Chesterfield Smith, 85; American Bar Assn. Chief Criticized Nixon
Chesterfield Smith, 85, who as president of the American Bar Assn. became directly involved in the Watergate investigation after President Nixon’s “Saturday night massacre,” has died.
Smith died Wednesday from cardiopulmonary complications at a hospital in Coral Gables, Fla., said a spokeswoman for the law firm that Smith helped found. Smith was president of the ABA from 1973 to 1974.
Soon after Smith took office, Nixon fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, accepted the resignations of Atty. Gen. Elliot L. Richardson and Deputy Atty. Gen. William D. Ruckelshaus, and abolished the special prosecutor’s office.
The next day, Smith released an ABA statement that said, “No man is above the law” and urged that an independent special prosecutor be employed to investigate Nixon.
The quote and the ABA’s position were published in many major American newspapers.
“The justice system was being torn down by Nixon’s actions,” Smith told Associated Press in 1999.
Before being named to head the ABA, Smith served as president of the Florida Bar Assn. and on the Florida Constitutional Revision Commission.
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