Elliot Richardson Biography

Elliot Richardson

U.S. government official who held several high-level government positions in Massachusetts and in Washington. He will be best remembered, though, as the U.S. attorney general who rebuffed President Nixon's 1973 order to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, choosing instead to resign. The event was part of what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre. He also served as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare; Secretary of Welfare (both under Nixon), and lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. He died of complications from a cerebral hemorrhage.