Dinner at the Waldorf

Like a wise, slightly wicked old cherub, U.S. Representative Charles Anthony Buckley, 71, the Democratic boss of The Bronx, sat in the guest of honor's seat at a $100-a-plate dinner in Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria. He was immensely pleased--for despite the fact that he is involved in a bitter political battle with New York City's Mayor Robert Wagner, he heard praise heaped about his head from the top Democrats in the land. Chortled Charlie after it was all over: "Never before in the history of Bronx County have we had such a successful dinner.

There is still a lot of loyalty in a lot of people." "I Know Where to Go." Buckley lives by loyalty. He distrusts anyone who thinks politics has anything to do with ideals or abstractions. He dismisses fellow Democrats Adlai Stevenson ("a prima donna"), Estes Kefauver ("a lulu"), and such reformers as Eleanor Roosevelt and Herbert Lehman ("Give them an inch and they'll take a mile").

As a 28-year veteran in the House of Representatives, Buckley heads the pork-barreling Public Works Committee. But he is seldom there: last year he had the worst absentee record in the House, responding to only 21% of the roll calls.

As early as 1957, Buckley began planning with Joe Kennedy to swing the New York Democratic delegation to Jack. At the 1960 convention, New York cast 104 1/2 votes for Kennedy, and after the election Buckley continued to be helpful. Confided Kennedy last year: "When I want something in New York, I know where to go. I go to Charlie Buckley, Gene Keogh or Joe Sharkey,* and I get it." Such loyalty is a quality Kennedy, too, can appreciate--and reciprocate. And Buckley came to have need of Kennedy's help. Last year Mayor Wagner, whom Buckley helped get elected mayor initially in 1953, fell out with New York's borough bosses, including Buckley. Re-elected to a third term, Wagner vowed to oust Buckley both from the House seat and his Bronx bossdom.

"In the Public Interest." It was in that context that Kennedy and other top Democrats last week rallied to the cause of Charlie Buckley. House Speaker John McCormack cited "the warmth of his character, the beauty of his mind, the depth of religious experience, the kindness and understanding." New York's man-about-everything Robert Moses praised Buckley's "genuine usefulness, his kindness and courtesy." A message from Attorney General Robert Kennedy mentioned his "distinguished work." And President Kennedy by emissary extolled "his record of legislative performance in the public interest." The New York Times summed it all up in a caustic editorial: "Mr. Buckley, in his 45 years in politics, may have been wrong many times; but on Monday night at the Waldorf he reaped the fruits of being right the one time it counted most.

He was for Kennedy early and late . . .

This is the kind of statesmanship, from a fount of wisdom, that can be appreciated all the way to the White House."

*Sharkey, who had bossed the Brooklyn organization, was dislodged by Wagner. Keogh is a Brooklyn Congressman whose name has been frequently mentioned by witnesses in the current bribery trial of his brother, J. Vincent Keogh, a New York Supreme Court judge.

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