Heading Toward an Indictment?

Fresh from a round of golf and good living at Frank Sinatra's spread in Palm Springs, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew returned to Washington last week to deal with the charges of corruption that have threatened his entire political future. After meeting with his attorneys for most of a day, the Vice President sent a letter to George Beall, the U.S. Attorney in Baltimore, offering to let the prosecutor examine Agnew's personal financial records for the past 6'A years "at any time you may desire." Furthermore, said Agnew, he would be happy to submit to a "personal interview" with Beall "so that I may answer any questions you have." All in all, it seemed the performance of a man anxious to prove, as Agnew has claimed, that he had "nothing to hide."

Despite all the Vice President's protestations of innocence, however, TIME has learned that in the view of Justice Department officials in Washington, the case against him is growing steadily stronger, and that an indictment appears inevitable. Besides the two Maryland contractors prepared to testify that they delivered extorted campaign contributions to Agnew (TIME, Aug. 20), the Government has a third witness with a similar story. He is Allen I. Green, 49, president of a Maryland engineering firm, a man for many years regarded as one of Agnew's closest friends. Green reportedly has said that he gave kickbacks to Agnew about five times a year when Agnew was Governor of Maryland (1967-68) and slightly less often after he was inaugurated Vice President in 1969.

"The department has no choice," a Justice official in Washington said. "At least three witnesses have told of delivering cash payoffs to Agnew. The evidence is so strong that the case must be taken to trial." A federal grand jury in Baltimore is expected to vote an indictment next month charging Agnew with, among other things, bribery and extortion.

Green and the Government's two other prime witnesses, Jerome Wolff and Lester Matz, both also engineering consultants and former Agnew associates, have told prosecutors that they delivered to Agnew personally cash kickbacks from their own firms and as many as a score of other state and federal contractors in Maryland. For example, Matz has claimed that on one occasion in 1971 he carried $2,500 right into the Vice President's private office in the Executive Office Building and handed it to Agnew, allegedly in return for Agnew's help in getting one of Matz's friends a job in the General Services Administration. (That story was promptly denied by another friend of Agnew's, Annapolis Banker J. Walter Jones, who Matz claimed was present during the transaction. "Such a thing is ridiculous," Jones said.) Prosecutors said that many payoffs delivered to Agnew were disguised as campaign contributions and were used to finance his political races over the years. One of the traditional devices was to sell tickets to a "bull roast" or some similar political festivity, since tickets costing less than $51 need not be reported. Green, Matz and Wolff have all been contributors to Agnew campaigns at one time or another, and Agnew has freely admitted that contractors are among those who have furthered his political fortunes.

Such gifts may be open to serious conflict-of-interest questions, but nothing about them necessarily involves the crimes for which Agnew has been told he is being investigated--extortion, bribery, tax evasion and conspiracy.

Thus the Government presumably has evidence that contractors' payments to Agnew were demanded in return for specific favors and were paid and collected in that spirit rather than as legitimate campaign funds. As for Agnew's offer to open his personal financial books, sources close to the case point out that cash payments used for campaign purposes probably would not find their way into Agnew's accounts.

What is puzzling to some investigators is the comparatively paltry amount of money involved. Justice Department officials have declined to provide an estimate of the total amount under investigation, but one of them says: "It's less than you'd think. Agnew wasn't greedy; he was quite cheap." Indeed, of the payments so far alleged, only a few exceeded $10,000, and many were between $2,000 and $2,500. In states where corruption thrives on a major-league scale -- New Jersey, or Illinois, where a secretary of state died in 1970 with $800,000 stashed in shoeboxes in his ho tel room -- such sums are hardly worth mentioning.

Nevertheless, Agnew has apparently realized the gravity of the Government's case against him. TIME has learned that the Vice President has sought the help of Nixon's Wa tergate defense team (Lawyers J. Fred Buzhardt, Leonard Garment and Charles Alan Wright) in preparing a constitutional defense that would prevent his having to go on trial any time soon. The White House lawyers were specifically asked to ex plore the possibility that the Vice President might adopt Nix on's own argument that a President (or Vice President) cannot be criminally prosecuted until after he has been impeached, convicted and removed from of fice by Congress. The chances of an Agnew impeachment are not very strong at present, but the prospect of an other client's demanding White House constitutional protection has hardly pleased Nixon's legal staff. "We've got enough work on our hands with Ervin and Cox," said one. "Agnew's got his own lawyers."

The Vice President was briefed on the Government's case in early August by Attorney General Elliot Richardson.

In the continuing, rather paranoid hunt for secret plots or motives behind Ag new's sudden legal difficulties, his sup porters have advanced the notion that Richardson may be the culprit: to wreck Agnew's presidential hopes and further his own chance for the G.O.P. nomi nation in 1976. Last week the chief of the Justice Department's Criminal Di vision, Henry E. Petersen, drove to Baltimore to inspect the evidence against Agnew collected by Beall and his three assistants, Barnet D. Skolnik, Russell T. Baker Jr. and Ronald S. Liebman.

Petersen even interrogated Engineer Matz, presumably to determine for him self the credibility of the key witness.

Too Usual. The 23-member grand jury investigating the kickback conspiracy continued to hear testimony, but it found itself temporarily without a judge when U.S. District Judge C. Stanley Blair, who served as Agnew's chief of staff during the first two years of his vice presidency, understandably asked to be relieved of the job of presiding over the inquiry. Because of various other associations with Agnew or with Maryland politics, the other judges in the district declined to take on Blair's assignment. At week's end, U.S. Appeals Court Judge Clement F. Haynsworth Jr.

selected Federal District Judge Walter E. Hoffman of Virginia, a Republican who has been on the bench for 19 years, to handle the case.

Attempting to maintain the appear ance of business as usual, Agnew gamely followed a schedule last week that was all too usual for Vice Presidents: the dedication of a new dam in Littleton, Colo, (where he was welcomed by some hostile demonstrators) and a speech at the AFL-CIO Boilermakers convention in Denver. "Just as each citizen has a right to criticize those in public office," he told the union members, "so does every public official have a right to defend his actions, his honor, his integrity and his good name." Agnew was speaking of Nixon's efforts to extricate himself from Watergate, but the words clearly applied as well to his own deepening dilemma.

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