Fair Game

...Moreover, the human contacts permitted a municipal bond specialist (if we exclude vice presidents of lending institutions, who scarcely fit the category) are limited to smalltime pohticos or their hirelings, not the most distinguished set of public officials in the land On a typical day, then, high-powered John Mitchell would find himself dealing with persons who were stupider, poorer and crookeder than he, encounters not designed to nourish a high regard in the lawyer for the people's representatives Similarly, for a full partner in a firm like Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Mitchell to have to deal with a functionary of the Anti-Trust Division or the Interna] Revenue Service or the Securities and Exchange Commission can only be demeaning It the government man is young, he probably wants nothing better than to sit m the big lawyer's swivel chair, he is on the make If he is middle-aged, he is depressing, reeking with intimations ot failure If he is old, he has alieady failed and will soon take his pension and subside, maybe he can be bribed Chances are that the career government man attended a second-rate law school where he received middling grades, without doubt, he lacks fuends in high places And this person, backed with the authority of the law if you will, comes to deal with a senior partner m Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Mitchell1 No, John Mitchell's career cannot have inspired any high regard for the law, for the agencies assigned to enlorce it, or for those paid to do the enforcing Everyone understands that the client who hires a firm with six nonethnic names on its stationery, including that of a former Vice President of the United States, is seeking more than legal counsel (What, after all, does Richard Nixon know about being a lawyer') The client is paying for men who can go over the heads of the law's minions, to the centers of power, who can work out arrangements that will spare him the pains of the courtroom He is, in short, paying to temper or to circumvent the law All this is perverse training for a future Attorney General, and in John Mitchell's case, the situation was further undermined by his intimacy with the President Unfortunately, under Democrats as well as Republicans, m recent decades the Attorney General has often been the President's political right hand That is, very often the nation's top legal officer obtains his position as a reward for services rendered during the late campaign and in prospect of continuing political services It is rather like having the leader of Tammany Hall appointed Police Commissioner by a grateful mayor-elect In consequence, the Attorney General comes to office with primary loyalty to Chief and to party Invidious TheAbuses of the Law We do not know the exact role the Attorney Genera] played in the government's negotiations with IT&T or in the prosecution of the Harns-burg Seven But nothing done in either case was incompatible with Mitchell's set of mind, or likely to affront his sensibilities An enlightened district attorney, glancing over the evidence against Father Philip Berngan and his disciples, would have had them shipped to juvenile court with the recommendation that they be put out for adoption in wholesome homes where they could be kept from temptation by FBI informers and by each o'her The letters exchanged by the defendants are as revealing in their way as the Pentagon Papers Catholic peace partisans turn out to be as susceptible to self-delusion and adventurism as wasp warmakers They constitute a clear and present danger to themselves Yet instead of making quiet arrangements for the care of the poor souls, the FBI Director blurted out details of their alleged conspiracy to all the world, and the Attorney General's office embarked—one hopes with chagrin —on one of the silliest prosecutorial essays in its history Had Attorney General Mitchell's experience of life and the law been a bit broader, he might have recognized early on that no glory, profit or justice for the government could come out of this foolish case against foolish people, and let it expire without fuss But nothing in his background or temperament equipped him for such a sensible, merciful act The defendants, after all, were no friends of his friend The President, or of people like himself, the soundest m the land And so Justice bearded Berngan instead of Beard When it came to IT&T, everything in the Attorney General's background suited him to deal with that situation like a man of affairs Here were his kind of folks, solid no-nonsense fellows whose objectives he could comprehend and share Whether the fix regarding the antitrust suit and the convention contributions was made with his full participation one hesitates to speculate but could it have been slipped through against his opposition'' (A late word about Mrs Dita Beard IT&T and the GOP National Committee, which have set up a joint command, now say there cannot have been a memo signed by the lady because she has never been well enough, stable enough, or sober enough to sign anything Actually, investigators are arriving at the conclusion that there is in fact no Mrs Beard and never has been She is an invention of Clifford Irving, designed to discredit the Women's Lib movement, the person who occupied that Colorado hospital bed is rumored to be a friend of Irving's, but only the Swiss know for sure Whoever she is, she is under 24-hour-a-day guard lest she mistakenly be shredded by IT&T's shredding machine ) Mitchell and his associates are, they tell us and tell us, deeply concerned with the pervasive threat to America's institutions Entertainment value aside, the behavior of the Department of Justice, as exemplified by the Harnsburg and IT&T cases, demonstrates that our institutions are in much less danger from the loonies of the Left than from those men of affairs who move with such ease between corporate board rooms and White House conference rooms An elementary point, of no interest to this Administration...

...Fair Game BY WALTER GOODMAN In the Name of Justice The notoriety that has lately been descending upon the Department of Justice is not unprecedented for an institution that has typically been given over to the care of Presidential henchmen Nonetheless, the events are worth attending for what they confirm about the mentalities of our shamans of law and order and the ways an order from above can make the law ridiculous To appreciate the cases of the Harnsburg Seven and the 1T&T millions, we must understand something of the former Attorney General and his designated successor Richard Kleindienst need not detain us He is a conservative Republican lawyer from Arizona who has made a career of doing what comes naturally to a Republican conservative who wishes to make a career In him, Richard Nixon saw an Attorney General who could be counted on to do what needed to be done for the welfare of his person and his party, and who would do it with an easy conscience Kleindienst will undoubtedly wind up as either a judge or a millionaire John Mitchell is a different case He came to Washington long after he had already made his career as a municipal bond specialist in a classy New York law firm, bringing with him a way of looking at the world that helps to explain the condition in which his department now finds itself Mitchell was admitted to the bar in 1938 He went without delay to Wall Street and by 1942 had added his name to that of his first firm, Caldwell, Trimble & Mitchell (Ah, those law-firm names' Where else can one find a Trimble nowadays7) There he spent the first 28 years of his professional life, more than ample time for the development and hardening of a certain outlook in a man who was probably no softie to begin with The Uses of the Law Now, the corporation lawyer places high value on that part of the law dealing with burglars, muggers and vagrants He is, after all, a person of property He takes his stand with men of affairs, men who keep the country moving, men of purpose and vision Solid men Rich men And he soon discovers that while crime is raging in the streets, and wives of friends are having their purses snatched, the law can find nothing better to do than nag at these estimable people, keep them from operating the engines of commerce efficiently and earning their rewards The law is not a friend, it is a nuisance, and periodically an enemy When it impinges on the corporation's interests, the law, more often than not, is a ass The whole reason-for-being of the corporation lawyer is to defend the property and tranquility of the rich, and as the attorney himself grows rich his identification with his client becomes complete On the golf course, except for a certain deference by the wealthy toward the very wealthy, one can scarcely tell them apart One of life's satisfying progressions Off the green, corporate law tends to be a bloodless calling, one is generally involved with contracts, loopholes, technicalities, rarely with people Yet compared with the specialist in municipal bonds?John Mitchell's role for three decades—the ordinary corporation lawyer has a professional existence abounding in interpersonal relations Is it any wonder that John, measui-mg out his lite with rates of interest, needed Martha...