Agnew's Nemesis at Justice

In publicly assailing Henry E. Petersen as the key figure in a plot to ruin him, Spiro Agnew is taking on a formidable opponent. A savvy bureaucratic infighter who has risen higher in the Justice Department than any other civil service employee, Petersen has many influential defenders in Washington. He is the plain speaking, rugged Chief of the Criminal Division, whose engagingly blunt testimony before the Senate Watergate committee won the respect of millions of television viewers.

His face deeply lined, his raspy voice clearly conveying his indignation, Petersen, 52, rejected all charges at that time that his division's Watergate prosecution had been lax. His tactic, he testified, was to get convictions against the actual burglars, then grant them immunity against further prosecution and pressure them into revealing the higher origins of the crime. He claimed that the case had been 90% solved when it was taken away from him. "Damn it!" he protested. "I resent the appointment of a special prosecutor."

That forceful defense is typical of his professional pride and manner. Born in Philadelphia and a Marine in World War II, Petersen earned a B.A. from Georgetown University and a law degree from Catholic University's Columbus Law School. He began Government service as a clerk for the FBI 25 years ago, shifted to the Justice Department in 1951, and has climbed steadily throughout his career there. Associates describe him as tough as nails.

There are, nevertheless, serious flaws in Petersen's record, which lend substance to some of Agnew's complaints against him. He was indeed, as Agnew said, a key figure in the Justice Department's mishandling of wiretap authorizations that has jeopardized more than 300 cases against organized crime, involving possibly 1,000 defendants (TIME, March 27, 1972). As an aide to Will Wilson, then Chief of the

Criminal Division, Petersen in 1970 and 1971 signed Wilson's name to hundreds of letters authorizing taps, mainly in gambling cases. Then-Attorney General John Mitchell also permitted an aide to initial such authorizations for him.

Described by one department official as "the biggest goof-up we've ever had," this double system of false signatures gave defense attorneys a chance to challenge the Government successfully in lower courts. The Government's appeal in the first such case is expected to reach the Supreme Court this fall.

Agnew is also at least partly right in his contention that Petersen mishandled Watergate. He apparently did work closely with ousted Presidential Counsel John W. Dean on the case, and Dean later admitted being part of the coverup. The original investigation failed to turn up evidence of who had authorized the wiretapping and how it was financed, partly because Petersen refused to pursue leads involving $89,000 in suspect Nixon campaign funds. Petersen relied on the testimony of the Nixon re-election committee's Jeb Stuart Magruder at the trial of the original defendants, even though the committee treasurer, Hugh Sloan, warned that it was false. Magruder later admitted having committed perjury. Petersen also shielded some high Nixon officials from normal grand jury questioning.

It was Petersen who decided that the political sabotage activities of Los Angeles Lawyer Donald Segretti need not be investigated, since no crimes seemed involved. When Segretti was called before a grand jury, Petersen ordered the prosecutors not to ask who at the White House had hired him. Dean testified that he had asked Petersen to avoid such embarrassing questions. It is also true that when Nixon told Petersen to refrain from any investigation of the burglary of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, Petersen complied.

As to whether Petersen has been the source of some news leaks regarding the Agnew investigation, as Agnew claims, there is no doubt that he has. But Petersen has not been, by any means, the sole source of news leaks in the case.

Agnew claimed that the Wall Street Journal had been given a copy of a letter from the Justice Department notifying him that he was under investigation even before he had received it. That was flatly denied by Norman Miller, chief of the Journal's Washington bureau. Said Miller: "The Vice President is in error. Our story was not based on a letter."

Attorney General Elliot Richardson rushed to Petersen's defense, calling him "a distinguished Government lawyer with more than two decades of prosecutorial experience." Moreover, he noted pointedly: "Experienced though he may be, he does not have sole responsibility ... for criminal matters of grave importance. In such matters the decisional process is shared, and the final responsibility is the Attorney General's." Despite that defense of his deputy, TIME has learned that Richardson initially did have doubts about Petersen's Watergate performance. But prompt high public praise of Petersen by White House officials, including the President, had made it politically im practical for Richardson to remove him.

As for Petersen, father of seven, he apparently was spending much of the weekend on Chesapeake Bay in his 26-foot cruiser, and at least initially was unreachable for his reaction to Agnew's assault -- if, indeed, he was aware of it.

Whatever Petersen's shortcomings, they do not prove Agnew's more serious charge: that Petersen is part of an effort to restore the Justice Department's tarnished reputation by netting Agnew as a redeeming "trophy." Watergate may indeed have been bungled by the Justice Department, and this puts pressure on the department to avoid any impression that it could be politically influenced to be part of a cover-up in Agnew's case. While Agnew targets Petersen he is, of course, implicitly involving Petersen's superiors, both Richard son and the President, in this conspiracy to destroy him. But clearly, the crux of the matter is the nature of the evidence against Agnew. Presumably this will eventually become clear either in a court of law or in congressional proceedings.

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