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4.2.12
WC: 191694
effectiveness of a system of law enforcement, then there is something very wrong with
that system.
The theme of this paragraph — the right to know of one’s rights — has pervaded my thinking and
teaching.
During that term, I also drafted opinions—some majority, some concurring, some dissenting—on
trial by jury, freedom of speech, desegregation, reapportionment, immunity and other important
and changing areas of the law. There could be no better foundation for the next phase of my
career—teaching law students at the nation’s largest and most prestigious law school, Harvard.
Before I leave the Supreme Court, I must recount one vignette regarding Justice Goldberg that
caused me considerable disappointment. One of the great villains of the day to all liberals was J.
Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI. On several occasions, I let my negative views about Hoover
be known to Goldberg, but he never said a word. I didn’t understand why. A few years later, I
asked Bazelon, who smiled, and said “I probably shouldn’t tell you, but it’s important for you to
know that there are no perfect heroes.” He continued, “Hoover and Goldberg got along well,
because when Goldberg was the lawyer for the labor movement, he worked hard to rid the C.I.O.
of Communist influence.” I asked whether that meant he informed on Communist with the Union.
Bazelon replied, “I wouldn’t use the word informed, but he worked closely with Hoover on a
common goal: to rid the C.I.O. of Communist influence.”
Bazelon then told me that Thurgood Marshall had played a similar role with regard to the
NAACP-—trying to cleanse it of Communist influences.”
“That’s how Thurgood and Arthur made it to the Court. If Hoover had opposed them, they
might not have been appointed.”
I was shocked. “But there have been other liberals appointed as well,” I insisted.
“Yes, Douglas, but he was Joe Kennedy’s boy, and Hoover liked Joe Kennedy, at least back in the
day when Douglas was appointed. With Hoover, it wasn’t so much what you believed as were
you with Hoover or against him.”
“What about Justice Brennan?,” I asked.
“Bill was an accident, an Eisenhower mistake. They didn’t know he would be so liberal.
Eisenhower regarded Warren and Brennan as his worst mistakes.”
Bazelon then paused and said he would tell me something else, if I promised to keep it a secret
until Goldberg and Marshall were both dead. I promised.
“Hoover had something on both of them.”
“What?” I asked.
“Goldberg apparently had a brief ‘friendship’ with some European woman who may have been a
Russian spy. Hoover covered it up.”
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