THE CONGRESS: The Fateful Vote to Impeach

• Share

(8 of 12)

telephone number, but he was not backing down. "If it's come to that," he muttered, "maybe we're impeaching the man too late. My God, these people will have a chance within six months to express their opinion of my performance in office. This type of activity is totally beyond me."

Still not satisfied with the quickly prepared articles of impeachment introduced under Donohue's name, the impeachment forces went to work on new drafts as soon as the round of general debate was concluded on Thursday night. At this critical stage, Chairman Rodino joined the group of key Democrats assembled in Counsel Zeifman's office. Among them were Flowers and Mann, who now held the virtual proxy votes of moderate Republicans. Their aim was to find precisely the right language that would placate the more liberal Democrats, hold the Southerners as well as the available Republicans, and yet be technically proficient enough to withstand the anticipated assault from the Nixon loyalists during the closing debate.

The drafting was resumed Friday morning, delaying the start of that day's public session until 11:55. Finally, with little substantive change but a tightening and polishing of wording, the articles were introduced as an amendment to the Donohue articles by Maryland Democrat Paul Sarbanes, a precise, slow-speaking Rhodes scholar.

Before acting on the amendment, however, the legislators debated two time-consuming diversionary problems in a somewhat quarrelsome and highly repetitive lawyerly argument. At one point, Rodino tried to reduce each member's debating time from five minutes to two minutes, but objections were raised. He then retained his evenhanded treatment of the contending parties, letting the debate drone on.

But if the words were sometimes weak, the images and personalities of the committee were vividly etched on a viewer's consciousness as the proceedings continued. The TV cameras enabled Americans for the first tune to see for themselves just how representative this remarkably diverse group of U.S. Representatives really is. With few exceptions, they seemed less a group of politicians or lawyers (which all are) than a particularly well-cut cross-section of ordinary Americans, exposing the accents, the attitudes, the argot of the regions from which they come, and the universal Chaucerian splay of individual character.

There was Rangel, with big-city bluntness inviting his adversaries "to walk down this street" of evidence with him for a way. There was Thornton, speaking simply and sparingly with the unmistakable sincerity of his Arkansas folk. "It is amazing," Sandman boomed in a kind of McCarthyesque excess of sarcasm and leering, as he hacked at some pro-impeachment speaker's folly. Then came the patient, adenoidal, invariably intelligent queries of Wiggins, forever asking how the evidence touched the President. Or the schoolmasterly, quick thrusts of Dennis, clipping words and arguments.

The Deep Southerners, Flowers and Trent Lott, though on opposite sides, spoke with the easy fluidity and courtesy of their heritage. Mezvinsky was the new boy, carefully following the mood and model of his elders, Cohen the engagingly gawky bright boy of the class. Missouri's Hungate, full of sometimes slightly hokey Ozark folklore, designated himself the comic, just as California's