Political Intelligence on Cox Is Uncertain

The late Chief Justice Earl Warren’s name is indelibly linked to the commission that investigated President Kennedy’s assassination. Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr is known for his exhaustive account of President Clinton’s extramarital affair. Now an Orange County congressman has given America a 1,016-page treatise on Chinese espionage, likely to be known hereafter as the Cox Report.

When Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) finally made public Tuesday an unclassified version of the document, much of the public already had heard the gist: China stole prized military secrets in an extensive spy campaign that exposed lax security at U.S. nuclear weapon facilities.

But getting a read on Cox and his ambitions is proving as difficult as getting a security clearance to peruse an unedited copy of the report.

Just last fall the 46-year-old Cox, fresh from winning a sixth House term, was talking himself up as a candidate for House speaker after the surprise resignation of Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). Twice he has toyed with running for U.S. Senate. In 1996, newspaper columnist George Will floated his name as a vice presidential running mate for Bob Dole.

Nothing emerged from any of this talk but a lasting impression that Cox wanted somehow to continue the upward mobility that had landed him the No. 5 spot in the House Republican leadership as chairman of the party’s policy committee. And now he has a major public platform on an issue of international significance--one that is likely to persist into the 2000 presidential campaign and beyond.

But even as he appears repeatedly on network news and talk shows, Cox has all but clammed up on the subject of what he wants to do next in politics. The other day, after Cox had finished a sit-down with NBC’s Tom Brokaw, he ran quickly through the possibilities, dismissing or playing them down.

Run for speaker again? Can’t do that any time soon, if ever. Rep. J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has the job for as long as Republicans keep their majority. Become chairman of a powerful House committee? Not likely. Cox does not have enough seniority. Score an administrative appointment, maybe even in the Cabinet, if the GOP wins the presidency next year? Way too early to tell.

Then, surprisingly for a man who seems the consummate political animal, Cox said: “When I think about what I’ll do in the future, I don’t think of those things. My analysis is more what will I do after politics. I would hope that I might have two or even three good careers left in me.”

From 1986 to 1988, Cox polished his partisan pedigree as a White House staff member during the Reagan administration. He then returned to Orange County to win a seat in Congress, where he has voted unswervingly for conservative GOP causes. His record is in line with his district--stretching from Newport Beach to the Anaheim Hills, it is one of California’s strongest GOP enclaves.

These days, Cox is making a name for himself as a bipartisan bridge-builder, according to political analysts and congressional sources.

His investigative committee, launched in June, reached its conclusions on a 9-0 vote last December. The vote, coming amid the bitter debate over the impeachment of Clinton, showed that the five Republicans and four Democrats on the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China--shortened, of course, to “the Cox committee”--had achieved a rare consensus on a potentially volatile issue.