His 1969 authorization of the destruction of Frederick Law Olmsted's Wood Island Park by bulldozers and chainsaws while the city was still challenging the taking of the parkland in court solidified the public's animosity.

[8] After his dismissal, King became president of the New England Council, a regional Chamber of commerce-like organization funded by business interests.

In this position he performed a variety of duties, including lobbying the federal government for legislation to limit environment restrictions on business and coordinating an attempt to have the national solar energy research center located in New England.

A fiscal and social conservative, he ran as a pro-life candidate and supported capital punishment, offshore drilling, increased nuclear power, greater research on solar energy, less business regulation, raising the drinking age to 21, and mandatory sentences for drug dealers.

He focused his spending on extensive media advertising while his main primary opponent, incumbent Governor Michael Dukakis, spent more money on organization.

He then went on to defeat a liberal Republican, Massachusetts House Minority Leader Francis W. Hatch, Jr., in the November election.

During his term of office, King froze property taxes, reduced state spending on social programs, undertook a variety of efforts to encourage increased business and agricultural opportunities in the Commonwealth, introduced mandatory minimum sentences, and passed legislation to reintroduce the death penalty in Massachusetts, a measure which was later ruled unconstitutional by the state's Supreme Judicial Court.

By June, a Boston Globe poll put Dukakis's support among likely Democratic primary voters at 68%, compared with King's 20%.

Barczak made claims of widespread corruption and agreed to become an informer for Francis X. Bellotti, the state's Attorney General, in exchange for a suspended sentence without jail time.

)[13] Barczak had served a five-year prison term, beginning in 1953, for tax fraud committed shortly after working at the Internal Revenue Service's Pittsburgh office.

[citation needed] King had appointed one of his old high school friends, John F. Coady, as deputy revenue commissioner.

[14][15] Revenue Commissioner Joyce Hampers had initially refused to turn over the subpoenaed tax records of 3,000 individuals to the Attorney General for the grand jury.

[citation needed] Hampers went on to insinuate that a nighttime break-in at her office (where some sensitive records had been stolen, but none connected to the investigation) had been ordered by his chief prosecutor Stephen Delinsky.

[16] Dukakis, focusing on the charges of corruption in the Revenue Department and calling King a "cheerleader for Reaganomics", defeated the governor in the primaries and took the Democratic nomination.