To abolish this whole office if it went back to the department of justice given those terms. I did, i went into court with cox. This is something to determine beforehand. They had the famous press conference where he refuses the request for the tapes. I did not think nixon was going to prevail in the long run. As it turned out, the saturday night massacre proved to be part of the reason that he fell when he did. He misplayed it, misjudged it, and cox really decided to pull the rip cord on how they deal with him. Not only were you dealing with john dean, you are also taking extraordinary steps to preserve evidence in case president nixon tried to abort the investigation. Tell us about the intense weeks. Tell us about the garbage. Two unrelated stories. As we discussed in the office what was going to happen and if the president refused. The watergate trial team had taken home copies of all the key evidence and each of us had taken briefcases home each night for at least a week. Had the evidence that in case the president took extraordinary measures, they would be able to do something. The grand jury testimony is secret. We felt we needed to protect the case. We had taken things home and i was burglarized shortly after the press conference. The first place i looked was the attic where i had put away my documents. Those were untouched. Reporter asked the press secretary for the white house whether the plumbers had broken into my house. They said no, but and you say it wasnt the Washington Post . Actually, the Washington Post had taken our garbage. [laughter] it is a service we provide. Thank you. We were putting it out in clear plastic bags. We werent even concealing our garbage and their officers were not far from ours. One morning i woke up. Nowadays, you say you dont put anything in writing you dont want to see on the news. You didnt expect draft documents you have torn up. I saw a memo i had written. It was real, they had the draft. They were picking up our garbage. So we started shredding. That was not under the byline, right . No. Describe how the white house on the eve of the deadline, only days left, how did they try to ram through the compromise . John dean was in the office so much with numerous task forces and giving them information. As a journalist, i was thinking if the press knew that this guy was walking around, it was unbelievable. It was a coke machine, this machine owes me . 25, john d. [laughter] make sure he gets that. Cox and richardson were talking, he mentioned john stennis. The office knew that he might be the monitor or whatever. He has described all considerations. What we didnt know is that stennis had already been on board. He had agreed to do this because he was going to have the help of an old loyal friend. He had been on his staff at one point, counsel to the president of the United States. He was going to help cox i mean stennis translate this stuff. Even though we were taking precautions like making copies of stuff and that sort of thing, i was really kind of blindsided. It was a threeday Holiday Weekend in the fall, perfect for leafpeeping, etc. No one in town they called the White House Press corps and said they had a compromise. They said that cox would not seek any more tapes. It sounded like a threeway compromise. The prosecution force and the white house, the only people that knew anything about it were the people at the White House Holding this press briefing. The only way we found out was that we called the Los Angeles TimesWashington Bureau and said, what is going on . We had no clue. They said that we have word on the compromise. We had to do two things. Tight deadlines. We had to make clear to the press that Archibald Cox had major reservations about this that went to what the court would require. Then we had to get through that to all of the roadblocks it would raise. We were successful getting a short cox statement into the first round of the news cycle. And then, also successful in announcing, thanks to john barker who was in the room and several others. We got to the press club and announced archie cox was going to hold a News Conference. Important as pretty much anything those weeks. I felt terrific about it because we were shorthanded like everyone. It was late and they had managed the news cycle. The government always does that late friday night. I felt good when the next days paper had the story about the compromise and it said in the headline cox defiant. We will see that in a minute. It was this Pressure Cooker environment that Archibald Cox takes a long and lonely walk from the offices on k street to this building at the National Press club. That is where the title of the book comes from. I wanted to read this excerpt because i went with them to retrace the steps. For me, it is one of the most special parts of the book. A government car was supposed to drive archie and others to the National Press club. It got lost in the confusion and never arrived. Lets walk, archie said. They never allow the staff to see him upset. On this saturday, his face looked lifeless. Through mcpherson square, they glanced momentarily at the white house glinting under the october sky. The president of the u. S. Sat inside thinking strategy and waiting for the press conference. Would this tour the country into more of a confused state . It was a crisp, sunny day. They had turned orange and rainbows, chili and yellow in anticipation of another bleak winter. Archie used the time to compose himself. For me, it was not an easy trip to make. There was no doubt that he had to insist on compliance with the court order. He had a duty to adhere to the terms of the departmental order to which he had been appointed. Going eyeball to eyeball with the president of the United States scared him. Who was he to defy challenging the president of the United States . Too much seemed to be expected of him. One of the reasons that he loved his job was he had heard it called the conscience of government. The staff and washington newspapers and Democratic Senators and others expected him to stand up and represent the conscience of the American People. Womanuld anyone man or service the conscience of a nation . They couldnt. The only hope he thought to himself placing one shoe in front of another was arousing the conscience in each citizen, lost in grand marble edifices. Maybe the government would eventually respond. But how did one do this . He had no idea. The walk to the club seemed to last an eternity. I dont know how i ever got there, cox said. It was only with my wifes help. If we can, lets watch a clip of what took place right here at the National Press club. This is a special report from cbs news in washington. Here is cbs correspondent nelson benton. Archibald cox is holding a News Conference to discuss the president s action last night on the watergate tapes. The white house announcing that rather than appealing to the Supreme Court to turn the tapes over, it would provide a summary of the tapes to cox and the watergate committee. Having unlimited access to verify the completeness and the accuracy of the summary. He interpreted that as a refusal to obey the decree of the court that violated the solemn ledge he made to the senate as a special prosecutor. He said last night that he would have more to say a little bit later on. And in this setting today, Archibald Cox would have more to say. We see him coming to the press Club Ballroom with mrs. Cox. We watch and listen. I read in one of the newspapers this morning, the headline cox defiant. I have to say that i dont feel defiant. I told my wife i hate a fight. Some things i feel deeply about are at stake and i hope i can explain and defend them steadfastly. I am not looking for a confrontation. I have learned a great deal in my life without the problems of him posing too much strain on constitutional institutions. I am certainly not out to get the president of the United States. I am merely worried that i am getting too big for my britches. What i see as principal could be vanity. I hope not. In the end, i decided that i need to stick to what i thought was right. You would seem to be in what we call a nonviable position. Are you going to wait for the president to dismiss you . Im going to go about my duties on the terms on which i assumed them. When and why did Elliott Richardson and you decide to resign, rather than fire cox . Watching that press conference, in the Attorney Generals Office at the justice department. We had discussed this sort of pleadingly before. The day before this press conference, elliott and his assistants were discussing what the likely outcome of the white houses response to the special prosecutors request would be. It seemed that the likelihood then was that the president would ask elliott and me to discharge cox. We said what are you going to do if you ask that . They looked at me and said what are you want to do . I said i dont think there is any set of conditions under which it is possible to discharge cox. It didnt seem a hard decision to me. Elliott and i had testified in being confirmed before the senate that we would only discharge cox for extraordinary impropriety. The phrase was used in our testimony. Not only had he not, in all of the dealings with both of them, had any extraordinary impropriety, he had pursued his duties in the most appropriate way possible. There was no ground for discharging him. We both said no. We wouldnt do it. Incidentally, someone asked me, can you clear the historical record. Were you fired or did you resign . I will tell you. The night of the massacre, i was fired. The next monday, the president announced my resignation had been accepted. Whichever one you like better. [laughter] another question, robert bork was vilified by many for doing the deed of firing cox. He in you both believed bork was in a different moral position, and encouraged him to carry out nixons order. Bob borks son is here. Can you tell us, is that accurate . Did you encourage bob . It is accurate. He had not been confirmed when this was going on. It was much earlier in the trouble. It didnt come up. He was the third one in the written chain of command in the white house to carry out orders of the kind we were going to receive. After him there was nobody. The president could have appointed anybody to take that role. We told bob that if he could see it within his conscience do so, we would state that he was in a different condition than we were, and we would support his decision. Which we did. The machinery of government has to continue. The institution of the department was in trouble. It was shaken to the foundation by what had happened. There were fbi agents surrounding both of our offices. They surrounded the special prosecutors office. The institutions of government were in trouble. It would have a certain stabilizing effect is what we thought. Can you describe the scene at the special prosecution had that night . Of course, it was a scene of tremendous emotions. A lot of anger. Also, a deeper emotion than that. I remember, first of all, it is a saturday night of the long weekend. Everyone came back to the office. Some people came from short distances, and some from long distances. There are stories about that. We got back and we got into the Office Without any trouble. The staff, many very young, it could have been a kind of a rock concert type thing, except for the mood. We had these young folks. The mood was incredibly tough. One of the things the white house the fbi did, we had an agent who had worked with us from day one. He was, the staff of the world of him. He was terrific. He was home that night putting up sheet rock in his basement. He had vacation. He got called to go down to the prosecutors office. Do not let anyone remove anything. He couldnt believe it. He came down in a daze. People were coming in. We had a prosecutor named phil bates. A kind of a big guy. He was a tough guy. He said, what are you doing here . Dont make it hard on us. We were just told only anybody take anything out. I remember one of the young attorneys had a newspaper under his arm. One of the other fbi guys said i have to inspect that. He threw it at him. There was that kind of story. Finally, hank ruth got there. He made the comment at a News Conference of this reminded him of seven days in may. I remember there were many comments like that. No one was going to take anything out. Jill had put all her stuff in the attic two days earlier. All the watergate people had done the same thing in a timely way. It was in mailing i wish i could remember more of the comments. I do remember one which took place. George asked what are you going to do . We thought this was an incredible trumped up press conference. This whole thing had been planned. I said im going to go home. After leon came aboard, there were probably two or three letters from the white house saying this person is not appropriate anymore on your staff. In each case, leon took them and gave them to the person without comment. Mine was from ziegler. It said this guy is a bad guy, and he went to a good detail. I think jill will have her own memories of that. Can you tell us where you saturday night . And what do you recall about meeting with cox the next day . On saturday after the press conference, i was in discussion with the rest of the trial team. I was taking a rare day off to go to a family wedding in new york. I said i cant leave. Something might happen. Everybody said, what can happen . He would have to fire the attorney general, and he is not going to do that. Go ahead. I got on the shuttle and went to new york. This is the days before cell phones. I went to the wedding. I got back to the hotel at midnight. The desk clerk jumped over the front desk to hand me a message from george frampton. The fbi has seized our offices. Return immediately. I got on the first plane in the morning and came back. We were discussing, should we resign in protest. This is a horrible thing. We should make a stand. Archie was very adamant in saying no. Unless he makes you not able to do your job, you have to stay. You owe it to the American People. You have the knowledge. It would take time for anyone else to get up to speed with where you are. You must stay. He was speaking out of pure integrity, and his philosophy. We decide we would stay. We had been abolished. Sometimes it is in the record that we werent really abolished. We were reestablished a few days later. I assumed we really were abolished. We stayed in decided we would continue the case. Let me ask you. The outside of the special prosecutors office, the public reaction has been described as a firestorm of protest. Why was the public reaction so intense to the firing of Archibald Cox . And the resignation of Richard Richardson . That is an easy question to answer, but because nixon, a pro, got it wrong, it cant be that easy. The public thought that the law was being obstructed by the president , and they took the law seriously. The public saw one honorable person. He talks about duty, carrying out his responsibilities. He doesnt show vanity. In a world of phonies, a world of people playing games. They saw one honorable person. I do not know how much of it was the law, and how much of it was the sense of integrity that he reflected. There was a feeling out of the Jimmy Stewart movie, mr. Smith goes to washington. That they were watching decency confront washington. They wanted to be on the side of decency. Decency is close to the right word. Another angelo story, when the next attorney general came in, who then became a fellow judge on the panel. His name is in my confused lobes. He became attorney general. He was sent in to question him. He walked in, and he introduced himself. He read the new attorney general his rights from one of those maranda things. The office was shut down. He was supposed to continue the investigation. Did you worry that president nixon was going to escape unscathed . I think there was initial fear that might happen. Things were happening so fast that we didnt really have time to even think about that. Three days later, he said he would give us the tapes and he appointed a new special prosecutor. We really believed that once we had the tapes, that is what actually happen. That we would have an invincible case against the president. You cannot listen to those tapes and not know that the president is guilty. We felt pretty sure quickly that he would not escape unscathed, and that we would prevail. Bob woodward. The aftermath of the saturday night massacre. One immediate result is impeachment resolutions being drawn up against president nixon. Another result is the appointment of this new special prosecutor, who subpoenas dozens of tapes, leading to the landmark decision of the Supreme Court that says the president must turn over the tapes. No person is above the law. In your classic book, you interviewed many of the justices and others about that decision. Specifically, was it difficult . There were nixon appointees. Was it difficult to write that decision, that they must have known would lead to next and two nixon being ousted from office. It is a complex case. The chief justice is listed in the opinion as the author. It turns out that the other justices essentially took the opinion away from him. Im sure this never happens in the Supreme Court now. Look at the poker face over there. No reaction. [laughter] literally, rehnquist recused himself. He worked for john mitchell. The other seven justices took sections of the opinion away from warrenberger. The key to the opinion is the section that justice weight to Justice White took. Which literally says that if someone has evidence that might be relevant, might be admissible in court, it should be turned over. That was the foundation of that opinion. One quick thing, because bob bork is not around. I mentioned to