Memorandum

Purpose of this site

Riverhead Press, a Penguin imprint, published The Fires on May 24, 2010. This memorandum highlights some of the numerous factual errors and misrepresentations that Mr. Flood presents to the reader that go to the heart of his thesis. The summary is supported by a lengthier addendum that addresses the author’s systemic analytic deficiencies and refutes Mr. Flood’s particular assertions by page. Each refutation is supported by documentation that either Mr. Flood cites himself or was available in the public realm when he conducted his research.

For the purposes of this memo the factual errors and misrepresentations are summarized in three categories: false and unsupported factual information regarding Chief O’Hagan; the manner in which Chief O’Hagan is fictionalized; and, factual errors and misrepresentations regarding other information central to the thesis. While I recognize that an author is entitled to reason poorly, the summary concludes with a brief explanation of the book’s basic logical flaws. I do so because Mr. Flood himself identified his work’s fatal flaw. When describing viewers’ perceptions of a 1951 football game between Princeton and Dartmouth he wrote, “The problem is that our perception of the facts is colored by which side, which storyline, we have already bought into.” P. 114-115. Mr. Flood has written a book trying to fit the facts to a storyline he had already bought. It is a line he had bought into before March 2007 when the book was sold to Sean McDonald, some seven months before he interviewed me and others, and three years before the book was published. 

I. False and Unsupported Information Regarding Chief O’Hagan

The assertions that O’Hagan had little experience fighting ghetto fires, disdained those who did and remained aloof from the problems ghetto firefighting posed are unsupported in the book and in fact. P. 119-121. Tenement firefighting in Brooklyn, where O’Hagan had been assigned, was the same as in the Bronx. O’Hagan’s 1965- 1974 fire journal shows 482 responses - 269 in Brooklyn and the Bronx. The Fire Bell Club News Notes recounts many other fires he commanded. O’Hagan participated in RAND simulation studies based upon Bronx data and for years he visited firehouses in poverty-stricken neighborhoods on Saturday mornings to listen to the firefighters’ concerns. As Flood notes, O’Hagan supervised fire science studies in Bushwick to improve firefighting strategies for tenements.

Flood claims that O’Hagan “fudged” results in order to justify closing companies in powerless neighborhoods or to retaliate against unions. He bases this upon the following quote, “... if the models came back saying one thing and [O’Hagan] didn’t like it he would make you run it again and check, run it again and check.” P. 211, 244. As the RAND reports explain, simulation models require that myriad permutations for the simulation be run to test both the formula and the numerous options facing decision makers. See Rand Report, Simulation Model of Fire Department Operations: Executive Summary, (1974), p.8. Flood cites no authority that supports his interpretation of the quote as meaning O’Hagan “fudged” numbers. He offers no authority that establishes O’Hagan’s rationale for general or specific company changes. He imputes motivation based on nothing.

The claim that O’Hagan saved companies in affluent, politically powerful neighborhoods at the expense of poor neighborhoods is unfounded. P. 244. Elmer Chapman, the aide upon whose quote the claim is based, believes he is mis-quoted. Moreover, not one instance is offered where that happened. On the contrary, the Lindsay archives contain a letter from a Queens politician asking that the local company be spared; the company closed on schedule 5 days later. Companies throughout the City saw their manning reduced, including O’Hagan’s home firehouse. Court papers explain the Department’s rationale for the 1974 closings and relocations. They also explain efforts undertaken to mitigate the losses and the papers identify low-income neighborhoods that were unaffected by the cuts. These papers were available to Mr. Flood.

The claim that O’Hagan closed second sections to retaliate against the union is unfounded. P. 195, 206, 213. RAND and O’Hagan recognized the success of the second sections once the dispatch rules were adjusted. The enclosed list illustrates: two of the ten second sections were relocated in the Bronx in 1971 and 1972; seven were closed and three were relocated during the 1972 and 1974 fiscal crises; and changes affecting other boroughs were made at the same time. The unit that supported union President Maye’s company was not closed, it was relocated 4 blocks away. President Vizzini’s unit was disbanded along with the transfers of 150 firefighters who fomented the 1973 strike - a strike called although the president knew he lacked the votes. O’Hagan elected not to file department charges against the strikers. The former move had public support; the latter move, which promoted healing in the department, was unpopular with the public. Daily News, Editorials, 11.27.73, 1.4.74.

There is no authority in the book or in fact for the assertion that O’Hagan sought elective or political office beyond that of Commissioner. P. 222. The mayors he served knew this. Had Mr.Flood asked I would have told him O’Hagan had no interest in serving beyond the Department. Plans to open a consulting business no later than the end of 1977 had long been underway.

Twice Flood asserts, without authority, that O’Hagan “boasted” he could run the Department with 7,500 men. P. 192, 243. However, in a 1977 New York Times article Flood cites, O’Hagan is quoted as saying 11,000 - 11,500 was the optimal number for him to run the Department. P. 305n.

The claim that O’Hagan “never fully expended his political capital to claw back whatever funds he could for his department” is unfounded. P. 244. In this paragraph Flood raises several questions. Was O’Hagan steeped in club politics, or not? Did he participate in political corruption? Or didn’t, but should have? Flood himself states that in 1974 O’Hagan persuaded Mayor Beame to reduce the Department’s cuts from $26.9M to $8.6M. What he doesn’t say is that O’Hagan publicly compromised the Mayor by persuading him to reduce the cuts after the Mayor had already announced that 12 companies would be closed. Following the 1975 layoff of 1,600 firefighters and the disbanding of 21 companies, O’Hagan was instrumental in securing the state and federal funds that enabled 700 men to be rehired and all 21 companies to be reinstated within two weeks of the closures. The press and Fire Bell Club newsletters reported that O’Hagan worked steadily to secure federal grants monies for the purpose of rehiring those laid off. Within 17 months, he had rehired all but 86 of the 900 who had remained laid off after the July rehirings. In June 1976 the Daily News reported that the Police union was incensed that firefighters were being rehired rather than police officers.

Flood’s suggestion that O’Hagan engaged in a quid pro quo with the mayor and real estate industry - tacitly, if not explicitly, acquiescing to policies that fostered slum clearance in exchange for personal advancement and passage of Local Law 5 - is unfounded. P. 40, 184, 185, 219, 306. These suggestions are woven together with multiple allusions to O’Hagan’s “accumulation and exercise of political capital.” The only citation in support of this notion states that Jack Rudin was a pallbearer at O’Hagan’s 1991 funeral.. Note too, that the real estate industry opponents challenged the law. Only after five years of litigation was it declared constitutional.

Flood’s claim that O’Hagan rejected a March 1970 memo written by Bronx Deputy Chief Kirby sets up a strawman argument and false dichotomy that Flood uses to assert that O’Hagan abandoned the Bronx in favor in Manhattan. P. 180-185. Kirby’s ideas were not rejected. One month earlier one second section had opened in the Bronx; by year’s end two more would open. And, as Flood himself recognizes, community outreach and coordinated interagency initiatives as Kirby described had been underway for some time. P. 180.

II. Manner in Which Chief O’Hagan is Fictionalized

As the following sections of the book demonstrate, Flood fictionalizes O’Hagan in two ways: engaging in flights of narrative and rhetoric that are not supported by authority, and indeed could not, because they have no foundation in fact, and imputing to O’Hagan thoughts and motives without factual support:

* Schooling in the Catholic catechism, WWII experiences, return and how he supposes O’Hagan recounted those stories over the years. P. 30, 33, 34, 35. With the exception of the references to O’Hagan’s beard and skin condition, this section is not factual.

* Dealings with the real estate industry. P. 40.
* “... downplay the alarming trend in ghetto fires...” P. 121.
* Ambition to expand his management principles throughout municipal government P. 70, 222.
* Involvement in Brooklyn and Queens club politics and church affairs and perhaps attendance at a rumored hangout in New England. P. 189, 190, 244, 298. * Description of O’Hagan’s decision making process. P. 181.
* Reason for rejecting Deputy Chief Kirby’s memo. https://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R1566z2.html
* O’Hagan “wanted to believe that RAND’s studies were accurate and that he really could cut budgets, close houses he held a grudge against, and not significantly hurt fire coverage.” P. 213
* After purportedly “losing the WTC battle, O’Hagan realized that for the first time in his career, power ... was what he needed to achieve his goals”. P. 190.

* “O’Hagan was ready to stop the fire company closings.” P. 220. If this is early 1974, the union president’s unit was about to be disbanded. But also, since 1965, city-wide, only six companies had been disbanded - none in the Bronx. .
* “... Forced into a role he’d always disdained, a political commissioner trying to prevent cuts and still maintain power within the machine.” P. 224.