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Edward KocheEdward Koche
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Session:         Page of 617

some crazy cockamanie outfit, sort of blue denims but woolen long johns that showed through because he only had short sleeves -- it was just crazy. But as eccentric and as bizarre as he was, your heart went out to this guy in a way. He was a tortured individual. Here is Dick Kuh -- at that time an assistant DA -- bent on destroying him. In any event, that's what most people felt about Dick Kuh and that's what caused his ultimate defeat. He could never run away from that. Because Kuh pointed out in the prima quite intelligently that Morgenthau had no familiarity with the kind of cases that DA offices have, which are a lot of criminal assaults -- violence -- whereas Morgenthau's experience was in the area of white collar crime, the kind that the U.S. attorney's office gets, which was his background. And also Morgenthau had never demonstrated any great shakes as a trial lawyer, whereas Dick Kuh is a very good trial lawyer. So Dick Kuh has a lot of points going for him, but his vulnerability, his Achilles heel, was that he was a sonofabitch and everybody knew it. And I campaigned with Morgenthau and making that very clear. And as I say, it was rather embarrassing -- I'd meet them in my building.

A personal note about Dick Kuh. He is about my age, maybe one or two years older than I am -- I'm 51. He's a very virile young man in that sense, too. But he dyed his hair. His hair was somewhat gray. He dyed it brown; and I don't know what happens with chemicals, but sometimes if you dye your hair brown, it comes out red. And he came out a flaming red-headed guy.





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