Playing Catch As Koch Can

Since he was first elected mayor of New York City in 1977, Edward I. Koch has emerged as a supremely confident entertainer who has fine-tuned his media image into one of the country's most powerful political weapons. Wisecracking, noisy and energetic, Koch has not merely run the city but has also written two memoirs about its often byzantine politics, with himself as the hero. Cramming his days with television appointments and public ceremonies, the three-term mayor had a standard greeting: "How'm I doin'?" Until recently the answer was usually "Not bad, Ed."

But now the critics are raising their voices. Among them is the mayor's least likely detractor: himself. After a flood of revelations about corruption in New York City government, the feisty Koch came forth last week with an uncharacteristic mea culpa. Said he: "I am embarrassed. I am chagrined. I am absolutely mortified that this kind of corruption could have existed and that I did not know of it."

The bad news broke in a particularly dramatic fashion: in early January, Donald Manes, the mayor's close political ally and president of the borough of Queens (one of New York City's five administrative units), was pulled from his car, bleeding and near death from knife cuts to the wrist and ankle; Manes eventually admitted that the wounds were self-inflicted. Soon after, Manes' associate, Geoffrey Lindenauer, a former official in the city's parking- violations bureau, was accused of extorting $410,000 in cash, trips and theater seats from agencies that had been granted plump city contracts to collect unpaid parking-ticket fines. Queens Attorney Michael Dowd, a collection-agency owner, is reported to have told federal prosecutors that it was Manes who ordered him to pay bribes to Lindenauer to safeguard a lucrative city contract that had netted his firm some $2 million.

Last week Lindenauer was also charged with making "false representations" to gain a $22.7 million parking-bureau computer contract for Citisource, a company partly owned by Stanley Friedman, the Bronx Democratic Party leader and a Koch supporter. As the scandal was breaking, Lindenauer's supervisor, Transportation Commissioner Anthony Ameruso, resigned, as did the director of investigations, the city's anticorruption chief. As many as eight separate city, state and federal investigations are looking into allegations of corruption within various city agencies. "My administration," Koch admitted ruefully, "lost the distance and the controls I had to maintain in order to avoid the undue influence of party leaders on the workings of government."

The scandals surrounding Koch have not sullied his own clean-as-a-whistle reputation. But the mayor's exuberant self-assurance, an essential part of his leadership style, has been undermined. The mayor is now apparently trying to revive his old take-charge image after weeks of untypical faltering. "You do not allow the problem to overwhelm you," Koch says. "You have to overwhelm the problem."

Trying to do just that, the mayor proposed a series of reforms, including a panel to monitor appointments. He also plans to forbid officers of political parties to do business with the city. Says Media Consultant David Garth, a longtime Koch adviser: "When the mayor really wants to put his shoulder to the wheel, he is very tough." But the critics are still out on whether Koch can stage a comeback.