THE ADMINISTRATION: Nixon's Nightmare: Fighting to Be Believed

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tighter disclosure law went into effect on April 7. He collected some $6,000,000, often in cash, in just the two days before the deadline, from men who did not want to reveal their identities. He did so even after Nixon had praised the new law as "giving the American public full access to the facts of political financing" and thus "building public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process."

Most of the people apparently have remained unconvinced by his TV speech. A quick Gallup poll disclosed that 50% of his audience believed that Nixon was personally a party to the attempts to conceal White House involvement in the Watergate wiretapping conspiracy. Forty percent also believed he knew about the bugging all along. On the other hand, in a rather disturbing display of cynicism about Government, 58% said the Nixon Administration had done no worse than previous postwar Administrations.

Professional Republican politicians expressed delight that Nixon had at last spoken up, but were agonizing over what Watergate had already done to their organization's morale, fund drives and prospects in near-future state and local elections. Many Republican student activists who campaigned for Nixon last year felt betrayed. The ultraloyalist Chicago Tribune editorialized: "If a President as politically astute as Mr. Nixon is deceived by his appointees, one may suspect that in some measure at least he wanted to be deceived by them."

The intensity of overseas interest in Nixon's Watergate speech was exemplified by the British Broadcasting Corporation's TV network: it stayed on the air more than two hours later than usual for his appearance, at 2 a.m. British time. The BBC estimates that more than 2,500,000 Britons stayed up, glued to the telly. Said a British Foreign Office spokesman: "Nixon says he would like to get on with the job. But can he do it? And contending with a hostile Congress, his power to fulfill his commitments will surely be limited."

Others considered this view to be overly negative. Moscow and Peking, for example, did not let their controlled press or radio report any of the latest, most sensational developments. Moscow's reasoning undoubtedly was that it had too heavy an investment in friendly relations with Nixon, in view of upcoming East-West state visits, to risk smirching his image.

Nixon moved quickly to fill some of the gaping holes created in his staff. He named General Alexander M. Haig Jr., Army Vice Chief of Staff, to take over Haldeman's duties temporarily; Leonard Garment, a White House aide, to replace Dean; and Defense Secretary Elliot Richardson to succeed Kleindienst as Attorney General (see page 30). Former Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard was, said Ziegler, the most likely choice to fill Richardson's spot as Defense Secretary. By week's end no one had yet been assigned the full range of Ehrlichman's chores, but Kenneth R. Cole Jr., another J. Walter Thompson product and a top Ehrlichman assistant since 1969, will take on added duties.

The sensibilities in the Administration have become so bruised in the infighting that another interim replacement, William Ruckelshaus, is already in trouble as acting director of the FBI. He replaced L. Patrick Gray III, who had resigned after being hopelessly compromised by destroying evidence and