Ramsey Clark William

CLARK, WILLIAM RAMSEY

Ramsey Clark is a unique attorney whose list of clients reads like a who’s who of political underdogs. After serving as assistant attorney general, deputy attorney general, and finally attorney general of the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, he returned to private practice with a strong interest in INTERNATIONAL LAW and HUMAN RIGHTS. His liberal views on crime, particularly crime against the U.S. government, have led him to represent a number of individuals and groups that are notably disliked or feared by the U.S. public.

William Ramsey Clark was born December
18, 1927, in Dallas, Texas, to TOM C. CLARK and
Mary Ramsey Clark. He received his bachelor of
arts degree from the University of Texas in 1949
and his master of arts and doctor of JURISPRUDENCE
degrees from the University of Chicago
in 1950. After being admitted to the Texas bar in
1951, he practiced law in Dallas for ten years. In
1961 he was appointed assistant attorney general
in the U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE. He served
in that capacity until 1965 when he was made
deputy attorney general. In 1967, President LYNDON
B. JOHNSON appointed him attorney general,
a position he held until 1969.
Clark was politically well connected. His
father had served as U.S. attorney general from
1945 to 1949 under President HARRY S. TRUMAN
and as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme
Court from 1949 to 1967. President Johnson was
not happy with Clark’s performance as attorney
general. Clark was criticized for being too soft on
crime in the United States as well as too soft
on defense. Clark was one of many 1960s-era
proponents of a new approach to solving the
crime problem—focusing on education and
rehabilitation rather than punishment—and his
influence extended into the 1990s.
In 1968, after Congress passed the Omnibus
Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (Pub. L. No.
90-351, 82 Stat. 197 [June 19, 1968]) to overturn
MIRANDA V. ARIZONA, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct.
1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966), Clark disagreed
with the act and refused to apply it, a precedent
that all U.S. attorneys general have followed
since. The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe
Streets Act, which replaced Miranda‘s flat prohibition
on the use of confessions obtained illegally,
employed a five-part test for judges to
decide whether a confession was voluntary (18
U.S.C.A. § 3501[b]). However, in Dickerson v.
U.S., 530 U.S. 428, 120 S.Ct 2326, 147 L.Ed.2d
405 (U.S. 2000), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
that Miranda is a constitutional decision, and
thus it may not be in effect overruled by an Act
of Congress, specifically including 18 USCA
3501. Congress may not legislatively supercede
Supreme Court decisions interpreting and
applying the Constitution, the Court concluded,
and any attempt to do so would thus be invalid.
Under Clark the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT was
considerably more liberal than it was under later
leaders. The department opposed CAPITAL PUNISHMENT,
even in an incident where two Immigration
and Naturalization Service agents were
killed.While with the Justice Department, Clark
brought future SECRETARY OF STATE Warren M.
Christopher in to serve as deputy attorney general.
Under Clark’s authority, Christopher shepherded
the 1968 CIVIL RIGHTS ACT (Pub. L. No.
90-284, 82 Stat. 73-92 [Apr. 11, 1968]) through
Congress. The passage of the Civil Rights Act
was a notable accomplishment because the
United States was experiencing considerable
civil strife and social turmoil and Congress did
not want to appear soft on crime.
After exiting the attorney general post in
1969, Clark moved to New York City to practice
law, taking on clients in matters of international
law and human rights, particularly those with
claims against the U.S. government—a unique
position for a former attorney general. In particular,
Clark has specialized in representing Middle
Eastern groups and individuals, including
the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Clark successfully represented the PLO in an
action brought by the U.S. government to close
the PLO’s Permanent Observer Mission at the
UNITED NATIONS (United States v. PLO, 695 F.
Supp. 1456 [S.D.N.Y. 1988]). Clark also represented
the PLO in a suit brought by the survivors
of Leon Klinghoffer, who was killed in 1985 while aboard the hijacked Achille Lauro
(Klinghoffer v. SNC Achille Lauro, 816 F. Supp.
930 [S.D.N.Y. 1993]).
Clark has been unafraid to represent clients
whose alleged crimes have angered and outraged
U.S. citizens and foreigners alike, including two
men who fought EXTRADITION to Israel: Abu
Eain, accused by the Israeli government of a
1979 bombing that killed two in Tiberias, Israel
(Eain v. Wilkes, 641 F.2d 504 [7th Cir. 1981]),
and Mahmoud El-Abed Ahmad, accused of a
1986 terrorist attack on an Israeli bus in the
West Bank (Ahmad v. Wigen, 910 F.2d 1063 [2d
Cir. 1990]). To protest the United States’ 1986 air
strike against Libya, Clark brought suit against
the United States and the United Kingdom on
behalf of 55 Libyans seeking damages for
injuries, death, and property loss sustained in
the air strike. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia fined Clark for filing a frivolous
lawsuit, one for which there was no hope
whatsoever of success (Saltany v. Regan, 886 F.2d
438 [D.C. Cir. 1989]). Sheik Omar Ahmad Ali
Abdel Rahman, a fundamentalist Muslim cleric
who was accused of conspiracy to wage a war of
TERRORISM in the United States, also had Clark
at his side in proceedings related to his involvement
in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade
Center.
Clark’s practice has also included cases that
arose out of wartime acts. He represented
Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs,
who was accused of permitting his soldiers to
rape thousands of Muslim women in Bosnian
detention camps (Doe v. Karadzic, 866 F. Supp.
734 [S.D.N.Y. 1994]); Jack (Jakob) Reimer, an
instructor at a WORLD WAR II German SS camp
in Poland who was accused of WAR CRIMES for
participation in the murder of more than 50
Jewish civilians in the winter of 1941–42; and
Bernard Coard and Phyllis Coard, former officials
of the Grenadian government who were
sentenced to death for murdering Prime Minister
Maurice Bishop and his followers in the coup
that preceded the U.S. invasion in 1983 (Petition
for Provisional and Permanent Relief against
Death Penalties and Sentences of Imprisonment,
137 Cong. Rec. H6305, 102d Cong., 1st
Sess. [Aug. 1, 1991]). Clark also counted as one
of his clients Captain Lawrence P. Rockwood
who was court-martialed for dereliction of duty
for leaving his army post in September 1994 to
investigate human rights abuses in a Haitian
prison.
Clark has represented clients who were
arrested while engaging in acts of civil disobedience
including a group of people who protested
at a General Electric plant in Pennsylvania
where parts of Minuteman nuclear missiles were
manufactured (Commonwealth v. Berrigan, 369
Pa. Super. 145, 535 A.2d 91 [1987]).
Clark’s clients have included U.S. citizens
who fought the U.S. government in court for
reasons other than civil disobedience: Vander
Beatty, a former New York state senator convicted
of conspiracy and forgery in an election
scandal (Beatty v. Snow, 588 F. Supp. 809
[S.D.N.Y. 1984]); followers of the Branch Davidians
who sued federal authorities over the 1993
BRANCH DAVIDIAN RAID in Waco, Texas; and
Lyndon LaRouche, who was convicted of MAIL
FRAUD and conspiracy to defraud the INTERNAL
REVENUE SERVICE in connection with fund-raising
efforts (United States v. LaRouche, 896 F.2d 815 [4th Cir. 1990], aff ’d, 4 F.3d 987, No. 92-
6701, 1993 WL 358525 [4th Cir. Sept. 13, 1993]).
One notable group of Clark’s clients consisted
of some attorneys and a judge who were
sanctioned for their conduct in court. This
group included New York attorney Arthur V.
Graseck Jr., who was ordered by a federal court
to pay his opponent’s attorney’s fees for pursuing
frivolous claims, under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1927
and rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
(Oliveri v. Thompson, 803 F.2d 1265 [2d
Cir. 1986]; California-based civil rights attorney
Stephen Yagman, who was suspended from the
PRACTICE OF LAW for criticizing a federal district
judge (Yagman v. Republic Insurance, 987
F.2d 622 [9th Cir. 1993]; Standing Committee on
Discipline v. Yagman, 856 F. Supp. 1395 [C.D.
Cal. 1994]); and U.S. district judge Miles Lord,
who presided over the Dalkon Shield CLASS
ACTION litigation and was accused of prejudicial
administration of justice (In re Miles Lord, NOS.
JCP 84-001 and JCP 84-002 [8th Cir. Judicial
Council 1984] (unreported order); Gardinier v.
Robins, 747 F.2d 1180 [8th Cir. 1984]).
Throughout the 1990s and beyond, Clark
has been unwavering in his support of Leonard
Peltier, an AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT leader
who was convicted of killing two FEDERAL
BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION agents in a siege on
the Rosebud Indian Reservation in 1975, in his
quest for a new trial (United States v. Peltier, 585
F.2d 314 [8th Cir. 1978], aff ’d, Peltier v. Henman,
997 F.2d 461 [8th Cir. 1993]).
In 1990, Clark organized the Coalition to
Stop U.S. Intervention in the Middle East. He
has served as spokesman for a U.S. group of
supporters of Fidel Castro and has accused the
media of presenting a one-sided view of Cuba
because it has focused on the dictatorship
rather than on U.S. efforts to undermine the
Cuban Revolution. In 1993, he brought U.S.
doctors, and with them eight tons of medicines
and vitamins, to Cuba to help the population
overcome shortages of medicines and medical
care that have occurred since the fall of the
Soviet Union.
In the early 1990s, as a reaction to what he
characterized as war crimes committed by the
U.S. government against Iraqi civilians during
the first Persian Gulf war, Clark conducted a
war-crimes tribunal in which former president
George H. W. Bush and Generals Colin Powell
and Norman Schwarzkopf were among those
found guilty of committing war crimes. He also
helped to found the International Action Center,
which views its mission as providing information
and resources to help people fight racism,
U.S. corporate greed, and militarism.
Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s,
Clark continued an ambitious agenda of speaking
and writing about international and constitutional
rights, civil rights, crime control,
VOTING RIGHTS, and international affairs. He
authored or coauthored numerous books,
including Acts of Aggression: Policing Rogue
States, coauthored with Noam Chomsky and
Edward Said.
In early 2003, Clark drafted ARTICLES OF
IMPEACHMENT against President GEORGE W.
BUSH, Attorney General JOHN ASHCROFT, and
other administration officials for planning a
preemptive strike against Iraq.

FURTHER READINGS
Clark, Ramsey. 1993. The Fire This Time: U.S.War Crimes in
the Gulf. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press.
International Action Center. Available online at (accessed June 19, 2003).
Vote to Impeach. Available online at (accessed June 19, 2003).