JOSEPH P. ADDABBO OF OZONE PARK - ELECTED 1960

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88B00527R000100130014-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 14
• Content Type: BIO

Approved For Release 2010/03/24: CIA-RDP88B00527R000100130014-2
Now Yak - 6th District
6JOsePh P. Addabbo (D)
Of Ozone Park - Elected 1960
Born: March 17, 1925, New York, N.Y.
Education: Attended City College of N.Y. 1942-44; St.
Johns Law School, LL.B. 1946.
Occupation: Lawyer.
Family: Wife, Grace Salamone; three children.
Religion: Roman Catholic.
Political Career. No previous office.
Capitol Office: 2365 Rayburn Bldg. 20515; 225-3461.
In Washington: A chairman can be smart
and tough and still lose most of the time, as
Addabbo has proven during more than four
years in charge of the Defense Appropriations
Subcommittee.
Close colleagues know the Queens Demo-
crat as an unobtrusively efficient vote counter
- the sort of man who quietly slips into a
reception or cocktail party to find out which
way opinion is moving on an issue he is inter-
ested in. But as a dovish chairman of a hawkish
subcommittee, he has nearly always found ma-
jority opinion against him, leaving no choice
but to accept defeat in his own panel and wait
for another day.
On one issue, at least, that day came in
December of 1982. After his proposal to block
MX missile funding failed both in his sub-
committee and at full Appropriations, Addabbo
took it to the floor and won. "We won the
battle," he said afterward, and promised to
continue fighting the war.
A stocky, moon-faced man with a penchant
for wisecracks, Addabbo looks the part of an
old-fashioned machine Democrat from New
York City. But it is a deceptive appearance.
Addabbo's interests are national, and over the
last decade he became one of the most knowl-
edgeable and effective congressional critics of
the Pentagon.
"I'm for a strong defense," he said in 1982,
"but I don't take the Pentagon at their word. I
don't like the attitude of some members: 'Well,
let's give them $20 million to play around with
this year. Let's give them $40 million next
year.' Three years later, the weapon work, and there's $100 million down the drain."
Addabbo is not so much anti-military as
anti-bureaucracy: He tends to view generals as
bureaucrats-in-uniform who share with their
civilian counterparts an inclination toward em-
pire-building and tunnel vision.
He supported the Vietnam war throughout
the Johnson years and for a while under Presi.
dent Nixon, then changed his mind and spun.
Bored the first anti-war resolution ever to pa
the House - one cutting off funds for the
bombing of Cambodia in 1973.
He is convinced that high defense spend.
ing not only absorbs scarce funds needed for
domestic programs, but elicits a corresponding
increase in Soviet military spending.
Addabbo says that bureaucratic biases fa-
vor the wrong kinds of weaponry - too expen-
sive to buy sufficient numbers and too compli-
cated to keep operable. He led the con-
gressional fight against the B-1 bomber in the
late '70s, arguing that the cruise missile favored
by President Carter had a better chance of
penetrating Soviet air defenses in the 1980s. He
charged that the nuclear-powered carriers fa-
vored by the Navy would be sitting ducks for
Soviet cruise missiles and would absorb funds
better spent on a larger number of smaller
ships. With Carter supporting Addabbo's posi-
tions from the White House, they prevailed
briefly in 1977 and 1978.
The situation changed in 1979. Addabbo
assumed the subcommittee chairmanship that
year, and with it more control over the defense
spending process. But the B-1 and the nuclear
carrier were picking up adherents in Congress
as Addabbo was maneuvering to block them.
By the end of the 96th Congress in 1980, both
the B-1 and the carrier had a new lease on life,
helped by widespread congressional fear of a
Soviet military buildup and contempt for what
many members saw as Carter's squeamishness
about the role of force in world affairs.
In the first few months of President Rea-
gan's administration, Addabbo predicted confi-
dently that his panel could find at least $7
billion to cut from the new president's planned
military buildup. But he had few successes
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Joseph P. Addobbo, D-N.Y.
New York 6
New York's burgeoning Catholic mid-
dle class settled this part of Queens a gen-
eration ago as it expanded outward from
homes closer to the inner city. Now Queens
is the inner city, and people are leaving for
outer suburbs or other states. Addabbo's
district lost nearly 10 percent of its popula-
tion during the 1970s. The 1982 remap
expanded the boundaries south to make up
the population deficit.
But the changes did little to affect the
district's Democratic character. The area
within the redrawn 6th backed Jimmy Car-
ter for president in 1980 with 58 percent of
the vote.
The 6th picked up the Rockaways, a
narrow peninsula that commuters reach via
an elevated train across Jamaica Bay. Popu-
lar with beach-goers, the Rockaways have a
diverse mix of year-round residents. Far
Rockaway has many elderly Jews. Arverne
is poor and largely black, and Neponsit is
largely populated by wealthy Jews and
Wasps. Middle-class blacks increasingly
have moved into the quiet, tree-lined sec-
tions of the district near the Nassau County
line. To the west in Jamaica, a major termi-
nal for Long Island trains, the landscape
becomes more urban and the black commu-
nity poorer.
Jamaica in Queens has become a home
for significant numbers of blacks from the
island of Jamaica in the Caribbean, many of
whom have traveled north to settle with
relatives. The district also takes in the Ja-
Southern Queens -
Ozone Park; Jamaica
maica Bay Wildlife Refuge, reputed to be
the largest urban nature reserve in the
world.
Addabbo's old constituency was 45 per-
cent black by 1980, and map makers
brought that figure to 50 percent for the
1980s. The area has seen occasional conflict
between the races. White parents in Rose-
dale staged demonstrations in 1981 over a
court order to transfer their children to a
mostly black school. With blacks accounting
for a majority of the new 6th's population,
local politicians have to be careful to seem
responsive to both black and white voters.
South of Jamaica lie Ozone Park and
Howard Beach, white working-class areas
populated by Italians and Jews. Aqueduct
Race Track ("the Big A") is in this part of
the district.
The John F. Kennedy International
Airport is an abiding concern in the 6th.
JFK provides employment for the district
but also a great deal of jet noise. Flight
routes and hours preoccupy community
groups. In the early 1970s, Addabbo joined
local residents in an unsuccessful bid to stop
the supersonic Concorde from landing at
JFK.
Population: 516,844. White 227,843
(44%), Black 260,124 (50%), Asian and
Pacific Islander 6,512 (1%). Spanish origin
48,688 (9%).18 and over 368,903 (71%), 65
and over 61,592 (12%). Median age: 32.
either in committee or on the floor in 1981, as
most members responded to pleas that they
retain the B-1, MX, nuclear carriers and other
weapons systems as "bargaining chips" for fu-
ture U.S.-Soviet negotiations. Addabbo was re-
duced to predicting that "a severe shortage of
dollars will force pruning of programs in later
years."
By the spring of 1982, things seemed to be
moving in Addabbo's direction. His plan to
reduce the 1983 Reagan defense budget by at
least $15 billion did not differ too much from
what Republican Budget Chairman Pete V.
Domenici of New Mexico was advocating in the
Senate. Later in the year, Addabbo's sub-
committee actually reduced the Reagan request
by over $17 billion, more than many expected.
The Pershing missile, another favorite Ad-
dabbo target, also went down in subcommittee.
Still, the MX and B-1 survived, and few
cuts were made in any of the larger and more
controversial weapons systems. "I lost," Ad-
dabbo said after his panel finished. "I wish I
knew why." Later the MX made it through full
committee on a tie vote after Reagan personally
called every committee member. "I want to
cry," Addabbo had told the committee, "every
time I think about what we're spending on
defense."
The floor, however, was a different story.
Voting only weeks after a national election in
which most candidates of both parties pledged
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Now York - 6th District
reductions in defense, Addabbo mustered a
245-176 majority for his amendment to block
MX production. It was the most dramatic
victory of his career as chairman.
Addabbo called that vote "a forerunner of
things to come," but there was no immediate
sign that he was right. The day after the MX
decision, Addabbo lost on amendments to kill
the B-1 (which he called "a bummer of a
bomber") and other major weapons.
Addabbo is not afraid to oppose his home
state defense industries on a major issue - he
points out that some of the B-1 would be
subcontracted to New York - but he normally
sees to it that local contractors such as Fair-
child Republic, Grumman and Sperry, all
based on Long Island, are well taken care of in
subcommittee. He has boasted that defense
contracts awarded to New York have increased
by 30 percent since he took over as chairman.
In 1982 he argued successfully for $357 million
for production of 20 A-10 attack planes op-
posed by the Air Force but made by Fairchild.
Earlier in the year, New York lost a plum
when the Navy Department announced that a
contract of nearly $500 million for refitting the
battleship Iowa would go to a Mississippi firm
rather than the Brooklyn Navy Yard. After
that decision was made, Addabbo's panel cut
Navy shipbuilding funds by $546 million.
Addabbo led a long battle, successful in
1980, to obtain a larger slice of the defense
spending pie for Northeastern and Midwestern
states. This was done by repealing the so-called
Maybank amendment, a rider that had been
routinely attached to every defense appropria-
tions bill since 1953. It barred the Pentagon
from buying materiel at a premium for the sake
of putting contracts into areas of high unem-
ployment.
At Home: Unlike most New York City
congressmen, Addabbo rarely dabbles in local
politics. He is a legislative-oriented House
member who leaves politics to the Queens
organization. He was never an insurgent and he
has never tried to run for city office.
In fact, Addabbo was only modestly in?
volved in politics before his election. As a
young Queens lawyer active in civic and cony.
munity affairs, he had headed Italian-American
committees for the election of various candi.
dates. But his 1960 bid for the House was his
first political contest.
Throughout the 1950s, the district was
represented by a Republican, Albert Bosch.
Though Democratic by registration, it wax
made up of middle-class homeowners who went
along with the Eisenhower tide in 1952 and
1956. But during that decade there was a
building boom, and new residents, mostly Irish
and Italian Catholics from Brooklyn, began
moving in.
In 1960 Bosch retired to seek a judgeship
and Democrats exploited the opportunity to
win the seat. Addabbo, with his Italian name
and background, was able to appeal to an
important segment of the district. Moreover,
John F. Kennedy's drawing power among Cath-
olic voters gave Addabbo's campaign a major
boost. He took the district with 53.5 percent of
the vote.
Addabbo has always been loyal to tradi-
tional organization politics, listening to constit-
uent problems and complaints. He has held to a
fairly regular liberal record. When he ran for
the House in 1960, Addabbo espoused federal
aid to education, assistance for the aged and
civil rights. He was a member of the NAACP.
Since his first election, Addabbo has had
little trouble keeping his seat. The district has
become a Democratic bastion, even going
strongly for George McGovern in 1972. From
1974 on, Addabbo has also received the Repub-
lican nomination. In the years since then, he
has been below 60 percent of the vote just twice
- both times by a hair, in the 1962 general
election and the 1982 primary.
In 1982 redistricting increased the number
of blacks in the 6th, and a prominent black
candidate challenged him for renomination.
The vote in the contest between Addabbo and
Simeon Golar, a former New York City housing
commissioner, broke largely along racial lines.
1026
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Committees
ApproprIptione (5th of 36 Democrats)
galena (chairman); Military Construction; Treasury-Postal Ser-
~.General Government.
small Wsl sa (3rd of 26 Democrats)
General Oversight and the Economy; SBA and SBIC Authority,
Minority Enterprise and General Small Business Problems.
1112 General
joseph Addabbo (D)
95,483
(96%)
Mark Scott (C)
4,074
( 4%)
1192 Primary
Joseph Addabbo (D)
26,831
(59%)
Simeon Golar (D)
18,893
(41%)
1190 General
Joseph Addabbo(D)
96,137
(95%)
previous Winning Pacentager
1178
(95%) 117$
(95%)
1171 (100%) 1972 (75%)
1170
(91%) 1119
(66%)
019 (65%) 1119 (70%)
1192
(59%) 1190
(54%)
District Vale For President
1119
117$
D 89,495 (58%)
D 115,346 (69%)
II 55,064 (36%)
11 50,369 (30%)
7,737 ( 5%)
Campaign Finance
Receipts from PACs EN ant
1190
Addabbo(D) $104,420 $72,250 (69%) $88,159
Voting Studies
Support
Unity COWINen
Year
$ 0
a
0
$ 0
1892
26 57
83
5
14 75
1191
32 64
88
7
12 76
1190
56 22
85
4
11 75
1179
66 22
80
12
18 72
1878
68 25
83
8
13 79
1177
66 19
as
6
9 at
117$
25
71
89
3
8
83
1975
35
61
Be
4
5
86
1574 (Fad)
46
52
1574
32
62
85
9
11
85
1173
31
63
85
9
11
86
1572
43
51
81
12
11
83
1571
39
58
79
14
16
79
1570
54
35
75
15
5
84
1119
49
47
73
11
16
78
1188
76
17
77
13
14
75
1167
89
7
91
2
7
85
1Ma
81
8
85
9
11
76
1165
79
9
75
10
8
82
1119
90
8
82
10
8
92
1193
a9
6
91
3
7
80
1192
78
17
77
14
12
81
1191
91
. 6
91
7
4
96
Key Votes
Reagan budget proposal (1981)
Legal services reauthorization (1981)
~sale of
AWA I xIncome taxes (19881] planes to Saudi Arabia (1981)
Subsidize home mortgage rates (1982)
Amend Constitution to require balanced budget (1982)
Delete MX funding (1982)
Retain existing cap on congressional salaries (1982)
Adopt nuclear freeze (1983)
Interest Group Ratings
ADA
ACA
AFL-CIO
CCU$
85
0
90
26
75
9
93
16
72
5
100
54
79
8
94
28
70
12
95
20
80
4
91
6
90
4
83
6
95
4
96
18
83
13
100
10
80
20
100
27
94
4
91
11
76
23
92
-
a0
12
100
0
80
33
90
-
75
17
100
80
4
100
10
82
22 .
92
68
8
-
30
as
0
100
-
-
11
-
-
100
14
91
-
100
-
-
-
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