By JOHN HERBERSAPRIL 30, 1974
WASHINGTON, —President Nixon announced tonight that he would turn over to the House Judiciary Committee and make public tomorrow 1,200 pages of edited transcripts of Watergate conversations.
Appearing on national television in a plea to the American people to believe that he is innocent in the Watergate coverup, Mr. Nixon said the enormous volume of transcripts included those portions of the 42 tape recordings subpoenaed by the House committee...
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Pointing to two large stacks of transcripts on a table beside him in the Oval Office of the White House, the President said they would be made public to morrow in their entirety.
“In giving you these, blemishes and all, I am placing my trust in the basic fairness of the American people,” he said, evocative of language and expression he used more than 21 years ago in his celebrated “Checkers speech.”
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Acknowledging that the transcripts would be interpreted in different ways, Mr. Nixon said:
“From the beginning I have said that in many places on the tapes there were ambiguities...
“I realize these transcripts will provide grist for many sensational stories in the press. Parts will seem to be contradictory with one another, and parts will be in conflict with some of the testimony given in the Senate Watergate committee hearings.
“I have been reluctant to release these tapes not just because they will be embarrassing to me—which they will—and not just because they will become the subjects of speculation and even ridicule—which they will—and not just because certain parts of them will be seized upon by my political and journalistic opponents—which they will.”
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In his 35‐minute address, Mr. Nixon made one important concession. In a Watergate meeting with aides on March 21, 1973, he said, he suggested several times that it “might be necessary” to meet the demands of H. Howard Hunt Jr., one of the Watergate burglars, for hush money. This, he said, was because he feared that Mr. Hunt might disclose “sensitive national security matters.”
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But in the end, the President said, he decided that such action would be wrong and “look like a cover‐up” and spoke against such action. He did not discuss the fact that Mr. Hunt, shortly after that meeting, was paid $75,000 from funds of Mr. Nixon's ...
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Mr. Nixon's troubles, as a result of his announcement tonight, were not expected to end with disclosures of matters on the tapes. The House committee and the special Watergate prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, were expected to continue in pursuit of White House materials in the form subpoenaed rather in the form decided by the President.
Areas of Controversy
Here, many areas of controversy remain. The transcripts will cover most of the recordlings subpoenaed and requested by the committee and Mr. Jaworski, but about seven were from either before or after the seven‐month period covered in the transcripts. In addition an unspecified number, according to Mr. Nixon, were never recorded. At least some of these involved meetings on April 15. 1973, when the tape ran out on the machine in the President's Executive Office Building room, according to the White House explanation.
Further, Mr. Jaworski, who is seeking evidence that is legal in court, is not considered likely to settle for transcripts.
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Tonight for the first time Mr. Nixon commented on the 18½‐ minute gap disclosed earlier his year in a tape of a June 20, 1972, conversation between Mr. Nixon and H. R. Haldeman his former chief of staff on the subject of Watergate.
“How it was caused is still a mystery to me,” Mr. Nixon said...
“And certainly, if the theory were true that during those 18½ minutes, Mr. Haldeman and I cooked up some sort of Watergate cover‐up scheme, as so many have been quick to surmise, it hardly seems likely that in all our subsequent conversations—which neither of us expected would see the light of day—there is nothing remotely indicating such a scheme; indeed, quite the contrary.”
It was clear from the President's description of the transcripts that the [March 21] meeting would prove to be one of the most difficult for him.
“I recognize,” he said, “that this tape ....is one into which different meanings could be read by different people.”
But he said that the tape would show that by the end of the meeting he had decided to call for a grand jury and to send everyone in the White House before the grand jury with instructions to testify.
