Word: sirica
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...addressed the Disabled American Veterans in New Orleans. As he flew back to Washington in his 1954 Convair turboprop, he received a call from White House Chief of Staff General Alexander Haig. For the first time, Ford learned that tapes soon to be delivered to Judge John J. Sirica contained statements by Nixon that directly implicated the President in the Watergate coverup. At that moment, Gerald Ford must have become aware that his accession to the presidency had suddenly become nearly certain. Aboard the Convair, he drafted a statement to the effect that "the public interset is no longer served...
...Clair had taken on the job of defending the President with out any assurance that he would have access to all of the evidence.* But just two days after the Supreme Court decision, St. Clair was jolted into a full awareness of his responsibilities by Federal Judge John J. Sirica, whose judicial inquisitiveness has played a pivotal role in unraveling the Watergate deceptions. "Have you personally listened to the tapes?" Sirica asked St. Clair in court, well aware from news reports that St. Clair had not. "You mean to say the President wouldn't approve of your listening...
...erase mechanism on the President's Sony recorder had been disconnected by the Secret Service. Even more important, Nixon Aide Stephen Bull delivered duplicate tapes rather than the originals to the President. After Nixon listened to the tapes, trusted secretaries prepared verbatim transcripts, and, in accordance with Sirica's wishes, copies went to St. Clair...
...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...
...case"-clearly one of the grossest understatements of his many Watergate pronouncements. Noting more realistically that "a House vote of impeachment is, as a practical matter, virtually a foregone conclusion," he said that he would voluntarily give the Senate every tape transferred to Special Prosecutor Jaworski by Judge Sirica. If he did not, of course, the Senate would readily have acquired them during its trial...