jobs and be successful. even after employment discrimination legislation was enacted, for instance. that is why i talk about those things in the book. why it was a difficult to have a successful movement that brought in a greater number of people. >> we are talking here in charlottesville at the virginia festival of the book, 17th annual. what is your day job? >> rudd, i am a law professor and a history professor at the university of virginia. ..

i also sought a ph.d. in history from duke university, and prior to that, i got an undergraduate degree in history. where did you grow up and where did your parents do? >> i grew up in a small town in south carolina, greenwood. my parents, like eminently matthew's parents, my father was once a sharecropper. he later on worked in a factory.

both of my parents attended segregated schools in south carolina. my mom later, actually when i was in law school, went to college and became a teacher, which is something she does not. >> we have been talking with tomiko brown-nagin, author of this book, courage to dissent, atlanta and the long history of the civil rights movement. >> up next vincent cianci recounts his 20 year term as mayor in providence rhode island. he spent five years in a federal prison on racketeering and conspiracy charges. this is about an hour and a half. >> good evening everyone.

thanks for coming to books on the square. our honored guest tonight was mayor of providence from 1975 to 1984 and began from 1991 to 2002, when providence became the renaissance city. he is currently host of "the buddy cianci show" on wpro and now the author of the new book, "politics and pasta" how i prosecuted mobsters, rebuilt a dying city, dined with sinatra, spent five years in a federally funded gated community and lived to tell the tale. ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to present day are then sent that he cianci. [applause] >> thank you very much.

thank you. thank you all very much for coming. thank you. i have actually been introduced many different ways. what i think about introductions i remember being introduced one time -- i used to be mayor and then i stopped being mayor and then i became mayor again to be me euphemistic about all of that and then what happened, in 1990 i got reelected and i will never forget before the end or before the inoculation but after the election, i was invited to go to a dinner i think at the biltmore hotel. a lot of people were there and i will never forget walking in and the person at the podium was excited to see me there and he got on the microphone and he said oh ladies and gentlemen i want everyone to welcome her two timing mayor of the city of providence. [laughter] i remember that one. and another time when, another time when i was mayor i got a

call from the white house, 1981 right after president reagan had one. and, the call was about bill casey who was the head of the cia. they said he was coming to brown university and they wanted to know if i could pick him up at the airport with a gain from brown and if i could escort him through the city and take him to where he was speaking in driving back to the airport. i said yeah i would do that. i knew who he was but i had never met him before, so i dutifully got in the car. we used to have those big long undertaker cars, you know those big long once? they look like they were from a funeral home or someplace. so i picked up the dean and we dutifully went to the airport and put the car on the tarmac. we did that and 10 minutes later the plane came in and it was a white plane with no numbers on it, typical cia. the plane landed and excuse me for introductions but the gate

came down and the steps came down and this guy had just had a skiing accident or something and it was bill casey and he was on a crutch. he came down the stairs slowly and got on the tarmac and he looked at me and he said, who are you? [laughter] i said in you were supposed to be the head of the cia. [laughter] so, another time in 1980, i was running for governor and lost to the only election i had ever lost. i had a party, a birthday party at my house. it was a fund-raiser and henry kissinger was in town. we made arrangements for him to come to the birthday party and he came and i was honored to have the secretary of state at my home on blackstone blvd.. he came in and i introduced him. he had a couple hundred people and we had a tent in the backyard and all that. so i said ladies and children and i'm honored to introduce a great peacemaker unless of

course you are a north vietnamese peasants. i would like to introduce the great peacemaker, a great academician the whole thing and i kept going on and on with these accolades. he got up to the microphone and said in his own voice, no one could imitate him, he said i will try. i don't know why you stopped. you were just getting in stride. [laughter] and then, there were some other embarrassing introductions. we used to share whoever the governor is and i've been through a few of those. we would alternate the welcoming to the city of different conventions, and i will never forget when i was far back, maybe 78 or 79, it was about nine tanker 30 at night a bubbly my last stop at the marriott hotel. weiss to have a small conventions that would come into town like the eska weavers from idaho, anyone we could get to comment. part of the deal was the mayor would welcome them and that was one of the reasons we had to do this. i walked into the marriott, a

smaller, 150 people. i walked in and they had a head table up on a riser. i walked in and the table was all set with all kinds of candelabras and wind. when i put my foot upon the riser, they had table, the whole head table fell right down on the floor in front of me with all the dishes and the food and everything. so i went up to the microphone and i said, ladies and gentlemen, they were from idaho or someplace. ladies and gentlemen the mayor asked me to tell you he will be 15 minutes late. [laughter] those are some of the funny things that happened to me when i was mayor. and then the not so funny things happened. i remember when i first got elected back in 1974, it was a democratic primary that really full of democrats who are fighting. i was a republican and that was

not a good word in those days and is probably some people don't think it is a good word now but i was a republican. but there was a -- a fight going on and i decided to run for office. and i did and i won. and their, before that i was a prosecutor and assistant attorney general and we had prosecuted rayman patriarca and that whole crowd that was running a lot of the criminal activities in the city at that time. but i used to run the wiretaps for the state police. that was a lot of fun and judge weisberger was the presiding judge in those days. i remember had to go every so often we would have to secure the tapes and we would have to go to the hospital trust bank and we had to unlock -- we had two keys and the safety deposit box. we would put the tapes in there. i used to like to listen to the tapes and i will give you a little bit of a flavor. the flavor. we were doing it up making operation and there were two

girlfriends of two bookmakers on the phone and they were talking. it was a wireless tap. one says my boyfriend says these wires might he tapped in a mite be listening to us. the other one said oh my boyfriend said don't worry about it because i know exactly what to do if they're listening. what's that? she said my boyfriend said when they come to see me i'm supposed to tell them that i am taking the fifth commandment. [laughter] which i thought was kind of humorous. then there was, you know, i look at the mayoral key and there are three different types, three different ones. the first time i was mayor it was like eating a social worker. wheel mode the story of the american city in the 50s and 60s and the roads were built and veterans came home and the federal government picked up every kind of mortgage. no what was left in the cities but the elderly and an increasing number of minorities.

the downtown was dying and in tough shape so we wanted to rebuild it. please all kinds of economic tools. in those days we were going through voluntary desegregation. that was tough and also what was tough was the fact that the city was dead. youth could take a bowling ball and throw it down westminster street. even the bible society moved out of town. that is tough when i want to sell their bible somewhere else. the first day that i was in office i will never forget getting a call from the parking department saying that the monkeys have escaped from the zoo. that was a trip. there were monkeys running around in the eighth ward in the part. but they said what do you do in the monkeys escape? i said they never taught me that in mayor school. i have no idea so do what you normally do. and then of course we built a whole network of social service, delivery systems with all these different community centers that we built, whether it was the da vinci center or a federal hill

house. then on top of that we also thought that all so the next part of the mayoral duty was being a risk-taker. risktakers were, we decided to invest a lot of money in infrastructure and tearing railroad tracks don't. they talked about tearing those down for years. i'm talking about a lot of years. we had tried to have the fortitude and get the political will i everybody to get it done. we were tearing those tracks down and we realized waterways were transportation and we could relocate to three rivers, the providence, and the majestic. my friend who was governor at the time, when we became governor we dedicated water plays part that he thought the majestic anthema nazca tuck it were like closed credit unions.

[laughter] and so we did that and we were kind of risktakers and then the third part of my mayoral duty was being entrepreneurial. we decided we would invest in them all. we use things like historic preservation, as real economic tools and we used the arts community as a real tool also because we created the first arts district in america that really truly was an artist district because artists don't have to pay taxes if they live in that district and they don't pay taxes on their income or anything they create. that was replicated all over the country later. those are the kinds of things we try to do, build skating rinks but mostly the challenge was trying to bridge the gap between being a mayor for everybody and i will never forget my first appointment i had as mayor was you know the mayor's office in providence is a pretty nice place. it has a dining room and it has

high ceilings and a fireplace. it has oriental rugs, gorgeous place. even better after he restored it but the fact is let me tell you something. in 1974 if i knew what it was really like to be mayor at that time i probably would not have voted for myself because i didn't know enough to be mayor in 1974. i was a prosecutor. iran on all these wonderful promises and i was going to be the most transparent, open me or mayor you could possibly find. i was in this great office in the first appointment was, thought i was going to need some philosopher or some great urban planner. my first appointment was a guy, big heavyset guy from the seventh ward. those of you who may not be familiar with silverlake, there is no water there and no yacht club. it is a tenement district more or less. he walks in and the days of 1975

this was, he walked in the office in this beautiful office and he sat down and i knew he was there. i was naïve but not that naive to not know he was coming there to get something. he sat down on the chair and said, can i help you? i said yes you did. following him in office was a little guy, it a midget, bout that big. he climbed up on the chair. i said, yes, what can i do for you? he said did i help you? i said yes you did. he said without me you would not have carried the seventh ward. i said probably not. he said see him. barely come in those days you could do that because there was no such thing as political correctness. in those days political correctness was taking care of the people who helped you. [laughter] that was political correct this, right? he said he is going to make a buck and a half a week. i said a buck and a half a week, that was a lot of money in those days. to do what? i don't care, make him a inkwell

on my desk. i gave him the job and fast-forward the tape 25 years. 25 years later are sitting in the same office in never expected to be there. the little person at this time had become a little person comes into the office and climbs up on the same chair and pulls his legs and he says to me they are screwing me mayor. i said who is? he said the retirement board. he said i want my attention. i said you are entitled to one. he said i know i'm getting attention. i want my disability pension. i said bobby, that is why we hired you, because you are disabled. why are you expecting a disability pension when you are not disabled on the job? but that was the expectation working for the city. [laughter] so i don't know if he ever got it. i don't think he got it. anyway as time went on, we had a lot of fun.

political parties by my definition are nothing more than a group of people organized for one purpose to take over the government by non-violent means. that is a political party. i didn't have the support of the city council when i first ran, but i had enough word veto to veto anything they wanted to do. so i tried to use all the methods i had to try to go above that, above the fray of that is why they said go to open the envelope. i attended more events and you could imagine to gain public support because we had to get money for the relocation of the rivers and doing of the zoo and redoing the casino and all that. and then there was the wonderful trip we had with gambling in the city. i don't know if you remember this or not. there was a guy who walked to my office one day. his name was roger. he was a lawyer. he represented one client, and that was at the time.

he came in and he said we are interested in the gaming community. who would that be? he said mr. stephen nguyen. a hilly stephen nguyen? he is well-known in the gambling community. i said, really? he said he would like to meet with you so i said i will check him out. who can i call to check them out? can i call the bishop? i said how about the president of brown university? call him. so i called him and he said oh wonderful man, philanthropist and the whole thing. okay, fine. i met with him. he came to my house and we had dinner and looked pretty good. this guy owned the maras hotel and all this stuff. as it turned out, we got along and i said to him welk you know we need money and i don't know if i am for gambling or against it. why don't we do a poll? you pay for it and i will pick the pollster. that is exactly what happened. the poll pole came back not

that. people kind of said okay, maybe. i always maintained we would get a gambling business in the state when it lost money and that is probably what we are doing now. that anyway, so anyway we had the pole and it looks good. as it turned out, he came back a second time in the people who ran the highlight or the place in -- spotted us having dinner. the next thing you know it was in the providence journal. the mayor is for gambling not for gambling. as it turned out i ended up vetoing gambling but before he did. i went down to see the native americans down there and fox and made an appointment to see the tribal council are. i said we can't let this opportunity go by. so i met with them, the 11 members of the tribal council and i said you know if we build a casino in the city of providence, we are going to -- you guys are doing $800 million a year at that point. if we make mistakes we will take three or $400 million from you.

i said why don't you pay us not to build a casino. they looked around and they looked at me, and they said how much? i said well, 50 million bucks a year's a good investment for you to keep a casino out. $1 million a week which would be good. they said how long will we not have gambling in providence? i said take a million dollars and take up one of those ponies and we will be fine. they voted 6-5 not to do it. imagine that they had voted the other way, we would have had $52 million a year all those years. anyway without building a casino. it was not in the press for a while and then i was on imus, the radio show. one of the reporters in the journal picked up on it i got to be a celebrated kind of thing. we almost did it. then of course there were other interesting stories that came about in the city concerning the performing arts center. i tried to be a big supporter for the arts community that i'll

never forget in 1977, maybe 76 i got a call from some business people in the city who said do you know mr. dario? i had never met him. this guy named dario, his real name was -- and he owned the ocean state reader at the time which was -- and they said he wants to tear the place down. that would be terrible. do you know him? i said i don't know him. could you call them and make an appointment to convince them not to tear it down? i said why do you think i can do that? they said because you are italian. i said oh that is real sensitive, you know. [laughter] so i did call and i made an appointment and i went to see them in his house in lincoln. i will never forget going up in a dig carb and when i got out of the car these two german shepherds came lunging at me and i got back in the car. i said to the cop, why don't you ring the doorbell? what are you nuts, mayor? [laughter] he finally came out and he put

the dogs down, they were healing. so i went in the house. he invited the dogs into the house. [laughter] so we started talking and we went out to dinner. i gave him the soliloquy is why he shouldn't tear the theater down. he said maher do want to do me a favor? give me a demolition permit. i said you would not tear the theater down. he looked at me and he said have you ever heard of the rko? i tore that went down. i said you mean business so i convinced him to come to my office on monday. his lawyer was -- and i said we can put dario in the same room with bill miller and these people because they hated each other. so, he said okay, so he won over negotiated the deal the city ended up putting a lot of money at that we didn't know we were going to do that much at that time. we finally agreed. at ario was sitting in my office and i was entertaining him. finally they all said yes. and then dario said to me after

we agreed on the price of the deal is going to be done, dario said what about my other $40,000, speaking in broken english. i said what $40,000? he said they promised me $1000 a day to negotiate and it has been 40 days. i picked up the phone and called miller. i never heard miller swear in my life except in. forget about it, forget i even call. the deal is off. i will handle it. so i said ario -- that is why i can trust them to get the deal, the whole thing. i said what if if i can give you some of it. i will give you $20,000. he said how can he do that? i will make it a city consultant on the arts. i wanted to hire a racetrack owner to be the city consultant on the arts, right? he said you can do that? make a 25. i said okay here is the 25. that is one of the recently got the performing arts theater down there today.

those are some of the stories you have probably never read about in the providence journal but you can read about them in the book. the abu ghraib funny things that happened was when we did the ball. the providence place mall. we have relocated the rivers and we need to be entrepreneurial. the whole thing about the mull depended on whether not we got nordstrom's to be an anchor tenant there. they were a class a number one retailer in the country and all that stuff. the guy who owned him, who was the developer and eventually sold his interest but the guy who wanted us to be very much involved with him was a guy named khan jill. we have a lot of malls around the country. we had to go, myself and the governor, had to go to seattle washington to meet with the nordstrom family. we walked into the four seasons hotel i think it was and we register and this desk clerk says governor, mayor cianci. suddenly he felt like he was

menachem begin, this world figure that they knew him. the guy went back to get room keys and i said don't get all impressed. the kid probably went to johnson and wales. [laughter] so the kid came back and i said by the way where did you go to school? he said johnson and wales. [laughter] the next morning we end up going to meet with the nordstrom family in their offices and we are sitting there in the governor goes first. he says well you know you must have heard we have some budget problems. but don't worry we will be able to straighten that out and i will broaden the tax base. i'm going to start taxing clothes and shoes. that is all march drums sells his clothes and shoes, right? [laughter] so the nordstrom's are looking at ruse and they have their heads tilted like a st. bernard, just confuse. i kicked him under the table and i stopped him and i said doesn't our governor had a wonderful sense of humor? he knows how to get your attention.

[laughter] and we ended up coming, we ended up coming back and then we had to go see, we had to meet with the developer at his headquarters. so, we went up to his headquarters and it was independence day. not the fourth of july that may 1. we flew up there and we went to this guys office. he had an office that was there was an old post office that had palladium windows and if you press buttons shades came down in screens came down to show us how rich he was with all the multiyear bill. we were putting money in and he was putting money in. we would have to make sure we were doing the due diligence thing. he shows us his tremendous operation and meanwhile during the meeting there a couple of kids coming in and out. they are like 25 or 26 years old, 28 years old and they are apparently the developers kids. the presentation stops and someone wants to ask questions. i have to ask questions. he says you know, he said you

have a wonderful operation and you are like the one-man show here. i see you have a lot of people working for you but you are the boss. it all depends on you and i see you have a couple of kids coming in and out. i have kids of my own only at that time bruce didn't know how many he really had at that point. [laughter] so he says i have got kids of my own. i know how that works. he looks at him and he says, what happens if you died? this guy without skipping a beat looks and he says governor, we practice dying here once a-month. [laughter] that was pretty good. then he asked me, any questions mayor? he said yeah i like your daughter. how do i meet her and take her to lunch? anyway we ended up getting nordstrom's and the rest of history and it has been a great project for the city of providence. the other thing i guess i could talk about his the other things

you read about in the book is the garbage strike at the 1981 i guess. i guess i had -- the city had some fiscal problems and so we had to reduce expenditures. one of the ways we could reduce expenditures -- the rule is if you are going to raise taxes you better cut i twice as much as the revenue you are going to get. if you are going to raise taxes you had better cut two bucks out of the budget. that is what we try to do. and when we did that, it required us to get rid of a person on the garbage truck. here is the point. they had four men on a garbage truck. you could put two men on a spaceship and send it to the moon. why do you need for men on a garbage truck? we reduced it down to three and they started throwing garbage all over the place. after three or four days i went down to the public works works department and invited them over and had people take teachers of them throwing the garbage.

so, what happened was they finally said give us our jobs back and we will clean it all up. i did and put them on probation. then i went to the sewer treatment plant where they had a six day guaranteed -- those guys went on strike and the other guys from the garbage department join their brothers and sisters so i had to fire them. we got a private company to comment that we did put a fourth man on the garbage truck. it was a cop with a shotgun to keep them away. that lasted for a good long period of time but i became an expert -- this was before air traffic comptrollers and for some crazy reason all he did was fire some garbagemen and we had a vivek company. i got invited to windsor castle to speak to the british government about privatization. i didn't know anything about privatization. i just hired some garbageman. so i went there and i ended up spending a week and i stayed -- status saint george's chapel.

oh it was great and i came back of course and i had to run for re-election and i had to get the union endorsement. [laughter] i did end up getting it and i got it because of an interesting -- i walked into, i walked into the union meeting there. there was a big crowd. i knew they weren't going to endorse me. what happened was i was coming out of the meeting and that morning there was the longest strike ever. i always had to send policemen to get tickets for the bank. hospital trust bank had a lot of the same members of the board of directors that were on the same board. so the union was trying to get people to take money out of the hospital bank. love the horses.

you never saw anybody feed a police car. they would always protect the horses. i told the lawyer, you guys are crazy, trying to get people not to put money in the bank. that is not how to do it. ..

as a great return. we were going to move it anyway. anyway, the book takes me on a journey from providence to a lot of interesting places. the next part of the book talks about what happened during the trial. a lot of it has to do with redevelopment of the city. i got indicted on 26 charges and found guilty of one which was conspiracy to commit -- i was not found guilty of the rico. it was a conspiracy to commit a crime i was found not guilty of. i took an appeal. there was a great dissenting opinion but it was 2-1. i will always maintain my innocence. i never took a dime from any developer or anything like that and caught up in a whole

situation, in politics today in the city of philadelphia, when you have 9,000 people working for you you will find people who are doing things and you will never stop that. when i went to prison are have a lot of funny stories, anticipating going to prison is a big thing. getting there is bad too. you can't let the time -- you can't keep saying what would i be doing a 5 out? you can't think that way. you have to think positive. live in the environment in which you are living. if you are older you get along better than if you are younger. in addition to that i used to love to -- i worked in the kitchen for the first six months because i was very visible and it was a high profile dive.

i worked in the library the last four years i was there. a lot of people belong in prison who are there and a lot of people who don't belong and a lot of people who should be longer than what they are sentenced. when you watch television you don't watch television by turning the volume up. everyone has a radio and you put it on the frequency of the television. you can tell how long a guy has been there by how big his earphones are. if he has little earphone's he doesn't have enough money in his account for big your funds. if he has big earphone's he has been there a while. so they sit there. one day -- i liked to watch the young kids and everybody.

they sit and watch be et. i am sitting there and the guy says he just got sentenced for 20 years. if that were me i would jump off that building. i said what would you do that for? i couldn't stand it. he is you could. if you want to kill yourself there are easier ways than jumping off a building. i sit is easy. go into the tv room saturday morning when they are watching, there is no sound at all, go and change the channel to the golf match. they will kill you. a lot of interesting things. i came home and decided to do radio and television. the book tour is going well. we had big crowds and signing parties. i enjoyed writing the book.

running the city, i have got to tell you, some nice stories about president ford who i got friendly with when i won the election of 74 and asked -- and i did. in 1976 he asked me to run for u.s. senate and wanted to but decided not to. john cheney ran. there's a story in a book about that. the whole issue. in those days he was not the john schaeffer he we know today. he lost the governorship and the senator ship that had misfortune of being secretary of the navy in rhode island when they close all the bases. at that time i was very -- man of the year and all that stuff. i could have had the nomination very easily. but after the 1980 election a funny story. imac with ronald reagan in california.

when i met with him the fellow who took me was john sears, his campaign got. reagan was sitting there with mike deaver in a wilshire boulevard office and ronald reagan looked old, older than when he became president. i will never forget, he with a conservative guy and i wasn't. we were talking and he said what you see is what you get. i went left and i said what happens to a guy like me who wins or loses? he said you could get this or that, ambassadorship, so i lost the election. i went down in january to see him. he was a guy -- i walked in his office, director of political operations. i am in the right place.

you don't go to those meetings without an agenda. so he said to me why do you want to be an ambassador? i said because i want to learn a second language. so go upstairs, this lady was well dressed and she pulled a map down. everything that is green is available and everything that is red is not available and anything else is taken. so i said co-star rica sounds good. i went to coast arica and came back. then i went to the dominican republic, came back and there's a chapter where they wanted $100,000. i never thought i would win the next election but i did. the book is 270 pages or so.

i think you will find it funny and fascinating. it is not an autobiography. i was born on this day and went to this place or that place. i talked about my young life and the attorney general's department and brown university. also running for office. if you are not province you will not like it because you won't know the characters. you will be introduced to people you never thought existed. people say what is the best thing you ever did for providence? it was building a skating rink or the zoo or all that stuff. what it is is in 1974 the self-esteem of the city of providence was really low. one of the things that was the most important thing that my administration did was bring the

self-esteem of the people of the city of providence of to a level they never thought they could achieve and the people were proud to be back in 2002/2003. they felt the city had come alive with the arts. we have great restaurants. cities supported them and loaned them the money. go to bill's tavern, all those places, last person you want to see is a restaurant or, we loaned them 1% or sometimes 0% because they occupied buildings, we got part of the sales tax eventually. people got jobs. five things that if you don't get off of the ball, five things to be the mayor. number one is the city has to be safe. people have to feel safe. you have to have a good school system. i don't think we have achieved

that yet. it is getting better. you have got to provide an affordable house for somebody and you have to have a job and you have to have a great recreational and cultural opportunities so people really and truly love the city. trinity which was saved three times, remember adrian hall who was in my office? i need $1 million until monday. what do you need that for? he said the ford foundation gave me money and i wasn't supposed to spend it. i was supposed to build an endowment. can i borrow the money? no. we will end up not going to the next place but he was funny. friendly was always in trouble financially. as a matter of fact i will tell you one of the things that you

enjoy trinity, one of the reasons you enjoy it is the old fleet senate which is banc of america, it was an interesting story. the corporation wanted to build a building in the city and i tried to tackle the old shepherd's building. he says i want to build one next to the hotel. i said okay. we made a deal that we lease that land. $5,000 a year for the conglomerate. if you ever want to expand the hotel. so are called bill ledbetter, the interim head, and i said are you going to use that land for a few years? we are not going to expand it. i said really? maybe nortek would like it.

so set up a meeting next saturday or monday and never showed up so finally i called and said how come you never showed up? we have a moral obligation. i said to do what? to settle for our law firm. i said you are not the redevelopment agency for the city. when that didn't happen, looked across at the parking lot, and fleet bank wanted to build a building but they didn't have a tense so we buried together those three people but ended of getting a grand where you get urban development action grants. dear local government recipient, continuous, those of the days when government spent a lot of money. we replied to the grant and got it. if we could get the money as a grant and never paid back we could loan the money out. if the building could be built, what stopped it being built unless we got the money we could loaned to them was they needed

to build a garage. and that garage was built by the money we got from washington and kept and we loaned to the conglomerate that built the building which was urbane and nortek at the time. interest rates were 18% in those days. we loaned it to them for zero interest for couple years and they eventually paid it back twice before the city could take the loan and not before. it was loaned out to crooks in america. and that was -- i came back in office and i said crooks in america should have this money. it should be somewhere else. you have plenty of money. you don't need city money. i was going to put it back in the budget but trinity came to see me. it was a couple million dollars. they said we will replenish trinity's endowment. that is how trinity got its endowment program from the building to the garage.

that is how that happened. so many other things happen with financing. correll this landing was the first time financing was ever used where you take all the money you get from taxes dedicated to a bond or borrowing money so that you can fix a certain area. all that money, were the boardwalk is, that was done with incremental financing as was providence. i believe in branding in the city. when we put the $8 million in to the performing arts center we changed -- you keep calling as the oceans state theater but it has nothing to do with it. so i said you have to change the name of the theater and they said what do you want it changed to? anything with providence on it. it became providence performing arts center. you can't change the name of the theater. they have to give that money

back. that is why we brought -- even things like horses in this city, all those things like branded items and it makes the city, moved to providence, you want the money to do that so i believe in that and the hockey team, we put the hockey team here. we wanted to name it the bruins and they said no provenance, no bruins and they wanted to call at the providence jeweler's. i could see the headline. jews lose. i said we are not going to do that. we waited -- almost didn't have that. it was 5:00 that night that we ended up signing that deal because we were going to cancel the press conference but we

ended up -- lucky they did it because the national hockey league went on strike the next year and the only place to do hockey was with us. those were interesting that happened when i was the mayor. the other thing i could talk about is other funny things that happen. i have been talking too long. i am supposed to take some questions. what is the best quality? i get that every night for the past week. we have a signing party in washington and one in new york but it is doing pretty well. i always like to end the story by saying -- a lot of stuff about winston churchill. there was a lot of perseverance. are always say i like to keep going and persevering no matter how many times they get done.

you can't look at your shoes all the time and i would think the windshield is much brighter in the rearview mirror in many ways. winston churchill once said -- he did say but it was reported that after world war ii there was an option to give a big speech about how he won world war ii. he walked in the hall and sat on the platform and they introduced him to thunderous applause and give a speech about how he won world war ii. he put his umbrella to the side of the podium. he looked at the audience and said never, never give up. he put his hat on and put his stogie in his mouth and took the umbrella, great deal of -- i tried to live like that. i hope you enjoy the book.

does anybody want to ask a question or two? the routine? [talking over each other] >> we moved here from california i year ago. it is almost in kindergarten and we move. [talking over each other] >> there are good schools in this city of providence. you have to understand there's a big challenge in the city. i was thinking the other day, the population -- i remember i closed 29 schools in one year and nobody made a peak.

the population was different and has been shifting in 90 languages in the providence school system. that is the same adjacent to was. there are improvements going on. i like to think positively. a lot of teachers experience the magic of the classroom. classical is the top high school in the state including private schools and the latest numbers that you see and all that stuff. there are spotty performances by some of the elementary schools. on my radio show people say how can my kid learn to speak english? that is a real problem. i am not the mayor. haven't been there for nine years. when i was mayor an additional this same problems. you have such a deficit in the

city of providence, you have 1 a billion dollar structural deficit. there is a big investigation going on but how that happened was the internal auditor and this relates to schools, the internal auditor was screaming for six months and can you imagine? the internal auditor last year had to get a freedom of information act request to get money, to get the accounts and had to go to court. he is the auditor. the independent auditor, those audits are done by august. those audits are done by august 20th or 30th. the independent auditor was not allowed to see it at all until after the last election. we knew something was happening.

when i left office, the reserve fund, there was $19.3 million and was an operating service. they sold the civic center and added $22 million to that number. they had $47 million in just a stash. when the economy hit they didn't make the cuts they should have made. but others did. they didn't do it. they kept everything. i could believe they gave 2%, retroactive raises last june and to personnel. i couldn't believe that. that is what is happening. where do you live? that is the big thing. you live right here? east side schools, this was redone. that is a heck of a school. when you are in the district is a great school. i wouldn't give up on providence

schools. you see a lot in the newspaper. they're working on race to the top. the big thing is teacher evaluation. the mayor fired up to 34 teachers. you are supposed to tell teachers if you're going to lay them off because you don't know how many you will have next year because you don't know what the demographic is going to be or what the class size is going to be if there's a union contract or whatever so they have to let them know they're going to be laid off and the union wanted that way. with the mayor did was changed it. some people say to his credit he fired 1934 teachers and at the same time the new superintendent and head of the union have this great collaboration going. they were in denver and they were cited by the secretary of education being a great example of education. they came back from denver. i don't think they got off the

train. you can't find a superintendent to comment on this. he is in the witness protection program. the reason they are doing it is when they bring people back they don't bring teachers back because they're not going to take -- the new rule is you don't bring teachers back on seniority alone. you can bring back the additional seniority yes but they have to be interviewed, criteria based, bring them back. some people say they bring back your own kids. how do you attract young kids to be teachers in the school system? bring them back and say -- we are going to fire you and then we will rehire you may be. that is not good job security. i think they're working it out. the commissioner of education is a spark plug. i think she will do well.

i don't know if they will keep her. doesn't look like he is agreeing with what she does. it is the whole political thing. >> is there a big problem? >> i don't like to look at them as a problem but as a challenge. they were on the right track. i really believe steve smith who is head of the teachers' union was on the collaboration track. it all revolves around how do you evaluate teachers? the union says i didn't hire these people, you did. they don't speak english, you hired them and i had to defend them. you will find certain schools in providence that are not performing well and some are performing well. where would you move to? barrington? east greenwich? that is a nice place.

there are no better high heels on the sidewalk down there. [laughter] i understand where you're going. i know it well. by grand kids go to public schools. they are classical. they're very well satisfied. anybody else? yes, sir? >> i came back to providence -- >> 91. >> i remember you on the radio program explaining how two of providence's big problems were the huge proportion of government or tax-exempt charities in hospitals and the outcome was an unfunded pension liabilities to purchase of

future benefits -- so what happened? that was when you were starting. what has happened since? >> i will answer the first question about institutions. tax-exempt institutions have been part of the vibrancy of the city of providence. you wouldn't have health care that you have in this state to work from brown university medical school and all the industries that surround it. you also think of the schools we have. providence college. haven't been doing that well but providence college, johnson and wales the personal part of the largest population of students, johnson and wales, where will you find a better designed school than that? nowhere in the country. the top one or two. what can i say about brown? we know what that is. it is a great place with great cultural dimension and when i was mayor we put something

involved to overlap. we put something in called payment of tax which meant if it weren't for the fact that these institutions were in the city, if they were not in the city the state of rhode island would not get the benefit of the income-tax that doctors pay and nurses pay and professors' pay and sales tax they spent. so that is for the benefit of the state. so we devised a formula so that the state would reimburse us on proportion of what those taxes were so we could provide the fire apparatus, 15 engine companies and special -- they don't pay a dime for that so we are not reimbursed for that. the other thing is we have to pick up the garbage and all those things. we did the payment and in addition to that we created the

province plan which all the universities were part of. you have heard of the province plan. the reason it was funded, brown never like to pay the city directly. they didn't trust us with the money. they like to say i have given you money for library but we own the library. we fund a library. is private. he would say there's a photo opportunity. i am sending $50,000 for the library so i wrote back, they don't have something -- they don't have a fire t payck in th library. so anyway we funded this, the whole providence plan with the manchester plant. you know the manchester street power plant wity tthe big electric company across from the hot club? in 1991 they came here and wanted to redo the whole plan.

they came to see us and they wanted to expand, wondering what their taxes were going to be. i don't think that is the right number so they paid us a lot of money. ay. had separate appraisal to tell us what that was worth. ay. this. the reason we were able to do community police stations and rehabilitation of housing, do all kinds of things to preserve historic buildings is because we took that money every year. $8 million a year. and we used that. we die to 't put it in the gene fund. we used to finance the province plau the clean up of the one of the talk what river -- all of that was done by westminster landing. all that was done with providence planned money and that is where theyy.

-- we had a private board of directors, that is how that he cioney was spent. non-profits are very important to the city. the only people who got money to invest in the city are the nonded road island hospital, brown university to knowledge district. i was in the superdistrict so they got -- we created thaty. when we relocated through 95. that is why that land is up there and the whole intent was to capture it and build an area to create a new industlike . ..

if i were, if i were mayor i would get on a plane and go right down to see the guy with bank of america who by the way used to work in providence. and the other guide was the president and the chairman is the dean of brown university. i get on a plane and go right down there and i would bring jack reeves on the banking committee. i would put them on the plane and bring him down and let him sit there. not say word, just let them sit there. see what is going to happen with that building because when that thing empties out what you have left? it is more than the economy because they pay attention to preserving those assets down there. they did pay attention to that

in the last eight to 10 years. i paid attention. they didn't pay attention. they think it just happened. doesn't just happen and you have to nurse it and cut lip and make sure they pay attention. and frankly, it went to hell. the rest of, the other question on pensions and so respect those institutions and a lot of people say yeah iran 1-year and my opponent had an ad on television. do you know that brown university pays more taxes than brown university does? look at the record and that is really not true. all this stuff, all the people who work there and the economy they create you have to take a look at that. and i think you can see at my way. i've not i'm not saying it shouldn't continue. over the course of 10 years, could have got more maybe over the course of the years but i think they have an obligation. rather than force them i think you have to sit down at the table and negotiate with them

and i think you will find them corporative. i always did. the second part about pensions. people used to work with the city of providence and other municipalities around the country because they didn't pay much money but they had good benefits. when the pension system was put in, and don't forget policemen and firemen don't get social security. they don't get that. they get only their pension. the pension system is abused by when the retirement board was made up of people and it still is, people elected by unions. they run aboard. when i came back into office in 1990 i will never forget going to the retirement board meeting because the mayor sits on it. i saw all these people in the audience and i didn't know what they were doing there. i said who are these people? there was a woman in the front. he went to the conventional bond so he brought this girl back. really? who is this one? there was no organized attempt to put an investment strategy

together. together. they had a football player who was there at pfizer. and i said this is got to an. and they control who gets on, who gets pensions. firefighters i love them to death but everyone would get a disability pension. every single one of them because they get a disability pension they don't pay any taxes on it. and they get 66. if they get hurt in the job after three years they get 66 and two-thirds% of their pay and pay no taxes on it plus blue cross. now, the money, the same people who were given the benefits, i approve you for disability and all the stuff. they also control the money. and so i said this has got to stop. so it is in the book i think, yeah are going to that going to court and all the way to the supreme court. and we said these guys can't control this. this has to go to the board of investment commissioners which is a nondescript board in the city that you send us money left to us by havard university or

some trust that we had. and, there was little money and it. i said these are the people who are supposed to do it. they were people appointed by the mayor so i had good people. a lot of good people around that ward who really had nothing to do because there was hardly any money in there. we went to court and got the money shifted. i will never forget when the head of the buyer union called me because they abuse the system. they would give the bond work to their friends and there was no investment strategy and no asset allocation as such because there is such a cash drain on that system, they were semi-guide 8.5% return. then you did. so what you could do is you could invest it and obviously take whatever you had that you needed out of it to pay the pension and widows and all that kind of stuff and you would get a decent return if we had the right investments. so i went to court and won and i will never forget the head of the fire union called me that

night. we took control of the money, so he said oh mayor of the new board you have got, he said you know, he said you could appoint some citizens. i said i know that. outside the city hall. i said yeah i know that. he said can we recommend somebody? i said stephen let's look at it like this. we just got a divorce in the pension system as our little baby and i have custody of him right now. and the judge doesn't want you anywhere near that little baby, right? so he says well little teddy, in six months can i call you and maybe we will reconsider? he called me six months and said can you .1 of our support? i said every time i talked a little teddy he gets all, psychiatry says he goes crazy. [laughter] he goes into shakes when he hears your name. so, that is in the book.

so, that was the head of the union. we got along, but another thing in 1991 they had gotten a 6% i guess compounded cola. i took them to court and we hired joe kavanagh. the same retirement board i talked about, they thought they had plenary powers to give themselves any kind of cola increase,, cost-of-living. cost of living. they gave themselves 6% cola. you are nuts. i signed is reducing it to three and then we went to court because they can send decree was interpreted wrong. we went to court and we had a change so no one gets those colas after 1991. anybody who was hired after 1991 doesn't get the 3% cola. those people have retired now, 20 years but i remember that. so anybody -- there is a lot of myth. john kennedy was giving a speech at yale and i'm paraphrasing, he

said you know the lies i can handle because i can refute them but the myth goes on. so that is what you have got to destroy, that myth if you can. one of the reasons i wrote the book. so, we won that case and there is no compounded cola for anybody after 1991. and, on the nonprofit, i think nonprofits you know i'm not saying they shouldn't pay something. i think they should and they do but i think you have to take a hard look at what they contributed the city before you go after them. yes, sir. >> what would you like to see done with the. >> open government is involving the public in the planning process and basically that should really have -- that should have an economic value to the city of providence. they should have a tremendous public openness to it where it should eat, where the public should be allowed to have access to the waterfront and all that.

that is a wonderful piece of property and it looks like it has deteriorated. that hasn't been used as a staging area when we relocated 195 and i've had to be paid back. that is money that had to be -- that was to be sold and paid back to the federal government with the money we got to sell it. but thank god there was a bond issue that the people put together so that we could have the state wanted and pay the money to the federal government and keep it for the city of providence. so that is why that happens. that should be -- i had a great waterfront plan for down there, called the three cities. we got tonight are waterfront by the industrialists and the people over the years. and you know we should recapture that whole waterfront. if i hadn't had the problem i had, that was going to be the next effort. i thought that brown could use that as a campus is what i

thought they could be there. i thought that would be great. the water taxi would take you right over to the east eastside and i thought that would be just terrific. we propose that and the other parts of the downtown -- downtown was a real problem. i am talking down city part where all those buildings are that are deserted. that is where mayor trip there is going to fill those buildings with tax incentives or whatever because no one is going to go there. anybody else? yes, maam. >> what advice would you give? has anybody approached you for your advice first of all come now being where you are and if you could give him one colonel of advice what would you say to him? >> gets three envelopes. you know that story? [laughter] but, actually, he has got some good people around him and i think he has got to learn why

travel in -- trial and error and learned that you can't, you see when you surprise people like labor unions they aren't going to be with you. not that you want them with you but you don't want them against you. and i think he has to assess the financial. there are two problems, financial because that is where we can close from, it is financial and our tax capacity, our tax effort far exceeds their tax capacity. that is the problem. and as a result of that you can't raise taxes so you have to do cuts. when you do cuts it is hurtful. no one wants to cut or snell and jobs and all that. but you take -- when you have directors a protocol on the payroll, you know what i'm saying? that is a little much and he doesn't have that the last administration. had directors a protocol. i was not an angel but the fact is i never spent $600,000 a-year

on -- that was a lot of money. and so i think you have to do cuts number one and assessment of vision. how can i put this? all vision -- vision without action is a danger. action without vision is a nightmare. and i think that is what we have had for the past few years, action without a lot of vision and it has become a nightmare. good judgment, good judgments, from experience but remember all the experience comes from bad judgment. i think we have had some of that too. what has been the bad judgment? the bad judgment was not making cuts when it was necessary to make cuts. you could take 10%. if i were mayor, if i was planning on running again, you could take 10% out of that budget in the afternoon and he would not feel the difference if you wanted to take it out. that is about 60 or 70 million

books that you could take right out of there. and also you have to put, restructure the pension. i don't want to scare you but the pension system in providence right now has an 880 million-dollar unfunded liability. they make you separate now the health of its because that has to be separate. that is 1.2 or $3 billion. so, i don't know how you dig out of fat. and it happened. i will give you an example. when i left the office and i'm not campaigning but when i left it was $660 million in the pension fund. less than $220 million in it now, $230 million. so it drained 400 million in a few years. all the other you can do is get rid of the on unfunded

liabilities is to ram it tries. re-amateur icing it. there was a time you could do it when deutsche bank was going to do it with us and you would our of the money and pledge what you had in borrow it and over the course of 15 years pay it back. you would have no unfunded liability but i tried to do that and they were against it in the state assembly. cicilline he was against it but he was an assemblyman. he trudged to the same thing and they wouldn't let him do it either. anyway, that is where we were at. listen, we had a lot of good times coming out. we have a great city and great artistic adventures here and then years. we have great universities and colleges. we will rebound. it is just financial and it is also the fact we have an unemployment situation here that is terrible. we have foreclosures, terrible thing that we have a great city and i'm proud of it and i'm

proud of a lot of things in the city. all cities are going through this, a lot of them are going for it but it is just we are going through morbid because more of it because we didn't have the kind of thought that should've gone through in the last few years. anymore questions? yes, sir. [inaudible] >> that is the myth too. that used to be a long time ago but brown university make everyone who is a professor sign a document that they don't take advantage of that if they want to work there so that is a myth. this one guy, when i was mayor there was one guy who took it. it was grandfathered. i think he is maybe not with us anymore but it was a long time ago. i think he did live in barrington but there was one guy in the whole stay. that doesn't happen any more. they'd say churches don't pay taxes. yes they do. they pay taxes on their records but they have an exemption of 40 or 50,000 bucks.

there are a lot of things out there that could be taxed. i was surprised to see the latest poll that came back the people, they say it is okay to tax so that. 1 cents for the soda, 1 penny in town so if you buy a 36-ounce bottle of soda it is 36 cents for the sugar tax. i couldn't believe the poll came back saying people would not object strongly to paying a tax on entertainment. that would ruin those places, and events like concerts, baseball games, football games and all that stuff. i had an interesting show on tax credits for the movies. we used to do the movies. we did the movies here too and when we started the film commission we did the providence play here. did i tell you the story about all to more? i told you that, didn't i? we started the movie industry

here by starting a film commission and then we would have a party in los angeles every-year with all the people who did the films in providence and we ended up getting people to do movies. for instance we have been fairly brothers, something about mary and a bunch of other movies in and we moved into the film tax credits. that was passed after i left that it was our initiative that did it. we recommended it. i will never forget we have this providence movie that went on for five years. nbc did it and it all the show the city beautiful in the fall, film and everything. i will never forget one time they wanted a film and they said the water was too low in the water place part. they weren't getting the right shot. i said what you want me to do? they said i wanted to raise the river. [laughter] who the hell do you think i am? so they said you can do it. we have the hurricane barrier and the hurricane barrier was built to take millions of gallons of water out of the city

so it takes a water out of the city from the tributaries and rains and pushes the water out into the bay. those ponds would reverse so they wanted to reverse the palms and bring the water into the city. i said yeah go ahead and do it. so we did it. the director said a little more, a little more. they got the water up and finally stopped and had a beautiful water level so they could have their boat into a scene. but the mayor of baltimore amaze me. he said i liked the show you have on friday nights call providence. he said i have a show too. i said what is it? he said homicide. [laughter] i said no, i don't want that. that is a bad one. anybody else? yes, sir. >> besides yourself who was your favorite american politician? >> that is a hard question.

because i really like jerry ford because i got to know him very well. i thought he was a decent man. i'm not saying he was a great politician but he was a good friend and i always admired him. i will tell you a funny story about him. he came to campaign for the president in 76. even after he lost he would come back and we would campaign together. we were going down to a fund-raiser. we went to the airport and i got in the car with him and we drove to newport. we got to newport in here to stop at hotel. what is the name of that hotel? hyatt i think. he had to do oppress them with one of the channels. i stayed outside. there was a big crowd there. we stayed for half an hour to got back in the car. there was a third guy in the car. so i knew who he was. he sat in the car in the jump seat and it was only a five-minute ride to go to this house we were going to to go to this party.

and, so this guy said, this is 1976, i'm going to go here and i'm going to campaign here and go to alaska and do this, that of the other. we got to the house and the guy got out of the car and i was moving to get out in the president grabbed my arm. he said buddy, who is that guy? i said he is the secretary of the navy, the guy who lives in middletown. he didn't know who he was. and a lot of those funny stories have happened with ford. so he is a favorite of mine but i am biased. i am very biased. i thought kennedy didn't have enough time in office but i think he was very charismatic and a lot of people from my generation got a lot of inspiration from him. i think there were so many who you can look to who have different qualities in different areas that you try to emulate or try to respect or at least even fall in love with. there are many many people on

the local level who were he rooms -- heroes to me who have done jobs you have never heard of. people who make decisions and who were very honorable. i also have people. i will never forget, i don't know if i can tell this in front of c-span. in 1979 i was very interested in passing an antique discrimination ordinance that would bar discrimination against minorities. we didn't have one on the book so i wanted to push it through. to show you political correctness. i got everybody on board to do it. how could you be against it? there were some people who were against. we have started the first, i hired the first liaison in my office and we did all kinds of things with that community to make them feel wanted and included. and i will never forget, this was 1976. his name was cerelli from the

sixth ward. he was head of the ordinance committee. he used to have a gold chain around his neck and he smoked a cigar. so he was head of the ordinance committee. it was 11:00 and i turn the news on and it was life. these to have reporters. the roving reporter would say from inside city hall, so i bring cerelli out from a long meeting. smoking a cigar with a shirt open and chains and he says well having this long hearing about the mayor's antidiscrimination ordinance. he says yes, i talked to the mayor about it. what is going to happen? it might pass and i might even vote for it. maybe. but he said i already told the mayor i don't want no gays on the police department. in front of a live audience. [laughter] just turn the tv off. there is no way -- that was the mentality, you know.

those things happened. talk about being embarrassed, but anyway he wasn't one of my heroes. [laughter] does anybody else have any questions? yes, sir. [inaudible] >> they use to force me to do that. is that right? i used to sing on the kitty review. i think that helped me. when i came, when i became older, are prosecuted a lot of cases and i think singing on the radio helped a lot. i was not afraid to face the crowd. i think i tap dance. >> at one point they introduce you as the fat tapper. >> maybe they did. they called me a lot of things in my life. [laughter] any other questions? [inaudible] >> that was an interesting trip.

my friend barnaby evans comes to my office in 1994. we created this great template. he said i want to like the rivers on fire. are you nuts? like the river on fire? i let the first one on new year's eve in 1994 and who knew it would go this far? the cost 115,000 if you have a full one. it is a wonderful thing because it really celebrates the arts in our community and really truly is a combination of fire and smoke. all these people smoking are the ones down there first. it is the smoke and it is the sense of place. the buildings and the smoke that comes out of the ground and the lights and the waters. a lot of that is original music but he has replicated that in other cities but only for one performance or two days or something like that. i think he did in houston and i think it is going to go to italy.

this is the home of water fire and it is a wonderful wonderful implementation of an idea. it is kind of snuck -- nonsecular. it is a sense of place. it is amazing. yeah i think it does. the hotels philip fill up in the restaurants make money and we get tax revenues that. but we made a deal with them. he gets all the licensing on it. as he should. he has to buy out the wood into all that kind of stuff. but 1-year the governor tried to stop it. it was an election-year but i didn't have an opponent so i didn't care. i guess someone complained about the smoke and said violated the epa and all that stuff. i call them called them back and said well, your office or my office? so they decided discretion was

the better part of valor and they didn't stop it. anybody else? i had a law school professor one time they the said sometimes it is better to -- so i will sit down. thank you. [applause] >> the buddy cianci on his time campaigning for and serving as mayor of providence rhode island. to find out more visit buddy cianci.com. >> with the changes the president has announced in his national security team you made the point he is the longest-serving, been there

since 9/11, and two presidents and lots of changes, and the fbi itself has changed enormously in a decade. how as a change? >> bse said robert mueller started work september 4, 2001. his seventh day in office as i explained in the book he was actually sitting in basically his first briefing on al qaeda and the threat of al qaeda on the morning of 9/11 and still getting up to speed on that. he is now the longest-serving fbi directors since j. edgar hoover himself in the last of the president's national security team still in his same job from 9/11. he has outlasted for cia directors for attorney general sand is on the second president and about to finish out his tenure term this september, september 3, 2011. and what he has done over the last decade is remarkable. he is on the cover of "time" magazine this week which is one of the first times he has gotten any recognition for the work is done, sort of leading this

evolution of the fbi towards an agency must more focus on counterterrorism and national security than a lot of the traditional crimes we still think of the fbi is being involved with. >> this is what the book looks like and this is a participatory interview so we would like very much to have your telephone calls. we will put the phone numbers on the screen screen and you can send us a tweet if you would like with a question for garrett graff. are twitter handle is axl tv so get involved with this discussion about the role of the fbi and national security and we would very much like to hear from you. first a detail question, the fbi director said tenure term. what was the thinking on that? >> the decision congress made after hoover died in 1972, and hoover just had as everyone knows this incredible term. he was fbi director for 48 years from a period three years before charles lindbergh crossed the atlanticn