“This was my first taste of
corruption.”
I cherish this little button, even though for me it represents a failure. I had intended to spend my life in public service, so at the age of 30, I ran for City Council in Queens. This was 1971 and Queens was a rotten borough. I had a band of antiwar and pro-reform supporters but not a lot of money. My opposition had all the money they needed as well as voter fraud and judges on their side. This was my first taste of corruption, and, in fact, the person I ran against later went away twice on felony charges. Twenty-six political leaders in Queens eventually went to jail; it was quite a group. Anyway, I came up short.
I was a young man, newly married, we’d just had a child, and we were broke. I remember after the campaign was over with, our car was repossessed. It was embarrassing. I quickly started a business that helped companies like Marvel Comics figure out if they were being overcharged by their printers. From there, we went on to investigating businesses for investment banks and even investigating corrupt heads of state, like Ferdinand Marcos.
Fighting corruption, bossism, closed systems—that’s my life’s mission. That’s what drives me. That’s what’s always driven me. And that’s why I love the button.
~ Jules Kroll, chairman, K2 Intelligence, New York, NY
