October 20
SATURDAY NIGHT MASSACRE DAY
Richard M. Nixon pulled out his presidential pistol and let ’em have it this night. Nixon was under heavy pressure to turn over some tape recordings he had made of conversations with various folks in the Oval Office. The taped conversations were regarding the break-in at the Watergate apartment/office complex in Washington DC.
Special Watergate Prosecutor Archibald Cox, whom Nixon had appointed, was applying the pressure, thinking that there might be some interesting stuff on those tapes. So, on this Saturday night in 1973, the President asked U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson refused, so Nixon fired Cox himself. Then, in protest, Richardson resigned. Nixon, a little peeved by now, fired Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus, who also had refused to fire Cox.
Unfortunately for the U.S. President, this Saturday Night Massacre, as it immediately came to be known, only made things worse. Nixon eventually did turn over those tapes; but since there were little pieces of dialogue mysteriously missing, suspicion about the President’s involvement in Watergate grew to the point where he resigned from office (August 9, 1974) rather than face (almost certain) impeachment.
It seems Nixon was also a victim of the Saturday Night Massacre.
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