How did Nixon fire Cox after two AGs resigned?

The Disaster and Its Immediate Cause

On Saturday, October 20, 1973, President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson refused the directive and resigned his post effective immediately in protest. This action marked the start of a rapid sequence of dismissals within the Justice Department. The conflict arose after Cox declined to drop a subpoena for White House tapes. Nixon’s order to remove Cox triggered a constitutional crisis that would define the later stages of the Watergate scandal.

The special prosecutor position was a career reserved role under the authority of the attorney general. Nixon’s insistence on firing Cox despite these legal constraints set the stage for the subsequent resignations. The events of that evening represented an unprecedented display of executive power. The refusal by the top legal officials to comply with the president’s order highlighted the tension between executive authority and legal independence.

First Reports From the Scene

After Richardson’s resignation, Nixon turned to Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. Ruckelshaus also refused the order to fire Cox and resigned in protest. The president then directed Solicitor General Robert Bork, the third-most-senior official at the Justice Department, to carry out the dismissal. Bork complied with Nixon’s request and fired Cox. This sequence of events occurred during a single evening, creating a dramatic shift in the leadership of the Department of Justice.

Robert Bork stated that he had intended to resign after carrying out the dismissal. However, he was persuaded by Richardson and Ruckelshaus to stay on for the good of the Justice Department. The phrase 'Saturday Night Massacre' first appeared in writing two days later in a Washington Post article by David S. Broder. Broder noted that the events were already being called by that name. The origin of the specific phrase remains unknown, though later accounts have attributed it to humorist Art Buchwald based on the recollection of Sally Quinn.

Rescue, Response, and Fallout

The political fallout from the dismissals moved quickly through the legislative branch. Ten days after the events of October 20, the House of Representatives began the impeachment process against President Nixon on October 30, 1973. This formal step marked a significant escalation in the constitutional crisis. The public reaction to the president's actions was sharply negative, damaging his standing in a tangible way. Approval ratings, which had previously been dormant in their opposition, turned decisively against Nixon. His support level dropped to an abysmal 27 percent, reflecting the severity of the public backlash to the handling of the special prosecutor's removal.

Legal and administrative responses followed the initial political shock. On November 1, 1973, Leon Jaworski was appointed as the new special prosecutor to resume the investigation. This appointment occurred in the face of overwhelming protest against the previous dismissal. The legal validity of the firing was subsequently challenged in court. On November 14, 1973, United States district judge Gerhard Gesell ruled that the dismissal of Archibald Cox had been illegal. This judicial determination underscored the procedural violations inherent in the sequence of events that had taken place over that single Saturday evening.

The Questions the Disaster Left Behind

The brief constitutional crisis altered the trajectory of the investigation. The removal of Archibald Cox did not end the scrutiny of the president's involvement in the Watergate break-in. Jaworski eventually secured the release of the Oval Office recordings in July 1974, when the Supreme Court ruled that the tapes did not fall under executive privilege. This legal victory for the special prosecutor highlighted the limits of presidential power in the face of judicial oversight.

The long-term consequence of the events on October 20, 1973, was the eventual resignation of Richard Nixon. He stepped down from the presidency nine months and twenty days later, on August 9, 1974. The rapid decline in his approval ratings to 27 percent following the massacre illustrated the immediate political cost of his actions. The sequence of resignations by Richardson and Ruckelshaus, followed by Bork's compliance, demonstrated the tension between executive orders and legal duty.

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