The Washington Star-News, by Mary McGrory

Vice President Gerald R. Ford has been practicing his skiing in the Colorado mountains. Better he should have been taking a course in walking on eggs. No public man has a more delicate path to tread in 1974.

Ford must appear to be loyal, grateful and respectful towards his sinking patron, the President, while maintaining the esteem of his countrymen, who, after the briefest encounter, like him better than any other politician on the scene — at least according to the Harris Poll.

Other Republicans, startled by Ford's astonishing first-foot strength, are saying that the votes are more against Nixon than for Ford. Ford is a blind date who has been proposed to. He has to be awfully careful lest further acquaintance lead to second thoughts.

Ford has done the White House a few small favors lately. Before he was confirmed, he went before the National Realtors Association and suggested that if the Silent Majority thought that some solution short of impeachment or resignation were possible, it should take pen in hand.

He also sternly counseled disbarment of William Dobrovir, the Nader lawyer who played a White House tape at a Georgetown cocktail party. He has yet to be asked if he would apply the same standard to his predecessor, Spiro Agnew, who is fighting disbarment proceedings in Maryland.

What will happen if the President, or Gen. Alexander Haig, the Chief of Staff who believes in the existence of a "sinister outside force," calls Ford down to the White House and hands him a savage script aimed at one of the President’s traditional enemies — of the kind that Agnew unquestioningly read aloud from the stump from time to time?

Agnew as attack dog simply had to be pointed in the right direction.

Did Ford work out an agreement, at the time of his appointment, that gave him the chance to turn down White House speeches? If he did, he can continue on his course of mild censure of presidential persecutors. If not, he will have to fight out every case.

So far, on the explosive question of impeachment, he takes the White House line on material suitable for the House Judiciary Committee. He said a month ago he thought the committee has the "obligation to fit the allegation within the framework of the language in the Constitution," which fits in with White House strategy to fight committee subpoenas for documents sheet by sheet, with the President apparently deciding which papers relate to "impeachable" offenses. Ford, awkwardly, once said an impeachable offense is what a majority of the House decides it is.

What Ford will absolutely not do, it seems fair to say, is to attack the last target left to the President. The day he was sworn in, as waves of applause rolled over him, he looked back over his left shoulder and up at the press gallery. The friendliest of salutes and smiles were exchanged. He likes the press and vice versa.

Nor is he likely to belabor the Ervin Committee, which is presumably going to be back on television at the end of the month. Agnew charged them. Ford is a man of Congress, not given to snarling at fellow club-members.

Vice Presidents have dissipated their constituencies at the command of their principal. Hubert Humphrey blew up his liberal support when Lyndon Johnson sent him out to defend the war. It cost Humphrey his chance at the White House.

Ford, now that he has become the most popular politician in the country, will surely be asked by the President to show his gratitude and stiffen the House Republicans against impeachment.

Ford would probably prefer to stay out of sight until the whole thing blows over. But he cannot. He will be asked about every development, and he promised at his confirmation hearings to have frequent press conferences. He also promised to be a unifying and healing influence in the country.

How can you champion the cause of a discredited President without losing the regard of a disillusioned country? If Gerald Ford can manage it, he will deserve the good will he currently enjoys.

The town needed a laugh, heaven knows, but who would have thought that the President, of all people, would provide us with 45-minutes of low comedy in, of all things, his State of the Union message?

Basically, it was situation comedy. Here was a President facing impeachment, waiting for the multiple indictments of his closest aides, fighting off a court summons from one of the "two finest public servants" he has ever known, hanging onto his great office by his fingernails.

The heavily made-up man on the podium spoke of himself as a miracle worker.

He has cleaned the air and made peace. He has reduced subsidies. He will bid the waters of recession recede, and they will obey. He will heal the sick with a health plan that will not require new taxes.

The only possible reason for turning him out of office, as he told it, would be that he is too good for us.

The Republican members of the Congress, who know that his persistence spells their ruin, went along with the gag, clapping wildly at every opportunity. They heard him as patiently and encouragingly as one would listen to a man who has been declared bankrupt telling of his plans for a new killing on the market or the purchase of the state of Florida.

The great joke of the evening, however, was the President’s straight-faced declaration of his promise to protect the privacy of the individual citizen.

Here is the man who authorized the larcenous plumbers, taped his every unsuspecting visitor until discovered, who shocked even J. Edgar Hoover with his spy schemes, whose staff bugged each other. Here he is announcing "a major initiative to define the nature and extent of the basic rights of privacy and to erect new safeguards to insure those rights are respected."

It was as if Dracula had suddenly proposed to establish a blood bank.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Thomas Moorer, looked unconcernedly off into space during the passage. He has lately been revealed as the receiver of documents stolen from the office of his Commander-in-Chief. Perhaps he thought it had nothing to do with him, since the President was inveighing against "electronic surveillance" and the admiral had used human agents for his espionage.

The new Attorney General, William O. Saxbe, who authorized three new wiretaps in his first week in office and hopes others will require less fuss, applauded lustily.

The Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, who was into wiretapping himself, had the grace to look faintly amused.

In the postscript to the speech, the President's newfound concern for the privacy of individuals was revealed in its full dimension. Obviously, his own will be protected first.

He called for an end to investigations of what he always refers to as "the so-called Watergate affair" — the Republicans again interrupted him with possibly heartfelt applause. He recognized patronizingly that the House Judiciary Committee has a "special responsibility," and he declared that he would cooperate in "any way I consider consistent with my responsibilities" — by which it was generally understood they can go fish.

The sound of hissing was heard in the chamber, a historic first, and it came from people who by this time had wearied of the travesty.

The Republicans gave him a standing ovation. If it wasn't his swan song, it was theirs. If he survives to give another January Fantasy, they don’t expect to be around to hear it. That was the reality that was carefully blotted out in the chamber. So the Republicans chatted, smiled and clapped for what every last one of them hopes will be Richard Nixon’s last State of the Union.

If they were in the prize ring together, the referee would stop the fight.

On the face of it. Richard Nixon versus Peter Rodino — the tough, embattled President against the humble chairman of the House Judiciary Committee — is the mismatch of the century.

You have only to watch the diffidence with which Rodino bangs his gavel to understand why people wonder if he can stand up to the powerful and defiant Chief Executive.

Compared to other House chairmen, Rodino is a Casper Milquetoast, Italian style. Consider the late Carl Vinson, who imposed total silence on freshmen members during their first two years of service on "his" committee, Armed Services. Or take the more recent example of the terrible-tongued Wayne Hays, chairman of the House Administration Committee, who called the House into session to hear his denunciation of John Gardner of Common Cause.

Rodino not only lets junior members speak at length. He suffers criticism from his colleagues in open session. When a member begins to orate, Rodino's mild reproof is, "We really shouldn't make speeches." 

When it became clear that Rodino was history's choice to take charge of the country's gravest question — should Richard Nixon be impeached? — the members scoffed or despaired, according to their answers. Most of Rodino's House career was passed in the shadow of the redoubtable Emanuel Celler, devoted to immigration matters of moment to his Italian constituents in Newark.

Could a New Jersey politician who writes poetry, loves opera and hates confrontation hold steady under fierce White House counter-fire?

Like Richard Nixon. Rodino grew up poor in hard times, His childhood, however, was happy. His mother died, but his loving Italian immigrant father brought up his children to "act with honor" and to "be peppy." While the other kids in the tenement played ball, Peter was versifying. When war came he was the first in his neighborhood to enlist. He served in Italy, won decorations. Like Judge John J. Sirica, another Italian-American fateful to the President's affairs, Rodino is a night school law graduate.

At five foot six, with aquiline profile, bright dark eyes, Rodino looks like a little Roman general. But his style is that of a symphony conductor coaxing harmonies, not that of the field commander smashing forward.

"So far it has worked," says Rodino of his cautious, unconventional approach.

Republican heckling, led by the President and currently escalating, does not bother him; he expected it. The other night he met Gerald Ford at a party and the Vice President, echoing a current White House theme, warned him "not to let the staff take over."

"Nothing is done without my approval," replied Rodino, whose only concern. he tells colleagues, is "that what we do will look right in history."

The first test of his soft-line leadership is now in the making. The President has asked that his able and combative counsel, James D. St. Clair, be present at the creation of any case against him.

The Republicans, persuaded that inclusion would be popular in the country, and alarmed, as one of them put it, that exclusion would be used by the President as "a club against us," are united in approval.

The chairman outlined the problem the other day to the visiting senior class of East Orange Catholic High School, whom he treated, characteristically, with deference, and addressed as equals.

"The President has asked that ... his counsel be present to do those things which are ordinarily done in the ordinary kind of lawsuit," he explained. "I do not agree. It is my opinion that this is not a common lawsuit. The President is not under charges. We are a grand jury conducting a grand inquest."

Rodino does not think the committee will fly apart on this procedural point. He is not rushing for a vote while the staff solicits expert opinion.

He expects the Republicans to be won over to his view that if they admit the President's lawyer, they will in effect rewrite the Constitution and change the entire course of due process.

"I am not inflexible," said Rodino the other day as he sat in his office, which is decorated with mementoes of his war service and the old country. "Compromise is always possible."

But when pressed as to the exact moment when the President’s lawyer could take a role, he is vague.

"You will remember I said on the House floor that if the President asked to appear as a witness, we would grant his request. He could, of course, bring his counsel with him."

That may not appear like much of a compromise to the Republicans. But Rodino expects to prevail.

"I am armored in the Constitution," he says with a smile.

Charles W. (Chuck) Colson. the former White House hatchetman, understands the skepticism that may greet his conversion to Christianity.

When he went on "Sixty Minutes" with Mike Wallace, he wisely brought along the friend who had been his guide on the road to Damascus. Harold Hughes, the Iowa Democrat who is quitting the Senate to devote himself to religious work, ran interference for Colson when the going got rough.

Wallace wanted the new Christian's reaction to the morality of President Nixon's tapes and taping. Colson forbore to pass judgment on his old master. Nixon is, of course, currently withholding tapes which could delay or dismiss the two Watergate trials in which Colson will be a defendant.

Hughes intervened. Colson, he explained, is "a baby in Christ." Although he has come "a million miles" since their first meeting, "Chuck" has not yet matured enough to accomplish a complete transfer of loyalties.

Indeed, flashes of the old Colson kept shining through. He gave the spiritual version of the "you're another" White House defense in Watergate, which was a forbidden topic on the program.

"Mike," said the new convert with his old combativeness, "when you find someone who hasn't sinned in their life, I'd love to meet him. We all sin. We all make mistakes."

Colson, obviously, has forgiven himself, which is, of course, important to him, but perhaps less so to the victims of the "dirty tricks" which engaged him so much in his old life.

He has apologized for one of his least transgressions — a smear against Arthur Burns, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Burns dissented on economic policy and Colson promptly spread the word that Burns was motivated by his desire for a pay raise.

"I think that's one of the things about political wars that maybe Harold and I would — at least now — view a little more differently," Colson said.

Linking arms with Harold Hughes, who has been through the mill, was a bit much. Hughes was for years a hard drinker who crucified himself and his family, but he never smeared a political rival. Nor would he dream of rigging a poll or faking a cable. But the sly suggestion Harold had not changed his mind about reprehensible political practices he never engaged in was the old, unregenerate Colson to the life.

"Baby in Christ" he may be, but he suddenly leapt to the pulpit and began doling out advice to those who might be moved to follow him on the path of redemption.

"I think it would be unfair to people who are watching this program," he said, "to give them the impression that if they were really seeking a spiritual commitment ... that one of the prices they must pay is to go back and try and redo things that they have done in their past."

The implication of the program was that without "personal commitment to Christ" a 20th century American could not possibly have known the difference between right and wrong, that without amazing grace, people cannot be expected to conduct themselves in an upright and honorable way in public service.

Admittedly, at the Nixon White House, it was difficult, loyalty and toughness being prized above all ocher virtues Last week, Jeb Stuart Magruder, the hapless deputy campaign manager, confessed in court that he had, in that dark wood, lost his "ethical compass." Egil Krogh, Jr., who is now in jail, only saw the wrong of lying when it was pointed out to him by a federal judge. 

The only one so for who has not claimed to have found Christ or lost his compass or been affected by blind loyalty is John W. Dean III. He knew what he was doing. He did it anyway. He comes out of the transcripts which Colson forbears to judge as a reprehensible young man but entirely clear-headed. He was junior master of the evil revels. He only quit when he saw the game was over.

When he finally went to the President to lay it all out for him, he did not put it on moral grounds. He used a clinical term. "There is a cancer growing on the presidency." He suggested surgery. He was willing to face jail, but unwilling to go alone. When that option was rejected, he decided to tell what he knew. If that led to the impeachment of the President, he was ready to face that, too. He has never wavered and he has never whined.

Fifty-two percent of America believes him, as against 30 percent believing the President about the cover-up. Maybe because Dean has never asked anyone to believe anything about himself but his story.

He has made his peace with the special prosecutor and pled guilty. If he has made it with God, it is his own secret.

At the banquet for the Committee for Fairness to the Presidency, Julie Nixon Eisenhower noted, "this room is very warm."

It was the truest thing said. The air-conditioning was not working and the temperature was subtropical. But the hottest place by far was the press table.

From the opening prayer by a Baptist minister who specifically did not thank God for reporters to the "closing thought" by Rabbi Baruch Korff himself that the press was "savage and without conscience," the journalists were under heavy fire.

As it happened, the evening, a tribute to the absent President, was the 10th anniversary of the nomination of Barry Goldwater. It could not have been more fittingly observed. Again the hot-eyed minority was out, wearing the flag in its lapel or carrying it. The scent of cologne hung heavy on the air. White gloves and beaded crepe were in evidence. Rapturous and biddable, they knew the enemy from old.

The Rabbi, who was variously folksy, commanding and stricken by the praise of the multitude, gave them their marching orders. They are to pray, march, fast in the next four days and they are to "look into the eyes of the giant media, which has an investment in impeachment."

As his voice rose and fell dramatically and sunk to a whisper while he rapped out the sins of the foe, a middle-aged woman from St. Louis leaned over to the press table and said grimly, "You’re lucky you’re in a civilized country."

The head table was laden down with nine White House luminaries — including Patrick Buchanan. Father John McLaughlin, Counselor Anne Armstrong — visible evidence that Rabbi Korff is now accepted as the spiritual leader of the Nixon loyalists.

Leonard Garment, who once had liberal pretensions, timed his arrival after the introductions, but the rabbi is shrewd. At the end of the evening he made sure that everyone knew Garment was present. Garment nodded briefly, then reluctantly got to his feet.

The only surprise in the audience, officially recorded as 2,500, was a generous sprinkling of blacks, some of whom brought their small children. Lionel Hampton, the President’s "favorite musician," led the music. Dr. Herbert Hinkle brought the "President's favorite choir" from Inkster, Mich., a 90-strong, all black group.

Dr. Hinkle explained that "black people have no wish to join forces with the lynch-mob hysteria that is brewing in our country today."

The emotional climax of the evening came at 8:30 when the rabbi held up a telephone and announced, "the President of the U.S." A blonde wearing a white pique dress and red-white-and-blue earrings and a red-white-and-blue bracelet kicked off her shoes and lumped up on her chair. The conversation from San Clemente was as full of unintelligibles and inaudibles as a White House tape, but the crowd, which spent most of the evening on its feet giving standing ovations for this and that, went wild at the rabbi's instruction and chanted "We Want Nixon."

Sen. Carl Curtis, R-Neb., also drew a delirious response as he named the real villains, Daniel Ellsberg, John Dean and the Ervin committee, which is "covering up" illegal donations to Democrats from big labor.

"Where is the press?" one of the diners shouted.

Mrs. Armstrong in a hoarse voice commended the "Fairness" crowd for not asking "that the media be stifled." Several men stood up and pointed accusingly at the television cameras in the back of the room.

The pale, gaunt Agriculture Secretary, Earl Butz, who always looks the specter at the feast, stirred them up with a reference to The New York Times, which was roundly booed. The paper was also mentioned by Curtis and the rabbi, with the same results.

The perspiring delegates filed out, full of purpose and enmity. Some of them passed the journalists' bunker. One woman rapped the sign on the press table and said to her companion, "Will you look at that, 'reserved for the press'? Can you imagine that?"

She glared at a reporter standing by. "You are crucifying him without a cross, do you know that?"

All in all, it was the nearest thing we’ve had to a Goldwater rally in the last 10 years.

As Julia Nixon Eisenhower remarked, "You are a small group, but you are vocal."

The words that heralded the fatal roll-calls were pedestrian. At 7 p.m., Chairman Peter Rodino said: "The question is on the Sarbanes substitute."

The question was really on Richard Nixon's fitness to continue in office. It was answered in an atmosphere of deepest melancholy.

The silence that fell on the room was broken only by the call of the roll and the click of cameras as photographers huddled over the clerk, snapping the tally as the names were called.

The "ayes" of the Democrats were whispered rather than spoken. Barbara Jordan, the handsome and eloquent black congresswoman from Texas, had her eyes fixed on the table. Rep. Ray Thornton, one of the three southern Democrats on the committee also was looking down.

James Mann of South Carolina, the Democrat, who looks like a founding father and had spoken like one during the debate, sighed his "aye." He was the architect of the first article of impeachment. He had moved between the Republican reluctants and the Southern Democrats carrying drafts and redrafts of the charges against the President.

Edward Hutchinson of Michigan, the ranking Republican, recorded his "no" resoundingly. It was all he could do for Richard Nixon. He is ailing; he took no part in the fight. He could only register from time to time his disapproval of its existence.

Two weeks ago in a Republican caucus, he asked Tom Railsback of Illinois, in tones of horror, "Do you mean to say you would vote to impeach a Republican president?"

Railsback, who has been equally horrified at the prospect, responded. "I would vote to impeach any president who I thought was subverting my government."

It fell to Railsback to cast the first Republican vote against the President. Hamilton Fish of New York, M. Caldwell Butler of Virginia, William Cohen of Maine, predictably, softly gave their verdict.

Only Harold Froehlich of Wisconsin was a surprise. The stillness in the room was rippled with gasps when through tight lips he blurted his "aye." 

He had tried to get out of it. During the hurly-burly of the third day's struggle while Nixon's friends were taunting their opponents for proof, Froehlich has threatened to reconsider his dread resolve. A few minor changes he wanted were made in the article. His escape was cut off.

All 27 of them were taking a leap in the dark. For the Southern Democrats and the Republicans it was an act of conscience and courage that could bring them honor, but oblivion.

In the end, they returned to the mood in which they began, speaking of the Constitution and their pain. As the afternoon wore on, Hutchinson began visiting the Nixon loyalists, moving among them as if in a hospital ward, patting shoulders, pressing arms. They had done their best. But even Charles Sandman, of New Jersey, a gifted heckler, admitted by sundown there was nothing more to be said.

They began their goodbyes. William Hungate, the Missouri Democrat who provided comic relief, apologized if his humor had offended anyone, then quoted from the piercing inscription on the Omaha Beach memorial: "They endured all, they suffered all that mankind might know freedom and inherit justice."

Walter Flowers, Democrat of Alabama, said somberly. "There is nothing to gain, politically or otherwise, from what I do here."

He told his friends in Alabama: "I have enough pain for them and me."

Republican Hamilton Fish told his friends in New York that he would vote for the article of impeachment with "deep reluctance."

And then they decided to bring out what Cohen had called in the rhetorical phase of the proceedings, "the sword in the temple."

Mann, who had become the leader of that mission to the temple, spoke with his usual gravity as the members dispersed.

"You don’t like to be cornered, but when you are, and your conscience is with you, you are comfortable."

"You don't feel exhilarated," be added as he went off to another drafting session. "You don’t feel happy."

The English language, which underwent severe trials in the last five years, is recovering, revived, like much else, by the strong remedy of impeachment.

Thanks to the House Judiciary Committee. we have learned that words can say something, that they can lead, instead of mislead, that they can reveal, not just conceal.

The Constitution, we find, not only prescribes government. It affords a kind of pageantry. Many Americans long for ceremony of the Old World, the changing of the guard, the trooping of the colors, the flash of the sabres of Italian policemen, the swish of the cape of the gendarme. Well, we know now we don’t need that. We have the Constitution instead, and because of six days when it paraded across the nation's television screens, it has become a living, breathing document again, cited by cabdrivers as they give their opinion of the great federal drama recently unfolded.

Enough has been said about the White House transcripts as the Thermopylae of language. That was a war in which words were almost wiped out. Through systematic abuse, they lost their meaning. "Protective reaction raid," one of the baser coinages, meant creating an alibi to bomb the enemy. When our former first citizen said. "I am not a crook," what he meant was "You can’t prove it." When he said, "One year of Watergate is enough," he meant the fire was getting hot. When he said be was "Trying to get to the bottom of it," he meant he was trying to get out of it.

It may be a while before the country stops reading "down" for "up" and "white" for "black."

But a noble beginning was made in the House Judiciary Committee.

Impeachment, like execution, wonderfully focuses the mind, and the men and women of that group tried with a care almost unknown hereabouts to match their feelings to the Constitution, and to say what they really thought and felt.

The language gradually came to life again during those six incredible days, when people sought to express anguish, dismay, resolution and anger.

The results were historic both for the country and declamation. The use of the simple declarative sentence was rediscovered.

Said James Mann of South Carolina: "The next time, there may be no watchman in the night."

Said Walter Flowers of Alabama: "To my friends I say I have pain enough for them and me."

Said Caldwell Butler of Virginia, in the single most fiery and liberating sentence spoken: "Watergate is our shame." He was the first Republican to slash the comforting myth that somebody else, of unknown party origin, was to blame.

The country has not heard language used like that in five and a half years.

And overlaying all was the language of the impeachment counts, sentences that marched like armies and tolled like bells.

"In his conduct of the office of President of the United States," each began portentously, "in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States, and to the best of his ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution to take care that the laws be faithfully executed..."

And each ended heavily, majestically: "Wherefore, Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial and removal from office."

It was powerful stuff. And the country watched transfixed, as those phrases sounded through the ritual civilities: The chairman addressing Barbara Jordan as "the gentlelady from Texas"; each speaker, no matter how wroth, on receiving recognition, saying politely, "Thank you. Mr. Chairman." The country has been famished for civility, it seems, along with truth.

Thanks partly to those men and women and their words, we now have a new President. On being sworn in, he promised "just a little straight talk among friends."

It is long overdue. The country will survive. So may the English language.

His first time out as a healer, Gerald Ford has won only charges of malpractice from a large segment of the community.

The pardon he gave Richard Nixon has cured nothing but the illusions about himself.

It was preventive medicine, he explained at his second White House press conference. The patient was the country, which to his practiced eye looked to be heading for a severe attack of "turmoil and division."

Actually, the country had been feeling fine. It thought it had finally come out of a long siege of Nixonitis. When Ford prescribed pardon, the country promptly went into shock and revulsion and began exhibiting its old symptoms of rage and frustration.

As for the immediate recipient of the pardon, which he accepted, he said, for the good of the country, it has not helped either his phlebitis or his gloom. Richard Nixon's doctor, who is more in the news than Ford, announced that Nixon is suffering from a second blood clot and refuses to go to the hospital for fear he "would never come out alive."

As a matter of fact, he was reluctant to take the medicine. His son-in-law David Eisenhower informed us last week that he had said be would not swallow it if it had any tincture of Vietnam amnesty in it. He would have, despite his depression and ill health, undergone the rigors of a trial rather than open wide.

Finally, when a huge dose of tapes was offered, be decided he would accept.

Nixon's ill health Ford did not consider of paramount concern, he said, since he was really ministering to the country.

One arm of the body politic, the Republican National Committee, seemed to be suffering ill-effects of the Ford healing. The members gathered at the Mayflower and when the doctor came they gave him a hand but no huzzas.

He did not refer to the case at all. He spoke of Henry Kissinger, George Bush, new party chairman Mary Louise Smith and Nelson Rockefeller. Together, he said they will elect an "inflation-proof Congress."

Thanks to his treatment, some of the party candidates seem to be suffering from a depression as acute as Richard Nixon's.

Although they could not discuss the cure, the Republican took a hand at healing, too. Richard Nixon was commended in a resolution for his "achievements." They joined with "President Ford in praying that Mr. Nixon, who brought peace to millions, find it for himself, that he be restored to good health, and that God bless and comfort him and his loyal and loving wife and family."

Mrs. Smith asked herself rhetorically what the Republicans could be doing wrong. She concluded they were being "outorganized or outsold."

Ford, at his press conference, did come around to agreeing that pardons are generally administered to guilty people. He said he could see where the acceptance of one "can be construed by many, if not all, as an admission of guilt."

He had not brought in outside experts, as he had promised to do in deciding to "heal the wounds throughout the United States" because he had to search his soul by himself.

He had come to realize that the pardon medicine did not go down very well. He is sure the country will feel better soon. He may keep around for a while the elixir of tapes which he had planned to administer massively to Richard Nixon.

He was absolutely emphatic there were no secret reasons for giving the pardon to the country — no deals, no hidden motives.

His wife may have given the best explanation Thursday night at the reception for the Israeli Prime Minister.

"We are very fond of the Nixons," she told reporters.

The country had been giving strong indications of contrary sentiments, and had been asking for justice rather than mercy in its hope of complete recovery from Watergate.

Now it is telling Gerald Ford, "physician, heal thyself."

On the 30th day of the trial, H.R. Haldeman's eyes are like two burnt holes in a blanket. He coaches his lawyers constantly, mouthing instructions as they object to "hearsay evidence" and "leading questions."

Haldeman is the only man in America in this generation who let his hair grow for a courtroom appearance. He is the most embattled and alert of the five Watergate defendants. He faces out at the spectators at his separate table. He scribbles bold black notes with a large pen on yellow legal pad.

Two eager careerists are telling their familiar stories of his connivance. L. Patrick Gray, the torpedoed submarine skipper, the short-term acting director of the FBI; portly Vernon Walters, still the deputy director of the CIA, who glides through his well-worn recital of how the agency was used as the rug under which Watergate was to be swept. There are ho surprises.

But Haldeman can do nothing about the tapes. Without the tapes, the trial is a coherent, orderly rerun of the Ervin hearings. But the "little Sony" is the witness that cannot be cross-examined, cannot be cautioned against giving hearsay and cannot keep Richard Nixon out of the courtroom.

Right up until the moment the reels are played, his lawyers fight. Did Haldeman use "Gemstone," the code word for the break-in, in his June 23 conversation with Nixon? The judge, John J. Sirica, as anxious for irreversibility as the Watergate principals once were for "deniability," says "whether it's Gemstone or Rhinestone," he's not going to argue and orders the word deleted.

It is a small victory. Haldeman’s face shows a small tight grin. It is to be the last of the day.

Chief Prosecutor James P. Neal announces "government exhibit No. One A." He gives the date Southern style, "June the twenty-third, nineteen-and seventy-two."

There is a bustle in the courtroom. Transcripts are handed out. Everyone reaches for earphones, huge plastic discs like giant earmuffs. The spectators who have waited since midnight, the bored reporters, the weary jurors, lawyers, defendants begin fumbling with the volume-control box that is under every other seat. The judge's earphones are different, white, lighter in weight. He looks like a medieval poet with the white headbands favored by Dante.

Haldeman, after looking around to see that nothing else is afoot, clamps on his headset. John Mitchell does not. He holds one disc against his left ear. It serves as a shield, covering most of his gray face.

The sound begins. It is, despite Richard Nixon's famous put-down, fine. In one segment, to be sure, there is a whirring noise, rather like that of the dentist's drill warming up: in another, a sound which is identified as writing, but which could be the panting of King Timahoe.

There is no question, however, of what is being said. Haldeman comes on first, his tones low, unaccented, with blurred consonants. He is hastening through distressing developments, the money, the photographs. "We are back to the—in the problem area, because the FBI is not under control, because Pat Gray doesn't exactly know how to control them."

John Mitchell, he goes on, has come up with "the only way to solve this ... Have Walters call Pat Gray and just say 'Stay the hell out of this'..."

A faint edge of pink appears over the top of the gray disc Mitchell is holding against his face. Haldeman slumps down in his seat.

The voice of the unindicted, pardoned co-conspirator now in Long Beach Memorial Hospital is heard. "Um hum," says the former president of the United States, calm, dispassionate.

They both knew the reels were running. Did Haldeman, whose inspiration it was to record every syllable of Richard Nixon, forget? It is hard to imagine. He remembers always to wear his American-flag lapel pin. He was an advance man, the breed that lives by detail.

Yet here he is, laying it all out, digging his own grave. By mid-day, in the second exchange, the two voices are stronger and more confident, as they flesh out their crazy, doomed scenario. Nixon likes it better every minute. He pronounces: "It’s going to make the FBI and CIA, look bad, it's going to make Hunt look bad, and it's likely to blow the whole, uh, Bay of Pigs thing which we think would be very unfortunate for the CIA and for the country, at this time, and for American foreign policy..."

The release of the June 23 transcript last Aug. 5 sank Richard Nixon. The last clinging congressional fingers let go that day. What will it do to H. R. Haldeman, the prompter, the scribbler? His lawyers can confuse the witnesses and the jury. The transcripts, however, make everything "perfectly clear."