Word: claire
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...this newest constitutional confrontation spawned by Watergate. After Democrat Peter Rodino, chairman of the committee, set Tuesday, April 9, as the firm deadline for a definitive White House response to its Feb. 25 request for 41 tapes, congressional Republicans repeatedly implored Nixon's chief Watergate counsel, James St. Clair, to respond affirmatively and cooperatively. If he did not, they warned, the subpoena could not be avoided...
...deadline approached on Tuesday, Dean Burch, Nixon's newest high-level assistant, carried a copy of St. Clair's proposed response to Capitol Hill. There the Senate's top G.O.P. leaders, including Hugh Scott, Robert Griffin, John Tower, Wallace Bennett, Norris Cotton and William Brock, read it and bluntly told Burch that it was inadequate. "It won't fly," snapped one of these leaders. "It doesn't go far enough," complained Scott. "You've got to get a line in there on your intent to cooperate with the committee." In partial explanation, Burch told...
Insulting Letter. St. Clair then redrafted his letter, which was sent to House Judiciary Committee Counsel John Doar. Couched in condescending terms, it asked for two more weeks to "review" the requested material. St. Clair said he "was pleased" with Doar for a letter on April 4 clarifying the eviden?e sought. St. Clair wrote that this "goes a long way toward providing the additional specifications we felt were lacking in your original request." He said, "The additional material furnished will permit the committee to complete its inquiry promptly," after this week's congressional Easter recess...
Rhodes and other Republicans phoned St. Clair to tell him that a subpoena was imminent unless he gave more ground. Rodino, for his part, knew he had a majority in favor of issuing a subpoena. But he did not want the vote to be along party lines. He was also aware of three continuing sources of Republican dissatisfaction with his handling of the committee so far: 1) he had prevented any vote on whether St. Clair should represent the President during committee proceedings; 2) he had similarly postponed any decision on the procedures the committee would follow as evidence...
...committee's chief counsel, John Doar, sent a letter to St. Clair specifying in greater detail than before just what it wanted and why. The letter asked for 41 tapes, mostly from March and April of 1973 and all potentially relevant to the committee's study of whether Nixon was a participant in the conspiracy to conceal the origins of the Watergate wiretapping-burglary. While St. Clair had complained that this involved "thousands of hours of conversation," the Doar staff estimated that it covered only 26 hours...