So last millennium. Hey Bill, how about telling us about a more recent corruption you were involved in. Tell us how the Puget Sound Partnership is nothing but a slush fund for Democratic Party supporters and agendas.

Poot little blue light. Always ready to be the "concerned citizen" and fight the big boys. So glad we have poor little blue light to stand against the horrors of the night. Poor little blue light. What does he do with his life beyond his screeds? Poor little bile light. Life is so hard.

Thank you for sharing.

Thanks so much for this illuminating account of those events. Fascinating.

- David Miller

"Big money wants control; it's as simple as that."

— Thomas Kimball (1991) Former President of the National Wildlife Federation

"[T]he master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change."

— Audre Lorde (1984)
*******************************************

"My short tenure at the FBI increased tremendously my respect for that institution and its people. Whatever else Hoover was, he was a superb manager. The FBI really works. It had a clear mission, organizational processes aimed at achieving that mission, and a dedicated and highly motivated work force. In spite of the Washington, D.C. office of the FBI being wracked by allegations of collusion or worse, as a result of the Watergate, the field offices and personnel of the Bureau were largely untouched and unaffected. I concluded the strength of the FBI as an institution is a very important asset to this country and should be carefully guarded."

This says it all about Ruckelshaus' hook, line and sinker approach to "the job" of entering the halls of power, the halls of injustice. The legacy of the FBI is so much corrupted largely by Mr. Hoover and sychophants, but Mr. Ruckelshaus has that smirking chimp glow (hear, see, speak no eveil).

Watergate? Try Thomas Mallon’s novel, Watergate; Don Folsom’s Nixon’s Darkest Secrets: The Inside Story of America’s Lost Troubled President; Max Holland's Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat.

FBI? Tim Weiner, a former New York Times reporter who has won a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Enemies: A History of the FBI.
**********************

Back to Mr. Ruckelshaus -- and his hands in the "pollution game":

The establishment credentials of the Conservation Foundation are well illustrated by the close association it holds with the EPA, which was formed in December 1970. For example, Russell Train was president of the Conservation Foundation from 1965 to 1969 before becoming US Undersecretary of the Interior in 1969 and head of the EPA from 1973 to 1977.

The group's usefulness to industrial interests is perhaps best demonstrated by its involvement in helping to cripple Superfund legislation, which was originally enacted in the US in 1980 following public outrage over the headline-grabbing toxic pollution fiasco two years before at Love Canal near Niagara Falls in New York.

To the horror of industry, Superfund legislation stuck the industries responsible for toxic messes with the clean-up tab, and the corporate culprits vowed to weaken, if not repeal, this democratic assault on their bottom lines.

Industry found an ally in former two-time EPA administrator, William Ruckelshaus, who had recently returned to private life and headed his own lobbying firm specializing in environmental issues. Ruckelshaus's firm organized a corporate coalition that included some of the "leading culprits in hazardous waste pollution -- General Electric, Dow, Du Pont, Union Carbide, Monsanto, AT&T; and others" to do a study of the Superfund law. "Select environmentalists" along with the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Audubon Society were also invited to take part. But the environmental groups accused the Superfund Coalition of being "a scheme to undo the new Superfund law," so Ruckelshaus came up with a new plan: the Conservation Foundation, headed by soon-to-be EPA administrator William Reilly, would undertake a US$2.5 million study of the Superfund Law -- funded in full with money from the EPA.

Although there were objections to this plan, the Superfund Coalition got its way, which meant that in 1988, US taxpayers paid "for research the polluters had originally envisioned as their political counterattack" against the Superfund legislation. This was all part of an elaborate, expensive, and long-term "deep lobbying" and public relations strategy to turn the public against what was intended to be very effective public health regulation. The corporate strategy worked: public perception of this once popular legislation is confused at best, and EPA documents indicate that up to March 2007, there were 114 Superfund sites where "the threat to humans from dangerous and sometimes carcinogenic substances is 'not under control.'"

Unsurprisingly, the World Wildlife Fund-US (WWF-US) the environmental group into which the Conservation Foundation was merged (in 1990) exhibits extremely close ties to the corporate world. In 2003, the former president of the Conservation Foundation, Russell Train, observed that: "WWF-US has been a leader in introducing new finance mechanisms for international conservation... such as through the Forest Stewardship Council and the Marine Stewardship Council." He then "recall[ed] the fateful discussion" he had in 1985 with William Reilly, then president of the Conservation Foundation (CF):

.........Continue reading. Absolutely great investigative journalism here tied to men-leaders-corporatists like Ruckelshaus:

http://www.swans.com/library/art14/barker07.html

The Philanthropic Roots Of Corporate Environmentalism by Michael Barker

Oh yeah, Source Watch:

After his second stint at the agency he formed a consulting firm called William D. Ruckelshaus Associates, which was then hired by the Coalition on Superfund, an organization seeking to weaken the Superfund law by absolving polluters of strict legal liability for their actions. The coalition included such Superfund polluters and their insurers as Monsanto, Occidental Petroleum, Alcoa, Flow Chemical, AT&T;, du Pont, Union Carbide, Aetna Insurance, and Travelers Insurance. Assisting Ruckelshaus were Lee Thomas, his hand-picked successor as EPA administrator, and William Reilly, then head of the Conservation Foundation. (Ruckelshaus and Thomas helped fund Reilly's organization to produce studies in support of the coalition's position.)"

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=William_D._Ruckelshaus

I hope I speak for most Crosscut readers, who cherish the free expression online journalism allows, when I suggest that commentators refrain from off-subject, ad hominem attacks directed at authors. The Crosscut editor might want to remind all of us that without adherence to some basic rules of debate, civic discourse breaks down into a cacophony of personal opinion and prejudice. And we all lose as a result.

This time I agree with Dick Nelson.

Me too. Well said Dick.

I really appreciate this first-hand account of the Saturday Night Massacre. I was a college journalist during that era and followed the scandal(s) and hearings very closely. As a news reader on Evergreen's KAOS radio, I transmitted some of these events nightly and felt as if I was living part of the national drama. What Ruckelshaus and Richardson did took guts and helped break things wide open. What Bork did, well, I'm glad he was kept off the Supreme Court. I considered the massacre victims heros, and was later thrilled to meet Elliott Richardson who made a sneak, late-night appearance in one of the TESC dorms during an unofficial campaign visit by Lud Kramer. Watergate was complex and messy; I hope more first hand accounts like Bill Ruckelshaus' emerge as the scandal's 40th anniversary looms to help remind us what happened, and what the stakes were.

I couldn't agree more with Dick Nelson!

Connecting Ruckelshaus' career to his other work in the world, and, giving readers some book titles, including one on the FBI, and, parsing out one quote passage from the writer's article here at Crosscut, none of that is ad hominem. I think Mr. Ruckelshaus got his platform for expression just fine at Crosscut. Further, I doubt that Crosscut's editors will engage in censoring respondents who look deeper into a writer's CV-Resume-Government-Corporate Service. What purpose does that serve on-line journalism and citizen responses, even nuanced ones, in furthering public discourse and debate?

But, for clarification, I refer some students to this definition:

THE AD HOMINEM FALLACY FALLACY

One of the most widely misused terms on the Net is "ad hominem". It is most often introduced into a discussion by certain delicate types, delicate of personality and mind, whenever their opponents resort to a bit of sarcasm. As soon as the suspicion of an insult appears, they summon the angels of ad hominem to smite down their foes, before ascending to argument heaven in a blaze of sanctimonious glory. They may not have much up top, but by God, they don't need it when they've got ad hominem on their side. It's the secret weapon that delivers them from any argument unscathed.

In reality, ad hominem is unrelated to sarcasm or personal abuse. Argumentum ad hominem is the logical fallacy of attempting to undermine a speaker's argument by attacking the speaker instead of addressing the argument. The mere presence of a personal attack does not indicate ad hominem: the attack must be used for the purpose of undermining the argument, or otherwise the logical fallacy isn't there. It is not a logical fallacy to attack someone; the fallacy comes from assuming that a personal attack is also necessarily an attack on that person's arguments.

Therefore, if you can't demonstrate that your opponent is trying to counter your argument by attacking you, you can't demonstrate that he is resorting to ad hominem. If your opponent's sarcasm is not an attempt to counter your argument, but merely an attempt to insult you (or amuse the bystanders), then it is not part of an ad hominem argument.

Actual instances of argumentum ad hominem are relatively rare. Ironically, the fallacy is most often committed by those who accuse their opponents of ad hominem, since they try to dismiss the opposition not by engaging with their arguments, but by claiming that they resort to personal attacks. Those who are quick to squeal "ad hominem" are often guilty of several other logical fallacies, including one of the worst of all: the fallacious belief that introducing an impressive-sounding Latin term somehow gives one the decisive edge in an argument.

But enough vagueness. The point of this article is to bury the reader under an avalanche of examples of correct and incorrect usage of ad hominem, in the hope that once the avalanche has passed, the term will never be used incorrectly again.

http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html

Ironic with swiftylazer's continued attack on BlueLight before him, that Nelson elects to make authors the only protected class.

"Poot little blue light. Always ready to be the "concerned citizen" and fight the big boys. So glad we have poor little blue light to stand against the horrors of the night. Poor little blue light. What does he do with his life beyond his screeds? Poor little bile light. Life is so hard."

I was born seven years after Nixon's disgraceful exit from the White House, but I am well familiar with the story. Nevertheless, every time I read a recount of the Watergate affair, I am truly stunned by the events that occurred. Even putting all ethical questions aside, simply the fact that Nixon believed he could get away with such crimes is amazing.

Thank you for this excellent piece. What I believe it demonstrates is that most officials in government are like Bill Ruckelshaus, good, honest people whose fundamental aim is to serve the country, and only a minority are like Bork, Agnew, or Nixon. Still, I worry about many of the things that have occurred in the intervening 38 years: a White House that is ever more politicized and a cynical and hostile public. Much of this follows from the breach of trust so vividly described.

Pepper2000 -- There are some amazing heroes working in government in the Nixon era, to include Daniel Ellsberg, and, a politician:

Another hero in the Watergate cover-up is none other than late Senator Robert C. Byrd. In the 2006 West Virginia Law Review, a good account of Byrd's investigation shows how he caught a key Nixon administration official in a web of lies.

“Byrd still has not received the attention to which he is entitled for breaking open the Watergate investigation,” author, David Corbin, a Byrd staffer and former history professor at the University of Maryland, writes.

The investigation eventually revealed that Nixon was neck deep in the promotion of and cover up of the 1972 break-in of the headquarters for the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel Byrd's patriotism basically helped to force Nixon to resign.

Byrd’s grilling in a 1973 Senate hearing pretty much showed the White House had been deceiving investigators, Corbin writes.

The Nixon nominee to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation , L. Patrick Gray, stated that White House counsel John Dean had lied to FBI agents
investigating the break-in.

Gray had been the bureau’s acting director during its Watergate investigation, giving Dean the green light to review FBI evidence.

Byrd through his investigation learned of an inconsistency in Gray’s interview with Dean, Corbin writes. Gray and FBI agents has been told by Dean that he didn’t know if one of the convicted Watergate burglars had a White House office. A week earlier Dean had authorized a search of the office.

“He lied to the agents, didn’t he?” Byrd said to Gray.

“I would have to conclude that that is probably correct,” Gray responded.

“Jaws dropped,” according to one press account of the exchange cited in Corbin’s article.

Then, just weeks later, Dean spilled the beans to Watergate prosecutors.
This revelation by Byrd “started the avalanche” that led to Dean’s
decision to testify against Nixon, Corbin writes.

Byrd’s “doggedness and persistence… essentially broke open the Watergate case,” said Sen. William Proxmire in 1973 Senate testimony quoted in the Law Review article. He was the investigation’s “unsung hero.”

Knute Berger writes, "What Ruckelshaus and Richardson did took guts and helped break things wide open. What Bork did, well, I'm glad he was kept off the Supreme Court."

Um, Knute, did you actually listen to what Ruckelshaus said? Part of what he "did" that "took guts" was asking Bork to do what Bork did. You too, pepper2000: you can't have it both ways.

Maybe you think Bork would have complied without Ruckleshaus' urging, but so what? Ruckelshaus, whom you call good and honest and interested in serving the country, urged Bork to do it. And further, Ruckelshaus probably would have done the same thing as Bork had he not given his word not to during his confirmation (something Bork didn't do).

You only see the basic facts -- Ruckelshaus resigned over the order, Bork carried out the order -- but skip all the reasons why and the fact that the only distinguish features in this episode between Ruckelshaus and Bork are that the former promised to not carry out the order and so resigned instead, and asked the latter to do so in his place; and the latter made no such promise and so therefore did carry out the order, as the former requested.

ad hominem- is that the same thing as going to a public hearing only to have the deck stacked against you with government employees urging for more bureaucracy?

or like the majority of the citizens voting on an issue only to have government reverse it?

Interesting comment here about the effect of Watergate on the public trust. I was a sophomore in high school that year, taking American history from a teacher who popped the conventional balloons, and watching this all take place with the interest of a teenager watching real life drama. I'll never forget a classmate coming in to math class one day and re-writing "The Night Before Christmas" with the names of all the Watergate characters.

The Vietnam war affected those who were slightly older, but there was still an optimism to the late 1960s that overcame some of that. Watergate, to put it simply, created an underlying layer of cynicism about institutions that it would take many years to turn around. I think it also made us wonder what sort of institutional world we were growing up to inherit.

I haven't thought about this before, but I can imagine that the current lack of faith in government is probably having some of the same effects on youth. Hopefully this time around they will realize that there are alternatives open to them, that they can create their own organizations to take on the causes they care about.

Thank you Paulkirk for excellent addendums to Mr. Ruckelshaus's history of his role in the Watergate affair. There is nothing fallacious (or "personal opinion and prejudice") about your facts concerning his associations during and after, however honorably he acted or thought he acted at the critical juncture.

The missing thread in this narrative is the continued move toward corporate control over our governance at all levels. The Supreme Court's recent Citizens United decision was merely the culmination of a long corporate campaign against our democracy. Remember that Nixon appointed Lewis Powell to the Supreme Court, who became the architect of a terrible series of decisions shifting power away from "the people" and their elected representatives to corporate board rooms and offices. Just look up "Powell memo" and read it and weep. And act: http://corporationsarenotpeople.com/

So, to avoid Dick Nelson's admonishment against "off-subject" posts, I would ask Mr. Ruckelshaus: in light of the corporate connections revealed here by Paulkirk, how much did you know about Powell's corporate power campaign? What did you know and when did you know it? And most importantly, will you now support a constitutional amendment to undo what Powell et al. wrought?

louploup -- Seems pretty delusional of Ruckelshaus to not know the history of the FBI. Or anything about its mandate under Hoover. Again, one of the books referenced can be Cliff Noted on today's Democracy Now -- sort of an important date: the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. 44 years later.

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/4/j_edgar_hoover_vs_martin_luther

Today marks the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. At the time, his every move was being tracked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We speak with journalist Tim Weiner, author of "Enemies: A History of the FBI," about the fanatical zeal with which the agency pursued the civil rights leader and peace activist. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover saw King as a Communist. He ordered agents to wiretap and spy on his hotel rooms and his private home. Weiner describes how the FBI also pushed newspapers to publish sordid details about King’s relations with women other than his wife just before he won the Nobel Peace Prize. [includes rush transcript]

Guest:

Tim Weiner, has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his writing on U.S. national security issues. His new book is called Enemies: A History of the FBI. His previous books include Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA and Blank Check: The Pentagon’s Black Budget. As a correspondent for the New York Times, Tim Weiner covered the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

An excellent piece about a pivotal moment in American history. And it drives home a powerful point. Character matters more than anything else in public life. In this highly partisan, hyper-ideological age, that point can't be emphasized enough.