“He was the best department chairperson,” he said. “He could handle all the personal and ideological issues.”

Maass also wrote Area and Power, a book on federalism and local government, in 1959. His final book, Congress and the Common Good, was a 1983 analysis of how the public interest is incorporated into the procedures of Congress.

ARCHIBALD COX '34

Archibald Cox ’34, Loeb University professor emeritus at Harvard Law School (HLS) and the special prosecutor whose vigorous 1973 investigation of the Watergate scandal led to the eventual resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, died on May 29 at his home in Brooksville, Maine. He was 92.

Cox joined the HLS faculty as a visiting lecturer in 1945 and a year later became one of the youngest professors ever to receive tenure, at age 34.

In May 1973, Cox was appointed to lead the Justice Department’s investigation into charges that the Republican party had orchestrated a break-in at Democratic campaign headquarters in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.

As the special prosecutor, Cox pressured President Nixon to turn over newly discovered audiotapes of secretly recorded presidential conversations in the Oval Office. When Nixon refused, Cox persisted, subpoenaing the tapes.

They ultimately proved that the Nixon White House had been involved in a conspiracy to conceal its role in authorizing the Watergate break-in.

The content of the tapes, and the full results of Cox’s investigation, were so damaging that Nixon stepped down as president on Aug. 8, 1974.

As solicitor general under President John F. Kennedy ’40, Ames Professor of Law Philip B. Heymann said, Cox argued “more very important constitutional law cases than anyone in the second half of the 20th century.”

Cox was a skilled oral advocate, and “people would come from all over to watch him argue a case because he did it so well,” Heymann said.

After Cox was fired as the Watergate special prosecutor in 1973, he taught constitutional law at HLS.

Robert H. Mnookin ’64, who is Williston professor of law—a chair Cox once held—said of his predecessor, “I think he certainly represents the ideals that we at HLS should aspire to—gifted, public-spirited, extremely hardworking and idealistic in a pragmatic way.”

WILLIAM E. GIENAPP

William E. Gienapp, Harvard College professor and professor of history, died on Oct. 29 after a battle with cancer. He was 59.