(10 of 10)
Those questions go, of course, to the heart of just how much Nixon can be hurt by the whole sordid affair. A survey conducted for the Wall Street Journal by a Princeton, N.J., polling firm disclosed last week that Watergate is arousing widespread concern and is seriously damaging the President and his party. Clearly, Nixon and his staff are going to have to face up to the consequences of Watergate and the manner in which the President's re-election campaign was conducted. It is not enough to issue indignant denials and then claim that aides can discuss the matter only in secret or behind the closed doors of grand jury rooms.
Ervin is not going to stand for that kind of evasion. For him, the Watergate investigation is a matter not just of high politics or powerful personalities but also of the most profound constitutional principles. In a far different context (a criminal case in which Ervin as a state supreme court justice argued to free a convicted man), he stated his first concern. "What may be the ultimate fate of the prisoner is of relatively minor importance in the sum of things," he wrote. "His role on life's stage, like ours, soon ends. But what happens to the law is of the gravest moment. The preservation unimpaired of our basic rules of procedure is an end far more desirable than that of hurrying a single sinner to what may be his merited doom."
The judicial Sam Ervin may well conclude, after a fair hearing, that Nixon's top aides did not behave illegally or unethically in last fall's presidential campaign. If so, they have nothing to fear from his committee. But if they are not clean, they can expect no forgiveness for sins against the spirit of the Constitution from this persistent libertarian, who declares that "open and full disclosure of the governing process is essential to the operation of a free society." Mindful of the past, vigilant of the present and concerned about the future, Senator Sam Ervin warns: "Throughout history, rulers have invoked secrecy regarding their actions in order to enslave the citizenry."
*According to the Gospel of John, Nicodemus, a Pharisee, came to Jesus at night and asked him about his teachings and his divinity. - Besides Ervin, Baker and Weicker, the select committee consists of Democrats Herman E. Talmadge, Daniel K. Inouye and Joseph M. Montoya, and Republican Edward J. Gurney.