Appointment to the Federal Bench, 1976
Poole
We had a lot of interesting work, and I very much enjoyed it, so much so that when the time came— Let me go back a little
bit. During the period of time, 1971 or '72 and 1973 or '74, California's senatorial component shifted from what it had been—one
Republican and one Democrat—and it shifted to two Democrats—
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Alan Cranston and John Tunney, son of the famous fighter, Jack Tunney. That would be before your time. Anyhow, I told you,
you know I had been nominated twice by Lyndon Johnson.
Hicke
And that appointment was blocked.
Poole
Yes. When I went over with this firm, I was having the time of my life. I enjoyed what I was doing, and I was making more
money than judges made, so I didn't have any problem with them. But twice, I think the first time was when [William] Bill
Orrick—they went to Richard Kleindienst, who was Nixon's deputy attorney general, and tried to get him to agree to my appointment
as a district judge. They thought I had unfairly been denied it before, and Kleindienst said, "John Mitchell would have to
sign a commission for me." I said, "I think that's right. If I were in his place, I'd feel exactly the same way."
So that was one time. Then another time I was at a meeting in New York. I became a joiner of a lot of organizations.
Hicke
Okay, we want to get into that a little bit.
Poole
I was at a meeting of the Urban League in New York. I got this conference call on the phone. It was Cranston and Tunney, and
they had talked to whoever succeeded Kleindeinst, but Nixon was still the president, and the comment was just the same. I
thanked them and told them that I appreciated all their efforts, and I realized they were true friends. But I thought they
were busy people, they ought to go and get somebody who was viable, who could be appointed. "You've done for me all that anyone
could ask and more, and I just want you to know that I'm very grateful for it, but get somebody that you can get in there;
and that's important." So that's when Charlie Renfrew was appointed. I wasn't paying attention to whether there were vacancies
on the district court or not, but Nixon left in disgrace, and Gerald Ford became the president. They didn't say anything to
me about it, nobody did. But Tunney and Cranston went to Judge Levi, who was the attorney general for the president who followed
Nixon.
Hicke
Gerald Ford.
Poole
Ford. I had seen Ford when I was a freshman at Michigan. He was the captain of the football team. To me, this guy seemed about
thirty feet tall. I had met him, but he wouldn't have known me from a load of hay. Other than that, I only met him once in
my life, and that was when I went back to Washington after he nominated me. When that happened—
Hicke
When he became president?
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Poole
He became president in 1974, when Nixon went out crying down the way into the helicopter. Someone said, "You don't seem like
you're very sorry." I said, "You know, I think I could stick a spear in the old bastard." [Laughter] I have learned to be
just as firm in my desires as anybody else.
Hicke
It didn't seem to have deterred him.
Poole
He's been rejuvenated now. I was involved in a tax case then. I may have told you about it.
Hicke
With who?
Poole
It was a tax case of a southern California real estate broker who was in the habit of buying a lot of housing—that C-something
schedule housing, which is intended for moderate income people. He had thirty salesmen, and he had them digging up people,
and these people were buying houses. He would fix them up and would sell them. HUD [Housing and Urban Development] got the
word, and this fellow hired a high-powered lawyer down there in Beverly Hills. This lawyer was steering him through all the
stuff.
What he did was, the lawyer got an investigator from someplace, and he had this investigator go and talk to these people who
had bought the houses and got them almost, maybe entirely without exception, to say that they didn't deal with the owner of
the real estate office at all; they dealt with the salesman, they didn't know anything about him, which was a blatant lie.
Anyhow, the government indicted this fellow and charged him with failure to pay income taxes amounting to $765,000. That wasn't
the income out of this. That was the amount of taxes that they had.
This lawyer had called me a couple of days earlier and had introduced himself. I had heard his name somewhere, but I didn't
know him. So I made an appointment, and he brought the client up. The more they told me about the story—sitting in there looking
out of the windows at the Bank of America—and the more they told me about this story, the more I could see—I said to them,
finally—I think the client went to the bathroom or something—and he [the lawyer] and I sat there. I said, "Has it occurred
to you that you may very well be a target? You've got the FBI working for the housing people, and you've got all those people
on it, and they're bound to know that this is your brainchild. Because when the going gets tough, you don't have any friends."
I think I scared the hell out of him, as a matter of fact. He offered to withdraw and let me have it. I said, "No, wait a
minute. We're not in the business of taking business away from other lawyers. That's not what I'm getting at at all. What
I'm trying get at is
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that you may be—and you know more about it than I do—but you may be in some difficulty because clients have a habit of doing
a little singing for their supper. He has this heavy tax burden, and they're also going to indict him for fraud on the government.
I'm sure of that." I said, "I was U.S. attorney for eight and a half years, and that's exactly what I would do. So I think
you can expect that."
He got a little concerned then. He said, "Let me talk to him." So he talked to the client and they came back in. The client
said, "I think you are right, Mr. Poole. We may not be able to work a good defense." I can't remember this fellow's name now.
I hadn't decided whether I was going to take it or not. They left me with the understanding that if I would take it, the lawyer
was going to back out. He was going to mend his own fences some way, I guess. Coblentz had tried to get me several times during
this two and a half or so hour conversation that I'd had with these people. He called me, and he opened the door of the office
one time, and then had said, "How about having lunch?" I said, "Okay."
I buzzed him to tell him that it was lunch time, and I wanted to talk to him about this. I said, "The guy has asked me to
take him. Do you think Tevis," he was the senior, "do you think Tevis would be unhappy if I did it?" He said, "No, no, we
don't take them, just because nobody has any experience here. So there's no reason why you couldn't do that." What he wanted
to tell me, however, was—all those interruptions—that he'd gotten a call from John Tunney, and John Tunney told him that they
had talked to Attorney General Levi, who was Ford's attorney general, and to the deputy attorney general about—there was a
vacancy on the district court—about my being appointed. They had run that by the attorney general, and the attorney general
had said, "Well, okay. If the ABA okays him, why not. It will give Mr. Ford a much broader base." It didn't give him a much
broader base. Anyhow, so that's how I knew about it. I had no idea anybody was doing anything.
As of that time, I really had no problems. I was having the time of my life. I was enjoying it. I wasn't getting rich, I don't
mean that. But I was doing very well. Fees were good fees. By that time, also, I had become a director of Levi Strauss and
Company. Didn't I tell you that before?
Hicke
I guess, again, you mentioned it, but some of these things we talked about off tape.
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Poole
Yes, I was a director of Levi Strauss for, I guess, it would have been for about four years. And I had a couple of other directorships
and membership on a lot of boards and things.
Hicke
Maybe we should sort of lump those altogether and talk about them in one fell swoop.
Poole
A judge has to get out of all those things.
Hicke
Oh, that's right, as well as giving up your pay.
Poole
I was torn between the conflict. Anyhow I did finally do it. My wife said, "Now look me in the eye and tell me you don't want
to do it." We were doing such things as she and I were going to go down to Carnival.
Hicke
In Rio?
Poole
In Rio, yes. I had never been able to do that sort of thing before. It came suddenly. Judge Sam Conti was supposed to start
a three-week trial in his court. This would have been in about February of 19—
Hicke
Seventy-six?
Poole
Seventy-six, yes. There was supposed to be a case in Judge Conti's court that was going to take about three weeks. I got a
telephone call from his court deputy that there had been some kind of a snafu and this case had come to a temporary halt,
and they would get back to it in a few days. They now felt it would be three weeks before I could expect to come back in,
and that wasn't terribly firm. Charlotte and I had talked about going down to Carnival, and I said, "Let's do it. I've got
these three weeks." And damned if she didn't go and get the people—I still wanted to look at my navel a little while longer.
Hicke
She went right down to the travel agent.
Poole
She went to the travel agent, we had a hotel room, and flights on the damn thing. And then this thing comes along about the
judgeship. I said to her, and she was a very sensible person, she trusted me on this. I said, "Look, we go down to Rio, we
stay for six days," I think it was, "and we come back. We've never seen the country and this is on short notice. "We got maybe
the last hotel room, maybe the last plane seat, whatever it was.
##
Hicke
You were just about to tell her—
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Poole
I'd had a call from Walter Haas. This was the next day, I think. I hadn't said a word to him about this call from Tunney and
Cranston. I had gone to see him. I think it had something to do with the export regulations. Levi Strauss had approximately
twenty-five subsidiaries. He had just come back from the Kona Village Resort over in Hawaii. He had thought I was going to
go down to Rio, and I had called him down there and told him that I was not going to Rio. He called me and I told him that
we had canceled that. She had agreed to cancel it because there was too much going on. And he said, "Why don't you go to the
Kona Village Resort?" He had just come back two days earlier. It was very brand new then, and they had these old grass-thatched
roof cottages—native cottages—but inside they weren't old fashioned. They were absolutely great. The cottages were built out
over the lake—
Hicke
Oh, they hung out over the ocean?
Poole
Over the ocean, and there were these big reefs, and they were illuminated, so at night you could see all these beautiful fish
swimming around.
Hicke
So you did that?
Poole
Oh, yes. So he said. "Why don't you go over there? It's not as far, but you'll like it." So we made reservations for it. Then
I went up to see Bill Orrick and Charlie Renfrew, because I hadn't said any word to her, and, in my mind, I hadn't really
accepted anything because I hadn't talked to anybody but Cranston and Tunney. I told them I was going over to Kona and could
I talk to them about it next week when I came back. They said, "Oh, sure." I said to Charlie, "I don't know what the hell
I'm going to tell Charlotte, because I'm ambivalent about it. I mean, I want it and I don't want it. If I'd had about ten
more years doing the kind of work I'm doing now, maybe I'd feel more like it. But I didn't have those ten years, and I'm just
damned greedy." He said, "I'll tell you what you do. You go down to—there's a liquor store down on Sutter Street now; it used
to be on Montgomery. It's Williams Liquors, fine liquors and wines they have down there, up near Kearny. You go down there
and get a bottle of fine wine, go down to I. Magnin in the cellar they have down there and get some French cheese that she
likes, get her at the right time over there, sit her down, and then you tell her about it."
Hicke
And tell her that's the last time you'll be able to afford any of that kind of wine!
Poole
So I did. I got the bottle of wine and the cheese, and we went over there. And do you know, we'd been there four days and
I
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hadn't said a damn word. I didn't know how to. She was saying how great this is. She had made some friends. They were watching
the whales come by, the schools for whales, and that sort of thing.
Hicke
It was getting harder and harder.
Poole
Yes. "Isn't this a beautiful sunset, isn't that great? Oh, I love it." So when it came to be Thursday, they were having the
barbecue of the pig, and they put the pig in the pit covered over with ti leaves and that sort of stuff, and then they barbecue
it down there. So as we were going in—there's a little ceremony they have. As we were going in to watch the ceremony of opening
of the amu—there were no phones in the cottages, there were phones in the office—there was a fellow waiting at the entrance
to this place, and he said, "Mr. Poole." I said, "Yes." He said, "I have a message for you from Judge Renfrew." I said, "Oh."
And Charlotte said, "Charlie Renfrew?" I said, "I guess so." She said, "What does he want?" "I haven't the faintest idea."
I said, "We had talked about some receiverships and maybe that's what he's calling about, I don't know. I can't say so, but
I'll give him a call." So she said, "You're not supposed to be doing business over here, you know." So she went with these
friends to watch the whales, I went up on a lava bluff by myself and fished and I caught—what the hell did they call it? It's
the only time I caught a fish of any distinction out there. I'll think about it. It was a multi-colored, it was a beautiful
multi-colored fish. So I came back. I went into the dining room of the place and said to the chef, "These things won't keep,
are they good eating?" He said, "Absolutely special." I said, "Can you cook it for me?" He said, "Sure. Have it for lunch
tomorrow." So I said, "Okay."
Postscript. What happened to the lunch tomorrow was that somebody came on the early shift and served it to someone else, and
I never got a damned taste of it. I went down to the cottage, and Charlotte had been reading and she said, "What did Charlie
Renfrew want?" I said, "You'd better sit down." So she sat down. No, I guess I opened this wine first, and she said, "Where'd
you get that?" I said, "I brought it with us." She said, "What did Charlie want?" I opened some wine and some of the Roquefort
cheese that I brought in dry ice. Then I told her, and she didn't say very much, and I said, "I don't know what to do." She
said, "The hell you don't." [Laughter] She said, "After all these years, you've never gotten over what happened when Nixon
withdrew your nomination and all that, and the people who were ringing bells and sending congratulations, and you had to eat
everyone of them." I said, "I really don't know." We had some talk about it.
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Hicke
What had Charlie Renfrew said when he called?
Poole
Oh, what he had said was he had talked to Deputy Attorney General Tyler about whether there would be any problem. And Tyler
said, "If he gets the ABA approval, no, no." I got a "Very Well Qualified" from the ABA eventually.
In a way, it was sort of a division. Of course, she had to know, and I should have told her right off the bat. We talked about
it up and down, and I talked to everybody. Of course, Coblentz said, "You don't have any choice. What do you mean? What are
you thinking about?" I had to resign my directorship with Levi Strauss. I hated to do that. It's a great company. They had
twenty-five or twenty-six subsidiaries all over the world. It was just marvelous talking to those people from those different
places. But that happened over four years after I left Boalt.
Now to look back on it, of course, times have changed now, but I did the right thing. I didn't have any difficulty on confirmation
either. I got from Strom Thurmond, who had made the motion that, in effect—I think I told you about Warren Christopher the
day I went to the airport and he had called, didn't I? That had been several years earlier.
The Republicans on the committee, on the Judiciary Committee, had held back all these names—Matt Byrne, my name, David Bress,
Barefoot Sanders. The Democrats on the committee thought this was not acceptable. So they ganged up on them, and they passed
a resolution to start up a hearing right away for the three of us, and Strom Thurmond—Warren Christopher told me they had
that rule up there that any judge can put a matter over for seven days. So Strom Thurmond made that motion and automatically
put it over for seven days. This was on a Tuesday or Wednesday I was talking with him. I said, "But they're adjourning on
Friday." He said, "Yes, I know. The nominations will expire." That was in January, 1969. Nixon had pulled them back. When
I go back now from January, 1969, to early spring or late winter 1976, that was quite a gap in there.
I did have these feelings. I felt that, for many reasons, symbolically there was almost no escape for me. Nobody would understand
what I meant if I said I don't want to do it.
Hicke
I know though, from having written the history of the Federal Judges Association, that during the seventies some people did
turn down the judgeships because they were in such poor shape.
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Poole
I didn't take the oath of office until, I think, October. That incident where I had gotten the phone calls was, I'm sure,
in early February. My commission was dated in July, 1976. I didn't take the oath until October. The first paycheck I got in
a brown envelope, and so I opened it up, and I can't remember what it was. I was thinking—My business records were from the
Bank of America Building where the firm was, and for a while I was still a part of the company fund that they had. I had to
resign after I took the oath. And I couldn't think what this [paycheck] was, so I went up to Judge Peckham. His office was
next to mine, and I said, "Bob, how often do you get paid around here?" He said, "Oh, once a month." I said, "Do you mean
this is it? This is it?" He said, "Wait a minute now, you didn't take the oath until about the sixth of the month." I said,
"So this is it. My God, I can't believe this."
Hicke
Ouch.
Poole
He said, "What did you think it was?" I said, "I know I have a refund. I didn't think it was this much, but it's almost as
much as this, and that's just a small refund." Anyhow, it took a little getting used to, but you do.
Hicke
Let me go back to February or whenever you made the decision. What were some of the reactions that you got from your friends
and colleagues?
Poole
Oh, congratulations. I didn't have an enemy in the world it seemed. We had some incidents. There was some effort made to sidetrack.
Eventually President Ford had agreed to it. But in 1976, he was running for the full term, and the Republican primary was
to be held, I think it was in June, and the Republican fathers were a little bit concerned that in sending my nomination up,
Ford might—his opposition was Ronald Reagan—that Ford might lose some ground among true believers. I heard about this because
I got a call from John Tunney's secretary who said the White House sent over three names. I was the fourth one, but they didn't
send mine over. Tunney's chief of staff really went after them, and so did Ted Kennedy's people. They said, "You know how
it is with the Republican Primary out there. I think he just didn't want to do it at that time, but it will come over." They
said, "You bet you it's going over. Nobody's going to move until it gets over there." Two nominations were announced just
before the Republican primary, and I was announced after the primary. I didn't give a damn about that. It didn't bother me.
It's kind of interesting.
I went up and I found out all about things that they did. I said, "Is this what you guys have been doing all the time, back
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here where you were? You've been doing acts of blackmail and all this?"
Hicke
Who are you talking about?
Poole
The judges. I was telling the judges.
Hicke
At the district court?
Poole
At the district court, yes. But I knew them all pretty well.
Hicke
Judge Renfrew was pretty happy no doubt.
Poole
Oh, yes, Renfrew was. So was Orrick and Bob Peckham.