U.S. justices hold chief in contempt, says new book

Press, 4 December 1979, Page 8

U.S. justices hold chief in contempt, says new book

NZPA-Reuter New York Chief Justice Warren Burger’s associates on the United States Supreme Court consider him intellectually inadequate, unable to write coherent decisions, and reject his leadership, the authors of a forthcoming book have said. Bob Woodward, a journalist who helped uncover the Watergate scandal, and Scott Armstrong were interviewed on CBS Television’s “60 Minutes” on their book, “The Brethren.”

Woodward said one Supreme Court member, Justice Potter Stewart, had referred to the 72-year-o!d Chief Justice as “a product of Richard Nixon’s tasteless White House . . . distinguished in appearance and bearing but without substance or integrity." He quoted Justice Lewis Powell as telling his clerks aftgr Chief Justice Burger’s majoritv opinion" on one case: “If ah associate in a

law 1 firm . . . had written this 1 would fire him.” He also quoted Justice Stewart as telling his clerks: “It’s like an ocean liner, you have a show' captain and a real captain. You have somebody who runs around, who takes the ladies to dinner , and you have somebody'who’s’up there driving the ship. And we have a show captain. All we need now is somebody to drive the ship.” Woodward said the justices “have rejected his (Burger’s) leadership . . .

just do not let him write opinions. Do not — he may assign himself but they will | write the opinions and force I feed and cram it down his throat." Woodward said he and I Armstrong had copies of • portions of a diary by Justice William Brennan which described the judges’ manoeuvring to get Chief Justice Burger to accept a I majority opinion in the : battle over whether former

|President Nixon could be required to release tapes of his conversations in the Watergate scandal. The opinion was written by everyone else on the court — under Chief Justice Burger’s name, he said. Armstrong said Justice Stewart then told his law clerks: “The Chief’s initial . draft of the tapes decision would have got a grade of D in law school. It has been raised to a B.” In a copyright story pubi lished yesterday. “Newsweek” magazine said “The Brethren” provided “an unflattering group portrait of the justices shading votes, doing deals, cultivating allies, nursing enmities, intriguing and threatening I where reason fails, united ’ most visibly by their high esteem for the court — and their low personal and professional regard for Burger.” “Newsweek” said the book i portrayed the justices as “a flawed and unreflective lot” ■> who make pragmatic rather

than principled decisions — shading the facts, twisting the law, warping logic to re- i concile the irreconciliable." . According to the book, “Newsweek” said "Stewart once lectured Powell during the latter’s first term that the leadership was not Burger — that he was chief in ;name only and that the real 1 stewardship lay with the swing bloc of moderates,” During the Nixon tapes case, the justices “would I systematically propose alternative drafts to various of I the chief’s sections,” “Newsweek” said. They acted because of their “uniformly low regard for Burger’s talents and by the suspicion that he might somehow tilt the verdict to the advantage of his patron, Richard Nixon,” it said. The book says Justice Stewart found Burger "abrasive to his colleagues, persistent in his ignorance, and worst of all, intellectually dishonest,” according to "Newsweek.” >