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Session:         Page of 617

LBH
Interview # 10
Interviewee: Congressman Edward I. Koch
Interviewer: Ed Edwin
New York City
Jan. 2, 1976

Q:

Okay, you wanted to discuss the National Labor Caucus.

Koch:

Yes, they were also known as the 4.5 Labor Party. It is a group of basically young men and women in their late twenties, early thirties -- the ones that I have met are Jewish -- and they are for the most part nuts. They are also the sons and daughters of very wealthy people, the ones that I know. One of them happens to be the son of Stanlly, Geller, which is interesting. The sins of the fathers are visited on the children. He has to suffer what he did to his own father. Stanley was a radical, and now the son is even more radical than he is and he is suffering. The daughter of Jerry Brody, who owns Gallagher's is in that category. They're a number of very wealthy people who had children... I don't know what the psychological reason is. The obvious one would be resenting the money that they have available to them and they would like in some way to expiate their sins, so they go out and commit nutty acts in support of what they consider to be the downtrodden. But they are a very strange case now. Let me just give you a couple of my experiences.

First of all, they engage in violence. I have never been the subject of their violence. I have been the subject of their vilification. Let me also point out a nuttiness. For example,












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