Dean testified that it had been his impression from personal conversation with president that Nixon had been aware of the cover-up, which entailed perjury before a grand jury, as early as September 1972. Nixon subsequently acknowledged that he had recently learned of improprieties by some of his aides, but maintained his own noninvolvement. The hearings brought out that all presidential White House conversations had been taped as part of a historical project. Cox and the Ervin committee went to court to obtain tapes of key conversations that might determine Nixon’s involvement after Nixon refused to release them, citing executive privilege. Protection of separation of power, he declared, made it impossible to do so. In August Sirica ordered Nixon to surrender nine tapes subpoenaed by Cox, but Nixon temporized. On October 20 Nixon stated that Cox had exceeded his mandate as an agent of the executive branch and ordered Cox’s dismissal. However, Richardson and his chief deputy, William D. Rucklesshaus, resigned rather than carry out the order. Cries for Nixon’s resignation or impeachment, which had previously come mostly from Democrats, became bipartisan. On October 22 the House Judiciary Committee, under Chairman Peter Rodino (D.N.J.), was directed to begin an investigation into possible grounds for Nixon’s impeachment. On October 23 Nixon agreed to produce the tapes, but on October 31 his attorneys informed Sirica that two subpoenaed tapes never existed, raising deepened questions about Nixon’s probity/ Still later Nixon’s lawyers disclosed that part of a third tape was obliterated. Cries for impeachment grew louder. In early November Nixon, under pressure, appointed Leon Jaworski as a new special prosecutor for Watergate.
The damage of the Watergate scandal was intensified by a number of other scandals. Ehrlichman was among those indicted and convicted in connection with an unsuccessful White House attempt in 1971 to obtain derogatory files on Daniel J. Ellsberg by burglarizing Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office. Earlier in 1973 Ellsberg’s trial on charges of leaking secret defense department information was dismissed when the government disclosed that Ellsberg had been overheard on an illegal wiretap/ Two campaign workers were jailed for distributing campaign literature libelous to Democratic candidates in the 1972 Florida primaries. Executives of several large corporations were fined after pleading guilty to making illegal corporate campaign contributions to Nixon in 1972.