East-West designs." [fn 15] Did Bush and Gorbachov use their Camp David afternoon to
coordinate their respective roles in the Gulf crisis, which the Anglo-Americans were now
about to provoke? It is very likely that they did.
Bush's political stock was declining during the summer of 1990. One indication was
provided by the astoundingly frank remarks of Justice Thurgood Marshall of the US
Supreme Court in an interview with Sam Donaldson on the ABC News television
program "Prime Time Live." Justice Marshall, the sole black justice on the Supreme
Court, was asked for his reaction to Bush's nomination of the "stealth candidate" David
Souter to fill the place of the retiring Justice William Brennan, a friend of Marshall's.
Souter was a man without qualities who appeared to have no documentable opinions on
any subject, although he had a sinister look. "I just don't understand what he's doing. I
just don't understand it. I mean this last appointment is... the epitome of what he's been
doing." said Marshall of Bush. Marshall didn't have "the slightest idea" of Bush's motives
in the Souter nomination. Would Marshall comment on Bush's civil rights record, asked
correspondent Sam Donaldson. "Let me put it this way. It's said that if you can't say
something good about a dead person, don't say it. Well, I consider him dead." Who was
dead, asked Donaldson. "Bush!" was Marshall's reply. "He's dead from the neck up."
Marshall added that he regarded Bush's chief of staff, John Sununu of New Hampshire,
the state Souter was from, as the one "calling the shots." "If he came up for election," said
Marshall of Bush, "I'd vote against him. No question about it. I don't think he's ever
stopped" running for re-election since he took office. Marshall and Donaldson had the
following exchange about Souter:
Donaldson: Do you know Judge David Souter?
Marshall: No, never heard of him.
Donaldson: He may be the man to replace Brennan.
Marshall: I still never heard of him. When his name came down I listened to television.
And the first thing, I called my wife. Have I ever heard of this man? She said, "No, I
haven't either. So I promptly called Brennan, because it's his circuit [the First Circuit in
Boston]. And his wife answered the phone, and I told her. She said: "He's never heard of
him either."
Marshall and Brennan had often been at odds with the Bush's administration's promotion
of the death penalty. In this connection, Marshall commented: "My argument is that if
you make a mistake in a trial and it's corrected later on --you find out it was an error--
you correct it. But if you kill a man, what do you say? "Oops?" "I'm sorry?" "Wait a
minute?" That's the trouble with death. Death is so lasting."
On this occasion, Marshall renewed his pledge that he would never resign, but would die
in office: "I said before, and I repeat that, I'm serving out my life term. I have a deal with
my wife that when I begin to show signs of senility, she'll tell me. And she will." [fn 16]