The Goldberg Collection

by Tyler Hall

     In 2000 the Goldberg family donated the personal book collection, as well as papers and pamphlets of Justice Arthur J. Goldberg to Radford University’s McConnell Library. The collection is over a thousand titles, and has a wide variety of topics, from world affairs to Dickens. The collection reveals something about who Justice Goldberg was.

The subjects included in the collection reflect the times in which Justice Goldberg was in American government. Justice Goldberg had a deep respect for President John Kennedy, there are eight books on Kennedy alone; two on President Lyndon Johnson; no favorable titles will be found in the collection concerning President Richard Nixon. Justice Goldberg as a lawyer in private practice represented labor cases and was the Secretary of Labor for a brief period. Many of the titles reflect his passion for labor issues: Illinois Labor Law by Barnet Hodes, Labor’s Paradox: The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees AFL-CIO by Leo Kramer. In fact, Justice Goldberg had overseen the merging of the two Unions AFL and CIO; two copies of Justice Goldberg’s own AFL-CIO: Labor United, one of which is in the Russian language, can be found in Special Collections.

From 1962 to 1965 Justice Goldberg served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court. Many titles deal with law and the Supreme Court. One book that saw a lot of use was, Supreme Court Practice Second Edition-1954 Rules by Robert L. Stern and Eugene Gressman. Between the pages one can find a sheet of paper with the letterhead from the United States Department of Labor Office of the Secretary. On it, it appears to say, “Oct. 3-12, property of the clerk.” What on earth could that possibly mean? Did Justice Goldberg write it? Quite possibly, the note however seems to of found good use as a bookmarker. In the collection one can find at least four books about Justice Goldberg’s former colleague on the Court, Hugo Black.

From 1965 to 1969 Justice Goldberg was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Many books about the UN can be found. One being, Your Man at the U.N. by Seymour Maxwell Finger. Finger had served at the U.S. Mission to the UN and was a senior advisor there. His note inscribed to Justice Goldberg said, “our best man at the UN.” Justice Goldberg took on the position at the UN in hopes of convincing President Johnson to end the Vietnam War.[1] The collection holds 22 books about Vietnam, written from 1950-1988.

There are many books written in foreign languages found in the collection. Whether or not Justice Goldberg could read them or not remains to be seen, one would assume that someone in the Goldberg home could. They include: ten Sicilia art magazines published in Italian, five books in Russian, two in French, one in Spanish, and one in Swedish. One of the French books is, Terre Des Hommes (Wind, Sand, and Stars) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, an aviator and adventurer. It is a memoir about Saint-Exupéry’s experiences in the late 1920s in the African Sahara and in the Andes in South America.

Justice Goldberg was a devout Jew and according to Dr. Sidney Pearson, a former professor of political science at RU, Justice Goldberg was very observant of Passover.[2] 105 titles are either of Israel or of the Jewish faith. Within this very lengthy list, some concern Israeli-Arab relations.

Justice Goldberg had a wide variety of novels as well. Some titles were: Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West, Clea which was part four of Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, Cause forAlarm by Eric Ambler, and Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman, which was the first installment in his Rabbi Small mystery series. One can also find spy novelist Len Deighton’s Mexico Set, which is part two in Deighton’s Game, Set, Match Trilogy. Various anthologies of poetry to include a volume of Robert Frost sit on the shelves in the collection.

Some books in the collection did not specifically belong to Justice Goldberg. Some belonged to his wife Dorothy; some appear to be college textbooks that belonged to his son Robert. In fact Justice Goldberg’s son followed in his father’s footsteps and is a labor lawyer in Anchorage, Alaska.[3] Victor Kravchenko’s I Choose Justice can be found in the collection; its inscription reveals that Kravchenko gave the book to Philip Murray. Murray, a native of Scotland, was the president of the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO). No doubt Murray gave Justice Goldberg the book through the justices’ connection with the CIO.

You can truly get a feel for the type of man that Justice Goldberg was. Many people liked and admired him. Many of the inscriptions used phrases such as, with warm regards, deep respect, much admiration. Gunther Lawrence wrote one of the most moving notes to Justice Goldberg, inscribed in his book, Three Million More? It read, “To a giant of our people… always ready to lend his good will and efforts towards the betterment of society. I am humbly appreciative of your faith and friendship and pray for your good health and being over the years to come –fondly- Gunther Lawrence 5/21/70.”

Possibly the most interesting piece in the collection is Laurence Thompson’s book, 1940, about the year of agony Britain suffered during Adolf Hitler’s bombardment of the nation. However, it was not Thompson who inscribed the book for Justice Goldberg, but a gentleman named Malcolm R. Lovell, who wrote and interesting note about his involvement in 1940, and a little known bit of British history. In 1940 Lovell had attempted to broker peace between Britain and Germany. His efforts were filed away in the files of Lord Halifax, the Foreign Minister. Thompson read of Lovell in the files and contacted him and asked if it was fine to write him into the book, Lovell agreed. This story was what Lovell inscribed to Justice Goldberg. Someone, possibly Lovell or Justice Goldberg pasted a photograph of Lovell at the age of 79, on the page opposite the note. Opening the book one will find pasted against the back cover and first page a reprint of an article published October 20, 1966 in the Coral Gables Times. The article is about Lovell and his attempt to end the war and his connection to Thompson’s book.

The Goldberg Collection has a wide variety of literature. From science to sports, if one is interested in knowing what a man deeply involved in Twentieth Century government was reading, the Goldberg Collection would be the place to look. Justice Goldberg is possibly the most distinguished guest professor Radford University ever had. His personal book collection is a valued gem to McConnell Library.

Bibliography

“Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan Backpedals, Introduces Revised Labor Ordinance AO 2013-37              (S-1); Unions Not Sold On the Revision.” March 23, 2013. Alaska Pride. Accessed                   November 19, 2013. http://www.alaskapride.blogspot.com.

Sidney Pearson. Interview by author. October 14, 2013.

“The Supreme Court Papers of Arthur J. Goldberg.” Bibliographical Note. Accessed September               3, 2013. http://goldberg.law.northwestern.edu