Bickel, Alexander M.

Alexander Mordecai Bickel was born in 1924. He emigrated to the United States from Romania in 1938. After serving in the United States Army, he graduated from the City College of New York in 1947, and the Harvard Law School in 1949. He was a law clerk to Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1952 to 1953. Bickel was a professor at the Yale Law School from 1956 until his death in 1974. He published nine books and more than one hundred articles on law, government, political reform, the Supreme Court, and legal history. He was an associate editor of The New Republic; a writer for other popular journals; a military intelligence officer attached to the High Commissioner for Germany and the State Department, and an advisor on desegregation bills and other social legislation from 1958 to 1974. Bickel was active in the Democratic Party, especially between 1967 and 1969. He died in New Haven on November 7, 1974.

From the description of Alexander Mordecai Bickel papers, 1916-1987 (inclusive), 1930-1975 (bulk). (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702194563

Alexander Mordecai Bickel, professor in Yale Law School and contributing editor of The New Republic, was a pre-eminent scholarly and popular authority on the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the roles of the several branches of government in shaping public policy. Speaking and writing as teacher, scholar, lawyer, journalist, Democrat, and adviser to government officials, he was in the 1960s and early 1970s an important contributor to national discussion of such legal and political subjects as school desegregation, reapportionment, the Electoral College, the interpretation of the First Amendment, the powers of the President, the significance of the Warren Court, and the meaning of the liberal tradition. These are among the principal events in his personal and professional life:

• 1924: born in Bucharest, Rumania, to Shlomo and Yetta Bickel.
• 1939: immigrated with family to New York City, where his father became a journalist in the Yiddish-language press.
• 1943 - 1945 : served in the U.S Army.
• 1947: received the B.S. in Social Science from the City College of New York.
• 1949: received the LL.B. from Harvard Law School,
• 1949 - 1950 : served as law clerk to Chief Judge Calvert Magruder, U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit.
• 1950 - 1951 : employed in the Office of the U.S. High Commissioner in Germany.
• 1951 - 1952 : belonged to the U.S. Observer Delegation to the European Defense Community Conference in Paris.
• 1952 - 1953 : served as law clerk to Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter, U.S. Supreme Court.
• 1953 - 1954 : employed as special assistant to Director Robert R. Bowie, Policy Planning Staff, U.S. State Department.
• 1954 - 1956 : employed as research associate, Harvard Law School.
• 1956: appointed associate professor, Yale Law School.
• 1957: chosen by the Permanent Committee for the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise to write "Responsible Government and the Judiciary, 1910-1930," a segment of its projected Supreme Court history.
• 1957: published The Unpublished Opinions of Mr. Justice Brandeis.
• 1959 - 1960 : lived in Washington, D.C., during most of sabbatical year.
• 1959: married Josephine Ann (Joanne) Napolino.
• 1960: appointed professor, Yale Law School.
• 1960: first child born, Francesca Ann.
• 1962: second child born, Claudia Rose.
• 1963: published The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics.
• 1965: published Politics and the Warren Court.
• 1966: appointed Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and Legal History in Yale Law School and Yale University.
• 1966: taught in summer session, Stanford Law School.
• 1967: appointed consultant to the Subcommittee on the Separation of Powers, U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
• 1968: served on the Democratic Party's Commission on the Democratic Selection of Presidential Nominees (Hughes Commission).
• 1968: published The New Age of Political Reform: The Electoral College, the Convention, and the Party System.
• 1969: appointed consultant to the Democratic Party's Commission on Party Structure and Delegate Selection (McGovern Commission).
• 1969: delivered Holmes Lectures at Harvard Law School.
• 1970 - 1974 : collaborated with U.S. Representative Richardson Preyer on legislation related to school desegregation.
• 1970: published The Supreme Court and the Idea of Progress
• 1970: appointed William C. DeVane Professor, Yale University, for a three-year term (1971-1974).
• 1970 - 1971 : held a fellowship in the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavorial Sciences, Palo Alto, California,
• 1971: published Reform and Continuity: The Electoral College, the Convention, and the Party System, a revision of The New Age of Political Reform.
• 1971: argued for the defense in U.S. v. New York Times (the Pentagon papers case).
• 1971 - 1973 : participated in the Study Group of the Federal Judicial Center on the Caseload of the Supreme Court.
• 1973: published The Caseload of the Supreme Court: And What, If Anything, to Do About It.
• 1973 Dec: underwent surgery.
• 1974 Feb: returned to professional activity.
• 1974 Jul: appointed Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School.
• 1974 Jul: suffered relapse.
• 1974 Oct: completed manuscript of The Morality of Consent.
• 1974 Nov: died.

From the guide to the Alexander Mordecai Bickel papers, 1916-1987, 1930-1975, (Manuscripts and Archives)