I don't know what kind of lies Ted Kennedy spread in Massachusetts about Judge Bork's role in the Saturday Night Massacre, but in 1987, then-Attorney General, Elliot Richardson, and his then-Deputy AG, Bill Ruckelshaus told me the real story. When Nixon fired Archibold Cox, all THREE top political appointees in the Justice Department at the time--Richardson, Ruckelshaus, AND Bork (Solicitor General)--but Richardson and Ruckelshaus told Bork to "hold the bag," because all three thought they if they resigned at the same time, they'd put the Justice Department's highest-ranking position in the hands of a career diplomat, thereby creating what they feared would be a "constitutional crisis." Accordingly, while Richardson and Ruckelshaus hogged the "glory" and "fame" of resigning in protest, they left Bork to run the Justice Department, and to suffer Ted Kennedy's--and others'--lies.
There would never have been a “Saturday Night Massacre” if only Nixon had not forced Richard Kleindienst to resign as Attorney General. Kleindienst, a Goldwater man, would never have hired Archibald Cox, a Kennedy man, to investigate the Nixon administration.
What you say might or might not be true. I don't know. The fact that Bork fired Archibald Cox remains a major for me. I will never forget when that news came in that night. I feared for the future of America.