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anything against me. Just don't do anything. Why don't you just get out of town for the week-end? Just don't do anything that would hurt me.” This is on the edge of the election -- maybe the week-end immediately before the election. I think the election that year was very close to Labor Day. It was the Labor Day week-end, and maybe that Tuesday would be the election.

In any event, he said, “You know, I'll resign from the club. I'll withdraw. In fact, I have a little note here, and I'll just withdraw and that will be the end of it.”

We said, “No, no, no, that's not helpful to us. We don't want you to withdraw. We just want you to not attack us.”

So he said, “Okay,” he would never attack me. And that's the way the meeting ended. This might be a conversation that took place on a Wednesday night or Thursday night of that pre-week-end, Labor Day week-end.

So I felt: well, okay, it's tough, but we could still maybe win. Then we get a call from Eddie Katcher of the New York Post. Maybe that was Friday or Saturday -- I can't remember the date. Katcher, who is supportive of DeSapio in his columns, an old-line reporter. At that time he didn't like me; we've become friends since that time -- in a casual way, not friends, but he doesn't dislike me. He did at that time. In any event, he called and he says: “We have a letter here from Lanigan in which he is