Citron Was Embittered, Defensive, Friends Say : Profile: As criticism mounted over the year, the former Orange County treasurer took it personally and hard.

About a year ago, his friends began noticing a change in Bob Citron, then the highly respected treasurer of Orange County.

“He just couldn’t take even constructive questioning, let alone constructive criticism,” said Gary Granville, the county clerk and Citron’s old friend. “Not even, ‘Bob, are you sure you’re right?’ He’d be offended. It’s a telltale sign.”

It got worse as Citron’s election opponent--the first to ever challenge him in his 24 years in office--mounted his campaign. Though the campaign was tame by Orange County standards, concentrating on issues of risk, not personalities, Citron took it personally and hard, Granville said.

“Hurt, offended, angry, embittered, self-righteous, defensive--just all those things. It kind of just really unnerved him. . . . When you and I would maybe pull back, he plunged ahead and kept betting the wrong line.”

Citron, who had become accustomed to praise for the high return he got on his investments, escalated his gambles with the county’s investment fund. And finally, he lost. Now the fund is being liquidated with losses estimated at $2.02 billion. The county government has filed for bankruptcy, and Citron has resigned, secluding himself at his Santa Ana home.

“I’m not a psychologist, but I think there’s something deep going on here,” Granville said.

He and other friends describe Citron as extremely likable and hard-working, in the last year to a point just short of obsessive; a rigidly moral person who did not drink, smoke, swear or gamble; someone who avoided the usual political socializing, preferring lunch at the Elks Club with old friends; someone who was extremely conventional but with striking eccentricities; and finally, a person who grew so used to the adulation of his profession that he risked all to keep it.

“There’s no evil or dishonesty here, I know that,” Granville said. “It’s the adulation that clouds your judgment.”

Citron became Orange County treasurer virtually by default. “I don’t know of anything in his background that would indicate he was a financial wizard,” said one friend.

Born into a family that had rooted in Orange County in 1887, he attended USC’s School of Business Administration but did not obtain a degree, according to school records.

He did, however, become a USC fanatic, forming at least one local alumni association, joining local USC athletics boosters, and adorning himself, his automobile, even his bathroom, with USC colors and emblems. Friends said he had a car horn that played the USC fight song, and his toilet seat is painted Trojan cardinal and gold.

“I just assumed he was a USC graduate,” said a friend. “I never heard Bob say that he was, but with all the USC rooting, you’d just assume.”

Friends in Orange County said they know nothing of Citron’s years before coming to county government. Wayne Gross, a retired Santa Ana firefighter, said he has known Citron “a hell of a long time, at least 35, 40 years,” but “I really don’t know his background.”

Citron’s earliest campaign literature states that he spent 10 years as “manager for a large financial institution.” An article he wrote in 1973 stated that he had been manager of a “finance company.” Friends say they have no idea what sort of business it might have been.

Citron left private business in 1960 to join the Orange County tax collector’s staff. He worked there 10 years, eventually rising to a supervising position, then winning an election to succeed the tax collector after he retired in 1971.

Some remember the new tax collector as rather shy and withdrawn when he was among other county officials. “I knew him probably as well as anybody,” said Victor A. Heim, then the county’s auditor-controller. “Bob was sort of an introvert. I don’t mean that critically, but he was not the person you’d sit down and visit with or go out to lunch with.”

But that, friends say, was only his appearance to outsiders. Within a close circle of old and trusted buddies, Citron was open and affable and liked to indulge his eccentricities.

He joined the Anti-Slubberdegulion Society, dedicated to the “eradication of boredom.” He helped form a local W.C. Fields Fan Club because his father, a physician, had once helped the famous drinker dry out. Both organizations were just whimsical excuses for a tight group of chums to go to restaurants and shoot the breeze, said Jerry Kobrin, a newspaper columnist who was part of the group.

Citron’s favorite haunt was the Santa Ana Elks Lodge, where he was a senior member of “The Jolly Boys,” as Walter Kinnear, the restaurant manager, calls them. “They have a regular group, The Jolly Boys at the round table. They get together and lie to each other. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we reserve a table for them.”

Soon Citron’s eccentricities began showing in public.

He wore to his office a yellow suit at Easter and a red suit at Christmas and almost always wore something from his remarkable collection of turquoise jewelry.

He directed taxpayers to make their checks out to him by name.

In 1972, he sent out tax envelopes that bore the maxim “Citron Says: Taxes Paid on Time Never Draw Fines.” When a county supervisor objected to what seemed like Citron’s ego-boosting, Citron, an independently elected official, mockingly held a contest for a new jingle, himself suggesting, “A diller, a dollar, pay your taxes or I’ll holler.”

Then in 1973, when then-Treasurer Ivan Swanger retired, supervisors consolidated the treasurer and tax collector offices and appointed Citron to the new post. Citron said he did not welcome the extra duty.

“I haven’t even had time to think about how I’ll operate the department,” he said. “However, I don’t plan to make any changes for at least a year in . . . basic policies on investments.”

Citron’s predecessor as treasurer was the antithesis of Citron when it came to fearing risk, Granville said. “Swanger would have liked to bury the money in a tin can in the back yard and put two bulldogs over it.”

Citron benefited from Swanger’s assistant, Ray Wells, who stayed on when Citron took over the treasurer’s office, Granville said. “Ray is a very, very nice guy, soft-spoken, kind, good ability,” Granville said. “He didn’t press for any recognition himself. Ray had the financial experience, and I think Bob tended to listen to him because he was non-challenging.”

Citron, distant from others in his office when it came to investing, placed Wells in an adjoining office with glass between them.

“Ray was the one person Bob would let in on it,” Granville said. “It’s not that Bob was hiding anything, but he was very territorial. Bob and Ray would make the (investment) decisions, and Bob would call in the orders.”

As Citron settled into the job, he began to create a new image for himself.

As tax collector, he had cast himself as a cost-cutter, going to each annual County Board of Supervisors budget hearing and requesting a smaller departmental budget.

“He liked that so much,” said one county official. “He liked being in the presence of important people. He’d read his written statement to the board, single-spaced on both sides, and it was chock-full of self-serving statements. He enjoyed it. He did have a large ego.”

Now as treasurer, he cast himself as a financial whiz, investing the county’s funds in more profitable ways. That role became something more after 1978, when Proposition 13 passed and clamped limitations on property tax increases. As local government budgets got tighter, Citron, whose investments were netting increased profits, became something of a savior.

“He came to be kind of a heroic figure among county people,” Granville said. “Bob would appear with $28 million in unexpected interest and solve a lot of problems. He helped bail everyone out so often that he became a kind of guru in other people’s minds--and probably in his own mind.”

“When you’re on a roll--and he was--it’s human nature to think that roll will continue,” said Vick Knight, a former Orange County school administrator and close friend of Citron’s.

Some governments were so pleased with Citron’s earnings record that they borrowed money to invest with him. He was treated as a celebrity at county treasurers’ meetings. In 1988, City & State, a trade magazine, named him one of the best county finance officers in the nation.

Citron was advising friends and acquaintances to follow his lead with their personal investments, and “a lot were getting on the bandwagon,” said one acquaintance, who asked not to be named. But he was not pressuring anyone, she added.

“My husband thinks he’s great, and he was ready to dump everything we got into it. And I kept saying no, no, no. I believe if you can’t stand to lose that money, you have no business investing that money in a gamble.

“I told (Citron) that, and he wasn’t angry. He was very friendly, no problem whatsoever. He never pressured any of us to invest.”

But the pressure on him to protect his risky investments began to tell this year. “I find myself comparing Bob’s situation to a baseball pitcher who is pitching a no-hitter into the last of the ninth, when maybe he throws the wrong pitch,” said Knight. “I just think circumstances caught up with him.”

Granville said he and two other county department heads regularly lunched with Citron, who insisted that they eat at the Elks Lodge. It is a tribute to the pleasure of Citron’s company that the three others consented, Granville said.

We would say, “Oh, god, don’t take us there!” But he loved it. He’d walk in, and people would say, ‘Hi, Bob, Hi, Bob.’ He was at home,” Granville said.

But toward the end of 1993, Citron began behaving differently at the lunches, Granville said. “Bob was always preoccupied with his work, but it became everything to him. He’d go into long, detailed explanations of what he was doing. He was totally, I wouldn’t say obsessed, but totally preoccupied. It was very difficult to talk to him about anything but what he was doing. He’d never turn to one of us and say, ‘How are things going with you?’ ”

About this time, Citron knew he would be challenged for reelection and he was also beginning to increase his risky investments.

Was he fearful of a crash? Granville doesn’t think so. The pressure was coming from elsewhere, he believes.

“Ray Wells retired (from the treasurer’s office) about a year earlier. I think that was a loss to Bob. I think Ray influenced the policy and was a check, and it was after Ray left that Bob started managing the fund alone.”

Also, interest rates were rising, which reduced the investment fund’s profits and, if they rose further, would threaten the fund’s capital itself.

“You have to remember that he had received lots of adulation and recognition from all corners. The centerpiece of his campaign was an unsolicited letter from (County Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas F.) Riley praising him,” Granville said.

“I can’t analyze him--I’m not a psychologist--but I think he felt compelled to remain No. 1 in the state for interest returned. Absolutely compelled. And I think he thought what had worked for him would always work for him.”

It did not, and the crash was brutal, friends said. Granville called Citron just after his resignation, but “we couldn’t complete the conversation because he was so shaken. I was really concerned. It was his worst nightmare, the very worst thing that could happen to him. We all have defenses, but this crushed him. I just haven’t been able to bring myself to stop by and see him.”

Granville said that what Citron had was all he wanted. He had no ambition to climb the political ladder. “He’s making $115,000 a year (with perquisites) and he has good retirement. Does an assemblyman do that well? No. A supervisor? No.”

Kobrin said Citron called him on Dec. 7, three days after his resignation, and they talked for a long time, mainly reminiscing.

“He sounded like someone who was trying to find a little relief in all the pressure. I don’t know if he called me for comic relief or just to try to find some note of levity in all this.”

Friends say the blow struck Citron’s wife, Terry, seemingly as hard. The couple are remarkably devoted to one another, friends say. “He never goes anywhere without her,” said one. Both remain at home nowadays, sending out their usual Christmas cards and screening their telephone calls, friends said.

“I know him to be an honest individual,” said Knight, “and I imagine he’s devastated now.”

Correspondent Patrick Mott contributed to this report.

* BANKRUPTCY COVERAGE: Related Orange County stories on A3