FROM TRIPLE THREAT TO THE BENCH

NAMED at 44 as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, Byron Raymond ("Whizzer") White has a past that would make Frank Merriwell look like a drudge. It was with an eye to that record that President Kennedy said, in announcing White's appointment: "He has excelled in everything he has attempted --and I know that he will excel on the highest court in the land." White grew up in Wellington, a farm supply center of 550 people in northern Colorado. His father, a lumberman, was town mayor--and a devoted Republican. Byron was valedictorian of his five-member high school class, went to the University of Colorado in nearby Boulder, where he waited table at the Phi Gamma Delta house, slung hash in a sorority, made Phi Beta Kappa--and became a Democrat. These were Depression years, and White was impressed by Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. "It seemed to me," he recalls, "that the Democrats had the more forward-looking programs." Hall of Fame. As a 6 ft. 2 in., 190-lb. halfback, White was a star passer, punter and runner for three seasons, 1935-36-37; in his senior year he led all major college backs in both scoring and rushing (16 touchdowns, 23 extra points), paced Colorado to an undefeated regular season, made All-America. As a pro with Pittsburgh and Detroit, he twice led the National Football League in rushing, and in 1954 was named to the National Football Hall of Fame.

White took a year out from pro football to go to Oxford University in 1939 as a Rhodes scholar. He met Jack Kennedy at a diplomatic reception in London, where Jack's father was U.S. Ambassador. They met again the next summer, when both were vacationing in Munich, and again in the Solomon Islands just after Kennedy had become a PT boat hero. "I liked him and found him interesting," says White, who won two bronze stars of his own as a naval intelligence lieutenant on an aircraft carrier.

Discharged in 1946, White received his law degree from Yale magna cum laude. He married his University of Colorado sweetheart, Marion Stearns, daughter of the university president. Fresh out of law school, he got a cherished appointment: law clerk to Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson. Kennedy, then a U.S. Representative, had his office near the Court building, and the two met again. "When we bumped into each other, we always had something to talk about," says White. When his term with Vinson was up, White went to two of Washington's biggest law firms in search of a job. They liked his record but turned him away when they heard his ambitious terms: he would not join unless he could become a partner within two years.

White returned to Colorado in 1947, became a partner in a respected Denver law firm. He built a reputation in 14 years there as a versatile lawyer who could handle complex corporation cases, tax matters, contract disputes or general law. Politically, he had done little more than some dabbling in Denver's Democratic ward politics when, in 1960, Jack Kennedy asked his help in rounding up Colorado delegates at the Democratic convention. After the convention, Bobby Kennedy asked White to head the national Citizens for Kennedy group and was impressed by White's softspoken yet persuasive wooing of the voters. "They see Byron and they trust him," said Bobby. After the election White seemed surprised at being named Deputy Attorney General. "I didn't get into the campaign with the idea of getting a job," he said. But he happily took the position. As Bobby Kennedy's top aide, he directed 600 U.S. marshals in the 1961 Freedom Rider riots in Alabama, supervised antitrust cases, civil rights suits, and scouted and screened candidates for federal judgeships.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.