A Disturbing Pattern

Viewed in isolation, each single charge was shocking enough. Yet the persistent allegations about Watergate, about safes full of secret campaign cash and about ITT are so familiar by now that it is tempting to dismiss them as repetitive and tedious. Nonetheless, they suggest, in sum, that something is very much wrong with the mood and morality of Richard Nixon's Administration.

Last week there occurred multiple revelations that tended to substantiate many of those charges, so often denied by high Administration officials. More revelations are certain to follow. The net impression was one of a Government that figures that the end justifies the means, that tries to hide its transgressions and hamper its own lesser officials charged with seeking the truth. The President's closest legal adviser has even been accused of lying to the FBI. There is an aura of disconcerting chumminess between Nixon officials and corporate executives seeking favors or suspected of violating federal laws.

This is strange conduct indeed for an Administration that has so strongly denounced the permissiveness and the decaying morality of modern life, and has so often proclaimed its devotion to the law and to orderly procedures. The trend is unfortunate, too, in that it threatens to undermine the Administration's legitimate arguments for its own views of how society, and the role of Government, need to be redirected.

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