Ex-Rep. Sandman Dies; Opposed Ousting Nixon

Charles W. Sandman, who as a Republican congressman staunchly supported President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate impeachment hearings, died Monday at the age of 63.

Sandman, a Superior Court judge, suffered a stroke Aug. 18 and had been hospitalized at Burdette Tomlin Memorial Hospital, where he died.

Sandman lost his House seat in 1974 in the post-Watergate Democratic landslide along with three other Republican congressmen who also opposed impeachment.

The conservative congressman gained national attention on the House Judiciary Committee earlier in 1974 when he defended Nixon during the televised impeachment proceedings.

He said later that his support of Nixon stemmed not from friendship but from his view that the hearings were unconstitutional. He contended there was no concrete evidence to warrant the proceedings.

Sandman supported Nixon until the court-ordered release of the Watergate tapes, which indicated that the President knew about the cover-up of the burglary of Democratic Party headquarters.

He said in a 1975 interview that Nixon, who did not tell him about the tapes, had betrayed him. He also said he realized his vote against impeachment would not save Nixon and probably would end his political career. In November, 1974, he lost the congressional seat he had held since 1966.

“Sure, I’d do it all over again. I’d have to, given the same circumstances,” he said in the interview.

“I was not defending Nixon,” he said. “Nixon, truthfully, never cared a whole lot for me. I never cared a whole lot for him.”

After losing his congressional seat, Sandman became a businessman and last year Gov. Thomas H. Kean appointed him to a seven-year term on the Superior Court bench in Cape May County.