The Best of Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch
Koch was anointing "Peace Child Week" in honor of a troupe of Soviet youngsters and 12 American youths crossing the U.S. in a "peace" play. The Soviet "government is the pits," the mayor told the young thespians when the proclaiming was done.
The angry youths took swift reprisals—scrubbing the rest of their City Hall tour. "I don't want to stay in this house no more minute," announced Yegor Druzhinin, 14. "I want to go to bus and to go far, far away. The mayor is very rude." Before the Soviet saplings came to the U.S., they were taught about Communism and capitalism. But no one taught them about Kochism. Oksana Remizova, 18, protested that the mayor showed disrespect by appearing "in a dirty shirt and wrinkled tie." No one had briefed her that this is Koch's standard garb for greeting visitors, whether plutocrat, peasant or proletarian. Fending off the sartorial slur, Hizzoner said later: "What kind of a Communist society do they have there? Everyone runs around in tuxedos?"
Just hours after the Soviet youngsters left in a huff, he told visiting East Germans that East Berlin is "
very drab, very gray."