The Brethren Read Online Free PDF

subject delicately, he said that if Fortas were to resign voluntarily, the criminal investigation would "die of its own weight." An investigation would harm both Fortas and the Court more than a resignation would. Warren got the message.
    From the beginning, Warren had been appalled at the disclosures about Fortas and had felt that Fortas must quit . The argument was now more compelling. After securing the support of several of the other Justices, Warren launched a week-long campaign to get Fortas to resign. Only Douglas resisted overtly. He had been Fortas's professor and mentor at Yale Law School and later in Washington. Douglas himself had discussed retiring, but, loath to give Nixon a seat to fill, he decided not to retire while the Court was still under attack.
    Nonetheless Douglas was surprised by Fortas's transgression. "God, how did Abe do such a stupid thing?" Douglas asked.
    In Warren's view, Fortas had two problems that had led him to such indiscretion. As a private lawyer in Washington and a known intimate of the President, Fortas had made a fortune. He had had to take almost a 90 percent cut in salary when he came to the Court, and he had not wanted to alter his life style.
    Second, Warren concluded, as a bright man who had come to Washington during the New Deal, Fortas had made rules for others to follow, but had never thought they applied to him.
    There were meetings and some heated sessions, and one week later, on Wednesday, May 14, Fortas sat down in his office and drafted his letter of resignation. He understood that all the evidence would be locked away. Jubilant, Nixon called Fortas to express his sympathy.
    It was over for Fortas, but now two other Court liberals—Douglas and Brennan—came under attack for off-the-bench financial activities. Douglas was criticized for his $1 2 ,000 -a-year directorship on the Albert Parvin Foundation. After thirty years on the Court, Douglas was accustomed to political attack. But the Fortas affair cast things in a different light. He decided to resign from the Foundation post on May 21.
    Some conservatives went after the sixty-three-year-old Brennan. News stories had raised questions about a $15,000 real-estate investment he had with Fortas and some lower court judges, including Bazelon. Brennan was hurt by the criticism. He had grown up on the poor side of Newark and learned the rough-and-tumble of politics from his father, an Irish immigrant who was by turn a union leader, a Democratic politician, and a police commissioner. After a brief tenure with a private law firm, Brennan served as a state trial, and then an appellate court, judge. In 1956, Eisenhower elevated him from the New Jersey State Supreme Court to the U.S. Supreme Court. Brennan's life was a model of upward mobility through conscientious public service. He was furious at the press for implying that his review of decisions by other judges would be influenced by the fact that they shared common investments. He suspected that the attack was led by those who resented his central role in the Warren Court, his unflagging support for unions and civil rights groups, and his votes restricting the powers of police.
    In May, Brennan decided to lower his profile. "Well, guys," he said, walking into his clerks' office, "I'm eliminating all this." He formally canceled all future speaking plans, gave up his interest in the real-estate venture, sold his stock, quit his part-time summer teaching post at New York University, and even resigned from a board at Harvard University. He gave up every activity except the Court, his family and the Church.
    One clerk who felt Brennan was overreacting asked him jokingly: "Did you write the Pope?"
    Brennan, the Court's only Catholic, was not amused.
    * * *
    The weekend after the Fortas resignation, Nixon was at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland. With the liberals dazed by the Fortas revelations, it was time to choose his Chief Justice, perhaps the most important