Free The Brethren by Bob Woodward, Scott Armstrong Page A

progress there had been in the South and the Border States had really occurred after the Justice Department and H.E.W. had stepped in to sue school boards and to draw up plans. The Court could not permit them to drop out of the struggle now.
    All that was needed in this case was a short, simple order, Black argued, not an opinion. There had already been too much writing. Every time an opinion came down, some lawyer found an ambiguity, filed a suit and got more time. To involve the Court in debating details or plans would be disastrous. That was exactly what the proponents of delay wanted. There must be no mention of plans in the order, or of timetables. Black wanted unanimity as much as anyone, but if the Court's order mentioned the word "plan," he would dissent. There must be nothing that school districts or the Nixon administration could grab onto for another round of quibbling.
    Black also agreed with the Inc. Fund that everyone seemed to have this matter all backwards. Everyone seemed to think that the status quo was segregation, and that monumental efforts had to be launched to change the status quo. But the law was the status quo. And the law, laid down fifteen years before by this Court, called for single, unitary school systems. The order should explicitly reject "all deliberate speed" and demand desegregation immediately, today, at once, now. No more rhetoric. "If anybody writes," Black concluded, "I dissent."
    There was a moment of stunned silence. A dissent by Black, a giant of the Court, an historic figure, would make it look as if the Court was in retreat. It would give new hope to the South's "never" faction. Several Justices spoke up out of turn to ask Black just how the Court could expect to enforce this order now. Black refused to discuss it. "You do what you want, and I'm going ahead," he said.
    Next it was Douglas's turn to speak. Back from a summer in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, Douglas was an imposing physical presence in the conference. White-haired, with a cowlick, a sinewy six-footer, he looked uncomfortable in his inexpensive business suit, rumpled white dress shirt and Dacron tie. Tanned and weathered, his face reflected his many off-season trips to all parts of the world. His twenty books, countless articles and speeches, and even the cowboy dime novels published under a pen name in his youth reflected his individualistic values. Douglas had built his life on adversity: poverty, polio, camping accidents. He had spent most of his years moving against the grain. He had been twice mentioned as a vice presidential candidate, and once he had been offered the nomination, but he had decided against a politician's life. Nonetheless, he had never hesitated publicly to urge his internationalist views, even in the face of the fervent anti-communism of the 1950s.
    Douglas's soft voice countered his authoritative tone. He rarely spoke at length in conference. He had decided years before that attempts to persuade were futile, or, even worse, counterproductive. His colleagues knew where he stood on most issues. He unabashedly accepted liberal dogma. He was for the individual over government, government over big business, and the environment over all else. But Douglas still insisted on laying out his exact resolution of each element of a case in his formal written opinions. If he could not persuade his colleagues, he could at least spread his ideas outside the Court.
    Douglas wanted the Court to move aggressively on the race issue. In typewriter cadence, he clicked off several sentences on his general position, moved to his next point, kicking the table as he paused, jumped to another point without a connective, flapped his ear nervously while staring coldly across the table, and finally, again without warning, tied up his first and last points in terse summation.
    To the others, the position was clear. Douglas would support Black.
    John Harlan, quietly chain-smoking Larks, had been scrupulously