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for every member of the council. It was only for the chairman. So you only get $3000. You don't get $5000. And so now what are you going to do since you've made that pledge?” And then as reported in the New York Times (this whole thing is like a column in the New York Times the next day), “there was a long pause on the phone. And then Councilman-Elect Koch said, “I made that pledge. I will keep that pledge. And I will make up the difference of the $2000 out of my own income, my salary; but I will hire ten people at $500 each.” The headline of this story in the New York Times reads (and it was the first page of the second section, as I recall), “Councilman-Elect Koch Goofs -- Has $3000, not $5000.” It looked like I had stolen something. It was a terrible headline. My father calls me up. He had just read the headline. My father then may be 76 or so and went to the Bake Oven Cafeteria at 30th Street and 7th Avenue every day at 6 o'clock in the morning before he'd open up his little loft to talk and have breakfast with his confreres. My father gets on the phone. He says, “Ed, I just read the paper, and my friends are asking me about what you did. They say you goofed. They're laughing.” He said, “I said to them after they about what you had done, ‘My son is not in this for the money.” And then my father says, “But Ed, how could you make such a goof?” (laughs)
Now, as a result of the enormous publicity that came from that 175 people applied to be on my staff at $500 annual honorariums, and I must say there must have been 75 to 100 really firstrate people. And we interviewed over 100 people at my law
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