Thomas Gardiner Corcoran

Thomas Gardiner Corcoran (1900–1981) was one of several^[1] advisors in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's brain trust during the New Deal, and later, a close friend and advisor to President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Life and career

Corcoran was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and educated at Brown University (where he was class valedictorian)^[2] and Harvard Law School. He clerked for Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. at the United States Supreme Court in 1926-27. In 1932, after practicing corporate law in New York City, Corcoran joined the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. When Roosevelt began to take notice of his efforts, Corcoran was given a wider range of responsibilities than his official position as assistant general counsel allowed. He organized administrative agencies for various New Deal programs and assisted in drafting such legislation as the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. A protégé of Felix Frankfurter, Corcoran was considered the leader of the "New Dealers," a group of young lawyers that became prominent within the Roosevelt administration in the wake of the renewed economic recession of 1937.^[3]

Scott-Grant House, 3238 R Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C. (2000). During the New Deal, two of President Roosevelt's Brain Trust, Benjamin Cohen and Thomas Corcoran, rented the house for themselves and other young lawyers who drafted the New Deal legislation.

Much of his work during the New Deal was in conjunction with Benjamin V. Cohen. Together Corcoran and Cohen were known as the "Gold Dust Twins" and were on the cover of Time Magazine's September 12, 1938 edition.^[4] Nicknamed "Tommy the Cork" by Roosevelt, Corcoran was the outgoing yang to Cohen's shy and retiring yin. Eventually Corcoran, who as an Irish Catholic did not favor pro-British policies, had a falling out with Roosevelt.^[5]

After leaving the White House, Corcoran retained enormous influence in the administration, in part because of high appointees who owed their positions to him. Corcoran went into private practice as a lawyer along with former U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chief counsel William J. Dempsey, whom Corcoran had installed in that job in 1938. Dempsey and Corcoran managed the take-over of New York radio station WMCA for Corcoran's friend, Undersecretary of Commerce Edward J. Noble. This resulted in an FCC and Congressional investigation.

Corcoran's work after leaving government service led him to be dubbed the first of the modern lobbyists.^[6] Corcoran's phones were tapped by the federal government between 1945 and 1947.^[7] The transcripts of the wiretaps were deposited in the Truman Presidential library and not released to researchers until Corcoran's death in 1981. The evidence is that Truman's aide ordered the tap, but it was then rescinded by the president.^[8]

It is also alleged that Corcoran engaged in improper attempts to influence decisions of the United States Supreme Court.^[9]

References