Nixon once 'glad' over Watergate tapes

WASHINGTON : Former President Richard Nixon believed he would be protected rather than harmed by the White House taping system that ultimately proved his downfall, according to his remarks on just-released transcripts of some of the recordings, reports AP.

"I always wondered about that taping equipment but I'm damn glad we have it. aren't you" ? Nixon asked chief of staff H.R. Haldeman on April 25. 1973 — a time when the Watergate scandal was breaking wide open.

Haldeman, who had been listening to the recordings, concurred and called the tapes "very helpful," the National Archives' transcript of that discussion shows. '

"Yes. It's helpful because while it has some things in there that. ah. we prefer we wouldn't have said." Nixon replied, "we also have some things in there that we know were pretty good. I mean."

Nixon wrote something similar about that conversation in his 1978 memoirs.

But the 60 hours of tapes — 47 of them new to the public —offered a fuller account of Nexon's views, at the time, on the taping system.

The National Archives, which has custody of the Nixon materials, never before released any of some 880 hours of tape recordings made in the White House. But the public, had previous access to 33 conversations— covering 13 hours — used as evidence in the various Watergate hearings and trials of the mid-1970s.

Rama Rao force-fed

HYDERABAD (India) . An Indian politician was force-fed by doctors on Tuesday after he refused to break a six-day death fast to protest violence sparked by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, reports AFP.

N T. Rama Rao. the 69-year-old Chairman of the centrist National Front Alliance, left the hospital tn a huff after he was fed Intravenously at this southern city's Nizam lanstitute of Medical Sciences after a judge ordered doctors to save his life.

"We are compelled to force-feed you," hospital director Raj Reddy told Rao. a popular movie star-turned-plitician. after receiving the order from metropolitan magistrate P. Rajiah.

Rao. who refused to speak during his "Silent fast unto death", wrote on a piece of paper that he understood doctors were helpless. He was then put on saline drip

The politician launched the fast Thursday to demand compensation for victims of rioting that followed the May 21 assassination of .Gandhi, whose Congress (I) party governs Rao's home state of Andhra Pradesh, whose capital is Hyderabad

He was arrested, charged with trying to commit suicide and hospitalised on the fourth day of the fast following concern over his deteriorating condition, including a weight loss of 2.5 kilograms (six pounds) and a fall in his blood sugar level.

Bush's wax replica falls, fingers broken

CLERMONT (Florida) : George Bush — a wax replica, that ts' — fell at the House of Presidents Wax Museum in Clermont, breaking a wrist and two fingers, reports AP.

"He just toppled over. 1 was in a panic when 1 came in." owner-curator Steve Miller said Monday.

Miller blamed the fall Sunday night on loose screws in the ankles of the llfe .ized figure, which to exhibited along with those of the 39 former US presidents at the museum in this city north of Wait Disney World tn Orlando

He said the screws were tightened »nd the presidential ^likeness will soon be good as new