Restoring justice

I had not been long in my temporary position of acting attorney general when it became obvious that we would need to find a new special prosecutor to complete the Watergate investigation. Strictly speaking, we didn’t need a special prosecutor. I’m confident the individuals we had in the office possessed the demeanor and intelligence necessary to see the Watergate investigation through to its inevitable conclusion. But with the outcry over Cox’s firing reaching a fever pitch, the need for a new special prosecutor became a necessity, if only to calm everyone down.1

In our independent searches for a new special prosecutor, the White House and the Justice Department hit on Leon Jaworski’s name at about the same time. There was really no other candidate so well...