Flashback 2006: George Dunne — Scandals couldn't dent charm of board president

George Dunne, foreground and Mayor Richard J. Daley, at 1968 Democratic National Convention.

     "Very nice," reader Dave Bahnsen commented on my 2010 obituary of Dan Rostenkowski. "Now do George Dunne." 

     Welllll...on the one hand, I'm not a lounge singer or a short-order cook. I don't do requests. However, this is Sunday, and while I have indeed written something new, it can wait. I'll need something Tuesday as well (Monday is my fire hydrant magnus opus).

     "Okay," I replied.

     As it happens, I did write the obit for the longtime Cook County Board president. If I had to grade this one, I'd give it a B minus. That "epic" in the beginning of the fourth graph is unfortunate. Its averageness is probably why I didn't post the piece before. I left out some key points — I must have been hurried. I buried the sex scandal that ended his career, and left out the frat brother admiration some of his fellow hacks said in public without shame. The obit also doesn't mention that Dunne personally banned abortions at Cook County Hospital in 1980, even though — as he later admitted — he lacked the authority to do so. Which didn't stop him from sometimes approving the procedure, on an ad hoc basis, when he felt the situation demanded it. "Sometimes he said yes, and sometimes he said no," a source told the Sun-Times in 1992. I'm not sure why I overlooked it — I hope because, in the rush to get the obit written, I just didn't know. It's an important historical fact to bear in mind, a reminder that while when the decision whether or not to have an abortion is denied the woman most affected, a decision is still being made, by an unseen man.

     George W. Dunne, for years among the most powerful cogs in the once-mighty Chicago Democratic Machine who worked his way up from playlot supervisor to Cook County Board president and heir-apparent to Richard J. Daley, died Sunday afternoon.
     Mr. Dunne died at his farm in Hebron, near the Wisconsin border, according to his wife of 16 years, Claudia Dunne. He was 93 and had been suffering heart trouble, she said.
     "I said, 'Just let go. I'll be fine,' " his wife said. "And he did."
     During his epic career, Dunne was Chicago Park District assistant general superintendent, Democratic Central Committee chairman, and longtime committeeman of the 42nd Ward — serving in many capacities simultaneously.
     In his nearly 22 years as board president, Dunne supervised $1 billion in construction of county buildings and was embroiled in a variety of controversies over Cook County Hospital and the County Jail.
     Through it all, he was a smooth politician and a charming man. Scandals that would have shattered the careers of lesser politicians simply rolled off Dunne, at least until toward the end of his long reign.
     "George Dunne was a friend and a respected, charismatic leader who spent a lifetime in public service," Mayor Daley said Monday. "Our heartfelt prayers and condolences go out to his family."
     Park District playlot manager
     George William Dunne was born Feb. 20, 1913, in the Near North Side's 42nd Ward, one of eight children of John and Ellen Dunne. His father, sexton of Holy Name Cathedral for 33 years, died when George was 12.
     He graduated from De La Salle Institute and attended Northwestern University for a year but dropped out. He caught the eye of the Democratic Party organization and snared a job as manager of a Park District playlot.
     During World War II, he served in Europe and in the Pacific from November 1942 to April 1946. He was recalled to active duty for the Korean War and served from April 1951 to September 1952.
     Back home, state Sen. William "Botchy'' Connors, the 42nd Ward Democratic committeeman, tapped him to fill a vacancy in the Legislature in 1955.
    After eight years in the Legislature, Mr. Dunne became Democratic floor leader. Then Mayor Richard J. Daley tapped him for the County Board, where he quickly rose to lead the powerful Finance Committee.
     When Connors died in 1961, the ward committeemanship passed to Mr. Dunne, along with the lucrative ward insurance business. Mr. Dunne's Near North Insurance Agency, formed in 1962, later collapsed in a scandal while under the control of Dunne's partner, Michael Segal, who was convicted in 2004 of looting $30 million from the firm.
     When the Metropolitan Fair and Exposition Authority — whose chairman was appointed by Daley — wanted to insure the new McCormick Place in 1968, it did not take bids but handed the contract directly to Mr. Dunne, who pocketed between $15,000 and $20,000 in annual commissions from that one policy alone.
     Like any good ward committeeman, Mr. Dunne held court, granting favors to his constituents, finding jobs and clouting. But those jobs and favors came with a price tag: Not only ringing doorbells and hustling votes on Election Day, but raising money. Mr. Dunne was proud of the patronage system.
     "I've been in government for a long time, and I can't see any concrete evidence of the merit system resulting in more efficient government,'' he said after being elected president of the Cook County Board in January 1969.
The logical Daley heir?
     Mr. Dunne was a delegate to the 1968 Democratic convention. There, he was seen on television next to Richard J. Daley while the mayor jeered Sen. Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut for decrying violence in the streets of Chicago.
     For more than 21 years, Mr. Dunne controlled Cook County, the second-most-populous county in the nation with 54 agencies and departments and a budget of more than $150 million.
     Mr. Dunne established himself as a cost-cutter. But despite his loyalty to the mighty Democratic Machine, outside forces began to crack it. In 1972, the Shakman decree ended the practice of coercing government workers to make contributions and do political work.
     Toward the end of Daley's life, it was assumed that Mr. Dunne was "the logical Daley heir.'' Mr. Dunne was at the height of his power, a large, handsome man who had a face that had "aged gracefully and a head of gray hair cut so well and so often that one suspected it actually never grew at all,'' as he was described by one historian.
     But the mid-1970s were also a difficult time for Mr. Dunne. In fall of 1971, Mr. Dunne was in hot water when a Daily News story said government officials had bought racetrack stock on the basis of information and sold it at enormous profit. The venture was the same deal that sent former Gov. Otto Kerner to prison. But Mr. Dunne was spared because he had no public duties connected to the racing industry.
     In 1972, the Better Government Association accused Mr. Dunne of holding stock in two banks receiving interest-free county money, and that the banks had given Mr. Dunne huge loans. Mr. Dunne sold his stock and resigned his directorship at one of the banks.
     The next year, Mr. Dunne was accused of making lucrative investments in luxury high-rises built by a Chicago contractor who received millions in county contracts. He did not deny the charges.
'Very smart in every way'
     After Daley died in December 1976, Mr. Dunne seized the chair of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee. His first act was to unceremoniously dump Jane Byrne as co-chair and disband the Democratic Women's Group.
     "Dunne obviously cared little for women politicians,'' Byrne said in her memoirs.
     On Monday, Byrne remembered Dunne as "very smart in every way."
     Mr. Dunne threw himself and the then-faltering Machine behind the luckless Mayor Michael Bilandic. But Byrne upset Bilandic in the 1979 primary, and in March 1982, Mayor Byrne ousted Mr. Dunne as chairman of the Democratic Central Committee.
     With his future in a Byrne administration bleak, Mr. Dunne threw his support to Harold Washington. He was one of the few Machine pols to do so, and battled old-timers' horror at the prospect of a black mayor.
     "The party had better get used to the idea . . . and get behind Washington's candidacy,'' Mr. Dunne told party regulars. He also played a decisive role in the Council's election of Eugene Sawyer as mayor after Washington's death.
     The wheels finally began to come off Mr. Dunne's career in 1988, when WMAQ-Channel 5 reported on two female Cook County Forest Preserve female employees who said they were forced to have sex with Mr. Dunne to get hired and gain promotions. Encounters with the women, described as lesbians, happened at Dunne's farm in Hebron.
     Mr. Dunne, whose first wife, Agnes, had died in 1980, was 75 at the time. He admitted having sex with the women and acknowledged "extremely poor judgment.''
     He did not run for a sixth term as board president in 1990.
     Mr. Dunne did continue as committeeman of the 42nd Ward until 2003, when he stepped down at 90 after holding the post for 42 years.
     "His personality was always marked by charm and good manners. The good deeds he performed for so many are the best commentary on his long and worthy life," said Ald. Ed Burke (14th).
     Besides his wife, survivors include two daughters, Mary Louise Morrisseau and Eileen Dunne Zell, a son, Murphy Dunne; five grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.
     Visitation will be 6 p.m. Wednesday at Holy Name Cathedral. A prayer service led by Cardinal Francis George will follow at 7:30 p.m. On Thursday morning, a funeral mass will be said at Holy Name.

                — Originally published in the Sun-Times, May 30, 2006