Bill Ruckelshaus, American Hero
by John D. O’Connor
I hope to present some insight into the illustrious career of recently deceased Indianapolis native William D. “Bill” Ruckelshaus, even though my connection to him was mainly vicarious. My father John C. O’Connor was his partner as well as the partner of Bill’s brother John (“Jack”) K. Ruckelshaus, Jr. and his father John K. Ruckelshaus, in the small but prominent firm of Ruckelshaus, Bobbitt and O’Connor.
Most headlines featured Bill’s role in the “Saturday Night Massacre,” when he resigned as Deputy Attorney General after refusing President Nixon’s order to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. He has also been justifiably praised for his cleansing of our country’s air and water as the first Director of the EPA.
Less well known but highly significant, was his smooth stewardship as Interim Director of the FBI following the tumultuous departure of Nixon appointee FBI Director L. Patrick Gray, himself caught up in the Watergate scandal for destroying documents seized from the safe of burglary supervisor Howard Hunt. It was during Bill’s short tenure with the FBI that the government’s case against Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of the Pentagon Papers, was dismissed for the government’s failure to have disclosed timely that Ellsberg had been overheard on a government wiretap.
After articles appeared at the beginning of trial in the Washington Post and New York Times suggesting that Ellsberg had been overheard electronically, it was Bill who, to the amazement of insiders, successfully tracked down and gave to the Court the highly secret, undocumented tapes, not in FBI files, where no record existed, but in the office of resigned Counselor to the President, later Watergate defendant, John Ehrlichman. His integrity, as well as that of the principled leaker, cost the government a conviction but gave the FBI a boost to its reputation when it needed it most.
The White House, of course, was livid about the maverick leaker, and Bill sussed out his identity as well – my client W. Mark Felt, then his Assistant Director, later identified as reporter Bob’s Woodward’s supersource, Deep Throat. Appreciative of Felt’s distinguished service, and ever the gentleman, Bill allowed Felt to resign. Even though Felt was acting as a man of conscience, he knew he had broken the chain of command, knew that proven civil disobedience need be punished, and knew that Bill did what he should have done. So while Felt’s identify as Deep Throat went unproven for 30 years, Bill was clever enough to prove him the Ellsberg leaker in several days. Both men acted out of deep principle, and their odd interaction proved the FBI’s integrity.
But the most significant tableau in Bill’s career may have been an initiative never completed and little known to posterity. During the 1976 Republican convention, President Gerald Ford called Bill to inform him of his selection to be his Vice Presidential running mate, but cautioned that he needed to run his selection by the powerful camp of Ronald Reagan. National news media, tipped off, snuck into Indianapolis to interview my father and Bill’s brother Jack, in anticipation of Ford’s coming announcement. However, Reagan’s men objected to the Ruckelshaus nomination and successfully insisted on Kansas Senator Robert Dole.
After the Ford-Dole ticket lost a close election to Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale, polling showed the two main deciding factors were Watergate and the superiority of Mondale over Dole. It seems clear in hindsight that a Ford-Ruckelshaus ticket would have been victorious because Bill was a Watergate hero, and would have shone in comparison to Mondale. It stretches beyond elastic limits the thin tissue of alternative history to say that Bill would have been a future President of the United States, other than to say it would have been entirely possible, if only he had not been vetoed.
During my fortunate months in 1970 as a law clerk for Bill in the Department of Justice Civil Division, he told me several times that to reach any higher office he needed his star to be on the rise at the right time, which of course it was in the summer of 1976. Oh, yes, and he told me that in politics, one always needs a little bit of luck.
So with a little bit of luck, America could have enjoyed a truly great President, and certainly an excellent Vice President, Bill Ruckelshaus.
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John D. O’Connor is the San Francisco attorney who represented W. Mark Felt during his revelation as Deep Throat in 2005. O’Connor is the author of the book, Postgate: How the Washington Post Betrayed Deep Throat, Covered Up Watergate, and Began Today’s Partisan Advocacy Journalism.