At the start of October, although the Watergate scandal had been snowballing all year, President Richard Nixon still had hopes of keeping it from turning into an avalanche. Despite numerous damaging accusations, a substantial fraction of the public still believed the President or was willing to suspend judgment in the absence of firmer evidence. His lawyers had plausible constitutional arguments for keeping tapes of his Oval Office conversations secret. And with a sleazy hack poised to succeed him, many citizens worried what would happen if Nixon were removed from office. Then, in less than two weeks, the wheels fell off the wagon. By Halloween, instead of boldly challenging Congress and the courts, Nixon was desperately scrambling to stave off impeachment.

The trouble began with the only member of the Nixon administration so insignificant that he could make no contribution to the Watergate conspiracy itself: Vice President Spiro Agnew. Despite his noninvolvement in that scandal, Agnew was plenty corrupt: He had systematically extorted bribes and kickbacks as governor of Maryland and continued to collect on them as Vice President. A federal investigation was making Agnew look guilty enough to embarrass even Richard Nixon, who pressed the Justice Department to force him out.

On October 10, with no advance warning, Agnew shocked the country by resigning from office. As part of a deal with prosecutors, he also pleaded nolo contendere (the same as guilty, but with no admission of wrongdoing) to tax evasion in return for avoiding prison. The rarely used nolo plea, roughly equivalent to today’s “whatever,” allows a defendant to assert that he wasn’t really guilty, which Agnew has been doing ever since.

Two days later an appeals panel ruled that Nixon had to give subpoenaed tapes to John J. Sirica, a federal district judge. On October 19 Nixon announced he was ignoring the decision on grounds of Executive privilege. As a compromise he offered to prepare summaries of the conversations. At the same time, he ordered Archibald Cox, the Watergate special prosecutor, to cease his efforts to obtain the unedited tapes.

Cox told Nixon to take a hike. Nixon told Attorney General Eliot Richardson to fire him, and Richardson resigned rather than carry out the order. Richardson’s deputy, William Ruckelshaus, also refused to fire Cox, so Nixon fired him. The highest surviving Justice Department official, Solicitor General Robert Bork, then fired Cox and abolished his office to finish off the so-called Saturday Night Massacre.

A firestorm of denunciation immediately erupted, with polls showing a plurality in favor of impeachment for the first time. In defying the courts, Nixon could arguably claim to be standing up for the independence of the Executive branch, but his hamfisted attempt to squelch Cox’s investigation made clear that he had something serious to hide. On October 26 Nixon backtracked, promising to appoint a new special prosecutor, but the damage had been done. The President had indelibly stamped himself as