UILIIl~r· :s n:: m 211 7 111

Miss Woods re-enacts her 'terrible mistake': Did a sliding-into-third-base stretch erase the tape? ROSE MARY'S 800-800 he is the oldest of the old Nixon hands The official story of the gap did strain more of the surviving \Vatergate record­ -the President's unflinchingly loyal belief, in court and far beyond; even Mr. ings, some running up to several minutes. Sprivate secretary for almost all his in-and­ Nixon's head Watergate lawyer, J. Fred The doubt that so many vicissitudes out political life-and last week she took Buzhardt, admitted having suspected could have befallen only nine tapes thus on the hardest assignment of her quar­ down to the day he first broke the news far under subpoena was palpable in the ter-century in his service, For three days, in court a fortnight ago that the erasure­ courtroom, and Judge Sirica for one was Rose Mary Woods, 55, sat tense and whoever did it-had been intentional. visibly less than pleased. He was said to bristly before an openly skeptical Judge Miss Woods insisted that it was not. She be pondering a whole series of options, John J. Sirica and testified that she may had, she said, been interrupted by a ranging from dqing nothing at all to hold­ have erased at least some of the eighteen phone call in the midst of playing back ing one or more of the principals in con­ minutes missing from one of Mr. Nixon's a June 20, 1972, conversation between tempt-or referring their stories to the secret Watergate tapes-all, of course, by Mr. Nixon and his then chief of staff, grand jury for possible perjury or ob-· · "a terrible mistake." H.R. (Bob) Haldeman; she guessed that struction-of-justice charges. But her story rested on one feat of by accident-or really a series of them­ And therein lay the most explosive dan­ contortion and several unlucky coinci­ she had punched the RECORDING button ger of all for the President: the possibility dences, and in the end the perfect sec­ on her Uher Universal 5000, kept her toe that his own Miss Woods might under retary may have done the boss more on the operating treadle and so set the pressure wind up a witness for the prose­ harm than good. With two tapes already erase mechanism in motion while she was cution. Mr. Nixon's men bv last week had reported to be nonexistent, the gutting on the telephone. already begun putting as· much distance of a third-and Miss Woods's apologia as possible between his cause and hers; for it-rendered the President's Opera­ Sirica's Options Buzhardt's case tended to blame her for tion Candor very nearly inoperative. But that alone required a reach,. physi­ the entire eighteen-minute hiatus in "Anyone who believes him now," said cally and imaginatively as well;· (page the tape-not just the five minutes or so one Texas congressman, "is a goddam 28) . And her story came in train with a she said she had spent on the phone­ fool." And his credibility stood in further whole series of damaging disclosures­ and chief of staff Alexander Haig Jr. ad­ peril still from the unlikeliest source of that the gap conveniently started just vised her curtly on Thanksgiving Day to all: the possibility that Miss Woods when Haldeman and the President be­ get a lawyer of her own. might return to the stand to say that she gan talking about Watergate; that .\1iss She did-her choice was Charles was coached in the White House to for­ Woods was allowed to handle other Rhyne, an old ~ixon chum and a for­ get about the gap the first time she was original tapes long after her first "mis­ mer American Bar Association president questioned ·about it-and finally to take take" was discovered, and that there are -and, NEWSWEEK's Stephan Lesher the blame for it all by herself. still more unexplained silences on still learned, Rhyne was qu;ckly persuaded 26

I t' returns public within the week; his staff promptly postponed the delivery date and waffied on whether he really meant that :\lis~ \\'uods had bcl•n elected the the returns or just some selected infor­ ,goat of till' case. He· told friends that mation from them. And the President's \Vhite House law\'C'rs failed to advise pledge of full cooperation with special h<:>r to m<:>ntion th~ gap when she was prosecutor Leon Jaworski dissolved into first called to the stand Nov. 8; she a spate of name-calling hauntingly like didn't, and in fact argued \'ehemently what preceded the dismissal of Archi­ that she had taken every precaution bald Cox. Press secretary Ron Ziegler against erasing anything on the tapes. charged Jaworski's inherited staff with Fmther, Rhyne told these sourer~, she harboring an "ingrained suspicion and was allowed to belicYe that she alone visceral dislike" for the President; he was responsible for the whole gap, when exempted Jaworski himself, but he did she may in fact have caused only part of complain that the tapes already de­ it-if any. She backed off from taking the livered under subpoena ought to be full blame during her three days in court enough for any "reasonable men"-a sig­ last week, and Rhyne was contemplating nal that just happened to coincide with recalling her this week to amend her a request by Jaworski for some addi­ version still more. "They're throwing her tional Watergate recordings. to the wolves," he told a friend. "Just from the little I know, I could blow the Who's on First? lid right off the White House." The President's defenses were further Mr. Nixon went right ahead trying to weakened by the demoralization and dis­ keep the lid on with his Operation Can­ array of his own overmatched legal staff. dor; he referred only fleetingly to Rose Having run through three previous Wa­ Mary's boo-boo in a private meeting tergate lawyers dating to John Dean, he .vith 37 House Democrats ("Oh," was said now to be dissatisfied with his shrugged the President, "that was just fourth, Fred Buzhardt, for his handling an accident that happened") and other­ of the tapes case. Ziegler himself con­ wise kept on scattering promises to tell veyed this message by praising Buz­ all soon and hang tough forever. "You hardt with faint damns ('The difficulty don't need to worry about my getting of the workload led to some problems") seasick or jumping ship," he told the and leaving the clear suggestion that he unshakably friendly Seafarers Interna­ would shortly be supplanted by Illinois Buzhardt: Tapes in a tin box tional Union. "I am going to stay at that appellate judge John J. Sullivan, an old helm until we bring it into port." Duke classmate and Navy messmate of dam," declared one, "is about to crack." But it remained plain that Operation the President's. But Sullivan, after six Nor was there any surcease from the Candor still meant candor-up-to-a-point. dispirited days in Washington, told guSh of bad news. Haig himself was due l\lr. Nixon promised one deputation of NEWSWEEK's Thomas M. DeFrank that on the stand this week in the tapes case, senators that he would make his tax he couldn't get anybody's ear and prob­ presumably for questioning about his ably wouldn't take the job. Buzhardt, in own role-and . the President's. Egil any case, was magically rehabilitated Krogh Jr., who headed the White House the next day; Ziegler's deputy, Gerald plumbers, pleaded guilty to a single Warren, was in the process of ducking count of conspiracy in the Ellsberg bur­ the whole question at a briefing when glary case and agreed to turn state's evi­ somebody handed him a note, where­ dence; his f'accuse too could reach into upon he blandly announced: "Fred Buz­ the Oval Office, though his lawyers think hardt is indeed still in charge." not. Dwight Chapin, Mr. Nixon's former The gloom inside the garrison at 1600 appointments secretary, was indicted on Pennsylvania Avenue thickened with the charges of lying to the Watergate grand daily disaster bulletins from Sirica's court­ jury about his alleged complicity in Don­ room. "We're getting our brains beat ald Segretti's dirty political tricks. Not out," Buzhardt's co-counsel, Leonard even a 92·3 Senate vote to confirm Garment, . conceded glumly. That the Gerald Ford as Vice President could be eighteen-minute buzz on the June 20 counted an unmixed omen for Mr. Nix­ tape might in fact have been accidental on. Ford is likely to do equally hand­ was almost universally discounted on somely in the House this week and to be Capitol Hill; one normally sympathetic sworn in immediately before a joint ses­ Southern congressman guessed bluntly sion of Congress-whereupon, one Sen­ that the Nixon men were "thumbing ate GOP leader wanly agreed, "it will their noses at the people and don't expect be easier to impeach the President." anybody to believe it." The result was a dangerous further curdling of what good­ 'Highly Personal' will Mr. Nixon has left in Congress and But the tapes remained the gravest of within his own party. E~_f! Senate Mi­ all Mr. Nixon's immediate problems-a nority Leader Hugh Scott, an indefatig­ snarl that has entangled him like some able loyalist, put forth a mild scold urging latter-dav Laocoon since their existence the President to release "everything was first revealed last July. Buzhardt

··~., relevant in every single tape" he ever finally delivered them-or what remains C9'973~BL.oc-tc made to recover his lost credibility. of them-to Judge Sirica's court in a little Herblock And Republican professionals around metal case last week, to be locked away 'She tried pushing a tape-recorder but· the country edged a panicky step closer against any further accidents. Yet even ton while holding her foot on a pedal to breaking openly with Mr. Nixon for then the surrender was grudging and in­ and reaching back for a telephone-' their own salvation next year. "The complete. The \Vhite House argued on December 10, 1973 27 ground of Executive privilege that parts testing by Buzhardt himself the evening evening, so he testified last week, that or all of three of them ought still to be after he had disclosed the gap in Sirica's he got a fresh reel of tape, put it on the kept secret-most intriguingly a taped cnurt on Nov. 21. In his own telling, recorder in Miss Woods's office, set the conversation among the President, Hal­ Buzhardt }:tad by then known for seven erase mechanism going and tried to re­ deman and John Mitchell the day be­ weeks that there was a buzz on the tape produce the hum. The typewriter and fore Mitchell quit as director of the re­ and for a week that the buzz ran fully the Tensor lamp going together, he said, elect-Nixon campaign, not two weeks eighteen minutes-loud for the first five made a noise roughly like the loud buzz after the Watergate break-in. (Mr. Nix­ and a half, the rest at a somewhat lower of the first .five and a half minutes; the on's announced objections: the talk pitch. He went to Jaworski's office the lamp alone, with the typewriter switched touched only intermittently on Water­ morning of the 21st to plead for more off, produced something approximating gate and at points got "highly personal.") time before going public. He told the the softer hum that followed. Electronics The more stunning news accompany­ prosecutors, NEWSWEEK learned, that experts who tried subsequently were un­ ing Buzhardt's tin box to court was .the "someone"-possibly Mi~s Woods-might able to reproduce the sounds, Buzhardt White House theory of the buzz on the intentionally have erased part of the tape conceded; still, his experiment framed June 20 tape-that the key passage had out of some misguided sense of loyalty the basis of the White House accident been accidentally expunged "by the de­ to the President. theory-and Miss Woods's first guarded pression of a record button . . . possibly But Jaworski insisted on going to court explanation of jllSt what it was that she while the recorder was in the proximity that very day. Buzhardt went along, tell­ might have done. of an electric typewriter and a high-in­ ing Sirica in chambers (though not in Her version was that she was given tensity lamp." This hypothesis, as it de­ open court) that the erasure "could not the June 20 tape, along· with the oth­ veloped, was the product of some frantic have been accidental." It was only that ers under subpoena, at Camp David

the tape, not the low hum that is heard throughout the gap. That hum, experts say, might have come by induction from Miss Woods's high-intensity desk lamp, her electric typewriter, or the recorder itself-but only if the machine were in a normal, forward recording mode. Proximity: Presidential counsel J. Fred Buzhardt offered another theory. In ex­ periments with the Uher recorder, Buz­ hardt testified, he had approximated the hum by placing the machine in close proximity to Miss Woods's lamp and typewriter. The noise, he said, fell .in volume when the typewriter was turned off-which might account for an audible drop in the hum's pitch about .five min­ utes into the gap. Buzhardt's clear implication was that Miss Woods con­ cluded her phone call, shut off her type­ writer, and did something else while the Joe Hettoerc<~tr-'WUII1nc1"n tape ran on for another thirteen minutes. Univenal5000: l11 the talk gone forever? The trouble with this version was that Buzhardt acknowledged he was only able to reproduce the hum by using the keys on the recording machine-without Doing the Twist While Erasing the Tape the foot pedal connected. ow plausible is Rose Mary Woods's control, allowing the tape to run on and However the erasure occurred, there H explanation for the erased tape, and erase itself. is a slender chance that the conversation what might experts still learn from it? In a courtroom demonstration of this might be recovered At the weekend, Technicians familiar with the Uher scenario, Miss Woods took her foot off the tape was delivered in a steel box by Universal 5000 recorder-playback ma­ the pedal even before picking up the six .armed U.S. marshals to New York's · chine that Miss Woods was using all but imaginary phone-and at best, her the­ Federal Scientific Corporation, to find wtanimously agree that her story is phys­ ory explains less than a third of the out-among other things-whether com­ ically possible, but highly unlikely. eighteen-and-a~quarter minute erasure. puterized "signal enhancement" tech­ For one thing, Miss Woods's story also And even if the contortions were grant­ niques might be able to restore an audi­ described an improbable sequence of ed, said Uher distributor Sidney Rosen, ble signal. Dr. Thomas Stockham of the contortions. At the ringing of the tele­ it didn't make sense to press the STOP University of Utah, one of six technical phone, she said, she must have jabbed button at all, since simply lifting a foot experts invited by Judge John Sirica to at the tape machine with her right hand, from the pedal would stop the tape. In examine the tapes, told NEWSWEEK that missing the STOP button and hitting the court, Miss Woods testified that she it would be "premature and guessy" to RECORDING instead; then she twisted used both techniques on occasion. make any predictions but said he hoped backward and to the left, grabbing a The machine could have era5ed all to "have those answers in January." telephone 5 feet away from her type­ eighteen minutes of the tape in about Most experts, however, discounted any writer; she tucked the receiver between twenty seconds if Miss Woods had chance of recovering intelligible conver­ her shoulder and chin and may even pressed RECORDING and hit the foot pedal sation. "If it had been a simple erasure have stabbed the appropriate button on hard, putting it into a "fast rewind" there might have been a chance," says the telephone with the same hand; then mode. But that would have meant that Harold K. Lipset, a San Francisco inves­ she settled down for a five-minute tele­ Miss Woods had already listened to the tigator who has worked with electronic phone call, taking occasional notes; and missing conversation, and she testified surveillance and detection devices for through all this action, her left toe was that she had heard none of it. It would more than two decades. "But with that set firmly on the tape machine's pedal also have left a high-pitched squeal on hum on top, that conversation is gone." 28 New11week NATIONAL AFFAIRS last Sept. 29 to transcribe for :\lr. Nix­ ing china and other intrusive background tape, playt>d it back to where she had on. The June tape included back-to-back noises. There were audible snippets of left off, discovered the hum, da.~hed conversations first with domestic-affairs :\1r. Nixon ordering consomme for lunch; to the Oval Office and. as she recounted counselor John Ehrlichman, then with telling Ehrlichman that press conferences it, told 1\lr. Nixon, "I am terribly embar­ Haldeman. But Haig called her on the were better for him than speeches; com­ rassed." She blurted out her explana­ morning of the 29th to tell her that Cox plaining that the press had favored Hu­ tion, she said, and the President told her, had been "a little bit confused" in his bert Humphrey in 1968; dictating a note "Don't worry about it, that is not one of subpoena-he had lumped the two aides to the governor of South Dakota-and the subpoenaed tapes . . . it is too bad, together in one meefing with Mr. Nixon then the humming until, precisely eight­ but don't worry about it." -and that all he really wanted was the een minutes and fifteen seconds later, The skepticism was heavy. Sirica had Ehrlichman session alone. She said she the conversation resurfaced with some prosecutor Jill Volner read back the labored 29 hours that day and the next speculations about the upcoming Demo­ transcript of her earlier testimony on trying to set down the gist of the meet­ cratic convention. The only clue to the Nov. 8, when she remembered having ing from a bad tape on a lo-6 tape­ missing material was some notes of been told not to push the RECORDING but­ recorder; it turned out, so the VVhite ton-"and I think I used every possible House said, to be a privileged policy precaution to not do that." Mrs. Volner talk on a higher-education bill and other asked what precautions. "I used my matters-not including Watergate. head," Miss Woods snapped then. "It is 'Buzzes and Buzzes and Buzzes' the only one I had to use." Sirica listened to the reprise, then impatiently asked Miss Woods's account of Oct. 1, her Miss Woods why she hadn't thought to first day back in her own VVhite House mention her little mishap on the 8th. "I office, was one of those secretarial night­ was petrified," she said. "It was my first mares: a day in which she came in ex­ time ever in a courtroom ... all I can say hausted, got 50 or 60 phone calls and in is that I am just dreadfully sorry." between labored to finish the transcrip- Mrs. Volner, too, picked at the visible

Lawrence )tclntosh Rhyne: 'I could blow the lid off' Krogh: A plumber pleads guilty tion with the unfamiliar Uher recorder. holes in the story. She put Miss Woods She let the tape wind on past Ehrlich­ through a courtroom re-enactment of the man into the Haldeman conversation, incident-and noted for the record that she said, "so that I could be sure that John her foot came off the pedal when she Ehrlichman was gone from the room .. ," reached for an imaginary phone. That She was three minutes and 40 seconds afternoon, 1\·liss Woods re-created the into Haldeman, in her account, when "accident" in her own office, with a pho­ the phone rang. "And that is the time," tographer on hand; the resulting pic­ she said, "that through some error on my AP tures showed her in an awkward sliding­ part, some way in turning around to Sirica: His Honor was displeased into-third-base stretch with her chair reach one of my phones which buzzes rolled back from the recorder, her left and buzzes and buzzes, I pushed the Haldeman's suggesting that he and Mr. hand scooping up the receiver and her RECORD button down." That was a mis­ Nixon had in fact discussed Watergate, left toe presumably pressing down on take-she was reaching for the STOP but­ but as a problem in public relations, not the treadle-where it would have had to ton-but it alone would be harmless; it in public corruption. "VVhat is our coun­ stay for eighte~n uninterrupted minutes takes two simultaneous errors to erase ter-attack?" he had jotted. "PR offensive to account for the entire erasure. a tape accidentally, and Miss Woods to top this-hit the opposition w/ their would only guess at the second: "I must activities ... we should be on the attack­ Why Push the Button? have kept my foot on the foot pedal." for diversion ..." "And why did you push any button at What was lost was everything the two If the two men said anything incrimi­ all when you picked up the telephone?" men said about Watergate. The tape nating to either one of them, the tape re­ asked Mrs. Volner. was played in open court-the first ever vealed nothing of it. Nor did Miss Woods; "Because normally if I have the START to be aired in public-and was disap­ she said she hung up her phone after a on I would push the STOP button so the pointingly trivial when it could be heard conversation of no more than six minutes, machines wouldn't run on and on," said at all through a cacophony of whirrs, saw the RECORDING button down-and Miss Woods. whistles, whines, rattling papers, clatter- "practically panicked." She rewound the "Isn't it a fact that if you took your foot December 10, 1973 29 NATIONAL AFFAIRS off the foot pedal the machine woultl left the court-and the beleaguered !\'ix­ man and Ehrlichman between 10:30 haw stopped:"' on defense-with three hypotheses ra­ a.m. and noon on June 20. The prosecu­ "Yes, probably would han~." ther than the pat one put forward by tion filed a suppmting memorandum in "\Vhy did you push a button?" the \\'hite House, and Buzlmrdt himself August correcting the time and noting "Bt.•t·;mst·-1 don't know whv ..." conceded from the stand that that theorv that Ehrlichman "and then" Haldeman The first dav, ~liss Woods ~eemed will­ had been "just a possibility all along." · went in to see the President between ill!-( to c·onct•de that, while she was on 10:30 and 12:45. But Buzhardt, to Si­ the phont• for only five minutes or so, Strict Constructionist rica's open incredulity, said that "only she might have caused the entire erasure The tantalizing collateral mystery was the most careful reading" could have -"Olwiously my judgment of timing is why Mr. Nixon and his legal staff-hav­ caught these nuances; all summf'r and had." But the second day, ~he insisted ing been ale1ted on Oct. 1 that there fall, accordingly, he stuck to the strict­ she couldn't account for anv more of the was at least a short gap on the tape­ constructionist view that Cox meant only buzz than the time she had spent on the kept it secret for nearly two months. Ehrlichman's conversation, which didn't phone, and by the third, she questioned Buzhardt continued blaming the "ambi­ touch on Watergate, and not Halde­ whether the whole reconstruction was guity" of the original subpoena, which man's, which did. accumte-and thus whether she could was based on sketchy information and This version tidily explained the Presi­ have caused any of the hiatus at all. "I which in fact did call for a tape of a sin­ dent's long silence and even Miss don't know if I left my foot on the pedal," gle meeting among Mr. Nixort, Halde- Woods's failure to mention the buzz on she said. "I am telling you what every­ Nov. 8; the assumption, said Buz­ body thinks happened, or you are saying hardt, was that the accident befell it happened." The resulting confusion an unsubpoenaed tape and was

the 1972 trial of two union officials for extortion, a male court reporter YOUTH SQUAD reprimanded her for wearing a miniskirt-"My hemline is irrele­ AT WORK vant to the proceedings," she main­ tains-and only last week, a factual erry r..-Iason would have smiled. Could dispute with Miss Woods brought P Presidential secretary Rose Mary a somewhat sexist put-down by Woods show the court, the young prose­ Judge Sirica. "We have enough cutor asked, just how she had accidental- . problems without you tWo ladies ly ·erased a segment of the Watergate getting into an argument," he tapes? Miss Woods donned a pale-blue chided gently. set of earphones, switched on the tape Hot Seat: Undeterred, Mrs. Vol­ recorder in front of her and stepped ner kept up the questions abo~t down on the floor pedal with her left the physical details of Miss foot. .Then assistant special prosecutor Woods's "terrible mistake": Why Jill Wine Volner told her to reach in the had she kept the recorder covered, direction of the phone. "Before I did thus hiding the tapes? How had anything else, I had to take these off," she managed to push an extension Miss Woods told her, removing the ear­ button while cradling the phone? phones. Suddenly, the recorder stopped; Wasn't the position uncomfortable? Mrs. Volner looked down. "Right, and Mrs. Volner disconcerted Miss you just picked your foot off the pedal," Woods by pacing up and down she said quietly. with the secretary's copy of the In recent weeks, life has been full of troublesome tape; if she was mo­ such small triumphs for Jill Volner and AP mentarily sidetracked, Ben-Veniste her partner, Richard Ben-Veniste. Since Volner: The hemline is irrelevant cued her in a whisper. And when the firing of their former boss, Archibald the testy Miss Woods left the hot Cox, the two 30-year-olds have gained and labor racketeering. He was the third­ seat, Ben-Veniste moved on Buzhardt the spotlight by pitting their considera­ ranking lawyer in the prosecution of with a scathing sarcasm and near-total ble talents against the generation-older Martin Sweig, onetime aide to former recall of the countless Watergate facts. White House lawyers-and the results of House Speaker John McCormack, when Ben-Veniste and Mrs. Volner say that questioning witnesses for the grand jury his two superiors abruptly quit-and Ben­ they're not intimidated by their White and Judge John J. Sirica have been sen­ Veniste• took over to win the case. Last House opposition-"We're lawyers. So sational. Last week, for example, while July, he enlisted in Cox's army, assuming are they," says Ben-Veniste; "I think they Mrs. Volner zeroed in on Rose Mary charge of the six-lawyer Watergate task respect us" -nor by the magnitude of the Woods, Ben-Veniste got Presidential force in October. Watergate case. To duck the Hood of counsel J. Fred Buzhardt to admit that The task force's "No. 2 man," Ben­ Watergate questions, they often get to­ he believed until Thanksgiving eve that Veniste says, is Mrs. Volner, a former gether for home dinner parties with the there was "no innocent explanation" for Department of Justice lawyer whose par­ other lawyers in the group. And they try the eighteen-minute gap. ticipation in some ten trials exceeds the to avoid paranoia; Mrs. Volner shrugged Honors: For his persistence, Ben-Ven­ limited courtroom experience of any of off suggestions that the burglary of her iste has been termed cocky and brash her Watergate colleagues. A Chicagoart Washington apartment last week-the and disparaged by the White House as a. who had originally planned to apply her second since she joined the task force­ "clever prosecutor." But his record is as law degree to a journalism career, Mrs. might have been Administration-inspired. formidable as his reputation. After re­ Volner nearly flunked out of Columbia in For all their seeming casualness, how­ cei\"ing law degrees and academic hon­ her freshman year. She returned a year ever, the two are putting long hours and ors from Columbia and Northwestern, later, graduated on the dean's list in obvious dedication into their work. "You Ben-Veniste in 1968 went to work in the 1968 and took a job in Justice's organ­ have to live the case," says Ben-Veniste. office cif the U.S. Attorney for the South­ ized-crime and racketeering section. Less "There is very little room in the Water­ ern District of New York, where he pros­ controversial than Ben-Veniste, Mrs. Vol­ gate area for anything less than a total ecuted major cases in organized crime ner has her own set of problems. During professional effort and commitn•ent." Newsweek, December 10, 1973 31

I( II NATIONAL AFFAIRS therefore "inconsequential." It was only with it on the 8th under the mistaken im­ made-up, filibustered the first question on the 14th, he said, that he called to­ pression that the two lawyers were rep­ for 21 minutes, took onlv five more all gether everything involved in the case, resenting her. And, :-.;EWSWEEK learned, told and quit with a thicket of hands in determined that the recording was in­ Rhyne was dubious that the White the air waving for recognition. deed covered by the court's orders-and House team could have neglected to ask The senators were hardly more im­ discovered that the gap was eighteen her about the buzz. "They're all lawyers, pressed. Several of them, including Hu­ minutes long instead of four or five. He they've been around," he said; the impli­ bert Humphrey, came in having already reported all this next day to Haig, who cation was that they had constructed the agreed among themselves to go gently said irritably that it was "a mighty late official story without her. The dangers to on Watergate. Dut they still had to in­ date" for such momentous discoveries, Miss Woods were plain. "My client is be­ terrupt a long opening soliloquy on foot­ and then to Mr. Nixon, who professed ing tried," Rhyne told Sirica in a hushed ball to get Mr. Nixon on the s•1bject at himself "baffled" by the length of the bench conference, and afterward he told all, and by the end of a long, rambly gap and asked if Buzhardt could ex­ a friend: "They sent her down here like cocktail-hour seance, the six senators for­ plain it. a lamb to the slaughter. You wouldn't got about protocol and began getting up believe what they had asked her to do." to go without waiting for the President 'I Don't Want to Listen' Other mysteries stippled the court rec­ to dismiss them. He did bring heads Buzhardt didn't have an answer, and ord. One was the discovery of the new snapping up, as several recalled later, by in fact seemed by his own testimony to unexplained silences on the seven surviv­ declaring abruptly: "I am going to re­ have gone out of his way not to get one ing tapes; the White House argued (and lease my tax returns." But the senators from the presumptive best witness-Rose technical experts tended to agree) that who bore this happy news to reporters Mary Woods. He said she reminded him even a trivial background noise could outside were promptly undercut by the of the buzz-out in late October and have set off the sound-activated system White House, which said Mr. Nixon offered to play it back to him; he was, he and left blank spots if nobody happened meant only to include data from his re­ turns in some of his forthcoming Water­ gate white papers. Up Against the Wall The imbroglio over the erased tape only fed a suspicion that had been spreading in Washington anyway: that Operation Candor was too little, too late. The danger signs of disaffection among Republicans were already flaring around the country. One respected party leader flatly refused a White House request that he sign and submit a ghost-written newspaper piece defending the Presi­ dent. "There wasn't," he said, "a single sentence in it that I agreed with." An­ other similarly declined an SOS for help in the candor blitz, ostensibly because he was too busy, actually out of fear that to back Mr. Nixon now is political sui­ cide. And the anxieties were only in­ creased by Miss Woods's week in court. The oldest Nixonian: Rose Mary visits the boss in a hospital, 1960 She became an object of sympathy among party pros, not because her story remembered, "in a hurry and said, 'No, to be talking, but the prosecution was persuaded them but because she was I don't want to listen'." Buzhardt, Haig suspicious nevertheless. There was, thrust forward to tell it at all. "The Pres­ and another White House lawyer, Sam moreover, the disclosure that Miss ident," said one man intimate with both Powers, saw her on Nov. 15, the day Woods had recently checked out an­ him and Miss Woods, "is at the point of after the extent of the erasure was dis­ other series of tapes and had turned devouring his own children." covered, and-in Buzhardt's telling-still them back in only last week. These, as It is precisely within his own party managed to avoid the critical issue: how it developed, included the new set Jaw­ that Mr. Nixon now stands in greatest her five-minute gaffe could have orski wanted, all of them from the days jeopardy. His strategy rests heavily on blanked out eighteen minutes. early last January when, according to the simple and accurate calculation that "Wasn't that something that was on John Dean, White House staffers were there are not enough votes in the House your mind?" asked prosecutor Richard discussing whether to promise Executive to impeach him. "We've got nothing to Ben-Veniste. clemency to the Watergate spymaster, E. impeach him for," said one Democratic Buzhardt said yes-"the whole matter Howard Hunt, to keep him quiet-and hierarch there, nor was there any great was very much on my mind"-but he when Mr. Nixon himself may have surge to find something-not even in the neglected to pop the central question agreed to grant it. nearly universal suspicion that the W a­ then, or even in a subsequent encounter The President maintained a lofty dis­ tergate tapes have been tampered with. with Miss Woods on the 20th. "Did some­ tance from the proceedings, tending But the process is in motion, and if the body tell you not to talk to Miss Woods?" conspicuously to the problems of. the impulse to desert Mr. Nixon spreads un­ asked Ben-Veniste. Buzhardt said no. people-mainly energy and the Middle abated through his party with the com­ "Did the President or General Haig di­ East-and scaling back his frenetic Op­ ing of an election year, his calculus for rectly or indirectly . . . imply that you eration Candor datebook to the Sea­ survival may be disastrously altered. One should not?" Buzhardt said no again. farers speech and two more private au­ old but now exiled Nixonian read the All of this fed Charles Rhyne's gather­ diences with deputations from Capitol wondrous tales of the tapes last week ing anger at the way his client had been Hill. Neither of these sessions went es­ and guessed sadly, "He has to have his treated. He charged in court that, for pecially well. Mr. Nixon, for one thing, back against the wall." He does-and one thing, Miss Woods had been "re­ was relentlessly talky; some of the House short of some magical tum in his for­ hearsed" in her original story by Garment Democrats-mostly sympathetic conserv­ tunes, he may find himself standing and Powers and had been sent to court atives-said he came in looking heavily there increasingly alone. 32 Newsweek, December 10, 1973 I J

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