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As a footnote here, how do you evaluate Ray Jones as a political operator?

Excellent political operator. He's not the kind of person I would like to see in public office, because I don't think he was good for the party if you're talking about good government. Just the kind of guy that was a fit successor to Carmine DeSapio, if you like that kind of politics. He took Costikyan's place, and Cóstikyan was much to be preferred. Costikyan was a man with what I consider to be the greatest integrity and intelligence and desirous of changing the image of the Democratic party. I do not consider J. Raymond Jones in that vein at all. I think J. Raymond Jones’ position in life was: whatever the whites did before we got in, now we're in, we're doing to do the same, only better.

What would you say about the quality of any of the appointees that he was instrumental in bringing into office?

I can't recall the judges that he would have been selecting, but I do not believe that his joy in life was coming up with a supurb job, not at all. I think his major function in life was to use politics for all that it could bring him personally. I don't know that he was venal in a criminal sense,