Only hours after John Vliet Lindsay was sworn in as mayor of New York eight years ago, 33,000 transit workers walked off their jobs and brought the city dangerously close to paralysis. Lindsay's successor, 67-year-old Abraham Beame, the city's first Jewish mayor, has faced no comparable calamities since becoming the new tenant in Gracie Mansion. But his opening weeks have not been as smooth as cream cheese either. Having based his political reputation on a decades-long record of personal integrity, Beame pledged during his campaign "to make our administration a model of honest...
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