Vellucci Stamps Style On Cambridge Politics

He is not fact, only pleasantly robust. His stomach expands like a beautiful hyperbola. His voice is loud and clear, with a curiously nasal effect. His hair, though it has receeded, is a strikingly handsome combination of silver and gray. For a man who officially entered politics at the age of 21 in 1936 (as a delegate to the state Democratic covention) and suffered two defeats before finally winning elective office, Alfred E. Vellucci looks like he's enjoyed every minute of the game.

There's nothing he likes better than no taunt one of his colleagues on the City Council, he does it all the time. He relishes outlandish proposals--like chopping off a corner of Harvard Square, turning the Lampoon building into a public toilet, or Harvard Yard into a cemetery--and then resolutely defending them. "It's fun," Vellucci says, and politics should be fun.

His capacity for fun--and blowing his own horn--is prodigious. Most of his fellow councillors appreciate and tolerate Vellucci. "Oh, he's peppy tonight," commented one to the press table when Al began a typical harrangue, "What'd you guys do, feed him some pills before he came today?" The councillor was irritated and amused: at the time, the session was more than four hours old, and eight people remained in the audience. Still Al Vellucci wouldn't shut up.

He fits easily into the slot as Cambridge's "Happy Warrior"--too easily. Beneath the deceiving happy exterior's is one of the City's most successful and skillful politicians. At 49, he has been elected to the Council on a citywide basis five times. Twice (in 1956 and now), he has served as vice-mayor. And in the last three mayoralty elections (the mayor is elected by the nine councillors), he has personally delivered the winning vote to his long-time personal friend, Edward A. Crane '35.

Vellucci regards politics as a game. He wouldn't be in it if he didn't enjoy it. But, nevertheless, the game is a very serious one.

"The way I play politics is to be a regular guy. You don't squeal on anybody. If somebody isn't doing their job, you call up D . . . . . and you let him know that someone isn't doing his job and should get off his ass. But you don't tell him who it is or give him enough information to let him find out. The first thing he'd do if he found out was go ahead and jump the guy and tell him that Vellucci squealed on him."

Vellucci continued talking seriously: "You talk for them; you're for their wage increases. Pretty soon they're talking like 'Vellucci's our friend--he's an OK guy." And then you got support. I play politics my way . . . and I win."

Al's people are what he calls "baptized Democrats"--they're born Democratic, they die Democratic, and in between they vote Democratic. But in Cambridge city elections, which are non-partisan, you don't win only on party (eight of the nine councillors are Democrats), you win on personality and political favors.

By his own testimony, Vellucci is a wheeler-dealer, and organization man. He solicits and trades favors. At a recent private dinner, for example, one of Cambridge's leading businessmen approached Vellucci and said how pleased the business community was that the city had actually lowered the tax rate.

"Fine," said Vellucci, "I'll bet that saves you a pretty penny. How bout spending a little of that money for a new stove for one of the settlement houses in East Cambridge." Sure, agreed the businessman (an executive of a gas company), probably thinking that the promise would be forgotten within the hour.

The next day Vellucci phoned the settlement house worker; she phoned the executive. The settlement house got a new stove, and a week later, Vellucci got an appreciative thank you note.

Back in the early fifties, when Vellucci was running for the Cambridge School Board (he served two terms), a Harvard professor was also in the race. The two met at a dinner at a local Greek club. "This guy got up there, see, and started talking about Demosthenes. The Greek liked that, see," Vellucci recalls. "Well I got up there and I don't know nothing about Demosthenes, so I started talking about Greeks in jobs, Greeks in city jobs. They liked that even better. Vellucci paused. "I won, see."

Vellucci wins, not just because he makes promises but because he keeps them. When a fire last winter killed two small children and displaced a family, Vellucci set his organization to work. Within a week, they raised several thousand dollars to help the family, which had no insurance, survive the losses of the fire. He helped arrange the funeral, and got them discounts at local stores. And finally, he found an apartment in a public housing project for the family.

To get what he wants Al Vellucci has to be an insider." To win jobs for his friends, he has to know--and be able to persuade--the people who have the jobs. To get discounts when they are needed, he must know--and be able to persuade--the men who run the Cambridge Housing Authority.

Part of Vellucci's influence derives from the wide range of people he has met and has been able to impress. And Vellucci does impress them. At City Council hearings, though his question periods are long and often boring, he has obviously done his homework, sometimes better than the people he questions. In a group, he is immediately able to sense what the group wants to hear from him, and to adapt himself accordingly.

But Vellucci is also one of the most outspoken councillors, and at first it seems hard to reconcile his influence with the number of people and causes he has publicly attacked.

His technique is quite simple: he attacks, but avoids offending. His assaults on Harvard, for instance, are amusing, but not alienating. He intends them to be harmless, and, as he admits in private, doesn't believe most of what he says.

Stupid and senseless? Of course not Vellucci's verbal fireworks win him headlines (sometimes big, sometimes small, but the important thing is that there are headlines). They net him votes from people who "think someone should go out after Harvard" or who just admire Vellucci's spirit. And they gain him noteriety (better than anonymity) in the Harvard-Brattle St. community.

The Vellucci style can be more subtle, however. When the City Council recently questioned members of the Cambridge Housing Authority on alleged poor conditions in some of the projects, Vellucci jumped into the offense. He did so, first because he likes to hear himself talk, and, second because many of the people in his "district" live in projects.

Vellucci himself has lived in a housing project, and he would certainly like to see them better. But he played it cool. The first thing he established was that the real villains were the subordinates of the Housing Authority, not the bosses. He thus served to protect his friends (he was an army buddy of the executive director of the Housing Authority, for example.) Even then he wasn't too keen on attacking anyone.

He diverted the discussion and his final argument was something no one could disagree with and something that would not disturb the Housing Authority: the dangers of leaky gas-pipes which could cause explosions and fires. (A few days before an explosion in Montreal had killed more than a score.) He sought no sweeping or permanent changes.

Vellucci possessed the instinctive ability to play both sides of the fence. He has a flair for grasping interesting issues and exploiting them. Like most other councillors, he has his own entourage of friends and informants to supplement his knowledge of what's going on in Cambridge.

But, if he values his political independence, in at least one sense Vellucci is a servant. His strong vote-getting area--his "district"--is the predominantly Italian community in East Cambridge, and he is its weathervane. Two years ago the City proposed an urban renewal project for the year. The local residents strongly objected; so did Vellucci. Now, a new plan devised with cooperation of a representative local neighborhood group, has been worked out. It has Vellucci's support. If it ever loses that support, you can bet it will also have lost the neighborhood's endorsement.

Vellucci works hard for his area: He brags that every street in East Cambridge has been reaved and credits himself with many other improvements. The list of weekly Council orders invariably includes many of his requests for new street signs, side walks, and stop lights.

After all, Al Vellucci is nothing more than the old ward "boss." Most civic texts frown on bosses. The boss, the theory runs, sacrifices the general interest to the very particular needs of his own district. And there is al- ways, the implication that the "boss" or the machine is easily corrupted.

Much of what Vellucci does is instinctive, but if he were to defend his system, he would say that the "general interest" ignores--and probably works against--the interests of his constituents. He would say that he understands best what his own area's interests are. And, perhaps if he had a few words with somebody at Harvard, he might become academic and