History of John Smith Griffin
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Wartime Washington - 1946

After Mr. Hunter had been in office about a week I decided to go see him and tell him what had happened. In the meantime I had written to Charlie Nutting, the dean of the Pittsburgh Law School, who had been present in Mr. Shield's office when he had offered me the west coast job. I asked him if he would write Mr. Hunter a letter and tell him his understanding of Shields' offer to me. Nutting did and his story conformed with my version of the offer. When I went to see Hunter and told him what had happened he said that he would do a little checking and if my story were correct he would make the transfer to San Francisco and that it would be a permanent job. A day or two later he called me in and told me that he was satisfied that Mr. Shields had offered me a permanent job in San Francisco and that if I still wanted to go, the job was mine.

I was very pleased and thanked him for his concern over my affairs. While all this was happening I had become involved in another big case pertaining to rates at the East St. Louis Stockyard. Hunter asked me to stay and complete that case before I made the move which I gladly consented to do. The case involved the preparation of briefs and so I left on Mr. Hunter's desk one day a copy of the brief that I had prepared which I thought was an excellent brief. I later found that this was a mistake, for a few days after leaving the brief, Mr. Hunter called me and asked me to come up to his office. He complemented me on my brief and asked me to sit down. He told me that he thought I was making a mistake to leave Washington to go to California and suggested that I reconsider leaving. He said that he ha something in mind for me that he was sure would be attractive to me and he wanted to know just how badly I wanted to go to California. I told him that we had planned for a number of years on returning to California and that I did not think that I would be interested in staying on in Washington. He said, "Well, think it over you don't have to decide today." Several days passed and I received a call from Mr. Hunter, asking me to go to lunch with him. At lunch he told me that Mr. James Doyle who had taken Hunter's job as head of the litigation section of the Department needed an assistant, that the job involved writing briefs and making arguments before appellate courts and that from my work he thought I was well suited for the job. He said that it would involve a grade raise in pay (about $1,000) and that he thought would find it very interesting work.

Again I told Mr. Hunter that I had my mind set on going to California and that I did not believe I would be interested in this job. He said to think it over, that he did not have to know right away and that was the way I left him. When I went to New Jersey the next time I told Dorothy of his proposition. She said that she did not want to influence my decision and refused to say one way or another whether she would prefer to stay in Washington or go to California. I returned to Washington in a quandry. I knew that if I went to California, Mr. Hunter was not going to be very happy about it. Yet I felt that it would be preferable to raise my family in California, and then I had hopes that I might be able to find something outside the government and perhaps practice law on my own. A week passed and I procrastinated giving Mr. Hunter a reply. Another week passed, and Dorothy decided to come down to Washington and stay in her sister's home (they were on a two-week vacation) so that we could be together in Washington. Mr. Hunter had called me late in the preceeding week and wanted an answer. I told him that I would give him an answer the following Monday.

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