Word: buchen
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Indeed, Jaworski had told Ford's legal counsel, Philip Buchen, that the grand jury was virtually certain to indict Nixon and the list of charges could be lengthy and varied. The White House believed that the indictments would be handed down as soon as the second week of September?this week?although Jaworski in fact did not intend to obtain them until after the Watergate cover-up jury was sequestered in October. Still, it was clear that Nixon could be spared only by one act by one man: a pardon from Gerald Ford...
...Friday, Aug. 30, Ford called Buchen into the Oval Office. Ford asked him how long the criminal process and the trial of Nixon might drag on, how long it would be before the nation finally had Watergate behind it. Buchen's answer fell like lead: it would take nine months to a year before a trial could begin. Jaworski himself had told Buchen that, because of the massive publicity surrounding the House Judiciary Committee's unanimous finding that Nixon should be impeached because he obstructed justice, it would take a year or even longer "before the selection of a jury...
...Ford's direction, Buchen worked throughout the Labor Day weekend to provide legal grounds for a pardon. He found precedents to establish that a pardon need not await an indictment or conviction. For example, he cited the case of a reporter who had been pardoned before testifying in a criminal action involving the customs department ?during the Wilson Administration...
...that afternoon, Ford and several close advisers went over the final legal details of the pardon. He was still not completely sure that he would grant it, but, says one participant, "his mind was 95% made up." After that meeting, two old friends stayed behind with Ford. They were Buchen and Counsellor Robert Hartmann, whose long association with the President enables him to capture Ford's style and inner thoughts in speeches. Ford talked out his reasons and his beliefs, and the two men went off to put them into a brief personal statement. Hartmann finished it overnight...
...quietly put a number of his closest advisers on his staff. Jerry terHorst, 52, the former political reporter for the Detroit News, is performing capably as Press Secretary. Robert Hartmann, 57, Ford's long time close aide, is ensconced in Rose Mary Woods' old office. Philip Buchen, 58, the President's early law partner back home in Grand Rapids, is White House Counsel. John Marsh, 48, who was serving as a Democratic Congressman from Virginia when he was initially attracted to Ford, is now a Presidential Counsellor. All of these old friends can drop...