As the year winds down several things are happening at once. Representative Gerald R. Ford begins the process of being confirmed for Vice President. The entire procedure is a first under the new 25th amendment to the Constitution. Ironically, it would be used again in 1974 to confirm Nelson Rockefeller. The process was about the only easy thing confronting Nixon at the moment as he has two other major things to contend with at the same time.
The OPEC Arab nations in retaliation for our helping Israel order an oil embargo which causes an energy crisis in the United States. In yet another moment of crisis President Nixon goes right to work to come up with a plan that would have made our nation energy independent by 1980. It was not implemented due to the growing crisis over Watergate. Another of his brilliant plans thwarted by the desire of democrats to remove him from office.
Then there is the selection and arrival of a new Special Prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. He was selected by the White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig along with Robert Bork, the acting Attorney General. Jaworski was a seasoned prosecutor who had actually prosecuted war criminals in Germany after World War 2 and turned down a chance to prosecute criminals at Nuremberg. He was renown in legal circles and was by reputation a very formidable man. When he arrives you will see the Watergate investigation pick up speed. However, he was not the only new arrival. President Nixon hired his own lawyer, James St. Clair, and this will also change the ballgame as the prosecutors and the Judge find that this formidable man is someone they can't jerk around as they had been doing the Nixon team.
Still the rabid partisans at the Watergate Special Prosecutor's office are determined to run over Jaworski if necessary to get at their target, Richard Nixon, and as the end of the year approached you will see it is an uneasy relationship between the new prosecutor and the staff his predecessor had assembled.
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