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Top of Page Interview Information--Different Title Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Peter R. Taft THE LAW CLERKS OF CHIEF JUSTICE EARL WARREN: PETER R. TAFT Interviews conducted by Laura McCreery in 2004 Copyright © 2014 by The Regents of the University of California ii Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ********************************* All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Peter R. Taft dated October 28, 2004. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Excerpts up to 1000 words from this interview may be quoted for publication without seeking permission as long as the use is non-commercial and properly cited. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to The Bancroft Library, Head of Public Services, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should follow instructions available online at http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/collections/cite.html It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Peter R. Taft “THE LAW CLERKS OF CHIEF JUSTICE EARL WARREN: PETER R. TAFT” conducted by Laura McCreery in 2004, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2014. iii Table of Contents—Peter R. Taft Interview 1: October 28, 2004 Audio File 1 1 Birth and upbringing as youngest of seven children in Cincinnati, Ohio — High school at Taft in Connecticut — Deciding to go to Yale Law School— Law school faculty— Law Review — Clerking for Judge Richard Rives on Fifth Circuit — Working on opinions — Freedom Riders— Segregation in Montgomery, Alabama — Interviewing for clerkship with Chief Justice Earl Warren — Starting work at the Supreme Court — “Flimsies” (in forma pauperis petitions) — Gideon v. Wainwright — Saturday lunches — A ride with the Chief in a Ford Falcon — Politics and the Chief’s sense of fairness — Working with other clerks — Mrs. Margaret McHugh — Playing basketball with Justice Byron White — Confidentiality — Warren’s leadership on the Court — Voting alliances on the Court — Cincinnati and Justice Potter Stewart and others— President Lyndon B. Johnson — Warren Commission — Oral arguments — Narrator’s later experience as counsel in a case before the Supreme Court— Warren’s graciousness and strong social conscience— Brown v. Board, Baker v. Carr Audio File 2 22 President John F. Kennedy — Practical view of the law — Majority opinions — Bush v. Gore, a Vanity Fair article — More about confidentiality— Reflections on the Warren Court and an era of change — Narrator’s grandfather, President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft — Balance of powers — President Richard M. Nixon and Chief Justice Warren Burger — Reunions of Warren clerks — Narrator’s career with Williams & Connolly — Edward Bennett Williams — Moving to California to work with Munger, Tolles, Hills, and Rickershauser — Securities work — Previous experience during the Ford administration as Assistant Attorney General for Lands and Natural Resources— Attorney General Edward H. Levi — The Clean Water Act — Environmental work — Conservatism, and reflections on Supreme Court clerkship [End of Interview] 1 Interview 1: October 28, 2004 [Audio File 1] McCreery: Here’s tape number one, on October 28, 2004. This is Laura McCreery speaking, and on this videotape, I will interview Peter R. Taft, at his office in Los Angeles. We’re working today on the oral history project Law Clerks of Chief Justice Earl Warren. Well, good afternoon. Could I ask you to start by stating your date of birth and just talk a little bit about where you were born? 01-00:01:01 Taft: I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 3, 1936. McCreery: Okay. What was your family circumstance at that time? 01-00:01:11 Taft: I’m the last of seven children. Five girls, two boys. Two of my sisters died fairly early on, and so there’re five of us, and [we] just lost the first one last year. He was seventeen years older than I am, so—. McCreery: What was your family livelihood during the Depression years, as you were growing up? 01-00:01:33 Taft: My dad was a lawyer. I guess he provided fine for us as kids. You just don’t notice that too much, unless there’s something going on that you miss or can’t have or so on. But I was unaware of a major problem, in terms of our family. McCreery: Okay. Talk a little bit about your own early schooling. In Cincinnati, was it? 01-00:01:56 Taft: Cincinnati. Went to a private school—actually, my sister’s later husband is the son of the headmaster of the school. It started in her backyard, in the twenties, with a couple of my sisters. It was an elementary school. By the time I got there, it was fairly well established. From there, I went to a public high school for three years, and then went to the Taft School, in Watertown, Connecticut, which was founded by my great uncle, who was headmaster there for a good forty years. McCreery: How did you like that school? 01-00:02:38 Taft: It’s a good school. It was a good school. Great plant, facility, good teachers, good kids. All boys then, of course, at that time. I enjoyed it. McCreery: I wonder, growing up with your father as an attorney, as well, how early did you start thinking about the law? 2 01-00:03:05 Taft: I didn’t think strenuously about it. In fact, when I finished my last year of college, I was going around the world. Started on a tramp steamer, got to Australia; was going on, hopefully, to go to the Soburne[sic], Soborne[sic] [Sorbonne ] or something like that, in Paris, for a year or two, to figure out what I would do. I realized after I got to Australia, that I wouldn’t know any more in a year or two than I knew then, so I called my dad up a week before law school began, said if he could get me in, I’d come back. Those times aren’t like today, and he got me in to Yale Law School, with one week before it started. McCreery: Okay. Well, we kind of skipped over your college years. Could you tell me how it was that you happened to attend Yale as an undergrad? 01-00:03:54 Taft: My brother went there, my father went there, a whole bunch in my family went there, a large contingent from Taft School went there. It’s only kind of down the street, in terms of Connecticut. And I had no reason not to go there, being the kind of place it was and the kind of education you got there, so I was more than willing to go. McCreery: Okay. And what did you study? 01-00:04:20 Taft: I was a major in physics and philosophy. McCreery: That’s an interesting combination. 01-00:04:23 Taft: Yeah, you learn not a lot about anything, but it was pretty fun. Talked a lot, did all the normal philosophers and so on, learned a smattering of physics. McCreery: Okay. Well now, these were the Eisenhower years. I wonder, what were your own political interests as a young man, if any? 01-00:04:47 Taft: None in particular. My father had a number of campaigns, because he was on the city council for years in Cincinnati. Ran for governor, one occasion. He would drag me around, from time to time, to various meetings and so forth that he went to. And I picked up the very bad habit of when he introduced me to all these people, in whom I had no interest at the time, I never even heard their names. For the rest of my life, I’ve been plagued by being introduced to somebody and forgetting their name immediately. McCreery: So you had the exposure to politics, if not the aptitude for being a politician, shall we say? 3 01-00:05:29 Taft: Or for glad-handing, correct. McCreery: Okay, good. Well, when you returned to Yale for law school, tell me a little bit how things proceeded for you there. 01-00:05:42 Taft: The law school, even though it’s like a block away from everyplace that I went to as an undergraduate, is like a separate world. It’s very hard to explain. Law school, I think, actually changes the way you think a lot more than college. In college, you learn things—writing and all that kind of thing—but in law school, they really change the way you think.
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