ACHIEVEMENTS

Lindenbaum graduated from El Dorado High School in 1932, one of only thirteen boys statewide to be awarded the Summerfield Scholarship to attend the University of Kansas.  Solon Summerfield, a New York manufacturer, wealthy philanthropist, and alumnus of the university established this prestigious award in 1929.  The scholarship was renewable, depending on the scholar maintaining a high record of work.

Nearly 400 outstanding seniors were nominated in 1932; of these, a group was selected from examinations held in six Kansas towns.  An additional examination and interview was held with the scholastic committee at the college for those scoring high on the previous exam.

Following the conclusion of World War II, Lindenbaum served in the United States Department of Justice for 30 years.  He was a member of the small team who drafted the Civil Rights Legislation in the 1960s.

He spent twelve years as the Executive Assistant of the Attorney General of the United States, serving six different Attorney Generals.  The office of Attorney General, as head of the Department of Justice and chief law officer of the Federal Government, represents the United States in legal matters in general, and gives advice and opinions to the President and to heads of executive departments when so requested.  The Executive Assistant to the Attorney General and the Director of Public Relations are both positions attached to the Office of the Attorney General and report directly to him.

Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, there was an investigation concerning some missing autopsy materials, including Kennedy’s tissue samples and brain matter.  In the course of its investigation, the committee contacted numerous people in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the missing materials, including Lindenbaum, as a former Justice Department official.  (It was later determined that Robert Kennedy most likely removed the items from the National Archives.)

Repeatedly during his 1968 presidential campaign, Richard M. Nixon said that a new Attorney General was needed.  When John Mitchell moved into the job following the election, he immediately set out to make good on Nixon’s implied promise that the country’s top legal officer would know how to use wiretaps to fight organized crime.

In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled that a sizable chunk of Mitchell’s taps had been improper and illegal, wiping out nearly two years of dogged work by federal investigators and imperiling cases involving no fewer than 626 accused gamblers, narcotics dealers and other racketeers.

The 1968 Omnibus Crime Control and Sage Streets Act gave federal investigators vastly expanded authority to use taps – as long as the Attorney General or a specially designated assistant personally approved them.  But dozens of authorizations were simply initialed “JNM” by Lindenbaum or sometimes by Lindenbaum’s secretary.

Lindenbaum bluntly blamed the foul-up in protocol on Mitchell’s overwhelming preoccupation with political concerns, particularly promoting the Administration’s law-and-order image.  He stated that Mitchell never bothered to authorize any one of his eight Assistant Attorneys General as the designated signer; he apparently wanted to sign them himself. S o at first, Lindenbaum would prepare the necessary papers, which Mitchell would sign.  After a while, Lindenbaum was forced to sign Mitchell’s initials when Mitchell was out of town, after usually discussing the request with his boss by telephone.  Although the intent was there, the procedure was sloppy and patently improper.

Lindenbaum was the number-two man in the Department of Justice under different administrations.  He served in that capacity before, during and after the Watergate investigation.  Probably no one knew more about Watergate than him.

When Lindenbaum’s impending retirement was published in the news, an Assistant Secretary of the State Dept. commented, “We honestly don’t know what we’re going to do over at the State Department when Sol Lindenbaum retires.  He’s literally been holding up that building of ours the last few years single-handedly.”

Following retirement from the Department of Justice, he was a consultant to the United States Office of Government Ethics.  He was one of many interviewed for the final report of the Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans report in 1976.  He also accepted a recruiting assignment from Harvard University.
 

BIBLIOGRAPHY / FURTHER READING

Local obits, Clymer Research Library, BCHS, El Dorado, Kansas; pp 38, 39

1930 yearbook, El Dorado High School; El Dorado, Kansas

1932 yearbook, El Dorado High School; El Dorado, Kansas

Polk’s El Dorado City Directory – 1931; R. L. Polk & Co., Kansas City, MO; pp 87

Polk’s El Dorado City Directory – 1941; R. L. Polk & Co., Kansas City, MO; pp 84

The El Dorado Times, Oct. 27, 1994; Times Publishing, El Dorado, KS; pp 3

The El Dorado Times, Oct. 28, 1994; Times Publishing, El Dorado, KS; pp 3

The El Dorado Times, May 16, 1932; Times Publishing, El Dorado, KS; pp 1

The El Dorado Times, May 21, 1932; Times Publishing, El Dorado, KS; pp 1

The El Dorado Times, Oct. 31, 1994; Times Publishing, El Dorado, KS; pp 4

The El Dorado Times, May 15, 1995; Times Publishing, El Dorado, KS; pp 4

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