Trial of the Century - 21 January 1999

I've covered quite a few trials in my time including a long one - 15 weeks in all - for espionage and a short one - one afternoon - for murder in a small town in California. The defendant was found guilty in no time because - 60 years ago anyway - he had no business being a Mexican and wandering into the white part of town to settle a row with a gun.

Of the two most interesting trials I ever covered was, first, one of an apple-cheeked, gentle, kindly old man who happened to be the boss of the democratic machine in New York City. He was noted for his unflagging generosity to the poor, especially towards the ones just off the boat. His kindness to their families was always rewarded with their vote. Sometimes registered in the name of an old constituent of the boss who'd died and whom the boss couldn't bear to think of as a non-voter.

It turned out that the boss also had in his pocket quite a few Congressmen, leading gangsters in control of protection and prostitution and, as the saying went, the best judges money could buy.

He went to the pokey for life and as he was led away out of the courtroom, I'll never forget his defending lawyer - a famous old New Yorker, a small man with a chiselled profile and ropy hair who looked like a Roman senator - as old apple face was led away his lawyer struck a pose in marble and shouted: "If that old man is guilty go down to Philadelphia crack the Liberty Bell still deeper and say 'Liberty no longer inhabits these shores'."

The other truly fascinating trial is as bright and clear in memory as the Texas sky that enclosed the goings on in a little courtroom in the foothills of the Rockies that could have come from an early John Ford movie. An air force colonel had gone off to the wars and left behind his ever loving wife who unfortunately got up to some hanky panky with another man - a bartender.

The colonel came home on leave, heard the rumour, had no cause to doubt it, went to the bar, sat and drank a while till the bartender went off, naturally, to the men's room. The colonel followed him and shot him then came out, picked up the bar telephone, called the police and turned himself in. The trial was gripping in the fabled one syllabled Texas manner: "You shot him?" "Plumb through the heart." "On purpose?" "That was my aim your honour." But I must move on, the end of the story is worth waiting for.

I also covered the Hiss case which half a century ago was called the trial of the century. But then, remember, a few years ago along came the OJ Simpson trial and that annexed the title of the trial of the century.

But now the title has passed to the Clinton trial. And, of course, the trial of a president on impeachment charges, since this is only the second time in history, is impressive and sounds more dramatic than anything dreamed up by Earl Stanley Gardener or Raymond Chandler. But the trouble is it's a wholly unfamiliar kind of trial, unfamiliar not just to us but to the people taking part in it. And, at present, nobody can say how it's going to proceed or who can have the floor at any given time.

The rules they're going by were laid out 130 years ago for the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson - you've no doubt heard about. And they say those are the rules that will be controlling. But imagine a trial in which the jury can, at any time, overrule the judge. At which the hundred senators sitting as the jury are not allowed to talk to each other. Do you want to take bets? And we still don't know if witnesses will be called. A trial without witnesses? That's because the 13 prosecutors from the Republican Party and the president's defending lawyers have to agree together, sometime soon or late, about witnesses which reflects the peculiar fact that this trial follows, on what amounts to, an indictment by a Grand Jury.

A Grand Jury hears evidence, testimony, hearsay even, from nobody but a prosecutor. It is the prosecutor's creature. The accused is not allowed a lawyer even or witnesses. So what we forgot long ago and many of the congressmen and senators seem to have forgotten is that Mr Starr's - the Special Prosecutor's - report and the House Judiciary Committee's acceptance of it - however devastating - say no more than this case ought to go to trial. And so the president's lawyers with a blissful or artful indifference to the grizzly facts have provided their answer to the charges in a town of outrage that recalls Claude Raines crying out when the Nazis walked into Rick's night club: "I'm shocked, shocked there is gambling going on here."

So far then all the writing and commentary about the trial has been speculation. We know that at some time the jurors might agree to put a vote for a majority to decide if the case does not spell out impeachable crimes and therefore should be dismissed - very unlikely. But if the trial goes through to its prescribed end we know the verdict - know the verdict - that's why the Democrats are so cocky. There are 45 of them, 55 Republicans - a verdict of guilty, which would at once remove Mr Clinton from the presidency and have Mr Vice-President Gore sworn in requires a two thirds vote - 67 votes. This would require then 12 Democrats to desert the president they have stayed with all along. Whatever they privately think they know the balance of the polls of public opinion. It's now 79% in favour of the president staying. So the Democrats don't, as some fretting commentators do, have to explain this phenomenon - they just like it.

So you see why, I may be repeating this point in the weeks to come, why I'm reminded of an old lady who wrote to me once a few weeks before a presidential election, when I was going over the pros and cons of which of the two main candidates might win, she wrote me a postcard - a picture of the beach at Eastbourne - and inscribed it sweetly: "I may be wrong but would it not be better instead of telling us now who might win to wait three weeks and tell us who did?" I like - I may be wrong.

What I want to say, and maybe should say it every week, is that faced with what the professionals call the trial of the century the American people will by no means be glued for long to the tube - many other more pressing things are on their minds. For about half the country keeping warm and or getting to work are the priorities. Mountainous snows from Oregon on the coast across the whole prairie to upstate New York whose town of Buffalo, which normally has about 120 inches a year, has already had in the first two weeks of January 45 inches and can think of nothing but repairing power lines, getting light and heat - forget the trial of any century.

Businessmen and business commentators are engrossed with a fascinating equation that somebody's just worked out - from the burglars' break-in at Democratic headquarters in June 1972 to President Nixon's abdication in August '74 the Stock Market lost 20% of its value. From President Clinton swearing he never had a sex relationship with Miss Lewinsky to the day he was formally impeached the Stock Market has gained 20% in value. The commentators were congratulating each other on this explanation of the popularity poll when the market fell almost 400 points in three days and may still be plummeting.

Oh yes: that short tense trial back there in the Davis Mountains, the foothills of the Rockies in West Texas - bare mountain country. Too bare for cattle or sheep but goats can nibble a life out of anything, it's great goat country. So there's always a congressman from that part of the country who automatically goes on to the House Armed Services Committee since goats produce mohair and mohair produces army uniforms. So, therefore, though it's only a small town it's always had its quota of army purchasing department and retired army doctors and the like.

The one we were talking about was a colonel - air force and active. Now this was during the Second World War. Came the day when he was posted far away and had to leave his loving wife in the mountain town where, after some months, she got involved, shall we say, in an inappropriate relationship with a smart bartender. The colonel came home on leave one fine evening. He went to the bar, called for drinks all round, plainly, to the bartender's sweating relief, knew nothing about the shenanigans - sub rosa - between the sheets. After a while the bartender went off to the men's room. The colonel followed him and shot him dead. The colonel came out, called the police, turned himself in.

It took, in the nature of things, a month or two for it to come to trial. The evidence was straightforward and none of it denied. The colonel replied briskly in monosyllables.

"That's right - through the heart - dropped like a log."

How did he plead - guilty? Sure thing. The jury retired.

What I didn't know until it happened was that in Texas at that time the jury not only pronounced the verdict but handed down the sentence. And Texans recognised fine distinctions between cold and hot-blooded murder. After no more than 15 minutes the jury returned.

"How say you?"

One by one: guilty, guilty, guilty - all the way up to 12.

"Will you now pronounce sentence? Is your sentence unanimous?"

"Yes, your honour: sentence suspended."

THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY.