TRANSCRIPT OFPRESIDENT'S BROADCAST ADDRESS TO THE NATION ON THE WATERGATE AFFAIR
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CONFIDENTIAL
INTERNAL USE ONLY
This publication contains clippings from the
domestic and foreign press for YOUR
BACKGROUND INFORMATION. Further use
of selected items would rarely be advisable.
Governmental Affairs
X/tv-*Aj~
CONRDENTDAI
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THE NEW YORK TIMES`, WEDNESDAY MAY 2, 1973
Transcript Piesi lent's Broadcast A4dr.
Watergate. f
to e.i
r
Following is a transcript of President. A ? conducting the investigations to get all
ectl
'
h di
t t
d
y
r
em
to repor
h1ixon's broadcast address in Washing- r the facts an
ton Monday night, as recorded by Tire' to me right here in this office.
New York Times: y r I again 'order'ed that all persons in
the Government or at the re-election
. Good evening. I want to talk to you
tonight from my heart on a subject of
deep concern to every American.
In recent months members of my
Administration and officials of the Com-.
mitten for the Re-election of the Presi-4
dent including some of my closestt
friends and most trusted aides-havol
been charged with involvement in what
has come to be known as the Watergate
affair.
These include charges of Illegal active,,
ity during and preceding the 1972 Pres-r
Idential election and charges ,that:
responsible officials participated In ef-
forts to cove up that illegal activity.
? The inevitable result of these charges,
has been to raise serious questions.
'about the Integrity of the White House
Itself. Tonight I wish to address those
questions.
Last June 17 while I was in t'lorida\I,
'trying to get a few days' rest after my.:
.visit to Moscow, I first learned from?
news reports of the Watergate break-in.r
??I was appalled at this senseless, illegalI
?action, and I was shocked to learn that;,
employes of the re-election committee'
were,apparently among those guilty, 'l
immediately ordered an investigation
,by appropriate Government authorities:
. On Sept. 15, as you will recall, Indict-
ments were. brought against seven
defendants in the case.
As the investigation went forward, 1?
repeatedly asked those conducting ihe,
investigation whether there was apy,
reason to believe that members of my
Administration were in any way in-
volved. I received repeated assuranceal
that there . were not. Because of these'
continuing reassurances, because I be-'
lleded the reports I was getting, because',
I had faith In the persons from whom 1'
was getting them, I discounted the stn-i
ties In the press that appeared to impli-,
cate members of my Administration or,
other officials of the campaign com-;
tittee.
Until March of this year, I remained'
convinced that the. denials were true
"and that the charges of Involvement by
members of the White House staff were;
false.
The comments I made during this
ress
m
b
d
y p
y
e
period, the comments ma
secretary in my behalf, were based on
the information provided to us at the;
time we made those comments.
However, new information then came'
to me which persuaded me that there
was a real possibility that some of
these.charges were true and suggesting
further that there had been an'effort to,
conceal the facts both from the public
-from you--and`from me.
-As a result, on March 21 I personally
assumed the responsibility for coordi-
nating Intensive new inquiries into the
matter and I personally ordered those
committee should cooperate fully with
the F.B.I., the prosecutors and the grand',
jury.
I also ordered that anyone who ie '
fused to cooperate in' telling the truth,
would be asked to resign from Govern-,
ment service.
And with ground rules, adopted that
would preserve the basic constitutional
separation of powers' between the Con
gress and the Presidency, I directed that
'members of the White 'Hpuse staff'
,should appear and testify voluntarily
under oath before the Senate committee.
(which was investigating Watergate..
Full Truth Sought
I was determined that we should get
.to the bottom of the matter, and that
'the truth should be fully brought. out'
no matter who was involved.
At the same time, I was determined
,not to take precipitive. action and to
'avoid if at all possible any action that
would.. appear to reflect on innocent,
people. ?
I wanted to be fair, but I knew that
In the final analysis the integrity of this
office----public faith In the integrity of+
this office-would have to take priorityl
over all personal considerations.
Today, In one of the most difficult de-'A
'tisions of my Presidency, I accepted the
resignations of two of my closest asso-'
crates in the White House-Bob Halde-i
man, John Ehrlichman-two of the finest
public servants it has been my privilege
to know.
I want to stress that in accepting these
resignations I mean to leave no implica-
tion whatever of personal wrongdoing'
bn their part, and I leave no implication
tonight of implication on the part of
.others who have been charged in this
matter.
But in matters as sensitive as guard-i
' ing the integrity of our democratic.
'process, it is essential not only that,
rigorous legal and ethical standards be,
observed, but also that the public, you,i
'have total confidence that they are both,
being observed and enforced by those+
in authority, and particularly by then
President of the United States.
Move Held Necessary.
They agreed with me that this move',
was necessary in order to restore that
confidence, because Attorney General
Kieindienst--though a distinguished
public servant, my personal friend for'
20 years, with no personal involvement
whatever in this matter-has been a'
close personal and professional associ-
ate of some of those who are Involved
'in this case, he and I both felt that it
was also necessary to nacre a new
Attorney General.
The counsel to the President, John
bean, has also resigned.
As the new Attorney General, I have
.today named Elliot Richardson, a man
of unimpeachable integrity and rigor-
ously high principle. I have directed
him to do everything necessary to in--
sure that the Department of Justice has'
the confidence and he trust of every'
law-abiding person In this country. I
.have given him absolute authority to;
.make all decisions bearing upon the.
prosecution of the Watergate case and.
related matters. I have instructed him
'that if he should consider it appropriate,
.he has the authority to name a special
;supervising prosecutor for matters aris-
ing out of the case.
Pursuit of Justice Promised
Whatever may appear to have been',
the case before, whatever improper ac-
,tivities may yet be discovered in connec-;
,.tion with this whole sordid affair, I,
want the American people, I want you,,
to know beyond the shadow of a doubt'
that during my term as President justice
Iwill be pursued fairly, fully and Impart.i-'l
'Ally, no matter who Is Involved.
I This office is a sacred trust, and I ain',
,determined to be worthy of that trustl
_: ' Looking back at the history of. this.'
How could it have happened-who Is.'
to blame?
Political commentators have correctly,
.observed that during my 27 years in
politics, I've always previously insisted
on running, my own campaigns for
,office.
In both domestic and foreign policy,'
1972 was a year of crucially important
decisions, of intense negotiations, of
vital new directions, particularly in?
working toward the goal which has been
my overriding concern throughout my;
political ' career-the goal of bringing
peace to America, peace to the world.
f And that is why I decided as the
J972- campaign approached that the
Presidency should come first and pol-?
?Itics second. To the maximum extent
possible, therefore, I sought to delegate'
.campaign operations, to remove -the
day-today campaign decisions from the
president's office and from the White
House.
Accepts Responsibility
I also, as you recall, severely limited
the number of my own campaign
appearances.
Who then is to blame for what hap-
pened in this case?
For specific criminal actions by spe=
tific individuals those who committed;
those actions must of course bear the,
liability and pay the penalty. For the
,fact that alleged improper actions took,
place within the White House or within .
my campaign organization, the easiest
course would be for me to blame those
to whom I delegated the responsibility
'to run the campaign. But that would be
a cowardly thing to do.
I will not place the blame on subordi-
nates, on people whose zeal exceeded
their judgment and who may have done
vnrong in a cause they deeply believed
to be right. in any organization the man
at the top must bear the responsibility.
That responsibility, therefore, belongs
here In this office. I accept it.
And I pledge to you tonight from
this office that I will do everything in
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my power to insure that the guilty are.
brought to justice and that such abuses
are purged from our political processes
i in the years to come long sifter I have
~j Some people, quite properly appalled,
at the abuses that occurred, will say
,,that Watergate demonstrates the bank-
ruptcy of the American political sys-
tem. I believe precisely the opposite,
is true.
Watergate represented a series of IV,
E ber of individuals. It was the system
i that will bring those guilty to justice.'
A system that in this case has in-1
eluded a determined grand jury, honest'
prosecutors, a courageous judge-John'
,Sirica--and a vigorous free press. , ,
It is essential now that we place our
,faith in that system, and especially in'
,the judicial system. o ?'i
It is essential that we let the judicial,
(process go forward, respecting those
-i
safeguards that are established to pro
tect the Innocent as well as to convict
the guilty.
It is essential that In reacting to,thet
excesses of others, we not fall into" ex-,
cesses ourselves.
It Is also essential that we not be so
,distracted by events such as this that!
we neglect the vital work before us,
before this nation, before America at
a time of critical Importance to 'Amer-,
Turning to Larger Duties,
Since March, when I first learned that
the Watergate affair might in fact be,
far more serious than I had been led
to believe, it has claimed far'too much
of my time and my attention. What-
ever may now transpire in the case,'
whatever the actions of the grand jury,
whatever the outcome of - any eventual
,trials, I must now turn try full atten-'
tion-and I shall do so-ante again to
.the larger duties of this office. + ,,
I owe It to this great office that I.
hold, and I owe it to you, to my coun-
I know that, as Attorney General, VI-
allot Richardson will be both fair and her
will be fearless in pursuing this case.
wherever it leads. I am confident that
with him in charge justice will be done;,
There is vital work to be done toward.
tour goal of a lasting structure of peace;
in the world - work that cannot wait,"'
,work that I must do.
Tomorrow, for example, Chancellor't
p.Arandt of West Germany will visit the.
White House for talks that are a vital,
element of the Year of Europe, as 1973
'has been called.
We are already preparing for the next
Soviet-American summit meeting later'
this year.
This is also a ? year in which we are.,
'seeking to negotiate a mutual and balms'
anted reduction of armed forces in Eu-,
-rope which will reduce our defense
budget and allow tas to have funds for
other purposes at home soy desperately',;
needed.
It. is the year when the United States
and Soviet negotiators will seek to
work out the second and even more w
important round of our talks on limit-
ing nuclear arms, and of reducing the
'danger of a nuclear war that would
destroy civilization as we know it. #
It is a year in which we confront the
difficult tasks of maintaining peace in'
Southeast Asia and in the potentially?
explosive Middle East.
There's also vital work to be done'
aright here in America to Insure pros-a
'perity-,and that means a good job for:
everyone who wants to work; to con=s
trol inflation that I know worries every
housewife, everyone who tries to bal-i
lance the. family budget in America, to'
Iset in motion new and better ways of,
insuring progress toward a better life'
for all Americans.
''When I think of this office, of what'
it means, I think of all the things that,
want to accomplish for this nation, of
tall the 'things I want to accomplish for
you
Wrote Out Some Coals
On Christmas Eve, during my terrible'
,personal ordeal. of the renewed bombing,
'of North Vietnam which, after 12 years
of war, finally helped to bring America
peace with honor, I sat down just before'
midnight. I wrote out some of my goals.
,,for my second term as President. Let me
read them io you:
To make this country be more than
1 ever a land of opportunity-of equal
opportunity, full opportunity- for every
American; to provide jobs for all who
,can work and generous help for those
who cannot; to establish a climate of
decency and civility in which each per
son respects the feelings and the dig-
nity in the God-given rights of his
neighbor; to make this a land in which:
each person can dare to dream, can
live his dreams not In fear but in hope,'
proud of his community, proud of his
rcountry, proud of what America haa?
meant to himself, and to the world.
These are great goals.' I believe we
can, we must work for them, we can,
'achieve them.
But' we cannot achieve these goals ;
unless we dedicate ourselves to another,
goal. We must maintain the integrity,
of, the White House.
And that integrity, must be real, not' transparent.
There can be no `whitewash at.the'
.White House. . '
We must reform our political process;`-
ridding it, not only of the violations of '
the law but also of the ugly mob vio-
lence,and other inexcusable campaign`
tactics that have been too often prat-
ticed and too readily accepted In the
past including those that may have
'been a response by one, side to the'
excesses or expected excesses of the
other side.
Two wrongs do not make a right. -
?''?1've been In public life for more than
a quarter' of a century. Like ,any other
,calling, politics has good people and bad
-people and ' Idt me toil you the great
majority in politics, in the Congress, in,
the Federal Government, in the state
government are good people.
I know that it can be very easy under
the intensive pressures of a, campaign
for even well-intentioned people to fall
into shady tactics, to rationalize this on
,the grounds that what Is at stake is of.
;such importance to the nation that thd'
tend justifies the mean$. ' '' , ' '
, And both of our great parties have
.been guilty of such tactics,
In recent years, however, the cam-
,paign excesses that have occurred on all
,sides have provided a sobering dembn-
stration of how far this false doctrine
.can take us.
r;arns'on palling in Trap
T=ie lesson Is clear. America in ito
iolitical campaigns must not again fall
-'into the trap of letting the end, how-'
ever great that end Is, justify the means.
I urge the leaders of both political
parties, I urge .citizens - all of you
everywhere-to join in working toward
a new set of standards, new rules and.
procedures to insure that future elec..'
tions will be as nearly free of such
abuses, as they possibly can be made. r
This. is my goal. I ask you to join in I
,making it America's goal.
When I was inaugurated for a second
term this past January 20, I gave each
member of my Cabinet and each Mem-
'ber of my senior White House staff a
'special four-year calendar with each day
marked to show the number of days re-'
maining to the Administration.
In the inscription on each calendar-1,
wrote these words:
"The Presidential term which begins'
today consists of 1,461 days,'no more, no'
less. Each can be a day of strengthening'
and renewal for America. Each can add
,depth and dimension to the American,
experience.
"If we strive together, if we make the
,most of the challenge and the 'oppor-
tunity that these days offer us, they-
can stand out as great days for America, '
and great moments in the history of
the world."
I looked at my own calendar this
morning up at Camp David as I was
working on this speech. It showed ex-.
,actly 1,361 days remaining in my term.
I want these to be the best days In
,America's history because I love Amef-
,Ica. I deeply believe that' America Is
.the hope of the world, and I know that
)n the quality and wisdom of the lead-'
ership America gives lies the only hope'
for millions of people all over the world'
'that they can live their lives In peace
, and freedom.
We must be worthy of that hope ih
every sense of the word.
Tonight, I ask for your prayers to'
help me in everything that I do through-,
out the days of my Presidency to be
worthy of their hopes and of yours.
God bless America. And God bless
each and every one of you.
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NEW YORK TIMES
1 May 1973
Texts. of Statement., by ikon. and of Letters of
Special to The New Yoit T1mei' ti
WASHINGTON, April 30-
.-Following are the texts of a' I
statement by President 'Nixon
`today announcing staff, resig=
.nations and other changes'
and of letters of resignation'
6to the President from 11, R.
,Haldeman and John b. Ehr
lichnran, White House aides, ,
and Attorney General Richard:
Kleindienst:
Nixon Statement
I have today received and,
'accepted the resignation of
Richard G. Kleindienst as
Attorney General of the Unit-
ed States., I am appointing,
Elliot L. Richardson to Suc-
ceed him as Attorney General
and will submit Mr. Richard-
son's name to the Senate for
,confirmation immediately.
Mr. Kleindienst asked to be
relieved as Attorney General
because he felt that he'could
not appropriately continue as
.head of the Justice Depart-
ment now that it appears its
investigation of the Water-
gate-and related cases may
implicate individuals with
whom he has ' had a close
'persbnnl and professional
,association.
In making this decision, Mr.'
Kleindienst has acted in ac
cordance with the. highest
standards of public service,
rand legal ethics. I am accept-
,ing his resignation with,, re-
gret and with deep apprecla-
ition for his dedicated service
to this Administration.
Pending Secretary Richard-
son's confirmation as Attor-
ney General, I , have asked
,him to involve himself Imme-
diately in the investigative
process surrounding the. Wa-
tergate matter. As Attorney.
.General, Mr. Richardson will
assume full responsibility and
authority for coordinating all '
'Federal agencies in uncover-
Ing the whole truth about
this matter and recommend-'
'Ing appropriate changes In
the law to prevent future;
campaign abuses of the sort
recently uncovered. He will,
.have total support from me,
'in getting this job done. ,
In 'addition, I have today
accepted the resignations of
!two of my closest friends .
and most trusted assistants
In the White House, H. R.
Haldeman and John D. Ehr-
lichman.
I know that their decision'
-to resign was difficult; my de-
cision to accept it was diffi-?
cult; but I respect and appre-
ciate the attitude ? that led
them to it.
I emphasize that neither the
submission nor the accept-
ance of their resignations at
.this time should be ,seen by
anyone as evidence of any
wrongdoing by either one.
Such an assumption would be
.both unfair and unfounded. ,
Throughout our associa-
tion, each of these men has Designation of Three
irit of self-
demonstrated a s
p
lessness and dedication that
I have seldom seen equalled.
Their contributions to the
,work of this Administration
have been enormous. I great=
ly regret their departure. '
Finally, I have today re-'
.quested and accepted the res-;
ignation of John W. Dean 3d
from his position on the staff
as White House counsel.
Effective immediately, Leo i-
ard Garment, special con-,
sultant to the President, will'
take on additional duties as,
counsel to the President, and'
,will continue acting in this,
capacity until a permanent
successor Jo Mr. Dean is,
named. Mr. Garment will
-represent the White House in
all matters relating to thq
Watergate., investigation and
will report-directly to me.
Resignation Letters
By Bhrlichman
For the past two weeks it
has become increasingly evi-
dent that, regardless of the
'Actual facts, I have been a
target of public attack. The.
nature of my position on
'your staff has always de-
manded that my conduct be
both apparently and actually
,beyond reproach. I have al--'
ways felt that the appear-
ance of honesty and integrity
is every bit as important' to
such a position as the fact of
one's honesty and' integrity.
Unfortunately,. such ap-
pearances are not always,
governed by facts. Realistic-
ally, they rah be'affected by
repeated, rumor, unfounded
charges or implications and
whatever else the media car-.
ries. For instance, this week
totally unfounded stories ap-
peared in The Los Angeles
Times claiming I had asked
our embassy in Lebanon to'
help the Vesco group. in a
banking deal. I not only did
not do so but, in actual fact,
I caused the State Depart-'
meat to cable the embassy
that no one at the White
House had any interest in
'the Vesco deadings. . . .
J he
I have already re-
sorted to you,many of the
ffacts in the Gray case, I need
only say that at no time did
I directly or indirectly sug-
gest'that Mr. Gray should do'
other than keep the Hunt'
docilments, although there
,have been reports toe con-
trary. Equally without merit
are the source stories about
some alleged involvement in
the Watergate matter.
As I analyze my situation,
I have to conclude that my
present usefulness to you
and ability to discharge my
duties . have been impaired
by these attacks, perhaps be-:
yond repair.
It is not fair to you and
my staff colleagues for me
to try to do my job under
these circumstances. Too
much of racy time. and.,tten-
lotion is and will be consume&
in concern for and straight-;
ening our such allegations.
At my request, I am going,
to have separate interviews,
.this week with the district
attorney and the Senate,com-
mittee counsel.
Thus, I am looking for-,'
ward to an early review of,
,the facts and evidence with'
the appropriate authorities,
,and I should spend the time.
necessary in relation thereto.'
One of tie toughest prob-,
,lems we have in this life is,
in seeing the difference be-'
tween the apparent and the
real, and in basing our ac-
tions only on that which is?
'real. We all must do that,
more than we do. I have con-
fidence id the ultimate prev-
,alence of truth; I intend to
do what I ? can to speed
truth's discovery.
Therefore, Mr. President, I
submit to you my resigna-
tion. There are on the Do-
mestic Council staff so many
good people of ability that I
am confident a transition of
my responsibilities can be af-
fected without loss of prog-
ress. I will do All I can to
assist in accomplishing the
transition.
By Haldeman
As you know, I had hoped.
.and expected to have had an
earlier opportunity to clear
-up 'various allegations and
innuendos that have been
raised in ? connection with
matters related to the Water-,
gate case! It now appears
that this process mays
consume considerable time.
Meanwhile, these is appar-'
ently to be no interruption
in the flood of stories arising'
every 'day from all sorts of
sources.
I fully agree with the im-
portance of a complete inves-
tigation by the appropriate
authorities of all the factors
that may be involved; but am
deeply concerned that, in the.
process, it has become vir-
tually impossible under these
circumstances for me to
ca on my regular respon-
sibili ieg in the White House.'
It is imperative that the
work of the Office of the
President not be impeded and
your staff must be in a posi-
tion to focus their attention
on the vital areas of domes-,'
tice and international con-,
cern that face you, rather'
than being diverted by the
daily rumors and develop-
ments in the Watergate case.
For these reasons, I submit
my resignation as Assistant
to the President.
I intend to cooperate fully
with the investigation - and
will at my request be meet-
ing this week for that pur-
pose with the U.S. attorneys
and with the counsel to the
s
1 es..
4
Senate select committee.
I am convinced that, in:
due course, I will have the
opportunity not just to clear
up any allegations or impli-
,cations of impropriety but
also to demonstrate that I
have always met the high'
and exacting standards of in-,
tegrity which you have so'
clearly and properly de-
manded of all who serve on,
the White House staff.
I have full confidence that
when the truth is. known the
American people will be to-
tally justified in their pride
in the Office of the Presidents
and in the conduct of that
office by President Nixon.
'? By ltleindienst
It is with deep regret and'
'after long and searching
`thought that I hereby submit
my resignation as Attorney
General, to take effect upon
the appointment and qualifi-
cation of my successor.
Even though, as you know,
I had previously indicated a
desire to leave the Govern-
ment this year for fhmily and,
financial reasons, the circum-
stances surrounding the dis-'
closures made to me on
'Sunday, April 15, 1973 by
.Assistant Attorney General
Petersen, United States At-
torney Titus, and Assistant
United States Attorney Sil-
bert, dictate this decision at
this time. Those disclosures
informed me, for the first
time, that persons with whom
I had close personal and
professional assocations could
be involved in conduct viola-
tive of the laws of the United
States. Fair, and impartial en-j,
forcemeat o' the law requires
that a person who has not
had such intimate relation-
ships be the Attorney Gen
'eral of the United States.
`Mindful of Your Charge'
It is not for merto comment
now on the tragedy that has
occurred. However, I will al-
ways be mindful of your
charge to me from the very
beginning that the entire
matter be fully investigated
and that the full effect of
the law be administered no
matter. who it might involve
or affect. You can be proud
of the Department of Jus-
tice for the manner in which
it, from the beginning,, has
responded to that charge.
Finally, let me express my
deep personal appreciation to
you for having appointed me
the 68th Attorney General of
the United States. It is the
greatest honor I shall ever
have. I shall always be hum-
bly proud to have been apart.
of the Department of Justice
and to have had the oppor-
tunity to serve my country
as a part of your Adminis-
tration.
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NEW YORK TIMES
2 May 1973
'
ardson was nominated formally trate'more" on 'National Secur- Such an appointment, which officials at the White House,
sty affairs for the time 'being. the President said he would H. R. Haldeman and John D.
today as Attorney General ' Kleindten'tt Stays On , leave up to Mr. Richardson, Ehrlichman, have arranged to
while moving into over-all con- would be unpopular at the meet privately with the panel's
trot of the Justice Department's Attorney General in Justice Department. Mr. Klein- staff on Thursday in a building
is expected to remain in in
the
investigation of the Watergatf office until Mr. Richardson's dienst has oposed it since last ne.e, the White House.
scandal. nomination is confirmed, but. June, when the Investigation Meanwhile, Mr. Kliendienst
Mr.' Richardson, who was, as-, it was understood that he- beoan. , disregarded the prepared text
signed "absolute authority to would 'make no' more broad But there are contimtvig of a Law Day speech here and
make all decisions" on the case policy decisions In the depart- from ressuresCapitol Hillh and meise- asf erred his tragedyWatergate case
by President Nixon in his telex ment. "
vision address to the nation if a "critical problem" re- where. A number of Senators There is evidence that jus-
last night, remained at his Pent- and Bar Association officials lice is going to be heeded," he
garding? the Watergate inquiry, have, recommended an indepen- added. "We can take great
ag n office today. arises, one source said today dent prosecutor, heart and renew our faith in
ut he discussed the case Mr. Petersen or the Govern-
ag in with the outgoing chiefs. ment prosecutors would con- While some Judiciary Com- the vitality of the role of law
law enforcement officer, Rich- suit directly with Mr. Richard-, mutes sources held out the pos- In the United States."
sibility that the issue could The Attorney General first
and G. Klie . Mr. Klein-. son. hold 'up Mr. Richardson's con- excused' himself from the
dienst's resignation was an. President Nixon's nomina- firmation, there was ho 'lm- Watergate inquiry and then re-
nounced yesterday.. lion of. Mr, Richardson to be mediate strong opposition. Mr. signed his Cabinet post because
Mr. Richardson has also' cbn=. attorney General reached the' Richardson has previously been of the possibility that friends
ferred by telephone on the WO- Senate Judiciary, Committee confirmed in two cabinet posts. and associates would be indict-
tergate affair with Henry Ei this morning. and the'?panet Petersen, the Assistant Attorney tenta~iveiv scheduled hearings Panel Meets Today ed by a Federal grand jury here:
General, and William D. Ruck- on it for'Ma 9. Mr. Kliendienst spoke at'
Y The select Senate Watergate length with his successor, Mr.)
elshaus, the new acting director ' The Attorney Geherat-desig- committee, under Sam J. Ervin Richardson, on Sunda night.;
of the Federal Bureau of in- nate was expected. 'to en? Jr. of North Carolina, is ached- Y t, '
vestigation. counter'close questioning from tiled to meet tomorrw for a They also talked by telephone
s ns case on
A Defense ,"Department committee.?i mea bers on ;the discussion. of public hearings about
ever ral the W occasions yesterd
WASHINGTON POST sev yeay.
2 May 1973 the President meant In hid
By-WALTER R'UGABER ' ' spokesman said Mr. -Richard- apointment of a special prose- on the bkeak-in, set to begin!
apee,AU 5 The New York Tirrin .. '' son would remain at the Pen- tutor to handle the balance of May 15.
WASHINGTON, May 1--Secs tagoti until be is confirmed by the. department's Watergate in- A committee source said toy
rotary of, Defense Elliot L Rich= the Senate and would "concen- vestigation day that two former rankin4l
ichardson, Formally Nominated as Attorney;
General, Takes OnVV'atergate Inquiry
a Decision
.
~,~~1 to if 1*.Cf-ahar' son,
"I think it's what he's go-i
`ing to be doing, but ... he
didn't tell me," Laird said.
''He called the decision "a
dough one to put on Elliot.
t lt'looks like he'doesn't feel
he'a capable and competent
16make the, Investigation,
but Elliot thinks he Is."
Laird said he was sure, in,.
any event, that Richardson
'would make a full public re-'
port on the results of the
.broadening investigation.'.'
"As the attorney for ' the,
President, (Richardson) has
to bring this thing out now,":
Laird said.
Rep.' Henry S. Reuss (D-`
Wis.), one, of the first to de-?
mand appointment of a'
prosecutor from outside the
administration's ranks, said
he supposed that even a
.thoroughly Independent law-
yer-investigator would re-
main tied to the Attorney
,General in,a limited way,
for example, in seeking per-
mission to. propose immu
,nlty for any suspects whose
testimony is' deemed essen-
tial.
Reuss said, ' however, that
he foresees no problems on
,that score. "I can't imagine
" By George Lardner Jr.
and Sanford J. Ungar
Washington Post Staff Writers
The White House emphtt-?
sized yesterday that it 'is,
toking a hands-off attitude
'towards appointment of a
special prosecutor in the
)Watergate scandal.
President Nixon said at
`his Cabinet meeting yester-
'day afternoon, according to
several present, that he was'
leaving the decision entirely
'up to Attorney General-des-
Ignate Elliot L. Richardson.
The powers of any such
prosecutor, presidential
.press secretary Ronald I.."
Ziegler told newsmen ear-
Iler, would also be up to
Richardson to determine.
Richardson, who is winel-
ling up his affairs as Defense
I Secretary at the Pentagon,,
'gave no hint of his plans.
eFormer Defense Secretary.
Melvin R. Laird, who spoke
with Richardson on Monday, ?
fold reporters that he felt a
special prosecutor would b'~
appointed, but stressed that
his bunch was not based ou
anything Richardson told
him explicitly.
the Attorney General, spe-
cifically Elliot Richardson,
thinking more than 10 sec-
onds before agreeing to an
immunity request from a
special prosecutor in this
case," Reuss said.
The actual grant of immu-
nity must come from the
courts, but under the laws
governing it, a Justice De-
partment spokesman said
yesterday, the request must
be authorized by either the
Attorney General, the dep-
uty attorney general, "or a
designated assistant attor-
ney general," a lineup that
would seem to exclude dele-
gation of that power to a
special prosecutor.
In the Watergate investi-
gation, Mr. Nixon said April
17 that he did not want Im-
munity granted anyone
"holding, in the past or at
present, a position of major
importance in the adminis-
tration. - ." Since then, how-
ever, White House counsel
John W. Dean III, who
was fired Monday has re-
portedly been pressing' for
'Immunity in-return for tell-
ing all he knows.
Immunity aside, It re-
mained unclear Just what
he said he was giving Rich-
ardson authority to name "a
special supervising' prosecu.
tor for matters arising out
of the case."
Departing Attorney Gen-
eral Richard G. Kleindienst,
in an appearance at the U.S.
Courthouse for Law Day
ceremonies, told The Wash-
ington Post that he had no
idea precisely what Mr.
Nixon had In mind. Robert
G. Dixon, assistant attorney
.general for the Justice De-
partment's Office of Legal
Counsel, added in a tele.
phone interview that his of-
fice has not yet been asked
to draw up any charter for a
special Watergate prosecu-
tor. Dixon and his staff
would normally be. assigned
that chore.
"We haven't thought down
the road that far," Dixon
said. "Each one of these sit-
uations is sus generic" (one
of a kind), he said of such
appointments.
The government has often
resorted to outside lawyers
and jurists to handle major
controversies and scandals
involving potential conflicts
of interest.
During the Teapot Dome
scandal of the 1920s, the.
Coolidge administration, af-
ter several nominations that
proved unsatisfactory,
named two outside prosecu.
tors, Republican Owen J.
Roberts and former Ohio
Democratic Sen. Atiee W.
Pomerene, under a congres-
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'atonal resolution calling for
Senate approval of the,
choices. 1
Coolidge said at the time
that employment of outside i
counsel was "in accord with;
former precedents."
Former Interior Secretary
A l b e r t Fall was subse-;
,quently convicted of taking,
a bribe, to lease government
oil lands, but oil magnates
-Harry Sinclair and Edward
L. Doheny were acquitted of :
all charges except for a pair(
of contempt citations, one of
the Senate and another of
the courts, involving Sin
claar.
Special prosecutor Rob
erts, who was later named,
to the Supreme Court, also`
headed a special five-man
'board of inquiry named by.
President Roosevelt on Dec.}
.16, 1041, to investigate then
surprise attack on Pearli
Harbor. The board, report
,ing the next month, accused
Adm. N.E. Kimmel and Lt,,,
Gen. Walter C. Short . of
WASHINGTON POST
2 May 1973
"dereliction ' of duty;"
charges that both officers
disputed until their deaths.:
Adm. Kimmel maintained
he had taken "a bum rap"~
and blamed President Roo-
sevelt and other high U.S.
officials, saying they with-'
held vital Information that
would have alerted him and
Short.
Charges of. corruption in'i
the Truman administration'
also' brought appointment of
an outside prosecutor al
:though his tenure was short=
lived. President Truman!
,named New York attorney'
Newbold Morris to direct a.
probe of government corrup-
tion early in 1952, but he
asted 'only two months.
(Friction developed between,
'Morris and Attorney Gen
feral Howard McGrath over'.
a'questionnaire Morris sir
culated inquiring into they
,outside sources of Income of
various federal officials. Me-1
Grath fired Morris and Mt.1
Truman then announced the
'resignation of McGrath.
Guards Files
Resigned A ides'
By Carroll Kilpatrick
Waehlnaton Poet Staff Writer
Monday night television re-
port to the natlort,, on
Watergate:
F131 agents moved into the
'While Ilouse on a 24-hour
basis yesterdnyto snfegunrd
files in the offices of three
president jai aides whose res-
ignations President Nixon
accepted Monday.
Later, at a Cabinet meet-
ing, the President report-
edly spoke with irritation
about the way the agents
were standing around in the
corridors in full view of visi-
tors.
At a news conference
prior to the Cabinet meet-.
lag, press' secretary Ronald
L. Ziegler said that the FBI
men were put into the of-
fices of former aides, John
D. Ehrlichman, H. R. Halde-
man and Jahn W. Dean III
"to physically protect the
files to make sure that ac-
cess and removal of any
files were supervised in ac-
cordance with 'very strict
procedure."
Ehrlichman and Halde-
man, who are still in their
offices but are not conduct.
ing official business,
"wanted this to take place';
and are "fully cooperating,"
Ziegler said.
.
Dean. whom the President
fired, was not In his office.
and Ziegler said he knew of
no Jett or of resignation
from Dean. ?
In other developments in
the wake of Mr. Nixon's
? The. President followed
the hastily-called Cabinet
meeting with an hour-long
meeting with Vice Presi-
dent Agnew, described as
an "Important" conference.
The White House will make
an announcement about
the meeting today, official
sources said, suggesting
that the Vice President will
be given a major new as-
signment.
? Ziegler apologized to
The Washington Post for
charging last fall that its
Watergate stories were
based on "hearsay, charac-
ter assassination, and innu-
endo."
? Mr. Nixon hinted
strongly at new action to
curb inflation. He promised
a statement today on the ;
economy after he holds .a"
morning meeting with his
chief economic advisers and
an afternoon meeting with
the Labor-Alanagement Ad-
visory Committee.
? Editorial reaction from
the nation's press to the
President's speech on
Watergate generally ap-
plauded what was described
as his limited action to re-
store public confidence but
said he failed to remove all
suspicions. Ziegler reported
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.many. favorable telephone
responses to the address.
Mr. Nixon began and
ended his long day with.
(meetings with West German.
Chancellor Willy Brandt.
They conferred In the Oval
;Office in the morning and at
'a dinner the President and'
;Mrs. Nixon gave for their
,gue?t last night.
But Mr. Nixon's chief at-
tention was centered on'
(Watergate even though he,'
'said in' his Monday address 1
'that he would 'now turn my'
',full attention once again to
'the larger duties.of this of
flee."
At the Cabinet meeting,
Mr.. Nixon told his col-
,leagues that Haldeman's
,aides would continue to per
form administration . chores
at the White House and that
iKenneth R. Cole Jr., head of
the Domestic Council, would
' be the proper person to dis-_
cuss domestic issues with In
,stead of Ehrlichman.
Apparently bristling aver,
,the fact that FBI guards'
'were in' the White House
corridors and thus suggest-
ing that Ehrlichman and
(Haldeman could not' be
;trusted, the. President' )re-
portedly ordered the agents
inside the Offices they were'
protecting. ' ' '
,i Similarly, the'. President
referred "rather bitingly," i
one source said, to:what he
called the "political play" by,
Sen. Charles H. 'Percy,,(-
I1L) in demanding ' the ap-
ointment of a special pros-
ecutor to conduct the.Water-
`pate invistigation.` '
Percy should not. he mak-
ing that decision either for
the President or for Attor-
ney General-designate Ellidt
L. Richardson, Mr. Nixon
observed. He'noted that he
ad 'given . Richardson , full
authority tb appoint Much 'an
investigator if he should.
,deem it advisable.
Percy's resolution asking
_tthe President to name a ape-
caul . prosecutor was ap
"Proved by'the Senate 'with-
,,out dissent..?It is not binding
,'but puts pressure on the ad- 1 11 ;.ministration: ' .
Despite; the talk about'
Watergate, the President ?
"was not looking backward,.
but forwara," one person
'Present reported.
r At Ziegler's briefing, Bal.
timore Sun correspondent
,Adam Clymer asked
' whether, In view of the
? President's praise in his
speech of "a vigorous free
press," he Was ready to apol.
ogize to The Washington
Post for a number of attacks
be made on it in the course
of the developing Watergate
story.
'!We would all have to say
,that mistakes were made, in
terms of comments," Ziegler
-replied, "I was overly enthu-
aiastic in '.my comments
about The Post, particularly
CI ~RDPV20Bt t21 t0100150001-0
-context of developments
that have taken place."
Describing his criticisms
as an "overstatement," Zie-
gler said: "I would apologize
to The Post 'and to Mr.
'Woodward and Mr. Bern-
stein." Carl Bernstein and
Bob Woodward are The Post
reporters who did the bulk
of the paper's investigative
work on the Watergate case.
They have "pursued the
story" and "deserve credit"
for their work, Ziegler said.
'. "When we are wrong, we
a''are wrong, as we were in'
that case," the press secre-
tary said.
He emphasized that he
did not necessarily agree
with all that Bernstein and
Woodward wrote and was
not prejudging the Individu-
als mentioned In, The Post
stories.' ? '
Katharine Graham, pub-
lisher of The Washington
Post, said she accepted the
apology "with pleasure.",
"The administration was
trying to undermine the
credibility of the press for
the last 10 months," she said
In New York. "It is a very
great satisfaction to find
that the press's credibility,
-has been proven to the
whole world and I hope that
this will be remembered.
"We could never, never
have reported the Water-
gate without the use of
anonymous sources and yet
the courts, the grand juries,
and the government are
subpoenaing such sources."
In another development,
former Secretary of Defense
Melvin R. Laird told report.
ers in a meeting here that
Mr. Nixon never asked him
to become Involved in the
Watergate investigation "in
any way." Friends In the
Cabinet and in Congress did
? approach him, he said, but
they were not speaking for
the President.
Laird said he had told Mr.
Nixon some time ago that he
would not be available' for
any full-time assignment be-
fore July 1.
"I have a commitment to
him to talk to him before r
take on any other full-time
jb," Laird said.
In an interview with CBS,
Haldeman said he was con`
winced that when the truth
is known "I will be seen as
totally clear of any of the
implications or allegations
that have been made." '
Discussing the decision .to
place FBI agents on guard
in the Ehrlichman-l-lalde-
man-Dean offices, Ziegler.
said the order by Acting
FBI Director William D.
Ruciielshaus was made after
a conference between Attor-
ney General-designate Rich-
ardson and Leonard Gar-
ment, acting counsel to the
President.
"This procedure is. not to
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east any aspersions but' Co
make sure that a strict pro.,
cedure is followed in rela-
tion to the security of White
House papers," Ziegler couw
mented..
The Associated Press .re.
ported that. Haldeman and
Ehrlichman had culled
through their files, to docu-
ment their claim of inno.
,cence.
The two former aides
4were seep leaving the White
iliouse together in a or with
what appeared to be papers!
on their laps. A spokesman'
said any papers removed
,would have been with the
,approval of the FBI agents.
NEW YORK TIMES
2 May 1973
My' EE INDICTED
By SEYMOUR M. HERSH , a
Gpech,!to TheNew York TImes
WASIIINGTON, May 1-Gov.
tlrnmcnt Investigators say they.
now have evidence that high-;
ranking officials of the White
House and the Committee for.
the Re-election of the Presidei1ti,
conspired after the June, 1972,!'
Watergate break-In to arrango',
a careful cover story designed:
to obstruct the Federal invests-?
gation.
This investigators also say`
ithe evidence shows that the
obstruction of Justice was to
ordinated by, President Nixor:'si
two closest advisers, H. i R~
Haldeman and John D. Ehrlich-',
man, who resigned yesterday,!
and former Attorney Generale
John N. Mitchell, who headed,'
the re-election" committee alt
the time.
Threw other former Whits
House aides, Jeb Stuart Mal
gruder, a special assistant ta(
Mr. Nixon, Frederick C. LaRue,'
another special assistant, and
John W. Dean 3d, the presi.
dent's counsel, were also in
volved in the initial covetu .
attempt, investigators said.
The cover-up was formulated
during some planned secret:
meetings held at the re-election'
headquarters here in late June,
according to. Investigators.
The basic scheme was said'
to have called for all of these-
Involved in the operation to:
deny any knowledge of it, and'
for the re-election committee to,
lssuo public statements to that
effect. In essence, investigators,
said, everyone Involved in the
operation repeatedly lied to ,
Federal Investigators; prosecu-
tors, other White House offl-
dais, and finally, to President
Nixon:
All six men are expected to
be Indicted by the Federal
grand jury now hearing tee tI-
mony on the Watergate lac'-
dent, sources close to'the case
today.
.At least four other persons
were also involved in the
cover-up, and 'are now under
investigation by the grand jury,
the sources said. They are
Dwight L. Chapin the Presi-
dent's ' former appointments'
secretary, Gordon Strachan, a
Haldeman assistant, Herbert L
Porter, who. worked for Herbert
>tleIn's information office, and
Kenneth W. Parkinson. The last
Is a' Washington : lawyer who
was, hired by 'the re-election
committee shortly after the
June 17 break-in.
~ In addition, investigators`
said, there were many others
who were-In the words of one
source-"seduced by the opera-
tion:' The grand jury and Sen-
ate. Investigating committee are
now trying to determine, among
other things, whether those
persons knew the full Implica-
tions of their roles in the
:cover-up.
If The. ' scheniet ^?,as' allegedly'
,worked out by Mr. Ehrlichman,
Mr.' Haldeman,-..-.Mr . Mitchell
,and, Mr. Dean, incii4ded pay
ments to the arrested 'defend,
ants,' promises f'of ' executive
clemency, a series of public
denials, and arrangements with
Mr. Magruder and, Mr. Porter
to perjurethemselves- . during
the trial of the seven Water-
;gate defendants." ' ?
The additional funds needed
for the payoffs,, sources said,
were collected by Herbert W.
Kalmbach, President Nixon's
personal lawyer, who also
served as a chief campaign
money raiser. Although Mr.'
Kalmbach made a special effort
to raise the cash after the men
were arrested, the source add-
ed. It has not beer' determined
,whether he was aware of Its
ultimate use. He, too, is now
under Investigation by the
grand jury. The White House
said today that the lawyer is
no longer handling legal mat-
ters for Mr. Nixon.
"This Is the thing which
absolutely 'blows my mind,"
one investigator said In an
interview.
The account of the cover-up
provided to The New York
Times was confirmed and cor-
roborated In interviews during
the last 24 hours with a variety
of officials and attorneys in-
volved In the case.
Perhaps the grossest fabrica-
tion, sources said, was the co-
ordinated account provided to
the Federal prosecutors, and
used by them as a bulwark in
the subsequent Watergate trial,
of the initial rationale behind
the cash payments to G. Gordon
Liddy, one of those convicted
of the bugging of the Demo-
cratic National Committee.
The Government was told by
a number of re-elected commit-
tee officials that the $100,000
given to Liddy was to pay 10'.
intelligence. agents $1,000 a
month each- for 10 months in
1972 to find,out if anti-Repub-
lican demonstrations were plan-
ned.
"That was a complete fabric-
ation," one investigator said.
"Just a complete lie."
Hugh . W. Sloan Jr., treasurer
of the re-election committee,
who gave the cash to Liddy,
according to investigators, was
the only key official who ap-
parently chose not to partici-I
pate in the cover-up, causing
his superiors to alter some de-
tails of the agreed-upon story.
Mr. Sloan' had been urged to
commit perjury during the
Watergate trial by testifying
that he gave Liddy and his as-
sobiates only $40,000 in 100
bills rather than the 'i35,000
that was actually provided, in
formed sources said. On atI
least three occasions, Mr.,
Sloan has told investigators
that Mr. Magruder and Mr.
LaRue attempted to pressure
him Into changing his story.
Mr. Sloan confirmed the ac-
count in a telephone interview
last night from his father's
home, but refused to discuss
the matter, saying that he
would talk only to the appro-
priate officials.
Investigators said, however,
that Mr. Sloan had unsuccess-
fully attempted, In the days fol-
lowing the first public disclo.
sure of the Watergate break-in,
to tell both Mr. Ehrlichman and
Mr. Haldeman of his concern'
over the re-election commit-
tee's role In the bugging.
"Sloan made incredible ef-
forts to get word to the Presi-
dent or somebody about what
he knew ' was wrong," one
source noted. "They all told
him to go back to the com-
mittee."
His first attempt to tell high-
er-ups of : the impending
scandal, investigators said,
came six days after the break-
In, during an evening party
aboard a chartered vessel In
the Potomac River. The party
was In honor of Col. Vernon
C. Coffey of the Army, a White
House military aide who was
being reassigned to the Nation-
al War College, and many
?White House and re-election
committee, officials attended.
this time, one source
said, Mr. Sloan "had begun
to read this stuff in newspapers
about $100 bills floating around
and he really . began to. get
scared."
."He thought his fingerprints
might be on the bills and he
also thought that if the white
House didn't deal with the
problem quickly it could hurt
the President," the source said.
According to Investigators,
Mr. Sloan aproached Mr. Cha-
pin, who was then Mr. Nixon't
appointments secretary and a
Halderman protegd, and asked]
for an appointment with the
White House chief of staff. In-
vestigators also say that he;
roughly these words, took place
during his White House meet-
ing with Mr. Ehrlichman:
Sloan: "I think we've got
some real problems at the com-
mittee in connection with this
bugging of the Democrats."
Ehrlichman: "That's problem
you have over there. I don't
want to know any facts; it's
none of my business. If you
have a personal problem about
It, get a lawyer."Sloan: "Let me tell you what
I think may be going on over
there."
Ehrlichman: "I don't want to
be told any details."
Mr. Sloan, sources said,
never did get an appointment
with Mr. Haldeman, and he
was, in effect, told by Mr.
Chapin to mind his own busi-
ness.
But according to Investiga.
tors, at precisely the moment
when Mr. Ehrlichman was tell-
ing Mr. Sloan he wanted no
"details," and Mr. Haldeman
was reft1sing? to see him, both
men, were already involved in
developing the initial cover-up
story.
Later, sources said, when
Mr. Sloan told Mr. Parkinson,
the re-election committee attor-i
ney, about the effort to force.
him to testify to smaller pay-
ments to Liddy than had been
granted, Mr. Sloan said he'
would not do so. The sources'
said that this apparently forcedi
Mr. Parkinson to go to Mr.l
Mitchell and urge him ,,and the
others to tell the t!-ue story."
now suspect that both Mr,,Park-
inson, and one of his associ.
ates, Paul L. O'Brien, had rea-
son to suspect that a cover-up
was taking place in connection
with the re-election commit-
'tee's cash outlays, although the
men apparently did not know
for what use the Watergate
teamnwas using the funds.
"Everybody knew that Sloan
was the fly In the ointment,"
one Investigator said. "Sloan
kept them a little bit honest,
to his undying credit."
A number of, sources cau-
tioned that the Investigations
have yet to turn up -- as one
put it --- "a nice, tidy little
meeting where they all sat
down and planned how to do
it." Instead,,the sources said,
some meetings involving com-
mittee officials were held it
late June, with telephone con-
sultltions handled at a high
,level with Mr. Heideman and
Mr. Ehrlichman.
"Haldeman and Ehrlichman
were running the cover-up,"
one investigator said during an
Interview. He added that it was
not known whether the two
Presidential aides were aware
of the Watergate bugging
operation before the arrests.
"We don't know whether
Nixon to this daythe knows what
really happened,' investiga-
tor added. "He really thinks
they're clean,"
with Mr. Ehrlichman, the Pres-
ident's domestic adviser.
Accordjng to the investiga-
tors, Mr. Sloan said that the
following conversation, using
not "be seen by anyone as evi
dence of any wrongdoing by
either one." In their statements,]
~Mr. Haldeman and Mr. Ehrlich?I
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man criticized the newspaper
"rumors" and "Innuendos" sur-
rounding their roles in
the Watergate inquiry. and said
a full Inquiry would demon-
strate that they were not guilty
of any wrongdoing.
. The investigators say that the
cover-up publicly began within
two days of the arrests inside
the Democratic headquarters,
after newspapers identified
James W. McCord Jr., one of
those arrested, as a "security
coordinator" for the Republican
re-election committee.
The committee Issued a
,statement in Mr. Mitchell's
namo declaring that "we want
to emphasize that this man
[McCord) and the other people
nvolvcd were not operating
either in our behalf or with our
consent."
The Mitchell statement added:
"The person involved is the
proprietor of a private security
firm which was employed by
our committee months ago to
assist with the installation of, our security system. He has, as'
we understand it, a number of
business clients and interests,
and we have no know! edge'
of those relationships .
There Is no place in our cam-
paign or in the electoral process
or this type of activity and
we will not permit it nor con-
done it."
That press. release, invest!-
'gators say, was the first stage
of the conspiracy just beginning
to unfold. "The original strat-
egy was to blame it on Mc-
Cord," one source said, and
Liddy---who officially was a
counsel for the Finance Com-
niittco to Re-elect the Presi-
dent-was among those advo-
cating that'stratcgy.
"There was a bunch of little
meetings in C.R.P. [the Commit-
tee for Re-election of the Pres-
ident)," the source went on,
and Liddy was quoted by one
witness as saying 'That's just
McCord, always doing some-'
thing like that."
Liddy himself was dismissed
on June 28, 11 days after the
break-in, after a newspaper re-
ports linked the $100 billsi
found on the Watergate team
to the finance committee, but
the news did not come out until
nearly one month later. By the
time he was dismissed, for re-
fusing to discuss the operation
with agents from the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, he had
agreed to become a focal point
of the cover-up, investigators
said.
"The strategy then became
,to blame It all on Liddy," the
ggurce ? added. "Everybody
knew that Gordon know how to
keep his mouth shut, and they
were right-he did."*
During his closing argument
at the end of the trial of the
Watergate defendants, Earl J.
Silbert, the principal Assistant
United States Attorney trying
the case, pointed his finger at
Liddy and described him caus-
tically and repeatedly as "the
boss. '
He depicted the Watergate
team, led by Liddy and Mc-
'Cord, as being "off on an
enterprise of their own." Mr.
Liddy, a former F.B.I. agent
And White House aide, "was
the money man, the supervisor"
of the group who had been
'playing cops and robbers," Mr,
ea -t MA
e
Liddy, who was' Jailed after
his conviction In the bugging
operation, is still withstanding
pressure from the White House
and the Federal prosecutors to
,give his account.
) Sometime in late June, in-
Ivestigators said, President
Nixon assigned Mr. Dean to!
investigate the possibility of;
White House involvement in;
'the bugging operation. In his
speech last night r. Nixon.
implied that his c investi=
gators had lied to
"I don't think Dean had any'
prior knowledge of the 'bug=
ging," one investigator said.
"He agreed to go along with
the cover-up. Once he found
out how many people would be
hurt% he was convinced that
the scandal would really dam
age the country." i ' ' "
The investigator gave.,thi~~
paraphrasal of what he said
was the approach used by the
two high-level Presidential
aides to the counsel when the
question of the bugging was
initially discussed:
"Now, Jolm, we know that
the President is asking you to
do this investigation. But the
President doesn't know Any-
th!ng about all of lulls, and we
do. Consider in your mind the
,consequences of the whole
story coming out, and what it
would do to the country."
The investigator said that
after listening to the explana-
tion from Tiis superiors, "Dean
,went into the bag and falsi-
fied his. report to the . Presi-
dent."
'
Mr. Dean's subsequent re-
lease of information to various
newspapers in the last two
weeks about the involvement of
higher-ups was based in part
on his anger, the investigator
said, upon learning that Mr.
Haldeman and Mr. Ehrlichman
had "given him all this bull
about wanting to protect the
Presidency, when really they
were just protecting' their
necks."
Federal sources have since
acknowledged that it was Mr.
Dean who first told.investiga-
tors earlier this month about
the meeting at which L.. Pat-
rick Gray 3d, acting director
of the F.B.I., was in effect told
to destroy White files be-
longing to one of the Watergate
participants. Also at the meet-
ing, alon with Mr. Dean, was
Mr. Ehrlichman.
The overall effect of the in-
itial cover-up was-so complete,
sources said, that the prosecu-
tors ignored a number of vital
clues pointing toward a con-
spiracy during their initial in-
vestigation and the trial.
The most significant of these,
sources said, was provided by
Mr. Sloan himself, who went
to Mr. Silbert and Seymour
Glanzer and Donald E. Camp-
bell, his deputies, and told
them that pressure was being
placed. upon him by Mr.. Ma-
gruder and Mr. LaRue to com-
mit perjury.
Mr, Sloan acknowledged the
meeting with Mr. Silbert during.
the brief telephone interview;
but the prosecutors, as has been
their practice, refused to dis-
cuss grand jury matters with a
teporter,
WASHINGTON POST
2 May 1973
Law rp
? , 9
.
t Asserts,
.lei ?ei s
By Lawrence Meyer and John P. MacKenzie
Washington Poet Staff WOWS
c ?
ff , In one of his last acts as - . successor, Elliot L. Richard-
k'Attorney General of the son, is confirmed. Included
'United* States, Richard. G. In the prepared speech
I Kliendienst told an audi- Kleindienst no longer found
fence of judges and lawyers quite appropriate were the -
Piesterday that "these days following expressions of
so far as the law Is con- pride in the Nixon adminis-
t?:::..tcerned are days of sorrow,
,but they are not days.of de-
fspair. The law has pre-
i vailed."
Discarding a prepared
;text as "not quite relevant,
at quite appropriate," the
.man who resigned Monday
as the nation's top law en-
orcement official because
of the Watergate scandal
Wild - he wanted to
*"extemporaneously ' and
from my heart say a few
trat.ion's record:
"When men usurp the law,
then government is subject
to their whims, their person-
alities and their varying eth-
ical standards.
"Beginning In the early
1960s, a wave of lawlessness
swept across the United
States. It showed itself in
the increase of general
crime, in mob disorders, and
In such spectacular inci
dents as assassinations, bom-
bings and hijackings.
"These trends showed that
(Stances we now find . our. a relatively small but grow-
selves In.", Ing number of Americans',
t"? But Kleindienst touched far from recognizing their
'repeatedly on the theme of duties as citizens, were put-
this prepared text and the Ling themselves above the
'theme of the Law Day ob- law.
'servance that inspired it- "We saw this most dra-
ithat this is a government of matically in cases where
`laws, not men. witnesses to a crime refused
"I'm proud that here in' to testify because they did
not want to become Involved
udge named John J. Sirica ' "' "would " " even "cal It the
who, with great courage police oet' not
M ? ~ pwhile a crime was be.
,.under most difficult eircum- ing committed.
standes, has assured the citi- ' "I am pleased to point out
zens of this country that jus? ' that we are witnessing a re-
Mice will be done." ? '' versal of this alarming trend
As Kleindienst' spoke, Sir-.
. In short, what seemed
!Ica-who presided at the to be the growing popularity
Atrial of the seven convicted of lawlessness, where Amer-
rtWatergate conspirators-sat icans put themselves above
a'few feet away in the U.S., or outside the law, has been
District Courthouse eeremo-
tnial courtroom. . .
'.With pride,. Kleindienst.
again cited the statistics he
eferred to In the past when
discussing the Justice De-
partment's investigation of .
the 'Watergate affair-2,500
interviews conducted, 20,000
hours spent on the case, 500
agents Involved And 53 of
.the FBI's 59 field offices.
Kleindienst resigned Mon-
'day, telling the President
that "persons with whom I
"had had close personal and
$rofessional associations
Edobld be involved in conduct
violative of the laws of the
,United States. Fair and im-
Ppartial enforcement of the*
law requires that a person
who has not had such Inti-
,jnate relationships be the
;Attorney General of the
'United States."
!l:e continues to serve as
Attorney General until his
Those were the remarks
that Kleindienst did not de-
liver. Instead, he concluded
his off-the-cuff remarks by
expressing another kind of
pride.
"As I make this, my last
Law Day speech as Attorney
General of the United
States, my belief rather
than being lessened baa
been strengthened" in the
promise of the United
States. "There will be an-
other Attorney General 200
years from now who can say
we have prospered because
we have been true to that
promise." a
Outside, where the teicvi-
sion cameras ? waited for
him, Kleindenst repeated
his message again. "We are
a country of law, not of
men," be said. The events of
the past few days "prove
that the law prevails. It
works Its will."
o
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ho in Watergate:
'
es Include To n
Nixon
WASHINGTON POST
29 April 1973
affair, which initially involved littl?1''
known individuals, has now -reached int6l
the 'uppermost reaches of the Nixon
administration.
The following glossary of names,'
along with the accompanying diagram,'i
sketches the principals involved in re
cent. developments and their relationship,
to etch other.
most Important question, as yet unan-j
sweted, in the Watergate affair is flow,
much, if anything, the President kdewt
abopt the hugging of the Watergate,
other acts of election campaign espio-,
nag and sabotage, and the effort to'
cover up the scandal-before his an-i
nouncement April 17 that his own in-`
quiry, begun March 21, had turned tlp+
"major developments" in the case.
Adcording to highly reliable sources;
'in the executive branch, the President,
,was told as early'as last December that{
former Attorney General John N. Mitch.
ell and White House .counsel John W.,
Dean III were probably deeply In,",
volved In' both the Illegal electronic'surveillance and the coverup. , i
'Charles W. Colson, among other!
White douse staff members, was reli
ably reported to have told the Presi-?
dent that persons. in his administration',
were obstructing justice and that ac-?
tion should be taken. Colson has de
nied giving Mr. Nixon any such warn-,
Ing, and Gerald Warren, deputy presi-
dential press secretary, said the White.
House would have no comment on the
reports.
The President is officially reported;
by the White House to be, conducting',
his own independent investigation Into,
the affair. Mr. Nixon also has had at
least two meetings with John J. Wit=
son, the lawyer recently retained by'
top White House aides H. It. Haldeman,
John N. MITCHELL-Attorney Gen-
cral' from 1969 until he resigned in,
March, 1972, to become the President's,
campaign manager, Mitchell was Mr.
Nixon's law partner for two years, his
.1968 presidential campaign manager
and his closest adviser for some time
before and after the 1968 election.
,Mitchell resigned as manager of the
President's 1972 campaign on July 1,
1972, citing personal reasons after his
wife, Martha, publicly demanded that,
he quit. Subsequently, it was reported
thatDlitchcll?was one of a handful of
top campaign and administration offs
vials' with access to a secret fund usee
to finance the Watergate and other,es-
pionage and sabotage activities.
Before the election, Mitchell repeat-
edly denied having any knowledge of
the Watergate bugging. On April 20,
1973, after testifying before the federal
grand jury here. Mitchell conceded
' that he had attended meetings where
.the bugging was discussed but insisted
"I never approved any such plans." .
However, Mitchell's deputy ?at the
Committee for the Re-cl,?ctlon of the
President. Jeb Stuart Magruder. re.
portedly has told federal prosecutors
John N.
MITCHELL
Gordon
STRACHAN
John
EHRLICHMAN
Herbert W.
KALMBACH
Dwight
CHAPIN
Donald H.
SEGRETTI'
STANS
F Mau
L. flriok)
GRAY
Frank A.
sruRGis
'' Convicted Watergate Conspirators
By Joseph Mastrenselo-The Washtnatoq Post
thatlMitchell and White house counsel'
Dean approved the bugging and later
approved trite payment of funds to the,
men indicted for the Watergate cmn
%piracy in an effort to buy their si-
'Ience.
H.R. (Bob) HALDEMAN-President
Vixon's White House chief of staff and,
until the recent flood of Watergate
;revelations, the man to see for anyone
'who wanted to see or communicate
with the President. Haldeman was con-
sidered generally to be the molt pow-
erful man on the White House staff
and competed with Mitchell for power.
.both within the administration and in
political campaign matters.
Associates of White House Counsel
Dean have said that he will testify un
-der oath before the grand jury that
Haldeman and other high White House
officials actively participated in a
cover-up to hide the involvement of'
presidential aides in the. bugging.
Haldeman has denied the charge.
The 'grand jury reportedly has al-
ready been told that the President's re-
election committee, on Haldeman's or-
ders, transferred $350,000 to the White
House before April 7, 1972, when a
.new campaign finance law became
effective. , .
The grand jury was told that Halde-
man ordered, the money given to a re-
8
election, committee official, Fred La-
Rue, who, sources close to the investi-
gation have reported, paid large sums
of money-"hush money"-to the
Watergate conspirators to pay for their
silence.
In the wake of recent revelations,
Haldeman's White House influence re-
portedly has been drastically reduced,
and there have been recurrent rumors
within the White House staff that his
resignation was imminent.
John D. EHRLICHMAN-Assistant
to the President for domestic affairs,
Ehrlichman remained relatively ur
touched by recent Watergate Affair
revelations until it was disclosed April
28 that Acting FBI Director L. Patrick
Gray 111, after meeting with Ehrlich-
man and White House counsel Dean,
had destroyed documents taken from
the White House office of Watergate'
conspiration E. Howard Hunt Jr.
Ehrlichman said in a statement that
he was present at a meeting with Gray
and Dean at which the documents
were discussed and turned over to
Gray, "but neither then, nor at any
other time, did I give Mr. Gray any re-
quest, suggestion or instruction regard-
ing what should be done with the con-
tents."
An associate of Dean's says that
Dean was at the meeting but that "it
was John Ehrlichman who ordered
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John W.'
DEAN
Jeb Stuart
MAGRUDER
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"ray to destroy the documents."
Herbert W. KALMBACH-President
Nixon's personal lawyer, Kalmbach'
had' control over a $500,000 account,
that allegedly was used to finance the
,political campaign sabotage activities
of Donald H. Segretti.
Kalmbach has testified before the,
grand jury investigating the watergate
affair, according to reliable sources.
Kalmbach is being investigated by the
'jury on possible charges involving ob-,
struction of justice by providing some
of the money used by others to buy the
silence of-the convicted Watergate con-1
{ ppirators, ? according to government,
sources.
Maurice STANS-Former Secretary
of Commerce, Stans resigned to be-
come finance director of President`
Nixon's re-election committee.
+' Stans -kept between $350,000 and
$700,000 from campaign -contributions
fin cash In his office safe. According to,
testimony at the Watergate burglary
trial, convicted Watergate conspirator
G. Gordon Liddy was given $235,000
from these funds. This money wasp
}used, among other things, to finance.
,the break-in and bugging of the Demo
'crattc National committee.
The money came in cash campaign
contributions from a variety ? of
sources, including a $100,000 contrib-
ution from Texas oil executive robert
11. Allen, who routed the money'
through Mexico, and $200,000 from in-
ternational financier Robert L. Vesco,
under Investigation by a federal grand
jury In New York In connection with a,
Securities and Exchange Commission'
fraud inquiry. The Committee for the
Re-election of the President says that
both the Allen and Vesco contributions,
'were returned.
` John W. DEAN-Initially a remote
figure in the Watergate affair. Dean
,has become a focal point' in the re-
?cently renewed investigation. Accord-
ing to reports of what former deputy,
Nixon campaign manager Magruder,
has told federal prosecutors, Dean,
along with Mitchell, helped plan and
approved the Watergate bugging oper-
ation.
Magruder also has reportedly told
prosecutors that Dean and Mitchell
later arranged to buy the silence of
,the Watergate conspirators.
Former Acting 'FBI Director Gray
has told a senate ? committee that he
turned FBI Watergate investigation re-
ports over to Dean.
Last week, It was learned that Dean
was present at the meeting with Ehrl-
ichman and Gray, after which Gray de-
stroyed documents from E. Howard
Hunt Jr.'s White House office. At the
meeting, Dean told Gray that the docu-
ments should "never see the light of
day," according to FBI and other
sources.
Dean has also reportedly told the
President that Dean, Haldeman and'
Ehrlichman would have to tell all they
knew about the Watergate bugging
case and face the possibility of going
to jail "to save the presidency." On,
April 6. Dean reportedly told federal
.prosecutors all he knew about the bug-
ging and subsequent cover-up, but he
has not yet testified before the grand.
3ury.
Dean left the Justice Department in
1970 to become White House 'Counsel;
with the strong backing of Mitchell. As
White House counsel, handling legal
problems for the President, Dears?
worked closely with Haldeman. -;
L. Patrick GRAY Ill-Until his res-
ignation Friday, the acting director of;
the FBI, Gray supervised the FBI in-~
;vestigation into the Watergate affair.'
(Impeccable sources close to him havel
confirmed and Gray has not denied re-4
,ports that he destroyed documents be-:
,longing to Watergate conspirator E.
Howard Hunt Jr. after a meeting with
White House aides Ehrlichman and
Dean.
Gray is reported by an associate to,,
be "just sick about all this" and anx-'
sous to appear before the grand jury.
?Jeb Stuart MAGRUDER-A former"
merchandising executive in the cos-
metics business, Magruder worked un-'
der Haldeman oil the White House'
staff, which he left in May, 1971, to es-
,tablish the President's re-election com-
mittee. Magruder ran the committee'
,until Mitchell became its director in
.March, 1972. Magruder stayed on at
Mitchell's deputy.
At the Watergate trial, Magruder
?testified that he hired Watergate
con- spirator Liddy on Dean's recommenda-,
ition to handle committee legal prob-
lems, Magruder denied under oath,
'however, that he knew about or ap-
proved the Watergate bugging opera-
tion. '
;j Associates of Magruder say that her,
has since told federal prosecutors than
Mitchell and Dean both gave Magru-
.der approval to conduct the bugging.'
Mitchell, who admits he heard a dis-
epssion of bugging but insists he ref-
used to approve it, told the grand jury
that he believes Magruder went over
,,his head to unnamed White House offi-:
cials for approval of the Watergate op'
eration, according to a Mitchell associ-
ate.
Frederick C. LaRUE-One of Mitch-
ell's most intimate assistants and ? a
former White House aide, LaRue has'
been described by federal Investigators
,as being one of the re-election com-;
I mittee officials who directed, a
"housecleaning" to destroy committee
documents following' the June 17,'
Watergate arrests. LaRue also was in-,
,valved in paying the Watergate con
spirators money to keep them silent,
according to reliable sources.
Dwight CHAPIN-Now an airline ex-
ecutive, Chapin was appointments sec-
retary to the President and his chief
advance man for important trips, 'in-
eluding the visit to China in 1972. A
University of Southern California
graduate, Chapin, with Haldeman aide
Gordon Strachan, recruited Donald
Segretti, a college classmate of both,
for political sabotage activities during
the 1972 campaign, Chapin left the
White House staff after the 1972 elec-
tion.
Gordon STRACHAN-A former
White House aide on Haldeman's staff
and now general counsel for the'
United States Information Agency,
Strachan (pronounced 'Strawn) helped
recruit Segretti. Strachan also report-
edly took $350,000 from Haldeman to
LaRue to pay the conspirators after
their arrests,
Strachan acted as the link between;
Segretti's missions and the intclligence;,
gathering operations of Hunt and Liddy:;
Donald H. SEGRETTI-A college
classmate of Chapin and Strachan,i
Segretti was paid at least $30,000 by,
Nixon lawyer Kalmbach to conduct po-,
litical sabotage. Segretti reported di-'
rectly to Chapin and also communi;,
cated with convicted Watergate cony
spirator Hunt, l
G. Gordon LIDDY-Described byd'
the prosecution during the Watergate)
trial as the brains and boss of the)
Watergate bugging operation, Liddy"
now emerges more clearly as the field'
commander in an extensive espionage`
,bureaucracy. !i
Liddy is a former Treasury Depart.;
ment official, White House aide and',
ex-FBI agent who was hired, according'
.to Magruder, to handle legal problems 1
for the re-election committee. Magru
der testified at the trial that he also'!
authorized Liddy to spend $250,000 to
gather intelligence on demonstrations
-threatening security at the 1972 Repub-;.
lican convention and at appearances of-'
speakers on behalf of the President
,during the 1972,spring primaries. ?
The latest revelation about Liddy Is j
that he and ? his friend and fellow,;
Watergate conspirator, Hunt allegedly,
broke into the office of the psychia4,
trist for Daniel Ellsberg in order to ob-,
tai' files. Ellsberg is standing trial In,'
connection with the disclosure of'the l
Pentagon Papers.
E. Howard HUNT Jr.', --A forme(
CIA agent and ex-white 'House aide,"
,Hunt was brought into the Whited
;House by Ehrlichman, and special)
counsel Charles W. Colson, purport-
edly to work on declassifying the. Pen..
tagon Papers. Hunt was. used report.
edly for a variety of missions, Includ-
ing gathering political Intelligence.'
that could be used against Sen. Ed-
ward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), ?,
According to convicted Watergate,
conspirator James W. McCord Jr.,.
Hunt and Hunt's late wife, Dorothy,,
,made vague offers of money and exec-,
' utive clemency to the Watergate con-
spirators to remain silent. Hunt's wife.
was killed in a Chicago plane crash,
Nov. 30. She was carrying' $10,000 in'
t
1
b",-
t
h
$
00
ime
at t
e
James W. j12cCORD Jr.-Former Be-`
curity director for the President's re-
election committee, McCord main
tained his silence until March 21, when'
he delivered a letter to Chief U.S. Dis-
trict Judge John J. Sirica offering to
tell what he knew about the Watergate
affair. McCord's revelations to Senate
investigators and the grand jury have
played a major role in breaking open
the conspiracy.
'McCord was arrested inside the.
Democratic Party's Watergate head-
quarters in the early morning hours of
June 17 along with four men from
Miami who had been recruited by
.Hunt-'Bernard L. Barker, Eugenio R.
Martinez, Virgibo R. Gonzales and
Frank A. Sturgis. The men from Mi-
ami all pleaded guilty to all chargeg
against them.
-LAWRENCE MEYER
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WASHINGTON POST
3 May 1973
As Am
Reporte
(f ,
(? By Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
The Nixon administration tapped the telephones of
at least two newspaper reporters in 1971 as part of the
investigation reportedly ordered by President Nixon
into the leaks of the Pentagon Papers to the press, ac-
cording to two highly placed sources in the executive
branch.
The wiretapping was su-
pervised by Watergate con-
spirators E. Howard Hunt
It was decided at a Nixon'
campaign strategy meeting:
that some members of the
dame vigilante squad respon-;
sible for the Pentagon Papers
wiretapping would be used.'
to wiretap the telephones of
.Democratic presidential can-'-;
didates, according to one of
the sources.
James W. McCord Jr., one
of the convicted Watergate'
conspirators, reportedly has
told a federal grand jury
here that the Watergate bug-
Jr. and G. Gordon Liddy,,
who were then working in
the White House, and it was
authorized by John N. Mit-
chell while he was Attorney
General, one of the sources
said.
In this electronic surveil-
lance, according to the
same source, Hunt and Liddy
supervised an independent
team, or so-called "vigilante'
squad," of wiretappers not
employed by the FBI-the
agency that normally per
'forms legal wiretapping.
That source named two re-
porters from The New York
Times, which published the
Pentagon Papers in June,
1971, as being among those
whose phones were tapped.
Another source confirmed
that the telephones of
Tines reporters were tap-
ped but could not identify
-those placed under surveil-;
lance.
The legality of such wire-
tapping is an unsettled ques-
tion. The Supreme Court
last year unanimously re-
jected Nixon administration
claims to the right to con-
duct electronic surveillance
without a court order in so-
called "domestic subversion"
cases. But the Court left
open whether the executive
-branch has such power in
national security cases in-
volving "foreign subversion."
According to The Post's
sources. ' the' wiretapping
connected with the Pent-
agon Papers followed earl-
ier White House-ordered
wiretaps of other reporters
to discover tho. sources of
leaks of information about
the Strategic Arms Limi-
ttation Talks (SALT) to the
news media.
In addition, during the
'first Nixon administration,
the office or home tele-
phones of at least 10 White
.House staff members also'
were tapped in the course-
-of investigations Into nvw
feaks,'the sources said.
Bing team had planned, but
never carried out, the instal
lation of Wiretaps and eaves-
dropping devices In the cam-
paign headquarters of Sens.
iGeorge. McGovern and Ed,'
;round S. Muskie.
Although the activities of
the squad were authorized
'by then 'Attorney General'
'Mitchell, the source said,.
they were more closely super-
vised by Assistant Attorney,
General Robert. C. Mardian,,
.who later became the poll-'
tical coordinator of the'
Committee for the Re-elec.
tion of the President, the
source said.
According to the sources;
the wiretapping in the Pen-
tagon Papers 'ease began
shortly after the Times
started publication of the
classified, multivolume his-
tory of the, Vietnam War,
,The Times had obtained the
documents from Daniel Ells-
berg, the former Defense'
'.Department analyst now on,
trial in Los Angeles.
In June. 1971, the govern:"
ment moved unsuccessfully'
in court to permanently halt
publication of the Pentagon
papers on the grounds of na-
tional security.
At the time, a White
House team known as "The
Plumbers," whose members
included Hunt and Liddy,
was attempting to determine
how The Times obtained the'
Papers.
The Los. Angeles Times
reported last year .that
Liddy had proposed to the.
? Justice Department that
The New York Times be
tapped -in-the Pentagon Pa-
pers Investigation. How-
ever, at the time, the Los
Angeles Times reported
that the Justice Department
lturned down Liddy's sug-
'gestion.
The "plumbers" project
was under the direction of
'former presidential counsel'
Charles W. Colson and John,
Ehrlichman, who until .this.
week was President Nixon's'
principal domestic -affairs
adviser, according to a
statement given to the FBI,
last week by Ehrlichman.
The project was undertaken
on orders from the Presi-
dent, Ehrlichman told th '
FBI.
According to Ehrlichman's
statement, Hunt and Liddy
broke into the oftlce of
Daniel Ellsberg's psychia-
trist, after which Ehrlichman
said he told them "not to
do it again.`
The statement by Ehrlich-
man, who resigned from his
White House job Monday,
makes no mention of the
wiretapping conducted dur-
ing the Pentagon Papers
project.
Accordiing to The Post's
sources, all records relating
to the activities of the vigi-
lante squad that conducted
that wiretapping have been
destroyed.
Only six to eight people
,had first-hand knowledge of,
the squad's activities, accord
ing to one source who said'
the June 17, 1972 arrest. at
the Watergate set those peo-.
pie "off the edge" with
worry that the Watergate
break-in -would lead to dis-
covery of the earlier wire-,
tapping by theNixon admir>,-,
istration. '
The Washington Post ref
ported in February that Hunt!
-and Liddy were regularly'
routed Information obtained
from national security wire-?
taps for several months in'
1971 and 1972.
It could not be learned at
that time exactly what wire-
tap information they re-'
ceived, though "presumably
the reports from the taps of
Times reporters would have
gone to Hunt. and Liddy be-'
cause they were supervising
the operation.
The information from na-
tional security wiretaps is
among the most closely held
and sensitive data collected
by the U.S. intelligence com-
munity and had been tradi.
tionally supervised by the
Justice Department Internal
Security Division.
The division, which was
headed by Mardian during
the first Nixon administra-
tion, was abolished earlier
this year.
Hunt's and Liddy's work'
as White House "plumbers"
was supervised by D a v i d
'Young, a former staff mem-
ber of the National Security
Council. Young r e s i g n e d
from the council staff about'
three weeks ago .without ex-
planation.
Former White House aide'
Egil Krogh Jr. was In over
all charge of the "plumb-'
ers." Krogh, 33, presently
undersecretary of the De-
partment of Transportation,
suddenly took leave yester-
day from his post. He has{
refused to return a report-
er's daily telephone calls for'
the last five days.
On March 12, Time mag-
azine reported that the FBI
hat, tapped the telepones of
brews reporters, first with
the approval of Its late di.-
rector, J. Edgar Hoover, and
then by his successor, for-
mer acting FBI Director L.
Patrick Cray. However, dur.
ing the.Senate confirmation
hearings that led to the with.
drawal of Gray's nomination
to be permanent director of
the FBI, Gray testified that
he had no knowledge of
such taps by the FBI.
According to Time's ac-
count, the White House
asked Hoover to tap the tele-
phones of reporters and
White House officials sus-
pected of leaking informs-
tion about three years ago..
"Hoover balked, and de=
manded authorization from
John Mitchell, then U.S. At-
torney General," Time re-
ported. "Mitchell sanctioned
the surveillance . . . on
grounds of domestic secur-
ity, which sidestepped the
necessity of getting a court
order for each tap. The
-operation started with only
,one tap, but soon expanded
Ito Include surveillance of
six or seven 'reporters, plus
an undetermined number of .
White House aides."
"The wiretapping actually
helped keep Hoover on the'
job until hisi death last year.
," Time reported. "Richard
Klelndienst, then l deputy at-
torney general tried to force'
Hoover to step down, and in
1971 even gave his support to
a proposed congressional in-
vestigation of the FBI. En-
raged, Hoover indicated to
Kleindienst that if he was
called to testify on Capitol
Hill, he might disclose talc
wiretaps.",
The only wiretapping of
reporters and White House
aides known to The Post's
sources was conducted by
the vigilante squads of pro-
fessional wiretappers and ex.
CIA and ex-FBI agents-not
by the FBI. "They were out
of FBI channels," one source
stressed.
Asked about the Time
magazine report of FBI wire-
taps, Gray said at his con-
firmation -hearing:
"When I saw this particu*
lar article and checked the
records and indices of the
Federal Bureau of Investi-
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+`gation, and I am told also.
that the Department of.
Justice checked the records
of the Internal Security Dl-.
'vision of the Department of
Justice, and there Is no rec
ford of any such business,
:here of bugging news re-j
'porters and White House'
people."
Gray also testified: "If
these acts were committed,
certainly it Is a felony, no :
question about It certainly."
NEW YORK TIMES
29 April 1973
MRS. HUNT'S MONEY
SAID TO BE FOR MOTEL
CHICAGO, April 27 (UPI)-
An accountant related by mar-
riage to a Watergate conspira-
tor, E. Howart Hunt Jr., quoted
Mr. Hunt Friday as saying the
$10,000 his wife was carrying
the night she was killed in an
airline crash was to buy a Holi-
day Inn franchise.
The money was found In
Mrs. Hunt's purse In the wreck-
age of the United Air Lines jet
that crashed near Chicago's
Midway Airport last December.;
Harold C. Caristead of sub-
lurban ' Flossmoor, whose ' Wife
C was a cousin to Mrs. Hunt, said
e' had discussed the Holiday
Inn franchise with Mrs. Hunt.
Mr. Caristead, a certified. pub-
lic accountant with motel in-
vestments, added that the price
of the franchise when he talked
with her by phone was $10,000.
"By the time she was on her
away out to Chicago it had gone
up to $15,000," he said. Carl.
stead said a theory that Mrs.
Hunt wanted the franchise to
cover for secret income she re-
ceived during her husband's im'~
prisonmcnt was "ridiculous."
James W. McCord, another
Watergate defendant, reported.;
!"silence" a' Federal grand jury that'
Mrs. Hunt was the courier for
"silence" money paid to the'
seven, defendants by theCom.
mittee for the Re-election of the'
President.
BALTIMORE SUN
3 May 1973
. .
7oseph Kraft
We Still Await Full ' Watergate Story
I watched the President's
Watergate telecast with a
Republican senator who had
repeatedly proclaimed. that
full disclosure would vindi-
cate Mr. Nixon. At the end
of the speech, the senator
,called his press secretary to
say he would Issue no state-
merit.
"I feel," he said, "like
throwing up."
the reason for that feeling'
is-that Mr. Nixon has once;
more decided against full
disclosure on Watergate. In-
stead of telling it as it was,
he has set up an adversary
proceeding in which one'
group of former White House
aides, praised by Mr. Nixon,
will pit their stories against
the version of another group
whose reputations are now
being blackened by the
White House.
The best evidence of the
nondisclosure policy lies in
the recent events not men-
tioned by the President. For-
get all about the crossing of
the Watergate affair with the
Ellsberg case.
Say nothing of the ilisclo
sure by L. Patrick Gray, the
former acting head of the.
FBI, that he had burned
papers taken from the office
of men implicated in the
Watergate break-in and
given to him by John D. Ehr-
lichman and John W. Dean
3d of the White House staff.
Overlook the fact that Mr.
Dean had threatened, to, spill
the beans if he were made a
"scapegoat" for Watergate,
Think only of the behavior`
of John N. Mitchell, former,
attorney general. He had
.publicly acknowledged at-
tending high-level meetings,
at which the project for bug.'
the Democrats had been
discussed.. Having heard of
,the plans in advance, Mr?
Mitchell had to know ft at
WASHINGTON POST
26 April 1973
tNairobi Paper
,;Cites Watergate
was involved when the men
breaking into Watergate
,were apprehended June 17.
Since he was then serving
as head of the Committee for
the Re-election of the Presi-
tdent, it is hard to believe he
would not, have signaled
some kind of word to his
close friend in the White
House. '
But the President made nog
mention of that.semi,confes=
sion as though it were a
mere bagatelle - the kind of
thing a former attorney gen-
eral does every day of the,
week.
What Mr. Nixon said was
,almost as confusing as what
he left' unsaid. On the one
-hand,..- for example, he.
warmly praised the two top
White House aides whose
resignations were announced
on the day of the speech.
He called Mr. Ehrlichman
and H.R. (Bob) Haldeman,'
'the White House chief of
staff, "two of the finest pub-
'lic servants it has been my
privilege to know." '
At the Cabinet . meeting
next day, Mr. Nixon pounded
the table angrily and denounc-
ed as "a stupid act" the post-
ing of FBI men in'the offices
of Mr. Ehrlichman and Mr.
Haldeman.
In harsh contrast was the'
treatment accorded Mr.?
Dean . and Mi. Gray. Mr.
Dean was dropped without
any praise in a way that
made it seem clear he was
fired.
Mr: Gray was pulled back
from a resignation he was
about to offer April 26 so
Ronald L.' Ziegler, the White.
House press secretary, could
announce a resignation next
day with the kind of winks
and nudges and background
hints which suggested that
Mr. Gray had been fired. ..
.:.The contrast in treatment
coincides with different ver-
sions of Watergate. Mr.
NAIROBI, } enya, April
'25--The Watergate scan.
tdat is giving the United
'States a good name-at
;least In Nairobi.
Readers of the Nairobi
,Daily . Nation were told
,today: . c
Haldeman and Mr. Ehrlich-
man are insisting on their
own innocence and that of the
President. Hence, the White
House has an interest. in
making them seem credible
witnesses. . .
Mr. Dean and Mr. Gray,.
however, are telling stories
that implicate the highest
White House aides-hence,
Mr. Nixon's interest in,
blackening their reputations.'
In the end, I have no doubt
that a large part of the story
will come out. A grand jury
is sitting. There will be in-
dictments and a public trial.
'A Senate investigating com-
mittee' will air the whole
episode. The press is not
exactly inactive.
Moreover, a new attorney
general, Elliot L. Richard-
son, is looking into the whole
business. Mr. Richardson'
fancies.himself as President,
and he has shown in past.
service at the departments
of Defense and Health, Edu-
cation and Welfare a willing-
ness to front for Mr. Nixon's
dirty work.
But Mr. Richardson is also
a distinguished attorney with
a deep respect for our his-,
tory and our laws. He has
the authority to appoint a
special prosecutor. If he does
not appoint a special prose-
cutor, he will be under the,
strongest possible pressure
to do a thorough job.
So I doubt the President's
TV statement will do much
more than buy time before
..more of the full story
emerges.
The big question Is why
Mr.' Nixon uses so many
stratagems to muddy the
story and drag out its telling.
The answer that suggests
itself is what made the sena-
tor feel like throwing up. It
Js that Mr. Nixon himself
may, not have clean hands.'
"It Is going to be easy tb
say that a corrupt system
!`exists in the United
States. Yet ... Americans
have something to be
proud of.. They have a so.
ciety in which scandals in-
volving their chief execu.
tive are discussed In pub-
lic. How many other coun?
tries can boast the same
tradition7"
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NEW YORK TIMES
3 May 1973
ESTIGATORS
. G.O.P.
JDESPREAD
effort. J chief domestic adviser who- also
"The Republicans had pee le resigned Monday, along with
in all of the campaigns," one In. John N. Mitchell, former At-
kvestigator said, "but . not at torney General, conspired with
high levels. They had little at least three other officials, to
people nobody would suspect." I arranged a cover-up story to
They started playing tricks
with the avowed- goal of heavily
Influencing the nomination of
the Democratic candidate," he
added.
Intelligence operations are
commonplace in political cam-
paigns and usually include ef-
forts s to collect all published in-
formation about an opponent
along with occasional efforts to
obtain advance copies of
speeches, travel schedules and
the like.
The Justice Department's
fraud unit is known to be in-
vestigating the Republican es-
pionage activities for possible
violations of Federal law.
The prime espionage target
throughout late 1971 and in
early 1972, investigators said,
was Mr. Muskie, whose cam-
paign was repeatedly jarred by
Inexplicable incidents - such
as the disappearance of vital
polling dtea, the misrouting of
the candidate's personal plane,
and the anonymous "Canuck"
letter in the New Hampshire
primary that accused Mr. Mus-
kie of casting ethnic slurs oni
French-Canadians.
"We do have evidence that
there was infiltration of the
;~uskie campaign and that man
ocuments were stolen or pho-
tographed," one investigator
said.
He specfically cited a private
staff letter to Senator Muskie
callin on shim to stage hear-
72
kie canceled the proposed bers of the eventual Watergate
hearing, team, were assigned to the
In a private meeting with a, (,peration.
group of Republican congress- Hunt, a former agent for the
men a little more than a month Central Intelligence Agency, is
ago, Mr. Haldeman wrs re- known to have begun research-
ported to have acknow;edged bi ing the background of potential
ing personally responsible for Democratic Presidential candi-
?organizing a political intellig- dates and recruiting a number
Bence operation in 1972. He was of former colleagues and asso-l
quoted as saying, however, that ciates for his political opera-1
the project had involved no il- 'tion while working with the,
Iegal activities. "plumbers," so named because
The New York Times quoted their job was to stop leaks ofI
Goverment investigators today Information. Hunt coordinated,
as saying they had evidence his political activities with;
that Mr. Haldeman and John Charles W. Colson, a Whiter
into the full ramifications of
the Watergate break-in.
Mr. Mitchell issued the fol-
lowing denial today: "A tort'
appearing in today's New York
Times alleging that I conspired
with H. R. Haldeman, John
Ehrlichman and John Dean
[the former White House coun-
sel) to obstruct justice in the
Watergate case is absolutely
false and without factual foun-
dation."
Mr. Ehrlichman and Mr.
Haldeman, meanwhile, were
scheduled to testify tomorrow
before the Federal grand jury
investigating the Watergate.
preak-in and cover-up. Both
men have denied any wrong-
doing.
Investigators; cautioning that
their inquiry was far from com?
plete, provided the following
account of how the Reublican
espionage and sabotage operat-
ing developed:
Officials around ` the Presi-
dent, believed , to have been
led by Mr. Haldeman began
to become concerned about the
1972 elections in early 1971.
At some point, Mr. Haldeman`
decided that a well-planned and',
well-financed espionage cam-
paign was needed to insure the
ocrat candidate.
By that 'time, Hebert W.
Kalmbach, Mr. Nixon's personal
ings on a proposed tax bill In paign fund-raiser, was begin.
California because it would bet ning to collect cash that would
him "favorable publicity." later be set,aside for the es-
The letter, the investgator pionage operation.
said, was stolen by an espion-' In June, 1971, when The New
age agent and sent to an of. York Times began publishing
ficial In the Republican re. the secret Pentagon papers on
election - headquarters who the history of the Vietnam war,
then sent it on to a Washing- a White House group, called
ton columnist. When a column the "plumbers," was assigned
about the letter was published to discover who had made the
a few days later, the source papers available to the press.
said, an embarrassed Mr. Mus E. Howard Hunt Jr. and G. Gor-
House special counsel and its
chief political operative.
At the same time, Dwight L.
Chapin, a Haldeman protege
who was then Mr. Nixon's ap-
pointments .secretary, got in
touch with Mr. Kalmbach to,
arrange for payments to Donald
H. Segretti, a former college
classmate who was recruited to,
direct the espionage operation.
Over the next 10 months,
Mr. Segretti made more than
20 known contacts in his at-
tempt to recruit fellow inform-
ers and agents and established
a loosely organized network of
about 10 agents. Investigators
have determined that many of
those received substantial cash
payments from Mr. Kalmbach.
Others were apparently paid in
cash by Mr. Segretti.
By early 1972, both Liddy and
Hunt had been reassigned toi
the Republican re-election com-,
mittee, where they continued to'
recruit fellow saboteurs, along
with a string of informers and
obstructionists who were assign
ed specific campaign targets,
investigators said. One key op-
eration was in Florida, where
Miami-based anti-Castroltes be-
came involved In the state's pri-
mary. i
In early February, Hunt and
Liddy flew to Miami for a meet-
ing with Mr. Segretti that was
arranged by Gordon Strachan,
another Haldeman aide who
helped' direct the Segretti p-
erations in the field. ~
Mr. ' Haldeman, working'
through Mr. Strachan and Mr.
Chapin. directly controlled the
Segretti operation until the
Miami meeting. Afterward, Hunt
and Liddy both began to direct
more of Mr. Segretti's move-
ments, with Mr. Strachan re-
duced to a monitoring role.
The merging of the Hunt-1
Liddy operation with the Seg-
Iretti -Kalmbach - Chapin gropp,'
each with Its separate inform-
ers and agent provacateurs, was
considered an important step,
making the over-all operation
more manageable, investigators
said.
As the campaign picked up
steam in 1972. hundreds of per-.
sons were added to the re-elec-
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KDENOCRATIC NOMINEE IN Oil
4 which they discussed plans to
defeat Senator Muskie so as to'
increase the chance of Senator
McGovern, a South , Dakota
Democrat.
"Nonetheless," one source
,said, "there was' a definite
strategy worked out before the
election. They -tried to make
sure that the Democrats nomi.'
nated their weakest candidate."
In this context, the source
said, the bugging of the Demo-
cratic National Committee head
quarters in the Watergate com-
plex here in June, 1972. wasl
By SEYMOUR N. HERSH
BMW to The New York Tim $ WASHINGTON, May 2--43ovi
ernment Investigators say they,
now have evidence that Repub-j
lican sabotage and espionage!
efforts In the election cam-t
paign last year were far more!
widespread than was previous-'
ly known and were designed tot
help Senator George McGovern,
win the Democratic nominations
for President. I
Republicans viewed Senator;'
McGovern, the eventual nom=
Inee, as the weakest candidate
President Nikon could face, the
Investigators said. They added.
that there was no way of de=
termining how much ovdr.alf.
Impact the major Republican
intelligence effort, organized at
a cost not yet fully estimated,
had upon the 1972 primaries.
The Investigators said that
the espionage program, initially
authorized by H. R. Haldeman,
the White House chief of slaff,
who resigned Monday, Included
at its peak three network!, of.
agents controlled by the Write
House and the Committee for
the Re-election of the President.,
The Federal investigators
said they. had confirmed that
at least some allegations about
Republican disruption voiced
last year by Democratic candi-
dates were substantially cor-
rect.
These sources said, them is
now evidence that a Nixon
lsupporter was infiltrated Into,
the campaign offices of Senator,
Edmund S. Muskie, Democrat
of Maine, in early 1972. Once
there, he intercepted a variety
of confidential documents that
were subsequently leaked to
the press. ,
The basic Republican slxat-
egy was worked out in early
1971, investigators said, when'
Mr. Nixon was running behind
Senator Muskie in public
opinion polls. Tho Harris sur-
vey, for example, showed that
by early May, 1971, Mr. Muskle
had a 47-to-39 per cent lead
over the President, an Increase
of 3 percentage points In three
months.
The investigators emphasized
that there is no evidence thus
far that Republican leaders had
held a formal meeting at the
White House or elsewhere to
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tion committee staff and mas-
sive infiltration of other cam-
paigns began, using mostly the
young.
At least 30, and possibly 40,
paid informers were recruited
by March by the re-clectiol
campaign'and were assigned to
various Democratic headquar-
ters and offices. Their basic
target initially was Senator
'Muskie, but after his setbacks
In the early primaries the
youths were assigned to infil-
trate the campaigns of the
other Democrats believed to be
among the leading contender9
,for the nomination - Senator
Hubert H. Humphrey of. Min-
'tiesota and Henry M. Jackson
of Washington, investigators
said.
Aim Is Changed
The over-all ~oal of attacking
Senator Muskie was quickly re
Vlsed; instead' the new aim
would he to do as much dam.
go as possible to the other
leading candidates so as to im-
prove the position of Mr. Mc-1
The Times's sources said the,
Republicans believed that their
biggest triumph came in the
'Florida primary In . March,
'vhich was won by Gov. George
C. Wallace of Alabama.
' A few days before the elec-
tion, a flyer was distributed
.throughout the state on Muskie
stationery accusing both Sena-
tor Humphrey ,. and Senator
Jpckson of illicit sexual activi
ti'aced-to'the re-election effort,.
,the sources said, although that;
aspect of the. inquiry is still
(going on. ~.. i ? I
WASHINGTON .POST
4 May 1973
Poll Says Halt of People Believe
Nixon Helped hover up Water lyate,
. Half of those interviewed
In a special Gallup Poll said
they believe that President
Nixon participated in ? a
,"cover-up" of the Watergate
affair.
ti Four out of 10 said they-
thought Mr. Nixon knew in
advance about the bugging
tof the Watergate last June.
,The same percentage did "No," and 15 per cent said
not heliev that he told the they had no opinion..
"whole truth" in his address., i In answer to another
to the nation Monday night, question, 40 per cent said
A large majority-74 per they thought Mr. Nixon.
cent-said they think that knew In advance about the
(someone outside the Nixon Watergate bugging. Forty
Administration should be ap- seven per cent, said they did
pointed to head the Water- not think so, and 13 per cent
gate investigation. had no opinion.
! , The special survey con. Asked if, they felt the
sisted of telephone inter- President "told the whole
views with 456 persons Wed- truth" in his speech, 30 per
nesday night. A normal Gal- cent said "Yes," 40 per cent
lop -Poll consists of about said "No," and 15 per cent
1,600, personal . interviews. had no opinion or were not
,Thee shorter, telephone poll aware of the Nixon speech.
,'was undertakeii. iq an at- Fifty-eight per cent said
NEW YORK TIMES
3 May 1973
F.R.I. MEN WARNED
AGAINST DISCLOSURE
apeclsi to The New York Times '
WASHINGTON, May 2-
William D. Ruckelshaus, act-
ing director of the Federal Bu=
reau of Investigation, warted
the agents in charge of 59 field
offices today against disclosing
F.B.I. investigative information
on the Watergate case to the
mass media.
Mr. Ruckelshaus, who took
over as acting director after
,L, Patrick Gray 3d resigned on
Friday, summoned the agents
NEW YORK TIMES to bureau headquarters here tot
2 May 1973 review with them his role and
they believed there is little
difference between t h e
Nixon administration and
previous administrations in
the extent of corruption.
Twenty-nine per cent
thought there was more cor-
ruption in the Nixon admin-
istration, and 8 per cent
thought there was less. Five
per cent had no opinion.
A majority Indicated that
the Watergate affair had re-
duced to some degree their
confidence in the federal
government. Thirty-seven
per cent said their confi-
dence had been reduced
"somewhat" and 21 per cent
said their confidence had
been reduced "a great deal."
Another 37 'per cent said
their confidence had not
been reduced at all, and 5
percent had no opinion.
Three-fourths favored ap-
pointment of an outside in-
vestigator.
the current job of the 'F.B.I.
He cautioned the, agents to
be "extraordinarily careful" to
protect the confidentiality of
F.B.I. sources to avoid damag=
Ing the reputation of innocent
,persons and jeopardizing the
)ultimate prosecution 'of those
who are guilty. ,
In his half-hour session with
'the agents, Mr. Ruckelshaus re-
!assured them that he believed
that someone who has "a broad
background in la w enforce-
ment" should be named perma-
nent F.B.I. director. Senior by-
reau officials sent a telegram
to the White House Monday
urging that the new director
be selected from . within ' the
bureau. '
Ziegler Apologizes to ashingtoni Post 6n ,Watergate-
Special to The Now York Timis the Watergate case first broke. York to address the Society of
WASHINGTON,, ,May 1 "J. was overenthusiastic." the Silurians.
Ronald L. Ziegler, the White His comments about The Following is a transcript of
House press secreary, apolo- Post, the press secretary con- Mr. Ziegler's exchange with
gized to The Washington Post tinued, were "an overstatement reporterg about The Post:
today for his earlier criticisms . . particularly if you look at ' Q. Ron,' a question in view
of the newspaper's coverage it in theh context of develop- of the President's comments
of ' the Watergate case. ments that have taken place." when he came out and said a
? Mr. Ziegler's apology to The He said that Mr.' Bernstein'and few words to the press last
!Post and to its investigative Mr. Woodward had vigorously evening. Are you ready to
reporters, Bob Woodward and pursued the story, and deserved apologize to The Washington
Carl Bernstein. who have made the credit they were receiving. Post for your comments of
ka number', of important dis- "When we're wrong, we're last October?
(closures about the Watergate wrong," Mr. Ziegler concluded, Mr. Ziegler:, I don't have
(case, came in response to a."and I would have to say I the problem of the press,
lgticst!on: was in that case and other giving me hell because that
Several times in the last two cases." happens on a relatively fre-
'weeks. Mr. Ziegler had refused in New York. Mrs. Katharine quent basis. I think we would
'o apologize when asked sim- Graham, publisher of The Post, all have to say, and I would
ilar stiestions about his state- said today she accepted the be. I think, remiss if I did not
the developments that have
taken place.
A press secretary, In this
job, has to attempt to reflect
the Presidency and the White
House. He also finds himself
speaking on his own from
time to time, as I was doing
on that occasion. It was an
overstatement, I believe.
In thinking of it at this
points in time, yes, I would
apoligize to The Post, and I
would - apologize to Mr.
Woodward and Mr. Bernstein.
Now, having said that, I
don't want to say that I
agree with everything they
write, and everything they
have written. I think that
would he a mistake, too. But
ments last October accusing apology by Mr. Ziegler. say that mistakes were made they have vigrously pursued
The Post and fits reporters of ' "We appreciate it and accept during this period in terms this story and they deserve
"shabby iournalism" and "a it with pleasure." Mrs. Graham of comments that were made, the credit and are receiving
blatant effort at character as- said, adding that "the Admin- perhaps. I would say that I the credit for it.
sassination." Istration was trying to under- was overenthusiastic at the When we're wrong, we're
"Mistakes were made during mine the credibility of the press time in my comments about wrong, and I would have to
1this period." 1r. Ziegler said for the last 10 months." The Post. particularly If you say I was in that case and
:'day of the Appim iadSFtO Ri9lIeaW&a2Q61L/Q :NDIA-i B 7t; 0164t32ROO0rtOO150001-- ,the judge in the Pentagon papers trial ordered today Ithat the grand jury testimony
'. Howard Hunt Jr. gave yes-
terday in the Watergate case
be turned over to him imrle-
diatety.
. Hunt reportedly that
he and G testified. Gordon Liddy, con-
victed in the burglary at na-
tional Democratic headquarters
last June, personally took part
In the break-in at the office of
Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist
the night of Sept. 3-4, 1971.
in Washington, Federal Dis-
trict Judge John J. Sirlca or-
dered that 37 pages of testl? many by sent to Fed-
eral District Judge William
Matthew Byrne Jr., who y Y Hunt be Is pre-
siding at the trial hero of Dr.
Elisberg and Anthony J. Russo
Jr.
Judge Byrne reiterated today ,
with fl some anger, that "the
burden is on the Government"
to prove that neither the Jus-
tice Department nor the White
i,Houso nor the Watergate cony
spirators had Interfered with
the constitutional rights of Dr.
Elisberg and Mr.. Russo and
6therefore "tainted" -this case.1
The two are charged with six
counts of theft and one of
'conspiracy stemming from the
disclosure of the secret Penta-
:on study of the Vietnam war.
In another development,
Judge Byrne disclosed that a
number of former high-ranking
Government officials had re-
fused to be interviewed by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
in the court-ordered inquiry in
'to the link between th . Water-
gate affair and the Pentagon
papers , trial. He . declined
to give their names to the de-
fense at this time, saying he
would if he decided to hold a
court hearing on the matter.
But he did turn over to the
defense a statement by Earl J.
Silbert, the Watergate prosecu-
tor, in which Mr. Silbert de-
Iciined d to make public the flame
of the person who told hirt on
April 15 that Hunt and Liddy
shad broken Into the psy,:hia-
trist's office.
He also turned over an F.B.I.
interview, conducted on April
30 in Phoenix, Ariz., with Rob-
ert C. Mardian, former Assistant
Attorney General, In which Mr.
Mardian said that. In his own
Words, "At no time while I was
Assistant Attorney General of
the United States did I acquire
any knowledge of the al' aged
burglary by Liddy or Hunt or
anyone else.
He did say, however, that hei
'did have knowledge acg4ired
He also said that he had re-
ceived in his chambers'an in
~ventory of Hunt's former White
House office, and that from the
looks of the Inventory there
would be more information to
be turned over to the defend-
ants when the Hunt material
arrives.
He mentioned, for example, a
"legal-size folder marked time
and pay records" and said he
would probably turn that over
to the defense presumably be-
cause it will show where 'Hunt
land Liddy were each day and
chow much they were paid for
;their services.
Judge Byrne told the prose-
cutor, David R. Nissen,.that he
did not know what "other in-
-vestigations were going on in
the Federal system or the
country system."
"When` I order the turnover,"
,he said, "it's up to the Govern-
ment to determine what effect
([the material] has on this and
'other cases."
The implication was that the
Government should perhaps
bring In other criminal cases as
-a result of the Information
gathered in this investigation.
As an example, the judge
said he wanted to know about
a voucher found in Hunt's of-
fice for payment for three men
to spend the night of Sept. 13,
1971, in a Los Angeles hotel.
The Inventory list also show-
ed that Hunt had "one tad
folder marked 'ELLSBERG'"
containing the following ma-
terial:
"Three typewritten copies, oni
legal size white paper of a 28~
page document reporting a
chronology of ELLSBERG' from?
birth, April 7, 1931, through
Nov. 12, 1971, insofar as it
relates to the Pentagon pa-
pers.
"
'The Inventory list says that
page 26 of the document shows
that Dr. Elisberg occupied a
room in the Bel Air, an ex-
pensive hotel here from ' Dec.
30, 1970, to Jan. 4, 1971, and
that during that period he made
a telephone call from his room
to Dr. Lewis J. Fielding, 'the
psychiatrist whose office was
broken Into. ?'.
According to the Ellsberg
file, Dr. Elisberg twice saw a
Cambridge, Mass., psychiatrist
-once on Jan. 29, 1971, and
once on Feb. 2, 1971. Dr. Ells,
berg had previously denied
ever seeing a psychiatrist In
Cambridge.
Further, the inventory list
shows that during the period
of Sept. 'I through . Sept 6,
1971, Hunt billed the White
House for work of eight hours
a day; but the list does not
show where the work took
place. It also shows that' the
former White House counsel,
Charles. W. Colson, authorized
payment fo Hunt on Sept. 13,
1971.
While all this was going on
in the courtroom, before the,
jury was called in to hear fur-1
.ther testimony, the Los Angeles
,County district attorney, Jo-I
seph P. Busch, announced that
he was conducting an investi-
igation into the break-in at the
psychiatrist's office.
He said that he had already
flown to Washington .to discuss
the inquiry with Henry E.
Petersen, Assistant Attorney
'General, and that "we will au-
dit the Federal Court to receive
Immediately all data" released
by Judge Byrne,
There were these further d6-
velopments in the case today:
9The defense read in open
court an article in The Wash-
ington Post saying that Presi
dent Nixon had been consulted
before the report of the break
In at Dr. Ellsberg's psychiat-
rist's was turned over to the
judge, and that Attorney Gen-
eral Richard G. Kleindienst
made the decision to consult
the . President had to be
consulted,'the article said there
was a 1;-day delay between
'the time the Justice Depart-
ment admitted to learning of
the break-in until it was fl-'
nally reported to the judge. ' ,
9Another Post article was
read saying that Hunt and Lid-
dy supervised the wiretapping
of at least two New York
Times reporters in 1971 as part
of their investigation of the
publication of the Pentagon
papers, and that this wiretap-
ping had been authorized by
John N. Mitchell, then Attorney.
General. `
9The defense said that Hunt
and Liddy were part of what
was called an ex-office "vigi-
lante" team, operating from the
White House, that was put to-
gether to conduct wiretapping
operations that the F.B.I. ap-
parently declined to carry out.
9Asked about rumors that
legal papers were being drawn
up to drop the prosecution of
Dr; Ellsberg, Mr. Petersen said
in Washington that the reports
wefe untrue, "based ' on
information available. to the
Department of Justice at this
time, the case is clean and un-
tainted, he said.
Ex-Rand Head Questioned
Once the jury was called
pack into court today, the
.cross-examination of Harry Ro-
,wen, former president of the
Rand Corporation, was con-
tinued by the defense.
Mr. Rowen said that the set
of the Pentagon papers that
Mr. Ellsherg and Mr. Russo are
accused of Xeroxing were not
logged into the Rand Corpora-
tion's top secret control sys-
tem until Dec. 31, 1970, long
after it arrived at Rand, from
where Dr. Ellsberg Is accused'
of stealing it.
This would tend to prove Dr.
Ellsberg's contention that the
papers had been given special
treatment at Rand and that he
had been given special access
Ito them.
Mr. Rowen also said that It
was unusual to transport top
secret documents from Rand'a
Washington office to its Santa
1Monica office by the armed
forces courier team, but that
the Pentagon papers had been
transferred by Dr. Ellsberg on a
special courier pass., This, too,
1would tend to prove the de-
fendants' contention that Rand
purposely got the papers out of
ttst own system.
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP77-00432R000100150001-0
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP77-00432R000100150001-0
WASHINGTON STAR
1 May 1973
By JAMES R POLK
? Stor?Newo Stall Writer
Convicted Watergate spy E.:
Howard Hunt billed the White;
House for a consultant's feel
for the day of the break-in ati
the Beverly Hills, Calif., of-
ficC of Daniel Ellsberg's psy-l
chiatrist . i
A source close to the Water-
gate case said the U.S. attor-
Heys here have time-and-pay;
records (or Hunt showing that
he was paid by the White
House for four hours work on
Sept. 3, 1971. That was the
date of the burglary at the of-
fice of Dr. Lewis Fielding,
who was treating Ellsberg,
now on trial for disclosing the
? Pentagon Papers.
Watergate prosecutors, col-
!ecting evidence on the Call-
fornia break-in, now have air-
line tickets showing Hunt and
co-conspirator G. Gordon
Liddy were in Los Angeles at
the time. They used assumed'
names of "Hamilton" and
"Larimer" when they flew'
back the next day.
ELLSBERG'S trial In Los,
Angeles was rocked last Fri-
.day by the disclosure the Jus-'
tice Department has informs
,lion that Hunt and Liddv
NEW YORK TIMES
3 May 1973
broke into a psychiatrist's of-
fice to obtain Ellsberg's treat-
ment records.
Hunt's time-and-pay rec-.
ords show that he submitted'
bills to, the White House for.,
work on Sept. 2, 3 and 4 in.
1971.
At that time, Hunt and Lid-
dy were both among the so-
called "plumbers"* in 66
White House assigned to trace
the Pentagon Papers leak,;
Liddy was a full-time em-
ploye, Hunt a $100-a-day con-
sultant.
U. S. District Judge Mat-,
thew Byrne Jr. demanded the
government find out whether,
this did indeed happen and, if
so, for whom Hunt and Liddy
were working
The Hunt payments were;
routinely approved by former
White House political aide:
Charles E. Colson, who re
signed this year to become ai
Washington lawyer..
Colson, who had hired Hunt
for the White House job earli-,
er in 1971, signed all of his
Consultant billings as a nor-,
mal bookkeeping procedure.
Beverly Hills Police Chief
B L. Cork said the break-in at
Fielding's office was reported
? i lsberg Judge. Confir s
. on Sept 4, 1971 and apparent-
ly had happened the previous
night
Airline tickets show Hunt
and Liddy, posing as
"Hamilton" and "Larimer,"
took a flight back from Los
Angeles to New York on Sept
4.
At one stage of the Water-
gate trial, the prosecution had
planned to call an American
Airlines stewardess on that
flight to testify that Hunt and
,Liddy were traveling together
under aliases then. However,
the prosecution changed its
plans after Hunt pleaded
guilty
THE STEWARDESS, who
asked that her name not be
used, told The Star-News that
Hunt struck up a conversation
with her and later sent her a
book as a gift She said Hunt.
wrote the accompanying let-,
ter on White House stationer
y, signing it as "Hamilton." -?
The White House time-and
pay records show Hunt turned:
in a slip for four hours of work
on Thursday, Sept 2; another
four hours on the day of the
break-in, and'two hours on'
Sept, 4 when he was leaving.
Los Angeles. '
Presumably, at his hourly
',`2 . Talks With hrliciliman
1 ? I
By MARTIN ARNOLD
Speolel to The New York Time;
1 LOS ANGELES, May 2-The In another interviews, H. R.
judge In the Pentagon papers Haldeman is reported to have
trial confirmed today that told the F.B.I. that he knew
twice during this trial he met nothing about the White House
directly with Jhon D. Ehrlich- investigation of this case. Bruce
man to discuss the possibility Kehrli, a staff secretary to the
of becoming director of the President, also denied to the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. F.B.I. tha the knew anything
The defense said it would about the Investigation.
use this latest disclosure to Mr. Ehrlichman, however, re-
move again for an "Immediate portedly told the F.B.I. yester-
dismissal" of the charges day that on his orders David
against Daniel Ellsberg and Young, a member of the Na-
Anthony J. Russo Jr. tional Security Council staff,
In another development, and Egil Krogh, of the White
United States District Court House staff, headed the in.
Judge William Matthew Byrne quiry that led to the break-in
Jr. Also turned over to the de- at the office of Dr. Ellsberg'a
fense more F.B.I. reports of in. psychiatrist by G. Gordon Liddy
terviews with former high offi. and E. Howard Hunt Jr., two
cials of the Nixon Administra- convicted Watergate conspira?
tion. I tors.
One of them was a second in. Mr. Young resigned today.
terview-conducted yesterday- and Mr. Krogh took a leave fro
with Mr. Ehrlichman in which the position he has held dur-
he reportedly said that he had lag the second Nixon Adminis-
inothing to do with the special tration as Under Secretary of
,White House investigation of Transportation.
this case for more than a year,, Mr. Ehrlichman reportedly
told the F.B.I. that he had as-
,but that the Inquiry was con-1
d th
lt
f th
s
i
s o
e
nve
e resu
ducted by two of his aides. sum e
- _~ttrr
I
Appr ~iotr-R~dt1t 6QQ01t A)S/07wal
27
consulting rate, he would
have been paid a total of only
$;125.
Chief Cork said Beverly
Hills police files show two
break-ins reported Sept. 4 for
Dr. Fielding's office and a
physician's office in the same
building
"There was nothing taken
out of either one," he said.
Cork said police later
picked up a suspect in a purse
-theft and, when they showed
him the two reports, the sus-
pect said he broke in search-
ing for narcotics. No charges
were filed, however, and the
'suspect was prosecuted for
parole violation on the purse
theft, Cork said.
`'It was possibly that there
were two separate break-ins
that weekend," Cork said. He
noted the physician's office is
on the first floor and Dr.
Fielding's is on the second
floor of the business building
Defense attorneys said that
a cleaning woman may have
seen Liddy and Hunt in the
psychiatrist's office taking
photographs,
Dr. Fielding could not be
reached for comment yester.
day.
testimony, he said that ho *lSad
..met with Mr. Ehrlichman, first,
on April 5 in San Clemente,
Calif.; and then again two days
psychiatric profile of Ellsberg"
- were still in the White House
offices of Mr. Young and Mr.
Krogh, that he himself had not
I been involved in the investiga-
tion for more than a year, and
that he had collected a news-
lpaper clipping file on the case
.that was turned over to "the
President's files" and is now
apparently in the "archives."
The President's former top
adviser for domestic affairs re=
portedly admitted in the F.BI.
interview that he had seen pre-
.vious bureau investigative re-
,ports on Dr. l;ilsberg's wife,
Patricia, and on Neil Sheehan,
The New York Times reporter
who first disclosed the Penta-
gon papers on June 13, 1971,
? in The Times.
There were several other de-
velopments:
(Budge Byrne castigated the
Government for the slowness
with which it is conducting the
investigation that he has' or-
dered into the Watergate-Penta-
gon papers link.
9The judge also asked the
:'defense to submit by tomorrow
'legal precedents and citations
for both a mistrial and 'a dis-
rmissal-to be added to the mo-
tion the defense filed yesterday
for a dismissal.
Undoubtedly a key disclosure
.today was the one .made by
-the judge of his meetings with
later in Santa Monica.
The judge said'
ed at the secom
meeting, "that I would not con-
sider nor I would not in any
way discuss the position of di-
rector of the F.B.I. while this
case was pending." He did not
say that the job was either
directly offered to him or di-
rectly declined by him.
The judge also said, In an-
swer to a question from Leo-
nard 1. Weinglass, a defense
counsel, that on April Fool's
Day he attended a dinner party
at the home of Paul Ziffrin, a
Democratic ~ National Commit-
teeman from California, at
which Henry A. Kissinger, a
Nixon aide, was' also a guest,
along with "about 100 people."
He did not discuss the case nor
a possible Federal job with Mr.
Kissinger, the judge said.
Outside of court, Mr. Wein-
glass raised the question of a
"second meeting with Mr. Erh-
lichman, who evidcntally know
that he was to be involved in
this case."
"We now have apparently a
meeting by an official of the
White House, an adviser to the
President who evidently knew
that his name was a bout to be
implicated In this case, meet-
ing with the presiding judge of~
ffering him a vry10 v errunent positioon, . .
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP77-00432R000100150001-0
d then following the meeting
,up with a second meeting," Mr.
Winglass said.
Weinglass Reaction
"The judge evidently said :'ae
discouraged any discussion the
first time," Mr. Weinglass said.
"But the judge then physically
went to a second meeting." On
Monday the Judge said that the
met with Mr. Ehrlichman once
About "another assignment" in
'the Government and that they
,were In contact a second time.
He did not at that time men-
tion the F.B.I. and he left it
vague as to whether the sec-
ond occasion was a meethng
or a telephone conversation.'-:
During that first meeting he
was Introduced to the Presi-
dent; he said on Monda .
"Even if he [the judge( was
all the time refusing to talk
to them until the trial was
over, that's (the meetings)
enough of a taint of this case
to end the trial," Mr. Wein-
glass said, adding that ? if a
member of the defense staff
had made similar gestures td
the judge "we would all
In flail,"
If this 'case cannot be dis-
missed with these facts now,
then I don't know what the
law books mean when they
talk about the possibility of a
taint of the trial, 'of a ~compro-
anise of a' judge, of undermin-
ing the public's confidence that
the judge that is trying a'case''.
did not have contact with either
side," he went on, "There's nev-
er been a case 'where the ex-
tent of the contact and the de-
liberateness of the contact from
the White House has risen to
the risen to the level we now
have, in this trial."'
Mr. Weinglass said that when
the judge asked today for legal
precedents for. a ;mistrial or a
dismissal, "he is asking us if it
ever happened before in the his-
tory .of America, that the judge
has met with a, representative
of the White House who is im-
plicated in the trial"
`Never Happened Before'
"My answer to the judge is
that we have no [legal] authori-
ties; it's never happened before.
There are no cases. This. is the
first one,", the defense attorney
said.. f
Ile was' asking,. he said, for
an immediate dismissal, and
then for a hearing "if the,gov.
ernment received evidence by
breaking" Into the office of Dr.
Ellsberg's-doctor. ,,..,..
soviets Silent do Bugging'
Case
The Watergate affair. Illustrates, In
Soviet eyes, many of the things the
Moscow press has said about Ameri-
can politics - and it has said plenty.
,Moscow newspapers have described
'.American clectiolis as taking place "in
an atmosphere of bribery and corrup-
tion, blackmail and violence," as well
as "police terror."
The Mafia and Tammany Hall have.
been linked by the 'Soviet press with
the Rockefeller millions and with the
military-industrial complex to present
to Russian readers a thoroughly cor-
rupt system In which the meanest and
.most despicable tricks are habitually
,used to win elections.
But that was before the age of Nixon
summitry. The remarkable thing about
the Watergate affair itself Is that It
gets hardly any attention in the Soviet
press.
The official Soviet news agency Tass
made only one reference to it in the
crowded weeks before Mr. Nixon's ac-
knowledgement of White House In-
volvement. Even this was only a pass.
ing mention, In a two-paragraph report
t on the withdrawal of L. Patrick Gray's
nomination as FBI Director.
Tass still has not mentioned Mr.
Nixon's statement of last Tuesday nor
any of thg subsequent Watergate de-
velopments.
The Soviet press was obviously o1_
dered to say nothing that might dis-
turb Mr. Nixon or.- the new spirit of
concord between Moscow and Wash-
ington. But while the Kremlin can cen-
sor the press, it could hardly afford to
deprive itself of informed comment on
the political significance of the affair.
The Soviet ambassador in Washing-
ton is sure to have sent home an analy-
sis of the foreign policy implications of
the \Vaiergate affair, as every other
ambassador in Washington must have
done. This is what they are here for.
Embassy analysts In Washington
would probably conclude that it may
be some time before all White House
staff members are cleared of any con-
nection with the Watergate. They
would note that this administration
has come to rely increasingly on a few
ley members of the White House staff
In getting its policies carried out.
The would argue that men who
.-have been touched by the breath of
scandal, even remotely or innocently,
will find it difficult to influence Con-
gress or the bureaucracy, both of
which have been offering increasing
resistance to White House innovations.
The economy is in deep trouble. In Vi-
etnam, "peace with honor" appears to
be'crumbling. And now Watergate.
This analysis would lead foreign ob-
servers td conclude that the Nikon ad-
ministration will be looking for some
quick and impressive successes in for.
eign policy, to be crowned by the visit
which Soviet party secretary :Leonid
Brezhnev is to make to Washington in
,June. Could this he used to divert pub.
lic , attention from the domestic
malaise? Summits make good televi-
sion. International agreements make a
good presidential image. Everybody is
In favor of. peace.
But at what price? Moscow could
'reason that Mr..Nixon, in ,his hour of
need, may be more susceptible to pres-
sure on the whole range of issues now
tinder negotiation between the ? Krem-
lin and the White House-from the
Alideast to strategic arms limitation,
from trade to the emigration of Soviet
Jews.
The Kremlin hardliners always took
a dim view of the concessions Brezh-
nev made to Nixon to save'last year's
Moscow summit. In their view, the
bombing and mining of North Vietnam
on the very eve of the summit was a
slap in the face-and they were forced
to turn the other cheek. They would
now press Brezhnev to exact his re-
venge, and to collect: a high price for
the return visit to Washington-or to
call it off.
Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambas-
sador in Washington, would certainly
assess all the opportunities for diplo-
matic gain in his dispatch to Moscow,
about the Watergate affair. But if Do-
brynin is really as wise as Henry Isis:'
singer believes, he would also warn hiss
Kremlin masters against pushing Mr..
Nixon into a corner.
He would tell them that this admin-
istration has still 3'fz years to go and'
that, whatever happens in domestic po
litics, the President retains cot sidern,
ble powers in the foreign policy field.
He would remind the Kremlin that last
year Mr. Nixon rescued Brezhnev from,
a major domestic crisis with a huge
shipment of grain, at some political
cost to himself. He might point out
that the Kremlin now had the opportu-
nity to reciprocate-and to earn much
credit for the future-so long as the'
hardliners did not push for a quick
profit.
Since last year's pre-summit deal-
ings, the White House and the Kremlin,
have been helping each other not only'
to carry out the grand design for a
"generation of peace," but also to keep'
their respective enemies at hay. These
arrangements were worked out largely,
between Kissinger and Dobrynin, often
in the face of opposition from some of
the other forces close to the centers of
power in both countries.
The two master diplomats will, no:
doubt, try to preserve the grand design
from too much damage. They deserve
to succeed, but the blind forces of'poli-
ticas do not always support deserving;
causes.
they were to perform, I wart;
'that material."'
The judge 'said that he hat'
"received nothing of the fruits
of the investigation" conductet
by Liddy and Hunt, nor did ht
receive the results of and
"other improper acts per.
formed" by the Government.
Judge Byrne said he was stil
waiting, for Instance, for tht
inventory of Hunt's safe at tht
white house.
Mr. Nissen said that what
the judge was ordering wai
,,not a matter of snapping
.fingers" and getting the investi
gation completed.
"It's a matter of time," tht
Judge retorted. "If at the time
the evidence in this case It,
completed-I'm left with sit
facts, I'm going to have to do
side what steps have to bi
taken. I don't want to have t1
wait until all the evidene'
After this exchange, Harr,
Rowen, former president of thi
Rand Corporation, continues
his testimony as a Governmen
rebuttal witness before the jury
< Dr. Ellsberg and Mr, Russt
are charged with six counts
of espionage, six counts of thef
and one count of conspiracy,
WASHINGTON POST"
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In 'Washington, 'the 'Whitt
House was asked to comment
on the' propriety of the offer'
to Judge . Byrne. Ronald L.
Ziegler, the White House press
,secretary, said he could not
comment on matters before the
,court, a stand' he has taken
previously.
Meanwhile, the investigation
into that. incident and other
Government operations~? in in-
vestigating this case was mov-
'In# much too slowly, the judge
said in court.
,. Before the turnover of the
new. Ehrlichman material to-
day, David R..Nissen, the chief
prosecutor, turned over as part
of the court-ordered investiba-
tion a copy of an article in the
Los Angeles, Times in which
Dr. Ellsberg, refused to name
his psychiatrist.
--Leonard B. Boudin, a defense
attorney,' told: the judge that
this turnover "was a parody of
an investigation."
Judge Byrne then said, 'Mr.
Nissen, 'as to the investigation
Mr. Nissen, I want [all the]
material that the Government
now has, id its`-possession; what
Was told to Liddy and Hunt;
If t there Was an investigation'
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WASHINGTON POST
25 April 1973
sed to Lau
ar Tactics
By Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein - ,
washlntton Post Staff Writers
President Nixon's re-election committee conducted a.'?
campaign last May to give a distorted view of the Ameri-
can public's response to the mining of Haiphong harbor,;'.
lit has been learned.
I The campaign included paying for telegrams to be sent
to the White House and the placing of a deceptive,'appar-i
,ently illegal, $4,400 ad in the New York Times on May 17.
On May 10, White House Press Secretary Ronald L."
The ad in the New York'
Times, entitled "The People
vs. The New York Times,"
,criticized a Times editorial
,-opposing the mining. The ad
,was signed by 10 people and
gave the appearance of rep-
resenting citizen support of
the President's controversial
'decision.
Phillip Joanou, the former
executive vice president of
'the November Group, which
handled the ?Nixod commit-
?tee's advertising, said yes-
;.terday that the ad was paid
'for with 44 $100 bills sent
.from the Nixon committee
'in Washington. '
The Times editorial, had
termed the President's ac-'
tion in mining the harbors
'as "counter to the will and
conscience of a large seg-
:ment of the_ American pea
.Ple." The advertisement,
covering nearly half a page,
.cited polls showing that any-
where from 59 to 78 per cent'
of the people supported the
President.
; "Who can you believe
,The New York Times or the,
American
eo
le?" the ad
p
p
-
Ziogler"said that telegrams, letters and telephone calls;, yertisement asked.
were running 5 or.6 to 1 in support of the President's ac-' Joanou said yesterday
Lion and cited them as an indication of "substantial sup " that the November Group,
which was set up exclusively
port" of the mining in Congress and among voters. to handle Nixon advertising,
One former Nixon campaign official said yesterday that spent more than $6 million
the Committee for the Re-election of the President was' 'for ads during the 1972 pres-
idential campaign.
"totally mobilized for the biggest piece of deception-we ~ "But The New York Times:
never do anything honestly. Imagine, the President send-. ;ad is the only one I can re-'
,Ing himself telegrams, patting himself on the back." ,call, in which we made it'
Another former Nixon campaign official told' a reporter `look like a citizens' effort,'11
Joanou said.
'yesterday that the Haiphong mining campaign "put the i , Asked for comment yes-I 11
entire staff in overdrive for two weeks . . . the work in. 'terday,DeVan L. Shumway,'
eluded petition drives, organizing rallies, bringing people, a spokesman for the Nixon
in buses to Washington, organizing calls to the White, committee said: "There was
House, getting voters to call their congressmen." a campaign to organize sup-
port, not to deceive. From,
"We felt the Haiphong decision could make or break what I knew it was a legiti-
the President," the official said. ;mate effort, and the polls
Apparently among the participants in the drive were at' show that a majority of the
least two of the Watergate conspirators, Frank Sturgis people supported the Presi-
and, Bernard Barker. The two men, according to sources dent.
g On ,fan. 29? 1073, at the
In Miami, showed up uninvited at a Cuban exile meeting 'Watergate trial, Robert C:
In May and attempted to take over plans for organizing a Odle, the administrative offi-
demonstration there in support of the mining. Sturgis cer of the Nixon re-election
later told a Washington Post reporter that he drove the committee, testified that the
plead truck In a convoy that participated in the demonstra- !committee had undertaken to
'tion. promote public support for
At least $8,400 In cash campaign funds, mostly in $100 the Haiphong mining deci-
,bills, was spent on the drive, The Washington Post has sion. He was not asked fol
learned. This. expenditure has not been reported to the low-up questions on details!
of how the drive was con
General Accounting Office as required by law. ducted.
Government sources said yesterday that the GAO is ex- The cash' fund that fir
pected to release a report this week citing the re-election nanced the Haiphong cam-
committee's failure to disclose these expenses as an appar- paign also supplied approxi=
ent violation of the law. (The GAQ, the Investigative arm mately $750 that was paid
of Congress, forwards its findings to the. Justice Depart- to Theodore Brill, the head
ment where a decision on whether to prosecute is made.) of the Republican organiza-
The expenditures were authorized by Jeb Stuart Ma- tion at George Washington
gruder, who was deputy Nixon campaign manager under University. Brill received
the money to disrupt and
John N. Mitchell at the time, according to government spy on antiwar demonstra-
sources. Magruder reportedly has told prosecutors that he, tors camping in front of the
along with former Attorney. General Mitchell and press-' White House last year, ac-
dehtial counsel John W. Dean Ili, had approved the bug- cording to reliable sources.
ging of the Democrats' Watergate headquarters. This fund consisted of
Last October, The Washington Post reported that the ' about $13,000, the sources
'Watergate bugging was only one incident in a campaign :aid, and about $3,300 of it
of political sabotage and undercover activities conceived was given convicted
in the White House that included the placement of de- Watergate conspirator G.
Gordon Liddy for other ex-
ceptive and misleading advertisements and bogus polit- pionage activities.
fial special counsel Charles
cal
-
o- me $13000 came from a ?h0 organized
Approved For Release 2001/2 /07chASIA>RClRa~7ft9>i UIt 0011 1 ~e~s committee"
Watergate bugging and had that placed them.
Nixon Fund
a fluctuating balance of
$350,000 to $700,000. The
original cash fund was kept
'in the office safe of former
Commerce Secretary Maur-
Ice H. Stans, the chief Nix-
on fund-raiser.
President Nixon's May 8,
1972, order to mine the en-
trance to North Vietnam's
.harbors was regarded at the
time as the riskiest interna-
tional action he ever took in
the Vietnamese war. It was
a direct challenge to Soviet
shipping 'on which North
Vietnam was heavily depend-
' ent for its war supplies. The
U.S. action came at an ex-
tremely sensitive point in'
American-Soviet relations,
just two weeks before Presi-
dent Nixon's scheduled sum-
mit conference in Moscow.
After several days of high
international suspense, the
Soviet Union decided to,!
swallow the affront and to
,proceed with the summit
meeting. President Nixon
!subsequently publicly ridi-
culed those who expressed'
doubt that his mining gam-.
ble would succeed. During'
the Johnson administration,
'U.S. military leaders repeat
edly proposed a similar min-
ing order, only to he re-
buffed on grounds that the
(international consequences
,posed too great a risk,
President Nixon and his"
'present White House chief'-
of staff, H. R. Haldeman,
`were both officially cited by
a California court in 1064'
? for having personally ap.'
~~proved a similarly deceptive
-and -illegal-campaign tac?'
+ tic In Mr. Nixon's 1962 cam-
paign for governor there.,
In that case, a dummy,
committee purporting to-
represent California Demo-
crats mailed literature to
Democratic voters 'that in-
cluded attacks on Mr. Nix-
on's opponent, incumbent
Gov. Pat Brown. Although
the mailing said, "This Is not
a plea for any eanddate," a
San Franciso County Su-
perior Court Judge ruled
that its "paramount purpose
was to obtain from reg-
istered Democrats votes and
money for the campaign of
Richard M. Nixon."
The court held that "Mr.
Nixon and Mr. Haldeman
approved the plan and proj.'
ect ... and agreed that the
Nixon campaign committee
would finance the project."
During the 1970 mid-term
elections, the' White House
was responsible for another
deceptive advertising cam-
paign, this one aimed at
Democratic senatorial candi-
dates who were attacked In
newspaper advertisements
supposedly placed by an In.
dependent citizens commit-'
tee.
The advertisements, re-
pudiated by many of the Re-
publican candidates they
were Intended to aid, were
conceived by then presiden-.
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dent reported that there was no
sense oe shock over Watergate
in Eastern Europe, where hid-
den microphones and phone
taps are not uncommon. The,
Yugoslav press has been re-
porting the developments but
without dramatizing events or
using them for, propaganda.
Last week at the Serbian
Communist Party conference, a
delegate sa'd privately he was
concerned that damage to Mr.
Nixon's prestige and authority
might erode the President's
ability to push ahead with pol-
icies favored in Eastern Europe.
For the same reason, appar-
ently, the Soviet press has
avoided anything critical of Mr.
Nixon. A brief Tass item on
Patrick Gray's resignation was
published in Moscow. The So-
viet media treads lightly on
personal affairs affecting other
chiefs of state -- with the ex-
ception of South Africa, Israel,
Portugal and a few other coun-
tries.'
The Russian leaders. have
staked a lot on personal rela-
t?ons with, Mr. Nixon and do
not want the President's Water-
gate embarrassment to rub off
on them.
Fascination In Britain
signed, but the Government re-
mained in power. '
After last night's television
appearance of Mr. Nixon, some
Britons felt compassion for him
as ' they watched his nervous
wince serve as a smile. How-
ever, many viewers were per-
plexed:
One Londoner, who sat up to
watch Mr. Nixon, said: "I just
can't see how a man can accept
full responsibility and in the
next heath absolve himself of
bla:ie. Is he trying to fool all
the people all the time?"
New Blow Is Seen
British officials and dipld-
mats in London felt 'that
America's reputations In Europe
had suffered again just as It
was beginning to recover from
a low point over the bombing
of Hanoi last December.
The Times of London will say
tomorrow:, "The rest of the
world needs to have a strong
and effective President of the
United States to deal with.
Despite Watergate, the world
accepts Mr. Nixon as such a
President."
It said that "even if he has
behaved worse than we believe
and hope, it would be inhuman
not to feel a spark of sympathy
for the President."
The paper castigated the
President's "second-rate sub-
ordinates," the "half men" with
their "Pepsodent smiles and
their football ethics," but ob-
served there were plenty of
such men in London too.
In Israel, anything that hurts
Mr. Nixon is seen as a po-
tential threat to Israel's In-
terests.
Israeli officials are concerned
about what Watergate could do
to the, President's influence in
Congress, which must approve
the arms credits and financial
aid to Israel.
However, they expressed
doubt that the scandal would
affect any basic changes In
American policy toward Israel
and the other Middle Eastern
The British have been fas-
cinated by Watergate, and it
has been reported extensively
by teh press and television. The
public sees events an an unfold-
ing drama that matches, and to
some extent parallels, the Pro-
fumo affair here 10 years ago.
In that case, too, speculation
was rife that the involvement
of the War Minister, John Pro-
BMW IMF SUN
,26 April 1973
Watergate probe held
real democracy 11 1,1110
Rio de Janeiro Bureau of The Sun ' I
Rio de Janeiro-The Water- racy, not in a nominal one, thei
gate scandal has reached all, constitutional principles are
the way to Brazil, where the
leader of the tolerated opposi-
tion party has used it to needle
obliquely this country's mili-
tary dictatorship on the differ-
ence 'between a "real demo-
cracy and a nominal one."
the president of the republic'
himself."
In the Watergate case, he
said, the United States Con-
gress "took an overt and rigor-
ous defense of the privacy and
the inviolability of the homes
president of the Brazilian i and of the institutions."
Dem vratic Movement, said, re-1 "The Congress investigates,
ferri.ig to Watergate, "It has)
revealed that in a real democ- I
summons personalities and
suspects," Mr. Guimaraes con.
tinued. "There is an acute cri-
sis in the relations between the
legislature and the executive
in the United States.
"What was the attitude of
the government's party, the
Republican? It stood with the
Congress against the spying in
the homes, the buildings, In
Ithe mail."
NEW YORK TIMES
2 May 1973
atergat?e ?Appe rs to J-I ave Damaged U. S. Abroad
By JOSEPH COLLINS' . cratic government. Now they no great public exictement
special to The Nev York Times wonder about Washington. about Watergate in West Ger-
LONDON, May. 1--The Wa-I On a lower level, one Japa- many, although the newspapers
the
uestion
have been raisin
"
g
q
I guess politics
tergato scandal appears to have nese observed,
are dirty everywhere,' And of what would happen should
United States abroad, but, at the
'same time many see ii; as a
demonstration of the basic hon-
esty of a system that can ex-
pose skulduggery in high
places.
Public Interest in Water-
.
gate has intensified virtually Athenian, asked what he
throughout the world, but there thought about Watergate
con-
,
was no indication that It wouldifessed ignorance. When" told
and defense policies, of abiding
interest to European govern-
ments, are dealt with at tech-
nical levels, officials in London
,observed privately.
that cynicism is reflected in Mr. Nixon himself become in-
many parts of Europe too. volved. The most important
For instance in Greece, where thing to the Germans seems
there have been no .newspapers to be that Mr. Nixon is the man
for three days during the Ortho- they presumably will have to
dox Easter holiday, the state- deal with for the next three
run radio has carried nothing years. , , .
An ' From Belgrade a correspon-
critical of President Nixon
about the bugging attempt and
sequence of events he observed:
"So it happens elsewhere too."
Italy, in the midst of a wire-
tapping scandal of her own
with political and international
overtones, the press has drawn
parallels that make Washington
took cleaner than Rome.
Differing Views In Rome
Many Italian newspapers, in-
cluding the Communist ones,
point out that American news-
papers, the judiciary branch
and the Congress forced the
Watergate affair Into the open,
whereas much of the Italian
scandal ? remains cloaked in
mystery.
The Italian scandal involves
the widespread wiretapping. it
is speculated the president of
the republic had his telephone
bugged. Some 30 telephone
company employes and private
investigators have been Ar-
rested. Nobody has been told
who is behind all this, and
there is scant chance that it
will ever be known publicly.
Ii Tempo of Rome, conserva-
tive and pro-American, said edi-
torially today' that Watergate
was "a ? proof of democracy."
On the other hand, II Sole 24
Ore, a Milan daily, said: "All
foreign offices in the world are
not evaluating the risks of
negotiating and concluding ac-
cords with an (United States)
executive branch that has been
so badly devalued." However,
Italian officials do not see the
likelihood of Watergate's af-
Todayy, May Day, is a public
holiday in most . European
countries and newspapers do
not publish. However, Water-
gate has had a great deal of
radio and television coverage.
The British Broadcasting Cor-
poration, in a rare program
change, kept its television go-
ing until after 2:30 A.M. to
carry President Nixon's speech
liv from Washington and then
had a panel of comment on it.
The French television gave ex-
cerpts from the telecast today.
Japanese Are Doubtful
From Tokyo, It was reported
,that Japanese seem sorry to see
Mr. Nixon In trouble. Watergate
has most certainly diluted Jap-
anese confidence In America,
reports said. '
Japanese displeasure with
'Mr. Nixon goes back'.ty July,
1971, when he announced, with-
out advising the Japanese Gov-
ernment ahead of time, that he
planned to visit ' China. That
became known as the "Nixon
shock." ,
Watergate appears to have
Increased Japanese skepticism
about the United States. Be-
.cause the Japanese were ruled
tended to look to the United fecting American foreign policy.
States as a model for demo-' A report from Bonn indicates
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NEW YORK TIMES
28 April 1973
APER ABOUT DIEM
AMONG 'AUNT DATA
By JOHN M. CREWDSON
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, April 27-A
document purporting to be a
10-year-old State Department
cable dealing with American
policy toward former South
Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh
Diem was in the possession of
E. Howard Hunt Jr., the con-
victed Watergate conspirator,
in the Summer of 1971.
The document, dated three
days before ? Mr. Diem was
killed In a 1963 coup d'etat.
takes the form of an instruction
from high officials of the Ken-
nedy Administration to Henry.
Cabot Lodge, the United States
Ambassador in Saigon at the
time, that President Diem
should not be given political
asylum once he was deposed.
It was not known whether
the document was authentic or
not.
Dean Rusk, the Secretary' of
State under the Kennedy and
Johnson Administrations, said
In a telephone interview today's
that the document had never
existed. Mr. Lodge said in a
similar Interview that he had
never received such a message.
The New York Times reported
today that John W. Dean 3d,
President Nixon's counsel, had
accused Hunt of fabricating dip-~
lomatic cables "relating to Pres-
ident Kennedy's complicity inj
Diem's assassination" while
working as a White House con-
sultant 1971 and 1972.
The documents were re-
portedly discovered in a safe
in the Executive Office Build-1
Ing quarters used by Httnt, who
pleaded guilty in January to
conspiracy in. the Watergate
case. The safe was emptied
two days after the June 17,
Watergate break-in on orders
from Mr. Dean. .
The Presidential lawyer has
since said that he gave two file
folders containing the alleged-
ly false material to L. Patrick
Gray 3d, then the acting direc-
tor of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation;
According to Mr. Gray, who
resigned from his post today,
Mr. Dean told him that the
papers, although not materially
related to t e Watergate case,
constituted "political dynamite.
Mr. Gray has said that he did;
not examine the documents, but'
instead destroyed them.
The Times obtained today,
the text of one of the docu-
ments in Hunt's possession dur?'
ling the late summer of 1971.
The source of the text was
William G. Lambert, a former
investigative reporter for Life
magazine, which is no longer
published.
Mr. Lambert, who said he
had senn but did not possess
the original document, refused
to Identify his source, although
the would not deny that it was
NEW YORK TIMES
2. May 1973
.Colson-Knew"-Hunt Wrote Fake Cable.
Mr. Lambert did say, how.
... speclaito The NAwYorkSimea, ever, that Mr. Colson had ladi-
WASHINGTON, May 1 --- cared subtiy-so subtly that Mr.
Charles W. Colson, former see-. Lambert did not get the mes-
cial counsel to President Nixon,
has confirmed that "four months
before the Watergate burglary
he discovered that one of the
conspirators, E. Howard Hunt
Jr., a friend he had recommend-
ed for a White House job, had
written a fake cable implicat-
ing President Kennedy in the
assassination of South Viet-
nam's President Diem.
According to William' Lam-
bert, formerly a reporter for
Life magazine, who interviewed
Mr.. Colson over the weekend,
Mr. Colson-made the discovery
,in February, 1972, but did not
'disclose the fabrication until
'the weekend interview,
j, Mr. Colson, reached at his
flaw office here this afternoon
said that he would have no
comment other than to say that
he had great respect for Mr.
:Lambert as a journalist. He said
that he saw nothing to be
gained from adding to the con-
troversy.
Asked why he had not taken
,steps to dismiss Mr. Hunt or
.warned superiors about him,
Mr. 'Colson repeated tl~at h
had no comment.
Mr. Lambert, an Investigative
reported who spent most of
1972 trying to confirm Mr:
Hunt's fake document for a
'Life article, said today that Mr.
Colson had never-told him di-
rectly that the cable was a
fraud,
type message sent to Mr. Lodge
on Oct. 29, 1963.
It Is now known whether
the document in qustion re-
mained in Hunt's. possession
until the time of the Water-
gate break-in last year, or
whether it was among the
papers destroyed by Mr. Gray.
The alleged cable, which car-
ries six signatures, including
that of McGeorge Bundy, in
1963 a special assistant to
President Kennedy for national
security affairs, reads as fol-
lows:
"At highest level meeting
today, decision reluctantly made
that neither you or ' Harkins
[Gen. Paul D. Harkins, then
commander of United States
forces in Vietnam] should in-
tervene in behalf of Diem or
Nhu [Ngo Dihn Nhu, President
!Diem's brother] in event they
seek asylum.
"This based on two principal
,considerations: Granting asylum
or otherwise protecting the
brothers certain to alienate if
not enrage generals. Of near
equal importance is our re-
luctance see Diem depart SVN
(South Vietnam only to re-
establish himself in another
country where he would be
;country capable of establishing
"I suspect," Mr. Lambert
speculated, "that he didn't
want to tell anybody that a guy
that he had recommended for
other a sensitive job was fabricating
sources for a story on documents."
the murder of.Ngo Dinh Diem
by Vietnamese generals in Oc-
tober, ?1963.
At a meeting at Mr. Colson's
house .in suburban Virginia'
over the weekend, Mr. Lambert
said today, Mr. Colson satis-
fied-him that he-had honestly
tried to steer Mr. Lambert off
a story on the fake cable.
u Mr. Lambert was never con-
lvinced that the cable was gen-
uine, and Life never published
anything about it.
As late as Sunday, however,
'Mr. Colson still denied that he
knew the cable was a fake. Fi-
nally,in a telephone conversa-
tion yesterday, Mr. Lambert
,said, he pressed Mr.. Colson
into admitting that he had
;known for more than a year
that Hunt had manufactured
the language that seemed to
(make the assassination of Diem
an order from President Ken-
inedy.
Mr. Lambert, who says that
he still regards Mr. Colson as
a friend and a valuable source,
conceded today that Mr. Col.
son had taken adequate pre-
caution, to keep the story out
of public print. But he did do
yet understand why Mr. Col-
son had not told him openly
future success of Vietnam ef-
forts depends upon displace-
ment Nhu and Diem. In effect)
they have brought this stage]
upon . themselves and their'
ultimate fate is now Vietnamese
affair.
"Hardly underscore extreme
sensitivity this message, but
authorize you at your discretion
show Harkins such portions as
necessary insure his compli-
ance."
Mr. Bundy, who since 1966
has been president of the Ford
Foundation, said in a telephone
interview that the purported
cable was "the crudest kind of
forgery."
Mr. Lodge, when told of the
alleged message, laughed and
replied that although he had
never received it, "I would
have remembered it had I got-
ten it." ;
Hunt,?reached at the District
of Columbia Jail through his
lawyer, Wiliam P. Bittman, said
he would have no comment on
either the authenticity of the
document or Mr. Dean's alle-
gations.
Mr. Lambert, however, said
,that he was not convinced that
the cable was a forgery." The
original source of the informa-
government in exile and de-, ment believed [it] to be
pouncing you and USG (United authentic," he said by tele-
'cessful coup deserve clean slate` ..Mr. Lambert said he had been
in SVN. which they likely' told that the cable had been
'achieve by making sure neither sent to Vietnam on Oct. 29,1
brother survives. All of us here 3963. over two of the three)
realize this Instruction places
( exictina communications
However, The Times has
established that Hunt was in
tact Mr. Lambert's source for.
to be a state. Departmenir'~ Icya
wLr /n7p~Pgplarleranqcoa?
. In the aftermath of Water-I
gate, Mr. Colson has repeatedly,
acknowledged that during the;
summer of 1971, when the,
White House was looking for
someone to find and plug the.
leaks by which the to-called,
Pentagon papers had come to
light, he personally proposed
Mr. Hunt for the job.
In a subsequent White HousO,
assignment, during the fall of,
1971, Mr.: Hunt is understood;
to have undertaken the task
of reviewing diplomatic cables,
and "other classified documents
on the early stages of the Viet;
nam war, apparently in an ef-
fort to establish that the secdi'
of the conflict were planted'
in the Kennedy and, Johnson'
Administrations.
According `to Mr. 'Lambert'
Mr. Colson emphatically denied
tahat he was supervising Mr:'
Hunt in this project. Mr. Colson
also told Mr. Lambert that hC'
had never seen the fake docu-'
ment that Mr. Hunt composed'
and mingled with the genuind,
records.
It is still unclear, Mr. tam-'
bert says, who Mr. Hunt wasi
working for at this peridd, and'
whether anyone ?but Mr. Hunts
and Mr. Lambert ever saw it.
trailed by the Central intelli.
gence Agency.
The third system, controlled
by the Defense Department,
was not used, he- said. He sug-
gested that the Pentagon had;
never known of the cable's
existence-hence Its absence
from the Pentagon papers," A
secret Defense Department
study of the Vietnam war,
leaked to the press in 1972.
The Pentagon papers show
that President Kennedy knew
of and approved plans for the
coup against President Diem by
a group of South Vietnamese
generals.
In fact, the American mission
in Saigon maintained secret
contact with the generals for
weks efore the coup on Nov.
1. 1963, and kept the White
House Informed of each de-
velopment.
There was no suggestion in
the Pentagon papers that any-
one in the American diplomatic
or military commands knew in
advance that President Diem
would be killed, or advocated
his murder.
However, at a news confer-
ence on Sept. 20, 1971, Presi-
dent Nixon. said in answer to a
question, ". . I would remind
all concerned that the way we
got into Vietnam was through
overthrowing Diem and the
complicity In the murder of
Mr. Nixon made the remark
after the time that Mr. Lambert
h had first seen the docu.
S p question.
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BALTIMORE SUN
2 May 1973
An*alisis
eafflam" -_
Speech left Nixon stuck in Watergate
By PPTFK J. KUMPA
waahtnpto> Bureau of The Sun,
Washington -- President
Nixon failed to pull himself'
completely out of the Water-
gate bog with big televised
explanation Monday night.
Mr. Nixon did not go far
enough to detail what he knew
of the bugging and political.
espionage scandal that has
swept out of the White House
his two close political, assoei-
?ates, H. R. (Bob) Haldemall
and John D. Ehrdichman.'
There were too many gaps
and no new information provi-
ded by the President to expect
any quick restoration of.confi-
dence in him by politically
minded Washington. ? - '
As evidence, when the Sen-
ate voted initially yesterday to
get a special prosecutor for the
case outside of the now-suspect
executive branch, not a Repub-
lican voiced objection. .
Some private Republican
congressional comments on the
President's speech did..-not
match their mild public state-,
ments of approval. "It gave
me nausea," was one ,sucl
comment. "A dreadful
speech," was another.
If the address was long on
emotion and short on facts, if
was because Mr. Nixon's tare
get was not Washington buti
the hinterlands not so well' in-
formed on the' details, He.
seemed to be talking specifl.,
tally to the "new majority" of
voters who Ave ghim his land-'
;;fide last fall.
Thin was a required eudl'
ence. Mr. Nixon's credibility
was eroding. National polls
showed that more than 40- per
cent of the voters believed. the
President knew about the WaW
ergato bugging ?in'advance..
When his : integrity 'and 'his
political life were threatened
two decades ago because of .a
private $18,000J, und. raised by.;
California admirers, Mr. Nixon
gave his now-famous "Check.-
ers" speech to the nation. It
kept him on the GOP ticket
with President Eisenhower.
His Monday night perform-
ance was reminiscent of the
1952 thriller. Listen to this con;
temporary account from Life
magazine: ' ' '
,it was all ? 'there:' the
Quaker conviction that inno-'
cence is the strongest shield;
the earnest, rather awkward,
rather stagy manner and
method of the boy debater; the
trained lawyer pleading a
case; the sincere patriot;, the
somewhat jaded politician pull-
ing out the . organ stops of
sentimentality . , ."
The response was different
this time.
There was no quick ignition
of the country's emotions to
back up a beleaguered candi-
date. Then switchboards of
newspapers across the land
were inundated with calls.
Women wept publicly over the
ideal family and the little dog.
Politicians, who, doubted Mr.
Nixon were deluged with angry'
telegrams. In all, about two
million letters and telegrams
backed him up.
Many of the same` 1952 tech-
niques were used to gain sup-
port on the Watergate affair,
There were the emotional, sen-
timental appeals about God,
country, Christmas Eve and
little children living In peace.
Roughly. 40 per cent of the
speech ? was devoted to this sort
of political public relations,
difficult to tie up with what a-
top Republican leader called a
"grubby" scandal.
Mr. Nixon had no shortage
of public- emotion-except;
strangely, on, the revelations of
the mushrooming meadow of
.political dirty tricks that dwarf
his own 1952 fund affair. .
The President affirmed that
he was "appalled" by the bug-
ging of Democratic headquar-
ters and "shocked" to. learn
that employees of his re-elec-
tion committee- were among
the guilty.,, ;
This anger, however, was
not communicated to the pub-,
lie for month after month by
his efficient White House press
office.. He let it go by then as,
a."third-rate burglary."
So much more is left out of
Mr. Nixon's account.
His close. associate and a
former attorney general, John'.
N. Mitchell, conferred with.
him as Mr. Mitchell left office
two weeks after ,the Demo-.
cratic bugging affair. .Now Mr..
Mitchell admits'that'on three,
;'different occasions in early-1
1972 he discussed 'but vetoed
such plans. ?
Surely, the top law officer in
the land should have informed
the President about such a
"senseless, illegal action." Mr.
Nixon reported nothing about,
it.
Nor did Mr. Nixon mention
anything about the loose bun-
dles of cash used to finance
soMe of the Republican espio-
nage. The General Accounting
Office has already made four
public reports on the illegality
of the GOP financing.
Disclosed grand jury testi-
mony identified the White
House chief of staff for holding
one of the "secret" GOP
funds. Mr. Nixon merely ex-
pressed his confidence, in Mr.
mire,,
Haldeman. ?
Mr. Nixon Is an experienced
investigator, one of the best in
Washington. Though he has
taken charge of the Watergate
probe since March,' he chose
not to reveal details. And if he
were ndignant, he chose not to
shr ,i it.
While the President accepted'
"responsibility" for Watergate,
he did not take the blame for
it. There is a difference. ?
Virtually in the same minute
as he said it would' be "cow-
ardly" to "blame" subordi-
nates delegated with the run-
ning of his campaign, he added
that he "will do everything in
my power to insure that the
guilty are brought to justice."
For his part, Mr.. Nixon gave
a plea of ignorahce of events
that transpired. HC was too
busy in foreign affairs,' he
said, and for the first time in
his career he did not run his
own campaign.
A scapegoat seems already
to have been picked out. Not a
kind word is said about his
former counsel, John W. Dean
3d, yet even after Important
new evidence was supposed to!
have been discovered in
March, the White House was
backing Mr. Dean. .
Mr. Nixon has gained time
for himself. He must get a new
staff, one that he can show he
can run and not a group that
runs him and hides illegalities
from him.
Only then-and If a new and
vigorous prosecution can show
that he had no knowledge and
played no role in the Water-
gate affair-can confidence be
restored lit the White House.
Monday night was only phase
one for the Watergate and.Mr.
Nixon.
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WASHINGTON POST
2 May 1973
No W h rewash aft the 'White il ous'e?
Is seeing the difference between the apparent and the 4. '
health-- (one) of my closest friends and most triinh i
tend to do what I can do to speed truth's discovery."
Mr. Ehrlichman's resignation as "evidence of any wrong-
rF'rom the letter of resignation submitted to the Presi- ' w
dent on Monday, by his assistant, John D. Ehrlichman. doing," he said, would be "both unfair and unfounded.i1
is confidence in the ultimate prevalence of truth; I in- ,been my privilege to know." To see his acceptance of
Well, it is never easy sifting out the apparent. and the
real, and we share Mr. Ithrlichman's view that we must
all try harder In this respect. But we have markedly
less confidence In the contribution Mr. Ehrlichman can
'make to this endeavor as a consequence of the latest,
and perhaps most shattering turn of events in.the sor-
did tale of Watergate and the related allegations of cor-
ruption which are now enveloping, and seeming almost
to overwhelm, the Nixon administration. And we have
rather less confidence, too, in the contribution to truth
made by the President on Monday night. We had in-
"tended today to return for a further, closer examination
4of the President's Watergate address. But that can wait.
,, or much of what the President had to say about justice
and law enforcement and respect for our governmental
land judicial processes would seem to have been pretty
t'thoroughly mooted-perhaps even shredded-by the an-
4'liouncement made yesterday in open court by the judge
1in the Daniel Ellsberg trial.
, . You will recall that the judge in that proceeding ear-
lier made public an allegation that the notorious bur-
,glary team of G. Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt, al-
,ready jailed for the Watergate break-in, had practiced
;their investigatory skills on the offices of Mr. Ellsberg's
4)'sychiatrist. Yesterday, the judge reported in open curt
some further details. On the basis of this report, we in-
vite you to consider the following sequence of events:
4 This past Friday (the judge disclosed) Mr. Ehrlichman
mold FBI investigators that In 1971 President Nixon had
personally ordered an independent investigation of 'Mr.
)Ellsberg. In response to the President's request, Mr. Ehr=
lchman said he himself engaged, for this purpose, the
services of Mr. Liddy and Mr. Hunt.. While he denied
,that he instructed them to break and enter, he admit-
tted that he learned, after the fact, that they had done
just that.
That was on Friday. On Monday this same Mr. Ehrlich-
`-an resigned from his job as the President's top White
House man for domestic affairs, denying his involvement
in the Watergate, proclaiming his honesty and profess-
' ing to have had his usefulness impaired by "repeated
'rumor, unfounded charges or Implications and whatever
helse the media carries." -
,,,,,And this, of course, is the same impression we were
g,given.by the President on Monday; in a statement in the
omorning and iii, his apeech that night, he gave Mr. Ehr-
That was Monday, when three days earlier, according to
an FBI report, Mr. Ehrlichman was apparently Implicat-
ing himself in setting In motion a sequence of events
that allegedly lead to a burglary. We most emphatically
do not wish to jump to any of the assumptions that the
President warned against; we merely note the unmistake-
able evidence cited by a federal judge from a report of
an FBI interview: that Mr. Ehrlichman, by his own ad-
mission, knew at the very least of a previous crime which
bore directly upon the break-in at the Watergate: He
knew that Mr. Liddy and Mr. Hunt,were available for,,
and inclined toward, this sort of work on behalf of the
government, Would not this have aroused a suspicion
or two in the mind of an intelligent, honest, prudent man
when the news broke of the Liddy-Hunt connection with
the Watergate? Wouldn't a close friend and trusted aide,
even assuming he had not the faintest connection with
Watergate, have wondered whether this wasn't some-`
thing the President ought to know about?
At this point, we merely. ask. The answers to these
and a great many other questions, we would guess, will
be a long time coming out. The most it seems safe to
say for now,; a mere 24 hours after the President's sup-
posedly definitive declaration on these matters, is that
a large part of what Mr. Nixon said on Monday must
already be considered-if we may borrow a phrase from
Mr. Nixon's White House-inoperative, both as to its
content and its desired effect. For Mr. Nixon either knew
or he did not know'of Mr. Ehrlichman's interview with
the FBI on Friday. So we have a simple choice; either
his own investigation into the facts, for which be has'
made such large and reassuring claims, was hopelessly
incomplete, or he deliberately suppressed this evidence
of appalling behavior when he gave his final vote of
confidence to 'Mr. Ehrljchman.
If the President is serious about his yearning to put
the Watergate scandals and all the rest behind him and
to move on to the building of "structures for peace",
i and to other things, it should be more, apparent than
ever before that he must first- rebuild a structure of
government at home that will sustain public trust and
bear the weight of the work he wishes to do at home
and abroad. He can best-begin, in our view, by accept-
ing 'the advice of the Senate, and proceeding without
further temporizing to place the investigation and prose-
cution of the Watergate and related cases in the hands
of a detached and Independent special prosecutor.
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~,shay1973 4.M/ayy1973
. ?. and EIlsbizrg 1111'S? Mitchell Tells
.The trial of Daniel Ellsberg in Los Angeles is grinding
at last to its end, and, indeed, just in time: For the big-
name indictments and trials arising out of Watergate seem
about to commence. But no one so far as I know has
pointed out how intimately connected the two events are.
In a recent column James Reston viewed Watergate
as traceable to the atmosphere of "suspicion" pervading
the Nixon White House, but "suspicion" is hardly the
right word. It is * too psychological to do justice to the
reality, and it does not raise the question of the extent
to which that "atmosphere" was justified. Reston simply
assumes that it was not,
As a matter of fact, Watergate, like Ellsberg's copying
and disclosure of the Pentagon papers, is an episode in
a kind of civil war that has been going on in this country
for the past seven or eight years, and which doubtless
has roots.that go much further back than that.
Both Ellsberg and the Watergate operatives behaved
as if they were dealing not merely with political oppo-
nents but with enemies. The Watergate operatives, it is
clear, did not view the McGovern campaign as just
j, / American campaign. It was not at all,
in their an effort to put a plausible alternative'
government in office. They viewed the McGovernites as
profoundly hostile 'and they used against them the clan-
destine tactics usually reserved for actual warfare.
But this, though a blunder and'a breach of the law, was
no mere aberration. We have recently had in this country,
in effect, two governments-the ordinary, official govern-
ment, elected by the people, in which the balance of
forces now favors the White House; but also, opposed to
this, not a "loyal opposition" in the old sense, but a kind
of counter-government.
This counter-government denies the legitimacy of the
actual government, and employs every means at its coin-
mand---legal and illegal-to frustrate its policies. The
counter-government, as in the case of Ellsberg, demands
the right to declassify secret documents on its own say-so.
To a man like Tom Wicker, who is a sort of Ron Ziegler
of the counter-government, Ellsberg and Russo are
heroes. The counter-government celebrates the feats of
demonstrators who, when they don't like a law, simply
go ahead and break it.. In its demand for amnesty, and
in the visits of its emissaries to Hanoi, and so on, the
counter-government asserts its claim to have a different
foreign policy from that of the regular government.
The agents of the counter-government, operating in-
side the official government, provide a steady stream of
leaks and disclosures of all kinds to trusted allies in. the
press. Henry Kissinger can advise Nixon one afternoon
that we ought to "tilt" in favor of Pakistan, and lie can
read about it the next morning in Jack Anderson's
column.
The counter-government has its own journalists, and
even its own clergy: the Berrigans, Groppi, and so on.
It has-its lawyers-Ramsey Clark, Boudin, Kunstler-
and its scientists.
The counter-government is of course connected with
the counterculture in its varied manifestations. And the
counterculture, in turn, represents an explicit rejection
of the usual norms of American behavior and style.
The McGovern movement of course was not in fact
an ordinary American phenomenon, the recognizable
candidacy of a Truman or a Humphrey. It represented
the political apogee, so far, of the counterculture and the
little on - ate,' gate
By Stephen Isaacs
Washington Post Staff Writer
NEW YORK, May 3 - Mrs. Mitchell brought her
Martha Mitchell, who has
told numerous telephone
friends that she can tell a
great deal about the Water-
gate case, testified about the
case today and, according to,
lawyers questioning , her,'
told almost nothing.
Her deposition was taken
in the $6.4-million damage'
suit filed by the Den:aa-
cratic Party against vr_lous
,principals In the Watergate
case. Her appearance was
requested by attorneys for'
James W. McCord Jr., the
one-time security chief for
the Committee to Re-Elect
.the President.
? According to attorneys
;present at the deposition,
,Mrs: - Mitchell's testimony
,was more amusing than il-
luminating.
She was asked a series of
questions, for instance, as
to whether she had conver-;
?sations after the arrest of
the Watergate intruders on
.June 17, 1972, with such Re-
r.publican Party figures as
?Frederick LaRue, Charles'
Colson, John Ehrlichman, H.
R. Haldeman,. John Dean,.
and so forth. To each name,
she would answer, "No."
Her testimony took sev
,eral `hours, filled with brief
questions and long, 'ram-
bling answers?most' of them
relating to her, claims that
she was imprisoned by Mc-
`Cord's agents for three days
"in California, the lawyers
'said.
At the outset of the ques-
?ttoning, Mrs. Mitchell in-
voked her rights In terms
of not answering questions
In connection with her hus-
band, former Attorney Gen-
eral John N. Mitchell.
Occasionally, she would
mention her husband brief-
Aly, as for instance when she
told the attorneys that, after
she had belatedly learned of
the Watergate arrests, she
told her husband that she
wanted them both out of the.
campaign.
An observer quoted Mrs.
Mitchell's husband answer
,as, "'Darling, hold on for a
few more months and then
I'll take you back to New
York.' "
taking. Customarily, a per-
son giving a deposition
swears to the truth of their
testimony to a notary pub.
lic.
Asked by reporters if she
believed her husband to
he involved in the scandal,
Mrs. Mitchell said:
"I trust he- had nothing
to do with it. I pray to God
he had nothing to do with'
the dirty business. He has
always assured me he has
hot been involved."
She also said the whole.
scandal is "a pretty dirty
business."
Much of her deposition
comprised her telling how
much she disliked the body.
guards that McCord had
{arranged for her.
On one occasion at the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel here,
she said one of the body-
guards walked into her
suite, which was. filled with
dignitaries, took off his
shoes and socks and walked
around barefoot.
She referred to the guards
several times as "kooks" and
"creeps."
Mrs. Mitchell said she dis-
liked McCord and thought
he might even be a "double
agent," the attorneys said,
and particularly disliked his
spending an , afternoon in
their Watergate apartment
with electronic equipment;
looking for any possible bug-
ging devices.
She repeated her often-
told story, which has been
dented .just, as often, that
she was Imprisoned in a
California 'Motel after the
Watergate break-in, h e r
phones ripped from the wall.
After her deposition was
nearly over, one of the at-
torneys reminded her that
she had told the press that
she wanted to tell her story
to the Senate committee
headed by Sen. Sam J. Irvin
Jr. (D-N.C.).
"Mrs. Mitchell," the at-
torney is said to have
asked, "have you told ds
today everything that you
were intending to tell, the.
Ervin committee?"
Mrs. Mitchell's answer
was affirmative.
counter-government. With some reason, the Watergate
operatives perceived the McGovernites as alien and hos-
tile, as enemies.
Just as Ellsberg, for his part, came to view the govern-
ment as "criminal." When an Elisberg appears, and is
lionized, the Liddys and the McCords are just around the
corner..
-J. HART
(King Features Syndicate).
/0
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WASHINGTON POST
May 1973
Robert C. Maynard
Lessons of
We have it now on no less an author-
ity than the President of the United
States that a "vigorous free press"
serves the useful function of investi-I
gating and reporting to the people on
the performance of their government.
Mr. Nixon's declaration on that point,
Monday evening Is an example of the,
several civics lessons on the free press,
and government made available to us,
Courtesy of the Watergate conspiracy.
I am not certain that the full Import.,
The writer is the Ombudsman
of The Washington Post: In this
capacity he monitors news and
editorial operations and offers
in this space his own views on
the performance of the news
media in general and of this
newspaper in particular.
Watergate
Nizer reminded his Interviewer,
'John Hart, that it was just 20 years'
ago that this country went through a
terrible agony which destroyed lives
through innuendo and unproved alle+
gation without benefit of a forum
where the truth and falsehood could
contend fairly.
NizCr's point, although perhaps
stated too simply to reflect the com.
plexities of Watergate, extracts a valu-
able lesson from McCarthyism. Mc-.
Carthy was cunning in setting the con-
text of suspicion, thus making shreds
of facts seem like monuments of truth.
,In such an atmosphere, reputations'
were wrecked by dark deeds done in'
corners-by whispers, hints, Innuen-,
dos.
Investigative reporting, has surely
just experienced its finest' hour in
.American history. Now that so much Is
'known, there is a danger of much fool-.
ishness being peddled and purchased
by reporters trying to keep pace with
the unraveling scandal.
As In the time of McCarthy, when
serious charges are in the air It fre-
quently becomes convenient for potenj
tial targets to blame each other, seek-
ing to immunize themselves by shift-'
jag the spotlight elsewhere. There Is:
some evidence that this Is occurring in.
the Watergate case. What is already`
one of history's nastier political inci-,
dents Is taking on ever more sordid as-,
pects.
So It Is just another 'of the lessons
for Journalists and their audiences to,
be aware of; in times of dramatic dis.
closure, the mass media can becomes
overwhelmed by the drama-and irre.
sponsible in the bargain. Those very'
same news organizations that all but
ignored Watergate eight months ago,
are among the first today to pass alongi
some of the flimsiest of allegations
and make lead stories of them.
There is yet another civics lesson
which relates to the business of jour-
nalism and the public, and it' Is per-
haps the one over which we should
want to ponder the longest. It is the
matter of those robust denials which
issued forth from the austere setting'
of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,p and
which since have been declared
"Inoperative." , )
;' Having re-read the denials from.:
June to April, I am struck by the ques=
,tion of credibility. At,a, time when the '
of these lessons has become apparent:
to us yet, but at least two seem to have .
manifested themselves recently. It is
clear, first of all, as Watergate re-
minds us again, that a free press must
be prepared to take a lot of abuse
'from politicians when the going gets:
rough.
Also, once the quarry seemp to be.
nailed and falling, the forest awakens
with excited chatter, some of It truth,
some of It foolishness and some of it
,dangerous.
It Is not just that journalists must
,"pursue the courage of their convict
tions," as Attorney General Klein
dienst urged two vigorous Watergate
reporters a day before the White
'House coverup began coming unstuck
In earnest. It Is also important to be
mindful of the need for zeal to be tem-
pered with judgment, now that so
many disclosures are tumbling all
around town.
Two examples of that zeal will ans.
,flee for now. On several occasions in
the last several days, major news organ-
izations have featured prominent dec-
larations that Watergate principals
have conceded to their "friends" their
role In some Watergate-connected
.wrongdoing. John Mitchell was re-
ported to have told .'friends" of his
prior knowledge of the plan to wire-
tape Democratic headquarters-al-
though, of course, Mitchell also added
that he wouldn't have any part of It.
In the same vein, and of the same ilk
,of reporting, is the anticipation of in.'
dictments by grand juries in various
places. Some newsgatherers have
reached the point of actually saying
that some principal in the affair is
about to be indicted, without more
than a passing reference to a source.
On this last point, Louis Nizer, the
author of "The Implosion Conspir.
acy" about the Rosenberg case and an.
other book of recollections about his
legal practice, "My Life In Court," ex.-,
presseda sensible caution recently on
the CBS Morning News t
press, by Vice President Agnew's own'
recent concession, was being
:"abrasively" attacked, when it was be-
ing characterized repeatedly as irre-
sponsible, the administration put it to.
the. public to choose to believe the
ipress or the government. Now, con-
sider what the press conveyed to the
public from associates of the White
House:
Clark MacGregor (Oct. 16): "The
Washington Post has maliciously
sought to give the appearance of a di-
rect connection between the White
House and the Watergate ... a charge
The Post knows, and a half dozen in-
vestigations have found, to be false."
Ronald Ziegler (Oct. 16): "1 will not
dignify with comment stories based on
hearsay, character assassination, innu-'
endo or guilt by association ... the
President is concerned about the tech-
niques being applied ... In the stories'
themselves."
Sen. Robert Dole (Oct. 16): "Like the
desperate politicians whose fortunes
they seek to save, The Washington,
Post is conducting itself by journalis-
tic standards that would cause mass
resignations on principle from the
Quicksilver Times."
Charles W. Colson (Nov, 11): "The
charge of subverting the whole politi- '
cal process .. Is fantasy, a work of
'fiction rivaling only 'Gone With the
Wind' In circulation and 'Portnoy's
Complaint' for indecency ... the trag-
edy of The Post's handling of the
Watergate affair Is that the net impact
was probably to erode somewhat pub-
lic confidence in the institutions of
government, and it also eroded ... the
confidence of a lot of fairminded per-.
,sons in the objective reporting of The
Washington Post."
John Mitchell: "All that crap! You're
putting it In the paper? It's all been
denied ... Good Christ., That's the
most sickening thing I've ever heard."
Now Mr. Ziegler has apologized to
The Washington Post, and various offi-
cials of the newspaper have accepted
the apology. Somehow, an apology to
one newspaper by one dissembler
misses the point.
The point is that the news media
were being used to carry bold-faced
lies to the American people. The civics
lesson is that in this instance truth de-
feated falsehood, for which we can all
be grateful, as long as we aren't com-
placent in the belief that it always
will. If, the sorry saga of Watergate
does nothing else, it ought to etch that
lesson into our collective conscious-
ness for all time.
In this, Jefferson and George Mason,
Madison and the rest of the -framers of
the Bill of Rights have had their faith
renewed, even while the Inheritors of
'the legacy of their design tarnished
.that trust elsewhere.
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YORK TIMES BALTIMORE SUN
3 May 1973 2 May 1975-'.---,
Contrasts on May - Day
UnkindCuts
o? There he was, Leonid I. Brezhnev, standing
By ,William Safire !atop Lenin's red granite tomb, receiving the
WASHINGTON, May 21-"Bu't yes- Lenin Peace Prize:'-priiclaiming' the success of
*rrdvy," a Shakespeare buff wrote me -hs detente policies, flexing Soviet arms and re-
f:ftcr President Nixon's Watergate a
:speech, the word of Nixon might eIving the May Day homage due a Communist
have stood against 'the world; now 4011ough s whose position had just, Consolidated visibly.
"ies his credibility there, and none so No. 2 alphabetically on the Political Bu-
poor to do it reverence." reau, the Soviet press dutifully made Mr. Brezhnev
Mr. Nixon is no Julius Caesar, a No. I in publishing the newly revised list of mem-
funeral oration is quite premature, 3)ers; it lavished. praise on the 'party secretary
and the r
l
A
t
...
-_ m
f M
o
e o
n
o
of:ld
arc
to either S
ir
A
R
p
o
gnew or new
epub-
lican John Connally. (The President
probably casts Senator' Charles Percy,
who drafted the Senate resolution
calling for a special prosecutor, as
Brutus-"Et tu, Chuck?")
Let's examine the criticism of the
Presidents speech:
1. ? He didn't point the finger of
guilt at anybody.
There Is an Alice. In -Wonderland
quality to this charge, reminiscent of
the edict of the Queen of Hearts: "Sen-
tence first, verdict afterwards." The
slime people who jumped all over the
President's reference to murderer
Charles Manson as guilty before the
accused man had been convicted are
now disappointed that the President
Is not actively interfering in the judi-
dal process. Anybody who wants the
President to prejudice the case with
pre-judgments is asking, in effect, for
Y.ion to obstruct justice-which is what
large part of the case is all about.
Ali, but could he not have fired
his closest aides with a greater show
?'l displeasure? Yes. In these off-
with-.heir-heads days, compassion for fail-
trigs Is taken as a sign of weakness
'or complicity, and the President could
il.wo picked up a few points by slam
aping the door behind his departing
irends. But a fond farewell is rot a
;x:tc of confidence.
He didn't grovel enough.
Mr. Nixon has been on a six-year
winning streak, and his opponents feel
t ey are entitled to what the New
Republic's John Osborne calls "fero=
pious satisfaction with the plight of a
resident whom most of us have al-
ways distrusted."
The President, on television, only
took off his right arm, Haldeman, and
sthcn took off his left arm, Ehrlichman.
Mo praised the people who broke the
ae and included, loud and clear, "a
The Politburo shuffle, a far different phenome-
)ion, from the current White House upheaval,
$rought the ouster of two conservative opponents
and the elevation of three men important to the
Brezhnev design: ? Andrei Gromyko, foreign min-
ister; Andrei Grechko, defense minister, and Yuri
Audropov, head of the internal security police,
the KGB. All are chiefs of institutions in the Soviet
ower structure . and, as such, presumably will
p in position to. give Mr. Brezhnev substantive
lsupport as he travels west-to Bonn in a couple of
Weeks, to the United States in late 'June or early
July.
Having put down the ' Cold Warriors and the
)card-liners who fear contamination by the non-
xommunist world, Mr. 'Brezhnev will be able to
negotiate in his visits from an apparently solid
political base at' home. This is not an Inconsider-
able asset for a politician whose agriculture 'has
failed, whose economy has lagged, whose people
,are impatient for consumer goods and who Is in
he market for western credits and technology on
avast scale. It is also not an inconsiderable asset
picture of his family and the American
flag to his right, a bust of Lincoln to
his left, a flag pin in,his lapel. Con-
sider, however, the reaction if he had
done it the other way: "In an awkward
attempt 'to change his Image, Nixon
turned his family photo to the wall,
removed the flag and the bust of Lin-
coln from behind his desk end, for the
first time in years, appeared on tele-
vision without the familiar pin of an
American flag in his lapel. The 'new,'
new Nixon; designed to appeal to his
,detractors, fooled nobody."
4. He parodied himself with that I
Won't-take-the-easy-way stuff.
This criticism is valid. One day the
President will say, "I could have taken
the easy way, and frankly it looked
pretty good, so I did," and 21 million
Americans, regardless of party, will
reach out and clasp him to their bosoms..
But a double standard might be
pointed out here. When John F. Ken-
nedy publicly took responsibility for
the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the reaction
was, "He's bravely, taking the blame
for something not his fault." When
Mr. Nixon accepted ultimate responsi-
bility for the Watergate atrocity, 'the
reaction of critics seems to be, "He's
.trying in his devious way to make us
think he's bravely taking the blame
,for something not his fault."
5. He spoke too soon.
This concern is voiced by some of
the President's supporters, who believe
the .should have waited until all the
for a man who will be dealing with an Americah
President whose domestic political ? position' is in
such disarray that his authority In foreign ?.affairs
could be undercut,
The contrast between May Day in Moscow and
the morning after the Watergate speech in Wash-:
ington is hardly reassuring in terms of interna-
tional policy. European security talks in ' Hel
sinki and the mutual troop-cutback bargaining in
Vienna are reaching a point where formal nego-
tiations may begin; SALT II is proceeding; efforts
are being made to reshape the Atlantic relation-
ships; world trade and monetary negotiations are'
scheduled; , .T:,panese-American relations remain
a problem; most urgently, the Indochina cease-
fire a ,,cord is tattered and in need of stitching by
the big powers. '
Even in the best of circumstances, these would
be weighty matters requiring the best, efforts and
the closest attention of the President. As ' Mr.
Nixon stated in his Watergate address: "There is
vital work to be done toward our goal of a struc-
ture of lasting peace in the world, work that can-:
not wait, work that I must do," To this end, he is,
sending Henry A. Kissinger .to Moscow Friday to.
prepare for the Brezhnev visit and, possibly, to
seek Soviet help in shoring up the cease-fire agree
ment. Mr. Kissinger, as he indicated a week ago,
will have reduced leverage in Moscow because of
Watergate. Whether this weakness will persist
into.the Nixon-Brezhnev talks will depend largely
on White House effectiveness in dealing with the
Watergate scandal. But If it does persist, the'
presidency will have been weakened at a crucial
juncture in world affairs.
damaging facts were laid bare: Since
the situation will get worse before it
gets better, he might have avoided a
mistake in tone by taking action
silently, later presenting to the public
not his anguish but his anger.
But a President must step up to a
crisis. It might have been better to
wait until the worst was over, but a
leader cannot always wait for the
"best" time. He spoke when he had to,
and performed as much surgery as he
.decided was necessary.
6. He was emotional.
That he was. Mr. Nixon's Watergate
,speech was not an activities report or
n legal brief. Described In his opening
line as coming "from my heart," it was
a reach by a man, neither a hollow
man nor a plastic man, for a people's
trust, centered on his pledge to be
"worthy of that trust,' later "worthy
of their hopes" and finally, to reporters
'afterward, "worthy of your trust."
We should not feign surprise or take
offense at the display of sincere emo-
tion from a man, deeply wounded but
determined not to quit, whose greatest
ambition now is to prove himself
"worthy."
It, because he permitted zealotry to
grow in his own backyard, this Presi-
dent Is zealously pronounced unworthy
to fulfill his dream of building a stable
world peace, then that-for him and
for all the rest of us-would he in
Marc Antony's words, "the most un-
kindest cut of all.--
ESSA Y
vigorous free press." He promised "1,
will do everything in my power to
Insure that the guilty are brougtt to
Justice and that such abuses are purged
from our political processes...:'
But to his old enemies he fell short
of a really satisfying self-immolation,
Ilve and in flaming color, right before
the nation's eyes. The reason for his
restraint, had to do with his decision
that he would go on being President.
Presidents do not grovel; Presidents,
if they are to continue in authority,
pick up the pieces and go on. Nobody
Votes for Mayor Culpa.
3. He wrapped himself in the flag.
Critics were angered by the accoutre-
.tflents of his television appearance: a
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WASHINGTON POST
2 May 1973
Joseph Alsop
ixon's Speech: A- Clean Cut',, But tate
Anyone can see the President cannot series of men to whom- he had given need watching. On the basis of the
hope to come out of the Watergate total confidence. . . known facts, John Dean III ought to
horror smelling like a rose. But after The depth of his resentment can be have been disbarred before he became
the events of Monday, a bet is hereof- seen in the way he dealt with John the President's counsel. He strikes one
fered that the President will not be. Mitchell after the real Watergate story, as the kind of man who might try to
smelling like a skunk cabbage, either. began to emerge before the grand get his own back, by seek? Z'.14 to impli=
No doubt this will disappoint a few. jury. This was when . Mitchell was cate the -President. But Dow. will not
The het is also conditional on substan- called to the White House on April 15. do this, if he has a decent 1.:1yer of
tiation of a recent, far too little no- Mitchell was not allowed to -see the ? his own. And Dean will not matter
, ticed summation of the Watergate evi- President. He was given the dire news much, anyway, if Jack Anderson's ver-
'tience by Jack Anderson, that Fero- by a man he hates, John Ehrlichman. sion of what happened is generals sus-
t'ious investigator-reporter. Anderson This is not the way any president ban- tanned by other evidence.
'-has certainly shown no signs of a soft dies a man who has been his closest' These are the reasons, finally, that
:Spot for Richard M. Nixon. He has fur- intimate, unless a catastrophic loss of the President should finally emerge'
ther seemed to have complete access faith has already occurred. from ? the Watergate horror without
to the grand jury testimo y in the smelling like a skunk cabbage. This
e Such, them,, are the tentative of course that although he may
Watergate case. With this knowledge, on which one may judge the he knowledg
be somewhat damaged, he will still be
be wrote the other day: political effects of the Watergate hor?
"President Nixon had no advance Two aspects of the horror are a relatively intact President, with
knowledge of the Watergate break-in ror. bound to hurt the President perma-' more than enough political authority
and bugging'] ??nently, although far from fatally. He to discharge the dreadful responsibili-
When the Watergate story was bro- cannot get rid of the responsibility for ties that the modern presidency im-
ken by The Washington Post, it must hiring and trusting the people respon- poses.
,therefore have astonished the Presi-' sible for the horror. He also waited far Barring the most passionate Nixon-
dent as much as it astonished most too long to make the clean cut that haters--a minority sect at best-this is
people. It was then campaign time. It obviously necessary; and in this the final outcome that most people in
Would be carrying faith in human na- was waiting period, the horror was made ? the country have been hoping for. Al-
waiting too far, to. suppose the candidate- ' even more horrible.,. . . most all Americans have enough coin-.
President did not then want his subor- mon sense to see the terrible danger of
as tar as L was pv. No u" r
s President will now turn upon him, and with a president who has been politi-
Al~
Preslden ent the e , last 40 yeoars will seek to Implicate him from mo-
crippled
call
.
y
woul would have wanted less.
But once again, if Jack Anderson is fives of revenge. Every last one of Hence President Nixon can in fact,
correct, the President had no knowl- them Was looking forward to'the most ; count on being given the benefit of the,
edge whatever of the kind of shocking ? glittering rewards In private 'life. Now, doubt by most people in this country-
cover-up measures that were taken by however, that delightful prospect has now that he has finally made the deep,
some of those closest to him, allegedly paled and vanished. For some, the out- ? clean cut that the Watergate horror
Including former Attorney General look is also hideously dark, since ac- always demanded. Thank God he has
John Mitchell. Judging , by all the. tual crimes have undoubtedly been done so, and pray God it produces the
known evidence, the President was committed. result here forecast. Otherwise, we shall
persistently, flagrantly and arrogantly Looking over the line-up, however, all suffer.
lied to about this matter, by a whole .'there Is only one man' Who ,seems to ?1973. Loa Aneotee Times
BALTIMORE SUN
3 May 1973
Notes and Comment
Their Days Are Numbered
So Rosencrantz and Guilden-
stern-we mean, Ehrlichman and
Haldeman-are dead, figura-
tively , speaking. We have
searched the papers in vain.
for a kind word about them.
,They have been chucked to the
dogs and every politician in
Christendom seems to be happy.
'One reason is plain. These two .
non-politicians never played by
the rules of politics. They, skirts, and brought out a new,
shielded President Nixon from ! edition of the Manual. There are
the advice of senators and gover-,' a lot of new merit badges today
nors in a manner. that many.. that they didn't have when Hans
senators and governors found de- and Fritz were in brown short
meaning. pants: Automotive Safety, Com-.
Well, we've taken our fair ? munications, Electronics, Public
share of pot shots at Hans and Speaking. Salesmanship are just
Fritz, as they are called around ; a few. Electronics? Communica- ?
Washington, but at this point tions? Hmmm. . a .
we'd like to say a very small
word in their defense. Like the. '
foolish courtiers in Hamlet, they There is a lot of difference
probably thought they were doing between doing the best thing and
the best thing. the right thing. We guess that
(And like those two, they met , . sums up' the problem of this or
those nifty Presidential calen-
Haldeman and Erlichman were `
dars? The President revealed
both Eagle Scouts, and we hope;
this .their existence the other night.
name. doesn't The give the Scouts Scouts have a had bad ; ..their
'said that 'when he was inau-
enough troubles lately as it is.'As As. `gusted, last January, he gave
the nation became more urban each member of his Cabinet and
and sophisticated, scouting had White House staff a [our-year
less of ansal. Last ear the calendar, covering the period of
app Y y his secdnd term, with each date'
changed the name from Boy ,:numbered: January 20 was 1,461,
Scouts to S
outs
d
c
, encourage
Cub January 21 was 1.460. etc. Now it
Scout Dan Mothers to ..,...,... i
n
_
n
-
-- a nulls i culp-
ents, their days were numbered
wrong.
. We don't' just mean Haldeman
and Ehrlichman, for whom last
Monday was not Day 1,361, as
President Nixon pointed out it
was for himself, but Day 0. The
real confusion is for Elliot Rich-
ardson. He got a calendar as Sec-
retary of Defense designate. But
now he is Attorney General des-
ignate. Does he get two calen-
dars? And if he changes jobs
again, does he get three? Rich-
. ardson seems to be the record
holder for number of Cabinet
chairs held in the shortest period
of time. In a span of five months
he will have been Secretary of
Health, Education and Welfare,
Defense, and Attorney General.
m
Guilty or Innocent, as they say,
Ehrlichman and Haldeman seem
certain of a place in history as
notorious characters. The more
we think of them, the more they
remind us of Shakespeare's hap-
less pair, and especially of what
dramatist Tom Stoppard said of
them in explaining why he wrote
a play about them a few years
ago: "Rosencrantz and Guilden-
stern were the two most expend-
able people of all time. Their
very facelessness makes them
dramatic ..." I
tragic end.) Approve' eo?rle. CIAS?DP77-00432R000100150001-0
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3 May, 1973
a .0
. By John Allan May
America, he points out, gets a free
ride. It is given immunity from
disciplines that have to be obeyed by
other nations.
Pressure to adopt a new monetary
system not based on a corrupting
American deficit now will measur-
ably increase, London financial ex-'
perts judge.
As to defense, some people are
saying that Watergate' has greatly
advanced the time when European
defense will need to be totally restruc-
tured.
It is felt likely here that congres-
sional influence from now on will be
used to accelerate the reduction In the
level of American ground forces in
Europe. The extent of that influence
vis a vie the President may be crucial
another Watergate imponderable.
Britons hope, as the London Times
,also says, that Americans at this
stage will not forget that Mr. Nixon
has been a major president in world
affairs. And that the outside world
"needs to have a strong and effective
ware'
president of the United States to deal
with."
And as an average. Briton re-
marked, "I hope the average Amer-
ican will also realize that because of
the wealth, strength, and size of his
country he is a very Important person
too to the outside world."
In addition, some observers hero
see the reaction of a section of the
American press and public to (hg,'
crisis in the. administration is almost
as alarming as the nature of the cris1:3
itself.
fhe London Times points to the wild
piling of charge upon charge and
suspicion upon suspicion and re-
marks, "The hysteria has Indeed
mounted with the facts."
For the same reason, however,
people overseas also find some cause
for comfort In the story. The very
nature of the democratic process
ensures that the poison can be purged.
In an authoritarian regime it may
linger damagingly In the system.
The Christian Science Monitor
London
It Is inconceivable that U.S. foreign
policy will not be affected by Water-
gate, it is said here.
Henry A. Kissinger recently out-
lined 'a plan for a new Atlantic
Charter, This seems to have attracted
more notice abroad than at home.
Most people here, however, seem to
agree with the judgment of the liberal
Guardian newspaper that the time
now is not auspicious to pursue this
project. "Nixon would be wise to let
the dust settle," it says.
Even international monetary re-
form will be Influenced. An increasing
number of Europeans agree with the
view voiced recently in America by
Herman Kahn that the American
payments deficit as the basis of the
international system has a corrupting
effect.
the ; Watergate Coveru
By lack Anderson
The astonishing story can
now be told how the Water-
gate coverup suddenly tore
apart at the stitches.
Our sources declare categor-
ically that President Nixon
l had no advance knowledge of
the Watergate ? break-in and
bugging. From the first, for-
mer Attorney General John
Mitchell and White House
counsel John Dean also swore
to him that they had no part
in the illegal operation. It was
well known around the White
House, however, that, Jeb
Stuart Magruder was,, neck-
deep in the scandal.
As No. 2 man on the. cam-
paign committee, he directed
the activities of Watergate
ringleader G. Gordon Liddy.
Liddy submitted regular re-
ports to Magruder on the bug-
ging operation under the code
name, "Gemstone." Magruder
also arranged for Liddy to
draw cash out of the c3mmit-
tee's safe.
After the arrest cf the
Watergate wiretappers, an agi-
tated Liddy immediately tried
to contact Magruder in Cali-
fornia. Liddy demanded to use
the White House security net-
work so he could speak on a
secure phone. Unable to get
through to Magruder's hotel,
Liddy left a message for Ma-
gruder to call him from a pay
phone.
When the call ? came
through, Liddy reported what
had happened and received in-
>lo Ws>tslitilt>wgto>ta MerryOGo-1toaa>atd .,. ,. THE WASHINGTON POST Thursday, April 26,1973
.. ~
structions to destroy all In-
criminating evidence. Finally,
Magruder directed Liddy to
report" at once to Attorney
General Richard Kleindienst.
Liddy located Kleindienst at
the Burning Tree golf course
and rushed off to consult him,
Powell Moore, the campaign
press chief, asked to go along.
They called Kleindienst into
a back room and confided
that the burglary-bugging
squad, caught red-handed in-
side Democratic headquar-
ters, was headed by the Presi-
dent's campaign security chief.
Coldly, Kleindlenst picked
up a telephone and reached
Assistant Attorney General
Henry Petersen. "Henry," in-
structed Kleindienst, "I want
to be sure that these people
are treated as any other per-
son would be treated who is
arrested under those circum-
stances."
The , chastened Liddy re-
turned to campaign headquar-
ters and began stuffing his
files into a small shredder,
which chewed them up too
slowly to suit him. So he hus-
tled upstairs with arms full of
documents and ran them
through a larger shredder.
Over at the White House,
meanwhile, Dean ordered two
aides to clean out the files of
Watergate conspirator E. How-
ard Hunt. Eight cardboard car-
tons of papers were sneaked
out of the White House and
stored in a warehouse. They
were later returned to the
White House, and most of the
documents were selectively
destroyed.
Dean was ordered by the
President to find out whether
any White House people were
involved in . the Watergate
crimes. Contrary to the im-
pression given out by the
White House, Dean never
submitted a written report.
Our sources state' flatly that
Dean used his authority to ob-
struct the FBI and to keep in-
criminating evidence away
from the Justice Department.
He even ordered Hunt out of
the country. White House aide
Charles Poison,. according to
one source, exploded: "Do you
want to make the Whte House
an accessory, to a fugitive
.from justice?"
Cover-up Begins'
One of the President's clos-
est advisers, John Ehrlichman,
wanted to put out a statement
acknowledging Magruder's
role in the Watergate conspir.
acy. This was vigorously op-
posed. by Clark MacGregor
who succeeded Mitchell as
campaign chairman.
A few presidential advisers,
including Ehrlichman and Col-
son, warned the President in
February that the Watergate
decisions must have been ap-
proved by Mitchell and Dean,
Mr. Nixon replied that both
had denied any involvement
and asked for proof.
By mid-March, the Presi-
dent's faith in Dean began to
waver. He ordered Dean to
Camp David to write a belated
Failed
report on his Watergate inves-
tigation. After a few days at
the presidential retreat, Dean
reported back to the President
that he simply couldn't write 'a
report. Angrily, Mr. Nixon
took Dean off the Watergate
case.
Colson, meanwhile, took a
lie-detector test to prove his
own innocence. Dean was furi-
ous. "Now we're all going to
have to take one,' he
grumped.
Colson' and Ehrlichman also
put together information that
(1) Dean had advance know-
ledge of the Watergate bug-
ging; (2) Dean had ordered
Hunt out of the country; and
(3) Dean. had authorized pay-
ments to the Watergate de-
fendants to keep their mouths
shut. On Friday, April 13,
Ehrlichman confronted Dean
with the charges.
That night, Dean put to-
gether some documents he
had been saving, which indi-
cated both H.R. Haldeman and
John Ehrlichman had knowl-
edge of the Watergate cov-
erup. Next day, Dean took the
documents to Assistant U.S.
Attorney Earl Silbert and
made accusations against
Haldeman, Ehlichman, Mitch-
ell and Magruder. In return,
Dean asked for immunity. .
Silbert refused to grant Im-
munity. Instead, he called in
Magruder and confronted him
with Dean's revelations., This
broke down Magruder who
also confessed his role In the
conspiracy.
() 1973. United Nature Syndicato
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WASHINGTON POST
President Nixon said, in his television address . on , Nixon's speech on television for themselves, they, cannot
Monday evening, that he has had to'spend too much time ',have failed.to catch the, urgent anxiety in his words:,
lately on the internal scandals of his administration. "I They have seen the reaction from leading members of
must now turn my full attention once again to the larger Congress.' It would be impossible for any experienced
duties of this office," he observed, after announcing that. -,,;,'politician to have spent this week in Washington and
Ike-was turning the Investigation of the scandals over to '.r still believe that Mr. Nixon's troubles are merely the
his subordinate, the Attorney General-designate, Mr.. kind of customary domestic irritations that other gov-
Richardson. "There is vital work to be clone toward our' :ernments Can ignore.
goal of a lasting structure of peace in the world-work it has now begun to dawn; on our German visitors that.
that cannot wait. Work that I must do." As soon as the Mr. Nixon's trade bill Is in grave jeopardy. Any Con
following morning, he pointed out, he was to confer at 'e'gress, in any year, finds it difficult to vote for a trade
the White House with, Chancellor Brandt of West Ger- bill that is opposed by the labor movement. The only
many. 1 o way that any President ever gets trade legislation en-
It must be a very strong temptation for Mr, Nixon, ' ' acted is by climbing up on his white horse and .talking
.in this bitter time, -to retreat to the decorous and sere- about the greater, national interest.. Mr. Nixon's white
monious world of foreign affairs. But that would be an' t,'. ,horse is currently not in service. It is, to use the famil-
exc~.edingly dangerous retreat-dangerous for Mr. Nixon'.' iar term, inoperative. If the trade bill does not move
and more dangerous for the country. A democratic'gov- forward rapidly, the whole policy toward Europe, will' .
`
ernment's foreign policy can never be any stronger or
decline into stagnation. Perhaps the magnitude of this
sounder than that government's staandifig' at home and its'' ', ' possibility was not evident to the German governne ;t'
support among its own people. home.'Pretending that foreign policy is, separate
orilica. As long as Mr. Brandt and his colleagues remained from the administration's standing at home is a luxury
In Bonn, they knew the Watergate case only as a thin no longer available to Mr. Nixon. He spoke on Monday
trickle of newspaper stories and perhaps occasional low- ' of the "larger duties" of his office, and the "vital work
keyed diplomatic reporting. At a distance of several' to be done," as though politics abroad were obviously
thousand miles, it is easy to dismiss the whole affair as nobler and more important than politics at home. To the
the', kind of routine embarrassment that is a normal contrary, the largest duty of the President's office' this
hazard of political life. The European press, over the week is to re-establish some degree of its traditional
winter, has not made much of the affair. moral authority in the eyes of the American people. The
But now, having spent the past few days in Washing- , most vital work to be done in the White House, In this
ton, the Brandt party cannot have missed the true and unhappy season, is to regain the administration's sadly
desperate significance of the scandals. Having seen Mr. damaged capacity to speak for the American nation.
NEW YORK TIMES
2 May 1973
Broken Confidence
The Watergate scandal has become a crisis of preslj
dential authority. In his Addres4 to the nation MondAk
evening, President Nixon tried but failed to resolve that
crisis. The whole trend of future events remains In doubt.
Although he has dismissed three of his senior aides
.and formally accepted responsibility for whatever mis;
deeds may have been committed without his knowledge,
Mr. Nixon basically has conceded nothing except what
events have wrenched from him. In making those mini.
mum moves, he has at the same time played down the,
seriousness of the scandals and tried to blur responslJ
bility for them.
He praised H. R. Haldeman And John D. Ehrlichman,
,who resigned under pressure, aA"*two of the finest pub'
r Ali'. 1V Lion's 'Larger L'utles'
know-that it'can be very easy under the Intensive pres-
sures of a campaign for even well-intentioned people to
fall Into shady tactics, to rationalize this on the grounds
that what IS at stake is of such importance to the nation
that the end justifies the means. And both of our great
parties have been guilty of such tactics,"
But these excuses and words of praise come after Mr.
Ehrlichman had already told the Federal Bureau of Inves-
tigation that It was he who assigned two of the men
later convicted in the Watergate trial to investigate
Daniel Ellsberg. When he learned that they had burglar-
ized the files of Mr. EilSberg's psychiatrist, Mr. Ehrlich.
man, although he is a member of the bar, took no action.
He merely told them not to do it again.
That took place not during the heat of a hard-fought
political campaign but in September, 1971. Mr. Ehrlich-
man's complacent acceptance of such criminAl behavior
is on a par with former lttorne G e I M' I Ii'
e
t
n ra e
J
c ie s par-
lic Servants it has been my privilage to know,". adding: ticipation without-public disclosure, much less denuncia-
"I greatly regret their departure." (ion, in conferences early in 1972 to discuss the illegal
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Committee. Mr. Nixon may find it easy to understand
such attitudes on the part of high officials. Most citizens
'Lion offered:by Senator Percy; Republican of Illinois;
calling for nomination of a distinguished special prosecu'
tor from outside the executive branch and for his con-
firmation.by the Senate. Representative John Anderson,
Republican of Illinois, has, introduced a similar resolution
in the House, which' also deserves prompt approval. it
is significant and encouraging that members -of the'
President's own party in Congress have taken the lead
in urging this essential action.
Finally, however, the ball returns to President Nixon.
It is up to him to recognize that, important as are inter-
national negotiations, inflation and other public prob,
lems, What matters now is the breakdown of public con-'
fidence in' his Administration. lie cannot cope with
specific problems on a business-as-usual basis as if
Watergate were a minor diversion. It was neither a caper
nor an isolated event; it vas proof that something Is
radically wrong in the central relationships of this
Administration. Mr. Nixon's task is to focus on repairing
confidence by developing new relationships with his
staff and Cabinet, with Congress and with the people''
Nothing else can be accomplished, until the President
begins ,to put these relationships on the right basis
the basis of candor, lawfulness, mutual respect and sound
constitutional, practice in. the conduct of the public's
business,
Even more dismaying is the planned obstruction of'
justice in the Watergate case by senior Administratiof
officials, as reported in the news bolumns of this news
paper today. When an atmosphere of criminality prevails
in the highest levels of the Administration, .it is impose
sible to know what other public business may be tainted
with fraud.
Under these circumstances, Mr. Nixon cannot plausi
bly say that In some vague way both parties and all of
America are to blame. He cannot assort that Watergate
."has claimed far too much of my time and my attention"
and that he now intends to busy himself with other
matters. He cannot play a game of musical chairs Inside
his Administration and declare that moving about a few
insiders Is sufficient to restore public confidende. Such
acts and attitudes are an affront to the public. , - ?'
The full facts on this monstrous interference with the
political process are unlikely ever to come out until'
prosecution is rembved from dontrbl by this Administra-
tion. The Senate has pointed the way the White. House
must follow. it has approved without, dissent a ;esolu.
NEW YORK TIMES
3 May 1973 -
enate Duty...
In the crisis brought about by the Watergate scav i& s..
! the. Senate has three vitally important duties to dis-
.charge. They are to help find the truth, to evaluate
the harm done and to correct the weaknesses which have,
been exposed to the extent that laws can remedy them.'
The Senate acted to perform the first of those duties,
when it approved the resolution offered by Senator
Percy, Republican of Illinois, calling upon the President;
to name a special prosecutor from outside the executive,
branch to take charge of the Watergate Investigation..
As Is the unadmirable custom in the Senate of doing
most of its business by the rule of unanimous consent,`
the resolution was ca fled up and-when no one objected---
was passed, although only four members were present
on the floor. Senator Curtis, Republican of Nebraska,'
tried yesterday. to soften the impact of the Senate's.
action by belated protests. His ex post facto grumbling
is significant only because he Is a stalwart supporter
of the White House and his complaints reflect the angry
opposition of President Nixon. At a Cabinet meeting
Tuesday the President reportedly excoriated Senator
Percy and insisted that the decision about a special
prosecutor he left with Attorney General-designate
'Richardson. -
Mr. Nixon makes a. deep error, however, if he attributes
,.to Senator Percy's Presidential ambitions a demand which
actually arises from the ranks of his own party. The
Percy resolution was co-sponsored by ten Republicans
'Including Barry Goldwater and Robert Dole, the formet
G.O.P. national chai -man, and had the tacit support of
the party's Senate leadership. Like its counterpart, the
Anderson resolution in the House of Representatives, it
articulates a sentiment expressed by Republicans of
every ideological viewpoint around the country as well
as in Congress.
In any event, from the standpoint of timing, the deci-
sion on a special prosecutor cannot be delayed until
Mr. Richardson takes office. His confirmation hearing
Is a week away and his actual assumption of office may
be much more distant. Since critical decisions have to
be made about the fast-developing Watergate investiga-
tion, it is essential that such a prosecutor totally free
of 'association with this Administration be appointed
at once.
# R F
In the separate task of evaluating the harm that has
been done, the Senate select committee chaired by Sena-
tor Ervin, Democrat of North Carolina, has an Important
long-range duty` to perform. Many of the nefarious
activities in connection with the 1972 interference with
the electoral process may be improper but not Illegal,
or only of marginal importance in a criminal trial. With-
out trespassing on the domain of the courts or the rights
of the accused, the committee is best positioned to pull
together the whole story in all its ramifications.
Last year's inquiry by the Senate Judiciary Committee
into the connections between the Nixon campaign organi-
zation's fund raising and the settlement of the I.T.T.
antitrust case was handicapped by lack of knowledge
of the pervasiveness of the whole interlocking conspiracy.
The same White House cast of characters involved in
Watergate played important roles in that murky affair,
.including convicted Watergate conspirator E. Howard
!Hunt Jr., who interviewed Mrs. Dita Beard, the elusive
I.T.T. lobbyist, on behalf of the white House. He also
'showed up in the Ellsberg case, which we discuss below.
-What is clearly needed is a comprehensive investigation
by the Ervin committee of the activities of the Justice
Department and the White House staff.
f With , regard to remedial action, the financing of
political campaigns is the place to begin. Last year'.~
campaign expenditure law has helped significantly to
open up political money-raising to public inspection, but
much more is plainly needed to control and channel
the infusion of money into politics. The Watergate
,scandals were financed in part by that tide of $100 bills
which was raised in mysterious ways and spent in
;worse ways. The Senate still has a job to do in stricter
regulation of this corrupting flow of money.
..White House Ethics
. Coming on the heels of the Watergate revelations,
blatant White House misconduct In the case of Dc, Daniel
Ellsberg deepens the picture of an Administration In
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moral blinders. President Nixon's inquest in '1971 for a !'warn the culprits. "not to do this again." He did not
.special staff investigation into unauthorized disclosures report their crime either to the authorities or to the
of Government information may not in itself have been' Federal court that was to try Dr. Ellsberg.
neither. improper or unusual, but everything else about, a. -When Mr. Ehrlichman and his principal, the President
the episode was.
of the United States, did get in touch with that court,
A report of the Federal Bureau 'of Investigation--- Ht was for a quite different purpose. That purpose,
which was already at work on the subject when the'shocking under the 'circumstances, was to offer the
President ordered John D. Ehrlichman to make a private judge, William Matthew Byrne Jr., the directorship of
1 study-now reveals that the former Presidential aide
achose for the purpose G.'Gordon Liddy and E. Howard the F . B.I.
Hunt Jr., whose method then was simple burglary, the' Judga Byrne might well be an admirable choice for
same method thry used later,in the Watergate case.. To; this post, the more so since he refused to entertain the
compile a "psychiatric profile" of the defendant in the otter While pfesitltng over a ca" in which the President
Pentagon Papers case, these two industrious White House o clearly took intense interest. What is important is not
k'Investigators broke Into the office of Dr. Ellsber 's the judge's qualifications--or even the decision he must
a g now make on whether or not to dismiss the case against
psychiatrist in a search for evidence of emotional insta- Dr. Ellsberg. It is rather the insensitivity, to use the
.bility. As though that were not reprehensible enough :mildest possible word, of Mr. Ehrlichman and the Presi-
>--especially?with the case already In the courts--Mr. dent in making such an offer in the midst of a trial'
Ehrlichman, on learning of the incident, was content to already so heavy with political overtones.
WASHINGTON sT r
CARL T. ROWAN.
4 MaY 1973
Nixon R~i~g Evasive
The eight-column headline
across the Washington Post
screamed, "President Ac-
cepts Full Responsibility."
Someone, awaking from an
'ear,ly-go-to-bed might have
concluded that Richard Mil?
hous Nixon had abdicated in
his embarrassment over the
,seemingly endless chain of
revelations in the Watergate
.scandal.
But no such thing. The
.headline writer had simply
bought some Nixon rhetoric
,without giving much thought
to whether the President was
!accepting what the President
said he was accepting.
It was vintage Nixon, circa
11952. when the President said
with an air of nervous
?gallantry:
the easiest 'course
would be for me to blame
those to whom I delegated the
( responsibility to run the cam-
paign. But that would be a
(cowardly thing to do.
I "I will not place the blame
on subordinates - on people
!whose zeal exceeded their
;Judgment, and who may have
,done wrong in a cause they
.deeply believed to be right.
, "In any organization, the
man at the top must bear the
responsibility. That responsi-
bility, therefore, belongs
here, in this office. I accept
it.,
, The words had a noble ring,
-but the truth is that the Presi-
dent was placing the blatrie on
subordinates. ? . best days in the history of
It was H.R. Haldeman and America,"
John Ehrlichman who were But the speech won't wash
.going off the White House in the long run, because the
payroll, their lives now platitudes and cliches did not
cloaked in tragedy, not Rich- answer the questions the
ard.Nixon. It was John Wes- American people are asking
ley Dean III who was being about presidential knowledge
pushed out of the White House' of or involvement in the dirty
with a devious suggestion that money-raising tactics, the
Does anyone believe that.
John Dean kept Nixon, Halde-
man and Ehrlichman in blind.
ers for 10 months? And how,
come the President never said
a word about his former attor-
ney general and most trusted
political adviser, John
Mitchell?
he was the villain. It was misuse of funds for espionage This speech just won't do
Richard Kteindienst who was and sabotage, or his aware- for Richard Nixon what that
surrendering the job of attor- ness of the outrageous cover- Checkers speech did in 1952.
ney general. And L. Patrick up that produced 10 months of Neither the President nor the
Gray Ili who had left the act- evasions, lies and deception. ublic has h ar in
i ppttmveckl tbR lease,20oi1 B difAArWRas7-O 9RQ1ROf161t4,Tan tT
after the incredible revelation ly-nervous President categor- gate scandal.
that he had destroyed docu- ically deny personal knowl-'
ments taken from the office of edge of the dirty work.
E. Howard Hunt, a man the Nixon did say that he
FBI was Investigating for learned from news reports'
suspected criminal behavior. last June 17 of the Watergate
It was Jeb Stuart Magruder break-in. "I was appalled at
who had bowed out of govern.
ment to face possible criminal
Indictment.
Was Richard M. Nixon
resigning? No. Was Nixon
promising to pay some kind of
penalty? No. Was the Presi-
dent volunteering to spend
part of G. Gordon Liddy's 6 to
20 years in prison? No.. Was
Nixon saying that he would
pay some grinding penance
for this unprecedented cor-
ruption of the presidential
election process? No.
Nixon made it clear that
"for specific criminal actions
by specific individuals, those
who committed those actions
must, of course, bear the lia-
bility and pay the penalty."
this senseless illegal action
and I was shocked to learn
that employees of the Re--
election Committee were ap-
parently among those guilty,",
Nixon told the nation.
Well, now, if Nixon was
shocked and appalled last
June 17, why did he send his
press secretary out to dismiss
the break-in as a "third-rate
burglary attempt'.' and to
warn that "certain elements
may try to stretch this beyond
what it is?"
The cover-up was off to a
shameful start in those utter-
ances of a press secretary
speaking speciifically in be-
half of the President.
What, then, did the The closest Nixon came to
President's' assumption of saying directly that he knew
responsibility for Watergate nothing of the subsequent lies
mean? Exactly nothing. it and evasions was when he
was just a flourish of slick said he finally got information
rhetoric. It was another, suggesting that "there had
Checkers speech - minus his been an effort to conceal the
little dog Checkers. facts, both from the public -
Some of my journalistic col- from you - and from me."
Leagues think that the But who was doing the
"unsophisticated" public 'will concealing? Nixon's praise of
swallow this speech whole, Haldeman and Ehrlichman`
sugar-coated as it was with Its suggests that he wants to hold
platitudes of patriotism like them blameless. His cold ref-
"God bless America" and its erence to Dean suggests he
emotional hokum like "I want would like to brand him the
the next 1,361 days to be the culprit.
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WASHINGTON STAR
t+ May 1973
Luce o,n
By MARY ANNE DOLAN
Star-News Staff Writer
Recalling that she owes her fortune and "all that 1.';
,have done fruitfully in my time" to living and working,:
among journalists, Clare Boothe Luce yesterday called{
upon the nation's press to "heal" the wounds left by Wa-'
tergate and "lead us out of this' painful .and dangerous',,
Aiour."
The Eisenhower-appointed former ambassador told b
luncheon audience of nearly 1,00 members of the Ameri.
can Society of Newspaper Ed',tors and their guests that;
the press has "drawn a fearsome amount of blood" from i
President Ninon, and "in terms of official accountability
and credibility, may have destroyed the efficacy of the4
presidency,"
However, she added, though not "all the watchdogs
,of, the' prr'ss are joyfully licking their chops of the rich)
'blood '..., to the President's journalistic political oppo.
.rents, the embarrassment, the shame that now envelops'
the administration is" more than a "triumph of investigatt.,
live reporting." . %
BECAUSE OF WATERGATE, Mrs. Luce said, seme~
journalists feel "their entire case" against President
Nixon has been "vindicated",: "His conduct of the Viet-,
cnam war, and the cease-fire negotiations; his challenge`
of their right to publish the Pentagon papers that Ells-'
berg burgled; his counter attacks, against their advo-'.
cacy jeurnalism ..., his championship of 'law and order,',,
and so on and so on, all the way back-to Checkers, Alger
Hiss and Helen Gahagan Douglas," ^ ;t
Mrs. Luce said that the "caper at the Watergate has'
become and will remain a catastrophe," and that "its'
inglorious beginnings give little hope for any but for an,..
Inglorious end."
In the meantime, however, she urged "a responsible.
;press to try to explain to the American people what may
have motivated the men who were invglved in such an?
unbelievably clumsy, amateurish, incredibly stupid and,
altogether counterproductive and'immoral enterprise.
"THE ONLY EXPLANATION that makes sense to
me ... lies in the widespread ciiinate of mutual suspicion
and mistrust." she said, pointing to the "hatred that be-
gan to pervade American politics over the conduct of the
Vietnam war," and continuing:
"By the spring and summer of 1972, each side had.
come to believe that the other side was being led?by dan-'
gerous fanatics. One side believed that the other was
committed to a never-ending, ruinous war. The other be-'
lieved that it had to deal with men committed tea ruinous,
;peace, and the radicalizing of American society.
"On the evidence," Mrs. Luce concluded, "the de-:
Mons of suspicion that drove Ellsberg'and Russo to bur-
glary were the same demons that entered into the Water ,
gate burglaries."
The bespectacled speaker read slowly from her notes
when she asked rhetorically, "Can a responsible press,
hold that In Ellsberg's betrayal of his oath of secrecy,`
and his theft of. secret government documents, his politi=
aterate
cat ends justified the means, while in the Watergate af-
fair the same ends were totally unjustified?
"I think neither was justifiable," she said.
AIRS. LUCE WARNED of "McCarthyism" in news-
papers, declaring that unless it is "stomped jut," the
"mistrust and suspicion that have divided us over the
long Vietnam war, and its tragic failur', will go on end.
lessly and it will make it impossil'" for either side to
'govern the country.
"Is the pleasure of soaking the captain," Mrs. Luce
.asked, "worth the price of sinking the ship?
t "... What Watergate may have made impossible for
the President to do, the press must now do - bring us
together."
THE 70-YEAR-OLD playwright and novelist was
respectfully received by her audience, which at one point
she characterized, half-laughingly, as "a blank wall and
deaf ears."
However, some hostility began to build in the ques-
.tion-and-answer period when Mrs. Luce, dressed in black
with crisp white collar and cuffs, refused to enumerate
."excesses" she had alluded to in Watergate coverage
except to say:
"This has brought up many interesting questions.
How much space, for instance, should the press give a
journalist, with a known political bias, to pursue an at-
tack against a politician - in, of course, an 'advocacy'
way."
Shortly after that response, a'gentlemanly editor
who proudly noted that he hailed from the state of Arkan-
sas asked Mrs. Luce how she managed to be so good.
looking and so intelligent at the same time.
Mrs. Luce laughed.
THE GOOD HUMOUR held out as the speaker re-
sponded to a friendly challenge from the man who intro-
.'duced her, former ASNE president John S. Knight, and
chastised the press for becoming a "monopolistic big
business." She said newspapers have "lost credibility
i because of lack of competition." Knight, head of the
third-largest newspaper chain in the country, said he
would respond later, "though she won't listen to a word I
say.
But the word which everyone listened to, which
echoed through the Shoreham's Regency ballroom
throughout the afternoon's proceedings, was the same
one Mrs. Luce said her date husband Henry had seemed
to whisper to her late the night before:
"I seemed to hear him saying, 'Look dear, you've got
to do it, as a journalist, a Republican and as my wife:
You've got to talk about Watergate.",.
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