Judge Sirica was first told of the missing segment in a chambers conference yesterday afternoon. He then ordered a report made in open court.
Sirica said he was surprised by the disclosure and called it “just another instance” that convinced him he should take some steps to preserve the rest of the recordings. He proposed putting the six-hour reels of tape containing the disputed conversations in a courthouse safe under round-the-clock guard by two deputy U.S. marshals.
Assistant Watergate Special Prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste said the report that the June 20 conversations with Haldeman is “partially obliterated” would get intensive scrutiny.
White House officials briefly played back the original tape of the Haldeman meeting for Watergate prosecutors yesterday morning to pinpoint the conversation-less segment.
At the hearing before Judge Sirica, Buzhardt protested production of the full six-hour reels on grounds that they include many other conversations not covered by the subpoena, but Sirica did not seem persuaded. He said he did not intend to listen to them.
Judge Sirica said he would resume his hearings on the tapes at 10 a.m. Monday. Meanwhile, he announced the appointment of a six-member panel of experts “to study the authenticity and integrity” of the tapes.
Selected jointly by the White House and the Watergate prosecution force, the panel includes:
Richard H. Bolt, chairman of Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc., a Cambridge, Mass., firm that specializes in acoustics and computer technology.
Franklin Cooper, an adjunct professor of linguistics at the University of Connecticut, a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, and a former research engineer for General Electric Research Laboratories.
James L. Flanagan, an electrical engineer now with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former Bell Laboratories specialist in digital coding of speech and acoustic measurements.
John G. (Jay) McKnight, an electrical engineer and audio systems consultant.
Thomas G. Stockham Jr., an associate professor in the University of Utah’s computer science department.
Mark R. Weiss, vice president for acoustics research of the Federal Scientific Corp. of New York City.
Sirica said their testing would involve physical and electrical measurements of the tapes and should be completed in January.
Part III
President Nixon gestures toward transcripts of White House tapes after announcing he would turn them over to House impeachment investigators and make them public in April of 1974. (AP photo)
Nixon Resigns
“One year of Watergate is enough,” President Nixon declared in his State of the Union address in January 1974. But the embattled president could not put the issue behind him. Special prosecutor Jaworski and the Senate Watergate Committee continued to demand that the White House turn over tapes and transcripts. As public support for Nixon waned, the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives began to consider the ultimate sanction for a president—impeachment.
Nixon cast himself as a defender of the presidency. He insisted that he had made mistakes but broke no laws. He said he had no prior knowledge of the burglary and did not know about the cover-up until early 1973. To release the tapes, he said, would harm future chief executives. The pressure on Nixon mounted in March 1974, when the special prosecutor indicted former Attorney General John Mitchell, former aides Haldeman and Ehrlichman, and four other staffers for conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury in connection with the Watergate burglary. While the grand jury wanted to indict Nixon himself, Jaworski declined to do so doubting the constitutionality of indicting a sitting president.
To mollify his critics, Nixon announced in April 1974 the release of 1,200 pages of transcripts of conversations between him and his aides. The conversations, “candid beyond any papers ever made public by a President,” in the words of The Post stoked more outrage. Even Nixon’s most loyal conservative supporters voiced dismay about profanity-laced discussions in the White House around how to raise blackmail money and avoid perjury.
Nixon’s legal defense began to crumble in May when a federal court ruled in favor of Jaworksi’s subpoena for the White House tapes. Nixon’s lawyers appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. His political position faltered in June, amid reports that all 21 Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee were prepared to vote for impeachment. On July 24, the Supreme Court unanimously ordered the White House to hand over the tapes to the special prosecutor. Two days later the Judicary Committee approved one article of impeachment to be voted on by the entire House.
When Nixon released the tapes a week later, a June 23, 1972, conversation showed that Nixon had, contrary to repeated claims of innocence, played a leading role in the cover-up from the very start. Dubbed “the smoking gun” tape, this recording eliminated what little remained of Nixon’s support. Even his closest aides told him he had to resign or face the almost certain prospect of impeachment.
On August 8, 1974, Nixon announced his resignation. “By taking this action,” he said in a subdued yet dramatic television address from the Oval Office, “I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America.” In a rare admission of error, Nixon said: “I deeply regret any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision.” In a final speech to the White House staff, a teary-eyed Nixon told his audience, “Those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”
Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn into office on Aug. 9, 1974, declaring “our long national nightmare is over.” One month later, Ford granted Nixon a “full, free and absolute pardon” for all crimes that Nixon “committed or may have committed” during his time in the White House.
The Watergate affair was over, but its influence was not. The interlinked scandals generated a new and enduring skepticism about the federal government in American public opinion. The lingo of the scandal—"to cover-up,” to “stonewall,” and “to leak"—became part of the American political vocabulary. The newly assertive Congress passed campaign finance reform legislation and probed abuses of power at the CIA and other national security agencies. Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting, recounted in a best-selling book, All the President’s Men, and a hit movie infused American journalism with a new adversarial edge. Before long, the appointment of special prosecutors to investigate allegations of presidential wrongdoing became the norm in Washington. Watergate had changed American politics permanently and profoundly.
The stories leading up to his resignation:
President Hands Over Transcripts Initial Reaction on Hill Divided Along Party Lines
By Haynes Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 1, 1974
The Nixon Watergate papers, the most extraordinary documents ever to come out of the White House, have been made public to the Congress and the American people.
They are massive in content (more than 200,000 words), riveting in language and characterization of public figures, and explosive in their revelations about the President’s role in Watergate.
Release of the 1,254 pages of the secretly recorded conversations of crucial Watergate-related meetings from September, 1972, through April, 1973, came in two distinct installments yesterday.
The first segment, made public in the morning after the President’s nationally televised address, was in the form of a White House summary of the conversations — in effect, an official “white paper” on the Watergate affair.
Its tone was that of a lawyer’s brief, strongly arguing that the public disclosure will establish, once and for all, the President’s innocence.
“In all of the thousands of words spoken,” the White House summary said, “even though they often are unclear and ambiguous, not once does it appear that the President of the United States was engaged in a criminal plot to obstruct justice.”
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br /> Throughout the morning and early afternoon an intensive White House public relations effort was under way across the country to reinforce that view. White House aides were calling editors and reporters in an attempt to demonstrate that the “truth” of Watergate, as now made public, completely absolves the President.
The immediate reaction on Capitol Hill divided along political lines. John Rhodes of Arizona, the House Republican leader, said the transcripts showed the President “in substantial compliance” with a House Judiciary Committee subpoena.
Democratic response tended to follow the lead of House Speaker Carl Albert. “Why substitute other evidence when the direct evidence [the actual tapes] is available?” he said.
Then, shortly after 3 p.m., the second wave struck in the release of the edited documents. They, clearly, were open to other interpretations than those given by the White House brief.
The conversations show the President discussing at length raising blackmail money; discussing the merits of offering clemency or parole; suggesting how to handle possible perjury or obstruction of justice charges; urging the adoption of a “national security” defense for potential White House defendants.
They are candid beyond any papers ever made public by a President. Even though the transcripts were edited to remove expletives, they still contain occasional profanities and harsh judgments on individuals. They also contain disclosures of a kind that are certain to inspire even stronger future controversy about Mr. Nixon’s role.
The controversy over Mr. Nixon’s compliance with the congressional subpoena also continues. Today the House Judiciary Committee will meet to give its formal response on whether its members find the President in compliance with their legal request for the production of 42 tapes and related materials — or whether they will initiate contempt proceedings in Congress.
Such a finding could become a key charge in the impeachment proceedings now under way.
The transcripts, even in their expurgated form, are certain to be talked about and read long after Mr. Nixon leaves the White House: the Government Printing Office is already planning to sell them at $12.25 a set, and they will be the subject of countless other books and studies about the way the Nixon administration handled its Watergate crisis.
The conversations are laced with references to “laundering” money and cash payments, to “coded” phone conversations and burglaries and break-ins and even, in one instance, to a Mafia-type operation.
At one point in the celebrated March 21, 1973, meeting between the President and his then-counsel, John W. Dean III, Mr. Nixon responds to the question of raising $1 million in “hush money” by saying:
“We could get that. On the money, if you need the money you could get that. You could get a million dollars. You could get it in cash. I know where it could be gotten. It is not easy, but it could be done. But the question is, Who would handle it? Any ideas on that?”
Dean had an idea — former Attorney General John N. Mitchell. The President agreed. “I would think so, too,” he said.
In that same conversation, Dean had complained that the people at the White House were not “pros” at “this sort of thing. This is the sort of thing Mafia people can do . . .”
“That’s right,” the President responded.
The conversation continued:
Dean: It is a tough thing to know how to do.
Mr. Nixon: Maybe it takes a gang to do that.
His release of his private conversations comes exactly a year to the day after he first reported in full to the public on the Watergate affair.
Now he is even more deeply engaged in fighting the most difficult political battle of his life.
Court Orders Nixon to Yield Tapes; President Promises to Comply Fully Justices Reject Privilege Claim in 8-to-0 Ruling
By John P. MacKenzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 25, 1974
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday unanimously, and definitively, that President Nixon must turn over tape recordings of White House conversations needed by the Watergate special prosecutor for the trial of the President’s highest aides.
Ordering compliance with a trial subpoena “forthwith,” the court rejected Mr. Nixon’s broad claims of unreviewable executive privilege and said they “must yield to the demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending criminal trial.”
The President said he was “disappointed” by the decision but said he would comply. His lawyer said the time-consuming process of collecting and indexing the tapes would begin immediately.
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger delivered the historic judgment in a packed and hushed courtroom. His 31-page opinion drew heavily on both the great cases of the court’s past, as well as the pro-prosecution edicts of a court dominated by Nixon appointees.
Only a few times in its history has the court grappled with such large assertions of governmental power. As in most of those encounters, the justices concluded that the judiciary must have the last word in an orderly constitutional system even though its view of the Constitution is “at variance with the construction given the document by another branch.”
Brushing aside warnings by presidential lawyer James D. St. Clair that it was in an impeachment thicket, the court handed down its 8-to-0 ruling hours before the House Judiciary Committee was scheduled to open debate on proposed articles of impeachment.
One justice, William H. Rehnquist, disqualified himself because of his previous association with former Attorney General John N. Mitchell in the Justice Department.
The decision itself had implications for the impeachment proceedings. Although the court said it was not concerned with “congressional demands for information,” the ruling weakened the White House legal argument against Judiciary Committee subpoenas.
Calls for prompt compliance with the Supreme Court decision came from Congress. A few voices were heard for slowing down the impeachment drive long enough to explore the remote hope that Congress could obtain the tapes from U.S. District Court Judge John J. Sirica or Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski.
Jaworski, who has denied St. Clair’s charge that his office is a mere conduit of evidence for pro-impeachment forces, was restrained in expressing satisfaction at the ruling. “It doesn’t leave any doubt in anyone’s mind,” he said.
Only one of St. Clair’s arguments came close to persuading the justices. The court declared, in its most extensive discussion of the issue to date, that executive privilege is “constitutionally based” even though it is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution.
But while communication between the President and his advisers is “presumptively privileged,” the court said that this presumption can be outweighed by the demonstrated needs of the judicial process.
The court recognized a privilege for matters dealing with diplomatic or national security secrets, but stressed that federal judges may inspect such material in chambers in the course of selecting evidence the prosecutor should have.
No such security claims have been advanced in the current dispute over subpoenaed tapes and documents covering 64 conversations — most of which implicate the President himself in the Watergate cover-up conspiracy, according to Jaworski — between June, 1972, and April 26 of this year.
Any national security arguments must now be advanced directly to Judge Sirica, whose May 20 order to produce the material for his inspection was affirmed in all respects.
The judge initially gave St. Clair 11 days to produce the original tapes and documents along with an index showing what portions the White House contended were irrelevant, together with copies of 20 tapes for which Mr. Nixon published edited White House transcripts on April 30.
This screening process may consume most of the seven weeks that remain before the Sept. 9 trial of John N. Mitchell, H.R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and other Nixon confidants. Evidence introduced at that trial would be available to Congress
, too late for the scheduled House impeachment vote but in time for a Senate trial if that occurs.
If White House lawyers disagree with any ruling by Judge Sirica on relevance or executive privilege, they are free to attempt piecemeal delaying appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals, but the high court indicated that the judge’s rulings should not be lightly overturned.
St. Clair in a statement last night at the Western White House in San Clemente indicated that collecting and organizing the tapes for submission to Judge Sirica had not yet begun. In a brief statement he told newsmen the process “will begin forthwith.”
During the oral argument July 8, Justice Thurgood Marshall suggested that the process should have begun some time ago. St. Clair said he hadn’t started because he did not expect to lose the appeal from Judge Sirica’s order.
Among the numerous defeats suffered by Mr. Nixon was the high court’s decision to ignore St. Clair’s contention that the grand jury had no constitutional right to brand the President an unindicted co-conspirator in the cover-up case.
The court said the validity of Judge Sirica’s order could be decided without tackling that question, so it dismissed “as improvidently granted” the writ of review it had issued on that point.
As a result, the White House must go to the U.S. Court of Appeals with its motion to expunge the grand jury’s 19-to-0 vote to name the President as a conspirator. The finding will stand in the meantime.
More important than the label of “conspirator” was the indication in Burger’s opinion that the evidence at trial may link Mr. Nixon to the alleged conspiracy. If that happens, Mr. Nixon’s taped statements are easily admissible as evidence against the defendants. Burger said Judge Sirica did not err in his preliminary, pre-trial estimate that the evidence was admissible and therefore should be produced now.
The Original Watergate Stores Page 13
