William R. Glendon, 89, lawyer in Pentagon Papers case
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NEW YORK - William R. Glendon, a First Amendment lawyer who represented the
The death of Mr. Glendon, a native of Medford, Mass., was confirmed by his son John.
In 1971, the government, contending that publication of material from a classified report on the history of US involvement in Vietnam, known as the Pentagon Papers, could cause irreparable damage to the national interest, obtained injunctions to prevent their publication by The New York Times and the Post.
Mr. Glendon joined Alexander M. Bickel, the chief counsel on the case for the Times, to argue before the Supreme Court that the government should not be allowed to prevent publication. Mr. Glendon argued that "when you bring a case you are supposed to prove it, and when you come in claiming irreparable injury, particularly in this area of the First Amendment, you have a very, very heavy burden."
The court, by a 6-to-3 majority, agreed.
Mr. Glendon appeared before the Supreme Court again, in 1977, to successfully argue a securities fraud case, Santa Fe Industries Inc. v. Green. In that case, the court established an important precedent by ruling that anyone challenging a securities transaction permitted under state law must prove not only breach of fiduciary duty but also fraudulent deception.
Mr. Glendon was born in Medford and grew up in Stoneham. After graduating from College of the Holy Cross in 1941, he joined the Navy. As a communications officer on a troop transport ship, he took part in the invasions of North Africa, Italy, and Normandy.
In 1945, he married Susan Webb. She died in 1999. In addition to his son John of Washington, Mr. Glendon leaves another son, W. Richard Jr. of Manhattan; a daughter, Lisa Anne Glendon-Szymanski of Washingtonville, N.Y.; and five grandchildren.
After earning a degree from Georgetown Law School in 1947, he was an assistant district attorney in Washington before joining Rogers & Wells, now part of Clifford Chance.
Active in the politics of Scarsdale, he won election as mayor in 1985. Once again, he was involved in a Supreme Court case involving the First Amendment. This time he was put in an awkward position. When some residents objected to Scarsdale's traditional Christmas creche as a violation of the rule against an establishment of religion, the village trustees voted to ban it. As a lawyer for the village, Mr. Glendon, who personally supported the creche, argued on the village's behalf for the ban in a series of court cases that in 1985 went to the Supreme Court, which split 4 to 4; the ninth justice was absent.
The tie vote meant that a reversal of the ban by the US Court of Appeals stood, and the creche, after a five-year absence, reassumed its traditional place. Mr. Glendon, by then mayor, gave a reconciliation party in his law firm's Washington offices.
