War & Peace

"It happens that I have a nephew who is attorney general of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," thundered Democratic Majority Leader John McCormack in the U.S. House of Representatives last fortnight. "Not so long ago, a federal judge in Boston threatened him with contempt of court. Well, anyone who declares war on the McCormacks ought to know that a McCormack is always ready to join the issue--and the war is on until peace terms have been offered by the one who declared the war." No sooner had McCormack sat down than Brooklyn Democrat Emanuel Celler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, arose to denounce the same judge: "He thinks he is the be-all and end-all of wisdom. He is a sort of judicial panjandrum and, therefore, never hesitates to act as judge, prosecutor and jury." Then, where McCormack had not, Manny Celler named his man: "It is just as well that justice is blind; she might not like some of the things done in her name by Judge Wryzanski."

"Overzealous Participation." To U.S. District Judge Charles Wyzanski Jr., 54, of Massachusetts, such tirades are nothing new: he has a positive talent for controversy. Sharp-minded and sharp-tongued, he is a former president of Harvard's Board of Overseers, has been described by Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter as "one of the most brilliant law students I ever had."

Wyzanski has strong ideas about what a judge should and should not be. "He is not to be a common scold," he wrote in an opinion reprinted recently in the Atlantic. "Nor is he to use his place to push before the public his name, his views, his personality." Yet Judge Wyzanski is noted for the breach of his own advice, and just last February his bench manners earned him scathing reproof from a U.S. Court of Ap peals. "It is clear from the record before us," wrote the appellate court in remanding a case to Wyzanski, "that the confusion and conflicts in these witnesses' testi mony were due in no minor part to the trial judge's . . . overzealous participation in the examination of witnesses."

"I'll Never Forget." It was hardly a surprise, then, that abrasive Charles Wyzanski should run afoul of Manny Celler and John McCormack, neither of whom is famed for a cool temper. The bad blood between Wyzanski and Celler goes back five years, to the time when Wyzanski was assigned to sentence Massachusetts' Dem ocratic Representative Thomas J. Lane, a member of Celler's Judiciary Committee who pleaded guilty to evading $38,542 in income taxes. Before Lane was sentenced to four months in prison (he was promptly re-elected to Congress on his release), Celler asked Wyzanski for a meeting in his chambers to discuss the case. The judge refused. Celler got boilingly mad, later berated Wyzanski when they met at a cocktail party. "I'll never forget!" he cried. And he never has.

The Wyzanski-McCormack feud is a family affair, arising from a misunderstanding. As attorney general of Massachusetts, McCormack's nephew, Edward McCormack Jr., had prepared a case against 18 road-paving companies, accusing them of conspiracy to fix prices in public highway construction. Mindful of the interests of 39 cities and towns that had done business with the firms, he fired off letters advising each community that it would have to file suit for triple damages before a certain deadline. Only nine of the towns made the deadline-- and Wyzanski mistakenly decided that McCormack had somehow finagled the others out of their rights. He flew into a rage, insinuated that McCormack might "have a purely political and partisan purpose," and threatened the attorney general with contempt charges.

Last week, in the wake of the blasts against him from Capitol Hill, Judge Charles Wyzanski seemed unwontedly humble. In a face-to-face meeting, he shook hands with Eddie McCormack and apologized publicly for past disputes. "It was really undesirable and uncharitable of me," he said in his courtroom. In Washington, John McCormack declared that the war was over--at least until Charles Wyzanski kicks up another controversy.

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