In his new book, "Leadership,"
Giuliani revealed how he asked President Bush ( news
- web
sites) - three days after the Sept. 11 terror attacks - if he could be
the executioner.
"What can I do for you?" Bush had asked.
"I told him, 'If you catch this guy, Bin Laden, I would like to be the
one to execute him.'
"I am sure he thought I was just speaking rhetorically," Giuliani
wrote. "But I was serious. Bin Laden had attacked my city, and as its
mayor I had the strong feeling that I was the most appropriate person to
do it."
With "Leadership," Giuliani has attempted to channel all the ups and
downs of his storied life, including the horror of Sept. 11, and create a
book that he said last week he hoped readers would find useful and
informative.
"It was basically for people who want lessons or help on how to lead an
organization, or lead themselves through difficult times in life," the
former mayor said during a sit-down with the Daily News. "Because I think
the same principles apply to both."
The result is a volume that is part management tome, part memoir, part
self-help treatise. In many ways, it reads like a series of management
speeches - for which Giuliani is now getting $100,000 a pop - with chapter
headings that reflect what he calls "the ideas that I leaned on."
These are some of Rudy's rules: "Prepare Relentlessly;" "Weddings
Discretionary, Funerals Mandatory;" "Surround Yourself with Great People;"
"Underpromise and Overdeliver." And an intriguing capper, at least for a
former federal prosecutor, "Bribe Only Those Who Will Stay Bribed."
But scattered amid the management precepts, Giuliani lifts the veil
gingerly on parts of his personal life, especially his relationship with
Judith Nathan. And he expresses some opinions that he undoubtedly would
not have as mayor.
Who could have guessed, for instance, that in addition to his parents,
Ronald Reagan ( news
- web
sites) and his five firefighter or police officer uncles - all of whom
he cites as major influences - Giuliani found something to admire in
mobster John Gotti, whom he once prosecuted?
Giuliani writes of seeing a smiling Gotti outside his social club in
Little Italy, a day or two after a rival thug had taken a shot at the
crime boss.
"He had positioned himself in broad daylight to show everybody that he
wasn't afraid," Giuliani wrote of the now dead mobster, whom he added
"clearly understood some of the principles of leadership."
New Yorkers, more than the rest of the country, will likely recognize
many of the stories in the book, which hits stores Tuesday as part of a
two-book, $2.7 million contract with publisher Miramax Books.
His early battle to rid the city of squeegee men, his successes in
driving down crime, his efforts at reducing the city's welfare rolls - all
are glowingly retold.
The most riveting chapter of "Leadership," which Giuliani said he
largely dictated to Money magazine writer Ken Kurson, is the one he
devotes to Sept. 11.
He was eating breakfast that morning on E. 55th St. when his longtime
counsel, Denny Young, said quietly, "There's a fire at the World Trade
Center."
They raced downtown, sirens and cell phones blazing. "My first
assumption," recalled Giuliani, "was that it was some nut flying a small
plane."
Giuliani was actually in a commandeered office at 75 Barclay St., just
two blocks north of the Trade Center when the first tower came down. At
the time, he was waiting to be patched through to Vice President Cheney.
"Within a second or two, the line went dead," wrote Giuliani. "From
beneath a desk, [chief of staff] Tony Carbonetti said what we were all
thinking: 'What the hell is happening?'"
Later, he reveals that he spent time worrying that Nathan, then in her
apartment on the upper East Side, might be the target of a separate
terrorist attack.
"Our relationship at that point was very public, and she, too, had
received threats," Giuliani wrote. "I thought those attacking our city
might go after her, and I wanted to make sure she was safe."
Nathan later joined Giuliani at a makeshift command center, where he
put the former nurse to work organizing city hospitals for an influx of
wounded that never really came.
No time for tears
The tough-talking former prosecutor cried only once that day, he
reveals - when he was on the phone with Solicitor General Ted Olsen, a
good friend whose wife, Barbara, was on the plane that struck the Pentagon
( news
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sites).
"The rest of the day, there was not time," he wrote.
Last week, Giuliani recalled his conversation with Bush, adding he
still thought he was the most appropriate person to execute Bin Laden.
"It really is a reflection of the tremendous anger I had at what he did
to us," Giuliani said. There are other personal moments. It becomes clear,
for instance, that Giuliani was far sicker than most realized when he was
battling prostate cancer ( news
- web
sites).
At one point in 2000, he received 25 radiation treatments - five a
week, for five straight weeks. Once, while marching in a Columbus Day
Parade, the pain became so searing he was afraid he might fall down. He
swallowed half a Vicodin in a men's bathroom and, five minutes later, was
marching again.
Like other ex-mayors who have written books, Giuliani can't resist a
certain amount of score-settling, and perhaps even a little revisionism.
But for the most part, "Leadership" is everything that Giuliani was as
mayor - always straightforward, rarely apologetic, with occasional flashes
of deep empathy.
Channeling anger
He ends the book on a darker note, one of pure, undiluted rage.
It is Jan. 1, 2002, moments after he has left City Hall as mayor. He is
alone at the edge of Ground Zero, a private citizen.
"I wanted it to be the last place I visited before I left," wrote
Giuliani. "And yet, walking around the site that day, I felt tremendous
anger, as raw and intense as when I first saw the smoldering pile."
"The challenge was to put it to work in ways that would make me a
stronger, better leader."
So what's his next book going to be about?
"At one time I had thought about writing an autobiography," he said.
"Which I still might do."
Covering his life, with focus on a single day
By LISA L. COLANGELO DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU When terrorists struck
the World Trade Center, Rudy Giuliani already had written 80% of his book,
"Leadership."
And although the book focuses on management lessons learned during his
time as mayor, U.S. attorney and an associate attorney general, people
will more likely pick it up to read his personal account of those
harrowing first hours after two planes slammed into the twin towers.
"I could have put this book out in August or September," he said in his
office last week. "But I thought I would wait because I really want people
to evaluate this book on its own."
Giuliani said he also was mindful not to promote his book around the
Sept. 11 anniversary. He'll appear on Oprah Winfrey's talk show tomorrow
and do a book signing Wednesday at Barnes and Noble at Rockefeller Center.
"I'm going to try very hard not to offend anybody in the distribution
of it," he said. "But it is a book about my leadership principles and I've
got to get it out there."
A special leather-bound edition of "Leadership" will be available this
holiday season, with all proceeds going to his Twin Towers Fund.
The book started as a stack of handwritten notes Giuliani kept in a
folder. With the help of Ken Kurson, he crafted an outline and manuscript
from hours of dictated notes.
Giuliani pored over the galley proofs, but he has yet to look at the
finished product.
His mother, Helen, who died this month, would be proud, he said. But
the woman who helped instill his love of books also would be his toughest
editor.
"Everybody always misses something," he said ruefully of the
proofreading process, "so I know my mother will come back and haunt me if
there's a grammatical error."
About 100 pages were cut out of the book, which remains a hefty 380
pages.
The city's most notable Yankee fan had to also cut out some baseball
references.
"Both Ken and I love baseball," Giuliani said, laughing. "We had a
whole discussion ... a detailed description of Joe DiMaggio and Ted
Williams and comparing them and it had gotten a little off the point."
Staying off the point, Giuliani said he didn't understand the fuss over
him ditching the famous combover in favor of a new slicked-back hairdo.
"It doesn't look all that different to me," he said with a big smile.
"I wish I could say it was deliberate like I decided I was going to be
more open. It just happened and it's a lot faster."
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