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for me to remember -- I had taken Marty Berger into my confidence the night before. He was the president of the Village Independent Democrats. And I believe that he knew about it. In fact, I'm quite sure he did -- and approved of it. So he was the president of the VID -- I'm the male district leader -- and now I'm on the phone with the female district leader, and she says, “Okay, I'll come down.” I was ecstatic.

I must tell you that I have never had such a big press conference in all my life -- no matter what I've ever done, I mean in terms of the numbers of people that came to my office. It was an office the size of this -- let's say a room 12 by 15, my own office and then the outer room. Well, I must tell you the place was swarming with television and press, because they knew, based on the statement which had been sent out, which said simply: “Democratic district leader Edward Koch will have a press conference at 10 o'clock on Monday morning in which he will make a statement on the mayoralty,” and they knew what the likelihood was. It was that kind of era, so to speak; I mean it was just the kind of thing... I cannot tell you why, but they smelled it. They knew that I was going to do something that was newsworthy.

Well, why would a district leader be having a Monday conference -- certainly not to endorse Beame?