THE LAST WEEK
When the nation's worst political scandal finally rendered the presidency of Richard Nixon inoperative, it did so with savage swiftness. Hopelessly entrapped in the two-year tangle of his own deceit, forced into a confession of past lies, he watched the support of his most loyal defenders collapse in a political maelstrom, driven by their bitterness over the realization that he had betrayed their trust. Yet, as throughout his self-inflicted Watergate ordeal, Nixon remained unwilling to admit, perhaps even to himself, the weight of his transgressions against truth and the Constitution. He was among the last to appreciate the futility of his lonely struggle to escape removal from office.
Fittingly, the prelude to collapse began on July 24, when three "strict constructionist" Supreme Court Justices appointed by Nixon searchingly scoured the Constitution and joined in a unanimous finding that it contained no legal basis for his withholding 64 White House tape recordings from Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski. The President on May 6 and 7 had listened to some of those tapes and abandoned a proposed compromise under which he would turn twelve of them over to Jaworski. He did not tell his chief Watergate lawyer James St. Clair that those tapes would destroy his professions of innocence in the cover-up conspiracy. Instead, Nixon allowed St. Clair to carry a claim of absolute Executive privilege to the Supreme Court and to argue before the House Judiciary Committee that the President was unaware of that cover-up until informed of it on March 21, 1973, by John Dean.
An Inquisitive Federal Judge
Incredibly, St. Clair had taken on the job of defending the President with out any assurance that he would have access to all of the evidence.* But just two days after the Supreme Court decision, St. Clair was jolted into a full awareness of his responsibilities by Federal Judge John J. Sirica, whose judicial inquisitiveness has played a pivotal role in unraveling the Watergate deceptions. "Have you personally listened to the tapes?" Sirica asked St. Clair in court, well aware from news reports that St. Clair had not. "You mean to say the President wouldn't approve of your listening to the tapes? You mean to say you could argue this case without knowing all the background of these matters?" Visibly flustered for the first time in his presidential-defense role, St. Clair promised to analyze each tape submitted to the court.
That promise set the trap. Nixon insisted upon listening to each tape once more before transmitting it to the court.
Even if he had wanted to, there was no way he could now alter the evidence. Even if he had wanted to, there was no way he could now alter the evidence. The erase mechanism on the President's Sony recorder had been disconnected by the Secret Service. Even more important, Nixon Aide Stephen Bull delivered duplicate tapes rather than the originals to the President. After Nixon listened to the tapes, trusted secretaries prepared verbatim transcripts, and, in accordance with Sirica's wishes, copies went to St. Clair.
For the President's lawyer, the awful moment of truth came on Wednesday, July 31. On that day, he received and read the transcripts of three conversations held on June 23, 1972, between Nixon and his top aide, Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman.