William Doyle Ruckelshaus (July 24, 1932 – November 27, 2019) was an American attorney and government official.
Ruckelshaus served in the Indiana House of Representatives from 1966 to 1968, and was the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division from 1969 to 1970. He was also the first Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 1970 to 1973, after being nominated by Richard Nixon. He returned to the position from 1983 to 1985, as the fifth Administrator of the EPA, during the Reagan administration. In 1973, he was also the acting FBI Director.
While serving as US Deputy Attorney General in October 1973, in what became known as the "Saturday Night Massacre," Ruckelshaus and US Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned from their positions rather than obey the order of US President Richard Nixon to fire the independent special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, who was tasked with investigating Nixon's role in the Watergate scandal.
Early life, military service, and education
Ruckelshaus was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on July 24, 1932, the son of Marion Doyle (née Covington) and John K. Ruckelshaus. He was from a distinguished family with a long history of practicing law in Indianapolis and serving in Republican Party politics.
He attended parochial schools until the age of 16, then finished high school in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, at the Portsmouth Abbey School.
He began college at Princeton University before being drafted and serving for two years in the United States Army, becoming a drill sergeant at Fort Lewis in Tacoma, Washington. He left the Army in 1955, returning to and graduating from Princeton with an A.B. (cum laude) in history in 1957 after completing a senior thesis titled "American Attitudes toward the Spanish Civil War." In 1960 he earned an LL.B. from Harvard Law School and joined the family law firm in Indianapolis.
In 1960, Ruckelshaus married Ellen Urban, who died the following year from complications incurred after giving birth to their twin daughters. In 1962 he remarried, to Jill Strickland, with whom he had three children.
His brother was John C. Ruckelshaus and his nephew was John Ruckelshaus; they also served in the Indiana General Assembly.
Early legal and political career (1960–1970)
After passing the Indiana bar exam, Ruckelshaus joined the family law firm of Ruckelshaus, Bobbitt, and O'Connor.
In 1960, at age 28, he was appointed as Deputy Attorney General of Indiana, and served through 1965. For two years he was assigned to the Indiana Board of Health. As counsel to the Indiana Stream Pollution Control Board, Ruckelshaus obtained court orders prohibiting industries and municipalities from heavily polluting the state's water supply; he also helped draft the Indiana Air Pollution Control Act of 1961, the state's first attempt to reduce that problem. After that assignment, he spent two years as Chief Counsel for the Attorney General's Office.
In 1964, Ruckelshaus ran as a moderate Republican in the U.S. House election in Indiana's 11th district, losing in the primary to Don Tabbert, a candidate from the conservative wing of the party. He subsequently spent a year as minority attorney for the Indiana Senate.
He won a seat in the Indiana House of Representatives in 1966, benefiting from an up year for Republicans overall. He served in the House for one term, until 1968. He became the first first-term legislator to serve as majority leader of the House.
Ruckelshaus ran in the 1968 United States Senate election in Indiana, winning the Republican nomination, but losing the general election, 51%–48%, to incumbent Birch Bayh.
In 1969, President Richard Nixon appointed him as U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Nixon's new administration. Ruckelshaus held the post until his appointment as the first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.
Ruckelshaus became the US Environmental Protection Agency's first administrator when the agency was formed on December 2, 1970, by Nixon. Although many people were mentioned as possibilities for the new position, the choice of Ruckelshaus had been based upon the strong recommendation of US Attorney General John N. Mitchell. Ruckelhaus had been suggested in a Newsweek opinion column by a friend without his knowledge and was later approached Mitchell about the position.
The burning of the Cuyahoga River had created a national outcry. The Justice Department under Mitchell filed a civil lawsuit against the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company "for discharging substantial quantities of cyanide into the Cuyahoga" at Ruckelshaus's request and sought an injunction "to halt the discharge of these deleterious materials into the river...."