That was not the "first vacancy" Eisenhower had in mind, but Warren was determined to hold Eisenhower to his promise -- "The first vacancy," he put it, "means the first vacancy" -- calling in political chits, even going deer-hunting in an effort to avoid Eisenhower's emissary, Attorney General Herbert Brownell. But when he remained adamant, Brownell gave up and told Eisenhower, "We're stuck with him, I guess."
The great scope of "the nation he made" as chief justice from 1953 to 1969 is an extraordinary one to consider, as is the man himself. In "Justice for All," both receive a vivid and distinguished account from California journalist Jim Newton.
The broad "nation he made" context is clearly drawn. The Supreme Court decisions are presented with clarity. Politics -- in California, nationally, and on the court -- are covered with the verve of a veteran reporter.
In its time, the Warren family was a Kennedy-like presence on the political scene. His wife, Nina, whom Warren initially was smitten by at a local swimming pool, and their handsome, smiling children, especially "Honey Bear," the daughter stricken with polio on the eve of Warren's 1950 gubernatorial reelection victory, were figures known to voters .
After recounting Warren's early career as a crime-hunting prosecutor, Newton notes that "[his] later insistence on police and prosecutorial regard for constitutional protections" has been seen as "inconsistent." But, he writes, "the prosecutor and the judge are connected across the decades by an unswerving self-confidence and devotion to principle, albeit a somewhat different principle."
And, Newton writes, most of those decisions of the Warren Court that shaped the nation and society -- Gideon and Miranda in the field of criminal justice, Baker v. Carr in federal-state relations, Brown in school desegregation, and Griswold in reproductive rights -- did not just happen, but were carefully nurtured and shaped by Warren.
