◆ SpookStack

‘ — aeroplane r “"“Diefense of Fortas To the Editor: a Where were the lew profes- sors? Where were the civil lib- ertarians? Where wete the bar associations? The absence of a spontane ous defense of the Suprenre Court and one of its most bnil- liant jurists, Abe Fortas, can ‘be attributed to the Kafkaesque miasma in which the issues have been enveloped. There were no clear-cut accusations that Mr. Justice Fortas had not met the standards of either law or morality. Instead, we were ttillated with snide innuendoes py Attorney General Mitchell which’ suggested that the old Nixon of the Joe McCarthy days is not dead but lives on through (Mitchell. (How many photo< stats do you have an your hand, Mr. Mitchell?) There was no specification of charges. There was only guilt by association. . Mr. Justice Fortas, while sit- ting on the Supreme Court, ac- cepted payment from a founda- tion to do work for that foun- dation, The foundation was con- trolled by a man who was sub- sequently indicted for a cnm- inal offense Sometime there- after Mr Fortas returned the payment to the foundation and advised that he would not per- form the services for it. Why the hue and cry? Under our system a man is presumed innocent until found guilty. This rule even applies to Louis Wolfson who, at the time the payment was made to Mr, Jus- tice Fortas, was not even under indictment Why 1s there a pre- sumption of evil in Mr. Fortas’s association with Wolfson? On the record to date there is no evidence of any impro- priety on Mr. Fortas’s part The scandalous attack upon him in my view was motivated by po- litical opportunists capitalizing upon murky currents in the Wondh oes View err am to overwhelm the cntical standards of a bémused hon already racked hytates-. nal dissension over the war in Vietnam, the uprisings on the campus and the black revolu- tion, It is tragic that a great fig- ure like Fortas 16 being offered As a sacrifice STANLEY D, HALPERIN New York, May. 141980. aS, Riise Monde ease 7A-/88—~ 64