National Affairs: Dynamite

Released by New York City Comptroller Lawrence Gerosa last week with the approval, but obviously not the best wishes, of Democratic Mayor Robert Wagner: a report, described by Democrat Gerosa as dynamite, adding a new chapter to the city's corruption-afflicted history. Private contractors doing business with the city's Bureau of Real Estate, said Gerosa, have been overcharging for years. In twelve months alone. Gerosa's accountants discovered $200,000 in overcharges. Even before Gerosa released his report, seven top officials of the Real Estate Bureau had resigned, been dismissed or suspended. But the real dynamite lay in the fact that the report was made public only last week: first written in 1956, it had been withheld throughout Democrat Wagner's unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign that year and his successful campaign for re-election in 1957.