Nixon's Watergate testimony ordered released

WASHINGTON - Thirty-six years after Richard Nixon testified in secret to a grand jury investigating the Watergate break-in, a federal judge is ordering the first public release of the transcript.

The 297-page transcript will be available after the government has time to appeal.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth agreed with historians who sued that the historical significance outweighs arguments for secrecy with the investigations long over and Nixon dead 17 years.

Nixon was interviewed near his California home for two days in June 1975, 10 months after he resigned.

It was the first time a U.S. president had testified before a grand jury.

The historians say the interview could affect debate over Nixon's knowledge of the break-in at Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate complex and his role in the coverup.