Double Jeopardy in Newark

NEWARK'S Mayor Hugh J. Addonizio faces two juries that could wind up depriving him of both his job and his freedom. He went on trial for his freedom last week in federal court in Trenton, where he is accused of extortion and conspiracy. On June 16, he goes on trial before the voters of his disintegrating and racially embittered city in a runoff election. If he loses, Newark will have its first black mayor, the third in a major Northern city.

The voters may speak first, but the jurors could speak more harshly. Addonizio has figured prominently in the transcripts of bugged Mafia conversations; the talkative and perhaps misleadingly boastful mobsters discussed him and other prominent politicians as so many common stocks to be bought, held and discarded (TIME, Jan. 19). As the trial of Addonizio and seven others, including reputed Mafioso Anthony (Tony Boy) Boiardo, began, the Government argued that there was more than braggadocio connecting the mayor and the mob. Addonizio, the Government said, had left a safe congressional seat to make "a million dollars" as mayor and then set about doing it by getting the mob to force city contract kickbacks into a secret bank account. That, replied the indignant mayor, was "the most fantastic story" and a case of "political persecution."

"Nigger Lover." Three weeks before his trial began, Addonizio, a Democrat, ran a poor second in a field of seven contenders for the mayoralty, for which candidates campaign without party endorsement. The front runner, whom he must overtake in the final vote next week, is a 38-year-old black city engineer named Kenneth Gibson, an independent. In the first-round voting, Gibson's total was double that of Addonizio, but he fell short of a majority. In the unsubtle world of Newark politics, the key figures may be the first-round totals: 48,874 for the four white candidates, 40,043 for the three blacks. Blacks constitute at least 52% of the city's population and 40% of the electorate. Gibson got and probably can hold 85% of the black vote; his job is to lure a relative handful of white votes across the racial wall. It will not be easy. One eliminated white candidate who declared for Gibson was spat upon at a rally and called a "nigger lover." Now, off-duty black policemen voluntarily accompany Gibson to provide physical security as he campaigns.

Gibson himself mentions race only defensively, protesting his opponent's scare tactics; needing white votes, he emphasizes instead the city's sagging "quality of life" and refers to Addonizio's indictment often enough to keep the issue alive and damaging. His two principal aides, one an editor of a research service, the other a 21-year-old Princeton University senior, are white. Half his estimated $100,000 campaign fund comes from Newark's white business establishment, and so does the rented air-conditioned Lincoln Continental in which he campaigns. The business community's support of Gibson represents a reversal. Five years ago, the same men feted Addonizio and the rest of his administration at a special luncheon. And Gibson has been getting some volunteer help from members of the staff of New York Mayor John Lindsay. "I'm a civil engineer, an expert in building and rebuilding," Gibson says. "I will make my appointments solely on one issue --not race but quality." Gibson, a calm, thorough if not charismatic campaigner, gets clear approval as he moves through the black ward where he lives with a "Hey, brother, what's happening?" But one measure of Gibson's problem on the white hustings is the sentiment represented by the supporters of Anthony Imperiale, a white militant who came to prominence at the head of a vigilante group after the 1967 riot. Defeated in the first-round voting, Imperiale told his supporters to "vote as you please," then referred to "raping and looting." The message was needlessly clear. One Imperiale aide, Pat Serra, said: "We'll never let a nigger get elected."

A Brother. Addonizio, a seven-term member of Congress and mayor since 1962, has built a reputation of being liberal on racial matters. In this election he has decorated the city with bland "Peace and Progress" posters, but in his speeches he has turned more and more to race. Relaxed and genial as always in private conversation, he commutes from his trial to tell campaign audiences that Gibson is "part of a raw and violent conspiracy to turn this city over to LeRoi Jones and his extremist followers." Black Militant Jones, whose violence-filled plays and poems frighten many whites, is a childhood friend of Gibson's, was an early political supporter and still remains a political ally, though he stays strategically in the background.

Like Addonizio, the voters make clear that race is for many the principal issue. Says Jean Damidio, a white housewife: "It's a battle for survival." Adds Helen Reichenbacher, the wife of a city policeman: "I've got a $35,000 house. If we get a black mayor, it isn't worth a quarter." Addonizio's trial? "Everyone's corrupt in a job like that," says the policeman's wife. On the other side, Housewife Jennie Smith says: "I'm voting for Gibson because he's black and we've got to support our own." Factory Worker James Simpson puts the same idea more succinctly: "He's a brother, man."

The other main issue is, as Gibson says, the quality of life in Newark, and it is a serious question whether any mayor can help. The city's establishment, in its own campaign to shore up an image, stresses the construction of public and private housing, office buildings and educational facilities. But the overwhelming fact of Newark's life, as of so many cities, is the accelerating downward slide. One of three houses is substandard. More than 15% of the population receive some sort of public assistance. Crime rates are among the nation's highest. Burned out and abandoned buildings stare from the ghetto in memoriam to the devastation of the 1967 riot. The mayoralty is thus a doubtful honor. If Hugh Addonizio wins it while he sits in a courtroom, he will match the record of Boston's classic rogue, James Michael Curley, who also won re-election as mayor while under criminal indictment.

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