The Last Word

When William O. Douglas reluctantly retired from the U.S. Supreme Court 17 months ago at the age of 77, he was partly paralyzed from a stroke, in almost constant pain and seemingly unable to continue the mental exertion required on the high bench. Friends feared that the Justice, deprived of official duties, might soon die. Instead, Douglas is still working away in his court chambers, and the old conservationist has promised friends that he will make his first public reappearance next month at the official dedication of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park as a memorial to him. He has also passed along word that he will send the final manuscript of his 43rd work, the second half of his autobiography, to his publisher this spring. The volume will cover his spirited court years, and once again Douglas will enjoy the last word on many of his critics.

Douglas' fellow Justices, fearing damage to the court's work and unseemly publicity about his impaired mental abilities, had prodded him to retire.

They quietly denied him the authority to write majority court opinions and postponed all cases in which he might cast a tie-breaking vote. Though relations were amiable on the surface, other Justices had long been annoyed by Douglas' personal habits, which included hogging the court limousine, using court secretaries for commercial writing and verbally bullying his colleagues during closed-door conferences.

On the day he retired, Douglas waited all afternoon in his chambers for his colleagues to pay their respects, but only William Brennan and Byron White showed up. ("We had all shaken his hand when his decision was announced at lunch," explains one Justice.) The next week, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger called Douglas' three law clerks in for tea, mentioned budget problems and pointedly asked them if they had any job prospects. At the request of the other Justices, Burger also wrote Douglas suggesting that he move from his centrally located chambers to a "more commodious" office in a distant corner of the building.

Douglas shot back a note saying he would stay where he was. He sarcastically used the word commodious five times to describe his satisfaction with his traditional quarters. To keep his perquisites, Douglas assumed the offensive, advancing the novel idea that a retired Justice retains the right to issue opinions in court cases of his choosing. Serious or not, Douglas made his point: he now operates with a secretary, a Library of Congress researcher, a driver-messenger, and a law clerk, who assists in rewriting his latest book.

On a typical day, the gaunt, hollow-eyed Douglas is bundled into his court office by late morning, dawdles over correspondence, takes a nap and then addresses his manuscript. He tires rapidly and is usually taken home by midafternoon. Burger has become solicitous of Douglas' welfare, attending small social events staged by Douglas and his fourth wife, Cathy, 33, and sending over gifts of vintage wine and tasty apricot and orange jam put up by Burger himself.

Look Bad. Happily for the Burger regime, Douglas' book will contain little criticism of recent court appointees. The first draft, completed before the stroke, contained savage scolding about Burger's management of the court, but later versions concentrate on Douglas' foes of earlier eras. Says one associate: "Felix Frankfurter won't be butchered, but he'll be needled to death."

If the published work is circumspect, Douglas has kept one last weapon in reserve: upon his death, his entire collection of meticulous notes and papers from the court's secret conferences will be opened to public inspection at the Library of Congress, an unprecedented bonanza for court watchers. "There's some amazing stuff in there," says one former clerk. "Douglas is a skilled writer, and he knows exactly how to make his adversaries look bad."

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