University of Virginia Library

Indefensible

The revelation yesterday by the
Washington Post, despite its slightly
sensationalized headline, that the Committee
to Re-elect the President has engaged in
numerous nefarious sabotage activities to
undermine the Democratic campaign, comes
as no surprise. Since the Watergate bugging
incident, the Committee has come under
much scrutiny for such activities–virtually
undoing anything positive it may have done
to help re-elect the President. If Mr. Nixon is
re-elected, it will be in spite of, not because of
his campaign organization.

That the Nixon campaign's recruiting of
agents provocateurs to help uncover skeletons
in the Democrats' closet and to disrupt the
primary campaigns and the McGovern
campaign is probably common enough
practice among all major political
organizations, does nothing to mitigate its
reprehensibility. From a purely political point
of view, with Mr. Nixon holding so
commanding a lead in the polls, it was
counterproductive and certainly stupid. From
an ethical point of view, it is indefensible.

The spokesman for the Committee to
Re-elect the President who called the Post
story, "not only fiction, but a collection of
absurdities," must be pulling our leg. The
credibility attached to anything the
Committee says on the subject has reached its
nadir, even if the Post stories were
fabrications, which they undoubtedly are not.

The sad part of the story for the
Republicans is that they have destroyed one
of their firmest 1968 bases of support by
engaging in such sabotage, thus wrecking the
claim that they were the credible alternative
to the politics of deceit of the Johnson
administration.

The Watergate affair and the alleged
sabotage will not be singularly responsible for
the outcome of the election. It would be
incredible if the President were behind these
activities of his campaigners. However, he is
undoubtedly guilty of the
"Don't-tell-me-anything-so-I-won't-know"
syndrome.

That is not good enough for the President
of the United States. If he did not know, he
should have, and should have curtailed these
affairs. If he knew, and did not stop them, he
is as guilty as the men who put the bugs in the
Watergate. While neither sin is sufficient as
the sole point upon which to judge his
Presidency or his candidacy, either is a clear
liability for him to carry to the ballot boxes
next month.

Had President Nixon removed from office
all those who were either directly responsible
or had knowledge of their subordinates'
activities earlier, he would stand much less
vulnerable to the charges of corruption that
will surely haunt him henceforth during the
campaign.