Solicitor General's Office is the barrister for the United States before the Supreme Court, arguing and briefing government cases which reach that Court and deciding which cases to appeal.

Other agencies

The Administrative Division, headed by a career department employee rather than by a political appointee, manages personnel, budget, equipment, the library and records.

The specialized agencies include the Community Relations Service, which maintains liaison between the department and community leaders in areas with potential or imminent racial problems; the Board of Parole, which has sole authority to release prisoners before their terms expire (see p. 66); the Office of Consumer Counsel (now vacant), which in 1968 coordinated consumer protection efforts in the government; and the Office of Criminal Justice, established to assess the fairness of federal criminal justice but occupied recently with preparing a blueprint for an attack on crime in the District of Columbia.

CONSTITUENCY

Unlike some departments and agencies of the executive branch, the Justice Department has not become a captive of its constituencies. Indeed, as former Attorney General Ramsey Clark observes, "The department has no dominant constituency."

In plain language, that means the department does not deal with the same people all the time and does not, therefore, run the risk of becoming subservient to the interests of those whose conduct it regulates. The Justice Department's constituency in its law enforcement role consists of those accused of breaking the law and the victims of those breaches-including society.

This is not to say, however, that the department operates in a vacuum. Its decisions and actions reflect pressures from the White House, Congress, the Courts (see "Courts" box), other departments and agencies in the government, state and local governments, interest groups and the public. More than most other departments, Justice also exerts pressures-on government at all levels, on the courts, business and society.

WHITE HOUSE PRESSURES

The President is vitally interested in the department's activities: They may become the criteria for judging his Administration. Just as President Johnson's Justice Department became a major issue in the law-and-order campaign of 1968, so has President Nixon's department become the principal target of critics who say civil rights enforcement is lagging and dissent is being repressed.

President appoints

The President appoints the Attorney General and other policy-making officials in the department, and they serve at his pleasure. This power to appoint and discharge is the ultimate pressure.

As a rule, the President exercises it in his selection of people rather than by taking a role in the department's decisions. Mr. Nixon's choice of Mitchell to succeed Clark as Attorney General was probably the single most important influence on the department's behavior over the next four years. Mr. Nixon knows Mitchell, and Mitchell knows what the President wants from the department. In that situation, it is not important whether the Attorney General clears decisions and actions with the White House; he represents the White House. (For more on Mitchell, see box.)

This is not unique to the present Administration. President Kennedy's Attorney General-his brother Robert F. Kennedy-was at least as close to the White House as Mitchell is. And no one is appointed Attorney General who cannot be relied upon to adhere to the general policies of his President. Administration vehicle

The department becomes a vehicle for much of the President's program. In the Johnson years, Justice formulated a succession of civil rights legislation and originated the crime bill that created the LEAA. Mr. Nixon's department has drafted legislation to combat crime in the District of Columbia, to amend

voting rights provisions, to give law enforcers new weapons against organized crime and to consolidate federal drug control into a comprehensive program.

Enforcement policies and priorities also reflect the White House influence. Mr. Nixon's Antitrust Division has embarked on a campaign to scrutinize conglomerate mergers an area earlier departments ignored-and his Civil Rights Division is emphasizing persuasion over legal coercion as the tool for achieving equal rights. The Criminal Division is concentrating on organized crime as never before. The department would be doing something in all its areas of responsibility regardless of the White House program, but the direction, speed and approach clearly reflect the Presidency.

CONGRESSIONAL PRESSURES

The Attorney General may be the President's man, but it is Congress that provides his paycheck. Furthermore, Congress created the very office of Attorney General and the Justice Department; has a veto (in the Senate) over appointments to policy-making positions; enacts laws for the department to enforce; and appropriates the funds on which it operates.

A number of politically sensitive issues-to Members of Congress as well as to the Administration-are within the department's jurisdiction: antitrust, crime, civil rights, for example. In addition, the department represents the government in most lawsuits against private citizens. Since voters hold their representatives in Congress responsible for all the actions of the federal government, the department feels individual and collective pressures from the legislative branch on behalf of constituents and the Members themselves. Requests from Members

Calls from individual Members of Congress are not infrequent, and requests sometimes border on impropriety. The department gives congressional inquiries high priority, but it claims not to be influenced by requests for action or inaction in specific cases.

Civil Rights Division chief Jerris Leonard acknowledged the pressures during a controversy surrounding the department's decision to seek a delay in adoption and implementation of desegregation plans in Mississippi in the fall of 1969.

“I think all of us realistically must realize,” Leonard said on Sept. 18, "that all government agencies are subjected to political pressures from all sides of the political spectrum. . . . The real question is whether decisions are sound." Leonard and the department were accused of basing the decision to seek delay on political considerations-including pressure from Mississippi Sen. John Stennis, D.

Indirect approach

Former Attorney General Clark said the more sophisticated Members of Congress do not approach the department directly, but channel their requests through high officials in the Administration. Thus, he suggested, a discussion of a particular case between department officials and a White House aide may in reality be the means by which a Senator conveys his wishes. Whatever the approach, when a Member speaks the department usually gives him a courteous audience. If the Member happens to occupy a prominent committee position, he will command even greater consideration.

The principal committees influencing the Justice Department are Judiciary and Appropriations in both houses.

Judiciary Committees

The Judiciary Committees and their subcommittees handle most of the substantive legislation dealing with Justice Department matters. In the Senate, the committee is headed by Sen. James O. Eastland, D-Miss., and has a decidedly conservative cast in its senior positions: Sens. John L. McClellan, DArk., Sam J. Ervin, Jr., D-N.C., and Roman L. Hruska, R-Neb.

Also influential on the committee, however, are Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, Pa., and Democrats Philip A. Hart, Mich., and Edward M. Kennedy, Mass. While the committee's liberal bloc is seldom able to win committee votes, its minority reports occasionally prevail on the floor.

A recent example was the Senate's Nov. 21 rejection of Mr. Nixon's nomination of Judge Clement F. Haynsworth, Jr. to the Supreme Court. The committee approved the nomination, 10-7, but dissenting committee members-led by

Sen. Birch Bayh, D-Ind.-engineered its defeat on the floor. The Justice Department had worked for the nomination both in its inception-as the President's adviser on judicial appointments-and during the Senate's confirmation proceedings-its Office of Legal Counsel producing extensive briefs on the nominee's behalf. (See Vol. I p. 218.)

Too much help-The Judiciary Committee sometimes gives the department more than it asks. The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 was essentially a Justice Department bill in the beginning; but by the time McClellan's Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures rewrote it to McClellan's liking, the Johnson Administration had serious misgivings about it. The department's principal interest in that bill was creation of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) and authorization of major funding to help local officials combat urban crime. The bill as enacted did get the LEAA under way (although it made the states rather than the cities the principal recipients of funds). But it also authorized law enforcement procedures that were offensive to Attorney General Clark: broader authority to use wiretaps and electronic surveillance, and congressional encouragement to sidestep Supreme Court decisions forbidding the use of confessions and line-up identifications obtained without strict adherence to constitutional safeguards. Clark ignored this statutory authority to do what he considered unconstitutional, and he was burned for it: In the 1968 Presidential campaign, Mr. Nixon made an issue of Clark's failure to use all the resources at his disposal to combat crime.

Cooperation-The committee can work closely with the department, however, when their interests are similar. McClellan, during the first session of the 91st Congress, engineered a comprehensive organized crime bill (S 30) through committee (see Vol. I p. 321) with the department's help. The Senate passed the bill on Jan. 23. (See p. 214.)

Important subcommittees in Senate Judiciary include McClellan's; the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly Legislation (Hart); the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights (Ervin); the Subcommittee on Internal Security (Eastland); and the Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency (Sen. Thomas J. Dodd, D-Conn.).

The House Judiciary Committee has a more liberal leadership, particularly on civil rights matters: Rep. Emanuel Celler, D-N.Y., is chairman, and Rep. William M. McCulloch, R-Ohio, is the ranking minority member.

Blocking bills-Celler, first elected to Congress in 1922, has often been able to avoid consideration of legislation he considers undesirable.

The late Sen. Everett M. Dirksen, R-Ill., 1951-69, himself a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, credited Celler with blocking two Senate-passed efforts to make the position of FBI director a Presidential appointment subject to Senate confirmation. The job was filled by appointment of the Attorney General originally and remained that way until the Safe Streets Act of 1968 finally gave it Presidential-appointment stature.

Dirksen said inclusion of the FBI director provision in the Safe Streets Act was responsible for getting that issue past Celler. Support for the Act was so overwhelming, Dirksen suggested, that Celler was unable to block it.

Celler's office told the National Journal, however, that the chairman had not opposed Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation for the FBI job. The earlier bills contained restrictive qualifications for the position that would have limited the list of eligible candidates more narrowly than Celler thought desirable, his office said. While Celler had some reservations about the Safe Streets Act and tried to send the bill to conference, the FBI appointment provision was not his major objection, his office said.

Celler has announced his intention to use his position to block a controversial bill in the department's crime package: an amendment to the 1966 Bail Reform Act that would permit pretrial jailing of persons accused of certain crimes if the judge determines after a hearing that release would endanger the public. (For details on crime package, see p. 109.) Celler told the National Journal on Jan. 14, "As far as I'm concerned, we'll never have a vote on preventive detention."

Flanking move-The Administration showed during the past session, however, that House Judiciary can be sidestepped. A voting rights extension bill submitted during the waning days of the Johnson Administration won approval

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in the committee espite the introduction of a Nixon Administration substitute. Apparently realizing his bill had little chance in committee, Attorney General Mitchell had made only a token effort on its behalf in hearings.

Later, however, Justice Department congressional liaison officials and the leadership of the House Rules Committee came up with a rule for floor debate on the voting rights bill that permitted the House to consider the Nixon substitute as well. Celler and the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, McCulloch, argued vigorously against consideration of the Nixon bill, but Rules Committee Chairman William M. Colmer, D-Miss., was able to deliver the votes to permit Justice's flanking action. The Nixon bill passed the House narrowly. (See Vol. I p. 374.)

Investigation-The threat of a congressional investigation is a serious matter to a governmental agency. House Judiciary investigated the operations of the Justice Department in 1953, shortly after President Truman had dismissed Attorney General J. Howard McGrath for failing to cooperate with an executive department investigation into corruption in the federal government. The committee's investigation report had unkind words for both McGrath and the department.

The committee concluded that Justice had an unsatisfactory organization plan and failed to supervise the U.S. attorneys adequately. But its principal criticism was that the department's legal personnel policies resulted in an extremely high turnover.

The committee called upon the department to correct its inadequacies, and, to a certain extent, it has. Attorney General Mitchell says the department as he found it is a competent law office. The high turnover of attorneys remains, however, despite a recruiting program designed to bring in honor students from the nation's leading law schools. Mitchell told a House Appropriations subcommittee on April 15 that members of the honors program stay with the department "under four years' 'on the average.

Appropriations Committees

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Departments of State, Justice and Commerce is a one-man show, starring Rep. John J. Rooney, D-N.Y.

In his 14th term as Representative from Brooklyn, Rooney is courteous to only one Justice Department witness at the annual appropriations hearings: FBI Director Hoover, who always gets what he asks. Hoover's elaborate presentations before the committee have come to be anticipated each year as a situation report on the war against crime. He appears before no other congressional committees. (See "FBI" box.)

Acid tongue-All other witnesses must be on their guard against the chairman's acid tongue. LEAA Administrator Charles H. Rogovin got particularly rough treatment from Rooney at the hearings on the 1970 appropriations. “All this requested new money seems to be for Dick Tracy sort of stuff," Rooney told Rogovin at one point. The committee accordingly cut almost $50 million from the LEAA request.

Rogovin later told the National Journal he will be better prepared for Rooney next time, and he indicated he might try Hoover's technique of the elaborate presentation complete with charts and graphs to indicate the concrete results of his program. "Rooney really does his homework," Rogovin said.

Rogovin was right: Rooney does do his homework. The hearings reveal his grasp of both the detail and the broad picture of appropriations bills. He is impatient with witnesses who do not have the same grasp, and his memory of past appropriations and of promises not to ask for more is embarrassingly accurate.

Reminder-During the 1970 hearings, Rooney countered Solicitor General Erwin N. Griswold's request for an additional position with a reminder that one of Griswold's predecessors had promised in 1965 not to ask for another man for 15 years. Griswold complained that it was not right to hold him to the promise of another man, but then he made the same commitment for 25 years. Some future Solicitor General will probably have to explain away Griswold's promise.

Rooney is a soft touch for antitrust funds as well as for the FBI. He told Assistant Attorney General McLaren during the fiscal 1970 hearings: "I have never in going on 25 years voted for anything but the full amount for the Antitrust Division." But Rooney has no use for research-"Dick Tracy sort of

stuff." The department's shortcomings in research reflect the chairman's distaste as much as the priorities of transient policy-makers.

Power of suggestion-Appropriations Committee members are aware of the power their suggestions might have. Rep. John J. Flynt Jr., D-Ga., took the occasion of the 1970 hearings to lecture Mitchell on law enforcement: "There is a feeling among many people with whom I have frequently talked . . that a great deal of this rioting on the streets and on the campuses has been condoned, if not actually encouraged, by one or more of your predecessors in the office of the Attorney General."

The Senate Appropriations Committee over the years has not differed greatly from the House on funds for Justice. In both the 1969 and 1970 appropriations, however, the Senate committee raised the House ante considerably. For 1970, the principal difference was LEAA funding, for which the Senate wanted to provide some $25 million more than the House. (See Vol. I p. 377.)

Sen. McClellan, who influences the department from his Judiciary Committee seat and chairmanship of the Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures, is also chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that handles the Justice bill.

Government Operations Committees

A third McClellan committee assignment enables him to evaluate the performance of the department and have a hand in changes in its organization. McClellan is chairman of the Government Operations Committee, which has responsibility for studying the efficiency and economy of the bureaucracy and passes on executive branch reorganizations. In this role, McClellan participated in the move that placed the federal drug control program in Justice. He also has the power to put immense pressure on all the department's activities through his investigative authority.

McClellan and Rooney are probably the most influential Members in Congress with the Justice Department.

Collections-The House Government Operations Committee has hit the department two times in recent years with charges of inefficiency in its collections of judgments due the government.

A 1964 report originating in a study by the Subcommittee on Legal and Monetary Affairs said the department had a poor record in collecting fines, debts and other judgments owing to the government and recommended new collections procedures. A committeee staff member told the National Journal on Jan. 30 that the record was better in 1965, but that the department has slipped back into "its old bad habits."

Audits-On Dec. 8, 1969, the committee reported that the department was collecting less than 50 per cent of the judgments and called again for new procedures. The subcommittee has enlisted the Government Accounting Office to conduct audits in seven selected U.S. attorneys' offices to determine why the collections are so low.

Rep. William L. Dawson, D-Ill., heads the committee, and Rep. Dante B. Fascell, D-Fla., is chairman of the subcommittee which originated the reports.

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT PRESSURES

The Justice Department's role of advocate for the federal government gives it a lawyer-client relationship with all executive departments and agencies. The department's Civil Division, for example, has a Court of Claims Section whose sole function is to defend against money claims brought against the United States-usually suits for salaries or contract obligations. The department also sues on behalf of agencies making claims against individual citizens, organizations or governmental bodies; and it goes to court to secure enforcement of orders of regulatory agencies, such as the National Labor Relations Board.

The department's Tax Division went to court in January on behalf of the Treasury Department's Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to defend the IRS practice of granting tax exemption to segregated private schools established in the South as an alternative to desegregated public schools. Justice acting as lawyer for the IRS, not as policy-maker-lost that suit, at least temporarily, on Jan. 13 when a preliminary injunction barred further grants of tax-exempt status to the "white academies". (See p. 112.)

Aside from legal representation, Justice has special relationships with a number of agencies.