On October 19, 1973, Nick Akerman and his fellow Watergate investigators began hoarding whatever documents they could from the office of the special prosecutor, Archibald Cox. They knew that the next day, Cox planned to disobey President Richard Nixon and announce before a clutch of reporters at the National Press Club that he would pursue taped recordings from inside the Oval Office; they also knew that in doing so, Cox was risking his job and the fate of the investigation.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices