Now It's $10 Million

First the price for fixing up San Clemente was announced as $39,525. Then, as with some giant roast beef, the figure kept rising. By June, the Administration said that $703,367 in public funds had been spent to equip the Western White House--plus another $1,180,522 for the President's home in Key Biscayne, Fla. Last week it made a new public accounting and set the total at nearly $10 million.

The latest figure included $5.9 million spent by the military, mainly for communications installations; $3.7 million by the General Services Administration to set up administrative offices and enhance security in the buildings and on the grounds; and $300,000 by the Secret Service for equipment, much of it reusable. But the accounting did not include the salaries of personnel stationed at the two houses, nor the extra cost of conducting Government business outside Washington, such as courier airplanes or per diem payments.

Ice Maker. Of the total, San Clemente ate up $6.1 million, including $1.7 million for the office complex known as the Western White House and $550,000 for communications equipment. There were many other expenses listed, some of them only tenuously connected with "security." Among these items were $998.50 to remove a wrought-iron handrail deemed hazardous and $1,950 to prune trees and eliminate what the GSA called a "safety hazard caused by dead branches."

Key Biscayne required $3.2 million, including $418,000 for a helicopter pad and $300,000 for communications equipment. Among the other expenses: $621.50 for an ice maker used by Government employees and $2,000 for a study of beach erosion. Security expenses elsewhere included $16,000 for a Secret Service command post and $168,000 for military equipment on Grand Cay, the island in the Bahamas owned by Industrialist Robert Abplanalp and frequently used as a retreat by the President.

The White House said that less than 10% of the staggering costs was spent to improve the President's homes ($68,148 on the house at San Clemente; $137,482 on the one at Key Biscayne). No comparisons with amounts spent on the homes of earlier Presidents were possible because no such accounting has ever been made. Nonetheless, the Nixon Administration's report did nothing to silence critics like Democratic Representative Jack Brooks, whose subcommittee on Government Operations plans to investigate the spending next month. Muses Brooks: "This is the fourth set of figures they've produced. Maybe we ought to see what Phase V shows."

Amid the controversy, a group of wealthy Californians wanted to show that one improvement at the Western White House--a three-hole, nine-tee golf course built on 2 1/2 acres of scrubland in 1969--was a no-strings-attached gift from a group of Orange County golfing businessmen. One of the organizers, Shopping Center Magnate Oscar W. (Dick) Richard of Newport Beach, Calif., calls the group "76 of the nicest guys in America doing something wonderful for a great President." After a tour of the course, which is generally barred to commoners, TIME Correspondent Leo Janos reported:

Flanked on one side by a panorama of the Pacific Ocean, the graceful symmetry of this immaculately tended course is broken only by clumps of grotesquely gnarled cypress. Behind the 122-yd. third hole stands a solitary wooden bench beneath an enormous royal palm where President Nixon --who seldom plays the course--likes to sit in private tranquillity at dusk.

The "members" of this very exclusive organization originally consisted of 76 wealthy weekend golfers (the number was chosen "for patriotic reasons") called "the Golfing Friends of the President." They spent $75,000--in cash and donated materials--for the links, and published a brochure that uses poetry to describe the course's splendors. It has one artificial water hazard, two sand traps, and springhole cups that pop a ball out after it is sunk.

Members contribute $250 annually for upkeep, including a full-time ground keeper. "We are down to 40 members," laments Executive Committee Member John Cucci, a wealthy Newport Beach real estate investor. "All of this Watergate stuff has made some people nervous, I guess." Adds Richard: "It's just a shame that such an open, innocent gift as we made should be held in any sort of suspicion. After all, we are all relatively honest businessmen."

At first, President Nixon reacted coolly when the golf course idea was presented to him by Herbert Kalmbach, then his personal attorney. "We pressured the White House," explains Richard. "We just thought it was too good an idea not to be adopted." Finally, Kalmbach reported that the President would accept the gift as long as no man contributed more than $750 and each signed an agreement that no favors would be expected in exchange.

Least-Used. The group was expanded to include such Nixon admirers as Bob Hope and John Wayne. All the "friends" got in return was an engraved presidential plaque, a personally autographed picture of Nixon, one cocktail party at the Western White House, and unlimited San Clemente golfing rights when the President is not in residence. "It's good for business to take a client out and suggest we hit a few on the President's course," admits one donor. Yet the course may be the least-used links in the country. Its guest book records only 330 visitors--among them David and Julie Eisenhower. Course Designer Gene Stoddard laments that nowadays only three or four members play on it each month. Explains one member: "It's a 45-minute drive from Newport Beach --and in that time you can play six holes on the local course."

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