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Abe Fortas: A Biography
Abe Fortas was a New Dealer, a sub-cabinet official, the founder of an eminent Washington law firm, a close adviser to Lyndon Johnson, and a Supreme Court justice. Nominated by Johnson to be Chief Justice, he was rejected by Congress and resigned from the Court early in the Nixon administration under a cloud of impending scandal. This engrossing book--the first full biography of Abe Fortas--tells his dramatic story.
Drawing on Fortas's previously unavailable personal papers, on numerous archives, and on extensive interviews with his family and associates, Laura Kalman, a historian and lawyer, illuminates Fortas's evolution from New Dealer to Washington lawyer to Great Society liberal, and in so doing also provides a unique view of American liberalism from the 1930s through the 1960s.
"There was no single Abe Fortas," writes Kalman. "There was a variety of personae, and Fortas moved comfortably from one to another. Kalman describes Fortas's various personae:
* the boy who as "Fiddlin' Abe" played the violin in dance bands to earn spending money and who grew to consider chamber music the love of his life;
* the Jew who cared more about Israel than Judaism;
* the civil libertarian who worked for irascible Harold Ickes as Under Secretary of the Interior during the New Deal, who defended those charged with disloyalty by Joseph McCarthy, and promoted social justice on the Court;
* the urbane corporate lawyer whose friends became clients and whose clients became friends;
* the brilliant legal tactician who secured Lyndon Johnson's Senate seat in 1948 and whose successful defense of the Gideon case was described by William O. Douglas as "the best single argument" he heard in all his years on the Supreme Court;
* the Supreme Court justice who willingly risked compromising his judicial integrity to advise President Johnson;
* the man who hobnobbed with the powerful yet was powerless to combat the attacks against him when he was a Supreme Court justice, and whose resignation from the Court contributed to the destruction of the liberal agenda for social reform.
Reflecting on the various aspects of Fortas's enigmatic personality and the events of his life, Kalman creates a new portrait of the man that is more insightful and complete than any yet published. Engagingly written and superbly researched, this is the authoritative account of Fortas and the legal and political history he helped to shape.
Drawing on Fortas's previously unavailable personal papers, on numerous archives, and on extensive interviews with his family and associates, Laura Kalman, a historian and lawyer, illuminates Fortas's evolution from New Dealer to Washington lawyer to Great Society liberal, and in so doing also provides a unique view of American liberalism from the 1930s through the 1960s.
"There was no single Abe Fortas," writes Kalman. "There was a variety of personae, and Fortas moved comfortably from one to another. Kalman describes Fortas's various personae:
* the boy who as "Fiddlin' Abe" played the violin in dance bands to earn spending money and who grew to consider chamber music the love of his life;
* the Jew who cared more about Israel than Judaism;
* the civil libertarian who worked for irascible Harold Ickes as Under Secretary of the Interior during the New Deal, who defended those charged with disloyalty by Joseph McCarthy, and promoted social justice on the Court;
* the urbane corporate lawyer whose friends became clients and whose clients became friends;
* the brilliant legal tactician who secured Lyndon Johnson's Senate seat in 1948 and whose successful defense of the Gideon case was described by William O. Douglas as "the best single argument" he heard in all his years on the Supreme Court;
* the Supreme Court justice who willingly risked compromising his judicial integrity to advise President Johnson;
* the man who hobnobbed with the powerful yet was powerless to combat the attacks against him when he was a Supreme Court justice, and whose resignation from the Court contributed to the destruction of the liberal agenda for social reform.
Reflecting on the various aspects of Fortas's enigmatic personality and the events of his life, Kalman creates a new portrait of the man that is more insightful and complete than any yet published. Engagingly written and superbly researched, this is the authoritative account of Fortas and the legal and political history he helped to shape.
537 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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About the author
Laura Kalman
11 books11 followersLaura Kalman is a professor of 20th century American History, educated at Yale. She teaches at the University of California at Santa Barbara. In her spare time, she enjoys young adult fiction, particularly the novels of Janet Lambert
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 30, 2021
excellent primary source-driven biography of a major power player. as richard posner noted, biographies of "pure" judges - people who just churn out opinions, often written by their clerks especially post-1950 - are less useful than simple 20-30 page jurisprudence-oriented studies with a tiny bit of biography thrown in. but "grey eminences" like abe fortas - an extremely smart, an extremely slick, and at times extremely careless fixer who went from bougie but provincial origins in Memphis to dominating the law review at Yale to serving in various New Deal "doing the work" positions to becoming the model "Washington DC law firm lawyer" to landing on the SCOTUS in exchange for years of service as Lyndon Johnson's cat's paw to becoming a laughingstock and eventually resigning after his chief justice confirmation hearings went sideways and LIFE magazine published an expose about his shady financial dealings to getting back to making that cheddar in a new firm even as his wife (they had no kids, married to money and ambitious as they were) kept bringing home the bacon at their old one - represent an exception to fortas' rule.
kalman, a solid writer whose book on legal realism is good/workmanlike, delivers another B+/A- effort here. her analysis is sound and her work with the archival material is great, but she leaves a lot of interesting stuff on the table - fawn brodie-esque psychoanalysis, more on his various affairs and the scurrilous "grooming" rumor hoover's FBI lobbed at him in the late 60s, etc. - and ultimately just settles on an "abe was unknowable, motivated by many things, and quite complicated" conclusion. well worth you time, though, because fortas' life covers all the big historical events from the 30s to the late 60s: New Deal, the HUAC/McCarthy stuff, LBJ's rise, Vietnam, the rise of Nixon, right up to the Reagan Revolution (Fortas was a pro-business liberal who nevertheless hated Reagan...even more than he hated the student radicals who proved the undoing of his beloved LBJ).
kalman, a solid writer whose book on legal realism is good/workmanlike, delivers another B+/A- effort here. her analysis is sound and her work with the archival material is great, but she leaves a lot of interesting stuff on the table - fawn brodie-esque psychoanalysis, more on his various affairs and the scurrilous "grooming" rumor hoover's FBI lobbed at him in the late 60s, etc. - and ultimately just settles on an "abe was unknowable, motivated by many things, and quite complicated" conclusion. well worth you time, though, because fortas' life covers all the big historical events from the 30s to the late 60s: New Deal, the HUAC/McCarthy stuff, LBJ's rise, Vietnam, the rise of Nixon, right up to the Reagan Revolution (Fortas was a pro-business liberal who nevertheless hated Reagan...even more than he hated the student radicals who proved the undoing of his beloved LBJ).
July 12, 2025
For those interested in biographies of Supreme Court justices, this one is the best. The book precisely details Fortas’ ideological disposition, and examines how SCOTUS has always been a political institution, even if it doesn’t acknowledge it. The book also presents an excellent case study on the history of 20th century liberalism, including its triumphs, failures, and consequences. Fortas’ life spanned all of the major movements of the 20th century - the progressive era, the new deal / fair deal era, the great society.
January 7, 2023
An excellent biography of the lawyer's lawyer: Abe Fortas. The book traces his rise to the top level of the Washington, D.C. legal world and on to his selection for the U.S. Supreme Court. It also describes his fall from grace by Nixon administration manipulations and Fortas's own failure to perceive what the public might regard as improprieties, which pale in comparison to certain sitting justices. A good read.
May 20, 2023
Very clearly written and very well researched, but I became bored when Kalman wrote about Fortas' legal education -- and I am a lawyer! I found Fortas unlikable and decided that I really did not want to know more about him.
December 4, 2012
Fascinating "up close and personal" account of the consummate insider and DC power lawyer par excellence. Amazingly engaging- reads like fiction and sheds insight into LBJ as well as the Supreme Court. Must read for anyone interested understanding DC inside baseball.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews