William Ruckelshaus

William Ruckelshaus, born in 1932, American lawyer, businessman, and two-time head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Ruckelshaus played a significant role in the Watergate affair that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974). As deputy attorney general of the United States, Ruckelshaus resigned rather than carry out Nixon's order to fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.

William Doyle Ruckelshaus was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He enrolled at Princeton University, but was inducted into the U.S. Army after two years at the university. He spent two years as a Signal Corps drill instructor, and then returned to Princeton to earn his bachelor's degree in 1957. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1960 and went to Indianapolis to practice law at his family's firm. That same year he was appointed deputy state attorney general. In 1963 he became chief counsel in the state attorney general's office, and in 1966 he was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives.

In 1968 Ruckelshaus was appointed assistant attorney general in the Nixon administration. In response to the environmental movement of the early 1970s, Nixon sponsored legislation creating the EPA and named Ruckelshaus as its first director in 1970. At the EPA Ruckelshaus was known as a tough regulator, ordering cities such as Atlanta, Detroit, and Cleveland to bring their sewage treatment plants up to federal standards or face federal court action. He also filed suits against industrial polluters such as United States Plywood-Champion Papers, ARMCO Steel, and ITT-Rayonier. In 1973 Ruckelshaus became acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), where he exposed widespread government wiretaps of news media and political opponents of the Nixon administration. He became deputy attorney general under Elliot Richardson later that year. On October 20, 1973, in what came to be known as the Saturday Night Massacre, Ruckelshaus resigned rather than carry out Nixon's orders to dismiss Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.

Ruckelshaus was employed as the senior vice president of corporate affairs for the Weyerhaeuser Corporation from 1975 to 1985. In 1983 he became head of the EPA for a second time, during the administration of President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989). Ruckelshaus resigned as administrator of the EPA in 1984, but his one-year tenure was credited with restoring morale at the agency and renewing public confidence in the agency's commitment to cleaning up the environment. In 1988 Ruckelshaus became the chief executive officer of Browning-Ferris Industries, a waste disposal company based in Houston, Texas.