UPI Roundup
Launch set for Friday
HOUSTON — Changing plans for cooling Skylab, a NASA
official said Sunday the crippled space station’s first crew
probably will push either an umbrella or an inflatable canopy
out through an airlock in the craft’s side to shade it from the
sun. The switch, made primarily for reasons of safety,
backed away from earlier intentions for an astronaut to erect
a huge silver and white awning over Skylab while walking in
space or standing in an open Apollo hatch. William
Schneider, Skylab director, said a spacewalk might still be
performed if the airlock was so blocked by debris that a
sunshade could not be pushed through it from inside the
Skylab cabin. The three men who must perform the repairs
in space, “happy with the way things are progressing,”
enjoyed a lazy day of rest here Sunday before plunging into
final training for their tasks. They are scheduled for launch
from Cape Kennedy at 9 a.m. EDT Friday.
Draft file raiders freed
CAMDEN. N.J. — In a verdict the prosecutor said was a
judgment on the Vietnam War itself, a federal court jury
Sunday cleared 17 antiwar activists of all charges in con
nection with an FBI-infiltrated raid on the Camden draft
‘ offices two years ago. The 200 persons crowded into the third
floor courtroom in the Federal Building burst into cheers as
the haggard jury foreman, James Lomax, slowly began to
read the innocent verdict on the first defendant at 2:28 p.m.
US. District Court Judge Clarkson Fisher interrupted
Lomax to ask if there were any verdicts other than innocent
on any of the defendants involved in the Aug. 21, 1971, raid
here. Lomax replied there were not.
Drug raid victims to testify
CHICAGO — Members of two Collinsville, 111., families
who were victims of a mistaken narcotics raid by federal
agents will testify at a U.S. Senate hearinghere Friday, it
was announced Tuesday. Sen. Charles Percy, R-Ill., said Mr.
and Mrs. Herbert Giglotto and Donald Askew and his son,
Michael, 16, have accepted invitations to tell a Senate sub
committee about the raid. Federal agents, without search
warrants, burst in the Giglotto and Askew homes last month
and held family members at gunpoint while making a futile
search for narcotics. The agents apparently were acting on
false information supplied by a tipster. Percy will be
chairman of a one-day hearing by members of a Senate
subcommittee considering President Nixon’s proposal to
consolidate drug enforcement under one new federal agency.
Percy said the “same type of bureaucratic discord” that
prompted Nixon to propose the consolidation “may have
been responsible for the reprehensible foul-up in Collins
ville.”
Gardner criticixes proposal
WASHINGTON — John Gardner, chairman of Common
Cause, said Sunday that President Nixon’s proposal for an
election study commission was “a very poor idea” and only
would delay or block urgently needed action on Watergate
related reforms. Gardner urged Nixon to drop the idea and
support various bills before Congress which would provide
fast solutions to the problems of government secrecy and the
“deep corrupting power of money on politics.” Gardner, a
former secretary of health, education and welfare, ad
ditionally called for the resignation of Rep. Wayne Hays, D
Ohio, as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Cam
paign Committee. Hays also is chairman of the House Ad
ministration Committee, which has jurisdiction over cam
paign reforms. Gardner said this was like “sending the fox to
guard the chickens.” Gardner .was interviewed on television,
Face the Nation — CBS.
Mitchell denies Nixon involved
NEW YORK — Newsweek magazine reported Sunday
former Attorney General John Mitchell has absolved
President Nixon from any part in the Watergate scandal.
“This was not the President’s doing.” Mitchell told
Newsweek. “None of it.” However, Newsweek reported
Senate investigative sources said former Nixon aide John
Ehrlichman is heading a White House group seeking to place
the “responsibility” for the Watergate break-in and coverup
on Mitchell and John Dean III, the former counsel to the
President. The magazine said the Ehrlichman group planned
its move after James McCord, who was convicted in the
break-in, refused to go along with the covenup “game plan.”
McCord last week told the special Senate committee on
Watergate that he was asked by Caulfield, a former White
House aide, to keep silent about the June 17, 1972 break-in.
Living
with
a beast9
Find a new roommate in
the Emerald Classifieds.
May call ex-CIA chief
Ervin blasts Justice Dept,
for Watergate inaction
WASHINGTON UPI — Sen. Sam Ervin, D-N.C.,
said Sunday his Senate Watergate committee has
“no competent evidence” so far to link President
Nixon directly to the scandal, but will not hesitate to
pursue and make public any such evidence that
might turn up.
At the same time, Ervin criticized the Justice
Department for failing to prosecute the Watergate
burglars prior to the 1972 presidential election, and
said he hoped new indictments would be sought
quickly by Archibald Cox, newly appointed as the
government’s special Watergate prosecutor.
Referring to ousted White House counsel John
Dean III and Jeb Stuart Magruder, Nixon’s 1972
deputy campaign manager, Ervin suggested there
was “something very sadly wrong in the in
vestigatory arm of government” if federal
prosecutors “haven’t accumulated enough evidence
to convict these two parties in this time.“
Ervin, chairman of the seven-member
Watergate committee that began public hearings
Thursday, was interviewed on television Issues and
Answers —ABC
Returning as a star witness when the televised
hearings resume Tuesday morning will be
Watergate conspirator James McCord Jr., who
electrified the hearings Friday by testifying he had
been pressured by the White House to plead guilty
and keep quiet in exchange for executive clemency.
He quoted a former White House aide as saying the
offer came from “the very highest level” at the
White House.
Ervin said Sunday he was “very much im
pressed” with McCord as a witness, and that he
personally would like to question former CIA
Director Richard Helms about reports that the
White House had sought to “blame it all on the CIA”
as part of a cover-up attempt.
The North Carolina Democrat said it was
“highly improbable” the committee would ask
Nixon to testify or to present a written statement.
He repeatedly refused to speculate about the
President’s possible involvement in the bugging
plot or a subsequent cover-up as suggested by
McCord’s hearsay testimony.
“I don’t expect to reach final conclusions before
all the evidence is in,” Ervin said. “And thus far, we
have no competent evidence to connect the
President, and as an American I sincerely hope
there will be none.”
Asked if he thought it would be better for his
committee to “hold back just short of the Oval
Office,” Ervin replied: “No, I did not agree with
that. It would be my purpose as a member of the
select committee to urge that the select committee
go wherever the evidence in this case may lead us
—to the ultimate truth, regardless of what the
ultimate truth could be.”
If any evidence turns up to implicate Nixon,
Ervin said, it will be up to the House of Represen
tatives “to determine whether there should be
impeachment charges ” Under the Constitution, the
House must initiate impeachment proceedings
against a federal official, with any charges to be
tried by the Senate. In related developments: —
Cox, in a UPI interview, said he could “think of
circumstances” under which it might be relevant to
interview Nixon about Watergate, but that he had
no plans at this point to speak to the President. He
said he would meet with the Ervin Committee
Monday to discuss the problem of pre-trial publicity
resulting from the public hearings. —Former at
torney General John Mitchell and former Com
merce Secretary Maurice Stans — Nixon’s 1972
campaign manager and campaign finance chief
respectively — were to be arraigned Monday
morning in New York on grand jury charges of lying
and obstruction of justice in connection with a
government fraud investigation against Robert
Vesco, a major Nixon campaign contributor. —The
Los Angeles Times reported that former Internal
Revenue Service agent David Stutz was “invited”
to a White House meeting in 1970 while he was in
vestigating large contribution to Nixon’s 1968
campaign. The Times said the invitation was
relayed to Stutz by an unidentified third party in
behalf of John Caulfield, the man McCord named
Friday as the one who relayed White House offers of
executive clemency.
—The Washington Star-News reported that
Helms told the Watergate grand jury last Friday
that he was pressured at a meeting June 23 by three
top presidential aides to provide CIA help in a
Watergate cover-up. Helms was quoted as saying
that then-White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman
told him the request came from “higher up.”
Helms, now ambassador to Iran, was to go before
the Senate Froegin Relations Committee Monday
for questioning.
Ervin, in his broadcast interview, scoffed at
suggestions that the Senate hearings were ham
pering federal prosecutors. He said the “whole case
would have been broken open” long ago if the five
men arrested inside Democratic National Com
mittee headquarters at the Watergate last June 17
had been prosecuted promptly.
Ellsberg reflects on dismissal,
thinks Nixon deserves fair trial
WASHINGTON (UPI) —
Daniel Ellsberg said Sunday that
because of the entanglement of
the Watergate affair with his
prosecution, he now believes his
revelation of the Pentagon
Papers accomplished far more
than he at first set out to do.
Ellsberg was asked just what
he thought leaking the documents
had accomplished, since it had
not resulted in immediately
ending the war.
“A few months ago, I thought
my actions had had a rather
limited effect,” Ellsberg said.
“And during the bombing last
December, I was despairing, as a
citizen, that they had ac
complished anything.
"When I did it, of course, I just
thought it was what I ought to do.
“But lately, since my trial led
to the revelation of the burglary
of my psychiatrist’s office, the
violation of the doctor-client
privilege and the invasion of a
citizen’s privacy, I think these
revelations have been very
important.”
Ellsberg was interviewed on
NBC’s Meet the Press.
He said he believed that “quite
a bit of what we learn about
Watergate will have come from
the revelations from my trial.”
The former strategic analyst
for the Rand Corp. and the
Defense Department said when
he copied the papers he believed
he was breaking a law against
revealing classified documents to
the U.S. Senate or to
newspapermen.
“I have learned, through two
years of a very expensive
education, that no such law
exists,” Ellsberg said. “I have
met no lawyer who could say that
my actions violated any laws.”
Ellsberg said that he and his
attorneys decided to press for
dismissal of the charges against
him because of government
misconduct instead of waiting for
a jury verdict, because they
“didn’t want to be a party to
wiping the board clean of that
government misconduct.”
Ellsberg said that although his
co-defendant, Anthony Russo Jr.,
feels strongly that President
Nixon should be impeached, he
believes that the matter should
be left up to the Congress.
“I don’t believe the President
should be impeached on the basis
of my opinion or anyone else’s
opinion.
“He is entitled to a fair trial
and to be removed only if con
victed. I think the facts are
pointing to the fact that he
should have a day in court, and I
think he will.
“If the facts prove to be what
they now appear to be, I think he
will be impeached,” Ellsberg
said.
He added that “Nixon knows
the truth, and if he knows that the
allegations against him are true,
then I think he should resign.”