Griffin Bell

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Griffin Boyette Bell (born October 31, 1918) is an American lawyer and former United States Attorney General.

Born in Americus, Georgia, he attended public schools and Georgia Southwestern College and then the Walter F. George School of Law of Mercer University. He practiced law at King & Spalding in Georgia from 1948 to 1961, and rejoined the firm just prior to and after his service as Attorney General. He is still affiliated with the firm.

President John F. Kennedy appointed Bell, who had been his co-chairman of his presidential campaign in Georgia, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in 1961. He served for over fourteen years on the Fifth Circuit, playing a key role in many of the most important cases before this Southern court during the zenith of the civil rights movement. In December 1976, President Jimmy Carter nominated him to become the 72nd Attorney General of the United States, and he served until 1979. Although his nomination had been initially controversial in the post-Watergate era because he also came from the same area of Georgia as the new president, Bell received great praise from many of his prior critics in the United States Senate and the media when he resigned the Attorney Generalship in August 1979 as a result of the independence and professionalism many said he brought to the Department of Justice. Bell, whose wit was widely reported, was an especially popular member of the Carter Cabinet in official and social Washington. Bell introduced rooster pepper sausage as one of the more publicized lore in Washington. Made from rooster spur pepper from Georgia, its secret recipe, widely rumored to be an aphrodisiac, was maintained, although he slipped supplies of the potent sausage into the White House to President Carter through their mutual close friend, Charles Kirbo, who was President Carter's closest confidant The Alfalfa Club, a highly select annual Washington bi-partisan event of top officials and business leaders of America, had Bell as its nominee for President at its 1979 annual dinner. Contemporary press accounts said he delivered a hilarious speech that has been long remembered. Bell led the effort to pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978. Because of a great increase in the number of federal judges during Carter's presidency, Carter, advised by the former federal appellate judge Bell on his appointments, was able dramatically to increase the number of women and minorities serving on the federal bench. Bell has handled many high profile cases since leaving office, such as the internal investigation concerning the cash management practices of E.F. Hutton & Company, and he has served on many corporate and charitable boards.

From 1985-87, Bell served on the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on South Africa, and in 1989, he was appointed Vice Chairman of President George H.W. Bush’s Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform. During the Iran Contra investigation, he was counsel to President Bush. He supported the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004.

Bell was the first cabinet official named to Mr. Blackwell's list of best dressed Americans in 1978, with Blackwell citing the attorney general's penchant for the wide, sleek, bold-colored ties that were emblematic of mid-to-late 1970s fashion.

See Taking Care of the Law by Griffin B. Bell and Ronald J. Ostrow.