With talk of President-elect Donald Trump and his pick for FBI director Kash Patel reportedly assembling an “enemies list” of people to target in their incoming administration, I can’t help reflecting on my own experience being named and targeted in a similar scenario, back in the 1970s.
After serving as administrative assistant to New York City Mayor John Lindsay, I decided to switch lanes. I left City Hall and opened a restaurant called Jimmy’s on 52nd Street with Dick Aurelio, who served alongside me in the Lindsay administration as first deputy mayor. (Journalist Jimmy Breslin was going to invest with us, but he had a television contract at one of the local networks and they didn’t want his name being associated with a gin joint — but we kept the name anyway.)
Suddenly everyone at the bar starts yelling at me, “Sid! They’re talking about you on the TV!”
Located next to the 21 Club, Jimmy’s had a thriving scene with a politically connected crowd. Local elected officials were always in and out the place, including Tip O’Neill, Sen. Jacob Javits and Mario Cuomo, the future governor. Other famous personalities would hang around the bar when they were in town, including political commentator William Buckley. The televisions at the bar were always turned on, and we even had an Associated Press ticker near the door.
In June 1973, the Watergate hearings were being broadcast live. One day, suddenly everyone at the bar starts yelling at me, “Sid! They’re talking about you on the TV!” Then-White House Counsel John Dean had just testified that President Richard Nixon kept an enemies list, and I was No. 12 on that list.
The phones quickly lit up. Every reporter in town was calling the restaurant trying to get ahold of me for an interview. Every TV reporter in New York and beyond, and also my mother.
Breslin gets through to me first. Tells me he wants the exclusive. That I had just become a “national figure.” I worked out some of the details, promised I’d talk to him first, then called back my mother, who was in Florida and immediately asks, “What did you do?! Everyone is calling me saying the president doesn’t like you!” I calmed her down and went back to try to figure out what the hell was going on.
Keep in mind, I am 32 years old at the time, the son of a candy store owner from Queens. And here I am on the enemies list of the president of the United States. It was surreal.
At first, we had a blast with it. That Saturday night we hosted an “enemies’ ball” on the downstairs floor of the restaurant that included those of us who opposed the president. But after some time, it all began to take a turn. Suddenly, the IRS starts investigating me, claiming I owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes in FICA for employee fees. Tack on some late fees and penalties and before you knew it, they were claiming I owed close to a million dollars. The state of New York also came after me. I was accused of embezzling funds by state Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz, who worked closely alongside Republican Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. My friends in the attorney general’s office told me they had no choice. Federal agents showed up at the apartment building of the young woman I was dating at the time. They questioned her doormen and wanted to know about my comings and goings.
Although in many ways it remains my proudest moment, the fallout was difficult to deal with. I became a target of the national government virtually overnight. The force of government coming after an individual like that is not a fun place to be.
Throughout my life I have kept asking myself, how did this all come about? Why me? In a nation of more than 200 million people at the time, why did Nixon see me and Lindsay as a such a threat? For whatever reason they couldn’t get to Lindsay, so they got to me. The next best thing, I suppose.
In the notations I was described on the enemies list as “Lindsay’s top personal aide: a first class S.O.B., wheeler-dealer and suspected bagman. Positive results would really shake the Lindsay camp, and Lindsay’s plan to capture the youth vote. Davidoff in charge.”
It was a bit of a merit of honor for me in the long term, but, man, that period was rough. Eventually, a judge threw out the indictment. I’ve since gone on to live a very full and positive life, and I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything. I think it should absolutely be carved into my gravestone: “He was lucky enough to be on Nixon’s enemies list.”
Still, I wouldn’t wish that kind of trouble on anybody. And I’m not sure anyone who finds themselves on Trump’s list will feel as lucky as I do, this many years on.
