As a devout wallower in Watergate, I was sorry to see that two of the few honest men in that whole sordid affair, Archibald Cox and Samuel Dash, have just passed away. As the whole scandal and its investigation unfolded, there were many attempts — from both Nixon's supporters and his detractors — to portray anyone on the other side as a blind, hypocritical partisan. There were some of those on both sides but there were also men and women of honor. A lot of mud was hurled at Cox and Dash but I don't think any of it stuck. Dash in particular was viewed as so fair-minded that Republicans, including Ken Starr, consulted him on matters of law and ethics and often deferred to his judgments.
The story I remember about Sam Dash is one that I heard from someone I met who'd served in his office during the Watergate inquiry. I don't recall the name of the associate but I remember the story. It occurred during the hearings, not long after John W. Dean had testified and the Nixon administration had begun attacking him as a self-serving liar who had totally misreported his conversations with the President. This was before the investigators had learned of the existence of the famed presidential tapes. In a private interview with presidential aide Alexander Butterfield, it came out that Nixon had this secret taping system. Dash called Dean in, the aide told me, because he wanted to see the look on the man's face when he was told that there might be an actual recording of his meetings with Nixon…and therefore, a solid means of proving if his sworn testimony was true. "Based on the response, Dash was satisfied that Dean had told the truth and the investigation proceeded from there," the associate explained. "But if he'd turned pale and started backpedalling from what he'd said under oath, Dash was quite prepared to see him prosecuted for perjury." History will show that the tape matched Dean's testimony almost precisely.
I've always thought of that as the moment Nixon went on the defensive, never to recover…and Sam Dash was at the heart of that moment. Another, of course, was the Saturday Night Massacre, with Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in its vortex. Fired by Nixon, largely just for doing his job, Cox went over the President's head, directly to the American people. They made enough of an outcry that Nixon was forced to allow another Special Prosecutor…and from that point on, the President was never able to get atop the situation again.
I've had long debates with a few fellow wallowers about whether or not "the system worked" in Watergate. My view tends to be that it did not; that Nixon was brought down by a series of flukes, such as the taping system, that were not part of the system. But to the extent the system did work, it worked because of men like Archibald Cox and Sam Dash. I wish we had more of them in government.