Antonin Scalia, Ready for His Close-up - James Rosen

[Geee]

For President Reagan, this was it: the “most significant move” of his presidency, as an aide told the Wall Street Journal. On this, the morning of the big announcement, Tuesday, June 17, 1986, the White House press corps, so far as the president could tell, knew nothing; his secret had held.

Three weeks had passed since Chief Justice Warren Burger—stately, white-haired, and baritone-voiced, the very picture of a Supreme Court chief justice, a veteran of presidential intrigues since the Eisenhower era—had abruptly requested a meeting with the president. Aides smuggled the chief into the White House complex that very day. Having served on the Supreme Court since 1969, Burger explained, he wished to retire at the end of its current term and devote himself fully to his chairmanship of a commission celebrating the bicentennial of the Constitution. 

For years, Attorney General Ed Meese and his staff at “Main Justice” had scouted suitable candidates for a Court vacancy such as this one. Ultimately, President Reagan chose to elevate Associate Justice William Rehnquist, a Nixon appointee, to chief justice; and selected for Rehnquist’s seat a brilliant young judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, formerly a law professor and top Justice Department official, named Antonin Scalia.

At the White House and Main Justice, the vast machinery required to submit and confirm Reagan’s two nominees cranked into gear. The press announcement was set for 2:00 p.m. in the White House press briefing room. Two hours beforehand, White House Chief of Staff Don Regan, steely former titan of Wall Street, summoned senior staff, including communications director Pat Buchanan and acting press secretary Larry Speakes, to break the imminent news to them. 

Buchanan, the conservative stalwart who had urged Reagan a year earlier to select Scalia, shouted “Yes!” and pumped his fist. All were sworn to secrecy. Speakes issued a press release announcing a 2:00 p.m. event, after which “all the phones in the White House lit up,” a staffer recalled, as reporters tried to learn the topic of the president’s remarks. Scalia arrived, unnoticed, in a “battered” compact car while Burger, forswearing discretion, pulled up in his official black limousine emblazoned with the Court seal in gold.