The Nine [16]
Rehnquist’s personality also changed the atmosphere on the Court. Burger was an Anglophile who collected antiques and fine wines. (When Blackmun joined the Court, Burger gave him a top hat as a gift.) Such was Burger’s vanity that he placed a large cushion on his center seat on the bench, so he would appear taller than his colleagues. Rehnquist had none of those pretensions, at least in his early years as chief. He had a single beer and one cigarette at lunch every day. (Later, he struggled, with intermittent success, to quit smoking and switched to what he would always call a “Miller’s Lite.”) By the time he became chief, Rehnquist had pared his long sideburns and dropped the wide ties that were his concessions to 1970s fashion, but he still cut a shambling figure when he took his lunchtime strolls around the neighborhood.
John Dean, Nixon’s White House counsel, remembered that when he first introduced Rehnquist to the president, the then–assistant attorney general “was wearing a pink shirt that clashed with an awful psychedelic necktie, and Hush Puppies.” According to the White House tapes, after Rehnquist left, Nixon asked Dean, “Is he Jewish? He looks it…. That’s a hell of a costume he’s wearing, just like a clown.” As chief, Rehnquist, a Lutheran of Swedish ancestry, disposed of the worst of the ties but kept the Hush Puppies.
For a large, strapping man, Rehnquist had a delicate constitution. He had a chronically bad back, from an injury he sustained while gardening, and the pain would sometimes cause him to stand up during oral arguments at the Court and take a few steps behind his chair. In the early 1980s, he was even hospitalized for the back problems, and the treatment created new issues. The painkillers caused him to slur his words, and the problem became embarrassingly noticeable when he asked questions in Court. The FBI investigation in connection with his promotion to chief justice revealed that Rehnquist’s medical problems were more serious than the public was led to believe. He had been addicted to the sedative Placidyl for at least four years, and when he was hospitalized during his withdrawal from the medication in 1981, he suffered hallucinations. On one occasion, he told a nurse that “Voices outside the room are saying they’re going to kill the president.” Still, by the time he became chief, in 1986, his condition appears to have stabilized, in part because he took up tennis. Even though he was entitled to hire four law clerks, he generally took only three, which suited his weekly doubles game.
Rehnquist had married his wife, Natalie Cornell, known as Nan, after his service in World War II. A native of Wisconsin, Rehnquist had developed a taste for desert heat during his time as a weather spotter in North Africa, and the newlyweds settled in Phoenix. (The chief’s military service also instilled in him a lifelong curiosity about the weather that matched his interest in low-stakes gambling. He’d often bet his law clerks how much snow had fallen in the plaza in front of the Court.) Nan matched her husband in a mutual absence of pretensions, and their marriage was long and happy. But shortly after Rehnquist became chief, Nan was diagnosed with cancer. Their struggle with her illness, combined with the markedly improved atmosphere at the Court, only deepened the affection of Rehnquist’s colleagues for him. She died on October 17, 1991.
That was just two days after Thomas, at long last, won confirmation in the Senate. But the tally of votes on October 15 didn’t conclude the drama surrounding Thomas’s nomination. Hill’s testimony had set off a furious scramble among many journalists and Democratic activists to corroborate or refute her charges. (Records of Thomas’s videotape rentals were of particular interest.) Rumors abounded that other women were going to come forward with evidence of objectionable behavior by Thomas. Even though he had been confirmed,