Washington Corruption

EVENTS OF THE last week have again shown the pervasive corruption infesting the Nixon administration. Only because of the honorable and intelligent behavior of men like Federal Judge John J. Sirica have these scandals surfaced, but we have now reached the point where a thoroughgoing investigation of the executive branch is appropriate.

We have witnessed a series of major scandals in the last four years. The International Telephone and Telegraph anti-trust consent decree, the Russian wheat deal, the milk price fluctuations, and the first information about the Watergate affair all seem to have developed a tolerance in the American people for incredible corruption in their government.

But now, within a few days, the public has learned of a second ITT scandal--involving that corporation's attempt to give the Central Intelligence Agency $1 million to overthrow the government of Chile--and a $200,000 Nixon campaign gift (subsequently returned) from Robert Vesco, a financier currently indicted in a $224 million securities fraud case. Last week two important developments underscored the Watergate case's importance.

If L. Patrick Gray's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee has not shown him to be a particularly impressive acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it has demonstrated the impressive amount of White House interference in the FBI's investigation of the Watergate conspiracy. Perhaps interference is too weak a word: Gray has testified that at one point White House Counsel John W. Dean 3rd "probably" lied to him in a Watergate-related matter. It is this same Dean that President Nixon claims is protected by "executive privilege" from testifying about Watergate. The use of executive privilege or the lawyer-client relationship as a cloak for criminal activity represents an act of creative legal interpretation not in keeping with the President's carefully cultivated image as a strict constructionist.

The second, and in some ways more ominous, aspect of the week's news related to Watergate was convicted defendant James W. McCord's letter to Judge Sirica. In the letter McCord claimed that he and his fellow defendants were pressured into keeping quiet about the involvement of higher officials, and that perjury had marked the trial. He also claimed to fear testifying in front of anyone from the executive branch, including FBI agents. As a result, he and Judge Sirica will meet privately to discuss the case.

Judge Sirica has handled himself extraordinarily well in this foul corner. With a compromised investigation, a tepid prosecution and deluded defendants pleading guilty and seeking a bizarre martyrdom, the chances of a thorough airing of what and who was involved in Watergate seemed small. Now, perhaps, Sirica will be successful in ventilating the mess at least partially.

But Watergate is only one of the Nixon administration's numerous scandals. And although the President has yet to be personally implicated in any of them, he may face his own legal test if Congress acts upon the ruling of a Federal District Court in Washington. That ruling declared that the prosecution of the war in Vietnam lost its legal sanction upon repeal of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The ruling recommended studying the Nixon administration's conduct since then, and if Congress follows the recommendation, the President himself will face an investigation.

Even if Congress does not investigate Nixon's personal conduct, by surrounding himself with individuals who are all rapidly becoming subjects of criminal investigations, he has demonstrated lamentable lack of judgment. Nixon is the leading figure of an administration that is rapidly losing its previous moral ambivalence and descending to a common criminal status. We cannot urge too strongly that Congress, already facing a Constitutional crisis in the continuing erosion of its power, investigate thoroughly this other, and equally serious, crisis.