Word: sirica
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...face was prison-gray, his voice unemotional, his subdued presence almost indistinguishable from the wood-paneled walls of Federal Judge John J. Sirica's Washington, D.C., courtroom. Yet former CIA Agent and Intrigue Novelist E. Howard Hunt provided the first genuine surprise of the Watergate conspiracy trial. Under the brisk questioning of Assistant Special Prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste, the convicted Watergate burglar admitted that he had lied in his previous Watergate testimony no fewer than twelve times and given "evasive" answers on other occasions. Even his soon-to-be-released memoirs, Undercover, contains lies, he admitted, that were designed...
Called as a court witness by Sirica because of the Government's understandable argument that it did not want to vouch for his credibility, Hunt presented the prosecution with a recurrent, if anticipated problem: How could it show that many of its once perjurious witnesses were now telling the truth? Hunt, who directed the break-in with G. Gordon Liddy, explained that he had decided to become truthful after reading transcripts of White House tapes in which he and the other burglars were scathingly described as "idiots" and "jackasses." Declared Hunt: "I realized these men were not worthy...
Despite the credibility problems of the prosecution's first three witnesses, John Dean, Hunt and Magruder, the Government's case against all of the defendants was tightening. The main hazards to that case, however, were beyond the prosecution's control. Judge Sirica was still handling the trial in a controversial way (see box page 21), and two illnesses posed ticklish future decisions for Sirica to make. Nixon's postoperative complications made it highly unlikely that he will be able to travel to Washington before the trial ends. Defendant John Ehrlichman's attorneys nonetheless continued...
...phone call with Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau. A voice then calls him "asshole Trudeau." The transcript omitted Trudeau's name but identified the voice as Haldeman's. In a pained conference, Haldeman's attorneys insisted that the voice was Nixon's, and other attorneys agreed. Sirica offered to advise the jury of the mistake, but Frank Strickler, a Haldeman attorney, countered that that would only draw attention to the remark. The matter was dropped...
...another conference with Sirica, the judge indicated that he was considering calling former President Nixon as a court witness. That would provide more latitude in questioning him by 'all parties, said Sirica, and it would mean that no party would have to "vouch for his credibility...