Saturday Night Massacre: Nixon Fires Special Prosecutor Cox, Richardson and Ruckelshaus Resign in Protest

On Saturday evening, October 20, 1973, President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who had been appointed on May 18, 1973, to investigate Watergate and had refused Nixon’s “Stennis Compromise” proposal the previous evening. Richardson, who had promised the House Judiciary Committee he would appoint an independent prosecutor, refused Nixon’s order and resigned effective immediately. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned. Nixon finally turned to Solicitor General Robert Bork, who as acting head of the Justice Department accepted the President’s order and dismissed Cox. Less than half an hour later, the White House dispatched FBI agents to physically close off and secure the offices of the Special Prosecutor, Attorney General, and Deputy Attorney General.

The events stemmed from Cox’s subpoena for Nixon’s tape recordings, which the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had upheld on October 12, rejecting Nixon’s claims of executive privilege. On October 19, Nixon had offered the Stennis Compromise—asking the notoriously hard-of-hearing Senator John C. Stennis of Mississippi to review and summarize the tapes for the special prosecutor’s office rather than turning over the actual recordings. When Cox refused this obvious ploy and held a press conference insisting on the actual tapes, Nixon moved to eliminate him. By prearrangement with Richardson and Ruckelshaus, Bork agreed to carry out the firing, later claiming he did so to prevent complete disintegration of the Justice Department.

The political firestorm was immediate and overwhelming. More than 50,000 concerned citizens sent telegrams to Washington, and 21 members of Congress introduced resolutions calling for Nixon’s impeachment. On November 14, federal district judge Gerhard Gesell ruled the firing was illegal absent a finding of extraordinary impropriety as specified in the regulation establishing the special prosecutor’s office. Less than a week after the Saturday Night Massacre, an Oliver Quayle poll for NBC News indicated that for the first time, a plurality of U.S. citizens supported impeaching Nixon (44% in favor, 43% opposed, 13% undecided). Nixon relented under pressure and appointed Leon Jaworski as the new Watergate prosecutor on November 1. The Saturday Night Massacre demonstrated both the fragility and resilience of institutional checks on presidential power—while Nixon could remove officials, the public and political backlash prevented him from successfully obstructing the investigation, though it also revealed how a president willing to abuse power could cause a constitutional crisis.