky enough to be on Nixon’s enemies list.”
However, I wouldn’t wish this kind of problem on anyone. I’m not sure anyone who finds themselves on Trump’s list will feel as lucky as me, so many years later.
