Everything about Arthur Goldberg totally explained
Arthur Joseph Goldberg (
August 8 1908 –
January 19 1990) was an
American statesman and jurist who served as the
U.S. Secretary of Labor,
Supreme Court Justice and
Ambassador to the United Nations.
Early life
Goldberg was born and raised on the West Side of
Chicago, the youngest of eight children of
Jewish immigrants. The family originally came from a
shtetl called Zenkhov in the
Ukraine. Goldberg's father, a produce peddler, died in 1916, forcing Goldberg's siblings to quit school and go to work to support the family. As the youngest child, Goldberg was allowed to continue school, graduating from
high school at age 16.
Goldberg's interest in the law was sparked by the famous 1923
murder trial of
Leopold and Loeb, wealthy young Chicagoans who were spared the death penalty with the help of their high-powered
defense attorney,
Clarence Darrow. Goldberg would later point to this case as inspiration for his opposition to the
death penalty on the bench, as he saw how inequality of social status could lead to unfair application of the death penalty.
Goldberg earned a distinguished reputation as a student at the
Northwestern University School of Law, where he edited the law review, graduating in 1930.
In 1931, Goldberg married art student Dorothy Kurgans. They had one daughter, Barbara (Cramer), and a son, Robert.
Labor lawyer and Kennedy Administration
Goldberg became a prominent labor lawyer, representing striking Chicago newspaper workers on behalf of the
Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1938. He served in the
Office of Strategic Services as chief of the Labor Desk, an autonomous division of the American intelligence agency that was charged with the task of cultivating contacts and networks within the European underground labor movement during
World War II. Appointed general counsel to the CIO in 1948, Goldberg served as a negotiator and chief legal advisor in the merger of the
American Federation of Labor and CIO in 1955. Goldberg also served as general counsel of the
United Steelworkers of America.
Goldberg was by this time a prominent figure in the Democratic Party and in labor union politics. President
John F. Kennedy appointed Goldberg to two positions. The first was
United States Secretary of Labor, where he served from 1961-1962. As Secretary, he served as a mentor to the young
Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The second was as an associate justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States, replacing
Felix Frankfurter, who had resigned because of poor health.
Supreme Court
Despite his short time on the bench, Goldberg played a significant role in the Court's jurisprudence, as his liberal views on constitutional questions shifted the Court's balance toward a broader construction of constitutional rights. His best-known opinion came in the case of
Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), arguing that the
Ninth Amendment supported the existence of an unenumerated
right of privacy.
Perhaps Goldberg's most influential move on the Court involved the death penalty. Goldberg argued in a 1963 internal Supreme Court memorandum that imposition of the death penalty was condemned by the international community and should be regarded as "cruel and unusual punishment," in contravention of the
Eighth Amendment. Goldberg was the first to argue this position: prior to Goldberg's memo, no Supreme Court case had addressed the question of whether the death penalty violated the Eighth Amendment. Finding support in this position from two other justices (
William J. Brennan and
William O. Douglas), Goldberg published an opinion dissenting from the Court's denial of
certiorari in a case,
Rudolph v. Alabama, involving the imposition of the
death penalty for rape, in which Goldberg cited the fact that only five nations responding to a
United Nations survey indicated that they allowed imposition of the death penalty for rape, including the U.S., and that 33 states in the U.S. had outlawed the practice.
Goldberg's dissent sent a signal to lawyers across the nation to challenge the constitutionality of capital punishment in appeals. As a result of the influx of appeals, the death penalty effectively ceased to exist in the United States for the remainder of the 1960s and 1970s, and the Supreme Court was forced to consider the issue in the 1972 case of
Furman v. Georgia, where the Justices, in a 5-4 decision, struck down the death penalty laws of states across the country. That decision would be revisited in 1976's
Gregg v. Georgia, where the justices voted to allow the death penalty under some circumstances; the death penalty for rape of an adult female victim, however, would be struck down in 1977's
Coker v. Georgia. Goldberg's mode of analysis, comparing the practices of other nations and states of the U.S., became a standard test used by the Court in evaluating Eighth Amendment claims.
During his tenure on the Supreme Court, one of his
law clerks was future Associate Justice
Stephen Breyer. Another was prominent criminal law professor
Alan Dershowitz. Goldberg resigned from the Supreme Court to become the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
UN Ambassador
In 1965, Goldberg was persuaded by President Johnson to resign his seat on the court to replace the late
Adlai Stevenson as the US
Ambassador to the
United Nations. Goldberg accepted only after much prodding by Johnson, in the hope of negotiating a settlement to the escalating conflict in
Vietnam. In that post, Goldberg clashed with Johnson over the course of the
Vietnam War.
In 1967, Goldberg was a key draftee of Resolution 242, which followed the 1967 six-day-war between Israel and the Arab states. While interpretation of that resolution has subsequently become controversial, Goldberg was very clear that the resolution does
not obligate Israel to withdraw from all of the captured territories. He stated that:
The notable omissions in language used to refer to withdrawal are the words the, all, and the June 5, 1967, lines. I refer to the English text of the resolution. The French and Soviet texts differ from the English in this respect, but the English text was voted on by the Security Council, and thus it's determinative. In other words, there's lacking a declaration requiring Israel to withdraw from the (or all the) territories occupied by it on and after June 5, 1967. Instead, the resolution stipulates withdrawal from occupied territories without defining the extent of withdrawal. And it can be inferred from the incorporation of the words secure and recognized boundaries that the territorial adjustments to be made by the parties in their peace settlements could encompass less than a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territories [italicsby Goldberg]. (External Link
)
Subsequent career
Goldberg, frustrated with the war in Vietnam and longing to return to the bench, resigned from the ambassadorship in 1968.
Goldberg was mentioned as a potential nominee for Chief Justice when
Earl Warren announced his retirement in 1968, but was passed over in favor of
Abe Fortas (whose nomination for Chief Justice was eventually successfully
filibustered). He was for a short time associated with the New York law firm
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
In 1970, Goldberg ran for Governor of
New York, but proved an underwhelming campaigner and was defeated decisively by incumbent
Nelson Rockefeller. Subsequently, Goldberg returned to law practice in Washington, D.C., and served as President of the
American Jewish Committee. Under President
Jimmy Carter, Goldberg served as United States Ambassador to the Belgrade Conference on Human Rights in 1977, and was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1978.
Goldberg died in 1990. He is buried at
Arlington National Cemetery.
1970 New York State Democratic ticket
Further Information
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