The Lawyers Come and Go

By Hugh Sidey

The procession of Richard Nixon's lawyers has been touched by disaster almost from the start. John Mitchell and John Dean began it. Then there were Ehrlichman, Colson, Mardian, Liddy and more. What they did on the inside required more lawyers to be called from the outside, and so the big names have been passing through the White House for a year. They too seem to have been visited in varying degrees by the curse. Charles Alan Wright, the Texas constitutional wizard, was never told about the tape foul-up as he argued that case in court. His mail turned vicious as dazedly he went back to Texas.

Samuel Powers hurried up from Florida, got caught almost from the beginning in the courtroom crossfire, pleaded illness when he was to present the tapes argument and quickly sank from sight. Illinois Judge John J. Sullivan was reported to be Nixon's choice to head a new Watergate legal team. He flew in, spent a few shadowy hours looking the situation over, declined and fled back home. Nixon's chief of staff, Alexander Haig, phoned then Philadelphia District Attorney Arlen Specter about the job, but Specter too decided to stay away.

Now James D. St. Clair heads the Nixon legal group. His quiet but abrupt departure from Boston and a $200,000 or so annual income has mystified many of his friends and dismayed some of the partners in the venerable old firm of Hale & Dorr, whence came the gallant Joseph Welch of McCarthy days. St. Clair, a man of white mane and cunning eyes (sometimes called the "Silver Fox"), slid behind the White House shroud even more quickly than his predecessors. He occupies one of the gracious, high-ceilinged rooms (No. 188 1/2) of the Executive Office Building, with a view of the West Wing of the White House. He dines intently in the White House mess, immerses himself hour by tedious hour in the history of Richard Nixon and Watergate.

There is no way to measure the validity of the concern felt by St. Clair's friends or the fascination of the carnivorous legal fraternity as they watch over the iron fence of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the interest is immense, because now it is apparent to almost anyone that Watergate is least of all a court case. It is a political struggle that may transcend most others in U.S. history. It is the biggest civics lesson of this century. It is a communications problem and a responsibility not seen since the nation was in the throes of the Depression. It is a moral debate never before confronted by Americans.

The nation is the court. The atmosphere of this trial cannot be preconditioned or contained. One of the Nixon lawyers talked last week about the weight of events and how every day's news changed the mood and manner of this case. Events are unpredictable and uncontrollable, and so is the client, Richard Nixon. His power is too great, his isolation too splendid. "This is not a trial," said this Nixon lawyer. "It is an existential event."

Yet a bright man got a call the day after Christmas from Haig (whom he had never met), flew to San Clemente to talk with a President he had never met, accepted the assignment, went back to Boston, sold his law partnership back to the firm, divided up his cases among other lawyers, cleaned out his desk and went to Washington. The lure of power? Perhaps. Talented men sometimes cannot resist. More likely, suggest those who know him, a sense of responsibility, perhaps a feeling that even the President of the U.S. is entitled to a good defense. St. Clair told TIME'S Sandra Burton that he was taking the case "because that is the appropriate thing for a lawyer to do. It is a lawyer's business."

Presumably in the same spirit Wright came back to town last week, wearing his vest, eager to rejoin the case despite his earlier bruising--rather like a champion high jumper who kicks off the bar in the big meet and wants to come back and prove himself.

But lawyers and their special view of this world may be part of Nixon's problem, particularly since he is one of the breed. Courtroom stratagems; fancy legal footwork; intricate schemes of diversion and division; fine, hair-splitting arguments and exhaustive precedents have compounded the President's troubles. Watergate is a search for uncomplicated truths and basic human decency. The more that the lawyers have intruded their convoluted battle plans, the worse has been the scene for the President.

Many think St. Clair will go the way of the others, retiring a scarred, disillusioned, albeit wiser man. He comes out of the finest legal tradition, but his problem is the same one that faced his predecessors: Watergate is least of all a case in court.

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