At the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Fred Vinson takes his seat under the clock in front of the tall Grecian columns and red plush curtains, hastens perfunctorily through the opening rituals, and announces abruptly: “We think the question is not substantial. We think further proceedings to litigate it are unwarranted. Accordingly, we vacate the stay entered by Mr. Justice Douglas on June 17,1953!”
There’s a moment of shocked silence in the packed courtroom — it’s come so fast it’s caught everyone by surprise, some still haven’t taken their seats — then a burst of cheers and boos. The defense attorneys, dark with anger, leap from their chairs, tipping them over, scramble toward the bench — but Justice Robert Jackson objects to the “irregular manner” in which the new lawyers have entered the case, and they are ordered to carry on their unpleasantries elsewhere. Justice Tom Clark notes that the Court has now considered this case seven times, and a moment of awe grips the courtroom—the seventh occasion!
But Justice Hugo Black, dissenting from the 6-to-2 majority opinion and doubting the Court even had the right to vacate the stay of a fellow Justice in the first place (“…so far as I can tell, the Court’s action here is unprecedented…”), argues crabbily that “it is not amiss to point out that this Court has never affirmed the fairness of the trial!” There he goes again. “What,” the people mutter, “is Black and white and Red all over?”
Justice William Douglas, facing possible impeachment, insists bluntly that “the cold truth is that the death sentence may not be imposed for what the Rosenbergs did unless the jury so recommends,” but before he’s even had a chance to get it all out, Manny Bloch is on his feet, asking for more time to rewrite the clemency appeal, arguing that the doubts of three Justices (Frankfurter has snuck out unnoticed for the time being) is “a matter which is appropriate for consideration on a petition of mercy.” He’s wearing a brand-new suit, having dumped coffee on his old one this morning: no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.
U.S. Acting Solicitor General Bob Stern snorts at this argument, but Justice Black, cantankerous as ever, points out that clemency from the President is all but pleaded for in the majority opinion itself, which says plainly: “Vacating this stay is not to be construed as endorsing the wisdom or appropriateness to this case of a death sentence.” Stern, who is as aware as Black is that this is a mere protective maneuver by the Court to avoid any hint or complaint of error, says flatly that no more time is needed, and the Court, thinking about this for fifteen minutes (the stage is built, after all, and this show is ready to go on), agrees. No more delays. Even Douglas caves in now and votes with the majority, leaving Black alone in his bilious dissent.
The spectators, reporters, court buffs rush from the courtroom, spreading the word to the thousands left outside, all of whom now grab up their children and cameras and race to the White House: It is nearing High Noon, and now President Dwight D. Eisenhower alone stands between the atom spies and death.
13. The Cabinet Meeting
Wrinkling his brow and bulging his blue eyes in mock amazement, the President interrupted Foster Dulles and said: “This thing is so foolish as to be fantastic!”
I jerked my head up. What was he talking about now? The Rosenberg stay, Rhee, Berlin? Double-breasted suits? He was chewing his lip, a bad sign, and doodling on his little white pad: some kind of face with a careless black beard. Guiltily, I touched my own cheeks: already a little bristly, and it wasn’t even noon yet. I was still nervous and distracted from having run that gauntlet outside — in fact, I’d barely made it to the White House in time for the opening prayer, slipping through the door just as Jerry Persons was getting ready to shut it — and so was able to tune into the Cabinet meeting with only half my mind, but as usual that was enough, they were never much more than diffuse and errant bull sessions. We sat around the long coffin-shaped table in our high-backed leather chairs, shaking our heads in commiseration, blowing smoke, digesting our breakfasts, struggling to get awake enough to face the inevitable assault of newsmen after the meeting broke up, agreeing with the General whatever he was talking about. Maybe he was only complaining to Foster about waking him up at two in the morning yesterday to tell him about Rhee’s release of the prisoners. Dulles made few mistakes, but that was one of them. He wasn’t apt to make it again.
Earlier, after the usual opening minute of silent prayer, the old General had raised his head solemnly, taken a drag, and told us all that the last forty-eight hours had been a particularly trying time for him. We all knew this, but we’d listened appreciatively. In South Korea, he’d said, President Syngman Rhee’s insubordinate release of 26,000 prisoners of war was wrecking his truce negotiations and had cast serious doubt on the entire Free World chain of command. Then, Supreme Court Justice Douglas’s last-minute stay of the Rosenberg executions had made a mockery of all the elaborate preparations this week and brought that whole case to a new crisis — damn it, he’d written his son John a great letter all about the Rosenbergs on Tuesday, had assured Gene Autry on Wednesday that the burnings were all set, and then had gone ahead yesterday right on schedule and issued that cautionary “Statement on the Prevention of Forest Fires,” and now he was going to look like a darned fool. And finally, as if these weren’t troubles enough, someone had advised him last night that he should stop wearing double-breasted suits! He’d glanced gloomily at the ceiling and then at old Ezra of the Council of Twelve Apostles and said that he couldn’t remember a time in his life when he felt more in need of help from Someone much more powerful than he. We’d all nodded our assent, exchanged worried glances, feeling the chill of our adversary’s presence, his power and his wile: to derange a trusted ally, penetrate the highest court in the land, and mock the disguise of Uncle Sam: where would he strike next?
Whichever crisis the President had been talking about, Foster now resumed his briefing on the one in Korea, saying that the situation there was the gravest since the day the Communists first invaded the Republic back on June 25, 1950. We all knew this but were somehow reassured by Dulles telling us so. His remarks, however, kept getting interrupted by messengers from Foggy Bottom who came running over with fresh and apparently alarming communiqués. It was hard to know what was in them, but each one made his head jerk and his glasses skid down his nose. John Foster Dulles. The Gray Beagle of Foggy Bottom. Outwardly austere and even obstinate, he was inwardly an emotional and ambivalent man, a masked manic-depressive, lacking conviction and uncertain of his principles, a typical weakness of high-church Protestants. But we sat there listening to him make his agonizing reappraisals and nodded in gloomy assent. Terrible situation. That damned Rhee — who did he think he was? There were even mutterings around the table about the merits of good old-fashioned assassination: Ike himself had often said aloud that he wished the Koreans would overthrow that “monkey,” and he had that look on his face today, which we all mimicked — but in fact, down deep, we all appreciated Rhee’s act. As Joe McCarthy said yesterday: “Freedom-loving people throughout the world should applaud the action of Syngman Rhee!” And we all loved freedom and a good buffalo hunt as much as the next guy. It was as lawyers we were upset: the scenario we’d been constructing since Ike’s trip to Korea last fall had had all the props knocked out by our own client. Ike had led with strength, secretly telling the Reds to negotiate or Pyongyang would be our next H-bomb test site — and now his own shill had called his bluff.