The Nation: Who's Who in the Watergate Mess

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H.R. (for Harry Robbins) HALDEMAN, 46, White House chief of staff. A crew-cut Southern Californian who neither smokes nor drinks, "Bob" Haldeman was once a vice president of the J. Walter Thompson ad agency in Los Angeles. He is a longtime Nixon loyalist, who advised the former Vice President against running for Governor of California, then bravely managed his disastrous 1962 campaign. One of the most formidable members of Nixon's palace guard, Haldeman wields enormous power, passing along presidential orders and ideas to the rest of the staff. His humorlessness and determination to protect the President from outsiders have made him unpopular with Congress.

MAURICE STANS, 65, director of C.R.P.'s finance committee. A self-made millionaire accountant, Stans joined the Nixon Administration as Secretary of Commerce in 1969. By urging import quotas, easier pollution controls and less stringent consumer-protection standards, he accumulated a sheaf of political lOUs from businessmen. When he left Commerce last year, he began calling them in, advising businessmen to make large cash or stock contributions to the campaign. They could do that secretly, he noted, by making their gifts before a tough campaign-fund disclosure law took effect in April 1972. Stans' efforts got C.R.P. into trouble with the federal courts, which fined the committee $8,000 for violating the disclosure law by making campaign expenditures without accounting for them.

HERBERT KALMBACH, 51, the President's personal lawyer. He was in charge of disbursing large amounts of Republican Party secret funds for political intelligence work. Kalmbach, a Californian and a close friend of Haldeman's, handled the legal work and financial arrangements when Nixon bought his seaside home in San Clemente and has been an active Nixon fund raiser. When skittish San Diego businessmen were hesitant about bankrolling the Republican National Convention planned for their city, Kalmbach's firm got a letter from the Justice Department assuring them that their contributions would be tax deductible. By doing good for Nixon, Kalmbach has done well for himself. In 1968, he had only three other attorneys in his office and few major clients. Now he has 24 attorneys and a list of some 200 clients.

FRED LaRUE, 44, special assistant to the C.R.P. director. Short and spectacled, LaRue is a Mississippi oil and real estate millionaire, who joined C.R.P. as a chief aide to Mitchell in 1972. Respected by Nixon intimates for his political savvy, secretiveness and loyalty, and valued for his connections to Southern Democrats, he was considered Mitchell's right-hand man at C.R.P. He is reported by sources close to the Watergate case to have helped destroy records linking C.R.P. with the bugging.

DWIGHT CHAPIN, 32, a former White House aide who, among other things, helped to coordinate the President's daily schedule. Chapin worked as assistant to Haldeman at the J. Walter Thompson office in Los Angeles. He joined the White House staff in 1969 and left after the public disclosure of his involvement with C.R.P.'s "dirty tricks department" but denies that he was forced to resign. He is now director of market planning for United Air Lines.

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