JUSTICE: Back-Room Man Out Front

• Share

(4 of 8)

The first step was to dispel the idea of Brownell as a patronage bagman and as an Attorney General who would flip the legal coin in favor of Republicans. The New York State Republican organization recommended five men for a U.S. attorney's post; Brownell turned down all five and named his own man on the basis of competence. Brownell recommended the nomination of Frank Van Dusen, who had distinguished legal but few political credentials, to the District Court in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania's Republican Senators arose in wrath, held out for their own candidates, delayed confirmation for more than a year. Brownell rechecked Van Dusen's qualifications and made his decision: "We'll fight it through." He did; the Senators buckled, and Van Dusen was unanimously confirmed.

U.S. attorneys got the right to hire whomever they chose (today there are 19 Republicans and 18 Democrats in the Los Angeles office). Brownell purged incompetents from the Justice Department (his short-term predecessor, Democrat James McGranery of Philadelphia, had recommended nearly 100 for firing), but his own press officer is one of the many holdovers from the Truman Administration. Democrats, e.g., Theron Lamar Caudle, the old honeysuckle boy of the Truman Administration tax scandals, and Truman's onetime Appointments Secretary Matt Connelly, have been prosecuted and convicted for rascality. So have Republicans: former Colorado Republican Chairman Charles Haskell was convicted for tax dodging; last week Cook County Assessor Frank Keenan, the most powerful G.O.P. officeholder in the Chicago area, was indicted on income tax charges. A pro-Eisenhower Democratic governor came charging to Washington to prevent the tax prosecution of a state political bigwig. Within two weeks a Justice Department letter went to the U.S. attorney involved: "Go ahead and prosecute." Says the U.S. attorney: "When the governor went to Washington, it was like waving a red flag."

None but the Brighter. With such evenhandedness Brownell began the job of reviving spirit and pride in the Department of Justice. He started selecting his own circle of top officials. Says smooth, smart Deputy Attorney General William Rogers, 43, a New York prosecutor for Tom Dewey and a close friend of and adviser to Vice President Nixon: "We went out like coaches recruiting college athletes. We scouted the field for the best available men."

The Brownell-scouted team lunches daily as a top-echelon unit in a green-walled dining room near the Attorney General's office (everyone chips in about $30 a month in officers' mess-style) to discuss department business. The teamwork idea extends to frequent family parties, where Brownell will occasionally let down his scant hair and sing, off-key, old college songs. But the wives' general complaint is that their husbands huddle off in a corner and talk nothing but shop.