Dash Defends Senate's Inquiry Power

"Exposing is one of the most proper and important functions of the Congress," Samual Dash, chief counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee, said at a Suffolk University Law School forum last night.

Speaking to a packed auditorium of over 500 students and guests, he added, "In my opinion, this function is equally if not more important than the duty of legislating." Dash explained the recent seeming inactivity of the committee as a move to prevent interference with Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski, who is expected to ask a grand jury to hand down indictments later this month.

The committee's hearings with Howard Hughes and Charles "Bebe" Rebozo, which were to be held in February, have been postponed, Dash said, until the jury for the forthcoming trial of former Secretary of Commerce Maurice Stans and former Atty. Gen. John Mitchell has been selected and sequestered.

Dash reviewed the events of the past year concerning the committee and outlined some of the major revelations made, including the discovery of the White House tape system.

He also spoke at length about the three groups involved with the Watergate investigation. "Each group--the Senate Select Committee, the special prosecutor's office and the House Judiciary Committee--serves a particular, nonoverlapping interest," Dash said.

Broad Mandate

However, Dash described the mandate of the Watergate Committee as the broadest of the three. The committee must make recommendations not only to prevent another Watergate, but "to maintain our democratic government and society," he said.

Speaking about the effects of the committee's work, Dash added, "This investigation has helped to break the spell of abuse of power that could have destroyed our country as a free nation."

Dash also defended the committee's televised hearings. He estimated that 90 per cent of the American people had been exposed to the hearings at one time or another by watching them on T.V. "And these hearings have awakened Americans to a sense of their own power," he said.

Tremendous Discipline

Dash praised the members of the Senate committee, saying that they showed "a tremendous discipline." "They held back on the sensational questions until a firm foundation for the case had been built," he added.

Describing the style of questioning for a committee investigator, Dash said that it called for a "studied restraint." "In a jury trial one goes for the jugular vein," he said, "in a committee room, it is important not only to be objective but to appear objective as well."

Dash said he thought that "in the end the basic health of the system will allow it to recover. However, in order to escape this present-day Sodom and Gomorrah we must adopt new concepts of morality based upon integrity and justice."