Page 4
THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1973
Telephone Call Erased 18 Minutes of Watergate Tap
WASHINGTON <A>) — One of
the famed White House tapes
was played in public for the first
time Tuesday but the only ques
tion it settled is that there is
indeed a humdinger of a hum.
It lasted, as the White House
said, 18 minutes and 15 seconds.
To straining ears in U.S. Dis
trict Judge John J. Sirica’s
crowded courtroom, it sounded
like electric clippers in a barber
shop. Here and there, before and
after the hum, the voices of
President Nixon and aides John
D. Ehrlichman and H. R. Halde-
man could be heard in snatches
of conversation.
“What the hell does that show
you?” a voice like the President’s
said once. “I’d like a little of
that consomme today.” The Presi
dent again.
There was some whistling—
tune and whistler unidentified.
Then the long buzz, loud at
first, then a little lower and
then loud again.
The tape, of a meeting in
Nixon’s Executive Office Build
ing suite on June 20, 1972—in
volving first Ehrlichman and
then Haldeman—was played as
the President’s secretary. Rose
Mary Woods, was on the stand.
Miss Woods testified she was
listening on the June 20 tape for
signs of Ehrlichman leaving
Nixon’s office—and that the
Haldeman conversation had al
ready stated—when her telephone
rang. As she reached for the
phone—to the left and behind her
—she said she accidentally pushed
the record button. At the same
time, she said, her foot must have
been on the foot switch that
starts the tape machine.
After the telephone conversa
tion, she said, she noticed the
record button down, listened to
the tape and discovered the hum.
Then, she said, she told the Presi
dent who said not to worry be
cause only the Ehrlichman con
versation tape was under sub
poena. This was an erroneous
impression according to prose
cutors.
On Nov. 14, as the National
Security Agency was making
copies of that tape for the judge,
the 18-minute gap was discovered.
Miss Woods said the President
told her of the length of oblit
erated conversation.
“I couldn’t believe there could
be something like that unless
there was a malfunction in the
tape,” the red-haired Miss Woods
said. “I told him (Nixon) I
didn’t think that in any way my
hitting the record button could
cause that long a gap ... I think
I would have remembered that
long a telephone conversation.”
That left at least 13 minutes
of obliterated conversation un
explained. Experts will assist
Sirica in determining the cause.
It was the 10th day of a hear
ing that began as an inquiry
into two subpoenaed Watergate
tapes the White House said were
nonexistent. It changed in char
acter after the White House
disclosure last week that the
Haldeman conversation was miss
ing the 18-minute segment.
Special Watergate prosecution
force lawyers say that the part
obliterated was conversation
about the Watergate break-in
that occurred only three days
before the conversation was re
corded.
The White House claims the
entire erasure was caused by the
pushed record button, “possibly
Oil Cutback
(Continued from page 1)
warned.
“The Arabs respect the U. S.
for the principals on which it
stands. Many Arabs who studied
in the P. S. have dreams of es
tablishing a United States of
Arabia. Now, it seems those basic
ideals can only exist for the U. S.
and that the U. S. will not support
anyone else who wants the same
civil rights and humanitarian
treatment,” Abdullah said.
“We don’t want to drive the
Israelis into the sea, all we want
it to be able to return to lands
which we have lived on for 2000
years and prosper side by side
with the Jews,” said Abdullah.
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while the recorder was in the
proximity of an electric type
writer and a high intensity lamp.”
The typewriter and lamp will
be brought to court and tested.
What was heard in court Tues
day was 38 minutes of a copy of
the original tape. The original,
including all the Ehrlichman con
versation and what’s left of
Haldeman’s, has been turned over
to the judge and is under heavy
guard at an unspecified place.
It’s one of three tapes—of sev
eral turned over to Sirica—that
the White House claims is covered
by executive privilege and there
fore should not go to the Water
gate grand jury. The judge will
make that decision once he has
heard the tapes completely, lis
tened to executive privilege argu
ments and had the recordings
tested for authenticity by experts.
According to a White House
brief, the June 20 conversation
covered national security wire
tapping, press conferences, legis
lative action on welfare reform
proposals and the Stockholm con
ference on environment.
In subpoenaing the June 20
conversation, the special Water
gate prosecutor said it “should
show the extent of the knowledge
of the illegal activity by the par
ticipants or any effort to conceal
the truth from the respondent
Nixon.”
Stephen Bull, a presidential
assistant who had charge of the
tapes for a time, had written
notations about each of the tapes
subpoenaed. His notes were in
troduced into evidence Tuesday.
While the tapes hearing was
in progress, the Senate Water
gate committee acknowledged
major investigations weren’t go
ing well and postponed further
hearings until at least January.
Committee senators attributed
the delay to witnesses who have
ignored committee subpoenas, as
their staff admitted that it wasn’t
ready to proceed and the White
House refused to turn over some
documents.
The possibility was left open by
the senators that the panel would
go out of existence next year with
out further public hearings.
Meanwhile, the White House
pictured Nixon as being un
decided about making some of his
P
income tax returns publj c
J. Bennett Johnston Jr j
said Nixon promised him
other senators Monday nighu
he would open some of hisiJ
returns to public review n,int
A White House spokesman J 18 f- f '
Tuesday the President will f
available complete informalJ^L
about hlS nprsnnoI W Utl-
would
forms
complete inf orilllfi
personal finance* i—
not say if release of i™" 1
would be
disclosure.
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