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Yet the knowledge that their past conversations with the President could eventually become public will undoubtedly make Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman, who is expected to take his turn under the TV lights next week, especially careful of what they tell the Senators. The last major figures on the committee's witness list, the two men have been implicated by others in the conspiracy to conceal the full implications of the Watergate crimes. As Nixon's Chief of Staff, Haldeman, who was aware of the taping all along, tightly controlled access to the President. He will undoubtedly be grilled about key Nixon conversations with anyone linked with Watergate so that the Senators can seek specific tapes.
Looking physically fit, Nixon emerged last week from the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda and his brief bout with viral pneumonia.
This week George Gallup reported that only 39.6% of the public approve of the way Nixon is handling the presidency; this is the lowest popularity rating of Nixon's tenure in the White House and one of the lowest for any postwar President (see chart page 12).
But Nixon seemed to be in a confident and spirited mood. He told a gathering of White House employees in the Rose Garden: "Let others wallow in Watergate. We're going to do our job." He dismissed all talk of his possible resignation as "just plain poppycock—we're going to stay on this job." While doctors were urging him to slow down, he said that he was going to work "at full tilt all the way. No one in this great office at this time in the world's history can slow down."
The brave words masked what must be an acute dilemma posed by the tapes for Nixon, whether innocent or guilty of Watergate crimes. His press spokesmen have put the tapes in the same category as "the presidential papers," which Nixon on July 7 described to Ervin as documents he must withhold from the Senate committee. His refusal to release them, he wrote, was "based on my constitutional obligation to pre serve intact the powers and prerogatives of the presidency and not upon any desire to withhold information relevant to your inquiry." Yet the White House has already given the committee the times and topics of some of the conversations, as well as its version of the general content. To refuse a more complete examination of those talks seems, at the least, legally inconsistent. Moreover, in his May 22 written statement, Nixon declared: "Executive privilege will not be invoked as to any testimony concerning possible criminal conduct or discussion of possible criminal conduct."
Both the Watergate wiretapping and various acts to conceal it—including payoffs to keep the seven Watergate defendants quiet, promises of Executive clemency for the same purpose, and attempts to hide the involvement of anyone other than the original burglary squad—are, of course, crimes. No matter what the White House tapes may or may not disclose about Nixon, at the least, they would have to contain evidence of some of his advisers' illegally covering up Watergate. Dean, of course, contends that all those cover-up acts were discussed with the President.
Beyond those grounds for disclosure, Chairman Ervin argues that