Abe Fortas was a New Dealer, a sub-cabinet official, the founder of
an eminent Washington law firm, a lose adviser to Lyndon Johnson,
and a Supreme Court justice. Nominated by Johnson to be Chief
Justice, he was rejected by Congress and resigned from the Court
early in the Nixon administration under a cloud of impending
scandal. This engrossing book-the first full biography of Abe
Fortas-tells his dramatic story. Drawing on Fortas's previously
unavailable personal papers, on numerous archives, and on extensive
interviews with his family and associates, Laura Kalman, a
historian and lawyer illuminates Fortas's evolution from New Dealer
to Washington lawyer to Great Society liberal, and in so doing also
provides a unique view of American liberalism from the 1930s
through the 1960s. "There was no single Abe Fortas," writes Kalman.
"There was a variety of personae, and Fortas moved comfortably from
one to another." Kalman describes Fortas's various personae: *The
boy who as "Fiddlin' Abe" played the violin in dance bands to earn
spending money and who grew to consider chamber music the love of
his life; *The Jew who cared more about Israel than Judaism; *The
civil libertarian who worked for irascible Harold Ickes as Under
Secretary of the Interior during the New Deal, who defended those
charged with disloyalty by Joseph McCarthy, and who promoted social
justice on the Court; *The urbane corporate lawyer whose friends
became clients and whose clients became friends; *The brilliant
legal tactician who secured Lyndon Johnson's Senate seat in 1948
and whose successful defense of the Gideon case was described by
William O. Douglas as "the best single argument" he heard in all
his years on the Supreme Court; *The Supreme Court justice who
willingly risked compromising his judicial integrity to advise
President Johnson; *The man who hobnobbed with the powerful yet was
powerless to combat the attacks against him when he was a Supreme
Court justice, and whose resignation from the Court contributed to
the destruction of the liberal agenda for social reform. Reflecting
on the various aspects of Fortas's enigmatic personality and the
events of his life, Kalman creates a new portrait of the man that
is more insightful and complete than any yet published. Engagingly
written and superbly researched, this is the authoritative account
of Fortas and the legal and political history he helped to shape.
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