Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Few lawyers have scaled the heights of Washington's power structure as nimbly as Abe Fortas. From his modest Jewish boyhood in Memphis, and an equally modest small college start, Fortas leapt to the premier spot in his law school class, finishing as editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. Then, at the unheard age of 23, he simultaneously took positions on the Yale faculty and in Roosevelt's New Deal bureaucracy, serving as 'the best under secretary' in the recollection of Department of the Interior chief Harold Ickes. Fortas went on to found one of Washington D.C.'s most successful law firms and is generally credited, as legal navigator, with piloting Lyndon Johnson's 1948 senatorial campaign to an almost miraculous victory. Later as president, Johnson rewarded him with a spot on the Supreme Court, From that lofty prospect he could hardly have predicted his eventual fall, related in clear and evenhanded tones by lawyer and historian Laura Kalmari. Fortas became the first Supreme Court justice in history to resign under a cloud of impropriety. Kalman deftly reveals that the final blow to Fortas' career was delivered by none other than that master dirty-trickster whose name now defines political scandal and shameful resignations, Richard Nixon." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 403-486) and index.