Fortas, Abe

(b. 1910)

   US Supreme Court judge. A southerner from Memphis, Tennessee, Fortas was the son of a cabinet maker. Upon completing his law studies, he taught at Yale Law School before entering government service. During the war years, 1942–6, he was secretary of the interior. He then went into private practice in Washington, DC, and rapidly rose to eminence, appearing in a number of landmark cases before the Supreme Court. He was a close friend and family lawyer of President Lyndon B.Johnson, who consulted him on public issues. In 1965, Johnson appointed him to the Supreme Court and in 1968, nominated him to succeed Earl Warren as chief justice. The nomination was strongly contested in the Senate because of Fortas’s liberal views and his vigorous championship of individual rights. His opponents found ammunition in the disclosure that Fortas as a judge had continued to receive a consultant’s fee from the Louis E.Wolfson Foundation, though he had cancelled it when Wolfson was indicted for stock manipulation. Fortas maintained that he had done nothing improper, but under public attack, he resigned in 1969 and returned to private practice.