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WATERGATE CONSPIRACY. Since the resignation of James F. Neal in October, curly-haired Ben-Veniste has acted as head of the task force. Self-confident to the point of being cocky, he graduated from Columbia Law School and then took an advanced degree in law at Northwestern University before becoming an Assistant U.S. Attorney in his native New York. He prosecuted several union kickback cases and also the perjury, bribery and conspiracy charges resulting in the conviction of Martin Sweig, onetime aide to former House Speaker John W. McCormack.
ITT CASE. This investigation—into whether there was any connection between ITT'S offer of $200,000 to the Republican Convention and the company's antitrust settlement with the Justice Department—is directed by handsome Joseph J. Connolly. A magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Connolly, 32, has served on the staffs of former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in 1967 and of Solicitor General Erwin Griswold from 1968 to 1970.
DIRTY CAMPAIGN TRICKS.
Boyish-looking Richard J. Davis, 27, headed the probe of the efforts of Donald H. Segretti and others to sabotage Democratic presidential campaigners. Davis has also helped with the investigation of ITT. He graduated with the highest average in his class at Columbia Law School, served as clerk to Federal Judge Jack B. Weinstein in New York and specialized in corruption investigations as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York for a year.
CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS. Directed by stocky Thomas F. McBride, 44, this group has investigated illegal contributions, including those by corporations, to President Nixon's reelection campaign. A Columbia Law graduate, McBride prosecuted organized crime as an assistant district attorney in New York City, then joined the Organized Crime Section of the Justice Department in 1960. Subsequently, he was a Peace Corps director in Latin America, deputy chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Crime and finally director of the Police Foundation, a private group that finances programs to improve law enforcement.
PLUMBERS. Headed by William H. Merrill, who at 50 is the staff elder, this task force is looking into the operation of the White House's undercover investigators. A resident of Detroit, Merrill graduated from Yale Law School in 1950, then practiced corporate law in Michigan before becoming Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney in Detroit in 1961 during the Kennedy Administration.
Merrill directed investigations of mail fraud, organized crime, labor racketeering and tax evasion before returning to private practice in 1966. A Democrat, he lost a race for Congress that year and, two years later, chaired Michigan Citizens for Robert Kennedy.
As a Kennedy Democrat, Merrill was a prime target of White House aides who claimed that Cox's staff was packed with liberals out to get the President.
That criticism has died down recently with the departure of four avowed Democrats—Cox himself and three of his key aides.