Who ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson and acting Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire special
Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox during the “Saturday Night Massacre” in October 1973?
Wikipedia says it was President Nixon, but the article “Falklands/Malvinas (B): The Haig Mediation Effort” by Don Lippincott and Gregory Treverton says it was Haig, the then Chief of Staff at the White House, who made the order.
Can anyone enlighten me with this question?
If it was Haig, then it was still Nixon. An order from the President relayed through one of his subordinates is still an order from the President.
As @Chronos says, the order undoubtedly came from Nixon himself even if it was delivered through Haig. But a Washington Post article I found (article – may need a subscription) indicates that Nixon directly ordered Richardson to fire Cox, and Richardson resigned. Haig then called Ruckelshaus and told him that he had to fire Cox, leading Ruckelshaus to resign.
At the time I had a bumper sticker saying “Impeach the Coxsacker!”
According to The Final Days, Haig called Richardson and passed on Nixon’s order to fire Cox. Richardson insisted on seeing the President, to hand in his resignation. Richardson came to the White House and met with the President, explaining that he could not fire the special prosecutor.
And then Bork, the weasel, fired the special prosecutor, ensuring thereby that he would never be appointed to the Supreme Court.
Exactly this. The U.S. Attorney General is a Cabinet position, as well as being the head of the Department of Justice, and the chief law enforcement officer of the U.S. Only the President has the power to actually fire such a person; the White House Chief of Staff is also a Cabinet-level position, and would lack the authority to actually make the decision (though the President may designate the Chief of Staff to deliver the news to the AG).
Somewhere I read that Richardson could see the order to fire Cox coming, so he had a meeting with Ruckelshaus and Bork ahead of time. They agreed that they couldn’t all quit because it would leave the Justice Dept without good leadership or something like that. But they’d make the point by two of them quitting/being fired, leaving it up to Bork to ax Cox. Don’t know if this was known during Bork’s confirmation hearing.
Thank you all for the detailed reply.
When I first read your comment, I assumed that this was something Bork came up with later as justification for this actions.
However, googling it, there is an account which backs this up, with the fear that there would be even more resignations.
There should have been more resignations. The firings were political interference in the prosecutorial function.