Mustachioed, plain-spoken and built like a .45 bullet, Bernard B. Kerik brings a cop's street savvy to the job of the nation's secretary of homeland security.
If former mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani was a symbol of New York's resilience after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Kerik, 49, became his shadow and trusted right-hand man. A few years earlier, as city corrections commissioner, he fought gang violence and brought order to the toughest cellblocks.
But Kerik's track record combating terrorism and working on the national stage is more spotty. Appointed by President Bush to train a new Iraqi police force in 2003, Kerik came under criticism for inadequate screening of recruits as U.S. authorities rushed to deploy the force. They have been plagued by desertions and by allegations that insurgents have infiltrated their ranks.
Kerik quit four months into his six-month tenure in Iraq, telling New York reporters later that he needed a vacation.
A prominent Republican member of the Sept. 11 commission, former Navy secretary John F. Lehman, sharply criticized Kerik and former fire commissioner Thomas Van Essen for failures of leadership during the terrorist attacks, saying that rivalry between the departments hampered rescue efforts. The command and control of their departments, Lehman said, were "not worthy of the Boy Scouts." Kerik heatedly disputed the charge.
The commission's final report contained much muted criticism of the two departments and framed the overarching question this way: "Whether the lack of coordination between the FDNY and the NYPD had a catastrophic effect is a subject of controversy."
Daunting managerial task
Bush nominated Kerik to be the second homeland security secretary Friday at a White House ceremony, hailing him as "one of the most accomplished" law enforcement officers in the nation. Kerik is expected to face questions about his record, but few voices of opposition were heard immediately. If confirmed, Kerik will inherit one of the most complicated managerial tasks in federal government, overseeing 22 agencies and 180,000 employees in a department still working out the biggest government reorganization in nearly half a century.
New York's two U.S. senators, Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles E. Schumer, hailed Kerik's appointment, as has the city's Republican mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg. Police chiefs and national security experts from Miami to Chicago spoke optimistically Friday of having a homeland security chief who knows the frustrations and perils of those on the front line.
"The relationship between the Bush administration and the nation's first responders has not been the best," said Michael Greenberger, a former Justice Department official in the Clinton administration, who heads the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland. "I think Kerik will help change that dramatically."
Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) noted, however, that Kerik inherits a federal agency that distributes vastly more money, per capita, to states such as Wyoming, Montana and Alaska than to New York and California. Wyoming, for instance, receives $28 per person, compared with $4 per person in New York. "The administration continues to insist on sending a disproportionate amount of security funds to states with more cows than people," Maloney said.
Reforms and rumors
In 2002, Kerik was appointed to the board of Taser International Inc., which manufactures high-voltage stun guns. Critics have accused the company's weapons of contributing to dozens of deaths. Kerik received options on more than 100,000 shares of stock. Company records show Kerik recently exercised those options and sold $5.8 million worth of stock, whose value increased by more than 19 times in the past two years.
Kerik's tenure as a high-level city manager was a mix of accomplishment and nagging questions about his judgment. The city's Conflicts of Interest Board fined him $2,500 for sending two police officers to Ohio to help research his best-selling 2001 memoir, "The Lost Son." And when his publisher and friend Judith Regan reported her cell phone stolen after a visit to a Fox Television studio, detectives showed up at the homes of Fox employees who had been on the set at the time.
At the Corrections Department, Kerik instituted much-lauded reforms. But he relied on a close-knit group of top aides, several of whom were active in Republican Party politics. (Kerik made no secret of his political leanings, reportedly keeping in his office a portrait of retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, now a conservative commentator.)
Kerik several times promoted Anthony Serra, finally to bureau chief. But this summer — well after Kerik left the department — the Bronx district attorney filed a 146-count indictment against Serra, charging that he had over several years used corrections officers to work on his home and in Republican Party campaigns. There was no indication that Kerik knew of the alleged crimes.
As corrections commissioner, Kerik also ran the New York City Correction Foundation, which was funded by money from court settlements with tobacco companies. The foundation was supposed to fund programs that strengthen the department. But it had few fiscal controls, and Kerik appointed a deputy commissioner who later pleaded guilty to defrauding it of $142,000. The former aide is serving a federal prison term.
A loyal leader
Kerik's personal story is, literally and figuratively, a saga worthy of a bestseller. Born in Paterson, N.J., he never knew his mother, learning as an adult that she had been a convicted prostitute who was killed when he was 9 years old. Kerik bounced through childhood, cutting classes and eventually dropping out of high school. (He has since earned a GED and a mail-order bachelor's degree from Empire State College).
Kerik joined the Army, where he honed a rock-hard body and earned a black belt in karate. He served in Korea — where he fathered a child out of wedlock — and as a contract security officer in Saudi Arabia. Returning to the United States, he typed out a letter to former New York mayor Edward I. Koch and received an application to become a police officer. Within a few years, he was working as a ponytailed and decorated undercover detective.
Loyalty to his patrons — and his troops — has been one of Kerik's calling cards. Kerik came to Giuliani's attention when he volunteered as a campaign worker in the mayor's 1993 campaign, when he often worked as Giuliani's chauffeur. When Giuliani took office, he appointed Kerik as the number two man in the Corrections Department. A few years later, Kerik became commissioner.
"Commissioner Kerik was very helpful in resolving problems of staff brutality in the segregated units," said John Boston, director of the Prisoners' Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society of New York. "He did some draconian things, but he also carried out steps that were worthwhile and valuable."
Kerik later became police commissioner, serving for 16 months, until the end of Giuliani's term. He drew applause for taking steps to assuage black and Latino resentment of Giuliani's harsh personal style. "He was better than his predecessor," said City Council member Bill Perkins, who represents Harlem. "But his most consistent trait is blind loyalty to his boss."
Command lines questioned
On Sept. 11, Kerik stood next to Giuliani as the World Trade Center towers collapsed, nearly burying the pair. In the weeks to come, Kerik rarely returned home, sleeping on a cot in his office. No one questioned his dedication. But when the city commissioned McKinsey & Co. to examine New York's response to the attacks, and later when the Sept. 11 commission held hearings, Kerik heard sharp criticism of the fire and police departments, particularly of the failure to establish a clear line of command.
"I think that the command and control and communications of this city's public service is a scandal," Lehman, the former Navy secretary, said at the first commission hearing in New York. Kerik and — who later went to work for Giuliani's private consulting firm — angrily objected.
"Everybody's trying to judge who should have, could have, would have," Kerik told the commission. "Everybody cooperated and did the best they could have done under the circumstances."
Sally Regenhard, whose husband served 39 years in the police department and whose firefighter son died at the World Trade Center, attended those hearings and applauded Lehman. "Kerik and his boss, Mr. Giuliani, were part of the shortcomings and the failure of that day, and they deserve some of the blame for those caught in the towers," she said.
After leaving city government at the end of 2001, Kerik joined Giuliani Partners LLC, a consulting firm that has worked on matters including fighting crime in Mexico City, disaster preparedness and promoting cell phone companies. He also plunged into national Republican politics, blasting the president's war critics. "Political criticism is our enemy's best friend," Kerik said.
In August, Kerik gave a speech at the Republican National Convention. Four months later, he stood alongside Bush at the White House.
"I am deeply honored and humbled," Kerik told the president Friday. "On September 11, 2001, I witnessed firsthand the very worst of humanity and its very best."
Eggen reported from Washington. Staff writer John Mintz in Washington contributed to this report.