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Bill Ruckleshaus, the deputy attorney general who resigned during the "Saturday Night Massacre" at the heighth of President Nixon’s Watergate scandal, has endorsed Barack Obama for president. “Senator Obama’s ability to attract not only Democrats, but also Republicans and Independents, makes him uniquely qualified to build the broad coalitions needed to address our nation’s challenges,” Ruckelshaus said. “Senator Obama’s integrity and commitment to ethics reform give me confidence that he’s the best candidate to bring transparency to Washington, D.C.” Ruckleshaus is shown here in a 1968 GOP campaign poster with Secretary of State Edgar Whitcomb and Nixon. Whitcomb would become governor, Nixon president while Ruckleshaus lost to U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh. Ruckleshaus, a former Indiana House majority leader and deputy attorney general, was appointed by Nixon as the first head of the Environmental Protection Agency and eventually, FBI Director and then deputy attorney general. In October 1973, Ruckelshaus resigned his post as Deputy Attorney General in what is now known as the “Saturday Night Massacre” rather than accept Nixon’s order to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Attorney General Elliot Richardson also refused an order from Nixon to fire the independent counsel investigating the Watergate break-ins. Solicitor General Robert Bork would eventually fire Cox. In the 1980s, Ruckelshaus returned to helm the EPA after a scandal toppled President Ronald Reagan’s appointee. “Part of our campaign for changing politics in Washington, D.C. includes moving our country past the sort of thinking that divides the country into red states and blue states,” Sen. Obama said. “Our grassroots movement is changing the electoral map, and I’m proud to have the support of William Ruckelshaus.” (HPI Photo)
Tags: Archibald Cox, Barack Obama, Birch Bayh, Edgar Whitcomb, Elliot Richardson, Richard Nixon, William Ruckleshaus
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This entry was written by and posted on April 8, 2008 at 3:25 pm and filed under HPI Weekly. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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