Republican Revolt Over Watergate

George Bush, Republican National Chairman: "It is grubby. There appears to be growing concern about it, and there is no point hiding it. It is not good for the political party as a whole nor the political party system."

Hugh Scott, Republican Senate Leader: "The facts should all be ascertained and made public. Those of us whose profession is politics are deeply disturbed at any developments which taint the political process."

James Buckley, Conservative-Republican Senator from New York: "I don't think anything should be kept under the table. I want to know what happened. The reports indicate less than wholehearted cooperation by the Administration."

What those leading Republicans were talking about last week was the rapidly expanding Watergate scandal and the Nixon Administration's efforts to keep some of its highest past or present officials from telling the Senate and the public what they know about it. The open rebellion by a wide range of Republicans against the Administration's secretive handling of the affair destroyed claims that the concern about Watergate was limited to partisan Democrats or sensation-seeking newsmen. The President clearly faces a credibility crisis within his own party.

Curt. That crisis was heightened last week by dramatic--and so far unsubstantiated--charges made by a convicted Watergate conspirator. James W. McCord Jr., the former security coordinator of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, testified that some of Nixon's closest advisers were fully aware of the plan for the breakin and bugging of Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington's Watergate complex last June and had approved of it. In the face of such charges, Republican Congressmen as well as many G.O.P. stalwarts in all walks of life were highly critical of Nixon's decision merely to authorize curt denials through White House spokesmen rather than speak openly and fully. Besides the single court-proven act of spying at the Watergate, there are now broader charges of a covert and systematic attempt by Nixon's re-election officials to disrupt the campaigns of potential Democratic opponents in last year's presidential election.

Republicans were especially bothered by Nixon's contention that no presidential aide, even if no longer on his staff, can appear formally before any congressional committee to answer questions about the affair. That attempt to expand the protection of Executive privilege is unprecedented. Anything that advisers may have told Nixon has traditionally been accorded privilege. But in this case they would be kept from testifying about matters that were purely political, possibly illegal and had nothing to do with their formal Government duties--and thus cannot be privileged. If Nixon indeed had no knowledge of these clandestine political activities, any claim that Executive privilege was involved is further weakened.

One Republican Senate leader reported that virtually every G.O.P. Senator is upset about Nixon's stand. "We're not a unanimous bunch," he explained. "But we are unanimous about Watergate. The President should order anybody whose name is substantively implicated to testify."

Testifying under oath before a select Senate committee, McCord implicated an impressive list of people in the Watergate affair. The list included former Attorney General John Mitchell, who headed the Nixon committee at the time of the Watergate arrests; H.R. Haldeman, the President's White House chief of staff; John Dean III, Nixon's chief legal counsel; Charles Colson, a former Nixon counsel; and Jeb Stuart Magruder, a former White House aide and deputy director of the re-election committee who is now an assistant to the Secretary of Commerce. McCord, who faces up to 45 years in prison for his part in the wiretapping, talked in hopes of getting a more lenient sentence from Federal Judge John J. Sirica. The judge agreed to postpone sentencing until after McCord finishes talking to the Senate committee and to a federal grand jury in Washington that is considering further indictments.

In a closed session, McCord told the Senators that most of his information implicating higher officials came from G. Gordon Liddy, a former White House aide and re-election committee official who had also been convicted in the Watergate bugging. Other such information, he said, came from a former White House consultant, E. Howard Hunt Jr., who had pleaded guilty in the Watergate operation. Thus McCord's charges were based on "hearsay" that is not admissible evidence in a courtroom but was nevertheless invaluable to the committee, which is interested in the ethics of the political spying as much as in illegality.

McCord testified that Liddy had claimed to be present at a meeting with Mitchell in February of last year. According to McCord, Liddy prepared for the meeting a series of charts illustrating the planned political-espionage operation against the Democrats and the costs involved. The meeting was also attended, McCord claimed, by Hunt and by Presidential Counsel John Dean (TIME, April 2). McCord contended that Dean had later told Liddy that Mitchell had approved the plans. According to McCord, Hunt had shown copies of the Watergate plans to Colson, Magruder knew about the plans, and Haldeman "knew what was going on."

McCord stressed that he had also been in frequent contact with Robert C. Mardian, a former Assistant Attorney General and later a Nixon re-election committee troubleshooter, but he would not explain what they had discussed without assurances that he would be protected against further prosecution. He was scheduled to testify again this week, and promised to present some documentary substantiation of his charges.

Spokesmen for the White House and the Nixon committee issued short, sharp denials. Presidential Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler said that Nixon still had "absolute and total confidence" in Dean and that Dean had no prior knowledge of Watergate. (But Gerald Ford, Republican House leader, declared: "If Dean is clean, I see no reason why he shouldn't testify.") John Mitchell* said that "I deeply resent the slanderous and false statements about me," and reaffirmed earlier denials of any advance knowledge of the Watergate affair. Colson termed McCord's mention of him "a goddamned lie." Magruder stood by his earlier denials, and Haldeman was covered by the Nixon announcement last August that "no one presently employed by the White House" was involved.

These denials had no chance of short-circuiting the Watergate investigations by either the Senate committee or the grand jury. With McCord talking freely, the focus shifted to whether either Liddy or Hunt would confirm McCord's charges of higher involvement. Hunt took the Fifth Amendment before the grand jury until U.S. Attorneys brought him before Judge Sirica and asked that he be granted immunity against further prosecution. The judge did so, and Hunt, who could then be charged with contempt of the jury if he did not respond, began answering questions. At week's end his testimony remained a secret, but he apparently failed to corroborate McCord's account.

Liddy went through the same procedure, but after getting immunity, he still refused to answer questions. He will face contempt action this week. His lawyers indicated that he would continue to claim Fifth Amendment protection as long as his earlier Watergate conviction is under appeal. He has been sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

Though the grand jury may indict others for criminal violations in the Watergate bugging, the Senate committee investigation poses the greatest threat to the Nixon Administration. It is headed by North Carolina Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr., 76, whom Nixon has described as "a great constitutional lawyer." Once the folksy but determined Ervin begins quizzing reluctant witnesses in televised hearings, probably beginning in May, the national interest in Watergate is bound to soar.

Much of the present White House maneuvering may be designed to keep Administration figures out of any such television roles. Ziegler hinted that some kind of informal Senate appearance by White House aides may be offered, although he said it would have to be in private meetings closed to the press. Nixon told his aides that they must appear if summoned by a grand jury. Some Administration officials, including Colson and Magruder, have already done so, but these sessions were held behind closed doors.

The offer of private informal appearances is not expected to satisfy Ervin. He has threatened to cite with contempt of the Senate and then have jailed anyone who refuses to testify openly and under oath. The committee could seek arrest warrants, although that would probably lead to a momentous court battle rather than to immediate jailing.

Republicans on the Ervin committee seem just as determined to get at the truth. Connecticut Republican Senator Lowell P. Weicker Jr. charged last week that "somebody still in the White House" had directed political espionage far broader than just the bungled Watergate affair. But Weicker was not yet ready to name that official. He claimed that the McCord revelations were really part of a plot, presumably hatched by one or more high Administration officials, to mislead the Senate investigation by making it appear "that G. Gordon Liddy is the beginning and the end of this operation." The Weicker theory is that since McCord is citing Liddy as his main source of information--and since Liddy will not talk--McCord's charges cannot be proved.

Because so many of Nixon's closest political and staff associates have been named in the expanding scandal, the President already was being hurt. Columnist Jack Anderson even charged that Nixon personally approved an "overall espionage-sabotage operation" against the Democrats, designed to injure the front-running candidacy of Democrat Edmund Muskie and enhance the prospects of either George Wallace or George McGovern, whom Nixon considered the easiest to defeat. Yet there was no evidence so far of any such personal Nixon involvement.

Squalid. Still, Nixon's reluctance to disclose whatever the White House staff does know about Watergate or other campaign espionage has disillusioned some of the President's staunchest journalistic backers. Complained Conservative Columnist James Kilpatrick: "The White House record, by and large, has been a record of evasion, dissembling, expostulation and silence. What in the world is wrong with Richard Nixon? One might have supposed that he above all men would be acutely sensitive to the slightest appearance of impropriety. Clean as a hound's tooth--that was the standard Dwight Eisenhower fixed, and to that standard Nixon once willingly repaired." The whole affair, Kilpatrick charged, was "squalid, disgraceful and inexcusable."

Other columnists and editorialists also were reminded of Nixon's 1952 crisis, in which he was accused of accepting some $18,000 in secret campaign funds. Eisenhower at that time considered dropping Nixon as his vice-presidential candidate. Nixon's silence now contrasts sharply with the soul-baring stance of his famous "Checkers" television speech.

"The usual political thing to do when charges are made against you is to either ignore them or to deny them without giving details," Nixon said then. "I believe we've had enough of that in the United States. The best and only answer to a smear or to an honest misunderstanding of the facts is to tell the truth." Richard Nixon has as yet made no attempt to expose the full truth about Watergate. One can only wonder whether it is because he feels that the truth would be too damaging to reveal.

* On the day before McCord testified about Mitchell, his wife Martha telephoned the New York Times to claim that unspecified persons were trying to make her husband "the goat" in the Watergate affair. "I fear for my husband," she said. "I'm really scared. I can't tell you why. But they're not going to pin anything on him. I won't let them, and I don't give a damn who gets hurt. I can name names. She told the Times to send reporters to find her "if you hear that I'm sick or can't talk. Somebody might try to shut me up."

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