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KENNETH W. PARKINSON, 46. A Washington attorney specializing in personal injury insurance cases, Parkinson was untouched by Watergate until the Nixon committee hired him to defend itself against a civil suit filed by the Democratic National Committee because of the wiretapping-burglary. Once a law clerk in the same Washington district court in which he is now indicted, he is charged with conspiracy.
The new Watergate Seven face maximum sentences of five years in prison for each count of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and making a false statement to the FBI or a grand jury. If there are convictions on all counts, the consecutive sentences could total as much as 30 years for Mitchell and 25 each for Haldeman and Ehrlichman. Judge Sirica ordered that all seven men appear before him this Saturday to be arraigned and to plead to the charges. Trials normally are scheduled to begin within 60 days after indictment, although delays can be sought by either defenders or prosecutors. Though defense attorneys may object, the prosecution hopes to try the seven together. Sirica assigned himself to preside over the case.
The most intriguing detail in the indictment was one of the counts against Haldeman. In his televised testimony before the Ervin committee last July 30 and 31, Haldeman told of listening to a tape of a conversation among Nixon, John Dean and, for a time, himself that had taken place on March 21, 1973. The indictment contends that Haldeman committed perjury when he related his version of what the tape records. Since the jurors have heard the tape, the conclusion is inescapable that it does not confirm Haldeman's testimony.
The Five Words
The details of this charge also strongly support Dean's televised testimony about this conversation—and impugn Nixon's public statements about the talk. To a surprising degree, Haldeman's testimony had verified Dean's recollection of the conversation, although Dean had thought that parts of it had occurred earlier, on March 13.
Haldeman agreed that Dean told the President that E. Howard Hunt, one of the arrested Watergate burglars, was demanding $120,000 in cash, "or else he would tell about the seamy things he had done for Ehrlichman," presumably as one of the White House squad of secret investigators, "the plumbers." According to Haldeman, Nixon asked how much money.would have to be raised over the years to meet such demands, and Dean replied, "probably a million dollars—but the problem is that it is hard to raise."
The President replied, according to Haldeman, "There is no problem in raising a million dollars, we can do that." Up to this critical point, Haldeman and Dean were still in agreement. Then, Haldeman testified, Nixon added five crucial words: "But it would be wrong." Those five words, claims the indictment, as Haldeman "then and there well knew, were false." They, of course, change Nixon's position completely. Instead of agreeing to pay Hunt hush money, as Dean charged, the President was portrayed by