(9 of 11)
One problem revealed by Buzhardt about the subpoenaed tapes will also be examined by the technical panel. He said that there are often silent spots, and he attributes them to the voice-actuated recorders monitoring the President's offices. They could be triggered by other sounds, such as a passing truck or the ticking of a clock, even though no conversation was taking place. Ben-Veniste said the silences were several minutes long. Yet persons familiar with the White House system contend that it shuts off automatically if no additonal sound is heard within about 10 seconds. As for a clock possibly triggering the mechanism, TIME'S Government expert scoffs: "Baloney. One microphone in the President's office was hidden in a clock."
There is a remote possibility that the Haldeman conversation might even be retrieved through computer-aided "signal enhancement" techniques. The erase mechanism on portable recorders is relatively weak, and a magnetic imprint of the original recording could remain on the Haldeman tape and might be amplified to intelligibility. But Buzhardt said that he had asked a National Security Administration expert about this and was told that such a recovery was "very remote." It clearly would be if the tape had been deliberately passed through a strong magnetic field to ensure total erasure.
Last week's developments demonstrated again that Nixon's Watergate defense has been remarkably inept. Asked who was to blame, one attorney representing a major Watergate defendant replied: "The White House lawyers." But he also sympathized with them, contending that the President handicaps his own defense by not completely leveling with even his own attorneys. Wan and worn out from defending the President on Watergate since last May, the loyal Buzhardt obviously has slipped out of presidential favor.
The fact that Buzhardt has not been kept fully informed even of the handling of tapes within the White House was shown pointedly in court. He admitted that he was surprised to learn that Miss Woods had nine original tapes in her possession as late as Monday of last weekâdespite agreement that only recently made copies of the tapes should be played so as to prevent harm to the originals. Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler undercut Buzhardt with faint praise, saying: "I don't want to express criticism, publicly, of any person. He has been working very hard. We've made some mistakes during this period."
White House officials reported that John J. Sullivan, an Illinois appellate court judge in Chicago and a longtime Nixon friend, despite being a Democrat, will be added to Nixon's defense staff. After leaving the issue in doubt for two days, presidential aides finally denied rumors that Sullivan would replace Buzhardt as head of the defense group, which has now grown to 14 attorneys.
Visceral Dislike. Almost in desperation, Nixon's aides also lashed out at others. Ziegler charged that the staff that Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski had inherited from Archibald Cox held an "ingrained suspicion and visceral dislike of this President and this Administration." Deputy Press Secretary