Today in History-July 24
President Nixon had defied an earlier court order to hand over thetapes
1974: Nixon 'must hand over Watergate tapes'
England have
The United States Supreme Court has ordered President Nixon to surrender
tape recordings of White House conversations about the Watergate affair.
Giving the judgement to a packed and hushed courtroom, Chief Justice Warren
E. Burger said the court rejected Mr Nixon's claims of executive privilege.
Instead, he said they "must yield to the demonstrated, specific need for
evidence in a pending criminal trial".
The president said he was "disappointed" by the decision, but would comply
with the ruling.
The White House has already released edited transcripts of the tapes, which
cover 64 conversations made between June 1972 and April of this year.
But President Nixon has until now refused to comply with a court order
awarded to Leon Jaworski, the special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation,
requiring him to produce the tapes themselves.
Mr Jaworski alleges the tapes implicate the president himself in covering
up a break-in at the Watergate hotel headquarters of the Democratic National
Committee during the election campaign in 1972.
The burglars were caught rifling through confidential papers and bugging
the office of President Nixon's political opponents.
The tapes will now be available for use as evidence in the trial of some of
the president's closest aides, due to take place in September.
It is likely to take several weeks to produce transcripts of the tapes, so
they will not be available in time to be used during the House of
Representatives' Judiciary Committee debate on impeachment, which began this
evening.
However, the timing of the Supreme Court decision just hours before the
debate began, as well as the fact that all eight judges voted unanimously, is
likely to have a strong influence on the impeachment process.
If the committee decides to recommend impeaching the president, the matter
goes to the full House for debate.
If the House agrees, President Nixon could face an impeachment trial before
the Senate - the first such trial in over a century.
Mr Brooke has been exchanged for two Soviet spies
1969: Briton freed from Soviet prison
Artificially 1969:
The British lecturer Gerald Brooke has been returned to London after four
years in a Soviet jail.
Mr Brooke, 31, was arrested by the Russian secret service, the KGB, in
April 1965 for smuggling anti-Soviet leaflets.
The Russian teacher was sentenced to five years' detention, one year in
prison, four years in labour camps, for "subversiveanti-Soviet activity on the
territory of the Soviet Union" at Moscow City Court three months later.
Speaking at Heathrow airport, where he arrived at 1117 BST, Mr Brooke
revealed the Russian authorities only told him he was being sent home 24 hours
ago.
His release, nearly a year early, came after negotiations between the
British and Russian Governments.
Harold Wilson's Labour Government has been criticised by the opposition for
jeopardising British security by agreeing to release Soviet agents Peter and
Helen Kroger in exchange for Gerald Brooke.
Looking pale and thin as he stepped off his plane, an Aeroflot Ilyushin 62
jet, wearing his old school tie - Firth Park Grammar in Sheffield - Mr Brooke
was startled by the phalanx of media waiting for him.
He explained he had been suffering from an inflamed colon, aggravated by
prison food, and he was not used to speaking English or seeing so many
people.
His 29-year-old wife Barbara, a librarian, greeted him with his mother
Marion, 74.
They prevented him from answering too many questions about his ordeal.
All he said about prison conditions is "they were not particularly
soft".
Mr Brooke is looking forward to relaxing at home in Finchley this
evening.
Mr and Mrs Kroger will be released from prisons in Britain in October after
serving just nine years of their 20-year sentence for their part in the Portland
Spy case.
British intelligence services discovered the couple had seriously damaged
national security by passing secret details about the country's submarine
activities to the USSR.
Vocabulary:
subversive :Intended or serving to subvert, especially intended to
overthrow or undermine an established government(颠覆性的)
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