"What did the president know, and..."

[Bob Of Burleson]

Howard Baker:
The real story of his famous Watergate question

By Peter Grier, Staff writer
The Christian Science Monitor

Washington — The most famous sentence Howard Baker ever uttered was his immortal line about Watergate: “What did the president know, and when did he know it?”

It was late June 1973. Senator Baker, who passed away on Thursday at his home in Tennessee, was the ranking Republican on the special Senate committee convened to investigate the 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office building.

President Richard Nixon had conspired to cover up White House involvement in that break-in early after its discovery. But the country did not know that at the time. Baker didn’t either.

Nixon thought Baker would be his ally on a panel that might be dangerous. At the start, the Tennessee lawmaker had acted as if that might be the case. On Feb. 22, 1973, he met secretly with Nixon in the Oval Office. He told the president the committee planned to build political pressure slowly, taking testimony from smaller figures first and then moving to try to get appearances from higher-ranking officials such as Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman. Nixon suggested a deal whereby the highest-ranking witnesses would give private testimony. Baker demurred. He could not have approved such an arrangement on his own in any case.

THE REAL STORY