WATERGATE: The President's Strategy for Survival

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however, seemed to be multiple-edged. They served to challenge and fuzz up the indictment's strong implication that, at the least, Nixon had learned from Dean on March 21 of the illegal payoffs to defendants and had failed to cut them off. St. Clair's remarks sought to set the Rodino committee members off on a potentially divisive squabble over defining impeachable acts—a point on which St. Clair knows the Congressmen hold sharp differences. St. Clair was trying to strengthen Nixon's oft-repeated claim that the institution of his office, rather than his personal fate, was the overriding issue in the impeachment controversy.

The new White House offensive was backfiring in its attempt to trigger precipitate and self-defeating action by the Judiciary Committee to impeach the President solely on grounds of contempt of Congress. Committee members were angry—not at each other or at their staff—but at what they considered the obviousness of the Nixon-St. Clair tactics. While they respect St. Clair's legal savvy, they think that he has ventured into essentially political maneuverings. At that game, they assume, they are far more adept and experienced than he.

Cooling Hotheads. A few of the more volatile members of the committee almost jumped at St. Clair's bait. Such liberal Democrats as Father Robert Drinan of Massachusetts, California's Jerome Waldie and Michigan's John Conyers Jr. wanted immediately to issue subpoenas for every bit of evidence that Doar was seeking. But Chairman Rodino called a caucus of the committee's Democrats and urged the hotheads to cool off. There would be plenty of time to issue subpoenas, he argued, once the White House intention to cut off all further evidence was totally clear. Meanwhile, the committee staff was awaiting a chance to examine all of the material that St. Clair and Nixon had promised, including the 19 tapes and more than 700 documents given to the special prosecutor's office.

The White House attack seemed to unify the committee—against the President. "It is not the White House's job to tell the committee how to discharge its constitutional function," declared Maryland Republican Lawrence J. Hogan, until now one of Nixon's strong defenders on the committee. "The President's lawyer was off base when he stated the committee should first define an impeachable offense—there is no set definition. Each member will have to subjectively determine this in his own mind." Hogan contended that Nixon was getting "bum advice" and was in danger of losing those on the committee "who are trying to keep an open mind on impeachment." The release of the Doar letter to St. Clair, protested Texas Democrat Jack Brooks, was "an affront to the comity between the White House and the Congress." But he urged his colleagues on the committee not to let "the White House hucksterism detract from the decency and forbearance of the committee. It is clear that the White House is not going to cooperate."

Rebutting St. Clair's demand that the committee state its charges against Nixon before it seeks more evidence, Republican Edward Hutchinson argued: "There are no charges. We hope we will find none. We are simply making an inquiry." Added Hutchinson: "What we have asked for is very reasonable and very