Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey New

RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY NEW BRUNSWICK AN INTERVIEW SERIES WITH PROFESSOR SANFORD M. JAFFE FOR THE RUTGERS ORAL HISTORY ARCHIVES INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED BY SHAUN ILLINGWORTH NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY TRANSCRIPT PRODUCTION AND EDITING BY MOHAMMAD ATHAR and FRANCESCA CIPRIANI and SHAUN ILLINGWORTH and MEGHAN VALDES P a g e | 2 Table of Contents Introductory Note............................................................................................................................................................3 Chapter 1 - Early Life and Education.............................................................................................................................4 Professor Sanford M. Jaffe, son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, discusses his upbringing and education in the multiethnic neighborhoods of Newark, NJ, during the Great Depression and World War II. Chapter 2 - High School and College Years.................................................................................................................19 Jaffe describes his education in Weequahic High School from 1945 to 1949 and Rutgers University, Newark Campus, from 1949 to 1954, as a night student at University College-Newark and day student at Newark College of Arts & Sciences. He relates how he worked his way through college and made the decision to attend Harvard Law School. Chapter 3 - Law School................................................................................................................................................30 Jaffe reflects on his years (1954-1957) at Harvard Law School and his legal training as a law clerk at a Newark law firm. He also shares several anecdotes from his military service and his relationship with Justice Joseph Weintraub. Chapter 4 - Military Service & Early Legal Career......................................................................................................38 Jaffe recalls his service in the US Army (part of his National Guard service commitment) during his active duty deployments at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in the late 1950s, and Fort Benning, Georgia, during the 1961 Berlin Crisis. He then describes his clerkship under NJ Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph Weintraub and his time as an assistant prosecutor in the office of Essex County Prosecutor (and future New Jersey Governor) Brendan Byrne. Chapter 5 - US Attorney for New Jersey's Office, 1961-1965.....................................................................................51 Jaffe discusses his years as the Chief of the Criminal Division in the US Attorney for New Jersey's Office under US Attorney David Satz, during which he prosecuted cases involving organized crime, Soviet espionage, tax evasion and other criminal matters. Chapter 6 - US Department of Justice, 1965-1967.......................................................................................................67 Jaffe recollects his years as a Special Assistant to Attorneys General Nicholas Katzenbach and Ramsey Clark, including his role in writing the Bail Reform Act of 1966 and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. Chapter 7 - The Lilley Commission, 1967-1968..........................................................................................................79 Professor Jaffe details his efforts as the Executive Director of the Lilley Commission, established by NJ Governor Richard Hughes to investigate the 1967 riots in Newark and Plainfield as well as the factors leading to the unrest. Chapter 8 - The Ford Foundation: Years of Social Change..........................................................................................91 Professor Jaffe describes the outcomes of the Lilley Commission report, including how his work on the Commission led to his next position as an officer in the Ford Foundation (1968-1983). He recalls how his work at Ford took him into the field of public broadcasting, the creation of university-based criminal justice centers and the development of public interest law. Chapter 9 - The Ford Foundation: Reshaping American Justice................................................................................103 Professor Jaffe discusses working with Ford Foundation President McGeorge Bundy on the issue of amnesty for Vietnam War draft evaders and his efforts in helping to establish the dispute resolution field. Chapter 10 - The Rutgers University Board of Governors.........................................................................................113 Professor Jaffe comments on his tenure as a Governor-appointed member of the Rutgers University Board of Governors from 1975 to 1986. Chapter 11 - The Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution.............................................................................123 Professor Jaffe recalls his work on dispute resolution issues and furthering the discipline as a whole through educational initiatives as Co-Director, with Linda Stamato, of the Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution in the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. P a g e | 3 Introductory Note This manuscript is an edited version of the transcripts of eleven oral history interviews conducted with Professor Jaffe by the Rutgers Oral History Archives from April 2013 to October 2014. I would like to thank Mohammad Athar, Francesca Cipriani and Meghan Valdes, Rutgers Oral History Archives student staff members, for their assistance in the production of this work. The original copies of the audio interviews and transcripts are available through the Rutgers Oral History Archives. Shaun Illingworth Director Rutgers Oral History Archives July 2016 P a g e | 4 Chapter 1: Early Life and Education Shaun Illingworth: This begins an interview with Professor Sanford M. Jaffe in New Brunswick, New Jersey, with Shaun Illingworth on April 25, 2013. Thank you very much for having me here today. Sanford Jaffe: My pleasure. SI: To begin, can you tell me where and when you were born? SJ: I was born in Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, February 12, 1932. My parents were Bessie and Isidore Jaffe. SI: Starting with your father's side of the family, do you know anything about his family background, where the family came from? SJ: Yes, a little bit about it. My dad came from Estonia. He came to the United States around 1908 or 1909, in any event a number of years prior to World War I, and then the entire family came over, usually, one or two at a time. The process, in those days, generally, was that the older brothers would come, establish themselves in the United States, hopefully get jobs, make a living, get a home of some sort or rent an apartment, and then, little by little, the rest of the family would come over. In my dad's case, he came, I think first, and later three brothers came. The rest of the family, which was pretty large, never did come and stayed in Estonia. My recollection is that they stayed there until the Second World War. Just prior to that, one of the brothers left and went to South Africa, established his family in South Africa, and then, subsequently, went to Canada. What was left of the family, and this is just hearsay recollection, were killed by the Nazis when they overtook the Baltic Countries at the beginning of World War II. So, that's sort of my dad's side of the family. When my dad came here, he was probably about fifteen or sixteen years old and immediately began looking for work. My dad had the ability to read and understand Yiddish and a little bit of Hebrew. He, over the years, developed a capacity to speak English and understand English, but he could not read English when he came over and he never had the chance to go to school here. So, that was a problem he had for many years. SI: Did he ever tell you any stories about what it was like growing up in his area of Estonia? SJ: No, not really. I think it was a part of his life that was not very pleasant and it was not one that they had very fond memories [of]. Just to finish that short part on my dad's acclimation to this country, it was reasonably difficult. He was a very nice, easy-going fellow, but not having a profession and not having a trade, he jumped around from one job to another and did various things with my uncles. When I went to grammar school, or elementary school, whatever you want to call it, I began to teach my dad how to read and write. I would come home at night with my assignments, on writing, spelling, and I would spend an hour or so at night with my dad in going over what I wrote up, what I was learning and he would copy my writing. So, gradually, my father began to learn English and by the time I got out of elementary school and went to high P a g e | 5 school, when my teaching was over, [laughter] my dad could read an English paper. While he would have difficulty if you asked him to sit down and write an essay, he could communicate by writing, enough so that, years later, when my dad opened up a second-hand furniture store, he had enough knowledge of English and an ability to write that he could run the store. Also, he was able to procure his citizenship. He learned enough of the language so that he was able to pass his citizenship test and get his citizenship, which I think was sometime in the late 1930s. SI: When he came here, did he live in New York at first? SJ: No. They came to New Jersey and settled in Newark. As you may or may not know, a lot of the Jews who emigrated from Eastern Europe at that time settled in what was called,

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