This is a rather remarkable letter about the tapes. If you will notice, the President says he has heard the tapes or some of them, and they sustain his position. But he says he’s not going to let anybody else hear them for fear they might draw a different conclusion… I’ll have to confess he’s making it more difficult for me and members of the committee to continue to cling to the presumption of innocence by continuing to withhold evidence which could tend to show that presumption should be sustained….
—Senator Sam Ervin (D—N.C.), Chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee