Word: brennan
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William J. Brennan was not alone in his surprise at being appointed to the Supreme Court on October first. Throughout the nation, members of the legal profession probed their memories to recall him, and the few who remembered him still asked, "Why Brennan...
...Brennan, a graduate of the Wharton School in '29 and Harvard Law three years later, practiced law from the Depression until the outbreak of the War, when he entered the Army Ordinance Corps. He emerged with the rank of Colonel in 1945. At the War's end Brennan resumed his practice, and in 1949 was appointed to the Superior Court of New Jersey, on which he sat until 1953, when he was elevated to the New Jersey Supreme Court. In his judicial capacity Brennan delivered no outstanding decisions, but did help in alleviating the calendar congestion in the state...
With this commendable but undistinguished background, it is understandable why there were eyebrows raised when the news of Brennan's elevation to the nation's highest tribunal appeared. The Justice admits having friends on the administration: Secretary of Labor Mitchell, Presidential Secretary Bernard Shanley (whom Brennan considers "an intimate"), and Deputy Attorney General William P. Rogers, among the most prominent. But their recommendation, along with an admittedly helpful laudatory letter from Justice Arthur T. Vanderbilt of New Jersey, cannot account entirely for the President's choice...
...returned, with no questions asked, to Mrs. Brennan's second-floor apartment at 61 Plympton...
...abduction was reported yesterday to University police chief Matthew Toohey, who is an old friend of the Brennan family...