Mouths Wide Shut

Roberts appears to have a far stronger level of support from the Bush administration than Bork had from the Reagan administration, Bork believes. "I wouldn't have minded if someone had answered the false allegations that were being made," he says now.

"I don't recall any instructions" from the White House, Bork says. "When the slander started with Kennedy's statement right after I was nominated, they never reacted at all. During the summer and during the course of the hearings, they never said a word."

He didn't speak publicly, Bork says, because he didn't feel it appropriate.

"A lot of newspapers and magazines came to see me. The ground rule was that I wouldn't discuss any substantive issues with them."

"Maybe I should have viewed it as a political campaign and campaigned, but I didn't," he says.

What particularly irritated Bork was the suggestion that he and his wife do an interview with Barbara Walters as the situation was unraveling. "There was some theory that it would humanize me or something. I thought that was undignified, and I didn't do it."

"If we were going down," he says, "at least we could do so with some dignity."

He was imposing his own zone of silence.