The Making of the Surrogate

New York's Democratic chieftains made few headlines last May when they picked Arthur Klein as their candidate for Manhattan surrogate, a job rich in patronage and rife with possibilities of scandal (see THE LAW). In the course of ten years on the State Supreme Court, Democrat Klein, 61, had earned a sound judicial reputation, and as frequently happens in New York, Tammany Boss J. Raymond ("the Fox") Jones and his Republican counterpart agreed to make the judicial nomination bipartisan. Such pacts were originally justified by the argument that they freed judgeships from domination by one party or party boss. On a practical basis, they also gave both parties a share of the patronage.

Pocket of Hostility. Abruptly, this routine transaction became big news. Political purists of varying degrees of sincerity howled that Klein's joint nomination could be nothing but a deal between spoils-hungry bosses of both parties. The situation was machine-made for Senator Robert F. Kennedy's benefit. When he became the state's junior Senator in 1964, the new New Yorker was clearly on the way to becoming its No. 1 Democrat as well. But there was still a pocket of hostility within Tammany Hall, and some coolness between Bobby and the other two important factions, the satellite Liberal Party and the liberal-leaning reform Democrats.

Joining the chorus of indignation, Kennedy huddled with Liberal Party leaders and reform Democrats, who proceeded to make their own deal to wrest the Democratic nomination from Klein in the primary and put up a Democratic-Liberal candidate in the general election. The Liberals dumped their earlier nominee, the reformers deserted Klein, and the new coalition plumped for Justice Samuel Silverman, 58, a Klein colleague on the Supreme Court. Kennedy personally talked him into running.

Familiar Formula. The six-week campaign followed the tried-and-true Kennedy formula. Brother-in-law Steve Smith mobilized minions and money with customary efficiency. The Senator, when not in Africa, campaigned happily up and down the sidewalks of New York with a dazed-looking Silverman in tow. In a ludicrous attempt to offset Bobby's righteous rhetoric and familial charisma, the opposition made the wild charge that Kennedy opposed Klein because Boss Jones is a Negro. Neither this nor the more reasonable argument that Kennedy had entered the fight merely to increase his influence got very far. The vote last week was 70,771 for Silverman to 47,625 for Klein.

It was a telling personal victory for Kennedy, who in one stroke managed to 1) embarrass both Tammany and the Republicans, 2) burnish his liberal image, and 3) consolidate his personal power in the state to the point where he can now hand-pick the Democratic candidate for Governor.

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