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 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.

His brother was John C. Ruckelshaus and his nephew was John Ruckelshaus; they also served in the Indiana General Assembly.

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. He served in the House for one term, until 1968. 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.

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...."

Also during his first tenure at the EPA, Ruckelshaus advocated for and enacted a ban on the insecticide DDT. After the resignations, the third in command at the Justice Department, US Solicitor General Robert Bork immediately effected the firing and the abolition of the special prosecutor's office, completing the "Massacre." However, 300,000 telegrams, release of the tapes, the reinstatement of a special prosecutor, and (ultimately) Nixon's resignation in August 1974 would occur over the next 10 months.

In 1975, Ruckelshaus moved to Seattle, Washington, where he accepted a position as senior vice-president for law and corporate affairs of the Tacoma-based Weyerhaeuser timber company.

Return to the EPA (1983–1985)

In 1983, with the EPA in crisis due to mass resignations over the mishandling of the Superfund program, President Ronald Reagan appointed Ruckelshaus to serve as EPA Administrator again. This time it was White House Chief of Staff James Baker who was Ruckelshaus's champion in asking him to return to the agency. had depleted the EPA by asking Congress to cut the agency's budget, eliminating jobs and halting enforcement activities.

Under Ruckelshaus' tenure, the issue of asbestos in schools was directed against the EPA.

Ruckelshaus attempted to win back public confidence in the EPA, a challenging task in the face of a skeptical press and a wary Congress, both of whom scrutinized all aspects of the agency's activities and some of whom interpreted a number of its actions in the worst possible light.