By Emma Brown, Washington Post Staff Writer, Thursday, August 26, 2010

William B. Saxbe, a blunt-spoken and independent-minded Republican
senator
from Ohio who helped shield the Watergate investigation from political
meddling when he became U.S. attorney general in 1973, died Aug. 24 at
his home in Mechanicsburg, Ohio. He was 94 and had been ill with pancreatic
cancer.

Mr. Saxbe took the helm of the Justice Department as the administration
of President Richard M. Nixon was beginning to crumble under allegations
that the White House was involved in covering up a break-in at the Watergate
office complex, where the Democratic National Committee was headquartered.

Two of Nixon's previous attorneys general, John Mitchell and Richard
Kleindienst, had been implicated in the Watergate affair. The third,
Elliot Richardson, resigned rather than obey orders to fire Archibald Cox, the
hard-charging special prosecutor assigned to the Watergate case.

Mr. Saxbe, a tobacco-chewing cattle rancher with a penchant for candor,
was not an obvious choice as a replacement. He had taken frequent shots at
the administration, once saying that Nixon's claims that he knew nothing of
the Watergate coverup were like "the man who plays piano at a bawdy house
for 20 years and says he doesn't know what's going on upstairs."

Mr. Saxbe also called Nixon aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman
"Nazis," and he said the Nixon administration was "the most inept" in
history.

Mr. Saxbe's willingness to criticize the Republican president made him a
safe choice, likely to win approval in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
He was confirmed in December 1973 after warning Nixon: "You have to take me
warts and all."

As attorney general, Mr. Saxbe was known as a hands-off manager with a
habit of leaving the office at 5 p.m. sharp and an abiding affection for
golf. His habits drew criticism, to which Mr. Saxbe replied: "When I see
a guy working all night, I see a guy who can't get his work done."

Communication gaffes

Mr. Saxbe invited the press to informal weekly meetings featuring
coffee, doughnuts and a steady stream of foot-in-mouth moments.

At one meeting, Mr. Saxbe offended the powerful family of Patty Hearst
when he said that the young socialite, who had been kidnapped by the
Symbionese Liberation Army and was then photographed taking part in a robbery with
SLA members, was a "common criminal."

Another time, he declared that during the 1950s, "the Jewish
intellectual" was "very enamored of the Communist Party."

As journalists sought Mr. Saxbe's next quotable stumble, it was not long
before the meetings were canceled.

Mr. Saxbe was lauded, however, for bringing greater independence to the
Justice Department and for helping maintain the integrity of the
Watergate investigation. Over the objection of Nixon administration officials, he
published a report on impeachment and ruled that in a Senate trial, the
president would have to pay his own legal fees.

Mr. Saxbe also supported Leon Jaworski, who replaced Cox as the
Watergate special prosecutor. The attorney general promised that if he were asked
to interfere in Jaworski's efforts, he would not resign as Richardson had
but would stay until he was fired.

He made waves in other realms, as well. On his orders, the government
filed an antitrust case against the telecommunications giant AT&T, resulting
in the breakup of the company.

After Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974, Mr. Saxbe stayed on as attorney
general for several months until he was appointed ambassador to India by
President Gerald R. Ford.

Mr. Saxbe later said that he had met privately with Nixon before
becoming attorney general and had come away convinced that the president was not
involved in the Watergate scandal. That conviction later evaporated.

Mr. Saxbe said he did not attend Nixon's funeral and never saw the
fallen president after his resignation.

"He had lied to me, as he had lied to everyone else, and tried to
involve me in his lies," Mr. Saxbe wrote in "I've Seen the Elephant," his 2000
autobiography. "I can never forgive him for that."

Fond of the outdoors

William Bart Saxbe was born June 24, 1916, in Mechanicsburg, Ohio, where
his father was a cattle buyer. He grew up in a small farming town,
developing a lifelong fondness for hunting, fishing and chewing tobacco.

"I discovered that spitting often can accentuate things," he said in
2001. "You say something strong and then splat one down. It makes the point."

He graduated from Ohio State University in 1940, the same year he
married Ardath "Dolly" Kleinhans.

Besides his wife, of Mechanicsburg, survivors include three children,
Juli Spitzer of Jackson Hole, Wyo., Rocky Saxbe of Columbus, Ohio, and
William B. Saxbe Jr. of Williamstown, Mass.; nine grandchildren; and five
great-grandchildren.

After college, Mr. Saxbe served stateside in the Ohio National Guard and
the Army Air Forces during World War II. In 1948, he received a law
degree from Ohio State.

He served four terms in the Ohio House of Representatives, rising to
become speaker.

A self-described "hard-liner" on crime, he supported capital punishment
and stiffer prison sentences. In 1957, he was elected state attorney
general, a position he held for four terms.

In 1968, Mr. Saxbe won a narrow race for U.S. Senate against Democrat
John J. Gilligan. To the surprise of his party, Mr. Saxbe frequently broke
from the Republican line in Washington. He opposed anti-ballistic missiles,
for example, saying that the nation was becoming too militaristic.

"If I had known he was going to be like this," Gilligan quipped, "I
would have voted for him myself."

In Washington, Mr. Saxbe and his wife enjoyed hosting dinner parties
that were known for ending in late-night singing accompanied by Mr. Saxbe on
the washboard fiddle, an instrument whose multiple parts included a pair of
cymbals and a tambourine.

But he quickly grew restless and disgusted with the glacial pace of
Washington politics. International travel became his pastime.

"I took every free trip I could get," he said.

He had announced that he would not run for reelection in the Senate
before he was tapped by Nixon for the attorney general post.

Asked why he took another job in Washington after finding it such an
uninspiring place, Mr. Saxbe said he had no real choice.

"You sit around the Senate for years and think of what you could do; you shoot
your mouth off," he said. "Then they hand you the ball. You can't go home and
sit on the porch."