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Florida Trip. Ben-Veniste indicated his special interest in a trip that Miss Woods took to Key Biscayne with the presidential party on Oct. 4, returning to Washington four days later. She had testified that she took the Uher recorder and all the subpoenaed tapes with her. The equipment was carried by Bull, who appeared extremely nervous and forgetful when called as a witness by Ben-Veniste. He did not recall who had asked him to bring the tape along. Nor did he remember whether Miss Woods had wanted it so she could continue transcribing from it—even though, according to her testimony, she had already discovered a buzz on the tape on Oct. 1.
The tape was placed in a safe in Miss Woods' villa on Key Biscayne and guarded by a 24-hour Secret Service detail, Bull said. Only he, the secretary and one security man knew the combination to the safe. Bull said that he thought he had removed a tape and placed it on Miss Woods' machine for her to hear. But he was not sure, and could not recall which tape it might have been.
Armed with a Secret Service log of movements at Key Biscayne during this visit, Ben-Veniste jogged Bull's recollection that he had visited the safe in Miss Woods' villa at 1:58 a.m. on Oct. 5. What was he doing up so late? Bull could not recall. He only knew that the secretary had called him, asking for help in opening the safe. The record showed that Bull had closed the safe five minutes later.
He could not recall what, if anything, had been withdrawn or put into it. Nor could he remember why, as the log showed, he opened it again at 2:05 a.m. and closed it at 2:11. Bull earlier had been startled by one Ben-Veniste question: "Was Mr. Haldeman at Key Biscayne at the time?" If he was, said Bull, "I did not see him." The prosecutor admitted that the question was a shot in the dark; he had no information that Haldeman had been in Florida then.
No Records. While no definitive record was produced of who had possession of the Uher recorder after it was brought back to Washington, the custody of the June 20 tape seemed clearer. Ever since the recording system was revealed in July, the tape had been held only by Bull, Miss Woods, Bu-zhardt, John C. Bennett and the President. Bennett, a retired Army major general and White House aide who took over custody of all the tapes from the Secret Service on July 18, had testified that no one had withdrawn it until Sept. 28, the day before Miss Woods began transcribing it at Camp David. He first took physical possession of the tape on Nov. 13 when he had a court-ordered copy made—at a time when the Uher recorder was incapable of recording. Buzhardt is not known to have had access to the tape until mid-November when he says he first learned that it contained the gap.
As for the President, he could have listened to it on June 4—long before the suspect Uher was in the White House. Miss Woods said that he punched some buttons on her Sony recorder at Camp David when the tape was on the machine on Sept. 29—again before