Archibald Cox Oral History

Archibald Cox stands out in American legal history as a leader of tremendous courage, expertise, and integrity. Widely known for his role as special prosecutor during Watergate, Cox served in a variety of federal-government positions from the 1940s to the mid-1960s. He later taught at Harvard Law School and led Common Cause, a citizens lobbying group focused on government accountability.

This oral-history interview focuses on Cox's tenure as solicitor general from 1961 to 1965, when he argued many landmark civil-rights cases before the Supreme Court. Since 1870, the presidents of the United States have appointed solicitors general to argue for the government in cases appearing in the Supreme Court. A leading figure in the Department of Justice, the solicitor general is considered among the most prestigious positions for a practicing lawyer in the United States.

The interview with Cox was conducted by legal scholar and law professor Thomas Hilbink in June 2000, four years before Cox's death. The Supreme Court Historical Society funded the interview as part of its ongoing commitment to incorporate oral history into the history of the Supreme Court.

The interview is one of several with key Supreme Court figures in the collection of Columbia University Libraries' Oral History Research Office. Other notable interviews concerning legal history in the archive include prominent lawyer and former secretary of state Dean Acheson, Supreme Court Justices Thurgood Marshall, Felix Frankfurter, and Robert H. Jackson, and Judge Billings Learned Hand, who hired Archibald Cox as his law clerk when Cox was freshly graduated from Harvard Law School.