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'White Wash'

Mr. Elzinga, along with
other economic experts
involved in the case, especially
Wisconsin economist Willard
Mueller, apparently considered
the settlement a "white wash."
Mr. Mueller acted as the
department's expert witness in
the suit against ITT.

Mr. Elzinga added, "given
my own prejudices about the
federal government, that they
never operate in the public
interest no matter who's
running the shop, I had
assumed that there was some
sort of sellout. This has
happened in the past with
anti-trust cases, but I had no
idea it was so juicy until the
Anderson column came out,"
he said.

"I thought a great deal of
McLaren," Mr. Elzinga noted.
"He was a constant thorn in the
President's side" because he
refused to submit to President
Nixon's desire that the
"department lay off ITT. I'll
be very disappointed if
Mitchell and Kleindienst today
simply used McLaren, as they
indicated they would, by
saying he handled the whole
matter. We didn't have
anything to do with it and then
if McLaren goes along with it, I
can't believe that it's true. If
McLaren had done the whole
thing, there would have been
staff involvement, he wouldn't
have worked it all out
himself," Mr. Elzinga said.

"It's hard for me to say this
because I have such admiration
for him but it is of course
possible that when he took the
judgeship he agreed with the
administration that he would
never come back to haunt
them. And maybe he's willing
to take the role of the
scapegoat," Mr. Elzinga
declared.