Interview with Linda Greenhouse
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BY TIM EIGO Covering the Court On February 15, Linda Greenhouse, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times, spoke at Arizona State University. She was there at the invitation of the ASU School of Justice & Social Inquiry, and she presented the seventh annual John P. Frank Memorial Lecture. Her talk—“Change and Continuity on the Supreme Court—arose from research she had done in the archived papers of Supreme Court Associate Justice Harry Blackmun. That research led to a series of articles in the Times, as well as a book— Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun’s Supreme Court Journey. Earlier in the day of her lecture, Greenhouse sat down and spoke with ARIZONA ATTORNEY magazine. 18 ARIZONA ATTORNEY APRIL 2007 www.myazbar.org ARIZONA ATTORNEY: Justice Blackmun’s about Blackmun’s tardiness in circulating a estate gave you the opportunity to research dissenting opinion, and therefore holding his archived papers two months before they up Black’s circulating his majority opinion. were made public. Would you have jumped It was very sharply written, and it included at the chance if it had been offered by any Blackmun’s very wounded and defensive justice’s estate, or did you especially prize response. And I thought, “Whoa, has this the chance to peer into Justice Blackmun’s ever seen the light of day anywhere?” As far papers? as I could tell, it hadn’t. So it just kind of draws you in. LINDA GREENHOUSE: His papers were Then there was the decades of corre- reputed to be a fabulous Supreme Court spondence between Blackmun and collection, because he was known as a real [Warren] Burger. That was just a treasure packrat; he saved everything. Compared to trove, because it documented the nature of almost any other collection of Supreme that unusual relationship. Court papers, they were expected to be something special. AZAT: Did it surprise you how thin-skinned I would have jumped at the opportunity Justice Blackmun was? to get into anything having to do with the Court behind the scenes, so it was a fortu- GREENHOUSE: It surprised me. His little ity that it happened to be a very rich collec- notes to himself in this kind of running tion. chronology that he kept for all his years on the Court—not quite a diary, but a AZAT: Was it well organized? “chronology,” he called it—where he would say things like, “The Chief Justice GREENHOUSE: It was, but it was huge. spoke sharply to me today in There were half a million documents, Conference”—it was surprising. almost 1,600 boxes. I had this two-month He was a very sensitive person, and that head start, but that had to include time for had its pluses and its minuses. I have to writing, so let’s say it was really six weeks, or think it was a minus in some of his interac- five weeks, leaving time to write. So where tions with his peers; it was a plus in invest- to begin? ing him with a kind of compassion for the I was able to hire a research assistant, underdog that informed some of his named Frank Lorson, who had just retired jurisprudence. as the longtime career chief deputy clerk of the Supreme Court, so he really knew the AZAT: When you first began reviewing the subject. So between the two of us, we papers, it was with an eye toward writing devised a roadmap to the collection, which articles in the Times. Was it only later that is online at the Library of Congress you thought there was a book in this? (www.loc.gov/rr/mss/blackmun). GREENHOUSE: I didn’t have any idea. I had AZAT: Did you stick to the roadmap? no anticipation of ever writing a book. The day that the first of the articles appeared, I GREENHOUSE: Like any process of original got a call from a publisher—Henry Holt— research, the happenstance happily took from one of their editors, Paul Golob, who over. For instance, there’s a set of files that said, “I want to talk to you about turning are just called “Justice Files.” And they’re this into a book.” every Justice that he served with, in alpha- At first, I said, “No, I have to get back betical order. I started going through those to my day job. I’m way behind. I’ve been on the second or third day, in order. And away for two months.” But we did talk, and the first one I picked up was Hugo Black, he is a wonderful book editor. Not only which was a very thin file, because they only that, but he’s a real Supreme Court overlapped for a year and a couple of groupie, and was very well read in Supreme months. Court material, as a matter of his personal Well, the first document was a memo interest. So it occurred to me that together from Black to Blackmun, with copies to all we could make this work, and working with of the other Justices, bitterly complaining him would be added value to the project, www.myazbar.org APRIL 2007 ARIZONA ATTORNEY 19 Coveringthe Court because he just seemed so smart about it— appreciate whatever it was he thought he Blackmun maybe erred in the other which was a good judgment on my part, was saying. direction; he was preoccupied with what because it turned out to be true. It was a lot other people thought. So it ended up like of fun working with him. AZAT: His words revealed a man who cared oil and water, which we know is not a good a lot about what people thought. combination. AZAT: Did you ever consider adding other materials, such as the views of scholars or GREENHOUSE: He did, and he probably AZAT: An Arizona lawyer who was also a former clerks? wanted to get his life and work out there Chief Justice, William Rehnquist, died in unmediated: “Here it is, make of it what 2005. Is it too early to say what his legacy GREENHOUSE: No. As I said, I had a day you will.” is? Could it be federalism, or is it that he was job. The deal with the book was, it had to a good administrator and a good colleague, be something I could write over the sum- AZAT: Looming over the entire book was a breath of fresh air after Warren Burger? mer, and turn in the manuscript by the time Warren Burger, the next Term of Court began on the first almost a tragic fig- Monday in October. That precluded roam- ure. Is that overstat- ing the countryside and tracking down law ing the case? clerks and going outside the record. The whole construct was going to be, it’s Harry GREENHOUSE: No, Blackmun as revealed in his collected I agree with you. For papers. Whatever I could extract from that me, that was the I don’t know whether to make a coherent narrative of the man’s biggest surprise. I life. And it was going to stand or fall on that knew Burger; I the Rehnquist so-called basis. wrote his obit. I wrote Blackmun’s federalism revolution is AZAT: Reading the book, Blackmun does obit. So I knew the not sound like a man crafting his legacy in trajectory of both of his papers. their lives and how going to last; it doesn’t they had been close GREENHOUSE: No. He saved everything. early on and had seem to have a lot of Now, the question is why did he decide to drifted apart later on. have them released that soon, only five years But the flavor, the momentum right now. after his death? Typically, it’s been “after the texture of it, the death of everybody I served with.” incredible closeness Some of his law clerks who had been in their young adult advising him on various aspects of his estate lives, and the bitter- said, “Mr. Justice, don’t you think that’s ness of the separa- kind of soon. Don’t you want to wait?” And tion that came through in the letters, the GREENHOUSE: It probably is too early. My he said, no, this is what I want. communications, the Blackmun diary initial take on him was, [he was] probably Of course, he had no way of knowing entries, and so on. That was a surprise, and one of the country’s great Chief Justices. that in that 10-year period [from his retire- I actually ended up more empathetic for He was not only a good administrator, but ment until his death], nobody else would Burger than I would have anticipated, great in the sense that he had a vision and he have retired. He could not have anticipated because he did seem like such an emotion- was able to project that vision onto the that, because that was a historically long ally needy person. And you had to end up Court, and turn things in his direction. period without turnover at the Court. So it feeling like there was a kind of a tragedy I’m not sure whether that will hold up; I made it seem even sooner than it was, there. think it’s too soon to say. I don’t know because his papers revealed the interactions whether the Rehnquist so-called federalism of the exact same people who were on the AZAT: Reading your book, one is given the revolution is going to last; it doesn’t seem Court when he was there.