THE SUFFOLK COUNTY SCANDALS INVESTIGATIONS

Book excerpt: THE SUFFOLK COUNTY SCANDALS INVESTIGATIONS - a Reminiscence is the story of a notable use of the criminal process as a weapon in political warfare, based upon the accounts of the New York Times and the Huntington, N.Y. weekly, The Long Islander, and the recollection of the author. It begins with the relation of how Thomas E. Dewey, in his last term as the Republican Governor of New York, came to bring about for Averell Harriman, his Democratic successor, the creation of the ideal public office for waging political war via the criminal process, that of Commissioner of Investigation. It memorializes conduct of Republican officeholders who deserved the prosecutorial attention they received, and cases of Republican officeholders who did not. It records some interesting conduct, positions taken by and comments of judicial, prosecutorial and political figures, as well as portions of some relevant judicial opinions. Chronicling the events which led to the Republican Party's loss in 1959 of decades of political control of Suffolk County, it features a township zoning hearing and the political consequences of what could have been not unreasonably viewed as its predetermined outcome; the contribution of the formidable Republican town leader, John Hulsen, to the ultimate success of the Democrats' efforts; and, the story of the manipulation of the process of the sale by the county of land for unpaid real property taxes for the benefit of land speculators and a Deputy County Treasurer, and the creativeness of the Commissioner of Investigation in his statements for the press concerning the skullduggery.