Earlier this month, thanks to dogged efforts by the Associated Press, other news organizations and scholars, the FBI finally released more than 1,500 pages of documents on the late U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
The documents cover a 15-year chapter of Rehnquist’s life in which he spent about two-thirds of the time becoming increasingly addicted to a powerful sedative-hypnotic prescription drug. Throughout that period — but for a harrowing month’s hospitalization to withdraw from the drug — Rehnquist heard and ruled on cases before our nation’s highest court.
The revelations contained in the FBI files are at once affirming and deeply disturbing.
The affirmation is of the Freedom of Information Act, the key that unlocked the Rehnquist files. Although the current presidential administration has worked hard to limit access to public documents and to narrow the scope of the FOIA, this priceless American fact-finding apparatus is still operable.
The deeply disturbing aspect of the Rehnquist files lies in several areas.
Not the least of these appears to be secret misuse of FBI agents for political purposes. The misuse involved two presidents who, as the Associated Press put it, “went to some lengths to discredit Rehnquist opponents.” Richard Nixon in 1971, then Ronald Reagan in 1986 directed the FBI to dig into the backgrounds of witnesses who were to testify against Rehnquist in senate confirmation hearings — first for Rehnquist’s appointment to the court, later for his elevation to chief justice.
The recently released documents also show that in 1971 the FBI knew Rehnquist owned a house in Arizona with a deed prohibiting him from selling to a person of color. That racist (and illegal) covenant did not surface publicly until Rehnquist went before the senate 15 years later as Reagan’s choice for chief justice. Rehnquist insisted in those ’86 hearings that the covenant was news to him and that he’d learned of it only a few days before.
Then there is the decade-long tango Rehnquist danced with a drug called Placidyl.
In 1982, the Washington Post broke the story of the justice’s December 1981 hospitalization for withdrawal from the drug. But the story had little shelf life outside the Beltway. When it reappeared during the 1986 senate hearings — with more details leaked to the news media — it was discounted and batted aside by Rehnquist’s supporters.
The drug problem was history, they said, a doctor had prescribed the medication, it wasn’t Rehnquist’s fault. He had only been, as Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah declared, “a very compliant patient.”
Rehnquist sailed into the chief justice’s chair.
When Rehnquist died in 2005, Slate’s Jack Shafer wrote that reaction to the chief justice’s addiction illustrated “the ugly double standards that excuse extreme drug use by the powerful, especially if their connection is a prescribing doctor, and condemn to draconian prison terms the guy who purchases his drugs on the street.”
Shafer scoffed at the idea that “one of the most brilliant jurists of his time was the victim of his rotten doctors for almost a decade!” Noting that Rehnquist often took three months’ worth of Placidyl in one month, Shafer wondered why the justice had never “in any way tried to educate himself about the drug he was taking in larger and larger quantities?”
The FBI documents released this month place Shafer’s criticism in even higher relief. Along with Placidyl — which the prescribing doctor told the FBI another doctor initially ordered for Rehnquist in 1970 — the justice took the potentially addictive Darvon and Tylenol 3 to combat back pain.
By the time Rehnquist checked himself into George Washington University Hospital in late-1981, his family, fellow justices and many reporters covering the court were aware of his slurred speech and sometimes erratic thought processes. As he went through withdrawal, the documents reveal, the justice tried to escape in his pajamas, heard voices and was convinced the CIA was plotting against him.
Slate’s Shafer wrote in 2005, “This was a watershed event in Rehnquist’s life. Did the experience — being dazed on drugs, humiliated in the press, getting off Placidyl — contribute to his jurisprudence? How could it not have?”
As we ponder the implications of that, it is even more chilling to consider another discovery in the newly released FBI documents: 207 pages are still unavailable to the public because they’ve been withheld under federal disclosure law. Worse, there were seven FBI files on Rehnquist; one of them is nowhere to be found.
Editorials
TRIBUNE-STAR EDITORIAL: Disturbing insights from public records
- Editorials
-
-
EDITORIAL: Remembering Henryville
In the era of instant communication, the past seems to arrive much quicker.
-
EDITORIAL: Towering response
It comes as incredibly sad news that a Garfield Towers resident has succumbed as the result of a fire last week at the northside apartment complex.
-
EDITORIAL: Independent running mates
Almost certainly, running mates will not influence voters choosing Indiana’s next governor.
-
EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
• Cream of the crop
• Keep the ideas flowing
• Remembering fallen officers
-
EDITORIAL: Hazards of the spring abundant now on I-70
A major holiday weekend is approaching. The weather has been consistently inviting for travel and outdoor activity. Gas prices are even inching downward.
-
EDITORIAL: Embrace the Sycamores
Terre Haute should understand the rarity of an opportunity to celebrate a championship.
-
EDITORIAL: Good choice for stability
For the first time in 25 years, Indiana will have a new chief justice for its Supreme Court. For those who value stability on the state’s highest court — and we count ourselves among those who do — the appointment Tuesday of longtime Justice Brent Dickson is good news.
-
EDITORIAL: Correcting the prison imbalance
Terre Haute will no longer count federal prisoners when the city slices its population into six equal City Council districts. That decision by the City Council last week to remove the inmates at the Terre Haute Federal Correctional Complex from the council district mathematical formula may not make waves, but it makes sense.
-
EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the News
• Sometimes bureaucracies do listen
• April hours bring May flowers
• Getting our airport off the ground
-
EDITORIAL: When it’s IU vs. UK, there’s got to be a way
If the annual Indiana-Kentucky basketball game was not significant, would the coaches of the two universities be talking like this?
-
EDITORIAL: Sen. Lugar’s compelling message
Richard Lugar, no stranger to reading political tea leaves, undoubtedly knew for weeks that defeat was coming Tuesday night in his primary fight for re-election against a more-conservative-than-thou opponent. A statement Lugar released just hours after his loss of titantic proportions indicates that the six-term incumbent saw the reality even before he knew Richard Mourdock was to be his opponent this May.
-
EDITORIAL: Reviewing the landscape
The compelling story line surrounding the race between Richard Lugar and Richard Mourdock dominated most of the local primary election chatter. With those stunning results now in the books and Mourdock heading toward a showdown with Democratic Party nominee Joe Donnelly of South Bend (the current U.S. House rep from the 2nd District), it’s time to survey the landscape for other general election races that will be worthy of attention.
-
EDITORIAL: GOP changed; Lugar didn’t
Six terms. Overwhelming popularity. A statesman and a gentleman. A visionary. An icon in the annals of U.S. Senate leadership, even world leadership. So dominating on the political landscape that the opposing party did not even produce a candidate in the last election.
-
EDITORIAL: An exercise in democracy
Primary elections rarely draw the same levels of participation as general elections.
-
EDITORIAL: Fight against child abuse demands ongoing attention
As with many of our nation’s most maddening and perplexing social problems, one hardly knows how to fathom the egregious wrongs that occur when a child is abused.
-
EDITORIAL: A ‘giant’ for his hometown
Home is where the heart is. That’s true for all of us. In addition, your heart can take you home.
-
EDITORIAL: Curbing corruption a worthwhile crusade
If you are cynical about government, down to its most local levels, you may think it is overrun — or even controlled — by corruption.
-
EDITORIAL: The politics of Primary 2012
In less than a week, voting Hoosiers get a chance to make a statement about the future of politics in their state and beyond. But whatever that statement turns out to be, the final punctuation marks won’t be added until November. It’s possible that nothing will be settled by the end of the night May 8.
-
EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
• Their footsteps can lead us
• It would be music to his ears
• Feeding a genuine need
-
EDITORIAL: Hoosier Republicans should stick with Richard Lugar
Until late 2008, most Hoosiers were quite pleased — and in many cases, darn right proud — to call Richard Lugar their senior U.S. senator.
-
EDITORIAL: Matt Branam: 1954-2012
The sudden death of 57-year-old Matt Branam on Friday morning continues to leave an air of sadness hanging over the community.
-
EDITORIAL: A transplant from St. Ann’s
It would be understandable, for most of us, if we were madder than the opposite of heaven if a beloved, historic, personal part of our lives was to be taken away against our will.
-
EDITORIAL: Pragmatic approach to downtown development benefits community
Terre Haute has known for some time now that Indiana State University’s master plan includes creation of student residential centers off-campus in the nearby downtown area.
-
TRIBUNE-STAR EDITORIAL: A salute to pride of ’55
Terre Haute gets the chance to witness and appreciate the extent of its rich baseball legacy this Saturday. Its past and present will merge at Bob Warn Field.
-
EDITORIAL: A match of Mitt and Mitch?
Not every Indiana governor’s endorsement of a presidential candidate has made instant national news as did Mitch Daniels’ support for Mitt Romney on Wednesday.
-
EDITORIAL: Drilling for fairness
Consistency and fairness were on trial Monday as the Vigo County commissioners grappled with a controversial rezoning request from a property owner who wants to drill for oil on his land near Hawthorn Park northeast of Terre Haute.
-
EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
Cheers, jeers and tears
-
EDITORIAL: Be fair, consistent, but keep smokefree ordinance on track
The steps toward a healthier, more vibrant community should continue moving forward.
-
EDITORIAL: Inspired by tradition, celebration
With the observance of Orthodox Easter on Sunday, the spring holy holidays for Christians and Jews will have passed for another year.
-
EDITORIAL: No need to sing the blues
The words from Terre Haute Board of Works President Bob Murray on Monday afternoon were as sweet to the ear as a blues riff from an electric guitar: “The bottom line is, [Blues at the Crossroads] should be able to operate just as it has before. It will get worked out.”
- More Editorials Headlines
-
EDITORIAL: Remembering Henryville




