THE CRISIS: Seven Tumultuous Days

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might help slow his slide in public esteem. It was hard to see how it could be reversed. Perhaps irrevocably, he seemed to have moved past the limit of what vast segments of the nation will tolerate in its President. The overworked tactic of blaming the press could not obscure the fact that much of the public perceived Nixon's decapitation of Cox and the Justice Department (widely called "the Saturday Night Massacre") as an attack on justice and the rule of law in the U.S.

Disastrous Week. Nixon's unilateral "compromise" plan of the week before to surrender only summaries of the subpoenaed tapes, verified by Mississippi Senator John Stennis, was generally seen as an attempt to evade the courts' more demanding order. But for the public outcry, Nixon was prepared to cling to that plan, and had he done so, he almost certainly would have been declared in contempt of court by Federal Judge John J. Sirica and, as a result, impeached. In a sense, the public outrage may have helped save Nixon from himself in the tapes case.

Nixon's announcement at his press conference—again a result of irresistible pressure—that he would let Acting Attorney General Robert Bork appoint a new special Watergate prosecutor was not reassuring. In declaring flatly that the new man, yet to be named, would never be given any "presidential documents," but only "information" from such documents, Nixon seemed to give him even less authority than Cox had been promised. Cox had been assured —falsely, as it turned out—that he could have access to any evidence he requested "from any source."

Moreover, there was no assurance that the new prosecutor could not be fired by Nixon if he pushed too hard for evidence that the President did not want to reveal. Even more than the objectionable Stennis proposal on the tapes, it had been Nixon's direct order to Cox to stop seeking more tapes and presidential documents in court that led to the Justice Department resignations.

What the President still seemed unable to comprehend in all of these maneuvers was the gravity of his predicament, especially in the Congress, which holds his political future in its hands. Sensing a fateful new determination on Capitol Hill, TIME Veteran Congressional Correspondent Neil MacNeil reported last week: "The blunders of the President have absolutely altered the Congress. What is seen as the arrogance and disregard for law on the President's part have stiffened the members of the House and Senate—Republican as well as Democratic—in a firm resolve simply not to tolerate what he has done."

The push to impeach is firmly under way in the House of Representatives, and the measured and deliberate way that it is being conducted is all the more ominous for Nixon. Leaders of the Democratic majority are determined that the inquiry will be unhurried, cautious and complete, both to ensure its fairness and to provide ample time at each stage to educate the American people on what is being done.

The impeachment proceedings are being conducted by the Judiciary Committee, headed by New Jersey's Peter Rodino Jr. Already he has started canvassing law-school deans for recommendations on the most able and nonpartisan lawyer available to head the investigating staff and conduct impeachment hearings. Rodino has been