dance,

12.05.2005



Ramsey Clark

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Jump to: navigation, search
Attorney General Clark & President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Attorney General Clark & President Lyndon B. Johnson.

William Ramsey Clark (born December 18, 1927) political activist best known for his work in the U.S. Department of Justice, which included service as the 66th United States Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson. He is a recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award and the son of another Attorney General and Justice of the Supreme Court, Tom C. Clark.

Contents

[hide]

[edit]

Early life and career

Born in Dallas, Texas, Clark served in the United States Marine Corps in 1945 and 1946, then earned a B.A. degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1949, an M.A. and a J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1950.

He was admitted to the Texas bar in 1950, and to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1956. From 1951 to 1961 Clark was an associate and partner in the law firm of Clark, Reed and Clark.

[edit]

Kennedy and Johnson Administrations

Clark served in the Department of Justice as the Assistant Attorney General of the Lands Division from 1961 to 1965, and as Deputy Attorney General from 1965 to 1967.

On March 2, 1967, President Johnson appointed him to be Attorney General of the United States, an appointment at least in part influenced by Johnson's expectation that Clark's father would resign from the Supreme Court if his son were so appointed. Johnson wanted a vacancy to be created on the Court so he could appoint the first African American justice. The elder Clark resigned from the high court on June 12, 1967.

Clark served as Attorney General until Johnson's term as President ended on January 20, 1969.

Clark played an important role in the history of the American Civil Rights movement. During his years at the Justice Department, he

As Attorney General, Clark also opposed the government's use of wiretaps.

As Attorney General during some of the Vietnam War, Clark oversaw the prosecution of the Boston Five for “conspiracy to aid and abet draft resistance.” Four of the five were convicted, including fellow winner of the Gandhi Peace Award pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock and Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin Jr. (who would later officiate at the wedding of Clark's son). Clark believed since Coffin and Dr. Spock were respected, if controversial, public figures who could afford legal counsel to fight back for them, their cases would take a long time and would “focus attention on the problems of the draft.” Clark says that he hoped to show Johnson that opposition to the war wasn’t limited to "draft-dodging longhairs" but included the most admired pediatrician in America, a prominent and revered patrician minister, and a respected former Kennedy Administration official (Marcus Raskin, who had been a special staff member on the National Security Council).

In addition to his government work, during this period Clark was also director of the American Judicature Society (in 1963) and national president of the Federal Bar Association in 1964–65.

[edit]

Controversial Activism

Following his term he worked as a law professor and was active in the anti–Vietnam War movement. He visited North Vietnam in 1972. In 1974 he was the Democratic Party's candidate for the United States Senate from New York, losing to Jacob Javits.

More recently, Clark has become controversial for his outspoken political views. He has also provided legal counsel and advice to controversial figures in conflict with Western governments, including:

In December 2004, Clark went to Iraq to try to join the legal team defending Saddam Hussein before the Iraqi Special Tribunal, and now acts as an advisor to Hussein's legal team. Clark returned to Iraq in late November 2005 to assist and draw publicity for Hussein's defense and the anti-war movement and was admitted to join Saddam Hussein's defense team as adviser on November 27, 2005. On November 28 in a BBC interview, Clark offered the opinion that the massacre of 148 Iraqi Shi'ite men and boys in 1982 during the Iraq-Iran War was justified, as: "He [Saddam] had this huge war going on, and you have to act firmly when you have an assassination attempt"[1].

Clark is affiliated with VoteToImpeach, an organization advocating the impeachment of President George W. Bush. He has been an opponent of both Gulf Wars. He is the founder of the International Action Center, which has much overlapping membership with the Workers' World Party. Clark and the IAC helped found the protest organization ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). There is a near consensus among legal professionals that Clark uses these high profile trials to draw attention to his causes while neglecting his actual responsibility as a defense attorney.


Preceded by:
Nicholas Katzenbach		 United States Attorney General
1967–1969		 Succeeded by:
John N. Mitchell
United States Attorneys General Seal of the United States Department of Justice

Randolph | Bradford | Lee | Lincoln | R Smith | Breckinridge | Rodney | Pinkney | Rush | Wirt | Berrien | Taney | Butler | Grundy | Gilpin | Crittenden | Legaré | Nelson | Mason | Clifford | Toucey | Johnson | Crittenden | Cushing | Black | Stanton | Speed | Stanberry | Evarts | Hoar | Akerman | Williams | Pierrepont | Taft | Devens | MacVeagh | Brewster | Garland | Miller | Olney | Harmon | McKenna | Griggs | Knox | Moody | Bonaparte | Wickersham | McReynolds | Gregory | Palmer | Daugherty | Stone | Sargent | W Mitchell | Cummings | Murphy | Jackson | Biddle | T Clark | McGrath | McGranery | Brownell | Rogers | Kennedy | Katzenbach | R Clark | J Mitchell | Kleindienst | Richardson | Saxbe | Levi | Bell | Civiletti | W Smith | Meese | Thornburgh | Barr | Reno | Ashcroft | Gonzales
[edit]

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsey_Clark"
if (window.runOnloadHook) runOnloadHook();

posted by Jeseppi Trade Wildfeather at 11:26 AM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home