Recently released FBI documents suggest that Rehnquist also may have discouraged minority voting as an Arizona poll watcher in the 1960s. John Dean has already written about the episode, and has argued that Rehnquist lied under oath about his activities in Arizona.
The FBI under Nixon and Reagan was apparently used to intimidate any witnesses against Rehnquist during his hearings when nominated to the Court and to the Chief Justice position. See here and here.
Rehnquist's CIA delusion is of particular interest. Obviously, the episode owes its origins to the medication -- still, one wonders what pushed the man's delusions into that direction. This snippet from a Buzzflash interview with John Dean might provide an interesting area for further research:
DEAN: The so-called Huston plan refers to the plan that Nixon tasked White House aide Tom Huston to come up with that removed virtually all restraints on domestic intelligence gathering. I don't think Rehnquist was ever involved in the Huston plan per se. I have no memory or knowledge of him being involved. I've often thought that had Nixon gone to Rehnquist -- but Rehnquist was, of course, on the Court by the time he might have wanted to do so -- to get a justification for the break-in into Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, Bill Rehnquist might have been able to give an opinion that would justify that under some sort of national security theory. He always could find some precedent or sophistry to support whatever the government under Nixon thought it needed.(Emphasis added.) Although Dean does not recall any involvement by Rehnquist in the once-notorious, now-forgotten Huston plan, Rehnquist -- then the Chief Counsel to Attorney General John Mitchell -- would have been the logical choice to come up with legal justification. (Rehnquist even wrote a brief defending the Cambodian invasion.)
The intelligence wars of that era were boggling: Hoover hated the CIA, yet his underling Sullivan was tight with the Angleton faction at the Agency. Nixon fought with CIA Director Richard Helms. "Ex"-spooks McCord and Hunt went to work for CREEP, although many feel they engineered the Watergate scandal which brought Nixon down. In the midst of all this infighting, the FBI had instituted COINTELPRO against American dissidents, the CIA (legally forbidden from operating domestically) had instituted a similar program called MH CHAOS, and the military had instigated Operation GARDEN PLOT, which allowed "deadly force to be used against any extremist or dissident perpetrating any and all forms of civil disorder."
Hm...maybe Rehnquist's drug-addled delusions weren't so delusional as all that...!
2 comments:
Yes, and the official story is still that Rehnquist was "cured" of his 9-10 year addiction in February 1982 after week of more careful titration. This is highly unlikely, to say the very least.
We also know that the FBI withheld 200 pages of the file, and that one entire section cannot be retrieved. Or so it is reported.
Would these pages have included documentation of relapse prevention interventions consistent even with early 1980's treatment protocol? These might have included outpatient therapy, family involvement, periodic screening, etc., especially for an individual with virtually unlimited resources in such an influential position. Research shows that such addictions are exceedingly difficult to overcome, and are almost never successful without such interventions after detoxification. Were there no such efforts precisely because of his position?
Either way ... were there episodes of relapses typical of so many cases like these? If so, when? During November - December of 2004, perhaps? If so, how long did they last? Were there any earlier addictions that influenced critical decision-making, say in the earley 1960's? How much did SC Justice Roberts know about this condition as a law clerk in 1980? Was there at any point a conscious decision to resume painkiller dependency, particularly after the cancer diagnosis?
I don't know and am not postulating one way or another. I am saying that these are reasonable questions to ask in the context of historical interpretation.
We, the public, may never be given these answers. I'm not sure what we would do with them even if we were. Still, I cannot seem to avert my gaze.
Kim in PA
Sorry, I meant to say "weeks of more careful titration," not week.
According to the NYT in January, 1982, "Rehnquist sought help with the drug in December 1981 because it no longer relieved his pain. He entered George Washington University Hospital on Dec. 27...
By mid-January, Rehnquist returned to the bench."
There is notable discrepancy between some accounts that give Rehnquist credit for knowing he had a "problem," and those that say he entered the hospital because a 1400mg a day Placidyl habit no longer helped his back problem. Obviously, there are those who sought to protect his man and those who did not. So, the circumstances of his hospital admission still remain unclear.
Oh, and what did Rehnquist ever do about that nagging back pain without Placidyl, without surgery, and without any other mind-altering substances? Somehow, he didn't strike me as someone dedicated to holistic alternatives.
Kim in PA
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