Nominee Seen as Intellectual and Apolitical

In June of 1983, then-Gov. John H. Sununu of New Hampshire faced a crisis. Hundreds of government workers seeking higher pay were calling in sick, telling everyone they had caught “the SOS (Sick of Sununu) flu.”

Sununu turned to a local judge and, in the hours before dawn, got an order directing the union to phone all employees and tell them to go back to work or face a $5,000 a day fine. By mid-morning, the SOS sickout had fizzled.

A few months later, Sununu appointed the judge to the New Hampshire Supreme Court. And it wasn’t because of the helping hand on the strike, Sununu said. In administering the oath of office, he said that “when I’m old and gray, people will say: ‘This is one of the greatest things you did as governor.’ ”

The judge was David Hackett Souter, named by President Bush on Monday to succeed Justice William J. Brennan Jr. on the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the seven years since Sununu appointed him, Souter has forged a record as a keen and intellectual though conservative judge. He is also apolitical and uncontroversial, a solitary man who is little known even in his hometown of Weare, N.H.

Despite the President’s insistence that Sununu, now White House chief of staff, “almost recused himself” from the selection process, it is hard to imagine that Sununu’s long-time admiration and support of a fellow New Hampshire Republican did not help ease Souter’s way toward the most hallowed honor and responsibility for any jurist. And it is hard to imagine that the conservative chief of staff would feel uncomfortable with the philosophy of Souter.

The taciturn, reserved bachelor has published almost nothing beyond his state court opinions. Although President Bush introduced Souter as a judge of the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, he has hardly had a chance to leave the slightest trace in the federal court system. Souter, appointed and approved earlier this year, has served on the court of appeals for only a month.

“Since meeting him over the last month, I’ve found him to be a very fine person,” said Judge Stephen Breyer of the 1st Circuit. “But he only began here in June. He hasn’t written any cases yet.”

Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), who regards Souter as “one of my dearest, closest personal friends,” said the judge has only one failing: “He doesn’t enjoy life enough.”

Rudman said that Souter, who first worked for Rudman 22 years ago when the senator was attorney general of New Hampshire, was “as stunned by (his appointment) as anyone could be.” He described the Supreme Court appointee as “very modest about it; he’s a very self-deprecating person.”

The 50-year-old Souter has the credentials of both an elite New England intellectual and a New England Yankee.

He was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University and is also a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard University (Class of 1961) and a graduate of Harvard Law School (Class of 1966).

But Rep. Chuck Douglas (R-N.H.), who served on the New Hampshire Supreme Court with Souter, described him “as a real Yankee when it comes to a buck.”

“He had an orange VW that was about 10 years old, and that car was the oldest one in the court parking lot. It was a real beater,” Douglas said.

Douglas added that, at a time when everyone else’s electric bills were at least $200, “when his electric bill got over $30 a month, we all heard about that . . . . Some of us were shocked he even had electricity.”

The penny-pinching clearly arises from thrift rather than need. Souter’s financial statement showed that, as of Dec. 31, 1989, he had no liabilities and $621,252.41 in assets, including a $150,000 home, $160,000 in unlisted securities, $46,323.54 in cash on hand and in banks and $191,000 worth of autos and other personal property.

Souter, an Episcopalian, lives alone in an old farmhouse on Cilley Road in Weare. The family moved to the farmhouse from their home in Melrose, Mass., during Souter’s childhood. Souter’s father is dead, and his mother, who attended the ceremony that elevated her son to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, is now in a retirement home.

Several friends said that hiking and mountain climbing are Souter’s primary forms of recreation. Wilbur Glann, an attorney from Manchester, N.H., said that he, his son and Souter climbed the seven Presidential Mountains of New Hampshire, each over 4,000 feet, in one day last year.

But Glann said his friend was not someone who liked to camp overnight.

“For him,” Glann said, “a nice glass of sherry and a warm bed is much better.”

Another Manchester attorney, Stephen Merrill, praised Souter’s scholarship and dedication to the law, then added, “But he is anything but an intellectual nerd. He’s a great dinner companion . . . . I am constantly surprised by how funny he is.”

Standing next to President Bush in the White House press room, Judge Souter exhibited little of the elite intellectual stance and far more of the shy, reserved Yankee. His gaze fluttered downwards as he kept his arms sometimes behind his back, sometimes crossed in front of him.

He had not shaved to rid himself of a late afternoon shadow, and he looked almost morose and terribly inward as he listened to the President. He smiled rarely, only at some witticism of the President; and, when he smiled, he did so swiftly and slimly, so that his teeth did not show.

There is little doubt of his conservatism. Former Gov. Meldrim Thomson Jr., a Republican so conservative that strategists for Ronald Reagan were concerned that his support for Reagan might backfire in the 1976 primary, appointed Souter as state attorney general in 1976 and a superior court judge in 1978.

“He is a real student of the law,” Thomson said, “and a very conservative man. But I don’t mean conservative in the political sense. He was very deliberate and very careful and tried to get the right solution.”

Yet, even Democrats find much to praise about him, despite his conservatism. “He is not an ideologue. He has no political agenda,” said John T. Broderick Jr., head of the New Hampshire Bar Assn. “As a partisan Democrat, I wish Justice Brennan had cloned himself. But I can tell you, I feel comfortable that we don’t have a Judge Bork here.”

Broderick was referring to the ideological Robert H. Bork, whose nomination by President Reagan was rejected by the Senate after a long and bruising battle.

In New Hampshire, there was general agreement about the virtues of Souter and the difficulty in predicting how he would vote on an abortion case.

“I don’t think he knows how he would decide Roe vs. Wade,” said James Duggan, a Democrat who is a public defender in the New Hampshire appellate court. Duggan said that Judge Souter has almost never overturned a precedent in his years on the state Supreme Court.

“He is a traditionalist and very much into history,” Duggan said. “I have lost a million cases in the New Hampshire Supreme Court, but I have great respect for him.”

Harold Hall, a member of the board of selectmen that runs the town of Weare who has known Souter since he was a youth, said he did not know where Souter stood on the issue. “But I think he’d make up his own mind about it,” he said.

Rep. Douglas, who served on the Supreme Court with Souter, was asked the same question. “I wouldn’t know how he would come out on the big A,” Douglas replied. “It never came up.”

Glann said that, despite being a hiking partner of Souter, “I have no idea where he stands” on abortion. “I’ve had conversations with him over the years,” he went on, “but I have no way of knowing. I’m not trying to be coy.”

Many New Hampshire acquaintances lavished praise on the jurist.

“He’s kind of reserved, not quick to speak but level-headed,” said Hall. Souter used to attend the town meetings but stopped coming after he was named to a judgeship, he said.

But Douglas described Souter as “a very bright, capable individual with a terrific legal mind. He watches precedent very carefully and is not somebody who will put his own views into a case but will stick closely to a strict construction.”

As an attorney general, Souter was probably best known for his fervent battle against protesters opposed to construction of the Seabrook nuclear power plant. “In those days,” said Glann, “we were in the business of arresting demonstrators.”

Rudman predicted there would be no serious opposition to his friend in the Senate.

“There is no chink in his personal life,” the senator said. “He’s very monastic in his approach to the law.”

Neal Kurk, the town moderator of Weare, described Souter as “a very bright man, introspective, quiet, reserved, a bachelor with a wry sense of humor.”

“You won’t be reading about him in the newspapers,” Kurk went on. “He’s Mr. Clean, Mr. Squeaky Clean--and I can’t conceive of any kind of skeleton.”

Staff writers Robert Shogan, Cathleen Decker, William Eaton, Maura Reynolds, Don Shannon and Anthony Day contributed to this story.