(2 of 14)
By last week, 17 of Nixon's associates and employees (see page 22) were under investigation by the Justice Department, the FBI, a federal grand jury or the U.S. Senate. The list will undoubtedly grow, and many could wind up behind bars for criminal activities committed while working for the President. These men had been selected by Nixon, helped lift him to power, took their ethical cues from him—and he had not yet publicly chastised any of them. Every day brought new details that beggared the suspicions or fantasies of Nixon's enemies. Nothing seemed unbelievable any longer.
> John W. Dean III, who had been fired by the President as his chief counsel—ostensibly because he seemed hopelessly enmeshed in the Watergate concealments—told federal investigators that Nixon had personally congratulated him for helping cover up broad Nixon Administration involvement in the wiretapping. Dean claimed this had happened when he was called to Nixon's office last September, shortly after indictments were returned by a federal grand jury against only the seven men arrested at the time of the Watergate breakin. Dean described the meeting—in one version also attended by Bob Haldeman—as one full of "smiles." He said that Nixon remarked to him: "Bob here tells me you've been doing fine work." If accurately reported by Dean, the meeting has grave implications. It means that Nixon knew some eight months ago that his high aides had worked to obstruct the various investigations in the case—and the President has been lying to the public about Watergate at least since that time. Dean's motives were certainly cloudy, and his story very much remains to be tested.
> Men on the White House payroll and directed by an assistant to Ehrlichman had broken into a psychiatrist's office with CIA equipment to obtain the psychiatric records of Daniel Ellsberg in order to find out about his "moral and emotional problems." The information, if not the method, had been specifically ordered up by the President. When Ehrlichman found out about the breakin, he claims he merely told the burglars: "Don't do it again." His legal duty was to report the crime.
> Even more unbelievable, Ehrlichman only five weeks ago offered the job of FBI director to the judge presiding over the Ellsberg case, with the President himself making a brief appearance during the meeting.
> As previously reported (TIME, March 5), the FBI had tapped telephones of reporters and White House aides at Attorney General John Mitchell's direction in seeking leaks of Government information to the press. Last week Nixon ordered his aides not to answer any questions about those taps. The grounds for the gag: national security.
The episode of the Ellsberg psychiatrist raised particularly frightening questions. What kind of ethical climate does the President of the U.S. create when he orders his highest aides to pry into the morals and the state of mind of a man accused of stealing Government documents? Should the Government emulate the tactics of the accused? If the White House condoned that kind of treatment of a defendant, why would any Nixon aides expect him to object if they stooped to similar tactics against the men who more directly challenged Nixon's power, such as his