The mob and the deputy chief of staff - Harold Ickes, Jr

Washington Monthly, July-August, 1994 by William G. McGowan

Back in January 1993, after serving as deputy director of the transition in Little Rock, Harold Ickes, Jr., a near-legendary figure in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, seemed a sure bet for the powerful job of deputy White House chief of staff. But then disturbing allegations surfaced: that Ickes knew about mob infiltration of a labor union he represented as a lawyer in New York, and that he had lied to a federal grand jury in connection with a stock transfer deal involving then-Mayor David Dinkins. In light of the reports, Ickes was forced to withdraw his name. The loss deprived the White House of what its stumbling first year revealed it needed the most: an advisor with deft political antennae who could work closely with both Hillary and Bill Clinton and show the neophytes around them what brass-knuckled politicking was all about.

By January of this year, however, Ickes was brought back from the political grave and given the job he had just missed when the administration opened. Once back on the team, he was to have spent the bulk of his time on the health care initiative. But given his reputation for toughness and for leadership, it wasn't long before Ickes became the point man for Whitewater. "He has the experience of the rough and tumble of New York politics. I just couldn't ask for a better colleague," said Mack McLarty, who put Ickes onto the Whitewater case just a few hours after he walked through the door. Ickes has "the experience of political damage control," noted George Stephanopolous. "That is his ball game."

As last spring's headlines revealed, however, Ickes quickly fumbled. By March, just 10 weeks into his new job, he had been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury on his knowledge of Roger Altman's so-called heads up briefings about the RTC investigation into Madison Guaranty. He was also in the doghouse over a phone call he and Stephanopoulos made to Altman to get former Washington U.S. Attorney and Clinton detractor Jay Stephens fired as an RTC lawyer.

Such missteps could be explained as bad luck. But those familiar with Ickes' track record in New York--many of whom would not go on the record, citing Ickes' reputation for vindictiveness and his formidable powers as deputy chief of staff--were not surprised that he had put himself in a position where he could be charged with obstruction of justice. Although he was cleared of criminal wrongdoing before Clinton brought him back to Washington, Ickes left behind a string of murky controversies in New York.

The good news about Harold Ickes is that he is skilled and has a sense of history and realism missing in the greenhorns who dominate the White House staff. At 54, he is older than most of the staff, too, and unlike Mack the Nice McLarty he is the kind of heavy who doesn't mind cracking the whip or saying no to powerful people. Ickes' storied career in liberal politics adds to his gravitas. Ethical difficulties notwithstanding, he is seen by many as the last of the great crusaders, a prince of the left who has never sacrificed principles for political expediency, remaining true to liberal ideals through the wilderness years when the Democrats were out of national power.

The bad news is that an examination of his record as a New York labor lawyer and a leading Democrat suggests a proclivity for stonewalling and a dread of full disclosure that could be dangerous for the Clintons. The trail Ickes left in New York weaves through the same territory of half-truths, dodges, unsavory associations, and seedy appearances that Whitewater does. His career is strewn with questionable moves that may not have broken laws yet certainly stretched the outside of the envelope of propriety--bad enough for any administration, but worse for one that promised the highest ethical standards.

During the years Ickes developed a reputation and a cult following for his devotion to causes and candidates of the left, he also developed a colorful personal style. Unlike many of his comrades who disdained hand-to-hand politicking and the nitty-gritty of the smoke-filled room, Ickes reveled in it. Hardly the "lightweight weenie" that Roger Ailes called him during the 1989 Dinkins-Giuliani New York mayoral contest, Ickes is of the old school, with one of the most extensive vocabularies of expletives in politics and a taste for confrontation. During Herman Badillo's 1973 bid for the New York mayoralty, for example, Ickes got into a brawl with a fellow campaign aide and bit the leg of a third aide who tried to break it up. He can conduct himself like a blue-chip lawyer and his friends and many in the press swear he is an affable charmer at heart. But he has been known to explode into screaming fits, which his intense blue eyes and unkempt hair only make more maniacal. Some say this wildman reputation is carefully cultivated to give him an aura of danger he uses to his advantage. Others say it is a function of his narcolepsy and the medication he takes for it.

Ickes' career, which has been likened to "a Baedeker to the liberal politics of the last 30 years," has distinguished origins. Son of Harold M. Ickes, FDR's highly regarded secretary of interior, Ickes Jr. was 12 when his father died in 1953. Dismayed at the way her friends in official Washington dropped her once she no longer represented access to power, Ickes' mother moved the family to a farm in Maryland horse country, although Harold attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington--the same place where Chelsea Clinton now preps. Choosing to go West instead of Ivy League, Ickes graduated from Stanford in 1964. He went to Mississippi that summer as part of the drive to increase black voter registration. There he was beaten so badly by a gang of whites that he lost a kidney.