county commissioners who had been taking kickbacks paid by suppliers on orders for county road-building supplies. That corruption could be so wide-spread and long-standing was hard to understand. How could so many good ol' boys (usually popular and respected local officials) become so corrupt? Determined to study the problem, Harry Holloway and Frank S. Meyers sifted through a large body of evidence, conducted a public-opinion survey, and interviewed nearly half of all county commissioners in office following the prosecutions. Their discoveries were two. First, because rural populism had splintered Oklahoma government from top to bottom, commissioners were left with so much money and discretion as to invite abuse. Second, abusers justified their illegal behavior on the basis that they were entitled to their gains. Local government, the authors argue, is improved but remains vulnerable. Analyzing the national savings and loan scandal, they review prospects for corruption within the state - especially the scheme of education bonds developed within the state in the late 1980s. The book will interest citizens, academics, and officials at all levels of government who want to understand an Oklahoma scandal of momentous proportions and, even more, to appreciate how political culture and institutions may contribute to corruption. As the authors show, values and institutions democratic in intent may lend themselves to the purposes of corrupt people who rationalizetheir misdeeds.  (less)

tributes from bar associations and defense and civil rights groups across the nation.brbrLIONEL RENÉ SAPORTA lives in East Hampton, New York. Also an attorney, he grew up in Brooklyn, spent three years with Bruce Cutler in the Kings County District Attorney’s Office, and later shared offices with Cutler in private practice.1brbrHis great hand engulfing mine, hoisting my little boy's body up above the waves: That's how I remember Murray, my father. He was a big man, six foot three inches, 215 pounds of heart and brawn. He was not only my father but also what many fathers are not--my father figure.brbrMurray was also my friend, although it's hard to recall him as such when I was growing up, disciplinarian that he was. I remember him telling me that my only true friends in life would be my parents. He was right, wasn't he? I mean, there's no limit to the love and protection afforded by your parents--the love of any other must be limited by self-interest, no? Or is this only the ranting of one paranoid lawyer-cop to his paranoid lawyer son? A legacy of vigilance, passed from centuries of pogrom victims in Lithuania, Hungary, and Austria, to my grandparents Irving and Bertha, and Harry and Sadie in the new world, and from their generation to Murray and Selma, who offered it to me. A legacy of loneliness, a fitting foundation for the egocentricity, pervasive distrust, and maniacal single-mindedness required of a successful trial lawyer.brbrI was born on April 29, 1948, in Borough Park, Brooklyn, the first son of the first son of the first son. Selma, my mother, was fond of recounting (amid the confirming nods and clucks of my grandmothers, Bertha and Sadie), as she'd bathe me or tuck me into bed, how she'd selected ?ñ™™™™™šÿ¾Û€  (less)