What follows is the unfinished mid-section of Dr. Thompson's Notes from the Decompression Chamber. This section was written in his notebook on the day after convicted Watergate burglar James McCord's appearance before the Ervin committee on national TV. It was transcribed by a nurse who copied Dr. Thompson's notes as he held them up, page by page, through the pressure-sealed window of his Chamber. It is not clear, from the text, whether he deliberately wrote this section with a “Woody Creek, Colorado” dateline, or whether he planned to be there by the time it was printed.

In either case, he was wrong. His case of the Bends was severe, almost fatal. And even upon his release these is no real certainty of recovery. He might have to re-enter the Decompression Chamber at any time, if he suffers a relapse.

None of which has any bearing on what follows -- which was published exactly as he wrote it in the Chamber:

Jesus, where will it end? Yesterday I turned on my TV set -- hungry for some decent upbeat news -- and here was an ex-Army Air Force colonel with 19 years in the CIA under his belt admitting that he'd willfully turned himself into a common low-life burglar because he thought the Attorney General and The President of the US had more or less ordered him to. Ex-Colonel McCord felt he had a duty to roam around the country burglarizing offices and ransacking private/personal files -- because the security of the USA was at stake.

Indeed, we were in serious trouble last year -- and for five or six years before that, if you believe the muck those two vicious and irresponsible young punks at the Washington Post have raked up.

“Impeachment” is an ugly word, they say. Newsweek columnist Shana Alexander says “all but the vulture-hearted want to believe him ignorant.” A week earlier, Ms. Alexander wrote a “love letter” to Martha Mitchell: “You are in the best tradition of American womanhood, defending your country, your flag. . . but most of all, defending your man.”

Well. . . shucks. I can hardly choke back the tears. . . and where does that leave Pat Nixon, who apparently went on a world cruise under a different name the day after McCord pulled the plug and wrote that devastating letter to Judge Sirica.

The public prints -- and especially Newsweek -- are full of senile gibberish these days. Stewart Alsop wakes up in a cold sweat every morning at the idea that Congress might be forced to impeach “The President.”

For an answer to that, we can look to Hubert Humphrey -- from one of the nine speeches he made during his four-and-a-half hour campaign for Democratic candidate George McGovern in the waning weeks of last November's presidential showdown -- Humphrey was talking to a crowd of hardhats in S.F., as I recall, and he said, “My friends, we're not talking about re-electing the President -- we're talking about re-electing Richard Nixon.”