The confident White House lawyers had expected to clear up all doubts in about three hours of testimony. But as the second week of the unusual fact-finding hearings in Federal Judge John J. Sirica's Washington courtroom ended, the astonishing White House claim that two of the President's subpoenaed tapes had never existed remained a matter of controversy. Each time the battery of White House lawyers closed one testimonial gap, a new one opened.
The extraordinary drama pitted an experienced team of White House attorneys against two aggressive 30-year-olds from the special prosecutor's...