THE LAST WEEK: THE UNMAKING OF THE PRESIDENT

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President's lawyer showed the transcript to White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig, who also realized at once their awesome potential. At that point, both men knew that Nixon was finished. Their delicate problem was gently to persuade the President that he must resign. Haig, in turn, went immediately to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. He too saw no way out for Nixon and joined in the careful diplomatic exercise of convincing a proud Chief of State that he must step down.

With Haig's backing, St. Clair braced Nixon. Stressing the dire dangers, legal and political, in withholding the damaging information any longer, the lawyer urged its release. Implicit in St. Clair's appeal was the threat that he would have to resign from the Nixon defense if his advice was not taken. Fatalistically, Nixon finally concurred. "What's done is done," he said. "Let it go."

Just how to explain the transcripts publicly was a dilemma. Before the details were worked out, Nixon could conceivably change his mind. In a move that seemed designed to block any such possibility and to assess Congressional reaction, Haig and St. Clair on Friday, Aug. 2, asked the President's ablest defender on the House Judiciary Committee, California's Charles Wiggins, to come to the White House. He had never been in Haig's office before.

Only Two Options for Nixon

Haig, St. Clair and Wiggins gathered round the coffee table in Haig's office. Haig thanked Wiggins for his efforts on Nixon's behalf during the televised impeachment deliberations of the Judiciary Committee. Wiggins was preparing to carry that fight to the floor of the House and had already scheduled briefings on the evidence for Republican Congressmen whom he hoped to persuade to join the battle to save Nixon. Then St. Clair handed Wiggins the June 23 transcripts. Wiggins read them.

"The significance was immediaely appparent," he explained later. Wiggins reread the documents, looked up, and asked St. Clair what he intended to do with the adverse information. Before St. Clair could answer, the alarmed Wiggins gave his own advice: "The President really has only two options: 1) claim the Fifth Amendment and not disclose, or 2) disclose."

St. Clair assured Wiggins that Nixon had agreed to give the transcripts to the Judiciary Committee. Wiggins asked how long St. Clair had known of this evidence. Only since the tapes had been transcribed for delivery to Judge Sirica 2 days before, St. Clair replied. "Haig said that was true for him too, and I believed them," Wiggins recalled. "St. Clair was very apologetic that the case had proceeded on an incomplete-fact basis."

Heartsick, Wiggins studied the document for a third time. He told the Nixon aides that "the case in the House will be hopelessly lost because of this," and that "you have to face the prospect of conviction in the Senate as well." Moreover, he advised, "somebody has to raise with the President the question of his resigning. The country's interest, the Republican Party's interest and Richard Nixon's interest would be served by resignation." St. Clair and Haig acknowledged as much, but observed that it was very difficult for them to broach the subject to Nixon. Returning to Capitol Hill, Wiggins instructed an assistant to