LINDSAY'S POISE CALMED CITY'S ANGER

John V. Lindsay won over Pat Murphy with a promise.

In 1970, the mayor of New York City asked Murphy - a former police chief of
Syracuse - to become his police commissioner. It was a time of anger and
street violence in the nation's biggest city. The police were reeling from
lurid public stories of corruption.

"He told me I had a totally free hand," said Murphy, 80, from his home in
Maryland. "When a mayor says to you, 'I'll never ask you for a favor of any
kind or any special circumstance,' you really appreciate that. He was the
best mayor I ever worked for, along with Mayor Bill Walsh of Syracuse."

Under Lindsay, Murphy began experimenting with "community policing," the
neighborhood-based approach that would help Mayor Rudy Giuliani to
stabilize the city, 20 years later.

Lindsay, a Republican who would become a Democrat, also gave Murphy
unqualified and sometimes unpopular support.

When Gov. Nelson Rockefeller was campaigning for his "Rockefeller drug
laws" - tough and inflexible guidelines for narcotics sentencings - Murphy
went to Albany to voice his opposition. "They're draconian, terrible laws,"
Murphy said. A furious Rockefeller confronted Murphy at a banquet.

He accused New York's police commissioner of "coming up here and
prostituting yourself."

Back in the city, Lindsay shook Murphy's hand and said, "Nice job."

For Murphy - and for Sandra Birchmeyer Clark, clerk to the Syracuse Board
of Education - news of Lindsay's death Wednesday left them with a sense of
disbelief.

To Murphy and Clark, a former Lindsay aide, it was hard to separate vivid
memories of a young and dashing mayor from the reality of Lindsay's
passing, in old age.

"He was this tall, handsome man, and women would just 'oooo and ahhhh'
whenever he walked into a crowded room," Murphy said.

Clark, who returned to Syracuse nine years ago, was a young woman in her
20s when she went to work for Lindsay, in 1968. She had been a volunteer
for years for Bobby Kennedy, a New York senator and presidential candidate
whose violent death in California left her searching for new hope.

She found it in Lindsay. She wishes young Americans today - particularly
young people in Syracuse - could be exposed to a community leader of such
contagious passion. "It was a very different time in politics," Clark said.
"Maybe it was because I was younger, but I really thought he could change
the city."

Clark served on Lindsay's "urban action task force," and for a while she
was his liaison with the police.

She remembers being in a helicopter with the mayor and another aide when
they saw a huge banner advertising "Alice's Restaurant," an Arlo Guthrie
movie about the "counter culture."

"What's that?" a completely earnest Lindsay asked his aides. "A new
restaurant opened up?"

Beyond all else, Clark was moved by the mayor's efforts to stave off urban
chaos.

The Vietnam War was raging.

Harlem had a burning fuse. The police department was being investigated for
corruption, at the same time street cops were getting murdered on the beat.
"Everyone seemed angry," Clark said. Lindsay - patient and relentless -
literally went walking to calm seething neighborhoods.

Not long after Murphy became commissioner, one of his officers was shot to
death while entering a mosque.

Murphy's rank and file, enraged, wanted to retaliate.

The city braced for rioting and violence.

Lindsay stepped into the middle.

He explained that the shooting was a tragic misunderstanding, that the
officer had forgotten an official agreement against carrying weapons into a
mosque.

Both sides backed off, without losing face.

Murphy last saw Lindsay three years ago at a police dinner in New York,
where many speakers praised Giuliani for cleaner, safer streets.

Murphy thought about the city in 1970, a time bomb ready to explode at any
time, and how Lindsay somehow kept the place from blowing up. The old cop
made a point of thanking his old boss.

Wednesday, that was Murphy's consolation.