Political-War Stories of a Truly Combative Supervisor

Admit it, you yawned last week when Bill Steiner was named to succeed Don Roth on the Board of Supervisors. Nice guy, sure, but Steiner is right up there with Gaddi Vasquez--the last supervisor appointed to fill a board vacancy--on the personal electricity scale.

To a board that’s about as exciting as tapioca pudding, Steiner is a few more drops of vanilla extract.

Relative newcomers may not know it, but it wasn’t always this way in Orange County. Because before Steiner in 1993 and Vasquez in 1987, there was Edison Miller, appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown in July, 1979, to replace scandal-plagued Supervisor Ralph Diedrich. Miller’s 18 months on the board would prove to be one of the wildest rides in local political history.

To get your bearings for our time travel, consider that Orange County was probably more conservative in 1979 than it is today and that the country was only four years removed from the inglorious end of the Vietnam War.

Into that setting Gov. Brown, already immensely unpopular here, dropped Miller, a 48-year-old attorney and Democratic activist who had been shot down over North Vietnam and held prisoner for 5 1/2 years.

War hero usually means political appeal, but Miller had been accused of disloyalty by speaking out against the war while in captivity. Add to that Miller’s personal friendship with Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, household names in Orange County in those days in the way that ants and roaches were. Miller may well have been the most unpopular politician in the county even before he was sworn in.

It went downhill from there.

Mickey Conroy, head of a veterans’ group and now a state assemblyman from Orange County, immediately talked of recalling Miller. A few months after his appointment, Miller introduced himself to Republican Assemblyman Patrick Nolan at a banquet. Within moments, they were shoving each other.

It wasn’t just the Republicans who disliked Miller. From the outset, Miller attacked the local power structure, directing much of his onslaught at Richard O’Neill, at the time the state Democratic Party chairman.

By April of 1980, the local Democratic committee met to censure Miller, who got wind of the meeting and showed up. Striding up to County Democratic Chairman William Thom, Miller said: “I hear you’re attempting to pass a resolution against me. I know you’re an intellectual moron.”

Then there were his colleagues on the board, who accused him of abrasiveness, grandstanding and obstructing business.

Great theater, but it became obvious that Miller would not get elected to a full term in 1980. Yet in announcing his candidacy, he said he was running to rescue the county from the “clique of politicians whose power and influence have corrupted our democratic institutions.”

Republican Assemblyman Bruce Nestande ran against him and said as the campaign unfolded: “The major issue is whether the Fonda-Hayden radical element is going to gain a foothold in this county.”

On election day, Miller got less than 17% of the vote.

Miller’s post-mortem was typically combative: “People in Orange County will find out the character of the man (Nestande). I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d be the next public official in Orange County to be indicted.”

In 1987 Nestande, long seen as an ambitious politician, resigned his supervisor’s seat before his term expired to enter private business. He left among rumors that he might get embroiled in the scandal surrounding fireworks manufacturer W. Patrick Moriarty and his associates. Nestande was the subject of a joint investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office and the Orange County district attorney’s office, but nothing ever came of it.

Eventually, Miller would sue Nestande for allegedly defaming him about his Vietnam activities, but the case never went to trial.

Mark Edwards, a Tustin attorney who represented Miller, recalled last week that Miller was haunted by the allegations about his patriotism. “It’s kind of like Tony Bennett always being remembered for singing ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco,’ ” Edwards said. “He’s sung it so many times he hates it. Ed Miller will always be remembered as the former POW who was appointed to the Board of Supervisors and lost an election because it was alleged he was less than loyal. And that simply isn’t true.”

Although censured by the military establishment when he returned from Vietnam, Miller was promoted to full colonel and received other commendations, Edwards said. Miller insisted he was never unpatriotic and, indeed, he sustained numerous injuries both before and during his long captivity.

Miller, now 61, practices law in San Jose. I couldn’t reach him this week but talked to him in 1990 on an unrelated issue and asked him then of his remembrances of Orange County. “I got calls at 2 or 3 in the morning, saying they were going to kill me, my wife, my kids, my cat. The hatred and bitterness . . . left a real bad taste in my mouth.”

Despite his Orange County experience, Miller hoped to stay in public life, Edwards said. After Miller lost the 1980 election, Edwards said, “one time on his behalf, I approached the governor (Brown) to see if there was someplace he could serve in some official capacity as an appointee.”

What happened? I asked.

“We’re still waiting for them to get back to us,” Edwards said.