Your name, please?

Walter F. DeFeo.

Will you read your official title and position into the record, please.

I’m the director of the New York Civil Defense Emergency Control Board. Our office is at Three Oh Five Broadway.

You understand the purpose of this inquiry?

I understand it, Mr. Skinner. I’m not sure if you do.

I see. What is it you think I don’t understand?

Officially you’re supposed to be doing an in-depth investigation of the disaster to find out how we might have done a coordinated job of heading it off. You’re here, ostensibly, to find some way of insuring that this kind of thing never happens again. That the idea?

Essentially.

That’s the avowed purpose. Actually you’re looking for scapegoats. The mayor’s got his tail in a wringer and he needs to find somebody he can pin it on. Get rid of the stink. Pass the buck.

You think I’ve been commissioned to create a frame-up or a cover-up?

I wouldn’t say that. I don’t know you… only by reputation. Your reputation’s good enough. But I still think some poor bastard’s head is going to roll when you get finished with your investigation. Maybe it’ll be my head-who knows? I’m close to retirement, it wouldn’t do me much damage if I had a can tied to my tail. Am I the sacrificial goat?

Mr. DeFeo, you’re only the fourth witness who’s appeared here. I’ve got weeks of interviews ahead of me.

Then maybe you’ll listen to a word of advice from an old hand in the business of political legerdemain. You’re an academic, not a politician. That’s why I think you probably don’t understand this kind of operation. I’m not impugning your sincerity. I’m only pointing out that mayors and governors and presidents devote half their time in office to the assembling and appointing of commissions of inquiry, and that the only invariable rule of politics is that nothing ever comes of these inquiries.