eBook
Related collections and offers
Overview
When author John Caulfield was growing up in the South Bronx in the 1930s, the Irish kids were raised to be firemen, cops, or priests. From a young age, he knew his future held one of those options. In this memoir, he narrates the story of his long career in law enforcement—a path that was anything but direct.
Caulfield, Shield #911-NYPD tells of Caulfield’s working first job at a grocery store at age ten, attending Catholic school, playing basketball at Rice High School, earning a basketball scholarship at Wake Forest College, being drafted into the army, and gaining his police shield—#911—in 1953.
It also details his experiences as an NYPD detective when assigned to its elite Bureau of Special Services and Investigations unit, whose prime mandate involved guarding visiting heads of state. In 1969, Caulfield took a leave of absence and joined the White House staff as staff assistant to President Richard Nixon; during that time, he coordinated more than ninety-three investigations. When Watergate occurred, Caulfield was serving as assistant director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms unit that investigated extremist groups in the United States. He testified before the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973.
In Caulfield, Shield #911-NYPD, Caulfield offers unique insight into the levels of the world security events in NYPD and the White House.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781469799803 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 04/18/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 144 |
| Sales rank: | 948,049 |
| File size: | 171 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Caulfield, Shield #911-NYPD
By JOHN CAULFIELD
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 John CaulfieldAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4697-9979-7
Chapter One
Chapter 1: Da Bronx! (And beyond)
I was born on March 12, 1929, six months prior to the Great Depression, in the South Bronx. My father, John, was an Irish immigrant from the town of Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, Ireland. He arrived in New York with his brother, Mike, not long after the Irish Rebellion in Dublin. My mother, Marian nee Martin, was also born in the Bronx of Irish immigrant parents.
At that time, Irish kids in the Bronx either grew up to be firemen, cops, or priests. And so from a young age, I knew that my future held one of these three options. However, the path I took into law enforcement wasn't exactly direct.
I remember my father telling me as a child about the Black and Tans, the British-supported constabulary that ruled Ireland in the 1920s when he was a teen. The nickname name came from the khaki and dark uniforms they wore. He said that when they came to town, the children ran for cover, owing to the penchant of the Tans to inflict summary punishment on any who failed to immediately obey their arbitrary laws.
Most accounts described them as undisciplined former British soldiers, happy to earn "Soldier of Fortune" money at the expense of the Irish population. So, the hope and wish for Irish freedom was deep-seated in my relatives.
Regis Philbin, a Bronx Irish Catholic like me, recently informed his TV audience that the Bronx's first settler was a Dutchman named Jonas Bronk, who arrived here in the early part of the seventeenth century. Somehow his large property holding became anglicized to "The Bronx," or, if you were born there in modern times, bearing a heavy "Nu Yauk" accent, "Da Bronx."
My folks, when first married, took a Bronx apartment adjacent to 138th Street and Alexander Avenue. On the southeast corner was St. Jerome's Catholic Church. On the northeast corner, appropriately, was a well- trafficked Irish saloon. And, on the northwest corner was the 40th Police Precinct, inevitably busy, with Saturday night visitors.
So, if one behaved himself, went to Mass, and didn't get too drunk, he could avoid a night in the slammer across the street. Many went to Mass alright, but more than a few failed at the other two options. Such was life for many south Bronx Irish at that time.
Near my folk's apartment was the Innisveil Ballroom, where many Irish celebrated marriage and went dancing on Saturday night. My mom and dad met at that location. I recall my father's humorous description of a few fights that he was involved in there. While no John L. Sullivan, he must have been pretty good, in that he earned the nickname "John the Bull."
Like so many other Bronx families of the Depression, life for us was a struggle. My father, with only a minimal education, was constantly scrambling for any type of work. I recall watching him in the brutal heat of August one day, chopping eighty-pound blocks of ice in the street and delivering them on his shoulder to the tenants' ice boxes. He also worked at the zoo, cleaning out animal cages.
His first job in New York was working with immigrant Italians digging road ditches. I asked him one day about the type of benefits he receive from that job. He gave an answer I haven't forgot: "Well, Johnny, those that worked the hardest got paid first, my brother Mike and I always were the furst paid," (not exactly a 401K!). Eventually, he found good work with the New York Telephone Company, from whence he retired.
My first job, at age ten, was working before and after school in a small grocery store owned by a Jewish merchant. I packed shelves, delivered customers' orders, and on Jewish high holy days made ten cents for turning the Jewish tenants' stoves on. My weekly salary was two American dollars, which I proudly gave to my mom. I guess one could say that that was a real minimum wage.
I went to St. Martin of Tours grammar school taught by the Dominican nuns, who did a heck of a job. The parish was primarily comprised of Sicilian and Irish residents. Although some won't believe it, I became an Altar Boy, and learned the Latin phrases I would need to participate with the priest at Mass. It was an interesting experience.
I sure wasn't the smartest kid in the class of 1943, but I did spell well enough to get entered in a grammar school spelling contest. I didn't win, but looking back, the die had been cast: Irish words, rather than Jewish math, were where I was headed.
I often found myself in the local library, devouring bestsellers like The Call of the Wild and Guadalcanal Diary. Resultantly, I agree with those who see the merits of early reading, possibly before all else, in the education of the child.
One of my schoolboy friends, Joe Vito, brought me to his apartment house one evening and as we entered the vestibule I was startled by the pungent odor of Italian cooking coming from just about every apartment in the building. His mom gave me my first taste of pizza that night, and like so many of us, I became addicted ever since.
The immigrant and first generation New York Irish found their dream weekend retreat at Rockaway Beach on the Atlantic in Queens, New York. In one mile and a half stretch, adjacent or close to the ocean, there were about fifty bars, saloons, and dance halls. The crowd often exceeded 25,000 on a Saturday night. Recently, I learned that the name Rockaway is derived from a seventeenth century Native American tribe called "Rockaways," who apparently inhabited that part of Queens.
My folks rented a bungalow there in the summer of 1941 when I was just twelve. I delivered early-edition newspapers to those bars and dance halls, starting around 9:00 p.m. It was there I first experienced the foot- tapping joy of listening to the rebel and other classic Irish songs, while watching the wildly happy dancers going full bore at their jigs and reels; perhaps not too unlike the Rockaways dancers?
In any event, the spectacle was like a continuous weekend St. Patrick's Day party. And I quickly learned that I sold more newspapers and got bigger tips at midnight than at nine; one might call it the "supply and booze" syndrome or, if you like, "the later bird catches the drunk."
Speaking of Rockaway and alcohol (some cynical friends call it "Irish heroin"); I had my first drink experience there at age fifteen with friends on the moon-lit beach. I proceeded to down straight shots of Southern Comfort, where upon I threw up, blacked out, and later told others what a great time I had. Little did I realize that I had taken my first fateful step towards becoming afflicted with alcoholism?
Recently, I asked myself, "What was the best Christmas gift I ever got?" Without a doubt, it was the basketball I received when I was ten years old. Not having access to a net, I improvised by shooting it through the bottom rung of the fire escape ladders, located on every tenement building. I sure had plenty of "courts" to practice on. I don't think that even James Naismith, the Canadian-born inventor of basketball who used peach baskets as the forerunner of today's netting, could have envisioned that innovation!
I remember becoming fascinated with the game when they put up crude nets on a wooden backboard, in the school's auditorium. I made a softball-sized basketball from paper and spent hours shooting alone in my privately created basketball world. At about that time, I was allowed to go and see my first basketball game played by the parish "Big Five." I came away forever hooked on the game, thereafter practically living on the neighborhood basketball court.
I attended Rice High School, run by the capable order of Irish Christian Brothers, in Harlem. I made the varsity team coached by the colorful, Tom Gorman. He was famed for winning the Catholic High School basketball championship for Power Memorial High School in the final seconds by making an incredible tip-in from a jump ball at the foul line! I have never heard of anyone ever doing that in a game, anywhere.
Power was also run by the Irish Christian Brothers. Lew Alcindor, son of a law enforcement officer, was also a Power basketball player. He led them to three consecutive CHSAA championships, along with a seventy-two-game winning streak.
After taking the Muslim name, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, the seven-foot, two-inch giant became one of the country's best all-time players with the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA. He was raised a Catholic, but converted to Islam later on when he discovered he had family roots dating to the Jamaican slave trade.
Recently, in a TV interview about his new book, On the Shoulders of Giants, he mentioned that as he exited the 125th Street subway station, he found himself right in the middle of the Harlem Riot of July 1964; and witnessed, firsthand, the madness of Molotov cocktails being thrown from tenant windows.
Coincidentally, I did too as an NYPD detective, investigating the cause of that riot. Turned out we had a black undercover detective planted in a violence-prone Black Nationalist group, which was, quite effectively, inciting the riot by distributing to Harlem youths instructional pamphlets on how to make and use Molotov cocktails.
At the height of the deteriorating riot, the detective bosses decided to put a recording device on the detective and send him in to the group's headquarters (located only one block from Rice High School! My alma mater!) to get incriminating admissions—a dangerous assignment to say the least.
My black detective partner, Eddie Lee, and I were told to put on our patrolman's uniforms and station ourselves in front of the headquarters, functioning as a backup in the event anything went sour. If it did, the undercover detective was to throw a chair through the office window and we were to go in and get him out.
It was a long, tension-filled hour for us, worrying about the safety of our brother officer upstairs, with Molotov cocktails landing close by. But the detective pulled it off without a hitch—got the goods on the inciters, allowing for their summary arrest, and, thankfully, a rapid end to the riot. It was a commendable job, and he way properly promoted to detective by the NYPD Commissioner.
Before coaching at Rice, Gorman was a baseball pitcher in the Majors, jumping to the Mexican League, when that became economically fashionable. After leaving his Rice duties, he became a leading Major League umpire who once received quite a bit of notoriety. When working behind the plate, a foul tip from a Jackie Robinson's bat slammed into his unprotected throat, sending him to the hospital. The incident caused a much-needed improvement in catcher/umpire mask technology. Interestingly, his son also became a Major League umpire, and still is at this writing.
My basketball play at Rice improved in my senior year to the point where I was averaging about thirteen points per game. I was getting a big head, until one night I got a pretty good wakeup call about the tenuous realities of my two-handed set shot. We had a big-deal night game coming up at a large National Guard regiment armory in Manhattan. Most of our games were played in humble high school gyms, including Rice's.
So, at about 2:00 p.m. on the day of the game, I decided to go to the local YMCA and take practice set shots alone for an hour or so. I was amazed to find myself in a shooting zone few athletes ever experience. I literally couldn't miss from any location on the floor! I kept looking around for someone to witness what was happening, but no one was around.
I thought if I could do anything close to that in the upcoming game, I was sure to have at least a career scoring night. During the game's warm- ups, the zone continued. Spectators and teammates began to pay attention. Coach Gorman, also seeing this, called me over and said, "I want you to do a lot of shooting tonight, Jack."
I said, "Right, coach!" The first time I got my hand on the ball, I was way outside the top of the key, I let it go ... swish, nothing but net! I said to myself, "Holy --!"
Then I took twelve more set shots ... and not one went in! My "Twilight Zone" moment was gone, never to return.
A great high school experience was the annual march up Fifth Avenue on St. Patrick's Day. We trained for the event in front of curious Harlem onlookers down the block from Rice High School. The parade ended on East 86th Street, the German section of Yorkville. It was a wonderful place to celebrate by getting drunk with just about every other Irishman in New York.
In any event, via the help of Gorman, I received a scholarship to, of all places, Wake Forest College in North Carolina. It was then a small Baptist college, located about fifteen miles north of Raleigh. Later, the school received a large grant from the Reynolds Tobacco Company, and then became a university, relocating to Winston Salem.
When I arrived by train for my tryout in August of 1947, it was only my second time outside of New York. The first was a memorable auto trip to Scranton, Pennsylvania, for a Labor Day weekend visit with my father and his friends. Indoor plumbing had not yet arrived there, so I had my first and only outhouse experience. As we left Scranton's main street on September 1, 1939, I was amazed to see newsboys running through the street yelling, "Get it here! Get it here! War in Europe! War in Europe!" The Nazis had invaded Poland.
The coach was not at the Wake Forest train station when I arrived, so I headed into the two-block town to call him. As I was walking towards a public phone, an elderly black man exited the sidewalk when we were about to pass one another. Huh? What was that about? Seconds later another black man did the same thing, just as I saw the shocking sign over a not-so-public water fountain that read, "WHITES ONLY." The stain of racial prejudice was alive and well in that part of North Carolina.
My thoughts went back to how I went home from basketball practice at Rice. It required a four-block walk, passing Harlem tenements, on the way to the 3rd Avenue El Station. I developed the necessary habit of walking in the middle of the street, because it was not unusual for missiles to be hurled at white passersby, or for black male tenants to emit threatening words, punctuated especially by two memorable ones, and they were not "Merry Christmas!" So, there was a Harlem culture, a Deep South Culture ... and never the twain did meet at those times and places.
The one and only, Arnold Palmer, was a classmate of mine at Wake Forest, along with his golf teammate, Buddy Worsham. Buddy and I became close friends. His brother, Lew, won the U.S. Open Golf Championship, beating the great Sam Snead, to deny him the only major title he failed to achieve.
Just prior to the end of his junior year, Buddy was tragically killed in an auto accident en route to a party at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina; Arnold had been invited too, but fortuitously decided to pass. He was so shaken by Buddy's death that he dropped out of school. But he went on to win the U.S. Amateur Championship, turned pro, and the rest is memorable golf history. To his credit, he later formed the Worsham Memorial Fund, which still exists to this day.
One day, when he was at his professional peak, I took my three sons to see him play at the Westchester Country Club in New York. When he was warming up, he spotted me because I was wearing my Wake Forest basketball sweater, bearing a big gold W. He waved and told me to meet him after he finished. Gratuitously, he then gave my three sons and ad-hoc putting lesson, which neither one of them (nor I) would forget.
I had not only become hooked on golf at the relatively late age of twenty-five, but passed the addition on to my three sons. All three were on the same Robinson High School, golf and basketball teams, which, to say the least, got me back into the habit of biting my nails. Chris, who was runner-up in the Metropolitan New York Collegiate Championship when he was a senior at Manhattan College, has been a PGA professional for twenty-five years.
He has won his share of pro tournaments, including a mini-major at a PGA National course in West Palm Beach, competing against 125 other club pros from around the country. This year he is eligible for the Champions Tour and is going to give it the "ole college try." If he makes it, I will have nubs for fingers! My two other sons, John and Rich (Chris's twin) play at scratch, and are darn good amateur champions, each having won their share of amateur events.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Caulfield, Shield #911-NYPD by JOHN CAULFIELD Copyright © 2012 by John Caulfield. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Chapter 1: Da Bronx! (And beyond)....................1Chapter 2: BOSSI....................23
Chapter 3: The Near Assassination of Ernesto "Che" Guevera....................43
Chapter 4: The 1968 Presidential Campaign....................64
Chapter 5: The White House Experience....................71
Chapter 6: Inside Watergate....................76