A Kissinger Connection?

Reporter Peter Peckarsky: "[Have you] retained counsel in preparation for a defense against a possible perjury indictment?"

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger: "I have not retained counsel, and I am not conducting my office as if it were a conspiracy."

That tense press conference exchange last week underscored a persistent problem for the Secretary. He is undamaged by the main Watergate scandals, but his credibility has been nicked nonetheless. The reason: he has appeared to be less than candid about his role hi the White House efforts to plug leaks of national security secrets to the press. They included FBI wiretaps from 1969 to 1971 of four reporters and 13 government officials, as well as the formation of the special White House unit known as the plumbers.

At his confirmation hearings last September, Kissinger told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under oath that he "never recommended" the wiretapping, though he knew about it and "went along with it to the extent of supplying the names of people who had had access to the sensitive documents." He also claimed ignorance of formation of the plumbers unit and the fact that one of his former aides, David Young, was working for it. Part of those hearings were conducted hi private, and the transcript contains some ambiguity.

As part of its impeachment inquiry, the House Judiciary Committee received information from staff investigators indicating that Kissinger actually requested several of the wiretaps and received at least 54 reports based on them. According to Democratic Representative Joshua Eilberg, the material showed that H.R. Haldeman, then White House chief of staff, told Attorney General John Mitchell that Kissinger had specifically asked for the wiretapping of several people. Such wiretapping for national security purposes would have been legal but, in the opinion of several Judiciary Committee members, the taps produced no information bearing on security. Since the taps did turn up some political intelligence, the Congressmen are investigating whether part of the rea son for the taps was to gather data that would influence the 1972 election. Two of the Kissinger aides who were kept under surveillance even after they left Government service became campaign advisers to Edmund Muskie.

Earlier, Kissinger's denial that he knew anything about the plumbers had been challenged in a deposition filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by former White House Domestic Adviser John Ehrlichman. He said that Kissinger was present at the 1971 meeting at which Nixon assigned Young to the plumbers and even objected to the decision "on the ground that he had other proposed uses" for Young.

These developments provoked the angry exchange between Kissinger and reporters at the press conference called to celebrate his successful Middle East negotiations. Clark Mollenhoff of the Des Moines Register, himself a former Nixon aide, wanted to know if Kissinger had had any direct role in initiating the wiretaps. His face contorted by anger, Kissinger grimly recalled his denials of responsibility before the Senate committee, but then appeared to equivocate. He said that he "did not make a direct recommendation" on the wiretaps. As Mollenhoff persisted, the Secretary rather plaintively remarked: "I have attempted to serve the Government in an honorable manner for 5 1/2 years." Then he stopped the questions by saying, "This is a press conference and not a crossexamination" and added that he was "prepared to answer questions before any duly constituted committee of Congress or any other investigating agency."

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