Archibald Cox | Biography

Archibald Cox served as a U.S. Department of Justice special prosecutor in charge of investigating President Richard M. Nixon's role in the Watergate scandal. During his brief tenure in this position in 1973, Cox began to build a case that Nixon was intimately involved in the scandal. Nixon's firing of Cox that year set in motion a chain of events that led to Nixon's resignation in August of 1974.

Cox was born on May 17, 1912, in Plainfield, New Jersey. The great-great grandson of former U.S. attorney general William A. Evarts, Cox graduated from Harvard Law School in 1937. Cox returned to the school in 1946 to teach, after clerking for the legendary federal judge Learned Hand and trying private practice. He developed expertise in labor law and became involved in arbitrating major disputes between large companies and labor unions. This work led to Cox's appointment in 1952 to manage the Wage Stabilization Board.

Cox's academic reputation continued to rise during the 1950s, but he branched out to become an adviser to Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. He assumed the same role during Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign. In 1961 President Kennedy named Cox U.S. solicitor general, one of the most prestigious legal offices in the U.S. government. As solicitor general, Cox argued many important cases on behalf of the federal government before the U.S. Supreme Court. However, he also offered advice to attorney general Robert Kennedy, advice that was more conservative than later followers of Cox imagined. After President Lyndon B. Johnson was elected to a full term in 1964, Cox resigned his position. He returned to Harvard in 1965 but continued to be in the public eye, as he acted as a mediator and investigator for several high-profile cases in New York and Massachusetts.

Cox became a national figure in May of 1973 when U.S. attorney general Elliot Richardson appointed him special prosecutor to investigate President Nixon's role in the Watergate scandal. Though Nixon proclaimed that he had no involvement in the burglary, evidence linking the burglars to White House aides forced Nixon to call for a special prosecutor to launch an independent investigation.

Cox quickly determined that he needed to obtain the audiotapes of secretly recorded conversations made by Nixon in his White House offices. When Nixon refused the request, Cox filed a lawsuit in federal court demanding their release. The trial judge, John Sirica, ordered them released, but Nixon appealed.

In October of 1973, Nixon decided that Cox must be fired. Attorney General Richardson and his chief deputy resigned rather than fire Cox. Nixon then promoted solicitor general Robert Bork to acting attorney general, who promptly fired Cox. The public uproar over the so-called "October Massacre" led members of Congress to file impeachment resolutions against Nixon. The following year the Supreme Court, United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974), recognized the legitimacy of the doctrine of executive privilege but held that it could not prevent the disclosure of materials needed for a criminal prosecution. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, after releasing the tapes, which proved that he had been part of a conspiracy to cover up White House involvement in the Watergate burglary.

Cox returned to Harvard and continued to publish articles and books on legal issues. As of 2000 he was professor emeritus at Harvard.

Recent Updates

May 29, 2004: Cox died on May 29, 2004, at his home in Brooksville, Maine, of natural causes. He was 92. Source: New York Times, May 31, 2004, p. B7(L); CNN.com, http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/05/30/cox.death.ap/index.html, May 31, 2004.