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Such was the complexity of the week's testimony that even the little men's attorneys got into the act. McCord had said that his own lawyer for the Watergate trial, Gerald Alch, had advised him to claim that the break-in was a CIA operation. He said Alch also suggested that CIA documents could be forged to support this defense. Alch, as dapper as he was indignant, demanded the right to make a lengthy rebuttal and to impugn McCord's testimony. He said he had asked McCord's present attorney, Bernard Fensterwald Jr., why his client had made such a charge. Replied Fensterwald: "I can only hazard the guess that it is the result of Mr. McCord's faulty recollection. I think you will agree that there is no zealot like a convert." Taking the offensive, Alch quoted Fensterwald as declaring: "We're going after the President of the United States." Alch said he replied that he "was not interested in any vendettas against the President." But questioning from the committee forced Alch to admit that some of his statements to McCord might have made McCord suspicious that he was working with the White House to get a guilty plea.
No sooner had Alch made his protest than both Fensterwald and McCord demanded a chance to answer. But the committee decided that it was time to call a halt. The Watergate small fry had already consumed much more time than had been scheduled, and there was growing criticism that the committee should move on to bigger game. Otherwise, it would be several weeks before major figures like John Dean, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were heard from. Responding to this restiveness, the committee moved up the resumption of hearings from June 12 to June 5 ("February 5th at 10 p.m." was what the weary Sam Ervin actually said).
Privilege. One of the key witnesses now scheduled to be called is Hugh Sloan Jr., who served as treasurer of C.R.P.'s finance committee. TIME learned that his testimony will spell out how nearly $900,000 in campaign contributions were distributed for what Sloan says he later learned were undercover operations. The money was divided among several different bank accounts, the bulk of it going to Kalmbach and Liddy. At one point, according to Sloan, he went to Finance Chairman Maurice Stans to ask why Liddy received so much. Stans told him: "I don't know, and you don't want to know." After the breakin, Sloan told the committee in its preliminary investigation, he approached Ehrlichman. Worried that any money found on the defendants (the police reported several thousand dollars) would be traced to him, he asked what he should do. Ehrlichman assured him that the matter would be covered by Executive privilege "at least until after the election." Said the White House domestic chief: "You are overwrought. You should take a vacation. It is also important to protect the President."