May 18, 2023: Watergate Figures: Archibald Cox Jr.

[On May 18th,1973, the nationally televised SenateWatergate hearings began. So for the 50th anniversaryof that historic moment, this week I’ll highlight one telling detail each for ahandful of the key figures in those hearings. Leading up to a weekend post on afew contemporary echoes of that moment!]

While theWatergate hearings absolutely shifted public opinion on the scandal and theNixon administration, it was a parallel event that provided the most directimpetus for the possibility of impeachment (and thus Nixon’s preemptiveresignation). When Watergate SpecialProsecutor Archibald Cox Jr. refused to back down from asubpoena for Nixon’s illegal private recordings, Nixon fired Cox in theOctober 1973 event that became known as theSaturday Night Massacre; it was that unconstitutional firing and the uproarit produced which truly set the impeachment conversations in motion. Given thatparticular context, it’s quite striking and telling that Cox would go to be chairof the board of directors for a dozen years (from 1980 to 1992) of Common Cause, a groundbreaking and vitalbipartisan organization (founded just three years before the Watergate hearingsand still active to this day) advocating for government reform, transparencyand accountability, and a government that, as their mission statement puts it, “servesthe public interest.” In some ways Watergate was and remains singular, but inmany others it was a bellwether of a great deal of issues and debates to come,and Archibald Cox continued to be part of those conversations long after hisspecial prosecuting of Watergate came to a close.

LastWatergate figure tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?