(distant, increasing buzzing)
(somber instrumental music)
- State Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer
was praised today as an honest man
and a hero betrayed by the system that he loved.
- Budd, don't! - No, no, no.
- Please, please leave the room
if this will,
if this will affect you.
(onlookers shouting)
- Budd Dwyer was a very public man
and he died that way last Thursday in Harrisburg,
but that's the way Budd Dwyer wanted it.
Whether he was innocent or guilty
of charges against him,
only he and God know that for sure.
(onlookers shouting)
- [Woman] Budd, don't do this!
- Don't, don't! - Don't do this!
- The state treasurer of Pennsylvania
shot and killed himself today during a news conference.
R. Budd Dwyer recently was convicted of bribery.
- Well, the allegations made toward me
are absolute lies.
- A bribe, Budd would never take a bribe.
- It marks the final chapter
of one of the most bizarre and tragic tales
in Pennsylvania history.
But for friends and family of R. Budd Dwyer,
they hope it marks a vindication for their fallen leader.
- Dwyer was a really popular guy, a likable guy.
- To meet him was to like him.
And to like him was to vote for him.
(somber instrumental music)
- Even when you lost to him in an election,
you liked him.
- He said he was innocent.
He criticized everyone connected with his case
before making certain television cameras
covered his suicide today.
(somber instrumental music)
- Most people don't think of why it happened
or they just assume that
he was guilty and so he did it.
- What was the reason?
Okay, well, yeah because he was,
you know, he was indicted and then he was found guilty.
It's like, no, that's not reason enough.
I mean, there's gotta be a more motivating reason, you know?
Because he was innocent and all this happened.
That's the reason.
(somber instrumental music)
- We were in the House and Senate at the time
in which a lot of people were going to jail.
- People offer people campaign contributions
every day of the flipping week
in the state capital, in our nation's capital,
and it's how business is done.
It's appalling.
- Campaign contributions are a necessity of life.
Do think that he would ever be involved
with a quid pro quo?
No.
- Budd was Mr. Clean.
He was the perfect example
of what was good in politics,
not what was bad.
- He was a very honest man.
If he had been seduced,
if he had a weak moment,
I'm not going to hold him irreverence.
- You know, this is one mistake he made in his life,
and that was,
it was brought on my me
and I haven't forgiven myself for doing that.
- This is an ongoing criminal conspiracy.
The whole thing should be revisited
and we should get to the bottom of it
and that's what's owed Dwyer and his family.
- He was a product of a very, very poor justice system.
Because if it can happen to people like Budd,
oh, honey, it can happen to anybody.
(somber instrumental music)
- Budd and I had a really good childhood.
I think we both talked about it later,
how nice it had been.
We had a small farm, but my dad had a job,
so it wasn't like a struggling farm family,
which, even back then could be really tough.
We always had everything we needed
from my dad's salary.
One year he got, I guess quite an expensive hunting rifle
for a half birthday, half Christmas present.
I remember eating rabbit and squirrel,
not with a lot of pleasure,
and pheasants too.
You'd have to eat them very carefully
because the little buckshot
would be in with the meat and (laughs)
have to kind of tongue them before you chewed them.
He had already gotten his bachelor's degree
from Allegheny in political science and accounting.
And at that time, he thought was going to be a CPA,
but he really liked political science
and so he wanted to go right on
for his master's degree in education.
- A young man walked into my classroom
when I was teaching in the '60s
and he said, "I'm your new student teacher."
And that was not unusual
because I had probably 12, 14
different student teachers.
But he was rather a large person
and had a big smile.
He was also enamored with a young lady
that was an English teacher in our school.
Her name was Joanne Grappy,
soon to be his wife.
- He was teaching Problems of Democracy,
nicknamed Problems of Dwyer when he got angry, POD.
And he had, we both had great groups of kids.
I mean, I loved high school teaching,
just loved it.
- Crawford County had a,
a program that they took a young person
and sent him overseas and he spent the summer
with a family over there.
- They wanted someone that year to go to Poland.
And that was really interesting to him
after his political science.
So he spent that summer of 1963 in Poland
and Joanne planned the wedding
and then he got married, they got married
maybe three weeks after Budd got back from Poland.
- He came back in August and we got married.
That's, we didn't even know each other a year.
- Budd was a born teacher
and he would teach people about the communist state
and they great respect he had
for the freedoms we have.
- He just became inspired
to get more involved in our government,
not to take it for granted.
- I mean he would extol this in his speeches
and he would show slides
of what Poland was like under communism.
- Once a year,
he would whip out the slides
and we'd sit there and we'd have
Budd Dwyer's Tour of Poland.
- It was a life-changing experience for him,
but I consider that to be the key,
one of the keys to his election.
- He knew that it was a communist country
and very controlled by the government,
but he was very shocked that such a thing could happen.
- It gave him a much better
sense of what justice should be,
what politics should be,
what democracy should be.
- And so he decided to start
by running for State Representative from our area.
- After he taught in Cambridge Springs,
he came back to me one day
in the classroom and he said,
"I think I'm gonna run for the General Assembly."
And I said, "And I'm gonna jump over the moon."
- And at the time,
there was a legislative district that they merged,
you know how they have this, redo these districts.
Well, they put two incumbents against each other.
- He said, "Yeah, but I'm gonna run."
He said, "I want you to become my campaign manager."
And I said, (laughs) "Your campaign manager?"
I said, "I don't know anything about campaigns."
So he through me a book with a,
had an orange cover on it,
it said How to Run a Political Campaign.
He said, "You're now my campaign manager."
- So I started talking to him
and I gave him $5.
Five bucks, says, "Here, put this in your campaign."
- I raised some money for him.
You know, it was small amounts of money,
but I would go out and ask people for money.
Budd, (laughs) Budd would never ask anybody for money.
That was just not part of his makeup.
- He never wanted to know who contributed.
Never, he would not look at a contributors list.
'Cause he didn't want to know.
- And I said, "We don't have any money
"for television or radio or anything,
"so you've gotta make it a person-to-person campaign."
And I take one side of the streets
and hand out his material
and he'd take the other street.
And Budd loved the matches and nail files.
And (laughs) I don't where that ever came from,
but he used to give everybody
a pack of matches and a nail file.
And he would, he'd give the nail file to the women,
the matches to the men,
and that was his introduction to people.
- And the night he won,
it was Fred McKillop and me and Budd
sitting in our three-room apartment.
And the telephone kept ringing, ringing.
And Fred would pick it up, "Dwyer Headquarters."
- When I used to run his campaign
and answer the phone, "This is Dwyer Headquarters,"
and he and I were the only two in the room.
- He looks at me and I looked him.
He said, "What do we do now?"
I said, "Well, I guess you go to Harrisburg."
He said, "Now I guess I do.
"I did like teaching, but I guess I go to Harrisburg."
(sentimental guitar music)
- He didn't care who you were.
As long as you lived in his district,
he was there to serve you.
- He would take phone calls for,
you know, someone needed their pothole fixed.
You know, they would complain about a pothole
on Route 8 or whatever and,
or they ordered a license plate
and they hadn't gotten it yet.
- Say people were having trouble with their mortgage,
Budd would go and talk to the bank,
have their mortgages extended.
He saved people's houses.
- During a lot of the year,
he was gone five days a week.
- He would leave the house on Sunday night
and work all week in Harrisburg
and then come home Friday night
and spend the weekend with us.
- I had a husband leaving
for four or five days a week.
And that was very, very hard.
- When you look back at their relationship,
it seems the two of them
had a really good marriage,
despite all the time apart.
- But then there was excitement.
We had a lot of good opportunities,
we met people we'd have never met.
I mean, where else would a little gal
from Meadville, oh my gosh, in Blooming Valley
be on a stage with Reagan
or have Budd's picture in Newsweek with Nancy?
- I'd go to a few political affairs and I saw him,
he and his wife would be there shaking hands.
They were real political animals
and really a darling young couple.
And you could see they were on their way.
(sentimental guitar music)
- It was the fifth or sixth grade.
I had a play, I was the cat in Cinderella.
So I had a very small part
(laughs) in a fifth grade play,
and it was, like, on a Wednesday night.
And so my dad drove home from Harrisburg,
five-hour drive, to watch me in this play
and then drove back so he could be
at work the next morning.
- I think that may be one reason
why he ran for treasurer,
because he could move the family down there.
He wouldn't still be responsible
for the people in that area.
- I started a rumor, one of the things you start,
I said that a lot of people in the Republican Party
are asking Budd Dwyer to run for treasurer.
And so all you have to do on Capitol Hill
is start a rumor like that
and it spends all over the hill.
And so it was thousands of people
were asking Budd Dwyer to run for state treasurer.
But I happened to represent all the fairs in the state
and we would go to the fairs and Budd would take
an old station wagon and a trailer
and he'd set it up at the fair.
And then he'd go up and down the midway,
he would shake hands with everybody
until his hand would swell up
and he could hardly take his ring off.
People just don't understand,
once you met Budd Dwyer, you'd vote for him.
He spent only $50,000 to be elected treasurer
of this 12,000,000-person Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
♫ Don't wait
♫ Or hesitate
♫ Vote Dwyer for Treasurer of the '80s
(upbeat marching tune)
- [Budd] Right hand?
Yeah, I'm sorry.
(all laugh)
- Repeat after me.
I, R. Budd Dwyer.
- I, R. Budd Dwyer.
- Do somberly swear.
- That I will support, obey, and defend.
- The Constitution of the United States.
- And the Constitution of this commonwealth.
- And that I will discharge
the duties of my office with fidelity.
- And that I will discharge
the duties of my office with fidelity.
- Congratulations.
(audience applauds) - Thank you.
I've said many, many times since November 4th,
only in America
in response to congratulations
I've received from people.
I mean by that that only in America
could a kid from Blooming Valley,
and that was the nearest town to which I lived,
without influence, without a political base,
with a political legacy
be elected to a statewide office
in the fourth-largest state
in this great nation of ours,
a state of almost 12,000,000 people.
And I think all of us can be just so grateful
because if it can happen to me,
it can happen to many more like me and like you.
- Politics is,
regrettably, it wasn't only what he did,
it's who he was.
And, which, I think was,
had a significant amount to do with his demise.
(somber piano music)
- I was at Treasury before he
was elected state treasurer.
I was registered a Democrat
and he's a Republican.
And usually they change over.
So he knew that I knew government and
said, "Would you stay?"
And I said, "Sure."
- And when he started to look into
the operation of the treasury,
he realized, this is really outdated.
The state's losing money.
They could be getting interest
on this money that's sitting there.
You know,
the treasurer at that time
invested and disbursed $29 billion.
That's a lot of money flowing through bank accounts,
so for the overnight funds
and interest and so forth.
- Budd was a good listener
and a good decision-maker.
- I remember just little things.
I can remember the waste line.
- [Reporter] Dateline Pennsylvania.
Concerned citizens rally to protect the commonwealth.
- [Young Man] Extra, extra, read all about it!
- [Reporter] They've joined
with Pennsylvania's government
to fight the waste of their tax dollars.
Call and win the war on waste.
(somber piano music)
- Thornburgh was governor and Budd was treasurer.
But then a couple of things occurred
that it wasn't even Budd that precipitated it,
but Thornburgh blamed Budd for.
- Thornburgh was of the same party
and older than Budd,
more experienced than Budd.
I think in the beginning it,
Thornburgh thought that Budd was okay.
- Thornburgh went to Germany.
And he takes his wife, which is fine.
If you're getting a room, you don't say
divide it in half for my wife.
You get a room and
you could put that through on the expense account.
But then Thornburgh also submitted
Ginny's airline ticket to be paid.
- And the treasurer publicly said,
"I'm not paying for their trip,"
which infuriated the governor.
And maybe Budd should have not done it publicly,
but he did it publicly.
- You get the Republic State Committee
or your own finance group or someone.
That's illegal.
Now, Budd didn't flag it down.
He didn't look at all these things.
It was internal
that the person checks everything on there
came to me and said,
"Look at this."
And I said,
and she said, "We can't pay it."
And "is that correct
"or should I cover it up?"
I said, "No,
"you cover it up, you go to jail."
You just send it back
and have them pay it.
Well, instead of that going,
all hell breaks loose.
I don't know how the press got ahold of it.
- A reporter called that to Budd's attention
in an area of time and place
that Budd could not ignore it.
And I'll tell you, he might have.
- Thornburgh blamed Budd Dwyer
for attacking him and Ginny
by putting this out to the press.
(somber piano music)
- People who are doing reporting
sometimes like to see conflict.
So they next bring up to Budd
the fact that Thornburgh's sons
are being transported at state expense
to Massachusetts and back for schooling.
(somber piano music)
- It was the state police who were complaining
and said they're being used
as chauffeurs and taxi drivers for the kids.
- And
wanted Budd Dwyer to pay for it,
state treasurer and he wouldn't pay for it.
And he had a press conference
and he put it up on the board,
this is what the, how many times the police have,
state police have gone up there.
This is what it cost them.
And I demand that Thornburgh
pay that money back to the state.
- And I think it was the state police
that went to the press initially.
Because we were getting calls from the press,
what the hell are you guys in Treasury doing about this?
You know, are you covering it up or what?
And at this point, I guess Thornburgh's paranoid
thinking Budd is out to shaft him.
And Budd had nothing to do with it.
- I haven't run across many people
that have too many bad things to say about Budd Dwyer.
On the other hand,
I haven't run across many people
that have good things to say about Dick Thornburgh.
- Well, you know, they were both good friends of mine.
Of course, Budd was my best friend.
He was best man at my wedding.
But Dick Thornburgh, by using troopers or things like that,
he didn't mean to do any ripping up.
Dick Thornburgh's a very honorable guy.
And money is very incidental to him.
Honorable guy.
But, you know, it's just too bad
when those two went on the collision course.
- That's the nature of politics, you know?
You don't personalize it, you don't.
It's just you go from one issue to the next and
the basic name of the game is to add to,
not subtract from, so, you know,
you don't write people off
because you disagreed yesterday.
Most people in our society don't understand that.
- Thornburgh was
vitriolic about Budd,
calling him a freaking country bumpkin
is what he, what he called him,
and a number of other names.
- The governor said, "I'm gonna get
"that fat son of a bitch
"if it's the last thing I do."
And he got him.
- It is with pride and pleasure
that I am formally announcing my reelection candidacy
for the office of Treasurer of Pennsylvania.
- When he ran for his second term as the treasurer,
he was already involved in a little bit of the scandal.
And the man running against him,
his name was Al Benedict.
- I categorically deny my opponent,
Auditor General, Al Benedict's allegation
that a $300,000 kickback was involved
with the Computer Technology Associates
FICA recovery contract.
- I'm Joanne Dwyer.
We've always had fun campaigning,
but this year has been different
because our family has been attacked
in an ugly and personal way
and it has hurt us.
- Essentially, this was a scandal over bribery
and a warning of a no-bid state contract.
And at the time, this was
a contract that was to help retired teachers
recover some over-payment of taxes
and they were owed some tax money.
(somber instrumental music)
- [Narrator] Once upon a time, in the land of Pennsylvania,
lived Al Benedict, king of the auditors.
With your tax money, King Al hired some real bad eggs.
- [Narrator] Michael Hanna, Senior,
indicted for selling state jobs.
Nick Saittis, convicted for selling state jobs.
John Kerr, convicted for selling state jobs.
If we let Al Benedict get his hands
on our state treasury,
we're the ones who'll have egg on our face.
Budd Dwyer is running on his record.
We can't afford to let King Al run with his.
- [Official] And that I will discharge
the duties of state treasurer
of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
- And I will discharge the duties
of state treasurer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
- [Official] With fidelity.
- With fidelity.
- Thank you and congratulations.
- Thank you.
(audience applauds)
- When he was reelected,
I believe that made him feel wonderful
that the people still had faith in him,
or enough had faith in him to reelect him
and not believe all these things that were being said.
- And I know I speak for everyone here present today
in welcoming you back for your second term, Budd,
and in extending to you and your family
all the very best in your duties as state treasurer
of this great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Thank you.
(audience applauds)
- Budd was too trusting of people.
You say how can that be a flaw?
Well, it is when you're working in the political arena
because you come into contact with all kinds of people
and Budd would see everybody.
A guy would get out of prison
and was a constituent.
He would come see Budd and Budd would see him.
- I met John Torquato.
He was a book salesman.
He was and he sold me books.
He was a good salesman
and he appeared to be a good guy.
- Mr. Torquato,
instead of recognizing his own merit,
he would try to bribe people.
He would lie when the truth would do better.
- I always told 'em, you know,
once I heard the name Torquato,
the next time you'd see me
would have been on the east coast.
I'd have still been running
because of the reputation of the family.
(somber instrumental music)
- Torquato's dad allegedly
was a mafia leader in western Pennsylvania.
- [Vince] Matter of fact, it was Thornburgh
when he was US attorney
put Torquato's father in prison.
- One time, I said,
"Well, why would you even talk to this guy?"
He said, "Well, it's something
"that I always remembered my dad telling me
"and I want you to remember.
"Don't let the sins of the father
"cast down to the son."
So he goes, you know,
just because his dad was a bad guy,
didn't mean this guy was a bad guy.
- And then he went and moved to California
and he started at CTA.
And he called me one day
and wanted me to help him get a contract.
- Torquato was a Democrat.
His family background was Democrat,
which meant
to him that he needed a friend who was a Republican
to help him meet and influence Budd.
- Torquato's MO was that the moment
he met somebody and shook their hand,
he would offer them a bribe.
And the psychology behind that was
I've met you, I've offered you a bribe
and you didn't pick up the phone and call the FBI.
You know what, buddy, you're part of the conspiracy.
And that's how he would hook 'em in.
- He's the one person in this whole thing
I haven't forgiven
for what he did to me.
CTA wanted to enter an exclusive contract
with the state treasury
for all the school districts in Pennsylvania
to make a FICA recovery.
The Supreme Court said
you couldn't charge FICA tax on sick days.
So there were lots and lots of people
who were entitled to a refund.
And his company would go around
and get refunds for people.
- We didn't know anything about it.
I had no idea.
I thought
the FICA was a dirty four-letter word.
- The fee to CTA
was gonna be millions of dollars.
And
it's not worth it.
- We shouldn't have had a thing to do with it.
Again, that would have been Thornburgh's job.
He did one of these for,
I think it was for the state employees.
And they should have done it,
this whole contract for the school employees.
- You go back and you study the CTA thing
and I began to sympathize with Dwyer
as, you know, the bumpkin from Meadville,
this naive guy that didn't know
what he was walking into.
- Torquato wanted me to offer him $300,000
so we'd get the contract.
And I kept telling him,
John, we don't have to offer him 300 cents.
He's my good friend.
We have the best program, we're the cheapest.
We're gonna get the contract.
- Torquato really was smart.
He had a system that worked
and that one person could do 300,000 people
working in a school system.
One person.
- And he kept saying,
no, you gotta offer him this money.
And then he got my wife involved
and she kept saying to me,
"Why don't you go see Budd Dwyer?
"He's your good friend.
"Offer him the money."
I said, "If I go into his office,
"he's gonna throw me out
"if I said, 'Budd, we're gonna
"'give you a $300,000 contribution to your campaign.'"
I felt surely he'd throw me out of the office.
- Smith time and time and again,
he says that Torquato was pressuring him about Dwyer,
"Did you offer the bribe to Dwyer?"
that you start to see
that's the dynamic between these guys.
That Smith was a little bit more cautious about it,
or he'd say contributions
when Torquato would say bribe.
- I went to up Budd's office.
I had an appointment with him
and I went into his office
about 1 o'clock in the afternoon.
And I said, "Budd, you know,
"I don't know how to tell you this,
"but my client wants to make a $300,000
"contribution to you if he gets this contract."
And I said, "I'm sure you don't want to do this."
Said, "What?
"I don't know."
He said, "I wouldn't?
"It sounds pretty good to me."
And I was shocked when he said that.
(somber instrumental music)
- Smith never offered Budd a bribe,
but I wouldn't doubt that Smith would take it
from Torquato and pocket it
without ever saying anything to Budd.
- Why didn't Dwyer pick up the phone?
Well, maybe there was nothing ever for him to report
because maybe there never was a bribery offer,
that there was a lot of pressure
from political elements to sign this contract.
Well, that's not illegal.
- And Torquato, he drinks a lot.
And he gets a few drinks and he says,
"I'm gonna do the Pennsylvania state contract
"and I know I'm gonna because Budd Dwyer's in my pocket."
- Well, that's when the
FBI heard something.
They raided his place,
they get the computer,
and the computer has in there
Torquato's intention to bribe Budd Dwyer.
- The corporate records were stored on computer tapes.
When the FBI seized the disks,
took them to Quantico,
they were able to duplicate
the programs in the computer
and they were able to really reproduce the evidence
showing who was slated to receive bribes.
- Well, Christ,
to me, that's not criminality.
Here's a crazy bastard, drunk out of his mind,
putting things in a computer.
- So my scribbles or my notes
to myself are enough to send someone to prison.
That's, I mean, that's bizarre.
It doesn't make sense.
- The attorney general was in there, Leroy Zimmerman.
- They were gonna indict the
attorney general of Pennsylvania, Leroy Zimmerman too,
but he never, for somehow,
and also John Shumaker, the senator.
- Why not Shumaker, why not Zimmerman?
You start with all the little guys,
you work your way up, you get 'em all.
Instead, West goes right for Budd Dwyer.
It's terrible.
West's secretary told me early on
that Shumaker's name was on the indictment
and that he came in and had a meeting with West
and West came out and said,
"Take his name off the indictment."
Thornburgh as governor got the
Reagan administration I guess at the time
to appoint his protege Jimmy West.
You know, he's,
Harrisburg, he's called Jimmy the Weasel.
- Jim West came to Harrisburg with Thornburgh.
And he was the acting US attorney
and he's the one that brought the charges.
- And even Jim West,
who prosecuted the case,
has freely admit, not a penny was paid to Budd Dwyer.
- Dwyer never received the money,
but that is still bribery
when a high public official agrees to take the money
and when the intent is there
to eventually accept the money.
It doesn't have to change hands.
- It's a long way to talking about it
then to taking the $300,000.
And we never even came close to that.
- West could really advance his career
from being acting US attorney
to getting the position because he'd get the big pelt,
he'd get a big
conviction.
- When after I'm convicted
and given the 12-year sentence,
West came to me and said,
"Okay, now I'm gonna indict your wife."
And, of course, we had these
three small kids in the house here
and she's gonna go to jail at the same time I am.
So I went to see Budd
and I said, "Budd, all they want you to do
"is resign your position
"and that's the end of it."
Because I told him and I told his lawyer, Paul Killion,
they're gonna indict Judy next week
if I don't come in and help 'em
and I can't, I can't do that.
So you gotta convince Budd
that he should just resign his position
and he won't get indicted
and that'll be the end of it.
But he wouldn't do that.
He said, "No, we'll take our chances."
And they took their chances.
And lost.
- They agreed to take bribes
and they agreed to use their offices,
both as the treasurer and as the state Republican chairman,
in order to influence a multi-million dollar state contract.
- One time, I said, "Look,
"did you do anything wrong?
"Did you take the money?
"Because it doesn't matter to me,
"but, you know, I just need to know."
He goes, "I absolutely did nothing wrong."
- My dad was never a money-hungry person.
I mean, he was never materialistic.
I mean, just look at how he dressed.
(laughs)
You know, I mean, he was never,
that was never a focus to him that I ever saw.
- My son was, he was 12,
he had just turned 12,
and we visiting in the summer.
And we went to a local, like a miniature village place.
So I paid for his child admission
and then we were walking around
and somehow Budd saw the ticket or I mentioned it
and he, he just could not believe it.
He went on and on and on.
How could I do this?
How could I do something dishonest?
So I finally went back and I paid the extra money
and then he was satisfied.
- When it snowed, he was the one out there shoveling.
He was the one out there, you know, mowing the lawn.
When he was state treasurer,
we could've hired that stuff out,
you know, if we'd wanted to.
But no, those were the things
that were important to him to do.
I mean, I hate to make it sound like the Cleavers,
(laughs) but really, we kinda were.
- Budd at first laughed too.
He said, "This is so dumb."
And then, I think it was
Bill Sanko, who was part of his staff,
said, "Budd, it's not dumb.
"It's gonna be serious.
"They're gonna go to a grand jury
"and see what they can do."
And he did.
(somber instrumental music)
- Budd, when he was indicted,
it was all he could do to choke back tears.
He couldn't believe it, he said,
I think he taught civics in high school.
And he says, "You know, how the hell
"could this happen in America?"
- They got a change of venue
and took him up in the mountains
where, you know, they're not exposed
to the everyday workings of politics
and the ins and outs of the system.
(somber instrumental music)
- I mean, you're supposed to be tried
by a jury of your peers.
My dad had a master's degree and a law degree.
Some of these people, from what I understand,
hadn't graduated high school.
I mean, that's not your peers.
- Not that everybody who didn't go to college
is, is not
capable or competent.
But in a situation like that
when you can get someone who
can take eight weeks off from a job,
you know, what are you gonna get?
- Now let me tell you about the judge.
Malcolm Muir was the judge.
- That judge up there was a hardliner.
Budd was, you know, was scared to death of him.
- For 14 weeks at my trial,
he'd beat us over the head every day.
It was like a second prosecutor every day.
- Everybody in Pennsylvania knows what Muir is.
He's not a fair jurist,
he is a hanging judge.
He's a party house judge.
Budd Dwyer knew that and even said it.
(somber instrumental music)
- Torquato told me
he said, "If you do that,
"if you go to the grand jury tomorrow,
"when you come home, you'll find Moose,"
that's my son, Will's, nickname at the time,
"floating face down in the swimming pool."
(somber instrumental music)
- You'd be surprised, in the courtroom,
it wasn't like Law and Order.
It was very undramatic.
- The case was extremely complicated.
I mean, and looking, even looking back now,
the case is still very complicated.
(somber instrumental music)
- The trial was pretty boring.
They were going through the points.
And I took notes on the trial,
as well as Budd, of course, did in his journal.
But when Smith put his head down and cried
and said he would do anything
to save his wife and son,
that was a moment that was unforgettable.
- When Bill Smith said,
"Yes, I'd do anything to protect my son,"
it's over.
(somber instrumental music)
- In my trial, I testified,
I think I testified that I didn't offer him the money.
(somber instrumental music)
But in fact, I did.
- Yes, we thought that was
a really strong point for Budd,
since the whole thing was a plea bargain.
And then if Smith had been threatened
to lie about what he said Budd had done,
obviously, obviously there wasn't any case.
- That's the only part,
one part of the transcript
that's missing.
- I heard the excuse for it
not being in the transcript was that
the person, the court reporter,
got upset and when Smith appeared upset
and so didn't get it all down, but
I don't really believe that.
- He got very, I think, suspicious at that point
of other people.
You know, he's like, don't leave your car unlocked.
You never know what someone could plant in it
to make me look bad, you know?
So I think, you know, he got,
he got concerned about those things,
about people setting him up and,
you know, 'cause he felt he'd been set up,
so he's like, well, what extremes will they go to?
- I don't know what will happen
as far as the verdict regarding the two people on trial.
But there's just been a plethora of lies
from their government's main witness,
you know, from A to Z.
And he's, I guess this other day,
he's even admitted he's lied quite a bit.
- Torquato was a good liar, I mean, he was,
if I didn't know that he was lying,
I'd, you know.
He was good witness
and even Malcolm Muir
said he was a very good witness.
And he was
but he was lying.
- Of course, if anyone really thinks
about plea bargaining, it's, it's a bribe
either with a lesser fine or a lesser sentence
for someone to lie about someone else.
- When you go up against the government
and they've got unlimited resources to come after you.
- He said at one time,
"These people that are lining up
"to appear as witnesses,
"if I would have ever approached them
"and said, 'Look,
"'I will help you raise money for your defense
"'and all you need to do is tell the truth,'
"but then I would be in really serious problems
"because that would be considered tampering with a witness."
- You've got too many people
lying, telling different stories.
And I don't think a lot of those people necessarily,
like Bill Smith, probably
intrinsically a bad person.
Yet,
and I think at some point, he would have been,
was waiting just to be able to
tell the truth on what had happened.
- When I wrote The Sins of Our Fathers,
I interviewed Jim West.
And he makes the point that people are like,
there's like a bell curve,
that you have really bad people
and really good people on one side,
and then the great mass of people are in the middle
and it's easier for them to fall into a trap.
- For me to get up there as a lawyer
and lie on the stand wasn't
very easy to do.
And the only justification I had for it
and still have for it
is that they'd lied so badly against me
and they were doing their very best
to convict me with these lies
and I think that West knew about,
knew they were lies too.
He knew Torquato was lying.
I burst an artery.
After I testified in Dwyer's case,
three days I was on the stand.
- It wasn't a matter of
being innocent 'til you're proven guilty.
You're guilty unless you really could have
woven a tale that proved you innocent.
- It's pretty common not
to have your client take the stand
because the idea is you have
this really sharp prosecutor
and he's gonna trip you up
and you're gonna stumble,
so it's a pretty common thing.
But what's unforgivable is not to present
any defense at all.
- They really didn't think
that the prosecution
had delivered enough case, enough evidence
to support its case.
And they punctured enough holes in their witnesses
that they didn't need to bring up
any more witnesses to confuse the issue.
- He was losing his confidence.
He was losing it.
And he was giving up.
- He wasn't handling it good
and that was one of the reasons
I always talked to him about sports and other things
because he seemed to be a little depressed to me.
(somber instrumental music)
- And I think where he was really remorseful,
people liked him and I think he felt
he'd left a lot of people down.
That's what really hurt him.
- He didn't have
hate in his heart
as much as he had hurt.
- I could see day by day,
just giving up.
Inch by inch by inch by inch,
thinking I'm up against that brick wall.
It's just not crumbling.
We need a miracle and there wasn't a miracle at the time.
- I mean, my dad was always, my whole life,
very a jovial person, you know?
I mean, a lot of laughter, you know?
And he had this big, bellowing laugh.
You know, you'd be in ballroom with 300 people
and you could hear my dad across the room,
I mean, this big, hearty laugh.
But his demeanor changed throughout,
you know, from the indictment on through the trial
where he'd just,
I mean, he was very concerned
and it showed, it showed in,
you know, his stature and his posture.
- We went into Killion's office one day
and Killion was still trying to get him to
plea deal or something
and Budd was adamant about it,
just adamant about it.
- And he wouldn't hear of it
because he didn't do anything wrong.
He said, "I'm not gonna be,"
'cause he had talked about it,
he said, "I'm not gonna plea bargain
"to something I didn't do."
- And he went to the restroom and Killion said,
"Do you think he could be suicidal?"
I said, "Are you kidding me?"
I said, "Budd loves life too much."
I mean, he didn't wanna sleep.
- He had never lost anything in his life.
He was always, you know,
a star athlete in high school.
He was, you know, respected in his fraternity
and through college years.
And he had won his Senate, his House,
never lost an election, even to delegate.
I mean nothing.
So I think what happened is
when this started to unravel,
I think it became so overwhelming to him that
this stuff could happen to me in this country.
- Don't you forget
that you have a breaking point.
Everybody does.
- Budd also thought he was living on borrowed time.
He had said that a number of times and
that was based on the fact they gave him
no chance to live when he was born.
And he did.
The second time,
he was underneath his car,
which was up on blocks, doing something.
He said for no reason whatsoever,
he rolled out from underneath there.
And he no more than got out
and that car smashed right to the ground.
And so he had always said, "You know, Jo,
"I'm living on borrowed time."
And maybe he figured too,
my borrowed time has now run out.
(somber instrumental music)
(dynamic instrumental music)
- [Announcer] With Don Shriver,
Joey Stevens, and John Evans,
this is Action News 24.
(dynamic instrumental music)
- The federal conviction last night
of State Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer of Meadville
and former State Republican Chairman Robert Asher
was the talk of the state today.
Both men were found guilty
of all federal criminal counts
related to a bribery conspiracy scheme
with a California computer company
which sought a state contract.
- This is a sad and shocking day for me.
Totally unbelievable.
I'm totally innocent of all of these charges
and I don't know how this could happen.
- The state treasurer, R. Budd Dwyer,
will stay on the job, at least for now.
Dwyer and former State GOP Chairman Robert Asher
were convicted on all counts last night
following four days of deliberations
by a federal court jury in Williamsport.
- [Reporter] The jury spent
more than 20 hours over four days
weighing the evidence against the two men.
And when it was over, their verdict was guilty.
For prosecutor James West,
the case was a major victory.
- Reaction to the verdict,
I think we were very pleased.
The jury did a very conscientious job.
It was a very hard-working jury.
I think they approached the indictment
in a very systematic manner and went through it.
And we're certainly pleased
with the results of their work.
(static) (upbeat keyboard music)
- Good evening and welcome to NewsWatch 35.
Two down, how many more to go?
That message from the man
who prosecuted State Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer
and Robert Asher.
Acting US Attorney James West
says the conviction of Dwyer and Asher
opens the door to an investigation
of other public officials involved in the bribery scheme.
In the meantime, Governor Dick Thornburgh
today praised the successful prosecution in the case
but pointed out that Dwyer is not required to resign.
(static)
- I was very surprised and sorry
because I knew him as a young man.
And I don't think he did it.
- I can't even think of him as being guilty period.
I always had visions of Budd
being our governor one day.
- Although the verdict is in
and the jury found Dwyer guilty,
people from him hometown that knew him
when he was a citizen and a local politician
feel that, beyond a doubt,
Dwyer will be vindicated during appeals.
(static)
- Following the verdict, juror Carolyn Edwards
told reporters that the jury tried
to find both men not guilty,
but every time they considered the evidence,
the only unanimous decision they could reach was guilty.
- By law, Dwyer may have to officially resign
in January when he's sentenced.
He says, however, he won't step down
until he gets a chance to appeal his conviction.
(static)
- Right away, I jumped on the other side
and said, "Well, we'll appeal.
"It'll be fine, we'll appeal, we'll appeal."
And he
didn't quite go for that, all that.
- An appeal would have been
I think $25,000 more
and he already owed his lawyer money
for the two and half years of legal work.
That's, that's not cheap and
so that was pretty much the end of the line.
(wind roaring)
(somber instrumental music)
- I remember being home for Christmas
and that was a really hard Christmas obviously.
- Christmas was his favorite holiday
and the whole family's favorite holiday.
He wanted nothing to mar the image of around Christmas.
- I mean, looking back,
he other things going on his mind,
you know, other plans that he was formulating
that, you know, we were completely oblivious to.
(somber instrumental music)
- I went down a couple times
to his home in Hershey and
all the blinds would be pulled down, dark,
and there, you'd have one little light
so you didn't trip
and you could see where you're going.
- He started typing a lot.
We had a little manual typewriter.
This, you know, before computers and such.
And he'd set it up in the, in the
sunroom that we had and he started typing.
(typing)
- And when I talked about it,
a lot of it was, I'm typing everything.
I'm typing all my notes.
I'm typing everything to get together
to work on the appeal.
(typing)
- Of course, later we realized he was,
you know, typing his own press conference.
- Honestly,
nobody
saw it coming.
Nobody.
- I think a lot of people afterwards,
I think a lot of people were like,
how could you, you know, as the family,
how can you be with him every day
and not know he was going to do this?
I mean, I think people thought that we all knew.
Like we were, you know, which is absurd.
(laughs)
- I could tell how depressed he was in his letters.
Maybe he, maybe he poured out more
because we were so far away in Germany.
- Maybe if I'd been more astute, more,
wouldn't you think, being a counselor,
I could have picked up that stuff
or put it together like that?
And I didn't.
- You know, you have Robert Asher,
who was tried with Dwyer,
given this small, basically,
pat on the wrist from all this
and he's back in politics.
You know, they were after decades in jail for Dwyer
and they wanted to take away his pensions
going back to his school.
They were gonna leave him with nothing.
- All through this period,
would talk about it.
He was all concerned
about
the retirement and his wife and kids
getting the pension.
- The first job that Budd ever had
had a state pension as a schoolteacher.
- The crimes he was accused of
you forfeit your pension.
You know, all those years he put in,
that was, sticks in my mind,
something like a million and a quarter.
He says, "Well, am I done now or what?"
I said, "Well,
"you haven't been sentenced yet."
That always bothered me.
I could have lied to him
and he probably wouldn't have,
if I'da lied to him and said,
"You're gonna get the pension,"
he wouldn't have committed suicide then.
But then this family would have been without
anything.
- This was the night before he shot himself.
He came in and we talked
and he said, "I might get 18 years.
"But we might be,
"we might be roommates at Allenwood."
He said, "I just wanted to tell you
"that I don't hold anything against you.
"I understand what you did and why you did it."
- Yep, I came home from school that day and
then we went out to dinner that night.
We went to Vicante's in Hershey,
which was like a favorite place that,
you know, we used to go to.
- The owner of Vicante's had come up
and, you know,
gave a really nice little pat on the back,
said, "I don't care what they say,
"I don't believe you're,"
and it was really sorta
gut-wrenching.
- We had dinner and the waitress came over
and said, "Would you like anything for dessert?"
And he said, "No, no."
And he goes, "I'm watching my figure"
or something like that.
And so he didn't have any dessert.
And to this day, I wanna ask him,
why didn't you have dessert?
(dark, distorted music)
- And the next morning,
I'm the one, while going to school,
who drove him to the office.
(dark, distorted music)
- He came in to give me a hug
and, you know, say bye and
I had a,
I had a card and a poem
that I'd written for him and
just said, "You know, I'm proud of you."
I said, "I'm proud of you too, Dad."
I was gonna give him this card
but I hadn't signed it yet,
so I didn't give it to him, so.
- And
still, when he left that next morning
for the press conference,
I thought it was just a
press conference.
- So I thought, you know,
it's gonna be a hard day for him.
Like, I'll just sign it today
and I'll give to him when he gets home
'cause then it'll be good for him
to have when he gets home.
So now I wish I would have given him the card.
- And he just said, gave me a kiss,
said, "I'll see you later.
"Be good.
"Drive safe," 'cause a storm was coming
or it had already started.
He goes, "Be safe."
But he did say, "Go right home after class."
- It was about an hour earlier than his conference.
He says, "Could I share your office with you?"
I could've said, I said,
"You gave me this office.
"Sure, come on in, Budd."
So he came in and he,
he sat there and opened his briefcase
where the lid was up here and I couldn't see in
or I probably would have seen the gun.
It was a pretty damn big gun.
- I said, "Oh, you know,
"I'd like to be there to support you."
He said, "I don't want you there.
"Under any circumstance, I don't want you there."
- I had thought, I had worried
that he might possibly do this
and I had told Joanne not to,
not to leave him alone, please.
- So I said, "Okay, I'll grab my jacket
"and come down with you."
He said, "No, no, don't,
"don't come down, you know what this is all about."
- And of course, that wasn't,
the advice was worthless because wasn't alone.
- The state treasurer, Budd Dwyer,
who was recently convicted of bribery,
called a news conference at which many people
thought he was going to resign.
- We have worked diligently for the last six years
to modernized this department.
We've taken it from an antique
into one of the most widely modern
and recognized treasury departments
in the United States.
Needless to say, this is what I would like
to be remembered for.
But I know, you know,
my obituary and everything else
will have CTA and that is all I be remembered for.
- And, of course, I kept looking for the part
that we all expected,
and that was his resignation announcement.
And it wasn't there.
- I ask those that believe in me
to continue to work untiringly
for the creation of a true justice system
here in the United States.
- I should have gotten more suspicious.
I did a little bit, but I'm,
because, you know, he never
went to an important meeting without me.
Well,
he goes down and pretty soon I heard that
real loud bang and,
I immediately knew what it was.
- Don, there are some things for you to do
and there's a note in here for Joanne.
Okay.
(camera snaps)
When I, and I--
- Budd, don't! - No, no, no!
- Please, don't do this. - Please leave the room
if this will,
if this will affect you.
- Budd! Budd! - Budd, no!
- No, no, no!
Don't, don't, don't, don't.
Don't, don't!
- Don't do this! - Budd, listen to me.
- This will hurt someone.
- Budd, Budd, Budd! - Stay back, stay back!
(gun fires)
(woman screams) (all shouting)
- [Woman] My god! (camera snaps)
- [James] Don't panic please.
(all shouting) Alright, settle down!
- [Man] Who's shooting in here?
Please, please, that's enough.
That's enough.
Please leave the room now!
(cameras snapping)
Dear god.
- And I called Jim West
and I
told him, "You guys just murdered
"my dear friend Budd Dwyer."
(somber piano music)
- I think the saddest thing
I wrote about in the book
was when West's secretary was saying
that when Dwyer shot himself,
she was typing a note to the judge
asking for the maximum penalty
and then West had her destroy that
because it wouldn't do to have the media
get their hands on that.
- If there'd have been any thought
that he was going to do what he did,
I know I would have tried to have taken some action.
- [Interviewer] What would you have done?
- Well, the only thing left to do would be,
quite frankly, try to have his bail revoked
and put in a setting where he couldn't have hurt himself.
- I think it broke him.
I don't think he was himself
when he committed suicide.
- And it said,
I don't know, breaking news, or whatever,
out of Harrisburg.
It says,
State Treasurer Budd Dwyer apparently shot himself.
And
my first reaction was
it was a figure of speech,
like, oh, you know, he shot himself.
No, you know, he resigned
and, you know, might as well have admitted,
you know, it's like,
that's kind of how I interpreted it
until I saw my mom's reaction.
- I had been driving home
and I heard, I was almost to the house
when I heard on the radio what had happened
at the press conference.
They had done a break-in.
And I screamed in the car and, you know,
when you're trying to drive in the snow and it's tough
and I'm probably two minutes from the house,
but it seemed like it was two hours,
trying to maneuver and drive.
And when I finally got home,
I just slammed the, slammed into the curb
and ran into the house.
- Then once I realized, okay,
it wasn't, it wasn't figurative, it was literal,
he literally shot himself,
I was thinking, well, he's injured.
We need to get to the hospital to be with him.
Never occurred to the me that, you know,
it was intentional or that he died.
I mean, occasionally he would have a,
he carried a handgun in his boot,
and I assumed that the handgun actually went off
and he'd shot himself in the foot.
- The
coroner
also gave me one they found in his shoe.
So he had a backup.
So he had no intention of ever getting out of there.
- And I don't know at what point I realized
that, okay, it wasn't,
it's not an injury, we don't need to go the hospital.
(somber instrumental music)
- I have written at the top
"the worst day of my life."
And then I wrote, "home after six, Mike there.
"And I guessed horrible news from his face.
"Budd died.
"Just so, so terrible.
"Poor Brian was home alone when DeeDee and Rob called,
"then Brian saw it on TV."
(emotional guitar music)
- Many of kid in this area saw it
because they were all home from school
because it was snowed all night long.
- We had had a news station on then.
And they were running it.
And we didn't see it,
so we just all scattered out of the room
and just ran and covered our ears
so we didn't see it, hear it, anything.
It was playing.
- We had friends in Holland and in England
and it was, it was on television everywhere.
- To broadcast or not to broadcast
that final image.
To look or avert the eye.
- Get your cameras out.
Please get out of the room.
You've got everything that,
that can be gotten at this point, please.
Paul, please.
Paul, please!
(camera snaps)
- [Man] I haven't got anything.
- Please wrap up your cameras
and get out of the room.
- We, I decided to show it
right up until the time
the man put the pistol in his mouth.
And just before he pulled the trigger, we stopped.
And I was insistent that we
get right to the edge because
I wanted to demonstrate to people
the finality of it,
that hopefully if someone else
was thinking about something like this,
that this might shock them into seeking help.
- People in the media to me
tend to be a little bit too self-righteous.
I'm doing this for the public good.
I'm exposing this, I'm.
Give me a break.
You're doing this to feed your own ego
and to see your name a light.
That's it.
- And here it should be noted that several newspapers,
including the New York Daily News
and The Washington Post,
ran photographs taken at the moment of impact.
- And of course you've seen the picture
with the gun and whoever, you know.
And like we're saying about the reporters,
I mean, the guy is close enough to grab a snap
but, you know.
Oh, but it was so tragic.
I tried to save,
I should have jumped up.
Well, no, no, you had your camera in your hand.
You were busy trying to get a Pulitzer.
- First of all, he had himself
blockaded and barricaded. - That's right.
- Second of all,
he had some animosity toward the press.
I, I, sorry, I don't think that anybody
should be obligated to try to approach somebody
brandishing a .357 Magnum
and wrestle a gun out of his hands.
- This was a big man.
This was a physically big, strong man.
- I knew
that he was going to kill himself.
The only question I had was
whether he was gonna kill some of us beforehand.
Because he had,
in the course of this long statement,
been talking about how the press had treated him
as just another piece of meat.
And you know, he had six bullets in that gun.
He could have used five and still had one for himself.
- There were some people in the room who thought,
well, maybe he was gonna shoot someone else
or something like that and just like,
I mean, I've seen it up to the point
where he takes the gun out
and I sincerely think,
and if you read the last page of his press release,
he really thought, and granted,
it was an irrational thought at the time,
that he would be able to take the gun out
and then continue reading.
- When he pulled the gun out
and everybody got nervous,
and in reference in to R. B.'s concern
about whether he was gonna take out the press corps,
pulled out the gun and he said,
"Stand back, this could hurt somebody."
Which was an indication to me
that he didn't want to hurt anybody else.
He had no intention of causing anybody else any harm.
- Dear god.
Please, Paul, please.
That's enough.
- The reporters who were in the room
when my dad died are like,
oh, you know, what a shame.
You know, I can't believe how I was affected
and how traumatic it was.
Boo-fucking-hoo.
This is what you brought on yourselves.
- If Budd Dwyer had
committed suicide yesterday,
licensed radio and television stations
would have done the same exact thing, most of them,
today than what happened 20 years ago.
And it would be all over YouTube
and TMZ and everybody else.
- You know, it's like the Kennedy assassination.
Everybody, you know, ad nauseum
watches the Zapruder film
with Kennedy's brain being blown off,
but they don't play the great nomination,
"The New Frontier" speech where Kennedy talks about,
look, we're gonna build a fire
that can truly light the world
and we're gonna give people hope
or we're gonna descend into a politic of greed
and we're gonna destroy ourselves,
which is what's happening now.
- I think we do have some culture that
glorifies anything that
is horrifying.
We can't control that.
- As much as I don't like the fact
that the video circulates,
circulates around the internet and stuff,
that it's that easy for people to watch,
on the other hand,
it will pique people's curiosity enough
that maybe they will investigate a little bit.
The reason he did it how he did it was,
was to draw attention to it.
- Now, if he had quietly
taken some sleeping pills or done something,
would there be any interest in this whatsoever?
No, there wouldn't.
- He was hoping that it would lead,
it would attract attention and lead to improvement,
but it only attracted attention momentarily.
You know, the news of the day and then,
and then everyone passed on.
- And that's probably
the biggest travesty of the whole thing
is that what was actually wanted to be said
has been lost in the act itself.
- The sun shown brightly
on the city of Meadville today
as hundreds of friends, relatives,
acquaintances, and colleagues of Budd Dwyer's
filed into the Robert Waid Funeral Home
to pay their respects.
(bell tolling) - Budd was an innocent man.
He was made to feel that he lost
everything he worked for.
- [Reporter] Among the people who attended the service
were Senator Arlen Specter,
Lieutenant Governor Mark Singel,
and former Lieutenant Governor William Scranton.
- Following the services,
Budd Dwyer will be laid to rest
at the Blooming Valley Cemetery.
(somber instrumental music)
- We did a service at the church
and then just the family was going out
to the cemetery with the casket and
on the way out, there were,
it was just lined with American flags,
like, stuck in snowbanks
and people standing on the side of the road,
the whole route, from the church
all the way out to the cemetery.
It was just,
it was amazing.
(bells tolling) (somber instrumental music)
- Those who laid him to rest today
remembered Dwyer as a man of honor.
- [Reporter] Dwyer was laid to rest
in a plot just outside Meadville
near his parents' graves.
(somber instrumental music)
- I think a lot of people,
a lot of survivors of people who commit suicide,
blame themselves
either for not seeing it
or for not being able to prevent it.
I mean, like, something as simple as the card
that I didn't give him that morning.
One of my initial things was
if I'd given him that card,
he wouldn't have gone through with it,
then he would have known how much I loved him,
then he wouldn't have done it.
You know, it took a while for me to realize
that, okay, that's,
that's not true.
I mean, he was, he knew what he was gonna do, you know?
It's not my fault,
that I couldn't have saved him by doing that.
- [Interviewer] Were you angry at him?
- Well, yes, I think
we always go through a period of anger.
That took a while too.
The question why, couldn't, why?
You know, we could have worked this out.
We could have done something.
You,
it's a normal feeling of anger.
But, you see, I understood then why he did it
because he left, he left three beautiful letters,
one for each of the children and one for me.
- The one thing that kind of
broke my heart in the letter
was that he said, you're fortunate because,
you know, you'll get married eventually
and be able to change your last name,
whereas Rob's stuck with this last name now,
this mark.
- In a final letter, he said that our son,
who was going by the nickname Budd,
which was his middle name,
our mother's maiden name, so it followed through,
he said, "You shouldn't use Budd anymore.
"You'd better go back to your own name."
- And I'm thinking, Dad,
I'm proud of this name, you know?
This is not a name I'm ever gonna change,
I'm proud of it, you know?
And,
which is why I still, I mean,
my business card, it's on,
you know, I'm very proud of it.
So it broke my heart that he thought
that I would be ashamed of that somehow.
- They say that when something happens,
you find out who your true friends are.
I found out.
You know, looking around this room,
if we had not followed this course in life,
we probably would have never met 90% of you
and what a void that would have left
in our entire lives.
Because now, you see,
we consider you not only friends,
but an extension of our family.
You're our political family.
So in reality, this is a swearing in ceremony
of a family.
Budd and I and Rob and Dee are immediate family
and all of you are extended family.
- A lot of her friends at the time
were political friends.
So it makes a difference because,
I mean, it just makes a difference, obviously.
- There was a lot of people in Harrisburg
that were a little more than goosey
about being identified with him
even though they certainly were.
I mean, he was their friend.
But I had no reservation at all
of taking the lead on,
in that resolution
and being identified with him as my friend.
- I mean, ever since my dad died,
it's kind of been
a little bit of a balancing act
because I mean, obviously,
I remember him and I remember him fondly,
but any memories of him are also of,
you know, the whole case and the,
you know, the press conference and things.
So it's hard.
- When I finally resigned,
it was because of
Budd Dwyer's suicide.
He was a dear friend of mine,
as honest as any man I met in government in 30 years.
And I said,
I won't give the government people one more day.
- I was in jail six months
and my wife moved another guy into the house here.
And she filed for divorce,
we got a divorce and,
I didn't have custody of my son
for the first five years I was out of prison.
- I mean, it changes how you look at everything, you know?
I was always so trusting and all of a sudden,
it's like, well, can you trust people?
I mean, look what happens when you trust people
or when you believe that something's gonna happen
the way it should.
- It wasn't worth it.
I should have never done it and I,
'til the day I die, I'll regret that I did it.
- It's amazing that, at that time, it could happen.
And today, nothing's changed.
It could happen again today.
- Well, I, you know,
I guess I can make a general statement
and say, well, gee, the system made a mistake
and he was the object of it
and possibly he was.
But it would be that, if it was a mistake,
then look at it in that light
and not as an indictment on the system.
- I'll say this, in my own opinion,
I think he was not as guilty
as a lot of people alleged,
but he was not as innocent
as he personally believed he was.
- I got him into this and he's dead.
That bothers me every day.
- [Interviewer] So you believe to this day
in Budd's innocence?
- Oh, I have no doubt.
I've never had any doubt.
I am,
I think the majority of people
believe in Budd's innocence.
And anybody who knows him certainly does.
- 'Til the day I die,
I will never believe,
(sighs heavily)
that he was guilty of anything.
- My hope has always been
that before I die, I wanna see this
closed.
There is no closure.
There still is no closure.
(ice cracking)
(rain pattering)
(light wind blowing)
(somber instrumental music)
- In closing, I would like to read
a prayer for guidance in office by Herman S. Garst.
"Dear Lord, the people have elected me
"to speak for them in things of state.
"To thee, I come for help.
"I shall be tempted by those persons whose god is gain.
"May I be true to commonwealth, self, and thee.
"Stand with me, Lord, each time I speak,
"when godless men would make a mockery of righteousness.
"At voting time, touch thou my lips,
"for I would not bring shame or fear to fellow men
"nor cast dishonor on thy name."
(somber instrumental music)