Mayor Should Round Out His Inner Circle

At the height of his biggest political crisis, Mayor Richard Riordan’s most influential advisor, attorney Bill Wardlaw, was out of action, recovering from a colon cancer operation.

Wardlaw, a wealthy attorney-investor, is back at work now and has resumed counseling his friend the mayor on an unpaid basis. “The prognosis is very good,” he said. “I’m afraid the mayor’s enemies will have to put up with me a while longer.”

Nobody knows whether Wardlaw could have improved damage control after City Atty. Jim Hahn revealed that Riordan’s chief operating officer, Mike Keeley, had confidentially given a paper from the city attorney’s office to private attorneys opposing the city in a lawsuit.

But his surgery deprived the politically inexperienced mayor of a confidant who has guided politicians through much worse scrapes. Wardlaw’s crisis management resume includes top jobs in Bill Clinton’s rocky road to the presidency and Kathleen Brown’s losing campaign for governor.

His absence and the possible departure of top aide Keeley, the two men Riordan trusts most, points up the mayor’s thin bench as he heads into tough budget negotiations and a reelection campaign.

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Keeley and Wardlaw have been a team since Riordan put them to work in his law firm, which specialized in real estate deals and complicated investments. The firm boomed, and the two younger men prospered under Riordan’s wing.

Keeley was the detail man, able to grasp the opportunities behind the numbers of a complex land transaction, or see the weaknesses in the books of a company ripe for a hostile takeover.

Wardlaw had another dimension--political savvy. As a 13-year-old he stuffed envelopes for John F. Kennedy, running for president, and as an attorney found a place in the high echelons of almost every major Democratic campaign in California. When Riordan ran for mayor, Wardlaw oversaw the campaign, giving a decidedly Democratic tone to Republican Riordan’s efforts.

Once Riordan was in office, Keeley moved inside to City Hall as top aide, while Wardlaw stayed outside, in his investment business. Aides have come and gone, but these have remained the most trusted, men who had proved their worth in the arena Riordan respects most, business.

Keeley and Riordan are a lot alike. They are friendly on the surface but are tightly self-controlled, wary of reporters and other potential troublemakers. With their traditional suits and conservative manner, they might have stepped from a Brooks Bros. store, circa 1956.

In City Hall, Keeley knew the figures but didn’t understand politics. Only Wardlaw, working the phones from his office miles away, understood the strange currents of Los Angeles politics.

Early in April, Wardlaw had a routine physical. He told me his physician found something suspicious. It looked like colon cancer. His operation was April 12. He was in the hospital for several days and then continued his recuperation at home.

On April 19, Hahn struck. Wardlaw was on the sidelines. By the time Wardlaw got back to work, the damage was done.

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Wardlaw assessed the damage when we talked Thursday morning.

“I’m back in the mix,” he said, “looking forward to the campaign. I lost two weeks, but I’m making it up.”

And would Keeley continue on the team?

“Whatever happens,” Wardlaw said, “Keeley will always be close to the mayor. The mayor will always have the benefit of Keeley’s advice.”

But Wardlaw also said, “I don’t know why Mike, at some point, would want to put up with this foolishness. He made a mistake. The reaction was politically overblown. It was meant to hurt the mayor. If I were Mike Keeley, why would I want to keep putting up with this?”

If Keeley is tired of putting up with it, Riordan will no longer have him popping in and out of his office, on top of the many details that bore the mayor. All he’ll have is the political guy, Wardlaw.

That’s not much help for the rough days ahead. If Riordan is serious about getting his budget through and serving a successful second term, he’ll have to expand the tiny circle of those he trusts.