Robert Bork

Robert Bork, born in 1927, American lawyer, author, and federal judge. After playing a relatively minor role during the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, Bork leapt to prominence in 1987 when the United States Senate rejected his nomination to the Supreme Court following heated debates about his conservative ideology and judicial philosophy.

Robert Heron Bork was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1948 and a law degree from the same university in 1953. He was an associate partner in a Chicago law firm from 1955 until 1962, when he joined the faculty of Yale Law School. Bork served as a legal adviser to the administration of President Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974), and in 1973 he became solicitor general—the lawyer who represents the U.S. government before the Supreme Court.

In the summer of 1973 former presidential assistant Alexander Butterfield disclosed the existence of a secret taping system in Nixon's White House offices that had recorded all of the president's conversations there. Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox insisted that President Nixon turn over the tapes as evidence in the onging Watergate investigations. Nixon refused, and, on October 20, 1973, he ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson resigned rather than carry out the order, as did the next in line, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. Bork was next in succession and agreed to fire Cox, saying that to step down would destroy the Justice Department. Public reaction to the firing and resignations, which became known as the Saturday Night Massacre, forced Nixon to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, and begin releasing the audio tapes.

Bork served as acting attorney general until 1974 and then resumed his position as solicitor general until 1977. He returned to Yale to teach from 1977 to 1979, worked in a Washington, D.C., law firm from 1981 to 1982, and then served as a U.S. Court of Appeals judge from 1982 to 1988. In 1987 President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court. Liberal groups across the nation protested the nomination, pointing to Bork's well-known positions against abortion, affirmative action, and First Amendment protection for nonpolitical speech. Many congressional Democrats criticized the nomination as an attempt by President Reagan to pack the Supreme Court with ideological allies, while Bork supporters claimed that the judge was the target of an “ideological inquisition.” On October 23, 1987, the Senate rejected Bork's nomination by a 58 to 42 vote.