No Smoking Gun

It had been a tough two weeks for William Rehnquist. Questions about his views on race and his role in the preWatergate Justice Department had briefly threatened to stall his nomination as Chief Justice of the U.S. The White House made matters worse by invoking Executive privilege to withhold his memorandums advising on ways to handle the civil disturbances and other legal matters of the early 1970s.

But last week the Justice Department handed the memos over. They proved less than explosive, and the heat quickly drained from the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. Said Republican Senator Charles Mathias: "There's nothing that can be characterized as a smoking gun."

Rehnquist's credibility sustained one setback when he acknowledged that his lawyer had indeed sent him a letter in 1974 informing him that the deed to his Vermont house barred its transfer to members "of the Hebrew race." "I did not recall the letter or its contents," said the Justice, "before I testified last week."

The committee, meanwhile, began hearings on Judge Antonin Scalia's nomination to Rehnquist's seat on the Supreme Court. Unlike Rehnquist, Scalia, 50, attempted to charm his questioners with good humor. But the Senators were less than delighted. After he repeatedly sidestepped questions on abortion, freedom of information, affirmative action and equal protection, Democratic Senator Joseph Biden interjected, "Who are you, Judge Scalia? Let yourself go, because it's been pretty boring thus far." Scalia refused to take up the challenge. "I have no agenda," he said.

President Reagan, however, seemed to think otherwise. In a speech to the Knights of Columbus last week, the President said that he would soon have appointed 45% of all federal judges. "In many areas -- abortion, crime, pornography and others -- progress will take place when the federal judiciary is made up of judges who believe in law-and-order," Reagan told his audience. Whatever Scalia's plans, both he and Rehnquist seemed on their way to easy confirmation by the full Senate next month.