Bork Says He Prodded White House to Help

Robert H. Bork said today he was caught by surprise by the “political campaign” waged against his Supreme Court confirmation and at one point urged the White House to do more to save his doomed nomination.

Reflecting on his defeat in the Senate last October, Bork told reporters that he believed the Administration had been just as surprised by the massive campaign, which included advertisements “saying things I never thought.”

Bork spoke out in his first major news conference since his rejection by a 58-42 Senate vote and said he was only beginning to speak and write about his experience.

Now retired as a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Bork has joined the Institute for Public Policy Research at the American Enterprise Institute. The educational and research organization said it takes no positions on public policy issues.

Asked if the White House had dropped the ball, Bork said: “I don’t really know all the things the White House did or did not do.

“I did at one point urge the White House to become more active in what became the first national political campaign” in a judicial nomination.

“They had to encounter the political campaign being waged, the enormous amount of publicity unprecedented in a judicial nomination.”

Bork was accused by liberal organizations and many senators of reading the Constitution so narrowly that he would not have protected the civil rights and privacy of Americans. Opponents also said they feared that he would vote to overturn established Supreme Court rulings, such as the decision legalizing abortion.

But Bork said his constitutional philosophy had been “badly misrepresented and gravely misunderstood.”

“I had no intention of turning the clock back, whatever that means,” Bork said, referring to the conclusion drawn in some of the advertising against him.

Bork declined to comment on the actions or views of individual senators who led the fight to reject his nomination.