Mr. Nixon Selects - The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment That Redefined the Supreme Court - Review

National Review, Nov 19, 2001 by Robert D. Novak

"While Baker dithered," Dean writes, "the opportunity of a lifetime was slipping little by little from reach." When the young senator finally called Mitchell to accept, it was too late. Nixon wanted Rehnquist. Mitchell was ordered to "turn Baker off." Dean is neither a journalist nor a historian and so does not record Baker's reaction to this extraordinary turnabout.

Rehnquist was never vetted, and Nixon never seriously discussed his judicial philosophy with him (or with Powell or any other court candidate). "Just be as mean and rough as they said you were," the president told the future chief justice-after he was confirmed by the Senate-in their only private conversation.

In a mean-spirited "afterword," Dean revisits-and endorses-the attacks levied against Rehnquist in his Senate confirmation process. Nevertheless, Dean has performed a valuable service in recording Nixon's tortuous course to a decision. The present John Dean would not agree, but it is providential that this chaotic process produced, in William Rehnquist, the closest Richard Nixon ever came to putting a strict-constructionist judge on the Supreme Court.