Richardson, Elliot Lee definition of Richardson, Elliot Lee in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Richardson, Elliot Lee, 1920–99, U.S. government official, b. Boston. Admitted to the bar in 1949, he was (1957–59) assistant secretary of health, education and welfare under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Richardson was later active as a Republican in Massachusetts state politics, serving as lieutenant governor (1965–67) and attorney general (1967–69). He became (1970) secretary of health, education, and welfare under President Richard M. Nixon Nixon, Richard Milhous, 1913–94, 37th President of the United States (1969–74), b. Yorba Linda, Calif.

Political Career to 1968

A graduate of Whittier College and Duke Univ. law school, he practiced law in Whittier, Calif.
..... Click the link for more information. and supported the administration's cutbacks in social welfare programs and its conservative approach to school desegregation. After serving briefly (1973) as secretary of defense, Richardson was appointed attorney general, but he resigned on Oct. 20, 1973, rather than carry out President Nixon's order to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox (see Watergate affair Watergate affair, in U.S. history, series of scandals involving the administration of President Richard M. Nixon ; more specifically, the burglarizing of the Democratic party national headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C.
..... Click the link for more information. ). He was also U.S. ambassador to Great Britain (1975–76) and secretary of commerce (1976–77) under President Gerald Ford, making him the first person to hold four different cabinet posts; and U.S. ambassador-at-large (1977–80) under President Jimmy Carter. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998.

Bibliography

See his Reflections of a Radical Moderate (1996).