Complex Justice

By Bennett H. Beach

INDEPENDENT JOURNEY

by James F. Simon

Harper & Row; 454 pages; $16.95

Justice William O. Douglas was a vain man; the final evidence was the old liberal's insistence that his 81 years of life called for a two-volume autobiography totaling 860 pages. James F. Simon's realistic portrait spares readers some of the great Justice's lengthy lecture on the evils of McCarthyism and his expansive observations on six Presidents. The space saved is devoted in part to Douglas' personal life, including the rather novel relationships with his final three wives, whom Douglas neglected to mention in his autobiography. Clearly, it is not only soap-opera buffs who will be intrigued by a Supreme Court sexagenarian's courtships of young college students.

The author does not hide his admiration for the man whose record of 36 years on the high court may stand forever. And there is indeed much to admire. As a child in Yakima, Wash., Douglas had to conquer polio and poverty. He gave up everything dear to him to jump into the Establishment's big East Coast pond, and by age 39 was leading the successful campaign to reform the New York Stock Exchange. He spent half of his life on the Supreme Court championing un popular causes and had so much surplus energy that he became a prolific author. He was almost President: Franklin Roosevelt wanted Douglas on the 1944 ticket rather than Harry Truman.

Yet Simon is no fawning biographer. Douglas improved the lot of millions of Americans he never met, but he could be punishing to the people he knew, and Simon gives more than a few examples. Douglas' relationships with his law clerks were, as one put it, like those between master and slaves. He was named Father of the Year in 1950, but his offspring knew better: "Dad was scary," recalls Son William. Even in robes, Douglas had his failings. Simon says that the great civil libertarian was not truly a hero in the Rosenberg spy case because his last minute effort to delay their executions came only after his five votes not to hear their appeals. Sadly, even in one of the Justice's final acts -- the chronicling of his life -- the great storyteller has been outdone by a man he scarcely knew, and a New Yorker at that.

-- By Bennett H. Beach

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