The Supreme Court: A Southern Justice

Richard Nixon proudly unveiled his new Chief Justice, Warren Burger, in an East Room spectacular last May attended by live television cameras and the highest ranks of his Administration. There was no such ceremonial fuss last week as he named his first Associate Justice to the Supreme Court. In the press room at Laguna Beach, 17 miles from the western White House at San Clemente, Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler almost perfunctorily announced that Nixon had appointed South Carolina's Clement Furman Haynsworth, chief judge of the Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, to fill the seat vacated last spring by Justice Abe Fortas.

To Nixon and Attorney General John Mitchell, who supervised the Administration's search for a new Justice, Haynsworth has ideal credentials. It is true that he would be a WASP filling a seat that has been traditionally Jewish since 1916, but Nixon never promised to abide by that custom. Privately, the President says that he does not consider that there is a Jewish, Catholic or Negro seat on the court. Haynsworth is a sitting federal judge who, at 56, can expect at least ten or 15 years on the Supreme Court bench. His decisions have been moderate to conservative on civil rights, and occasionally liberal in cases involving the rights of criminals. But above all, Haynsworth is a strict constructionist who subscribes to Nixon's dictum that "it is the job of the courts to interpret the law, not make the law." A desire for social innovation has seldom manifested itself in his legal judgments, and he seems an apt choice to carry out what Nixon envisions as a redefinition of the Supreme Court's role, steering it away from the activism of the Earl Warren court.

Preparing for 1972. Some critics thought that the choice was entirely too ideal from Nixon's political point of view—which may account for the absence of panoply at the appointment. Haynsworth will be the first Southern addition to the Supreme Court since the civil rights upheaval began 15 years ago. Whatever the judge's qualifications, his appointment serves as partial payment by the Administration for the efforts of South Carolina's Strom Thurmond and others, who held five Southern and Border states for the G.O.P. against George Wallace's third-party depredations. Moreover, the choice fits neatly into Nixon's design for strengthening the Republicans in the South for the 1970 and 1972 elections.

Several weeks ago, Thurmond publicly endorsed his old friend Donald Russell, a federal district court judge and former Senator from South Carolina, for the Fortas seat. The endorsement may well have been sincere, but some suspected legerdemain. Anyone known as "Thurmond's man" would be a clear embarrassment to Nixon. By backing Russell, Thurmond in effect cleared the air for another South Carolinian, Haynsworth.