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Sampson was unable to make a persuasive case on why Nixon is seeking some $300,000 more for eleven months of support than was given Lyndon Johnson for 18 months after he left the presidency. The total request includes the $450,000 allowed under the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 for travel, office, staff and other costs to help a former President adjust to private life. It also includes another $400,000 under the Former Presidents Act of 1958, which provides overlapping outlays for some of the same expenses. The presidential pension of $60,000 a year is included in this and is mandatory, as is $96,000 for staff salaries, but Nixon has submitted a budget for some $250,000 that would have to be approved by Congress. Originally this broke down as follows: office furniture and equipment, $65,000; travel, $40,000; communications, $21,000; printing, $10,000; office supplies, $5,000; personal benefits, $8,000; miscellaneous, $100,000.
Snow Job. Sampson had altered that proposed budget to curtail the unsupportable $100,000 allocation for miscellaneous expenses. In seeming exchange, however, he added a $110,000 item for a special vault to house Nixon's tapes and papers at Laguna Niguel, within 20 miles of San Clemente.
Somewhat reluctantly, Sampson revealed that no fewer than 21 people are now serving Nixon on their normal Government salaries, amounting to $450,000 a year. They include his personal maid and valet, as well as such well-paid aides as Ziegler ($42,500), Speechwriter Raymond K. Price Jr. ($40,000) and Secretary Rose Mary Woods ($36,000). In addition, all of the former Washington-based employees now assigned to Nixon draw $40 a day for meals and lodging. Sampson estimated that Secret Service protection of the ex-President will cost an additional $622,000 a year.
Commenting on the Nixon budget, New Mexico Senator Joseph Montoya observed that Sampson must have experienced "quite a snow job" when he drew up those figures in a conference with Nixon aides at San Clemente. "How do you put Nixon in the same category with those Presidents who have served this country with honor?" asked Ohio Congressman Louis Stokes. Sampson defended the expenditures as necessary so that the nation will secure "the full value of his records and the full benefit of his experience." The request is expected to be slashed sharply.
While negotiating effectively with Ford, Nixon was rebuffed on another front as he struggled to get his personal affairs in order. His perfunctory resignation from the California Bar Association was opposed by that group on grounds that his letter did not even concede that he was under investigation in disbarment proceedings. The turndown keeps that investigation alive, unless it is overruled by the California Supreme Court. Nixon contends that he has no plans to practice law and intends also to resign from the New York Bar Association. It too has initiated a preliminary disbarment probe and is likely to echo the California action if Nixon at tempts to resign in similar fashion.
If Nixon's troubles were still far from over last week, so were those of six of his former White House and political associates. As expected, their attorneys pleaded with Judge John J. Sirica to dismiss the