Elliot Richardson
Elliot Richardson
Elliot Lee Richardsonwas an American lawyer and politician who was a member of the cabinet of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. As U.S. Attorney General, he was a prominent figure in the Watergate Scandal, and resigned rather than obey President Nixon's order to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionLawyer
Date of Birth20 July 1920
CountryUnited States of America
improved major reforms system watergate work
The Watergate reforms did work well for many years, and if improved and broadened, these reforms can have real and major impact on the system today.
cruel pervasive process shell system
There is an increasingly pervasive sense not only of failure, but of futility. The legislative process has become a cruel shell game and the service system has become a bureaucratic maze, inefficient, incomprehensible, and inaccessible.
came department final help integrity justice processes
At stake, in the final analysis, is the very integrity of the governmental processes I came to the Department of Justice to help restore.
ball heroes large men players probity seemed singers
It often seemed like we had become a nation where the only heroes were rock singers and ball players and that there were no large men of probity who could be called upon for the task.
department government might mind politics state stayed
The idea of being in the State Department was exciting. On the other hand, I always had in the back of my mind going into politics. If I stayed in Washington, I might end up a government hack.
believe somehow tremendous unable
Mr. President, I believe your real problem is that you have somehow been unable to realize that you have won, not only won, but been re-elected by a tremendous margin.
attempt bring democratic direction monster task
My most important task must be an attempt to bring the monster under democratic direction and control.
credible knows prosecutor
They've got him - credible witnesses, documents, heaven knows what else. In all my years as a prosecutor I have never seen such an open-and-shut case.
complex core experience government immense later learning problem proved straight succession
The experience of learning how to get straight to the core of a problem proved to be of immense value later when I had a long succession of responsibilities in large, complex government departments.
cannot effect feels full large loses power strategic using
If the large power voluntarily abstains from using its full power or feels the strategic situation to be such that it cannot do so, it in effect loses the advantage of being a big power.
defining job machinery tending trying ways
But tending machinery was one thing; defining what we were trying to do and why we were doing it, and developing ways to measure how well the job was done - this was something else again.
among entity label people required responsibility state
For you, the state is an entity with purposes of its own that the people can be required to serve. For us the word is only a label for the arrangements by which we the people delegate to some among us responsibility for things that concern us in common.
created hope opening people reaching respond watergate
I hope you will respond to the crisis of confidence that Watergate has created by opening up your administration and reaching out to people in a more magnanimous spirit.
concern second
I said the first concern of the administration of justice must, of course, be the individual. The second concern is the truth.