Living History (12 page)

Slowly and surely, Doar’s team of lawyers put together evidence that made a compelling case for the impeachment of Richard Nixon. One of the most meticulous, inspirational and demanding lawyers with whom I have ever worked, Doar insisted that no one draw conclusions until all the facts were evaluated. In those days before personal computers, he directed us to use index cards to keep track of the facts, the same method he had applied in the civil rights cases he tried. We typed one fact per card―the date of a memo, the topic of a meeting―and cross-referenced it with other facts. Then we looked for patterns. By the end of the inquiry, we had compiled more than five hundred thousand index cards.

Our work accelerated after we received the subpoenaed tapes from the Watergate Grand Jury. Doar asked some of us to listen to the tapes to further our understanding of them. It was hard work sitting alone in a windowless room trying to make sense of the words and to glean their context and meaning. And then there was what I called the “tape of tapes.” Richard Nixon taped himself listening to earlier tapes he had made of himself and discussing what he heard on them with his staff. He justified and rationalized what he had previously said in order to deny or minimize his involvement in ongoing White House efforts to defy the laws and the Constitution. I would hear the President saying things like, “What I meant when I said that was …” or, “Here’s what I was really trying to say…” It was extraordinary to listen to Nixon’s rehearsal for his own cover-up.

On July 19, 1974, Doar presented proposed articles of impeachment that specified the charges against the President. The House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment citing abuse of power, obstruction of justice and contempt of Congress. The charges against President Nixon included paying off witnesses to silence them or influence their testimony, misusing the Internal Revenue Service to obtain the tax records of private citizens, directing the FBI and the Secret Service to spy on Americans and maintaining a secret investigative unit within the Office of the President. The votes were bipartisan, earning the confidence of both the Congress and the American public. Then, on August 5, the White House released transcripts of the June 23, 1972, tape often called the “smoking gun,” on which Nixon approved a cover-up of the money used by his reelection committee for illegal purposes.

Nixon resigned the Presidency on August 9, 1974, sparing the nation an agonizing and divisive vote in the House and trial in the Senate. The Nixon impeachment process of 1974 forced a corrupt President from office and was a victory for the Constitution and our system of laws. Even so, some of us on the committee staff came away from the experience sobered by the gravity of the process. The tremendous powers of congressional committees and special prosecutors were only as fair and just and constitutional as the men and women who wielded them.

Suddenly I was out of work. Our close-knit group of lawyers met for one last dinner together before we scattered to the four winds. Everyone talked excitedly about plans for the future. I was undecided, and when Bert Jenner asked me what I wanted to do, I said I wanted to be a trial lawyer, like him. He told me that would be impossible.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you won’t have a wife.”

“What on earth does that mean?”

Bert explained that without a wife at home to take care of all my personal needs, I would never be able to manage the demands of everyday life, like making sure I had clean socks for court. I’ve since wondered whether Jenner was pulling my leg or making a serious point about how tough the law still could be for women. Ultimately it didn’t matter; I chose to follow my heart instead of my head. I was moving to Arkansas.

“Are you out of your mind?” said Sara Ehrman when I broke the news. “Why on earth would you throw away your future?”

That spring, I had asked Doar for permission to visit Bill in Fayetteville. He didn’t like the idea but grudgingly gave me a weekend off. While there I went with Bill to a dinner party where I met some of his law school colleagues, including Wylie Davis, then the Dean. As I was leaving, Dean Davis told me to let him know if I ever wanted to teach.

Now I decided to take him up on the idea. I called to ask if the offer was still open, and he said it was. I asked him what I’d be teaching, and he said he would tell me when I got there in about ten days to start classes.

My decision to move did not come out of the blue. Bill and I had been pondering our predicament since we started dating. If we were to be together, one of us had to give ground. With the unexpected end of my work in Washington, I had the time and space to give our relationship―and Arkansas―a chance. Despite her misgivings, Sara offered to drive me down. Every few miles, she asked me if I knew what I was doing, and I gave her the same answer every time: “No, but I’m going anyway.”

I’ve sometimes had to listen hard to my own feelings to decide what was right for me, and that can make for some lonely decisions if your friends and family―let alone the public and the press―question your choices and speculate on your motives. I had fallen in love with Bill in law school and wanted to be with him. I knew I was always happier with Bill than without him, and I’d always assumed that I could live a fulfilling life anywhere.

If I was going to grow as a person, I knew it was time for me―to paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt―to do what I was most afraid to do. So I was driving toward a place where I’d never lived and had no friends or family. But my heart told me I was going in the right direction.

On a hot August evening, the day I arrived, I saw Bill give a campaign speech before a good-size crowd in the town square in Bentonville. I was impressed. Maybe, despite the tough odds, he had a chance. The next day I attended the reception for new law school faculty held by the Washington County Bar Association at the local Holiday Inn. I had been in Arkansas less than forty-eight hours, but I’d been given my assignments. I would be teaching criminal law and trial advocacy and running the legal aid clinic and the prison projects, both of which required that I supervise the students providing legal assistance to the poor and incarcerated. And I’d be doing what I could to help Bill in his campaign.

Bill Bassett, President of the bar association, took me around to meet the local lawyers and judges. He introduced me to Tom Butt, the chancery court judge, saying, “Judge, this is the new lady law professor. She’s going to teach criminal law and run the legal aid programs.”

“Well,” said Judge Butt, peering down at me, “we’re glad to have you, but you should know I have no use for legal aid, and I’m a pretty tough S.O.B.”

I managed to smile and say, “Well, it’s nice meeting you, too, Judge.” But I wondered what on earth I had gotten myself into. Classes started the next morning. I had never taught law school before and was barely older than most of my students, younger than some. The only other woman on the faculty, Elizabeth “Bess” Osenbaugh, became a close friend. We talked about problems in the law and in life, usually over turkey sandwiches on kaiser rolls from Fayetteville’s closest thing to a real deli. Though in his seventies, Robert Leflar was still teaching his legendary conflicts of law course in Fayetteville, and an equally renowned course in appellate judging at New York University Law School. He and his wife, Helen, befriended me, and during the first summer I was there, let me stay in their native stone and wood house designed by the prize-winning Arkansas architect Fay Jones. I had good-natured debates with Al Witte, who claimed the title of toughest law professor but was really a softie underneath. I appreciated the kindness of Milt Copeland, with whom I shared an office. And I admired the activism and scholarship of Mort Gitelman, who championed civil rights.

Just as the semester was beginning, Virginia’s husband, Jeff Dwire, died suddenly from heart failure. It was devastating for Virginia, who was widowed for the third time, and for Bill’s brother, Roger, who was ten years younger and had developed a close relationship with Jeff. Losing Jeff was painful for all of us. Virginia had endured so much over the years. I was amazed at her resilience and saw the same trait in Bill, who had emerged from his difficult childhood without a shred of bitterness. If anything, his experiences have made him more empathetic and optimistic. His energy and disposition drew people to him, and until stories emerged during his presidential campaign very few knew about the painful circumstances he had endured.

Bill returned to the campaign trail after Jeff’s funeral, and I explored life in a small college town. After the intensity of New Haven and Washington, the friendliness, slower pace and beauty of Fayetteville were a welcome tonic.

One day when I was standing in line at the A&P, the cashier looked up and asked me, “Are you the new lady law professor?” I said I was, and she told me I was teaching one of her nephews, who had said I was “not bad.” Another time I dialed information looking for a student who hadn’t shown up for a class conference. When I told the operator the student’s name, she said, “He’s not home.”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s gone camping,” she informed me. I had never before lived in a place so small, friendly and Southern, and I loved it. I went to Arkansas Razorbacks football games and learned to “call the hogs.” When Bill was in town, we spent evenings with friends eating barbecue and weekends playing volleyball at the home of Richard Richards, another of our colleagues on the law school faculty. Or we got together for a round of Charades organized by Bess Osenbaugh.

Carl Whillock, then an administrator at the university, and his delightful wife, Margaret, lived in a big yellow house across the street from the law school. They were the first people to invite me over, and we became fast friends. Margaret had been left by her first husband when her six children were under ten. Conventional wisdom decreed that no man would assume the burden of marriage to a divorcee with six kids, no matter how vivacious and attractive she was. But Carl didn’t follow convention, and he signed on for the whole load. I once introduced Margaret to Eppie Lederer, otherwise known as Ann Landers, at the White House. “Honey, your husband deserves sainthood!” Eppie exclaimed after she heard Margaret’s story. She was right.

Ann and Morriss Henry also became close friends. Ann, a lawyer, was active in politics and community affairs on her own and on behalf of Morriss, who served in the State Senate. She also had three children and was deeply involved in their schools and sports programs. Ann, who freely expressed her well-informed opinions, was superb company.

Diane Blair became my closest friend. Like me, she was a transplant from Washington, D.C., who had moved to Fayetteville with her first husband. She taught political science at the university and was considered one of the best professors on campus. We played tennis and traded favorite books. She wrote extensively about Arkansas and Southern politics, and her book about the first woman to be elected to the Senate on her own, Hattie Caraway, Democrat from Arkansas, was sparked by her strong convictions about women’s rights and roles.

During the national debate about whether or not the country should ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, Diane debated ultraconservative activist Phyllis Schlafly in front of the Arkansas General Assembly. I helped prepare her for the Valentine’s Day confrontation in 1975. Diane won the debate hands down, but both of us knew that the combination of religious and political opposition to the ERA in Arkansas wouldn’t yield to compelling arguments, logic or evidence.

Diane and I regularly met for lunch in the Student Union. We always chose a table by the big windows that looked out toward the Ozark Hills and share stories and gossip. She and I also spent long hours with Ann at the Henrys’ backyard pool. They loved hearing about the cases I handled at the Legal Aid clinic, and I often sought their opinions about some of the attitudes I encountered. Ono day. the Washington County prosecuting attorney, Mahlon Gibson, called to tell me an indigent prisoner accused of raping a twelveyear-old girl wanted a woman lawyer. Gibson had recommended that the criminal court judge, Maupin Cummings, appoint me. I told Mahlon I really didn’t feel comfortable taking on such a client, but Mahlon gently reminded me that I couldn’t very well refuse the judge’s request. When I visited the alleged rapist in the county jail, I learned that he was an uneducated “chicken catcher.” His job was to collect chickens from the large warehouse farms for one of the local processing plants. He denied the charges against him and insisted that the girl, a distant relative, had made up her story. I conducted a thorough investigation and obtained expert testimony from an eminent scientist from New York, who cast doubt on the evidentiary value of the blood and semen the prosecutor claimed proved the defendant’s guilt in the rape. Because of that testimony, I negotiated with the prosecutor for the defendant to plead guilty to sexual abuse. When I appeared with my client before Judge Cummings to present that plea, he asked me to leave the courtroom while he conducted the necessary examination to determine the factual basis for the plea. I said, “Judge, I can’t leave. I’m his lawyer.”

“Well,” said the judge, “I can’t talk about these things in front of a lady.”

“Judge,” I reassured him, “don’t think of me as anything but a lawyer.”

The judge walked the defendant through his plea and then sentenced him. It was shortly after this experience that Ann Henry and I discussed setting up Arkansas’s first rape hot line.

A few months into my new life, I received a call from a female jailer in the Benton County jail, north of Fayetteville. She told me about a woman who had been arrested for disturbing the peace by preaching the gospel on the streets of Bentonville; she was scheduled to appear before a judge who intended to send her down to the state mental hospital because nobody knew what else to do with her. The jailer asked me to come as soon as I could because she didn’t think the lady was crazy, just “possessed by the Lord’s spirit.”

When I got to the courthouse, I met the jailer and the inmate, a gentle-looking soul wearing an ankle-length dress and clutching her well-worn Bible. She explained that Jesus had sent her to preach in Bentonville and that, if released, she would go right back out to continue her mission. When I learned that she was from California, I persuaded the judge to buy her a bus ticket home instead of ordering her to be committed to the state hospital, and I convinced her that California needed her more than Arkansas.