Mr. Bittman's role as the first defense counsel for Mr. Hunt, one of the Watergate defendants, threatened his career for a time.

The money, well over $200,000, was delivered in installments by Mr. Ulasewicz to some of the Watergate defendants.

Money left in Richard M. Nixon's 1972 Presidential campaign fund, for instance, was used to pay the legal bills of Watergate defendants.

James McCord alleged that Hunt supplied the Watergate defendants with money for legal expenses.

In 1974, he was called to testify before the Senate Watergate Committee about his suspected role in raising money to help several of the original Watergate defendants.

At the time of the initial congressional impeachment, it was not known if Nixon had known and approved of the payments to the Watergate defendants earlier than this conversation.

November 9 Six of the Watergate defendants are sentenced for their roles in the break-in.

It's all too eerily reminiscent of the secret fund set up by Richard Nixon's personal lawyer, Herbert Kalmbach, to pay the legal fees of Watergate defendants.

He refused to talk to her but later admitted to the New York Times that she was "upset at the interruption of payments from Nixon's associates to Watergate defendants."

His function, Mr. Ulasewicz told the senators, was to act as a conduit between the White House and the early Watergate defendants and their lawyers.