ITT (Contd.)

The Senate Judiciary Committee originally convened seven weeks ago for what seemed the short-order task of confirming Richard Kleindienst as Attorney General. Now, to the delight of Democrats and the dismay of Republicans, the investigation is still dragging on with no conclusive end in sight. Last week's fresh round of witnesses only added to the tangle of contradictions, leading California Senator, John Tunney to observe that some inquiries into perjury might be in order. Furthermore, a confrontation cropped up between the committee's Democratic members and the White House over the practice of executive privilege that threatened to pull the rug out from under Kleindienst's confirmation altogether.

The committee is still trying to determine whether Administration-approved settlements of three antitrust cases against International Telephone & Telegraph were linked with the ITT offer to pledge at least $200,000 toward underwriting the Republican National Convention in San Diego in August. The now famous Dita Beard memo quoted by Columnist, Jack Anderson, clearly implied a link. Mrs. Beard denied authorship, but admitted she had written another similar memo on convention financing and had delivered it personally to William R. Merriam, head of ITT's Washington office. Last week, however, Merriam told the committee that he knew of no such memo, had never commissioned it and never received it.

Error. Merriam's testimony hardly squared with the recollections of Republican Congressman, Bob Wilson, of San Diego, who said in a taped interview last month, that Merriam told him he had received the Beard memo. Wilson added in the interview that "Jack Anderson has the original memo."

But last week Wilson told the committee it was all a semantic misunderstanding, that by using the word "original" he was simply referring to the top copy of a memo, not necessarily the memo Mrs. Beard says she wrote. Merriam admitted telling Wilson he had received the memo from Mrs. Beard; lamely adding that he discovered later he had not received any memo and simply had not bothered calling Wilson back to correct himself.

Neither witness was very convincing to the committee. When Democratic Senator, Sam Ervin asked who had given the orders for the destruction of ITT's Washington files after the committee investigation had begun, Merriam replied: "I did, sir."

Ervin: Well, you could not destroy that [Dita Beard] memo because you did not have it.

Merriam: No, that is right, but there might have been a lot of others in there like that.

There was still more confusion about what role--if any--the White House played, and the amount ITT might contribute to the convention. Mrs. Beard testified that a White House telephone call to Merriam mentioned $600,000. Wilson said, ITT President Harold S. Geneen spoke of a "guarantee" for $400,000. Geneen earlier in the hearings had testified that there was never any commitment for more than $200,000.

Faced with a parade of waffling witnesses, the Senators sought clarification from the White House and invited Peter Flanigan, President Nixon's top liaison aide with big business, to testify. But Attorney John W. Dean III, counsel to the President, declined on Flanigan's behalf, citing in a letter to Committee Chairman James O. Eastland "the principle that members of the President's immediate staff not appear and testify before congressional committees with respect to the performance of their duties." It is on such grounds that Presidential Assistant, Henry Kissinger, has avoided repeated invitations to testify before Congress.

The precedents for executive privilege are many, going back to George Washington's refusal to give the House documents on negotiations of the 1794 Jay Treaty with Britain. The principle is often invoked by Presidents on a variety of grounds: that Congress has no constitutional authority to certain information, that foreign powers might be embarrassed by disclosures, that security could be compromised or confidential sources exposed.

Such grounds might cover a Kissinger, but none would seem to apply to Flanigan's contacts with third parties in the ITT case. Flanigan has denied any active role, but has repeatedly declined to be specific.

Subpoena. The idea of executive privilege for Flanigan particularly angered North Carolina's Ervin, the Senate's reigning constitutionalist, who called the White House claim "absurd." Noncommittal until then on the Kleindienst confirmation, Ervin made it plain that he would not vote to confirm until Flanigan appears before the committee. "If the President wants to make his nominee for Attorney General the sacrificial lamb on the altar of executive privilege," he rumbled ominously, "that will be his responsibility and not mine."

Senate Majority Leader, Mike Mansfield, suggested Flanigan might satisfy the committee by submitting a statement, but liberal Democrats say that is not enough. They want to question Flanigan face to face about dealings with ITT. Republican Committee Member, Charles Mathias, of Maryland, spoke of a face-saving compromise that would have Flanigan appear by invitation behind closed doors at an informal session, but so far the White House stands firm on executive privilege.

Ervin, who is sponsoring a bill that would set limits on executive privilege, wants to subpoena Flanigan to appear before the committee. The maneuver failed narrowly the first time on a tie vote along party lines, but Ervin intends to try again. Democratic Senators John McClellan and Birch Bayh were absent when the vote was taken. Bayh is sure to support Ervin, and McClellan may also go along. Then it will be up to Nixon to decide whether to instruct Flanigan to ignore the subpoena, thus risking the further impression that the White House has something to hide in the ITT case--and possibly losing his nominee for Attorney General as well.

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