The President Prepares His Answer

This week loomed among the most fateful yet in Richard Nixon's year-long struggle to salvage his presidency and stave off impeachment. He had until Tuesday to reply to the House Judiciary Committee's subpoena of 42 tapes relating to his role in Watergate, a deadline oft-deferred but now inescapable. In preparation, as he had done in past crises, he retreated to the quiet of Camp David to work out his response on his long yellow legal pads. The best indications were that it would be an attempt, aimed at the American people, to justify a less than full reply to the committee. In a White Paper and likely an evening television address to the nation, he was expected to explain that although he was not turning over the tapes demanded, he was delivering edited transcripts of the relevant conversations on the tapes on such a scale as to prove his innocence and make further demands unnecessary.

One Last Request. To the very end, the President sought to postpone the day of reckoning. For more than a month after the committee asked for the tapes on Feb. 25, White House aides portrayed the request as unduly broad, a fishing expedition that called for enough material to fill a U-Haul trailer. Not until several days before the committee's formal subpoena of the recordings on April 11 did Nixon order aides to locate and transcribe the tapes. Last week, at Presidential Counsel James St. Clair's request, the committee extended its deadline by five days. "Having gone the last mile [with Nixon]," Chairman Peter Rodino explained, "we want to accommodate him with this one last request."

Deputy Presidential Press Secretary Gerald L. Warren said that Nixon needed the extension because he had been too busy with the press of other business--particularly economic and foreign affairs--to prepare his response to the committee. Privately, however, aides suggested that Nixon actually wanted more time to search for a way to satisfy the committee without turning over the subpoenaed tapes.

His problems were compounded by the necessity of figuring out how to respond to a second subpoena, which came two weeks ago from Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski. It demanded 64 tapes of presidential conversations with aides from June 1972 through June 1973 that dealt primarily with the Watergate coverup; included were 24 tapes asked for by the Judiciary Committee. Federal Judge John J. Sirica ordered that the White House answer the subpoena by this Thursday. Presidential aides thought it unlikely that the deadline could be met. But it was possible that Nixon was seeking a way to dispose of both subpoenas at once, in another grand effort to get free and clear of Watergate once and for all.

As Nixon considered the alternatives, there were signs of growing tension in the White House. He held frequent marathon meetings with his closest advisers on Watergate. On four occasions, he escaped from the pressures by cruising on the Potomac River aboard the presidential yacht Sequoia. Such cruises in the past have signaled presidential anxiety, and his inner turmoil was shared by his top aides. They seemed confused and uneasy, fearful that no satisfactory way could be found to avoid a confrontation with Congress and anxious about the effect of such a showdown on the U.S. public.

To help prepare Nixon's response, White House Counsel J. Fred Buzhardt spent four weeks locating the tapes in question on six-hour reels stored in the Executive Office Building, isolating segments that corresponded to the subpoenaed conversations and transcribing them by hand. The tapes were reportedly sometimes almost inaudible, requiring hours of tedious replaying to decipher the conversations and identities of the speakers. Said one associate: "Fred's ears have fallen beneath his collar at this point." After studying each of the transcripts and consulting with St. Clair, Buzhardt turned them over to Nixon. Aides assumed that the President, in reviewing the transcripts, was insisting that non-Watergate matters be excised, as well as his frequent obscenities, in preparing texts to be handed over to the Judiciary Committee.

The committee seemed unlikely to be appeased by such partial compliance with the subpoena. Nearly all of its members, including most of the Republicans, have repeatedly insisted that Nixon turn over the tapes entire. In a clear warning last week to the President, House Minority Leader John Rhodes of Arizona said: "The committee will have to be convinced that all of the relevant material is made available." He has suggested that the committee might agree to a compromise that would permit Rodino, Ranking Republican Edward Hutchinson of Michigan, Chief Counsel John Doar and Minority Counsel Albert Jenner to listen to the tapes and excise the irrelevant portions. Nixon gave no hint that he might accept such a verification process, but it could not be ruled out.

White Paper. What was certain was that Nixon was orchestrating a major campaign to win public support for a limited response to the subpoena, apparently in hopes of forcing the committee to accept it. An aide said that the blitz probably would include a prime-time television speech. In addition, White House Speechwriter Ray Price worked all week on a White Paper to explain Nixon's reasons for not turning the tapes over to the committee. Senior presidential aides--among them Dean Burch and St. Clair--were offered to television networks for interviews this week.

Nixon also planned to keep taking his case directly to the people. Last week he flew to Jackson, Miss., and was enthusiastically cheered and applauded by some 10,000 members and guests of the Mississippi Economic Council when he predicted better days ahead for the nation (see THE PRESIDENCY). Nixon was scheduled to address a group of Republicans in Phoenix, Ariz., this Friday and attend the opening of the 1974 World's Fair in Spokane, Wash., on Saturday. In counterpoint last week a largely youthful crowd of 7,500 people, many bused in from other cities, marched peacefully down the capital's Constitution Avenue demanding Nixon's impeachment.

More Tapes. The Judiciary Committee continued to prepare for the hearings on impeachment, which it would like to begin May 7. Chairman Rodino acknowledged that the committee has asked for--but not yet subpoenaed--some 79 additional tapes and other documents from the White House bearing on the Watergate coverup, the Administration's 1971 decision to increase milk price supports and its antitrust settlement with ITT Corp. that year.

The committee lawyers also sharpened the focus of their investigation of the grounds for Nixon's possible impeachment. Counsel John Doar told the committee that his staff could find no substance to 15 of the 56 allegations made against Nixon when the impeachment inquiry began last winter. He eliminated from further study Nixon's refusal to spend certain funds appropriated by Congress, his efforts to dismantle the Office of Economic Opportunity and 13 charges of using Government agencies to harass Administration enemies and reward campaign contributors.

Doar said that his staff would concentrate on the 41 remaining allegations.

They include Nixon's possible involvement in the Watergate coverup, his connections with the White House undercover team known as the plumbers and with the dirty-tricks operations of his 1972 re-election campaign committee and charges that he and his staff promised favors in return for campaign contributions from ITT Corp., the milk producers, Fugitive Financier Robert L.

Vesco and Billionaire Recluse Howard Hughes. Doar also said that his staff would "investigate whether or not there was criminal fraud for which the President is responsible" in his tax returns for 1969 through 1972. Declared Representative M. Caldwell Butler, a Republican member of the committee from Virginia, in a metaphor of dubious reassurance to the White House as it entered upon the crucial week: "The staff has put down its shotgun and picked up a rifle."

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