Washington Week In Review; 434

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linger or ever are the house judiciary committee ponders the definition of an impeachable offense one of the top stories tonight on washington week in review here is moderator all do that in and tonight washington week in review begins its eighth year on the air and would like to thank all of our loyal viewers who remain with us as we try to shed some light on the troubled times the gasoline lines have grown longer at many places across the country as the energy crisis grows worse the house judiciary committee's legal experts have taken a broad view on impeachment all the presidents tapes remain a subject of major controversy and a new controversy involving pentagon

spying becomes more curious to analyze and discuss these topics we had with his charles cordray military affairs writer for the baltimore sun bob woodward investigative reporter for the washington post neil macneil congressional correspondent for time magazine and bird sure the energy specialist for the wall street journal well done among the oil situation has gone from crisis to chaos and bert we now seem to have a war developing between the states overthrew allegations we have some people waiting in line for as long as seven hours to get gasoline with some a line stretching for five miles longer we have reports of gasoline that's being up across the country there's talk of the service station operators clothes and other shops what's it all going to lead to please give us some whites and pope paul ii i hard to say where it's going

to lead as long as the shortages remain where this there contagion on the arab while margo and when it's going to end i think what we can say about this week is that this this is the week that the honeymoon ended for bill simon president nixon's energy chief everybody seems to be angry at him in his federal energy office to a certain extent i see that there's blame to be put on the agency but their basic problems that seem to be beyond human ability to sob in very short order the supplies are shorter than the federal energy office anticipated and then now mr simon indicated they would the parrot the yacht service station operators are suffering economically and that wasn't clear when the program the military allocation program was instituted and it was clear that what happened to

the customers are angrier than mr simon anticipated and politicians being politicians are twice as angry as the voters as all adding up to a lot of confusion and trouble i think the young one of the events that reveals how dare the situation is with the decision by the agency that don gasoline station operators could not discriminate between your customers this seems to be one of the straws it and so a set off that the threat of a strike that we see now i'm a possibility and they're shut down service station or how real is that possibility do you think that we can have a nationwide shutdown of service station operators are something approaching i don't think it would be nationwide that we i think we very easily could have a shut down service stations in the areas where the shortages most of the year the question is how quickly can the

energy office correct the imbalance and supplies the question after that is after the supplies or is evenly there's distributed is possible will people be content with the remaining short the question that most americans to both questions my feeling is that the air and my guess is that the that it's going to take a lot of selling to get the american public are accustomed to a little gasoline as is now available and there's every indication that the gap between the demand that's what the amount of gasoline that put people conceivably could use their supply we're going to have available the foreseeable future is going to be distressed really large for a large sentiment was a solution well guess what the distribution i gather that there are areas of the country where there is no essential from georgia well this is one of the yet the uncertainties that

will that can't be explained right now they're there at their labs in guesses to why this happens one thing gasoline probably is being consumed in areas where customarily years and people who live in metropolitan areas are driving more intensively we're using more gasoline around home they're not making the weekend trips theyre not visiting well her lawyer or not these long lines really take us much closer to rationing because it it's sort of an informal rationing system where the people at the time to wait in line get more yes but if we're moving toward rationing there's no sign in a nixon administration yet that the that the administration is willing to accept that and i don't detect any sign any great clamor in congress that and they change very rapidly one thing you have to face is that we've we've had mandatory gasoline program for about a month i guess for some people it seems about a year but it's relatively new if we start with rationing

it's it's that seems reasonable to expect that we're going to have as much red tape and confusion for an even longer period of thought of irrational doesn't one thing emerge here though are that we've had this crisis since last october i believe and we still have no clear cut call here a government policy for dealing with it well partly i think in fairness to the yemen for the government and the administration they've laid out their policy quite clearly it's not working it's not working because the people because the public hasn't accepted the policy will buy gasoline that's right the policy assumes that gasoline is the as the discretionary few we need oil dr heat our homes we need oil to keep factories warm into fuel prices at the gasoline is the few that we can dispense with most easily of that the government is expecting us to give up our posters allowed on a series of these kinds of threats of strikes us

retailers know what the government and then i think that the fear is a remedy it i think this threat is very serious but i think that that maybe though the yap yap easiest problem to deal with and again the gasoline station owners want more money they want a bigger profit and that within those just signed its power to grant we of course it undermines the fight against inflation and i assume that's why it's they've been hesitant to give the extra profit margin the dealer's wife to compensate for the reduced gasoline by different already reported the right things and outgoing some people are going to be using more gasoline waiting in lines to buy gasoline and they will use driving well let's go on to another subject of william neal the senate watergate committee has finally decided to close down its hearings which means the spotlight as far as watergate is concerned is now going to shift to the house judiciary committee almost slowly and here we find a

split developing within the committee over what constitutes an impeachable offense what's going to happen well really i don't agree with this publisher for were four years ago but the early action from now on is going to be of the house and then that didn't have the two potential crises so for with family strife says the canadians to skip the first of course getting to ping pong as an authority in fact from the house to conduct an investigation who want to impeach the president that that's been voted for clinton before remarkable journey which has had its impact they're on the committee on the chairman commanded the second question which could've been a crisis was his definition of impeachable offenses staff committee made

this memorandum this was reached the only effect are inescapable conclusions were based one on the historical precedents are a bunch of banking on the constitutional debates of philadelphia writing the founders socially agreed to return had to be taken that sense of the justice department lawyers issued its own world finding though impeachable offenses on they have obviously proven satisfactory to the white house which in turn is a has announced today that it will be a vacant own definition of hitting the tenth obviously to confine him to build fences to a very narrow grounds i think we're the debate here is one thing's therefore it's a real battle is over what the committee has done has laid down a definition

the chairman of the committee itself has declined on it right away then assistants to work toward president nixon the chairman had thought at one point to have the canadian wilderness don't forget to define by volker politically backed away from intuit periphery area of a contest of quarreling with the committee possible it ripping the committee hardly a year back to back them down a bit to considering the nearly a year and finally ended up with a list of more risks which is to simply announces thing as it did in a news conference that stands simply as a guideline nothing more as a guideline which lets any member of congress why this discussion

and the eventual makeup went online anyway you're not forecasting the end of the battle on reducing one panel as over there for testing and the battle an impeachable offense think that that paralleled it did you have to come outside and that was that's why reading a wish away from while and get down to the substantive question which was you know what is the committee going to do it is now writing letters to the white house to george to special prosecutor asking for the information and that's where that's where there was a fight if they have to fire that we're moving into the air and isn't that going to be the most significant energy if you if if we look back at the special prosecutor all of the problems there in investigating the white house had been what tapes what documents who's going to testify like to ask you about this in the collection that occurred in michigan city where democrats captured moroccan the gop bill

earle ford and what impact does that have on the house impeachment inquiry for medina wonderful image you can do it with a little when charlie hill on a number of times for public office a grand rapids no one has given the real chance to win though jerry ford district before is wanted for twenty five years have been added since nineteen ten lives even for the great depression economic depression of the thirties that had the other the stunning affect the political options lights every democrat in his campaign to tackle president nixon nixon himself is has actually said by watching american politics are not important normally you love do not an unfinished on and do not like the english election remember when it was part of an american led coalition mission

corporations those particular that shows not affected when he made was on no nixons taxes you didn't pay very much anyone and what he's done i think the north koreans so that even a blind aunt can find an occasional acorn what he found what i think you got to find the democrats' shaky oak tree and knowing that the republicans have been weakened in their resolve to stick with its most important and what's coming before the house the season in other words you could foul republican votes for impeachment because it was a fire in the equivalent of the bill any kind of generalization be made sense a talking about members of pryor's in large numbers and decided they have a but former fed the road those are the politics and the

war in syria the house of normal format lawmakers bob woodward during the year he was the prize winning bell carl bernstein have been covering watergate ever since watergate erupted and you also been pursuing the controversy over the president's tapes and we have some new developments that wealthier than it was just trying to recall seven months ago in the white house tapes were first disclosed by alexander butterfield before the senate watergate committee and they really haven't gone away since in people in the white house will continually say if there'd never been a tapes issue than ever that the watergate indeed would have gone down the tubes it the last week though again the tapes stepped into the spotlight momentarily we wrote a story saying that the white house and special prosecutor's office had been informed of two of the tapes were suspected of being re recordings rather than original sicily the

white house have promised in terms of what was turned over the judge director the white house gave that angry response talked with general haig myself about it was segment on national television want to send a message to congress we're going to take this one to the met well as one reporter said the man turned out the next day to be the bulletin board of the sheraton four arms ambassador where they oppose that they posted a notice saying that well yes in fact they had been informed that there was such suspicion however they now have injected their own experts into the controversy i think the the issue of the tapes is going today as we see it unfold in the coming months going to become increasingly technical going to be very very difficult for everyone to understand because it's not one panel of the leo reviews obama white house

who delivered to the special prosecutor that the tapes he has requested not received has any strategy here while the white house fears that he has to refuel as the special prosecutor if you don't make any kind of recruiting the heart condition isolated it's a good point i think he is worried about the president and i think there also is the strategy of tyne this up in the courts continually a force in the special prosecutor to say now do i want to go to court to try to subpoena these additional tapes and withdrew jaworski is taken the position at least for the time being that he's not going to subpoena additional tapes and is going to try to get the grand jury to act on what they hear as rose up a fundamental question to rob is jaworski willing to go to the mat with a white house well that's the ultimate question and i think you can look at jaworski staff which is really the the same people working for the former special prosecutor mr cox and their posture has

always been one of we're going to investigate to the bottom drawer and in the bottom cabinet sonic the inclination at some point to go after everything that i think of the strategic question one we're expecting and that is that any relationship here with little stands trial which is not just beginning here it seems that the best information we have is that the major indictments in the watergate cover up will not come down next week will come down the week after that and because of the natural stands trial are they did not they wanted to have the jury in that case and the opposite question so they would not read the newspapers and watch television and this apparently will not happen until a week from monday and then there's the expectation bob what you think the effect on the really no committee will be when this plan the house itself when they won a slew of indictments take place but i don't know i think

of many people assume that these people have been indicted already so i don't think there's going to be much of a public reaction from some time ago memory serves senators god richard nixon tapes or other documents that would prove innocence or you and probably a whole welter as the evidence of innocence still suppressed we like us senators have were not invited down to look at the transcripts are understanding however is that they do have john dean who was the president's chief accuser in the watergate cover up and on one point in that some of the allegations he made that he said occurred and in conversation with the president on march thirteenth nineteen seventy two actually appear on the march twenty first take and this of course is the day the president said he first learned of the cover up so are there some that the white house as we understand it is taking a great deal on being able to demonstrate that in some crucial bob the president of this quest present is as though the question the veracity of washington post coverage and you analyze your

own stories based on sources to determine what percentage of them have proven accurate i've been proven record by events well it i'm trying to just say coats we probably written a couple of hundred stories on watergate and we've not always been right i think that the major thrust has been and and that's about all we can achieve when you're dealing with such a complicated subject but i understand this criticism and it probably will never stop nonetheless just an earlier stores under a spying episode involving the military appears to have deepened and charlie i'd like to know is this going to blow up into a major scandal isn't merely a tempest in a teapot will think it's in the category of alleged it still though all about so far isn't something and tempest is concern was rather more than a tempest because and senate hearings this week the un question of perjury

as two major scandal and on our dealing with things that happened in nineteen seventy and seventy one republican survive them so far in the offices involved has been put out of business somehow all signs to be tied to the plumbers and until those ties are uncovered we are really long overdue for ratification well what's essentially involves a case of lawyers office of the joint chiefs of staff used to have the white house manned by over and roland davis demographer who in this case was a open ocean and charles read for free can send him to the senate armed services committee this week that he had been put under instructions to gather everything he possibly could not get caught concerning what the president henry kissinger then the national security adviser where we're going admiral well under a new as it was for that time for mr robinson who is now deceased and just one it wasn't so and so senator hughes

is a forgery what the senate armed services committee might have set out to find out was whether there was any kind of threat to civilian control of the military burden obviously there isn't from this anyway but what does come down to now is to try to find out whether the joint chiefs of staff that's rather bizarre ways of learning what was going on a coup and secretive white house joe also suggesting recently that the country could not enforce afford an impeachment trial trial of president nixon because of the danger some adventure by russia would work together well i think too due to say what my judgment on what the country can span of the

impeachment trial of beirut that would run things at this trial that god i don't believe what you just said the russians are very much understood and they talked to him and to the point where they're willing to talk about their troop reductions in europe and there really a possibility and we will reduce them unilaterally people in europe american ambassadors and the europeans the germans oppose doma that they have not seen change in our foreign policy is watergate one along so i don't really think apparently that's concerning need that the alleged spying case what it what it what is it all mean in terms of national security apparently it was one of the items that was so super secret that the president and one of it is that the white house counsel mr buzz are cited as a reason for curtailing investigations what was the macon i really like it's thought by some of the plumbers and try to buttress their

case that national security was involved by throwing this shadow on the pentagon and the time and forwards true and whether national security issues involved was hard to see how one was well john when we really shed some new light on these matters is why shouldn't we can redo now begins its eighth year will see you all next week and paul dube goodnight irene at abc at

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