The day began quietly enough for the First Lady of New York. Donna Hanover was at home, in the official residence, a quiet, tree-shaded refuge on the East River called Gracie Mansion. She had gotten the kids off to school, exercised, had lunch. A TV anchor and actress by trade, she was editing scripts when panicked friends started calling. Had she seen her husband--Mayor Rudy Giuliani--on TV? Why, no, she had not. At a routine "press avail," looking wan and troubled, the mayor had declared that he wanted a legal separation after 16 years of marriage. Given his illness--he will soon undergo extensive treatment for prostate cancer--the 55-year-old Giuliani said he craved the company of his new significant other, an East Side divorcee named Judi Nathan, 45. "I'm going to need her more now than maybe I did before," he said.
He certainly can't expect to rely on Donna Hanover anymore. She and the mayor had privately--but obliquely--discussed perhaps "altering their relationship," as one friend of both put it. Yet Rudy hadn't bothered to warn her--or his aides--of what he'd planned to say in public. Donna felt humiliated, friends said, and angry at being portrayed as a stoic who cared little for the institution of marriage. Yes, she'd kept silent at rumors that Rudy was playing around with his former top aide Cristyne Lategano, now in a $150,000-a-year job on the public payroll. (The mayor and the aide had denied it vehemently.) This time, Hanover crafted a reply, donned pearls and an olive green power suit, and summoned the media. Teary-eyed, she charged that Rudy indeed had had a "relationship with one staff member." Her press secretary filled in the blanks: the staffer was Lategano, the liaison "intimate."
The back-to-back "avails" were show-stopping scenes in a play now enthralling New York: a saga of sex, power and disease, with echoes of Aeschylus and "As the World Turns." There was plenty of comedy, too. The Rudy-Donna War gave Bill Clinton, of all people, the chance to deliver solemn marital advice ("We need to give them space," he said with a straight face). The mayor's still secure in the role of workaholic, benevolent dictator--a cross between Batman and parish priest. But he's been unlucky, and oddly off his stride, in his heavily financed, but somehow half-hearted, bid against Hillary Clinton for a U.S. Senate seat. First, he was criticized for attacking the background of a police-shooting victim. Then he was diagnosed with the same disease that killed his father. Then the New York Post published a picture of the mayor with his new girlfriend, which led him to acknowledge the relationship. Now he faces a messy public legal war with his estranged, angry--and media-savvy--spouse. Hillary, meanwhile, has climbed to parity or beyond in the polls.
Will Rudy really run, or was his bombshell in Bryant Park a political death wish? Most close personal and mayoral advisers are telling him not to run, NEWSWEEK has learned. The reason has nothing to do with Donna or Hillary, but with health. In fact, sources say, Giuliani had all but decided to bow out two weeks ago--until the war over his personal life slowed the timetable. "He wasn't about to make it look like he was getting out because of the personal stuff," one source said. "His basic attitude on that is, 'It's none of your damned business'."
But health concerns may well drive him from the race. Sources tell NEWSWEEK Giuliani will announce this week that he has chosen to seek the most extensive and time-consuming course of treatment for his prostate cancer: an operation followed by radiation therapy. These sources say the treatment and convalescence period could last for three months--or more. The majority view is he should forgo the race if for no other reason than that he might not be able to campaign at all, let alone aggressively, until fall.
That's the consensus of Republicans outside the inner circle, too. Despite his strong record of cleaning up New York, they said, Giuliani now "looks like just another cad," said one top GOP consultant. More important, his Bryant Park statement seemed weird, out of control. New Yorkers love a winner--as long as he's winning. The line between prince and putz is thin, and Rudy was walking close to it. "If I had been there I would have wrestled him off the stage," said one of his top advisers.
GOP leaders were frantically looking elsewhere, while trying to project a respectful outward calm. Their main, but probably vain, hope was to entice Gov. George Pataki to run if Giuliani says no. He's the candidate Hillary's handlers fear most, but Pataki insists he won't run. The next leading contender is Rep. Rick Lazio of Long Island, who has raised $3.5 million. He and Giuliani are expected to meet soon. The Clintonistas would just as soon Giuliani stuck with it: they'd rather run against a known quantity they view as damaged goods. Giuliani himself was wavering between somber befuddlement and moments of euphoria. Last weekend he had not made the final decision, but canceled a long-planned political appearance upstate. The normally decisive mayor was described by intimates as unsure of what to do. Accustomed to winning--a man who reveled in slapping handcuffs on Wall Street big shots--Giuliani bristles at the notion of being branded a quitter. An obstinate man, he likes impossible odds, and still could decide to run for no other reason than that everyone else thinks it's a fool's errand.
Many New Yorkers were more interested in Rudy-Donna than Rudy-Hillary. Friends say that when the two met on a blind date in Miami in 1983, it was close to love at first sight. In their early years in Gracie Mansion, the couple presided deftly at glittering dinner parties. After the rumors surfaced of an affair with Lategano, however, the dinner parties stopped--and Hanover instead started hosting lunches and dinners for "women only." Once a friend of the couple tried to invite a priest to Gracie Mansion to counsel with them--but was angrily rebuffed by Giuliani. There was a last effort at reconciliation last summer: a party at the mansion at which Rudy and Donna nearly danced all night. Soon afterward, Hanover alleged last week, her husband "chose another path"--to Judi Nathan.
Still, what was Rudy thinking when he unloaded last week? As unbelievably New Agey as it sounds, insiders said, the mayor was thinking aloud about his own health--about how to defeat the kind of cancer that killed his father. Publicly stern, a man who often sheds friends like snakes shed skin, Giuliani in private these days has become "all touchy-feely," said one adviser. "It's weird." He uncharacteristically wraps aides and advisers in an Italian abbraccio.
Judi Nathan, insiders say, is Rudy's wellness program. Warm and upbeat--a nurse by training--Nathan is said to be willing to listen devotedly to his fears and concerns. He evidently enjoys her company. As if to thumb his nose at politics--and the press--he dined out Friday night with staff and his new friend. After the dinner, he invited the media to stroll with them back to her apartment, where he gave her a good-night peck on the cheek. Late that night he returned to Gracie Mansion, to contemplate his fate. Donna and the kids had flown to California for a Mother's Day visit with her parents. Rudy had said earlier in the day that he needed "space." Now he had plenty.