Free Decision by Allen Drury Page A

government. Inevitably in time he entered it, not via the congressional route that he had originally toyed with but through the administrative side, in which he felt he could perhaps contribute even more.
    In a sense his decision to accept whatever opportunities might come his way in that area was a compromise with Mary. She had been vehement in her opposition to any thought of his running for Congress.
    “I will not be a politician’s wife!” she announced, forgetting that all public service is inevitably political sooner or later. But the idea of holding high appointive office did not seem to bother her at all. It was respectable, and something the Stranahans and their friends could understand and appreciate.
    He continued to handle corporate cases for a while longer but presently found himself leading a group of younger partners that began to agitate for a broader public service approach. On his tenth anniversary with the firm he found himself appointed head of a new public service division; and the process of transforming Taylor Barbour the likable farm boy from Salinas Valley into Taylor Barbour the increasingly prominent liberal lawyer was underway in earnest. It is a process that happens with Washington lawyers if they are shrewd enough to recognize, and properly make use of, the creators of reputation. Like so many successful careers in Washington, his was a combination of idealism, an eye for the main chance, and strong boosts from the capital’s liberal old-boy network. By the time he was thirty-five he was firmly set on the path that in eleven more years would bring him to the “special place” he had first become aware of in Erma Tillson’s class, thirty years before.
    He had discovered in law school that he had a powerful grasp of his own language. He could both write and speak it with a touch that was always effective and sometimes mesmerizing. He began to contribute an occasional article to Harper’s and the Atlantic Monthly (the growth of violence, terrorism and irrational crime), the op-ed page of the New York Times (the need for judicial reform), the New York Times, the Washington Inquirer, the Saturday Review, Newsweek, Foreign Affairs, the like. Invitations to participate in an increasing number of seminars and public forums came his way, arranged by a steadily widening circle of influential friends. He was invited to serve on advisory committees of his political party. He began to work for causes dear to the hearts of those who can make or break. Anna Hastings of the Washington Inquirer and Katharine Graham of the New York Times invited him and Mary quite often to dinner. His name began to pop up with increasing frequency in columns, editorials, television commentaries. He was asked to appear, as “a rising young liberal Washington attorney,” on “Face the Nation,” and when that proved an easy success, on “Meet the Press.”
    The old-boy network labored ceaselessly in his behalf. It took no more than a year or two until its members could congratulate themselves that they had made another good choice. Taylor Barbour was on his way.
    He was already considered a highly successful lawyer and one of America’s leading liberals when, at thirty-eight, he received his first appointment in the executive branch of government, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office for Improvements in the Administration of Justice.
    There had been many in this particular office, quite far down the ranks of the Department of Justice, who had not made much of it. By now, however, Tay was sophisticated enough to know that almost any sub-Cabinet office is what you make of it. His speeches and literary output doubled. He made a well-publicized call upon the then Chief Justice to discuss the administration of justice and what they could do—jointly, he gave the impression—to streamline it, speed it up and make it more efficient. The Chief was flattered by this dutiful attention from a man so much younger and