Peril Points Ahead for Nixon

Despite President Nixon's plea that the nation turn to other matters, it will take months and even years for the many grand jury probes, congressional inquiries, civil suits, trials and court hearings involving Watergate and other scandals to run their course. All offer many points of peril for the President. The most likely calendar of coming events:

AGNEW INVESTIGATION

September: A federal grand jury in Baltimore will decide whether to indict the Vice President on charges of bribery, extortion, conspiracy and tax fraud. The best outcome for Nixon, surely, would be for Agnew to escape indictment. That would justify the President's somewhat limited declaration of confidence in him. But it would leave the Vice President tarnished and, to many people, less acceptable than before as an alternative to Nixon.

If Agnew should leave office for any reason, Nixon would face a dilemma. His nominee as Agnew's successor must be approved by a majority of both the Senate and the House. Congress might refuse to confirm a weak or controversial appointee. On the other hand, the appointment of a strong, popular man would make Nixon's own resignation --or impeachment--more acceptable to much of the public.

September: Dale Anderson, Agnew's successor in 1966 as Baltimore County executive, will be arraigned in federal district court in Baltimore on charges of bribery, conspiracy and extorting kickbacks from eight engineering and consulting firms.

Sept. 19: Maryland Banker Blagden H. Wharton will go on trial in Anne Arundel Circuit Court in Baltimore on charges of perjury and falsifying campaign contribution reports concerning a dinner held for Agnew in May 1972.

WATERGATE GRAND JURY

Aug. 29: By this date, Federal Judge John J. Sirica has promised to decide whether Nixon must surrender to the grand jury nine potentially incriminating tape recordings of presidential conversations with aides--among them former Counsel John Dean.

Early September: The losing side is likely to ask the federal appeals court to reverse the decision.

Oct. I: The Supreme Court will reconvene and within days probably receive the tapes case. Nixon's stand on Executive privilege would be vindicated by a broad decision in his favor, though the suspicion would remain that the tapes were incriminating. But if the court orders Nixon to produce the tapes and he refuses to obey, the House most likely will formally consider moving to impeach him. The court decision, however, could be stated in narrow terms, never resolving the broad issues of Executive privilege and separation of powers. In that case no one knows how it would affect the President's fortunes.

Dee. 4: The Watergate grand jury is scheduled to expire, and by then it will have decided whether to indict former Nixon Associates John Ehrlichman, H.R. Haldeman, John Mitchell, Dean and others. Just who will be indicted may depend on whether the grand jury and Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox get the tapes, which may resolve conflicting testimony from witnesses. If no one important is indicted on Watergate, it would, of course, greatly help Nixon.

Date Unknown: A second federal grand jury in Washington, impaneled by Cox to investigate other "dirty tricks," the financing of the 1972 presidential campaign and the ITT case, will decide whether to indict corporation heads and Nixon campaign aides for violating election laws.

OTHER GRAND JURY PROBES

Sept. 4: A Los Angeles County grand jury will resume its probe of the break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. It will decide whether any laws may have been violated and, if so, hand down indictments.

Date Unknown: A federal task force will complete its inquiry into possibly illegal contributions to Nixon's reelection campaign by nine Las Vegas-based corporations operating gambling casinos.

ERVIN COMMITTEE

Mid-September: The committee will hear the final seven Watergate witnesses, among them former White House Aides Charles Colson, Egil Krogh and David Young.

Late September: The committee will investigate other dirty tricks in the 1972 presidential campaign.

October: The committee hearings on 1972 campaign financing will begin. The hearings into dirty tricks and questionable campaign financing could deepen public suspicion that the 1972 election was tainted.

Nov. 1: This is Chairman Ervin's target date for finishing the committee's hearings. But it may well be changed according to when the courts rule on the committee's suit to get the presidential tapes and related documents.

Date Unknown: The committee will issue its report on presidential campaign activities in 1972. Unless the Senators obtain the Nixon tapes--and those tapes demonstrate the President's innocence--the committee is unlikely to issue a report clearing him. If it in effect holds Nixon guilty of complicity in the Watergate burglary or coverup, the House may be forced to consider impeachment--which would lead to another series of congressional hearings.

WATERGATE TRIALS

October: Judge Sirica will decide whether to give Convicted Watergate Conspirators E. Howard Hunt and the four Cubans caught in the break-in their final sentences--or extend their provisional sentences until all of those indicted in Watergate are tried.

Date Unknown: Trial dates are to be set for the suits arising out of Watergate unless they are dropped or settled out of court. Among them are the Democratic National Committee's $6.4 million suit against the Nixon campaign committee; Nixon Fund Raiser Maurice Stans' $5,000,000 libel suit against former Democratic Chairman Lawrence O'Brien; the Association of State Democratic Chairmen's $10 million suit against the Nixon campaign committee for tapping the telephone of its executive secretary, R. Spencer Oliver.

OTHER TRIALS AND SUITS

Sept. 8: This is the deadline by which the Committee for the Re-Election of the President must disclose to the public its secret lists of contributors and expenditures prior to April 7, 1972, the date that the new federal campaign spending law took effect. The disclosure must be made as a result of a suit brought by Common Cause, the citizens' lobby led by John Gardner.

Sept. 11: Mitchell and Stans are scheduled to stand trial in federal court in New York City on charges of conspiring to arrange an illegally secret $200,000 cash contribution to the Nixon re-election campaign by New Jersey Financier Robert L. Vesco. In return, according to the indictment, they tried--unsuccessfully--to obstruct and impede the Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of Vesco, who was later charged with looting millions from the huge I.O.S. mutual-fund complex. Acquittals of these close aides would naturally be helpful to Nixon --and convictions damaging to him.

Oct. 8: Donald H. Segretti will go on trial in federal court in Tampa on two counts arising out of dirty tricks designed to sabotage Senator Edmund Muskie's presidential campaign in 1972.

NIXON'S HOUSES

Late August: A CPA firm that has been hired by the President will at long last make a report on how Nixon financed the purchase of his mansion at San Clemente, Calif.

September: A House subcommittee will investigate the $10 million in public funds spent for security and other purposes at Nixon homes at San Clemente and Key Biscayne, Fla. If more questions are raised about the homes, Nixon could be further embarrassed.

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