Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani (;[1] born
May 28, 1944) is an American
lawyer, businessman, and politician from the state of New York
who was Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001.
A Democrat and Independent in the 1970s, and a Republican from the 1980s to the present, Giuliani served in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of
New York, eventually becoming U.S. Attorney. He prosecuted a number of
high-profile cases, including ones against organized crime and Wall Street financiers.
Giuliani served two terms as Mayor of New York City. He was credited with initiating improvements in the city's quality of
life and with a reduction in crime. He ran for the United States Senate in 2000 but
withdrew due to being diagnosed with prostate cancer and to revelations about his
personal life. Giuliani gained international attention during and after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade
Center.[2] In 2001, Time magazine named him "Person of the Year"[3] and he received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 2002.[4]
After leaving office as mayor, Giuliani founded Giuliani Partners, a security
consulting business; acquired Giuliani Capital Advisors (later sold), an investment
banking firm; and joined the Bracewell & Giuliani law firm, which changed its name when he became a partner. Giuliani ran for the Republican Party nomination in
the 2008 United States presidential election. After leading in
national polls for much of 2007, his candidacy faltered late in that year and he did poorly in the early caucuses and primaries
in 2008. He withdrew from the race on January 30, 2008 and
endorsed John McCain.
Early life and education
Rudolph Giuliani was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the only child of working-class parents Harold Angelo
Giuliani, and Helen C. D'Avanzo, both children of Italian immigrants.[5] The family was Roman Catholic and its extended
members included police officers, firefighters, and
criminals.[6] Harold Giuliani had trouble holding a job and had been convicted of felony assault and robbery and served time in
Sing Sing;[7] after his
release he served as a Mafia enforcer for his brother-in-law Leo
D'Avanzo, who ran an organized crime operation involved in loan sharking and gambling at a restaurant in Brooklyn.[8]
In 1951, when Rudy Giuliani was seven, his family moved from Brooklyn to Garden
City South on Long Island. There he attended a local Catholic school, St. Anne's.[6] Later, he commuted back to Brooklyn to attend Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, graduating in 1961 with an 85 percent
average.[9]
Giuliani went on to Manhattan College in Riverdale, Bronx, where he majored in political science with
a minor in philosophy.[10] There he considered becoming a priest.[10] Giuliani has stated that this was
due in part to having studied theology for four years in college,[11] though nine credits (three semesters) of religious studies courses is the
minimum graduation requirement at Manhattan College,[12] which is affiliated with the Roman
Catholic church.
He was elected president of his class in his sophomore year, but was not re-elected in his junior year.[10] He joined the Phi Rho Pi
fraternity, and was active in shaping its direction.[10] He graduated in 1965.
Giuliani eventually decided to forego the priesthood,[10] instead attending New York
University School of Law in Manhattan, where he made law review[10] and graduated cum laude with a
Juris Doctor in 1968.[13]
Giuliani started his political life as a Democrat. He has said that
he admired the Kennedy family,[5] and volunteered for Robert F. Kennedy's
presidential campaign in 1968. He also worked as a Democratic party committeeman on Long Island in the mid-1960s,[14][15] and voted for George McGovern for president in
1972.[16]
Legal career
Upon graduation, Giuliani clerked for Judge Lloyd MacMahon, United States District Judge
for the Southern District of New York.[17]
Giuliani did not serve in the military during the Vietnam War. He received a
student deferment while at Manhattan College and another while at NYU
Law. Upon graduation from NYU Law in 1968, he was classified as 1-A, available
for military service. He applied for a deferment but was rejected. In 1969, MacMahon wrote a letter to Giuliani's draft board,
asking that he be reclassified as 2-A, civilian occupation deferment, because Giuliani, who was a law clerk for MacMahon, was an
essential employee. The deferment was granted. In 1970, Giuliani received a high draft lottery number; he was not called up for
service although by then he had been reclassified 1-A.[18][19]
In 1970, Giuliani joined the United
States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.[20]
In 1973, he was named Chief of the Narcotics Unit and was eventually appointed United
States Attorney. In 1975, Giuliani switched his party registration from Democratic to Independent[15] as he was recruited to Washington, D.C. during the Ford administration,
where he was named Associate Deputy Attorney General and chief of staff to
Deputy Attorney General Harold "Ace" Tyler.[15] His first high-profile prosecution was of
U.S. Representative Bertram
L. Podell (NY-13), who was convicted of corruption.
[citation needed]
From 1977 to 1981, during the Carter Administration, Giuliani practiced law at the
Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler law firm, as chief of staff to his previous DC boss, Ace
Tyler. Tyler later became critical of Giuliani's turn as a prosecutor, calling his tactics "overkill".[15]
On December 8, 1980, one month after the election of Ronald Reagan brought Republicans back to power in Washington,
he switched his party affiliation from Independent to Republican.[15] Giuliani later said the switches were because he found Democratic policies "naïve", and
that "by the time I moved to Washington, the Republicans had come to make more sense to me."[5] Others suggested that the switches were made in order to get positions in
the Justice Department.[15] Giuliani's
mother maintained in 1988 that, "He only became a Republican after he began to get all these jobs from them. He's definitely not
a conservative Republican. He thinks he is, but he isn't. He still feels very sorry for the poor."[15]
In 1981, Giuliani was named Associate Attorney General in
the Reagan administration,[21] the third-highest position in the Department
of Justice. As Associate Attorney General, Giuliani supervised the U.S. Attorney Offices' federal law enforcement
agencies, the Department of Corrections, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the United States Marshals Service.
In a well-publicized 1982 case, Giuliani testified in defense of the federal government's "detention posture" regarding the internment of over 2,000
Haitian asylum seekers who had entered the country illegally. The
U.S. government disputed the assertion that most of the detainees had fled their country due to political persecution, alleging
instead that they were "economic migrants." In defense of the government's position, Giuliani stated at one point that
political repression under President
Jean-Claude Duvalier (the infamous "Baby Doc") no longer existed.[22] After meeting personally with Duvalier, Giuliani testified that
"political repression, at least in general, does not exist" in Haiti under Duvalier's regime.[10]
In 1983, Giuliani was appointed U.S.
Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It was in this position that he first gained national prominence by
prosecuting numerous high-profile cases, resulting in the convictions of Wall Street figures
Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken for insider trading. He also focused on prosecuting drug dealers, organized crime, and corruption in government.[23] He amassed a record of 4,152 convictions and 25 reversals. As a federal prosecutor, Giuliani was
credited with bringing the "perp walk," parading of suspects in front of the previously
alerted media, into common use as a prosecutorial tool.[24]
After Giuliani "patented the perp walk", the tool was used by increasing numbers of prosecutors nationwide.[25]
Critics of Giuliani claim he arranged public arrests of people, then dropped charges for lack of evidence on high-profile
cases rather than going to trial. In a few cases, his public arrests of alleged white-collar criminals at their workplaces, with
charges later dropped or lessened, irreparably damaged their reputations.[26] He claimed that veteran stock trader Richard Wigton, of Kidder, Peabody & Co. was guilty of insider
trading; in February 1987 he had officers handcuff Wigton and march him through the company's trading floor, with Wigton
in tears. Giuliani had his agents arrest Tim Tabor, a young arbitrageur and former colleague of Wigton, so late that he had to
stay overnight in jail before posting bond.[27][28][29] However, in three months, charges were dropped against both Wigton and Tabor;
Giuliani said, "We're not going to go to trial. We're just the tip of the iceberg," but no further charges were forthcoming and
the investigation did not end until Giuliani's successor was in place.[28] Giuliani's high-profile raid of the Princeton/Newport firm ended with the defendants
having their cases overturned on appeal on the grounds that what they had been convicted of were not crimes.[30]
Mafia Commission trial
In the Mafia Commission Trial (February
25, 1985–November 19, 1986), Giuliani indicted eleven organized crime figures, including the
heads of New York's so-called "Five Families", under the RICO
Act on charges including extortion, labor racketeering, and murder for hire. Time magazine called this "Case of
Cases" possibly "the most significant assault on the infrastructure of organized crime since the high command of the Chicago
Mafia was swept away in 1943", and quoted Giuliani's stated intention: "Our approach...is to wipe out the five families."[31] Eight defendants were found guilty on all
counts and subsequently sentenced on January 13, 1987 to
hundreds of years of prison time.
Boesky, Milken trials
Ivan Boesky was a Wall Street arbitrageur who had
amassed a fortune of about US $200 million by betting on corporate takeovers. He was investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for making investments based on
tips received from corporate insiders. These stock acquisitions were sometimes brazen, with massive purchases occurring only a
few days before a corporation announced a takeover.
Although insider trading of this kind was illegal, laws prohibiting it were rarely enforced until Boesky was prosecuted.
Boesky cooperated with the SEC and informed on several of his insiders, including junk bond trader Michael Milken:
"Boesky admitted to numerous offenses and then turned state's evidence, primarily against Milken. He received a 3 1/2 year
prison sentence and $100 million fine after admitting to the charges and reached a plea bargain with Rudy Giuliani...[who would]
draw criticism because Ivan was allowed to unload his holdings before his indictment was officially announced, realizing profits
from it before being convicted. Others considered the sentence and fine as being too light. But Giuliani and company was
[sic] after a much bigger fish, namely Milken."[32]
In 1989, Giuliani charged Milken under the RICO
Act with 98 counts of racketeering and fraud. In a
highly-publicized case, Milken was indicted by a federal grand
jury, and after a plea bargain, pled guilty to six lesser securities and reporting
violations. He paid a total of $900 million in fines and settlements relating primarily to civil lawsuits and was banned for life
from the securities industry.
Mayoral campaigns, 1989, 1993, 1997
Giuliani was U.S. Attorney until January 1989, resigning as the Reagan administration ended. He garnered criticism until he left office for his handling of
cases, and was accused of prosecuting cases to further his political ambitions.[10] He joined the law firm White & Case in New York City as a
partner. He remained with White & Case until May 1990, when he joined the law firm Anderson
Kill Olick & Oshinsky, also in New York City.[33]
1989 campaign and defeat
Giuliani first ran for New York City Mayor in 1989, attempting to
unseat three-term incumbent Ed Koch. He won the September 1989
Republican Party primary election against business magnate Ronald Lauder, in a campaign marked by claims that Giuliani was not a true Republican and by an
acrimonious debate.[34] In the Democratic
primary, Koch was upset by Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins.
In the general election, Giuliani ran as the fusion candidate of both the Republican and Liberal
Parties. The Conservative Party, which had often co-lined the Republican
party candidate, withheld support from Giuliani and ran Lauder instead.[35] Conservative Party leaders were unhappy with Giuliani on ideological grounds. They cited the
Liberal Party's endorsement statement that Giuliani "agreed with the Liberal Party's views on affirmative action, gay rights, gun control, school prayer and tuition tax credits."[36]
During two televised debates, Giuliani framed himself as an agent of change, saying that "I'm the reformer,"[37] that "If we keep going merrily along, this
city's going down," and that electing Dinkins would represent "more of the same, more of the rotten politics that have been
dragging us down."[34] Giuliani also accused
Dinkins of not having paid his taxes for many years and of several other ethical missteps, in particular a stock transfer to his
son.[37] Dinkins said the tax matter had
been fully paid off, denied other wrongdoing, and said that "what we need is a mayor, not a prosecutor," and that Giuliani
refused to say "the R-word - he doesn't like to admit he's a Republican."[37] Dinkins won the endorsements of three of the four daily New York newspapers, while Giuliani
won approval from the New York Post.[38]
In the end, Giuliani lost to Dinkins by 47,080 votes out of
1,899,845 votes cast, in the closest election in city history.[13]
1993 campaign and election
In 1993, Giuliani again ran for mayor. Once again, Giuliani also ran on the Liberal Party line but not the Conservative Party
line, which ran activist George Marlin.[39] The principal issues of the election of 1993 were crime and taxes. Giuliani also declared
that expansion of the city's budget was going unchecked, and that incumbent David Dinkins was incompetent.
In addition, the city was suffering from a spike in unemployment associated with the
nationwide recession, with local unemployment rates going from 6.7 percent in 1989 to 11.1
percent in 1992.[40] There was also a public perception that
crime was increasing, although in fact the crime rate in most categories had decreased during the Dinkins administration; for
example, the per capita murder rate had peaked and then begun to decline under Dinkins, and rapes
decreased in each year of his term.[41]
Giuliani promised to focus the police department on shutting down petty crimes and nuisances as a way of restoring the quality
of life: "It's the street tax paid to drunk and drug-ridden panhandlers. It's the squeegee men shaking down the motorist waiting
at a light. It's the trash storms, the swirling mass of garbage left by peddlers and panhandlers, and open-air drug bazaars on
unclean streets."[42]
Dinkins and Giuliani never debated during the campaign, because they were never able to agree on how to approach a
debate.[34][39] Dinkins was endorsed by The New York Times and Newsday,[43] while Giuliani was endorsed by the New York
Post and, in a key switch from 1989, the New York Daily
News.[44]
In the end Giuliani won by a margin of 53,367 votes, with 49.25
percent of the electorate to the incumbent's 46.42 percent. He became the first Republican elected Mayor of New York City since
John Lindsay in 1965.[45]
1997 campaign and re-election
-
Giuliani's opponent in 1997 was Democratic Manhattan Borough President
Ruth Messinger, who had beaten Al Sharpton in the
September 9, 1997 Democratic primary.[46] In the general election, Giuliani once again
had the Liberal Party and not the Conservative Party listing. Giuliani ran an aggressive campaign, parlaying his image as a tough
leader who had cleaned up the city. Giuliani's popularity was at its highest point to date, with a late October 1997 Quinnipiac University poll showing him as having a 68
percent approval rating; 70 percent of New Yorkers were satisfied with life in the city and 64 percent said things were better in
the city compared to four years previously.[47]
Throughout the campaign he was well ahead in the polls and had a strong fund-raising advantage over Messinger. On her part,
Messinger lost the support of several usually Democratic constituencies, including gay organizations
and large labor unions.[48] All four daily New York newspapers—The New York
Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, and Newsday—endorsed Giuliani over
Messinger.[49]
In the end, Giuliani won 59 percent of the vote to Messinger's 41 percent, and became the first Republican to win a second
term as mayor since Fiorello H. LaGuardia in 1941.[46] Voter turnout was the lowest in 12 years, with 38 percent of
registered voters casting ballots.[50] The
margin of victory included gains[51] in his
share of the African American vote (20 percent compared to 5 percent in 1993) and the
Hispanic vote (43 percent from 37 percent) while maintaining his base of white and
Jewish voters from 1993.[51]
Mayoralty
-
Giuliani served as mayor of New York City from 1994 through 2001.
Law enforcement
In his first term as mayor, Giuliani, in conjunction with New York City
Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton, adopted an aggressive
enforcement-deterrent strategy based on James Q. Wilson's "Broken Windows" approach. This involved crackdowns on relatively minor offenses such as
graffiti, turnstile jumping, and aggressive "squeegeemen", on the theory that this would send a
message that order would be maintained. Giuliani and Bratton also instituted CompStat, a
comparative statistical approach to mapping crime geographically and in terms of emerging criminal patterns, as well as charting
officer performance by quantifying criminal apprehensions. Critics of the system assert that it creates an environment in which
police officials are encouraged to underreport or otherwise manipulate crime data.[52] The CompStat initiative won the 1996 Innovations in Government Award from
the Kennedy School of Government.[53]
National, New York City, and other major city crime rates (1990–2002).
During Giuliani's administration, crime rates dropped in New York City,[52] which Giuliani's presidential campaign website has credited to his leadership.[54] The extent to which his policies deserve the credit is disputed, however.
A small nationwide drop in crime preceded Giuliani's election, and critics say that he may have been the beneficiary of a trend
already in progress. Additional contributing factors to the overall decline in crime during the 1990s were federal funding of an
additional 7,000 police officers and an overall improvement in the national economy. Changing demographics were a key factor
contributing to crime rate reductions, which were similar across the country during this time.[55] Because the crime index is based on that of the FBI, which is self-reported by police departments, some have alleged that crimes were
shifted into categories that the FBI doesn't collect.[56]
Giuliani's supporters cite studies concluding that New York's drop in crime rate in the '90s and '00s exceeds all national
figures and therefore should be linked with a local dynamic that was not present as such anywhere else in the country: what
University of California sociologist Frank Zimring calls "the most focused form of policing in history". In his book The
Great American Crime Decline, Zimring claims that "up to half of New York’s crime drop in the 1990s, and virtually 100
percent of its continuing crime decline since 2000, has resulted from policing."[57][58]
Bratton was featured on the cover of Time in 1996.[59] Giuliani forced Bratton out of his position after two years, in what was
generally seen as a battle of two large egos in which Giuliani was not tolerant
of Bratton's celebrity.[60]
Giuliani's term also saw allegations of civil rights abuses and other police misconduct.
There were police shootings of unarmed suspects,[61] and the
scandals surrounding the sexual torture of Abner Louima
and the killings of Amadou Diallo and Patrick
Dorismond. Giuliani supported the New York Police Department, for
example by releasing what he called Dorismond's "extensive criminal record" to the public, including a sealed juvenile
file.[62]
City services
The Giuliani administration advocated the privatization of failing public schools and increasing school choice through a
voucher-based system.[63]
Giuliani supported protection for illegal immigrants. He continued a policy of
preventing city employees from contacting the Immigration and
Naturalization Service about immigration violations, on the grounds that illegal aliens should be able to take actions
such as sending their children to school or reporting crimes to the police without fear of deportation.[64]
During his mayoralty, gay and lesbian New Yorkers received domestic partnership rights. Giuliani induced the city's Democratic-controlled New York City
Council, which had avoided the issue for years, to pass legislation providing broad protection for same-sex partners. In 1998, he codified local law by granting all city employees equal benefits for
their domestic partners.[65]
Appointees as defendants
Several of Giuliani's appointees to head City agencies became defendants in criminal proceedings.
In 2000, Giuliani appointed 34-year-old Russell Harding, the son of Liberal Party of New York leader and longtime Giuliani mentor Raymond Harding, to head the New
York City Housing Development Corporation, although Harding had neither a college degree nor relevant experience. In 2005,
Harding pleaded guilty to defrauding the Housing Development Corporation and to possession of
child pornography. He was sentenced to five years in prison.[66] In a related matter, Richard Roberts, appointed by Giuliani as Housing
Commissioner and as chairman of the Health and Hospitals
Corporation, pleaded guilty to perjury after lying to a grand jury about a car that Harding bought for him with City funds.[67]
-
Main article: Rudy Giuliani promotions of Bernard Kerik
Giuliani was a longtime backer of Bernard Kerik, who started out as a NYPD detective
driving for Giuliani's campaign. Giuliani appointed him as the Commissioner of the Department of Correction and then as the Police Commissioner. After Giuliani left office, Kerik pleaded guilty to state
corruption charges dating from his Corrections days.[68]
Kerik is currently awaiting trial on related federal charges of conspiracy,
tax fraud and obstruction of
justice.[69] Giuliani has not been implicated in any
of the Kerik scandals.
Run for United States Senate, 2000
-
Due to term limits, Giuliani could not run in 2001 for a third term as Mayor. In November
1998, long-serving Democratic New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan retired
and Giuliani immediately indicated an interest in running in the 2000 election for the now-open seat. Due to his high profile and
visibility Giuliani was supported by the state Republican Party, even though he had irritated many by endorsing incumbent
Democrat Governor Mario Cuomo over Republican George
Pataki in 1994.[70] Giuliani's entrance led
Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel and others to recruit then-U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton
to run for Moynihan's seat, hoping she might combat his star power.
An early, January 1999 poll showed Giuliani trailing Clinton by 10 points.[71] In April 1999, Giuliani formed an exploratory committee in connection
with the Senate run. By January 2000, Giuliani had reversed the polls situation, pulling 9 points ahead after taking advantage of
several campaign stumbles by Clinton.[71]
Nevertheless, the Giuliani campaign was showing some structural weaknesses; so closely identified with New York City, he had
somewhat limited appeal to naturally Republican voters in Upstate New York.[72] The New York Police Department's fatal shooting of Patrick Dorismond in March 2000 inflamed Giuliani's already strained relations with the city's
minority communities,[73] and Clinton seized on
it as a major campaign issue.[73] By April 2000,
reports showed Clinton gaining upstate and generally outworking Giuliani, who stated that his duties as mayor prevented him from
campaigning more.[74] Clinton was now 8 to 10 points ahead
of Giuliani in the polls.[73]
Then followed four tumultuous weeks, in which
Giuliani's medical life, romantic life, marital life, and political life all collided at once in a most visible fashion. Giuliani
discovered that he had prostate cancer and needed treatment; his extramarital
relationship with Judith Nathan became public and the subject of a media frenzy; he
announced a separation from his wife Donna Hanover; and, after much indecision, on
May 19, 2000 he announced his withdrawal from the senate race.
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks
-
Response to attacks
Giuliani was prominent in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks
on the World Trade Center. He made frequent appearances on radio and television on
September 11 and afterwards—for example, to indicate that tunnels would be closed as a
precautionary measure, and that there was no reason to believe that the dispersion of chemical or biological weaponry into the air was a factor
in the attack. In his public statements, Giuliani said "Tomorrow New York is going to be here. And we're going to rebuild, and
we're going to be stronger than we were before...I want the people of New York to be an example to the rest of the country, and
the rest of the world, that terrorism can't stop us."[3]
The 9/11 attack occurred on the scheduled date of the mayoral primary to select the Democratic and Republican candidates to
succeed Giuliani. The primary was immediately delayed two weeks to September 25. During this period, Giuliani sought an
unprecedented three-month emergency extension of his term from January 1 to April 1 under the New York State Constitution (Article 3 Section 25),[75] but the State Assembly and Senate did not approve it. The request was backed by
the threat of a run for a third mayoral term as a Conservative Party candidate, requiring a legal challenge to the law imposing
term limits on elected New York City officials.[76][77]
Giuliani claimed to have been at the Ground Zero site "as often, if not more, than most
workers.... I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm
one of them." Some 9/11 workers have objected to those claims.[78][79][80] While his appointment logs were unavailable for the six days immediately
following the attacks, after that Giuliani spent a total of 29 hours over three months at the site. This contrasted with recovery
workers at the site who spent this much time at the site in two to three days.[81]
When Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal
suggested that the attacks were an indication that the United States "should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stand toward the Palestinian cause", Giuliani asserted, "There is no moral equivalent for this act. There is no
justification for it... And one of the reasons I think this happened is because people were engaged in moral equivalency in not
understanding the difference between liberal democracies like the United States, like
Israel, and terrorist states and those who condone terrorism.
So I think not only are those statements wrong, they're part of the problem." Giuliani subsequently rejected the prince's $10
million donation to disaster relief in the aftermath of the attack.[82]
Preparedness
-
Giuliani has been widely criticized for his decision to locate the Office of Emergency Management headquarters on the 23rd
floor inside the 7 World Trade Center building. Those opposing the decision
perceived the office as a target for a terrorist attack in light of the previous terrorist attack against the World Trade Center in 1993.[83][84][85] The office was unable to
coordinate efforts between police and firefighters properly while evacuating its headquarters.[86] Large tanks of diesel fuel were placed in 7 World Trade to power the command
center, and this fuel was later deemed responsible for the intense fire that caused that building to collapse hours after the
Twin Towers.[87] In May
2007, Giuliani put responsibility for selecting the location on Jerome M. Hauer, who had
served under Giuliani from 1996 to 2000 before being appointed by him as New York City’s first Director of Emergency Management.
Hauer has taken exception to that account in interviews and provided Fox News and
New York Magazine with a memo demonstrating that he recommended a location in
Brooklyn but was overruled by Giuliani. Television journalist Chris Wallace interviewed Giuliani on May 13,
2007, about his 1997 decision to locate the command center at the World Trade Center. Giuliani
laughed during Wallace's questions and said that Hauer recommended the World Trade Center site and claimed that Hauer said that
the WTC site was the best location. Wallace presented Giuliani a photocopy of Hauer directive letter. The letter urged Giuliani
to locate the command center in Brooklyn, instead of lower Manhattan.[88][89][90][91][92] The February 1996 memo
read, "The [Brooklyn] building is secure and not as visible a target as buildings in Lower Manhattan."[93]
In January 2008, an eight-page memo was revealed which detailed the New York City Police
Department's opposition in 1998 to location of the city's emergency command center at the Trade Center site. The Giuliani
administration overrode these concerns.[94]
The 9/11 Commission noted in its report that lack of preparedness could have led to the deaths of first responders at the scene of
the attacks. The Commission noted that the radios in use by the fire department were the same radios which had been criticized
for their ineffectiveness following the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Family members of 9/11 victims have said that these
radios were a complaint of emergency services responders for years.[95][96] The radios
were not working when Fire Department chiefs ordered the 343 firefighters inside the towers to evacuate, and they remained in the
towers as the towers collapsed.[97][98] However, when Giuliani testified before the 9/11 Commission he said that the
firefighters ignored the evacuation order out of an effort to save lives.[99][100] Giuliani testified to the
Commission, where some family members of responders who had died in the attacks appeared to protest his statements.[101] A 1994 mayoral office study of the radios indicated that they
were faulty. Replacement radios were purchased in a $33 million no-bid contract with
Motorola, and implemented in early 2001. However, the radios were recalled in March 2001 after a Probationary Firefighter's calls for help at a house fire could not be picked up by others
at the scene, leaving firemen with the old analog radios from 1993.[102][103] A book later published by Commission members Thomas Kean and
Lee Hamilton, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission, argued
that the Commission had not pursued a tough enough line of questioning with Giuliani.[104]
An October 2001 study by the National Institute of Environmental Safety and Health said
that cleanup workers lacked adequate protective gear.[105][106]
Public reaction
In the wake of the attacks, Giuliani was hailed by many for his leadership during the crisis. When polled just six weeks after
the attack Giuliani received a 79
