WASHINGTON--It was after 7 p.m. and James D. St. Clair, President Nixon's defense lawyer, had not yet returned to his office. This had been another long and frustrating day for him--sitting behind closed doors with the House Judiciary Committee, watching the evidence against his client pile up.

In room 188 1/2 of the Old Executive Office Building, St. Clair's secretary was typing letters on White House stationery; in a back room, members of his staff watched their boss on television as he arrived on Capitol Hill that morning.

J. Fred Buzhardt, Counsel to the President, glided through the door in a cream-colored suit. "He's not back yet?" Buzhardt asked St. Clair's secretary. He paced the gold carpet of the outer office, puffing gingerly on a cigarette. "They oughta call us and let us know if they want a rescue team."

Buzhardt is an authority on rescue teams. He and Leonard Garment comprised Nixon's Watergate rescue team until they were rescued by University of Texas professor Charles Alan Wright, who was rescued by Boston trial lawyer James Draper St. Clair. But it is unlikely that St. Clair will need rescuing. Since he began working for Nixon last January 2, St. Clair has won the President much-needed time, using a strategy of delay, diversion and denial. Nixon might be impeached and convicted, but he will not be able to claim incompetence of counsel. In fact, some believe that it is St. Clair's cunning alone that enables Nixon to cling to office.

Buzhardt grew tired of waiting and left the office--it was once his office before mysterious gaps and "sinister forces" spoiled things--and walked down the hall to his new office, which once belonged to John Dean, the first White House lawyer who tried to rescue Nixon from Watergate.

Soon afterwards, St. Clair wearily shuffled in--short, dumpy, exhausted. When St. Clair smiles, he looks sly and devious--it is a homely smile (there is a large gap between his front teeth), a mocking smile, and he looks remarkably like the "Silver Fox" for which he is nicknamed. But St. Clair was not smiling as he entered. He deposited a briefcase in his private office, then dropped himself deep into a chair at a small conference table and gave a long, loud sigh. He looked more like a wounded bear.

Why did he take Nixon's case? For fame, perhaps, but not for money (St. Clair gave up a practice reportedly worth $300,000 a year to become Nixon's lawyer for an annual salary of $42,500.) Also, St. Clair says he believes in making his counsel available to whomever most needs it. On that principle, he helped Joseph N. Welch battle Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the televised Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954; he helped the Boston School Department fight enforced racial balance; he argued against film censorship. Rev. William Sloane Coffin, whom St. Clair defended against charges of conspiracy to violate draft laws, once complained: "The trouble with St. Clair is that he is all case and no cause."

"I considered that a compliment," St. Clair said in an interview last week. Is it a compliment when applied to his handling of Nixon's case, too? "Positively," he said. "These gentlemen don't need causists. They need someone to represent them with some objectivity." The following are excerpts from that interview:

Q. Your office, when you took the job, was a graveyard for lawyers. You were stepping into a mess that one lawyer after another hadn't been able to cope with. Were you at all worried about what it would to your reputation?

A: No, I wasn't. I don't know that the description is accurate, either. But I intended to, and hope to be able to perform adequately as a lawyer, and as such I don't anticipate there will be anything derogatory to my personal reputation.

Q: I didn't mean that there would be anything derogatory, but that the experience would be frustrating, and ultimately, maybe a failing exercise...

A: That's the risk anyone takes when you start out on any law suit: You could lose, you know. And this is not to say that I anticipate losing this case--I do not--but that's, you know, a risk that you take in representing any client.

Q: When Archibald Cox became special prosecutor, he was quoted as saying that he anticipated being in Washington for several years, until the whole thing was wrapped up. What are your expectations?

A: Well, I hope that this matter will be concluded within the next several weeks.

Q: You were quoted as saying that you don't see yourself as defending Nixon individually, but rather the presidency. What do you mean by that?

A: Well, I mean that insofar as the president is involved in his capacity as president, I represent him. Insofar as he's involved personally he has other lawyers that represent him, and I do not.

Q: If President Nixon is impeached, convicted by the Senate, and then later as a private citizen faces any legal difficulty, you would not represent him necessarily then?

A: Well, I don't think that will come to pass, but if he seeks to employ my services at that time, I of course will be glad to consider it, but he may or may not--I just don't know.

Q: When you say you're here for the duration, you mean the duration of his difficulties as president, and not

A: Absolutely.

Q: ...Not his legal difficulties necessarily.

A: That's right. Without assuming that he has any, all right?

Q: That he will have any.

A: That's right.

Q: Do you think he will?

A: No.

Q: Is President Nixon pleased with the way you're conducting his defense?

A: Well, he's never said otherwise, so I don't...

Q: Has he ever said that he was to you?

A: Well, I believe he's reasonably satisfied with the work we're doing.

Q: What is the tone of your relationship? How often, for example, do you see him?

A: Well, I generally do not discuss my conversations or relationships with the president in any specific detail, except to say I see him as often as I want, and obviously as often as he wants.

Q: Which one of you most frequently wants to see the other?

A: Well, I think I've answered the question substantially.

Q: Is he a good client in the sense that he follows your advice?

A: Well, I don't discuss my advice or his conduct with respect to it.

Q: What must a president do before the House can legitimately impeach him in your view?

A: Well, my views are set forth in a brief we filed, of which no doubt you are at least generally aware. It's our view quite clearly that no president can be impeached except for serious crime committed in the course of his performance of his duties.

Q: And Nixon has committed no such crime.

A: Is that a question?

Q: Yes.

A: No.

Q: What about the sections of the transcripts that show him approving the hush money payments?

A: What about what?

Q: Sections of the transcripts that show him telling John Dean that he better damn well get the hush money paid?

A: Well, he doesn't say that.

Q: Doesn't he ask...

A: You should read it more carefully.

Q: I read it very carefully.

A: He says in substance, You can't pay blackmail--you end up losing. And we can't do it.

Q: I just wanted to nail down this one point, because it was confusing to me.

A: I'm glad you will admit that, all right?

Q: Not the information, but your position was confusing to me.

A: Well, my position is very clear to me, and clearly stated in our brief, and I'll stand on it, all right?

Q: Well, let me just ask it one more time and then I'll move on to something else. The same day that the hush money was paid, didn't President Nixon tell Dean that he better damn well get that done, meaning pay the hush money?

A: No.

* * *

Nixon does tell Dean to pay the blackmail. This is evident from one portion of the White House transcript of the March 21, 1973 meeting between Nixon, Haldeman and Dean. The section reads:

D--They're going to stonewall it, as it now stands. Excepting Hunt. That's why his threat.

H--It's Hunt's opportunity.

P--That's why for your immediate things you have no choice but to come up with the $120,000, or whatever it is. Right?

D--That's right.

P--Would you agree that that's the prime thing that you damn well better get done?

D--Obviously he ought to be given some signal anyway.

P--[Expletive deleted], get it.

But St. Clair's 3D strategy--delay, diversion, denial--means that he will concede nothing. Instead, he tries to put everything in its broadest possible perspective, glossing over specific evidence of Nixon's cover-up role by saying that Nixon's knew blackmail could not work, that "you don't have to be a genius" to know that.

Meanwhile, St. Clair is fighting demands for more tapes and other evidence, possibly hoping to delay things long enough to reduce some of the impeachment fervor.

Undoubtedly, these tactics constitute good legal maneuvering, the sort that St. Clair has taught each spring since 1956 to a Harvard Law School class on trial practice. But given the unique status of St. Clair's client, are these tactics wise?

Alan M. Dershowitz, professor of Law, says that the St. Clair Stonewall--trying to delay a Supreme Court ruling on the tapes, refusing to cooperate with federal Judge Gerhardt A. Gesell in the "plumbers" trial, hoping to limit the scope of the House impeachment inquiry--gives the impression that Nixon has something to hide.

"He is playing lawyers' games," Dershowitz says of St. Clair. "He is handling the case precisely the way I would handle the case if my client was guilty, which I believe his is."

"I have the highest respect for his ability as a lawyer," Dershowtiz says, but he adds a qualification: "If his client is innocent, he's doing a terrible job."

Q: Your colleague at the Law School. Professor Dershowitz, said that your defense of President Nixon was that a lawyer gives to a man he believes is guilty. He said that you were delaying and refusing to produce evidence, and that that might give the public the impression that the president had something to hide.

A: Well, I don't know that Mr. Dershowitz said that, but if he did I wholeheartedly disagree.

Q: Is it possible that the same tactic that's good law is bad politics. Maybe that's what Dershowitz was...

A: It may or may not be in my judgment, good law in the last analysis is the practical, the good, practical approach in the last analysis. Mr. Dershowitz and I from time to time, I'm sure, have had differing views regarding matters and on occasion have had similar views. He's quite free to comment, of course, on his analysis and interpretation of what I'm doing. I am equally free to disagree with him, which I do.

Q: I think his point was that your defense of Nixon was good law because you were securing delays and withholding evidence...

A: You see, therein I part company, because I am not securing delays. I am trying to accelerate proceedings and I have been, I think, successful in doing so. If we had responded to each and every request made by the varying staffs that have sought information from us, these matters would have been prolonged to an unreasonable extent. And a more close analysis by Mr. Dershowtiz, I think, with the recent events, would probably persuade him that we are not seeking to delay but in fact trying to bring matters to a speedy, fair and just conclusion.

Q: The President, in one of his earlier battles, said that he would obey a "definitive" ruling of the Supreme Court. Now he is again before the Supreme Court on the tapes issue, and there was some speculation that he might not obey a ruling of the Court. I think the White House refused to comment the other day on whether he would. The question is: a. Would he? and b. If he applies the "definitive" standard again, what does he mean and what do you mean--if you support that standard--by a "definitive" ruling.

A: Well, since the matter is pending in the Supreme Court, it would be, I think, improper for me to speculate directly or indirectly on the outcome of these proceedings. And therefore, I'm not prepared to answer your question and I have taken this position with other news media people, simply by saying our arguments will be presented in our briefs. We're confident that the Court will support our views. However, I'm not prepared to discuss it further since I think any such discussion inevitably involves speculation as to the outcome, and I think that would be inappropriate.

Q: If a president refuses to obey a Supreme Court order, is that an impeachable offense?

A: Well, I think that's a very hypothetical question that I'm not prepared to discuss because that's really another way of asking the same question.

Q: The last question I have is something the President said in Houston March 19. He was talking about the definition of impeachment, and he said: "It is the Constitution that defines what the House should have access to and the limits of its investigation. And I am suggesting that the House follow the Constitution. If they do, I will." That last bit--"if they do, I will"--is interesting. Does that mean that if the President concludes that by impeaching him the House acted on evidence that was not relevant or considerations that weren't germaine--that they were not maybe following the Constitution--would the President at any point ever entertain the idea of maybe appealing a Senate conviction or a House impeachment?

A: Well, I don't anticipate either of those events transpiring. I don't see that it's realistic to consider any reference of this matter either by the Congress or by the President to the courts. The Constitution does invest the responsibility to the Congress rather than the Courts.

* * *

James St. Clair was born 54 years ago in Akron, Ohio. His father was a mechanical engineer whose work took the family from city to city with disruptive regularity (St. Clair attended four high schools). But the constant uprooting apparently did not bother him.

"He seemed to find himself a congenial social group whenever we moved to a town," says his younger sister Janice, a portrait painter in Riverside, Conn.

St. Clair, his sister says, was "very even-keelish" as a boy: "I would say Jim was what you'd call intellectually dominated. That is, he always seemed to do what was the logical, good think to do. I guess that's what prevented him from having escapades. He never shot arrows in the air, or whatever."

St. Clair was a good student, but he never had to work hard for high grades, leaving time for golf and tennis (he made varsity in high school), and an active social life.

He went to Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill. For two years before transferring to the University of Illinois. After a year at Harvard Law School, St. Clair joined the Navy. He spent the war in San Pedro, Calif., training crews in the use of PC77 patrol crafts. In California he met Billie Nestle, the daughter of a Bank of America vice president, married her, and returned to Cambridge in November 1945.

He graduated from the Law School in February 1947 (before leaving, St. Clair and a partner won the prestigious Ames Competition), and joined Hale and Dorr, one of Boston's top law firms. He has been there ever since (although he submitted the customary resignation when he left to work for Nixon in Washington).

"He seemed to have had remarkably few problems in his lifetime," his sister recalls.

St. Clair has a big problem now: Seeing that his client, the President of the United States, remains the President of the United States. It is not hyperbole to suggest that it might be the biggest problem any trial lawyer has had this century.

To succeed, St. Clair will have to hang tough, as they say--hunker down, stonewall. Delay. Divert. Deny. It will not be easy, and it will certainly take longer than the "several weeks" he wishfully predicts.

And when this case is over? St. Clair says he wants to return to practicing law in Boston--and, if he has time, to lecturing at Harvard. (Law School Dean Albert M. Sacks says he would welcome St. Clair back, but "the question would be whether or not we had an opening at that point.")

Last week, in an impromptu press conference on Capitol Hill, a reporter asked St. Clair if he and the President would stay in touch during Nixon's current Middle East trip. Yes, St. Clair said, I will keep the President abreast of developments in the case.

"Did you counsel him to leave the country?" another reporter wondered.

In a sense it was a funny question--conjuring up images of Nixon stealing out of Washington to avoid prosecution.

But the reporter was serious, and none of his colleagues laughed. Their silence was a tribute to St. Clair. At some point, the best advice he could offer Nixon might be to head for the border. But Nixon is not that desperate yet, due in large part to St. Clair's skill. He has fashioned Nixon a stonewall that is battered and under siege, but it still stands