Before his May 25, 1973, appointment as Richard Nixon's attorney general, Elliott Richardson had agreed at his Senate confirmation hearing to appoint a Watergate special prosecutor, and so immediately on taking office appointed Archibald Cox under a special one-time regulation. As part of his investigation, in July of that year, Cox first requested and then subpoenaed the Nixon White House tapes; secret recordings Nixon had made of conversations in the Oval Office and elsewhere. The Nixon administration refused to produce the tapes citing executive privilege, and the dispute was fought in court until October.