Joseph Kraft. Order Partly Because There Are One

Joseph Kraft. • Nixon's Memoirs.- ..President Ford's phone tall-to for- up of a big scandal that might compro- gave him assurances. That point is cen- —are the Nixon family, especially mer President Nixon in California re- mise John Mitchell and others. Nixon tral to the question of whether or not daughter Tricia, whose diary is exten- minds me of something I nearly forgot. gives the impression of a man who inci- there was a deal allowing Nixon to get sively cited, and her husband Edward That is the sample chapter of Mr. Nix-. dentally, almost without realizing what off before he resigned. Since Nixon, in Cox. Mrs. Nixon is, of course, also in the on's memoir of his presidency which he was doing, stepped onto the conve- his account, tends to support the view magic circle. But she is cited almost not came my way not long ago. yor belt that took him over the chit that something like a deal had at least at all. Indeed, her silence is deafening. • BY itself the document is a piece .of A second point of interest involves \ been offered, Haig ought to break his The place of honor given to the tiny sentimental trash. But a word seems in the pardon, or more specifically the 'long silence and elucidate the matter. handful of persons who urged him to order partly because there are one. or meeting that took place between the The more so as Nixon treats Haig— tough it out all the way destroys Nix- two contentious items in the text, and White Mese chief of staff, Gen. Alex- like almost everybody else involved—in on's central claim about the final days. partly because so much false informa-. ander Haig; and Watergate Special cavalier fashion. The former President That is that he had made up his mind to tion has been spread about the ,firxt Proseciitor Leon Ja orski oil the day • speaks of a "mutiny" by Haig at one resign, but only wanted to do it in a draft of the sample chapter. • of the resignation'. Tliat meeting has al- point when the general insisted an re- way that would not weaken the powers Probably the most important pointis ways been an object of suspicion, and leasing the tape of the conversation of the presidency. On the contrary, the that in the first draft, at least, Nixon the final report of the, Watergate Spe- that finally proved beyond a shadow of internal evidence is that, until the very does not deny his guilt. He ack-nowl-, cial Prosecutor deepened. doubts in- a doubt Nixon's guilt. Nixon deals in last moment, he clutched at every pos- edges that he approved the basic Wat- stead of clearing them away, the same way with virtually everybody sible straw that would keep him in the ergate coverup plan, including the of Nixon deepens the doubts further. In else who at any time gave him less than White House. fort to use the CIA to ward off the FBI the sample chapter he claims that Gen. total loyalty. Thus such 99-per-cent loy- Perhaps worst of all in the draft chap- investigation. lie further admits that Haig returned from the meeting to.in- alists as Sens. Hugh Scott and Barry ter is the larger case Nixon makes for the original decision tb cover up led form him that he had nothing to fear Goldwater, the then-chairman of the himself. He virtually eschews the plea him into a long series of lies in which from the special prosecutor. That could Republican National Committee and that his wrongs were balanced by im- he used the power of the presidency, be an innocuous reassurance—Haig's present CIA Director George Bush, for- portant achievements, particularly in including responsibility for national se- correct conclusion after his conversa- mer Attorney General -William Saxbe foreign policy. Instead he plays for curity, to protect himself and his tion that Mr. Jaworski was not inter- and numerous other persons in the tears, going on ad nauseam about the friends. ested in prosectifing a f ofmer Presi-- White House and the Congress axe at beauties of the White House, the close- To be sure, the guilt is minimized, As dent and, had doubts about whether a one point or another fed into the ness of his family, the loveliness of the Nixon has it, the original decision,was a fair trial1,De C41 obtained. ' ' flakes. yacht Sequoia. He argues his last big po- casual one, made under prodding. from But anotherinterpretation g open. It The only 100.per-cent loyalists—apart litical case as he argued his first one— chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, for is that Flaig'improperly raised the issue from Ron Ziegler, Rose Mary Woods on the level of the family dog Checkers. the purpose of preventing the blbwing ' of letting Nixon off, and that Jaworski and Steve Bull of the White House staff ems. Yield Enterprises, Inc. r .

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