‘Super D’ Was a Man Who Never Gave In

I looked into Ralph A. Diedrich’s coffin, but what I saw was all wrong.

This Ralph Diedrich looked submissive and resigned, traits I’d never seen in Diedrich during the years I, as a reporter, watched him bully his fellow county supervisors--not even during the years after he was convicted of bribery and was sure to go to prison and out of politics forever.

To someone like me, an arm’s-length observer, Diedrich’s one overriding trait was his insistence on being in the driver’s seat. If he couldn’t be, he got off the bus and bought another.

But at the end of his political career, when he was convicted of bribery and headed for prison, he began to kid himself that he still was in the driver’s seat. To everyone else, it was plain that his bus would never run again.

I overheard a relative at the funeral chapel Wednesday in San Diego remark affectionately that Diedrich’s middle initial stood for abrasive. Actually, it stood for Argue, his mother’s maiden name, but both are accurate. Among politicians, Diedrich was a street brawler.

I don’t know whether that made Diedrich “good” or “bad.” He had served a term as a Fullerton City Council member, then was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1973 and filled a power void with his drill-sergeant aggressiveness. He was in control of the board almost from the moment he arrived. If an issue mattered at all, whatever it was, Diedrich pulled it over onto his plate, and the other supervisors let him. He racked up some genuine, significant accomplishments and reveled in the nickname it earned him: Super D.

Some of his fellow supervisors raged at the publicity and credit he commanded, but by and large they raged in private. On his last day as a supervisor in 1979--when he resigned rather than be automatically unseated by his bribery conviction--some of his fellow supervisors wept and embraced him.

A trial jury said Diedrich extracted a bribe from a developer within his first month in office. Diedrich always denied it. He had become a millionaire through land development, and his jurors were just ordinary people who didn’t understand money, he said. Money was a tool to be used, he added.

Hated The Times

Diedrich hated The Times for its investigation into his affairs, but after he was off the board and awaiting prison, he consented to an interview in his Fullerton home. I couldn’t understand why until I got there.

It was plain that Diedrich couldn’t stand the lack of attention. In the old days, he would turn down interviews knowing that there would be many more flattering requests. But now a convicted, has-been politician, Diedrich perhaps was worried that the interview requests were ending.

He pretended to be reluctant to talk, but he didn’t stop talking for an hour.

He hadn’t been excluded from local politics, he said, he had voluntarily withdrawn. People in county government were still calling him for advice, almost every day. Who were they? None of your business.

He had grand political plans he would swing into motion “when I’m in a position to dictate.” He was going to revamp the entire political process at every level of government from federal to local. He was considering forbidding incumbents from running for reelection. “I’m not sure that the very nature of the presidency is sacrosanct in my mind.” He wasn’t sure he approved of bicameral legislatures, either.

And he wasn’t kidding.

But what about going to prison? “What is the time? Maybe 8 months?” Big deal. “I’ve been around life long enough to know that a few bucks will do wonders for you any place in the world. I’ve learned that. You’ll always find me with a few bucks.”

It wasn’t 8 months; it was more like 2 years.

I wondered how Diedrich would do living for such a long time in a setting where his subordination was legally mandated, where he had to take orders. I called the state prison in Chino, but he refused to talk over the phone. He still insisted: You come to me.

In Prison Denims

I did. He was in prison denims. He had lost a little weight--Diedrich was always stout--but everything was going well, he said. He had things under control, he cracked. He wouldn’t say what work they had him doing there. A prison official later said he was a clerk. More orders to take.

Diedrich’s parole hearing was coming up, and I told him that I planned to sit in. That would be no problem, he said. It would be only a formality. He granted his permission for news coverage, even though no one asked for it. And he agreed to be interviewed after the hearing and dictated some ground rules.

On his hearing day in 1983, Diedrich faced the two-man parole board as if they were supplicants before his Board of Supervisors. When the board began to question him, he answered peevishly. He wanted to fire these people or deny their next zoning request, but he couldn’t. They persisted. They, too, were peeved. Finally Diedrich simply cut off their persistent questioning. “I gave you the reason,” he said.

When the panel recommended denial of his early parole, he told them they were ridiculous. He stalked out of the room and out of the building. He was in no mood for an interview that day.

Though the price was continued imprisonment, Diedrich simply could not submit. Gambling is forbidden in prison, but prison authorities found a football betting slip in his pocket once and later found him playing gin rummy for money with other inmates, they said. They also suspected him of cutting deals with other inmates by providing them with driver license tests and answers, but that was never substantiated.

No Early Release

So Diedrich got no early release, and when he was freed and moved to San Diego, he punished Orange County by pledging never to return, a promise he kept except for one testimonial dinner for Robert E. Thomas, the former county administrative officer.

I never saw him submit to anything, not even once, until Wednesday, when he lay in his coffin.