Chief Leader

Mr. Giuliani told the U.S. 9/11 Commission that more than 100 firefighters did not leave the North Tower after several evacuation orders and subsequently died when the building collapsed because they were still trying to save others' lives.

'Twisted Their Heroism'

"That's a farce," she said, insisting that her brother, a probationary Firefighter and a Marine reservist, would never disobey orders. "He's taking heroism and twisting it. It's a disgrace."

On July 11, the Washington-based International Association of Firefighters released a 13-minute video, "Rudy Giuliani: Urban Legend," challenging the former Mayor's 9/11 legacy. Featuring union leaders and family members of firefighters who died on 9/11, like Ms. Tallon, it focuses on two topics: the alleged failure of the Giuliani administration to address the problem of deficient radios well before 9/11, and the former Mayor's perceived disrespect for dead firefighters after 9/11. The video will be sent to each of the union's 280,000 members and is intended to impede Mr. Giuliani's presidential run.

The Uniformed Fire Officers Association, which is affiliated with the IAFF, showed the video at a press conference at its lower Manhattan headquarters July 11.

"The urban legend of America's mayor needs to be balanced by the truth," IAFF President Harold Schaitberger said in the video.

Let Radio Defects Slide

The video argues that firefighters in the North Tower did not hear evacuation calls because they were using the same inadequate radios that failed after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, even though Mr. Giuliani had received a report about the radios' problems in 1994, his first year in office. The 9/11 Commission found that these radios did not perform sufficiently on Sept. 11, 2001.

The city bought thousands of new digital radios less than a year prior to 9/11, but, the union said, they were not properly field-tested, and had voice delays and echoes that made them unworkable. After a failure during a basement fire in Queens in March 2001, the Fire Department recalled the digital radios and reissued the analog ones that malfunctioned at the Trade Center in 1993.

'Had Eight Years'

"He had eight years to correct a serious deficiency in firefighters' personal radios, and his failure was complete," UFOA President John J. McDonnell said of Mr. Giuliani.

Not one police officer, the video argues, died in the North Tower, because the Police Department had proper radios that clearly broadcast the evacuation orders. Battalion Chief McDonnell said that the Police Department and fire departments in Boston and Washington had refused the digital radios that the Fire Department purchased from Motorola.

The video charges that Mr. Giuliani's decision to quickly move the debris at Ground Zero to the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island without allowing firefighters to continue searching for their fallen comrades' remains was disrespectful.

Representatives of Mr. Giuliani's campaign bit back at a press conference at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square July 11, comparing the video to the work of left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore and accusing the IAFF of being a Democratic Party front group and of using half-truths.

'Not Partisan'

But Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy, who is a featured presence in his international union's video, endorsed President Bush's re-election in 2004. Al Regenhard, a father of a dead Firefighter who appears in the video, noted that he is a conservative and voted for Mr. Giuliani for Mayor.

Lee Ielpi, a retired firefighter whose firefighter son died on 9/11, backed up Mr. Giuliani's assertion that firefighters in the North Tower ignored evacuation calls, saying that the department trains its force to put life first.

"That's the soul blood of the Fire Department," he said. "My son made that commitment."

Battalion Chief McDonnell still didn't believe it. "You never, ever ignore an order to evacuate," he told reporters.

Richard Sheirer, former Director of the Office of Emergency Management, added that a "repeater system" in the building failed, not the radios. He also argued that Mr. Giuliani's administration went out of its way to supply the department with resources, including spending $10 million on bunker gear during a budget crunch in the mid-1990s.

Defending Rudy

"Every time they put on their bunker gear, they should think about Rudy Giuliani," he said.

Mr. Cassidy said Mr. Giuliani's campaign ignored the truth.

"They weren't field-tested," he said of the radios. "They were found to be defective. They were replaced with the old radios. That's the facts."

In addition to the debate about the validity of the video's assertions, many are wondering what effect the video - which was quickly posted on YouTube - will have on Mr. Giuliani's campaign.

"I think what brought Giuliani to prominence was the handling of 9/11, or the perception that he handled 9/11 courageously," said Del Ali, the president of Research 2000, a Maryland-based, non-partisan polling firm. "Here it is in his backyard. They're basically saying that the thing that has made him popular really is a farce."

Mr. Ali noted that along with Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Giuliani led the race for the Republican nomination, and that the accusations from the IAFF could erode his allure to Republican voters.

For one sympathetic Giuliani biographer, the mark of his two terms was the ability to advance the city's interests while ruffling feathers.

Continuing Legacy

"It seems to me New York is a famously contentious city," said Fred Siegel, the author of "The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life" and a professor of history at Cooper Union. "In a sense, this is continuous of his administration."

Unlike Mr. Giuliani's campaign, he did not believe the video was about partisan politics. Firefighters were understandably upset to see the administration rush the clean-up process at Ground Zero, he said, but it had little choice in order to get the city back to normal.

He did concede one of the video's points: that Mr. Giuliani's decision to place a command center at 7 World Trade Center badly backfired, with the building unusable after the attacks. It collapsed about eight hours later.

"That was a genuine case of bad judgment," Mr. Siegel admitted.

There is one thing Mr. Giuliani's campaign and the union's press conferences had in common. Both sides accused the other of exploiting the tragedy of 9/11 for political advancement.

At the UFOA press conference, a reporter asked Battalion Chief McDonnell whether he held Mr. Giuliani personally responsible for the deaths of 343 FDNY employees. Mr. McDonnell paused and appeared to ponder the gravity of the question. His answer: "Yes."

The next day, the family members who appeared on the video spoke at UFOA headquarters. Deputy Chief Jim Riches, whose son Jimmy died on 9/11, insisted that the families begged the IAFF to make the video, denying that it stemmed from partisan politics.

Speaking of Mr. Giuliani, he said, "I'm not for the Democrats, I'm not for the Republicans, I'm not for anyone. It's purely against you."