The Capable Man in the Middle

To a nation that has traditionally placed high trust in its law-enforcement agencies, one of the grimmer sides of the Watergate scandal was the success displayed by White House officials in manipulating the U.S. Justice Department in its investigation of the affair.

To restore confidence in the department, President Nixon named a star-quality Attorney General: Elliot Lee Richardson, a man who had not the slightest connection with Watergate and who could convince voters that justice would finally be brought to bear on those responsible for the scandal. Last week, as Richardson was dealing not only with Watergate but also with a whole new closet of dirty linen possibly involving Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, he was subtly but unmistakably rebuked for his performance by both the President and Vice President. The separately delivered scoldings only underscored the anomaly of his uncomfortable middleman's position: Richardson is charged with overseeing investigations of the only two federal executives who rank above him.

Both Nixon and Agnew were incensed by news leaks about alleged kickbacks from Maryland contractors to politicians, including Agnew. The Vice President called a news conference --his second since he was notified last month that he was under federal investigation for bribery, extortion, conspiracy and tax evasion--to denounce an "outrageous" effort on the part of "some Justice Department officials to indict me in the press." Noting that Richardson had promised to look into any suggestion that Justice officials were talking out of turn, Agnew bluntly demanded that the Attorney General "fulfill that promise and pursue such an investigation vigorously."

Agnew was particularly disturbed by a TIME story (Aug. 27) reporting that Justice Department officials believe that the Vice President eventually will be indicted. Agnew stressed that he did not blame the press for printing such reports because "I cannot fault you for publishing information given to you by informants within the Department of Justice." Instead, he said, "the blame must rest with those who gave this information to the press."

At his San Clemente press conference the next day, Nixon fully applauded Agnew's blast at his investigators. Discussion of cases on which grand jury action is pending, the President said, is highly improper because during such probes "all kinds of charges are made which will not stand up in open court." Then, clearly leaving the impression that he was dissatisfied with Richardson's failure to effect total secrecy in the matter, he announced that he had ordered the Attorney General to investigate his department's leaks. Anyone found to have given unauthorized information about the Agnew case to the press, the President promised, will be "summarily dismissed."

FBI Probe. In a reply to Agnew, Richardson dutifully expressed his "dismay" at the unofficial reporting of the case and promised to bring in the FBI to probe it. However, he pointed out, it is not a crime for those with knowledge of an investigation to discuss it until the case is actually being heard by a grand jury--a stage that the inquiry into Agnew's affairs is not expected to reach until after Labor Day. Thus, said Richardson, in any case as explosive as the Vice President's, there may be "no fully effective means" of halting "cynical rumors and conjectures."

For Richardson, there is almost certainly no effective means of avoiding more and more such run-ins with his superiors in the future. He irritated the White House by appointing Archibald Cox as Watergate Special Prosecutor. Technically, the Attorney General remains Cox's boss. Cox, a Democrat and former Harvard law professor, has engaged the White House in a historic court battle over the Watergate tapes (see following story), and is regarded incorrectly by many Nixon loyalists as out to "get" the President. In addition, unless the President somehow attempts to intervene, it will be Richardson who must ultimately decide whether U.S. Attorney George Beall's Baltimore investigators have gathered enough evidence against Agnew to seek an indictment --and if so, whether the Government should proceed against a Vice President unless he has first been impeached and removed from office. Further, if Nixon or Agnew should try to influence either case, Richardson might well have to deal with conflicts unprecedented in U.S. judicial annals. Administration officials acknowledge privately that Richardson is viewed with some degree of disenchantment these days at the White House. In an interview with TIME Correspondent Hays Gorey, Richardson mused uncomfortably: "Am I on the spot? Of course. Public interests are at stake, interests that are very important and hard to reconcile."

Agnew's supporters are quick to claim that private interests may be at stake as well, namely Richardson's own. They have an exaggerated suspicion that the Attorney General sees himself as a prime contender for the G.O.P. presidential nomination in 1976 and would like nothing better than to have Agnew knocked out of the running by a scandal. Agnew, his aides contend, shares some of their suspicions about the Attorney General. Richardson says that he refuses to "dignify" such assertions by replying to them. A source close to Richardson maintains that the Attorney General could not profit from the leaks involving Agnew because "they are seen as a failure within the department to observe ethical standards, as another stain on the department."

Still, by the sheer course of momentous events, the handsome, well-spoken Richardson is, at 53, an ascending force in Washington. Born into a Boston Brahmin family and educated at Harvard (LL.B., '47), Richardson made a political name for himself as U.S. Attorney in Massachusetts by prosecuting Boston Industrialist Bernard Goldfine, provider of Sherman Adams' famous vicuna coat, on tax-evasion charges. A Rockefeller supporter in 1968, Richardson nonetheless was invited to Washington as an Under Secretary of State, and his cool, analytical grasp of complex situations attracted the attention of Nixon. Such tough thinking seemed all too rare at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and in 1970 Richardson was picked to supply it as Secretary. Though critics contended that he weakened the drive for school desegregation by failing to support busing with sufficient enthusiasm, Richardson was notably successful at HEW. After last year's election he was picked to succeed Melvin R. Laird as Defense Secretary but held that job only three months before Nixon chose him in May to repair the Watergate damage as Attorney General.

Lie Test. By then the Baltimore grand jury looking into official corruption was well along in its investigation. Last week the jury returned its first indictment, accusing the Baltimore County executive, Dale Anderson, of having received $47,795 in kickbacks from engineering and consulting firms. Anderson, a Democrat, succeeded Agnew in the job in 1966, when the future Vice President was elected Maryland Governor. Agnew greeted the news of Anderson's expected indictment by issuing a statement that "I find the charges against him totally at variance with my impressions of him and everything I know about him."

TIME has learned that yet another piece of evidence against the Vice President has been turned up. Following the visit to Baltimore of the Justice Department's chief criminal prosecutor, Henry E. Petersen, the primary witness against Agnew was given a lie-detector test by FBI polygraph experts. The witness is Jerome Wolff, president of Greiner Environmental Systems Inc. and a former high Agnew aide. He has agreed to testify, in return for limited immunity from prosecution himself, that Agnew has extorted bribes from state and federal contractors. The polygraph showed that Wolff told the truth about personally delivering funds extorted from contractors to Agnew. Such findings will probably not be admissible in any court proceedings; however, Government witnesses are frequently asked to take lie-detector tests as a means of convincing prosecutors that there is a strong case against a prospective defendant.*Beall has asked other prospective witnesses in the Agnew case to take lie-detector tests.

Wolff has turned over to the Government a diary listing some of the payoffs he purportedly delivered to Agnew from Maryland contractors. The diary covers a period from 1967 to 1968, when Agnew was Maryland's Governor and Wolff was chairman of the state's road commission, a job bestowed on him by Agnew. Now Wolff's firm, which he has headed since 1971, is one of eight contractors that have been named as suppliers of the illegal funds in the Anderson indictment. Another of the companies, Matz, Childs & Associates, is partly owned by Lester Matz, one of Agnew's other principal accusers.

These new developments could hardly have seemed encouraging to Agnew, and Nixon's latest clarification of presidential support was not much help either. Despite his vehement seconding of Agnew's complaint about leaks from Justice, the President was something less than sweeping when it came to expressing his confidence in the Vice President. "I have confidence in the integrity of the Vice President," said Nixon, "and particularly in the performance of the duties that he has had as Vice President and as a candidate for Vice President." That seemed to leave rather large chunks of Agnew's past--indeed, his whole climb prior to becoming Nixon's running mate in 1968--for the Vice President to defend on his own.

--Under U.S. criminal procedure, no witness can be forced to submit to a lie-detector test. However, both prosecutors and defense attorneys occasionally use them, either for private evaluation or--if both sides in a case agree--for presentation as evidence.

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