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On Aug. 9 the President flew to Camp David with Haig, Price and Press Secretary Ron Ziegler. They were soon joined by a second speechwriter, Pat Buchanan, who is more conservative and hard-hitting than Price. For two days, both writers worked on the speech, with Nixon editing their copy by scribbling extensive notes in the margins and sometimes dictating new paragraphs to Haig. The speech was not finished until Aug. 14, the day before its delivery, when Nixon applied the finishing touches to the eleventh—and final—draft. The speech was so difficult to prepare, explained one of the men who worked on it, "because in many respects it was a needle-threading operation. He had to touch on the important aspects of Watergate without getting bogged down in the nits of it. He made a very keen effort to be balanced and objective." The President arrived in the Oval Office just two minutes before air time and concentrated on arranging himself for the camera. His face looked drawn, but his hands were steady. It was obvious almost from the start that those who had expected a full presidential explanation would be disappointed Whatever his attempts to be"balanced and objective" may have been, he began by criticizing the Ervin committee for its "effort to implicate the President personally in illegal activities." He said that "the facts are complicated, the evidence conflicting," and he added, in an extraordinary attempt to keep above the battle, "I shall not attempt to deal tonight with the various charges in detail." Instead, he said, he would simply provide a "perspective from the standpoint of the presidency." On his own role in Watergate, he reasserted his innocence. "In all the millions of words of testimony [before the Ervin committee], there is not the slightest suggestion that I had any knowledge of the planning for the Watergate break-in." As for any knowledge of the coverup, said Nixon, his innocence had been challenged by "only one of the 35 witnesses"—John Dean—"who offered no evidence beyond his own impres sions, and whose testimony has been contradicted by every other witness in a position to know the facts." Having repeated his denials, the President added practically no details in response to the testimony before the Ervin committee. Among the many things he chose not to explain were:
1) Why he did not respond to Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray's astonishing assertion to him on July 6, 1972, that certain White House aides were trying to "mortally wound" the President by interfering with the FBI and CIA.
2) His comments to Dean in September 1972 that led the White House counsel to believe the President knew all about the coverup.
3) The illegal disbursement of huge sums by his aides to the original seven Watergate defendants.
4) Why, when he launched his own investigation last March 21, he did not immediately solicit the aid of the FBI or the CIA.