The recent death at age 99 of longtime Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau recalls his two attempts to run for governor of New York against Nelson Rockefeller. Obituaries featured brief references to his statehouse ambitions, but his 1962 run in particular is worth remembering for its national significance.
Morgenthau, grandson of Woodrow Wilson’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire and son of FDR’s Treasury secretary, was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in early 1961 by newly elected President John F. Kennedy. He would soon be asked to aim higher. [Read more…] about Robert Morgenthau’s Statehouse Ambitions