Cox Calls Scholars Crucial to Politics

Archibald Cox '34, Williston Professor of Law, told a crowd of over 1000 faculty members, alumni and graduating seniors that "the recognition of the House's right to any evidence it deems relevant seems essential to the viability of impeachment as an institution."

The former special Watergate prosecutor was Orator at the annual Phi Beta Kappa Literary exercises yesterday in Sanders Theater, speaking along with the poet, Robert S. Fitzgerald '33, Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory.

Cox spoke on the involvement of scholars in government, while Fitzgerald read a poem, "Recollections," written for the occasion.

'Indissoluble Link'

Cox said that "the link between learning and policy, between academe and the realm of government, seems indissoluble," but he warned academics working in, government against neglecting their professorial duties. He cited "the intellectual effort ommitted in pursuit of political action."

It is important to find a way to reconcile the conflicts between an academic's participation in the public sector and his commitment to the "open-minded pursuit of truth," Cox said.

Attributes he said a scholar-teacher might bring to government include a concern for the preservation of "the institutions that shape human affairs," and "an insistence of immediate objectives."

In his speech, Cox made several references to "the drama of Watergate." He said that scholars could help with the long-range questions of the "instruments" for impeachment and "for dealing with wrong-doing by a president's close associates."

They could also help restore public confidence and formulate, "implicitly if not explicitly, some minimum acceptable standards of official behavior," Cox said.

Among the qualities a scholar could bring back to the classroom from public life, Cox included political sophistication and 'much simpler observations upon public life," which he claimed are needed to distill the "hard substance" of politics.

Fitzgerald's poem, composed in rhymed couplets, draws parallels between ancient Greece and Harvard.

Cox was appointed special prosecutor for the Watergate case by President Nixon in May 1973. He was fired the following October.