Or, he was merely one of the closet white supremacists who covertly carried on despite the slow erosion of overt social barriers which accelerated subsequent to WWII.  Such change wasn't 'from the top down'.  Were it not for marginalized peoples standing up and demanding their basic human rights it wouldn't have happened.  Fact is Taylor betrayed his client in a fashion that might have gotten him disbarred today.  Even worse, he betrayed the principal of common decency.  Sorry, not gonna praise this guy as some kind of 'hero'.