William Doyle Ruckelshaus, who famously quit his job in the Justice Department rather than carry out President Richard Nixon’s order to fire the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal, has died. He was 87.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency confirmed his death in a statement Wednesday. Ruckelshaus served as the agency’s first administrator.
The lifelong Republican also served as acting director of the FBI.
But his moment of fame came in 1973, when he was a deputy attorney general and joined his boss, Elliot Richardson, in resigning rather than carrying out Nixon’s order to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox.
The firings became known as the "Saturday Night Massacre."
In his later years, he was a high-profile champion of cleaning up Puget Sound in Washington state, where he lived.
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