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Haig, Buzhardt and St. Clair, now united in the inescapable conclusion that Nixon must quit, set in motion a delicate maneuver to get the President to reach the decision on his own. Certain that he would rebel if pressured to resign, they persuaded him that the tape's contents must be made public. They knew there would be a tremendous outcry when Americans realized that Nixon had been lying to them all along. The strategy, of course, worked. The reaction was swift and overwhelmingly angry—and it told Richard Nixon what his advisers could not, dared not tell him.
That anger has not yet subsided, and it may yet hurt Gerald Ford for having pardoned Nixon so abruptly. When Ford hit Fresno last week in his bid for election, demonstrators carried placards that focused almost exclusively on the pardon. DOES NIXON DRIVE A FORD? asked one. BEG YOUR PARDON, said another. NIXON'S GHOST IN THE WHITE HOUSE, read a third. One Ford aide found some consolation in the timing of the Woodward-Bernstein book. "At least it's coming out now with quite a few months to die down and be forgotten, " he said. That could prove to be just wishful thinking.