Abe
Fortas was
born in Memphis, Tennessee on 19th June 19, 1910. His parents were
Russian Jews who had arrived in the United
States at the beginning of the 20th century.
Fortas studied at Yale
Law School. He was also the editor-in-chief of the Yale
Law Journal. In 1933 he moved to Washington where he worked
for the Agriculture Department. During the Second
World War Fortas worked in the Department of the Interior.
After the war Fortas joined
with Thurman Arnold and Paul Porter to establish the firm of Arnold,
Fortas and Porter. It eventually became one of the most important
law firms in Washington.
Lyndon
B. Johnson
ran for Senator from Texas
in 1948. His main opponent in the Democratic primary (then a one party
state, contested elections occurred in primaries, not the general
election) was Coke Stevenson. Johnson
won by 87 votes but Stevenson accused him of ballot-rigging. Stevenson
obtained
an injunction preventing Johnson's name from appearing on the ballot
for the general election.
Fortas represented Johnson in this long-drawn out dispute. The case
was investigated by J. Edgar Hoover and
the FBI. Johnson was eventually cleared by
Hoover of corruption and was allowed to take his seat in the Senate.
Fortas
and Johnson now became close friends. Fortas' legal advice became
important during the investigation into the activities of Billie
Sol Estes and
Bobby
Baker.
On
22nd November, 1963, Don B. Reynolds
appeared before a secret session of the Senate Rules Committee. Reynolds
told B. Everett Jordan and his committee
that Johnson had demanded that he provided kickbacks in return for
him agreeing to a life insurance policy arranged by him in 1957. This
included a $585 Magnavox stereo. Reynolds also had to pay for $1,200
worth of advertising on KTBC, Johnson's television station in Austin.
Reynolds had paperwork for this transaction including a delivery note
that indicated the stereo had been sent to the home of Johnson.
Reynolds
also told of seeing a suitcase full of money which Bobby
Baker described
as a "$100,000 payoff to Johnson for his role in securing the
Fort Worth TFX contract". His testimony came to an end when news
arrived that President John
F. Kennedy had
been assassinated.
As
soon as Lyndon
B. Johnson
became
president he contacted B. Everett Jordan
to see if there was any chance of stopping this information being
published. Jordan replied that he would do what he could but warned
Johnson that some members of the committee wanted Reynold's testimony
to be released to the public. On 6th December, 1963, Jordan spoke
to Johnson on the telephone and said he was doing what he could to
suppress the story because " it might spread (to) a place where
we don't want it spread."
Fortas, who represented
both Lyndon
B. Johnson
and Bobby
Baker,
worked behind the scenes in an effort to keep this information from
the public. Johnson also arranged for a smear campaign to be organized
against Don
B. Reynolds.
To help him do this J.
Edgar Hoover passed
to Johnson the FBI file on Reynolds.
On
17th January, 1964, the Senate Rules Committee voted to release to
the public Reynolds' secret testimony. Johnson responded by leaking
information from Reynolds' FBI file to Drew
Pearson and Jack Anderson. On 5th
February, 1964, the Washington Post
reported that Reynolds had lied about his academic success at West
Point.
The article also claimed that Reynolds had been a supporter of Joseph
McCarthy and had accused business rivals of being secret members
of the American Communist Party. It
was also revealed that Reynolds had made anti-Semitic remarks while
in Berlin in 1953.
A
few weeks later the New York Times
reported that Lyndon
B. Johnson
had
used information from secret government documents to smear Don
B. Reynolds. It also reported that Johnson's officials had been
applying pressure on the editors of newspapers not to print information
that had been disclosed by Reynolds in front of the Senate Rules Committee.
In 1965 Johnson nominated
Fortas as a member of the Supreme Court.
During his time on the Court, Fortas continued to advise LBJ on political
and legal matters.
In June 1968, Earl
Warren retired
as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Johnson had no hesitation in
appointing Fortas as his replacement. Johnson also appointed another
friend from Texas, Homer Thornberry,
to replace Fortas. The Senate had doubts about the wisdom of Fortas
becoming Chief Justice. It was later discovered that Fortas had lied
when he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In October,
Fortas asked for his nomination to be withdrawn.
It was also revealed that
a convicted financier named Louis Wolfson had agreed to pay Fortas
$20,000 per year for the remainder of his life. This arrangement was
condemned as ethically improper and Fortas was forced to resign from
the Supreme Court in May 1969.
Fortas was unsuccessful
in his attempt to rejoin Arnold, Fortas and Porter, the law firm he
had helped create. In 1970 he started another law firm.
Abe Fortas died on 5th
April, 1982.
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