Family background and education; comments on Father Joseph Coughlin and Franklin D. Roosevelt; career in the priesthood: graduate education, service as military chaplain, on becoming Archbishop of New York; reflections of Cardinal Francis Spellman's political activities; relationship with Edward I. Koch [Koch]; response to Koch's Executive Order 50; Koch and the Catholic Church; relationship with J esse Jackson; the Catholic Church and fight against racism and anti-semitism; support of unions in New York City.