Reno remembered as ‘an American original’
Former U.S. attorney general dead at 78
• Shy and admittedly awkward, Janet Reno became a blunt prosecutor and the first woman to serve as U.S. attorney general.
She was also at the epicentre of a relentless series of political storms during the Clinton administration. One of its most recognizable and polarizing figures, Reno faced criticism early in her tenure for the deadly raid on the Branch Davidian compound where sect leader David Koresh and some 80 followers perished.
Known for deliberating slowly, publicly and in a typically blunt manner, Reno frequently said, “the buck stops with me,” borrowing from president Harry S. Truman.
Reno, 78, died early Monday of complications from Parkinson’s disease.
After Waco, Reno figured into some of the controversies and scandals that marked the Clinton administration, including Whitewater, bungling at the FBI laboratory, Monica Lewinsky, alleged Chinese nuclear spying and questionable campaign financing in the 1996 Clinton-Gore re-election.
President Barack Obama called her “an American original.”
“When Janet Reno arrived in Washington in 1993, the city had never seen anyone like her before — and hasn’t since,” Obama said. “Her legacy lives on in a generation of lawyers she inspired, the ordinary lives she touched, and a nation that is more just.”
Born July 21, 1938, Janet Wood Reno was the daughter of two newspaper reporters and the eldest of four siblings. After graduating from Cornell University with a degree in chemistry, Reno became one of 16 women in Harvard Law School’s Class of 1963. Reno, who stood over six feet tall, later said she wanted to become a lawyer “because I didn’t want people to tell me what to do.”
In 1993, Clinton tapped her to become the first woman to lead the Justice Department after his first two choices — also women — were withdrawn because both had hired illegal immigrants as nannies. A little more than a month after taking office, however, Reno became embroiled in controversy with the raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco.
The standoff had started even before Reno was confirmed as attorney general. On Feb. 28, 1993, agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms made a surprise raid on the compound, trying to execute a search warrant. But during the raid gunfire erupted, killing four agents and six members of the religious sect.
That led to a 51-day standoff, ending April 19, 1993, when the complex caught fire and burned to the ground. The government claimed the Davidians committed suicide, shooting themselves and setting the fire. Survivors said the blaze was started by tear gas rounds fired into the compound by government tanks, and that agents shot at some who tried to flee. Reno had authorized the use of the tear gas to end the standoff and later called the day the worst of her life.
Things got no easier after Waco.
In early 2000, Reno tried to negotiate the return to Cuba of young Elian Gonzalez, who had been rescued after his mother and others had drowned trying to boat from Cuba to Florida. He had been placed in the care of a Miami uncle, but his father, who lived in Cuba, wanted him returned to the island.
When Reno decided talks had broken down that April, she ordered an early morning raid by federal agents who seized the boy, provoking the ire of Miami’s Cuban-American community. Reno insisted that Elian should be with his father — she even kept a snapshot of a smiling Elian in his father’s arms near her home computer.
Reno began her career in Miami in the mid-1960s and had her first encounter with the “glass ceiling,” getting passed over for a job at a law firm because she was a woman. She later made partner.
As a Florida prosecutor, Reno built programs to help reform drug dealers and combat domestic violence. Another program strong-armed deadbeat dads into paying child support, inspiring a rap song named after her. It included the line: “All the money you get, all the checks you make; Janet Reno will make sure and take.”
She also weathered a 1980 riot after an all-white jury acquitted five police officers for the beating death of a black insurance salesman. Eighteen people were killed in the rioting and crowds chanted Reno’s name, accusing her of being a racist and demanding her resignation. Reno refused.
“To resign was to give into anarchy,” she said.
Asked to describe her legacy after a failed Florida gubernatorial campaign, Reno quoted George Washington: “If I were to write all that down I might be reduced to tears. I would prefer to drift on down the stream of life and let history make the judgment.”