(4 of 11)
Not Important? As her reason for not having earlier told the court about the gap in the tape, Miss Woods also relied on that odd White House belief that the Haldeman part of the conversation was not wanted by the Special Prosecutor. Asked Judge Sirica solemnly: "Didn't you think it was important to tell everything you knew?" Replied Miss Woods: "I can only say that I am dreadfully sorry." Sirica ordered that her earlier denials of any mistake be reread from the record. After hearing them she said: "I can only say again, I did work very hard over the whole weekend. Sure, I sounded a little cocky there ... I can offer no excuse."
The most dramatic moment in the court session came when Mrs. Volner asked Miss Woods to re-enact her motions as the "mistake" was made. The secretary quickly demonstrated how she had turned slightly away from her typewriter, made a long stretch, and reached for the phone. Looking down, Mrs. Volner said dryly: "You took your foot off the pedal, didn't you?" Indeed she had lifted her foot. Flustered, Miss Woods declared: "Yes, that's just because I'm here and not doing anything else."
Later, Miss Woods began to qualify her explanation. She was no longer entirely sure that she had kept her foot on the pedal ("People keep telling me I must have"). At worst, she would take responsibility for only the first five minutes or so of the overriding noise, the period while she was speaking on the phone. She did not know where the other 13 minutes of disturbance came from. She bristled when Mrs. Volner termed the interval "an erasure." "You may call it an erasure—I call it a gap," protested Miss Woods. Later she testified she was not at all certain there had been any conversation under the noise. "I never heard any words on that segment," she said.
The Uher company's representatives and other experts immediately challenged Miss Woods' testimony. The Uher 5000 recorder, claimed Frank Larkin, sales manager of the West Coast distributor of the equipment, is "designed to be fail-safe—you have to do two things simultaneously to erase. I just can't conceive that a woman who has the intelligence to be the secretary for the Chief Executive of the U.S. could make such a mistake." Pearl Neier, a Manhattan legal secretary, echoed the view of many other experienced secretaries: "I can't conceive of how she could have erased that tape without doing it deliberately—I don't care if it was a button or a pedal that she had to push." Asked if he believed the Woods account, a former high official of the Republican National Committee scoffed: "Does anybody?"
A part of the controversial tape was played in the courtroom. The quality was surprisingly poor, with much of the conversation between Nixon and Ehrlichman indistinguishable. Nixon was heard to remark: "In the '68 campaign the press was violently pro-Humphrey." After Haldeman entered, the hum began. It was a steady sound that did not waver in its medium-high pitch. But after 5½ minutes the hum suddenly became softer, and some sporadic clicks could be heard for 13 minutes.
The White House submitted some notes said to be taken by Haldeman