Richardson, who was descended from some of Boston's earliest settlers, was sometimes referred to by friends as ''the former everything'' because of the great variety of positions he held both in Massachusetts and in the federal government. Years later, Mr. Richardson, in conversations with friends, would compare his feelings at that time with those he experienced when he was asked to fire Mr. Cox.He returned to Harvard Law School in 1945 where he became editor and president of the Harvard Law Review. Elliot L Richardson, who refused Pres Richard M Nixon's order to fire special Watergate prosecutor, dies at age of 79; he served in wide variety of positions in both Massachusetts and in … Mr. Bork's behavior was a source of criticism in 1987 when the Senate refused to confirm his nomination to the Supreme Court.The orders to fire Mr. Cox came as President Nixon struggled to limit the investigation that stemmed from the June 17, 1972, break-in at the Democratic Party's headquarters at the Watergate complex.In his 1996 book, ''Reflections of a Moderate,'' Mr. Richardson recalled that he came to see events clearly in the midst of that tension-drenched time. U.S. President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox; Richardson refused and resigned effective immediately. how did he act like a democrat.
''It was clear that I could not carry out the instruction,'' he wrote and his wife joked that he would be carried out of the Justice Department in a mahogany coffin.Mr. He also served as ambassador to Britain, negotiated the worldwide treaty on the Law of the Sea and was the chief representative of the United Nations in monitoring Nicaraguan elections in 1990, among other assignments.But it was Mr. Richardson's stand during Watergate when he was Richard M. Nixon's attorney general that was widely lauded as a special moment of integrity and rectitude that secured him a place in the nation's history.
RICHARD NIXON: As the new attorney general, I have today named Elliot Richardson. He eventually decided he was being exploited by Mr. Nixon to get rid of Mr. Cox, who was determined to obtain tape-recordings made surreptitiously in the White House.Mr. degree in philosophy from Harvard College, where he resided in Winthrop House, graduated cum laude in 1941, an… Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; Ruckelshaus refused, and also resigned. On October 20 1973 President Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was investigating the Watergate scandal. degree from In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Richardson was associated with the Washington, D.C., office of the New York City law firm of I am a moderate – a radical moderate. Those events, on Saturday, Oct. 20, 1973, became known as the Saturday Night Massacre.Robert H. Bork, who was then the solicitor general and thus the Justice Department's highest-ranking remaining official, accepted the assignment and fired Mr. Cox.
January 30, 1973 – May 24, 1973Sworn into office on 30 January 1973, Elliot L. Richardson served less than four months and thus had limited impact on the affairs of the department. We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. Richardson refused and resigned in protest. When Cox tried to get an injunction for the release of the tapes, Nixon ordered Elliot Richardson, the attorney general, to fire Cox (after all, it was the Justice Department that had hired Cox), but Richardson refused and resigned. The Saturday Night Massacre was a milestone in the Watergate scandal, but Nixon’s firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox (and the resignations-in-protest of the top two officials in the Justice Department, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and deputy AG William Ruckelshaus) ultimately did not stop the investigation. Last year, he urged the House to censure President Clinton but not impeach him.After hearing of Mr. Richardson's death, President Clinton said that Mr. Richardson ''put the nation's interests first even when the personal cost was very high.
Although he promised to examine the budget carefully to identify areas for savings, and in fact later ordered the closing of some military installations, he cautioned against precipitate cuts.
Then Milley and a cadre of lemmings fell in behind the president as he slouched toward the boarded-up church, there to display a Bible like a pitchman selling snake oil — a pitchman who had no more taken the medicine he held aloft than Trump had read the Bible he held in his hand. He once told friends that he spent his years at Harvard College mostly drawing cartoons for the Lampoon, the comedy magazine. Elliot L Richardson, who refused Pres Richard M Nixon's order to fire special Watergate prosecutor, dies at age of 79; he served in wide variety of positions in both Massachusetts and in … See our We rely on readers like you to uphold a free press. Richardson began his own public career as an aide to Senator Leverett Saltonstall, a venerable Republican. I believe profoundly in the ultimate value of human dignity and equality. Richardson's wife, Anne, died last July. What Nixon did do was direct Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Archibald Cox; Cox had been the special prosecutor charged with looking into the burglary at Watergate.
''In 1976, he recalled in an article in the Atlantic Monthly that he came to realize he was in a ''peculiar no-man's land between the special prosecutor and the president.'' Similarly, he strongly supported continued military assistance at current levels. Elliot L. Richardson, the archetype of the cultivated New England Brahmin who served in an astonishingly broad range of high public positions, and who was best known for his refusal during Watergate to obey President Richard M. Nixon's order to fire a special prosecutor, died yesterday in … Richardson refused to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox. ''The more I thought about it,'' he wrote, ''the clearer it seemed to me that public confidence in the investigation would depend on its being independent not only in fact, but in appearance.