When politics sabotage a lifetime of exemplary service, it can be a national tragedy!

This past Saturday morning, I attended the funeral and burial of John M. "Jack" Murphy, former U.S. congressman, Captain of his West Point class, who during his military service received the Distinguished Service Cross and the Bronze Star, and was discharged as a captain.
Murphy was born in Staten Island, New York City, New York and attended La Salle Military Academy, Amherst College, and the United States Military Academy at West Point. He served in the U.S. Army from August 1944 to July 1956, first as an enlisted man before receiving his commission after four years at West Point.
He was elected as a Democrat to the 88th U.S. Congress and to the eight succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1963 – January 3, 1981); he ran unsuccessfully for re-election in 1980 after being indicted in the Abscam bribery scandal.
Mr. Murphy, a West Point graduate decorated for valor in the Korean War, was regarded as a hard-driving politician who, beginning in 1962, was elected to nine terms (eighteen years) in the United States House of Representatives.
He represented a district that included Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn in the 1960s and the island and Lower Manhattan in the ’70s. Often described as a “middle of the road” Democrat, he opposed abortion and gay rights and vigorously supported the Vietnam War. He also supported civil rights and antipoverty legislation as well as government efforts to aid education and provide housing for the poor.
As chairman of committees dealing with maritime and oceanic matters, Mr. Murphy guided the legislation paving the way for Panama to take control of the Panama Canal from the United States, and was instrumental in shaping measures to revitalize the nation’s shipping industry and regulate offshore oil development. He urged New York State to cash in on such development by building drilling platforms and superstructures “approaching the size of the Chrysler Building.”
Before Abscam, the Justice Department and the House Ethics Committee investigated Mr. Murphy and other House members as part of an inquiry into South Korean influence-buying in Congress. Federal prosecutors also looked into his dealings with the governments of Nicaragua — whose leader at the time, President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, was a longtime friend of Mr. Murphy’s — and with Iran, under the rule of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
Mr. Murphy maintained that he was a victim of overly ambitious officials, and no formal charges were brought against him in those investigations. Later, he was scornful of the officials who had conducted the Abscam investigation. “How does that little bureaucrat down at the end of the Justice Department line get famous?” he said after his indictment. “He drops a watch in somebody’s pocket.”
At trial, Mr. Murphy, unlike some of the other indicted congressmen, did not argue that he had been illegally entrapped into taking money. Rather, his lawyer told the jury, Mr. Murphy had not known that the closed briefcase produced by the undercover agent contained money. He thought it held immigration forms, the lawyer said. In a second videotaped meeting, Mr. Murphy denied he had taken money during the earlier encounter. It is widely accepted that the dogged perusal by the federal government was spurred on by officials within the Carter Administration, who were at odds with Congressman Murphy over the transfer of the Panama Canal, support for South Korea and for Anastasio "Tachito" Somoza-DeBayle, a Nicaraguan politician and officially the 73rd and 76th President of Nicaragua from 1 May 1967 to 1 May 1972 and from 1 December 1974 to 17 July 1979, who had been a classmate of Jack Murphy at La Salle Military Academy (Long Island, N.Y.) and the United States Military Academy, graduated on 6 June 1946.
Most importantly, the jury convicted Jack Murphy of taking an "unlawful gratuity," but acquitted him of the more serious charge of receiving the money as a bribe. He finished serving his less than two-year sentence in 1985 and went on to become an investor and developer of biotechnology and high technology companies, serving as Vice President of ARCO GLOBUS INTERNATIONAL and maintaining his primary residence in Staten Island, N.Y.
John M. "Jack" Murphy was a devout Catholic. His funeral Mass was held at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Staten Island, where he was baptized, served as an alter boy, and was a life-long member and served as an usher from time-to-time.
Mr. Murphy is survived by five daughters, Dierdre Murphy, Eve Reid, Emily Hynes, Elizabeth Murphy and Amanda Murphy; two sons, John Jr. and Mark; two brothers, Frank and Charles; a sister, Rose McBrien; 11 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
His son, Mark Murphy, is a friend of mine and a devout Catholic, who, like many of us, has had more than a "fair share" of ups and downs, yet in spite of adversity has had a huge positive impact on the lives of a host of people. Please join me in keeping the Murphy family in your prayers. Thank you, Tommy Johnson