WXPOSt Rowland Evans and Robert Novak AUG 1 6 1973 ueshons for Egil Krogh

If the Democratic' majority of the his resignation as under secretary of must be impeached before he can be Ervin committee has its way, former transportation. Since then, on advice indicted. presidential aide Egil (Bud) Krogh of counsel, he has taken. the Fifth soon will be summoned to a closed- Amendment before both a House com- Uncorroborated testimony by de- door interview to answer this porten- mittee and the county grand jury in posed White House counsel Dean is tous question: Did President Nixon Los Angeles investigating the bur- that Krogh informed him that John D: personally order or authorize the 1971 glary. Ehrlichman, in over-all charge of the burglary of 's psychia- Although Republican members con- Plumbers, did 'not know in advance trist's office? tend the Fielding burglary is outside If the answer is no, the committee about the Fielding burglary but that the Ervin committee's scope, Chair- orders for the break in came "right out will not probe much deeper into the man and chief counsel Sam Ellsberg case. If the answer is yes, of the Oval Office." When Assistant Dash want a private interview with Atty. Gen. Henry Petersen informed Krogh will have set the scene for a cri- Krogh during the present recess. If sis dwarfing anything yet spawned by the President about the Fielding bur- Krogh then reveals that the President glary last April 18, Petersen testified the and, indeed, un- or some other high official authorized precedented in this country's history. before the Ervin committee, Mr. Nixon the burglary, the committee will grant told him, "That is a national security Special Prosecutor is Krogh limited immunity — as it did known to reject the White House argu- matter. You stay out of that" (an order — to testify in open session later reversed on Petersen's urgings). ment that the Sept. 3, 1971, break-in by , without danger of further prosecution. the unit at the Krogh's boss, White House domestic office of Dr. Lewis J. Fielding in Bev- Krogh could prove •uncooperative. chief Ehrlichman, told the Ervin com- erly Hills, Calif., was a legitimate exer- His lawyers told us they have not de- mittee that the burglary "was totally cise of national security powers. If fed- cided whether to grant Dash a private unanticipated, unauthorized by me." eral charges are brought against the interview. But even if the Ervin com- Nevertheless, Ehrlichman and his at- burglars, an indictment may well be_ mittee is frustrated, the search for the torney, John Wilson, passionately de- sought against the government official source of the Fielding burglary will fended the burglary on national secu- who authorized the burglary — even if not end. rity grounds. The widespread interpre- it is the President of the United Much to the irritation of top White tation: they were trying to protect not States. If Krogh fingers the President, House aides, the special prosecutor's Ehrlichman but President Nixon. the dormant campaign to imPeach Mr, big staff is probing all the Plumbe The national security argument has Nixon will be energized. operations. One of Cox's senior firs'eu- obvious flaws. Ehrlichman contended Thus, Bud Krogh, once a conscien- tenants — William Merrill, former that Ellsberg had leaked the papers to tious, well-liked and publicly anony- chief assistant U.S. attorney in Detroit the Soviet embassy as well as the press mous middle-level• aide at the White — was recently dispatched to Los An- and that the FBI did not adequately in- House, can assume historical impor- geles leading a task force investigating vestigate Ellsberg. In fact, the FBI did tance. His former colleagues agree on the Fielding burglary. a thorough job on the case and could two points: first, he never would have Cox says nothing publicly, but his find no truth in the Soviet leak rumor., authorized the Plumbers to break into thinking is believed to follow these Accordingly, federal prosecutors are Fielding's office without approval from lines: whatever the Los Angeles grand inclined to move against the Plumbers, higher authority; second, the devoutly jury does, he considers both the bur- their supervisors and anybody in high religious Krogh ("straight arrow" is glars and ,their superiors subject to office mixed up in the burglary. the most frequent description) could federal criminal statutes., He rejects Whether Krogh puts the President in not lie under oath. both the national security rationaliza- that category is a question that may An affidavit in May by Krogh admit- tion and the White House constitu- deeply influence America's history. .• ted the Fielding burglary, leading to tional thesis that a sitting President (c) 1973, Field Enterprises, Inc.