New Man Up Front

John Dean's testimony last week pulverized whatever credibility White House Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler had retained concerning Watergate.

Dean did not accuse Ziegler of conscious participation in the coverup. In stead, his portrait of the press secretary's hapless entanglement in deception bordered on the farcical. As Dean told it, Ziegler's trusted colleagues and superiors regularly sent him into the cockpit of the White House briefing room armed with bogus information or none at all about Watergate. "Mr. Ziegler, on countless occasions," Dean testified, "asked me to brief him. I on several occasions asked Mr. [John] Ehrlichman if I could brief Ziegler. I was given very specific instructions that I was not to brief Ziegler."

If Ziegler was frequently uninformed, he was often well rehearsed (see box following page). But Dean's testimony also suggests that Ziegler's out ward shows of arrogance sometimes masked simple ignorance of the truth.

Perhaps the most damning instance of the facts being hidden from Ziegler was contained in Dean's account of Administration efforts to dodge a pending TIME article on the FBI'S electronic surveillance of White House staffers and newsmen (see following story).

Such episodes returned to spook Ziegler. His relations with White House reporters were shaky even before Watergate. Now, with his added title of Assistant to the President, Ziegler is doing less of a routine briefing of newsmen.

Last week Melvin Laird, the new White House domestic affairs adviser, told the Washington Post that Ziegler might be replaced altogether as principal spokesman. That would mean more exposure --and heat -- for Deputy Press Secretary Gerald Warren, 42, a genial sort who seems to have won the season's most dubious assignment. "This White House," says Victor Gold, formerly Spiro Agnew's press secretary, "could make Saul of Tarsus look like an idiot in two days, with the things they give their spokesmen to say."

A newsman since his college days at the University of Nebraska, Warren flew for the Navy during the Korean War, later signed on as a trainee with the San Diego Union, where he worked his way up to assistant managing editor. Just after Warren got that post in 1968, a mutual friend introduced him to Ziegler, who invited him to come to the White House as a deputy press secretary. Warren and his wife Euphemia moved into a comfortable house in Washington's fashionable Spring Valley section, began an active, gregarious social life; they even maintain personal friendships with members of the White House press corps. Warren had hoped to leave the White House after the 1972 campaign. Friends feel that he is now trapped in an unpalatable job by his own sense of duty. "I believe the President," Warren insists. "I have confidence in the President. I made a conscious decision to stay."

Room for Humor. Warren's briefing-room manner differs markedly from Ziegler's. His horn-rimmed glasses and pipe lend a thoughtful air to his comments; he pauses to consider questions before replying and accepts hostile queries without resorting to Ziegler's huffiness. Ziegler's programmed manner leaves little room for humor. Warren is more unbuttoned. Failing to hear a question from NBC Correspondent Richard Valeriani, he quipped: "Richard, will you speak in your on-the-air voice?" When he first began subbing for Ziegler, Warren would open with a crack at his own expense:

"I'm briefing today--anybody who wants to leave can go now."

Personally, Warren has won a measure of acceptance from White House reporters. "He's more articulate than Ron," UPI's Helen Thomas observes.

"He knows how to speak the English language; he can put two words together to make sense."

But Warren has already tripped into the contradictions that plagued Ziegler; it was he who first denied John Dean's claim of 35 to 40 meetings with Nixon this spring, then admitted that the meetings had occurred. He added that the White House would not release the logs, later had to shift again to say that the material would be turned over to Senate investigators.

Like Ziegler, Warren insists that he has full access to White House information, as well as the President. But Dean's testimony last week suggests that Ziegler's easy access to members of the Nixon inner circle did not prevent him from being deceived and in turn deceiving. Despite his personal charm, Warren can help restore White House credibility only if he gets a lot of assistance--and truth--from the top.

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