Jamie S. Gorelick May 30, 2006; May 29, 2007; May 16, 2014 through July 27, 2016 Recommended Transcript of Interview with Jamie S. Gorelick (May 30, 2006; May 29, Citation 2007; May 16, 2014 through July 27, 2016), https://abawtp.law.stanford.edu/exhibits/show/jamie-s-gorelick. Attribution The American Bar Association is the copyright owner or licensee for this collection. Citations, quotations, and use of materials in this collection made under fair use must acknowledge their source as the American Bar Association. Terms of Use This oral history is part of the American Bar Association Women Trailblazers in the Law Project, a project initiated by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession and sponsored by the ABA Senior Lawyers Division. This is a collaborative research project between the American Bar Association and the American Bar Foundation. Reprinted with permission from the American Bar Association. All rights reserved. Contact Please contact the Robert Crown Law Library at Information [email protected] with questions about the ABA Women Trailblazers Project. Questions regarding copyright use and permissions should be directed to the American Bar Association Office of General Counsel, 321 N Clark St., Chicago, IL 60654-7598; 312-988-5214. ABA Senior Lawyers Division Women Trailblazers in the Law ORAL HISTORY of JAMIE GORELICK Interviewer: Pamela A. Bresnahan Dates of Interviews: May 30, 2006 May 29, 2007 The following is the transcript of an interview with Jamie Gorelick conducted on May 30, 2006 and May 29, 2007, for the Women Trailblazers in the Law, a project of the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession. Ms. Bresnahan: This is the Oral History of Jamie Gorelick taken on May 30th, 2006 beginning at 1:25 p.m. First of all, I want to thank you for doing this. Ms. Gorelick: You're welcome. Ms. Bresnahan: I would like you to talk first, about your childhood, where you were born, where you are from and about your family. Ms. Gorelick: I was born in Brooklyn in 1950. My father had come over to the United States with his family as a two-year-old in the 1920's. My mother was the daughter of immigrants. They lived in Brooklyn. My dad had served in the Army during World War II and had returned from that service. He was then recalled as part of the doctors' draft during the Korean Conflict. I was born in Brooklyn and we then moved, as my father was stationed near DeRidder, Louisiana and then in San Antonio, Texas. Ms. Bresnahan: Where is that in Louisiana? Ms. Gorelick: DeRidder is in Southwest Louisiana near Fort Polk. So I spent my very early years in Louisiana and Texas and then we returned to Brooklyn and then soon USIDOCS 6664204vl thereafter, my parents bought our first house in Levittown, NY. We were in the group of first residents in our section of Levittown on Long Island. It was a little house but it seemed like an estate to anybody who had lived in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn. I had swings and my own room. Ms. Bresnahan: And how old were you? Ms. Gorelick: I would have been three and four at the time. I guess we moved when I was about three, or maybe four. In any event, we lived there for a couple of years and then my parents brought a somewhat larger house in a town called Great Neck also on Long Island. That's where I spent most of my childhood, going to the elementary school and to the high school there. My brother was born in 1954. He's now a professor at Stanford. Ms. Bresnahan: In what? Ms. Gorelick: In Earth Sciences. He's a hydrologist. He does water pollution remediation and studies ground water pollution. Ms. Bresnahan: And you had cousins and relatives that lived around you? Ms. Gorelick: My immediate family was rather small. My mother had a brother who died during the War and my father had one sister and two half-siblings; each of them 2 USIDOCS 6664204vl had two kids. There were nine cousins in that extended family. We also had a huge extended family at the grandparent level. My father's father had 13 brothers and sisters and my mother's grandparents had many siblings also. On my father's side, they ran out of names for the children. Both the oldest and the youngest uncles were named Leo - Big Leo and Little Leo. They figured Big Leo was so much older that he and Little Leo wouldn't be confused. So I had a vast set of second cousins. My mother, in particular, was very, very close to her cousins, who were more like brothers and sisters for her. Ms. Bresnahan: Are your parents still living? Ms. Gorelick: My mother died in 2000. My father is still alive. Ms. Bresnahan: Where does he live? Ms. Gorelick: He lives now at an assisted living facility not far from us. My parents lived in New York until 1997 when we convinced them to move to be near us. My mother lived for three years after the move. Ms. Bresnahan: And tell me about your schooling from your elementary, junior high I guess they would call it, they call it junior high. Ms. Gorelick: My upbringing in Great Neck was very all-American. The town was a lovely little town, very neighborly, very friendly, varied in its politics and in the 3 USIDOCS 6664204vl backgrounds of people. My strongest memories are of playing in our neighborhood, of being a Brownie and then a Girl Scout, of walking or biking to school. My elementary school was an old-fashioned school where we learned not just academics but also things like handwriting and social dancing. My parents were very well-read, very broad-gauged - interested in the world around them. They bought every periodical you could imagine. My mother was an artist and so we spent time on the weekends in New York City at museums and galleries. My father had a deep interest in archaeology and that was another source of learning for us. They were very interested in giving us every advantage that they themselves did not have. They had grown up very poor. Ms. Bresnahan: You say she was an artist, what kind? Ms. Gorelick: She painted, she sculpted, she did etchings, she worked in silverpoint - almost every medium and over a very long period of time. She taught and she showed her work both on Long Island and in New York City, as well as in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where we spent time during the summers. Ms. Bresnahan: And did you inherit her talent? Ms. Gorelick: I have no artistic talent. My niece inherited all of my mother's artistic skills. But I'm a great appreciator of art, by virtue of having been dragged to every museum and gallery during my childhood, under my mother's tutelage. 4 US IDOCS 6664204vl Ms. Bresnahan: And you still do that. You go to museums and galleries wherever you go? Ms. Gorelick: Yes, we visit museums here and when we travel. And we have a lovely collection of work that we've inherited from my parents, my husband's parents, and that we've collected on our own. Ms. Bresnahan: So you went to elementary school, public school and how do you think it affected you or formed any political beliefs that you had or how did it form how you thought about politics since you've been so active in politics? Ms. Gorelick: Well, I haven't really been active in politics. I've been active in government but, with one exception, I've never worked in a campaign. As I've said, we had very lively dinner table conversations about current events. My parents were very interested in the world around them. They brought all sorts of ideas into the house. We debated almost every issue at the dinner table. I grew up interested in the world of ideas and policy just by osmosis and because I grew up in the 60's. I was 13 when JFK was assassinated. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated during my senior year in high school. The country struggled over civil rights during my junior high school and high school years. We were just at the beginning of the struggles over the war in Vietnam and Cambodia when I went off to college. So, this was a period of tremendous turmoil. My childhood was an interesting combination of that turmoil and the more normal aspects of growing up in a lovely suburb. I went out with a basketball 5 USJDOCS 6664204vl player. I was active in the student government and community service. I worked in the McCarthy campaign to effect change. I said I only had one political experience - that was it. Ms. Bresnahan: How did you get in the McCarthy campaign and how did you come to be involved in that? Ms. Gorelick: I was worried about the war in Vietnam. I first became interested in Bobby Kennedy's campaign. When he was assassinated, I got involved in trying to do what I could locally for McCarthy. I stuffed envelopes and organized other kids to help. I did what you could do as an 18 year old. Ms. Bresnahan: Tell me about how you decided to go to college, where you went to college, what you did in college. Ms. Gorelick: I never really considered myself an intellectual. I was a pretty good student but was actually surprised that I was able to get into really good colleges.