Early Legal Career and Military Service
After serving about a year as an attorney for a Wall Street law office, he became an assistant district attorney in 1938 and was appointed by then District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey to a sixty-man task force aimed at routing out New York City's organized crime.
He entered the United States Navy in 1942, serving on the USS Intrepid, including her action in the Battle of Okinawa. His final rank in the Navy was lieutenant commander.
In 1950, Rogers became a partner in a New York City law firm, Dwight, Royall, Harris, Koegel & Caskey. Thereafter, he returned to this firm when he was not in government service.
While serving as a Committee Counsel to a US Senate committee, he examined the documentation from the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigation of Alger Hiss at the request of Congressman Richard M. Nixon, and advised Nixon that Hiss had lied and that the case against him should be pursued.
Rogers also advised Nixon in the slush fund scandal that led to Nixon's Checkers speech in 1952.
Read more about this topic: William P. Rogers
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