WATERGATE: Congress: Black Wednesday

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The late Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sam Rayburn, used to marvel at "those rolling waves of sentiment" that would occasionally engulf the House, abruptly establishing a solid consensus. Last week even Mister Sam might have been surprised at the swift surge of revulsion that swept both chambers of Congress. It came suddenly on Wednesday, eight days after the release of the presidential transcripts. The turn seemed to come with the gathering flow of mail running as much as 10-1 against the President, the opportunity for enough of the busy Congressmen finally to read through much of the transcripts, and the chain reaction of exchanges among the members in cloakrooms and over coffee. Whatever the exact process, a critical mass was reached, and with it the concatenation of judgments devastating to Richard Nixon.

In the outpouring of condemnation on Capitol Hill, Democrats could hardly be distinguished from Republicans, newcomers from oldtimers, liberals from conservatives. As if of one mind, the nation's legislators blurted out their reactions: "damaging," "disgusting," "embarrassing," "disgraceful." Observed a House G.O.P. leader: "It sure was a consensus. You just sat on the floor and felt it." Said Ohio Conservative Republican Charles Whalen: "It happened on Wednesday. It all just fell in."

Moral Squalor. What appalled Congress was not so much the evidence of particular crimes as the moral squalor revealed in the transcripts. "This is the most nauseating thing I have ever read," declared a hitherto 100% Nixon loyalist, Louis Wyman of New Hampshire, who is not given to overstatement. Said Republican John Ashbrook, a conservative Representative from Ohio: "I listened to the President on television last Monday night, and for the first time in a year I believed him. Then I read the March 21 [1973] transcript, and it was incredible, unbelievable." Complained Massachusetts Republican Congressman Silvio Conte about the transcripts: "I have a better quality of conversation with my staff than they have. I have a hard time reading them. I can't stand it." Declaring that the transcripts "really raise more questions than they answer," Illinois G.O.P. Senator Charles Percy said that neither the courts nor Congress can be "satisfied that this is the whole story and that no further evidence needs to be produced."

Pennsylvania Republican Senator Richard Schweiker, urging the President to resign, said: "I cannot remain silent in the face of the now obvious moral corrosion destroying the presidency." Senator Marlow Cook, a Kentucky Republican, acknowledged that Nixon must "realistically contemplate" resignation, adding: "The President has irretrievably lost any claim to the confidence of the American people."