Growing Up Giuliani

Giuliani has said he did not learn about much of his father's past until he read about it in Barrett's book in 2000. As a boy—an only child—Giuliani was smothered with love and attention (and called "the Little Prince" by relatives). When Rudy was 7, Harold moved his family from Brooklyn to Garden City, a middle-class, virtually all-white suburb on Long Island. Harold later told one of Rudy's teachers that he wanted to get his son "away from some relatives that he didn't particularly care for, and so Rudy could have a solid bringing up without any temptations to break the law." Though in 1951 East Flatbush was still relatively untouched by the great postwar migration of Southern blacks to Northern cities, white flight had begun in Brooklyn. Tony Mauro, a college classmate of Giuliani's who lived in nearby Crown Heights and whose family moved to Garden City in 1950, recalls his father's accounts of real-estate agents' scaring residents by warning of diminishing property values and crime.

Middle-class Catholic families sent their children to parochial schools if they could. Public school, as depicted in a popular 1955 movie, "The Blackboard Jungle," was a place where pupils had their lunch money stolen—or worse. At Catholic schools, students wore uniforms and stood when teachers entered the room, and they received daily religious instruction. Rudy won tuition-free admission to Bishop Loughlin Memorial, a fortresslike high school run with an iron hand by the Christian Brothers. When some students played the Everly Brothers' "Wake Up Little Susie" at a school dance, one of the brothers smashed the record over his knee and announced, "We'll have none of that filth playing here."

Sophomore year, Giuliani's homeroom teacher was a Christian Brother named Jack O'Leary. Giuliani was more of a talker than a scholar. "I hit him once," O'Leary tells NEWSWEEK. "He was talking in class, and unfortunately—the custom of the time, if someone was fooling around you gave him a whack—and that's what I did." Giuliani quieted down. About a year later, in the school auditorium, O'Leary ran into Giuliani's parents, who introduced themselves. "They said, 'Do you remember the time you hit him?' And I said, 'Yes I do'," O'Leary replied. "And they said, 'We want to thank you because it made all the difference'." Sports teams were revered at Bishop Loughlin. Pudgy and not particularly athletic, Giuliani had to look for other outlets. With O'Leary, he formed an opera club. While other teens were jitterbugging and slow-dancing to the Everly Brothers, or trying to, Giuliani was listening to Verdi's "Otello," immersing himself in the beauty of Italian high-culture tragedy and romance.

He was also learning how to be a pol. John F. Kennedy ran for president in the fall of 1960, Giuliani's senior year, and Giuliani was thrilled and moved by the handsome and eloquent young man who was rising above old prejudices to become the first Catholic in the White House. Giuliani persuaded some other boys to skip school and go to a Kennedy rally in Manhattan. ("I saw him! I saw him!" he said to O'Leary when he returned to class.) Giuliani managed a friend's campaign that year, hiring a U-Haul with a loudspeaker to cruise outside the school, but his highest office was hall monitor. He seemed to enjoy wearing a badge and disciplining students for minor infractions, such as talking during a fire drill. "He had a stern look," says Jack J. Rengstl, another former Loughlin student. In the yearbook, in the usual "Most likely to …" categories, he was voted "Class Politician."

Giuliani was jovial and thick-skinned, says George Schneider, the boy for whom Giuliani served as campaign manager ("He volunteered," says Schneider). "Rudy was slouching in a chair and had his foot in the aisle," recalls Schneider. "The teacher said, 'Hey, fat boy, get your foot out of the aisle.' Everyone laughed, including Rudy. He was unfazed. Then the teacher came down [the aisle] and cuffed him in the head." Giuliani "couldn't figure out what he had done," Schneider says, and seemed a bit stunned.

Corporal punishment was routine at Bishop Loughlin. Adolescent anarchy was a fearful thing; the Brothers beat it out of kids. Some students were afraid. "When you see someone picked up by the shirt and tie and punched in the face, or other teachers throwing chalk across the room—it was very scary," says Joseph Sicinski, who was Giuliani's classmate.