Sorry... Sorry... Sorry

So said three big Watergaters

The setting, the key characters, even the major prop were familiar. In Courtroom 2 of the federal Courts Building, where the first of the Watergate trials began more than four years ago, Judge John J. Sirica last week presided over the "last major decision I'll have to render in this long, difficult case." Having sentenced 17 Watergaters to prison terms, Sirica was ruling on petitions for leniency from the only ones who are still imprisoned--John Mitchell, H.R. (Bob) Haldeman and John Ehrlichman. At their trial, tape-recorded conversations in the Oval Office had sealed their convictions. Now the three were seeking to persuade Sirica--by means of taped statements of contrition that the judge had requested--to reduce their sentences. The result: their 2 1/2-to-8 year terms were cut by more than half, to not less than one year or more than four.

The three record ed their messages for visiting Probation Officer Herbert Vogt. They knew that Sirica wanted words of repentance, and they gave him just that -- each in his fashion. Said Mitchell, the first U.S. Attorney General to go to prison: "My reflections since the trial upon my acts and deeds have led me to considerable remorse and regret that they occurred." He added that "no set of circumstances, whatever they might be, will ever again lead me to take such actions or to perform such deeds. I am truly sorry."

Said Haldeman, Richard Nixon's former chief of staff, in the same monotone that characterized his congressional and courtroom testimony: "I'm sorry for what I've done, for what I've been responsible for, for what's been the result and the damage to many, many people and I think to our whole governmental system." In a letter that Haldeman sent to Sirica before he was sentenced last June, he wrote: "I recognize the terrible cost to the nation that this whole Watergate case has represented, and I will carry for the rest of my life the burden of knowing that I played a major role in that tragedy."

Of the three, only Ehrlichman came close to spelling out how he had erred. In his own letter to Sirica last June, Ehrlichman said, without ever mentioning his former boss by name: "I permitted myself to be used." Added Ehrlichman in his taped remarks: "I abdicated my moral judgments and turned them over to someone else." He spoke of "an exaggerated sense of my obligation to do as I was bidden," and warned present and future White House aides to be on the alert for "red flags" of moral dilemmas that may arise while serving a President. Finally, Ehrlichman confessed: "I wasn't wise and I'm paying the price for that lack of wisdom. If I had any advice for my kids, it would be never, ever to surrender your moral judgments to anybody. That's something that's very personal that a man has to hang onto."

Mitchell and Haldeman may be out of prison as early as next June. Ehrlichman, who voluntarily began to serve his time while his appeal was pending, must wait to see whether another judge, Gerhard Gesell, will reduce his concurrent sentence for his role in the plumbers' operations. If that happens, as expected, he could be free by the end of January.

As for Sirica, 73, he too will soon be free. Last week the White House announced that the judge, who has recovered from a heart attack he suffered last year, will retire from active service at the end of the month, handling occasional cases as a U.S. senior district judge.

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