FBI file reveals justice's clean past
August 28, 2003 cnn.com
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Over more than 30 years, the worst thing the FBI came up with about Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White was that he got a $10 speeding ticket the year before he joined the Kennedy administration, bureau documents show.
White's relatives and admirers are being spared the indignity that befalls families and friends of some public figures whose death is followed by release of their FBI files replete with sexual escapades, marital turmoil, drinking or drug problems.
White comes across in the 338 pages of his FBI file as the same athletic straight-arrow he appeared to be during more than three decades as deputy attorney general and high court justice. The file is slim for a public figure and top Justice Department official -- less than half the size of Elvis Presley's, about a quarter the size of Robert F. Kennedy's.
The Associated Press obtained the documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
The file describes a dozen or so -- actually surprisingly few -- of the small courtesies and favors that the FBI used under former Director J. Edgar Hoover to ingratiate itself with scores of high public officials and prominent private sector figures: private tours of the FBI building for aides and relatives, condolence and congratulatory notes from Hoover, a key to the FBI gym and even an offer to donate blood if he needed it during treatment of a bleeding ulcer.
Another section discloses details about the anti-pornography and antibusing protester who slugged White during a 1982 Salt Lake City speech. The FBI was aware the attacker, Newton Estes, had written three angry and vaguely threatening letters to other justices and public officials over the previous 13 years.
Half the FBI documents are from the December 1960 background investigation done for President-elect John F. Kennedy before he nominated the then-43-year-old Denver lawyer and former college and professional football star to be deputy attorney general.
Character and courtesies
White is described in glowing terms in each interview. In the FBI's December 15, 1960 summary, agents paraphrased one professional colleague, whose name was blacked out, as calling White "an able, ethical lawyer who has a keen legal mind."
The agents added, "There is no question whatever in his mind concerning Mr. White's character, moral standards, general reputation, associates or loyalty."
No misconduct surfaced in checks at various agencies -- except for a December 21, 1959, $10 fine for speeding in Colorado.
Four days into the Kennedy administration, Hoover sent aide Cartha DeLoach for a get-acquainted meeting. White asked if there was an FBI gym and "if he would be thrown out if he went down on occasions to use this gym," DeLoach wrote Hoover.
Hoover scribbled "extend every courtesy" on the memo and initialed it.
The bureau gave White and his boss, Robert Kennedy, lockers in the gym, then in the Justice Department basement. A year later, White asked the bureau if he, like Kennedy, could have a key to use the gym after hours. The February 13, 1962, memo about White's request has Hoover's handwritten "OK" and a notation that the key was delivered the next day.
White asked the bureau to give private tours of its facilities to aides, relatives or visitors eight times between 1961 and 1974. In that era, news organizations covering the FBI asked for private tours for executives and relatives much more frequently.
White himself didn't take a tour until 1966, four years after he left Justice for the court.
Typing blood
In March 1961, White's assistant, Joseph Dolan, told the FBI's Courtney Evans that the deputy attorney general was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer. Dolan wondered if agents with White's rare AB negative type would donate blood if needed, Evans wrote.
The bureau immediately checked its agents' blood types. Four days later, Dolan advised that blood wouldn't be needed but White was "most grateful for this prompt and generous" response.
While investigating the 1982 attack on White, the FBI found in its files letters that White's attacker, Estes, wrote in 1969 to Justice William O. Douglas, in 1976 to Solicitor General Robert Bork and in 1981 to a group of Supreme Court justices.
The threats had been ruled too vague to prosecute and Estes, told the FBI in 1976 he didn't intend to threaten.
Estes was sentenced to 10 days in jail, fined $500 and given two years' probation for the attack on White. FBI agents wrote that Estes told them after the assault "he purposefully did not hit White hard enough to hurt him" and his goal was to get a trial so his views on "pornography and forced busing would be highlighted." Top