Watergate Prosecutors List: Special Prosecutors and Task Force Chiefs

The Watergate prosecutors list begins with the four special prosecutors who led the Watergate Special Prosecution Force between 1973 and 1977 — Archibald Cox, Leon Jaworski, Henry S. Ruth Jr., and Charles F.C. Ruff — and extends to more than 70 full-time lawyers organized into five task forces. Together they produced over 50 criminal convictions and guilty pleas from 19 corporations.¹ Several went on to become federal judges, cabinet officials, and a Supreme Court Justice.

The Four Special Prosecutors

Archibald Cox (May–October 1973)

A Harvard Law School professor and former Solicitor General under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Cox was appointed on May 18, 1973, by Attorney General–designate Elliot Richardson after seven other candidates turned the job down.²³ Cox subpoenaed secret White House tape recordings, and when President Nixon offered written summaries in lieu of the tapes, Cox refused. Nixon ordered Richardson to fire him. Richardson resigned rather than comply, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus also refused and was removed, and Solicitor General Robert Bork carried out the order on October 20, 1973, in what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre.⁴

Leon Jaworski (November 1973–October 1974)

A prominent Texas trial lawyer, Jaworski was sworn in on November 5, 1973.⁵ In April 1974 he obtained a subpoena from Judge John J. Sirica for 64 White House recordings. On July 24, 1974, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in United States v. Nixon that the president could not invoke executive privilege to withhold evidence in a criminal proceeding. The tapes forced Nixon’s resignation on August 9, 1974.⁶ During his roughly eleven months in office, Jaworski’s team produced indictments of or guilty pleas from 14 major officials of the Nixon administration and the Committee to Re-elect the President, and prosecuted a dozen corporations and 17 of their executives for illegal campaign contributions.⁷ He decided against seeking an indictment of Nixon himself, concluding that a fair trial was impossible, and did not challenge President Ford’s subsequent pardon. He resigned on October 25, 1974.

Henry S. Ruth Jr. (October 1974–October 1975)

Ruth had served as deputy special prosecutor since June 1973 and was widely credited with holding the staff together after Cox’s firing.⁸ He was named the third special prosecutor on October 23, 1974, with the support of President Ford and Attorney General William Saxbe. By the time he took over, the bulk of the office’s investigative and trial work was nearing completion.

Charles F.C. Ruff (October 1975–June 1977)

Ruff became the fourth and final special prosecutor on a part-time basis beginning in October 1975, after staff reductions rendered the task forces inactive.⁹ His job was carrying remaining cases through the appellate courts. After the Supreme Court declined on May 23, 1977, to hear the appeals of John Mitchell, H.R. Haldeman, and John Ehrlichman, Ruff announced the office’s disbandment.¹⁰ Ruff later served as White House Counsel under President Clinton.

The Task Forces and Their Chiefs

The office was divided into five investigative task forces, each with its own leadership.⁹

Watergate Task Force — the break-in and cover-up. Chief: Richard Ben-Veniste (1973–1975).¹¹
Plumbers Task Force — the White House “Plumbers” unit, including the break-in at Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office. Chief: Nathaniel (Nick) Akerman.¹²
Campaign Contributions Task Force — federal campaign finance violations tied to the 1972 Nixon campaign. Chief: Thomas F. McBride.
Political Espionage (“Dirty Tricks”) Task Force — political sabotage against Democratic presidential candidates in 1972.¹³
ITT Task Force — allegations of improper influence in antitrust settlements involving International Telephone and Telegraph, and potential perjury by Attorney General nominee Richard Kleindienst.

Senior Staff and Lead Trial Lawyers

James Vorenberg, Associate Special Prosecutor

A Harvard Law School professor, Vorenberg was Cox’s first hire and top associate. He administered the office, recruited the staff of young lawyers, and later authored the prosecution force’s final report, released in October 1975. Cox said of him, “I don’t know what I would have done without him.”¹⁴ He later became dean of Harvard Law School.

Philip B. Heymann, Associate Special Prosecutor

Heymann worked under both Cox and Jaworski, concentrating on the Plumbers investigation and assisting in the trial of John Ehrlichman for the Ellsberg break-in.¹⁵ He later headed the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and served as Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno during the Clinton administration.¹⁶

Philip A. Lacovara, Counsel to the Special Prosecutor

Lacovara was the office’s chief legal adviser from June 1973 to September 1974 and played a central role in the Supreme Court litigation over the Nixon tapes that produced United States v. Nixon.¹⁷

James F. Neal, Lead Trial Counsel

A Tennessee trial lawyer who had previously prosecuted Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, Neal was recruited by Cox in 1973 to handle the cover-up trial. He obtained the 1973 guilty plea of former White House counsel John Dean and then led the prosecution in United States v. Mitchell. On January 1, 1975, the jury convicted John Mitchell, H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and Robert Mardian of conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction. Kenneth Parkinson was acquitted; Mardian’s conviction was later overturned on appeal.¹⁸ Neal later called his closing argument in the cover-up trial his “finest hour” in a courtroom.

Richard Ben-Veniste, Chief of the Watergate Task Force

Just 30 when he joined in July 1973, Ben-Veniste came from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, where he had been chief of the Official Corruption Section.¹⁹ He was a lead prosecutor in the cover-up case against Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell, and co-authored Stonewall: The Real Story of the Watergate Prosecution with George Frampton. He later served as chief minority counsel for the Senate Whitewater Committee and as a commissioner on the 9/11 Commission.¹¹

Jill Wine-Banks, Assistant Special Prosecutor

Wine-Banks was the only woman on the Watergate prosecution team.²⁰ She cross-examined Nixon’s secretary Rose Mary Woods about the 18½-minute gap on a key White House recording and negotiated a plea deal with Jeb Stuart Magruder.²¹ She documented her experience in the 2020 memoir The Watergate Girl and has remained a public commentator; she appeared on NPR in August 2025.²²

Nathaniel (Nick) Akerman, Head of the Plumbers Task Force

Recruited by Vorenberg, Akerman led the investigation of the Ellsberg psychiatrist break-in and related abuses.¹² He later became an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York and built a career as a white-collar defense and trade-secret litigator, with frequent commentary appearances on MSNBC.

Other Prosecutors Who Later Became Prominent

Stephen G. Breyer served as an assistant special prosecutor in 1973 under Cox. He went on to the Senate Judiciary Committee as counsel and chief counsel, and was later appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he served until his retirement in 2022.²³
Peter M. Kreindler served as executive assistant to the special prosecutor under Cox and Jaworski, then as counsel to the special prosecutor under Ruth.²⁴
Carl B. Feldbaum, a 29-year-old former Philadelphia assistant district attorney, joined in July 1973 and worked on internal administration under Ruth.²⁵
Jon A. Sale was an assistant special prosecutor who worked on obtaining and reviewing the White House tapes. He later became a Florida white-collar defense attorney and in 2019 was hired to represent Rudy Giuliani during the congressional impeachment inquiry into President Trump.²⁶
George T. Frampton Jr. was a member of the prosecution team who co-authored Stonewall with Ben-Veniste.²⁷
James S. Doyle served as press secretary and special assistant for public affairs from June 1973 to May 1975.²⁴

Other staff members included Philip J. Bakes Jr., Charles R. Breyer (Stephen Breyer’s brother), Joseph J. Connolly, Richard J. Davis, Peter F. Rient, Frank M. Tuerkheimer, and Roger M. Witten.²⁴

What the Team Produced

The office’s most prominent case was the Watergate cover-up trial, United States v. Mitchell. A federal grand jury returned the indictment on March 1, 1974, naming former Attorney General John Mitchell, former White House aides H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Charles Colson, and Gordon Strachan, and former campaign committee staffers Robert Mardian and Kenneth Parkinson. President Nixon was named an unindicted co-conspirator.¹³ The trial opened on October 1, 1974, before Judge Sirica. On January 1, 1975, the jury convicted Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mardian; Parkinson was acquitted; Mardian’s conviction was later overturned. Mitchell, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman were each sentenced to two-and-a-half to eight years in prison.

Across all five task forces, the WSPF produced more than 50 individual criminal convictions, guilty pleas from 19 corporations, and 11 completed or pending trials by the time Ruth’s office issued its final report in October 1975.¹ Some 40 government officials in total were indicted or jailed as a result of the Watergate investigations.²⁸

1
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum. Watergate Special Prosecution Force Final Report
2
The New York Times. Archibald Cox Appointed Prosecutor for Watergate
3
Retro Report. Inside the Saturday Night Massacre
4
U.S. Department of Justice. Biography of Archibald Cox
5
Encyclopædia Britannica. Leon Jaworski
6
The New York Times. Leon Jaworski, 77, Dies in Texas
7
William & Mary Law School. Marshall-Wythe Medallion – Leon Jaworski
8
The New York Times. New Watergate Prosecutor: Henry Swartley Ruth Jr.
9
National Archives. Records of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force
10
The New York Times. Watergate Special Prosecution Force Will Disband Next Month
11
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Biography of Richard Ben-Veniste
12
University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries. Nathaniel H. Akerman Papers Finding Aid
13
Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. Watergate Explained
14
The New York Times. James Vorenberg, Watergate Prosecutor’s Right-Hand Man, Dies at 72
15
U.S. Department of Justice. Biography of Deputy Attorney General Philip B. Heymann
16
The Washington Post. Philip Heymann Dies
17
D.C. Circuit Historical Society. Oral History of Philip Allen Lacovara
18
Bend Bulletin. James Neal, 81, Leading Trial Lawyer Who Won Case in Watergate Scandal
19
The New York Times. A Trial Veteran at 30: Richard Ben-Veniste
20
University of Chicago. Jill Wine-Banks Biography
21
Ohio State Bar Association. Book Review: The Watergate Girl
22
NPR. A Former Watergate Prosecutor on Weaponizing Government Agencies
23
National Constitution Center. Stephen Breyer’s Path to the Supreme Court
24
Shepard on Watergate. WSPF Staff List
25
The New York Times. Philadelphia Man Named to the Prosecutor’s Staff
26
CNBC. Trump Lawyer Rudy Giuliani Hires Attorney Jon Sale to Represent Him
27
Shepard on Watergate. Major Players
28
Watergate.info. Casualties and Convictions