Lindsay's Curtain Call

Should I? Shouldn't I? Should I? Shouldn't I? Do I want four more years Of endless headaches, worries and woes?

Singing and soft-shoeing, Mayor John Lindsay conveyed his dilemma to an appreciative audience of political reporters at New York City's annual Inner Circle Dinner two weeks ago. Should he or should he not run for a third four-year term as mayor of the nation's biggest and toughest-to-govern city? A few days later, he had made up his mind: he would not.

In recognition of his Thespian talents, he was more or less seriously offered a leading role in the Broadway production of Sleuth; but he plans to stick to politics despite his disastrous showing in last year's presidential primaries, after he switched from Republican to Democrat. Now 51, he may run for Governor against his archfoe Nelson Rockefeller in 1974, or he may wait until 1976 to challenge Conservative-Republican Senator James Buckley. By then, he can only hope that New Yorkers will have forgotten how much they disliked him as a mayor.

When first elected in 1965, he seemed to be the answer to the city's fervent prayers. He was young, dashing, committed, uncorrupted--in the Kennedy mold. He showed a flair for the dramatic gesture. During the ghetto riots of the late 1960s, he walked with head held high through the streets of Harlem, and behind the scenes negotiated adroitly with potential ghetto troublemakers. New York avoided the explosions that hit many other of the nation's big cities.

But the man who behaved with such gallantry on the streets or with such panache before the TV cameras had little patience with the everyday details of running a city. He was an indifferent administrator at best, and had a way of converting the daily conflicts of government into moral crises. Annoyed at having to bargain with people whom he felt to be wrong, he tended to rebuke them, thus stiffening their resistance to compromise. They were further alienated by his often flippant attitude that bordered on arrogance.

In his first term, he was plagued with municipal strikes: first the transportation workers, then the sanitation men, then the teachers. He got the worst of both worlds: the unions won unprecedented, budget-breaking settlements and yet hated him all the more for his haughty posture. If he was attentive to the needs of blacks, he was often remarkably insensitive to the feelings of other ethnic groups in the city. He casually backed the Ocean Hill-Brownsville experiment that eventually pitted black militants against the largely Jewish teachers union in a struggle for control of a school district. Latent ethnic antagonisms erupted brutally into the open, making integration all the harder to accomplish.

Stolen. Laxness infected his whole administration. The relief rolls more than doubled. Thousands of male drug addicts were added to welfare on the doubtful grounds that they could not hold jobs. The Human Resources Administration was shot through with scandal. Huge amounts were stolen or wasted in the poverty program.

The mayor ignored reports of police corruption until press coverage finally forced him to appoint the Knapp Commission, which then criticized him for not acting sooner.

A clutch of eager Democratic candidates is maneuvering energetically to replace Lindsay. Though they will not have the mayor to kick around in the campaign, all will run on an anti-Lindsay platform. The leading contender is City Controller Abe Beame, 67, a reliable if unexciting party wheelhorse. A fiscal conservative who is described by a state legislator as a "1950s liberal," Beame recalls for many New Yorkers a happier, more secure era. Competing with Beame for the moderate-to-conservative vote is Mario Biaggi, 55, a flamboyant, three-term Congressman who is the most decorated policeman in the city's history.

On the liberal side stands Albert Blumenthal, 43, a skilled legislator who is assistant minority leader of the New York state assembly. Whoever wins will have to be a far different mayor from Lindsay. He will doubtless have less glamour or elan, and New York will sorely miss that. But he will have to be more attentive to administrative detail, more willing to bargain with the multitude of stridently competing groups that make up the city and are presently most unhappy with it.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.