THE PRESIDENCY: Richard Nixon Stumbles to the Brink

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Shortly after the Cox press conference, Richardson and his top aides were gathered in his office at the Justice Department. His White House telephone rang. The caller (apparently Haig) conveyed the message: "Fire Cox." Replied Richardson: "That I could not do." The Attorney General turned to his deputy, Bill Ruckelshaus. "You'll have to do it, Bill." Solemnly Ruckelshaus answered: "I wouldn't do it, either." All eyes in the office turned to the third man in the department's hierarchy, Solicitor General Bork. Said Bork slowly: "I probably would." It turned out to be a prophetic admission.

"No Choice." In a five-paragraph letter of resignation, Richardson cited his pledge to the Senate, given at his confirmation hearings last May, that he would "not countermand or interfere with the special prosecutor's decisions or actions." He added: "I trust that you understand that I could not in the light of these firm and repeated commitments carry out your direction . . . In the circumstances, therefore, I felt that I have no choice but to resign." Nixon accepted with a one-sentence note: "It is with the deepest regret and with an understanding of the circumstances which brought you to your decision that I accept your resignation." In his note to the President, Ruckelshaus wrote: "I am sorry my conscience will not permit me to carry out your instructions to fire Archibald Cox." Ruckelshaus was never directly informed that he had been fired, but he felt obliged to resign.

The FBI on White House orders moved quickly to take possession of the offices and files of the ousted men. One Cox deputy prosecutor, arriving to pick up some personal papers, was denied even that access. Said he: "Perhaps it wasn't Seven Days in May, but it was one day in October."

A high White House official defended the President's actions: "In the face of a direct challenge to his authority, the President had no option but to fire Cox. You can't tolerate that kind of thing." Then he repeated the view that any defiance of Nixon's will at home would be taken as weakness abroad, particularly in the Soviet Union. Added this aide: "This is starchy stuff. We've had six months of hemorrhaging. We had to take terminal action."

Indeed, Nixon's action could prove to be terminal—although not in the way the White House had intended. By firing Archibald Cox, Nixon had removed one of his best hopes of eventual vindication: a final judgment by an independent investigator that the President was in no way criminally implicated in the Watergate deceits and transgressions. Now a decapitated Justice Department, stripped of any independence and trying to continue the investigations, could come to a similar judgment—but with little credibility.