Nixon shed no light on erasure of tape

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Feisty and cagey, ex-President Richard Nixon defended his shredded legacy and shady Watergate-era actions in grand-jury testimony that he thought would never come out.

On Thursday, it did.

Offering a rare look into confidential grand-jury proceedings, and the first ever to have a former president testifying, the National Archives and its Nixon Presidential Library released a transcript of the testimony after a judge ordered the government to do so.

In it, Nixon, 10 months after he resigned under threat of impeachment, describes the burglary by political operatives at Democratic headquarters as “this silly, incredible Watergate break-in” and claims “I practically blew my stack” when he learned that 181/2 minutes of a post-Watergate White House meeting were erased from a tape.

The gap was considered key in determining what Nixon knew about the burglary and what he did to cover up the exploding scandal.

Nixon’s main legal risk during 11 hours of questioning in June 1975 was being caught in a lie. Short of committing perjury or implicating anyone in his cadre of loyalists, he could testify with impunity because a pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford, protected him from prosecution for any past Watergate crimes.

At one confrontational moment, he bristled when pressed for details of a conversation that he said he could not remember. “I don’t recall that those specific names were in the discussion,” he snapped. “I mean, if you want me to lie about it, I will be glad to.”

He added: “Better strike that last.”