Page 14-Friday, July 14, 1978-The Michigan Daily
Senator Sam and Co.:
The Summer of '74.
It tas a his and hersthanpionship for
Jimmy Connors and Cris Evert at Wimbleton.
Henry Kissinger labored for a Mideast peact,
settlement. President Juan Peron of Argen.
tine died.And PresidenatsRichardixon ant)
An war Satlat of Egypt stood in the shadows off
the ancient pyramids in what was to be the
final round of summitry for Nixon..
In Washington, the Senate Watergate
Committee quietly left renter stage after 14
years work. The House Judiciary Committee
took over the spotlight.
But who could forget Samt Errin,. the mra
with the bus eebrowsw ho presided over the
Senate Watergate Committee.
And what of Baker, Reirker. Gurney. Mon-
toya, Talmadge, and Inouva?
The past Watergate years hare been ones of
change for those who serred with Chairman
Sam.
In this story, Associated Press writer Harry
Rosenthal remembers Sam Errin and takes a
aook at what he is doing now and what has
happened to the other members of the com-
mittee.
By HARRY ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Chairman
Sam is a sometime credit card
huckster.
Howard Baker and Lowell Weicker
think of running for president.
EDWARD GURNEY and Herman
Talmadge have faced ethical questions
about money. Daniel Inouye is as far
from the limelight as his state is from
the mainland. Joseph Montoya is dead.
Five years ago, the members of the
Senate Watergate Committee were
delving into America's greatest
political scandal. The years have
brought changes, ironic in some cases.
Sam Ervin Jr. of North Carolina,
Everybody Topside
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Whe
"retird" since 1974, hasn't changed
much since he starred on daytime
television - jiggling those eyebrows in
time with his outrage, dispensing
homilities like blue ribbons for peace
preserves at the Burke County fair.
WATERGATE, HE IS fond of saying,
made him one of the most notorious
characters in the United States - a
renown that didn't escape the atten-
tion of the firm that advertises those
apple green credit cards.
The five years since Watergate
have brought changes not only to
the nation but also to many of the
key figures in the Senate's
Watergate investigation in-
cluding from top left: Sam Ervin
(D-N.C.), Daniel Inouye (D-
Hawaii), Herman Talmadge (D-
Ga.), and Joseph Montoya (D-
N.M.). Bottom row from left:
Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), Ed-
ward Gurney (R-Fla.), Lowell
Weicker (R-Conn.), and John
Dean. Ervin and Gurney are no
longer in the Senate, and Mon-
toya died June 5.
"Do you know me?" asks Chairman
Sam, the country lawyer, scrunching
down in his airplane seat.
Well, heck, American Express,
almost everybody knows Ol' Sam.
AT NEARLY 80, the aphorisms still
trip wondrously from his ton-
gue.
Of Richard Nixon's memoirs: "I'd
have to say that insofar the President
discusses the things I know the best that
he certainly did obey Mark Twain's in-
junction, 'truth is very precious, use it
sparingly.' "
Of his life since he returned home to
Morgantown, N.C.; "oh,Lord, I'm
working as hard as I did when I was in
the Senate, one way and another. I'm
practicing just a little bit of law. I'm
making a lot of speeches. I'm being
called on to aid this, that and the
other."
THE SPEECHES and the rest keep
re are they now?
Ervin on the road much of the time. He were president and I had a national
can command $2,000 for a speech, but security advised who singled out
makes many for nothing. American Jews as an impediment to
If Ervin was the best known my policies, I would have his
Watergate senator, then surely that resignation before sundown and his
other country lawyer, Sen. Howard reputation before breakfast."
Baker, asked the most memorable A Weicker-for-president committee
question: 'What did the president know has been formed, but the Connecticut
and when did he know it?" , senator says it is there only in case he
The post-Watergate spotlight has decided to run - it is not a commit-
played longer over the Republican tment to run.
senator from Tennessee than any of his FOR EDWARD GURNEY, service on
enipa i- rvn ++iiAth nmitstotrr ia e ^ M m --
u om nano mNc o istn t nw
I am introdued when I speak outside my
home state," says Baker. "Watergate
used to be the first thing they men-
tioned. Then it sort of slipped down into
the body of the introduction and now
they sometimes don't mention it at all."
Baker tried to parlay Watergate ex-
posure into the 1976 Republican vice
presidential nomination. When that
failed, he vowed never to run for the
second spot again, and now his name is
high among Republicans considered
1980 presidential candidates. But he
says his first concerns are his job of
minority leader, and re-election in the
fall.
The other Watergate senator among
early presidential prospects is Lowell
Weicker, the maverick Republican on
the committee.
HE WAS DIVORCED and remarried,
but in public life his ways haven't
changed. In 1975, with Henry Kissinger
holding out documents the House In-
telligence Committee -subpoened,
Weicker said Congress should carry its
contempt to the final stage: Imprison-
ment.
And Weicker was no kinder to
Zbigniew Brzezinski in declaring: "If I
Reduced Rates
for
BOWLING-
and
BILLIARDS
1o6 P.M. Everyday
ntThi. UNION
S 1s running orougress srom
Florida's 9th SDistrict, the House seat
he vacated 10 years ago to run for the
Senate.
Gurney was the third Republican on
the committee and the man in Richard
Nixon's corner. As he prepared to run
for re-election in 1974, he was indicted
on charges that included bribery and
perjury in an alleged scheme to shake
down Floride builders. He was acquit-
ted in two trials, and he was left $2%
million in debt to his lawyers. He said
the Justice Department "has destroyed
a U.S. senator, blackened my name,
besmirched my character and ruined
me economically."
For Sen. Herman Talmadge (D-Ga.),
trouble began after his 1977 divorce and
a property dispute that followed. The
Senate Ethics Committee is looking into
the Washington Star's allegations that
he accepted tens of thousands of dollars
from constituents.
AND JOSEPH MONTOYA, 40 days
before he died June 5, told a hearing he
had not been influenced by $5,000 in
campaign contributions and gifts he
had received from Korean rice dealer
Tongsun Park. The New Mexico
Democrat, who lost the 1976 election,
died at 62 of liver and kidney failure.
Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), left
the limelight with the end of the Senate
Watergate committee's hearings. He
served as chairman of the Senate in-
telligence committee for one year,
And the Senate Watergate Commit-
tee, which in its infancy had riveted the
nation's attention, left stage with little
notice after 1% years work. By then,
June 1974, another congressional com-
mittee held the anotlight - the Hoas
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I