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Oxford’s Lord Franks

In February 1962, Sir Oliver Shewell Franks was installed as the Provost of Oxford’s Worcester College. Three months later he was awarded a life peerage as Lord Baron Franks, of Headington in the County of Oxford.[1]

As a Worcester student at the time, I soon learned that Franks was “Mr. Establishment.”

After a brilliant performance as a Classics student at Oxford with a Congratulatory First in 1927, Franks immediately was elected a Fellow in Philosophy at Oxford’s Queens College. There he helped to establish the new degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE). In 1937 Franks moved to Glasgow University to hold the Chair in Moral Philosophy, a post once held by Adam Smith.

With World War II on the horizon in 1939, he was conscripted into the U.K. Civil Service to work in the Ministry of Supply, which was in charge of production of war material and equipment. His successful efforts to replenish the British military equipment after the forced withdrawal of forces from Europe at Dunkirk in 1940 drew praise, and by the end of the war Franks was Permanent Secretary of the Ministry. For this exemplary public service, he was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1942 and a Knight Grand Cross in 1946.

After the war in 1946, Franks returned to Oxford’s Queen’s College to be its Provost. He was able to hold this position for only two years, but thereafter was a lifetime Honorary Fellow of the College.

The reason for his 1948 departure from Oxford was his acceptance of a request by Prime Minister Clement Atlee to be the U.K. Ambassador to the U.S., a position he held until 1952. During these years he headed the British delegation for European discussions about what became the Marshall Plan for U.S. aid to Europe. He helped to found the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and became Chairman of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation.

In 1953 Franks had many offers of important jobs in the U.K. and Europe. The one he chose in 1954 was Chairman of Lloyd’s Bank, one of Britain’s largest banks, and he held this position until 1962, when he became Provost of Worcester College. Franks also headed many important commissions of inquiry and was on the board of trustees or directors of other important institutions in the U.K.

In 1960 Franks, with the support of influential heads of several Oxford colleges, was a candidate for the Chancellorship of the University of Oxford, its titular head. His main opponent was Harold Macmillan, then Prime Minister. I recall reading in Anthony Sampson’s Anatomy of Britain (1962) that the Chancellorship was an office elected by the holders of Oxford M.A. degrees, who were physically present at a meeting in Oxford’s Sheldonian Theater. Sampson also reported that Macmillan thought that losing this election to Franks would be a political embarrassment and so ordered or persuaded the many government officials and civil servants who held Oxford M.A. degrees to go by train to Oxford that day to vote for Macmillan. With that special effort, Macmillan won the election by a narrow margin and became the Chancellor. He still held that position in 1983 when he attended the dinner to celebrate Worcester College’s 700th anniversary.[2]

In 1962 when Franks became Worcester’s Provost, he turned down an offer from Prime Minister Macmillan to be the Governor of the Bank of England. He retired from Worcester in 1976, but remained active on the boards of various important institutions and government and university commissions until his death in 1992.

Through this life of remarkable service, Franks gained a reputation as the “Divine Authority” or the “Headmaster of Headmasters.” At 6’2″ with a high brow, he gave the impression of all-seeing omniscience. It was said that if you managed to break the ice with Franks, you would find a lot of cold water underneath.

With such a record and reputation, Franks was an imposing figure for a lowly Oxford undergraduate like me to encounter. I, therefore, was surprised to discover a shy, engaging human being.

At a sherry party in the Provost’s Lodgings at Worcester, Franks once asked me, “Krohnke, do you know why The Times (of London, of course) has advertisements on its front page?” I did not know, so he told me that in the great houses of Britain the butler ironed The Times before the head of the house read the newspaper. I thought that was a bit silly, but there is a scene in the movie The Remains of the Day in which the butler played by Anthony Hopkins is ironing the newspaper. And in the 2011 version of Upstairs, Downstairs a fuss is made when the newspaper arrives too late for the butler to iron the newspaper. (The Times many years ago ceased the practice of front-page advertisements only.)

In the Spring of 1963 Franks lead a “revision” session on political philosophy for Worcester students who were taking PPE Schools that year.[3] Franks mentioned “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” from the U.S. Declaration of Independence. One of the English students who had attended Eton College, the preeminent English “public” school, interrupted to say, “I am sorry, I did not get that all written down. Would you repeat that phrase, please?” (Perhaps it was just my American background, but I always thought it odd that an Oxford University student, in PPE, would not know that phrase.)

In June 1963, after I finished PPE “Schools,” my fiancée and I were married in Oxford’s Manchester College Chapel. As a wedding gift, Lord and Lady Franks gave us a beautiful colored print of the Worcester Provost’s Lodgings.

After I had obtained a First in PPE, Franks sent me a short typed note with his “warm congratulations” and announcement of my receiving a “College Prize for your performance in the examination.” (The prize was “books to the value of ten guineas.”) Another short typed note at the same time stated that he was “glad to give you the College Grace to take your B.A. degree.” (This undoubtedly was a form note that gave the college a lever to force you to pay all of your college bills.)

My best Franks story, however, took place earlier in one of Worcester’s Senior Common Rooms when my philosophy tutor gave an oral “report card” on my performance to Franks as the head of the College. All of us were in suit and tie, of course, and covered by academic gowns. My tutor must have given a positive report on my performance although I do not recall what he said. Franks responded, “Krohnke, your tutor says you are doing very well. But I do think there is more time for devilry.” I was caught totally off-guard by this note of levity from the august personage of Lord Franks. The word “devilry” was not in my vocabulary, but it sounded mischievous. I had no response.

[1] Wikipedia, Oliver Franks, Baron Franks, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Franks,_Baron_Franks; Middlemas, Obituary: Lord Franks, The Independent (Oct. 17, 1992), http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-lord-franks-1557796.html; Lambert, Lord Franks, Diplomat Who Led Marshall Plan Effort, Dies at 87, N.Y. Times (Oct. 18, 1992)(http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/18/world/lord-franks-diplomat-who-led-marshall-plan-effort-dies-at-87.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm; Alex Danchev, Oliver Franks: founding father (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1993);Michael Hopkins, Oliver Franks and the Truman Administration: Anglo-American Relations, 1948-1952 (London: Frank Cass 2003); Smethurst, Oliver Shewell Franks, 139 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Soc’y 83 (1995); Franks, Britain and the Tide of World Affairs (London: Oxford Univ. Press 1955); Somerville, Oliver Franks, hsommerville.com.

[2] See Post: Celebrating Worcester College’s 700th Anniversary (May 29, 2011).

[3] See Post: Reading PPE at Oxford (June 6, 2011); Post: PPE Examinations at Oxford (June 10, 2011).

PPE Examinations at Oxford

As indicated in my discussion of “reading” PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) at Oxford,[1] the examinations were given at the end of a student’s time at the University. For me, that was early June 1963.

Examination School, Oxford — Examination Schools Building

For the examinations, University statutes required the students to wear sub-fusc (Latin: dark/dusky color) clothing. For men, this meant dark suit and socks; black shoes; white shirt and collar; white bow tie; and academic gown and cap. Riding my bicycle to the exams with all of this regalia made me feel special, for most of the people you passed knew from your garb that you were “taking Schools.” The examinations were given in a late 19th century University building called The Examination Schools on High Street in the city. Thus, the exams colloquially were called “Schools.”

The examinations were prepared, and evaluated, by a university-wide committee, and if one of your tutors happened to be on the committee, he or she was barred from grading your answers.

For PPE there were eight three-hour exams given over two weeks. Six of them were in the required subjects. The other two exams were in the student’s optional papers.

Each of the examinations had the same format. You had to answer four questions on a printed sheet of 13 to 16 questions. At the time, I thought they were the fairest exams I had ever encountered because they eliminated the chance that even though you knew the subject and had engaged in diligent preparation, you would be hit with a question for which you were not prepared. As I look back on the experience 48 years later, I could see how this format could be nerve-racking and force a student into wasting a lot of time figuring out which four questions to answer. This, however, was not my plight. I believe that I quickly read the complete list of questions and first picked the question for which I was most prepared and answered that one. Then I looked at the remaining questions and picked another question for which I was prepared and answered that one until I had answered four questions. As I reflect now on that experience, I can see a tactical problem of pacing yourself so that you did not spend too much time answering the questions for which you were best prepared.

Here is a sample of the 32 questions that I answered on the PPE examinations in June of 1963:

General Philosophy (from Descartes to the present): “Is there anything wrong with Hume’s definition of cause?”
Moral and Political Philosophy: “Is a retributive theory of punishment the only safeguard against condoning the punishment of the innocent?”
Theory and Working of Political Institutions: “Has the British Parliament anything to learn from the U.S. Congress?”
British Political and Constitutional History Since 1830: “Why was the second Parliament Act so much like the first?”
Principles of Economics: “‘Monetary and fiscal policies should always work in the same direction.’ Should they?”
Economic Organization: “How would you judge whether there is a world liquidity shortage?”
Public Finance: “Compare the merits of an annual capital tax and an expenditure tax.”
Currency and Credit: “‘Debt management is monetary policy.’ Discuss.”

(I do not remember what my answers were and could not intelligently answer these or the other 24 questions today.)

After I had finished the written exams, I told my philosophy tutor what I had done. On the Political Institutions paper, I said I had written about the U.S. and the U.K. In response, the tutor said, “Krohnke, you should expect to be called back for a ‘viva‘ [viva voce or oral examination] to establish ‘spread’ or breadth. So get out the Political Institutions examination paper and develop an answer about France or the Soviet Union.”

This was an example of how your tutors were also your coaches. That relationship was celebrated when Worcester College’s PPE tutors gave a dinner for their students who were “taking Schools” that term in one of the College’s senior common rooms.

In any event, I did as my tutor suggested and prepared an answer about France or the Soviet Union for the Political Institutions examination. It was time well spent for indeed I was called back for a viva by the full examination committee of six or so dons. It took place in a large room in the Examination Schools building. The dons were wearing full academic gear (robes, caps, etc.), and again I was in sub-fusc clothing. The chair of the committee said, “Mr. Krohnke, please tell us something about France or the Soviet Union.” I said something like, “Question No. 4” and then delivered my memorized answer. The committee chair then said, “Thank you very much,” and I left the room.

Sometime in July the examination results were posted on the University bulletin boards and published in The Times of London. I was greatly surprised and pleased to discover that I had obtained a First, which was awarded to the top 7.5 % of the 240 taking the exams.

All that was left was to obtain the B.A. degree in a ceremony in the Christopher Wren-designed Sheldonian Theater. The entire degree ceremony was conducted in Latin by the Classics (Greek and Latin) don from my college, who held the University position of Public Orator. Although I did not understand what he was saying, it was difficult to keep a straight face because the university newspaper that term had referred to him as “the Pubic Orator.”

[1] Post: Reading PPE at Oxford (June 6, 2011).

Reading PPE at Oxford

Once I knew I would be going to the University of Oxford in the Fall of 1961, I had to decide what I was going to study. At the time, most American Rhodes Scholars read for a second bachelor’s degree that involved Oxford’s traditional tutorial style of education. (Today, more choose to seek advanced degrees.)

I rejected “reading” Jurisprudence for a B.A. degree because at the time that required translation of Roman law from Latin into English, a skill I did not have and did not think I could acquire “on the side” while doing everything else at Oxford.

Instead, like many American Rhodes Scholars, I chose Philosophy, Politics and Economics or PPE.[1] It was also known as “Modern Greats” to indicate that it was designed in the 1920’s to replicate some of the features of Classics or Greats or Literae Humaniores (Greek and Latin), one of Oxford’s traditional and famous courses of study. PPE, on the other hand, was designed to be a well-balanced course of study of the social problems of the modern world.[2]

PPE was organized in two subjects in each of the three PPE disciplines: General Philosophy (from Descartes to the present); Moral and Political Philosophy; Theory and Working of Political Institutions; British Political and Constitutional History Since 1830; Principles of Economics; and Economic Organization. The student also selected two additional subjects to study; I chose two in economics–Public Finance and Currency and Credit.

During Oxford’s three eight-week terms of the academic year, you had two tutorials a week in these subjects. For the six required subjects there were usually only two students with tutors from your own college. For the optional subjects, you usually were alone in the tutorial and sometimes with a tutor from another Oxford college who specialized in those subjects.

Each week the tutor would set the problem and suggest relevant readings for the next week. The subject would always be put as a question that required you to come to a conclusion and marshal the evidence and arguments for your conclusion. Here are examples of such problems:

“The Left was never right.” Discuss this verdict with regard to British foreign policy between the world wars. Was the Right ever wrong?
What do we mean by “James who now does this is the same person who did that?” How do we know we are correct?
Is the City [London’s financial industry] vital to the U.K.’s role in world trade?
Can it ever be justifiably claimed that a tariff is imposed for revenue purposes only?
Is infallibility a pre-condition for knowledge? If not, why do we often think it is?

During the following week, if you were doing your work, you would read at least the suggested readings and prepare an essay analyzing the problem. At the following tutorial one of the students (if there were two) would read his essay, and the tutor would comment, ask questions and start discussions about the problem. The tutorials, by the way, were held in the tutor’s rooms in the college, and the students were required to wear their academic gowns. (Although I was a Rhodes Scholar, I was not a scholar of Worcester College and, therefore, was not entitled to wear a scholar’s longer gown. Instead, I wore a skimpy “commoner’s gown.”)

The philosophy tutorials were the most difficult and frustrating for me. Oxford was then in the throes of linguistic analysis with its emphasis on careful examination of the language of philosophical argument.[3] We frequently were assigned very abstruse articles in British philosophical journals —Mind and Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. One of the articles that I recall had a title like “What do we mean when we say this is a Grade A apple?” I kept wondering why I was spending my time reading these articles. Usually, however, during the tutorial I would say to myself that this was a worthy activity for someone like the tutor who was really good at it. But it was not for me. The tutor probably would say to himself, “Oh, these pragmatic Americans, they don’t get it.”

In addition to preparing for and participating in tutorials, the students could, if they wished, attend university-wide lectures on the PPE subjects (or, if you wished, on any other subjects that interested you.) I attended some and heard some of the famous Oxford dons of the day: J. R. Hicks (economist), Gilbert Ryle (philosopher) and A. J. Ayer (philosopher) are ones that I remember.

Finally during your “vacs” (vacations) and especially the “long vac” (the four-month summer vacation), you were encouraged to study independently. During one vac, for example, I spent several weeks at St. Deiniol’s Library (n/k/a Gladstone’s Library), a residence library near Hawarden, Wales[4] where I had room and board and a quiet library in which to study. (The Library was founded for “Divine Learning” by William Ewart Gladstone, Britain’s 19th century Prime Minister, and is close to Hawarden Castle, which was Gladstone’s estate.)[5]

At the end of each term, as I recall, your tutors gave practice exams, which were evaluated and returned with comments. Also at least once a year one of your tutors would give an “oral report card” on your performance to the head of your college.

The only “real” examinations were those given at the end of your time at Oxford. This memorable experience will be described in a subsequent posting.

As I reflect on this educational experience, I especially value the way that the subjects were presented to the students. You were forced to come to a conclusion and justify that conclusion, rather than saying a lot about a subject and avoiding coming to your own conclusions. You also had great freedom. You could look for, and read, resources beyond those suggested by the tutor. You could attend lectures if you wanted to. Given the one-on-one nature of tutorials, a student could not hide and never say a word.

[1] Two of the more famous American Rhodes Scholars, Pete Dawkins and Bill Bradley, for example, read PPE. (See Post: Oxford in New York City (May 17, 2011).) Bill Clinton, who was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, 1968-70, started in PPE, but soon abandoned the program because he thought it was too repetitive of his U.S. undergraduate education. Clinton first switched to a graduate degree program (B. Litt. in Politics) that did not involve tutorials, but required a 50,000-word dissertation. His tutor, however, persuaded him that was a mistake and to switch instead to a graduate degree (B. Phil. in Politics), that had tutorials, essays, exams and a shorter thesis. Clinton made the switch, but did not finish this program and did not earn an Oxford degree; his memoir says he chose to go to Yale Law School rather than finishing the Oxford degree. (Bill Clinton, My Life at 141-43, 171 (New York: Knopf 2004); Ralph Evans (editor), Register of Rhodes Scholars 1903-1995 at 306 (Oxford: Rhodes Trust 1996).) In 2003 my wife and I attended a celebration of the centennial of the Rhodes Scholarships at Westminster Hall in London where Clinton was one of the speakers. He said his family was always embarrassed he had never earned an Oxford degree, but that year his daughter Chelsea redeemed the family honor by earning such a degree the prior day. (Bill Clinton, Speech: Rhodes Trust Centenary Celebration, July 2, 2003, http://www.clingtonfoundation.org.) Other American Rhodes Scholar-politicians who read PPE are U.S. Senator Richard Lugar and former Senators David Boren and Paul Sarbanes. (Register of Rhodes Scholars 1903-1995 at 201, 203, 269.) The current British Prime Minister, David Cameron, also read PPE, as did other prominent U.K. politicians (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, Shirley Williams, Edwina Castle). (Wikipedia, David Cameron, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cameron; BBC News, Why does PPE rule Britain? (Oct. 31, 2010), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11136511.

[2] Handbook to the University of Oxford at 147-50, 158-60 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1960); Wikipedia, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy,_Politics_and_Economics.

[3] Wikipedia, Analytical Philosophy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy.

[4] Wikipedia, Gladstone’s Library, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladstone’s_Library.

[5] Wikipedia, William Ewart Gladstone, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ewart_Gladstone.

International Criminal Justice: Spanish Court Issues Criminal Arrest Warrants for Salvadoran Murders of Jesuit Priests

A Spanish court yesterday issued arrest warrants for 20 of the top military leaders of El Salvador’s civil war, accusing them of crimes against humanity and state terrorism in meticulously planning and carrying out the killings of six Jesuit priests in November 1989.[1]

Among the men named in the indictment were Rafael Humberto Larios, who was the Salvadoran defense minister at the time; Juan Orlando Zepeda, the vice defense minister; Rene Emilio Ponce, leader of the Army’s Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Inocente Orlando Montano, the vice minister of public safety. Mr. Ponce, who is believed to have given the order for the killings, died this month in El Salvador. Mr. Montano is in custody.

The Jesuit priests were the leader and professors at the Universidad de Centro America (UCA) in San Salvador, the capitol of El Salvador. The Rector of the University of Central America, the Rev. Ignacio Ellacuría, had organized an open public forum about the country’s problems. All six were noted professors who had published papers about the country’s problems, and most of them also had served as pastors in communities around the capital city.[2]

At the time of the murders, El Salvador was engaged in a civil war with leftist guerillas, and supporters of the Salvadoran government said that UCA was the “logistical center of Communist subversion.” The Jesuits at UCA were “agents of the Marxist conspiracy at the service of the Kremlin.” Ellacuria, they said, directed “all Marxist-Leninist strategy in Central America.” The Jesuits, according to these government supporters, were “the intellectual authors who have directed the guerillas.” [3]

This important development raises many issues that will be discussed in subsequent posts: (a) the work of the priests and UCA in the life of El Salvador; (b) the facts relating to the murders; (c) the criminal prosecution of some of the military officers in El Salvador; (d) the investigation and report about this horrendous crime by the Truth Commission for El Salvador; (d) the subsequent general amnesty adopted by the Salvadoran legislature; (e) the investigation and report about this crime by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; (f) the background of the case before the Spanish court; (g) the important work by international human rights non-governmental organizations like the Center for Justice & Accountability that has been a leader in the case in Spain; and (h) the international law principle of universal jurisdiction and Spain’s implementation of that principle.

As a result of my involvement with El Salvador over the last 26 years, my six visits to the country and to UCA itself and my investigation of the above issues, the latest development in the Spanish case is very important to me legally, spiritually and emotionally. Through all of these activities, I have come to see that there is an ever-evolving interactive global struggle against impunity for violators of human rights and that many courts, other international and domestic governmental and non-governmental institutions and people play different and important roles in this process. [4]

[1] Malkin, From Spain, Charges Against 20 in the Killing of 6 Priests in El Salvador in 1989, N.Y. Times (May 31, 2011); Center for Justice & Accountability, Spanish Judge Issues Indictments and Arrest Warrants in Jesuits Massacre Case (May 30, 2011), http://www.cja.org/article.php?id=1004.

[2] Martha Doggett, Death Foretold: The Jesuit Murders in El Salvador (Washington, D.C.; Georgetown Univ. Press 1993) [“Doggett”]; Jon Sobrino, et al., Companions of Jesus: The Jesuit Martyrs of El Salvador (Maryknoll, NY; Orbis Books 1990).

[3] Commission for the Truth for El Salvador, Report: From Madness to Hope: The 12-year war in El Salvador at 49 (March 15, 1993), http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/salvador/informes/truth.html; Doggett at 17.

[4] See Post: My First 10 Years of Retirement (April 23, 2011); Post: International Criminal Justice: Introduction (April 26, 2011); Post: The Sanctuary Movement Case (May 22, 2011); Post: Becoming a Pro Bono Asylum Lawyer (May 24, 2011); Post: My Pilgrimage to El Salvador, April 1989 (May 25, 2011).

The Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Litigation

On March 1, 1967, the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 307 to 116 refused to seat Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., the re-elected African-American Congressman from Harlem, censured him, fined him $25,000, took away his seniority and declared his seat vacant. The grounds were that he had engaged in conduct unbecoming a Congressman: he had refused to pay a libel judgment ordered by a New York state court, had refused to return to his district except on Sunday in order to avoid service of legal process in that case, had misappropriated congressional travel funds and illegally had paid his wife a congressional staff salary for work she had not done.[1]

Soon thereafter Powell along with 13 of his constituents commenced a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to invalidate his exclusion. The defendants were John McCormack, who was the Speaker of the House, five other House members and three of its staff. The complaint alleged that the exclusion violated Powell’s constitutional rights: Powell satisfied the constitutional qualifications for membership (age, citizenship and residency) and the exclusion allegedly was based upon his race and color and thereby violated his rights under the Fifth, Thirteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution.[2]

Powell’s lawyers were William Kunstler, a famous civil rights lawyer;[3] Arthur Kinoy, another prominent civil rights lawyer and Rutgers Law School Professor;[4] Herbert Reid, another civil rights lawyer and Howard Law School Professor;[5] and others.

The House decided that it did not want the Lyndon Johnson Administration’s Justice Department to defend the House’s leadership because of concern that political considerations would prevent the Department from vigorously asserting what the House believed to be its full constitutional prerogatives. Instead, the House took the recommendation of Emmanuel Celler, the Brooklyn Congressman and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to hire as its attorney, Bruce Bromley, a partner in the New York City law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore.[6]

Bromley was a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Harvard Law School. He was a lawyer with the Cravath firm for over 50 years with one interruption. In January 1949, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, who had been the unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate the prior year, appointed Bromley to New York’s highest court (the Court of Appeals), but in November 1949, Bromley lost the election for a full term. Although he served on the bench for less than a year, thereafter he was always referred to as “Judge Bromley.” While at Cravath, he was the lead lawyer in successful representation of IBM, General Motors and other major corporations.[7]

For the Powell case, Bromley assembled a team of Cravath lawyers to work on the case, including yours truly. I do not recall what issues I worked on and now wish I had kept a journal about my involvement in this case to refresh my recollection. I do remember that another Cravath associate attorney and member of the team, Dorsey D. Ellis, Jr., was an amateur legal historian and was the primary draftsman of an appendix to the eventual Supreme Court brief that discussed the legislative common law of the British House of Commons and the early state legislatures regarding exclusion and expulsion of members of legislatures.[8] Another Cravath associate on the team, Jay Gerber, recently told me that he remembers the issues on which he worked.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.[9] The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal, but on different grounds. It held that the federal courts had subject-matter jurisdiction, but that case was not justiciable, i.e, it was not appropriate for judicial relief because of the separation of powers.[10] The case then went to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Before the Supreme Court argument, the other members of the Cravath team and I went to Washington several days ahead of time to prepare for the argument and to consult with Cravath’s Washington allies and former partners: Lloyd Cutler, who subsequently was White House Counsel for Presidents Carter and Clinton,[11] and John Pickering.[12] Cravath also brought the lawyers’ spouses to Washington on the Sunday before the oral argument in the Supreme Court so that they could watch the proceedings the next day. My wife was on a plane from New York City that Sunday with none other than Congressman Powell.

Although the House’s side had won in the lower federal courts, there were no guarantees that it would prevail in the U.S. Supreme Court. The House was asserting that its power under Article I, Section 5(1) of the Constitution to “be the Judge of the . . . Qualifications of its own members” was an implicit exception from the Article III “judicial Power of the United States [that was] vested in [the Supreme Court]” and the lower federal courts. Thus, the House argued, no federal court had the power to do anything in this case. As a result, it was anticipated that Chief Justice Earl Warren might well ask Judge Bromley in oral argument whether he was claiming that if the House or the Senate hypothetically were to exclude or expel five or six black members-elect in succession that the Supreme Court could do nothing. The answer to this hypothetical question was clearly “yes.”

At the oral argument, as I recall, the Chief Justice in fact asked that question. Bromley’s responded in essence that yes, the Court could do nothing, but that there was no reason to suspect that the House or the Senate might do such a thing and that there was a political remedy by the voters’ re-electing the same people. The Chief Justice and Bromley then got into a colloquy as to which branch of the federal government had the “final” say regarding the Constitution. Bromley said in very limited areas, each house of the Congress had the “final say:” impeachment and removal of federal officials and judging the qualifications of its members. Jay Gerber recalls that the Chief Justice almost fell out of his chair at that answer.

In June 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court, 7 to 1, reversed the dismissal of the lawsuit. The majority opinion by the Chief Justice held that the federal courts had jurisdiction over the subject matter of the case and that it was justiciable; that it did not constitute a political question that pitted one branch of government against another. Rather, it required “no more than an interpretation of the Constitution” by the Supreme Court.[13]

The majority opinion stated that while the House of Representatives was the sole judge of its members’ qualifications (U.S. Const., Art. I, § 5, cl. 1), the House did not have the power to develop qualifications other than those specified in the Constitution: election certificate, at least 25 years of age, U.S. citizen for at least seven years and an inhabitant of the state in which he or she was elected at the time of election (Art. I, § 2. Cls, 1, 2).

In addition, the Court’s majority opinion noted that while the Constitution states (Art. I, § 5, Cl. 2),”Each House [of Congress] shall be the Judge of the . . . Qualifications of its own Members,” the Constitution immediately states that each “House may . . . with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.” The Court, therefore, held that the process leading to the expulsion of a Member, duly sworn and enrolled upon the body’s rolls, was the only constitutional method for a House to give effect to its power to determine the qualifications of its members. The House did not follow this procedure with respect to Congressman Powell. Therefore, he was entitled to a declaratory judgment that he had been unlawfully excluded from the Congress.

In the meantime, Powell had won the May 1967 special election to fill his congressional seat, but did not attempt to be seated. He then won the next regular election in November 1968 and was seated in the House in January 1969 (approximately five months before the Supreme Court decision) subject to the $25,000 fine and loss of seniority. The next year, however, Powell lost the 1970 Democratic primary election to Charles Rangel and failed to qualify to be on the general election ballot.[14]

Powell was a member of a notable Harlem family. His father, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., was Pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem (1908-36) before being succeeded by Powell, Jr., his only son (1937-71).[15] Powell. Jr.’s older son, Adam Clayton Powell, III, was a journalist and media executive,[16] and Powell, Jr.’s younger son, Adam Clayton Powell IV, is a New York State legislator who lost the 2010 Democratic primary election for Congress to the incumbent, Charles Rangel.[17]

Powell, Jr. died in 1972 at age 62.

[1] Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 489-93 (1969); Wikipedia, Powell v. McCormack, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_v._McCormack.

[2] Powell v. McCormack, 266 F. Supp. 354 (D.C. DC. 1967).

[3] Wikipedia, William Kunstler, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kunstler.

[4] Wikipedia, Arthur Kinoy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Kinoy.

[5] Ravo, Herbert O. Reid, Sr., 75, Lawyer Who Taught Many Black Leaders, N.Y. Times (June 19, 1991).

[6] Wikipedia, Bruce Bromley, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Bromley.

[7] Wikipedia, Bruce Bromley, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Bromley.

[8] After Cravath, “Dan” Ellis became a member of the faculty at the University of Iowa School of Law and then Professor, Dean and eventually Dean Emeritus and William R. Orthwein Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Washington in St. Louis School of Law. (Washington University in St. Louis, Dorsey Ellis, http://news.wustl.edu/people/Pages/DorseyEllis.aspx.

[9] Powell v. McCormack, 266 F. Supp. 354 (D.C. D.C. 1967).

[10] Powell v. McCormack, 395 F.2d 577 (D.C. Cir. 1968).

[11] Wikipedia, Lloyd Cutler, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Cutler.

[12] Wikipedia, John H. Pickering, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Pickering.

[13] Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486 (1969).

[14] Wikipedia, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell,_Jr.; Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress, “Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr.,” http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=p000477

[15] Wikipedia, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell,_Sr.; Abyssinian Baptist Church, History, http://www.abyssinian.org/about-us/history/.

[16] Wikipedia, Adam Clayton Powell III, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell_III.

[17] Wikipedia, Adam Clayton Powell IV (Politician), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell_IV_(politician).

Celebrating the 80th Anniversary of the Rhodes Scholarships

In June 1983 my wife and I attended festivities in Oxford to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the Rhodes Scholarships.

With our printed invitations in hand, we went to a Garden Party at Rhodes House in the presence of Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh. They walked around a roped circle in the center of an eager gathering of over 1,400 former Scholars and spouses. From time to time they stopped to engage someone in conversation. We were not close enough to be candidates for being selected for such a conversation. But it was exciting to be there.

The “Court Circular” in The Times of London the next day reported that “The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh . . . visited Rhodes House, Oxford (Warden Dr. R. A. Fletcher) and attended the Rhodes Scholars’ Reunion Garden Party. [They] . . . were received on arrival by Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant for Oxfordshire (Sir Ashley Ponsonby, Bt.), the Chairman of the Rhodes Trustees (the Lord Blake) and the Chancellor of the University (the Right Hon. Harold Macmillan).”

At the University of Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre, which was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the University’s Vice-Chancellor convened the Congregation of the University (an official meeting of the senior members of the University). He then awarded Honorary Degrees to five former Rhodes Scholars. Doctors of Civil Law were awarded to Don Price, Emeritus Professor of Government and Public Management at Harvard University; The Honourable Robert Aaron Gordon Robertson, former Secretary to the Canadian Cabinet and to the Canadian Cabinet for Federal-Provincial Relations; and General Bernard William Rogers, Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Doctors of Letters were awarded to the Rt. Hon. Sir Zelman Cowen, the former Governor-General of Australia; and Robert Penn Warren, U.S. novelist, poet and Emeritus Professor of English at Yale University.

The Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford was the site for a Thanksgiving Service. The Bidding Prayer by The Rev’d Dr. J. K. McConica, a former Canadian Rhodes Scholar, gave “thanks for the benefits enjoyed in this place through the munificence of our Founder, Cecil John Rhodes” and prayed “for ourselves, that we may use to God’s glory the gifts and opportunities with which we have been so abundantly blessed.” The Rev’d Dr. David Alexander, an American Rhodes Scholar, in his closing prayer gave “hearty thanks for thy servant Cecil John Rhodes our Founder, by whose bounty we are here brought up to godliness and the studies of good learning.” Alexander then offered A Prayer for the Nations, A Prayer for the Universities, A Prayer for All Men in Their Vocation and a General Thanksgiving prayer.

A gala anniversary dinner was held in large marquees in the garden of Oxford’s Trinity College. Toasts to Her Majesty the Queen and to the Founder were offered by the Chairman of the Rhodes Trust, The Right Hon. Lord Blake. Welcoming remarks were made by the Chairman and by The Right Hon. Harold Macmillan, the Chancellor of the University and former Prime Minister of the U.K. The response on behalf of the guests was made by J. Ogilvie Thompson, a South African Rhodes Scholar at Worcester College (before my time) and the CEO of AngloGold Ashanti, a gold-mining company in South Africa.

The dinner menu featured Ogen Melon, Darne de Saumon, Le Supreme de Volaille Suedoise, Haricots verts, Pommes Nouvelles and Mille Feuille. The wines were Wiltinger Scharzberg Riesling 19980, Gold Label Rhine Riesling Ashbrook Estate 1982, Cabernet Sauvignon Newton Vineyard 1980 and Paarl Vintage 1961 port.

Celebrating Oxford’s Worcester College’s 700th Anniversary

On June 25, 1983, my wife and I attended the dinner to celebrate the 700th anniversary of Oxford’s Worcester College. The College’s Provost, Asa Briggs,[1] and Fellows were joined by many “Old Members” (what we in the U.S. call alumni) and other guests in a large marquee in the College’s garden.

We were served Ogen Melon with White Port, Sole Veronique and Lemon Sorbet for the first course; Roast Saddle of English Lamb Clamart for the second course; and Swan Eclairs, Diables a Cheval and Fresh Fruit Bowl for dessert. The wines were Muscadet Le Maitre Gourmet, Chateau de Barbe 1979 and Dow’s 1974 Reserve.

The toasts were to The Queen and the College with a Reply by the Provost.

The special guest of honor was Harold Macmillan, then the Chancellor of the University of Oxford and the former Prime Minister of the U.K.

Worcester’s claim to 700 years is somewhat strained. In 1283 the Benedictine Order founded Gloucester College, whose great work was educating the most promising men in the Order and sending them back to the monasteries as administrators or minor statesmen in their chapters.[2] In 1541, however, Gloucester College was one of the institutions that was subject to King Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries and thus ceased to exist, and its property reverted to the Crown.[3] The Crown in 1560 sold the property to a new institution, Gloucester Hall, which was organized and occupied the former College buildings from 1560 to 1714, but the Hall was not a college.[4] In 1714 Worcester College was founded on the site, and magnificent 18th century neo-classical buildings were built on the north and east sides of the main quad. They are still used today. Amazingly some of the medieval “cottages” of Gloucester College have survived on the south side of the main quad of today’s Worcester College and are still used as residences for students and dons.[5]

After the anniversary dinner, The Times of London had a photograph of Mr. Macmillan with a caption written by someone who knew the history. It stated, “Harold Macmillan, Chancellor of Oxford University, celebrating the seven hundredth anniversary of the founding of Gloucester College, the Benedictine college, some of whose buildings are now occupied by Worcester College.”[6]

[1] Wikipedia, Asa Briggs, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Briggs.

[2] Worcester College at 1-6 (1976).

[3] Wikipedia, Dissolution of the Monasteries, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Monasteries.

[4] Worcester College at 7-14 (1976).

[5] Id. at 15-21; Worcester College, The History of Worcester College, http://www.worc.ox.ac.uk/About%20Worcester/c_collegeHistory.php.

[6] College calls, The Times (June 27, 1983).

A Liberal Arts Seminar for Lawyers

My sabbatical leave at Grinnell College in 1982 prompted me to think about ways to provide intellectual stimulation and enrichment for practicing lawyers. This reflection resulted in my organizing “Renewing Fealty to the Law: A Liberal Arts Seminar for Lawyers” at the College in June 1984.[1]

My invitation to the Seminar stated, “Have you ever been bored while sitting in a large hotel banquet room listening to a continuing legal education lecturer? Have you ever regretted your inability to find or make time to read some general books about the law? Have you ever wondered about the significance of what we do for a living? Have you ever longed for the opportunity to take time out of the hurly-burly of practice to meet with other lawyers and discuss some of the broader issues of law and the practice?”

If the recipient had ever said “yes” to any of these questions, I urged them to come to the seminar. Twenty-six lawyers did and joined the five seminar leaders for a weekend at the College.

The keynote speaker was the Honorable Frank M. Coffin, Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in New England.[2] I had met him in the Fall of 1982 when we were both on the Visiting Committee for the University of Chicago Law School. I had mentioned to him that I had used his book, The Ways of a Judge, in the undergraduate course I had taught at Grinnell earlier that year. The ensuing conversation revealed that we both firmly believed that there was a profound need for lawyers and judges to read, think, and talk about broader issues involving law and the profession.

For the seminar I prepared a collection of Judge Coffin’s unpublished speeches that I entitled “Lawyers and Judges–The Essential Humanists in a Technological Society.” My Introduction to this booklet said that his speeches “recount the observations of a sensitive, profound individual caught in the demands of an increasingly technical, more business-like profession.” The speeches were organized into sections about constitutional law, lawyering and judging. The booklet also contained bibliographies of his judicial opinions, books and articles and reviews of his book, The Ways of a Judge.

Judge Coffin’s speech at the Grinnell seminar, Finding Serenity in the Practice of Law, defined “serenity” as “an inner calm built of three components: (1) regaining a sense of control of work and life style; (2) repositioning the individual at the center of the stage, whether we focus on the lawyer or the client; and (3) restoring a sense of framework, of perspective, of being aware of where we have come from, who we are, how to carry on a noble tradition.”

Such serenity, Coffin said, should give us “a better chance of remaining sane, of avoiding burnout, and of retaining our motivation and momentum.” It also should make us better counselors and advisors or better lawyers in the grand tradition.

To this end, Judge Coffin proposed humanizing the law office. Lawyers share their experiences and insights with others in the firm. Retired lawyers talk about their recollections. Develop “story-telling” about the law for lay people. Organize social activities. Collect oral histories. Provide sabbatical leaves. Conduct retreats and seminars on broader topics. Provide lawyers in residence for law schools. Host academics and judges in residence at law firms.

He also suggested developing other models for delivery of legal services by smaller groups. Finally Judge Coffin reminded us of the importance of being familiar with the great works of civilization that shed light on the human predicament.

This pursuit of serenity, he concluded, should help us “keep the law a humanistic profession worthy of our fealty.”

Grinnell seminar — Judge Coffin, Duane Krohnke, Jim Laue

Other discussion leaders at the seminar were Grinnell’s Parker Professor of History Al Jones on “American Legal History;” James H. Laue, Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Metropolitan Studies at the University of Missouri (St. Louis),[3] on “Lawyers and Dispute Resolution;” Victor G. Rosenblum, Professor of Law and Political Science at Northwestern University, on “Jurisprudence; ” and Gene E. Wilkins, an Indianapolis attorney and Adjunct Professor at Indiana University, on “The Humane Practice of Law.”

One of the participants in the seminar afterwards said the College “has a quite palpable aura” and was “the place where [many of our enduring values] . . . were refined, buttressed or altered in an atmosphere which required the free exchange and testing of ideas.”

[1] Post: A Sabbatical Leave from Lawyering (May 26, 2011).

[2] Wikipedia, Frank Morey Coffin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Morey_Coffin; Lewis, Frank Coffin, Chief Judge of a Federal Appeals Court, Dies at 90, N.Y. Times (Dec. 17, 2009). See also Post: Adventures of a History Detective (April 5, 2011) (oral history interview of Judge Coffin in John F. Kennedy Presidential Library).

[3] Jim Laue was a personal friend and the husband of a high school and Grinnell College classmate. In the Johnson Administration he was working on resolving racial conflicts for the federal government’s Community Relations Service and was with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when he was assassinated in Memphis in 1968. President Carter in 1979 appointed Laue as co-chair of a commission that recommended the establishment of the U.S. Institute of Peace, which happened in 1984. He was a Vice Chancellor of the Washington University in St. Louis, 1971-74; the Director of the Center for Metropolitan Studies, University of Missouri-St. Louis, 1974-87; and the Lynch Professor of Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, 1987 until his death in 1993. (George Mason University Libraries, Guide to the Papers of James H. Laue, 1947-1993, http://sca.gmu.edu/finding_aids/laue.html.)

A Sabbatical Leave from Lawyering

In February 1982 I took a three-month sabbatical leave from my law firm, Faegre & Benson, and became a Visiting Instructor in Political Science at my alma mater, Grinnell College.[1]

I taught one course that I created, The American Civil Law System. It had units on the structure of the legal system, legal reasoning, adjective law (civil procedure, conflicts of law and evidence) and substantive law (torts, corporations and contracts).

In addition to readings, lectures and class discussion, I employed some unusual pedagogical devices. I put on the “witness stand” a sociology professor and questioned her about her personal experience as a juror. We saw part of a civil jury trial. We visited the Iowa Supreme Court and observed oral arguments. Afterwards we talked about the work of the court with two Grinnell alums who were justices on the court and another Grinnellian who was a law clerk for another justice. We obtained the briefs in one of the cases we heard, and with some explanatory memos from me the students were asked to write an opinion deciding the case in lieu of a final exam.

Another unusual technique was a moot court in the hypothetical case of Smith v. Oxbridge College. Denied tenure, Smith sued for breach of contract. The dispute concerned whether the plaintiff could obtain copies of the college’s tenure committee records. Two students acted as opposing lawyers and argued the motion to compel discovery relying upon two recent federal cases on point. I played the part of the judge. (I should note that the facts of the hypothetical case were very close to a then current case of a Grinnell faculty member who had been denied tenure.)

During my semester at the College I gave two public lectures. One with an economics professor concerned antitrust policy. The other, American litigiousness.

In the latter talk, I discussed what I saw as the causes and effects of Americans’ inclination to sue one another. While concluding that one could not applaud or deplore litigation and litigiousness in the abstract, I suggested changes in our legal system and national psyche.

I also discovered that the mid-19th century founder of the town of Grinnell (J. B. Grinnell) had similar thoughts. In his memoirs he said, “To the honor of the first settlers [of the town], I can recall no suit where they were personally litigants. How much time and money was saved! What an exemption from bitterness, cold-blooded social strategies, and flippant perjuries in mockery of oaths! This did not come by chance, for there was a verbal compact that we would not promote a lawsuit.”

J. B. Grinnell had even harsher words for lawyers who encouraged litigation. “There may be honor, which I doubt, among thieves, but little when robust clients are to be plucked . . . . [A] class of idle pettifoggers in legal business stir up litigation more degrading than any brute warfare, and then laugh at their dupes, traducing the judge as the author of defeat, or a jury which they irreverently send to another and warmer realm . . . . Filth to them is like nutritious food; they are crazy on constitutions, and in spasms of assumed virtue on a human suggestion not written in law. They have no God, nor one fit to be written with a small g. Human gad-flies.”

While on sabbatical leave, I had to return to Minneapolis to appear at a hearing in federal court. This made me realize how much I enjoyed the challenge of the adversary system–preparing for, and doing, battle on relatively short notice puts an attorney’s abilities to a difficult test. But I did not miss the annoying difficulties of scheduling and re-scheduling appointments and having one’s personal life whipsawed by others’ demands plus the increasing incivility of lawyers to one another, even in a city like Minneapolis.

Nor did I miss the nagging doubts about the significance of a lawyer’s life. As Learned Hand, one of our greatest judges, said in a 1931 commencement address at the Yale Law School, “Most of a lawyer’s time . . . consists of activity which seems to have small value and small bearing on the greater issues of the community in which he lives. True, it concerns the individuals whom he touches oftentimes in their deepest interests, but it is hard to believe that the results are important more largely.” [2]

Despair, however, was not Hand’s conclusion. “When our lights burn low, when we [lawyers] seem to stand futile and without meaning, used up in the senseless strife of interest and passion, concerned with nothing better than to get for others what perhaps they should not have, let us look up to the great edifice which our forebears have built, of which we are now the guardians and the craftsmen. Though severally we may perhaps be paltry and inconsequent, for the present it is we who are charged with its maintenance and its growth. Descended to us, in some sort moulded by our hands, passed on to the future with reverence and with pride, we at once its servants and its masters, renew our fealty to the Law.”[3]

Despair at the lawyer’s life was not my conclusion either. My sabbatical leave enabled me to step back and look more broadly at the edifice of the law and our legal institutions and to draw sustenance to return to practicing law.

In June of 1982 the College granted me an Alumni Award in recognition of this teaching and other service to Grinnell.

[1] An earlier version of this essay appeared as An attorney finds an “accommodating bench,” Grinnell Magazine, June-July-August 1982, at 17.

[2] Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty at 84-89 (3d ed. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press 1960). Several years after my sabbatical leave, I discovered that Learned Hand was a Harvard Law School contemporary and then life-long friend of Edward B. Burling, a famous Washington, D.C. lawyer who came from a small Iowa town and Grinnell College. (See Post: Adventures of a History Detective (April 5, 2011).

[3] Id.

My Pilgrimage to El Salvador, April 1989

For my second Salvadoran asylum case, I decided that I needed to go to El Salvador to do investigations for the case and to learn more about the country. In April 1989 I made my first of six trips to the country. I went with a group led by Minneapolis’ Center for Global Education at Augsburg College.[1]

The Salvadoran Civil War was still going on, and on the day we arrived her Attorney General was assassinated with a car bomb. In response, the Salvadoran military forces were in the streets with their automatic rifles at the ready, stopping everyone to provide identification. People in the “popular organizations” were being arrested. It was a very dangerous and tense 10 days in the country.

These days turned out to be the most intense religious and spiritual experience of my life. It was and still is a major reason why I now say that El Salvador liberated this American lawyer in many ways and helped him integrate his religious faith with his professional life.

We went to a service of solidarity for a Catholic priest who that week had received death threats. The service was in a screened recreational building next to a very dusty soccer field. As we entered, we were handed mimeographed sheets with words for hymns of the people about Archbishop Oscar Romero, who had been murdered nine years earlier. Thus began my learning about Romero.[2]

Our group visited the office of COMADRES in a small house in the city. (It is the committee of the mothers of the disappeared and assassinated). A young woman talked about her jailing and torture earlier that week. Right behind her I saw a bust of Robert Kennedy representing the very first Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. It was granted to COMADRES for its struggle for amnesty for political prisoners, information regarding the “disappeared” and punishment for those responsible for human rights violations.[3] (During the Reagan Administration, the U.S. would not grant a U.S. visa to a COMADRES representative to come to the U.S. to receive the award.)

At the COMADRES’ office I also saw a framed copy en espanol of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,[4] which I had never regarded as important and about which I knew nothing. Even though I could not read the Spanish text, I could see that it was an inspirational document for these people. This experience came rushing back to me when later I learned about the Universal Declaration.

Our group met with Phil Anderson, a Lutheran pastor from Minnesota who was working in El Salvador for Lutheran World Federation. Earlier that week he had sent faxes to the Federation’s headquarters in Switzerland with information about the arrests of many people from the popular organizations so that the next day the headquarters could send faxes of complaints to the Government of El Salvador. I gained a new appreciation for the work of international organizations around the world and about the sinister messages that are sent when they are kicked out of a country.

My fellow travelers on this trip were from the Washington, D.C. Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (the successor of the Lutheran Church in America, my client in the Sanctuary Movement case). Through their connections I was introduced to the significant work in El Salvador of its small Lutheran Church and its Bishop Medardo Gomez, who is frequently regarded as the spiritual heir to Archbishop Romero.[5]

We also met Salvador Ibarra, a lawyer for the human rights office of the Lutheran Church of El Salvador. He told us that in late 1980 a judge had appointed him to represent one of the Salvadoran national guardsmen accused of raping and murdering the four American church women.[6] Someone from the U.S. Embassy then asked Ibarra to call a press conference and announce that he had investigated and had found no involvement of higher officials in this horrible crime. This, however, was not true, and he refused to hold a press conference. In response he received death threats that prompted him and his family to flee the country. His wife told him that he was stupid to put her and their children’s lives at risk, and she took the children and divorced him. Yet Ibarra subsequently returned to his country to be a human rights lawyer and thereby continued to put his life on the line. He spoke about the joy he had in his work as a lawyer for people whose human rights were at greater risk.

In my subsequent work as a pro bono asylum lawyer and human rights advocate, I continued to be inspired by Salvador Ibarra. How easy it was for me as a large law-firm lawyer in Minneapolis to do this work. I did not have to risk my life as he did.

Our group visited the “22nd of April” community in San Salvador. This community was a three-block area of land on a steep hill between railroad tracks above and a road below. It had been used as a garbage dump, but on April 22nd in the early 1980’s displaced Salvadorans (“desplazados”) started to occupy it. In April of 1989 there were at least 10,000 people living there. They were mainly women and small children because teenage and adult males were fighting in the civil war or had been killed or disappeared. The people lived in “houses”– some of concrete blocks and tin roof; others of cheap tin or aluminum sheets or scrap lumber; yet others made with cardboard.

We walked around “22nd of April” with its pastor–Father Jim Barnett, a Dominican priest from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He talked about his ministry of accompaniment and solidarity. He was inspired by the example of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who had entered the total experience of the poor–physical, spiritual, social, economic and political–and who had spoken about the church’s need to be incarnated in the life of the people and the institutional injustice and violence in El Salvador.

Another stop on our trip was UCA, the Universidad de Centro America, a Jesuit institution with a beautiful, serene campus on a hill in the capital city.[7] We spent an hour with Father Jon Sobrino, a noted liberation theologian.[8] Only seven months later six of his fellow Jesuit priests were brutally murdered at that very place by the Salvadoran Armed Forces. (Sobrino escaped this fate because he was in Thailand giving lectures.)[9]

We went to the small, modern, beautiful, serene Chapel of Divine Providence on the quiet grounds of a cancer hospital. This is where Oscar Romero was assassinated while celebrating mass on March 24, 1980. (Across the street was the three-room apartment where Romero lived. No luxurious Archbishop’s palace for him.) Along the way to the chapel I saw graffiti messages: “Romero vive!” (“Romero lives!”)

The Cathedral of San Salvador, on the other hand, is in el centro with all the noise and hurly-burly of buses and other traffic. In April 1989 the building was not finished. (Romero had halted all construction because he did not think it was right for the church to be spending money on its building when the people were suffering from poverty and human rights abuses.) On the steps were women from COMADRES with their bullhorns protesting against the latest wave of repression. Inside, scraps of linoleum were on the floor along with scattered plain wooden benches. In the right transept was Romero’s tomb–plain concrete and covered with flowers and prayers of the people. As I stood there, the words “My body broken for you” from the Christian sacrament of communion echoed in my mind.

[1] Center for Global Education, http://www.augsburg.edu/global/.

[2] Later posts will discuss the life and witness of Archbishop Romero and why he is my personal saint.

[3] Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights, http://www.rfkcenter.org/ourwork/humanrightsaward.

[4] Universal Declaration of Human Rights, http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/b1udhr.htm.

[5] Medardo Gomez, Fire Against Fire (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress 1990); Medardo Gomez, And the Word Became History (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress 1992).

[6] E.g., Ford v. Garcia, 289 F.3d 1283 (11th Cir. 2002), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 1147 (2003); Gonzalez, 2 Salvadoran Generals Cleared by U.S. Jury in Nuns’ Deaths, N.Y. Times, Nov. 4, 2000, at A3.

[7] Universidad Centroamericana “José Simeón Cañas,” http://www.uca.edu.sv/.

[8] Wikipedia, Jon Sobrino, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Sobrino.

[9] Sobrino, et al., Companions of Jesus: The Jesuit Martyrs of El Salvador (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis 1990); Center for Justice & Accountability, Jesuits Massacre Case, http://www.cja.org/article.php?list=type&type=84.