Kleindienst, Richard

(1923.08.05-2000.02.03)  U.S. Attorney General, Lawyer.

Born near Winslow

Attended of University of Arizona

Lived in Phoenix and Prescott

Died in Prescott

Richard Kleindienst is standing in the back row behind and to the immediate right of President Nixon at the center of this picture taken of the President and his Cabinet less than a year before Kleindienst resigned his office.  Pictured: Front Row: Donald Rumsfeld, Sec. of Trasportation John Volpe, Sec. of Commerce Peter Peterson, Sec. of Defense Melvin Laird, Richard M. Nixon, Sec. of State William Rogers, Sec. of the Interior Rogers C.B. Morton, Sec. of HEW Elliot Richardson, Director of OMB Caspar Weinberger. Back Row: Robert Finch, Sec. of HUD George Romney, Sec. of Agriculture Earl Butz, Sec. of the Treasury George Shultz, Vice President Spiro Agnew, Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, Sec. of Labor James Hodgson, Ambassador at large David Kennedy, Ambassador to the UN George Bush.  White House Photo Office Collection, 6-16-1972.

Richard Kleindienst assisted in Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign.  He was rewarded for his efforts by appointment as Nixon's Deputy Attorney General.  When Attorney General John Mitchell resigned in 1972 to head the ill-fated Committee to Re-elect the President, Kleindienst succeeded as Attorney General.

Kleindienst was sworn in as Attorney General just 5 days before the break-in to the Democrat's Watergate headquarters which eventually forced Nixon's resignation.  Early in 1973 as charges of obstruction of the Watergate scandal came to a head, Kliendienst joined White House aids H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman and White House counsel John Dean in resigning their offices.

In 1974 Kleindienst, who remained an avid Nixon supporter, plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to fully testify in the Senate hearing on confirmation of his appointment as Attorney General.  The testimony he omitted concerned a 1971 antitrust suit the Justice Department filed against International Telephone and Telegraph.  Kleindienst failed to testify that Nixon ordered him to drop the suit, but relented only when he threatened to resign. 

Kleindienst was born on a farm near Winslow.  He became proficient in the Navajo language after his father hired a Navajo woman as housekeeper following his mother's death.  He attended the University of Arizona until his education was interrupted in his sophomore year by World War II.  After service U.S. Army in Italy, he finished his education at Harvard.

He practiced law in Phoenix from 1950 to 1958 with Jennings, Strouss, Salmon & Trask, eventually becoming a partner.  He was a senior partner with Shimmel, Hill, Kleindienst & Bishop from 1958 until 1969 when he became the national director of field operations for the Nixon campaign.  He died of lung cancer in Prescott where he had returned to practice law.