Conversation 820-022

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How are you?

Good.

Good to see you.

Good to see you again.

Sit down.

Mr. President, would you like to take a photograph?

That was such a nice place to sit over here, right?

For so many years, we've been that big.

You've just been part of America, frankly.

Can't remember how to get more ladies into the government.

Thank you.

True, for that matter.

Oh, Bishop.

Much more so than a couple weeks ago.

Oh, that's a big deal.

Well, you've been wangling with the envoy from Vietnam, I think, more than that.

Yeah, we're still wangling.

It's hard, isn't it?

They are a couple weeks, but it'll come.

Well, we're drawing all the talent out of the U.N. delegation here.

Well, I'll take two of hers.

Oh, my God.

Thank you.

I'm going to heal the office.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Yes, sir.

You'll see more of this girl.

Old friend of mine.

Why don't you just first speak as a Republican?

I had gone to the convention once with my father.

What year?

1952.

1952. 1952.

Oh, no.

No, thanks.

I just had a little conversation.

Oh, a little conversation.

Yes, sir.

You see, he was active in the whole policy business.

I ran for office several times.

I was carrying petitions around.

I was nine or ten years old.

And I remember, I was a little girl, though.

I was sixty-one, if I can imagine.

But the first one, National Convention, I remember was in 1960.

But I was very active during that.

I don't think I was active.

Well, what we had in mind in actual years of

As John has told you, I don't know of a situation in terms of a good appointment.

I may be quite direct about it.

I mean, we want, as I said at the meeting, we want good brothers and sisters.

and second in another very different sense, also the representation of women.

Now, you have an interesting combination of men.

However, I think you should know that as far as you are concerned, I'm a little sportsman.

I don't want to forget.

I'm very interested in sports after all this time.

Pardon me, may I change my mind and have a cup of coffee?

Sure.

He makes good coffee.

He gave her a call from this bar, I guess.

Anyway, he brings the fact that you, I'm not sure if you've ever brought Jackie Robinson down to Montreal and played with the Dodgers.

He said he saw the attention.

Five years ago, he was in the Monarch World Series.

He had a team, you know, like the old team.

But that meant something.

But he said, when the first man comes, he's got to be the best.

He's got to be sure.

So people would say, we just didn't bring him because he happened.

I don't know.

It's just not too bad.

It's actually, they brought up about it.

Because as old as he was, he couldn't see.

And when he did come, he did well.

But I want you to know that we are quite aware.

I am quite aware.

I'm getting more and more involved.

political activities, and George Bush were very highly of your, your diplomatic skill, which of course is important in all positions.

What we would like for you to do is to go to the, uh, Solicitor General's office.

Boarders can come over if you want.

Uh, agreed that there's no leave at the head of the chair.

That's right.

Right.

Board will then be

probably, I mean, we'll see how he feels and how he gets along with the court.

He's a very able man, and you probably know him.

I know him, yes, but I've never met him.

He comes to the University of Chicago also, right?

Yeah, and now teaches at Yale.

Then he came out, and then you will become the deputy to the solicitor general.

Now,

Right.

Candidate, what I want to do is to have you have the experience of working in the Solstice County House office and arguing cases.

I say arguing, but hearing the Supreme Court in that capacity.

Borg will know that.

Borg is to be told by his family.

Yes, sir.

Borg understands that.

Then, as an appointment to the court, some court opens,

we will take a look at them and depend upon what you're doing at the time and then we'll consider you for that funding.

Now, the way you should however say, or the way you should conduct this, you should never indicate to anybody that that was something that you were promised by the Conservatives.

Just let me say what would be done.

The point is, the reason you shouldn't say it is that they'll say, well, you wouldn't have taken this job because you got offered this or that.

Let me come at it in fact, for support, probably, he'd probably have taken his job at the IE at the end of the road for him.

That said, in your case, I think you're highly qualified.

I think you'd be a great asset to the federal court.

We don't have at the present time an appointment that I consider, I mean, one degree ought to be the right one for you to take.

And also, while you have had a significant amount of practice,

What we would like to do, John, is to order, if we could, in the first step, to an appeals court, rather than to a tribal court, to go to the jungle, because, I mean, even though you are very young by my standards, if you start at a tribal court, it takes a long time to go up to the district court.

She hasn't had a considerable amount of experience.

She's been in a lot of cases.

I saw her.

But you see, she's had all that experience.

But you know, I know she's .

Now, various .

Then there's the courts.

I don't know what else you've got, John.

Like, you know, I spoke to you about the fact that we wanted to be the first administration to appoint a son.

Did you know that there has never been a federal judge, court judge, Negro appointing a son?

Never.

I didn't know that.

But the reason is the Southern Senate.

I didn't do it.

I had to do it.

But I'm in an interesting situation.

I got a little checking recently on that.

You know the Bar Association is a problem.

The expression, the Bar Association is going to be right, and it's canon.

That's a bullet you have to fight when we get a proper nominee.

It's got to be where blacks are concerned.

You've got a problem with your members.

You're not members.

No, no, no.

You're not members.

But I would say that the black and as well now in the states, because they aren't within the system, they don't move up.

Well, and in the South, apparently, it's a close corporation.

We're going to buy a boat, and they're going to have to take it.

But my point is, we've got to have names.

But you couldn't appoint her.

To say that circuit, that one that has the lousy curve, you want to have that circuit?

Well, I suppose technically you could, although... You've got a lot of time broken when you went outside your own circuit.

Oh, that's it.

Although, let me say, when we made this one, I think I installed the east one.

I think it's going to be done, and I'm not going to be responsible for blocking it.

Well, I don't think we're going to have a problem with the court.

Not that you have that concern, but if you find a worthy black attorney in the South, and you want to be the first president to appoint a black judge in the South, you're going to have to call Hruska and Eastwood and say, look, we're going to have to go without the Bar Association on this, and you've got to help me.

Because otherwise, we'll never get it.

And I think he's going to be all right.

I think he'll be all right.

One in North Carolina, I suppose.

Yes, and that's what we run into there.

See, the Bar Association has taken the outstanding that this happened to another woman, but...

Basically, the problem is that we get into the higher, we get into the age factors, and we get so many men that might be qualified.

They're either doing some of it, or they are too old.

And there's one very outstanding woman that's been recommended to us.

Is she still alive?

No, she's the right age.

No.

But she's from Markel.

And that state, I think, well, I'm running into a lot of reluctance on the part of the Justice Department to recommend her because they came here on a bar association.

Well, isn't that something?

Well, the American bar should not be...

The American bar, no, it's a local, it's a state bar.

And that's a new one on me.

I just hadn't even thought that we'd run this kind of problem.

Well, I would say a few years back we even had that problem with the Chicago bar.

It's come a long way.

But what I wanted to say is that I think you're so wise in giving me this opportunity to prove or to show that I'm not qualified.

And then you have no...

Opposition, it would offset criticism.

This nice person, seconded by an opposition 16-year-old father, is a loyal Republican.

She has a good record in the bar.

A lot of other people said, why her?

Because she's black, because she's a woman.

Very good.

Well, those are good reasons.

But the point is that you would rather have no other way that we host them.

In other words, it's somewhat similar.

I'm not suggesting that we have it.

The Supreme Court might have, I mean, any host got there or not.

I mean, they have a reason.

But we have no other way.

What I mean is, like, we took Rehnquist.

We took him out of the Office of General Counsel.

Rehnquist had never...

and sat in as a judge, but nobody can rush these qualifications because that's the beauty of the Department of Justice.

It gives a kind of capacity.

From what Herbman tells me, if you're in a solicitor counsel's office or the office of legal counsel, those positions are considered to be sort of non-political kind of positions, and therefore, they're a good, frankly, stepping stone to the bench.

So that's what we have in mind.

Now, how soon will it come?

I mean, this, uh, what does the, uh, this requires, I guess, a full-time position.

So I have to move here to Washington.

Terrible place.

I, I love Washington, but I, I haven't been there.

I come as a visitor, so I don't know.

Well, but I said, well, whatever.

The prices you'll find, you'll think after you've cut them high.

But the thing about Washington property is it's just buy it and it always goes up.

It's the greatest real estate market in the world.

Greatest in the world.

You've got to believe it.

The prices will be exorbitantly high.

You've got to stable the capital.

And what?

The government.

The government's a growth industry.

Well, the moment you woke me up, I turned to my husband and told him what it was about, and he was disgusted right then and there, so we were kind of aware.

Now, he's your husband, boy?

Yes, he's a corporation owner.

Yeah, well, what did he do then?

He's head of the firm.

Will he stay?

He will have to stay in Chicago temporarily, although he had envisioned opening a branch on his end, either in Washington or New York, but...

I don't know how this would have ended.

I think Washington would be easier.

In a way, truly.

Well, you come to Washington, I think becoming a member of the D.C. Bar is a lot easier than becoming a member of the New York Bar for one thing.

As I recall.

But that I know you worked that out.

Any other man in the community would completely understand you're being here for this purpose.

I agree.

I'm sure we could work it out.

We've worked everything out so far.

And, uh, he had no hesitancy the moment I told him about it.

And even though I told you I had someone who was picking me up in 15 minutes, we didn't have much chance to talk.

But he'd all for it, so...

I did her an honor of favor.

I woke her up the other morning, and she's been waiting for her.

Ah!

Yes, yes, yes.

Hoffman?

Yes.

I thought he was J.O.

Well, he could put my guy in and say, where's the lawyer?

I mean... Oh, really?

He's out now, but...

I was just... Judge Hoffman.

Julius, is that his name?

Julius.

We're good friends.

Well, we understand.

We're good friends.

Well, we would like to, uh, to, for you to take this assignment and, uh, well, and then as an extra assignment, if you would, uh, be helpful in advising Mr. Oates and others here, I'm, I'm quite not sure, uh, uh, on some of the problems we may have, you know, the whole problem of, uh, race allergens and so forth, something that you, uh, probably were, uh,

But as you know, it's, they always know it's difficult.

We want to do the right thing, and nobody knows what the right thing is.

But we need the best advice that we can get, even if we have to perhaps more judiciously than someone else.

And I think you can help us a lot.

John Irwin, we had an interview with him about that department.

Oh, yeah.

Did you know that?

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, that's it.

Sally has wanted to go for a long

We almost lost him a year ago when we worked on Sally Academy.

Now he wants to go back to North Carolina.

And make some money, right?

Yeah, but I think it's funny.

They come from a small town and they really want to get back there.

It's very interesting.

They're just really eager to get back.

Now they may want to.

but he wants to keep one foot in here a little bit so we won't lose him entirely.

Well, he's well liked.

Oh, he's had a great time.

I talked to him one day.

The drink is here.

Well, we'll, all right, I think the last act will be for Bob and Mark to be in touch with you and then the two of you can go over there and meet the dean and kind of get settled in.

I'd like that.

Oh, please do.

Sure.

Anytime.

We'd like to do anything we can.

Oh, the, uh, all the whole business of the, uh...

Uh...

Clarence, you, she has to be approved.

Well, she has to, and she's going through the John Dean.

Oh, oh, yeah, yeah.

There you go, your stocks.

Agree not, man, you might.

All those things are terrible.

That's why I'm beginning to do so.

Yeah.

A couple of our business partners.

Thank you.

So, yeah, they're very glad to have you.

Great, thank you.

Someday you'll come back, we'll call you a judge.

I will.

Thank you.

To you, Judge.

I'm not.

I think so.

Thank you.