The Daily Telegraph from London, Greater London, England • 23

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH Monday, May 31, 2004 www.telegraph.co.uk 23 Archibald Cox Watergate Special Prosecutor whose insistence on hearing tapes from the Oval Office helped to destroy Nixon ARCHIBALD COX, who died on Saturday aged 92, played a crucial role in the downfall of President Nixon when, as Special Prosecutor in the Watergate Affair, he insisted on unrestricted access to tapes of conversations in the Oval Office. Cox became formally involved in the Watergate investigation in May 1973, after the Democrat majority in the Senate had proved recalcitrant in confirming nomination of Elliot Richardson as Attorney-General. Eventually a deal was reached, whereby Richardson was passed provided he agreed to appoint an acceptable Special Prosecutor who could not be removed save for "extraordinary Richardson duly chose his old law professor, Archibald Cox, promising him full independence to pursue his inquiries. Cox, a Harvard professor and a pillar of the East Coast liberal establishment who had been Solicitor-General in Kennedy's administration, was the everything Nixon detested. President, A tall, greying beanpole of a man, with a crew-cut and a penchant for bow ties, the new Special Prosecutor wore his integrity on his sleeve.

In particular he showed an unbending devotion to principle when he felt the American Constitution was under threat. Nixon, of course, saw the matter rather differently, damning Cox as a "partisan It did not escape the President's notice that Cox invited several of the Kennedy clan to his swearing-in ceremony, or that the team he selected were overwhelmingly Democrats from Ivy League universities. Convinced that his acolytes were out to destroy him, Nixon bitterly resented the manner in which the media presented them as "keepers of the sacred flame of American justice against a wicked President and his corrupt a In July 1973 the Watergate investigation took a dramatic turn when Alexander Butterfield, a former aide of Bob Haldeman, casually during a Senate hearing that a recording system had been operating in the White House. Cox immediately demanded access to the tapes. Nixon refused on the grounds that the President's private conversations were protected by executive privilege.

In October, however, the Court of Appeals ruled that the President must obey Cox's subpoena to hand over nine of the tapes relating to Watergate. Alexander Haig, chief of staff at the White House, proposed a compromise whereby summaries of the tapes, checked for authenticity by Senator John Stennis, would be submitted to Cox. The quid pro quo was that the Special Prosecutor would make no further demands tapes. The Attorney Elliot Richardson, seemed at first to be prepared to consider this Jack Rosenthal press dubbed "'The Saturday Night Nixon continued to wriggle on the Watergate hook for another eight months, but after the sacking of Cox the spectres of impeachment or resignation were ever before him. Archibald was born at Plainfield, New Jersey, on May 17 1912, the scion of a long line of Yankee lawyers.

Indeed in 1868 his greatgrandfather had defended President Andrew Johnson against impeachment. After schooling at St Paul's in Concord, New Hampshire, Cox read History and Economics at Harvard, easing the financial stress of college life through his winnings from backgammon. Going on to Harvard School he graduated magna cum laude in 1937, and joined the Massachusetts Bar. For the next four years he pursued a general practice in Boston. In 1941 he went to Washington to join the Office of the Solicitor-General at the Department of Justice, and two years later moved to the department of the Secretary of State.

After the war he returned to Harvard Law School, where he was made a professor within a year. He remained amenable, however, to government appointments. Appointed chairman of President Truman's wage stabilisation board, he resigned after the administration approved a wage increase which his board had rejected. An expert on labour legislation, Cox served as a close adviser to Senator John Kennedy in the late 1950s, and in 1960 was an important member of his staff during the Presidential election. When Kennedy reached the White House, Cox was appointed Solicitor-General.

His duty, as he saw it, was to be "the conscience of the For all his liberal principles, he demurred when Kennedy issued an executive order prohibiting racial discrimination in housing profiting from federal loans. Cox believed that the President was exceeding the powers of his office. For similar reasons, he was worried about the way in which Presidents Johnson and Nixon sent troops to Vietnam without a declaration of war by Congress. In addition he urged caution in the use of "bugging" devices. Cox carried on as Solicitor-General into President Johnson's administration, but in 1965 resigned and returned to Harvard as Williston Professor of Law.

He showed no disposition to make capital out of his role in the Watergate Affair, and in 1974 went to Cambridge as Visiting Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions. Cox retired from Harvard in 1984. His publications included The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government (1976), Freedom of Expression (1981) and The Court and the Constitution (1987). Archibald Cox married, in 1937, Phyllis Ames; they had two daughters and a son. Dramatist whose plays covered a vast range from bar mitzvah candidates to dustmen and trainee taxi drivers at Sheffield University.

After examination of the competing dedicated research. graduating he served claims of power and justice. accompanied taxi about the only Jew" in the (Football was Rosenthal's before sitting down Royal Navy, where he learnt favourite sport he listed The Knowledge, and Russian and eavesdropped on "checking Manchester Unit- with dustmen their naval transmissions. ed's score, minute by minute, Dustbinmen and with that inspired his on teletext" as a recreation in before London's experiences, 'Bye, Baby (1992). Who's Who.) Rosenthal's six In 1955 he joined the fledg- Although both The Evacuees films included Yentl ling television company Gra- and Bar Mitzvah Boy (1976) with Barbra nada, where his first task was were plays about Jews, which a precocious to buy lavatory-paper holders.

Rosenthal was never thought girl disguised herself After a spell in the promo- of as "a Jewish, His in order to attend tions department he left to interest lay in character and (school for priests); work in advertising. theme, and the Jewish com- Jack (1999), starring He returned to Granada in munity simply provided an kins as an old 1961. having been commis- institutional or "collective" Whitby who sioned to write the 30th epi- background, just as the unlikely crew to sode of Coronation Street. school did in P'tang, Yang, Arctic on a journey Over the next eight years he Kipperbang (1984). discovery; and wrote 150 episodes, an Having worked at home (1984), seven apprenticeship that taught and brought up his two chil- vignettes about him to draw realistic charac- dren while his wife, the households trying ters, develop entertaining actress Maureen Lipman, house on the same storylines and meet dead- pursued her theatrical career, A modest man, lines.

Rosenthal admitted that he took in his stride Television drama had ini- sometimes felt that "my life is the telephone tially been dominated by so But this did not addressed as "Mr playwrights preoccupied with stop him portraying the full He was content to 1988 theatrical adaptations and by breadth of other people's playing the revivals of classics, the accent experiences. In The Knowl- enforced privacy" that comedy comes from pain, father returning from having being on the literary rather edge (1979), the film which ing "almost anything and that every day is heckled Oswald Mosley at the than on the visual. As part of helped make Nigel Haw- Yet his The younger of two broth- Free Trade Hall and getting "a the first generation to write thorne's name, the trainee within his industry ers, Jack Morris Rosenthal bit bashed up as a specifically for television, cabby becomes so obsessed hardly have been was born on September 8 During the war Jack was Rosenthal saw that its pur- with learning streets of Among his many 1931 1 in Manchester. His evacuated first to Blackpool, pose was to entertain and London that time he Golden Globe, three then father worked in a raincoat where his food parcels from inform, and not to be elitist. qualifies, his girlfriend who Academy Best Play factory but struggled to put home were confiscated and By the early 1970s he had had suggested the job to him Writer's Guild Best enough food on the family his letters censored an explored the possibilities of has fallen for someone else.

Award and a Bafta. table. As young Jewish boys experience he dramatised in short drama and was keen to Rosenthal was adept at appointed CBE in growing up in a non-Jewish The Evacuees (1975). When extend his range. Another imagining himself in other He married community, Jack and his Manchester was bombed, the Sunday And Sweet FA (1972), people's shoes.

"I don't think man in 1973. They brother experienced anti- family moved to Colne, in the TV Critics Circle Play of you write your own pain," he Adam, and a daughter, Semitism and were regularly Lancashire, where he went to the Year, about a henpecked said, though he did draw on also a talented "duffed as Jack recalled. the local grammar school. He football referee struggling to his own experience, and but- had briefly been He also remembered his later read English Literature control the game, was a comic tressed his imagination with before. Rosenthal with his wife the actress Maureen Lipman in Cox: an East Coast liberal and Harvard professor, he represented everything Nixon detested solution, but Cox absolutely refused to limit his right to subpoena other tapes.

Typically, he took the high ground: "Who could say in an age of Presidential aggrandisement that if a President succeeded in his defiance, he and others might not follow the example until ours was no longer a government of law?" Nixon, who at this time was also enmeshed in the politics of the Yom Kippur War, reacted by instructing Richardson "Well, I can't do that," Richardson responded, "I guess I'd better come over and resign." Nixon then tried to play the patriotic card, warning that America's standing would be undermined if the executive was weakened at a critical phase of the negotiations in the Middle East. Richardson, however, had reached his sticking point, and carried out his threat to resign. His deputy, William Ruckelshaus, followed suit. Finally the Solicitor-General, Robert Bork, next in line at the Justice Department, obeyed the President's command dismissed Cox. The country exploded in outrage at what the Irina Press Soviet athlete who won two Olympic gold medals in the 1960s but had to put up with doubts about her gender IRINA PRESS, the former though still formidable.

Soviet athlete who has died Tamara took silver in the disaged 64, won gold medals at cus, and then gold in the shot the 1960 and 1964 Olympics; put, shattering the Olympic but her career, like that of her record by 2 ft. Irina equalled equally successful sister the world record of 10-7 secs Tamara, was dogged by spec- in her heat of the 80m hurulation about her gender, an dles, then won the final. She enigma only deepened when and Tamara became the first she and Tamara abruptly sisters to claim gold medals at withdrew from competition in the same Games. 1966. In 1964, in Tokyo, Tamara Irina Press arrived at the Press one better, winRome Olympiad in 1960 aged ning went, discus and the 21, having made her mark two shot and setting Olympic years before at the European records in both events.

Irina Championships, winning the competed in three disciplines. pentathlon. Her physique, She on her sister in the and that of Tamara (her elder shot, but finished sixth; in the Irina by 22 months), immediately hurdles, she came agonisattracted attention; but ingly close to defending her dles, whereas Tamara was a title, coming fourth in the jump, mighty-thighed prodigy final, a tenth of a second being albeit one endowed with an behind the time recorded by time attractive grin Irina's mus- all three medal winners. That pics. culature was more compact, left only the pentathlon (hur- setting End column A.N.

Wilson World of books Only fiction can tell the whole infernal truth ALTHOUGH most of the London post is, we gather, being used by the comrades at Mount Pleasant Sorting Office to light joints, some letters are still mysteriously getting through. I opened one the other day and I still cannot tell whether it is written by some member of my family having a bit of fun. It was in response to article I wrote about Dante's Inferno, in which I said, after a recent rereading in Allen Mandelbaum's masterly translation, "I never felt before so powerfully how disgusting hell My correspondent, a Mr Hayman, writes: "Perhaps you need telling that Dante's The Divine Comedy and Inferno are fiction. They are not real, any more than Goldilocks and the Three Bears is real." Perhaps I need telling. Perhaps, on the other hand, I don't.

"Need telling" seems only a step away from "need taking down a peg or two" or even "need a bloody good I am used to getting letters from Christian fundamentalists, who cite specific Biblical texts to show me that my wishy-washy views are beyond the pale. The Mr. Gradgrinds, or materialist fundamentalists. write less often, clearly Mr "Hayman" unless a member of Craig Brown's fictitious Pedants' Society is a ripe specimen. What stops me in my tracks is his apparent need to tell me that Dante's Inferno isn't, as he would see things, That is, Dante did not really find himself in the middle of a wood, didn't really meet Virgil, didn't really go down into the Underworld and meet a lot of monsters, sirens, centaurs and Titans.

These are all Therefore not true. Therefore, Mr Hayman seems to imply, not worth reading. Much more improving to read an account of a real person (perhaps Mr Hayman himself) going for a walk in a real wood Chorleywood, perhaps and doing something useful such as picking up litter. Every so often one remembers why William Blake wrote on his copy of Bacon's Essays: Advice for Satan's To save Mr Hayman the expense of another postage stamp and envelope, I should point out too have read that a Hebrew word meaning adversary, probably owed his origins to some yes, Mr Hayman fictitious Babylonian angelology. Blake was talking what is known as figuratively.

That is, he was using language. All language, even scientific language, is figurative, but Mr Hayman hasn't figured that out. Poets are people who use language more vividly, more acutely, with greater range and depth than other people. Fundamentalists are bores who take their words and try to apply to them tests based on criteria. Since Bacon was one of the first Two Cultures men, dividing up the arts and the sciences, Blake saw his essays as satanic.

Human beings think in many ways other than those of scientific classification. Dante is the supremely great poet that he is because he revivifies and transforms the conventional of mythology and religion and recharges them in the light of real experiences primarily our own, though also the historical, political and actual experiences of his contemporaries. Who can look at the photographs coming out of Iraqi jails and not know that the things Dante depicted in the Inferno are truer than Mr Hayman can ever dream of with his philosophy? If that was all that beings were capable of, we would end up with a Larkinian or Kingsley Amisstyle blank wall of depression. Dante's Purgatory does not start with Christianity: a brilliant imaginative touch, that. It begins with Cato, the noble pagan suicide.

He was a Stoic who committed suicide rather than fall into the hands of Caesar, and as such is an embodiment of all who before or since have striven for political liberty which is one of Dante's central themes. "I reached and offered him my tear-stained cheeks," Dante tells us. Only then occurs one of the most beautiful passages in the whole poem, the arrival across the sea of the Angelic Pilot, bringing newly departed souls, singing the old psalm "When Israel came out of They are to begin their journey of purification, as is Dante, as are we. The Everyman edition also contains Botticelli's drawings, which made such a superb exhibition at the Royal Academy some ashen By the end of the journey, Dante is ready to advance further to paradise, he is ready to swap guides, to abandon Poetry (Virgil) and take up with theology (Beatrice); to leave books and take up with his memory of an actual woman. The Vision of the Earthly Paradise at the end of Purgatorio, with its emblematic figures, its heraldic beasts, its giant and its whore, have puzzled many learned commentators.

But read it, if you will, as science fiction. and its pictures stay in the mind, and resonate. The human spirit does not stop in the quagmire of guilt but, as Winston Churchill's butler reminded him, it "keeps buggering on. JACK ROSENTHAL, who died on Saturday aged 72, wrote films, plays and a musical, but was best known for his television scripts. He produced more than 250 programmes for the small screen, and his fertility was matched by his range.

His scripts combined acute observation with sympathetic, unsentimental characterisation, and he was capable of working out his themes in a wide variety of settings. Rosenthal's prime interest lay in the way people interacted with each other, and in the relationship between individuals and institutions. His most celebrated television plays either drew on his own experiences P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang, about schoolboys, and Bar Mitzvah Boy, about bar mitzvah candidates or concerned particular groups of working men. The Knowledge was about trainee taxi drivers, London's Burning was about firemen, and Dustbinmen was about dustmen. In each he deftly observed the conflict between the aspirations of the protagonists and what others demanded of them.

Rosenthal's work was invariably well researched, with the detail minutely drawn. Yet the real strength of his drama lay in his understanding that tragedy and comedy were inseparable. Writing, he said, "starts with the realisation that eccentric means absolutely normal, Thus he drivers to write went out before The firemen Burning. feature (1983), Streisand, in Jewish as a boy a Yeshiva Captain Bob Hossailor from raised an sail to the of selfThe Chain overlapping dig move day. Rosenthal answering and being live quietly, violin "in polishtar- reputation could higher.

prizes was a British Awards, a Series He was 1994. Maureen Liphad a son, Amy, dramatist. He married Chess chess.telegraph.co.uk Chinese checked By Malcolm Pein THE Chinese hold on the Fide Women's World Championship is loosening after thin top seed, Humpy Koneru India, won the first game of her round four match against Xu Yuhua at Elista. Chinese players have held the title since 1999. Koneru is on course to match the exploits of her compatriot Vishy Anand, a former Fide champion, who has often prevailed over the masses of players from Eastern European countries and the former Soviet Union.

Koneru survived some dubious positions a playoff in the third round against Tatiana Kosintseva of Russia and is odds on to make the semi finals. athletics. There had been sev- Round three results: Kosintseva 0-1 eral scandals of the kind, 1-0 Koneru, Koneru won the playoff. Lomineishvili 0-1 0-1 Dzagnidze. notably that of Stella Walsh, Jackova 0-1 draw Chiburdanidze.

who won the 100-yard dash at Bojkovic draw Kachiani. Kovathe 1932 Olympics. Her rivals levskaya 1-0 0-1 Lahno, Kovalevsbelieved that she was a man, kaya won the playoff. Cramling draw and in 1980 draw Cmilyte, Cmilyte won the playan autopsy off. Zhukova draw draw Stefanova, revealed they were right.

Stefanova won the playoff. Paehtz In 1966 chromosome test- draw 0-1 Xu, Yuhua. ing was introduced for Round four game one: Koneru 1-0 European Championships. Xu Yuhua. Stefanova 1-0 Dzagnidze.

Both Presses were subse- Chiburdanidze 1-0 Cmilyte. Kovalevskaya 1-0 Kachiani. quently withdrawn from the event by Soviet officials, not- THE black knights are a match withstanding that Irina was for the white bishops in the the defending champion in early stages and Koneru sacrithe pentathlon. They never fices two pawns when Black competed again, and appear initiates complications and to have returned to obscurity weakens her dark squares in the Ukraine. They had with the bold Black gone, said a spokesman, to errs in a complex position.

look after their sick mother. looks fine. Irina Press died on Febru- 28 but followed ary 21 but her death was only by Rg6 to try and prise open recently announced by the the a8-h1 diagonal was more IAAF. active. Later on, was again a better chance and if 31 Bb4 Qc6.

Koneru then has two connected queenside pawns as well as threats on the long black diagonal and the back rank. was the only chance to eliminate the back rank threat and aim for Rc8c2. does not help because 34 Re3! Rc2 35 Kh7 36 Rh8 is mate. In the final position Qxh6 is coming. Koneru Xu Yuhua Fide Women's World Ch.

Elista (4.1) Queen's Indian Defence I d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 b6 4 a3 Ba6 5 Qc2 Bb7 6 Nc3 c5 7 e4 cxd4 8 Nxd4 Bc5 9 Nb3 Nc6 10 Nxc5 bxc5 11 Be3 Qe7 12 Qdl 0-0 13 Be2 e5 14 0-0 Nd4 15 Bd3 a5 16 RbI g6 17 f4 exf4 18 Rxf4 Qe5 19 QfI Ra6 20 h3 Nf5 21 Bd2 Ng3 22 Qf2! 23 Ngxe4 24 Nxe4 Nxe4 25 Bxe4 Qxe4 26 RFI Qxc4 27 Rf5 Rg6 28 Rxc5! Qe6 29 Rel Qd6 30 Rxa5 Rc8 31 Rxg5 Rxg5 32 Bxg5 0g6 33 Bf6 h6 34 Re3! 35 Kh2 Be4 36 Qf4 1-0 Xu Yuhua Picture: CORBIS 616 (left) and Tamara Press at Lenin Central Stadium, 1960 shot, high and long 5,246 points, more than 200 and 200m), which was ahead of the silver medallist, contested for the first Britain's Mary Rand. It was by women at the Olym- perhaps her finest moment in Irina Press took the gold, competition. a new world record of Irina Natanovna Press was born at Kharkhov, Ukraine, on March 10 1939. Her Jewish parents survived the German invasion, and after the war their daughters soon showed their sporting prowess. Irina went on to win 11 national titles and raise the world record in the pentathlon eight times.

She set five world best times in the hurdles. Neither she nor Tamara, however, could be described as feminine in appearance, and the dominance of Eastern bloc athletes in the 1960s (at the height of the Cold War) led to rumours of widespread doping. Speculation regarding the "Press brothers" (as journalists called them behind their backs) varied from their having had hormone injections to their actually being men. The latter suggestion was not new to 8 6 5 3 8 2 8 a Koneru Final position after 36.Qf4.