Cox Named Watergate Prosecutor

Archibald Cox '34, Williston Professor of Law, will be the Justice Department's special Watergate prosecutor.

Attorney General-designate Elliot L. Richardson '41 announced Cox's appointment at 3:14 p.m. today in Washington.

Cox, the former Solicitor General of the United States under Presidents John F. Kennedy '40 and Lyndon B. Johnson, will leave Monday morning for Washington, where the Senate Judiciary Committee will question Cox about the appointment. Approval appears likely.

As special Watergate investigator, Cox will have an unprecedented degree of independence from Federal interference and influence in investigating and prosecuting the case. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee had threatened to hold up Richardson's confirmation as attorney general if he refused to give the investigator "final authority" over the Watergate inquiry.

At a Holyoke Center news conference this afternoon, the 61-year-old Cox said that he will investigate "all offenses arising out of the 1972 presidential election, and all allegations involving the president, the White House staff, or presidential appointees."

Cox, a registered Democrat who voted for George McGovern in the 1972 election, said that he had accepted the post because "somehow we must restore confidence in the honor, integrity and decency of government and this is a major part of that important task."

Richardson selected Cox's name from a list estimated at a dozen names yesterday evening. Richardson drew up the list after his first two choices for the post, Federal District Judge Harold R. Tyler of New York and Los Angeles attorney Warren M. Christopher, turned down the job.

Richardson has tried to fill the post quickly because the Senate Judiciary Committee has been clearly unwilling to act on his nomination as attorney general until a prosecutor is named.

New Charter

Under Congressional pressure, Richardson released an eight-point charter for the special prosecutor yesterday which states that the attorney general will not "countermand or interfere with the special prosecutor's decisions or action." The charter also specifies that the prosecutor would not be removed from his post "except for extraordinary improprieties on his part."

Richardson continued to insist, however, that the extent of the prosecutor's independence would have to be "consistent with the attorney general's statutory accountability for all matters falling within the Department of Justice."

Cox said that Richardson had first made the offer to him on Wednesday. Richardson read Cox the guidelines he had drawn up, and Cox helped him work out a final draft, Cox said. "We did it the way two lawyers drafting something do it," Cox said.

Cox said that he is totally satisfied with the guidelines Richardson released yesterday. "I think the guidelines leave complete room for independence and I haven't the slightest doubt I will be independent," he said.

Cox said he figures 18 months is a "fair medium estimate" of the length of the investigation.

He refused to comment on the substance of the Watergate scandal except to say, "It seems very, very big."