Next on Stage: Herbert W. Kalmbach

Before the Watergate scandal broke open, nearly every morning a precisely attired man walked into Coco's, a restaurant in the rich resort town of Newport Beach, Calif. Sitting down at the same corner table, he picked up the morning newspaper and began sipping his coffee. After a polite pause, he was approached by local businessmen and politicians, who, one by one, stated their business, received their reply, and moved on so the next man could have a chance. The ritual sometimes took as long as 2 1/2 hours.

All appearances to the contrary, however, Herbert W. Kalmbach in those halcyon days was neither a political boss, a godfather of the Mafia nor the local bookie. He was President Nixon's personal lawyer and one of the best connections between California and power centers in Washington.

Though "recently he has kind of been disowned" by the White House, as one Nixon aide puts it, Kalmbach, 52, has long been one of Nixon's most loyal supporters. "He thinks Nixon is the Lord himself," says Don Kennedy, president of an insurance company Kalmbach worked for in 1961. Kalmbach first worked for Nixon in the 1960 presidential campaign and was a fund raiser in the disastrous gubernatorial race two years later. "He was constantly at Nixon's side, puffed up with authority and having complete say how and when the money was to be spent," says a colleague from those days. In the lean years that followed for Nixon, he stood fast as one of the few true believers, and as early as 1967 he helped Nixon start up his second presidential campaign.

Offered a job as Under Secretary of Commerce, Kalmbach decided instead to return to Newport Beach and the law practice he had set up in 1967. It was a profitable move. Starting off with only four attorneys, Kalmbach, who had little reputation as a lawyer, built his firm into one of California's, and perhaps the nation's, most successful. He rapidly acquired an impressive roster of clients: the Atlantic Richfield Company; United Air Lines; the Travelers Insurance Company; the Flying Tiger Corporation; Dart Industries Inc.; the Marriott Corporation; MCA Inc., which produces perhaps 40% of prime-time TV shows; and the California Federal Savings and Loan Assn.

Kalmbach's law firm, which now has 26 lawyers and penthouse offices in Los Angeles as well as an office at Newport Beach, is famous for its ability to get quick, and often favorable, rulings from Government agencies. "I've been to meetings with Kalmbach attorneys in which an IRS agent would be there to explain things," marvels one client. For Client Richard Nixon, Kalmbach was a personal tax consultant, and he arranged the still mysterious, highly favorable deal by which the President acquired his San Clemente estate.

The Kalmbach family moved to Pasadena from Michigan (his father had died) when Herb was a young teenager. Frank Clement, who became his best schoolboy friend, remembers the newcomer as "a free and loose kid, an absolute nut . . . with the guts of a burglar." Of Germanic origins, Kalmbach was a fleeting, childish admirer of Hitler before World War II broke out, writing some stories about the Reich in the school paper. Remarkably, he was one of four finalists in a design competition for an airplane de-icer that the U.S. needed, even though, recalls Clement, he was only 13 or 14 when he submitted his idea.

Kalmbach was a late graduate (1949) of the University of Southern California and its law school (1951), because his college career was interrupted by wartime service as a Navy pilot. He is remembered at U.S.C. as a rabid football fan who rarely missed even practice sessions.

Before he left college, Kalmbach married a pretty U.S.C. Rose Bowl princess, and he and his wife Barbara now have two sons, Kurt, 23, and Kenneth, 19, and a daughter, Lauren, 21. The Kalmbachs live in a $100,000 house on a bluff overlooking upper Newport Bay, where their neighbors and friends include the President's brother Donald and Actor John Wayne. Kalmbach's sport is golf.

After a conversation with Kalmbach, acquaintances say, a person always has a precise understanding of the situation. This week the Ervin committee--and the public--will be looking for just that precise understanding of the money side of Watergate.

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