The Warren Court of the 1950s and 1960s was the most liberal in
American history. Yet within a few short years, new appointments
redirected the Court in a more conservative direction, a trend that
continued for decades. However, even after Warren retired and the
makeup of the court changed, his Court cast a shadow that extends
to our own era. In The Long Reach of the Sixties, Laura Kalman
focuses on the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Presidents Johnson
and Nixon attempted to dominate the Court and alter its course.
Using newly released-and consistently entertaining-recordings of
Lyndon Johnson's and Richard Nixon's telephone conversations, she
roots their efforts to mold the Court in their desire to protect
their Presidencies. The fierce ideological battles-between the
executive, legislative, and judicial branches-that ensued
transformed the meaning of the Warren Court in American memory.
Despite the fact that the Court's decisions generally reflected
public opinion, the surrounding debate calcified the image of the
Warren Court as activist and liberal. Abe Fortas's embarrassing
fall and Nixon's campaign against liberal justices helped make the
term "activist Warren Court" totemic for liberals and conservatives
alike. The fear of a liberal court has changed the appointment
process forever, Kalman argues. Drawing from sources in the Ford,
Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton presidential libraries, as well as the
justices' papers, she shows how the desire to avoid another Warren
Court has politicized appointments by an order of magnitude. Among
other things, presidents now almost never nominate politicians as
Supreme Court justices (another response to Warren, who had been
the governor of California). Sophisticated, lively, and attuned to
the ironies of history, The Long Reach of the Sixties is essential
reading for all students of the modern Court and U.S. political
history.
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