After Cox sought White House recordings, Nixon proposed an alternative involving written accounts and Senator John Stennis’s participation. Cox rejected the substitute. Access to the evidence itself mattered: a summary selected or checked through a presidential proposal was not equivalent to a prosecutor examining subpoenaed recordings through the judicial process. [1][2]
On October 20, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to dismiss Cox. Richardson refused and resigned. Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus also refused; Solicitor General Robert Bork, acting as attorney general after the departures, carried out the dismissal. [2] The later court account describes Ruckelshaus as discharged, whereas popular summaries often call both departures resignations. [3]
The episode became the Saturday Night Massacre. “Massacre” is a political metaphor for the dismissals and institutional rupture, not a claim of physical violence. The president had removed the prosecutor who was demanding evidence from him after independence assurances had helped establish that prosecutor’s office. [2][3]
The immediate outcome was not permanent closure. Nixon agreed on October 23 to turn over subpoenaed tapes, and Leon Jaworski replaced Cox. That continuation is crucial: Nixon could remove an individual, but the political response, existing investigations and courts made ending the underlying inquiry a more difficult matter. It would be misleading to treat Cox’s firing as either harmless routine management or successful erasure of the case. [1][3]