Open Thread for Friday

C. Norris Poulson (July 23, 1895 - September 25, 1982) served as mayor of Los Angeles, California from 1953 to 1961, after having been a California state assemblyman and then a member of the United States Congress for eight years.

In 1938, he was elected to the 56th District seat of the California assembly, then won a congressional seat four years later. After losing the seat in the 1944 election, he returned to the United States Congress following the 1946 elections, remaining there until his election as mayor of Los Angeles.

Representing the city's 24th District during his years as a congressman, Poulson helped lead California in their fight against Arizona over Colorado River water. At the time of his departure from the United States Congress, he was the chairman of the Interior and Insular Affairs committee.

Poulson's victory in the Los Angeles mayor's race came amid a contentious battle in which his opponent, incumbent mayor, Fletcher Bowron, claimed that the Los Angeles Times wanted to control city government, and by endorsing Poulson, would have a puppet in the mayor's office.

During his eight years as mayor, Los Angeles became the third largest city in the United States he was instrumental in leading the construction of the Los Angeles International Airport, expanding the Los Angeles Harbor and most notably, luring baseball's Brooklyn Dodgers westward.

Perhaps the most memorable image of his mayoral career came in September, 1959, when he embarrassed Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev during a public ceremony. The comments came after Khrushchev had constantly touted Russian superiority during his tour of the city by Paulson.

Citing Khrushchev's comment, "We will bury you," Paulson said, "You shall not bury us and we shall not bury you. We tell you in the friendliest terms possible we are planning no funerals, your or our own." Paulson received over 3,600 letters following the incident, many of them praising him for his comments.

He lost a reelection campaign in 1961 to Sam Yorty, partly due to having to explain the expenses incurred by the Dodgers' franchise shift. Efforts to blunt such criticism were limited due to a severe case of laryngitis.

Following the defeat, Poulson briefly returned to accounting before moving to La Jolla, California in 1962.

(From Wikipedia)