Giuliani: Fighting from the Start

NEW YORK — When Rudy Giuliani was a toddler, his father taught him to box.

"Always go into a fight with a plan," Harold Giuliani told his son.

Decades later, Giuliani recalled how those early lessons still guide him.

"He put it into my head that someone who stays unruffled has a great advantage in being able to help others, to control the situation, to fix it," Giuliani says. "The fighter who loses his cool the first time he's hit will end up on the canvas."

"My father would tell me that if I were ever attacked, I should imagine myself back in the boxing ring, remaining calm and looking for vulnerabilities," he wrote in his 2002 book "Leadership."

Giuliani has been mixing it up his whole life.

His friends insist you can't lose when he's on your side. His critics say he enjoys fighting too much and sees enemies everywhere.

For most people, he is the New York mayor who kept his head amid the chaos of Sept. 11, 2001.

Six years later, that image is honed and aimed squarely at voters: Giuliani as "America's Mayor," the leader who saved a city from urban woes and steadied its citizens on a day of terror.

It has brought him to the front of the Republican presidential field on the national stage, his terror warrior credentials outweighing concerns about less-than-conservative views on issues such as abortion and gay rights.

While polls show Giuliani trails in the early battlefields of Iowa and New Hampshire, he leads in key swing states including Florida. There, primary voters see him as the best candidate to fight terrorism.

But from days before and since 9/11 other less polished Giuliani descriptions adhere: Nasty. Volatile. Divisive. Effective. Resolute. Loyal. Enemy of bullies. A bully himself.

Before 9/11, he was the opera lover, the would-be priest, the three-time husband. He was the Democrat-turned-Republican, the cancer survivor, the mayor respected and despised.

The 63-year-old Giuliani acknowledges there is more to him than the day the twin towers fell: "The idea that I somehow became a different person on that day — that there was a pre-Sept. 11 Rudy and a wholly other post-Sept. 11 Rudy — is not true."

Brooklyn boy

Born May 28, 1944, and named for his Italian immigrant grandfather Rodolfo, Rudolph William Louis Giuliani grew up in Brooklyn not far from Ebbets Field, home of the Dodgers.

This was deep behind enemy lines for his father. As Giuliani often tells it, his father, a tavern owner, once defiantly sent his son out in a Yankees uniform, resulting in a near lynching at the hands of neighborhood kids.

"I had to fight for what I believed in," he said on C-SPAN this month. "Being a Yankee fan is in my DNA."

(Outraged New Yorkers questioned those genetics and accused him of playing politics in October when Giuliani told a Boston crowd he was rooting in the World Series for the arch rival Red Sox. Giuliani said he was just backing the American League.)

Giuliani credits his mother, Helen, with instilling in him a love of books and history.

He grew up amid an extended family touched by both sides of the law. Four of Giuliani's uncles were police officers; a fifth was a firefighter. And there was a secret he would not learn until well into his career and after his father's death: Harold Giuliani had been imprisoned in Sing Sing for the armed robbery of a milkman a decade before his son was born.

Class politician

His family moved to Long Island when Giuliani was 7. Later, he commuted back to Brooklyn to attend Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, a Catholic all-boys school known for its academics and discipline.

Throughout his youth, Giuliani had envisioned becoming a priest or a doctor.

He was voted "class politician" his senior year without ever running for an office.

Giuliani also stood out by starting an opera club. One of his recruits was Peter Powers, who would become a lifelong friend and adviser and would later serve as Giuliani's deputy mayor.

They both attended Manhattan College in the Bronx, another Catholic institution.

Powers, a Republican, and Giuliani, a Democrat who worked on Robert Kennedy's 1964 Senate campaign, often engaged in fierce debates, verbal combat Giuliani says honed his thinking.

"I began to view my love of debate as pointing toward a new calling — to the law, where I could indulge that enthusiasm to the full," Giuliani says.

The two friends went on to New York University Law School.

Graduating in 1968, Giuliani married Regina Peruggi, a second cousin he had spent vacations with when they were growing up.

After a two-year clerkship for a federal judge, who reportedly got him a military deferment from serving in the Vietnam War, Giuliani joined the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan and rose through the ranks.

A high point came during the trial of Bertram Podell, a Democratic congressman from Brooklyn charged with conspiracy involving money received for aiding a Florida airline. Giuliani says Podell withered under cross-examination and pleaded guilty. Podell's lawyers have said a plea had already been in the works.

As described in the New York Times on Oct. 2, 1974, Podell began to loose his composure when Giuliani suggested he had accepted a campaign contribution check that was actually payment for a favor to the airline.

"That's a lie," Podell shouted.

"Who's telling the lie?" Giuliani shot back.

"You are!" Podell said.

Giuliani "seemed like a boxer closing in on a battered opponent," the newspaper wrote. Thinking of his first boxing coach, Giuliani sent the article to his father.

Giuliani spent several years between Washington and New York. He was a deputy for the No. 2 man at the Justice Department, worked in private practice and then returned to Justice as the No. 3 official.

While his career soared, his marriage stumbled. He and his wife separated. Later, the marriage was annulled.

Giuliani's political views also were evolving. Calling himself a habitual Democrat, he says he voted for George McGovern in 1972 knowing he would lose. A year later, he switched his party to Independent.

In Washington, Giuliani says he overcame a New Yorker's prejudice that Republicans are "morally inferior to Democrats." He voted for Gerald Ford in 1976 and Ronald Reagan in 1980. He then became a Republican before joining the Reagan Justice Department.

He returned to New York in 1983 as U.S. attorney for the Southern District.

While criticized for overzealousness, he earned a reputation as the nation's pre-eminent crime fighter, going after mob bosses, corrupt politicians and Wall Street inside traders.

City Hall

In 1989, a New York Daily News headline read: "Good News for Bad Guys: Crimebuster Giuliani Steps Down."

But in leaving law for politics, Giuliani lost his footing.

His "take-no-prisoners style made him an awkward politician, and he was undefined and untested as a candidate," said Fred Siegel, a former campaign adviser, in his Giuliani biography "The Prince of the City."

In his first bid for City Hall, Giuliani narrowly lost to Democrat David Dinkins, who became New York's first black mayor. With extensive planning and policy advice, Giuliani won their 1993 rematch.

Surrounded by an intensely loyal inner circle, he became a Republican leader in a Democratic town.

Giuliani inherited a fearful city with vast economic woes. Crime had begun falling before he came into office, but was still seen as out of control.

Giuliani and Police Commissioner William Bratton embraced computerized crime statistics and the "broken windows" strategy, targeting small crimes to prevent big ones. Police went after vandalism, pornography and the "squeegee men" who wiped car windows and harassed drivers for payment.

Violent crime plummeted during Giuliani's two terms in office.

"He went on what for him was a moral crusade, which was to clean up the city," said Andrew Kirtzman, author of "Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City." "He had kind of an 'end justifies the means' philosophy."

As New York changed, Giuliani became known not just for fighting crime, but for fighting in general. Giuliani attacking his enemies "was often really harrowing to watch, but it was also extraordinarily effective," Kirtzman said. "He is a very strong willed, often ruthless, bombastic personality whose driving mission is to get his way."

Giuliani fought with city officials, including his police commissioner in what was widely seen as a battle of crime-fighter egos. Bratton stepped down.

He fought with his own party when he endorsed a Democrat for governor.

And he fought with New Yorkers, insulting callers to his weekly radio show.

"Your excessive concern for weasels is a sign of something wrong in your personality," the mayor told a caller upset about a ban on owning ferrets. "I am giving you the benefit of 55 years of experience — having handled insanity defenses, you need help.''

For all his combativeness, Giuliani also showed his sense of humor.

A decade ago at an annual New York political dinner known for satirical performances, the mayor walked on stage in drag, imitating a busty Marilyn Monroe and calling himself "Rudia." He reprised the breathy rendition of "Happy birthday, Mr. President" Monroe delivered to John F. Kennedy.

The dinner's mayoral performances often relate to Broadway shows and Giuliani teamed with actress Julie Andrews, who starred in "Victor/Victoria," about a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman.

Giuliani, who was running for a second term in an overwhelmingly Democratic New York, joked he was "a Republican pretending to be a Democrat pretending to be a Republican."

Political observers have wondered whether Giuliani's varied cross-dressing appearances as mayor will haunt his presidential campaign and become fodder for negative ads. Asked about a photo of Rudia this month, Giuliani laughed and pointed out he also played the Lion King, the Godfather and the Beast from "Beauty and the Beast" plus an Italian grandmother on "Saturday Night Live."

Things fall apart

Giuliani won his second mayoral term by a landslide, but over time his problems – political and personal – came to overshadow his accomplishments.

Giuliani's anti-crime tactics had inflamed many in the black community, who began to feel like victims amid stop-and-frisk searches and after high-profile police shootings.

In 2000, an undercover narcotics officer shot and killed Patrick Dorismond, an unarmed Haitian immigrant.

Giuliani urged calm, but then released Dorismond's criminal record, including a sealed juvenile case, saying the media should know he "isn't an altar boy." Racial tensions grew. Amid a public backlash, Giuliani's approval rating fell to a new low.

It was just one rough spot in a troubled year.

Another marriage fell apart, this time with Donna Hanover, a TV journalist Giuliani had wed soon after becoming U.S. attorney. Hanover and Giuliani had two children, Andrew and Caroline.

Giuliani's extramarital romance with Judith Nathan, who would become his third wife, went public. He spoke of her at a news conference, where he also surprised Hanover by announcing their separation.

Giuliani later moved out of Gracie Mansion and in with a friend and his gay partner. The mayor's nasty breakup dragged on in full view.

Also in 2000, Giuliani learned he had prostate cancer. He says fighting the disease that killed his father in 1981 helped define and mature him.

"All the experiences I had watching my dad die came up," he told C-SPAN. "I wasn't somebody who thought a lot about death before that."

Giuliani said the experience brought him closer to Nathan, who supported him when he was feeling sorry for himself. Nathan, a nurse, told him he was lucky to catch the disease early.

"My dad never got that warning," he said.

As his personal life appeared to unravel, he withdrew from a Senate race against Hillary Clinton, a contest that never appeared to hold his interest.

His final years as mayor seemed a lackluster end for the man often praised for cutting crime, welfare and taxes and turning New York around.

Sept. 11

Then on that clear blue day in 2001, everything changed.

"The image of an undaunted mayor walking the streets of lower Manhattan comforting and inspiring his fellow citizens as the debris rained down around him has been stamped into the public consciousness," Siegel said.

After the attacks, Giuliani's celebrity brought presidential speculation and millions of dollars from his book deal and speaking fees.

His revered status — as Time's Person of the Year, Queen Elizabeth's honorary knight and America's Mayor according to Oprah — still fuels his candidacy, powering over past mistakes and new questions.

Perhaps his biggest recent misstep involves Bernard Kerik, a former police detective and Giuliani driver and bodyguard. Giuliani named him police commissioner in 2000 and backed him to head the Department of Homeland Security in 2004.

Kerik withdrew his name, citing tax issues involving a former nanny. Last month, he was indicted on charges including lying to the White House and filing false income taxes.

Critics also question Giuliani's handling of 9/11, including problems with rescuer radios and the choice to locate his emergency center in 7 World Trade Center, so close to a likely target.

More recently, Giuliani has faced questions about police security costs during the start of his relationship with Nathan and about clients of the Giuliani Partners consulting firm.

The scrutiny will only increase as the race continues.

That year before 9/11, with personal and political troubles having seemingly knocked Giuliani to the canvas he had often danced above, he talked about how he loved the people of New York.

And he said he knew how they felt about him.

"Some of them love me and some of them hate me," Giuliani said. "But I think they all have a reaction to me."