Peter Noel plays fast and loose with the facts to attack me ["At Each Other's Throats," October 6]. I did not "march behind a racist float" in a Labor Day Parade in Broad Channel, Queens, as he wrote, which he knows since he told one of my staff members that he has my statements strongly and publicly condemning that grossly racist float. In fact, I was at the front of the parade campaigning among the people who were watching, and left when it started raining. The float was at the very end of the parade. Had I seen it, I would have loudly protested before leaving. Noel tries to cover his falsehood by seeming to give my side, writing that "Hevesi later denied he was aware that the float was part of the parade." That makes me sound like a weasel. As if I marched behind this float, but now I'm trying to claim that I didn't know it was part of the parade. That is not what happened, and it is not what I said. I have fought against bigots of every type and every color. I denounced Joseph Kovner, the Jewish council member from Deer Park, New York, when he called State Comptroller Carl McCall a "Harlem nigger," and demanded Kovner's resignation. I condemned the bigotry of Queens council member Julia Harrison when she attacked Asians, and I supported her Asian opponent in the last election. I have gone to Queens to confront school board member Frank Borzellieri and his campaign of hate against racial minorities and gay men and lesbians. And I attacked Khallid Muhammad as "the leading anti-Semite, anti-Catholic and anti-gay bigot in America." Disagree with my positions all you want, but do not use falsehood and distortion to try to paint me as a racist. Alan G. HevesiComptrollerCity of New YorkPeter Noel replies: It doesn't matter if Alan Hevesi was at the back or the front of the parade. The truth is that he was at a racist parade, and was exposed. It strains credulity that he was not aware of the float carrying white men in blackface parodying...
