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they say that Bella Abzug is a CIA agent. Now, I happen to dislike Bella Abzug intensely, immensely. I can't think of the words, I could use that would be broad enough. But to call her a CIA agent makes them nutty. Okay.

My experiences with them. The most hilarious one was when I took Morgenthau on a walk down the east side of Manhattan. I don't think I mentioned this to you. If I did, you'll stop me. When Morgenthau was running for DA -- and we should at some point talk about how I got involved in stopping Dick Kuh for DA -- I was very instrumental in getting Morgenthau the nomination in the primary and also in getting him elected, although getting elected is easy once you're the Democratic candidate here in Manhattan. In any event, he asked me to take him down the east side of Manhattan and to introduce him. He's not a very good candidate in the sense of being able to handle crowds or people. He's a strange guy in that respect. He just doesn't know how to do it. I'm very good at it. I'm really one of the best street campaigners that we have in the city. Everybody says that so I'm being immodest and I'm repeating it, but it's true. As we walk down Lexington beginning at 86th Street on a Saturday morning in the summer of '74, as we walk down from 86th Street to 59th shaking hands, talking to people and I introduce Morgenthau and I have a style about it: I say to people, “This is Bob Morgenthau. You know Morgenthau. You know that name!” And they look at me sort of wide-eyed. And I say, “That's him!” Morgenthau doesn't know what to do. If he could, he'd creep under a manhole cover, he's so embarrassed by it.