so i went over to see elliott richardson before going down to see hague. and he made some suggestions. i went to see hague and i said a couple things. one is i have to hear the tapes. hague said, you may not hear the tapes. this president feels so strongly about the institution of the presidency, that if he's ordered to give up those tapes, he will burn them first and then resign. i started to say, out of curiosity, then why doesn't he burn them now. but i decided it was the wrong thing to say because somebody might burn them and say we're burning the tapes on the advice of the solicitor general. so i shut up. then i said, furthermore, i'm not a private attorney, who is going to pay me? richard nixon? they said, no, the government. i said if the government pays me i'm a government attorney. i'm not free as a private attorney would be. if he comes across bad evidence, i'd have to turn it over to an impeachment committee or somebody. i sensed that interest in my services was waning at this point. i made a couple of other points. and then hague said finally,

he announced he was going to appoint elliott richardson attorney general and he would appoint a special prosecutor. in due course that came to pass. mr. richardson commsubmitted th responsibilities and duties of the special prosecutor and provided that he would have jurisdiction over offenses arising out of the water gate break in. allegations involving the president, members of the white house staff or presidential appointees and also provided that the special prosecutor would have full authority for determining whether or not to contest the assertion of executive privilege or any other testimonial privilege and that he would not be removed accept for extraordinary improprietiem. the long had already been long establish bid the supreme court in 1953 that as long as the attorney general's regulations remained operative they had the force of law and defied him or any other member of the executive branch the right to violate those regulations. such were the regulations under which the special prosecutor was operating. that principle was upheld again as recently as last week when the supre

so i went over to see elliott richardson before going down to see hague. and he made some suggestions. i went to see hague and i said a couple things. one is i have to hear the tapes. hague said, you may not hear the tapes. this president feels so strongly about the institution of the presidency, that if he's ordered to give up those tapes, he will burn them first and then resign. i started to say, out of curiosity, then why doesn't he burn them now. but i decided it was the wrong thing to say because somebody might burn them and say we're burning the tapes on the advice of the solicitor general. so i shut up. then i said, furthermore, i'm not a private attorney, who is going to pay me? richard nixon? they said, no, the government. i said if the government pays me i'm a government attorney. i'm not free as a private attorney would be. if he comes across bad evidence, i'd have to turn it over to an impeachment committee or somebody. i sensed that interest in my services was waning at this point. i made a couple of other points. and then hague said finally,

he ordered elliott richardson to fire cox but richardson refused so he hired william ruckelhaus to fireed. the role of attorney general fell to solicitor general robert bork, who carried out nixon's order to fire cox. as nixon accepted the rez nations all in one day, the cred crystallized concerns of abusive power. shortly after the white house ordered fbi to seal off their offices. it sparked outrage far beyond the capital. >> all of this adds up to a totally unprecedented situation, a grave and profound crisis in which the president has set himself against his own attorney general and the department of justice. nothing like this has ever happened before, and what it means is that the worst dreams of everyone who is worried about the president's secret tapes have now become true, have become reality. >> now a month later the president famously tries to make a personal appeal with yet another address to the nation. >> i welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. well, i'm not a crook. i've earned everything i've got. >> we