Disciplined demeanor hides Goode's pain

Late last night, toward the end of Mayor Goode's fifth press conference in two days, a reporter noted that in everything he'd heard the mayor say about the MOVE confrontation, Goode hadn't said he was sorry.

Did the mayor owe an apology, the reporter asked, to the people burned out of their homes in West Philadelphia?

Goode seemed wounded by the question.

"I said on two occasions today that it was very sad, that it was very depressing, and that I wanted to extend my prayers to all those persons who lost those homes," the mayor said, staring at the questioner across the City Hall reception room. "Now, I'm not sure I spelled the word S-O-R-R-Y, but I don't know how I could express that differently. Of course we're sorry. Of course we wish we could take everything back."

Goode, a man seemingly always under control, has shown a few signs of strain during the MOVE crisis, but has not changed his basic style: almost superhuman self-discipline and limitless energy.

But sometimes, Goode appeared to be trying to reassure himself that he had done the right thing. And two of his senior aides confirmed yesterday that the mayor has been deeply moved by the crisis involving MOVE - by far the most dramatic of his administration.

"I don't think you can go through an experience like this without being troubled by it," said Deputy Mayor W. Oliver Leggett.

Goode's press secretary, Karen Warrington, said, "I think the situation weighs very heavily on the mayor. There's no question. As he said when he came back from touring the site, it was tragic. But I think as any adult must do in life, we have to take the next step. And I think that's what the mayor is doing. He doesn't dismiss what has happened. He's putting it in a proper perspective and attempting to marshal all the resources he can to make sure that in some way he can lessen the losses."

Since he took office 17 months ago, Goode has acknowledged very few mistakes. And he continued to say yesterday that the city had no choice but to take action against the MOVE house on Osage Avenue.

"If I had to make the decision all over again, knowing what I know now, I would make the same decision, because I think that we cannot permit any terrorist group, any revolutionary group in this city, to hold a whole neighborhood, a whole city hostage," Goode said.

Uncharacteristically, Goode stayed away from the area surrounding the MOVE confrontation - including the police command post, which was located several blocks from the Osage Avenue house - until after the drama had ended. The Police Department had urged him to stay away because of repeated threats against the mayor's life, he said.

But he continued to be the single biggest source of public information on what was going on, providing briefings, news conferences and granting private interviews with each of the city's television stations, even as he was giving up sleep. Warrington estimated Goode got three hours' worth between Sunday and Tuesday night.

When he did visit the area the morning after the tragic developments there he was moved by what he saw.

At times during the developing crisis, the mayor seemed quite testy. When questions were asked about the handling of the MOVE crisis, Goode complained that reporters were playing "Monday morning quarterback" and "second- guessing" his decisions.

But at other times - as he reviewed the details of the two eventful days - he seemed unusually reflective.

"The plan was to try and prevent the loss of life," he said on the morning after the crisis ended. " . . . The one thing that we did not anticipate that went wrong was when the (explosive entry charge) was dropped, it caused a fire . . . Now, that was an accident. No one could have known that. And I am as saddened by that as anyone else, to look at people talk with me with tears in their eyes, who lost everything.

"It's not easy," Goode concluded. "It's not easy for the mayor to think that children and adults may have lost their lives in the fire. It's not easy . . ."