(2 of 11)
Through three months of an extraordinary struggle in the courts, Nixon resisted subpoenas for his tapes, yielding only when he seemed in imminent danger of being cited for contempt of court if he did not. Then the nine subpoenaed tapes dwindled like nine little Indians. The number slipped to seven when the White House contended that two were "nonexistent." Nixon claimed that one of them—a telephone call on June 20, 1972 to John Mitchell, then re-election committee chief—was not taped because he had placed it from his White House living quarters, on a phone that had no taping apparatus. Another conversation with former White House Counsel John Dean on April 15 was not secretly recorded because, Nixon says, the equipment ran out of tape.
Of the remaining seven tapes, the one at the center of attention last week was rendered apparently useless by the blanked-out conversation with Haldeman. Two other tapes, Nixon argues, should be withheld from the Watergate grand jury because of special executive-privilege considerations. Sirica ordered that arguments on this claimed privilege be held this week, sending the remaining four tapes on to the Watergate grand jury.
Self-Assured. It was during Sirica's hearings on whether two of the tapes could not be produced at all that Rose Mary Woods, 55, publicly entered the controversy on Nov. 8 for the first time. In her first court appearance of a long career in high-pressure politics, she was self-assured. She was also testy and openly antagonistic toward her questioner: Jill Wine Volner, 30, a persistent courtroom lawyer and member of the Watergate special prosecutor's staff. Miss Woods, her green eyes flashing with Irish indignation, grimaced at what she considered repetitive questioning, shook her head, pointed a finger at Mrs. Volner and spoke sarcastically. Could Miss Woods have accidentally erased anything?
Miss Woods: I think I used every possible precaution.
Mrs. Volner: What precautions?
Miss Woods: I used my head—the only one I had to use.
The secretary was drawn reluctantly back into Sirica's courtroom last week after an embarrassed and nervous White House counsel, J. Fred Buzhardt, told the judge on Nov. 21 that 18 minutes of Nixon's June 20 conversation with Haldeman was totally obscured by a persistent hum. At the time Buzhardt said that neither he nor Government technicians could explain how the noise had originated. But last week he said that an explanation had been found, and that Miss Woods would provide it.
Meanwhile, the President's secretary had been curiously abandoned by White House lawyers, who had appeared with her before in court. She explained that Alexander Haig, Nixon's Chief of Staff, had advised her to hire her own attorney. Ostensibly, this might have been wise because she could be in danger of personal indictment for any conflict with her previous testimony. She hired Charles S. Rhyne, a former president of the American Bar Association. The break also seemed to signal some potential disagreement between the secretary and the White House lawyers. Last week Miss Woods reappeared in court, and Rhyne was conspicuously present. When Mrs. Volner linked Rhyne with the other White House attorneys, he jumped up and declared: "I don't want to be associated with White House counsel. I'm a private