ABSTRACT
A presidential election was less than five months away and it seemed all but certain that the Republican nominee would be Warren’s least favorite politician, Richard M. Nixon. The loathing was mutual: Nixon rarely passed up an opportunity during the primary campaign to accuse the Warren Court of coddling criminals and legislating from the bench. The Democratic Party, meanwhile, was in disarray. The unpopular war in Vietnam had prompted Johnson to announce that he would not seek reelection. A week after Johnson’s announcement, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, sparking urban riots and heightening the appeal of Nixon’s racially charged “law and order” platform. And on June 5, 1968, Democrat presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was assassinated as he celebrated his victory in the California primary, removing the one Democrat who Warren thought could beat Nixon. Warren judged that the only way to stop his archenemy from appointing his successor was to resign immediately.1
