Sources on Nixon Staff Insist Administration Is Not Split

WASHINGTON--Despite widespread news stories that the White House staff has split into feuding camps over the Watergate affair, two Nixon staffers said yesterday that "the picture of fission is not correct" and that operations this week are "pretty much" back on schedule.

The sources, who asked to remain unidentified, made their statements hours after Ronald L. Zeigler, White House press secretary, rebutted claims that Nixon had delayed ordering his personal Watergate probe several months after he knew one was needed.

The Washington Post reported last week that John W. Dean III, counsel to the President, had told the President three months before Nixon's personal investigation was launched that high White House aides were implicated in the bugging.

Dean has been mentioned in The Post with former Attorney General John N. Mitchell as a leader of one faction bitterly angry with associates of H.R. Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff. One Haldeman associate, Jeb S. Magruder, testified last week that Mitchell approved the bugging plans.

"The idea of a split is mistaken," one of the White House sources said yesterday. "That breakdown may have worked for the four or five names mentioned in The Post, but nowhere else."

While there are still problems among the staff, he said that reports of panic and paralysis were "exaggerated."

"I went through the Cambodia crisis, when we had a deep, deep concern and worry here that the country was coming apart," he said. "But now, with the President in control [of the investigation], there may be a lot of scary headlines, but the truth will come out."

Tension among the staff eased substantially with Nixon's April 17 announcement that he had discovered high level staff involvement in the bugging, the source said. "I felt a great personal sense of relief--it meant there was no question that the truth will come out."

Dean, as of yesterday, was still working in his office, Mitchell was resting from grand jury testimony earlier this week, and syndicated columnist Jack Anderson was appearing "voluntarily" before Federal investigators, promising to print no more copies of grand jury transcripts which had cast doubt on Mitchell's earlier proclamation of innocence.

Nixon was described by The Washington Post as "very angry" with those responsible for the bugging.

"My conscience is clear," Mitchell said Tuesday night after completing his grand jury appearance. When asked if he expected to be indicted he replied, "I can't imagine what for. When you've done what you've done in the interest of your country...."

In an oblique attack on Jeb Stuart Magruder, former deputy director of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, Mitchell also made reference to "these weak little characters who are running for cover" by accusing others in the Nixon campaign.

Although rumors have been abundant about an imminent change in top ranking staff, the White House sources interviewed by The Crimson yesterday refused to speculate on the possible departure of Haldeman.

Most White House staff members have been "rigidly suspending judgement" of the guilt or innocence of high officials implicated in leaked grand jury testimony, the White House source said.

Zeigler announced yesterday that daily meetings of top-level White House aides, presided over by Haldeman for four and one-half years, were suspended several weeks ago.