9

DECEMBER 1

EGIL KROGH pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, and promised to make a “full and truthful disclosure” of what he knows about the incident. Krogh said, “I simply feel that what was done in the Ellsberg operation was in violation of what I perceive to be a fundamental idea in the character of this country—the paramount rights of the individual.” The plan is that Krogh will be sentenced in January and then will coöperate with the prosecutors. He said he had sought this arrangement in order to “avoid any possible suggestion that I am seeking leniency through testifying.”

Under ordinary circumstances, all grand juries expire within eighteen months. At the request of the Justice Department, the Congress, in what may be an unprecedented action, passed a bill extending the life of the Watergate grand jury for another year. Yesterday, the President signed the bill.

The President is at the White House this weekend. Gerald Warren said, “The President will do everything he can to conserve energy and set an example for the nation.” Last week, the Washington Star-News reported that the President had spent only four of the forty-four weekends of his second term at the White House.

The Senate is meeting today—Saturday—because Senator James Allen, Democrat of Alabama, is filibustering the debt-ceiling bill. He objects to the amendment authorizing public financing of Presidential campaigns. The sections providing for public financing of Senate and House elections have already been stripped from the bill, because the House members objected. House members gave high-minded reasons for their objections, but the reason they give among themselves is that public financing of campaigns would guarantee financing of challengers. The advantages of those candidates in office over those not in office are impressive. There is the franking privilege, giving members of Congress an average of seventy thousand dollars in free mailings each year. Last week, Common Cause released a study showing that incumbents in the House and the Senate were able with striking regularity to raise about twice as much campaign money as could their challengers. This was true of Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. The figures released by Common Cause also showed that special economic groups—banking, business, labor, farm interests, physicians, and so on—contributed almost three times as much to incumbents as they did to challengers.

The White House, too, opposes the public-financing provisions. One would think that it had enough on its mind, but it is still fighting its fights in the Congress.

In any event, the manner in which the public-financing amendment was added to a bill on another matter may not be the best way to proceed to make such a fundamental change.

On tonight’s news, it is reported that the President is planning to announce that he and Mrs. Nixon will give their San Clemente estate to the American people when they die.

DECEMBER 2

Last week, Ron Ziegler said to a White House reporter, “Don’t they realize what they’re doing to our institutions?”

“Who’s ‘they,’ Ron?” the reporter asked.

“Those people on Capitol Hill,” said Ziegler. “How will they feel in 1978, when the Republicans and Southern Democrats impeach a Democratic President?”

There is to be another shakeup of the group that advises the President on energy policy. It is the fourth such reorganization this year. Now former Governor John Love, of Colorado, is out, and will be replaced by William Simon, who is Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. Simon is said to be opposed to rationing, and in favor of dealing with the shortage by letting the prices of oil and gas rise. He is said to believe that if the price of gasoline rises sufficiently consumption will drop. The move is interpreted as a victory for Secretary of the Treasury George Shultz, who is philosophically opposed to controls.

Jack Anderson reports that the figures on campaign contributions show that oil and gas interests contributed at least five million dollars to the reëlection of the President. Anderson reports that “major stockholders, directors, and officers” of Exxon contributed four hundred and forty-two thousand dollars. Anderson also reports that Exxon’s profits for the first three quarters of 1973 were one billion six hundred million dollars—an increase of fifty-nine percent over 1972. Anderson may be reaching to make connections between some of the contributors and the oil companies, but his basic point seems documented well enough. He notes that executives of Gulf, Ashland, and Phillips have admitted to making illegal contributions of a hundred thousand dollars to the Nixon reëlection campaign. He reports that Gulf “laundered” its money through a Bahamas subsidiary, and that Ashland routed its payment, in hundred-dollar bills, through Africa.

DECEMBER 3

The Senate, meeting in Sunday session yesterday, failed to cut off the filibuster against public financing of Presidential campaigns. Senator Allen was assisted in the filibuster by Robert Griffin, of Michigan, the Republican Whip. Two Republican senators were flown back on a government plane from Oklahoma, where they were on a quail hunt, so that they could vote against ending the filibuster. The White House hinted strongly that the bill would be vetoed. Senator Wallace Bennett, Republican of Utah, opened yesterday’s session with a prayer asking forgiveness for meeting on the Sabbath.

A congressionally commissioned study by Louis Harris shows that Americans place more confidence in garbage collectors than in—in declining order—the police, the press, church, business, Congress, or the White House.

On the evening news, it is reported that General Motors will lay off a hundred and thirty-seven thousand workers before Christmas, because of the energy shortage.

DECEMBER 4

On the television news tonight, the President introduced William Simon, his new energy “czar.” The President’s delivery was wooden, and fatigue showed in his face. Simon told reporters today that he and the President did not believe that the profits of oil companies were too high. He said he and the President believed that high profits, “properly reinvested,” were the best way to solve the problems. Truck drivers, protesting the lower speed limits and higher fuel costs, are blocking interstate highways.

In court, it was learned today that Haldeman still gives instructions to the White House staff. An aide, Lawrence Higby, told of being asked in November by Haldeman to obtain Haldeman’s notes of the June 20th meeting—the one recorded on the tape in which there is that gap—and to read them to him before giving them to anyone else at the White House. Higby said that after he read the notes of the meeting to Haldeman, Haldeman said, “That’s not a problem.”

DECEMBER 5

In the Washington Post this morning, it is reported that “President Nixon and his lawyers have given skeptical Republican congressmen an account of his personal finances that substantially contradicts previous Presidential statements.” The President is reported to have stayed at the meeting for only ten minutes and then left his tax attorneys to answer questions, in what one congressman called “a frank and free session that included more than a little profanity.” The President’s net worth is reported to have more than tripled since he became President, rising from about three hundred thousand dollars to about nine hundred and eighty-eight thousand dollars. It turns out, according to the report in the Post, that the President has two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in certificates of deposit at Rebozo’s bank. An officer of Rebozo’s bank has said that the President purchased a hundred-thousand-dollar certificate of deposit soon after he sold his New York apartment, in 1968, and has had it ever since. In his statement at Disney World, the President, in addition to saying that he “put everything into real estate,” said he had a hundred thousand dollars “coming to me from the law firm.”

Yesterday, a lawyer for Howard Hughes opened a briefcase and dumped a hundred thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills before startled members of the Ervin committee, meeting in executive session. Said the lawyer, Chester Davis, “Here’s the goddam money.” Davis said it was the same money that had been sent from Hughes to Rebozo and had been said by Rebozo and Mr. Nixon to have been kept by Rebozo and then returned to Hughes. Senator Ervin said there is “very little doubt” that Mr. Rebozo will be called to testify.

Ron Ziegler said yesterday that more information would be released and would “clear up” any questions about the President’s finances, and he said that the White House objected to the “piecemeal disclosure” on the subject. The White House has been making most of the disclosures.

The President has proposed that the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation decide whether the President acted properly in taking an income-tax deduction of five hundred and seventy thousand dollars for donating his Vice-Presidential papers to the government. The committee is reported to have agreed. There is some question as to the authority of this or any congressional committee to make such a finding.

Senator Stennis has told Woodward and Bernstein that he had “no idea” that the White House wanted him to authenticate a transcript of the tapes to be given to the court. He has said that he thought he was authenticating the transcript simply for the Ervin committee. Woodward and Bernstein write that Stennis also understood that he was to authenticate a verbatim transcript of the tapes—not, as the White House announced, a summary.

After lunch, I encountered a reporter talking with a former official of the Nixon Administration. “We were just discussing who Jerry Ford will pick as his Vice-President,” the reporter said.

Today, Senator Jacob Javits, Republican of New York, said that, now that Gerald Ford’s swearing-in as Vice-President is imminent—it is to take place tomorrow—the possibility of the President’s resignation will “properly come to the front, and I and others will have to give every thoughtful consideration to that possibility.”

The truckers are still blocking the highways. In some states, National Guardsmen and state police have been called out.

DECEMBER 6

Shortly after five-thirty, the swearing-in, in the House chamber, of Gerald Ford as Vice-President of the United States is on national television. Earlier this afternoon, his nomination was confirmed by the House by a vote of three hundred and eighty-seven to thirty-five. The swearing-in is a strange occasion—improvised. Once more, there is no precedent. It is not taking place outdoors, where Inaugurations are held, or in the East Room, where the President announced Ford’s nomination. Albert and Eastland, who until now have been first and second in line for the Presidency, sit on the rostrum. An American flag is draped above their heads, and on the wall above that there is carved, in marble, the words “In God We Trust.” Mrs. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods are in the gallery, both wearing red suits. General Haig is next to Mrs. Nixon. As Mr. Nixon and Mr. Ford enter, it is not clear whom the congressmen are applauding for. The applause seems full but not exuberant. The members of Congress seem to be relieved that they have got through this passage without disaster. The President is beaming.

As Ford takes the oath of office, Mr. Nixon hovers close, within camera range, as if now drawing on Ford’s reflected glory. Nixon is remarkable. He presents a seamless professional exterior. There he is, with all that he has endured, all the damage that he has suffered, looking well and carrying out with total aplomb this ceremony that may be his undoing. As Chief Justice Burger administers the oath to Ford, Ford’s wife, in a red dress, looks moved, and then Ford gives a little speech. It is a sort of combination Convention acceptance speech and Inaugural Address. He thanks the Chief Justice for swearing him in and the Supreme Court for attending. “You have my support and loyalty,” he tells the President. Ford praises the separation of powers and the two-party system and the members of Congress, who he says are “Americans who love their country, Americans who work and sacrifice for their country and their children,” and he promises to uphold the Constitution and to “do the very best I can for America.” He asks for our prayers. And then it is over. Albert and Ford wave to the room. Albert looks overjoyed. Like other ceremonies, happy or sad, the purpose of this ceremony was to depersonalize. It was an occasion of state, meant to sweep away personalities, misgivings, politics. There is a special lift to ceremonies that mark beginnings. The thing whose beginning is being celebrated may, miraculously, escape the common fate. These people on the screen are involved in the roughest and most desperate maneuvers, and what we see is a smooth ceremonial occasion. It is not a human transaction. Sometimes we need ceremonies, but they should not be confused with reality.

On tonight’s news there are pictures of Ford receiving a briefing at the State Department. According to the reporters, Kissinger said to Ford, “I want to pose with you. After tonight, you’ll outrank me.” Representative Clarence Long, Democrat of Maryland, says that Ford votes “wrong most of the time, but he’s decently wrong.”

The stock market has gone up twenty-six points.

The court hearings on the tapes and their gaps and their nonexistences are over. Today, General Haig said in court that perhaps “some sinister force” erased Haldeman’s conversation with the President. That makes as much sense as anything else.

Spiro Agnew was out of town today.

DECEMBER 7

It’s starting again. The radio announces that the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sun-Times have called for the House Judiciary Committee to proceed with the impeachment investigation.

Tonight’s news programs focus on the Vice-President’s first day on the job. It is reported that he was up late last night “celebrating” with a thousand friends. Bronze, silver, and gold-on-silver medals were made to commemorate his swearing-in. There are pictures of the President and the Vice-President sitting at the White House, smiling, conferring. In a press conference, Ford says that “the President has no intention whatsoever of resigning … and I don’t think he should resign.”

DECEMBER 9

What comes through the myriad details of the President’s tax returns
—published in today’s papers—is a cumulative impression: the imaginative and controversial deductions, including the one for the Vice-Presidential papers; the minimal tax payments ($792.81 in 1970, $873.03 in 1971, $4,298.17 in 1972); the charitable contributions up to, but no more than, the deductible amount. In a statement, the President said that his gift of San Clemente to the nation would help the American people “maintain a truly national perspective for the Presidency.” A White House spokesman, briefing reporters, said, “The people who dealt with the President’s tax returns dealt with them without talking to the President.”

Seymour Hersh reports in the New York Times that the plumbers’ code names Special Project M-1 and Project Odessa are both believed by federal investigators to stand for the Ellsberg break-in. He also reports that Ehrlichman, on Nixon’s instructions, urged the plumbers to read the chapter in Six Crises about Alger Hiss. In that chapter, Nixon wrote that “the Hiss case aroused the nation for the first time to the existence and character of the Communist conspiracy within the United States.” Nixon’s use of the Hiss case got him national attention and started him on his way to the top; his attempt to repeat the episode might now contribute to his downfall. Nixon built much of his career on his tough stands against the world Communist threat; now his troubles are being perceived by people of various political views as making us more vulnerable to the Russians.

DECEMBER 10

Yesterday, on Issues and Answers, Vice-President Ford, asked if he thought President Nixon had acted with propriety in paying so little in taxes, said that the President’s promise to give his San Clemente home to the American people should “wipe out any alleged—and I say alleged—impropriety.”

A Harris poll shows that Gerald Ford “has become the preferred candidate for President on the Republican ticket in 1976.” Ford now leads Reagan, Percy, Baker, Connally, and Rockefeller, in that order.

DECEMBER 11

The Congress is in that peculiar state it reaches toward the end of each session. Appropriations bills and other legislation are rushed through. The lobbyists are out in force. Amendments, some of them mischievous, many of them not understood by anyone but the sponsor, are added. The voting is speeded up, and the representatives and senators are even more in the dark than usual about what it is they are voting on. The main thing that members of Congress want to do now is to get out of town.

Events are often “one-day” stories. This is a comfort to politicians. But the stories about the President’s tax returns—on which tax lawyers and accountants are advising the press—continue.

On the evening news, Herbert Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, is quoted as saying that the energy crisis may not be as bad as has been predicted.

Republican campaign officials met with the President today, at his invitation, to talk about next year’s elections. Reporters ask if Watergate was discussed. “The word was never mentioned,” says Republican National Chairman George Bush.

Congress gave up today on its efforts to establish a Special Prosecutor by legislation. The legislators could not reach agreement on an approach to pass a bill with sufficient support to survive a Presidential veto. The idea of a court-appointed Special Prosecutor, sponsored by fifty-five senators, mostly Democrats, suffered a blow when Judges Gesell and Sirica issued statements opposing it. Some Republicans, led by Percy, had offered another approach, and the White House suggested still a third one. Moreover, many of the senators were impressed by Acting Attorney General Bork’s pledges that this time the Special Prosecutor would not be interfered with, and by Jaworski’s performance thus far. Since he assumed the job, Jaworski has been cultivating the image of a relentless prosecutor. He has no choice; if he falters, his staff and the press, working together, could give him trouble. Like many people here these days, Jaworski is trapped. Some concern was also expressed that if the Congress did pass legislation to establish a Special Prosecutor, the President might use it as an opportunity to fire Jaworski. The President may be too trapped himself to do that, but the concern that he might do so, nurtured by Jaworski and his staff, was there—a factor. Congressional leaders saw themselves to be over a barrel on the question of the Special Prosecutor, and gave up.

The move to set the bill aside was made by Senate Majority Leader Mansfield after a meeting today of the Democratic Policy Committee. Senators Kennedy and Bayh objected strongly to the move. One theory advanced by the congressional leaders is that the President would perhaps fear that if he interfered with the Special Prosecutor, Congress would retaliate with legislation to establish one. It’s not clear, as of now, that he need be so fearful of this. The question of how to establish an independent prosecution of a President has not been resolved. Thus far, it has twice been settled, ad hoc, on the basis of personalities and the perceived relative strength of the President and his opponents.

DECEMBER 12

Today, Vice-President Ford joined other Republicans in urging the House Judiciary Committee to hurry its impeachment inquiry. Ford said that if the committee did not resolve the question by April, “then you can say it’s partisan.” A line commonly used by Republicans, beginning, it seems, with Aiken, is that the Congress “should impeach the President or get off his back.” The Republicans are disturbed by the possibility that the question of impeachment might drag on well into the election year; some believe that the sooner the vote is taken on impeachment, the more likely it is that the move will fail. But the Republicans’ call for the hurrying of impeachment may be deepening the President’s problem. Each Republican voice that is raised in favor of impeaching the President or getting off his back lends more legitimacy to the concept of impeachment. The fact that Republicans feel that they have to say this at all shows how the respectability of the idea has grown. There is a cumulative effect. The idea is there; the Republicans, in their agony, say “Get it over with,” and in doing so they give strength to the idea. Almost without anyone’s noticing, a bipartisan consensus has grown that the Congress must proceed on the question of impeaching the President.

The House Judiciary Committee has begun to make preliminary arrangements. On television last night, Rodino said he did not think that “these matters should be formalized” until the committee had chosen a special counsel.

DECEMBER 13

There is a U.P.I. report in today’s Washington Post that President Nixon claimed a twenty-five-dollar deduction for a dogwood tree he donated in 1972 to the State of Connecticut.

According to Harris and Gallup polls published today, approval of the President has risen by four (Gallup) or five (Harris) points. The polls mark the first time since February that the President’s standing has not dropped. The Gallup poll shows thirty-one percent of the people approving of the way the President has handled his job, and fifty-nine percent disapproving. The Harris poll shows thirty-seven percent of the people rating Mr. Nixon’s performance as “good” or “excellent,” and sixty-one percent describing it as “fair” or “poor.” To judge from conversations in Washington today, the politicians are finding the President’s rise in the polls significant, and it is giving pause to some who were set to oppose him.

Yesterday, Senator Saxbe, in a hearing on his nomination as Attorney General, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Bork had fired Archibald Cox for “an extraordinary impropriety.” This was the only reason for firing the Special Prosecutor permitted by the guidelines establishing the office. However, Saxbe also assured the senators that he would refuse to carry out an order to fire Jaworski.

In the New York Times, there is one of those stories within a story that, it seems, we may hear more about. The story, with a San Francisco dateline, says that the Ervin committee has subpoenaed the records from the San Clemente Inn concerning visits there by people involved with Howard Hughes, the plumbers, and some friends of President Nixon. What catches the attention is a mention, well down in the story, of one name on the subpoenaed list—that of William Griffin, the attorney for the Precision Valve Company, owned by Robert Abplanalp. The story says that, according to transcripts of testimony given to the Ervin committee in executive session, and on file in court in Washington, Griffin was the man who returned the one hundred thousand dollars in cash from Bebe Rebozo to a representative of Howard Hughes in New York in June. A few days ago, we read that last December Griffin bought two Key Biscayne lots from Nixon, at about three times their original cost.

Evans and Novak report today that Gerald Ford has “dismayed supporters by rejecting important advice from long-time political intimates.” These unnamed intimates think that the Vice-President should not go skiing, as he has planned, over the Christmas holidays but should stay in Washington and build his “take-charge” image. They also think that Ford should hire a “sophisticated politician of wide experience as his chief aide.” Ford’s “political friends,” write Evans and Novak, are also disturbed at the extent to which the Vice-President is defending the President. This is worrisome to those who see Ford as “the party’s only salvation,” the columnists write. Evans and Novak report that Ford has shown some resistance to the President. The President, the columnists reveal, wanted Ford’s swearing-in as Vice-President to take place in the White House. They say that the President was dissuaded only by Ford himself, who told Mr. Nixon, “with candor,” that to walk down the aisle of the House of Representatives with Ford might help Mr. Nixon. That’s candor.

In New York, a wise man who used to be in Washington says that if this all ends ambiguously the lessons will still be clear. “Don’t think of it in terms of punishment for crime which prevents people from doing it again. The history of law enforcement shows that it doesn’t work that way. The erosion of the President’s support is the lesson. He’s helpless now. He can’t push buttons or do something mad. That would be the ‘tilt,’ and the end of him. Politicians will learn that lesson.”

DECEMBER 14

The panel of technical experts studying the tapes reported yesterday to Judge Sirica that they did not think the eighteen-and-a-quarter-minute gap on the tape could have been caused in the manner suggested by the White House. They said that neither the lamp nor the electric typewriter used by Rose Mary Woods was “a likely cause” of the noise, as the White House had said. Judge Sirica said there were “some indications” that the Uher recorder used by Miss Woods could have produced the buzz.

Yesterday, Britain announced a three-day work week because of the energy crisis.

Various individuals and organizations are trying their hand at drawing up a bill of particulars for impeachment. Some of the bills of particulars contain as many as twenty items. Some of them go beyond matters related to Watergate, and include such matters as bombing and impoundment. Some of the lists give an appearance of equal importance to large and small matters. Some of them include charges that have been proved and charges supported only by hearsay. Some members of the House Judiciary Committee see the possible grounds for impeachment as falling into three categories: acts that are statutory crimes; matters that are generally perceived to be wrongdoing, such as tolerating malfeasance and corruption by one’s appointees and assistants; and acts that may not be legal wrongs but are essentially political, such as the cover-up of activities in Southeast Asia. It will be the job of the Judiciary Committee and its staff to sort these things out. It is possible that events and public opinion will impose themselves on the House of Representatives.

Inevitably, the judgment about the President will be both legal and political. It will be political in the small sense—in the sense that the politicians will be weighing the decision in terms of how it will affect their own hides. The Democrats may perceive the issue in terms of the greatest damage to the Republicans. Similarly, many Republicans are talking of impeaching the President not out of concern that he did anything wrong but because they are worried about what is happening to the Republican Party. The judgment will also be political in the larger sense—in the sense that a judgment will be made about the damage that has been done to our political system.

It was said not long ago that the issues of Watergate, and particularly the Constitutional questions, were too abstract for “the public.” This recent period has shown us something about the growth of public awareness and the movement of opinion. The periods of quiet are deceptive. “The public” might not keep a copy of the Constitution under its pillow, or fret aloud to pollsters and politicians about the Fourth Amendment, but a large segment of “the public” appears to have a deep instinct that one’s home is indeed one’s castle. “The public” seemed to understand early this year, when the President defied congressional authority time and again, that checks and balances were not working. The reaction to the firing of Archibald Cox was a deep, instinctive reaction—apparently not manufactured, as Ron Ziegler says it was—to what appeared to be a President holding himself above the law. Someone here says it was similar to the reaction in 1937, when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to “pack” the Supreme Court—an attempt he followed with an effort, also unsuccessful, to “purge” the Congress of those who opposed him. The reaction to Cox may not have represented the opinion of the majority, but it was the sort of reaction that shapes events. It appears that “the public” has some fairly deep feelings about the ideas and principles that the Constitution represents. Our roots in the past may be deeper than we knew.

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the nomination of William Saxbe as Attorney General. The committee acted after receiving more assurances from Saxbe that he would not interfere with Jaworski. Senators Hart and Kennedy wanted written assurances to this effect from the President. Saxbe said that such assurances were not necessary. Senator Scott said he would “seek further clarification” from the President, and the committee voted to approve Saxbe.

Today, I talked again with the exasperated Republican senator whom I spoke with at length a month ago. He said, “There hasn’t been much cloakroom talk lately. We’re caught up in the energy crisis. But we Republicans are not in much of a position to help the President now. We could form a choir and go to the White House and sing over him and it wouldn’t make any difference.”

The papers report that Kissinger and Le Due Tho are to meet again in Paris next week, presumably to discuss the increased fighting in Vietnam. Two months ago, Kissinger and Le Due Tho were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; Le Due Tho turned it down. At the moment, Kissinger is in the Middle East, trying to arrange truce talks.

Late this afternoon, President Nixon presided over the lighting of the national Christmas tree. At his side were a Camp Fire Girl and a Boy Scout. Robert Pierpoint, of CBS, reported that, under the direction of the Interior Department, a large number of Nixon supporters, holding posters and little American flags, were in the front rows. Many of them were followers of the Korean Reverend Sun Myung Moon, whose sound truck had circled Lafayette Park, offering prayers for the President, on the Monday after he fired Archibald Cox. The audience cheered the President. On one giant banner—of the type held up for the television cameras at baseball games—there appeared, in block letters, the message “GOD LOVES NIXON.” The ceremony of the President lighting the Christmas tree was carried live on the television networks.

DECEMBER 15

The Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation has decided to make a full investigation of the President’s tax returns and has asked the Internal Revenue Service to re-audit the returns of several of President Nixon’s friends. The committee has also received a preliminary report from its staff which says that the I.R.S. resisted pressures by the White House for audits of its enemies. The report says that if enemies were audited it was because they had been selected by computer “at random.” The staff of the committee has close ties with the staff of the I.R.S.

DECEMBER 17

Nine inches of snow has fallen on Washington in the past two days, and the city is nearly paralyzed. For reasons that have never been quite clear, the city reaches near-paralysis whenever it snows, and even when it rains.

The Reverend Dr. Billy Graham, the evangelist and friend of Presidents, conducted the worship service at the White House yesterday. The Washington Post says the Reverend Dr. Graham interrupted a crusade in Europe, at the President’s special request, to appear at the White House yesterday. Introducing Dr. Graham, the President said, “He always leaves us with a message.” “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Dr. Graham, “I believe America stands on the threshold of divine judgment. … Who should repent? Everybody.” Following the service, Edward Nixon, the President’s youngest brother, said to reporters that Watergate was “a tempest in a teapot.”

The Washington Post carries a front-page story headed “Colson, ‘Mr. Tough Guy,’ Finds Christ.” Colson says, “I have found in my own life the relationship with Christ. I think I realize now that your abilities as an individual are much more limited than I believed them to be before.” Colson says that he expects people to be cynical about his spiritual awakening.

Tonight, we await the President’s decision on whether to sign or veto a bill that gives the U.S. District Court here authority to enforce subpoenas issued by the Ervin committee—an authority that Judge Sirica had said he did not have. Republican leaders are reported to have told the President that they could not support him in a vote to override a veto. Late this evening, the news comes that the President has allowed the bill to become law without his signature. He calls it “bad” legislation, but says that nevertheless he has decided not to veto it, “under the circumstances.”

Over the weekend, a White House aide said to one of my colleagues, “Just because a couple of those Republican congressmen might go down the chute doesn’t mean he’s going to quit.”

DECEMBER 18

Yesterday, as part of a campaign for “high visibility,” the President and Mrs. Nixon went out to the South Lawn of the White House to view a snowman, and today there are pictures of the event in the papers. The President doesn’t seem to know quite what to do in relationship to the snowman. In the picture in this morning’s Washington Post, he gestures at it vaguely, and Mrs. Nixon smiles. In the Washington Star-News; the President is alone with the snowman and is touching its hat. The snowman is smiling. The President is not.

On WTOP, a Washington television station, Gordon Peterson reads the Christmas card that Bebe Rebozo has sent to the customers of his Key Biscayne bank. Bebe Rebozo’s Christmas card says “Neither material wealth, fame, power, nor admiration necessarily brings happiness.”

DECEMBER 19

Around Washington, lawyers are doing research on the possibility of plea-bargaining by a President. Some lawyers say that a bargain could be struck between a President and the Attorney General. They base this theory on the fact that the Supreme Court has held that when a duly qualified representative of the law strikes a bargain with a defendant, the bargain sticks.

An interview with Barry Goldwater has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor. Senator Goldwater says, “I’ve never known a man to be so much a loner in any field. … The President, I think, thinks of himself as the supreme politician in this country. And being a loner, I think he sits by himself and tells himself what he’s going to do. Now we went through this gesture period of having congressmen and senators down to see him—but it seems to have ended. … And as a result he’s not getting advice. That’s his problem, he’s not getting it. And when he gets it, he doesn’t listen to it. … My God, we’ve never had so many serious problems in the history of this nation.”

Melvin Laird announces that he will leave the White House on February 1st—a month later than he had planned. Laird says that the House should vote “on the question of indictment” by March 15th. When he uses the word “indictment” rather than “impeachment,” he makes the action the House must contemplate sound even more severe. Peter Rodino says that the House Judiciary Committee will finish its inquiry into impeachment by April 1st. Laird and Rodino are not so far apart.

Sam Dash, the Watergate committee’s majority counsel, says that the White House has “graciously” agreed to accept the committee’s subpoena for over two hundred documents and tapes.

The first segment of an interview with Bebe Rebozo by Walter Cronkite is shown on CBS tonight. Rebozo speaks softly, and fingers a piece of paper as he talks. Cronkite asks Rebozo why he was the conduit for the hundred thousand dollars from Hughes. Rebozo explains that in political campaigns people “are not sure” that the money gets to the proper place. He says that “many people made contributions through me or would send me a check and would say, ‘Put this in to help our friend’ and so on.”

DECEMBER 20

John Doar was named counsel to the Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry today. Doar, fifty-two, had been an attorney in the Justice Department’s civil-rights division during the Eisenhower Administration and had remained on under the Democrats, eventually becoming head of the division, and establishing a reputation for calm and integrity.

DECEMBER 21

Another heavy snowfall today. Again the city is entangled in itself. So is the Congress. The emergency energy bill is being filibustered in the Senate by senators from oil-producing states. The House and the Senate seem to be unable to agree on the final terms of the bill and may adjourn without passing the emergency legislation. This episode adds to the feeling that one conclusion to be drawn from recent events is less that the Presidency as an institution will have to be, as many people say, weakened than that it will have to be surrounded by methods of holding it accountable for its acts.

John Rhodes, the new House Minority Leader, who is a conservative, said to reporters yesterday that if the House votes to impeach the President, the President should consider resigning. Rhodes said he had “no feeling” on what action the House might take, but he said he thought the chances that the Judiciary Committee would recommend impeachment were “pretty good.” Rhodes, unlike other Republicans, said he did not think that the committee was “stalling.”

The Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation has disclosed that in September, 1972, John Dean turned over to the I.R.S. a second list of names—five hundred and seventy-five of them, including those of McGovern supporters and members of his staff—with a request that the I.R.S. “see what type of information could be developed” on those named. This was in addition to the some two-hundred-name “enemies list” which Dean told the Ervin committee about last summer. The Joint Committee said that there was no evidence that those on the new list were singled out for harassment by the I.R.S.

Joseph Alsop reports that Wilbur Mills is giving consideration to backing a joint resolution that would free the President of the threat of any prosecution or other court proceedings if he should resign.

Quietly, an ad-hoc group of senators and their staffs have been making plans to begin work next year to reaffirm some of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights. Two subcommittees of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a special subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee will look into encroachments on the First and Fourth Amendments.

On the evening news, it is announced that government figures released today show that consumer prices are now eight and four-tenths percent higher than they were a year ago. This increase is the highest in peacetime, and higher than any annual increase during the Vietnam war.

The Congress, ending its first session, will adjourn tomorrow and go home.

Today is the first day of winter.