Editing Archibald Cox (section)

===White House ultimatum===
Unlike its actions following the Sirica decision, the White House remained quiet that Friday night and through the weekend following the Court of Appeals ruling. Cox had no response until he met Richardson at 6:00&nbsp;p.m. on Monday, October 15. Cox thought this meeting would be a continuation of the "Byzantine" conversation (as Cox called it) from the previous Friday, but instead Richardson appeared now to be the point man on negotiations over the tapes.{{efn|On Saturday October 13, Wright telephoned from Texas that the president should appeal to the Supreme Court. Nixon, however, did not want to take the risk of losing in the Court whose ruling he publicly pledged to respect.{{sfn|Kutler|1990|p=401}} As Richardson came to realize later, the plan of Nixon and Haig was to force Cox to resign or at least engineer a situation that made it appear that Cox was in the wrong so as to justify firing him. It was essential for this plan, however, that Richardson appear to be the one negotiating with Cox and, even more importantly, not resign but instead fire Cox when Cox refused Richardson's "reasonable proposal."<ref>{{harvnb|Emery|1994|p=388}}; {{harvnb|Richardson|1976|pp=39–40}}; {{harvnb|Doyle|1977|pp=140–141}}.</ref> On Monday morning Haig had Richardson in the White House and either appealing to his vanity or in an attempt to keep him off balance gave an elaborate presentation on the progress of the [[Yom Kippur War|war by Egypt and Syria against Israel]], which had resulted in a tense standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States the previous week. He then turned to Watergate and told Richardson that Nixon had decided to fire Cox and submit to Sirica summaries of the tapes verified by him. He even had a draft letter directing Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson told him he would resign if he received such a letter.<ref>{{harvnb|Emery|1994|p=388}}; {{harvnb|Richardson|1976|p=40}}.</ref> Buzhardt met Richardson separately and suggested that a third party verifier might be an alternative. Richardson seized on the idea and urged Haig to press in upon the president as a way to avoid adverse public reaction. When back at his office, he received a phone call from Haig saying he would try to persuade the president to use a third party and would suggest Senator John Stennis. An hour later he called again to say that the president would agree on two conditions: Cox would be barred from asking for any more documents, tapes, or other presidential material; and Richardson must agree to fire Cox if the latter balked. Richardson said that he would call back within an hour. When he did, he told Haig that he would not fire Cox under these circumstances. Haig responded by merely saying that he would contact Stennis directly to seek his cooperation. At 4:00 p.m. he again met with Haig and Buzhardt who told him Stennis was on board. They gave him the impression that the Stennis plan was very similar to the plan Cox had proposed but Buzhardt said that plan was confidential and did not give a copy to Richardson.{{sfn|Doyle|1977|pp=143–145}}}} Richardson gave an outline of a proposal to have Senator [[John C. Stennis|John Stennis]] authenticate transcripts of relevant portions of the tapes. Cox was able to infer that Richardson had gotten orders from the White House and was concerned that if a compromise was not reached one or both would be fired. During the 75-minute meeting, Cox asked a long list of questions, including where he would stand with respect to future demands for documents, tapes, or other material. Because he had an engagement, Richardson proposed they meet again in the morning.{{sfn|Doyle|1977|pp=145–147}} The next day Richardson told Cox that if they did not have an agreement by Friday "the consequences will be very serious for both of us." Cox objected to the deadline, suggesting that if their talks continue they could easily get a postponement of any response due the court. Richardson could not explain why there was a deadline and instead wanted to go over the points they had agreed upon, then discuss other issues; but Cox insisted that it was an inefficient way to proceed and gave him his earlier 6-page proposal; and Richardson agreed to write a counter-proposal.{{sfn|Doyle|1977|pp=149–150}}

[[File:Elliot Richardson, photo portrait, Nixon administration, black white.jpg|thumb|left|[[Elliot Richardson]], photo portrait during the Nixon administration]]
Cox did not hear from Richardson the rest of Tuesday or Wednesday. There was much disagreement in the Special Prosecutor's office whether Cox should accept the proposal at all. Much of the concern had to do with Senator Stennis, a Nixon supporter, but more importantly a frail, partially deaf<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/12/19/haig-trusted-defender-of-an-embattled-president/8553bbfe-947b-4415-99de-5d5c7eebe82e/ |title=Haig: Trusted Defender of An Embattled President |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |access-date=2018-09-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180925180448/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/12/19/haig-trusted-defender-of-an-embattled-president/8553bbfe-947b-4415-99de-5d5c7eebe82e/ |archive-date=2018-09-25 |url-status=live }}</ref> 72-year-old who only recently had recovered from a near fatal gunshot wound in a mugging in January. Cox was worried that rejecting a deal would risk obtaining anything from the White House. James Neal cautioned that if he rejected a compromise a large part of the country might accuse him of acting like a "super-president" without any checks. Doyle had the opposite concern: if Cox accepted less than the tapes, which the court ordered turned over, he might be seen as part of the cover-up.{{efn|There was some evidence supporting Doyle's view. The much tighter agreement that Cox proposed before the Court of Appeals decision produced this response by Senate Majority Leader, one of the few outside the office who saw it: "Well, you've offered to give ninety percent of it away."{{sfn|Doyle|1977|p=122}} Richardson now wanted him to give away more.}} James Neal had a suggestion to minimize the Stennis problem—have him appointed by the court as one of several special masters. In that way he could obtain assistance in a publicly regulated manner.{{sfn|Doyle|1977|pp=151–152}} In the midst of the internal debate word came in the afternoon of Wednesday, October 17, that Judge Sirica dismissed the suit of the Senate Watergate Committee against Nixon seeking the tapes. Sirica ruled that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/18/archives/ervin-panel-loses-in-suit-for-tapes-siricarules-courts-lack.html|last=Ripley|first=Anthony|title=Ervin Panel Loses Suit for Tapes|work=New York Times|date=October 18, 1973|pages=1, 30|access-date=April 28, 2016|url-access=subscription|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170909054746/http://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/18/archives/ervin-panel-loses-in-suit-for-tapes-siricarules-courts-lack.html|archive-date=September 9, 2017|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref> It left the Special Prosecutor as the only means by which the tapes could be made public. Pressure on Cox to seek the material increased, while the White House was left with only one avenue to block it and so had added incentive to pressure Richardson to get Cox either to compromise or resign.

At 5:00&nbsp;p.m. Richardson hand-delivered to Cox a draft entitled "A Proposal", which contained the Buzhardt comments. He called Cox at 6:00 for his comments. Cox replied: "I think I should respond in writing, Elliot." That night James Neal and Dean's lawyer worked past midnight finalizing John Dean's plea agreement. At about 2:30&nbsp;a.m. Neal had the lawyer review with Dean the agreement, including the provision that if any testimony he had already given proved materially false, he could be prosecuted for perjury. Neal said that when Dean agreed to the plea deal containing that proviso, he knew that Dean's version of the events was truthful and he also realized that "Archibald Cox was in serious trouble with the president."{{sfn|Doyle|1977|pp=153–154}}

On Thursday, October 18, Cox drafted an 11-point reply to Richardson. Cox assured Richardson that he was "not unamenable" to a solution in which he had no direct access to the tapes. But he felt that it was unfair to depend on one individual to be responsible for verification, so he proposed Neal's idea of three "Special Masters" whose identities were disclosed from the start. He commented on the method for determining what portions would be transcribed and suggested that the tapes be subject to analysis for tampering. The comments went by messenger at mid-afternoon. Richardson around 6 p.m. brought it to the White House, where Wright had just returned from Texas (to finalize the appeal papers to the Supreme Court that were due the following day), and although he had just reviewed the "Stennis proposal," he was enthusiastically extolling its reasonableness and holding forth on how the president could convince the American people that it was the solution to the crisis. When shown the Cox counter-proposal, he was outraged that Cox had "rejected" the president's offer. Wright counseled rejection of Cox's counteroffer since he believed the president had a "50–50 chance" in the Supreme Court to win outright.{{efn|Neither Wright nor any of Nixon's other lawyers had been permitted to listen to the tapes, so they did not know how clearly they showed the president's culpability for obstruction of justice at least. They were unable therefore to evaluate how serious a risk a 50% chance of full disclose constituted. Moreover, Wright at least was still unaware that the president had already ruled out presenting his case to the Supreme Court.}} Richardson, perplexed at the opposition to negotiating with Cox, suggested to Wright: "Charlie, why don't you call Archie and see if you can sell it to him."{{efn|Both Richardson and Wright were unaware that the Nixon-Haig plan was to isolate the president's lawyers from the negotiations in order to use Richardson, and his reputation for integrity, to help sell the reasonableness of the plan. Back in his office that night after considering whether he would be able to pressure Cox the way the White House wanted him to, Richardson wrote out a memo entitled "Why I must resign", which concluded that the president's attitude toward Cox was not "fundamentally valid."{{sfn|Doyle|1977|p=157}}}} That night Wright called Cox and was routed to the phone in Cox's brother's home in Virginia, where Cox was having dinner and playing with his brother's children. Wright gave Cox an ultimatum with four points, the most important of which was that Cox would be given no more tapes beyond the nine that were being transcribed (a condition not in the Stennis proposal).{{efn|The other three were: that only Stennis would be involved, that there would be no "Special Masters" and that Cox himself would have no access to the tapes, only the summaries.{{sfn|Doyle|1977|p=158}}}} Cox asked that Wright send the points to him in writing so that he could consider them the next day and assured him that he was not rejecting the points outright.{{sfn|Doyle|1977|pp=156–159}}

At 8:30&nbsp;a.m. on Friday October 19, the day of Nixon's deadline for appealing to the Supreme Court (otherwise the Court of Appeals decision would become final), Cox received a letter from Wright dated the previous night. It purported to confirm Cox's "rejection" of Richardson's "very reasonable proposal." There was no mention of the four conditions. He wrote that he would telephone at 10:00&nbsp;a.m. to find out if there was any reason to continue talking. Cox, who until then had publicly and privately spoken of the integrity of Wright, told his colleagues: "very clever lies."{{sfn|Doyle|1977|p=161}} Cox wrote a note to Wright saying that the proposal needed "fleshing out," particularly in light of the conditions Wright had set out in the phone call the previous night, which Cox put in writing for the record. He, Neal, and others then left for Sirica's courtroom to attend the plea hearing on John Dean. The White House, seeing only that a hearing had been scheduled, panicked, not knowing what was to take place; no attorney was present when Ruth and Lacovara arrived to deliver the letter and they left it with the guard. Haig quickly learned of the letter, told Richardson that Cox "rejected" the deal, and summoned him to the White House. To Richardson's surprise, Haig said that it was no longer necessary to fire Cox because the president had gotten bipartisan approval for the deal, there were meetings with the two leading members of the Senate Watergate Committee scheduled, and the plan would be acceptable to both the American people and the courts.

The guilty plea by John Dean (with obligation to cooperate) that morning represented the most significant step so far in the prosecutions.{{efn|Cox was unaware that Nixon had a bigger preoccupation. The ''Miami Herald'' that morning had a front page story that Bebe Rebozo was the subject of an investigation for tax fraud for the $100,000 from Howard Hughes supposedly for Nixon's campaign. Rebozo was on his way to Washington at that very moment. The White House was drawing inferences from all these matters. Later in the day Richardson telephoned to find out if Cox had named Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator in any indictment. With that call Cox realized that paranoia was running high at the White House.{{sfn|Doyle|1977|pp=166, 169}}}} Yet, when Cox returned to the office it remained quiet—Wright had neither called nor responded in writing. When the courts closed, there was still no sign that the president had filed a notice to appeal to the Supreme Court. At 5:23&nbsp;p.m. a letter from Wright arrived, which simply again maintained the reasonableness of the original proposal. Wright closed with a statement of regret that Cox would not agree. Cox now realized that he and Richardson had been allowed to negotiate even though the president had no intention to go beyond the inadequate first proposal. On this conclusion, the lawyers in the office began copying their most important memos for safe keeping.{{sfn|Doyle|1977|pp=170–171}} At 7:20 Richardson phoned Cox at home and read him a letter he just received from Wright informing him the Stennis plan had been agreed to by the leadership of the Senate Watergate Committee and that Cox would be instructed to not pursue any further presidential material. A statement was to be released that night. Cox and Doyle hurried back to the office.{{sfn|Doyle|1977|pp=173–174}} When they obtained the statement<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/20/archives/text-of-nixons-statement-on-the-watergate-tapes.html|title=Text of Nixon's Statement on the Watergate Tapes|work=New York Times|date=October 20, 1973|page=16|access-date=April 27, 2016|url-access=subscription|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170909054837/http://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/20/archives/text-of-nixons-statement-on-the-watergate-tapes.html|archive-date=September 9, 2017|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref> they saw it as an attempt to sell the unilateral proposal; it claimed that the plan had the approval of Senators Sam Ervin and [[Howard Baker]], who, the statement falsely said, were the ones who proposed Senator Stennis. Although Cox had refused to agree, Nixon planned to take the proposal to Sirica and instructed his lawyers not to seek Supreme Court review. Given that the statement was riddled with falsehoods,{{efn|When Sam Ervin was reached in North Carolina by Sam Dash the next morning, for example, he said that he had been told that the committee would get complete transcripts not summaries and that he never agreed that the procedure should apply to the Special Prosecutor.<ref>{{harvnb|Doyle|1977|pp=172–173}}; {{harvnb|Kutler|1990|p=404}}.</ref>}} Cox that night dictated a press release to Doyle (the staff had gone off for the three-day weekend), and Doyle phoned it in to the wire services, also announcing there would be a press conference on Saturday, at 1:00&nbsp;p.m.{{sfn|Doyle|1977|pp=173–177}}