Scandal Has Mayor of Chicago Fighting for His Political Life

A federal bribery investigation and the resignations of several top aides have left the administration of Mayor Harold Washington in disarray and have thrust him into a struggle to save his political future.

“The administration is unraveling one layer at a time,” said Louis H. Massotti, Northwestern University professor of public management and urban affairs and aide to former Mayor Jane M. Byrne.

Two months of headlines chronicling the Justice Department’s inquiry into irregularities in the awarding of city contracts have meant difficulties for the mayor, who was elected on a promise to reform the city’s historically corrupt government.

Signs of GOP Upset

There are even signs that the turmoil could lead to something long unimaginable in this one-time bastion of raw urban Democratic Party power--a Republican winner in the spring 1987 mayoral election. Republicans last won the mayor’s office in 1927, when, some historians contend, gangster Al Capone really ran the city.

“The big problem Mayor Washington faces that (former mayor Richard J.) Daley didn’t is that when a scandal comes up, Washington does not have a (political) party to support him,” said Paul M. Green, a Chicago political scientist, referring to the mayor’s political independence from the old Democratic machine and lack of a political organization of his own.

“The FBI probe means that there will be a plausible Republican candidate in 1987,” predicted D. Garth Taylor, a University of Chicago political scientist.

It is generally assumed that Washington will run as an independent, bypassing a spring primary. This would open the way for a three-way race, with the mayor facing, presumably, a machine Democrat and a Republican who would be selected in the primary.

Three years ago Washington won the general election with strong support from the city’s black and Latino communities, but it took whites who live along the Lake Michigan shoreline from Hyde Park on the south to the Evanston border on the north to give him the margin of victory over a Republican who was strongly supported by the balance of the city’s white community, including most Democrats living away from the lake front.

“This scandal is a (political) setback,” said William J. Grimshaw, Illinois Institute of Technology social science department chairman whose wife is on the mayor’s staff.

‘Badly Hurt Him’

“All of this has badly hurt him (Washington),” says an aide to the mayor, who spoke on the condition he not be identified. “It is going to be a problem at election time.”

Washington, Chicago’s first black chief executive and an independent who defeated the Democratic political machine in 1983, is not believed to be a target of the federal inquiry. But he is virtually surrounded by persons who are, including as many as three of his appointees, one or two former top aides and five city councilmen who are aligned with him. A federal grand jury is hearing testimony stemming from an 18-month-long undercover FBI investigation into the awarding of city contracts.

Sources familiar with the probe say that indictments are likely before the end of the summer.

Meanwhile, four of Washington’s top advisers have jumped ship--three of them denying that their seemingly abrupt departures from the administration are related to the investigation.

The city’s top lawyer, James D. Montgomery, resigned. So did his replacement, who quit just five days after being named. Montgomery has been implicated in published reports of an alleged cover-up of a questionable $10,000 payment to another Washington aide. Montgomery vigorously disputes the claim.

The city’s director of intergovernmental affairs--a political operative who told reporters last year he was there to help assure the mayor’s reelection--also quit.

In addition, the mayor’s chief fiscal adviser has absented himself from Washington’s circle of advisers, although he has not resigned. He alleges that other aides to the mayor engaged in a months-long cover-up of the $10,000 payment.

“It’s tough to call yourself a reformer when your associates are in danger of being indicted or are resigning under a cloud,” says Green, director of the Institute for Public Policy at Governors State University.

‘He’s an Alley Fighter’

“He (the mayor) doesn’t sit and spend the time to think about what he’s going to do in three months and how what he says today is going to affect him in the future,” says a close aide. “He’s an alley fighter but in this situation that’s a fundamental flaw.”

Washington has questioned government investigation leaks, has suggested that the probe is racially motivated and has attacked what he considers irresponsible reporting by Chicago’s aggressive press corps. He has also added to the confusion by contradicting other top aides about what happened when and who knew what when.

On the other hand, the mayor has named former U.S. Atty. Thomas Sullivan, the federal prosecutor who launched the Greylord investigation of corruption in Cook County courts, as a special investigator to determine just what people in the administration did, and when. And last week Washington named Judson H. Miner, another highly respected lawyer, as city attorney.

Still, the consensus among political scientists is that Washington has mishandled the situation.

“This is the most serious scandal at the highest levels of the city’s administration in the memories of most Chicagoans,” says Northwestern University’s Massotti. “And clearly it hasn’t been handled well.”

Foes Seek Advantage

Politicians in Chicago are zeroing in on Washington’s troubles. GOP leaders believe the federal probe, coupled with continuing indictments and trials in the Greylord investigation, makes the election of one of their own a possibility. Most frequently mentioned are Dan K. Webb, the corruption-busting federal prosecutor who launched the current investigation, and former Illinois Gov. Richard B. Oglivie.

“Dan Webb doesn’t know anything about being mayor but he can come in as Mr. Clean in a time of crime and corruption,” adds social scientist Green.

Sensing that they may no longer belong to the party of choice, some powerful Democrats are also talking about bolting to the GOP, offering themselves as candidates.

Washington’s fortunes turned sour on Christmas Eve when newspapers first revealed the FBI’s sting operation to document alleged corruption in city and county governments. Almost instantly, Chicago’s City Council battles--which Washington appeared to be winning in public opinion polls--were forgotten.

In rapid succession it was disclosed that the FBI had a “mole” who spent 18 months wheeling and dealing with Chicago officials, that he had recorded allegedly improper transactions on videotape and that those transactions involved more than a dozen public officials, including some within Washington’s administration.

‘Operation Incubator’

Called “Operation Incubator,” the investigation focuses on the awarding of private contracts for collection of overdue water bills and unpaid parking tickets. The undercover-agent, actually a double agent, was also employed by a New York firm that won one major Chicago contract and bid on another.

Five aldermen--all former Democratic machine loyalists who lined up with Washington after his election--have told reporters that they are under investigation. On New Year’s day, the mayor fired his deputy revenue director after reports that he allegedly accepted a $10,000-payment from the FBI mole. The mayor suspended two other aides.

Also damaging to the mayor is the apparent involvement in the scandal of his neighbor and former aide, Clarence McClain. Forced out of the administration in 1983 by disclosures of three vice convictions, McClain reportedly wielded influence over city business after being dismissed. He has been identified as being a business associate of the FBI “mole” in published accounts.

McClain Ties Denied

Washington has repeatedly denied that McClain is a friend or that he maintained contact with him.

The continuing investigation is “eroding possibilities of necessary support” for Washington’s reelection bid among liberal voters along Chicago’s lake front, says University of Chicago political scientist Taylor.

But public policy expert Paul M. Green thinks there is still hope for Washington. “The election is a year away, and what happens in the next two or three months is what is going to call it,” Green says. “Unfortunately (in Chicago) it takes a shuttle disaster to get him off the top of the news.”

Times researcher Wendy Leopold contributed to this article.