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News stories from Saturday October 20, 1973
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Elliott Richardson resigned as Attorney General of the United States as President Nixon dismissed the special Watergate prosecutor, Archibald Cox, and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus for refusing to obey his orders on the handling of the White House tapes. The President also announced that he had abolished the special Watergate prosecutor's office. The White House said that Mr. Richardson had resigned rather than carry out the President's order to dismiss Mr. Cox, who earlier had told a televised news conference that he would defy the President's instructions by seeking a judicial judgment that the President had violated a court order in refusing to surrender the tapes. Mr. Ruckelshaus was then asked to dismiss Mr. Cox, and when he, too, refused, he was himself dismissed. [New York Times]
- Earlier the Attorney General said he believed that President Nixon, by ordering the special prosecutor to stop all judicial attempts to obtain presidential materials, had violated the Attorney General's pledge to give Mr. Cox full autonomy over the Watergate investigation. Mr. Richardson made his promise that the prosecutor would have full, unimpeded authority to subpoena potential evidence from anyone, including the President, at his Senate confirmation hearings last May. [New York Times]
- Authoritative sources said the White House would stand firmly behind its contention that President Nixon cannot be held in contempt of court for refusing to surrender the White House tapes. The sources said the President's position was that he would be complying with the "spirit" of the court order by providing an edited summary of the tapes. [New York Times]
- The chairman of the Senate Watergate committee renounced and then reaccepted President Nixon's plan to release an authenticated summary of the White House tapes. Initially, Senator Sam Ervin renounced the agreement, saying that he had not understood that his committee would get only a summary, instead of a transcript of relevant conversations. After receiving a White House guarantee that the summary -- to be verified by Senator John Stennis -- would contain "verbatim language" from the tapes, Senator Ervin said that the President's plan was acceptable to him.
Senator Stennis said he had agreed to listen to the White House tapes and judge the President's summary of them only after he had been assured that Senator Ervin had accepted the President's plan. [New York Times]
- Secretary of State Kissinger flew to Moscow and promptly began talks with Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Communist party leader, on the Middle East war. Mr. Brezhnev's personal request for Mr. Kissinger to come to Moscow was seen as a deliberate effort by the Soviet leader to demonstrate his interest in preventing the war in the Middle East from disrupting Soviet-American accommodations. [New York Times]
- While the United States and Soviet Union pressed their search for a diplomatic solution, the Middle East war continued: In Tel Aviv, a military spokesman said that the Israeli forces had "enlarged and deepened" their foothold on the west bank of the Suez Canal, pushing ahead some 20 miles and cutting the road from Ismailia to Suez. Reliable sources said the task force included more than 15,000 troops and over 250 tanks and was being continually reinforced. Officials said an area south of Ismailia had been largely cleared of surface-to-air missiles, leaving Israeli planes free to operate over the entire central canal front, while the task force had advanced to within artillery range of the main Cairo-to-Ismailia road used by Egyptian tanks rushing to the Suez front.
In Cairo, the Egyptian high command acknowledged heavy fighting on the west bank, but again said that the Israeli task force posed no major threat and emphasized the importance of the huge, continuing tank battle on the canal's east bank. In Damascus, Syria said she had carried the air war to Israel with a bombing raid on the oil refinery at Haifa. No details were given, but the announcement came shortly after a high Syrian official denounced "savage Israeli attacks" on Syrian economic targets that he said had caused more than $500 million in damage and more than 100 civilian casualties. [New York Times]
- Whatever the outcome of the Middle East war, the Egyptian army has already won increased respect, and its 1973 image is substantially brighter than in 1967, when the army fled in disarray during the six-day rout by the Israelis. The new Egyptian army, now fighting effectively with high morale, is the product of several developments, more internal democracy, better-educated and better-trained troops and sophisticated Soviet equipment. [New York Times]
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