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The understandable reluctance to consider impeachment suddenly faded on the House floor. No fewer than 24 resolutions, enlisting more than 100 sponsors, called for either impeachment or preliminary inquiries. No one, however, took the drastic "I impeach" step; all the resolutions were routinely routed to the Judiciary Committee as planned. Typical of the harsh explanatory speeches was that of California Democrat Jerome Waldie, who said: "The President's incredible and bizarre actions this last weekend have culminated a long pattern of pure and unmistakable obstruction of justice. His arrogance and lawless activity can no longer be tolerated." A Republican, Connecticut's Stewart McKinney, argued that "a cloud hangs over the very beliefs that this building stands for. If we, as the representatives of the people, allow that cloud to remain, I seriously question the future of our nation as we love and know it."
Finally getting the message, the White House dispatched two aides, Bryce Harlow and Bill Timmons, to talk to Republican House leaders. Minority Leader Gerald Ford, who had been nominated to succeed the convicted Spiro Agnew as Vice President, conveyed the fact that most Republican Congressmen were "disturbed," particularly about the President's failure to release his tapes. They frankly could not "go to the wall" for Nixon against impeachment if he clung to his tapes. Ford made no objection to sending all impeachment motions to the Judiciary Committee. At a later meeting, House G.O.P. leaders also told White House aides that a new special prosecutor must be appointed.
Nixon could hardly have been pleased when Richardson held his planned press conference and received an ovation from his former Justice Department colleagues. With urbane diplomacy, Richardson declared: "I strongly believe in the general purposes and priorities of this Administration." But he shattered White House claims that Cox alone had arrogantly scuttled Nixon's tapes compromise. Richardson said that if he had been in the prosecutor's position, he too would have refused to comply with the President's orders. At stake, said Richardson, was "the very integrity of the governmental processes I came to the Department of Justice to help restore."
There was more bad news for Nixon in the charge by Judge Sirica to the two grand juries considering many Watergate-related indictments. Solemnly, Sirica told the jurors that "the grand juries of which you serve remain operative and intact... You are not dismissed and will not be dismissed except as provided by law." Although he did not mention it to the jurors, Sirica had already received a four-page White House memo urging him to accept the "Stennis compromise" and had been gathering legal research for a probable contempt citation against the President.
When Nixon heard from Harlow that House Republican leaders were insisting that he turn over the tapes and