Predictably, the conversation turned to the question of who would follow Mr. Bratton back to the 14th floor of 1 Police Plaza.
As suggestions were made and plates of antipasti passed around, the commissioner-to-be turned to Mr. Miller and made his own suggestion, according to one of the guests. “You need to start thinking seriously,” he told his longtime friend, “about coming back.” Though it was offered in confidence, word of the appeal circulated quickly in the well-sourced nexus of journalists and government officials who earn their living in the law enforcement world — and three weeks later, when Mr. Miller went on the air and confirmed that he was indeed leaving his job at CBS to rejoin Mr. Bratton, David Rhodes, the president of CBS News, was less than surprised.
“As soon as the reports came out that de Blasio” — Bill de Blasio, the city’s new mayor — “was thinking of bringing Bratton back, I immediately assumed that John would be going too,” Mr. Rhodes said in an interview. “It was literally the first thing that I thought of.”
When Mr. Bratton resumed control of the department last week, two decades after his first term there, it began the third installment of a buddy pic that has covered both coasts and 20 years. Both men have repeatedly moved between the public and private sectors: Mr. Bratton as a police chief and a corporate security guru, Mr. Miller as his jack-of-all-trades aide-de-camp and a journalist.
During Mr. Bratton’s first turn in New York, which began in 1994, Mr. Miller left the local NBC affiliate to serve as his deputy commissioner for public information, a job that required him not only to act as the department’s chief spokesman, but also to manage his boss’s public image for the insatiably demanding local media. Nine years later, Mr. Miller followed Mr. Bratton to Los Angeles, where the two established L.A.’s antiterrorism program in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Now, with Mr. Bratton’s re-ascension in New York, Mr. Miller plans to undertake a similar portfolio: Part policy expert, part palace guard, he will assume control of the department’s Intelligence Division or its counterterrorism unit — or perhaps both. These are two expansive and essential operations that in recent years have drawn praise for their successes and fierce attacks from critics for their excesses.
Beyond the bromides often used to describe the depth and longevity of the unusual friendship of Mr. Bratton and Mr. Miller — a shared sense of ambition, a mutual respect, a like-minded vision of the world — the men have always complemented each other, those who know them say.
“Bratton is a big-picture guy, he’s very good at disrupting things, but he’s not necessarily good at getting things done himself,” said one former chief of the Police Department’s public information office, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to not alienate the new administration. “John is a doer, a hands-on guy. That’s what made him a great reporter.”
Having covered the police since age 14, when he landed a $ 2-an-hour job with WNEW-TV, an independent television station in New York, Mr. Miller brought to the department an instinctive understanding of how the city’s journalists would handle controversies concerning the police, and often used his reportorial talent for ferreting out the facts on the commissioner’s behalf, said Peter G. LaPorte, Mr. Bratton’s former chief of staff.
“John had no problem playing the night owl and popping up at every homicide to figure out what happened,” Mr. LaPorte said. “With John on the scene reporting back, Bratton was able to get out in front of important breaking stories.”
Mr. LaPorte mentioned in particular the case of Arlene Beckles, an off-duty detective who, in Mr. Bratton’s first year on the job, shot three men during a robbery at a salon in Brooklyn after emerging from under a hair dryer. It was not clear at first if the shooting had been “good,” as Mr. LaPorte put it. But after Mr. Miller showed up there to investigate and quickly supplied his findings to Mr. Bratton, the commissioner could confidently tell the media in the morning: “This woman exemplifies the best in the New York City Police Department.”
In his 1998 memoir, “Turnaround: How America’s Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic,” Mr. Bratton cheekily described Mr. Miller (now 55, but 36 when he was first hired) as “aggressively single” and as “a guy who loves being on the scene.” But then he wrote: “John was an excellent reporter with great contacts; he knew just about everybody in town and the cops loved him. He was taking a $ 500,000 pay cut to become my D.C.P.I. because it was the job he had always wanted. As a reporter, he’d had a front-row seat to the New York circus; now, he was in the center ring.”
A more complete version of the truth is that both men liked the center ring — and not exclusively in the professional sense. Playing the night owl did not just mean showing up at crime scenes after dark. In a way not seen since perhaps the 1920s, Mr. Bratton’s entourage — including Mr. Miller and another top deputy, the bow-tied strategist Jack Maple — cut a swath through Manhattan, conspicuously visiting spots like Elaine’s and Campagnola, and in the process cementing office relationships with the after-hours glue of alcohol and banter.
“There are no two better Upper East Side dinner companions than Bratton and Miller,” said Jack Weiss, a former Los Angeles city councilman who helped found Mr. Bratton’s company, Bratton Technologies. “John always knows the 411 about the day’s big story, and Bill is able to provide the high-level political analysis. Together, it’s a very strong team.”
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