Saturday Night Massacre: Nixon Fires His Prosecutors

President Richard Nixon ordered the firing of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox on the evening of October 20, 1973, triggering a chain of resignations that became known as the Saturday Night Massacre — the most dramatic constitutional confrontation between a president and the rule of law in American history. By the time the night was over, the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General had both refused the order and resigned, and the Justice Department was in chaos. The crisis began when Cox subpoenaed tape recordings of Nixon's Oval Office conversations that might prove or disprove the president's involvement in the Watergate cover-up. Nixon offered a compromise: Senator John Stennis, a conservative Democrat who was partially deaf, would listen to the tapes and verify a summary. Cox refused the arrangement and publicly defied the president. Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson refused and resigned. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to carry out the firing. Ruckelshaus also refused and was fired. The order passed to Solicitor General Robert Bork, third in line at the Justice Department, who finally executed the dismissal. The public backlash was immediate and overwhelming. Western Union's telegraph system was flooded with protests — more than 450,000 telegrams reached Washington in the days that followed. Newspapers that had previously been cautious about impeachment now called openly for Nixon's removal. The House of Representatives began formal impeachment proceedings. Polls showed a dramatic shift in public opinion against the president. Nixon's calculation that firing Cox would end the investigation proved catastrophically wrong. Public pressure forced him to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who pursued the same tapes with equal determination. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in United States v. Nixon that the president must surrender the recordings. The tapes revealed Nixon's direct involvement in the cover-up, and he resigned on August 9, 1974, rather than face certain impeachment and removal. The Saturday Night Massacre had accelerated the very outcome Nixon had tried to prevent.