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A particular weight falls on O'Neill by default of the other two key Democrats in the drama. Many House Republicans believe that New Jersey Congressman Peter W. Rodino, the dapper Judiciary Committee chairman, has already prejudged Nixon's guilt and is determined to impeach him. The Republicans' respect for O'Neill, and their knowledge that Rodino leans heavily on the floor leader for advice, helps offset those suspicions. House Speaker Albert, who tends to shrink from the enormity of impeachment, also looks to O'Neill. Says one senior member of the House: "Tip's put some backbone and steel in the Speaker and Rodino." Says Albert of O'Neill: "Tip is a rare individual. He has all the instincts of a good rough-and-tumble Irish politician, and he also has a terrific amount of courage and common savvy."
Part of O'Neill's own steel in presiding over the impeachment procedure is his absolute control of his district, built up in a lifetime of old-fashioned service and cultivation of his constituents. His voters, by his soundings, have, predictably in liberal Massachusetts, long since decided in favor of impeachment. But O'Neill continues at every opportunity to hear them out when he is home from Washington on weekends.
Recently TIME Correspondent Neil MacNeil followed Congressman O'Neill as he took what he calls his "ethnic walk" through home-town Cambridge, sampling opinion while simultaneously wooing votes. As he has every Saturday for years, he stopped at his Chinese laundryman's to pick up the shirts that his wife Millie had left earlier in the week, visited his Italian shoemaker, his barber, and half a dozen other shopkeepers.
Top Start. Lunging into Red's grocery, his huge hand outstretched, O'Neill greeted Vicki, the cashier. "How's everything going?" he boomed. "What do people think of Nixon?" Replied Vicki: "Most people think he should be impeached."
And so it went all up and down Massachusetts Avenue. "Dominick," O'Neill hailed an Italian tailor, "how's everything?" Dominick responded that the inflation was terrible; bread was up to 47¢ a loaf. "Tell me," asked O'Neill, "what kind of shape is the President in? Should he be impeached?" Answered Dominick: "You bet he should—I'm surprised you don't do it yet."
Back on the sidewalk again, O'Neill was spotted by a bearded, middle-aged driver who slowed down to yell, "You better get that important resolution out of the Judiciary Committee. We're watching you!"
In the delicate weeks and months ahead, O'Neill will indeed be watched as never before, particularly by his peers in the House. He will need all the acumen gathered in his lifetime in politics. But he started learning at the top almost from the beginning, and had the best tutors in the business along the way.