Who Will Cleanse Brooklyn? Corrections

Subject: Corrections
Date: 10/17/2005 6:26:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: starquest@nycivic.org
To: reysmontj@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)


Who Will Cleanse Brooklyn? Corrections



By Henry J. Stern
October 17, 2005

In Friday's article, "Who Will Cleanse Brooklyn", I made a serious error. In writing about the judicial candidate who testified that he brought $35,000 to the Brooklyn Democratic leaders and was shortly thereafter nominated for the Supreme Court, I incorrectly named the judge as William C. Thompson. In fact, it was Judge Thomas R. Jones. The mistake was called to my attention over the weekend in an e-mail from a knowledgeable former City Councilmember from Brooklyn who is familiar with party affairs. I was thus prepared to apologize immediately when the Comptroller called this morning.

Even in reporting the payment, which had previously been published in the press, I did not criticize the judge, describing him only as a victim of extortion in a corrupt system. The payment took place in 1969, and the judge deserves credit for coming forward to tell the story. But I misidentified him, for which I am very sorry. I have changed our home page to make the story accurate.

There was a comparatively minor mistake in the same article. In a link labeled "Digression", on the seven Jewish justices of the Supreme Court, I wrote that Arthur J. Goldberg had been appointed by President Johnson. In fact, he was appointed by President Kennedy in 1962. He had been Secretary of Labor in the Kennedy administration.

Mr. Justice Goldberg was coaxed from the High Court in 1965 by President Johnson to become the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. LBJ then appointed his friend, Abe Fortas, to what had become known as "the Jewish seat" on the Court, since Goldberg had succeeded Felix Frankfurter, who succeeded Benjamin N. Cardozo. Goldberg was the Democratic-Liberal candidate for governor of New York State in 1970, losing to Nelson A. Rockefeller, who won his fourth term. Rockefeller died in 1979, Goldberg passed away in 1990.

Thanks to Professor Kenneth Sherrill of Hunter College for advising me of the error.

ANYONE who finds an error of fact in an article is asked to let us know at once, so we can make a correction. You will be publicly thanked, unless you ask not to be identified.

Normally, a correction will be appended to the next article published, and made right away on the home page. But we believe the misidentification of the judge was so serious that it required immediate correction. From now on, we will use Google more frequently.

We apologize again to Judge Thompson and his family.




Henry J. Stern
starquest@nycivic.org
New York Civic
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