Tom Clark’s Transition from Attorney General to Supreme Court Justice ALEXANDER WOHL When Tom Clark accepted President Truman’s offer to be Attorney General, the President told him to “pick out somebody for SolicitorGeneral who, in the event you go, I’ll have another man—I won’t have to look all over the country and wait around to get me another man to be Attorney General.”1 Whether this oblique comment meant that Truman was thinking even then ofClark to fill a future Supreme Court vacancy cannot be known. It seems likely, however, given that all four of Truman’s high court appointments—Harold H. Burton (1945), Chief Justice Fred Vinson (1946), Sherman Minton (1949), and Clark (1949)—were trusted friends or colleagues ofthe President, that Clark’s future appointment may at least have been in the back of his mind. Shortly before the President was inaugu rated in January 1949, Clark notified the White House that he intended to leave the cabinet. Apparently, the President viewed this as little more than the formal notice that all cabinet officials generally submit even ifthey plan to stay on in a second term. Truman took no action on Clark’s letter. In April, however, Clark sent a letter reiterating that he was indeed planning to return to the practice of law in Texas.2 Then, in July, Justice Frank Murphy, Another Former Attorney General appointed to the Court (by President Roose velt), died suddenly, and Clark was tasked with putting together the list of potential replacements. One report, likely apocryphal, stated that when Truman asked Clark to suggest three names to fill Justice Murphy’s seat, Clark supposedly replied, “Clark, Clark, Clark.” In fact, Clark’s name had been floated to fill previous Court vacancies, most significantly in 1946, to replace ChiefJustice Harlan Fiske Stone, who had died ofa cerebral hemorrhage while on the Bench. Instead, Treasury Secre tary Fred Vinson was chosen in part, accord ing to Clark, because former Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes recommended him, a claim made by Truman as well. Clark later said he “was for Vinson too.” Shortly after the appointment he told a Kentucky audience that the nomination “has already given the whole TOM CLARK’S TRANSITION TO THE COURT 169 country, in a troubled hour, a wave of comfort,” calling Vinson “the gift from Kentucky to the people of America.”3 Time offered a slightly different analysis, suggesting Clark was disappointed that he had been passed over for the ChiefJustice slot and that Truman had assured him that “the next vacancy was his.” Consequently, said the magazine, when he was selected to replace Murphy, “he had been ready and waiting for more than two years.”4 Whether entirely accurate or not, certainly, after four years working closely with Truman to advance the President’s agenda in civil rights, domestic security, and even international affairs, de fending Truman from conservative and liberal critics alike, working devotedly on the 1948 campaign, and generally cementing and enhancing his friendship with the President, Clark’s relationship with Truman had only grown stronger. So, too, had his friendship with Chief Justice Vinson, who had largely failed, on both an ideological and a personal level, to achieve Truman’s hoped-for uniting of the Court. Thus, the rationale for adding a mutual friend, colleague, and political ally to the High Court Bench has only grown stronger. Nomination Battle While Clark’s selection may not have been the most obvious choice, neither was it a complete surprise. Indeed, even on the day that Justice Murphy died, some news outlets suggested that Clark was likely to get the nod to replace him, while also warning that his appointment could be met with opposition.5 In fact, the road to confirmation was not without its bumps, which included criticism from across the spectrum. Charges of Although Tom Clark (left) said that the nomination of Fred Vinson (right) to replace Harlan Fiske Stone as Chief Justice in 1946 “has already given the whole country, in a troubled hour, a wave of comfort,” he was disappointed that Truman, a close friend, had not named him to the Court. Clark eventually joined his friend...