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C-SPAN Transcript Viewer [1]

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Date: 2023-05 

BRIAN LAMB, HOST: Justice Clarence Thomas, go back to the very first time you thought about writing this book.

CLARENCE THOMAS, U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: Oh, I think it probably was sometime in the year 2000, shortly after my brother died, and when I realized that his death meant I was the only one left in the house.

My grandparents had died in 1983, and suddenly my brother is out jogging before mass, and he dies.

And you can get pretty melancholy and pretty upset about that. And I thought then, with some of the things that had been said about me during the confirmation that's quite distorted our lives. So I thought of recording it, just sort of informally at that time.

LAMB: How did you do it? How did you start?

THOMAS: Actually, with some prodding. I think sometime in 2003, maybe, and with a bit of prodding from some others, I started putting it down. And one thing led to another.

But as far as just writing this - this ultimate product - I just, in the evenings, weekends, holidays, when other people went out to play golf or visit Europe, or go to a movie, or something, I was sitting in front of my computer, typing away.

LAMB: But a Supreme Court justice doesn't just write a book. He's got to have an agent and all that. You credit Lynn Chu in here as your agent.

THOMAS: Yes.

LAMB: How do you get an agent?

THOMAS: Well, I don't know how that exactly worked. I think that I talked to some friends who had written books, and asked about the process. And they all recommended, I think, in the end, Lynn Chu.

LAMB: Why HarperCollins?

THOMAS: I think because that's who we wound up with. It wasn't any particular match, other than it wasn't this sort of overwhelming interest in the book. There was a little interest, but not overwhelming interest.

And HarperCollins seemed a bit more interested and seemed pretty - actually excited about doing it.

LAMB: Every story about you says that this book is worth $1.5 million. Do you want to confirm or deny that?

THOMAS: No, that was the advance, I think. But the worth - I don't know whether it's worth that.

LAMB: So far, what's your reaction to the coverage you've gotten since the book came out?

THOMAS: Well, I really can't speak to coverage. I don't exactly follow all of that. I think that, certainly, the "60 Minutes" piece was fair and just really, I thought, quite good. And I think the piece at ABC, they've been very, very fair.

But then some of it - you get some of the normal sort of critics from all sorts of places. But that's their business to be negative and to call you angry - all those sorts of things.

LAMB: You say in your book that Juan Williams changed your life.

THOMAS: I don't know if I'd say Juan Williams changed my life, except his article …

LAMB: Well, your life - yes, exactly. That's what I want you to …

THOMAS: Well, his op-ed, you know, in 1980, when we went to the Fairmont Conference in San Francisco, which was just a conference. Ronald Reagan had been elected.

And Tom Sowell was there, and he invited me, and I went there. And I started talking with Juan Williams, and suddenly he is writing about our conversation. I had no idea he was going to do that.

LAMB: That was the conversation about your sister.

THOMAS: No, it really wasn't. That's what the critics have made it into, a conversation about my sister. It was not about my sister. It was about issues, such as welfare, school busing. Remember, school vouchers was a big issue back then - and some other things, just a variety of things.

You're sitting around with some people who are interested, and you're talking about these things. And at some point, the whole issue of welfare may have come up, and I think he may have asked me, why are you really interested in it. And that was just sort of a way of underscoring why it was important to me.

And suddenly, it's blown into this big thing about my sister. But that was - it was only done after the fact by people who wanted to smear me.

LAMB: What were you doing? Was that 1980?

THOMAS: That was December - that was in December or November, 1980.

LAMB: What were you doing then?

THOMAS: I was working for Senator Danforth. That's during the time I met you, when I was a legislative assistant for Senator Danforth.

I met you, I think, with Ron Langston and some of the others.

LAMB: And at that time - at some point in this process, you became a Republican, to vote for Ronald Reagan.

THOMAS: I think it was sometime in that fall, during - it was around that election, just before his election in 1980.

LAMB: One of the names that comes up in your book often is John Bolton.

THOMAS: Yes. John was my classmate at Yale.

LAMB: So, why is he in the book? What is the - and you suggest that he might have helped shift your politics at one point.

THOMAS: Well, in a lot of ways. John is an interesting guy. And one thing he is is absolutely candid and honest.

And John found my wallet. I mean, this is purely providential, or it's just serendipity. But he found my wallet. We found out, as a result of that, when I went to thank him, that we were neighbors.

And I had been told, you know, he was this bad Republican and conservative. And we started talking. And it was interesting. We would argue back and forth.

And one of the things he did that was a really important moment for me at that time, when I was in support of all these things - government doing all sorts of things in our lives - John said, "Why would you want the government more involved in your life, since you are someone who generally has been discriminated against?"

And I had no answer for him. And it was the beginning of forcing me to rethink a lot of things.

But the thing I liked about John is that he would talk substantively about things. He would argue with you. He would always invite me up when his parents were around, and sort of treated you as a classmate. So, I really enjoyed his company.

LAMB: How much have you stayed in touch with him over the years?

THOMAS: Oh, you know, of course in Washington you don't see everybody - you don't see people every day. But I swore him in at the State Department, and we've been at different events, a few here and there.

LAMB: One of the things you pick up in your book is how many - all the different names that have had an impact in one way or the other. One of them is Brad Reynolds.

And you were for eight years at the EEOC. Tell us what that job was first.

THOMAS: Well, I was chairman of the commission. There's two jobs, basically. There's a five member commission, bipartisan. And as chairman, you run the meetings, and you develop the policy, you work with your fellow commissioners.

But you also - it's an agency of - it's an enforcement agency, so you have over 3,000 people across the country, and you're in charge of them also. And so, you are an administrator. And so, it was two - basically, two hats, so it was a very complicated job.

But it enforces the Equal Employment Opportunity laws, you know, the anti-discrimination laws in the work force.

LAMB: What year did you take that job?

THOMAS: May of 1982, until sometime in March of 1990.

LAMB: What were you saying at the time that irritated Brad Reynolds?

THOMAS: Well, nothing, really. We disagreed. We agreed on substance. You know, that was an era when we were talking about quotas and goals and timetables, and things like that.

And the administration, of course, was opposed to those things. And so was I. I didn't think that they were consistent in many ways with Title 7 or the statutes we were enforcing.

But that's, again, that's just a policy difference with others, with people who had been doing that job before.

But my difference with some of my colleagues in the administration - Brad was just one of the people - was that I didn't think we should spend all of our time arguing about that. I didn't think we should be negative and sort of aggressively saying we oppose these things. We should say what we're for - here's an approach.

But it wasn't just Brad. And I hope it didn't come across that way. It was just a difference in tactics within the administration, although substantively we agreed.

LAMB: But you say that you hoped to campaign for Ronald Reagan in '84, and you didn't get the call.

THOMAS: No. Well, I think it was a time when, in there, where you learned, and it was very frustrating working for a big administration.

Ronald Reagan was great. But some of the political tactics were quite different from what I had expected. And the tactic was, of course, not to put the black issues out front. So, I was very, very disappointed and frustrated about that.

LAMB: What did you do about that?

THOMAS: Well, I continued to hammer away.

First of all, I was disappointed. But one of the things you realize after awhile is, if you stay on long enough, and you continue to fight and do it in a constructive way, you can actually begin to persuade people.

Of course, the administration ended before you could effect a sea change.

But it just shows you that, if you stay and you continue to work with people, you can change hearts and minds and get people to focus on things in a more positive way.

LAMB: You tell us in your book about some of your reading habits. You mentioned early on Winston Churchill. What impact did he have on you, and why did you mention him?

THOMAS: Well, I mentioned Churchill for this reason. Actually, it started out with watching Adolf Hitler, and wondering why the Western world, this great civilized society, had not opposed someone who was obviously so bad.

And then I came across Churchill as one of the first, and certainly most prominent, people to oppose him. And he fascinated me. He fascinated me, because he seemed content to go it alone, to - when the whole world sort of pushed him out into the wilderness years, he continued writing and thinking and being involved.

And if you think about it, he was exasperated, he was upset, he was broke. He had to write to make a living. His family problems, et cetera - and yet, he continued on.

And then one day, when the country needs him most, he's there. His career was supposed to be over. And this wonderful saying, you know, "It was as though my entire life was but mere preparation for this moment," when he's going to see the queen - going to become the prime minister. I mean, what a wonderful thing.

And it just shows you that, if you hang around, you do - it's just what I was saying before about the administration. If you quite, you run, you hide, you get negative. You get cynical. You've given up.

Churchill didn't do that. He continued on. And he continued. Look at him during the war. It looked impossible - this small island nation against this great and well-armed, German army.

And yet he hangs in there. And he had to beg, borrow and plead to get the equipment to fight. But he hung in there. And I just - I mean, what is there not to admire?

And then that leads to Lincoln, and it gets you into all sorts of other things. It's just fascinating.

LAMB: When - what year did you get introduced to Winston Churchill? Did anybody in particular do that for you?

THOMAS: It was really the mid-1980s. No, it wasn't anybody in particular.

But once you do that, then you find friends who are also interested, and you begin to be even more interested. It sort of feeds on itself. You find - I became at one point a member of the Churchill Society, and all those sorts of things.

I'm not now, but I just thought it was fascinating to get literature on Churchill, and to be around people who knew so much more. And then you get to read things, you know, like Sir Martin Gilbert's - or Martin Gilbert's book, biography of Churchill, or Manchester's two-volume piece, "The Last Lion." And he never did the third.

And then you get little tidbits, and people sit around talking about it. I just found it fascinating.

LAMB: How much did reading change your thinking?

THOMAS: You know, it's really interesting. I don't know if it changed my thinking as much as it caused me to think more - and more thoroughly and more deeply.

The whole point of this book, one of the points is that, and why I named it "My Grandfather's Son," is because I am. That's the realization I came to.

Through all of the reading, through the tragedies, through the thinking, to watching my grandparents die, raising my son, fighting the battles in and outside of the administration - I realized that the real formation took place with my grandparents.

And then, the rest of it - this sort of teasing it out intellectually, spiritually, philosophically, learning more - it may have been filling in the blanks. It may have been making me bigger, firmer, stronger.

But it was - the real DNA of my development came from my grandparents.

LAMB: You mention Lincoln. Who introduced you to Lincoln?

THOMAS: I read "Battle Cry of Freedom."

LAMB: James McPherson.

THOMAS: That's right. And it was the one volume, I think, Oxford edition. And I was interested in it, because of the issue of slavery. And if you're from the South, you become almost obsessed with understanding what happened there.

And I'm not very good with accepting these very simplistic explanations of things. Life is too complicated for that.

And once you're in the business of deciding things, or doing things, or running things, you see that it's far more complicated than simplistic explanations.

So I started reading more about the Civil War, starting with that volume. And I was fascinated by him. You know, the ideal of a society in which you do not put people - enslave a race - you know, the "house divided" speech.

And you started thinking - I started thinking more about it. Then I hired - instead of having speechwriters, which we were allotted in our staff …

LAMB: This is at the EEOC?

THOMAS: … at EEOC, I hired political theorists - people who understood Lincoln, who understood the underpinnings of the movement against slavery. And we spent our time thinking that through and reading more material, and teasing that out a little bit.

LAMB: So, how did you find somebody to hire to do that kind of a job?

THOMAS: Again, fortuitous. Someone who happened to apply …

LAMB: Do you remember who it was?

THOMAS: Oh, it was - yes, a gentleman named Ken Masugi, and then John Marini and a number of people who were out at the Claremont Institute in California. And once I was involved with them, we would spend hours in the evenings, whenever we had time, to just read more, to talk, to debate, to find other people to debate, to discuss these things with.

And it was just fascinating. It was a sort of a period of just great intellectual development. And it was just fascinating intellectually to me.

LAMB: You also said you read "Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged." At what year of your life did you do that?

THOMAS: I actually read those in high school and college. And I read and re-read them over the years, and re-read both very slowly and as thoughtfully as I could during my years at EEOC.

I developed a habit of reading, because budgets and personnel just weren't enough for me. And I guess during the time that I was reading about Churchill, I was probably also reading Ayn Rand, and considered myself a bit of a libertarian. And the Straussians I met - Ken Masugi, John Marini - of course, they would wince when I said that.

But it was, again, just searching for answers, searching for the sort of, the coherence in the kind of things that we were doing.

LAMB: Clarence Pendleton. You didn't agree with him? And who was he at that point? What was your relationship with him?

THOMAS: Oh, I loved Penny. Penny is a …

LAMB: You called him Penny.

THOMAS: We called him Penny. He was the chairman of the Civil Rights Commission while I was at EEOC. And you'd see articles that would dismissively and derisively refer to us as "the two Clarences," you know. It was just always this thing - we were Uncle Toms, we were this or that.

And we agreed on virtually everything in the substantive area. But he had a different approach to things. He tended to be more combative than I was.

I was sometimes referred to as "the other Clarence," because I wasn't in the news, and I didn't give sort of confrontational speeches, and I didn't make confrontational statements. I just did my job and ran the agency. So, I was sort of dismissed as someone who didn't really matter.

LAMB: But when you were nominated for the Supreme Court, you say, at one point, near the time when you had to go in for your second testimony, that you gave too many speeches. You wished you hadn't given all those speeches.

THOMAS: Well, they were speeches. They weren't - I said I didn't give combative speeches. I gave speeches - you know, when you start getting sort of criticized and beaten on, you begin to wonder why you even bothered. I mean, that was sort of a momentary thing.

I'm glad I gave the speeches, because it was a part of my own thought process, of working through things and going out and telling people in a very careful way, as best you could at the time, what you thought or what you were doing.

So, I had well over 100 printed speeches, which some people - I mean, that may have been far too many. And I had quite a few speeches that were not printed.

LAMB: Go back to this book. You say about 2000, you started thinking about doing it. When did you finish it?

THOMAS: Oh, I guess a few months ago. I did not - I finished the first draft probably sometime in 2005, and it was almost double the size of this book. It was, I think, around 380 single-spaced pages.

LAMB: What was taken out?

THOMAS: I don't think anything of substance. Nothing of the story was taken out. But that's the nature of editing, that it would be too dense. It's too much.

And as I say in there, I edited it, and I had really a lot of good help and copyediting, and getting it organized and structured, after I'd written it. I mean, I never turned it over to anyone, and continued typing away and using track changes and the comment function, and back and forth.

But I didn't finish with this until sometime this summer.

LAMB: Physically, where did you write it?

THOMAS: At home. At home, on my motor coach, on vacation, hotel rooms, airplanes, at soccer practice, basketball practice with my great-nephew, on the laptop, in the middle of the night, writing down notes.

It's almost as though, once I started - it's like any other project - I can't rest until I finish it. And so, I was always working on it.

LAMB: What kind of requirements did HarperCollins make on you to make this a saleable book?

THOMAS: None. I absolutely refused to turn over any editorial rights or to allow anybody to tell me what to do.

LAMB: Did anybody make a suggestion to you what would sell this book, or what would get people's attention? I mean, you're not going through this process of interviews just for the fun of it.

THOMAS: Well, I agreed to do some of that as a part of the book. But as far as the substance of the book, no suggestions other than help in editing in a way that - I don't write in that language normally. And it was an enormously difficult process of editing and editing and editing and editing to get it so it's readable to people.

I wrote that for people like me - regular people, people who shop at Wal-Mart or Target, people who are trying to live their lives and be positive - and not in this city where people tend to be too cynical, too negative. And to do that, it required me to write it in a plainspoken language, the language that we normally use.

But as far as substantive suggestions, none. I absolutely refused to be told what to write.

LAMB: I've seen most of your interviews this week. You started out on "60 Minutes."

What did you think of the way they treated you?

THOMAS: Oh, they treated me very well.

LAMB: Were you surprised about that?

THOMAS: I have to admit, based on my experiences, Brian, that - not sort of speculation, or anything like that, but based on my experiences - that I was very, very pleasantly surprised. And it was the first time, both that and ABC, in 20 years or so - maybe some others - have done something that was more positive and accurate.

But this restored a bit of faith in the media.

LAMB: Why? Why did you - why are you still that negative? And why did this make it different?

THOMAS: Well, all you have to do is historically go back and read the coverage of me, and you can answer your own question.

And it is as though people sort of had their own idea of what I should think or who I should be, and they told the world that.

The most common question I get, or reaction I get, when I'm on the road is - and this is from any audience, black, white, an older audience, younger audiences - that "You're not the person I read about or the person they had on TV. You're a perfectly fine guy," et cetera.

And what they allowed to happen was simply to have that shown, the person I was, not someone that fit their particular role that they had prefabricated.

LAMB: Rush Limbaugh had you - I mean, it was interesting to listen to everybody brag about that they were going to give you the longest interview they've ever done, or they had the first interview on broadcast, or the first interview on cable, and all that.

Rush Limbaugh said, "I'm glad you wrote the book." I listened to your 90 minutes with him. "It's a privilege to know you and love you."

THOMAS: He's a wonderful friend.

LAMB: You married him.

THOMAS: You've got to say that as - that's ambiguous. Those are the sorts of things you need to edit.(LAUGHTER)

LAMB: You spoke …

THOMAS: I performed his marriage ceremony.

LAMB: You performed the ceremony.

THOMAS: Yes.

LAMB: Yes. Is it hard for you when you know somebody that well to be interviewed by them and listen to them tell you on their own show how much they love you?

THOMAS: You know, it is - Rush doesn't let up on you because of that. But I trust that he isn't there to score points.

So many of the interviews and involvement, my involvement during my years at EEOC, et cetera, people would call me for a quote. They were looking to score points or to get something that fit a prefabricated story or notion.

And so, when you know somebody, you have the sense, he's not here to score points or to do you harm, so you can relax and actually have a conversation. And it turns out to be a far better exchange.

LAMB: When the "60 Minutes" program came up, it said, "the justice nobody knows." That was the headline on it.

And I went back and checked our records, and we've had you on, since you have been a justice, about 100 times.

THOMAS: That's right.

LAMB: There's only one other justice that appeared more, and that's Justice Breyer.

But I just wondered. "The justice nobody knows." How many of these justices here do we know?

THOMAS: Well, Brian, you hit the point. You - now you have - C-SPAN has been wonderful, by the way.

Do you remember after Bush v. Gore, that you had me on the day after Bush v. Gore was decided?

LAMB: With the kids.

THOMAS: With the kids. You've had me in your program to go to a local school as one of your leadership programs. You have had crews follow me all over the country.

But even during that time, what was the general media saying? That I was hunkered down and hiding out, I was angry. And then you go back and take a look at all your tape, and you see if you see any indication that I was either hunkered down or angry at anybody.

And so, that story persisted, despite the fact that I was constantly on C-SPAN.

LAMB: I wrote this down. ABC coverage, Jan Crawford Greenburg did an interview with you - "the silent justice."

She said you were "candid, emotional, unplugged." "What he really thinks about the woman who almost destroyed him," and on and on.

But "the silent justice." Where does all this come from?

THOMAS: I think, because I don't talk during oral arguments, they think you can't talk, and they have to speculate about things.

I really can't say that it's unfair to say that I'm silent in that context. I would like to, though, be referred to as "the listening justice," you know. I still believe that, if somebody else is talking, somebody should be listening.

But that sort of started that I wasn't - I didn't go about, I didn't get out with the people, I didn't do this, I didn't do that. And you know different, just by checking your record.

And I've probably given more speeches, been on TV more than any other member of the Court - or almost any other member of the Court.

LAMB: "USA Today" this week did its yearly editorial that the Court should open up to television. And they started off by saying, "It seems that you can see Supreme Court justices on TV almost anywhere these days, except where they work."

And then at the bottom - and actually, we helped provide them with this - we have a quote from you. You made this quote this year about television.

You said, "The primary point for me has been that regular appearances on TV would mean significant changes in the way my colleagues conduct their lives. My anonymity is already gone. But for some of my colleagues, they have not yet lost the anonymity. I think security is on (ph) foremost of all our minds, now, since 9/11. I think they'll certainly become even more significant with more exposure."

THOMAS: Oh, I think so.

LAMB: Is it a dead issue as far as you're concerned, that we'll never see the Supreme Court in oral argument?

THOMAS: You know, years ago when you were starting C-SPAN, I think there was some thought that it'd be a dead issue of getting House and Senate coverage. And it wasn't.

I don't know. I can't predict the future.

I think that, technologically, there are probably ways now to do it in an unobtrusive way. I just don't know.

My preference is that, if it does not enhance what we do - since I have no anonymity - if it doesn't enhance or help us do our jobs, then I don't think we should do it. If people think it helps us do our job better, then we should.

But I don't think we should do anything - that's why the questions, and I don't ask questions. If I think a question will help me decide a case, then I'll ask that question. Otherwise, it's not worth asking, because it detracts from my job.

Similarly with the cameras. If it helps us do our job better, if it's better for the country, then we should do it.

LAMB: So, when is the discussion going to be held someday in the Court whether or not - have they ever voted on it since you've been here?

THOMAS: I don't think the discussion ever really stops. It may rise and ebb, or ebb and flow, but I don't think it really ever stops.

LAMB: Will you let us know?(LAUGHTER)

THOMAS: I can't promise you that. You have to talk to the chief justice about that. He's in charge.

LAMB: Coverage this week. Rich Lowry of the "National Journal" wrote this week in the "New York Post," "If Clarence Thomas weren't a black conservative, his new memoir, "My Grandfather's Son," would be hailed as a kind of a classic - a powerful moving tale of a black man's assent from bone-crushing poverty to the pinnacle of the American system of government."

Now, that's - I'm going to read some negative, but that's the positive.

Why is it that there's such a major difference in the way two human beings look at you?

THOMAS: Oh, I think that maybe two human beings look differently at you, too. But I think it's - what I try to point out in the book is that, you become this sort of - it's sort of like the invisible man, you know.

There are so many people who have this idea of who I am, because I'm black. They just simply - you don't have to start thinking. You don't have to say, well, like, white people can be - I don't know what your political views are.

I met you almost 25 years ago, maybe more. And I have no idea what your political views are. And I would be very, very reluctant to sort of impose some views on you, just because I look at you and I say, "You're white."

Well, so many people look at me, and they don't have that kind of reluctance. I'm black. Therefore, my views should be these things. And if I deviate from those, something is wrong with me. And so, you get these very, very divergent views.

If I were a black liberal, I would be hailed, I guess. But I'm not. I mean, I think for myself. I want to make my own decisions.

But because you're black and you deviate from a particular, set norm, you can be criticized, you can be reviled, you can be - slurs can be hurled at you. They can say - you give people license to say things that would be unfathomable or unthinkable otherwise.

LAMB: How much do you read the newspapers?

THOMAS: Oh, I don't. I don't. I don't think it's a good use of my time.

LAMB: So, you don't read the "Post" in the morning?

THOMAS: No. I used to read the "New York Post," but that was about it.

LAMB: Why do you feel that way? Why is it a waste?

THOMAS: Well, I think it's - I think that what they - I wanted to be a journalist. But I think a part of being a good journalist is being honest. I think it's not shaping the news, but reporting the news.

And I think we have long since gone past the point when people are just being honest with us. And so, I don't waste my time with it.

LAMB: Well, then, you probably didn't see this. Or maybe your wife, Ginni, who seems to watch this stuff and tell you …

THOMAS: Oh, no, she doesn't tell me, because I'm not interested.

LAMB: She doesn't …

THOMAS: No, I'm not interested in that.

LAMB: But you say in the book, though, that during the Anita Hill hearings, that she would watch and tell you what …

THOMAS: Yes, but that was like - that was, what, 16 years ago?

LAMB: Sixteen years ago.

THOMAS: And that was further reason not to be bothered with it. So, I really don't bother with it.

LAMB: Some of the toughest criticism I've seen since this book came out is Eugene Robinson.

THOMAS: Who's that?

LAMB: He is an African-American columnist for the "Washington Post."

THOMAS: Oh, I couldn't care less.

LAMB: Well, let me tell you what he said. I mean, and I just wonder if this …

THOMAS: Do you know who this is?

LAMB: Yes.

THOMAS: Well, I don't.

LAMB: I've interviewed him. And you have no idea.

THOMAS: I have no idea.

LAMB: He says, "I believe in" - I mean, this is how tough it has been this week. If you haven't read this, this will be new to you.

"I believe in affirmative action. But I have to acknowledge, there are arguments against it. One of the more cogent is the presence of Justice Clarence Thomas on the U.S. Supreme Court."

THOMAS: I really don't - that's useless to me. Why is that important?

LAMB: I don't know. But, I mean, people read his column.

THOMAS: I mean, you can find - but you could go and find somebody at a local tavern who has had too much to drink saying that.

That's useless. That's supposed to be insulting and cute.

When you get to the point of ridicule and making little sort of low-brow comments like that, then you've run out of real arguments.

Suppose I told you, Brian, that, with my colleagues, I made those same comments about Justice Ginsberg, or about Justice Breyer. What would you think of me?

No, answer me. What would you think of me?

LAMB: Well, I …

THOMAS: No, what would you think of me, if I made those exact same comments about my colleagues on important issues that come before your Supreme Court?

LAMB: I don't know.

THOMAS: OK. You would …

LAMB: I don't know, because it would have to be in some context. But, I mean, these columnists write things, obviously, to get people's attention.

THOMAS: They write things that are ridiculous, that have no substantive value.

LAMB: Ruth Marcus …

THOMAS: I don't know who that is.

LAMB: … writes editorials for the "Washington Post." She starts off her column today, she said, "To read Clarence Thomas' book is to be struck anew by the blast furnace of his anger … "(LAUGHTER)

" … at Democrats, at liberal interest groups, at the media and, of course, Anita Hill."

THOMAS: Oh, first of all, I have no anger toward Anita Hill. I just think we both got caught up in a process. I have no anger toward anyone.

Brian, think about my life. Where was there room in that life for anger? Where? How could I be here, if I was angry?

What did I say in the book about anger? What did I have to do? In order to continue going, I have to shed the anger I had.

I'm not saying I wouldn't be justified in having some anger. But I don't have any anger. I can't afford anger. I can't afford bitterness.

Now, how many times did you say that I was on your program?

LAMB: About 100.

THOMAS: How many times have you seen demonstrations of anger?

LAMB: Well, most of the time you were in your own environment, giving your own speeches, and all that. And there's a certain …

THOMAS: No, and I've been out on the road.

LAMB: There is a - yes, there's a certain temperament that you have that always is there.

THOMAS: OK. I've been at law schools. You've been there. I've been at dinners. You've been there.

I've been there with kids I've never met, or people I've never met, asking me questions. You've been there. Have you seen any anger?

That is a part of their effort to be dismissive, to denigrate, to harm. But that's their business, you know.

What I said in this book was that they had basically, wantonly kicked over the anthill of my life. And I have to scurry around and rebuild it, one grain of sand at a time. And that's what I'm busy doing.

I don't have room to be bitter. I must continue on.

LAMB: Are you going to go on a book tour?

THOMAS: Oh, I will go to a few places, I think, in a few weeks, yes.

LAMB: And what kind of a - will it be speeches or bookstores?

THOMAS: No. No bookstores. These are some events that the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation are putting on.

LAMB: I want to go to something that you - in the book you speak a lot about religion, and a lot about your belief in God, and all that.

I just want to read one paragraph on page 237, and get you to kind of put it into context, and why you would share these deep thoughts with people.

"Each day I left the caucus room tired" - this is during the whole hearings - "tormented and anxious. And each day, Virginia" - your wife - "and I bathed ourselves in God's unwavering love. I knew that my team was doing all they could for me. But the long months of preparation had worn me down to a shadow of myself. And I knew that no human hand could sustain me in my time of trial. After years of rejecting God, I slowly eased into a state of quiet ambivalence toward Him. But that wasn't good enough anymore. I had to go the whole way. I recalled one of my daddy's sayings: Hard times make monkey eat … "

THOMAS: Cayenne pepper.

LAMB: " … cayenne pepper. Now, with Virginia at my side, I ate the pepper of faith, and found it sweet."

And then you go on to write Psalms 57.

THOMAS: Does that sound bitter to you?

LAMB: Well, no. But I wanted to ask you, though, that whole series of - you know, you rejected God, you were ambivalent toward God, and then you were very much with God.

Why do you share that kind of thing with …

THOMAS: Well, first of all, I understand, just so you know, that there are cynical and negative people that will spin that a lot of ways. Any time you are honest or candid, particularly about your own life, people can be cynical and very difficult about that.

And they've never been my audience, because they know everything. Their lives are perfect.

I am talking to people who are like me, who go through difficulties, who reject the way they've been raised, who reject the faith that they once had, reject the people who were closest to them, and you slowly come full circle. As I said to you earlier, that now I'm back - I'm headed back toward the way I was raised.

What did I say the legacy was that my grandparents left my brother and me? Faith was a part of that. Work was a part of that. The life we had in Georgia was a part of that.

And this is, again, that sort of prodigal son journey, where you're coming back.

How many people, who are in your listening audience, how many people, even right now, have gone through similar journeys, have gone through similar periods when they've rejected important parts of their lives?

How many people in your audience, for example, have never reconciled with their parents?

As I go across the country and I talk to regular human beings - outside of the Beltway - these are kids, these are other adults who have had the exact same experience. And what I'm trying to do there is to show them that they're not alone, and that, if they can retain hope and continue to be positive, and to continue to put one foot in front of the other, it might be OK.

But to do that, I have to go through the din of the negative people, who will try to spin and undermine that message.

But it is ultimately a message of hope. That's why you have that in there. And my return to my faith was a very important part of that.

LAMB: When had you lost your faith completely?

THOMAS: I would say, by 1968, it was pretty much done.

LAMB: And you'd been a Catholic since you'd lived with your grandfather.

THOMAS: My grandparents. I'd been in the seminary. And I think the day that, you know, my vocation to become a priest was vacillating. I mean, I'm a young man. I was 19 years old. You know what you were like at 19.

And things started happening in society on issues of race. And then one of my fellow seminarians, when Martin Luther King was assassinated, said in front of me without me knowing I was behind him, "That's good. I hope the SOB dies." That was it.

And the church seemed to be somewhat ambivalent - and this may be unfair - seemed to be somewhat ambivalent, and certainly not aggressive enough on what I considered the immorality of racism. And so, I left the seminary, and that was a first step to leaving the church.

LAMB: When were you ambivalent about it? What period of time?

THOMAS: I think I began to be ambivalent, I went through that period of being angry - when I was really angry, not this sort of made-up, media anger - but when I was angry as a young man at Holy Cross and got caught up in a riot in Harvard Square, and came back and asked God to take hatred out of my heart and anger out of my heart.

That was sort of - just the sort of the beginning of quiet ambivalence. And over the years, on and off again, as I had difficulties, that ambivalence got to be more, something that was bigger and bigger and bigger and a more central point - questioning part - of my life.

LAMB: And when was it that it really kicked in again and you became a believer? And you're obviously a strong believer now.

THOMAS: Oh, when I met my wife. I think that that was - she was a gift from God for me. And …

LAMB: Where did you meet her? You tell the story in the book.

THOMAS: I met her in New York City at a conference. Midge Decter actually introduced us, and we shared a cab to the airport and took - you know, that was when you had those shuttles in New York - and took separate planes, and had lunch about a month or so later, in May - actually, May 29, 1986 - and we were married May 30, 1987.

And we've been inseparable ever since.

LAMB: What attracted you to her?

THOMAS: She's a good person - kind, positive, beautiful. But the real reason was the inner beauty.

She's a good person - positive outlook - and just wanted to make the country, as I say in there - she wanted freedom and to fight for it, and that people should be treated as individuals.

And that's what I wanted. And so, we want - we have the same ideals. And a part of that is our faith.

That's why - it's so important for me to go back to your point about anger.

You can't - we can't be with each other and believe in what we believe in, and have the faith that we have and hope that we have, and drag anger with it. That's something that the cynics and the negative people, they try to take their anger, their bitterness.

What does it take to beat on someone constantly, to write some of these columns? Is that not anger? Is that not bitterness? What do you wake up with in the morning inside of you to say these things?

You have not read me say these things. I said - what you see in my book - is about people who have done bad things to me. And it isn't anger. It's just a kind of saying, look. Here is the truth as I see it. Here's what I saw. Here's what I thought about what these people who did these things.

LAMB: Actually, Kevin Merida in the "Washington Post" wrote this.

"If there was any remaining mystery about whether Thomas has gotten over the confirmation hearings and sexual harassment allegations that humiliated him 16 years ago, the justice makes plain he hasn't. His words speak to a level of bitterness that he previously has not communicated during his tenure on the Court."

The bitterness thing seems to be as much of an argument as anything.

THOMAS: Oh, that's just spin. That's just spin. Come on. That's just spin.

I mean, you've seen me. I'm sitting here with you. Have you heard anybody in this building that I've worked with every day say that I was bitter?

So, these people - I don't even know these people. I don't - if they walked in, I wouldn't know them.

So, how do they know I'm bitter?

LAMB: What has been the reaction of your fellow justices to you writing this book and getting all this attention?

THOMAS: My colleagues up here have been enormously supportive of me. We don't talk specifically - some of them kid me about the book, and some talk about it. They say, they can't turn the channel without seeing me.

They have been enormously supportive of me since I've been here. This is a wonderful place to be.

And unlike - and they will tell you, they are the ones you should ask if they've ever seen any anger on my behalf. And in fact, you will hear just the opposite. I have never in their presence and in my work and in this building, exhibited any of that.

That is in the imagination. These are people who think I should be angry for what they did. And so, they impose their thinking on me.

But the reality is that my colleagues have been just fabulously, fabulously supportive of me.

LAMB: Early on, everybody wanted Anita Hill's reaction to your book. And finally, she wrote a piece for the "New York Times." Did you see that?

THOMAS: Oh, goodness, no.

LAMB: Well, let me read you a paragraph and get your reaction.

"In the portion of his book that addresses my role in the Senate hearings into his nomination, Justice Thomas offers a litany of unsubstantiated representations and outright smears that Republican senators made about me when I testified before the Judiciary Committee, that I was a combative left-winger who was" - these are quotes, because they're from your book - "who was 'touchy' and 'prone to overreacting to slights.'"

"A number of independent authors have shown these attacks to be baseless. What's more, their reports draw on the experiences of others, who were familiar with Mr. Thomas' behavior, and who came forward after the hearings. It's no longer my word against his."

THOMAS: You know, that's just - you know, what else is she going to say? And I just don't think - my book isn't about her. My book is about a life.

And as I said to you before, I think we both got caught up in a process. And my book is more about how that process destroyed or harmed everybody who was involved.

Now, with respect to baseless, I was there at EEOC. And all the - I'm not getting into. There was so much more, if I wanted to fight that battle over, I could have done. But I'm not really interested in that. And I tried to make that point there.

Now, if I had not mentioned the hearings, people would say I skipped over it. But I tried to do it in a way to show how my - what my wife and I went through, and show it as a part of a story, not to refight those battles.

LAMB: Now, Armstrong Williams, who I know is going to throw a big party for you later this afternoon when we're taping this, says in one article that I read somewhere that you are a free man now. You've gotten all this off your chest.

THOMAS: I don't know what …

LAMB: Is that true? I mean, do you feel better …

THOMAS: I don't know that means. I haven't gotten anything off my chest. I just …

LAMB: You don't feel better after all this?

THOMAS: Oh, I don't - it's not about any - I don't know what I got off my chest.

The story is ultimately about my life. That was a part of it, unfortunately.

As I say early on in there, none of this would have been worth mentioning, if they had not used it - someone I tried to help - in an effort to destroy me. It would never have been - how many thousands of people have I helped over the years? How many hundreds and hundreds of personnel decisions I've made? None of them are mentioned.

There are people who have been very, very close to me, very dear to me, at EEOC. They go unmentioned - great managers - simply because they didn't do anything that was bad. They didn't do anything that was exceptional. They didn't do anything to get on the news.

But I have to mention this, simply because it was such a big episode. But I would prefer not to have mentioned it, because it wasn't worth mentioning.

LAMB: Would you recommend that anybody go through what you've gone through?

THOMAS: I would recommend people stand up against bullies.

LAMB: But I mean, would you go through the whole Washington experience - I mean, if you were - knowing what you know now, would you come through this thing again?

THOMAS: For what purpose?

LAMB: For whatever, to be a Supreme Court justice …

THOMAS: I would do it in order not to be pushed around by bullies, and in order not to - in order to be a part of this country.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.

Some months ago - or about a year or so ago, maybe a little bit more - I met with some wounded veterans from Iraq. They're just young people. One was missing a portion of her arm. One was blinded in an eye. One had a leg amputated.

And they were all very concerned about how I was spending so much time with them.

And I said - they thanked me, and wanted to sort of leave, because they thought they were imposing too much on me.

And I said to them, "Look. I should be thanking you for spending time with me, because in defense of what we believe in, you have actually suffered great physical harm - emotional, mental harm, possibly."

And some people have paid the ultimate - made the ultimate sacrifice.

Other than these people I don't know, and people I've tried to help who have done things like this, where am I injured?

People are trying to impose injury on me by saying I'm angry. But how am I injured?

So, in defense of the things that we believe in, I think if I couldn't go through this, then I think I'd be pretty worthless.

Now, as far as wanting this job, I wouldn't do it for that, because I'm not really all that interested in it from the standpoint of my personal ambitions. But I think, if you're called to do it, and it's a part of doing the right thing, you are required to do it.

LAMB: You say in your book on page 181, that you carry around a little prayer from St. Francis of Assisi. Do you still have that on you?

THOMAS: I don't have it on my person. I don't have my wallet on me.

LAMB: Where do you carry it when you do?

THOMAS: Oh, I carried it back when I was at EEOC. As I told you, it was that part of that journey back to my faith. And shortly before I - about a year or so before I met Virginia - I used to just carry it, because it would sustain me as to why I was doing my job, why it was important to do it right.

LAMB: "Keep a clear eye toward life's end. Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God's creature. What you are in His sight is what you are, and nothing more. Do not let worldly cares and anxieties or the pressures of office blot out the divine life within you or the voice of God's spirit guiding you in your great task of leading humanity to wholeness. If you open yourself to God and his plan printed deeply in your heart, God will open himself up to you."

When did you first read that poem? And do you still have it in your wallet?

THOMAS: No, I don't have it in my wallet. You can put all that on the computer now.

Actually, my favorite prayer now is the "Litany of Humility," because I think we get in these positions, and suddenly we can become bloated in this town, and think that we're so important, and that others are beneath us.

And we can also be swayed by criticism. You see those vile things that you see written. Or you get swayed by people saying nice things about you.

And I think it is critical for us to maintain the sense of humility that the job - this is not about us. This is about the ideal. This is about the Court. This is about our Constitution.

And the "Litany of Humility" keeps you focused on that.

As I've said before, when I first got here, Justice Powell, who was such a good man, said that, when you get to the point when you think you belong here, it is time for you to leave.

But I started with this prayer when I was trying to figure out why I was taking the criticism at EEOC, how to deal with all these very, very difficult challenges at this agency that no one seemed to care about except for those who wanted to score political points.

So, that prayer kept me sort of focused on why I was doing it.

LAMB: You write about your great-nephew. How would that relate to you, Mark Martin?

THOMAS: He is my sister's grandson.

LAMB: How old is he now?

THOMAS: He is 16, and he was six when we started raising him.

LAMB: Is he still living with you?

THOMAS: Oh, yes. He's still - we're raising him as a son. He will be an adult when, hopefully, he goes out on his own.

LAMB: How are you doing with him in relationship to like how your grandfather was with you?

THOMAS: Well, I don't have a farm to put him - he's more of a challenge than I was. And this is a different era. And he does sports, and all sorts of things.

But I think the thing that I'll be able to do is, I'll be able to always look my grandfather in the eye and say that I did for my great-nephew what my grandparents did for us - my brother and me.

And so, for me, in so many ways, it's rewarding, because it's brought me, again, full circle. I was about the age my grandfather was when he took my brother and me. And Mark was about the age my brother and I were when he took us in.

LAMB: You write about your son by your first marriage to Kathy, a gentleman named Jamal.

THOMAS: Yes.

LAMB: Where is he now?

THOMAS: Jamal is - he's working south of here. And he's a great guy. I just spoke to him this morning. He is a great, great guy.

LAMB: How old is he?

THOMAS: He's 34.

LAMB: I'm not going to do this, because it's not - you know, it's not my role. But I read on the Internet that people have said where he is and where he works, and that you've recused yourself in front of the Supreme Court from time to time, because of where he works, and that issue.

THOMAS: Yes.

LAMB: Are you reluctant to tell people where he is for that reason, for security reasons?

THOMAS: Well, no. I've always allowed Jamal - I raised him to be independent. And I have never burdened him with being a prop or being sort of an extra in the things that have happened in my life.

I wanted him to have his own life. I wanted him to make his own way and not to have to follow me or get caught up in my wake. And he's done that. He is a great guy.

I think I say in the preface, he's always been a better son than I deserved. And I stand by that.

LAMB: So, what do you think of this experience now? I mean, you're near the end of your interviews on this book - I assume.

THOMAS: Yes, I hope.

LAMB: You're finished writing it …

THOMAS: Oh, yes.

LAMB: … obviously. It's out.

What do you think of the experience?

THOMAS: I think, other than - I think it's very, very hard. It's one of the hardest undertakings I've engaged in, because I wanted to get it right. I didn't want ghostwriters, or anything like that. It was a lot of work.

I don't like the exposure part of it, this portion of it. But I see it's very important to get through the din and to get to the people, the audience, the wonderful people out there in your audience, who will read it for what it is, not be swayed by all these negative people and these people who are fighting that have axes to grind.

So, I'm trying to get it through to them.

Is it worth it? I think it is, because the day I run into someone who said, "I read your book and it really helped me," that'll make all this worthwhile.

LAMB: What was the hardest part of this?

THOMAS: I think the hardest part, section to write - well, generically, the hardest part was to write about difficult parts of my life. It wasn't all that hard to write about the confirmation stuff, because that wasn't part of life, that was something people did to me.

The hardest part was, I would have to say, writing about my grandparents, especially during the time that they died.

LAMB: Did you get emotional during your writing?

THOMAS: That was the hardest part, writing about my grandparents.

LAMB: And that was an emotional time when you were trying to write it?

THOMAS: Oh, obviously, yes. Yes.

LAMB: Are you ever going to do this again?

THOMAS: No. Not this. This is - I'm done with this.

My hope is that, as I said, it helps somebody. Because the easy thing to do, Brian, is to write a Washington book. There are lots of things I could have skirted. There are lots of things I could have tamped down. I could have pretended and had a consultant show me how to maneuver through this or through that.

But why write a dishonest book? I think people are tired of that.

So, what I tried to do is say, this is what happened. This is what I saw. This is what I felt. These are some of the challenges, and by the grace of God, I made it through those.

And hopefully, there'll be somebody out there who could read that and say, you know - like a young woman I saw recently, or last spring, who after we'd had a question-and-answer session, she came to me in tears after - this was based on some of those questions.

And she said, after I saw that you went through some of the same challenges that I'm going through, I now have hope. And maybe one person says that, then it's certainly, for me, worth all that effort.

LAMB: Justice Thomas, thank you very much.

[END]
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