Bratton and Miller Back in Blue for Round 3 (original) (raw)

New York|Bratton and Miller Back in Blue for Round 3

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/nyregion/bratton-and-miller-back-in-blue-for-round-3.html

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

William J. Bratton, left, New York police commissioner once again, persuaded his longtime friend and aide John Miller to return to government.Credit...Photo Illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker

Jan. 3, 2014

Minutes after the news conference last month announcing that he would serve a second term as New York City’s police commissioner, William J. Bratton and a group of close friends sat down over rigatoni and meatballs at Ferdinando’s Focacceria, a subway-tiled Sicilian joint a few blocks from the docks in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The location and the lunch guests were classic Bratton. Gathered at a table in the back, under photos of Palermo and a stamped-tin ceiling, was a kind of kitchen cabinet: Mr. Bratton’s wife, his retired-detective bodyguards, some former aides from the Police Department, a few associates from his private security firm and the TV reporter John Miller.

Predictably, the conversation turned to the question of who would follow Mr. Bratton back to the 14th floor of 1 Police Plaza.

As suggestions were made and plates of antipasti passed around, the commissioner-to-be turned to Mr. Miller and made his own suggestion, according to one of the guests. “You need to start thinking seriously,” he told his longtime friend, “about coming back.” Though it was offered in confidence, word of the appeal circulated quickly in the well-sourced nexus of journalists and government officials who earn their living in the law enforcement world — and three weeks later, when Mr. Miller went on the air and confirmed that he was indeed leaving his job at CBS to rejoin Mr. Bratton, David Rhodes, the president of CBS News, was less than surprised.

“As soon as the reports came out that de Blasio” — Bill de Blasio, the city’s new mayor — “was thinking of bringing Bratton back, I immediately assumed that John would be going too,” Mr. Rhodes said in an interview. “It was literally the first thing that I thought of.”

When Mr. Bratton resumed control of the department last week, two decades after his first term there, it began the third installment of a buddy pic that has covered both coasts and 20 years. Both men have repeatedly moved between the public and private sectors: Mr. Bratton as a police chief and a corporate security guru, Mr. Miller as his jack-of-all-trades aide-de-camp and a journalist.

During Mr. Bratton’s first turn in New York, which began in 1994, Mr. Miller left the local NBC affiliate to serve as his deputy commissioner for public information, a job that required him not only to act as the department’s chief spokesman, but also to manage his boss’s public image for the insatiably demanding local media. Nine years later, Mr. Miller followed Mr. Bratton to Los Angeles, where the two established L.A.’s antiterrorism program in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Now, with Mr. Bratton’s re-ascension in New York, Mr. Miller plans to undertake a similar portfolio: Part policy expert, part palace guard, he will assume control of the department’s Intelligence Division or its counterterrorism unit — or perhaps both. These are two expansive and essential operations that in recent years have drawn praise for their successes and fierce attacks from critics for their excesses.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT