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By Root 801 0

bothered by the fact that the reporters, the ones closest to the source of the leak, were protected from the government’s intrusion and I was not. As a private citizen I have some constitutional protection of my privacy but none which the Senate felt compelled to recognize. Despite the fact that Peter Fleming had even asked for the details of telephone conversations I had with my sister JoAnn, most indications were that Fleming was trying to be reasonable in his inquiry. Despite Fleming’s best intentions, the process designed to be a violation of my privacy proved to be just that. Yet I did not have the status and connections to shield myself from any inquiry no matter how far-fetched it seemed. I did not have the time or resources to fight the Senate and the FBI. Moreover, by the time of the investigation, I had depleted any energy with which I could wage such a fight.

After months of the investigation, I saw it as yet another examination of me, rather than a means of improving the confirmation process. And though Fleming seemed to view his role as that of neutral fact finder, his questions about contacts with interest groups made clear that he was pursuing the Republicans’ conspiracy theory. I was willing to cooperate with an investigation, but what was developing was an effort to discover whether I was deliberately or negligently responsible for the public awareness of my statement.

In his letter to Andy Coats dated March 31, after reviewing all of the information gathered to date, Fleming expressed regret that the investigation called for a second interview. Through no fault or even intent of Peter Fleming, the investigation became a replay of the hearings. Once again, I was questioned extensively about private confidential matters while Thomas was given deference. And the press, which could not and should not be castigated by the government, failed to respond to legitimate concerns that the public has about confidentiality of government documents.

A three-hundred-page document that failed to identify the source of the “unauthorized disclosure of’ my statement was the end product of Fleming’s investigation. On May 5, 1992, an assistant sent me a copy of Fleming’s report. The letter accompanying the report was brief to the point of perfunctory.

Dear Professor Hill:

I enclose a final copy of our report.

Sincerely,

Mark H. O’Donaghue

By the time I received it, I had stopped wondering about what conclusions Fleming might reach. Yet, despite my temporary indifference and my misgivings about the investigation, I was stung by the fact that nowhere in the letter was there any acknowledgment of my cooperation in the investigation—there was certainly no “thank you.”

Like so many things that occurred in my life during this time, I viewed the conclusion of the investigation with mixed feelings. I found one thing in the contents of the report about which I could be positive. It made clear that I had in no way deliberately acted to set in motion the public hearing of the matter. This message no doubt escaped the diehard conspiracy proponents but it was a consolation for me. And by May of 1992 I needed affirmation.

The attacks on my personal and professional integrity continued. Threats of violence, now routine, were no less frightening and only slightly less disconcerting. Rumors spread that there was a reward being offered by a “conservative women’s organization” to anyone who could find “dirt on Anita Hill.” David Brock’s virulent “hit piece” had appeared in the American Spectator Magazine supplying Thomas’ supporters with new perversions for their attack on me.

Official involvement in the episode, which peaked with the televised hearing of October 1991 and the vote to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, ended with the special investigator’s submission in May. But this was the only sense in which it was finished. Within various communities in the population, the matter was far from completed—mere mention of the proceedings evoked highly pitched and emotional debates. Those debates grew into rare