Events were set in motion by a stand-off between Nixon and ArchibaldCox, a Harvard law professor who had been appointed by Richardson to investigate the Watergate break-in.
In the sixties and seventies, the office was consecutively occupied by ArchibaldCox, Thurgood Marshall, Erwin Griswold (previously the longtime dean of Harvard Law School), and Robert Bork.
It all marks an extraordinary rise for the boy from Cobb County, whose parents ran the hardware store in Mableton, and for the post-graduate law student who sat at the feet of ArchibaldCox, the Watergate special prosecutor.