The outcome of the Watergate investigation may hinge to a considerable degree on the tangled White House tapes. Last week the Central Intelligence Agency admitted that it had destroyed several other tapes that were recorded at the agency's Langley, Va., headquarters and could have had a direct bearing on the case.
Two weeks ago, Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, Republican vice chairman of the Ervin committee, learned that the CIA's offices until recently were equipped with a tape-recording system similar to the one that was in the White House until last summer. Since there were known to have been...