Product Description

The Brethren is the first detailed behind-the-scenes account of the Supreme Court in action. Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong have pierced its secrecy to give us an unprecedented view of the Chief and Associate Justices -- maneuvering, arguing, politicking, compromising and making decisions that affect every major area of American life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39345 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743274029
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"Explosive...The most controversial book on the Supreme Court yet written."

-- Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Fascinating. The pace is swift, with details that rivet the attention."

-- The Washington Post Book World

"A provocative book about a hallowed institution...It is the most comprehensive inside story ever written of the most important court in the world. For this reason alone it is required reading."

-- BusinessWeek

"It is to the credit of Woodward and Armstrong that they were willing -- and able -- to shatter this conspiracy of silence. It is certainly in the highest tradition of investigative journalism."

-- Saturday Review

"One hell of a reporting achievement."

-- The Village Voice

"The year's best political book."

-- New York Post

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the United States, hailed the elevator operator as if he were campaigning, stepped in and rode to the basement of the Supreme Court Building, where the Court limousine was waiting. Warren easily guided his bulky, 6-foot-1-inch, 220-pound frame into the back seat. Though he was seventy-seven, the Chief still had great stamina and resilience.

Four young men got into the car with him that fine November Saturday in 1968. They were his clerks, recent law graduates, who for one year were his confidential assistants, ghost writers, extra sons and intimates. They knew the "Warren Era" was about to end. As Chief Justice for fifteen years, Warren had led a judicial revolution that reshaped many social and political relationships in Amer-ica. The Warren Court had often plunged the country into bitter controversy as it decreed an end to publicly supported racial discrimination, banned prayer in the public schools, and extended constitutional guarantees to blacks, poor people, Communists, and those who were questioned, arrested or charged by the police. Warren's clerks revered him as a symbol, the spirit of much that had happened. The former crusading prosecutor, three-term governor of California, and Republican vice-presidential nominee had had, as Chief Justice, a greater impact on the country than most Presidents.

The clerks loved their jobs. The way things worked in the Chief's chambers gave them tremendous influence. Warren told them how he wanted the cases to come out. But the legal research and the drafting of Court opinions -- even those that had made Warren and his Court famous and infamous -- were their domain. Warren was not an abstract thinker, nor was he a gifted scholar. He was more interested in the basic fairness of decisions than the legal rationales.

They headed west, downtown, turned into 16th Street and pulled into the circular driveway of the University Club, a private eating and athletic club next to the Soviet Embassy, four blocks north of the White House. The staff was expecting them. This was a Saturday ritual. Warren was comfortable here. His clerks were less so. They never asked him how he could belong to a club that had no black members.

With his clerks in tow, Warren bounded up the thick-carpeted steps to the grill. It was early for lunch, not yet noon, and the room was empty. Warren liked to start promptly so they would have time for drinks and lunch before the football game. They sat in wooden captain's chairs at a table near the television and ordered drinks. The Chief had his usual gimlet. He was pensive. They ordered another round. Warren reminisced, told political stories, chatted about sports, and then turned to the recent past, to Richard Nixon's election. The Chief thought it was a catastrophe for the country. He could find no redeeming qualities in his fellow California Republican. Nixon was weak, indirect, awkward and double-dealing, and frequently mean-spirited. Throughout the 1968 presidential campaign, Nixon had run against Warren and his Court as much as he had run against his Democratic rival, Senator Hubert Humphrey. Playing on prejudice and rage, particularly in the South, Nixon had promised that his appointees to the Supreme Court would be different.

It was unlikely that a Nixon Court would reverse all the Warren Court's decisions. Though Justices John Harlan, Potter Stewart and Byron White had dissented from some of the famous Warren decisions, each of them had strong reservations on the matter of the Court's reversing itself. They believed firmly in the doctrine of stare decisis -- the principle that precedent governs, that the Court is a continuing body making law that does not change abruptly merely because Justices are replaced.

But as Warren and his clerks moved to lunch, the Chief expressed his frustration and his foreboding about a Nixon presidency. Earlier that year, before the election, Warren had tried to ensure a liberal successor by submitting his resignation to President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Senate had rejected Johnson's nominee, Associate Justice Abe Fortas, as a "crony" of the Presi-dent. All that had been accomplished was that Nixon now had Warren's resignation on his desk, and he would name the next Chief Justice.

Warren was haunted by the prospect. Supreme Court appointments were unpredictable, of course. There was, he told his clerks, no telling what a President might do. He had never imagined that Dwight Eisenhower would pick him in 1953. Ike said he had chosen Warren for his "middle of the road philosophy." Later Eisenhower remarked that the appointment was "the biggest damned-fool mistake I ever made." Well, Warren said, Ike was no lawyer. The clerks smiled. But Richard Nixon was, and he had campaign promises to fulfill. He must have learned from Eisen-hower's experience. He would choose a man with clearly defined views, an experienced judge who had been tested publicly on the issues. The President would look for a reliable, predictable man who was committed to Nixon's own philosophy.

"Who?" asked the clerks.

"Why don't we all write down on a piece of paper who we think the nominee will be?" Warren suggested with a grin.

One clerk tore a sheet of paper into five strips and they sealed their choices in an envelope to be opened after Nixon had named his man.

Warren bent slightly over the polished wooden table to conceal the name he wrote.

Warren E. Burger.

Three months later, on the morning of February 4, 1969, Warren Burger, sixty-one, was in his spacious chambers on the fifth floor of the Court of Appeals on Pennsylvania Avenue, almost midway between the White House and the Supreme Court. President Nixon, who had been in office only two weeks, had invited him to swear in several high-ranking government officials at the White House. When he arrived at the mansion, Burger was instantly admitted at the gate.

Nixon and Burger first met at the Republican National Convention in 1948. Nixon was a freshman Congressman and Burger was floor manager for his home-state candidate, Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen. At the next convention, four years later, Burger played an important role in Eisenhower's nomination. He was named assistant attorney general in charge of the Claims Division in the Justice Department, and in 1956 he was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. On that famously liberal court, Burger became the vocal dissenter whose law-and-order opinions made the headlines. He was no bleeding heart or social activist, but a professional judge, a man of solid achievement.

Now at the White House, the ceremonial swearings-in lasted only a few minutes, but afterward the President invited Burger to the Oval Office. Nixon emphasized the fact that as head of the Executive Branch he was deeply concerned about the judiciary. There was a lot to be done.

Burger could not agree more, he told the President.

Nixon told him that in one of his campaign addresses he had used two points from a speech Burger had given in 1967 at Ripon College in Wisconsin. U.S. News & World Report had reprinted it under the title "What to Do About Crime in U.S." The men agreed that U.S. News was the country's best weekly news magazine, a Republican voice in an overwhelmingly liberal press. Burger had brought a copy of the article with him.

In his speech Burger had charged that criminal trials were too often long delayed and subsequently encumbered with too many appeals, retrials and other procedural protections for the accused that had been devised by the courts.

Burger had argued that five-to-ten-year delays in criminal trials undermined the public's confidence in the judicial system. Decent people felt anger, frustration and bitterness, while the criminal was encouraged to think that his free lawyer would somewhere find a technical loophole that would let him off. He had pointed to progressive countries like Holland, Denmark and Sweden, which had simpler and faster criminal justice systems. Their prisons were better and were directed more toward rehabilitation. The murder rate in Sweden was 4 percent of that in the United States. He had stressed that the United States system was presently tilted toward the criminal and needed to be corrected.

Richard Nixon was impressed. This was a voice of reason, of enlightened conservatism -- firm, direct and fair. Judge Burger knew what he was talking about. The President questioned him in some detail. He found the answers solid, reflecting his own views, and supported with evidence. Burger had ideas about improving the efficiency of judges. By reducing the time wasted on routine administrative tasks and mediating minor pretrial wrangles among lawyers, a judge could focus on his real job of hearing cases. Burger also was obviously not a judge who focused only on individual cases. He was concerned about the system, the prosecutors, the accused, the victims of crime, the prisons, the effect of home, school, church and community in teaching young people discipline and respect.

The President was eager to appoint solid conservatives to federal judgeships throughout the country. As chairman of a prestigious American Bar Association committee, Burger had traveled around the country and must know many people who could qualify. The President wanted to appoint men of Burger's caliber to the federal bench, including the Supreme Court. Though the meeting was lasting longer than he had planned, the President buzzed for his White House counsel, John Ehrlichman.

Ehrlichman came down from his second-floor office in the West Wing. Nixon introduced them. "Judge Burger has brought with him an article that is excellent. Make sure that copies are circulated to others on the White House staff," Nixon said. He added that Burger had constructive, solid ideas on the judicial system as well as for their anticrime campaign. Judge Burger was a man who had done his homework. "Please make an appointment with him to talk," the President said, "and put into effect what he says." The chat had turned into a seventy-minu...

Customer Reviews

Behind-the-scenes look at the Burger Court
Although "The Brethren" was written a quarter of a century ago and it covers the Supreme Court sessions from 1969 to 1975, there are two reasons to hunt down a used copy of this book and read it today. The first is its examination of the important Court decisions of Warren Burger's early years, all of which still reverberate with their controversy and implications. The second is to learn how, in spite of its famously left-of-center decisions, the Court began taking a sharp turn to the ideological right, spurred by the appointment of Burger and by the ascent of the young William Rehnquist.

"The Brethren" gave the Burger Court a reputation from which it never quite recovered. Although the Supreme Court has historically had its share of in-fighting, incompetence, and inanity, its internal meltdowns in the 1970s were occasionally beyond the pale. Woodward and Armstrong portray Burger as a well-meaning but ultimately misguided man obsessed by the legacy of Earl Warren, concerned far more with image than with principle, unskilled in management techniques that would have helped bring the Court to a consensus, and unashamed of his repeated attempts to assign the Court's decisions in a fashion insured to thwart the will of the majority. Even today, most historians, regardless of ideological bent, view the Burger years as a mediocre and often inconsistent transition between the liberal Warren Court and the conservative Rehnquist Court.

It's not a perfect book, by any means. Woodward and Armstrong are at their page-turning best when they examine in detail some of the more famous decisions and controversies faced by the Court (busing, obscenity, abortion, the death penalty, and--especially--Watergate). And the account is surprisingly balanced: anyone expecting a "liberal" flogging of an increasingly conservative court will be surprised, on the one hand, by the authors' depictions of the increasingly unfit and ornery Douglas and the unsophisticated yet affable Marshall and, on the other hand, by their open admiration of Rehnquist, who comes across as (by far) the most likeable and amiable of the justices. Nevertheless, their account is a bit too heavy on office gossip. True--this journalistic style brings the fourteen justices who served during these years to life, but what's lacking is the necessary detailed legal background that would make sense of the Court's day-to-day work rather than its scandalous backbiting and personality conflicts. Overall, though, it's an admirable piece of journalism that makes the Court seem as human as it really is.

An Inside Look at the Supreme Court
Despite being a bit dated, The Brethren, by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, remains one of the most illuminating looks at the inner workings of the Supermen Court. And certainly it will remain a very interesting historical look at the court it examines.

The Brethren attempts to present the reader with what "really" goes on in the Supreme Court. It describes the conferences, the personality of justices, and how justice's feel toward each other, items which are generally hidden from the public. Covering the terms from 1969-1975, Woodward and Armstrong gives us a look at the fourteen justices and how they dealt with the major issues facing the court. The book describes how Burger changed his conference votes so he could assign the majority opinion of the court, angering William Douglas and William Brennen. He also describes how Thurgood Marshall greeted Burger "Hey chiefy baby", getting a kick out of making him feel uncomfortable. The reader sees how Harry Blackmun agonized at being considered Burger's "boy" which eventually led to his breaking away from the conservative wing of the court. Woodward also tells of the lack of respect the justices had for the abilities of Chief Justice Burger, who wrote poorly reasoned opinions that embarrassed some members of the court.

The main thesis of the book is how the moderates control the opinions of the court. A majority opinion must have the vote of at least five members of the court, therefore the opinion becomes a compromise between the author of the opinion and his joining brethren. Even when an ideologue writes an opinion, his opinion must be amended to maintain the votes of his brethren. Therefore, the majority opinions of the court usually reflect a somewhat moderate solution, as compared to the ideological make-up of the court.

The Brethren also relates how politics play a key role in the decisions of the court. Justices have predispositions to every case they decide, and most have an ideology that influences their decisions. The role of the moderates on the court is also an example of how politics effects the decisions of the court. If a president is able to appoint enough justices of his political persuasion, the court's ideological make-up will change, as will the direction of the court's decisions. Justices on the court do worry about the effect of new appointments to the Supreme Court. When President Gerald Ford appointed Justice John Paul Stevens to the court to replace Justice Douglas, Brennen and Marshall worried about the future of abortion and busing, fearing a new conservative justice might vote to overturn or limit the scope of decisions in these areas. These are a few examples of the role of politics in the Supreme Court.

The strengths of this book include its in-depth view of court personalities, antidotes, and relationships between the justices. These are aspects of the court normally not made public. Another strength of the book is its description of how cases are decided, and how a court is "built" (a majority opinion). Further, the reader gets an understanding of the factors that influence a court's opinions such as ideology, compromise, persuasive arguments, and even interaction with the clerks.

The major weakness of the book is the lack of documentation. There is absolutely no documentation for the material presented in the book. Woodward's disclaimer is he got the information on background and deep background, meaning the sources go unnamed. He also claims he read memos, unpublished and rough draft opinions, and other unpublished written material generated by the court. Despite the lack of documentation The Brethren remains a must read for students interested in law and politics.

Still the best book to read to understand the Supreme Court
This is still a must-read for people seriously interested in the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, some of my fellow reviewers had to read this for class or were not interested in the topic, which is really too bad, but these individuals should not be the last word on the issue. I would also like to respond to some of the more outrageous comments from other reviewers:

"It is not an easy reading."


To those who do not have trouble reading the newspaper, it will be extremely easy reading. In fact, it is written in such a clear style, with short, to-the-point sentences, as to be among the easiest books I have ever read.


"The secretive world of the court would be difficult for any journalist to penetrate, and here Woodward and his cohort Armstrong prove themselves not to be up to the task."


Whoever wrote this obviously had not come of age when the book was published. The publication of "The Brethren" ranks as probably the most scandalous moment in the history of the Supreme Court, because no one to that date had even come close to gaining the insider access that Woodward and Armstrong did-- and no journalist has gotten this close to the Court since. This is an utterly glib and untrue comment. As close as is humanly possible, Woodward and Armstrong penetrated the Court.

"'The Brethren' is, more than any book I've ever read, a product of its times. It reflects the anti-war, anti-establishment, anti-Nixon, pro-activist, and downright revolutionary times of the early 1970s. If you choose to read "The Brethren," you should understand that it takes positions as being either right or wrong. And with political powder kegs (abortion, busing, the Watergate tapes, the death penalty, etc.), that is an intellectually risky proposition."

Funny, because when I read it I had the exact opposite reaction-- I was upset by the excesses of that period. However, I should note that "The Brethren"'s presentation of the issues is absolutely non-judgmental. It notes with honesty what each justice's view was, in such simple language that it often sounds reductionist. People who have read Woodward's other books know that he is not a partisan hack.

Again, people who are really interested in the Supreme Court should definitely hunt this down.