This Pesky Gadfly Loves to Create a Buzz

Paula Corbin Jones came to the big city and got taken in by a sweet-talking man. She wasn’t the first to get a big fat kiss from Abe Hirschfeld--and she won’t be the last.

“Personally, she’s a real American girl, but she’s not among the raving beauties,” said Hirschfeld, the New York real estate tycoon who briefly had Jones believing that he would give her $1 million to settle her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton. “She’s more like my secretary.”

The deal fell through this week, when Jones’ attorneys charged that New York’s most irrepressible gadfly had failed to transfer the money as promised. Hirschfeld said he wanted guarantees that he’d be immune from any future litigation.

“Giving her [Jones] that money was the greatest achievement of my life,” he said, brushing aside the fact that the deal is now officially kaput. “People will remember me for this.”

How could they forget? Hirschfeld, 78, looked bizarre at his Washington news conference last week, smooching Jones in public and acting like a rich but embarrassing uncle with orange hair. For a time, many in the capital actually believed the offer was good, only to be chagrined when it collapsed.

What Jones and her lawyers didn’t understand, said Newsday political columnist Sheryl McCarthy, is that “Hirschfeld is an exhibitionist. He jumps into all of these high-profile frays just to get attention. Nothing ever really comes of it.”

In New York, nobody was surprised by Hirschfeld’s latest stunt. He is perhaps most famous for his 16-day ownership in 1993 of the New York Post, which he rescued from bankruptcy. Soon after taking control, he threw the paper into turmoil with madcap hiring policies and wild statements about the future of American journalism. He fired Editor Pete Hamill; then several days later he hired him back and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Who is this nut?” screamed a headline in the Post, whose employees put out a special issue of the paper trashing Hirschfeld. He lost control of the paper when the bankruptcy court awarded the company to media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.

A Polish Holocaust refugee with a sixth-grade education, Hirschfeld has been a longtime thorn in the side of Democratic politicians and has run unsuccessfully for a host of offices. He may speak in an Eastern European accent, but his money is 100% American. Indeed, he’s made a fortune in parking lots, and he’s launched a string of developments, including the Vertical Club, one of the city’s most upscale health and fitness emporiums.

In a rambling office interview, Hirschfeld claimed credit for Manhattan’s economic health (“It wouldn’t be anything without my parking lots”), the Camp David accord (“Carter did that as a reward for my helping him get elected”) and the settlement (“with my help”) of Paula Jones’ litigation.

The case, of course, is not settled, but why haggle over details? Hirschfeld knows a good public relations shot when he sees one, and Jones walked right into the cross hairs.

It would have been a mistake to stage an event in New York to announce his $1-million offer, he explained, “because the local press doesn’t like me. If I hold it here, I’d get two cockroaches to come. In Washington, we got 20 TV cameras.”

Hirschfeld, who has been indicted on charges of evading $2.2 million in state taxes, insisted he’s innocent. Then, changing the subject, he voiced optimism over the future of Jones’ case.

“The president doesn’t need me anymore,” he declared. “I showed him the way. Now the president will give her whatever she wants to make the whole thing, the scandal, disappear.”

On a more personal note, the developer said he has become fond of Jones. “She never knew what a Jew is . . . she never met a Jew,” he mused. It was delightful giving her a kiss, he added, but he also confessed that when it comes to allure, she isn’t exactly his cup of tea: “If you’re hungry, go to McDonald’s. Otherwise, you look for a better sandwich.”

Hirschfeld, who is married and the father of two children, has mingled with some of the Empire State’s most powerful politicians. He’s either an embarrassment or comic relief, depending on your point of view. But New Yorkers seem to be tiring of an act that caught Washington by surprise.

At Fox News headquarters in midtown Manhattan this week, the red neon news zipper winding around the building mentioned the sudden collapse of Hirschfeld’s financial dealings with Jones and added: “Why does anybody talk to this guy?”