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...I give you my word that he NEVER endorsed Ronald Reagan. Indeed, Cox has endorsed only two presidential candidates -- John F. Kennedy, in 1960, and Morris K. Udall, in 1976. It is true that Cox was angry with Carter, but that was due to two things, both of which I witnessed while a student of his:
1. There was a vacancy on the First Circuit Court of Appeals, and under the rules of senatorial courtesy, Edward M. Kennedy (senior Senator from Mass.) put forward Archibald Cox's name. The Carter administration was ticked with Kennedy, so it violated the custom of senatorial courtesy and picked somebody else. The list of names with Cox's name and the other candidate's name went to the ABA screening committee; the Justice Department put the Carter candidate at the top of the list and Cox at the bottom. The committee sent the list on to the Seante Judiciary Committee with Cox's name at the top and the Carter candidate at the bottom. The Carter Administration continued to resist the pressure to name Cox, even though it spanned the then-political spectrum. Ultimately, when things got really hairy, and after Carter narrowly beat back Kennedy's cahllenge for the 1980 nomination, the Carter forces said, "Look, we'll take anybody else you name, but not Cox." So Kennedy put forward Stephen Breyer, also of Harvard Law, who went to the First Circuit, where he stayed until 1994, when he moved to the Supremes.
2. In the spring of 1980, the UN Security Council was considering a resolution equating Zionism with racism. Usually the United States vetoed that resolution each time it came up. That week, Donald McHenry, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, did not veto the resolution and it passed. When the press demanded to know what had happened, whether this change signaled a shift on American policy, the State Department and the White House spokesman declared that it was a communications gap. Cox was reading the newspaper before our First Amendment class. As we filed in, he pointed to the front page and said, "Did you see this?" We told him that we had. He said, "When I was in government, we never would have had a communication failure like this one." He shook his head, musing. "'I'll never lie to you,'" he quoted. Then he smiled ruefully and said, "Some people just shouldn't make promises they can't keep."
But, again, I swear to God above that Archibald Cox never endorsed Ronald Reagan. Not ever. Never.
End of sermon. Sorry, and thank you for listening/reading.
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