President Abolishes Prosecutor's Office; FBI Seals Records
By Carroll Kilpatrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 21, 1973; Page A01
In the most traumatic government upheaval of the Watergate crisis,
President Nixon yesterday discharged Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox
and accepted the resignations of Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson
and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus.
The President also abolished the office of the special prosecutor and
turned over to the Justice Department the entire responsibility for
further investigation and prosecution of suspects and defendants in
Watergate and related cases.
Shortly after the White House announcement, FBI agents sealed off the
offices of Richardson and Ruckelshaus in the Justice Department and at
Cox's headquarters in an office building on K Street NW.
An FBI spokesman said the agents moved in "at the request of the White House."
Agents told staff members in Cox's office they would be allowed to take
out only personal papers. A Justice Department official said the FBI
agents and building guards at Richardson's and Ruckelshaus' offices were
there "to be sure that nothing was taken out."
Richardson resigned when Mr. Nixon instructed him to fire Cox and
Richardson refused. When the President then asked Ruckelshaus to dismiss
Cox, he refused, White House spokesman Ronald L. Ziegler said, and he
was fired. Ruckelshaus said he resigned.
Finally, the President turned to Solicitor General Robert H. Bork, who
by law becomes acting Attorney General when the Attorney General and
deputy attorney general are absent, and he carried out the President's
order to fire Cox. The letter from the President to Bork also said
Ruckelshaus resigned.
These dramatic developments were announced at the White House at 8:25
p.m. after Cox had refused to accept or comply with the terms of an
agreement worked out by the President and the Senate Watergate committee
under which summarized material from the White House Watergate tapes
would be turned over to Cox and the Senate committee.
In announcing the plan Friday night, the President ordered Cox to make
no further effort to obtain tapes or other presidential documents.
Cox responded that he could not comply with the President's instructions
and elaborated on his refusal and vowed to pursue the tape recordings
at a televised news conference yesterday.
That set in motion the chain of events that resulted in the departure of
Cox and the two top officials of the Justice Department and immediately
raised prospects that the President himself might be impeached or
forced to resign.
In a statement last night, Cox said: "Whether ours shall continue to be a
government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately
the American people."
The action raised new questions as to whether Congress would proceed to
confirm House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to be Vice
President or leave Speaker of the House Carl Albert (D-Okla.) next in
line of succession to the highest office in the land.
Richardson met at the White House in the late afternoon with Mr. Nixon
and at 8:25 p.m. Ziegler appeared in the White House press room to read a
statement outlining the President's decisions.
The President discharged Cox because he "refused to comply with
instructions" the President gave him Friday night through the Attorney
General, Ziegler said.
Furthermore, Ziegler said, the office of special prosecutor was
abolished and its functions have been turned over to the Department of
Justice.
The department will carry out the functions of the prosecutor's office "with thoroughness and vigor," Ziegler said.
Mr. Nixon sought to avoid a constitutional confrontation by the action
he announced Friday, the press secretary said, to give the courts the
information from the tapes which the President had considered
privileged.
That action was accepted by "responsible leaders in the Congress and in
the country," Ziegler commented, but the special prosecutor "defied" the
President's instructions "at a time of serious world crisis" and made
it "necessary" for the President to discharge him.
Before taking action, Ziegler said, the President met with Richardson to
instruct him to dismiss Cox, but Richardson felt he could not do so
because it conflicted with the promise he had made to the Senate,
Ziegler said.
After Richardson submitted his resignation, the President directed
Ruckelshaus to dismiss Cox. When Ruckelshaus refused to carry out the
President's directive, he also was "discharged," Ziegler said. The
President's letter to Bork said Ruckelshaus resigned.
Mr. Nixon then directed Bork to carry out the instruction. Bork did so
in a two-paragraph letter to Cox, in which he said that at the
instruction of the President he was "discharging you, effective at once,
from your position as special prosecutor, Watergate special prosecution
force."
Bork signed his letter as "acting Attorney General."
Richardson told the President in his letter that he was resigning with
"deep regret." He explained that when named Attorney General "you gave
me the authority to name a special prosecutor."
"At many points throughout the nomination hearings, I reaffirmed my
intention to assure the independence of the special prosecutor,"
Richardson said.
He said he promised that Cox would not be dismissed except for "extraordinary improprieties."
"While I fully respect the reasons that have led you to conclude that
the special prosecutor must be discharged, I trust that you understand
that I could not in the light of these firm and repeated commitments
carry out your direction that this be done," Richardson said.
Richardson expressed "lasting gratitude" to the President, under whom he
also served as under secretary of state, Secretary of Health, Education
and Welfare and Secretary of Defense. He became Attorney General in May
after the resignation of Richard G. Kleindienst, who explained that
because of his close association with former Attorney General John N.
Mitchell and others involved in Watergate he did not believe he should
stay in the post and carry out their prosecution.
"It has been a privilege to share in your efforts to make the structure
of world peace more stable and the structure of our own government more
responsive," Richardson wrote Mr. Nixon.
"I believe profoundly in the rightness and importance of those efforts,
and I trust that they will meet with increasing success in the remaining
years of your presidency."
The President replied with a one-sentence letter, addressed "Dear
Elliott." It said: "It is with the deepest regret and with an
understanding of the circumstances which brought you to your decision
that I accept your resignation."
The White House did not release an exchange of letters between
Ruckelshaus and the President. But Ruckelshaus wrote a resignation
letter and released it.
In a letter to Bork, the President, noting that by law he was acting
Attorney General, said that Cox had "made it apparent that he will not
comply with the instructions I issued to him."
"Clearly the government of the United States cannot function if
employees of the executive branch are free to ignore in this fashion the
instructions of the President," Mr. Nixon wrote.
"Accordingly, in your capacity of acting Attorney General, I direct you
to discharge Mr. Cox immediately and to take all steps necessary to
return to the Department of Justice the functions now being performed by
the Watergate Special Prosecution Force.
"It is my expectation that the Department of Justice will continue with
full vigor the investigations and prosecutions that had been entrusted
to the Watergate special prosecution force."
At the Justice Department, where there were repeated requests by newsmen
to interview Richardson and Ruckelshaus, department spokesman John W.
Hushen said they had "no desire to come out and talk to newsmen."
Hushen quoted Bork: "All I will say is that I carried out the President's directive."
Hushen said that Richardson would hold a news conference "within a few
days." Beginning about 8 p.m., Richardson spent an hour or so calling
"relatives, friends and associates," Hushen said.
White House aides, visibly shocked by the developments, argued that when
direct quotations from the presidential tapes are released they will
restore confidence in the President.
Sen. John Stennis (D-Miss.), picked by Mr. Nixon to listen to all the
tapes, will have "unlimited" access to the pertinent recordings and can
decide what should or should not be disclosed.
Stennis is expected to begin listening to them soon, possibly early this
week. Those requested by the special prosecutor run 10 hours and one
minute. Stennis may decide to listen to all or parts of them more than
once. He will be the only one to do so. The President's statement on the
tapes and excerpts from them will be delivered to the U.S. District
Court here and to the Senate Watergate committee at the same time,
officials said.
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