The Nation: The Man with the Judicious Gavel

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"You not only have to be fair—you have to give the appearance of fairness," Chairman Peter Rodino said of his job, and it often seemed to be an impossible task during the long and wearisome months as he led his unwieldy 38-member Judiciary Committee down the path toward impeachment articles. But last week, as the committee inched toward its bipartisan vote of 27-11 against the President, the silver-haired chairman with the husky voice was praised for his fairness by House G.O.P. Leader John Rhodes as well as by House Democratic Leader Thomas P. ("Tip") O'Neill Jr. Said O'Neill of Rodino: "It's magnificent how he has risen to the challenge."

When the impeachment proceedings began, Rodino was a little-known Congressman from Newark, a typical big-city liberal, who had learned during his 25 years on the Hill how the House operates —how to get along by going along—but whose leadership had never been tested.

Says Tip O'Neill: "He was a flame under a bushel basket."

The son of an Italian immigrant worker, Rodino was raised in the fiercely ethnic Little Italy section of Newark, in a neighborhood so rough that he recalls shootings in the streets. Rodino wrote an unpublished novel about his upbringing entitled Drift Street. At one time, Rodino had hopes of becoming a poet—he still loves to recite Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley and Keats—but he diligently worked his way through the University of Newark Law School.

After serving as an Army captain during World War II, Rodino was first elected to Congress in 1948. As a Congressman, he concentrated on ethnic issues.

When the inexorable elevator of seniority made him chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 1973, Rodino was perhaps best known as the man who had made Columbus Day a national holiday.

With this kind of background, Rodino failed to inspire the confidence of the House's Democratic leaders when impeachment became a possibility a year ago, a scant seven months after he had become Judiciary chairman. Speaker Carl Albert pointedly suggested to Rodino that, instead of giving the matter to the Judiciary Committee, the House should perhaps set up a special select body to conduct the inquiry. Rodino flatly refused to go along, and Albert gave way. (Later, the Speaker was to bless that decision: if a special committee had been set up, the Republicans could have stacked their membership with die-hard Nixon supporters, thus eliminating any chance of a bipartisan vote.) Rodino did not relish the job of conducting the impeachment inquiry. He has had a friendly relationship with Nixon over the years and, he says, "I'd rather find the good in people than the bad."

But to get ready, Rodino quietly assigned Jerome Zeifman, chief of the Judiciary staff, and two of his assistants to study the process and precedents. Rodino, who in 1973 had dropped his Newark law practice, which had always cut into his time in Washington, began boning up on how the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had viewed impeachment.