Henry S. Ruth Jr.

Henry Swartley "Hank" Ruth Jr. (April 16, 1931 – March 16, 2012) was an American lawyer who served as the third special prosecutor during the Watergate Scandal. He was succeeded by Charles F. Ruff.

Early life Ruth was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He attended Yale University, graduating in 1952. He also went to the University of Pennsylvania Law School, completing his law degree in 1955. In 1964, Ruth went to Mississippi to enforce the Civil Rights Act which had just been passed.

In the late 1960s, Ruth taught law at the University of Pennsylvania for two years. Counsel to the Senate Watergate committee, Samuel Dash said, "But for Hank Ruth, there might not have been a Watergate staff at all…" Ruth questioned Nixon and others about the missing 18 1/2 minutes of tape. In 1988, he moved to Tuscan, Arizona, but kept an affiliation with Crowell & Moring, an international law firm in Washington D.C., through 1994.

In columns in The Wall Street Journal in the 1990s, he criticized President Bill Clinton for "presidential perjury and obstruction." He wrote a book, The Challenge of Crime, with lawyer and academic Kevin Reitz in 2003.

Personal life Ruth married Christine Polk. They had three daughters: Diana Ruth, Tenley Ruth, and Laura Ruth. That marriage ended in divorce. He then married to Deborah Mathieu.

In 2012, he died in Tucson, Arizona from a stroke at the age of eighty.