THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 23, 1994 TAG: 9407230208
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: FALLS CHURCH LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Hugh Scott, who served as Republican leader in the Senate during the Watergate years, has died at 93. He had represented Pennsylvania in Congress, as a House member and senator, for 36 years.
Scott died Thursday of cardiac arrest in a retirement home in Falls Church.
``He died peacefully in his sleep,'' said his longtime secretary Janet Horgan.
``What a good man he was and what a fine person he was to work with,'' said former Sen. Mike Mansfield of Montana, who was the Democratic majority leader of the Senate while Scott led the minority.
``He was one of the unsung heroes of our time. We worked together very closely and we were able to establish a bipartisan Senate insofar as that was possible,'' Mansfield said.
Sen. Bob Dole, who holds the minority leader's job now, said, ``Few Americans gave more of themselves to public service than Hugh Scott. . . . Here was a man who gave his all to ensure that our republic remain strong and free.''
Former Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee, who succeeded Scott in the leadership post, said, ``We were friends, sometimes adversaries, but always I thought of Hugh as a very special senator who helped define my role as Republican leader. His contributions to the Senate, to the country, and to the body politic were extraordinary.''
Scott was elected to the House of Representatives in 1940 and to the Senate in 1958. He served three Senate terms. His tenure as minority leader began in 1969 when Richard Nixon became president.
Nixon resigned in 1974; Scott remained in the Senate until his retirement in 1977.
On Watergate, Scott often urged Nixon to come clean to save his presidency. He said in December 1973 that Nixon would not get out of the Watergate ``mess'' unless he fulfilled a promise to disclose all records and tape recordings related to the scandal.
On Aug. 7, 1974, Scott, Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona and House Minority Leader John Rhodes went to the White House to tell Nixon his position was hopeless - that perhaps only four senators would vote against convicting him.
Later, in 1974, he urged Pennsylvanians to remember that ``the horrible, shabby and most unfortunate Watergate mess was not the doing of the Republican Party.''
Scott, a native Virginian who moved to Philadelphia after law school, was at once staunchly supportive of the GOP and able to forge alliances with Democrats and change with the times.
For example, as chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1948, Scott rallied fiercely against Democratic ``Commie coddling'' and ``big government.'' Two decades later, he proposed a joint U.S.-Soviet Union space venture and later he and Democratic Sen. Hubert Humphrey met with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in Russia.
He was a staunch supporter of the Vietnam war during the terms of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, but departed with the Nixon administration by calling for a unilateral U.S. cease-fire in 1969. He later modified his stance to say he was interested in a mutual cease-fire.
``I wouldn't have anything in my life to be proud of if I hadn't had many an occasion to grow and to change my mind,'' Scott said in a 1984 interview.
Scott had a penchant for turning an acerbic phrase on matters near to his heart.
During his Senate years, he accused Alabama Gov. George Wallace of practicing ``jackassery'' on civil rights. Nearing 70 years old, he challenged a Democratic challenger in 1970 to ``come down here and see if he can keep up with me.''
But Scott also valued a sense of humor, saying once that ``it is essential that at all times we (the Senate) recognize the leavening effect of humor and good will . . . '' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Hugh Scott
by CNB