How High?

The most controversial issue between the White House and the press growing out of the Watergate affair and related political espionage is how high up responsibility reaches. In last week's inning, the score seemed to be journalists 1, White House 1. Items:

> TIME learned that, despite Republican denials, Dwight Chapin, Deputy Assistant to the President, has himself admitted involvement in setting up a political intelligence platoon.

>No hard evidence could be developed to support a charge by the Washington Post that H.R. Haldeman, the White House chief of staff, was one of those with control over a fund that paid for spying and disruption.

The first revelation about Chapin came when TIME (Oct. 23) reported that he was one of two White House assistants who had hired Los Angeles Attorney Donald H. Segretti to disrupt the campaigns of Democratic presidential candidates. Last week Clark MacGregor, director of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, declared: "Dwight Chapin just simply had no knowledge of and was not involved in any way."

However, Justice Department officials say that Chapin admitted to FBI agents that he had hired Segretti to disrupt the Democratic campaigns. Chapin had also told the FBI that Segretti's payment was set by Nixon's personal attorney, California Lawyer Herbert Kalmbach. Justice Department sources say that Kalmbach, too, admitted to FBI agents that the money he paid Segretti came from cash kept by C.R.P. in the office of its finance chairman Maurice H. Stans.

The allegation about Haldeman drew heated and specific denials. "At no time has Bob had any tie whatever to the funds," MacGregor said. Presidential Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler accused the Post of "blatant character assassination." The Post story ostensibly was based on a grand jury appearance by Hugh W. Sloan, former treasurer of C.R.P. James Stoner, a lawyer representing Sloan, denied that his client had made any such statement. Further, TIME learned, Sloan had not mentioned Haldeman in his statement to the FBI; presumably Sloan's remarks to the grand jury were no different.

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