In the murk of Massachusetts politics, Democrat Foster Furcolo, Yale-educated ('33) lawyer and sometime playwright, was a dazzler. When he was a Congressman (1949-52), a poll of Washington correspondents rated him one of the ten best on Capitol Hill.
Furcolo handily won the governorship in 1956 and 1958—the first person of Italian extraction to win the job. But Foster fizzled in the statehouse, lost a 1960 primary for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination.
The Payoff. Last week Furcolo, 53, was indicted on charges of misconduct while in office by a 21-member Boston...