Sessions Wins 90-0 Senate OK as FBI Director

The Senate confirmed federal Judge William S. Sessions to a 10-year term as FBI director Friday by a vote of 90 to 0, lauding him as a “tough but fair” jurist who has taken a strong stand against drug traffickers in his home state of Texas.

The approval of Sessions, 57, to become the fourth director in the bureau’s history came after less than five minutes of discussion on the Senate floor.

Called ‘Stickler’

“He is a stickler for abiding by the law,” said Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.). “There will be no celebrations in organized crime circles tonight, now that Bill Sessions has been confirmed.”

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.) said that Sessions “is exactly what this country needs as a director of the FBI--a tough but fair champion of law enforcement.”

Sessions, a Republican who was nominated July 24 after Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III led an embarrassingly long search for a director and was turned down by at least two prospects, will succeed William H. Webster, who became CIA director.

During his one-day hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month, Sessions struck an independent stance, going on record as opposed to two of the Reagan Administration’s law-and-order initiatives.

Sessions said he would not favor relaxing the Miranda rule, which Meese has sharply criticized. The rule requires police to warn suspects that they need not talk to interrogators and that they are entitled to the services of an attorney.

Nor, Sessions said, would he favor allowing the use of illegally seized evidence if police acted in good faith--an exception supported by the Administration.

He also promised he would not carry out a presidential order that he found unlawful. “If it’s questionable, if it’s unethical, I’d just have to say I can’t do it,” Sessions said.

Sessions takes over command of the FBI at a time when the bureau is becoming increasingly involved in the war against illicit drugs, an involvement that is complicated by the bureau’s competitive relationship in the field with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

‘Turf’ Problems

There are also “turf” problems among the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service and Labor Department investigators.

The FBI has changed dramatically in the 14 years since L. Patrick Gray III--former President Richard M. Nixon’s first choice to head the agency after the death of J. Edgar Hoover--resigned in disgrace as acting director after it was disclosed that he had destroyed potential Watergate evidence. Gray was never confirmed by the Senate.

Later, under Clarence M. Kelley and then under Webster, the FBI moved from an emphasis on quantity of cases--stolen cars and bank robberies--to what they termed “quality” investigations, ranging from political corruption to the top echelons of organized crime.

Businesslike, Demanding

FBI officials who have briefed Sessions since his nomination say he seems to deserve the reputation he gained as a judge--very businesslike and demanding, but extremely interested in his subordinates’ family lives and problems.

Sessions indicated to reporters outside his confirmation hearing that unlike Webster, who was addressed inside the FBI as “Judge,” that he would be leaving the judiciary behind him. He said he expects to be known as the director.

Sessions, who headed obscenity, draft evasion and election fraud investigations during the two years that he served in the Justice Department during the Nixon Administration, moved back to Texas as a U.S. attorney.

Appointed in 1974

He was appointed a federal district judge by President Gerald R. Ford in 1974, serving first in El Paso and then in San Antonio as the chief judge of the state’s sprawling Western District.

His most celebrated case was the trial of the killer and conspirators in the 1979 assassination of U.S. District Judge John H. Wood, known as “Maximum John” for his tough sentences in drug cases.

Sessions sentenced the convicted killer to two life terms and gave the other three defendants sentences of 5 to 30 years in prison.