The Guilt of Mr. Nixon .. •

Joseph Kraft , civtil 5 The Guilt of Mr. Nixon .. • President Nixon's latest Watergate nal Security Division of the Justice De- city" blanket over a wide range of ac- statement sets forth his tbirLgergion partment. He also authorized certain tivities, many of which seem quite po- of the affair. His present position can wiretapping and burglary operations. I litical in character, without giving any be fairly judged only against the back- Mr. Nixon, for the first time, ac- details. ground of previous positions, taken knowledges that "people who had been The claim that he believed the CIA and then abandoned under force of cir- involved in the national security opera- was involved in Watergate seems espe- cumstances. tions later, without my knowledge or cially fishy. Who told him that? Cer- The first Nixon version of Watergate a=royal, undertook illegal activities tainly not the CIA officials who knew dismissed it as a petty affair confined its UOriretcaretito Mgt- of-1972."" He it wasn't true. to the men who broke Into Democratic speculates that some of his "highly mo- Probably his own men, Haldeman headquarters. In press conferences on tivated" aides, in their zeal to uncover and Ehrlichman. But what made them st. 29 and Qctober J., President and plug leaks, may have "felt justi- think of the CIA? The most plausible 141con cited investrgiit. Tons of Water.. fied in engaging in specific activities reason is that they knew at .the time gate made by his White House counsel, that I would have disapproved." that campaign funds were being John Dean, and the FBI under acting Under that heading, Mr. Nixon 7, passed through Mexico. Which Director L. Patrick Gray. Mr. Nixon places the burglary of Ellsberg's psy- .istrongly implies that the top White said that he Was "sure that no member chiatrist. He puts in the same category House men knew all about the illegal of the White House staff . had any- a possible misunderstanding .about at- political operations from the begin. thing to do with this kind of reprehen- tempts to provide a CIA cover for the ning. sible activity." Watergate burglars. He reports that within a few days of the burglary, he These and other questions should be That position had to be abandonece sifted in the courts and the congres- after the men charged in the Water- himself was "advised that there was a possibility of CIA involvement in some sional committees. In particular, the gate break-in were found guilty. One national security reasons supposed to of them, James McCord, cracked under way." - The trouble with all this is obvious. justify bugging and break-ins need to the threat of a stiff sentence. In late be scrutinized with care. For nobody March in a letter to Judge John Sirica, Instead of setting forth a straightfor- can imagine that the President is to- McCord claimed that high administra- ward position at the outset, Mr. Nixon has been furiously chopping and tally innocent. The question about Mr. tion officials were involved both in au- Nixon now is: How guilty? thorizing the Watergate break-in, and changing as developments require. He in trying to cover it up. extends a very cloudy "national secu- 0)1973, Puhltabera-Hall Syndicate The second Nixon version of Water- gate was put forward in a statement read by the President on4pri112., The thrust of the second version was that Mr. Nixon had discovered new evi- dence which led him to believe that he had been deceived by the original in- vestigators. Mr. Nixon then dropped Messrs. Gray and Dean who had been respon- sible the said) for the original investi- gation. He accepted with regret resig- nations . of two other friends—H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman—who had been implicated in charges made by Dean and Gray. But. Mr. Nixon in- sisted that he himself was totally clean. .. That second Nixon position was wiped out by a Niagara of develop- r ments set in motion when the Water- gate case was crossed with the trial of Dan Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case. It became known that some of the Watergate burglars, acting under White House orders With equipment furnished by the CIA, had burglarized the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist. That development brought the CIA into the picture. In congressional testimony, former Director Richard Helms and General Vernon Walters, the deputy director, swore they had been pressured by Messrs. Haldeman and Ehrlichman to protect the Water- gate burglars by giving them cover as part of a CIA operation. Mr. Nixon's latest position builds a barrier against the implications of the CIA testimony. Mr. Nixon claims that he was, for, reasons of "national security;". very concerned by leaks which began " early in his administration. To preverit the leaks he set up a number of special intelligence units linking the White House, the CIA, and the Inter- -, .

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