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4.2.12
WC: 191694

Yale, this confrontational approach was generally admired. It had not been acceptable to the Rabbis, nor would it be to justices and judges.

Even at Yale, my chutzpah was not welcome by all the professors. Professor Fritz Kessler, was an older European trained academic who taught jurisprudence. One day, he was lecturing on Freud’s influence on German jurisprudence and he misunderstood one of Freud’s most important theories. I raised my hand and corrected him. After class, an older student, who had been a Marine and was married to another student in our class, grabbed me and said, “You embarrassed someone I love. If you ever do that again, I’ll deck you.” I was startled and replied, “How did I embarrass your wife?” He said, “Not my wife, stupid. Professor Kessler, you embarrassed him. Don’t ever correct him again publicly.” So much for academic freedom. But Professor Bickel was wise to caution me about toning down my aggressiveness if I wanted to succeed as a law clerk.

Guido Calabresi offered similar cautionary advice, but it was more about style than substance. He really pushed hard to get Justice Black to select me.

Professor Rodel was so concerned that I might contaminate the elderly Justice Black that he took the train to Washington to try to persuade him to reject the recommendation of his recent law clerk. In the end, Justice Black told Professor Calabresi that he had to defer to his friend's veto for that year but that he would consider me for the following year. This was the best possible news because it allowed me to accept a clerkship with Judge David Bazelon on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Judge Bazelon was actually my first choice, but I also wanted--indeed I felt I needed--the status that came along with a Supreme Court clerkship in order to obtain the kind of job offers I would be seeking after finishing my clerkships. Two of my other mentors at law school, Professor Joseph Goldstein and Professor Abraham Goldstein (not related) had both clerked for Judge Bazelon. One of my primary interests in law school was the relationship between law and psychiatry. Another was criminal law. Those were also Judge Bazelon's specialties. Making the Bazelon clerkship even more appealing was the likely upcoming vacancy that would be left when Justice Frankfurter, who had suffered a stroke, retired. Bazelon was on the short list to fill the so-called "Jewish seat" on the Supreme Court. So if Judge Bazelon were to be promoted to the Supreme Court, he might take his law clerk with him.

In the end, Judge Bazelon was regarded as too liberal for the Kennedy Administration and was passed over for labor secretary Arthur Goldberg, who had no judicial experience, but boasted a distinguished career as a labor lawyer before he joined the Cabinet as Secretary of Labor. Bazelon and Goldberg were close friends, both having grown up in the Jewish neighborhoods of Chicago and being the same age. I ended up clerking for both Judge Bazelon and for Justice Goldberg, which was a dream come true. I spent two years in Washington from the summer of 1962 to the summer of 1964. These were extremely eventful years, not only for me, but for the country and the world. The Cuban Missile Crisis took place several months into my clerkship with Judge Bazelon. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech was delivered in the summer of 1963. And in the fall of 1963, early in my Supreme Court clerkship, President Kennedy was

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