Nation: A Brahmin for Justice

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With a sense of noblesse oblige

In a startling analogy for a Republican, Attorney General-designate William French Smith, 63, said last week that he would like to enjoy the same relationship with Ronald Reagan that Bobby Kennedy had with his brother John. Indeed, Smith, who has been Reagan's attorney for 15 years and handles his business affairs, is almost as close as a brother to the President-elect. Claiming that the post-Watergate barriers erected between the President and the Attorney General are too restrictive, Smith wants an "easier" relationship. Says he: "J.F.K. and R.F.K. didn't have any crises, and I would hope that we wouldn't have any crises either."

Does that mean the relationship revert to the cozy intimacy of former years, when the Attorney General sometimes too readily did the bidding of his boss? Replies Smith: "Obviously, the Justice Department has to be independent, but it is part of the Executive Branch. Independence relates only to certain kinds of activities; for instance, those involving the White House itself." People who know both Reagan and Smith are convinced that there is no cause for concern. Smith, one of three managing partners of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, the second largest law firm in Los Angeles, has a solid reputation for being nobody's man but his own. Los Angeles Attorney Seth Hufstedler, husband of Jimmy Carter's Secretary of Education Shirley Hufstedler and a Democrat, feels that Smith's views will certainly coincide with Reagan's. But Hufstedler adds: "If you ask 100 lawyers in Los Angeles—make that 100 Democratic lawyers—I don't believe that you will find one who would doubt Smith's integrity."

Born to a Boston Brahmin family, Smith learned to love California while wintering there as a boy. After graduating from U.C.L.A. and Harvard Law School ('42) and a stint in the Navy, he decided to practice law in California. "I wasn't going to be dictated to by my ancestors," he says. "I came to Los Angeles principally because that was the place where things were going to happen." He specialized in handling labor matters for corporate clients. Though a forceful negotiator, he won the respect of his adversaries. Says William Robertson, executive secretary of the Los Angeles County AFL-CIO: "He is really an objective and brilliant attorney. And, unlike a lot of labor lawyers, he is not a union buster." Smith met Reagan in 1963 and became a kitchen cabinet adviser when his friend was elected Governor of California.