Hugh Scott

Early life and education

The son of Hugh Doggett and Jane Lee (née Lewis) Scott, Hugh Doggett Scott was born on an estate in Fredericksburg, Virginia, that was once owned by George Washington. His grandfather served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War under General John Hunt Morgan, and his great-grandmother was the niece of President Zachary Taylor. After attending public schools in Fredericksburg, he studied at Randolph–Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, from which he graduated in 1919. He enrolled in the Student Reserve Officers Training Corps and the Students' Army Training Corps during World War I.

In 1922, Scott earned his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law at Charlottesville, where he was a member of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society and the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity.

Early political career

Scott was admitted to the bar in 1922 and then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he joined his uncle's law firm. Two years later, he married Marian Huntington Chase to whom he remained married until her death in 1987. The couple had one daughter, Marian.

Scott, who had become a regular worker for the Republican Party, was appointed assistant district attorney of Philadelphia in 1926 and served in that position until 1941. He claimed to have prosecuted more than 20,000 cases during his tenure. From 1938 to 1940, he served as a member of the Governor's Commission on Reform of the Magistrates System.

United States House of Representatives

In 1940, after longtime Republican incumbent George P. Darrow decided to retire, Scott was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district. In 1942, he was re-elected to a second term after defeating Democrat Thomas Minehart, a former member of the Philadelphia City Council and future Pennsylvania Treasurer; Scott received nearly 56% of the vote.

In 1943, he became a member of the Virginia Society of the Cincinnati. In 1944 Scott spoke out fearlessly in the House of Representatives accusing President Roosevelt of having dishonestly manipulated the country into war by: a) moving the U.S. battleship fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor over the objection of Admiral Richardson (whom Roosevelt then fired) in order to give Japan a target it could reach; b) refusing to give Admiral Kimmel at Pearl Harbor (Richardson's replacement) enough PBY Catalina reconnaissance planes to scout the area around the Hawaiian Islands; and c) by withholding from Admiral Kimmel a message received by the U.S. government from the Australian government on the day before the Pearl Harbor attack that the Japanese fleet was steaming toward Pearl Harbor. In 1944, Scott was defeated for re-election by Democrat Herb McGlinchey, losing by only 2,329 votes.

Scott joined the United States Navy Reserve in 1940. He served during World War II, and was posted to both Iceland with the Atlantic Fleet and the USS New Mexico with the United States Pacific Fleet. He was among US forces that entered Japan on the first day of post-war occupation, and was discharged with the rank of commander.

In 1946, Scott reclaimed his House seat, handily defeating McGlinchey by a margin of more than 23,000 vote by speaking out against both President Franklin Roosevelt's "betrayal at Yalta" and communists in Washington, DC. He was reelected five times, and served until winning election to the U.S. Senate.

During his tenure in the House, Scott established himself as a strong internationalist by voting in favor of foreign aid to both Greece and Turkey and the Marshall Plan. he served as chairman of the Republican National Committee; he received the position after helping New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey obtain the Republican nomination in the 1948 presidential election. Facing staunch opposition from Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft, Scott barely survived a no-confidence ballot but still resigned as RNC chairman. He later served as campaign chairman for Dwight Eisenhower during the 1952 presidential election.

United States Senate

In 1958, after fellow Republican Edward Martin declined to run for re-election, Scott was elected to the United States Senate. Scott continued his progressive voting record in the Senate by opposing President Eisenhower's veto of a housing bill in 1959 and a redevelopment bill in 1960. He voted to end segregationist Democratic senators' filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, and he later sponsored 12 bills to implement the recommendations of the Civil Rights Commission. In April 1962, he joined Senator Kenneth Keating of New York in denouncing a UN resolution condemning Israeli retaliation against Syrian gun positions firing on Israeli fishermen on Lake Tiberias. They criticized the action as a form of evenhandedness that "looks like the palm of the hand for the Arabs and the back of the hand for the Israelis."

In 1962, Scott threatened to run for Governor of Pennsylvania if the Republican Party did not nominate the moderate Representative William W. Scranton over the more conservative Judge Robert E. Woodside, a former Pennsylvania Attorney General. He even supported Scranton as a more liberal alternative to conservative Senator Barry Goldwater for the Republican nomination in the 1964 presidential election. Scott also faced re-election in 1964 and overcame the national landslide for Democratic President Lyndon Johnson to defeat the state Secretary of Internal Affairs, Democrat Genevieve Blatt, by approximately 70,000 votes.

Scott voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

Scott supported New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller for the Republican nomination in the 1968 presidential election. On September 24, Scott was narrowly elected Senate Minority Leader over Tennessee Senator Howard Baker (Dirksen's son-in-law), serving until 1977.

In 1967, Scott held a Fellowship at Balliol College, Oxford, where he contributed regularly to Alan Montefiore's politics seminar for postgraduates. Once, when he and Montefiore started talking at the same time, Scott carried on speaking with the amiable excuse: "You can remember what you want to say longer than I can."

Scott was Chairman of the Select Committee on Secret and Confidential Documents (92nd Congress). He wielded tremendous influence.

Scott was displeased with the Richard Nixon administration and believed that it was aloof, unapproachable, and contemptuous of him. Scott believed that he would be given a major role in setting administration policy but was disappointed when that did not occur. Actively assisting in the behind-the-scenes transition from the Nixon administration to the Ford administration in the months leading up to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, Scott sought assurance from Gerald Ford that Scott would be able to address Ford as "Jerry" even after Ford became president.

Scott was one of the three Republican leaders in Congress to meet Nixon in the Oval Office of the White House to tell Nixon that he had lost support of the party in Congress, on August 7, 1974. The meeting came the day before Nixon would announce his resignation from the presidency. The delegation was led by senior party leader and Arizona Senator Goldwater and also included House Minority Leader John Jacob Rhodes (R-Arizona). The erosion of Nixon's support had progressed after the June 1972 Watergate break-in. At that meeting, Scott and Goldwater told Nixon that, at most, 15 Senators were willing to consider voting to acquit him–not even half of the 34 votes Nixon needed to avoid conviction and removal from office.

In 1976, the Senate undertook an ethics inquiry into accusations that he had received payment from lobbyists for the Gulf Oil Corporation. Scott acknowledged having received $45,000 but claimed that they were legal campaign contributions.

He did not run for re-election in 1976 and was succeeded by Republican John Heinz. The same year, he chaired the Pennsylvania delegation to the Republican National Convention.

Later life

Scott was a resident of Washington, D.C., and then Falls Church, Virginia, until his death there in 1994. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His papers are held at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia.

Notes

References

• Kotlowski, Dean J. "Unhappily Yoked? Hugh Scott and Richard Nixon." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 2001 125(3): 233–266. ISSN 0031-4587 online
  • Abstract: While their different public personas, political interests, and institutional duties led to occasional disagreement, President Richard Nixon and Senate Minority Leader Scott were not always unhappily tethered as evidenced by their stances on domestic and foreign issues throughout Nixon's presidency, during 1968–74. While he jousted with Nixon over racial policies and his Supreme Court nominations, including his choice of Judge Clement F. Haynsworth Jr., of South Carolina, Scott supported much of Nixon's domestic agenda, applauded the president's conduct of foreign affairs, backed his Vietnam policy, praised his invasion of Cambodia, publicly proclaimed Nixon's innocence during the Watergate scandal, and endorsed President Gerald Ford's pardon of his predecessor. The Nixon-Scott relationship is notable because it confirms scholars' assumptions about Nixon's hot-and-cold association with Congress and indicates that sparring between moderate Republicans like Nixon and Scott was on its way out.

References

1. "House – June 18, 1957". [[United States Government Publishing Office.
2. "House – August 27, 1957". [[United States Government Publishing Office.
3. "Senate – April 8, 1960". [[United States Government Publishing Office.
4. "Senate – June 19, 1964". [[United States Government Publishing Office.
5. "Senate – March 11, 1968". [[United States Government Publishing Office.
6. "Senate – March 27, 1962". [[United States Government Publishing Office.
7. "Senate – May 26, 1965". [[United States Government Publishing Office.
8. "Senate – August 4, 1965". [[United States Government Publishing Office.
9. "Senate – August 30, 1967". [[United States Government Publishing Office.
10. (1960). "The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography". James T. White & Company.
11. Binder, David. (July 23, 1994). "Senator Hugh Scott, 93, Dies; Former Leader of Republicans". [[The New York Times]].
12. Beers, Paul B.. (1980). "Pennsylvania Politics Today and Yesterday: The Tolerable Accommodation". Pennsylvania State University Press.
13. "SCOTT, Hugh Doggett, Jr., (1900 - 1994)". [[Biographical Directory of the United States Congress]].
14. Coakley, Michael B.. (July 23, 1994). "Hugh Scott, A Giant In Pa. And Congress, Dies At 93". [[The Philadelphia Inquirer]].
15. "Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 5, 1940". [[Clerk of the United States House of Representatives]].
16. "Statistics of the Congressional Election of 1942". [[Clerk of the United States House of Representatives]].
17. "Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 7, 1944". [[Clerk of the United States House of Representatives]].
18. "Statistics of the Congressional Election of November 5, 1946". [[Clerk of the United States House of Representatives]].
19. (August 5, 1949). "Dewey Forces Lose Battle for Republican Leadership". The Los Angeles Times.
20. Siracusa, Joseph M.. (2004). "The Kennedy Years". Facts On File, Inc..
21. A memorable quote from Scott came during the [[U-2 Incident]] in 1960, when he said, "We have violated the eleventh Commandment — Thou Shall Not Get Caught."[[Evan Thomas]], ''The Very Best Men, The Daring Early Years of the CIA.'', p. 219
22. (10 April 1962). "U.N. Security Council Adopts Resolutions Censuring Israel; France Abstains". Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
23. "Hugh Scott: A Featured Biography". [[United States Senate]].
24. Finney, John W.. (September 25, 1969). "G.O.P. Names Scott as Leader, Griffin as Whip". [[The New York Times]].
25. Geoffrey Thomas, School of Philosophy, Birkbeck College, University of London, personal recollection
26. Woodward and Bernstein, The Final Days at 186 (New York: Avon Books 1976).
27. [https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2014/0807/Richard-Nixon-s-resignation-the-day-before-a-moment-of-truth "Richard Nixon's resignation: the day before, a moment of truth"], ''[[The Christian Science Monitor]]'', August 7, 2014. Retrieved November 6, 2016.
28. Berbers, John. (August 8, 1974). "'Gloomy' Picture". The New York Times.
29. (July 23, 1994). "Senator Hugh Scott, 93, Dies; Former Leader of Republicans". The New York Times.