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
league nations regard
I had come to regard the U.S. Senate's rejection of the League of Nations as a tragic mistake.
further key pursuit stable
The key problems, at least as I see them today, involve, in the first instance, the further pursuit of a more stable world order.
bargaining chance chances line next ordinary resign saw vice
The vice president had a bargaining asset, however, that no ordinary person has: He was next in line to the presidency. I saw no chance that he would resign first, then take his chances on trial, conviction, and jail.
attitude carried casualties learned
I thought I was going to be killed. The casualties were so heavy, it was just a given. I learned to take each day, each mission, as it came. That's an attitude I've carried into my professional life. I take each case, each job, as it comes.
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.
moved people skepticism
People have moved beyond apathy, beyond skepticism into deep cynicism.
redesign renewal therefore
If there are flaws they are in ourselves, and our task therefore must be one not of redesign but of renewal and reaffirmation, especially of the standards in which all of us believe.
demands frame general human legal needs policy properly public question responsive rule task though work
Though every legal task demands this skill, it is especially important in the effort to frame public policy in a way that is properly responsive to human needs and predicaments. The question is always: How will the general rule work in practice?
concern second
I said the first concern of the administration of justice must, of course, be the individual. The second concern is the truth.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.