Common Ground Read online

  Also by J. Anthony Lukas

  The Barnyard Epithet and Other Obscenities: Notes on the Chicago Conspiracy Trial

  Don’t Shoot—We Are Your Children!

  Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years

  PRAISE FOR Common Ground:

  “A marvelous saga, rich with real-life characters and novelistic in the best sense.”

  —Newsweek

  “A brilliant, large-hearted book … [which] works on and succeeds at so many levels—as history, as sociology, as journalism, as epic narrative … above all, an act of profound imagination.”

  —James Carroll, Boston Globe

  “A work of consummate genius…. In its breadth, its nuance, and its quality as literature, though a piece of nonfiction, Common Ground is no less than Shakespearian.”

  —Commonweal

  “A book that pulls the reader along as if it were fiction … a careful, dispassionate reconstruction of events by a writer who knows how to weave history, fact, anecdote, dialogue, and description into an utterly compelling narrative.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “J. Antony Lukas deserves an ovation for his splendid inquiry, one that will make any reader want to examine his own soul.”

  —Alden Whitman, Dallas Morning News

  “A magnificent achievement…. No other writer currently practicing can match [Lukas’s] skills at weaving unwieldy complexities into a story that pulses like good, raunchy gossip.”

  —Robert Sherrill, Chicago Sun-Times

  “A remarkable and compelling tale that is not only dramatic but also challenges a lot of comfortable assumptions about urban life in America…. This is a work of nonfiction, but in scope, in its fine attention to detail, it is reminiscent of the best novels of James Michener.”

  —Philadelphia Inquirer

  “The political book of the year.”

  —Washington Monthly

  “In many respects this book belongs in the tradition of literary-documentary studies—the kind of work James Agee did upon returning from his stint in rural Alabama in the 1930’s, or Orwell did when he wrote of his experiences among England’s coal miners in the same decade…. Without question J. Anthony Lukas now belongs in their company—his book well up to their high and idiosyncratic standards.”

  —Robert Coles, Washington Post Book World

  “This is the riveting stuff of genuine tragedy … a true story vastly broader in scope than the nonfiction novels of Truman Capote and Norman Mailer.”

  —George Higgins, Newsday

  “A model of thoroughness and balance…. As a narrative of people’s repeated losses of faith, above all faith that they can shape and control their own lives, Common Ground explains what once seemed incomprehensible, and persuades the reader that to understand is indeed to forgive.”

  —Time

  “The best book on an American city that has ever been published.”

  —New England Monthly

  “Mr. Lukas employs the narrative skill of a novelist and the breadth of view of a social historian to tell this story. With feeling for every social and political nuance, he traces the conflict to its roots, deftly leading the reader through the shifting and volatile fortunes of Boston and its neighborhoods.”

  —Baltimore Sun

  “Uncommonly rewarding. In fact, there isn’t a dull page in it…. Common Ground is not only about Boston in the ’70s; it is about all of us today, black or white, all of us participants in the American experiment.”

  —Milwaukee Journal

  “The scope and depth of Common Ground are astonishing. Whether he is exploring family histories into generations in the distant past, or analyzing legal issues and social trends, or interpreting educational issues and scholarly treatises on school problems, or laying out the nuances of Boston politics, Lukas displays knowledge and understanding that holds one in awe.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Common Ground leaves one exhilarated. This is not because of what the book says. Its pages record in excruciating detail the deterioration of American cities over the past decade. What makes the book inspiring is its author. For Lukas has demonstrated many of the attributes his subjects are lacking: tolerance, patience, and a willingness to see things from another person’s point of view.”

  —St. Petersburg Times

  FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, September 1986

  Copyright (c) 1985 by J. Anthony Lukas

  Map copyright © 1985 by Jean Paul Tremblay

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1985.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

  Almo Publications: excerpts from the lyrics to We’ve Only Just Begun, lyrics by Paul Williams, music by Roger Nichols. Copyright © 1970 Irving Music, Inc. (BMI). All rights reserved. International copyright secured.

  The Boston Globe: excerpt from “An Open Letter to Senator Kennedy,” by Mike Barnicle, Sept. 8, 1974, reprinted courtesy of the Boston Globe.

  Chappell & Company, Inc.: excerpts from the lyrics to Carefully Taught by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Copyright 1949 by Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II. Copyright renewed, Williamson Music Co., owner of publication and allied rights throughout the Western Hemisphere and Japan. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Macmillan Publishing Company: four lines from “A Full Moon in March” are used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Company from Collected Plays of W. B. Yeats. Copyright 1934, 1952 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. Copyrights renewed 1962 by Bertha Georgie Yeats and 1980 by Anne Yeats; rights in the world excluding the United States are administered by A. P. Watt Ltd. as agent for Michael B. Yeats and Macmillan London, Ltd. Mighty Three Music: excerpts from the lyrics to For the Love of Money by Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff, and Anthony Jackson. Copyright © 1974 Mighty Three Music; excerpts from the lyrics to I’ll Always Love My Mama by Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff, Gene McFadden, and John Whitehead. Copyright © 1973 Mighty Three Music. Administered by Mighty Three Music Group, 309 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Edwin H. Morris & Company: excerpts from lyrics to Hello, Dolly!, lyrics and music by Jerry Herman. Copyright © 1963 Jerry Herman; excerpts from the lyrics to Before the Parade Passes By, lyrics and music by Jerry Herman. Copyright © 1964 by Jerry Herman. All rights throughout the world controlled by Edwin H. Morris & Company, a division of MPL Communications, Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Newsweek, Inc.: excerpts from the cover story, November 6, 1967. Copyright © 1967 by Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission. Harold Ober Associates Incorporated: excerpts from Ballad of the Landlord by Langston Hughes. Copyright 1951 by Langston Hughes. Copyright renewed 1979 by George Houston Bass; The City- eight line version by Langston Hughes. Copyright © 1958 by Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lukas, J. Anthony, 1933–

  Common ground.

  Reprint. Originally published: New York : Knopf, 1985.

  1. Boston (Mass.)—Race relations. 2. School integration—Massachusetts—Boston. 3. Busing for school integration—Massachusetts—Boston. 4. Diver family. 5. Twyman family. 6. Goff family. I. Title.

  F73.9.A1L85 1986 370.19′342 86-40132

  eISBN: 978-0-307-82375-5

  v3.1

  To Linda

  who saw through me

  and saw me through

&nbs
p; Author’s Note

  This is a work of non-fiction. All its characters are real, as are their names, the places where they live, the details of their personal lives. Nothing has been disguised or embellished. Where I have used dialogue, it is based on the recollection of at least one participant.

  The three families at the center of my story were not selected as statistical averages or norms. On the contrary, I was drawn to them by a special intensity, an engagement with life, which made them stand out from their social context. At first, I thought I read clear moral imperatives in the geometry of their intersecting lives, but the more time I spent with them, the harder it became to assign easy labels of guilt or virtue. The realities of urban America, when seen through the lives of actual city dwellers, proved far more complicated than I had imagined.

  J.A.L.

  New York City

  January 1985

  Contents

  Cover

  Map

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  1. Diver

  2. Twymon

  3. McGoff

  4. Diver

  5. Twymon

  6. McGoff

  7. Diver

  8. Twymon

  9. The Chairwoman

  10. McGoff

  11. Diver

  12. Twymon

  13. Diver

  14. The Judge

  15. McGoff

  16. Twymon

  17. McGoff

  18. Diver

  19. McGoff

  20. The Cardinal

  21. Twymon

  22. Diver

  23. McGoff

  24. The Editor

  25. Twymon

  26. McGoff

  27. Twymon

  28. The Mayor

  29. Diver

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  Diver

  Sunlight struck the gnarled limbs outside his window, casting a thicket of light and shadow on the white clapboards. From his desk high under the eaves, Colin Diver could watch students strolling the paths of Cambridge Common or playing softball on the neatly trimmed diamond. It was one of those brisk afternoons in early spring, the kind of day which in years past had lured him into the dappled light, rejoicing in his good fortune. But here he lurked in his study, walled in by books, overcome by doubt.

  People kept telling him this should be the best time of his life, the moment he’d been slogging toward these past three years. He was about to graduate near the top of his class; he’d won a highly prized position on the Harvard Law Review, and even before graduation had a place reserved for him at a distinguished Washington law firm. Altogether his prospects were splendid. But he’d been in the doldrums all that late winter and early spring of 1968.

  It wasn’t the prospect of leaving Cambridge. He was as susceptible as anyone to the springtime charms of this place: the white steeple of Memorial Church breaking clean above the elms; the band, splendid in their crimson blazers, crashing through “Ten Thousand Men of Harvard” on the steps of Widener Library; the eight-man crews at dusk dipping their oars in the Charles. But such pleasures were largely reserved for undergraduates; most law students were simply too busy. Harried from Tax to Trusts, from Equity to Evidence, they drudged their way through a different Cambridge. Many might have agreed with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who entered the Law School in 1864 and recalled later: “One found oneself plunged in a thick fog of details—in a black and frozen night, in which were no flowers, no spring, no easy joys.”

  Colin had no aversion to legal labors, no trouble heeding his professors’ admonitions to “think like a lawyer,” for he had learned the law at his mother’s knee. Ethleen Diver was among the first women to practice law in a major Boston firm, though the stately old house of Choate, Hall & Stewart had made her wait for that privilege. She’d begun there as a legal secretary in 1926, but even after she took her law degree and passed the bar, her employers had kept her passing the Hukwa tea and S.S. Pierce biscuits for a quarter century. Only in 1951, when she threatened to quit, had they reluctantly permitted her to take on cases of her own. Even then she got only the legal scut work—probate, real estate, income taxes—all the stuff nobody else wanted. But Ethleen didn’t mind. She was like a spurned lover who, deep into middle age, had been accepted by the object of her affection. It was all she’d ever wanted.

  When Colin was young, his mother took him along to county courthouses, where he sat in the dim old courtrooms mesmerized by adoption or divorce proceedings. When he was a little older, she put him to work copying ancient deeds from dusty volumes. Now and again she took him to the firm’s State Street offices, where he watched the solemn partners in conference. Colin didn’t like the way they’d treated his mother; he resented it more than she did. But somehow, by the time he was a senior at Amherst, he had inherited his mother’s passion for the law.

  He was very good at it. His first year at Harvard he’d ranked sixth in a class of 550, thereby earning election to the Law Review. Later he became Supreme Court Note Editor, the second-ranking position in the journal’s hierarchy. Colin spent forty hours a week at the Review. His office there was crammed with copies of U.S. Law Week; manuscripts; green, pink, and blue galleys; lawbooks; sandwich wrappings, coffee cups, and aspirin. One day his wife, Joan, asked with a wry grin whether he wanted his breakfast served there too.

  But such labors were well worth it. For the Law Review unrolled a crimson carpet through a lawyer’s life—bringing with it prime clerkships, offers from prestigious law firms, and ultimately partnerships worth six figures a year, professorships at the best law schools, judgeships right up to the Supreme Court, The Review boasted such alumni as Felix Frankfurter, Dean Acheson, Elliot Richardson, Joseph Califano, and Archibald MacLeish. It was a ticket of admission to the American establishment.

  The trouble was, Colin didn’t know whether he wanted to join such an establishment, one which had drawn the country into a terrible war, stirring dissent across the land that spring.

  He was no radical. Having grown to political consciousness in the Massachusetts of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, he had modeled himself on that young paragon: idealistic and energetic, but cool and ironic. In October 1963, during Colin’s junior year at Amherst, Kennedy had come to dedicate the college’s new Robert Frost Library, receive an honorary degree, and deliver one of his most stirring addresses: “What good is a great private college unless it serves a great national purpose?” he had asked. “The problems we face are staggering both at home and abroad. We need the services of every educated man and woman.”

  The President’s visit was marred by what for those days was a most unusual incident. Sixty students and junior faculty stood through the speech with placards calling for a “Civil Rights Law in ’63.” Dressed neatly in ties and jackets, they uttered not a word during the proceedings. But even this most discreet of demonstrations had been widely denounced as “ridiculous” and “unbecoming the dignity of Amherst.” Colin Diver shared that view: he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to embarrass America’s bold new leader.

  A month later, Kennedy was dead in Dallas. Amherst’s president, Calvin Plimpton, told reporters, “Four weeks ago he was here. We saw him; we heard him; and we knew him. He was one of us, for he was our most recent alumnus.” Colin shared that sense of personal loss, Kennedy had been the bright star at the center of his political universe. For years he would try to navigate by its recollected light.

  But by the time he reached Cambridge, student life had changed beyond recognition. Harvard undergraduates in the mid-sixties were no longer drawn to Kennedy’s detached and prudent style; they sought authenticity, commitment, and confrontation. Even the younger law students coming on behind Colin reflected this shifting mood. In October 1967, fifty law students from Cambridge had joined the March on the Pen
tagon, parading behind a large crimson banner emblazoned “Harvard Law.”

  Colin was sympathetic to the war protesters, if only because of his precarious draft status. For years he’d stayed a step ahead of the mounting monthly calls, relying first on his college ranking and then—as deferments tightened—on marriage, law school, his first child. But he wasn’t sure how long he could remain exempt. As the war news nagged at him, he had edged cautiously into Cambridge’s anti-war movement.

  On November 9, he had been among four hundred students and faculty who filled Langdell Hall for the law school’s first Vietnam “teach-in.” Professor Paul Bator set the tone for the evening when he warned, “We cannot let the lawyer’s cult of effectiveness reduce us to immobility. Martin Luther King’s bus boycotters in Montgomery didn’t go through a lawyerlike screening process and yet they started a revolution. We have to be a little bold. We have to make waves.”

  With words like those in their ears, members of the Law School class of 1968 began to make their career decisions. A few years before, choice was scarcely necessary; through the fifties and early sixties, the overwhelming majority of graduates entered private practice, generally with large corporate firms. But the new social activism had rendered such conventional careers less automatic. By 1967, the percentage entering private practice—as opposed to clerkships, research, teaching, legal services, or government—fell below 50 percent for the first time.

  Confronted with this new skepticism about establishment careers, the major law firms tried to sweeten the pot. In February 1968, the premium New York firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore stunned the legal world by raising its starting salary to $15,000. Others quickly followed. But cash alone had little allure for the class of 1968. According to a poll that spring, a majority of Harvard’s third-year law students were more attracted by ample opportunities for pro bono activities on behalf of worthy causes. That majority rose to 75 percent among Colin’s classmates at the Law Review, who were polled during a special meeting at the magazine’s offices. Only four of the twenty-four editors said they would be greatly influenced by an offer of $15,000. Some said they would flatly refuse to work for most big firms, who “always seem to be representing the giant corporations against the little guy.” One of the activists admonished his more traditional colleagues, “Your natural and understandable ambition for illustrious careers seems to be clouding your vision about what is right in this country and what is simply wrong.”