The Education of Clendenin

Behind the pink, tubby fac,ade of rich Clendenin John Ryan, the soul of the selfless public servant throbbed. Unlike many another son of privilege, he did not collect show girls; he devoted himself to business and the sober pursuit of turning rascals out of government.

His credentials were irreproachable: he was Princeton '28, Republican, a grandson of Financier Thomas Fortune Ryan. With other moneyed political innocents (and some toughened professionals), he plunged eagerly into the Fusion movement which made Fiorello La Guardia mayor of New York in 1934. The Little Flower made him his secretary, later gave him a couple of city posts, until the two reformers had a falling out in 1940.

Noisy & Hopeful. Not until two months ago did Clen Ryan return to New York politics. This time his entry was noisy and his ambitions were high; he might even be a mayor-maker again.

Ryan dumped $500,000 into something he called the National Foundation for Good Government. It would scotch corruption not only in New York but elsewhere. He railed at Governor Tom Dewey for not investigating Mayor Bill O'Dwyer's administration. He trotted down to City Hall with ten questions for O'Dwyer. Their substance: Is Slot Machine Tycoon Frankie Costello the real boss of New York City?

Bill O'Dwyer contemptuously snorted "crackpot." Ryan was undismayed. He chirped back: "A question a day might keep Costello away." The next morning, resplendent in pearl-grey Homburg, Ryan was back at City Hall. This time he nailed to the front door of the Hall photostats of some old (and generally discredited) grand jury charges that O'Dwyer had been grossly lax as district attorney of Brooklyn. Ryan happily held every pose the photographers yelled for, withdrew the nail, and went away.

The Wild Plot. Then the pros--Bill O'Dwyer and Tammany Hall--looked Clen up & down without great passion, spit on their hands and went to work. Before they were even half through they had made Clen Ryan look bad. In the dead of night Bill O'Dwyer summoned newsmen to City Hall, himself broke the wildest wiretapping story to hit the town since Justice Aurelio was overheard thanking Frankie Costello for his nomination (TIME, Feb. 7).

A jaunty, 6 ft. ex-city detective and wiretapping expert named Kenneth Ryan (no kin to Clen) had been picked up. The mayor himself had broken him down in his City Hall office; $10,000 worth of telephone and tapping equipment had been found in the detective's Yonkers home. A plot was afoot, said O'Dwyer, to listen in on the telephones of several score of city officials (including his) and some big wheels in the Midwest. A prominent someone had given Ryan $100,000 to do it.

At 7 that morning, after long questioning, Tapper Ryan asked permission to use a ladies' washroom near the mayor's office. Leaving his hat and coat on a chair, the tap expert beat it out a back window of City Hall and got clean away. While the cops bayed after him, Mayor O'Dwyer brought in the "someone" named by Tapper Ryan. This turned out to be a lawyer and private eye named John Broady, who, as it happens, works for none other than do-gooder Clendenin John Ryan and years before had gathered evidence for Ryan's annulment from the Countess Marie Anne Wurmbrand-Stuppach.

This week Bill O'Dwyer and the rest of the pros handed the case over to the grand jury. Tapper Ryan, who surrendered after 48 hours, was indicted. Rich Man Ryan was questioned by the grand jury. Nobody had actually accused the chubby amateur of anything. They had just roughed him up some. New York City will elect a mayor this November and Tammany, it appeared, was bent on wising up simon-pures like Clen Ryan.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.