Facing the Court and Counting the House

As Richard Nixon came home from the limited accomplishments of the Moscow summit last week, he found little comfort in the news that awaited him.

A Gallup poll taken two weeks ago, after his Middle East tour, showed that his approval rating in the nation stood at 26% -- two percentage points lower than in the most recent poll a month earlier and only one point above his all-time low last April.

The President's physician, Dr. Walter Tkach, underscored the importance that Nixon had attached to his foreign trips, and the determined -- even incautious -- way in which he had declined to delay them. Contrary to previous White House reports, said Tkach last week, the blood clot loose in the President's left leg "could have killed him." Tkach, who has been criticized for allowing the President to travel while suffering from phlebitis, had urged Nixon to go into a hospital in Salzburg, Austria, during the early stages of his first trip. The President refused, saying that he had an "obligation" to proceed to the Middle East. Later, said Tkach, the clot became "fixed" -- attached to the wall of the vein -- and the danger to the President's life was now "pretty much gone."

Test and Trial. This week, after four days' rest in Key Biscayne, the President will return to the sweltering capital to face a test that may well prove crucial to his -- and the nation's -- future.

The U.S. Supreme Court, after hearing two hours of oral arguments, will decide whether the President must release 64 White House tape recordings (see story next page). The court's decision could come as early as this week, but might drag on for several weeks.

A victory for the President would give his cause a tremendous lift. But in the more likely event that the court orders public disclosure of the tapes--and if they provide further damaging evidence--the pressure to remove the President from office would be greatly increased. Any refusal by Nixon to obey the court's order would lead to impeachment and very likely to conviction by the Senate.

In the meantime, the trial of John Ehrlichman, Nixon's former top aide for domestic affairs, and three erstwhile White House "plumbers" was continuing in Washington. Ehrlichman is charged with one count of conspiracy and four counts of perjury: authorizing the plumbers' burglary of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist hi September 1971 and then lying about his involvement hi the affair to the FBI and to a Watergate grand jury. Ehrlichman maintains that he knew nothing about the break-in until after it had occurred.

Some of the testimony most damaging to Ehrlichman was given last week by Egil Krogh, former head of the plumbers unit. He told the court that Ehrlichman admitted to him that he had been forced to "dissemble" in discussing the break-in with the FBI. Assistant Special Prosecutor William Merrill asked Krogh to define "dissemble." Said Krogh: "To be less than candid."

In mid-April 1973, said Krogh, Ehrlichman phoned him to say that President Nixon was aware of the burglary and considered it a matter of national security; Nixon did not want Krogh to discuss it with anyone. About a week later, shortly before Ehrlichman resigned, he called once again to reaffirm the message. According to Krogh, Ehrlichman said that the President wanted to "tell you that personally."

"Seamy Things." While Watergate cases were being played out in the courts, the impeachment of the President was proceeding in the House of Representatives with growing partisan bitterness. Two weeks ago, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, New Jersey Democrat Peter Rodino, announced that the committee would attempt to speed its impeachment hearings by calling only two of the six witnesses requested by the President's defense lawyer, James St. Clair. Last week Rodino reversed himself and said that all six would be called. He made this conciliatory gesture in return for a concession from House Republicans: their support in suspending a House rule that gives each of the committee's members the right to question witnesses.

The procedural change seemed eminently reasonable. Congressman Edward Hutchinson, senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, gave it strong support--though he has disagreed with Rodino on some other matters. "I never heard of a judicial or even a quasi-judicial proceeding," he said, "where witnesses under oath would be questioned by 38 or 40 people." But many other House Republicans were angry at Rodino, and they rebelled against their own leadership. The change would amount to "parliamentary suicide," declared Congressman David Dennis of Indiana. In the end, 120 Republicans (out of 187) opposed the rules change, and the motion fell 81 votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority.

With the procedural points out of the way, the committee began to call witnesses. Two of them were former officials of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, Paul O'Brien and Frederick C. LaRue, who were connected with the $75,000 that was paid from Nixon campaign funds to E. Howard Hunt, one of the convicted Watergate burglars. O'Brien testified that Hunt had demanded $120,000 for legal fees and support for his family while he was away in prison. Hunt then alluded, O'Brien testified, to the "seamy things" that he had done for the White House as a member of the plumbers, and added that he might be obliged to "reconsider" his "options." Neither O'Brien nor LaRue could answer the most important questions: whether Nixon himself ordered, or silently permitted, the payment to Hunt; and whether the President intended that the money be used to keep Hunt from testifying freely about the activities of the plumbers.

Still to be heard from are such Watergate heavyweights as former Attorney General John Mitchell and John Dean, the former White House Counsel. One who will not be testifying is H.R. Haldeman, the former White House chief of staff. His attorneys said that, if subpoenaed, he would invoke the Fifth Amendment against selfincrimination, presumably because he faces trial in the Watergate cover-up conspiracy case.

Impeachment Vote. The impeachment question may preoccupy the House for most of the summer, but the Democratic leadership believes that, barring some dramatic turn in favor of the President, the outcome is virtually decided. After an informal member-by-member analysis, the Democrats concluded that the House is now disposed to vote for impeachment by a margin of at least 55 votes. The lineup, according to the Democratic count: 245 (including 210 Democrats and 35 Republicans) for impeachment; 190 (38 Democrats and 152 Republicans) against. "That's our minimum figure," declares a ranking Democrat, insisting that the leaders counted only the sure votes for impeachment.

The survey indicates that the House will probably vote to impeach Nixon by more than a narrow margin. On the other hand, it suggests that the vote may not be spectacular enough to move the Senate to convict the President by the necessary two-thirds majority and thereby remove him from office. In any event, the mood in both chambers of Congress will be greatly influenced by the historic decision now facing the Supreme Court.

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