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Edward KocheEdward Koche
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really upset her. She could have run against Murphy, Jack Murphy, and that would have been the logical one because philosophically they are totally different, and she decided that she couldn't beat him, although as it turned out, she probably could have because the McGovern candidacy won even on Staten Island, which was very strange. The McGovern delegates won on Staten Island. So she could have won in that primary in all probability, but she didn't want to take a chance. So who did she run against? She ran against a poor cancer ridden dying guy, Fitts Ryan, who was dying of cancer and everybody knew it. And she runs against him.

Now, when you consider that if there were two far left wingers in the Congress, it would be Bella and Ryan. I mean their positions -- you couldn't tell them apart. Ryan was sort of the grandfather of the reform Congressmen, the oldest one in terms of seniority, and he's also dying. Do you run against somebody like that? He also had helped her. If you're Bella Abzug, you go for the jugular. She's nothing more than a piranha.

In any event, she runs against him; and he knew that she would make that decision, and so as they're ending that year -- whatever that would be; I suppose the year would be 1970, '71, because they're going to run in '72 -- so each is looking at the way the other is voting. Each wants to be more radical than the other, because they come from the most radical district in the city, the upper west side. It was crazy. They each would do crazy things in terms of radicalism. But everybody -- I mean everybody -- was rooting for Ryan. So, for example, Wayne Hays,





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