Ramsey Clark

William Ramsey Clark (born December 18, 1927) served as the 66th United States Attorney General under President Lyndon Johnson. He is the son of Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark. He is a recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award.

Kennedy and Johnson Administrations

He served in the United States 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. Clark was director of the American Judicature Society in 1963. From 1964 to 1965 he was national president of the Federal Bar Association. On March 2, 1967, President Johnson appointed him Attorney General of the United States. He served in that capacity until January 20, 1969.

Related Topics:
United States Department of Justice - Assistant Attorney General - 1961 - 1965 - 1967 - 1963 - 1964 - President - March 2 - January 20 - 1969

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Clark played an important role in the history of the American Civil Rights movement: during his years at the Justice Department, he supervised the federal presence at Ole Miss during the week following the admission of James Meredith; surveyed all school districts in the South desegregating under court order (1963); supervised federal enforcement of the court order protecting the march from Selma to Montgomery; and headed the Presidential task force to Watts following the riots.

Related Topics:
American Civil Rights movement - Ole Miss - James Meredith - School district - South - Desegregating - 1963 - March from Selma to Montgomery - Watts

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He went on to supervise the drafting and executive role in passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Civil Rights Act of 1968. As Attorney General, Clark also opposed the government's use of wiretaps.

Related Topics:
Voting Rights Act - Civil Rights Act

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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).

Related Topics:
Vietnam War - Draft - Gandhi Peace Award - Pediatrician - Benjamin Spock - William Sloane Coffin - Minister

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