Author Description

Before he became one of the longest-serving Supreme Court justices in American history, Byron R. White was Whizzer White: one of the last of the great scholar-athletes and an authentic American hero. The Man Who Once Was Whizzer White is based on dozens of archives and nearly two hundred interviews, including those with approximately half of White's former law clerks and with all of his principal colleagues in the Kennedy administration. For White's Court years, the book uses three key terms - 1971, 1981, and 1991 - to reveal detailed operations of the Supreme Court and White's often publicly invisible impact on the institution. The result is a biography that brings both of Byron White's identities into a single, fascinating whole.