VI ViewpointsSoft vs. Tough Law EnforcementFryOne of the interesting things in your attorney general's office, in your first term, was what appears in the press to be a rise of importance of narcotics enforcement, which in the seventies has become a primary problem in the state. There were a number of news stories about attempts by you to get ten extra men to set up another office in San Diego at the border where the narcotics were coming across. You didn't get that, by the way; the senate finance committee cut it. But you did get two extra men to go around the state and train other law enforcement officers in specific problems of law enforcement. My question is, was this primarily marijuana? (There was heroin, too.) Brown There was heroin; and marijuana, of course, at that time was thought to be almost an aphrodisiac. And more than that, it was not only a love potion; part of the mystique of marijuana was that men would go out and go berserk and rape women and all that sort of thing. Marijuana was put in the same category as heroin. There wasn't any difference. As a matter of fact, there was a judge in San Francisco when I was district attorney that made a career out of sending people in possession of marijuana to the penitentiary. It was really pretty rough. It didn't stop it, of course. But marijuana was regarded as very bad. Then, of course, we had a lot of heroin, and it was a growing thing. The Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement was under the attorney general, and I had been a district attorney and worked with the police. ― 81 ―
I was always trying to be innovative and trying new methods and things like that. I also appointed--I don't know whether we've
come to this--a crime prevention committee in the North and South, and we would meet in various places. I had one man in charge
of it. These people really worked awfully hard, and they were all an intelligent group of people that were on it. They were
under the jurisdiction of a man named Emmett Daly, who I later appointed judge. You ought to talk to Emmett about it. He's
in San Francisco. They rendered some reports there that are still good today on organized crime, on recidivism, on narcotic
enforcement, on mental illness. They went right into the penitentiary and took notes. It was a great group of people.
Fry It was an investigatory group? Brown Yes, but not an enforcement group, although there was some enforcement people on it. They'd meet in committees during the month, and then we'd have a meeting once in Northern California, once in Southern California. We'd meet at places like Santa Barbara, and we always had a good time. It was really a very strong group. Fry Did you also have a special narcotics commission? Brown I think I had a narcotics commission too. I can't remember who was on that, but I'm sure that I did. Fry One newspaper story said that you were planning to set one up. Brown I'm sure I did. Then, my two chiefs of the criminal department were Arthur Sherry, who'd been Warren's crime commission guy, and a fellow named [Harold] Robinson. Those two men were the head of my criminal division, and they were both very, very good. They'd been trained by Warren, came out of the Alameda District Attorney's Office. Robinson had been with the Kefauver commission; Harold Robinson was one of the chief investigators for the Kefauver committee. I put him in charge of law enforcement here. So I was a strong law enforcement man too during the period I was attorney general. I always attended the Peace Officers' Convention and enjoyed almost a hundred percent support of chiefs of police throughout the state. When I ran for governor, I had all that support. Later on, when I came out against capital punishment, although I was then and am now a strong law enforcement person, because I was against capital punishment they ― 82 ―
characterized me as soft on law enforcement. That was the symbol of whether you were a true cop or not--if you believed in
capital punishment and let these guys be executed. Ninety-five percent of the police believe in that.
Fry So that really hurt you politically. Brown It hurt me politically over a period of time. I lost the support in '66 of the peace officers, and Reagan got it. They are a far greater political force in this state than anyone thinks. These chiefs of police are in every little nook and cranny of the state. People have confidence in them; they're their protectors of life. I'll never forget [Los Angeles Police Chief Bill] Parker after the Watts riots. We had a Catholic communion breakfast. The Irish are notoriously anti-cop, but when he was introduced, he got a rousing reception; he got a far bigger hand than I did, which hurt me. This was in '65 or '66. He got a real big hand for the way he handled the riot--and he handled it, in my opinion, very badly. I never thought it should have gotten to the point where it got. Fry The other thing I noticed was that organized crime was a big issue because Kefauver's congressional committee had come in and investigated. That was, I think, the first real television special. In '52. That was the first year, in consequence, of the federal tax that was levied on gambling. I wonder if you could just tell me what difference this made in the main things that were going on here: there was Tom Keen's murder in '52, which was a peninsula bombing; he was a dog track operator, I think. There was a Riverside gambling bribery indictment of the Sheriff Deputy Willard Parmes and others. Then there was the prosecution of Archie Scheffer who was Mr. Big of bookmaking on the peninsula in Northern California. Brown What was his name? Fry Scheffer. Brown Scheffer, Archie Scheffer. [Pronounced "Schaeffer."] Fry And Jesse James T. Sernusco was another Mr. Big the papers talked about too. And then you had problems with the FCC because Western Union was trying to get a softer opinion on a regulation which would not allow their wires to be used for horse racing information. That's some of the background relating to organized crime and gambling here. ― 83 ―
Brown I think you have to go back to my attitude in connection with crime as district attorney of San Francisco. Before I was district attorney, I'd been kind of a man about town in San Francisco. My father had a little gambling place and a little poker club in San Francisco that was quasi-legal; by quasi-legal, I mean they only played poker and pangingi. It was debatable as to whether they were illegal or not. Fry Yes. Later this became an issue too. Brown It became an issue in my campaign for district attorney in '43; they brought it out. But my overall theory, as I told you before, was that you had to enforce the law, whether you liked it or not, and I did. In San Francisco, there was no organized crime; the crime was all organized by the police department. The police department permitted that that they thought should go on. They permitted abortions, they permitted two or three good bookmaking places, they'd let the two-dollar whorehouses run but they would move on them: they'd keep moving, the girls were never sure of where they'd be. They arrested the streetwalkers, and they'd throw the gals in the bucket for quarantine for sixty-eight hours or something if they picked them up. So when a poor girl was arrested, she had to go to the women's court. And the Chinese gambling went on in San Francisco--the pei gow. So those were the things that organized crime could work on, but they were all permitted by the police department. The abortions were under homicide. The vice details were always named by the mayor. Roger Lapham, during the first four years as district attorney, was certainly a very honorable man, but he was a very liberal man; he didn't believe in closing the whorehouses. I don't think he gave a damn about the gambling. The other--the abortions and the after-dinner spots or things like that--he never got serious about, as long as there were no racketeers or things. But with me, as I think I told you before, corruption in the homicide bureau became pervasive and moved into robbery and bunko and everything else. The Atherton graft investigation indicated that cops were all taking money there. [Interruption] Fry So at any rate, I think what you're saying, then, is that this background of your experiences in San Francisco-- Brown When I became attorney general, my theory was that the best way to defeat organized crime was to press for the suppression of all these illegal activities. In some parts of the state, there was some organized crime, in narcotics. The police of San Francisco never permitted narcotics; there ― 84 ―
were narcotics there, but this was one thing that was enforced. The other things they looked on with some degree of complacency.
When I became governor, for example, I closed the whorehouses up in Jackson, which had been running from time immemorial.
That was the legislators' bedroom. They'd drive up to Jackson for sixty miles whenever they wanted a little extracurricular
activity.
Fry Really? Brown Yes! Jackson was a sensational place, running openly; the sheriff let it go. But I called the sheriffs in and I said, "I believe in local law enforcement. I don't believe that there should be any statewide police force. I think you people know your people, you're elected to do the job, and I don't want a statewide police force; you've got to do it. But if there's anything running that's illegal, I'm going to give you warning, and if you don't shut it up, then I'm going up there and shut it up myself." The sheriff of Crescent City--Del Norte County--was a new sheriff. There were a couple of gals running up there; I warned him, and he didn't close it up. So we went up there to close the place up. In Los Angeles Country, you had Bill Parker. (I don't know when he came in, but I think he was chief of police then.) And Bill was a one hundred percent honest man. But in Los Angeles, being a big city, they probably had girls. Narcotics coming across the border were very hard to stop. But I'm sure that abortions and prostitution were prosecuted by the Los Angeles Police Department. My undercover people told me that there were girls, but it was very disorganized and there was no organized crime. To this day--I mean after I'd been in office a couple of years--I don't think there was any organized crime in the state of California in the full sense of the word. I think there were some extortionist rings of Mafia that maybe worked on the people that sold olive oil or something like that that moved into it. But after the crime commission investigation and the Kefauver investigation, and my tough law enforcement attitude, there wasn't any room for organized crime; they just couldn't move. I was proud of the fact that there wasn't any organized crime. Fry Yes. There were a number of press statements to that effect. Brown To that effect, during the eight years I was attorney general. ― 85 ―
Fry There was an investigation of liquor stores, I think by a group of ministers. They reported that liquor stores were selling a lot of liquor to minors. I wondered if that was anything big. Brown I don't know. We conducted an investigation of the liquor enforcement, and I put Bill Bennett in charge of it. Bill Bennett went after Bill Bonelli (for liquor license graft) down here in Los Angeles and indicated him; he finally left the state after he was indicted--went down to Mexico and never came back. He died down there. One of his chief deputies was indicted and convicted, and there were two or three legislators that were involved with it. Our office went after that, and this is where we supplanted local law enforcement. It was a statewide problem. Civil Rights and Equal RightsFryThere was an incident in Richmond where a black family moved into a white neighborhood, and threats and rock-throwing through his window resulted. It was a tense situation, and according to press accounts, you wanted some arrests made of the people who were throwing the rocks and harrassing. Brown Yes, I went after it. I was by nature and conviction a completely unprejudiced person. (I won't say I was without prejudice; I suppose we all have a little anti in us.) But I felt my role as attorney general was to set an example of racial tolerance--I don't like to use the word "tolerance"; that's not the right word--of racial equality. And I did everything I could personally and as a law enforcement person to see that blacks were not diminished in any shape, form, or matter. As a matter of fact, the Ford Foundation had retained a gal by the name of Marcia Binns (I think it was the Ford Foundation--some foundation), and she came in to see me on some of my civil rights stands and positions. She was assigned by the Ford Foundation to spotlight any place in the West, anything of a civil rights nature. She came into my office. I can't remember the particular case, but there was some particular case. There must have been ten or fifteen occasions in the next six years, or five years. After that she highlighted in the media things that I did. It ― 86 ―
really was very helpful to me in my campaign for the governor. She put them on television. Later, when I became the governor,
I was so appreciative of what she'd done, I put her on the board of trustees of the women's prison. As a matter of fact, she's
been a friend of mine ever since.
Fry The FBI moved in the Richmond incident. Sometimes that's a help and sometimes it isn't. Brown I got along very well with the FBI. I think Hoover gave me good reports; his people and I got along very well. The only place we didn't get along was on criminal statistics. I claimed that the statistics of the California Bureau of Statistics was better than his, and he'd always send over two FBI guys to find out why I made the statement. I was always amazed at the umbrage he'd take at any statements I made about his statistics. He sent over two of his best men to go after me on the thing. With respect to the blacks and the Chicanos too, I tried my level best to see that they had equal housing, equal education, and equal job opportunities. I fought for the Fair Employment Practices Act. In 1948, I opposed this housing measure where you had to have an election in order to have any kind of public housing in a community. I opposed that bill; I was one of the leaders in opposition to that. My equal rights for minorities, with the exception of women, went back a long time. I never even actually thought about women with respect to equal rights, between you and me. It didn't occur to me till after I became governor that you gals were really in a secondary position. Fry I think it didn't occur to many of us either in the Fifties. Brown I don't know whether it's good or bad, though, in some ways. I think it's good. Don't you? Fry Yes, I do think it is, but I guess we have to take our new responsibilities too. Brown We'll talk about that at lunch. I want to ask you some-- Fry I want to ask you about this Guide to Race Relations for Peace Officers, which you drew up at this time--your office did; a twenty-three page booklet. Is that any relation to one that Bob Kenny's office drew up? Brown Bob had one, but I improved on it, I think. ― 87 ―
Fry I wonder if you used that at all. Brown Oh, yes. We sent it out to all the peace officers. Fry I mean Bob Kenny's, in drawing up yours. Brown I probably did; I probably did. But I probably brought mine up to date. Fry I think yours is shorter; yours is twenty-three pages. Brown Is it? How long was his? Fry I don't know offhand, but it was longer, and written primarily by his assistant, Bob Powers. Anyway, they went on from there and tried to make a movie out of it, which didn't materialize, for a training movie. Yours was, then, disseminated to peace officers, and did you make any other efforts to train peace officers in the area of treatment of minorities? Brown I talked about it. I think every speech I made, I called to their attention that they felt that they were being kicked around--the blacks--and that they were, and that I felt the police had to go overboard to assure them that they were getting equal treatment. On housing and things like that, I think I spoke very boldly for fair housing, because unquestionably there were conspiratorial moves that would keep a black out of a white neighborhood because it diminished the value of the property to a great extent. I fought all of those things. I'd have to refresh my recollection. But you see, I grew up in a family where--I lived in a flat. My father had some flats, and we had Jewish people upstairs and Jewish people downstairs. Those were the only tenants we ever had. And my mother was a great civil rights woman, religiously, and with the blacks; it was part of my training that there be no prejudice against any race or creed. So this was sincere. One other thing that you ought to observe. I was an original founder of the Lawyers' Guild back in 1938. This later came up in some of my campaigns--they accused me of it. [Laughter] ― 88 ―
I was going back east later, during the war. I can't remember what it was for; it was some occasion. I happened to get hold
of the Lawyers' Guild magazine. I hadn't paid much attention to them after the forming. I'd formed it because I thought the
bar association was too damned conservative and too reactionary. Philosophically, I wasn't thinking of it in terms of national
or international issues; I was thinking of it as a lawyers' guild, not as a political instrument.
So I was going back east, and I was on a plane (or maybe it was a train) and I had their magazine. I read some of the positions they took, and I was so opposed to them that I resigned. That must have been afterwards. Judge Edward Preston Murphy, who was a judge in the criminal department--he was a very close friend of mine--became the president of the Lawyers' Guild in San Francisco. When I was district attorney, he asked me to re-join or become vice president, and I did. I was a member for a couple of years but later resigned because of their attitude on world communism and those things. I really thought it was communistically dominated. One other thing you probably ran across in the clippings. In 1945, during wartime, or `44, there was a move to deport Harry Bridges. Roger Lapham and I both sent wires to the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney General and asked him to drop it, because Bridges was aiding in the war effort. This later rose up to haunt me, but it also helped because I made a lifelong friend of Harry Bridges and labor; as a result of it, he's been a good friend of mine over the years. I helped Harry Bridges too when I was district attorney. He had a daughter who was mentally ill, and I got her committed to an institution without any publicity and without anybody knowing anything about it. I did it secretly through a judge. He was always deeply appreciative of that. I think the girl's all right now; I think she's recovered and is perfectly okay. Fry My last question is one more civil liberties thing. A bill that was part of the crime commission package for 1951 called for legalization of wire tapping if approved by a judge. I wondered what the response was on the part of the civil libertarians when you came out in support of this. Brown Did I support that then? As attorney general? Fry Yes. Isn't that interesting? [Laughter] ― 89 ―
Brown It is interesting. You've got to remember, I was a real tough law enforcement man. As district attorney and attorney general, my civil rights grew as I saw abuses by police departments, although I should have known it before. I have no recollection of supporting it at the time. But I do remember now. You've got to remember, I also went after the nudist magazines in San Francisco. There was a nudist magazine--all they showed was the backside and the breasts of a woman. Fry Pretty mild. [Laughter] Brown Pretty mild stuff, and no frontal views of men of any kind, nature, or description. They were the nudist colonies, you know; they'd have pictures. I arrested the people selling those magazines. [Laughs] I also prosecuted The Outlaw. I don't know if you remember the motion picture, The Outlaw, with the gal with the big breasts. [Jane Russell] Fry Oh, yes. It had a semi-nude scene in it or something. Brown She climbed in bed with this man. He was suffering from chills and fever [laughs], and she climbed in bed with him, Billy the Kid. It was so silly. But we lost the case. We also went after Memoirs of Hecate County or something. I can't remember that, but that was a book [laughs] and we went after the publisher of that. So you can see that as a district attorney, I was pretty much of a strong conservative in law enforcement. I don't remember that the American Civil Liberties Union did, but I know they opposed wire tapping. But with the intervention of a judge, I think I favored it at that time. I also favored capital punishment then too; I favored capital punishment I think until I'd been in the attorney general's office about two or three years and I started reading these reports of the condemned. I could see that most of them were crackpots, that capital punishment wouldn't have any effect upon them whatsoever; they'd kill, and it wasn't a deterrent. Fry That's interesting. I wondered about when you began to change. Brown I know that Marcia was working on things such as wire tapping and things like that, and she would interview me on them. I ― 90 ―
was kind of an Exhibit A for a liberal attorney general when she started, so that may have been in '54 or '55.
Budget and Personnel in the Attorney General's OfficeFryI think that's everything, unless you have a general statement to make about how you got along with the legislature. I notice Alan Post was trying to knock you down by over $21 million in 1951 when you first got in as attorney general. You probably had to fight for your appropriations. Brown Yes, but I got along very well with Governors Knight and Warren. They gave me most of the things I wanted. Then if they didn't, I'd go to the legislature. The Democratic legislature recognized me as the leader, being the only Democrat in a statewide office. I'd go up to Sacramento and had a very close association with them. I think both Warren and Knight were pretty good on the budgets to me for some of my extra-curricular activities: the narcotics study commission and things like that. They'd give me a couple of extra civil-service exempt deputies. I got along very well with the civil service people. You want to remember that I'd been district attorney of San Francisco, where all of the employees were exempt. So I was a little bit concerned when I became attorney general that people would not be loyal. But I found out that these people were very loyal and able. Ted Westfall was the chief deputy-civil later on. I appointed a lot of Warren's staff people--Herb Wenig--and enjoyed a very close association with his former deputies. I had great respect for his attorney general's office. I was impressed with their organization and generally the operation of the office. Fry It certainly helps in the transition if you can keep some of the veterans on your staff. Brown I had four or five of my own. I brought Bert Levit in, and in every one: my district attorney, attorney general, and governor's office. He was my chief deputy for a little while. Then I brought Fred Dutton in. I made a speech in '53 or '54 to a group down here called the Diogenes Club. They were a group of young lawyers and young businessmen, young scientists and things, and I made--if I do say so myself--a very good speech. These people became my devoted ― 91 ―
supporters and worked very closely with me in my campaigns for attorney general and governor.
William V. O'Connor was my chief deputy (he died of alcoholism, unfortunately, later on) and the man that helped develop contacts for me in the acting community down here and also in the legal community. He was a tall, handsome guy, and the girls loved him. He was dating Ann Miller at the time, who was then doing very well in dancing and films. I met a lot of the motion picture gals and directors and things through Bill O'Connor. Frank Mackin--if you ever want to do anything more on the attorney general's office--would have a great recollection. He was my chief deputy here in Los Angeles, Francis Mackin. Fry Okay. Do you mean, by bringing you in contact with the motion picture group, that this was important for political support and funding too? Brown Funding, that's right. I got this great Spanish pianist, Jose Iturbi, to play at two or three of my functions. He was great. What are you working on now? Fry I'm working on the Warren Era project, and this concludes Pat Brown's part as attorney general. Brown You haven't undertaken the Knight-Brown era yet. Fry We don't have the money yet. Brown Is that bill going through? Fry We have our first hearing next week on the 15th. [end of interview] transcriber: Lee Steinback final typist: Leslie Goodman-Malamuth ― 92 ―
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