"With All Deliberate Speed is just wonderful. It gives the reader fascinating insights into the Roosevelt era, the Supreme Court, the Justice Department. It is funny, and endearingly human. Three cheers!"
-Anthony Lewis, New York Times columnist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning
author of Gideon's Trumpet

"The fascinating, eloquent, and skillfully edited oral memoir of a distinguished public servant, who was at the epicenter of major legal controversies that his memoir illuminates. A major contribution to modern American legal history."
-Richard A. Posner

"With All Deliberate Speed provides an insider's rich account, spanning over thirty years, of the inner workings of the Supreme Court, the Solicitor General's Office and the Federal Trade Commission that anyone seriously interested in a frank behind-the-scenes view of the federal government should find exceptionally provocative and intriguing"
-Drew Days III, Alfred M. Rankin Professor of Law, Yale University, and former Solicitor General of the United States, 1993-96


From a modest childhood in Patterson, N. J., Philip Elman rose to become clerk for the great Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, and then to a position in the U.S. Solicitor General's Office. As a member of that office, Philip Elman had an exceptional vantage point on one of the most momentous cases in U.S. Supreme Court history: Brown v. Board of Education.

In this oral history memoir of Elman's life, With All Deliberate Speed, author Norman I. Silber reveals the maneuvering that led to the Court's overturning the doctrine of "separate but equal." Working behind the scenes, it was Justice Department attorney Elman who came up with the concept of gradual integration-an idea that worked its way into the final decision as the famous phrase "with all deliberate speed." Though this expression angered those pressing for immediate desegregation, Elman claims that it unified a divided Court, thus enabling them to stand together against the evil of segregation.

With All Deliberate Speed records a decisive moment in Supreme Court history, but it is also Philip Elman's unforgettable oral memoir-the story of his entire career in government service, including his work with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy as commissioner of the FTC, and his role in founding the modern consumer protection movement, which includes the antismoking campaign that put the Surgeon General's warning on cigarette packs.

At once rich historical testimony and a gripping read, With All Deliberate Speed offers a rarely glimpsed insider's understanding of the politics of the American legal system.

Norman I. Silber is Professor of Law, Hofstra University School of Law. He is the author of Test and Protest: The Influence of Consumers Union and A Corporate Form of Freedom: The Emergence of the Nonprofit Sector. Philip Elman was responsible, in the Solicitor General's Office of the Department of Justice, for reviewing hundreds of cases involving civil rights, civil liberties and economic justice-including the epic case of Brown v. Board of Education.

". . . gives the reader fascinating insights into the Roosevelt era, the Supreme Court, the Justice Department. Three cheers!"
---Anthony Lewis

"With All Deliberate Speed provides an insider's rich account . . . exceptionally provocative and intriguing." ---Drew Days III, Yale University, U.S. Solicitor General, 1993-96

"One of the best American stories I have ever read."
---Roger Wilkins

"[An] engrossing book. . . . Silber has adapted the transcripts of a series of interviews he conducted for the Columbia Oral History Project in the early 1980s into a seamless memoir written in Elman's voice."
—FindLaw.com

"One of the best American stories I have ever read."
—Roger Wilkins

"Elman provides a behind-the-scenes view of government and shares his keen insights into the justices of the Supreme Court. Sibler, in turn, provides an informative commentary at the end of each chapter, annotating cases and identifying individuals, thus expanding on Elman's words. The reader who is unfamiliar with Philip Elman or the law need not fear that this book will be beyond his reach. . . . This is a book for those interested in law, social policy, government and achievement, but it is also about a thinking individual's life. It is worth reading."
—Jewish Book World

". . . a provocative, behind-the-scenes story."
—Legal Times

"With All Deliberate Speed is just wonderful. It gives the reader fascinating insights into the Roosevelt era, the Supreme Court, the Justice Department. It is funny, and endearingly human. Three cheers!"
—Anthony Lewis

"With All Deliberate Speed provides an insider's rich account, spanning over thirty years, of the inner workings of the Supreme Court, the Solicitor General's Office and the Federal Trade Commission that anyone seriously interested in a frank behind-the-scenes view of the federal government should find exceptionally provocative and intriguing."
—Drew Days III, Yale University, U.S. Solicitor General, 1993-96

"The fascinating, eloquent and skillfully edited oral memoir of a distinguished public servant, who was at the epicenter of major legal controversies that his memoir illuminates. A major contribution to modern American legal history."
—Richard A. Posner