New York: Incitement to Excellence

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Rasputin-Like. Another critical threat to Lindsay was the intervention of William F. Buckley Jr., Roman Catholic editor of the National Review, who had never before run for office. Buckley's announced objectives were to give some visibility to the Conservative Party and to establish it as a more effective force than the Liberal Party, which had helped push Lindsay's bandwagon. Buckley, the wittiest of the candidates, began to enjoy himself, and before the campaign was over it was obvious that his objective was to defeat Lindsay. In the end, he had nothing but his quips to console him, for he mightily aided Lindsay's cause by drawing thousands of Catholics away from Beame.

Plainly, Lindsay needed an extraordinary campaign organization. He got it, thanks to his own hardheaded analysis of the battlefield and the brilliant backroom masterminding of his campaign manager, Robert Price, 33, a blue-jowled, Rasputin-like Bronx Republican. G.O.P. Senator Jacob Javits, a magic name in New York's Jewish districts, came on as campaign chairman. Money flowed in from the Rockefeller family, New York Herald Tribune President Walter Thayer, and from purses farther west—notably from Tire Tycoon Leonard K. Firestone in California and Food Magnate H. J. Heinz II in Pittsburgh. In all, the Lindsay campaign cost close to $2,000,000 and, as usual, wound up in debt.

Price arranged for a 42-room headquarters suite in the Hotel Roosevelt, rented 117 neighborhood store-front offices throughout the city, organized some 30,000 fresh-faced young volunteers to staff telephones and ring doorbells. They were an exuberant, collegiate-looking gang, some of them Jewish youngsters whose yarmulkes at his rallies blended exotically with the brightly ribboned straw boaters of the "Lindsay Girls."

The bright-looking students, flocking around Lindsay as if his first name were Vachel, were the most obvious departure from the usual hack-packed New York mayoralty-campaign headquarters. But, beyond that, there was a notable shortage of G.O.P. professionals, big or little. To blur his party markings, Lindsay had asked all Republicans of national consequence to stay away. "I don't need officialdom to build me up," he said. "I don't think the public will vote for me just because a distinguished person says they should."

Grievance & Isolation. All the same, few political campaigns in memory—with the possible exception of the Kennedys'—have produced quite so exotic a cast of supporters and swingers. Among the Lindsay helpers were Actor Henry Fonda, Light Heavyweight Boxing Champion Jose Torres (a Puerto Rican), Singers Sammy Davis Jr., Liza Minnelli and Ethel Merman, Authors Norman Mailer and Paddy Chayefsky, Broadway Producers George Abbott and Hal Prince, ex-Baseball Star Jackie Robinson and Boxer Suear Ray Robin son, Comedienne Phyllis Diller and CORE Leader James Farmer.

The making of the mayor was also powered by batteries of mechanical equipment. A two-way short-wave radio system was hooked up between the hotel headquarters (code name: "the Mansion") and cars used by Bob Price ("Adolf") and Lindsay ("Benjamin"—for Disraeli). And there was "the gripe line," a special number on which New Yorkers could log their complaints; 6,000 did.