By: Leonardo Bevilacqua and Dante Dallago
Why did a young Rudy Giuliani have tea with Haiti’s dictator in 1982?
To answer that question, we’ll have to go back to 1968 when a 24 year-old Giuliani was just graduating from law school. He was a young, driven lawyer whose sight was set on a political career with the Democratic Party.
But in just 7 years, Giuliani would change cities, change jobs, change political parties and establish what we now call: immigration detention centers.
You’re listening to Episode 2: “Ambition is a Beast.”
TRANSCRIPT
LEONARDO BEVILACQUA: I’m looking at Rudy Giuliani’s yearbook photo. It’s from his NYU Law School days. His eyes are hooded, his face narrow. And he looks serious. At 24, he’s dignified yet baby-faced, like a young missionary. Although just about 5 ‘9’’, former classmates say he stood much taller.
Music cue. A couple of beats.
DANTE DALLAGO: Back then, NYU Law was one building. The school was still raising its reputation. Giuliani was too.
JOSEPH JAFFE: I lived in Hayden Hall to start with, and then I lived on, uh, just off of sixth Avenue
LB: We called up an old classmate of Giuliani’s: Joe Jaffe.
JAFFE: When we were in the office, he was uptown on, I think it was 82nd Street. He and Chino were married.
DD: Chino, short for Regina. Giuliani and Regina Peruggi were married in Giuliani’s last year at NYU.
JAFFE: First time I met him was on Law Review. He was an editor, yeah. I was an editor.
JAFFE: Neither one of us were one of the top five editors, but yeah, we were both editors.
LB: And what was your first impression?
JAFFE: Smart guy. Smart guy, fun guy.
JAFFE: And he was also capable of getting others to buy in to where he wanted to go, which is the key to most good leadership. You don’t tell people what to do, you lead them … and then they buy into where you’re going and do it for you.
LB: Giuliani was going places.
Over the next few years, Giuliani would change cities, change jobs and change political parties. And he’d go on to help establish one of the country’s most significant policies — immigration detention centers. A policy the U.S. still continues to this day.
SL theme music.
DD: I’m Dante Dallago and I’m Leonardo Bevilacqua. And this is Shoe Leather, an investigative podcast that digs up stories from New York City’s past – to find out how yesterday’s news affects us today.
LB: This season we’re taking a deep dive into the life and career of Rudy Giuliani. One of the most influential politicians in New York City’s recent history. Before he went to work for President Donald Trump, before he was disbarred and bankrupt…before all the trouble…Giuliani rose to prominence as a prosecutor and politician.
DD: This is season six: Giuliani: The Unraveling.
LB: You’re listening to Episode 2: Ambition is a Beast.
SL theme music out.
Longer pause before the next scene
THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT
LB: It’s 1968. Rudy Giuliani is 24 years old and has just finished law school. And he lands one of the most prized jobs — a federal clerkship.
He goes to work in the Southern District of New York. That’s where the highest of high profile cases are argued.
Decades later, Sam Bankman-Fried, Jeffrey Epstein, Eric Adams are all prosecuted here on Manhattan’s Southern tip.
JAFFE: The Southern District was a place you could do it with great judges and, and, and good cases. And to be able to get there was really thrilling.
DD: That’s Jaffe again.
One of Giuliani’s first big cases is taking on corrupt police.
ARCHIVE (NBC EVENING NEWS): New York City’s Police Department. By far the nation’s largest. Has been shocked and angered by the Knapp Investigation.
LB: The stories are sensational….cops turning on cops….
ARCHIVE (NBC EVENING NEWS): Here’s what’s been accomplished so far. Two police officers caught in the act have testified that most of their fellow policemen – including all the plainclothesmen they knew – take bribes.
DD: The cases even inspire Hollywood movies, like the classic Serpico.
SERPICO CLIP: If they would take all that energy, you see. And put it into straight police work. We’d have the city cleaned up in a week. It’d be cleaned up, there’d be no crime. … So fucking corrupt. Everybody. Nobody giving a shit.
LB: Giuliani can’t believe his luck. Someone is paying him to catch bad guys. And the cases are huge news.
And then, he gets another big break. He goes from going after crooked cops, to corrupt politicians.
ARCHIVE (NBC EVENING NEWS): Bertram Podell, New York Democrat was indicted today on charges of taking more than $40,000 in bribes.
DD: Giuliani leads the case against a Democratic congressman from New York. He gets the congressman so flustered during his cross examination, he snaps his eye glasses on the witness stand. He plead guilty right after.
JAFFE: Podell was not the first congressman that was convicted that year. The public corruption unit was doing a lot of work there. In terms of did it skyrocket Rudy to the forefront? The answer is yes.
LB: Giuliani earns a reputation as a hard worker. He even starts mentoring new hires.
JOHN FLANNERY: It was in the evening, and Rudy said, would you like to know what I do when I’m making an opening or a summation? And I said, sure. And so we sat down and he described how he would break it up.
DD: John Flannery is one of those new hires.
FLANNERY: He says, I don’t get up and say I’m Rudy Giuliani. Get up and say this is a case in which these thugs stole money from taxpayers causing such and such harm.
Music cue.
DD: Giulani is becoming a big deal. An older judge takes notice. A federal judge by the name of Ace Tyler.
LB: He’s a Republican but a John F. Kennedy appointee. He admires Giuliani’s skills in the courtroom.
FLANNERY: He was a benefactor for Rudy. He believed in him. He had him sit with him when he would hold court.
LB: Judge Tyler proves the right judge to charm. Because Suddenly, there’s a regime change in Washington.
Music cut out.
NIXON RESIGNATION ARCHIVAL TAPE: As President, I must put the interest of America first therefore shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow,
LB: President Richard Nixon is out. Gerald Ford is in. And he cleans house, and starts bringing new people into his administration. One of them is Judge Ace Tyler. He’s appointed Attorney General.
And guess which promising, young attorney Tyler chooses as his chief of staff?
DD: Rudy Giuliani.
Pause a couple of seconds…
WASHINGTON CALLS
LB: In 1975, Giuliani moves to Washington DC. His career is taking off. But things at home aren’t so great. His wife Regina Peruggi and him agree to a trial separation.
And Giuliani also cuts ties with another relationship. He leaves the Democratic party and registers as an Independant.
Remember, This was the guy who grew up a Democrat. Who skipped school to shake JFK’s hand…who attended RFK’s funeral. Former colleagues and friends we spoke with say it was likely because he wanted to appear neutral. He is still voting for Democrats though.
DD: Over a year into Giuliani’s time in DC, he gets a call.
Music cue in.
He’s being considered for a federal judge job in New York. Word has traveled fast in Washington of Giuliani’s courtroom skills.
And This could really launch his career. The man calling is Democrat Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The senator from Giuliani’s home state of New York.
LB: Moynihan is a Democratic Party icon. He’s known for his wit as well as his wisdom.
NEWCAST OF MOYNIHAN SPEAKING: New York is in trouble. We’re not like the rest of the country. I wish more people would understand that..
DD: Moynihan is an important endorsement to have. Giuliani is excited to meet him so early in his career.
LB: Giuliani tells Jeff Harris about the call from Moynihan. Harris is one of his closest friends at the time.
JEFFREY HARRIS: And, um, he interviewed a number of people for that judgeship, including Rudy.
LB: But things don’t go so well at the meeting.
HARRIS: And I remember him calling me when he left the interview with Moynihan. Moynihan said, you’d be a great judge, but wait a little while, you’re still too young.
DD: Moynihan tells Giuliani it’s not his time.
Music cue out.
LB: Giuliani is crushed. The rejection stings.
On top of that disappointment, Giuliani’ stint in DC is short-lived.
Gerald Ford loses the 1976 election. And Giulani returns home – back to New York City.
Here’s John Flannery again.
FLANNERY: Well, ambition is a real beast. He was going to have big cases, and that was going to justify a political career.
For Giuliani, that job in DC was supposed to lead to more in higher office. But it all comes to an end too quick. So he’s back in New York, looking for his next big shot to make a name for himself.
Pause…
RUDY AND THE RUDETTES
RENEE SZYBALA: I actually didn’t have you guys on my calendar. I knew I made an appointment. I just didn’t know when.
LB: That’s Renee Szybala. We greet her at her door in a nursing home in the Virginia suburbs of DC.
She has gray, curly hair and blue eyes. She steps down her hallway with the help of a walker.
There’s a black and white cat at her side.
SZYBALA: Sorry. This is Rose.
ROSE: Meow….
DD: For seven years, Renee Szybala was Giuliani’s right hand woman.
SZYBALA: I remember exactly the moment I met him.
LB: It’s 1977. Renee Szybala is 25 years-old. She’s an associate at a white shoe law firm, one of the most prestigious law firms in New York. She’s at a nightclub in midtown.
[“Night Fever”]
This is the year of Saturday Night Fever . The year of John Travolta and disco…
SZYBALA: So we were at one of these after work parties dancing at some disco, and somebody asked me to dance, and I said, yes. and it was Rudy, and he said, I’m the newest partner. And he told me that after we sat down. I was shocked.
“Night Fever” out
DD: Giuliani is 33 years old. And he’s landed a job As a partner at the law firm Patterson Belknap, and Webb. And Szybala is surprised. Giuliani is more lively, more fun than the other partners she works with.
SZYBALA: He took associates out at night. We partied. I don’t want to say like partied like wild parties. We just went out for dinner and drank a lot.
Playful music underscores the following scene of mischief
LB: There’s this one morning after a night of partying that Szybala remembers. The time one of the partners tells her Giuliani’s been arrested.
SZYBALA: We’ve got to go bail him out. He said… He got drunk. He was arrested hiring a prostitute.
DD: Szybala rushes to her boss’s office to break the news. And there’s Giuliani. He’s sitting in his boss’s chair. Laughing. The whole thing is a joke.
SZYBALA: It truthfully sounded like Rudy. And helpful him for my career
LB: Giuliani takes cases the firm doesn’t normally take on.Like defending civil rights, and the first amendment.
At one point, he’s even put in charge of a coal mine in Kentucky by a federal judge. It makes the evening news.
ARCHIVE (NBC EVENING NEWS): Rudolph Giuliani had been assigned by a federal judge to save the company, which is now in a federal receivership.
Well over a million dollars was alluded, just taken right out of the company. There had been absolutely no interest in running a coal company. It’s just been one year, one year and a half of running an operation for their own personal benefit.
DD: Szybala and some of the other associates are completely enamoured by Giuliani. Her husband has a nickname for them.
SZYBALA: Rudy and the Rudettes. That was his name for all the associates who worked for Rudy. And I think he kind of got it right. And I want to say the clients were Rudettes too.
DD: And then just like that, after four years in private practice, the span of a presidential term, Washington calls again.
Ace Tyler, the judge who had been Giuliani’s mentor, recommends him for a job he can’t refuse: Associate Attorney General.
Third in command of the US Justice Department. He’d be the youngest ever.
LB: Giuliani accepts. And he brings Szybala with him. Along with his friend from the Southern District: Jeffrey Harris.
DD: Giulani is changing jobs, changing cities again – and the biggest change.
PHis politics.
LB: For the first time in his life, Giulani registers as a Republican.
A little pause.
HOMECOMING
DD: It’s 1981 and Ronald Reagan is president.
Giuliani is 37 years old with the first signs of a receding hairline.
LB: He barely settles into DC when he gets a call to come home:
HARRIS: He got a call one morning that his father was on his last legs
His father is dying of prostate cancer.
DD: Jeffrey Harris remembers the day Giuliani got that call.
HARRIS: And he left, uh, the office immediately flew up to New York. I’m not sure if by the time he arrived his father had passed or whether he passed shortly thereafter.
LB: Once Giuliani gets to New York, he calls Harris, He asks him to come up for the day.
HARRIS: Which I did. And, um, after he had passed, uh, we did drive around. Um, and just talking about his dad and how much he meant to him and things of that nature.
HARRIS: Well he clearly loved his father. And, uh, you know, he was a grieving son.
LB: Giuliani’s father didn’t live to see his son’s political rise. And he’s left behind a complicated legacy – one that Giuliani hid from even his closest friends. Harold Giuliani had been extorted by criminals. He had been a criminal. He had a hard time making an honest living. And now his only son was about to make history in the justice department.
Pause…
GREAT RESPONSIBILITY
ARCHIVAL TAPE OF CUBAN BOATLIFT: The US government now expects that 60,000 Cuban refugees will have entered the country by the end of the month. 5,000 more came ashore at Key West, the most in a day since the sea lift began 3 weeks ago.
DD: On April 20th 1980, Fidel Castro announces Cubans are free to leave Cuba by boat. And they do. By the tens of thousands.
LB: It’s the largest wave of asylum seekers in United States history. And it becomes an unprecedented problem for incoming Associate Attorney General Rudy Giuliani.
Haitian immigrants start coming too. Thousands by boat.
DD: And then, a big story dominates the news….
Music cue…
ARCHIVE (NBC EVENING NEWS): A journey borne of desperation ended in tragedy today. Like so many thousands before them, refugees from Haiti jammed into a boat much too small to carry them safely came within sight of the coastline this morning.
At dawn, the first bodies washed ashore in Hillsboro Beach, a suburb north of Fort Lauderdale. By mid morning, 33 corpses including the bodies of two pregnant women were pulled from the rough surf. One victim carried his bible.
DD: The federal government is under pressure to act. And it’s up to the justice department to come up with a plan to address the refugee crisis. Up to Rudy Giuliani.
SZYBALA: That this is maybe the very first thing Rudy put me in charge of. We were going to interdict the Haitians at sea.
LB: That meant The U.S. Coast Guard would turn refugee boats around before they reached Florida. That is Giuliani’s plan.
SZYBALA: I got woken up at three in the morning, often anytime that the Coast Guard interdicted a boat with Haitians on it coming from Haiti.
DD: GIULIANI AND HARRIS FLY TO FLORIDA NEARLY EVERY WEEK BECAUSE SO MANY ARE BEING INTERDICTED AT SEA.
Pause
LB: Three months into his tenure, the refugee crisis is only getting worse. And Reagan’s top brass IS putting the pressure on GIULIANI
HARRIS: The president had someone on his staff, named Admiral Murphy, who was trying to also stem the tide of Haitians. And he was, um, uh, really all over us, like a cheap suit to try and get this under control.
SZYBALA: So Miami begged for help with Haitians, and that’s what started the detention.
Music cue in …..
DD: DETENTION. This was the new plan that Giuliani and the others came up with. There were too many refugees to process. So Giuliani helps implement the new US policy: hold the refugees. If they can’t stop the Haitians from coming, they would put them in detention centers once they got here. Giuliani says it might deter more Haitians from coming.
MACNEIL/LEHRER ARCHIVAL TAPE: Detention is a part of the United States determining who comes into this country. Not Fidel Castro, not sea captains in Haiti and not individuals who would crash our borders.
DD: Giuliani’s team finds a spot that he thinks can hold all of the new refugees. It’s called Fort Krome. It’s an old abandoned missile base on the edge of the Everglades.
SZYBALA: And the Bureau of Prisons came in and put benches, with tables, umbrellas, and courts. I don’t remember what Haitians like to play? I think we did a soccer field at Krome, and the Bureau of Prisons just fixed the place up to make it livable. They put games in, they put checkers. They put places for people to sit inside and out which was missing which is just hideous. And Rudy saw to it that all of that was done.
LB: We reviewed nearly a thousand documents, including memos and letters between Giuliani and Reagan’s cabinet. They tell the story of a man desperate to find a quick fix for a cross-border crisis. But who soon realized there was no quick fix.
One memo to Giuliani describes how Diseases and viruses begin to spread among inmates at Krome. They need more room for detention.
DD: And so in July 1981, Giuliani makes A MAJOR DECISION. HE approves the transfer of refugees to federal prisons when room in Krome runs out.
ARCHIVE (NBC EVENING NEWSCAST): For Haitian refugees jammed into a detention camp in Miami, resentment over a number of things had been building for weeks.
DD: Giuliani is criticized in the press at the time, by fellow Republicans and especially by Democrats in congress.
But Giuliani doubles down.
MACNEIL/LEHRER ARCHIVAL TAPE: You’re just focusing on Haitians. We have to deal with 953,000 people that come into this country illegally, of which the Haitians are a small part.
He also says the Haitian men are raping the Haitian women in Krome – that detention is necessary for their own good. A claim unsupported by fact.
Music cue out.
LB: Giuliani sends Szybala to Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Montana. To find space to build more places like Krome.
SZYBALA: I scoured the country looking for another place to create a facility for housing undocumented migrants. Montana really wanted one. I mean this is political stuff too. You got to meet with the mayors. The town has to want it. I actually went to some town meetings. to speak to people about what it would mean to have a facility there. We went to Oklahoma, we went to like Montana. Montana. it’s just so cold for Haitians. I’m sorry. I mean, they weren’t thinking of giving them coats. How are you going to house these people who are tropical in a place that’s freezing?
DD: Residents in Oakdale, Louisiana send over 100 letters to Giuliani, requesting a detention center. Their town needs jobs. Giuliani rejects the proposed site. Too far from an airport. Immigration transportation would be too expensive.
LB: Finally they think they find a spot for detention in Puerto Rico. But Puerto Rico doesn’t want a detention center. They file an injunction to block detention of Haitians on their island.
ARCHIVE (NBC EVENING NEWSCAST): What many Puerto Ricans fear is that the temporary detention camp will become a permanent one. And some politicians see the arrival of the Haitians as an insult to Puerto Rico.
DD: But eventually Puerto Rico relents, and agrees to take in some of the refugees and house them at Fort Allen – a military base.
ARCHIVE (NBC EVENING NEWSCAST): Conditions at the main holding area in Southern Florida have been described as seriously overcrowded with too many Haitian refugees. This morning, 125 of those Haitians boarded a chartered jet bound for the southern coast of Puerto Rico. There in the town of Ponce, they were greeted by a police escort and loaded into busses to be taken to their new home, Fort Allen, an abandoned military base repurposed to house refugees at the cost of $20 million dollars.
LB: Not longer after it opens, conditions begin to deteriorate. I found another memo, this one from Puerto Rico’s Governor to Giuliani.
“Substantial numbers of male detainees have experienced breast enlargements for reasons, which remain unknown.”
They eventually learn it’s the disinfectant being used to delouse the refugees. It’s literally causing men to grow breasts and in severe cases, lactate.
DD: The Puerto Rican governor argues that the detention camp is too prison-like. He gives an ultimatum: process the Haitians faster or find another place for them.
Pause.
RUDY AND THE DICTATOR
LB: I find another memo. This one is from Szybala to Giuliani. The message is simple: we’re running out of options.
HARRIS: So we were interested in, um, we were interested in trying to stem the tide of people leaving Haiti by boat, trying to come to the United States.
LB: That’s Jeffrey Harris again. He’s one of Giuliani’s deputies in the DOJ now.
HARRIS: So one thing led to another, and, uh, we, uh, it was arranged that we would go to Haiti.
DD: So Harris, Szybala and Giuliani. All three head to Haiti. Giuliani has a mission. He wants to convince Haiti’s dictator to find a way to stop all refugees from coming.. It’s a bold strategy.
Music cue… Up a couple of beats.
NBC EVENING NEWS ARCHIVE (May 28, 1980): Haiti is a place of staggering contrasts. There is the glitter of the wedding of dictator for life Jean Claude Baby Doc Duvalier, a wedding which cost some $3 million. There is also the reality that most people on this island are starving.
LB: The newly elected president of Haiti is named Jean Claude Duvalier. But everyone calls him Baby Doc. And the title of “president” is a stretch. In reality, he’s a dictator. He employs a private militia to torture critics and squash dissent. He won his presidency unnoposed.
NBC EVENING NEWS ARCHIVE: For most Haitians, the situation is so desperate that the danger of crossing 700 miles of ocean to Florida seems unimportant when compared to the reality, which they face everyday.
DD: Rudy, SZYBALA AND HARRIS will be the highest ranked US officials to meet Haiti’s new leader.
MUSIC CUE UP A COUPLE BEATS
DD: On their second night, the group is invited to a state dinner by the prime minister, but they decide to make a stop on the way.
SZYBALA: On the way to the state dinner all dressed up. We stopped at a Casino. Rudy played cards. I just did slots. I remember to this day I won $60.
DD: Now they have another gamble to make at the state dinner.
HARRIS: And, um, that night we went to a dinner high up above Haiti, um, really elegant. I mean, you wouldn’t, you know, the poverty below was unbelievable. Up top where this restaurant was, was, uh, uh, really first class. And, um, there was a big receiving line where the entire Haitian cabinet was there.
LB: It’s a formal event – Szybala wears a LONG purple dress with floral prints. Giuliani is in a dark suit with a gray tie. His brown hair is combed to the right.
SZYBALA: And Rudy stood up and addressed the entire cabinet of Haiti at this state dinner. He told the cabinet how we could not do right by the Haitian migrants, how… coming to the U.S. the way they were was not the best way. We needed them to come through regular immigration processes, not undocumented as they were.
DD: BUT IT’S NOT UNTIL THEIR third afternoon, THAT Szybala, Harris and GIULIANI meet with Haiti’s dictator: Baby Doc Duvalier. IT’S THEIR CHANCE TO CONVINCE HIM TO TELL HIS PEOPLE TO STOP COMING TO THE US. BY BOAT – TO COME INSTEAD THROUGH LEGAL CHANNELS. THEY MEET BABY DOC AT HIS PALACE.
SZYBALA: It was not well furnished, it was not well appointed with art and draperies and it was kinda stark. I remember thinking I really wouldn’t want to live here. It was like you would think a palace would be in the Middle Ages, dank and empty.
LB: Duvalier is at his desk. There are two soldiers with automatic weapons standing behind BABY DOC.
HARRIS: But he spoke so softly that we had to like, lean over the desk to even hear him talk. He was angling for an invitation to visit the United States.
DD: And he wants money. Foreign aid from the U.S. Only then will he consider a message to his people.
HARRIS: It was a, one of these diplomatic meetings, you know, everybody had a sip of tea and, um, no, there was no hardball playing whatsoever.
SZYBALA: Did Baby Doc offer us anything? I don’t think so. I believe he said something like, it’s freedom. I’m not going to limit people’s freedom. If they want to go, they can go. Which is ironic because he was a brutal dictator.
MUSIC CUE OUT
DD: Giuliani RETURNS TO THE US WITH NO DEAL.
But his trip to Haiti is not a waste of time. He returns to the U.S. with something else – a justification for locking Haitians up when they arrive in the U.S. And he’s about to need it when he finds himself in a courtroom, testifying on the witness stand.
Pause.
GIULIANI: DEPOSED
DD: Michael Rosen is 33. And he’s just moved to Miami.
MICHAEL ROSEN: I saw as a very unjust treatment of individuals coming into the country, and my judgment detaining them because they were black and the Cubans that were coming in were being welcomed to America with a hot dog and a Coke. I said, this is simply not right, and you’re living in this town where this is happening, and you went to law school for a reason.
DD: Michael Rosen joins a team of lawyers who sue the U.S. government for detaining Haitians. They argue it’s racism – Haitian refugees are being detained because they are Black. Meanwhile Cubans refugees are allowed to go free when they arrive.
LB: Rosen’s team subpoenaes Giuliani in the case. He would have to testify, defend his decision to detain the Haitians.
DD: On the morning of April 1, 1982,
Music cue….
DD: Reporters collect outside the federal courthouse in Miami. It’s hot. Giuliani walks in. He’s familiar with courtrooms. But this time he’s a witness, The tables have turned.
Guiliani argues that Haitians are not political refugees. That he met with Baby Doc, who says his people aren’t being persecuted, that they have nothing to fear. And that the real reason Haitians are fleeing their country is for economic reasons. He even claimed the Vatican’s ambassador in Haiti saw no persecution.
MACNEIL/LEHRER ARCHIVAL TAPE: The Papal Nuncio in Haiti who I met with four weeks ago and a critic of the regime in Haiti … say in large part their claim of fleeing political persecution is not a correct one.
LB: Rosen cross examines him.
ROSEN: And Judge Spelman telling me that this is the number three man in the Department of Justice, I should show him respect. And I said, judge, he’s a witness. And the judge sat back and said, go at it. And we did.
DD: Rosen presses Giuliani for an answer. What makes you so sure Haitians are not persecuted? Who are your sources?
ROSEN: It seemed to me that it was almost instantaneous that we were just figuratively at each other’s throats. Like our hands were reaching across from where I was to where his neck was and vice versa. And the judge backed both of us off and we went at it. But it’s Giuliani, so he’s always self-serving. He’s always self-protective and aggressive in everything he does. It hadn’t changed on the witness stand for sure.
LB: Rosen wins the case.* And 1,700 Haitians are released from the detention facilities. And the judge rebukes Giuliani. He finds Giuliani’s sources unreliable: a Haitian Dictator for one
DD: After the ruling, Giuliani defends his policy
MACNEIL/LEHRER ARCHIVAL TAPE: There’s an awful lot of distortion and an awful lot of emotion involved in this. It completely comes down that it’s a small part of a larger problem growing up in this country where in the year 1980 more people came into this country legally and illegally than ever before in our history, including the period of The Great Migration in the years of 1900, 1910 and 1920. I don’t have to tell you that our economy is not what it was in the years 1900, 1910 and 1920. We have a duty to the unemployed in this country to reassert control of our borders, to return control to the United States.
LB: But despite all of this, Giuliani’s policy remains intact today. Detention became a standard option for processing asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants.
MUSIC CUE OUT
DD: He was sounding different. The same Giuliani who had once defended civil rights in court, can now be credited with creating the detention center policy the U.S. still uses to this day.
LB: Soon after, he asks Reagan to leave DC, and go back to New York. So he heads back home, to become the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District — the top job at the place where he’d started his career 15 years earlier.
DD: And when he returns, some of his former colleagues notice something different about Giuliani. They think Washington has changed him.
LB: They say that it was ambition. Ambition that had led him to defend immigration policies that have defined the Republican party platform ever since. Ambition that made him think he could negotiate with a dictator. Or that he could take the word of a dictator.
DD: It was a long way from Bishop Loughlin High school, a long way from jumping a police barricade to shake the hand of his hero – John F Kennedy.
A little longer lause
EPILOGUE
NAT SOUND SOMETHING SMALL FROM RENEE – MAYBE HER CAT MEOWING….
LB: AT THE NURSING HOME, There’s a painting hanging near Renee Szybala’s television. It’s a picture of sugarcane farmers. It was gifted to her by Baby Doc, the Haitian dictator.
AS I AM LEAVING, I ASK RENEE WHAT SHE Thinks OF GIULIANI NOW. SHE HESITATES AND THEN WHISPERS
SZYBALA: I can’t say that. I’m appalled.
LB: I’M APPALLED SHE SAYS.
LB: Renee Szybala prefers to remember Giuliani where his star shined brightest: the courtroom.
SZYBALA: But I believe he galvanized the courtroom. All eyes are on him. It’s always true. The lawyer speaking owns the courtroom, but for Rudy, it was more than that. I mean, he was a presence, not just a man standing there. He was bigger than life.
CREDITS
LB: This episode was reported and produced by me Leonardo Bevilacqua
DD: And me, Dante Dallago.
LB: Joanne Faryon is our executive producer and professor. Peter Leonard and Rachel Quester are our co-professors.
DD: Additional editing help from Brendan Kilkenberg.
LB: Shoe Leather’s theme music – ‘Squeegees’ – is by Ben Lewis, Doron Zounes and Camille Miller, remixed by Peter Leonard.
DD: Other music by Blue dot sessions.
Some of the sources in this episode include Vanderbilt Television News Archives
Our season six graphic was greeted by Emily Sawaked.
LB: Special thanks to Andrew Kirtzman, Stuart Karle, Dale Maharidge and Sydney Mimeles.
DD: And Special thanks to Dr. Kristina Schull, an author and professor of history at UNC Charlotte who provided years of archive material on immigration detention.
*Michael Rosen and his team won the appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which triggered the release of roughly 1,700 Haitians from detention.