Word: sirica
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There were, of course, useful accidents of fate and generous helpings of blind luck. A night watchman named Frank Wills came upon the Watergate burglars one night when they taped some door locks with an almost ostentatious incompetence. The system was fortunate that Judge John Sirica pursued the case. And above all that Richard Nixon was surreptitiously taping his own conversations; and that he somehow never thought, or considered it necessary, or perhaps just did not dare, to heave all the tapes into the White House incinerator after their existence became known. Had it not been for the tapes, Richard...
...White House began complying with the Supreme Court's order to yield 64 tape recordings, Presidential Counsel James St. Clair disclosed another mysterious gap on one of the tapes. He reported to Federal Judge John J. Sirica that five minutes and twelve seconds was missing from a tape of a crucial April 17, 1973, meeting on Watergate involving Nixon and top assistants...
Nixon spent most of his working time secluded in the Lincoln Sitting Room of the White House or in his hideaway in the Executive Office Building, listening to the tapes that the Supreme Court directed him to turn over to Judge Sirica. The judge will decide which parts of the tapes may be used in the trial, scheduled to begin Sept. 9, of six former Nixon aides charged with participating in the Watergate coverup. After listening to each tape, Nixon turned it over to two lawyers, J. Fred Buzhardt and St. Clair, who prepared copies for the White House...
Asked by Assistant Special Prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste on Tuesday whether any tape segments were missing, St. Clair told Sirica: "Not to my knowledge, Your Honor." Then Ben-Veniste pointed out that a White House transcript of the President's April 17, 1973, meeting with Ehrlichman and Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman ended at 4:35 p.m. while St. Clair had told the court that the reel of tape was "removed full" at 4:20 p.m. After checking, St. Clair reported to Sirica that five minutes and twelve seconds of the 45-minute conversation had not been recorded because...
...days later, John Dean came before Judge John Sirica to be sentenced for the single count of conspiracy hi the Watergate cover-up that he pleaded guilty to last October. Accompanied by his attorney, Charles Shaffer, and Shaffer's wife Susan (Maureen Dean was at home in Los Angeles), Dean placed himself at the mercy of the court: "The only thing I would ask for is your compassion and understanding. I realize to say I am sorry is not enough." After denying Shaffer's request to postpone sentencing until the newly released Watergate tapes could shed more light...